Friday, October 09, 2009

Friday Links!

Leading off, from Tim Jones, a link to a classic in gaming history: the 1978 Atari catalog.

Next is a new installment from Matt Sakey's "Culture Clash" series, and it's a thoughtful read--Welcome To The Reward Center: The Campaign Against Happiness.

Kez sent me a link to a video that is absolutely mesmerizing, but it needs a strong warning, because it's both bizarre and disturbing (on many levels). It's also hilarious, at times, and once you start watching, it's impossible to stop. It's a documentary titled Real Doll Experiences, and it's about men who buy "lifelike" dolls and treat them as their companions and "girlfriends."

Yeah, like I said--it's dark and very uncomfortable in places. But it's fascinating, too.

From Chris Meyer, a link to a wonderful story about eye-popping auto designs.

From Matt Teets, one of the greatest geek songs in history: "Walkthrough." The lyrics, incredibly, are a walkthrough to Zork.

From Jesse Leimkuehler, a story about the discovery of an expolanet where pebbles condense out of the air and rain into lakes of molten lava. Also, new information about Saturn's rings that reveals the rings are not flat--there are bumps as high as the Rocky Mountains.

From Tim Jones, remarkable pictures of a Russian nuclear power plant.

From Glen Haag, a story about the discover of a massive ring around Saturn, so large that it would take one billion Earths to fill it.

From Rob Cigan, a link to a story about images taken by the Hubble telescope that reveal two galaxies moving so fast that gas within the galaxies is being stripped away.

From The Edwin Garcia Links Machine, a link to a Central China Television promotional commercial featuring ink in a stunning array of beautiful patterns. Next, a slow motion bullet video. How slow? Try one million frames per second!

From Hogie Chang, a link to a very funny video taken from a Stephen Fry documentary in which a kakapo ("the old night parrot of New Zealand") makes an entirely valiant attempt to mate with a photographer.

From Sirius, a story about how scientists are analyzing how cheetahs move to improve the design of artificial legs. Also, a story about how evolutionary biologists have established that genetic blockades make it impossible for evolution to go backward.

Dan Quock sent me a link to a a new program called PhotoSketch, and the description is amazing:
...their software can take any rough sketch, with the shape of each element labeled with its name, find images corresponding to each drawn element, judge which are a better match to the shapes, and then seamlessly merge it all into one single image.

I've never heard of "Farmville," which is apparently all the rage on Facebook right now, but Rebecca Reeve sent me a link to a very clever video called Farmville Rap.

From Michael Hughes, and the title says it all, it's man sets up up house in a missile silo.

Site Meter