July 15, 2006
Population : One
I've linked to scrollable scale models of the solar system, a hydrogen atom, and the timeline of life. Here's yet another one. I'm sorry that I keep linking to these so often, but I think they're amazingly effective at putting things into proper perspective.
This one, called Population : One, represents each human as one pixel. Look at the tiny pixel that represents you and then scroll through the other 6.5 billion to see what a tiny, tiny part of the human population you make up. Very cool.
(It doesn't work very well in Opera or Safari.)
15 Jul 0:34 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
July 13, 2006
Optical Illusion
Here's a fun optical illusion. Stare at the image and don't move your eyes until instructed. Then look around the room. (Works best if you run the video at a larger size. And mute the annoying soundtrack. Also, try not to get a migraine or have an epileptic seizure.)
13 Jul 1:37 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Video
July 10, 2006
Evolutionary Timeline to Scale
Recently, I've linked to web page scale models of the solar system and a hydrogen atom.
If you liked those, this might interest you: Evolutionary Timeline. It stretches life's history (from the earliest life on Earth through the present) across 135 feet of scrolling web page.
Like the other pages, this one provides useful perspective. It takes a lot of scrolling just to get to the first eukaryotic cells, after which it takes a lot more scrolling to get to the Cambrian explosion. The history of the genus Homo fits in the last inch or so.
It's a pretty effective approach for illustrating the depth of time. I'd like to see it expanded to include the history of the universe.... but that would increase the scrolling immensely.
One approach that has often been used is to condense the history of life (or the universe) into a 24-hour period, or a year. (In fact, the author of this timeline has a chart of a 'one year' timeline of life here.)
In Cosmos, Carl Sagan used a 12-month calendar to represent the history of the known universe. In this analogy, Earth doesn't form until the year's half over, the Cambrian explosion occurs on December 15th, Dinosaurs show up on the 24th, humans on the evening of the 31st, and all of written history takes up the last ten seconds of the year. As with the cephalopod video yesterday, I've taken the liberty of ripping an 8½ minute clip for you (15 MB, this time in MPEG-4, but QuickTime or VLC will still work). The information in the simplified story is a bit dated for nitpickers like me, but it's remarkably accurate considering its nearly thirty-year age.
Update: Here's an interactive Flash timeline of evolution. (It's a cool idea and has lots of good biology info., but the presentation is slightly confusing and far too busy.)
10 Jul 23:32 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science, Video
April 26, 2006
Berkeley on iTunes
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Stanford had opened up part of their iTunes U program to the public, so anyone could download audio of various visiting lectures and other events. Now it seems UC Berkeley has taken the idea a step further by actually opening up course content to the public. Cool.
Head over to itunes.berkeley.edu to get in.
If you have trouble choosing a course, I suggest you try IB 31: Animal Behavior. I haven't actually listened to the lectures, but animal behavior and behavioral ecology are fascinating topics. If you don't want to commit to listening to a whole course, there are a few lectures with intriguing titles:
- On the Trail of Our Human Ancestors by Tim White
- Studying the Human Condition: Habits of an Anthropologist by Nancy Scheper-Hughes
- Making Science Accessible by Eva Harris
- History of Information
- Open Source Development and Distribution of Digital Information: Technical, Economic, Social, and Legal Perspectives
- Search Engines-Technology, Society, and Business
- Bush Science: Use and Abuse of Science in Policymaking by Various.
26 Apr 19:56 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Libraries & Digital Information
April 8, 2006
Stanford on iTunes
Stanford University is using iTunes to deliver digital content. Part of the project is a completely free public site from which you can download lectures, music, and other stuff. Check it out here. You'll need iTunes, but I'm not sure whether or not you need an account to download.
There are lots of interesting lectures. All the audio I listen to tends to be music, but I think I'm going to forgo the music once in a while to listen to some of these. Some recommended downloads (even though I've only listened to a few of them so far):
- Daniel Dennett: Intelligent Design
- Peter Godfrey-Smith: Philosophy of Science
- Robert Sapolsky: Stress and Coping: What Baboons Can Teach Us
- Denise Clark Pope: Getting Ahead in School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students
- David Laitin and James Fearon: Postmodern Imperialism
- Laura Carstensen: Aging and the Perception of Time
- Robert Dunbar: Is Global Warming Real? Climate Change and Our Energy Future
- Steve Jobs: 2005 Commencement Address (or video)
While I'm on the topic of iTunes downloads, episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report can now be downloaded. They're expensive at $1.99 a pop, but you can also purchase a 'multi-pass' that gets you sixteen episodes for $9.99. (They download automatically the day after they air on TV.) It's still not the cheapest way to get your Daily Show or Colbert Report fix (at about 60¢ an episode), but it's very convenient. I got a pass for The Daily Show just out of curiosity, and once the sixteen episodes were up, I really missed being able to watch The Daily Show - commercial-free - whenever it was most convenient for me.
08 Apr 1:00 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Cool Links, Libraries & Digital Information, Technology & Computing
January 19, 2006
More Photos From Space
A great site I forgot to mention last week is hubblesite.org. Among other things, the site boasts a great selection of amazing Hubble photos. For starters, check out the Picture Album.
