Category: Culture
Comic Sans Criminal: Sign the Pledge
This is a nice bit of anti-Comic Sans propaganda – comicsanscriminal.com – that you should be aware of. Especially if you are a church. Please delete that font from your computers. There is no good reason to be using it in 2011.
Keep this in mind:
Although, apparently it is good for dyslexics.
You can even sign this pledge at the end.
Lightning, camera, action
This is an amazing photo of lightning. Taken by a camera that can capture images at one-sixth the speed of light.
Pretty cool. Because they also fired rockets into storm clouds with some wires to trigger the lightning.
“The rockets trailed wires behind them to direct the lightning through the camera’s field of view. Artificially triggering the lightning strike likely didn’t alter the natural workings of the thunderstorm, Dwyer noted. And, he said, “the advantage of triggered lightning is that we can repeat it.”
Wow. More details here.
2010 according to Google
Nice video.
Containing some subliminal adverts for Google’s products.
Cloud control
We haven’t had to watch the weather radar at the Bureau of Meteorology this week. It has been pretty obvious that it has been raining, and that the rain was going to stick around.
But this XKCD comic was too timely not to post.
From XKCD.
Noughts and Crosses: Free will or determinism?
XKCD tackles the big issues. As you can see, from this little examination of the possible moves in a game of noughts and crosses.
From xkcd.
Funniest letter response ever
I’m filing this for “response letters I’d like to send one day”… there’s a slight language warning. Via DeadSpin.
Here’s the transcript of the original letter:
“Gentlemen:
I am one of your season ticket holders who attends or tries to attend every game. It appears one of the pastimes of several fans has become the sailing of paper airplanes generally made out of the game program. As you know, there is the risk of serious eye injury and perhaps an ear injury as a result of such airplanes. I am sure that this has been called to your attention and that several of your ushers and policemen witnessed the same.
Please be advised that since you are in a position to control or terminate such action on the part of fans, I will hold you responsible for any injury sustained by any person in my party attending one of your sporting events. It is hoped that this disrespectful and possibly dangerous activity will be terminated.
Very truly yours,
Roetzel & Andress
By Dale O. Cox”
Here’s the response the team sent:
“Attached is a letter that we received on November 19, 1974. I feel that you should be aware that some a*&#&$ is signing your name to stupid letters”
New Third Eagle Single out now.
Check it. It’s about having children. Surely a sign that the end times aren’t happening just yet…
Yogi gets it in the neck
Boo Boo always struck me as slightly repressed. And because he’s short this was always going to happen. You can never really trust your shorter friends.
Visualising Facebook Friendships around the globe
This is a nice little visualisation of Facebook connections around the planet. All the lines on the map are created by connections between people (the brighter the line the more friendships exist along that axis.).
Mario: This is your life
Mario’s creator Shigeru Miyamoto recently gave a tell all (almost) interview about the character Mario. The guys at ChurchCreate put some bits of the interview into nice graphics that you should totally check out.
You’ll learn all sorts of intereting bits and pieces about the mustachioed plumber.
Miyamoto made an interesting point about Mario’s development alongside the Nintendo platform from pre-NES days to the Wii.
“When we create games, the gamer really is the main character. In that regard it may not really matter who the main character is onscreen. But you know, Mario is someone who has become very familiar and I think it is that people are comfortable with becoming Mario.”
Mario really has grown and changed and evolved with the evolution of digital technology. The new technology is fresh and exciting and the next thing you know it becomes familiar and Mario follows that. He’s a familiar character, but he is also fresh because he is always doing new things based on what the technology allows him to do.”
Via ChurchCreate.
DanKam: Make your Colourblindness disappear
I’m colour blind. If you’ve been reading for a while you’ll know this already. If this is a shock – please, take a seat, sip some water and calm down. It’s ok. I know you’ve just figured out why my clothes never really match and the explanatory power of that opening sentence has caused a revolution in your perception of me. But ease up turbo. Because this next bit of news will truly shock you.
There’s an iPhone app, called DanKam (apparently also available for Android) that essentially cures colourblindness. It is amazing. Following the success of Word Lens I thought “anything iPhone app developers say is now believable” and I took this for a spin. I was able to see one of those dot tests, well, the number in one of those dot tests, for the first time… but I’m not sure what I’m meant to be seeing in the right hand circle here…
Here’s a post on the programmer’s blog to explain away some of the magic.
Hopefully this will also help me overcome difficulties in such areas as calling my shots in pool (as in snooker, or billiards…) and driving (as in operating a motor vehicle).
Fighting the war on Christmas
While I may think that some of the stuff these guys are saying is true – I may even agree with some of their thinking – I don’t think the way to fight the “War on Christmas”TM or put the “Christ back into Christmas” is to take an inflatable Santa to a firing range in order to pump him full of lead.
Dumb.
If Bieber were a Christian singer called “technopraise”…
He would look and sound like this monstrosity.
This kind of performance gives carols a bad name.
How to pick up (Christian) ladies: tips from Greg D
This slightly creepy guy named “Greg D” runs a slightly creepy website (which is now “under construction” so you might need to check out the cached version. And also includes video tips. His “meetup” group is still running.
Conversation starter: “Are you in a gang”…