Next Archive - January 2005

Bleh

As luck would have it, I came down with the flu last week, and I'm still fighting it. I'll try to post something when I'm feeling a bit spunkier. Enjoy your holidays.


Blog Tag: Announcements

Travel Tip

It's that time of year when people go airborne. It's also when people go ballistic.

Here's a travel tip for those of you who have to pass the security checkpoints at the airport. Bring with you a stamped, self-addressed envelope or Jiffy bag in case security determines that you can't bring your pocketknife/nail clipper/hatpin/bazooka/wmd/pickles on board. Just drop your contraband item in the Jiffy bag and drop it in a mailbox. It seems there's always something you forget when you try to board a plane.

Another trick, if you really can't live without that certain something that won't pass security, is to mail it to your destination ahead of time, and mail it back when you leave.


Blog Tag: Chatter

God Bless David Letterman

I've heard some of the coolest stuff on Letterman. I remember seeing Maroon Five performing "Harder to Breathe" before I'd heard it on the radio.

Then there was Nellie McKay playing piano and singing The Dog Song, an enchanting tale of a girl and her dog, with one of those tunes that you can't get out of your head. She was so cute and sang so well.

Last night was another treat. The musical performer was Kaki King playing guitar. I mean really playing guitar! Woof! This girl has an off-beat style with a great beat. You've got to see it to understand. If you like acoustic guitar (and what a guitar she has!), head to her web site, choose a cake (you'll see what I mean), click Audio & Video and play the video "Playing with Pink Noise" in the highest resolution you can handle. You won't forget it.


Blog Tag: Links

Gilligan's Friends

So I heard an advert today for that Gilligan's Island reality show that's on, which I haven't seen even once. But it got me to thinking.

I used to love Gilligan's Island. The original one, I mean. I loved the mix of characters. You've got the Professor, the science type, who I identified with a lot. (Yes, I've always been a geek.) Then of course there's Gilligan, the goof. Sexy Ginger and girl-next-door Mary Ann. The Skipper, your authoritarian figure, and then the daffy rich couple, the Howells. Did I even need to do that? :shrug: Some of you may not have seen it.

So I was driving along, listening to this ad on the radio, remembering what the chemistry of the characters was and thinking about storytelling, and then I thought about the TV show Friends.

Now I know you've seen that one. You've got Ross, the science type, who I identify with a lot. Then of course there's Joey, the goof. Sexy Rachel and girl-next-door Monica. Okay, so Chandler isn't that rich or daffy, and Phoebe is hard to classify, but the chemistry is really close to Gilligan's Island.

I'm Ross and the Professor. Which character are you?


Blog Tag: Chatter

Some Fun

Are ya bored, baby? I got links for ya, right here.

First off, a quick little prank, for those who like the horoscopes and What xxx am I? type thangs. Head on over to Quiz for a quick little Christmastime questionnaire. Only six questions, no waiting.

Next up, something a little more aesthetically pleasing perhaps? How about the amusing Toogle Image Search engine, not to be confused with that other oogle, dontcha know. Just type in the name of a celebrity, an animal, or anything else your heart desires.

In a similar vein, there's the Kaleibloscope that does an image quilt of blogs. Don't ask what that means, just check it out. You can click the Brit flag if you ne pas savvy the French. You can also browse through the Blogger Forum for a message board of bloggers, just like you, only not as nice.

Looking for something more practical, Bunky? Yahoo! Maps can now superimpose traffic conditions on its maps. Nice to check before you go play on the freeway.

I've got one more, but it's so nice it deserves its own little post. (Fly Guy!)


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

Fly Guy

Come close, my friends. Closer. That's right, a little closer. mmmmm, that's it. I've got something to tell you.

You see, a dear friend left a little something for me in the eMusings mailbag, a link that brought such a smile to my face, and of course I want to share it with you. You all mean so much to me. Especially you.

Did you enjoy the movie Waking Life? Doesn't matter. This isn't that. But if you haven't seen the movie, definitely rent it. I loved it, but it's not for everybody.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. The real reason is a little interactive Flash animation called Fly Guy. It doesn't look like much, not all flashy and earth-shaking like some, but it's simple and elegant and gently amusing, a cute little world to explore. Earth, air and water. Run it, use all your cursor keys, and see what you can find. Don't be shy, take it to the limits.

Wasn't that cool?

Oh... oops. I suppose you'd like the link. Funny how a little thing like that can make such a big difference. Pesky details.

Here it is. Fly Guy. Share it with a friend.


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

Tis the Season to... BRRRR!!!!

In the spirit of the season, I offer you links to Snowflake and Snow Crystal Photographs and Snowflake Physics.


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

The Exploratorium

The Exploratorium is the museum of science, art and human perception at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

The Palace of Fine Arts:

The restrooms had an interesting tiled wall. The lines are all parallel, they just look slanted.





There was an exhibit with trays of soapy water and wire hoops in varied shapes for making colossal bubbles:





The picture below is not a spiral galaxy. Not a comet's tail, although it's similar. It's the vapor emitted by chips of dry ice that have been spun off:





The left photo is a vortex formed by spinning water, and the right pic illustrates how a puff a air can form a ring as it rises in water:



A Cool Optical Illusion at the entrance to the museum:




Blog Tag: Images   Blog Tag: San Francisco

An Exercise for the Reader

I found a pretty little toy on In4mador called Imagination. It's a Flash applet that you operate just by moving your mouse. Try little circles, big circles, going slow and going fast with the mouse. Oooh, purty.


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

Where Did THAT Come From?

This weekend we went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It had been many years since we'd been there, and we wanted to see what was new. Maybe tomorrow I'll post some pictures and tell you about it.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a web site I found, another one that appeals to the wordsmith in me. The Online Etymology Dictionary doesn't provide definitions, it gives you the history and ancestry of the word you entered. It even has expletives.


Blog Tag: Links

Can You Hear Me Now?

Inspired by Gemmak's post about a telepathy trick, I found a web site that did what she said her email did. (Are you following along? Doesn't matter.) Anyway, to see a cool mind-reading trick done on the web that doesn't involve disappearing playing cards, head on over to the Mystical Ball.


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

My Hobbit Name is...

My Hobbit Name is Drogo Sandybanks of Frogmorton.

My Elf Name is Elrohir Telemnar.

Aren't you glad you asked? :)


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

Have You Ever Been Experienced?

Seen on a discussion forum:

How do you get good judgement?
With experience.
How do you get experience?
Bad judgement.


Blog Tag: Humor

Dangerous Vacations

Head on over to Office Humor and click on each of the images in turn to see the humorous reasons why it's not a good idea to leave your workspace unattended. (From the eMusings mailbag.)


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Mailbag   Blog Tag: Images   Blog Tag: Humor

Chestnuts Roasting by an Open Fire...

We interrupt this song to ask you a question. Have you ever, in your entire life, actually roasted chestnuts? By a fire or otherwise? After many a year of trying to tune this song out, along with all the other Christmas songs that inundate the days after Halloween, I realized that I wasn't even sure what a chestnut looked like! I certainly had never tried one. I decided it was time to put the old chestnut to rest.

Turns out, roasting chestnuts is easy, and even better, they're tasty! I followed the directions I found at ehow.com, piercing them and sticking them in my toaster oven for 20 minutes at 425 degrees. Then I peeled the shell and skin and tried one. Wonderful! It was warm, and chewy, and somewhat sweet.

In the store, the chestnuts looked like lumps of mahogany. A beautiful dark shell like fine wood. Surprisingly, though, the shell is thin and easily pierced and peeled. Underneath is a fuzzy skin like a kiwi. And under that is the nut, looking like a wrinkled brain. How is it I had gone all these years without the enjoyment of chestnuts? Silly me. Maybe I'll bite the bullet and try miniature golf next.


