Links: Late May 2013

Interesting

• Video interview with Ed Yong on blogging and journalism.
• Mathematics of juggling.
• Calling a plasma a liquid is not cool, but that aside, this particle physics article is intriguing.
• The definite word on how caterpillars turn into butterflies.
• Interesting blog post about Leibniz, featuring handwriting samples and much more.

Delightful

• This abstract animation is a wonderful blend of shape and sound.
• A font made of cats. Please scroll down to comment #146, which contains a limerick I wrote.
• Lovely, relaxing timelapse video of a journey on board an Antarctic ice breaker.
• Winners and honourable mentions in the Earth & Sky Photography Contest. (Warning: autoplay)
• Jay Silver’s TED Talk, on the possibilities of joining things in unconventional ways.

Awareness

• The emptiness of depression, conveyed in cartoon form.

Personal

• Earlier this month, Internet friend Mark Gallagher and I arranged to simultaneously watch the same classic Doctor Who stories from different cities. The stories were among my favourites, but new to Mark. I recorded his reactions in a Storify.
• My city finally gets some recognition.

I’m expecting to become an uncle soon, with my sister’s first child due any day now. I don’t plan to announce the event very promptly on the blog, but I will keep people updated on Twitter. I expect to meet the infant around June 6 or so, and have a 0th birthday present all ready to pass on.

An email from my uncle on May 15 informed me that my father’s father’s mother’s father’s mother’s mother’s father’s grave has been found, just in case that interests you.

I attended my aunt’s 70th birthday party on May 18. Very nice to catch up with people.

It’s been almost two months since I switched Internet providers and changed my email address, and so my old addresses (the ones with ‘netyp’ in the domain name) will expire at the end of May.

Links: Early May 2013

Some links. Not many, but that suits me: it means the blog post doesn’t take long to compose.

Interesting:

• I didn’t expect to enjoy the NYT article on psychology fraudster Diederik Stapel, but on giving it a chance I found it surprisingly thought-provoking.
• A fifty minute interview from the Guardian on the origin of life.
• A brief history of traditional marriage in England. I bet there’s a lot more to be said, but this is an interesting and often surprising take.

Delightful:

• Cheeky animal video of the month (monkey vs tiger).
• Everything hangs in the balance in this fantastic work of art.
• I won’t personally be ordering a copy of Planet of the Apes and Philosophy, but the Amazon page is worth a visit.
• If you’ve ever dreamed of a utility to convert a Google Street View route into a hyperlapse video, look here. It’s not that utility, but rather a library of Javascript code that can be used to create that utility (hopefully we’ll soon see programmers publishing versions all over the web). The very limited demo version essentially goes to and fro between a start point and an end point, with a third point controlling the camera angle.

A personal postscript: I had a huge scare last night when I lost the message bodies of all 220-ish emails in my Thunderbird inbox! I published a blog post calling for help, and stated that it was a temporary blog post which would be deleted when the crisis was resolved. After a sleepless night and some moral support I did manage to get most of the messages back, and accordingly I’ll delete that blog post shortly after publishing this one.

Herewith a summary. Due to some software glitch (the trigger of which is a complete mystery), the Inbox file (which stores the message bodies) had been wiped clean of content, although the corresponding .msf file (which contains message headers, essentially) was still intact. Hence Thunderbird still displayed the list of messages, but not the messages themselves. To fix the problem, I had to use the Windows 7 restore facility to restore a previous version of the Inbox file (you know: right click on the file, choose Properties, choose Previous Versions, etc). I lost a few days of emails, but these were all receipts and other acknowledgements, nothing critical.

Links: Late April 2013

This collection of links is short, but I hope the quality pleases you.

Interesting/Awareness:

• How to turn your brain invisible. (Note: you have to be dead first.)
• Sleep, and the quest to be rid of it.
• Long essay on body integrity identity disorder and the secretive manner in which amputations are carried out.
• Universe Today on the Uwingu planet naming controversy. (Note: my nomination still hasn’t had any votes.)

