A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff.
When these adventurous adrenaline junkies first started using the flying squirrel suits in base jumping, it was to see how far away from the cliff they could get. But then things got “boring” and now the idea is to get as close to the edges without actually touching.
[Flying Suit – Extreme Base Jumping – YouTube]
Greenpeace has launched a tongue-in-cheek website touting the tourism potential of the Alberta oil sands. The Greenpeace-produced site, travellingalberta.com, has an address similar to Alberta’s official tourism page, travelalberta.com, and is the conservation group’s response to the province’s $25-million campaign to improve the environmental image of Alberta’s energy industry.
[Explore Alberta – YouTube]
Minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation Cindy Ady was not impressed with the website.
“I’m a bit disappointed mostly on behalf of those who work so hard in this industry, but I also would say it’s not an accurate representation of this province.”
Every five years my dad’s side of the family holds a “Milner” family reunion. I’ll be up in the mountains this week to celebrate. Here are some historic Milner photos that were recently scanned by my uncle that I posted for this weekend.
These are interesting as just a collection of old photographs, aside from the obvious groove that I get from the fact that I’m related to these folks.
Play this audio clip again after it finishes and hear it continue to “creep up”.
See Wikipedia’s entry on Shepard Tone for the full scoop.
A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upwards or downwards, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower.
I’m not sure I could do this myself, but it’s something for possible consideration in dealing with my continuously overflowing inbox: Sentenc.es — A Disciplined Way To Deal With Email.
There are a number of different sentence numbers for your own response policy at http://two.sentenc.es/, http://three.sentenc.es/, http://four.sentenc.es/, or http://five.sentenc.es/.
Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, at a 2005 TED Talk speaks about the economics of car seats. The data led him to ask the morally difficult question: Are children’s car seats worth the time and expense it takes to use them?
Hit play or watch Steven Levitt on child car seats at TED.com.
The other day a friend asked if I would take part in the Foothills Charity Triathlon for Kid’s Hope Ethiopia. It’s actually a “mixed” triathlon in that, the three segments of the race are done by different people, so I’ll only be doing the 500m swimming section in Crystal Shores Lake (Okotoks, Alberta).
I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve never been much a distance swimmer, and though 500m isn’t exactly FAR (by most swimmers’ standards), it’s slightly out of reach for me to sprint the whole way though it wouldn’t surprise my former swim teammates if I tried.
http://www.foothillscharitytriathlon.com/
Wish me luck, and if you’re in the Calgary/Okotoks area, come and cheer for my team! The race happens Saturday, July 5th, 2008 starting at Crystal Shores Lake at 8:00am.
Those of you that enjoyed the colour changing card trick, may also enjoy this psychological card trick.
[Psychological Card Trick – YouTube]
Here’s some video footage of me going over Lundbreck Falls on my last kayaking trip taken by my friend Janson.
Also, check out Janson’s enthusiastic report on the trip.
Last September, four of the world’s most famous sceptics, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens gathered together for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion on religion, belief, and scepticism.