Quote of the day(?)

From an email footer... and pretty much from all over the web

Some people are like Slinkies... not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

WOTW review in twenty words or less

by Paul Donald Huntley

If anyone still cares, here's my 20-word review of WOTW ...

Dysfunctional dad Homer Simpson (Tom Cruise), rebellious son Bart, and precocious young daughter Lisa, are caught up in a terrifying alien attack.

Fortunately, they manage to find a Magic Van, which is apparently the only working vehicle in the entire United States (apart from the US Army).

Unfortunately, however, they drive the Magic Van into a large panicky crowd, not realising that some people in the crowd might have their own uses for the van.

All turns out well, though, because the aliens -- who wander around buck naked and seem to have no personal equipment of any sort -- wagged their high school biology lessons.

Cheers,
Paul.

OK, I know the above is more than 20 words, but I'm an Arts grad -- I can't count that high! :)

Plantimals

Worth1000.com regularly runs photoshop/image morphing competitions. This competions involves blending plants and animals. There are some pretty cool entries (and, of course, some really lame ones). Check out all entries in the competition.

Smart Cat

Good Morning Linda,

Can you please fast track my order of water to next week (please let me know the day). I got home last night and the 11 litres I had left in my last bottle is now on the floor, thanks to my cat.

Six towels later, and 3 heaters going full tilt my carpet is nearly dry.

Is there instructions on how to attach the child\cat proof taps to the cooler. Does the cooler have to be empty to attach (which isn't an issue as I made sure there was no water left in cooler for Bindi to play with.

Thanks
Have a great day
Wendy

How *not* to photograph your cat!

