Full Board
Posted 29 Apr, 2005 at 07:22 by blue in /Games | Permanent link
Another simple little webgame.
This time the puzzle is called Full Board. If you're good at visualizing things and creating paths, you'll do well. If not, you're bound to be frustrated.
While you're there... Lightforce has a large number of other fun games for you to try :) Chain Reaction is good too.
Enjoy!
Comments (1 comment so far)
Serenity
Posted 27 Apr, 2005 at 10:36 by blue in /MovingPictures | Permanent link
Since I know there are a lot of fans of the television series, I thought you might like to know that the trailer is out for the movie. You can view the trailer here.
Any predictions on whether or not it will live up to the series?
Comments (0 comments so far)
Fulfillment
Posted 27 Apr, 2005 at 07:55 by blue in /Games | Permanent link
I'm sure you've seen games like this when you were a child. My Grandparents had a nice little cube one that I remember spending hours trying to put together in different ways.
Give Fulfillment a try. Somehow it's so much harder when you are being timed. Nicely enough, the assortment of pieces you are given is random so repeated attempts don't get boring.
How far can you make it? Sadly, I'm well below the top scores.
Comments (3 comments so far)
Interesting Blogs
Posted 26 Apr, 2005 at 08:16 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
So what is it that compells one to blog? To share their most personal ideals with anyone who happens to fall off the track and end up in their bit of cyberspace?
I don't really know... but I do know that some very interesting people blog. Forget the movie actors and politicians... I'm talking about people like Darth Vader or Jesus. Now those are blogs worth reading. (there are others... god's blog is entertaining if only to see the references to 'Me-Damned' people ;) )
Know of any interesting or fascinating blogs?
Comments (2 comments so far)
World's Greatest Hacker
Posted 25 Apr, 2005 at 16:08 by blue in /Technical | Permanent link
So, this one is some humour aimed at the more technical minded on the list... though anyone should get a kick out of this hacker demonstrating how good he is.
Comments (0 comments so far)
Star Wars: Revelations
Posted 25 Apr, 2005 at 13:18 by blue in /MovingPictures | Permanent link
A little something interesting today...
A small independent film company has made a new Star Wars movie called Star Wars: Revelations". While it's not out of this world incredible... for a low budget flick, it's pretty good. Oddly, when you consider how far technology has come, it makes one wonder at the ease that any random schmuck can create something that in the late 1970's/early 1980's would have required a major motion picture studio and a lot of money to produce.
Comments (1 comment so far)
Airport security taken to extremes
Posted 24 Apr, 2005 at 09:11 by wendy in /Social | Permanent link
They made the penguins walk through the metal detectors on their own...check it out. Aren't they cute?
Comments (0 comments so far)
On The Subject Of...
Posted 22 Apr, 2005 at 23:46 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
I don't know how many of you found Alien Loves Predator funny. Those who know me will know why I like the dry wit and dark humour. Those who don't, will just think I'm weird. In spite of that, I have another little known web comic to share. It's called On The Subject Of...
While some of them are rather dumb, the dry humour in the odd one really hit the mark. You can check out the full archive (there are only about 20 comics total).
Personal favorites, Jesus and the Kool Aid Man, Girl Guides, Penguins.
Comments (0 comments so far)
Such great heights
Posted 21 Apr, 2005 at 23:24 by matt in /Music | Permanent link
I'm trying to figure out what it is that fascinates me about the Postal Service.
My initial exposure to them was a brief story on NPR some months ago, about how the USPS was suing them over their use of the name Postal Service
. (This, by the way, apparently went nowhere... and rightly so, too.) Shortly thereafter I was visiting some friends out west and one of them played his copy of their album for me.
The music exerts a strange attraction for me, either in spite of or because of how it irritates the crap out of me after prolonged exposure. (How prolonged? I can't listen to the full album in one sitting... and it's not a long album.) The music itself is that sort of techno that sounds like the bastard child of Casio and Coleco; while I've learned to appreciate some of the finer points of post-human music, I'm not convinced that this is one of its shinier moments.
Ignore the beeps and boops and thin little drum machine sounds, though, and what's left is more often than not a wonderfully constructed pop song. Whoever writes the melodies has a real knack for finding interesting tunes, which are complemented by the singer's delivery. The lyrics generally don't tend to be as well-built; one finds a number of nicely turned phrases, but they don't really carry the songs as a whole.
