Sketchup 3D tool

[Thanks to Ray]

Google has a free, and apparently simple, tool for 3D creation: Sketchup.



(More videos.)

Engineer Recreates Antikythera Mechanism with Legos

Engineer Recreates Antikythera Mechanism with Legos, article.


(Bigger video: click on the YouTube logo.)

About Wikileaks etc

Ron Paul speaks about Wikileaks, free speech, lies, and war.

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There is a petition here. 

Towboat fantastica

It's too late to stop, but the bridge won't open! Panic! And hope for a miracle.
And heck, they do happen sometimes.

Alan Watts, music and life

Anger wins the day

But baby it's slippery out there

For the first time in as long as I reliably recall, I almost slipped and fell on the ice outside. Many places it's just pure ice on the sidewalks. That is, I did slip, and would have fallen if I hadn't been walking next to a fence I could grab.
This was actually the way my maternal grandfather died. After slipping on ice on a sidewalk.

Back in Denmark, all the sidewalks are shovelled and sanded, enforced by law. This seems not to be the case in the UK, which is a pity. There must surely be a big price to pay every winter in broken hips.

Update:
Anon points to "snow chains for boots". Not elegant, but then neither is a crutch.

Panasonic Lumix GF2 samples

The Panasonic GF2 is a bit smaller than the GF1, which is kewl enough. But I was wondering how the chip would be doing, since unfortunately above ISO 800 it was not so great on the first one, not really usable.

Well, I think it looks  promising. Here it is at 1600 ISO, and here at 3200 ISO, the latter very stressing for the size of sensor. I think 1600 is just great, and 3200 is very usable in many situations. It only gets bad at 6400, which should be reserved for needs-must situations.   Note though that the samples are scaled down quite a bit from full camera size, that's because they were reviewing a prototype and so they weren't allowed to post full-size samples. So it's possible that the final camera makes the photos slightly different (hopefully even better if they must change). This makes for a bit of wait for final judgment and comparison to GF1. I think it clear that it's better, but how dramatic it is, we don't know yet.

An apple face in Zero History

I'm still with joy reading Zero History, and came upon this amazing and funny description of a new character:

(Click for big pic.)

Frost in the UK part Trois, last one

I wish...

I heard of a psychoanalyst who is charging $500 per hour listening to nymphomaniacs tell about their lives.

I wish I had the patients for that.

Danish Newspaper Protest Apple App Store Censorship

Danish Newspaper Protest Apple App Store Censorship, article.

Ekstra BIadet, a newspaper in Denmark, has had it up to here with Apple’s App Store policies, and the publication has published a series of protest articles on the subject, including the political cartoon below. According to the newspaper, Apple rejected its iPhone and iPad apps because of a nude photo feature, even for the Danish-specific version of the App Store.

I find myself in the unusual position of supporting the Danish newspaper on this one. Because it's a terrible rag. How terrible? So terrible that when I as a young and poor man was offered the sale of a photograph to them, I said no, I refused to have anything to do with them.

But they do have one good thing going for them: for the past 25 years they have had a lovely nude girl on page nine, every day. And this of course is what Apple is against. Apple who I normally love and support. Oh, the irony! (Swoon.)

Born again bottles

[Thanks to Kirk]

This gives a whole new meaning to "I came from the bottom of a bottle to see the Light".
The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is about 400 miles northeast of
Bangkok in the city of Khun Han close to the Cambodian border. Most of it is built using recycled bottles.

Rex said:
Reminds me of the boat made of plastic bottles.

Female soldiers

Somebody sent me a powerpoint file with pics of female soldiers from around the world. Many of them very cute.
For me it really emphasized the waste that is war. War is not so much "horrible" as it's just waste. All those beautiful young women as landmine fodder...

David Hockney's Pixelated Period

[Thanks to Beth]

David Hockney's Pixelated Period, article.
Hockney uses the paint app Brushes on iPhone and iPad.

"On the iPhone I tended to draw with my thumb," he says. "Whereas the moment I got to the iPad, I found myself using every finger."
And he really gets into it, reports curator Charlie Scheips.
"He says he sometimes gets so obsessed that when he's going, he rubs his finger on his clothes to, like, clean his finger — as if he was using real paint."

The exhibition, perhaps even more surprisingly, is not prints, but is all on 20 iPad screens and 20 iPhone screens. Huh. Wonder if you can buy 'em.

Frost in the UK part deux

Running away

"Contains language".

What's in a name? - My Writing Spot

What's in a name? - My Writing Nook has changed name. No reason, just that a bigger gorilla wanted that seat.

Q: Wait, isn't "nook" a common English word?
A: Yes.
Q: And wasn't your name "My Writing Nook," and not just "nook"?
A: Yes.
Q: But your product is software used for writing, and theirs is a piece of hardware used for reading. Aren't those two completely different things?
A: Yes, they are.

Anyway, the app is kewl.

Frost in the UK

In the past week, the UK has been writing under a winter spell which Norwegians would call "late summer", but which is wreaking havock with all schedule here.
Well, here in Lancashire at least, it's not too bad. Just enough snow and frost to make it xmassy.
Here's a couple of pics from today:

 

(Pentax K-5, 18-135mm. The first one was dramatified in Photoshop.)

Cali blooper-fest

Kewl wood block art

Tugboat printshop.

All together now: "I wish I had the patience to do something like that!"

 

alt.cc (and keeping an empty inbox)

My friend Joe Kissell has this domain: alt.cc.
Isn't that fantastic? Can hardly get shorter, and yet loaded with geeky significances.

You may have noticed it's often hard to get answers to emails (both to companies and individuals) in a timely manner. Or indeed at all. It's clear that many people don't wield a tight whip over their email. Joe has a good article about that.  (Notice it's in several parts.)

I've always been a bit puzzled by so many people who never have an empty inbox. I get 50-100 mails per day. The first thing I do every day when I get up is empty my inbox. I simply answer every single mail in there, and do whatever actions are required by some of them, and boom, it's empty. Sometimes this takes ten minutes, sometimes two hours. And then I keep it empty as the day rolls on, and it's empty when I go to bed. What could be simpler? Unfinished communication is a drain on your attention.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

World's Smallest Political Quiz.

It's surprisingly good, despite being very concise. I got confirmed I'm libertarian at heart. (Though I simplified my standpoints a little.)

Update:

Jan said...
People whose writings I like consistently turn out to be libertarians.
I'm against making people responsible for their own pension, privatizing welfare or blindly reducing taxes without first specifying which expenses you're going to sacrify.
Maybe the test is a bit too simple or too American?
The (longer) test at http://politicalcompass.org/test puts me in the exact center of Libertarianism. :-)