Categories
Art

Snowy Morning

The weather outside this morning inspired me to make this short winter movie (90 seconds).

[Snowy Morning – Flickr]

Categories
Statistics

New Visitors

I had a small flood of new visitors to the site yesterday—about 34,000. Welcome.

Update: Looks like most of you came from here.

Web traffic on google analytics

Categories
Art

Konflikt

Konflikt, (Conflict), is a 6 minute short film that re-enacts just about every boy’s childhood wargame fantasies—including the delicate operation of dealing with the dissonance that arises as one friend’s expectations don’t match the other’s imagination.

English speakers, be sure to turn on subtitles. Hit play or watch Konflikt on YouTube.

Categories
Music

Beatles Rooftop Concert

As often as I find myself listening to The Beatles, I haven’t seen much video footage of them playing (except from the Ed Sullivan show and in their movie, Help!).

Here they are, in colour, doing their most famous performance ever, The Beatles Rooftop Concert:

Hit play or watch The Beatles Rooftop Concert on YouTube. Also part 2 and part 3.

Categories
Art Sport

Cross Country Skiing the Goat Creek Trail

Over the weekend I had my first cross country skiing experience. Some friends and I took the Goat Creek Trail 19km from Canmore to Banff, and followed it up with a nice hot dip at the Banff Hot Springs.

Here’s a clip of my friend Duane zipping past the camera.

[Goat Trail – Flickr]

Footage by my friend Andy Davies.

Categories
humor

Henny Youngman

Jokes by Henny Youngman:

My wife and I have the secret to making a marriage last. Two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, a little wine, good food. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.

I know a man in Ft. Worth with 100,000 head of cattle. No bodies, just heads.

Someone stole all my credit cards, but I won’t be reporting it. The thief spends less than my wife did.

I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.

We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.

A man is at the bar, drunk. I pick him up off the floor, and offer to take him home. On the way to my car, he falls down three times. When I get to his house, I help him out of the car, and on the way to the front door, he falls down four more times. I ring the bell and say, “Here’s your husband!” The man’s wife says, “Where’s his wheelchair?”

A woman was taking a shower. There is a knock on the door. “Who is it?” “Blind man!” The woman opens the door. “Where do you want these blinds, lady?”

A man goes to a psychiatrist. The doctor says, “You’re crazy” The man says, “I want a second opinion!” “Okay, you’re ugly too!”

A drunk was in front of a judge. The judge says “You’ve been brought here for drinking.” The drunk says, “Okay, let’s get started.”

I was playing golf. I swung, missed the ball, and got a big chunk of dirt. I swung again, missed the ball, and got another big chunk of dirt. Just then, 2 ants climbed on the ball saying, “Let’s get up here before we get killed!”

Speaking of golf, the other day I broke 70. That’s a lot of clubs.

A bum asked me, “Give me $10 till payday.” I asked, “When is payday?” He said, “I don’t know, you’re the one who’s working!”

[Henny Youngman– Dailymotion]

Categories
religion

BeliefOMatic

The BeliefOMatic matches your stated beliefs with a corresponding set of beliefs.

Even if YOU don’t know what faith you are, Belief-O-Maticâ„¢ knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic will tell you what religion (if any) you practice or ought to consider practicing.

My top three were:

  1. Secular Humanism (100%)
  2. Unitarian Universalism (90%)
  3. Nontheist (85%)

I took it before and had a higher “Non-theist” score, but this time I answered some of the questions based on what I thought was right, instead of marking them all “not applicable”.

Categories
Art

ZeFrank’s Voice Draw Beta

ZeFrank’s voice drawing tool lets you draw using your voice. Low volume turns counter-clockwise, medium volume goes straight, and high volume turns clockwise.

This is my very first attempt:

Sound Drawing

Tempting as it is, I wouldn’t want to be recorded making this kind of image — one feels very silly during the process. Kudos for anyone that tries the Voice Draw Beta in a public space.

Categories
education

Open Source Online University Coming Soon

Israeli entrepreneur, Shai Reshef, plans to combine the world’s open source educational material and create the world’s first free global university*.

“The open-source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free,” Mr. Reshef said. “We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works. Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, anyone who speaks English and has an Internet connection.”

Reshef plans on starting things small. Starting this fall, 300 students will enroll in bachelor’s degrees in business administration and computer science.

*Free as in open source, not free as in beer. However, it doesn’t look like it will be particularly expensive. From the article: “students would pay only nominal fees for enrollment ($15 to $50) and exams ($10 to $100), with students from poorer countries paying the lower fees and those from richer countries paying the higher ones.”

Categories
Miscellaneous

Who was General Tso?

Q. What do you get when you mix Chinese Food with German food?
A. I don’t know, but an hour later you’re hungry for power.

What do you get when you mix Chinese food with other cultures? In this video, New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee talks about her quest to find the origins of familiar Chinese-American dishes—and some of the interesting consequences of mixing Chinese food with other countries’ cuisine. The results are humorous, fascinating, and mouth watering.

Click to play or watch Jennifer 8. Lee talk about Chinese Food at TED.