Thought for Today

The biggest problem with making up your mind is figuring out where to apply the rouge.

Social bookmarking

Personalizing the Internet: Blogs was the title of a recent presentation I gave to the Oak Park Computer Club--it was one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place. I will link to the finished article when it's ready. Technorati is a very useful blog-oriented real-time search tool.

One of the trends that's personalizing the Internet in a big way is social networking. There are several aspects to this worthy of mention, including networking sites such as Orkut (a Google affiliate), MySpace, and Friendster; there are also photo-sharing sites such as Flickr (now owned by Yahoo!). RSS figures in there too.

The main thrust of this post, however, is the recent rise of social bookmarking (article). One of the abiding problems of the Internet as we know it is the aspect known as the deep Web--that is, the hidden parts of the Internet unseen by search engines such as Google or Yahoo! Search. While some of these problems are addressed by the Teoma search engine and moderated sites like About.com, social bookmarks take a more-direct and broader-based approch to the problem, allowing users to post hyperlinks where they can be shared, if desired; once something is found, it can be added to the "memory pool" and searched as needed. One of the first and best-known of these sites is del.icio.us, but there are others--including Furl and del.irio.us--that offer similar services.

In the future, whenever possible, I will post appropriate groups of links to del.icio.us and link there. Many of my favorite links are already available on the Web--see the OPCC Links listed on the right sidebar. I will also start cross-posting these to del.icio.us shortly.

Since I mentioned Flickr in passing, here's a good example of its usefulness.

Thought for Today

"I may be Master of the Obvious, but it's good to be master of something!"

Virtual Fireworks

If you feel like you didn't get enough fireworks this year, don't fret--you can make your own! This Java-based animation allows users to point-and-click their own fireworks over a New York skyline. Very cool!

My favorite Web comic

As it has been for some time, Pibgorn is my favorite Web comic.

It's a web-only comic strip built around a love triangle unlike any other. Pibgorn, a renegade fairy, has fallen in love with Geoff, a mortal man--but Drusilla, Geoff's ex-girlfriend who also loves him, turns out to be a succubus in disguise (she's not really evil--just sort of, ahhh... single-minded, shall we say). After an initial struggle, there's a truce between Pib and Dru (Dru still loves Geoff, and she can't hurt Pib without hurting him), their powers complement each other, so they mostly cooperate. Much magical mayhem ensues--Drusilla has a past that catches up to them, Pib is captured by fairy-hating Men in Black, etc.

It's funny, thoughtful, and amusingly bizarre. The stylized art is appropriate to the subject, as well. Start as far back as you can, it's just a few panels into the new story as I write this.

Mathematics, science, and art

The intersection of math, science, and art has some interesting landmarks--among them art based on fractals (fractional dimensions), including those mathematically derived from the Mandelbrot and Julia sets and Sierpinski gaskets. These mathematical constructs often mimic features of the natural world such as coastlines, clouds, and weather patterns.

Science can also provide a surprising and unexpected aesthetic beauty. An example of this are these microphotographs of beer.

Tesselations are math-based art created by a human hand. From the inlaid tile mosaics of the Alhambra to the work of M. C. Escher and Roger Penrose, it's clear that the mind's eye is always decorating surfaces in creative ways.

Arcs 'n' sparks

Some high-voltage hijinks, both man-made and natural.  As a long-time electronic technician, I've gotten my share of jolts--what we used to jokingly refer to as "shaking hands with Reddy Kilowatt"--but never anything quite as energetic as the stuff shown here.

The Teslamania site is also a good source of information on Nikola Tesla (and here), one of the all-time unsung heroes of modern science--without whom the modern world would be a much different place.  Why unsung?  There are a number of reasons, including his eccentricities and the undying enmity of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.  A fascinating story...

Robot car ads

A while back, I sent out a link to a car commercial featuring a Transformer-like dancing Citroen. For those of you who may not have seen that mail, here is that link again (Yahoo.uk).

An excellent parody video has been released (scroll down for the link to the video). Although the parody was a short-term evening-and-weekend project--as opposed to the original's slick, professional animation and production values--the parody is effective, funny, and surprisingly well-made. Even Citroen was amused...

I highly recommend right-clicking on the links and saving them as files for smoothest playback, especially if you are on dial-up. WinAmp (free) works better than Windows Media Player (WMP) for playback, as some versions of WMP have a bug that horizontally "squishes" the first video somewhat. VLC also works well for this under both Windows and Linux.

The parody stands alone, but it's funnier if you have seen the original. Enjoy!

"Superman is a dick"

Funny, funny, funny--inspired by the meme "Superman is a dick"--a collection of truly (and wonderfully) bizarre and/or stupid comic book covers, mostly Superman-related. As the comment I saw stated, "Time, prepare to be wasted."

The image galleries are where the action is...