Happy New Year!

Have a safe and sane evening. See you next year!

Caption Contest

A pint a day keeps the Doctor away!

Caption Contest Winner

Yay, I win again!

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• Have fun playing with the physics simulators. (You might have to scroll down to see the Flash animation.)


• Despite being stated as fact, these are actually medical myths.


• Your introduction to cluster ballooning.


• The top ten vegetarian-friendly prisons.


• What kind of tattoo to get? How about one for science?


• Test yourself and see if you can identify the sci-fi show or movie a sound clip is from at the Sci-Fi Sounds Quiz. (I scored 79 credits, whatever that means.)


• The Star Wars theme played on bagpipes.


• Crazy kitten loves water!

Sorry for the short list this week, not a lot happening on the intartubes, what with the holidays and all. See you next week to finish off 2007!

It's Like Ray-eee-ain...

You know how so many items we purchase today come in those impossible-to-open sealed plastic packages? The ones where you try to cut them open with a pair of (pretty beefy) scissors or a bigass knife? Well, I got this cool Christmas present that is one of those it's-about-time sort of deals, the amazing plastic package opener!

The kicker? Guess how it was packaged.

(Click for biggerness.)

Caption Contest

Happy Holidays! I left you a present...

Scary Santa

Every year, partents take their kids to sit on Santa's lap and get their picture taken. And every year, some kids get totally freaked out. Luckily, we can laugh at them from the safety of our computers.

Enjoy the Scary Santa gallery.

Caption Contest Winner

There is no winner this week, due to lame entries. So I used my own caption. Don't like it? See if you can do better next week!

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• Design your own gaudy holiday sweater.


• The gingerbread house showcase.


• Maybe my next cooksperiment? Bacon chocolate chip cookies.


• When regular dollhouses are too mundane, turn to the crack row dollhouse.


• Sure, there are regular run-of-the-mill superheroes, but what about the less common heroes?


• The start of a new meme? This peanut looks like a duck.


• For those that love cheese, how about a nice chunk of this?


• Google is now searching and indexing computer code on the web. It has uncovered some interesting programmer profanity.


• A great short story: Security Question.


• How out-of-body illusions cause plane crashes. Seriously, 90 to 100 percent? Whoa.


• Bizarre and funny Windows errors.


• Have you played Guitar Hero? Maybe some Rock Band? Then you're all set to try your hand at Handbell Hero. (Seems like a perfect gather-round-the-computer activity for Christmas Day!)


• The Galactically Hot Women of Star Trek (the original series, of course).


• Create your own delightfully random holiday greeting with the Holiday-O-Matic.


• Vintage Soviet Christmast cards. "Ded Moroz" is the Russian name for Santa.


• Amazing video of a swimming sloth.


• Make your own virtual snowflake.


• I had no idea there were so many videos on YouTube of snow plow trains.


• If you've played Starcraft, you'll recognize these Starcraft origami.


• A final note for the holidays. If you live in Washington State, a reminder that, starting January 1st, 2008, ANY cellphone texting activity while driving is illegal. Remember, people, have a designated texter... don't text and drive.

Sunrise, Sunset...

Tomorrow we celebrate the Winter Solstice. Not celebrate as in dancing around trees like druid hippies, but celebrate as in the psychological victory of knowing that the days are going to start getting longer as we head inexorably towards summer. Yes, the first day of winter, and we're already thinking about summer.

Now, some might say, "But Nuke, my calendar says the first day of winter is Saturday!" Which is true if you live in an east-coast-centric universe. However, here in Seattle, winter starts at 10:08pm PST tomorrow night, so there.

Talk of the solstice got me to wondering. We all know that the first day of winter is the shortest day of the year (for most of us, anyway). But how do actual hours of sunlight/darkness map out to actual sunrise and sunset times? You might be surprised; I know I was.

According to this chart at the Pacific Science Center, the latest sunrise occurs in winter, at 7:58am, from December 30th through January 3rd. That's a good week after the solstice! Also, the summer solstice occurs around June 21st, but the latest sunset, at 9:11pm (don't forget to factor in Daylight Savings Time) goes from June 21st through June 30th.

Who says you can't learn anything from the internet?

What's Your Who Name?

You know, from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Here's how you find out.

1. Go to this site. Yeah, it's that old.


2. Click the "Enter Site" link.


3. In the pop-up window, drag the magnifying glass thingy left to City Hall, then click the Who Name bit.

Mine is Nostalgic Nuclear Tappy-two-Who.

Internet Sensations

Where are they now?

One week to go...

The presents are all purchased, the work load is small... what's a geek to do?

Go to this site and download Crayon Physics. It's an amazingly simple and fun game that will get your brain a-goin'. (And help pass the time until <squeeee> CHRISTMAS!)

Caption Contest

Doth thith color math my thirt?

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is Raggedy Angst.

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• I'm all for people trying to coordinate events throughout the world, but seriously, a global O?


• This guy even registered the domain name for all the crap in my wallet.


• Another one-off LOLvariant: Lol vogue.


• Flex your net nerd credentials by seeing how many HTML elements you can name in five minutes.


• Scans of vintage Christmas catalogs. Warning: extreme time sink.


• Road kill stuffed toys.


• 2 forks, 1 cup.


• A collection of modern birdhouses.


• A photoshop imagining of the worst Christmas albums.


• Tacky Christmas yards.