Useful/Delightful:

• I can see myself making use of the online tool stich.it. It could, for example, be a convenient way to show which items in a gallery are my favourites. I tested it on a gallery of Discworld-inspired lego constructions that a friend pointed out on Twitter.
• Amazing site for tracking the current location of aeroplanes. Via TYWKIWDBI, which also links to site for ships, although the interface for that is not as stunning.
• Art made from waterfalls, glowing sticks, and long exposure.
• Video: seasnake vs eel.

Links: Early April 2013

My pick of the Internet’s best links from the last month or so. As ever, leave a comment if you’d like to have a conversation about any of them.

Interesting

• A deaf woman’s interesting and very personal essay about lip-reading.
• Dinosaur that survived Tyrannosaurus attack.
• Fascinating snapshot into history: Book by 19th century author who believed in mythical beasts.
• The Planck results as described by Phil Plait. Plus another take with info on what’s yet to come.
• Possible solution to the mystery of African fairy circles.
• Record broken for world’s lightest solid. Would like some to play with.
• Fascinating phenomenon involving glass.
• Hypothetical question involving a faecal transplant and zombies.
• Why dragonflies are posed to take over the world.
• Interesting radio segment about the early days of Doctor Who.
• Among the best podcast episodes I listened to recently was “Our Tasteless Show” from Big Picture Science (March 11). I learned something interesting from almost every interview, although I thought the “what do aliens eat?” segment was unconvincing.

Delightful

• Sesame Street’s Count outdoes himself.
• Love this subversion of the comic form.
• Space haiku (note: I posted a comment).
• How to eat an infinite amount of chocolate.
• Zygons returning for Doctor Who 50th anniversary special. The Zygons had one of the best-loved costumes in the history of the show, yet never returned for a second story. Their main weakness in the original serial was overconfidence.
• Scientific sandpit.
• Clothes for women who’d like to be Martians. (I just like the first image; don’t care for the rest.)
• Ultimate musical dogs video.
• Cuteness photo of the month. (Though it should be noted that hiding in a box of chocolates is antithecal to the whole point of camouflage.)

Awareness

• Very few articles about the Pope are worth sharing, but this short one struck me as notable.
• Now that I have a faster Internet connection, I’ve caught up with a few things including the TED Talks Youtube channel. Some favourites from the last few months:
  “The cheap all-terrain wheelchair” — recorded June 2012, uploaded November 2012
  “Israel and Iran: A love story?” — recorded September 2012, uploaded December 2012
  “Why domestic violence victims don’t leave” — recorded November 2012, uploaded January 2013
  (Honourable mention: “The way we think about charity is dead wrong” — March 2013. This felt padded and repetitious, but makes a point worth thinking about.)

Personal

• I didn’t do the final version, but I had a hand in this design (mostly in choosing the component images).
• Was recently reminded of this gravity simulator. Last time I played with it I couldn’t get a secondary body in stable orbit, but this time I succeeded. Tell me in a comment if you can do the same.
• When I was in Kangaroo Island I bought a bottle of this honey liqueur. The best cocktail recipe I’ve come up with is as follows: One part honey liqueur, one part orange juice, two parts coconut water (about 5% alcohol per volume, as the liqueur is 20%). Incidentally, the oil painting I bought on Kangaroo Island will be delivered next Monday.

Links: Early March 2013

These are the best of my online reading over approximately the last month.

I’ve filed more items under delightful than under interesting this month, but some of the delightful items are, in fact, also interesting. It’s just that their delightfulness is primary, in my opinion.

Interesting

• A link between immunity and intelligence.
• Discovering what lies on the surface of Europa.

Delightful

• I expect this 3D craft pen will find a place on many gift lists.
• Outstanding timelapse from the International Space Station, with effects.
• This paint-your-requests thing is cool (if compromised by the need to have a Tumblr account to submit requests).
• Tree-climbing wild cat. Watch the video in full screen HD. (It would be better for a tighter edit, but is still worth your time.)
• Jane Goodall writes about her enthusiasm for plants.
• Proteins re-imagined as pictures (with an interesting introduction to ribbon diagrams).
• Love these close-up photographs of coral. A different perspective than we usually see. Would make a nice calendar.
• Halloween dessert idea: jelly worms in crushed biscuit soil.

