The vagarities of life have made me fall very far behind in my websurfing and weblogging, but here are a few things that I have been enjoying as I have been catching up on my RSS feeds:
The Pre-Ninja Program – a proposal for a new academic track by a community college administrator
Writers Against Piracy – the Improv Everywhere people take on your local public library
Girls watching Sneezing Baby Panda – it’s just layers on top of layers of adorable (here is the sneezing panda video the girls are watching)
I have no need for a 1470 piece tool set but I am browsing the photos of the set and coveting it. [via Boing Boing]
Who doesn’t love a dynamic map of botnets. Take the guided tour via the thumbnails…. [via Slashdot]
Start your needles….
I am very excited, because tomorrow I’m taking part in my first Sock Wars! It’s a single-elimination tournament where you assassinate your target by knitting and sending them a pair of socks before your assassin sends a pair to you. The sock pattern and target dossiers are being sent out tomorrow. I’m not the fastest knitter in the world and with it coming into finals, I’ll be pretty happy if I make it into the second round on my first time out. I went out and got my yarn and checked my gauge yesterday. I’m using this Sockotta yarn from Plymouth. I like knitting in the cotton/wool blend and I went with color pattern 6670 (one of the fair isle effect color patterns), which I think will knit up into pretty, bright spring socks. I’ll probably come back and post on my progress in the comments….
Someone in Spain is dress shopping…
I’m a fan of the different cool uses of Google Maps that keep popping up around the internet. ThisNext is a sort of weird shopping guide site that uses a social networking approach to shopping recommendations. It is not clear to me if there is a limitation on what products are covered or particular source that the products recommended are from. A lot of the products seem random. The site sells itself though with the worldwide shopping map that overlays images of and links to products that people are browsing through the site at that time, showing where in the world that person is browsing from. It is fairly addictive to watch. [via Clicked]
Mindbending
I wish I could remember where I saw a link to this odd little jigsaw puzzle, but it is very cool. Especially once you scroll down and read the directions and realize you can rotate pieces as well as drag them around the board to fit them together. It is both cute and fun. If you like that type of little game, or enjoy “brain teaser” type puzzles, the site as a whole is worth a browse. A lot of the games are fairly old, but the Flash implementations are quite nice. The I/O Puzzle is also worth a look – I’m still trying to figure that one out…
lolegg
Happy Easter!
Where *is* our time travel technology?
I have seen the short story Wikihistory linked from a lot of places (first, I think, from Boing Boing) and finally went and read it – it’s short and amusing so you should check it out too. It does a nice job playing with online conversation structures; I think that this format for this particular story lays out all of the information you want to know about this scenario in a very compact way. I do not think I would have wanted a longer-form version of the story. I definitely like the use of the “n00b” as a justification for dialog explaining what ought to be common knowledge about the world of the story.
One thing that did strike me was that I found the title misleading – I understand it is just a title and meant to be evocative but there was nothing that felt Wiki-like to this story and its structure or content. I found myself trying to figure out why this dialog would be specific to a forum associated with a Wiki and what the overall content of that Wiki would be and came to the conclusion that I was over thinking it and the Wiki portion was just meant to hint at the on-line nature of the interaction in the title. Or am I missing something?
Another Open Source Summer
If you are a student, like writing code, and are still looking for something interesting to do with your summer, you might want to check out Google Summer of Code 2008. Students are paired with mentoring organizations to participate in various open source development projects. The list of organizations interested in mentoring students has been recently posted, including summaries of the types of projects they may be interested in supporting. The program FAQ answers most of the key questions; student project proposals are due at the end of the month.
Flames! Gears! Excitement!
I was just notified [Thanks T!] that ESPN wants to sponsor a Collegiate BattleBots Championship and I am semi-seriously wondering if there is any interest among my students because WOW would that be fun. It doesn’t look like there have been any competitions since 2005, so they are still investigating whether there is enough interest to actually do this.
It actually makes me wondering if there is some sort of tie in with Doonesbury – this week they are rerunning their awesome series from last January where Alex is off at MIT competing in a robot competition. Go check it out – start back at the beginning of the week.
Since I have no better context for this link: another crazy and possibly dangerous thing I could make is Beer Cheese Cupcakes with Bacon Cheddar Cream Cheese Frosting. I am disturbingly tempted….
Simple but addictive
In between tackling chunks of the pile of work in front of me, I’ve been poking and dragging my way through the levels of Untangle. It’s an insanely simple game – dots are connected with lines, and you drag the dots around until none of the lines cross. I am up to level 18 out of 20 and it is getting quite hard, but there is still something soothing about the combination of luck, logic, and trial-and-error that seems to work best for tackling the puzzles. Plus, it’s a pretty game, if you ignore or hide the chat window in the sidebar that varies between inane and obscene. There is the corner of my brain that tells me I could get the same enjoyment – and actually accomplish something useful – by untangling some of my messier skeins of yarn, but I tell that corner of my brain to hush.
Dinner Reruns
There are a ton of memes like this, but I’m thinking of keeping my weblogging juices flowing by taking part in these Weekend Assignment weblogging prompts. It is contrived, but looking back the questions seem pretty good.
This week we are asked:
Weekend Assignment #201: To promote a new cooking show, a TV station is going to pay you $500 to eat the same basic meal every day for a week, prepared with only minor variations by their on-screen host. What’s on the menu?
Extra credit: Do you tend to eat the same thing all the time anyway?
For me, the answer to the extra credit pretty much answers the first question. I definitely get in food ruts where I eat the same thing for a week or two straight. I made a huge batch of Susie’s Green-Curry Shrimp last week and have been eating it basically every night since then, making up fresh rice in my microwave rice cooker as needed. I do that with stew and chili a lot also – I can eat either every night for a week easily, especially if it is within the “rules” (or, my own inclination to bake or go to the store) to have fresh bread or biscuits with it.
So, really, this doesn’t sound like a challenge at all so long as it is something I like okay. But, I’ve never understood people who didn’t like leftovers. There is a show on the Food Network right now that seems to be all about how to get three different meals out of the same ingredients and preparation processes – it just seems easier and no less appealing to make three times as much of the first dish and be done with it.