Entries Tagged 'Random' ↓

If you remember that piece of toast that apparently had a picture of the Virgin Mary appear on it and was sold via Ebay to, I think, a casino for a huge sum… you can now get your own on a daily basis with the Holy Toast Bread Stamp. Well you could if it wasn’t sold out, not to fear though, more are expected in January.

Have to read the most recent xkcd, I just love the idea of baking someone a cake shaped like the internet.

Multiplication isn’t THAT difficult, but if you are bored with the usual methods, here’s a visual way:

Easy Mental Multiplication Trick – video powered by Metacafe

I’ve linked to xkcd before and will again… (you have to click on the link/image to get the whole comic).

Apparently, as of May 2006, there were at least 360,000 Australian blogs. Here is a webcast on how you can set one up yourself. Also so you don’t get into trouble, a legal guide and a guide to blogging anonymously from the EFF (US). As well as some directories listing Australian blogs:
AustralianBlogs.com.au
The Australian Index
Australian Blogwise Listings

I have made myself a yahoo avatar:

It’s really great to see that you can also get “plus sized” avatars unlike Stardolls Medoll app where you can go as far as slightly curvy (albeit somewhat breasty) as the maximum setting on body type. Apparently, the Stardolls service, social networking via paperdolls, is growing in popularity and has recently attracted an extra US$6million from venture capitalists. Its main selling point is that you can dress celebrities like Orlando Bloom and Paris Hilton as paperdolls.

You have to be grateful for the joy that Hello Kitty has brought us, especially a story like this one: Exploding Hello Kitty toys recalled – Engadget

Takara is being forced to recall specific Hello Kitty dolls which featured a heatable disc that could be warmed and stuffed within the lining to keep kids toasty while resting. Apparently the microwavable pad housed a chemical substance (manufactured by ADEKA) not quite stable enough to handle the heat, sparking a lengthy list of of cases where the liquid erupted from its container and provided an uncomfortable surprise to the poor soul embracing the creature’s volcanic warmth.

This was a solution raised by Engadget (they are Hello Kitty fire extinguishers):

This is way cooler than Guitar Hero…

UrbanGuitar.com :: Main Stage :: Guitarmed and Dangerous

New Yorkers David Hindman and Evan Drummond have created a new form of gaming, and the guitar- a real one- is the controller. Conceived and developed while Hindman was a student at New York University, “Modal Kombat” is an extension of the classic game Mortal Kombat. Instead of battling with buttons, however, characters fight by responding to notes, chords, and melodies played live by participants on guitar. The resulting performance is “a modern-day ‘dueling banjos,’” says Hindman.

There’s some video of it on the modalkombat.com site.

Some cool things from BoingBoing.net today:

I really wish my local pool would get one of these Giant inflatable climbing-iceberg for your pool

Giant inflatable climbing-iceberg for your pool This 14-foot-tall inflatable pool-iceberg will set you back about $9,000 (not including the pool and the back-yard), but it looks like it just might be worth it. it doubles as a climbing-wall, with ascents from easy to pro. Link (via Wonderland)

Wonderful hippopotamus service WSJ: In 2003, he met a ceramics scholar for lunch and they wound up talking about Royal Copenhagen’s 1880s dinner patterns, and how they often featured bears, ducks or birds. Mr. Cohen said, “You know, I think I’d like to see a hippo on one of those.” He scrounged for antique etchings of hippos but eventually decided to go all out and hire photographer Sarah Galbraith to document the names and faces of nearly every hippo in captivity — she ultimately traveled to 101 zoos in 33 countries, including Vietnam, South Africa, Australia and Sri Lanka. (She has chronicled her trips in a blog, “Joined at the Hippo: The story of traveling the world, one hippo at a time.”) Back home in Oyster Bay, N.Y., Mr. Cohen sifted through 3,000 images and sent his favorites to Royal Copenhagen, which hadn’t received a commission of this scale in at least a century. He asked for the hippos to be painted on the company’s renowned Flora Danica pattern — also found in the collection of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II — with enough teacups and dinner plates to serve a five-course meal for 18. The 231-year-old porcelain company has about 25 artisans who can paint the pattern for regular, five-person place settings (cost: about $6,000). But because of the scale of this commission, the company called in semi-retired master [Mr] Nielsen to do the entire set. (Mr. Cohen says he doesn’t plan to sell the collection, or eat off it.) [via Mister Jalopy Link]

I love the fact that such valued labour has actually gone into this. As Mister Jalopy points out “$400,000 is a rounding error when purchasing an impressionist painting that adds no value to the world; it merely transfers bragging rights. It wasn’t $400k charged by a private equity fund for management costs incurred while splitting up a venerable family company, it was spent hiring a photographer, painters and one of the five remaining porcelain companies that can still execute such a noble effort. There are valid discussions about distribution of wealth, but this is not one of them.” Here much of the money has actually gone into hiring (and thereby supporting) living skilled workers. It’s not millions of dollars being paid to a celebrity to say that they just merely use a product while the person who made it is on slave labour wages.

Like children’s names, you should think of all possible combinations of your website. Don’t presume that your website will look the same after you have removed the spaces! Here are some more sites along the lines of the wonderful Pen Island. I also love the fact that Pen Island feels the need to have this on their site:

Don’t be fooled by those imposters at www.penisland.org, or www.pen-island.net, we’re the real deal!

As if anyone would want to copy that name for pens! My favourite after PI is the Therapist Finder. If only they had seen the Arrested Development episode where we all found out that calling yourself a combination of an analyst and a therapist ie an analrapist is a bad idea.