Weekend Games

If you haven't already, play flOw and Warbears.
Update: when you've finished them, play dice wars.

Music from video sampling

"All the sounds are the actual audio from the original video tape. No alterations has been made other than basic timeline editing. I can neither play the drums nor the piano".

Google WebCam Module

Add webcams to your Google personalized home page.

Uncle Mark's gift guide and almanac 2007

Gift suggestions, and some random useful tips. Last year he recommended the 20Q ball for kids. Spot on. This year looks good too (and the 20Q ball makes a repeat appearance).

Splice - Meet. Mix. Mashup.

(Warning: gratuitous use of Flash all over the place)
Collaborate on music (or nonmusic) through the power of web two point oh.

You, too, can complain like a pro

My complaint about Mr. Johnny Whatsisname, Sr.

I realize that everyone is entitled to his opinion, and I respect this. I also hope that you will all respect mine as you read this letter. But before I continue, allow me to explain that knowledge is the key that unlocks the shackles of bondage. That's why it's important for you to know that not only does Mr. Johnny Whatsisname, Sr. expand, augment, and intensify the size and intrusiveness of his claque, but he then commands his apparatchiks, "Go, and do thou likewise." Doesn't he ever get tired of calling everyone an ornery heretic? Mr. Whatsisname is right about one thing, namely that fear is what motivates us. Fear of what it means when the most inconsiderate four-flushers you'll ever see herald the death of intelligent discourse on college campuses. Fear of what it says about our society when we teach our children that Mr. Whatsisname's opinions represent the opinions of the majority -- or even a plurality. And fear of overbearing scroungers like Mr. Whatsisname who take away our sense of community and leave us morally adrift. He recently went through a pessimism phase in which he tried repeatedly to dissolve the bonds that join individuals to their natural communities. In fact, I'm not convinced that this phase of his has entirely passed. My evidence is that Mr. Whatsisname will do everything in his power to wage an odd sort of warfare upon a largely unprepared and unrecognizing public. No wonder corruption is endemic to our society; Mr. Whatsisname plans to acquire power and use it to indoctrinate the most nasty crybabies I've ever seen. The result will be an amalgam of mindless prætorianism and profligate statism, if such a monster can be imagined. In closing, all that I ask is that you join me to stop Mr. Johnny Whatsisname, Sr. and tackle the multinational death machine that he is currently constructing.

Which is the real logo?

A tricky game to see how observant you are.

Eat your vegetables

Steve explains why mathematics is relevant, but you you just weren't taught it properly.

All cats, all the time.

However grumpy you are, I'm sure you'll find some of these amusing. Click for more.


Update: And even more.

Firefox 2 config tweaks - Lifehacker

Mostly I am loving Firefox 2, except the pesky per-tab close buttons. To get the Firefox 1 behavior back, visit about:config and set the browser.tabs.closeButtons value to 3.

Canon Camera owners: Lens comparison shopping

Choose the lenses you want to compare, adjust the focal length and aperture for each, then mouse over the image to compare them.

Project Censored

Take the news from a variey of independent sources, subtract what was reported in mainstream media, and you are left with the news that They don't want you to hear.

A brief history of the Middle East

Flash animation that summarizes thousand of years in a couple of minutes.

The reactivity of alkali metals

Back in my school days, our favorite science video was one from the BBC that displayed the increasing reactivity of the alkali metals as you descend the periodic table. Well, that video has now been replaced by the folks at Brainiac.

Update: Apparently the Caesium reaction may have been faked. Boo.




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Make Einstein write whatever you want

They are made out of meat

Awesome video adaptation of a Terry Bisson short story.

Funny song, if you're a gaming geek

You need to watch up to at least the first minute and a quarter.

Calculate your carbon footprint

A handy calculator that will help you become carbon neutral. Do it now!

Riemann Hypothesis: alleged (dis)proof

From PostSecret:

I willingly withheld the greatest discovery in mathematics from the world...It is the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis...The Riemman [sic] Hypothesis is false. The prime number 2^13466971-1 is off the critical line.

