Weird/Fun Flash Games

Plinko, BoomBot, Pel, Coign of Vantage and Kinetikz 2 are your selection of weird and fun games for today! Via Good Experience Games. Photo here (not the games).

Spore Trial

Click here to get a free creature creator or the full 9.95$ version. Although, you need a power computer to do so: 10.5.3 Leopard or better (Mac) and Windows XP/Vista more info. Can't wait the 12 more days... Photo here. Wikipedia: Spore.

Spore New Website

New and Improved Spore Website also, check out YouTube on the Spore Channel. 13 more days.

A map of nations that don't use the metric system

Liberia, Myanmar and the United States.
From: www.allvoices.com

Super Mario clouds

Click on the image for more info.

Olympic medals per capita

Everyone counts Olympic medals by country, but I think it should be done per capita (that is, we should take into account the population of the country, by dividing the number of medals won by the total population). Here's the most-medaled 20 countries expressed on the basis of medals per million people.
By this measure, Canada did better than China, the United States, or the Russian Federation (the top three countries by number of medals)....but Jamaica comes out far and away the best.

An even better measure might be medal winners per capita: that is, we shouldn't count multiple medal winners more than once. However, that would be a pain to calculate. It is also not clear how to deal appropriately with team sports, where you get a lot of medalists but only one medal counted.

Medal count came from here. Populations came from here.

Update: It has been pointed out to me that the Bahamas actually has a higher per capita medal count than Jamaica, which I missed because they actually had very few medals. They got 2 medals, but got them from a population of just 331,000, for a medal per million score of 6.04.

A commentator pointed out this nice website that graphs medals per million citizens, among other relations.

Olympics Design

Think the olympics was easy on China because it lasts only 2 weeks? Think again. A nice series of videos have been made to say so: The Bird's Nest, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. The World's Biggest Airport: 1, 2, 3 and 4 5? And also, the start of the Biggest Dam Part 1 of 9, A huge Railway and the Beijing Final Countdown refer to the Related Videos for the other parts. All in China. Photo is of the Beijing Airport here.

Drawing lessons

This guy offers free on-line free drawing lessons. (Photo by Arno Rafael Minkkinen)

Olympics

If you want to learn about the 2008 olympics there are many links to do so, Overall Medal Standings, Beijing 2008, Olympics.org to learn more about olympic sports go here, the Official Mascots and on Wikipedia.org (most information). Photo here.

Enigmo I and II

You may remember Enigmo, a great Macintosh game released by Pangea Software a few years ago that involves building 2D contraptions to fill containers with liquids. There was a 3D sequel a few years later, Enigmo 2. There is also an iPod touch/iPhone version. These are fun games.

Flash flood in Calgary

Amazing footage of a sewer overflow in Calgary a few years ago.

Yellowtail

Cool interactive art.

Paper Masters

If you think you're good at folding paper check Paper Masterpieces and also, his site. (His creation is the Wii).

Vector intro

This is a nice simple intro to the use of vectors in physics, which we were recently discussing.

Tree trunk texture

Tree trunk texture, originally uploaded by OntologicalDoubt.

This is by far my most popular photograph on flickr, with over 700 views. Kind of sad to think my most popular photo is just a texture shot.

M Of The M

Mario Of The Month! I've got a few: the one you see is Mario Bros Bowser. Also, see: Saint Mario and the Mario Crew. For a lot more Mario photos go to the We Love Mario Flickr Group and Mario on Flickr.

EvitoBall

EvitoBall is fun yet challenging game (at parts). Where you have to get a ball in a hole by collecting yellow circles and being shot at.

Top 1000 Movies

Want to watch great movies? The New York Times may be the best.
The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made. Photo: here.

Floccinaucinihilipilification

'Floccinaucinihilipilification' is real English word, and I think one you should know, since it refers to something you like to do (though I wish you wouldn't do it quite so often): "the act of describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation".

Who knew? The Secret Life of Evil Mario

"Mary~Oh Antonio von Mario Bros(b. 17 November 1981 in Rome d. 1 December 2020 in Madrid) is a general for Nintendo, generally credited for founding the Q'in Dynasty and Dunkin' Donuts. He has starred in many unsuccessful video games and a critically acclaimed movie, and currently lives in the Mushroom Kingdom (or Brooklyn). [...]
Contrary to popular belief, Mario is NOT a lovable video game character, but is instead a solid, trustworthy communist of the current Soviet Union. (For more information on this, and see the Communist in action go to http://terminal71.com/flash/mario.php) There are several factors that quite clearly suggest Mario's affiliation with the commies. First off, he bears a remarkable resemblance to a certain righteous man, Josef Stalin. Second, he wears red overalls, the signature color of communism. Third, he spends his life going around invading settlements by innocent Goombas, and overthrowing the local governors, known as "Bowsers". And finally, the clearest reference to communism is the flag that Mario raises every time he defeats a "boss". At first glance, the flag seems to be nothing more than a mushroom. Look again. The emblem on the flag is none other than the great Hammer and Sickle. Hail comrade Mario!"

More shocking revelations here. (Content warning: Some material and language may offend. The truth is not easy.)

www.periodicvideos.com

The periodic table is a way of representing the 118 elements (one of which, #117 Ununseptium, has never been seen and apparently will decay in a few nanoseconds if it is ever formed). I like this site from the University of Nottingham in England, that links each cell in the periodic table to a charming YouTube video about each one of those elements. The scientist with the wild hair is great.
I linked the video for sodium here. It's a pretty random choice, but this is a typical and quite amusing video.

Leonardo da Vinci: Saint John The Baptist

This is my favorite painting. It is by Leonardo da Vinci. I don't know where they hang it now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, but it used to be hung right beside the Mona Lisa, so everyone would ignore it.
I think it is the better painting.
Saint John baptized Christ and later had his head cut off for no good reason.
I know he looks like a woman in this painting. That is one of the things I like about it: you can't even tell if it is a man or a woman. It could be anybody.