Many of these images are great for desktop backgrounds. My display's resolution is 1680 x 1050, so even the pre-sized 1280 x 1024 'wallpaper' images look pixelated. Luckily, the site also provides extremely high resolution versions of most of the photos. Visit the News Center for the best hi-res photos. Check out "Abstract Art Found in the Orion Nebula," for example.
19 Jan 20:04 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Photography, Science
December 20, 2005
Unveil the fraud
This link has been on just about every site lately, but I'm still posting it for those of you who might not have seen it. It's basically the same as some of the other 'before and after retouching' examples I've linked to before (like this one), but it uses Flash to make the process a little more interactive and highlight all the small changes. If nothing else, it will hopefully make you chuckle when you see those stupid magazines in supermarket lines created by businesses that search for the most physically attractive people in the entire population, fix them up, photograph them, and then run them through Photoshop to make them look even better.
20 Dec 2:13 | Link | Category: Cool Links
December 16, 2005
iTunes Signature Maker
This is pretty useless, but also fairly cool: Jason Freeman's iTunes Signature Maker. It analyzes your iTunes library and, based on preferences you can set, mixes your most played/highest rated/most recently added songs into a 'signature' of tunes.
Here's a signature from some of my highly rated songs (4 MB WAV).
16 Dec 23:38 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Interactive, Music, Technology & Computing
November 9, 2005
Solar System To Scale
I'm always fascinated by scale models of the solar system. I remember seeing one that stretched miles and miles across a city. They help put the incredible distances of the solar system in perspective (though they still fail to help our brains grasp the vastness of interstellar and intergalactic space).
Now the web has its own scale model. It doesn't convey the mind-boggling amounts of empty space like real-world models do, but for being confined to a computer screen, it's pretty cool.
(via J-Walk)
09 Nov 18:59 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Science
November 8, 2005
CommonCensus
The CommonCensus Map Project redraws the U.S. map based on boundaries perceived by people. "It shows how the country is divided into 'spheres of influence' between different cities at the national, regional, and local levels." It's pretty interesting for some reason. If you go to the maps page, you can get a local view of the New York City region and Manhattan neighborhoods. You can also see how the national map has evolved as more votes were tallied.
08 Nov 21:28 | Link | Category: Cool Links
August 21, 2005
Cool personal web site
This is something I probably haven't said since about '99 or 2000, but here's a fun, creative personal web site: Rtm86.com. It would seem I'm the last person to hear about it since it already won a Webby, but if you haven't seen it either, check it out.
21 Aug 23:04 | Link | Category: Cool Links
June 19, 2005
One Free Minute
"What would you say, given one free minute of anonymous, uncensored speech?"
One Free Minute is a mobile sculpture designed to allow for instances of anonymous public speech. When you call the cellphone inside One Free Minute, you get connected for exactly a minute to a 200 watt amplifier and speaker. The speech produced by the speaker can be heard clearly more than 150 feet away from the sculpture.
Read a Wired News article about it.
19 Jun 23:12 | Link | Category: Cool Links
May 2, 2005
Cloud & Weather Photos
If you're fascinated by clouds like I am, check out The Cloud Appreciation Society. There are quite a few nice photos in their gallery. This also reminds me that one of the local weather forecasters here in SLC posts cool weather photos that are pretty fun to look through as well.
02 May 11:39 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Photography, Science
April 8, 2005
Google Maps
If you've been under a rock for a few days, you might have missed all the buzz about the new satellite imagery feature from Google Maps. Check out Google Sightseeing (from Shreddies) for quick aerial visits to places like Rainbow Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Neverland Ranch. Chris of Cynical-C has also put up a list of interesting views from the Golden Gate Bridge and Las Vegas Strip to Burning Man setup.
I have to agree with Mark Morford's assessment that it's creepy, but in a very cool way. I'm actually a little surprised by the buzz, since TerraServer has been around for ages, and their aerial photos are far more detailed than Google's. But apparently Google's imagery is more comprehensive. And the interface and loading speed are both quite impressive.
Incidentally, TerraServer has a collection of famous places, too. Click the "urban areas" tab (when available) for color photos.
Now I'm going to sit back, imagine the CIA spying on me, and muse on that whole WMD thing. I have this vivid memory from school during the 80s of some official-ish person telling my class that, using spy satellites, the military could tell if someone was drinking Coke or Pepsi (ah, for the heydays of the cola wars...) because they could tell what color of aluminum can a person was holding. I've always wondered if that was true...
Oh, here are a few of my creepy TerraServer photos:
- Part of my university's campus
- The neighborhood where I spent the first half of my life (things do look a bit different now)... I'll spare you the long slideshow of other places I've lived.
Weird. Anyway, remember: You are being watched.
08 Apr 14:53 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Libraries & Digital Information, Misc. Tidbits, Technology & Computing, Travel
November 16, 2004
10x10
10x10 is an interesting - and fairly useful - flash app. It's a grid of the top 100 words (and corresponding images) in the news for any given hour. "10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories."