How to build an Airbus A380 in about 7 Mins

I have a feeling that this is not something you can do at home.

Scanner Frequencies

I got to borrow a TV-capable scanner for a couple of weeks, and have found interesting listening from both public services and amateur hobbyists.

Online Depth of Field Calculator

Through the magic of Javascript: tell it what camera body you have, lens, f-stop and subject distance, and it will calculate DOF and other handy parameters.

The Wireless Music Player: Do-it-yourself remotely managed music player

Oooh! The WGT634 truly is a hacker's dream.

Best Buy Receipt Check: Epilogue - die.net

Tired of waiting to get out of Best Buy, Fry's and Costco for receipt verification? It's optional! Just walk out!

Anagrammed underground

This is wonderful. I laughed long.

1999 Mazda Miata Intake Manifold Maintenance Revisited

After a bout of 24 hour stomach flu, my ElmScan ISO arrived and told me that my intake manifold needed cleaning. $4 for a can of throttle body cleaner, some easy work, and I saved myself from having the car in the shop for a day.

Convert your Xbox to a NAS

Maybe there's hope for my broken Xbox.

Now that is a cool T-shirt

Cute Nessie logo, available on a variety of shirt types.
(via Preshrunk)

1999 Mazda Miata Intake Manifold Maintenance

I hope I don't have to do this.

OGLE: The OpenGLExtractor | OGLE: OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam R&D

Take your characters in WoW and 3D print them, or insert them into Google Earth.

Reading accelerator

This speed-reading tool displays one word at a time so you don't have to move your eyes. Paste your text into the box and watch it zip by. I found the default of 400 words per minute easy; 750 is acceptable, and 1000 is hard. I seem to recall that the human eye can handle 15fps, which would translate to 900wpm on this system.

W9WI.com - TV technical information

Find the locations of TV transmitters, so you can precisely aim things at them.

FireBug

If you ever debug web content, or are just curious, then you require this extension.

IP & Ethernet Interfaces

Building a networked robot? These might be useful.

Bullnose Tile of San Jose, California

My shower has a couple of leaky cracked tiles and grout, and I reckon I can fix it. Having ripped out a sample tile, I took it to these folks who were able to tell me who made it, and give me a suitable replacement (not exact, but close enough, in my case).

XUL interface to Amazon

I'm sure we'll see these for lots of other things too.

Where to Find Free Images and Visuals

For your web pages, for presentations, or whatever. Lots of links to places with images of all sorts, where Google Images and Flickr might be too spammy.

Falling Sand Game

Very interesting game. Play with sand, water, salt, oil, wax, fire and a strange bouncing thing.
Update: now also available with zombies.

Monopoly Home Rules

A couple of these were traditional in my household; most of them are new to me and look interesting though.

The Prejudice Map

People in these countries are known for...
USA: dislike of walking.
UK: aristocratic kitchens.
France: spoiling their dogs.
Canada: liking their beer.
Germany: enjoying their beer.
Brazil: bikinis.
India: cheating.
Russia: brutality.
Turkey: using weapons.
Sweden: carving Viking longboats.

Encodings Practice

Learn morse, braille, semaphore and even rot13.

Please, won't someone think of the listeners?

Last year, rock station KSJO 92.3 disappeared and was replaced with "La Preciosa". This year, KCNL 1049 (Channel 1049) also vanished and is now "La Romantica". Apparently this is just a move by Clear Channel to sell advertising: Radio 101 KCNL Drops Alternative - The Anatomy of a Format Change

As all the 92.3 folks moved to 107.7, I expect the 104.9 folks will move to 105.3. Whatever happened to the free market?

Excel neat trick of the day

I've hacked up all kinds of interesting things in Excel. Every time I embark on a new hack, I try to learn some new thing, but the help file is not organized by user advancedness, nor does it say "I notice you're trying to look up a value in a table. Did you try VLOOKUP()?"

Anyway, just when I was not hacking up Excel, I stumbled across this gem: Exploring Excel's Functions Part 2: ADDRESS() and INDIRECT(). I can't believe I didn't know about these Really Useful Functions.