Archives

October-December 2006

31 December 2006
8:03pm

Museum of Hoaxes

Can you spot the hoax photos? Take this test and be surprised.

24 December 2006
9:13pm

30-second Bunny Theatre

Popular movies condensed to thirty seconds and re-enacted by bunnies (of course).

21 December 2006
8:58pm

Gum Wrapper Chain

In the strange universe of bizarre world records, this is one of the more exceptional. A chain of well over one million Wrigley's gum wrappers that extends over 14km (9 miles), begun in 1965 and still growing.

12 December 2006
3:49pm

Drum Machine

Unusual Japanese animation.

11 December 2006
9:07pm

Line Rider

Draw a curved line for a little man to run his sled down. Sounds simple, right? Have fun.

7 December 2006
6:42pm

Jerome Murat

This is a brilliant performance. It's an illusion, but even when you think you've worked out what's going on, you're in for a surprise.

7 December 2006
5:47pm

Timeline

This is a favourite of mine: a linear clock showing the year right down to the second.

6 December 2006
4:26pm

Musicovery

An online radio where you can choose the mood, decade, and music style that you would like to hear.

29 November 2006
1:33pm

The Infinite Wheel

Trying to explain how this music-making program works is beyond my capabilities. It's much better explored - the results are impressive.

21 November 2006
8:34pm

Zen Bondage

This addictive puzzle requires you to wrap a maximum of 100 metres of rope around your choice of wooden animal, the objective being to cover its surface area completely.

It's a brilliant piece of programming, but you will need a decent video card to get the best out of it.

Scroll halfway down the page to find the download link. The file size is just under 24MB.

17 November 2006
4.16pm

Your Own Radio

Make your own radio of favourite artists and discover others that offer a similar experience.

14 November 2006
7:54pm

Carbon Footprint Calculator

This calculator will determine your primary carbon footprint, based on your household fuel bills and annual travel. You can offset your carbon emissions by planting the recommended number of trees.

13 November 2006
6:22pm

Maps of War

This site provides animated maps showing the progress of wars around the world. For example, the wars in which America has been involved and which party was in government at the time. Requires the Flash browser add-in.

13 November 2006
6:14pm

Surname Locality Finder

A British on-line facility for tracing the geography and history of family names. I entered my surname and wasn't surprised when the map showed the densest distribution to be in Nottingham. Comparisons are also made with Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and USA.

13 November 2006
6:04pm

WEBoggle

An online game of Boggle, with either 4x4 or 5x5 grids. It has a 90,000 word dictionary and there's a three minute time limit. Fast and addictive.

10 November 2006
5:02pm

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

This thoughtful piece by Douglas Adams first appeared in 1999.

08 November 2006
3.35pm

The Golden Ratio

Fascinating imagery illustrating the golden ratio or golden section (1:1.618). It was discovered by the ancient Greeks and occurs frequently in art and nature.

03 November 2006
1:10pm

Ask Ms Dewey

This is a wrapper for Live.com, i.e. it returns the results directly from Live.com, but Ms Dewey makes comments on your search requests. Be warned: she can be quite opinionated:

03 November 2006
12:58pm

Ask a Philosopher

This site puts the talents and knowledge of philosophers at the service of the general public. Send in a question that you think might be related to philosophy and they will do their best to respond to it:

27 October 2006
9:17pm

Geography Song

Hear country names sung and their location pointed out by a character who looks like Mickey Mouse:

27 October 2006
9:17pm

Billboard Beauty

How the "effortless" beauty we see on billboards is actually created:

15 October 2006
10:03am

A Miniature Earth

If the world's population were reduced to 100 people, what would it look like?

A sobering display of the status of the world's peoples:

14 October 2006
6:18pm

Free Paint Program

This program had me wondering why I'd mortgaged the house to buy Photoshop CS2. To quote:

"It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing."

14 October 2006
4:05pm

A Woman from the Inside Out

Watch as a Brazilian artist sketches a woman starting with her skeleton:

7 October 2006
6:00am

Avoid Long URLs

Avoid long URLs in your e-mails and forum posts by using TinyURL

6 October 2006
6:04am

Impressive Trampolining Skills

Well, I'm impressed. I can hardly climb onto a trampoline: