Apr 29
Wired has a longish story about how the CIA used a made-up science fiction movie to smuggle six Americans out of Iran. Strange, but true (I presume).
Technorati Tags:
cia, movie, iran, strange
Apr 01
In a multi-million dollar deal finalized on Friday, March 31st, the mobrec.com domain name has been sold to Microsoft to support a new, undisclosed online service to be rolled out later this year. With the accompanying NDA, that is all I can really say about it at this point.
I noticed that I (inexplicably) get a fair amount of traffic from the microsoft.com domain, but had no idea that they were more interested in my domain name than my content.
Technorati Tags:
microsoft, mobrec, fun, aprilone
Mar 04
Now this takes me back: someone has created a simulation of the Amiga GUI in Javascript and DHTML. It was fun to see ‘eyes’ and ‘juggler’ again. The Amiga was my second computer (after the Commodore 64, of course).
Man, was Amiga way ahead of their time.
Technorati Tags:
webtools, amiga, fun, ajax
Feb 24
Flickr is an excellent general photo sharing site, but sometimes you are looking for specificthings. ST is a web site that collects photos on a specific theme, some of which are kind of off the wall. Fun stuff.
Technorati Tags:
fun, specificthings, photography
Feb 24
Wherein a guy gets some African email scammers to re-create the (in)famous Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch in hopes of getting money “from a film making grant”. Hilarity follows (and they actually did a pretty good job of it).
Technorati Tags:
python, deadparrot, video, scammers
Feb 24
Building on the annals of beer can wifi extenders a Kiwi eschews a $20,000 link; instead uses a $10 wok to keep a TV station on the air. Priceless.
Technorati Tags:
ingenuity, newzealand, fun
Feb 24
Jan 28
These are probably a really bad idea of there is any likelihood that the other guy is going to be toting the real thing.
Jan 13
Casio has recently celebrated the sale of its one billionth calculator. It is amazing to think about the progression of calculator functionality and form factor over that period of time as well as how they went from being an expensive novelty to an everyday item that is practically given away.
Technorati Tags:
gadgets, technology, history
Dec 07
How much does the internet weigh? By one calculation around 2 ounces or 50 grams!
via Britannica Blog
technorati tags: internet, ideas, fun
Dec 03
I caught the above typo in an email from one of our software vendors at work. I thought about it for a second and concluded this could be a new sniglet-esque word, similar to ‘road rage’. ‘Upgrage’ could be the anger you feel after upgrading (or having an upgrade slammed on your system by helpful automated tools) which renders the application/system even more borked than it was prior to the upgrade.
Interestingly, this typo appears quite a bit on Google but I have not found anyone who has actually assigned it this meaning. History being made, right here on this post 
technorati tags: sniglet, upgrage, words, humor, fun
Nov 12
Oct 02
Cassette Generator is a fun little time waster. You remember cassettes, right? Go, now, get your 80s on…
technorati tags: fun, cassette, graphics
Sep 16
Mesmerizing time lapse video of over one hundred hot air balloons launching and soaring at the 2006 Reno Balloon Race (via youTube). It’s fun to watch the eccentric paths that some of the balloons aloft take.
The way that it was produced is kind of interesting as well.
technorati tags: video, youtube, reno, balloons, hotair
Sep 16
Two of the strangest things I’ve seen this week:
A guy who can pop his eyes 95% out of their sockets.
And a incredible story of drinking and violence from New Zealand. I don’t know what is more remarkable, the fact that one guy drank 72(!) beers then drove home or that the other guy that he stabbed had no idea that he was stabbed until he went home and looked in the mirror.
You can’t make this stuff up.
technorati tags: news, bizarre, fun
Sep 01
The academics from University College London found there are now only a quarter as many Cocks in Britain as would be expected, a third as many Smellies, and half as many Dafts and Shufflebottoms. The numbers of Piggs, Nutters and Bottoms has declined by around one third.
Read the rest at the New Zealand Herald.
technorati tags: fun, humor, names, uk
Jul 08
If you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro and a need to do a bit of seismography, you are in luck. SeisMac is an application that lets you use the Sudden Motion Sensor in the laptop to display real time graphs of motion.
technorati tags: mac, osx, seismograph, freeware, suddenmotion
May 26
Apr 27
Today Google has released Sketchup, a 3D drawing desktop application. From the little demo animation that they have on the linked page, this looks like the rare combination of a very powerful, yet easy to use tool for creating 3D renderings. Renderings can also be used in conjunction with Google Earth, presumably as some sort of a layer or overlay.
Unfortunately, the Mac version of it is ‘coming soon’ even though the pre-Google acquisition product already ran on OS X. I’ll have to wait for the Mac release to get into this any further. I hope that the delay is something a simple as switching over the branding and a few other minor tasks it truly will be available RSN.
technorati tags: google, sketchup, googlemaps, desktop, 3d
Apr 21
…Once the pleasantries were out of the way, he started the first lecture, which was about the composition of the atmosphere. Everyone started taking copious notes. He told us that Nitrogen was 78% of the air we breath, with Oxygen accounting for 21% and the remainder taken up by Argon, Carbon Dioxide, and other gases.
He then proceeded to explain that Nitrogen had a pink color and a slightly sweet smell. Like good students, we continued to record this valuable information into our study notes. After several more minutes of lecture he stopped, and then exclaimed “are you students morons??!!”. Needless to say, this caught our attention and we instantly brought our heads out of our books.
He continued: “If Nitrogen was pink and formed 78% of the air, the classroom would look pink! Are your brains even turned on right now?!” He proceeded to berate us for being so gullible, and then used the situation to segue into a discussion of the ingredients of science; observation, theory, and rigorous testing.
technorati tags: education, thought, ideas
