I know this post is a day late...but I got busy and forgot I had some good stuff to show you. Good weekend fun too, so I don't think you'll mind it a day late.
Like me, you probably thought that weblogs (or blogs) were a relatively new phenomenon. Well, think again. OK, I'm kidding. But suppose for a minute that social media tools were around back at the turn of the last century (the 20th, I mean.) This blog will show you what I mean. There are a lot of interesting photos, some that will make you smile, some that are chilling. But they're all interesting.
This guy makes big, big pictures. I can only imagine what they'd look like if we could see them live...but it's when you look closer that you realize just how much of an impact they're making. These large prints are made up of thousands of smaller photos and they're designed to make a statement about consumption.
This week, a selection of landscape photography photos that are simply spectacular. They are the kind of pictures that most of us only dream of creating.
I've got a mixed bag of entertainment this Friday. There's an interactive segment involving a dog and typing; a bit of a how-to (although I doubt you can); an imaginative video using Flash; and a quiz to test your intellect. Oh...and a gratuitous guitar video (just because).
Like I said, it's a mixed bag, but hey -- it's almost the weekend, right?
Here we go...
I do dog tricks
This is the interactive part. Click this link and you'll figure out what's required. Can anyone say "precious?"
How to create a 3-D sidewalk image
I've linked to some previous videos about 3-D sidewalk artists (here's one of my posts) and I think I've seen the one that's the subject of this video before. But this is a video about how the piece was made. It's fascinating to see the care that goes into creating the illusion of depth using a 2-D picture. It's kind of long, but interesting.
Do you like challenges? I found another on-line science quiz from the BBC. This is a hard one -- at least I didn't do that well. Surprising how often the right answer is not what you expected.
Don't know? Well, if you have ever heard of the word, then you probably know it's a fear of Friday the 13th. So, in honour of today, here's a link to an article on Wikipedia that explains just what all the fuss is about this day.
Before the 19th century, though the number 13 was considered unlucky, and Friday was considered unlucky, there was no link between them. The first documented mention of a "Friday the 13th" is generally listed as occurring in the early 1900s.
However, documentation aside, many popular stories exist about the origin of the concept:
* The Last Supper, with stories that Judas was the thirteenth guest, and that the Crucifixion of Jesus occurred Friday. * That the biblical Eve offered the fruit to Adam on a Friday, and that the slaying of Abel happened on a Friday (though the Bible does not identify the days of the week when these events occurred). * That it started on Friday, October 13, 1307, the date that many Knights Templar were simultaneously arrested in France, by agents of King Philip IV.
However, historically, there is no true date that the Friday the 13th superstition can be linked to.
There's lots more interesting stuff in the article, such as that there are more traffic accidents on a Friday the 13th (at least in Britain) and of course, there's the regular biker run to Port Dover, ON, that occurs every time a Friday the 13th rolls around.
There are also links to other sites and articles about the day. So if you're interested, give it a read.
One more thing
Since this day is a bit spooky, I've got a little exercise for you that seems a bit spooky as well. Just go ahead and follow the directions when you get to this site and you'll see what I mean.
If you can figure out what's going on, let us know in the comments, please. I suspect I've figured it out (actually, my daughter, Jaime, did) but I want to see whether others agree with her.
The weekend's almost here and it's been a tough week in the blogosphere. So I thought it would be nice to see something that makes you feel good about stuff. And I found it.
Le me introduce you to FreeHugsCampaign.org, the official home of the Free Hugs Campaign. You might have heard about this already. It was started by a guy from Australia who just wanted to give people a hug.
Sometimes, a hug is all what we need.
Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.
In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.
As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.
In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person...
It's turned into quite the movement.
Go ahead and watch the video on the site...then tell me that you're not feeling better about things.
Who ever heard of a funny economist?
Well...it happens.
I came across this video on YouTube that fits my idea of Friday fun.
It's very, very funny.
I wish my professors at University could deliver lectures like this!
To watch the video click on the image below, or follow this link to YouTube.
I've always been fascinated by savants, but while I watched Rainman and I've seen the odd documentary on TV, I never delved into the topic further.
