Earth fire

I've talked before about the wonders of Virtual Earth. With such detailed images there are bound to be a few anomalies and special points of interest. Many are gathered on Bird's Eye Tourist, a blog dedicated to finds on Virtual Earth. I think my favourite so far is this aeroplane in flight.

But for a moment captured in time, the latest post shows views (depending on the direction chosen) of a house before, during and after a fire.

Wonderous water

Here's an amazing water feature made for Jeep. It's programmed to release water in such precise amounts and with such precise timing, that it forms distinct patterns as it falls. The video is not the best quality, but the effect is stunning none the less.

Use the force

A light saber that lights up when you concentrate on it?

All I can say about this is, "I want one!"

Credit: Splarka

The motherlode of cuteness

If I were ever tempted to turn this into a blog of cuteness, then I would have to admit that it's already been done... to excess.

A link to this little guy:


Lead to the scarily cute Cute Project. I highly recommend it for a good dose of the "aahhh"s, but suggest caution. That much cute might just have serious physical and mental consequences!

Credit: Braydie

Personal space

Social rules are fascinating. I've often watched people and tried to see which of the actions we do automatically are part of the social rules we grow up learning. It's interesting to watch tourists too. Sometimes you can see where the social rules here are different from those they have at home.

Recently I've noticed a new social rule here in England: "when someone is typing in their PIN when paying at a checkout, others present should look away in a very obvious way".

Apparently, some of these social rules have crossed-over into cyberspace. The Bryant Park Project looked at how the rules against staring and standing too close apply just as much in Second Life as they do in the 3D world.

Perhaps that shows just how much people identify with their avatars.

Credit: GreenReaper

Trust in the spiders

For someone that can find decisions as hard as I (the pink flash memory stick? Or the red?) the Universal Decision Maker is very handy.

I found it actually worked in helping me with decisions. Not that I followed what the spiders told me to do, but I found myself willing on one or the other... which sort of showed that the decision had already been made.

(I got the red one, by the way)

Credit: Sansanna on #wikia

I've lost Kyrgyzstan again

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit how badly I did in this map game from Rethinking Schools.

I started off quite well, with Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Turkey fitting in nicely. Then I got Pakistan after a bit of confusion as to where India had got to. I knew Afghanistan bordered Pakistan, but it still took two tries. And then Iran, Iraq and Syria fitted in without too many problems.

But then I pretty much got stuck. I figured out where the 'stans should go, but had no idea which was which. I was convinced Saudi Arabia was a small country somewhere, goodness knows why. And I must have tried Libya in every position in the map before finding the right spot.

The only thing this game is missing is a final score. After all, everyone should get there eventually, but how fast? and with how many mistakes?

This is a great way to learn though, at least I should have some idea of where Mauritania is in the future.

p.s. I missed yesterday! Oops! Ah well, the (mostly) unbroken run was never going to last forever.

Where in the world...

xkcd has done it again...

The Map of Online Communities is a wonderful piece of work. I've already put in my pre-order for the poster \o/

I'm definitely a citizen of the Internet, I spend more time online than off... although my own home island seems not to have made the map yet. I guess it would be somewhere between Wikimedia and the Blogipeligo, with an easy route to the IRC Isles.

I can't wait for my poster to arrive.

Credit: Ace_NoOne on #Wikia, Mandaliet on #Uncyclopedia, & TDO.

When the cat's away, the mice will PARTY.

Here's a nice site from the University of Utah.

Mouse Party allows you to look inside the brains of (animated) mice on various recreational drugs. It's very simplified, but a nice way of showing some of what goes on at a molecular level with these substances. Neatly animated too.