Category: Culture

A time, a place – Ben has a new space

Ben “everybody’s favourite blogger” McLaughlin has a new blog. Not content with being awesome on Vanishing Point he’s now being awesome and posting pictures of his brilliant paintings (and he’s selling them). Here’s an example.
Grandad’s Chair (2006)

Grandad’s Chair (2006)
Oil on canvas
22 x 30cm
$200

If he starts selling his little sketchy cartoon-like things too I’m going to be pretty tempted to decorate my house with his art. Especially if he turns the logo he drew for me into a print.

March 8, 2010

Understanding beer is elementary

This periodic table of beer is awesome and will help you decide what to drink.

From Flickr.

March 7, 2010

How to make Apple Pie from scratch

Here is Carl Sagan’s recipe for Apple Pie. Learn it, then call the guys running the Large Hadron Collider and make an order.

March 7, 2010

How to market a college

When you’re choosing an educational facility to further your career it’s not a question of how good the teaching is, how it might equip you for your future, but how good their stop motion viral ads are…

March 7, 2010

Preparing your zombie apocalypse kit

When I was living in North Queensland people used to madly rush to the shops whenever there was a cyclone warning. This caused untold stress on cashiers and often meant rudimentary items were suddenly highly prized – bringing the laws of supply and demand into play and causing price hikes on staple items. So when it comes to getting ready for the no doubt imminent zombie apocalypse it pays to be prepared. Here’s a handy list of items you should put together and keep somewhere safe – and accessible – you don’t want this in the garden shed when there are zombies banging on your door.

Essential Gear to Survive a Zombie Attack

Cordless Electric Chainsaw

Well you might not NEED a chainsaw to survive a zombie attack, but you will if you plan to have any fun! We suggest a cordless electric chain saw since you’re going to have to minimize on weight and extra objects like gasoline and maximize on mobility. The Black & Decker CCS818 18-Volt Cordless Electric Chain Saw will cut through up to 10 or 15 zombies on a single charge! At only 6.2 lbs, you can hang on to it and only use it when things get really hairy. $110
Essential Gear to Survive a Zombie Attack

ATAC Storm Boots

Well protected feet will help you run farther; making a decent pair of combat boots your best friend in a zombie survival situation. And we couldn’t think of a better paid than the ATAC Storm boots since they are not only waterproof but blood borne pathogen resistant—they were practically designed with a zombie attack in mind! $130
Essential Gear to Survive a Zombie Attack

Life Gear Survival Backpack (Bug Out Bag)

The Life Gear Survival Backpack offers 3 days of supplies, which we imagine is plenty of time either since the rescue helicopter will arrive before then or everyone will be eaten alive by zombies. The backpack includes a first aid kit, drinking system food and water storage, a respirator mask in case the infection is airborne and other items. To save space, we think you can toss the hygiene kit since no one will notice what you smell like amidst all the rotting flesh.
$68

March 6, 2010

Ready, Aim, Phh-ire

If you live in the US one of the hardest things about being a quadriplegic is that you can no longer exercise your right to bear arms. Unless you arrange to go hunting with a mouth controlled shotgun.

For a quadriplegic, firing a shotgun requires help from a companion. In Mr Cap’s case, a friend sets up the contraption, safety on, on Mr Cap’s wheelchair and Mr Cap aims the shotgun by moving the toggle switch with his mouth. Once his partner releases the safety, Mr Cap fires by sipping on the breathing tube.

I don’t want to make light of Mr Cap’s situation – but how cool would it be to have a shotgun that you could control with your breathing.

March 6, 2010

How to categorise people based on their favourite author

There’s a big list here of great stereotypes based on authors. Here are some of my favourite (stereotypes – not necessarily authors).

Richard Dawkins

People who have their significant other grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong.
Edgar Allan Poe

Men who live in their mother’s basements. Or goth seventh graders.

Michael Crichton

Doctors who went to third-tier medical schools.

John Grisham

Doctors who went to medical schools in the Dominican Republic.

Dan Brown

People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids.

Virginia Woolf

Female high-school French teachers who have their master’s degree.

David Baldacci

No one. Even the police say Clancy before they’ll say Baldacci.

Stieg Larsson

Girls who are too frightened to go skydiving.

Sue Grafton

Women who have an @aol.com email address.

Douglas Adams

People who bought the first generation Amazon Kindle.

Lewis Carroll

People who move to Thailand after high school for the drug scene.

C.S. Lewis

Youth group leaders who picked their nose in the 4th grade.

Harper Lee

People who have read only one book in their life and it was To Kill A Mockingbird (and it was their assigned reading in the ninth grade).

Nick Hornby

Guys who wear skinny jeans and the girls that love them.

Ernest Hemingway

Men who own cottages.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Sommeliers.

Bret Easton Ellis

Foo Fighters’ fans.

Hunter S Thompson

That kid in your philosophy class with the stupid tattoo.

George Orwell

Conspiracy theorists (too easy).

Aldous Huxley

People who are bigger conspiracy theorists than Orwell fans.

March 6, 2010

How to find the perfect wife

This is a question that needed some science applied to it. It turns out the optimal wife is 27 percent smarter than her husband. IQ tests on the first date probably come on a bit strong – but by the time you reach the altar you need to have established a pecking order. Here’s the science. Here’s the CNET report.

The highlights are, indeed, a joy to behold, squeeze tightly, and never, ever let go. The perfect wife is five years younger than her husband. She is from the same cultural background. And, please stare at this very carefully: she is at least 27 percent smarter than her husband. Yes, 35 percent smarter seems to be tolerable. But 12 percent smarter seems unacceptable. In an ideal world–which is the goal of every scientist–your wife should have a college degree, and you should not. At least that’s what these scientists believe.

I know your bit will already be chomped with your enthusiasm for learning these learned scientists’ methodology. Well, they interviewed 1,074 married and cohabiting couples. And they declared, “To produce our optimization model, we use the assumption of a central ‘agency’ that would coordinate the matching of couples.” Indeed.

Finding that woman might prove difficult. But if you synchronise the science with a separate mathematical model (at the end of this article) you’ll learn that the 38th woman you consider is the one.

If you interview half the potential partners then stop at the next best one – that is, the first one better than the best person you’ve already interviewed – you will marry the very best candidate about 25 per cent of the time. Once again, probability explains why. A quarter of the time, the second best partner will be in the first 50 people and the very best in the second. So 25 per cent of the time, the rule “stop at the next best one” will see you marrying the best candidate. Much of the rest of the time, you will end up marrying the 100th person, who has a 1 in 100 chance of being the worst, but hey, this is probability, not certainty.

You can do even better than 25 per cent, however. John Gilbert and Frederick Mosteller of Harvard University proved that you could raise your odds to 37 per cent by interviewing 37 people then stopping at the next best. The number 37 comes from dividing 100 by e, the base of the natural logarithms, which is roughly equal to 2.72. Gilbert and Mosteller’s law works no matter how many candidates there are – you simply divide the number of options by e. So, for example, suppose you find 50 companies that offer car insurance but you have no idea whether the next quote will be better or worse than the previous one. Should you get a quote from all 50? No, phone up 18 (50 ÷ 2.72) and go with the next quote that beats the first 18.

March 6, 2010

Ten ways to win an Oscar

The Oscars are this weekend (or Monday for Australians). Here’s a handy breakdown of the role you need to play to win – and a slideshow detailing roles from this set that have won in the past.

March 6, 2010

Feeling shirty

Rhett and Link are the guys who travel the US making local commercials – they also make pretty cool videos. Like this stop motion production featuring 222 shirts.

It’s spectacular. I love the eggs.

March 6, 2010

A bit of a pickle

I’m on the record saying the Nickleback are the world’s worst band. I stand by my statement. It also turns out that singer Chad Kroeger has no sense of humour.

If you’re on Facebook you’ve probably been invited to join a little social experiment called “can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback.” I confess to almost signing up. I ignore all similar requests as a matter of principle (though I am a fan of Bacon).

The Nickleback frontman didn’t like it very much when the pickle eventually became more popular – and he joined the group to have a little rant (this is the first time I’ve ever linked to Perez Hilton – it’ll probably be the last.

What he should have done was invited the pickle to join the band on its next tour.

March 1, 2010

Mad Skillz: Mad on mad skillz

My little sister obviously didn’t get the memo. You know. The one I addressed to the whole world inviting contributions for the increasingly inappropriately named “Mad Skillz Week”… you can decide the basis that I think the name is inappropriate for yourself. Anyway, Maddie, aka little sister number 2, had this to contribute.

I was annoyed that Nathan didn’t ask me to give input during mad skillz week. I thought perhaps he didn’t believe I had any mad skillz, and he may have been right.

I’m Mad, but the skill part still eluded me. I considered giving 5 tips on how to be me. But then if all the readers took my advice there could be maybe 3 or 4 of me running around and so I thought the better of it.

I considered writing 5 tips on how to be a cat lady.