Then I saw this post on Boing Boing. It linked to some video from CBS's 60 Minutes featuring a story on Daniel Tammet. He's a UK savant believed to be the first ever who does not suffer any obvious disabilities (such as autism, deafness, blindness, etc.)
I've just got a single video for you this week. But it's a long one and it's worth it.
This car goes really, really fast.
True, there is a lot of talk about global warming and the need to reduce our dependency on oil and run more efficient cars, etc.
But there are times when you see a car that you just sit back and say "Wow!"
This is one of those times.
The car is the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. It's the world's "fastest, most powerful, and most expensive street-legal production car in the world." It goes 407 kmh. It's got 10 radiators. And a stereo. And airbags. And it costs about CDN $1.9 million. Wow.
Here's a story about the Bugatti in Wikipedia. And here's the link to the official Bugatti website (but beware, it's a Flash site that takes a long time to load.) And here's an interesting article about the technology in this amazing piece of machinery.
But words aside, seeing is believing, as they say.
So check out this video to get a sense of just how ridiculously fast this thing is. It's a longish video (about 8 minutes or so) but it's well done. And even if you're not that crazy about fast cars (but seriously, who isn't?) you'll still like it.
This week, I've got a single post for you, which I found via Digg.
It's part of something called the Google Earth Community, which is where people who are using Google Earth have created tours that you can take of interesting locations. If you've never played with Google Earth, I highly recommend downloading it and fooling around. You'll be amazed how much fun flying around the world can be.
Here's where you can go and read about the Google Earth program and download a free copy. Go ahead...we'll wait.
But even if you don't have a copy of the program, you'll enjoy browsing through this file, which features pictures and descriptions of the most extreme places on Earth.
Mind you, if you do use Google Earth, just load it up, then download the file I've linked to, by clicking on the "View in Google Earth" button. When you launch that file, it will take you on a round-the-world tour of some of the most extreme places in the world. At each stop, you'll see little marks that you can click on and view pictures that people have taken themselves, then uploaded to Google Earth. It's a pretty cool little community they're building.
There's lots more to do, I'm sure, although I haven't used the program much. But here's a link to something called the Google Earth User Guide which has a lot of tips for getting started and using the program.
The file I've pointed you to is a series which features snippets and photos of the earth's extremes. For example:
Mt. Baker, Washington : Snowiest Place On The Earth The highest seasonally cumulative precipitation of snow ever measured was on Mount Baker, Washington during the 1998–1999 season. Mount Baker received a staggering 29 m of snow, thus surpassing the previous record holder, Mount Rainier, Washington which during the 1971–1972 season received 28.5 m of snow.
Karl-Marx-Hof, Vienna, Austria : Longest residential building on the Earth The Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna, Austria holds the distinction of being the longest single residential building in the world at over one kilometer in length (1100m) and spanning four tram stops.
Jack Hills, Australia : Oldest piece of earth on the Earth The Jack Hills are located in the Narryer Gneiss Terrane of the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia, and comprise an 80 km long northeast-trending belt of folded and metamorphosed supracrustal rocks.This is the oldest piece of earth on the earth
Mount Thor, Canada : Greatest Vertical Drop on the Earth Mount Thor is a mountain in Auyuittuq National Park, on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada, this is the greatest vertical drop on the earth.
Photography -- specifically cool pictures -- is the theme for this week. And I've also thrown in a video that seems particularly apt, since Roxy, our Golden retriever, had surgery this week.
First, the video. Ever wonder what Olivia Newton-John has been doing since she finished the movie version of Grease? Well...now you know! Click the video below or use this link to find out.
Now, for the photos...feel free to branch off from any of these sites for lots more interesting stuff.
For a Prairie boy like me, there's nothing like a good storm photo to bring back memories of home. But I've rarely seen storms like these ones!
And here's something that I've often wished I'd done with our family. What a treasured keepsake this website will become. And in the meantime, what an interesting thing for us to look at.
And finally, check out this photo of Toronto. Try to figure out why you're looking at it. (HINT: Move your cursor from one side to the other...)
So what do you think? have you got any cool photo sites to share?
I'm going to be attending Northern Voice, a blogger's conference in Vancouver, this Friday and Saturday, so I may or may not be putting up some posts over the weekend.
But I couldn't resist posting this great video for our Friday fun piece, especially because I've been on a bit of a customer service kick this week.
