Amazing Yo-Yo skills September 30, 2008
Posted by Al in : clever, cool, educational, video , add a commentThis guy is good - and he’s only about 12 years old! Watch and learn what a Yo-Yo can do.
You might have to watch this twice September 29, 2008
Posted by Al in : clever, video , add a commentWow! This is so clever that the first time you watch it you won’t understand it until the end, but from then on it makes perfect sense. A really clever, well thought out and produced advert.
Octopodi - short and clever animation September 19, 2008
Posted by Al in : cartoon, clever , add a commentThis is quite nice, and shows what can be done with a simple subject matter and a little bit of time.
Amazing card tricks from Lennart Green
Posted by Al in : clever, magic, video , add a commentNow here’s a guy I’d like to see more of. This act is clever, intelligent, well thought out, targeted at his audience and incredibly well performed. When you first start watching you might think he’s a bit of a bumbling fool; but it doesn’t take long for Lennart to impress you with his skill, and once he gets you smiling you won’t stop until the end of the show. I’m going to look for more of his stuff, as I think he’s brilliant.
Things you can do with sticky notes
Posted by Al in : clever, video , add a commentThis is cool: I like the ingenuity behind linking sticky notes so that they make Slinky’s. The whole video is also well presented with good music - which always makes for better viewing.
3,000bhp Chevy
Posted by Al in : motoring, video , add a commentTake an old American car, completely rebuild it with a space-frame chassis and then fir a 3,000bhp Merlin engine from a Spitfire. Do this and you have a nice car, but when you spend that extra time in getting the bodywork and artwork just right then you end up with an amazing car. I’d love to see a video of this car in real action, but this video shows how well prepared it is.
Why we’re in the financial mess we are now
Posted by Al in : politics, scary , add a commentIf you were wondering exactly why the world’s financial markets are collapsing, then I would suggest you pay attention to this short, but useful Sub-prime primer. It’s amazing that people still don’t understand that the current financial model, that has been built over the last century or more, is actually flawed, and that continued growth is not a given. It’s also ridiculous that some of the largest financial institutions in the world were willing to lend money to people who would never be able to pay it back, had no security for the loan and then other large financial institutions bought these unsecured loans for far more than they were really worth. One day someone will manage to stand up to these institutions and point out that a radical rethink is required.
Buffalo Ladyboy gang terrorises Chiang Mai September 15, 2008
Posted by Al in : bizarre , add a commentIf you’re visiting Thailand, and you end up in Chiang Mai, then you ought to avoid sleeping in parked cars. Although the Infamous Buffalo Ladyboy Gang have now been arrested, it is possible that another gang may attempt to copy their modus operandi and rob you whilst also offering weird sexual favours. Quite bizarre, really, and possibly only ever likely to happen in Thailand.
Flash spider toy September 13, 2008
Posted by Al in : clever, website , add a commentThis is a very realistic looking spider. All created in Flash and capable of following your mouse pointer, or of being controlled by you. I think this is a very good piece of animation, and it just shows how far we have come to be able to have such a realistic piece of animation running inside an ordinary browser.
Climate Change - not what you expect September 11, 2008
Posted by Al in : nature, personal, politics , add a commentClimate Change is something that we all agree on, isn’t it? We all know that our excessive lifestyles are causing CO2 to rise into the atmosphere, and this process is causing the Earth’s climate to become hotter and hotter, to the detriment of all of us. However, there are strong arguments that this is not really happening, and that the Earth’s climate is, in fact, getting colder. As the evidence for this grows, then it might be time to think about why governments and large corporations want you to think that we are responsible for this non-existent global warming: could it be that there’s a lot more profit and tax in getting consumers to replace all their existing kit with new, environmentally friendly alternatives. Alternatives that their guilt will force them to accept paying a premium for?
That would be a very cynical attitude to take; but there is mounting evidence that global warming may not be happening after all. Indeed, the average temperature of the Earth has fallen every year for the last 10 years. This is, to recycle a phrase, “an inconvenient truth” and one that all the policy makers would prefer to ignore, or to dismiss as merely a delay in the inevitable process of global warming. This would have nothing to do with their vested interests, of course. The same scientific policy makers projected a huge rise in global temperature related to the increase in CO2 in our atmosphere, but while CO2 has continued to rise to match expectations, the global average temperature has not risen at anywhere near the projected rate: this would tend to suggest that the study linking CO2 to global warming should be revisited. In fact, some senior physicists have subjected the IPCC’s working to a bit of analysis and have cast doubts over the data used, the way it has been interpreted and the conclusions drawn from these studies.
Finally, just to add a bit more doubt to the whole global warming issue: a new study suggests that as polar ice melts it allows billions of tonnes of phytoplankton to bloom in previously ice-bound seas. These phytoplankton might be a more efficient carbon store than all the rainforests of the world put together, which may well lead to a dramatic drop in the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere. This remains to be seen, but it is clear that whilst melting ice-sheets are bad for polar bears, they may not be bad for the Earth as a whole.
I, personally, don’t believe that the whole global warming issue is as bad as has been made out, and I think that profit and the benefit of a worried and guilty society are the main reasons that this has been pushed into the mainstream media and so onto an unwitting public. I don’t believe that it is coincidence that global warming became the main threat to the world at around the same time that the Cold War finished: governments like their populace to have something other than government to worry about, and so give the government an opportunity to show itself as protecting it’s people. We currently have global warming and terrorists to keep us worried, and I’m certain that there is a killer disease, potential natural disaster or even alien attack waiting in the background, just in case any of the current sources of threat are disproved. Maybe I’m too cynical, but it stops me having to worry.