April 30, 2008
Links 7
1. Faces in Places - this blog collects photos of objects that look like faces:
(The human brain's obsession with faces is fascinating... I wish I had time to write more about it, especially the evolution of the so-called "face recognition module" - check out the info. & links at Wikipedia's face perception, prosopagnosia, and pareidolia entries. And for fun, a couple of images to mess with your module.)
2. MacBook Pro Unboxing Video - I like to think of myself as platform agnostic. I grew up using MS-DOS & Windows (among other things), immersed myself in *NIX during my brief stint as a CS major, and bought my first Mac way back in '99 when a 400 MHz G4 running OS 8.6 was the shit. These days I actively use both Windows and Mac OS, but I will admit that for most of my computing needs, I find Mac OS X offers the best overall experience. I usually think Mac cultists are funny and harmless (and the phenomenon is genuinely interesting in many ways), but sometimes they really scare me. Things like this video make me wary to admit that I use a Mac. (What's with the weird unboxing thing anyway?) At the very least, play the video until around 0:27 (although it continues for several minutes). The kid seems to be having multiple orgasms as he fondles and caresses a computer. ("Cleanup on aisle four!") And from what I can gather, it's not a spoof or a hoax. Yes, humans are very strange creatures:
3. Glassbooth - Quiz to help you choose a 2008 presidential candidate. I should've posted this a long time ago, because it's not very useful now that we're down to three candidates (or I think six, technically). Of the online candidate chooser sites I looked at this election cycle, Glassbooth had one of the more clever interfaces. There was another cool one, but I can't find the link at the moment. Maybe it'll show up in another one of these posts.
4. Vast ancient settlement found at Angkor Wat - old news, but if you missed it, it's still very interesting. I mentioned Jared Diamond the other day. The reseachers' conclusion probably made him happy:
In fact, says Damian Evans of the University of Sydney, "there is just no obvious boundary" for the settlement. The population of the area was probably around half a million, he adds, though earlier estimates of a million inhabitants - suggested in the 1970s - could still be correct.
Such extensive settlement may help explain why Angkor, which thrived between the 9th and 16th centuries, had been overwhelmed by vegetation by the time European explorers first encountered the site in the 1860s.
The main theory for Angkor’s abandonment is that the creation of an extensive water management system caused environmental damage that ultimately led to the failure of the system, leading to food shortages. That scenario now seems even more likely.
5. 26 tempting but inappropriate funeral songs - The title is self-explanatory. The list is pretty funny, and I can think of a few more. I found this via J-Walk, whose favorite was Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" I happen to think it's the perfect song for a funeral.
30 Apr 20:38 | Link | Category: Link Dump '08