You might think that the concept of the "Help Desk" is relatively new and only started with the advent of computers in the workplace. But as you'll see, it's got a much older pedigree. Once thing that hasn't changed, however, is the basic question "How does this thing work?"
Unfortunately, the video that I was going to point you to has been pulled from YouTube, so I'll show you the original version, which is in Norwegian. If you understand it, great. If not, you'll still get the gist of it. But the English subtitles on the other one were nice.
The gist of the video is that the one guy can't figure out how to get his book open. Then he's worried about whether he'll lose the text inside if he closes it. Etc. Fortunately, the help desk guy is able to show him how things work.
Watch the video by clicking on the picture below, or use this link.
One of the things that's great about YouTube and Google Video is how often you find things you've never even heard of, let alone had a chance to appreciate. Today, we'll look at a few of them.
Ever heard of sand art? And not the castles on the beach kind...I haven't heard of it either, but this woman does some amazing things with it. Click on the video below, or use this link.
And here's another art form that I doubt very much you will have heard of before. I certainly haven't. Again, click on the video below, or use this link.
This clip is not very artistic, but it's very funny. And yes, strange but true, the guy in these videos did go on to become the most powerful man in the world. Watch it on video below, or use this link.
And finally, here's something that does double duty for me. It's something that you have probably never seen before - a harp guitar? - and it's a guitar video!
I've got something a little different for today's Friday fun. If you're only interested in laughing like crazy, you might want to look elsewhere, like here, perhaps.
Today, I'm posting links to two videos. Neither is really "funny" so I'm straying a bit from my own guidelines on what a Friday fun piece should be.
But this past week, I've been working a fair bit on trying to establish just what is meant by the term Web 2.0, especially around how the software tools and on-line communities that it's spawned can be used by communicators in their day-to-day activities.
So both of the videos I've got try to explain what Web 2.0 is.
I've posted them together because they also demonstrate how powerful a presentation can be in helping you make your point. Or more accurately, how two presentations on the same subject can be so different.
The first video is a fairly complete overview of Web 2.0, based on the information contained in the now somewhat-dated Wikipedia entry on Web 2.0, as of Feb 23, 2005.
It's a bit dry but it covers the topic. If you're up-to-speed on Web 2.0, you might want to skip this first one and just go straight to the second video.
The second video covers some of the same ground, but does it by demonstrating, in a creative way, the power of the new software. I think you'll agree that it's a lot more powerful and makes you appreciate just how significant some of these advances have been as we've moved from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.
To see this one, just click on the image below, or go here to watch it on YouTube.
So what do you think? Which version do you prefer? Post your opinion in the comments and we'll see which style appeals to TheDailyUpload readers.
And what the heck, just to make sure you're not too disappointed in my Friday fare, here's a guitar video, just because it's Friday. "Come Together" seemed appropriate, given that the Beatles and Apple have finally settled their trademark differences. Hopefully, we'll soon see the Beatles music available on ITunes!
It's Groundhog Day. So it only makes sense to refer you to several write-ups about this historic day, beginning with Wikipedia:
Groundhog Day is a traditional festival celebrated in the United States and Canada on February 2. It is a cross-quarter day, midway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox.
In traditional weather lore, if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow because the weather is bright and clear, it will be frightened and run back into its hole, and the winter will continue for six more weeks.
Hmmm...not quite the deep, belly-laugh-inducing quote I was looking for.
Or, better yet, read what Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog) actually said this morning. (You can find anything on the Internet, can't you?)
For the record, all the various groundhog-sages consulted this morning predict an early spring.
Other diversions
If you've had enough of puzzling over the weather, here's a site that will let you puzzle over other things.
Mighty Optical Illusions is a website that publishes various optical illusions and usually goes on to explain them. It's not particularly deep but it does provide some useful options for procrastinating.
I don't particularly like all the ads that are wrapped around everything, but if you can get past that part -- there's some interesting things in there.
I'm particularly fond of the Stereogram type of illusion, where you have to let your eyes relax and then suddenly you see a 2-D object in 3-D, sometimes with startling results. Here's an example.