Personal

• I entered a competition to compress a paragraph into a tweet. I didn’t win, but mine is the third entry quoted under “the shortlist”.

Links: Early February 2013

The Pulp-O-Mizer is an Internet website/meme that’s been doing the rounds lately. It’s a lot of fun, and involves choosing a combination of image elements and text format options to create your own magazine cover in the style of 1950s pulp science fiction. Best results come from taking the time to play around and get a handle on its capabilities.

The most obvious idea is combine your personal favourites (favourite foreground image, background image, title, etc), making compromises when your first choices don’t work well together. Here’s one I did, reflecting my own tastes.

Another idea is to take something in the real world (a book, perhaps, or even your own blog), and create the cover it would have if it were a 1950s pulp science fiction magazine. I did this on Twitter with Mike Brown’s How I Killed Pluto And Why It Had It Coming, and Mike retweeted it!

The site does not have a public gallery, unfortunately, so you have to upload your generated image yourself. (But definitely worth it.) If you are willing, please post links to your creations in the comments.

Now here are the other links I wish to share:

Interesting:

• Leprosy converts nerve cells into stem cells.
• Tsetse fly repellant made from Essence of Waterbuck.
• Looking inside the brain of a fish in a swim simulator.
• Polynesians visited South America 1000 years ago and took home a souvineer.
• $60,000 eye implant to treat retinal damage blindness (on my list because my grandfather had macular degeneration).
• Ultra-fast archery. Pity about the video quality, but this is fascinating and I’d like to learn more.
• Story of a Russian family isolated in remote Siberia. (Particularly charmed by the bit about satellites.)
• Daniel Loxton’s history of the skeptical movement contains much meat to chew on.
• On the British Library’s digitisation of medieval manuscripts: an article and a blog.

Delightful:

• Electronic game to play with pigs, but I’d like to see more evidence that the pigs enjoy it. (Are the flashy firework displays really rewarding to them?)
• Two pieces of online art on the theme of unlimited zoom [1], [2].
• The Out of Eden Walk has started, and we’ll see how it goes. (I linked to this article in December.)
• Indoor kite-flying — essentially a form of dance.

Useful:

• Adding 24timezones.com to my list of bookmarked utility sites. Accurate-to-the-second time with a great interface.

One more post about the holidays

This is my first blog post since the Christmas holidays ended (approximately the month from December 21 to January 21).

A lot of things happened in that time, many of which I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Others include looking after a friend’s corgi puppy, relocating the contents of a damaged costume room at the local town hall, discussing bookmashes with a friend and old schoolteacher over tea one evening, working on a challenging jigsaw puzzle, misplacing my credit card, my cousin’s inception as the new Uniting Church pastor for Southern Yorke Peninsula, etc. You can ask in the comments if you’d like me to extrapolate on anything.

One surprise unveiled at Christmas was that my family is planning a trip to Kangaroo Island later in the year (probably March 14th). I’ve been there once before, but I was ten years old back then.

I’m making good progress on the road to getting rid of my current ISP and switching to a better one. During the holidays I spoke to the computer expert I’ve been getting advice from and got some useful information including prices, etc. Meanwhile my address book is up-to-date and old email cleaned out (i.e. either filed or deleted) until October 2012. After that point, emails are too recent to be worth sorting, and might as well stay in my inbox.

The new year is a good time to experiment with different ways of blogging. For example, you may have noticed that I’m now including entire blog posts on the front page, instead of hiding most of them ‘below the fold’. There may be other changes, but more dramatic ones will wait until my ISP changes — a faster connection should make fiddling with the blog a much more practical prospect.

Below are links to the best articles that I read online during the holidays, for certain values of “read”.  During the holidays I accessed the Internet using my ten-inch netbook, with no ability to print hardcopies. I can’t really digest long texts in those circumstances, so in most cases I browsed them, bookmarked them, and read them properly when I got back. Also, some of these involve pictures and video rather than text.

