Thursday, April 24, 2008

Groovy cats and tripping cows


Cute overload, kitty-style.




This is what happens when you lace Bessie's hay with the brown acid.

Okay, not really. It's a simple yet pretty cool little science trick involving nothing more than a bowl of milk, some food coloring and some liquid dish detergent. (both links via Neatorama)

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Math is hard! Graphs are pretty!


Not at all new, but worthy of a share, I think. Royksopp - Remind Me. While I really do like the song, above that, there's something really, really appealing to me about all the neat, clean little diagrams and graphs.

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Pulp Fiction, Forsooth!

Heads up!

I am aware that there are a few guests who stop by Info Nation on a regular-ish basis who are, shall we say, still flush with the dewy glow of youth. And for the most part I try to keep this particular small corner of the Interwebz, well, maybe not G-rated, but perhaps hovering in the PG to PG-13 zone, if you dig.

So, if you're a young 'un, are offended by salty language, or by simulated violence performed by robots, rabbits and/or Muppets upon other robots, rabbits and/or Muppets, then this particular post likely ain't gonna be your cuppa cocoa. The rest of you degenerates, follow me...

Oh, yeah, one more thing. If you're not familiar with Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, these links will likely either
a) not make any sense, or
b) not seem very funny, or
both a) and b)


Robots Can't Act performing the "Describe Marcellus Wallace" scene




Pulp Fiction in 30 seconds, performed by bunnies




A freakalicious mashup called Pulp Muppets



A glimpse at some Pulp Fiction scenes if they had been penned by Shakespeare (via Boing Boing)

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Friday, April 18, 2008

Just Don't Look Down


This is Caminito del Rey.

El Caminito del Rey (English: The King's pathway) is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain.

The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter (3 ft) in width, and is over 700 feet (200 m) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the walkway have completely collapsed and have been replaced by a beam and a metallic wire on the wall. Many people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years. After four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, adventurous tourists still find their way into the walkway.

You know, I was relatively okay for the first part where the left side of the trail dropped off, but when the right side of the trail opened up, that's when I started getting the heebie-jeebies. Why is that, I wonder? (via J-Walk)



And here is a cute Flash game called Chasm that appears to be based upon the Caminito del Rey. You are charged with diverting the water through a Rube Goldbergian series of sluices, gates and waterwheels to bring water and electricity to your hometown of Chasmton.. I gave up after half an hour of fruitless effort, but maybe you'll do better.

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Reporter laughs his butt off. Film at 11.


While this is funny enough with the sound off, really, do yourself a favor and turn up the audio. Those news anchors are what really makes this clip hilarious.




Another case of a news anchor with the giggles. Unfortunately for him, it happened to occur while he was reporting the death of several people in a horrific highway accident. I somehow think it might have turned out to be his last night doing the news at this particular station.




No laughing reporter here, though I'm sure his cameraman got a good chuckle out of this.

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Monday, April 14, 2008

Awwww, look! Junior just flashed his first gang sign!



Parents fight over which gang their toddler should join (no, this is not a headline from The Onion). Mama's a Crip, but Daddy's a Westside Baller...

In other news, neighborhood sees sudden surge in trike-by shootings...

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CAUTION: Beatle Crossing



The mental_floss blog explores parodies of and tributes to the famous Beatles Abbey Road album cover, and even more finds over at Am I Right.

The Abbey Road Webcam lets you check out what's going on at the famous crosswalk anytime. I haven't yet witnessed it firsthand, but I hear tell it's a pretty common sight to see tourists wreaking havoc on traffic flow as they try to recreate the iconic shot.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Making it fit (or die trying)


Still another edition of the Lords of Logistics.

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Doors of perception


As if I needed a reason to love dogs... Video of a dog that won't go through a "screenless" screen door. It just doesn't compute for him... Cute. Now if they can just do the same thing to make the mosquitoes stay on the outside with this thing, they may be onto a great invention here! (via Boing Boing)




Speaking of doors, this Star Trekesque door that was featured at NextFest 2006 is interesting because it opens to match the shape of your body.




With few exceptions, car door design has not changed much since the earliest cars in the 19th century. Two hinges on the leading edge and a latch and the trailing edge. How about just making the door disappear?

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Behold, the elastic power of cheese!


Who knew cheese was so resilient? In Cheese Dreams, you are a bouncy cheese moon, who, using only your left and right arrow keys to guide you, must navigate through a treacherous spaceship manned (or would that be miced?) by mice. (via Jay Is Games)

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Friday, April 04, 2008

Digital insult


See that finger? That's Nick Douglas's finger. You'd better get used to it, because for the next 365 days, he's going to be giving it to you every day over at his Flickr photostream with the 365 Finger Project. (via growabrain)

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In closing, I'd also like to holla at my peeps in Accounts Receivable. Represent!


Interviewing Tip #437:
When interviewing with a prospective employer, try to refrain from calling the head of the HR department a "skank ho". (Click image to embiggen)

In general, the entire Not Hired site is a surefire way to make you feel oh-so-much better about your own hireability. Do check it out for a quick ego boost.



Excerpts from really bad resumes.


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Zebra roundup


The Japanese are much more creative with their product barcodes, as you can see from the above sample. Dark Roasted Blend has a great roundup of all kinds of zebrastripe goodness.




I especially liked the Barcode Clock. Click to see it in action; this is just a snapshot...



How UPC Barcodes Work



And a triple-play of barcode urban legends dissected at Snopes. Click to get a price-check on the truth of each of the following claims:

Claim #1: During a photo op at a 1988 grocer's convention, President George H. W. Bush was "amazed" at encountering supermarket scanners for the first time.

Claim #2: Many retailers mistakenly scanned the wrong side of a CD bearing barcode-themed cover art, resulting in lower prices for customers.

Claim #3: The infamous number "666" can be found in every single barcode.

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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

ABC3D


A very clever Pop-up Alphabet Book (via Daily Jive)

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The 411 on 4/1



Yeah, this is way too late to bring it up, but I've been busy with work, school conference with one of my son's teachers, blah blah blah... Better late than never, they say, so they do.

This is (now the tail end of) April Fool's Day, and here's a couple of lists of goings-on that, you know, went on.

April Fool's Day On The Web 2008 (along with 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004)

Wikipedia's massive catalog of silliness that is transpiring today, April 1, 2008

And perhaps the most epic April Fool's prank in the history of internet pranking: YouTube has made every single entry in its Featured Videos section for today a Rickroll. (For those of you late to this party: What the heck is a Rickroll?)

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