If you like these things enough to see them every day, there are a couple of widgets available that you can download to have a new illusion show up on your desktop every day. Here's how to get one for your Google homepage, and here's a link to a Mac widget. (And here's an explanation of widgets, if you need it.)
And finally, have you ever wondered what people that work at home do to celebrate casual Fridays? Well, now you know.
After all the fuss this week with my attempts to get Blogger's Custom Domains option working, I'm not sure whether anyone is actually seeing (or reading) this post. But it's almost the weekend, so it's time for another Friday Fun session.
This week, I've got three items, which will delight and amaze you:
1) A set of lyrics (ready to be turned into a great video)
2) A video about spiders (seriously!)
3) Another video on magnets.
Intrigued? Here we go...
David Pogue's ode to the RIAA
The RIAA is the group that represents record companies in the US. They've built a well-deserved reputation for being absolutely nuts about protecting their copyright, with one of their favourite tactics being taking individuals to court for illegal downloads.
New York Times' technology writer David Pogue has written a delightful parody of the Village Peoples' hit, YMCA, which you should enjoy singing along with.
Remember those great TV spots from the Canadian Wildlife Service that we used to watch? With the lovely music and the loons? Well, they're back...sort of. A Canadian film-maker has copied the style to bring us the results of a fascinating experiment that looks at what happens when illegal drugs are tested on spiders. The interesting results are narrated by CBC's Scott Walker, a well-known radio voice to many of us. Here's the link to YouTube, or click on the video below.
I'm not sure what this shows us, but it's pretty cool
Today's topic is laughter. We're going to look at it from a couple of directions.
First up is a video that proves the old adage that laughter is contagious. I'm not going to say much about this video. But I guarantee that you'll be laughing your lungs out during it. If you don't - well, I don't believe you.
You can watch the video below or click on this link to see it on YouTube.
"A smile is just a smile..."
My second item has a bit more scientific basis. While it won't make you laugh out loud, it might make you smile. Or at least, make you think about other people smiling.
Courtesy of the BBC website, I invite you to take this simple test to see whether you can figure out the difference between a fake smile and a real one.
Why do I want you to do that? Well...take the test and then let me know in the comments why you think I've added it here.
If you've got an extra building in your portfolio, or if you live next door to a blank wall, you should consider hiring this chap to spruce things up a bit.
I've always admired people who have the courage of their convictions - perhaps because I sometimes doubt my own resolve in that regard.
Today, I thought I'd point you to two video documentaries on artists who live their lives and create their art based on their own convictions.
I think you'll enjoy these, and I've also included links to other websites where you can find more information, if you want it. (By the way, I found both of these sites using my latest friend, StumbleUpon. It gives you more than just the latest exploding Coke bottle stuff.)
Have a great weekend.
POPaganda - The Art and Subversion of Ron English
Here's an excerpt about Ron English, from Wikipedia:
Ron English is a contemporary pop artist who explores popular brand imagery and advertising.
One aspect of his work involves 'liberating' commercial billboards with his own messages. Frequent targets of his work include Joe Camel, McDonalds, and Mickey Mouse. Ron English can be considered the "celebrated prankster father of agit-pop", who wrangles carefully created corporate iconographies so that they are turned upside down, and are used against the very corporation they are meant to represent. Ron English has also painted several album covers including The Dandy Warhols album cover "Welcome to the Monkey House". Some of his paintings are also used in Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me
The video I've linked to is an excerpt from a longer documentary that you can buy on DVD through English's website, at Popaganda.com.
Watch the video below, or click here to see it on Google Video.
Bob Brozman - guitarist, anarchist, anthropologist
My second video clip features Bob Brozman, who has been travelling the world for 30 years, spreading his own unique vision through his amazing blues guitar tunes. This lengthy (23 minutes!) documentary features interviews with the artist as well as excerpts from some of his concerts.
If you like what you see, visit his website for more info and links to his music, etc.
Here's an excerpt from the website:
Bob Brozman is a guitarist like no other: an established and prolific recording artist, performer, producer, and author, Bob is a non-stop world traveler and tireless researcher in ethnomusicology. His work with musicians from around the world in the past several years has marked him as not only a virtuoso musician and slide guitarist, but also as a pioneer in finding a common thread among global musical cultures.