• Working at WalMart: the prank and revenge.


• Japanese manga (comic book read right to left): Enigma of the Amigara Fault.


• The blonde map of Europe.


• Next time you record yourself dancing, leave out the dog.


• Star Wars, the Baroque version.

Worst Headline Ever

As you may or may not know, singer, songwriter and pioneering rock musician Ike Turner passed away yesterday. The worst headline ever written in the history of printed news announced the fact on The New York Post:
Ike 'Beats" Tina to Death.

World Domination, Part Deux

After the previous game of Risk, my officemate designed a new, local edition of Risk for us to play. Crappy cellphone picture, but you get the idea:

Christmas Tree... Solved!

All I need is one of these insta-trees and no more Christmas tree hassles!

NSFW™

The term "not safe for work" and its corresponding initialism "NSFW" has been used for years on the web to indicate something that probably shouldn't be seen and/or heard at the office, or possibly even at home.

Now comes word that social networking site Fark.com has filed a US Trademark registration for the term.

That's the craziest thing since Microsoft® trademarked Windows® (but not windows).

Caption Contest

Before Proactiv; after Proactiv.

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is Rod. Nicely done!

See the original image here.

Activity Corner

• Screenshots of water effects in video games over the years. Now in German!


• 12 Things I Learned from TV Court Shows.


• An interesting demonstration of motion-induced blindness.


• What is the deal with social networking sites? They keep popping up like things that pop up all the time. Are the creators of these sites innovating, or running out of ideas? You be the judge when you peruse Listography.


• Christmas gift-giving can be hard if you don't know what to get someone. So take the safe route and get them some crap at a place like Waste Some Cash.


• Hmmm, which science t-shirt is best for me?


• All of the geeks I know are a combination of individual geeks from the 56 Geeks poster. You can buy one here.


• Wow, get your very own Flux Capacitor! (DeLorean sold separately.)


• Take what appears to be a Volkswagen Golf, strip it down to all its constituent parts, and then photograph the result.


• The Barbie MP3 Player, complete with self-esteem-building mirror!


• What's the worst part of the airport security check? Walking around in your socks while your shoes get xrayed. That may soon be a thing of the past with the MagShoe device. Yay!


• Model-builders showcase their talents at the Starship Modeler Wrecks Contest.


• Dear Santa: YES PLEASE!


• Old-style 80s brick mobile phones are back "in"! Ok maybe not exactly like the 80s, since this one is 4.3 by 1.4 INCHES, but still.


• Macrophotography plus consumer "meat" products equals mystery meat.


• You know you're an artistic geek when you use the Halo 3 map editor to make a self-portrait.


• Americans love lists.


• Dead leaves from real New York trees.


• Bizarre Christmas albums.


• Evel Knievel passed away last week. As a daredevil, he paid the price with an extensive list of injuries.


• The homespun analogy generator.


• Some things I just don't understand. Like wanting to hang big-game trophies in your house, but not by killing actual animals. Somehow, you can make it all better by using plush stuffed trophies.
  Edit: Don't forget the throw rugs.


• Wrapping someone's office or apartment in aluminum foil isn't new, but that doesn't make the feat any less awesome. See the amazing aluminum apartment.


• The Klein Four Group performs their creative 12 Days of Christmas.


• Christmas tree roundup: The Grinch, Charlie Brown, bookshelf tree, 350-tree tree.

Yoda Pizza

Impressed me, they did, yeeesssss.

The Yearly Rudolph

I can't help it, I love the Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Trivia: It was first aired on December 6, 1964 on NBC. I watched it again last night (after not seeing it for a couple of years) and was reminded how timeless the story is even after 43 years. There are funny bits for young and old alike to enjoy. One thing is certain: Yukon Cornelius is the most badass inhabitant of Christmastown.

The only thing that struck me is the romance between Rudolph and Clarice. Why was she drawn to him? He did absolutely nothing to attract her; in fact, he was anything but enticing. Maybe he was some sort of buff-teen-idol-template reindeer, a fact that is lost on this human.

I found a lot of interesting facts about the show from its wikipedia entry.

My vote for best quote goes to this exchange:
  Yukon Cornelius: This fog is thick as peanut butter!
  Hermey: You mean "pea soup".
  Yukon Cornelius: You eat what you like, and I'll eat what I like!

Soda Jerk

At my work there are large standing coolers loaded with soft drinks. You know the kind: sliding glass doors and lots of wire shelves. These coolers have cans stacked two-high on each shelf. That means a lot of cans.

Half-assed grab at a soda + wire shelves with perfectly-spaced gaps + domino theory = loud sustained crash as the ENTIRE SHELF of cans fall over inside the cooler.

Once the embarrassment of the moment is over, you realize with great relief that the loud crash handily masked the F-bomb you dropped.

O Tannen@&%$

This weekend I tried to put up my Christmas tree. It's pretty nice; about 3 feet tall, two pieces that snap together, a ton of lights already on it. Easy, right?

Apparently, not so much. The retarded stand (and I use that word loosely) just wouldn't stay together. The one time I thought I had it actually working, I snapped on the top half of the tree only to watch it lazily fall over as the stand slowly gave way.

Score so far: Christmas - 1, NT - 0.

Caption Contest

"Well, I used to be pretty open minded about things..."

Caption Contest Winner

This week's winner is weebat, with a great tie-in to the Doors song.

See the original image here.