Blog Tag: Chatter

Jump the Snog

Okay, I know you have better things to do, but if that's true, then what are you doing reading this? So, since I already have your attention, and you're already wasting time, here's something else you can do to waste time... go to SaltaCol and make the thing jump around until it finds its mate. This is a Flash animation of a snail/frog thingy that you can make jump by dragging the mouse from the thing in the direction you want to go, and the length of the jump is determined by how far you drag. Great graphics and sound. Will resize your browser. Makes you wonder what some people are taking. (Click Jugar Fase 1 to begin the game.)


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

Heaven. I'm in Heaven. I clicked a link, and found wisdom. Lots of it. In little morsels. I found Wikiquote, "a free online compendium of quotations in every language," and especially I fell in love with their List of Proverbs, categorized by language. I could spend all day just reading and pondering the proverbs in the different tongues.


Blog Tag: Links

Sports Heroes?

I've been reading about the baseball steroid scandal, and how damaging this could be to our perception of these national heroes. This is something that has always annoyed me. That athletes are revered as heroes. I have trouble dealing with the fact that athletes get such adoration and such outrageous salaries.

Firefighters are heroes. Policemen are heroes. Teachers. Nurses. Parents. People who work for the benefit of others, for the benefit of society, of the future, often for little or no pay, and often at risk to their own well-being.

The scientist that cures a disease or finds a new vaccine is a hero. The inventor who finds a way to save energy or pollution is a hero. Toiling away in obscurity to leave the world a better place. Not lifting weights and hitting a ball. Not by making themselves the best they can be, but by making the world the best it can be. These are the people we should be idolizing and holding up as role models. The victims of circumstance who rise from poverty or ignorance or infirmity to do great things are heroes, people who set an example for others.

The other thing that troubles me is the erosion of standards. In this age of permissiveness, of forgiveness, I think we go too far and forgive too much. We're saying it's okay to cheat on your wives, to cheat on your taxes, to cheat at sports, to cheat consumers and to cheat the legal system.

There's something called the "Broken Windows" theory that says if a building has a broken window and it isn't fixed, it invites vandals to break even more windows, and soon they're starting fires and destroying the building. The reason is that when people see a neglected facility, they assume that nobody cares and they can do what they want without consequence. There's a breakdown of the system. That's why Rudy Giuliani began by cracking down on the small crimes, and soon there were fewer big crimes as well. When standards are upheld, it sends a message.

It may seem like a small thing to walk against a red light, or to be rude to people, but the acceptance of these small violations leads to bigger ones. Some may scoff, but when you see a building tagged with a piece of graffiti that isn't cleaned up, watch and see if it isn't soon joined by a gang of further graffiti. First people are rude, then they start throwing garbage, and the next thing you know there are brawls breaking out. We should demand more of our sports "heroes".


Blog Tag: Opinion

Blog Ketchup

Blogger is so slow. I know, that comes as no surprise. I try to post, and it just sits there until it finally times out and I try again. Sometimes my posts don't go live until hours later.

Tonight something interesting happened. I tried to publish a post, and as usual it was stuck in the bottle like new ketchup, when it finally got through and updated my blog. And then, all at once, I got three emails, one for each of the comments that people had posted (thank you!) earlier. When it finally published my blog, it also managed to finally publish the comments, and it only sends the emails when the publishing code can catch up the ketchup and the comments actually publish, not when they're entered.

I can't wait till they get a bigger bottle.


Blog Tag: Chatter

System Synergy for Geeks

For those geeks out there who have multiple computers next to each other, now there's a way to easily control them all from one mouse and keyboard. No more moving your hands from one system to the next. Get the free program Synergy and install it on all the computers you run next to each other (PC, Linux or Mac), designate your main system as the server and the others as clients, and then when you move your mouse off the screen of your main computer, it seamlessly moves to the screen of the computer on that side. Beautiful! You can even copy to the clipboard on one computer and paste it on the other.

via Chasing Daisy


Blog Tag: Links

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