16 Nov 17:21 | Link | Category: Cool Links
June 27, 2004
Text Stereograms
There's no doubt you've seen stereograms, those fuzzy images that become three dimensional if you stare at them correctly... but check out this text stereogram made simply out of text.
27 Jun 21:48 | Link | Category: Cool Links
May 26, 2004
Visual Illusion
John thinks this visual illusion may be the best ever. I have to admit it's pretty damn cool. I always assumed drugs were required for sitting around staring intently and amazedly at one's hand.
26 May 1:07 | Link | Category: Cool Links
Newsmap
Newsmap is a web app that visualizes items from the Google News aggregator in a clever graphic interface. It's probably easier to just read the Google News page, but this looks a lot cooler.
(via scrubbles.net)
26 May 0:24 | Link | Category: Cool Links
May 20, 2004
What We Want
Randomize facial parts and personal ads to find out what we want.
(via Idle Type)
20 May 1:41 | Link | Category: Cool Links
December 4, 2003
Last month's favorite bookmarks
Some of my favorite bookmarks from the last month:
- Grandma Knapp's '37 Road Trip
- Nokia Shorts, a collection of very short films
- pianographique
04 Dec 11:24 | Link | Category: Cool Links
October 3, 2003
World Sunlight Map
This is kinda cool: World Sunlight Map, a rectangular projection of our planet showing current sunlight and cloud cover. Back in the Eighties, my dad's office had one of these (sans the cool graphics), and I was fascinated by it. Also see the hemisphere view and a look at the moon.
03 Oct 1:01 | Link | Category: Cool Links
September 25, 2003
Plastic surgery gone bad
Awful Plastic Surgery is a blog chronicling celebrity plastic surgery.
25 Sep 23:57 | Link | Category: Cool Links
September 16, 2003
Visual Elements Periodic Table
The Visual Elements Periodic Table contains basic information about each element accompanied by artwork / animation.
16 Sep 15:37 | Link | Category: Cool Links
August 28, 2003
Cool walking animation
Check out the BML Walker, an animation of walking with adjustable sliders for gender, weight, and mood.
28 Aug 12:56 | Link | Category: Cool Links
August 15, 2003
Life Simulator
Someone sent me a link to The Simulator. Luckily, my life is not quite that banal and predictable (though sometimes it gets uncomfortably close).
15 Aug 23:15 | Link | Category: Cool Links
June 24, 2003
Predictions for Life in in the year 2000
Predictions for life in the year 2000, circa 1900.
24 Jun 22:58 | Link | Category: Cool Links
June 5, 2003
Playing With Time
Playing With Time is a "project that looks at how the world around you is changing over many different time periods." Be sure to check out their gallery, full of cool time lapse / slow motion movies.
05 Jun 23:54 | Link | Category: Cool Links
Light pollution
The weather has been perfect lately. This includes nighttime, so once or twice I've decided to go outside and have a look at the stars... both times were disappointing. It's only possible to see the very brightest stars. I guess I'll have to trek out to the middle of nowhere (as if I don't live there already) just to see a decent view of the night sky. Read all about light pollution.
05 Jun 23:52 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Science
May 31, 2003
What's in your body?
Researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found in the group. Like most of us, the people tested do not work with chemicals on the job and do not live near an industrial facility. Learn about the study and results at BodyBurden. (Make sure to visit the test results page.)
31 May 1:23 | Link | Category: Cool Links
May 17, 2003
Beauty Averaged = Average Beauty?
A interesting German study used a specialized software program to find the average attractive (and unattractive) faces for both males and females, among other things. If you ask me, their greatest success was in creating a bunch of very boring character-less faces.
There's lots of interesting material, though. Learn about average faces, symmetry (apparently "symmetry only seems to be a rather weak indicator for attractiveness"), virtual attractiveness, characteristics of beautiful faces, social perception, and perhaps the oddest page, Virtual Miss Germany, where the morphed face of all contestants is amazingly similar to the face of the winner.
17 May 1:18 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior
May 7, 2003
Optical illusions
Trick and confuse your brain with Akiyoshi's illusion pages.
07 May 21:49 | Link | Category: Cool Links
November 13, 2002
Ad slogan generator, Googlism
New from thesurrealist.co.uk: the Advertising Slogan Generator.
Also check out Googlism if you haven't already done so. A search on my name reveals that I am an unlikely guitar hero, a professional speaker, and a legend in the world of gold mining and metal detecting.
Googlefight is always fun, too.
13 Nov 15:25 | Link | Category: Cool Links
October 20, 2002
Stereotypes
Check out stereotypes over at ericmyer.com. Is that not cool?
20 Oct 23:17 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Photography
March 20, 2002
nobodyhere
Today I found nobodyhere.com and wasted lots of time there.
20 Mar 23:59 | Link | Category: Cool Links
March 12, 2002
In Passing
Today I discovered this cool little site In Passing, a collection of random bits of overheard conversations and observed graffiti.
12 Mar 23:54 | Link | Category: Cool Links