A visitor to Japan put her camera into video record mode and sent it around the sushi conveyor belt. It's fun to watch.
The thing that always strikes me about videos like this is how few people seem to find amusement at this person's creative engagement with her world. To me, this seems delightful, but so many people either never notice, or don't fine amusement, it makes me a little sad.
The Tinkering School sounds like the appropriate antidote for over-protective parents. Every kid should get to have experiences like this. And yes, it might be risking life and limb, but, you know, life's tough, wear a helmet.
In response to someone making a comment about the Osborne Effect (how scary is it that you can guess URLs for Wikipedia entries with a reasonable assurance that they'll be there?) on a photo forum, one of the people who was at Osborne at the time makes a post to set the story straight
Basically: corporate infighting brought things to a halt in a company that always had problems with cash-flow, since they were undercapitalized and in manufacturing.
So what did he do? He used it to take a picture of an ant that is so detailed you can discern the structure of the eye. Not that I needed to see an ant that closely, but damn.
I don't think most of these colors actually appear in nature. Check it out
So, at least according to Wikipedia. no one knows why it's named Boxing Day. It's silly, but in a wonderful sort of way--it's apparently centuries old, but no one knows why the hell it's called Boxing Day.
Make describes itself as:
The first magazine devoted to digital projects, hardware hacks, and D.I.Y. inspiration.
Sucker that I occasionally am, I suspect I shall subscribe--apparently the first issue will be subscription-only, with the second appearing on newsstands.
From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, with a stop for a photo at every mile marker.
It's a big, weird country out there.
[[http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/ending-viz-small.jpg]
]]
A shot from a computer chess applet that shows a graphical representation of it's analysis.
TNH (perhaps Teresa Nielsen Hayden to you) has a link to a riveting narrative about using a hot-type Linotype printing press. Well, actually, it's about progression in the printing industry, and talks about a bunch of other systems, too, but the hot-type press is the most fascinating.
I could not tell you why, but I find things like this fascinating, just about regardless of the actual subject. I guess it's because it's about The Way Things Work, which I always find intriguing.
After reading the description, I find it ironic to remember that (even?) after the Linotype company had moved to offset printing and such, you'd see reference to "Linotype/HELL". Seems like it would have been a lot more pertinent when the machines involved molten lead.
A book of Civil War photos. Huge, but cool.
You know, there's not a lot of arguments for believing in some sort of overarching creator figure that I give much credence to. But I have to say, the strange and wonderful things that nature produces, well, they almost convince me, because how could cicadas be anything but a particularly elaborate joke
Finally, someone has created the software necessary for building panoramic images in the GIMP.
Well, first, derive anything you can from my pity. Then go listen to some episodes.
Watching them do the show at the Carolina Theater in Durham was fun. Besides the usual amusement that is the show's stock in trade, it was something of an eye opener--although I guess I had unconsciously know that there had to be a lot of editing and other stuff going on behind the curtains, I never imagined how much.
Oh, and Charlie Pierce is probably right--Elihu Root has to be the funniest name in the history of American politics.
Warning: This is huge. I mean, 10MB. 7000 by 9600 resolution. Muy gigante. Act responsibly.