  1. Buy two cats of the opposite sex.
  2. Never shower.
  3. Walk hunched.
  4. Wear scarves and cardigans.
  5. …

Well now you see the problem. Plus since I’m not actually a cat lady it seemed like a fallacy.

Still I was convinced I could give 5 tips on something. Then it hit me…

Mad on How to share mad skillz:

(in no particular order of importance, except point 4)

  1. Be humble. Suggest you’re not that skilled, that there are a million people better than you and that you only have the skills because they were bestowed upon you by a mentor/teacher/father figure.Including other people’s names makes it clear you’re not a self centred blogger and that you’re part of a real world community without suffering some superiority disorder. I’m not really sure I’m qualified to advise you on how to write about your real skills, but growing up with Nath has taught me a little about writing stuff.
  2. Never say your skills all come naturally. If people are reading about your skills part of them wants to be like you. Fill them with a little false hope – tell them if they work hard they’ll be able to do your skill too. Anyone could write 5 tips to others, all you need is a skill and a communication medium – chisel/stone tablet, pen/paper, fingers/iPhone.
  3. “Although seemingly contradictory to rule number 1” – this phrase should always be included in your 5 key points. why? Because it shows there are shades of grey, there’s no best way, and it makes it look like your skill is a fine balancing act – so is actually a real skill.And although seemingly contradictory to point 1, it’s important your 5 points show that you are skilled, don’t shy away too much from your abilities because if people think you don’t know what you’re talking about why should they listen??? I know this because I won a public speaking award in grade 10.
  4. Always have something funny in point 4.
  5. Don’t put too much technical jargon in your points, but do include examples, photos, diagrams, flow charts – things that can be grasped fast. People outside your world aren’t familiar with the culture and stuff. And to be honest they probably don’t care about technicalities because how many people are going to become substitute roller-skating photography teachers? Not many.

    They are interested in the general gist of your skillz. So stick with simple words, concepts and grammar. Keep it short. <- see?

So there you have it – if you’re inspired feel free to keep sending mad skillz my way – nm campbell

February 27, 2010

Mad Skillz: Andrew on low light photography

Andrew isn’t just an opera singer about to hit the big time in Germany. He’s also a photographer of some repute. Here are his tips on low light photography. I’ll update this to include a link to his Flickr. If he’ll let me. I guess you’ll soon find out. Ahh, stuff it, it’s public domain. Here you go. Check his work out.

And here’s one of his photos – it is copyright so look but don’t touch (even though I’ve hypocritically stolen it – but we all know how I feel about copyright…).

A couple of years back I had a 10-tips article on photographing rock concerts published in JPG Mag (Read it here). So for Mad Skillz Week, here’s an adaptation of 5 tips for photographing in low light. Whether it’s a concert, candle-lit cuisine or the cool colours of the Eiffel Tower light-show, these tips will help make the most of difficult lighting situations.

  • No Flashing. Turn the flash off, it won’t help, and if it’s a classical concert*, it will get you kicked out. The flash will either not even reach the subject, or it will completely destroy an sense of performance or mood created by the low light.
  • The need for speed. This is where some manual control comes in handy. The idea is too get as fast a shutter speed as possible. If you can manually control this (like with SLR cameras and some digi-cams) you should aim for the hand-holding rule – a shutter speed that is equal to, or greater than the focal length of the lens (again, generally much easier with an SLR). Digi-cams with scene modes sometimes have a performance mode, otherwise, the portrait mode will open up the aperture, allowing for faster shutter speeds. If you have the option to turn the ISO sensitivity up, that will help greatly, though has the unfortunate side effect of introducing digital noise.
  • Closer. Related to the previous point – the less zoom you use, the slower the shutter speed you can get away with.
  • Brace. The best option is to use a tripod of some sort, otherwise, bracing the camera against a hard serface like a fence or a lamp-post can help reduce camera-shake. I keep a mini bean-bag in my camera bag so that I don’t scratch the camera in the process.
  • Squeeze. Another major cause of camera shake is pressing the shutter-release button. A gentle squeeze will help reduce the distrubance caused by pushing.

    • *Disclaimer: of course, you shouldn’t be taking photographs in professional performances, but if you happen to have a child star, then this will be of use.

    February 25, 2010

    A handy guide to geek obsessions

    It is possible to be a geek about so many things. From here.
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    February 25, 2010

    YouTube Tuesday: My Guitar Hero

    I’m still trying to clear up my queue of stuff I have been planning to post for ages. This is incredible. It takes Christmas light displays to a whole new level. A guy rigged up his lights so that passers by could play guitar hero with them.

    February 23, 2010