Archive for The Madman
Microsoft Launches WorldWide Telescope
From the world of competitive astronomical websites (isn’t the Internet grand?) comes this new offering from Microsoft, WorldWide Telescope. Like others before it Microsoft’s new offering allows users to explore planets and other celestial objects. You can also view/track objects from any place on earth and in any point in time. Of course as you might expect from Microsoft there’s more going on than that. There is a lot of imagery from NASA including the Mars rovers, Hubble telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. There are also ‘tours’ set up by expert astronomers or you can even save your own ‘5 year missions’.
Like with Google’s ‘The Sky’ or the open source Stellarium users must first download the free WorldWide Telescope software from Microsoft (windows only).
WorldWide Telescope (via BBC News)
World Beard and Moustache Championships
Here’s another one from our ‘Who Knew?’ department, the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Every other year hairy faces from around the world gather to see whose facial hair reigns supreme in three different brackets - moustache, partial beard and full beard which are then divided into 17 categories (in total). And while classic beards are no doubt an ‘old world’ thing the championships are surprisingly ‘new’ with the first competition held in 1991 (Germany).
And its not just about the hair, contestants are also judged by their costumes and overall presentation.
So next time your significant other hassles you for not shaving just suggest you’re in training to be a world champion - although bear in mind it won’t take much research (or common sense for that matter) to determine that ‘bum’ is not a legitimate category.
World’s Tallest Lego Tower
Thousands of children and families helped celebrate Lego’s 50th year by building a 100ft tower made entirely of the plastic blocks at Legoland Windsor (UK). Each 20cm (roughly 8 inches) section was assembled on the ground and lifted into place with a crane. The tower took 4 days to build and is made up of over 500,000 Lego bricks.
How long the record will last is anyone’s guess. The previous record set just last year by a team from Toronto was 96ft using 464,000 bricks, which in turn edged out an earlier 94ft effort at Legoland California.
via Telegraph.co.uk
Make A Shirt From A Dollar Bill
Origami (from ori meaning “folding”, and kami meaning “paper”) is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. No doubt you have seen the amazing works created by talented practitioners of the art. And if you’re anything like me you never thought you’d have the slightest chance of creating even the simplest piece.
But after we found this money origami site created by Clay Randall even I was able to make the first project I tried, the little T-shirt. What’s great about this site is 1) the detailed step by step pictures and precise instructions AND 2) because you’re using money there is an added advantage of being able see and compare the patterns on the bill in the example pictures which makes it a lot easier for the novice to follow. Plus the simple money origami pieces you can create pretty quickly once you get the hang it add a ‘cool factor’ to the tips you leave to your restaurant server or give as cash gifts.
How To Make A Shirt From A Dollar Bill and other cool pieces
Eyewitness To History
If you’ve ever wondered what it might have been like to witness a particular historical event or to have known a famous historical figure, short of time travel there isn’t a better way than to read a first hand account.
Enter Eyewitness To History. While there are many great collections of historical texts what makes this site stand out is its collection of articles and stories written by people who were actually there and categorized by their period in history. From ancient times to modern times you can read what it was like to chow down with Attila the Hun (Party like its 448 AD!), live through the Black Death, ride the Pony Express, see the Battle of Gettysburg through the eyes of 15 year old or about Elvis meeting President Nixon. And of course much more.
Truly an outstanding collection.
Interactive 360 Degree Panoramas
Interactive Panoramas (or VR Photography) is a relatively new media that creates a panoramic view that immerse the viewer ‘inside’ the image. This is far far more advanced than the kinds of panoramas you can make with your digital camera and stitching software. Using your mouse you can view from side to side or top to bottom and all points in between of some fantastic imagery taking by Interactive Panorama photographers from all over the world and collected and displayed by Hans Nyberg a commercial photographer in Denmark.
There are over 400 stunning interaftive images of every thing from the Oslo Opera House to Death Valley, from the Oscars to Carnival In Rio. A truly stunning collection in a format that’s as close as you can get to being there from your PC.
The Museum of Ancient Inventions
As part of their coursework students at the Smith College History of Science have replicated many of the coolest ancient inventions and set up a virtual museum so that you can learn all about them. The museum’s web page seems to have gone stagnant since 2001 but nonetheless there is a lot of good information and quite honestly in the realm of ancient history what’s another 7 years?
Although scientists don’t always agree on the more spectacular such as the ‘Baghdad battery’ nonetheless it’s interesting to see that not everyone was just sitting around waiting for the Industrial Age.
The World Sunlight Map
Two things we really like at Net-Warriors are cool images and cool technology and here’s an example of both. The World Sunlight map uses a combination of several satellite images, a DOD program that maps city lights and some very clever implementation to provide a computer generated approximation using real images to show what the earth looks like from space at the moment.
You can choose either a flat map or globe view and a few other variations. You can even embed it on your own web page if you wish.
The best way to summarize this site to quote the author himself - ‘While less impressive than actually being into orbit, this is much more accessible to most of us.’
(also if you have a little geek in you check out how it works).
A Picture A Year For 31 Years
No doubt most net-warriors have seen at least one of the ‘picture a day’ for X number of years videos that have become increasingly popular. But to date we’ve yet to find an earlier adopter than Diego Goldberg, a professional photographer who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina and who has been taking passport style photographs of his family in the exact same deadpan pose for over 30 years.
The family is very dedicated to the once a year shot which is taken every June 17th whether everyone is in town or not. And while 30 images aren’t enough frames to make a spiffy video, it stands as one of the most amazing and detailed record of a families visual history I’ve ever seen.
Make Money Predicting The Future
Here’s a site that pays you for correctly predicting the future. When I first heard of it I thought it sounded like an interesting way to collect marketing data and when I first saw it I thought it looked a lot like a site to bet on sports. Apparently lots of people care about the outcome in sports. You can also predict the outcome of a lot of interesting things in business, investing, court and even news stories. You can even predict how many UFOs will be reported in the U.S. this year. This site just raised over 4 million dollars from investors so they must be doing something right.
