Here’s a fun distraction for your Friday: Sign in, wait for the green light, and type as fast as you can.
I did pretty well with my average 65wpm speed.
I usually don’t like to send on viral marketing links, it feels like I’m doing someone else’s job for them, but I liked the creativity used in this online store (not sure what language it’s written in). I think they actually sell everything you see. Here’s the link, and just to warn you, there is a bit of audio.
(via)
It took me a few days to get around to reversing the backwards message embedded in the I Am America (And So Can You) audiobook, but now that I have, let me just say, Stephen Colbert does not disappoint.
While complaining that seniors are from the library card generation, Stephen complains that “They don’t believe in buying multiple collector copies no matter what kind of rare, bizarre, or coded message appears in the first addition…” at which point (about 1:18 of track 3) the following audio is heard:
So there you go, proof positive that Stephen Colbert is a liberal and hates America.
I think Desktop Tower Defense is the most fun and addicting flash game I’ve ever played. It’s awesome, but be warned, don’t even start if you have work to do, because the addictiveness is off the charts.
More than just a simple puzzle game, Sprout features beautiful charcoal drawings as the basis for its graphics and style—a flash game that thinks it’s a children’s storybook.
Check out The Missing Link flash creation by interactive media artist Masayuki Kido. This is really cool. I don’t really have the words to summarize other than to say, it’s a series of silhouettes that appear and with the click of the mouse you can interact with them to see a near narrative unfold itself dynamically. I found it extremely compelling.
You might also want to check out Pictaps, another flash based diversion, on the same site, that allows you to draw a character, and then watch him dance to a silly song.
The Athiest Delusion (flash). Non-believers are such fools.
Quad! It’s like Tetris without gravity. Rows erase vertically as well as horizontally, and what’s left moves toward the centre instead of down. You win when the corner peices touch in the middle. Oh, and I should mention, it’s addictive.
Though I’ve found the turbulent history of the Middle East to be fascinating, I’ve never before found a resource so eloquent as the Maps of War Imperial History flash animation which enables one to see 5000 years of empire building and state history in about 90 seconds.
Though a lot of the empires shown here are familiar, I had no idea their respective magnitudes or durations.
(via Coolhunting)
Crazily addictive flash game, Line Rider.
Pictured here is a jump I made for the line rider that had him doing a back flip everytime.
(via Waxy)
Update: Some folks have uploaded their Line Rider attempts to YouTube.
I stumbled upon this neat little Stick Fighter Flash movie that is an interesting twist on the Tex Avery Chuck Jones cartoon episode (Duck Amuck) in which we see Daffy Duck being drawn by a sadistic artist. (It turns out Bugs Bunny is the animator—anyone remember that episode?)
Anyway it’s especially clever if you’re familiar with the Flash authoring software.
The Gapminder World 2006, beta is pretty cool. It also makes me a little more aware (maybe even uncomfortably so) of the world around me.
Don’t Shoot the Puppy is a clever flash game that made me laugh. The instructions are simple: don’t shoot the puppy. Just don’t do it.
The Song Tapper is a neat web application that can help identify a song that maybe stuck in your head, but maybe you don’t remember the name of it. The way it works is to just tap the spacebar to the rhythm of each syllable in the lyrics of the song you want to identify and then the server returns several possible names and artists. It’s fun and surprisingly accurate.