Watch the video clip below, or click here to see it on YouTube:
Let's start off the new year by looking back into the past.
Today's fun segment is a bit different than the last few.
Rather than just sit back and laugh at a video (not that that isn't a lot of fun, mind you) I thought you might enjoy cruising through The Internet Archive.
Perhaps you've heard of this place. It has the distinction, in my humble view, of having one of the most ambitious mission statements I've ever seen:
The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections.
If you've never visited, you should go and take a look around. It's a fascinating journey. The About page, where the above quote is from, is a great place to start, just to get a sense of what the place is all about.
Then scoot on over to the Home page and take a trip on TheWayBack Machine. This is one of the coolest features of the Internet Archives. There are now over 85 billion pages archived on the site, going back to 1996.
All you need to do is type in a URL of a site and you'll be given a list of all the pages they've got. It's a fascinating way to look back at how a site has evolved over the years, in both design and content. It's easy to spend quite a while loohttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifking through the history of some of your favourite places.
The site offers other archives besides web pages, including moving images, live music, audio and texts. They work in much the same manner, where you either browse randomly, or use specific search functions. Either way, you can spend a lot of time noodling around, so it's a great feature for a lazy Friday afternoon or a weekend.
By now, I'm sure you've realized that I like to find funny and interesting videos on the Web. But there are a lot of videos out there, and you can end up burning a lot of time trying to find the good ones. So this week, I'm going to point you to a cool application I "stumbled" upon recently.
It works in a couple of ways. First, it's yet another online social network, which lets you register a profile and search for like-minded friends. But the site uses a unique way of presenting interesting sites, videos, etc. to you that it thinks you will like, based on the preferences you've put in.
Note that if you don't want to give the site a lot of your personal info, it still works just fine. You can either open the site's webpage, or for real convenience, you can download a toolbar for your browser that makes stumbling as easy as one click.
And while you stumble through the choices offered, you can tell the site whether you like the selections or not, so it learns what kind of content you like.
To be honest, I haven't used that part of the site very much, although it seems to work just fine.
But its the second option, called Stumble Video, that I've been using and really enjoying.
You just sign up and start clicking. Once you've entered a list of topics you're interested in, the site will start serving up video clips from all over the Web that it thinks you might like. Again, you rate them while you watch and if you don't like it, just click again to serve up a new one.
It's very addictive and a lot of fun.
For example, here are three sites that I Stumbled Upon in one sitting:
Political Gaffes are always fun It's almost Christmas and that means that we'll be seeing plenty of lists of best of's, worst of's, most liked, most disliked, etc.
While I'm a big fan of technology, there is a flip side. With the growth of hand-held tech toys that take photos and videos, and the explosive growth of places like YouTube, where anyone can post a video for the world, there are plenty of privacy issues that have yet to be worked out.
But there is one group that has already had to adjust to this new reality -- politicians. And if they haven't, they'd better watch out.
CNET has posted an interesting list of the Top 10 political gaffes of the past year, captured for all the world to see.
Before we start the weekend fun edition, a personal update.
I'm in Regina this week to visit with my Mom, who's getting ready for another one of those major life transitions that we all have to deal with at some point.
She's been living in Qu'Appelle House for several years now. The people there are wonderful and it's like being part of a wonderful, caring family. Unfortunately, to live there, you have to be able to get up on your own and get down to the dining room for meals.
My Mom has suffered a series of small strokes, called TIA's over the years and while she's been able to come back from each of them, this last one seems to have hurt her ability to control her legs. So now, at unexpected moments, her legs just give out on her. And it's not getting better.
So, I'm here to help get her organized for a move to another home where she can get the level of care she needs now. But it will be sad for her to leave her "family" and start over again at a new facility.
My story is certainly not unique. Since I've arrived here, I've run into several people who are either going through or have gone through or are expecting to go through something similar. I guess it's all a part of living, isn't it? Something else for my kids to look forward to.
OK, this is supposed to be fun, right?
Right.
So as you know, I've been busy the last couple of days, so I've only got one video for you this week. But it's a good one.
Here's a very clever look back at the year 2006, through the eyes of some kids in a school holiday concert. It was put together by the comedy site JibJab. It's funny, but be warned -- you need a sense of humour to enjoy it!
