YAG

Yet another game :-)

My kids have been addicted to One More Level since I stumbled across it a while ago. Every time they visit, there are new games to play (and not the kind that cost $15 per game cartridge!). Their current fascination is called Color Fill. Kinda addicting...

Reverse Tetris

In the classic Tetris game, you try to remove all the blocks before the tower of bricks gets too tall. 99 Bricks is the exact opposite. Instead of removing blocks, you try to add as many as you can, building the tower higher and higher before it collapses. Can you stack all 99 Bricks before they fall?

It's all in your mind...

Is this a new version of the Rorschach inkblot test? Does what you see first reveal something about you?

What did you say?

I learned something new tonight. Actually, it's just another example of how smart Google is, and how powerful their assistance can be... when you know where to fund it.

When I get bored, sometimes I hit the "Next Blog" link at the top of the Blogger site. This takes you to a random blog. Fortunately for Blogger, they're international. That drives more traffic, more eyes, and hence money (at least in someone's business plan, though I'm still not sure how). Unfortunately for me, I don't speak Portuguese, Romanian, Japanese, Spanish, nor many of the other languages of people that post on Blogger. Fortunately for me, I know a little about Google. :-)

I know that Google has a Language Tools link on their home page next to the search box. That page then has a Translate a web page section. If you give Google a URL and tell it to translate from Portuguese to English, for instance, you can generally get a good enough machine translation to get the gist of the site. But what if you don't know the starting language? Us dumb Americans suck at internationalization stuff. Well, a little URL hacking and I found out that Google doesn't really care what the originating site's language is (or more precisely, they can figure it out themselves.) So, by adding http://translate.google.com/translate?u= in front of a site's URL that you need translated, Google will do all of the work!

I'm working on a bookmarklet that will do this automatically, but it's getting late. I'll add that as a follow up post tomorrow.

Auf Wiedersehen. Arrivederci. Tot ziens. Adeus. :-)

Is it Memorex? Or is it live?

OK, so that title relates to audio, not visual art, but that's the best thing I could think of to represent this site. The artist creates drawings so detailed, you literally can't tell that it's not a photograph! Here2See has a great post about Linda Huber and her incredible artistry, including videos. Or, you can visit Linda Huber's own site.

Linda says, "...most all of my work takes anywhere from 20-80 hours." That shows the level of skill, dedication and detail she puts into each piece. Truly AMAZING! -- and she does commissions! :-)

I challenge you to find a better photo-realistic pencil artist!

Set 'em up and make 'em fall.

Dominoes is almost as classic as Lego as far as childhood games are concerned. Not the Dominoes where you have to match the count of those darn dots. I'm talking about the stacking of Dominoes in such a way that they fall in a Slinky-like motion, each falling Domino leading to another falling Domino. Well that was the plan anyway. It didn't always go as planned. After spending what seemed like, or maybe was, hours setting up hundreds of individual Dominoes, keeping the cats and siblings at bay so as not to knock over a critical keystone, I would hold my breath and tap the first brick. All that work either led to an incredible rally that lasted 15 seconds at best, or a dismal failure that lasted maybe 3.

Well, as with all things nowadays, even the Domino rally has come to the web. Drawminos allows you to build a Domino chain in your browser, then see it fall. Unlike the real world, this site lets you make modifications to correct those gaps and misalignments that caused the dismal failures. You can move them around even after they fall to craft a piece of art. You can save your successes or view other's as well.

This site is good for at least few minutes of reminiscing.

Research

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called "research." -- A. Einstein

One wish

If you had one wish, what would you wish for? More money? Health? More time? More love? A better job? Better body? Happiness? A super power? A cure for cancer? Knowledge? World peace?

As I started thinking about this, I kept coming back to one thing -- money. I feel back about that. Money isn't everything. Money isn't a LOT of things. But... Money can HELP with a lot of things.

Looking at my list above...

Health. With more money, you have access to better care. Better doctors. You could fly to German or Switzerland if that's where the best surgeon resides.

Time. There isn't a way to slow the clock down yet, but with more money, you could hire someone else to do some of the things that you're responsible for (cooking, cleaning, working, etc), freeing up more of your time.

Love. Money can't buy real love, but money can buy enough fake love to make you think it's real love.

Job. If you had all the money you needed, you wouldn't need a job.

Body. Money could buy cosmetic surgery, or limb or organ replacement.

Happiness. Whatever makes you happy could be increased with money. If happiness is a particular food, or place, or activity, money can make it happen, or make it happen more often. Even if your happiness is obtained by making other people happy, more money would enable you to make more people happy.

Superpower. More money spent on R&D is leading to things only seen before in science fiction. How much of the cool hi-tech stuff seen originally in Star Trek or Wars is now common place? Personal communicators, seeing through walls, flying, robots, even invisible cloaks are here, or right around the corner.

Cancer. We're getting closer every day. Additional monies would help speed the process.

Knowledge. Whether it provides access to more knowledge directly (memberships, etc), or simply facilitates that collection (world travels, etc), money can even help here.

World Peace. I'm sure that there's a connection there somewhere.

I know, I know. We've all heard the stories, or seen the TV specials about how lottery winners lives have been ruined by money. I'm not saying that's not true, or that it wouldn't be the ultimate outcome, but used wisely, by a wise person...

It's a sad, but realistic, fact I think...

Leave a comment below with what your wish would be.

Simon game (the Google Chrome version)

Nooooooooooooooooooo......... Don't jump!

The US economy sucks. Beg to differ? You're insane! It's likely to get worse before it gets better unfortunately. Bailouts, bridge loans, consolidation, economic stimulus packages won't be enough. It's gonna be rough for a while. Buckle up!

If you want a daily reminder of how bad things are getting across the country, head on over to Lay Off Daily where they remind you DAILY!

Two rules for success in life.

1) Never tell everyone everything you know.

2)

There are 10 types of people in this world...

...those who understand binary and those who don't.

Really big numbers

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

-Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)

Fear

"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We're afraid."
"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We will fall!"
"Come to the edge."
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.

Guillaume Apollinaire
1880-1918 French poet & philosopher

No one is safe!

There have been articles before about hackers breaking into public figure's web mail accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, and even GMail). Most recently, Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin's Yahoo account was cracked and personal details were released. Embarrassing, controversial, private communications have been released for all the world to see. Some of those revelations may have changed the course of history. Some may say that's part of being a public figure. Others say it's illegal.

Now they've gone too far, though. They've attacked the Big Guy's GMail account!