Fun(ny) things

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[Michael]

<a href="http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/createline_forweb6.swf" target="_blank">http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/createline_forweb6.swf</a>

[Michael]

This is a wonderful animation for Flash animators, or those familiar with the Flash interface:

[Michael]

<a href="http://www.biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BioMotionLab1.8.swf" target="_blank">http://www.biomotionlab.ca/Demos/BioMotionLab1.8.swf</a>

[jimtzu]

here's a cool prototype for a "pen" computer:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_pen_pc.htm#

[Michael]

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

[Nickeson]

This--called Escapa!-- is kinda fun.

[jimtzu]

here's a word game that actually helps other people, and after a few words they get pretty hard    http://www.freerice.com/index.php


Morning Edition, December 17, 2007 · John Breen, a computer programmer, developed the Internet game FreeRice.com to teach vocabulary and help fight hunger.

FreeRice.com is quickly becoming all the rage for school children as well as immigrants learning English.

Breen said the idea came to him one day in his kitchen in Indiana. He was sitting with his two teenage sons, preparing the older for the SAT.

"The younger one made a mockery of the situation. He kept saying, 'he doesn't know this word, he doesn't know that word,'" Breen said. "So I decided to do something on the computer to help my son learn vocabulary words."

What Breen came up with was a word game that he thought others might like to play on the Internet. He was already operating the Web site Poverty.com to inform people about hunger. So, he merged the two, and FreeRice.com was born.

Here's how it works: Contestants are offered four definitions for a word; by clicking on the right definition, a donation of 20 grains of rice is made to the U.N. World Food Programme. The U.N. distributes the rice worldwide.

English teacher Michael Hughes puts the Web site up on a large interactive screen and uses the game to warm up his classes at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, D.C.

Hughes' class raised 280 grains of Rice during a short session.

While that's hardly enough for a daily ration for a starving child abroad, it still adds up, said World Food Programme spokeswoman Jennifer Parmelee.

"FreeRice.com is up to more than 8.2 billion grains of rice, which is one heck of a lot of rice and more than enough to feed 325,000 people for the day," Parmelee said.

The Web site earns money from advertising and gives cash to the Word Food Programme. Some $100,000 has already gone to buy rice to feed survivors of a recent cyclone in Bangladesh.

Parmelee said the Web site offers a greater gift – the gift of awareness about world hunger. In just two months, FreeRice.com has driven the most Internet traffic to the World Food Programme site.

"We are all kind of dazzled by the power of a great idea — an idea that seemed to have come completely out of left field," she said.

Breen said he has hired a dictionary company to put some more words in the game, which adjusts as you are playing to different levels from zero to 50.

"I myself can't get much above level 45, and it is rare to get above level 48. But there are some people who cruise right up to level 50. So for them we are going to add some super, really ultra, tough words," Breen said.

And, he said, his son's vocabulary "has improved markedly."

Breen said e-mails are coming in from around the world from people trying to learn English to teachers and college students. He wants them to take away something more than just a few new words.

[Michael]

Duelity

[Michael]

<a href="http://www.seb.cc/spacializer/spacializer.swf" target="_blank">http://www.seb.cc/spacializer/spacializer.swf</a>

[jimtzu]

ahhhh nice one michael...  i've been checking out the synths on Propellerhead's Reason the last few weeks so i must be in the mood.  sounds similar to granular synthesis.  is there a link for that one?

[jimtzu]

more fun facts.. don't know if they're all true

"Stewardesses"    is the longest word typed with only the left hand .

  And "lollipop"    is the longest word typed with your right hand.  (Bet you tried this out mentally, didn't you?)

  No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

  "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". ? (Are you doubting this?)
                                           
Our eyes    are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears  never stop growing.
                             
The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet  (Now, you KNOW you're going to try this out for accuracy, right?)
                                         
The words 'racecar,'    'kayak'    and 'level'  are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).   (Yep, I knew you were going to "do" this one.)

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. (You're not doubting this, are you? )

 There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious." (Yes, admit it, you are going to say, a e i o u)
 
TYPEWRITER     is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.  (All you typists are going to test this out)
 
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.     
 
A goldfish    has a memory span of three seconds. (Some days that's about what my memory span is.)
 
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark    is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail    can sleep for three years. 

Almonds are a member of the peach    family.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than it s brain.

Babies are born without kneecaps.  They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. 
 
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
                                                   
 
If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
                                     
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors
                   
Peanuts    are one of the ingredients of dynamite!

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
 
The cruise liner, QE 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave    was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.  (Good thing he did that.)
 
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls     froze completely solid.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

[Michael]

ahhhh nice one michael...  i've been checking out the synths on Propellerhead's Reason the last few weeks so i must be in the mood.  sounds similar to granular synthesis.  is there a link for that one?

Cool!

www.seb.cc/spacializer

[jimtzu]

Mention the history of the Internet to a group of people, and chances are someone will make a snarky comment about Al Gore claiming to have invented it. Gore actually said that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" [source: CNN]. He promoted the Internet's development both as a senator and as vice president of the United States. So how did the Internet really get started? Believe it or not, it all began with a satellite.

more: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-start.htm

[jimtzu]

IQ test.. 

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?




















The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the
Giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.







2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?















Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant,
And close the refrigerator?

Wrong
Answer






Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door
This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.











3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference.
All of the animals attend... Except one. Which animal does not attend?









Correct Answer: The Elephant.
The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there.
This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.








4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
















Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across.
Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.






According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of
The professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. AndersonConsulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.

[Michael]

http://drift.koert.com
Stay awhile.  Interact..