Epic War 1 & 2

Epic War has been released quite a long time ago but is still addicting. So much so that Epic War 2 is made into a great hit! Photo here.

Impressive glass playing

Glasses Concerto

Good luck, Obama

Robert Ariail / The State (Columbia, S.C.) (January 20, 2009)

Live Action Super Mario

Super Mario etched onto a PC

Details at: Kotaku.com (which incidentally has 1320 blog entries labeled 'Super Mario'!)

Super Mario in Little Big Planet

Little Big Planet is a PS3 game that allows you to make your own levels. As you can see, this guy made a pretty good Super Mario level.

Via: www.PSMonger.com

Mario Kart: The Rap

Yo! Yo! It's time to rap!

Super Mario Physics

Here is a scholarly study of the physics in Super Mario games. The main conclusion is that, while gravity is getting closer to realistic values in newer games, in most games Super Mario would lose consciousness due to the acceleration forces to which he is subject.

Via: BoingBoing. Picture from: http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com

Hypocrisy, defined

                                            Iraqi civilian deaths per month

In his long-awaited last public address, George Bush said that "murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere". The man has no shame: he himself murdered thousands of innocents to advance his own distorted ideology. According to the independent website http://www.iraqbodycount.org/, Bush's unprovoked invasion of Iraq has been responsible for between 90,000 and 99,000 documented Iraqi civilian deaths.

Obama is sworn in on Tuesday. Good riddance.

Fail Blog

Check it out: Fail Blog.

World air traffic, visualized

World Air Traffic Over 24 Hours
I love this visualization of world air traffic. If we didn't know what they were, we might think the yellow stuff was some kind of sun-loving creature, hiding at night and coming out in crowds during the day.

Shadow art

I am amazed and impressed by this shadow art.

The List Universe

The List Universe is a website devoted to collecting lists (like the one below). Some of them are pretty good, like this one of the Top 30 Brilliantly Timed Sports Photos (#25 illustrated above).

52 quotes from Warren Buffett

Here are 52 quotes from Warren Buffett.
My favourites:
8. I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.
21. Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.
25. Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.
26. Our favorite holding period is forever.
30. Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.

Forbes 400

Forbes has a new list of the 400 richest Americans. They have Bill Gates ahead of Warren Buffett by US$7 billion.
The minimum needed to make the list is $1.3 billion, which as chance has it is almost exactly one dollar for every person who lives in China.

The Obamamobile

Check out Obama's amazingly reinforced vehicle.
Via Gizmodo

Freedom

Via: The Daily Weird

Investment measures illustrated

I am not convinced that it is the best way to understand such things, but this site specializes in explaining investment ratios (and other financial terms) using illustrations, instead of the usual mathematical formulas.

The illustration above shows the quick ratio (also known as the acid test), a commonly-used measure of a company's ability to pay money that it owes in the short term. The quick ratio is actually defined as:

Basically, it just measures how much money you have available (the top of the ratio = assets on hand minus what you have to pay to keep the business running) divided by how much you owe (the bottom part; 'liabilities' are what the company owes. Bank overdrafts, which is how much your bank allows you to go into the hole, are excluded since they are on-going, more or less permanent ways of borrowing). It is best if the quick ratio is at least 1: you don't want to own or invest in (same thing, really) a company that has a ratio lower than 1, because it means that the company does not have enough quickly-available assets to pay its soon-due debts.

IYA2009

This year is the International Year of Astronomy. It has many major goals but only 2 will affect the common people: Increase scientific awareness and increase widespread knowledge of the subject. The other goals are to improve/ create better astronomic tools and activities including 100 Hours of Astronomy. Their official website can be found at Astronomy2009.org.