Sometimes...

...one simply doesn't know what to say!

The Life of a Parcel...

In one short video, with the boring bits mercifully edited out:

Mystery Image...

Chances are that you will not be able to figure out what this image represents.  Even if I told you that it was a heat map.  Even if I told you that the axes represent the integers 1..50 (increasing left-to-right and top-to-bottom).

Give up?

The brighter colors represent smaller numbers, the duller colors larger.  The heat map shows the number of digits in the product of x and y, as expressed in Roman numerals.

Figuring out why there are visual patterns to the result is left as an exercise for the reader.

Yes, this is the work of Nick Berry – who else would it be?

Bowed, But Not Broken...

Check out the photo below, showing a small sheet of 1/2" plywood sitting in the roof rack of our FJ.  I took this photo on Monday, when we were having some rain (about a tenth inch, nothing to get all that excited about).  The sheet was perfectly flat the day before, but look at it now!

The rain hitting the top side of the plywood soaked into the wood, causing it to swell a bit.  The bottom of the plywood remained dry, and therefore didn't swell.  But the swelling is directional – the fibers of wood grow in diameter, but not in length.  The grain of the top ply of this piece toward/away from the position of the camera, so the swelling occurs in the left/right direction.  This swelling caused the bowing in the direction you can see.

Later on, the water soaked down further in the wood, to the next ply.  At that point, the piece warped a bit in both directions, making a very odd-looking piece of wood.

Today (Wednesday) the piece has dried out, and is completely flat again...

Children Should Be Supervised By Adults...

A fun collection of tricks you can use to win bar bets.  A bar is approximately the last place you'd ever find me, but I think some of these might be fun when gathering with friends somewhere else, too:

This Ends Well...

...and in entertaining fashion, despite the ominous beginning...

“Magic” Sand...

An entertaining demonstration of hydrophobic materials:

Results: Oh-Oh...

Reader Simi L. sent me a link to a brand-new episode of Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote, with modern computer graphics.  That led me to several others, and a few good laughs this morning:

Retronaut...

Retronaut is a fascinating site full of old things, like the British WWII recruiting poster at right...

Internet Jukebox...

Via my mom, this delightful site.  Debbie and I spent a happy hour just listening to the songs we remember from our teenage years, and with some amusement to many of the earlier songs that we'd never heard before...

When a Geek Tries to be Cute...

...this is what you get. 

Hint: when the guy stops running, wave your cursor around over his head.

Via my mom...

What a Female Engineer Does for Fun...

Take one female engineer, one who happens to be dissatisfied with her latest vibrator (of the “sex toy” variety).  Add a bent for hacking, ownership of a 3D printer, and the know-how to do all this.  What do you suppose you get?  She calls it “hacking her vagina”.  Some might call it the ultimate vibrator.  To any geek, male or female, it's a fascinating read – mostly written in the same dry, detailed style another geek might have written up something like a voice-controlled lamp dimmer.

One thing that occurred to me as I was reading her post: unless she is incredibly naive (and her style makes me doubt that), posting this article took quite a bit of courage.  Presumably Beth has a job, and colleagues...and most likely some of them read her blog.  That ought to make for some coffee room conversations that are a bit, er, racier than the usual variety!

A Pile of Leaves...

Food Follies...

Someone in the kitchen has way too much time on their hands!  Via reader Simi L., a whole collection of such things...

Man, This Looks Like FUN!

I wanna go!

Tipping Point...

This one is purely for fun...

Guinness: Tipping Point