Screenshot: A Weblog

The year rolls to an end tonight, and most of the people I've talked to have very little exciting planned for this evening. So, whether you are looking for something to distract yourself while waiting to see how badly they manage to mis-time the ball drop or are looking ahead for distractions for tomorrow after festivities tonight, here are some fun things I've come across in the past day or two:

A total ad campaign, but Viking Movies challenges you to identify twenty movie titles based on scenes recreated using office supplies. I'm up to having 15 of the 20 correct, but I'm stuck on (from the left) the 8th, 9th, 13th, 14th, and 19th ones. If you get one of those, give me a hint! [via Clicked]

There are tons of "best X" lists floatinig around this time of year, but this list of 25 Really Addictive Flash Games is quite comprehensive and good. The Idiot Test is fun and worth a couple of rounds, I love games like Blueprint where you have to solve puzzles to reach goals (though none are as good as the original, Lemmings), and Stackopolis, where you have to rearrange blocks to match a pattern in a time limit, gets suprisingly challenging. [also via Clicked]

My current game addiction, though, is MotherLoad, in which you direct a mining vehicle under the surface of Mars, collecting minerals to sell to buy more fuel and upgrades to your ship. The graphics are adorable.

Want something hands-on to do to liven up your New Year's celebration? Make a Steam Candle, really a miniature steam engine powered by a tea light. Very cool!

Questionable Content is a funny and interestingly-plotted daily comic - I highly recommend going back to the start of the strip because there really is a coherent storyliine spanning its entire history, and the backstory is relevant. Also, you don't want to miss any of the Pintsize strips. [via T]

In closing, 2006 has seen a bit of a rebound in my weblogging, I think, and I'm hoping to carry that forward into 2007. To all of my friends out there who read, I hope 2007 brings you wonderful things and I'll be thinking of you all with love tonight.

Posted by Amanda at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I always enjoy Brian Hayes' Computing Science feature in American Scientist, but his thoughts on the real-world applicability of mathematical proof were both interestinig and laugh-out-loud funny, if you're the sort of person to laugh out loud at angle trisection jokes and spoofs of Socratic dialog. The article also discusses the controversy over the imfamous computer-aided proof of the four-color theorem and the recent Hales proof of the Kepler conjecture. Hayes comes down on the side of computer assistance as a valid and valuable aid, not least as a tool for providing empirical data and aiding intuition. This is supported in part by a broad understanding of the point of mathematical proof:

The special status of mathematical truth, setting the discipline apart from other arts and sciences, is a notion still cherished by many mathematicians, but proof has other roles as well; it's not just a seal of approval. David Bressoud's book Proofs and Confirmations gives what I believe is the best-ever insider's account of what it's like to do mathematics. Bressoud emphasizes that the most important function of proof is not to establish that a proposition is true but to explain why it's true. "The search for proof is the first step in the search for understanding."

Posted by Amanda at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's that magical time when I geek out about the latest Knitty, this time the Winter 2006 issue. There are a few socks, which is great (Monkey is a cute pattern, and the model is wearing totally cute shoes), and the felted brown bag is awesome. But, the prize has to be Binary, which I will definitely make, and in which the pattern of 1s and 0s will definitely not be random....

Posted by Amanda at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Via J, I've been wasting a lot of time browsing the Uncyclopedia - a communal wiki based encyclopedia dedicated to misinformation. I was originally pointed to the list of weapons that don't exist, but should (Radioactive Zombie Badger Launcher! Ninja-in-a-box!) and the accompanying list of weapons that exist, but shouldn't (Kool-Aid Man! Blue Screen of Death! Incredibly Hot Anime Girls!) and list of weapons that don't exist, and shouldn't (Automated Crotch Kicker! Punxsutawney Phil Stuffed With Dynamite!) But other favorites include How to Smell a Bit Like Fish, Blame Transfer Protocol, and proofs that if it's on the internet it must be true.

Oh - and You have two cows....

Posted by Amanda at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are details to nit-pick, such as the fact that the electricity to run the players' PCs seems to be double counted into both the cost of the avatar and the cost of the human player, but this calculation that Second Life avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians is pretty interesting [via Clicked]. It's an interesting ecological assessment of a new entertainment form, and a really interesting comparison of global resource consumption.

Posted by Amanda at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

B sends me a link to the opposite of all of those book recommender tools out there, the LibraryThing UnSuggester, which analyzes their database of people's book collections and tells you what books you shouldn't read if you like a particular book. More accurately, it tells you what books are least likely to be in the same collection with your selected book. I tried out two of my favorites from different genres, and while it was pretty accurate on its unsuggestions for Cryptonomicon, the list for Pride and Prejudice has a significant overlap with my collection, what with the Norvig AI/Lisp books, Knuth's Art of Computer Programming collection (really, a must for any library) and other computing texts. How sad....

Posted by Amanda at 1:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was talking with a colleague on Friday about the legality of backing up a video found online to an internal server as a safeguard for still being able to view the film in a class setting even if the network, or the film's server, goes down when one is planning to use it. While it is not entirely the same situation, the first item on the Copyright Office's list of exemptions from DCMA copying restrictions certainly suggests that doing so is not inconsistent with the Copyright Office's interpretation of fair use:

Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.

Other entries on the list of note include permission to break protection if the hardware it is on is obsolete, if the protections make the material inaccessible to the visually impaired, or if the purpose of the circumvention is to do security research.

Posted by Amanda at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the past week, some very different do-it-yourself projects have come across the MAKE: Blog:

Building a crystal radio out of household items,

Mak e a resistor man! (sooooo cute!),

make an LED Popsicle stick picture frame,

and a bit late from the holidays, Make a Pecan pie based Icosahdron, aka the pie-cosahedron.

Posted by Amanda at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every year Matt over at X-Entertainment puts together a Advent Calendar based on the Playmobile toy advent calendar, plus he promises to post goodies in his weblog each day. If you haven't seen this before, you may want to read the History of X-E's Advent Calendar first, as this year's story picks up with the same running cast of characters.

If you have read along in the past, Knacks has a MySpace page!

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