I’ve divided them into three categories — Interesting, Delightful, Awareness & Personal — depending on whether I recommend them because they’re interesting, because they’re emotionally appealling, because they address important issues in society, or because of some connection I have.

Interesting:

• Falling into a black hole more hazardous than previously believed (more).
• Mapping how concepts are stored in the brain.
• Caught up on Lynne Kelly’s intriguing ideas on Stonehenge.
• A 2007 article about the Codex Seraphinianus.

Delightful:

• Documentary about musical instruments made of recycled parts.
• Weird but strangely alluring fiction.
• Amazing palindromic map.
• Snowballs in medieval paintings.
• I’ve asked certain people to try the Up-Goer Five Text Editor, no response yet. Meanwhile, here’s Mike Brown’s entry.

Awareness:

• Article on the insanity of American life sentences. (Depressing, but with hint of hope.)
• Prominent opponent of genetic modification changes his mind.

Personal:

• I added information to a page about the Australian commercial card game Gone Bush (including a paraphrase of the rules).

P.S. Just for interest, here’s a pie chart showing the number of classifications I’ve contributed to various Zooniverse projects. I won’t link to individual projects because they tend to have a short half-life (Ice Hunters expired long ago), so it’s better to subscribe to the main site if you’re potentially interested. My favourite projects are the ones that don’t require much focus, and can be used to wind down at the end of the day. (I made the Snapshot Serengeti contributions before the holidays, in between cleaning and packing.)

Final links for 2012

One last link collection for the year:

• Stan Carey asked people how they use the words “whilst”, “amongst” and “amidst”, and discussed the results in a blog post. The meat is in the links and comments (and not just mine).
• For those of us who have fantasised about having a head reconstruction made from our skulls just to see how accurate it is, here’s someone who’s done that.
• An article about a very clever spider.
• Dogs are better at driving than they are at playing the piano.
• Beautiful ice formations.
• Voyager in new territory.
• A code and an 18th century secret society (parts don’t make sense, but the rest is fascinating).
• Feathercraft. Brilliantly done.
• Convert pictures to embroidery. Or just get an idea of what it would look like.
• Australian weather calendar (on a British site, which I found via an American link).
• Most ambitious journalism project ever?
• History of extraordinary evidence (the saying, anyway).
• Sean Carroll has moved his blog posts, and Ed Yong will soon be moving too.

News and links for late November 2012

Links:

• Mark Rosenfelder’s take on the American election.
• I posted comments on two blog posts about 1980s-era computer games that I remember: Cavequest and Seven Spirits of Ra.
• Lovely video of a metal thumb piano (kalimba) being played.
• Cute animals alongside their stuffed toy twins.
• How dogs classify objects differently from humans.
• What happens when you mix together every possible smell?
• Silly, folky, dreamy, outstanding imaginary space travel video.

Photos:

Here are some favourite shots from the last time I went walking in Shepherds Hill Recreation Park. Two of these feature Adelaide rosellas, and the other two feature rainbow lorikeets.

(I probably won’t take any more photos like these for a while, because it’s nearly summer and the park is not at its most photogenic when it’s dry, but I’m thinking of posting a gallery with all my favourites together.)

Other updates:

Latest links and park pics

I have enough material from the last month to easily fill two blog posts.

In this post, I’ll share links to the best articles that I’ve read over the last few weeks, as well as my most recent photographs from in or around Shepherds Hill Recreation Park. In my next post (which I’ll aim to publish on Thursday), I’ll discuss my new lounge chairs and other matters.

So first, some links:

• Slime moulds navigate using slime.
• On the diversity of science stories.
• History of our understanding of the brain.
• Satan on science.
• Recursive viruses.
• Wheelchair that climbs steps.
• Electric cables as invented by bacteria.
• Depressing article of the month (on solitary confinement).
• Two-headed rhinoceros illusion.

And now, photos. The first pair show a musk lorikeet (left) and a red-rumped parrot (right).

Here are three photographs of a particularly large magpie. I love the way he blends into the background.