And yet, despite the banality of the lyrics and the sheer techno-evil of the music, I keep this CD in my car regularly, so I can listen to the first few tracks every few days. The melodies and the vocals are, I guess, just that good.
Comments (2 comments so far)
One Tonne Challenge
Posted 21 Apr, 2005 at 12:14 by blue in /Enviroment | Permanent link
I don't have a TV, so I missed all the ads surrounding this in December... but it is still ongoing.
Well known TV actor/comedian Rick Mercer has been promoting a One-Tonne Challenge. The goal is to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions by One-Tonne.
There is a calculator where you can calculate your current emissions as well as see what impact various choices you have would make on your total.
You can check out the site here. It really is interesting.
My own total came out below my regional average, and even below the national average. In some ways not overly surprising for someone who lives in a refurbished apartment, doesn't own a car or a TV, and once was environmentally active. That said, I found it vaguely amusing since when I think about the things I do or don't do, they are such second nature, that I don't view it as 'doing my part'. I simply don't generate tons of garbage... am not interested in TV... find it cheaper and easier to do without the car... etc.
It's nice when one's lifestyle is positive without any effort.
That said... I think I'm going to take on the challenge. In some ways harder for me since I can't just dump my car or something... but after using their calculator, I managed to find ways to lower my environmental debt by 0.7 tonnes. If I can find a way to get that last 0.3 I'll be set.
You should try it too.
What how many tonnes do you produce? Are you going to take the challenge? Let me know.
Comments (1 comment so far)
Evil Puzzlecube?
Posted 20 Apr, 2005 at 07:33 by blue in /Games | Permanent link
While I may know this as a Rubik's Cube, this online version is known as the Eviltron Super Puzzlecube. The interface takes some getting used to if you want to be able to solve the cube in under a minute (without using the handy 'Solve Cube' button that is)... but if you like Rub..er.. Evil Puzzlecubes, this is fun :)
Comments (0 comments so far)
Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Caramel Brownie
Posted 18 Apr, 2005 at 14:31 by wendy in /FoodDrink | Permanent link
Why did I wait so long before trying this? It's wonderful. I never knew you could find happiness in the freezer section at the grocery store...and to think I was feeling grumbly that they didn't have Ben & Jerry's...
Comments (3 comments so far)
Deep ancestry
Posted 16 Apr, 2005 at 14:44 by matt in /Science | Permanent link
The National Geographic Society is sponsoring what they call the genographic project: a broad study to confirm or disprove the out of
Africa
hypothesis of human development. That's pretty cool; what's even cooler is that you can participate by sending in a buccal DNA sample and have your deep ancestry
traced.
I know that at least some of the folks hereabouts are interested in genealogy, so I'm wondering what the general reaction to this is. It costs 100USD; will you do it? Would you do it if it was cheaper?
One thing which kind of puzzles me about it: they do one of two tests on the genetic material, one for men (Y-chromasome) and one for women (mitochondrial DNA). I understand why the first is infeasible for women, but is there a reason that one can't study the mitochondrial DNA of a man? Or maybe it's possible, and they're trying to keep the workload reasonable by only doing one analysis per sample?
Comments (6 comments so far)
My boyfriend went to Vegas and all he brought me...
Posted 15 Apr, 2005 at 07:57 by wendy in /Chatter | Permanent link
...was this lousy headcold.
So instead of being outside enjoying the effects of this lovely Omega Block (had dinner with a weather forecasting friend the other night), I'm stuck lying on the sofa in a puddle. Sigh.
Comments (2 comments so far)
That's no camel, that's my baggage!
Posted 14 Apr, 2005 at 22:31 by matt in /Chatter | Permanent link
Apparently there's a certain laxness in security on a certain Australian airline.
To be fair, I can totally understand the impulse. I'd imagine that baggage handler
isn't an occupation that lends itself to excitement on a daily basis. (In fact, I'm guessing that most of the excitement is of the oh-crap-we're-going-to-die sort and is blessedly infrequent, but maybe I'm romanticizing it a bit.) But still, if you're going to go around wearing a camel costume, maybe you shouldn't go around where the passengers can see you? At the very least, not where the costume's proper owner can see you?
Comments (0 comments so far)
Classroom - The Musical
Posted 13 Apr, 2005 at 08:56 by blue in /Music | Permanent link
So Matt,
Have you ever had this happen to you during one of your lectures?
Hmm.. ah to be in university again where I could dream up such stunts.
