Tuesday, January 29, 2008

http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/

Setting things right. This site has fun with plot holes and other ludicrous aspects of movies – some immensely popular movies, and some not-so popular ones.

Some of my favorite endings are Star Wars IV, SE7EN, and Lord of the Rings.

If you hate spoilers, don't watch a video about a movie you want to see – they'll spoil it for you!

http://flashface.ctapt.de/

Given dozens and dozens of each kind of facial feature (eyes, nose, hair, etc.) you can make a face. Kinda creepy, really good for aspiring police department sketch artists.

http://www.etchy.org/

An online etch-a-sketch. It still takes more time than it's worth, even in virtual form.

http://www.thegamehomepage.com/play/square-divide/

Addictive game where you (as a tiny triangle) shoot red squares, which causes them to break into smaller squares, all of which float around. Eventually, the smaller squares disappear when they are shot. Your goal is to shoot and avoid touching the squares.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/Library_of_Congress/

The Library of Congress has uploaded over 3,000 historical images to Flickr.com. Most of the pictures are from the WWII era, with many focusing on soldiers, factory workers, and miners. The images have no copyright restrictions on them whatsoever.

There are even about 10 pictures of the Bingham Canyon copper mine and Geneva Steel mill back during the war effort.

Pictures from Japanese-American relocation camps where particularly interesting to me.

Anybody who enjoys history or photography should check this out.

http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/PointMotivator/index.html

Or search for 'Point Motivator'

Odds are, most people have already had a slip-up or two with their New Year's resolutions, if not given up entirely. But that is no reason to not recommit yourself.

'Point Motivator' is a free application that aims to help people achieve their goals by making it easy to keep track of your goals and then save up rewards when you achieve them.

This is not going to turn a slacker into a go-getter. However, it's great for people who are motivated and just need some organization. It's also great for a parent who wants a way to keep track of chores and allowances/rewards for their kids (just make sure your kids don't know the password to the computer this is installed on).

http://openhulu.com/
http://www.hulu.com/

Hulu is from NBC and News Corporation (think: Fox). Many full-length episodes of popular shows from both Production companies: 30 Rock, Family Guy, Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, King of the Hill, Heroes, The Office, Scrubs, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

The actual Hulu site is still in Beta, but they allow members to post Hulu's content to personal Blogs and other web pages ? which has led to Open Hulu, a site anyone can visit to access Hulu's content.

It doesn't currently have every episode on most of the available programs ? it's still in Beta, after all ? but it has full episodes of a lot of good shows, and commercials are minimal. Request an account with Hulu (it will take a while for you to get one) but while you're waiting, go to Open Hulu and you won't miss a thing.

http://www.sillywalksgenerator.com/

From Monty Python, and is absolutely a way for them to sell more DVDs.

Allows you to choose a poseable character and background and create a silly walk of your own. If you create a login, you can save the walks to view later.

Being animation, this actually pays more homage to Terry Gilliam's work than to the actual 'Ministry of Silly Walks' sketch it references.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

http://thumbcalendar.com/
A calendar that prints out to the size of a credit card, so it can fit in your wallet and you can always have a calendar with you.

http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1
or search for "Alice AI" or "Alice Bot"

An artificial intelligent chatbot. Alice isn't that deep, but her naiveté and simplicity can be fun at times. For being completely A.I., she is rather remarkable – although if she were a human she would be considered dumb as a stump. At the very least, you can talk with someone who makes you feel smart.

An incredibly hypnotic game consisting of falling streams of sand, water, oil and salt. You can draw in walls to contain, divide, or move the elements, and can add fire, add plant life, or both (to ominous results). There are about 8 variations on this original theme that you can try. Newer variations have horrible writhing 'zombie' stick figures that you can bury or burn, only to have new ones fall from the sky.


Falling Sand

Ryan vs Dorkman 2
http://www.stage6.com/user/DorkmanScott/video/1137289/RvD2:-Ryan-vs--Dorkman-2

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-is63goeBgc

The follow-up to what has often been called 'The world's greatest light saber battle' – a Star Wars fan film known as Ryan Versus Dorkman (you may want to watch that one first if you haven't seen it yet).

The acting is terrible, the actors are not attractive, but they are very enjoyable.

It's great to see what fans are able to accomplish when they promise George Lucas they won't make money off it.

Plus, one of the guys is named Michael Scott