For those others of you out there who are needing to learn some anatomy, or even for those who are just curious, i found some video tutorials from an anatomy course at the University of Wisconsin. They’re quite good, going through by sections in 10-20 minute blocks.
Month: June 2007
I finally get it
One of the amusing features of getting old is that it seems to take longer and longer to become aware of and take up the emerging cultural trends of the day. My first recallection of this was when the whole “Bling” phenomenon passed me by for about 5 months before I became aware of it (not that that really constituted a big loss for me, or the rest of society for that matter).
I have generally put it down to the fact that you spend all day working and not randomly surfing the net or gossiping with vacuous 15 year old girls (who unfortunately seem to originate and perpetuate many of these “trends”).
As a result I have been amused to realise that after several years of reading about them and hearing everyone go on about how it’s the new hot thing, I finally seem to “get” the internet phenomenons of Youtube and Facebook.
I had in the past looked at a few videos on youtube, but had never gone beyond linking in to look at a specific video, and then leaving again. I just didn’t get the whole fun of jumping from video to tenuously related video and seeing where it took me, or watching (usually only parts of) unbelievably bad video blogs. Perhaps its the acquisition of higher speed broadband that has changed it for me (less loading lag time) but I’ve now found quite a lot of fun in link-surfing around Youtube. I’ve also decided that it’s a great system for putting video on my blog (as seen recently in my Youtube Stumbles regarding Harry Potter) without having to bother with setting up my own streaming video server – watch for more videos of Jack soon.
Facebook also was something I saw people using and didn’t get. I couldn’t see the point. I could email people quite adequately already, why would I need to do it through a website for everyone else to see as well? But in a fit of curiosity a few weeks back I signed up and now I can’t seem to go 12 hours without checking whether I’ve got new friends, or new photos have been added, or someone’s changed their status, or written on my wall. It’s unbelievably compulsive. It also makes sitting in my study being boring and reading anatomy seem immensely less socially isolating than it was only a month ago.
So it’s only taken me a few years to get with the program, but I’m finally here.
If you are using facebook as well and want to add me as a friend, you should be able to locate me with either my gmail or hotmail addresses.
Best Bush T-shirts
On a site that posts the kind of internet humor that regularly ends up in your email inbox in the form of FWD:fwd:re:Fwd… <insert caption here>, I found the following amusing little list of best Bush T-shirts. My favorites are 1, 16 and 18.
Best Bush T-Shirts
Posted February 11, 2007
1) (On an infant’s shirt): Already smarter than Bush.
2) 1/20/09: End of an Error!
3) That’s OK, I Wasn’t Using My Civil Liberties Anyway
4) Let’s Fix Democracy in This Country First
5) Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.
6) You Can’t Be Pro-War And Pro-Life At The Same Time
7) If You Can Read This, You’re Not Our President
8) Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?
9) George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight
10) Impeachment: It’s Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore
11) America : One Nation, Under Surveillance
12) They Call Him “W” So He Can Spell It
13) Which God Do You Kill For?
14) Jail to the Chief!
15) Who Would Jesus Torture?
16) No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade?
17) Bush: God’s Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap
18) Bad president! No Banana.
19) We Need a President Who’s Fluent In At Least One Language
20) We’re Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them
21) Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Blood
22) Is It Vietnam Yet?
23) Bush Doesn’t Care About White People, Either
24) Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Handbasket?
25) You Elected Him. You Deserve Him.
26) Impeach Cheney First
27) Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too
28) When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46/gal!
29) The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century
30) 2004: Embarrassed – 2005: Horrified – 2006: Terrified
31) Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
New uses for microwaves
When you’ve gotten tired of microwaving flies, apparently it’s possibly (with an industrially modified super microwave) to convert plastics back to hydrocarbon gases and oils. I can’t imagine that it’s an energy viable way of making petrol, but perhaps if you linked it up to a massive solar power plant…
Cheers Big Ears (Part 2)
You sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? Now there’s a frood who knew where his towel was.
If you understood even half of that preceeding sentence you would probably appreciate the concept of International Towel Day (May 25th), where you are encouraged to carry your towel, and appreciate all those wonderful things that Douglas Adams brough into our lives.
Having recently re-read the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy (a trilogy in 5 parts) I love the idea, and can’t wait for the opportunity to wear my towel and wave my elecrtonic thumb.
For kids at heart
I stumbled upon a nifty little web application made by Crayola (the Crayon people). It’s fun. Makes me wish I could actually draw…
Oh no!!!
Buck Shelford has lymphoma!!! 🙁
What will we do if we can’t bring back Buck?
Youtube stumbles
While doing some stumbling around Youtube I came across these somewhat unusual girls who go by the name of the Parselmouths, and who like to make videos of themselves singing songs about harry potter and potter related themes.
Here, for your amusement, are two of their offerings.
“What kind of name is Hermione”:
and, “And then I died”:
There…
Cheers big ears
For those geeks of you out there, here’s something that’s sure to appeal to you:
An online partially visual version of the old hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy game (which if you’ve ever played the old text only version (which I think may be available at Home of the Underdogs), you will know to be spectacularly, amusingly frustrating. In fact I don’t think the adjective frustrating really adequately does justice to how entertainingly infuriating it can be at points. Anyway)
Keeping a foot in the door
After seeming to blindly stumble into corporate quick sand, by choosing to continue investing in film based photography and ignore the rise of digital cameras, it looked for a while like Kodak might go the way of the dinosaurs, however some good corporate restructuring and product re-alignment seems to have held them steady, and now it looks like once again they are regaining their place at the top of the photographic food chain.
Today I was reading about a new filter technology which Kodak has invented with dramitally increases the light sensitivity of digital camera sensors (by a factor of 2 to 4, depending on shooting conditions). This will apparently have particular applications in mobile phone cameras.
Anyway, now I’m looking forwards to it’s arrival.
I love technology, by sometimes being a wannabe early adopter is a bit of a hassle.