Comments (0 comments so far)
This post 58% likely to be spam
Posted 11 Apr, 2005 at 15:19 by matt in /Technical | Permanent link
So my institution has a somewhat overactive spam filter. We've got one or two programs that scan incoming mail and give each item a spam rating; then there's a default rule in our installation of GroupWise which shuffles items with overly high scores into a junk
folder.
My first problem with this is that an inordinate number of e-mails from students seem to get high spam ratings: maybe because they're short, or don't use my full name (addressing me instead as "Professor"), or come from Hotmail, or have attachments, or any number of other things. This isn't a tremendous deal; it means that I need to check the junk folder fairly frequently, though, and wade through the actual spam that accumulates. This, I feel, defeats the purpose.
I should, you might think, be able to turn off the rule that does the sorting... or at least modify it to my own nefarious ends, right? Not so much with the nefariousness, it seems. The ability to create or modify sorting rules doesn't seem to exist in the cross-platform
version of GroupWise that I, an OS X user, have access to. (I rarely use the client anyway -- it's pretty broken in a number of ways -- but I'd at least hoped that it would do this correctly.)
I asked our tech support people if there was a secret password or something that students could use to avoid getting relegated to the junk folder. I got some really quite blank looks in response, followed by suggestions that I go into GroupWise and change the rules for spam filtering.
Not, you will note, entirely helpful.
Comments (0 comments so far)
Sand Art
Posted 11 Apr, 2005 at 08:29 by blue in /Arts | Permanent link
This is a little old, but I figure a few of you might now have seen it.
The SICAF (Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival) festival in Seoul opened in 2003 with a fantastic display of sand art by Ferenc Cako.
I don't know if it is the music, the images, or the fact that I don't like working on Monday mornings, but just watching this seems to put me into a very relaxed and mellow mood.
Hope it works for you too.
Comments (1 comment so far)
Accapella Music
Posted 11 Apr, 2005 at 07:52 by blue in /Music | Permanent link
This is a good video of some accapella singers singing some well known original music from Japan. I think most of you will be quite impressed.
Let me know what you think of it.
Comments (5 comments so far)
Smoking Kills
Posted 11 Apr, 2005 at 07:47 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
A very warped video about how smoking kills.
Comments (0 comments so far)
Squirrel Tag
Posted 08 Apr, 2005 at 08:32 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
Many of you know that I play Ultimate. I thought I'd share with you the latest extreme sport that is sweeping the nation. Squirrel Tag.
Hmm... then again... maybe I'll stick with Ultimate.
Comments (3 comments so far)
3 Cups
Posted 07 Apr, 2005 at 08:34 by blue in /Games | Permanent link
A little challenge...
Try and solve this puzzle... it's so easy that they even show you how to solve it at the start... 3 Cup Puzzle
Took me a couple of seconds to figure it out... let me know how you make out.
Comments (1 comment so far)
Dance Dance Revolution Master
Posted 07 Apr, 2005 at 07:44 by blue in /Games | Permanent link
Since I know that more than a couple readers of this forum play DDR... I thought I'd share with you a short clip of a real master going at it... dancing one of the hardest routines... while juggling.
Here it is. Freaky eh?
Comments (4 comments so far)
Origin?
Posted 05 Apr, 2005 at 22:31 by matt in /Words | Permanent link
I would be most grateful to anyone who could tell me where the phrase All die. O, the embarrassment!
first appeared.
(A representative sample usage, stolen from someone's .sig file: I die! I attempt a speeling flame, but my flamer explodes and covers me with burning oil. The fire spreads to the walls and nearby houses. The smoke from the flames blots out the sun. Crop failures abound and civilization collapses. The last humans huddle around their pathetic campfires as a new ice age ensues and the glaciers approach. The light of the fire attracts many wolves. All die! O, the embarrassment!)
Comments (4 comments so far)
Google Gulp
Posted 01 Apr, 2005 at 09:10 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
Google has now made in-roads into the food industry with it's latest product release... the Google Gulp.
Try it today.
Comments (0 comments so far)
Another Web Comic
Posted 01 Apr, 2005 at 08:41 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
Again... this one isn't really all that new as it has been around for a while...
Often silly, and crude most of the time... none the less... there is the odd one I find funny (number 72 comes to mind). Then again what would you expect from a comic that stars alien horror movie stars? Check out Alien Loves Predator.
If nothing else... the style the comic is done in is interesting and well crafted.