Web links: July 2005

• Spage Shuttle tracking - J-Track uses orbit propagation. It takes an objects location and direction (a vector) and calculates where it believes the object will be in the future if no direction changes occur. For the shuttle, many changes occur, so we update vectors frequently.
• Paper Macs - can't afford the real thing? Make your own Mac product out of paper.
• Quirky News Stories - from The Australian
• Ancient phallus unearthed in cave
• Big Ad - carlton draught's big ad.
• Falling Bush - I think it was last month we had the falling girl... well here it is again, but with bush.
• Rich A. Ross Institute for the study of destructive cults, controversial groups and movements
• Venezuela vs US: Looming War of the Airwaves - Oh dear. Even Chavez' enemies are rallying behind him against the threat to Latin culture from the great power to their north. Note who the members of the Telesur board are.
• Yemen: 13 Dead in Riots Over World Bank-Backed Price Hikes
• When they come - there are several versions of this short yet famous speech/poem/verse, which started life as an anti-Nazi speech, then was used for the Blue Ribbon Campaign and any number of other rights-based campaigns. It's 100% relevant in a world where economy equals power and trade agreements that affect basic human rights are being made. Original credited to Pastor Martin Niemöller.
• toilet map - The National Public Toilet Map (the Map) shows the location of more than 14,000 public and private public toilet facilities across Australia. Details of toilet facilities can also be found along major travel routes and for shorter journeys as well. Useful information is provided about each toilet, such as location, opening hours, availability of baby change rooms, accessibility for people with disabilities and the details of other nearby toilets.
• Funding and Grants - people keep wanting funding/donations/grants for their projects.
• The Yes Men - Identity correctors: honest people impersonate big-time criminals (like the WTO, George W Bush, etc) in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else. The Yes Men use www.gatt.org to present the ideas and views of the WTO (as they understand them) as truthfully as they can. They also did a www.gwbush.com satire/parody site... but that's come to a natural conclusion... for now. [Review of film: 'The Yes Men']
• Google is changing things... again! - but not really... if you read the article a few months ago regarding their new patent, none of these changes will come as news.
• Naughty Nature - Sphynx Cats/Kittens - i dunno. I was sent it... so am sharing it.
• Smurfs Trilogy - The classic blue cartoon characters The Smurfs are reportedly poised to make a comeback in a new three-dimensional (3D) Hollywood movie marking their 50th birthday. Sounds like one hell of a bad trip (get them off me! getthemoffme!!!)
• Google Moon - In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we've added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor.
• Stuff on my cat - pretty much what it says :)
• Chavez military moves eyed - US, other critics fear Venezuelan leader's intent Venezuela has the largest known reserves of oil in South America and Chavez seems to have learnt from the experience of Iraq and other Latin Aerican countries. The US has already tried in several ways to unseat him and he now knows that if Venezuela does not appear to be a pushover (i.e. if the US military is likely to take casualties) they are less likely to attack or make up a pretext to attack.
• Panoptic World - tracking trends in our evolving society.
• The Denial Twist - i ssoooooooo luuuurve these lyrics
• OLED keyboard - the gift for the geek who has *almost* everything.
• magic bean - a squishy but really cool gift for people you adore.
• Scary Signs 4 - pictures from a worth1000.com - you can use the pull down list to check out entries from earlier 'scary signs' competitions.
• A bad day at work? - animated drawing/GIF
• CSS sliding photo-galleries (HTML/CSS coder stuff)
• Gay district Diva fingered for foul play with lesbian lover (article/news)
• McDonalds bans man from own name - aaarrrrrrggggggh! So much for living in a free world. Hrmph! (You should strike McDonald's on principal - if that's not enough, get the book 'Fast Food Nation' and then follow it up with the movie 'Super Size Me').
• Nips and tucks on hold after breast implants nicked (article/news)
• After all the intense scrutiny that Schapelle Corby's case got and is still getting, what's the bet that this story is just a blip on the radar and nothing more... "Australian death-row convict loses Vietnam appeal"
• Dress up jesus - simulated paper doll. What does dressing up jesus mean? Are you on another planet? If I click on this link will I get the sack...I have just clicked and now am worried about lightening bolts, forget the sack
• Road & advertising signs - amusing road signs, place names and advertising boards
• Google Video - Upload your own videos or view videos people have uploaded to Google. [Download Video Viewer]
• Google Conversions
• Name Statistics (US... of course).
• 10th annual Redneck Games photos - *grins* some cool photos (use next/back buttons on right to see other pics). [Traveller's info | redneck games]
• Don't be thicky, take a sicky... - really dumb ... errr... humour(?). Yawn.
• Doonesbury 4 July 2005, 5 July 2005, 6 July 2005 - Political sentiment in a cartoon...
• The December Decision - truthout article/perspective by Stirling Newberry. Lessons from Afghanistan; perhaps Vietnam is not the best parallel.
• Magistrate declines lap of strip club offer
• Amazon.com 1995 home page linked from 10th anniversary page - i thought it was cool to see that the online company started out as a crap website from a guys garage
• Astrologist sues NASA over crash - I'm ok about astrology in general... but this is just pathetic. Quite frankly, it's just as stupid as 'changing the laws of gravity' to make exams easier and banning pointy kitchen knives. Great, googly, moogly. Why do people like this annoy us by ever bothering to get out of bed. Or, get born. Let's all go home now. Where's the 'off' button for the planet?
• Offensive postcards - finally... offensive e-cards. Just what we've all been waiting for! Send them to those you want to offend.
• Google Calculator - now in addition to searching keywords you can enter mathematical sums/equations in the search bar and have google give you the answer!
• Suunto GPS watch - how cool is this... for a watch, that is.
• You know you're living in the modern age when... - very old but mildly amusing.
• Makeover-o-Matic - upload photos and make yourself over... or just make over the models on the site.
• Rock Paper Scissors International Championships - need I say more? (If I must, you can check out Wikipedia for general details... or the World Rock Paper Scissors Society (WRPS)). The game as as many names as the world has for George W Bush.
• Gills for humans? - An artificial gill that mimics the way fish breathe has been developed that could allow divers to dispense with bulky oxygen tanks. (article/news)
• TravelBlog - a collection of travel journals, diaries, stories and photos from all around the world. The journals are theoretically created by real travellers, and recount real experiences and impressions from the places they visit. For travellers it's a good (and free) way to keep family and friends up to date.
• Monkey magic exposed as crappy special effects - (article/satire)
• Ban pointy kitchen knives - yet another example of stupidity. Let's ban kitchen knives so there's no way they can be used in a crime. Yeah, let's address yet another symptom and not worry about the cause.
• Gravity laws were 'changed' to make a physics exam easier for year 12 students in Victoria, Australia. Why? For more information, see 'Passing it Along', This is True, 26 June 2005, The Herald Sun or Google. No wonder people seem to be thinking less... they probably are. And our education system is assisting, rather than fighting this inate laziness to learn and think for one's self.
  1. Last time I checked, year 12 physics exams permitted the use of calculators (it gets a *lot* harder than just multiplying). Perhaps it's too hard to find the whatamacallsit button...
  2. I think you mean the 'make this machine think for me' button. I've always had trouble finding that one myself. I keep having to use my brain. We may as well hit the 'off' button for the world, if this is all we expect of people. And isn't this bit nice: "it would not penalize students who used the correct figure." Ah. Excellent. That's alright then.
• Tamara embraces Indian culture - a picture says...
• Google Earth - combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips (download). I like it! The online equivalent, Google Maps is still in beta.
• Ebaum's World or mouse breaker are full of silly flash games. These are good alternatives to offer people who are not feeling motivated and want to play 'shoot the frog' (which makes you want to play stab the person).
• Teens' cry for help from flooded stolen 4WD (article)
• ASCII Babes - *Even* nerds/geeks like their babes to be real - but well done ASCII art all the same.
• Oh my gawd mate! A warning about a virus/hoax that is actually true for once. That alone makes it worthy of a link. Bank ATMs Converted to Steal IDs of Bank Customers