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Category: Cool
L.A. to New York in 4 Minutes
This is one of those mesmerizing time-lapse videos that I could just have running all the time as wall-paper. And it’s fun to watch, too, because it’s not just a simple drive, but there’s other plot twists in the whole thing. Link via b3ta.
Fast Fingered Percussion
I’m a percussionist with both the Cascade Winds and the CO Symphony, and I can truly appreciate well-done percussion and talented percussionists. For example, check out the videos of the folks here, as there is some very impressive work there.
Occassionally when I’m at big department store, I’ll play with those keyboards that have drum noises and such associated with some of the keys. I can never play those keys like I can a real set of drums, as it’s just too small and difficult and my hands don’t work that well. Then I saw this video link in the latest b3ta newsletter, and was blown away. The video is of a guy playing percussion on the Prodikeys keyboard — a combo dual computer with computer and MIDI piano keys — and it’s damn impressive.
Calvin and Hobbes Collection Coming
I mentioned before that The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were my two favorite comics growing up. They have released a Complete Far Side Archive, and they’re apparently going to release a complete Calvin and Hobbes Archive.
If anybody’s looking for what to get me for Christmas, now you know. Link via BB.
Search Your Library Using Amazon
This is one of the coolest little hacks I’ve seen in a long time. When you’re search for books in Amazon, you can click on a bookmarklet (basically a little button) in your browser to have it search your local library’s system for that book. It works wonderfully!
If you’re looking for a bookmark for the Deschutes County Library, just drag the following link to your toolbar/bookmarks, and when you see a book on Amazon you like, click on it and watch it work:
Amazon’s much faster for me than the county’s site, so this work’s great.
This Game Will Piss You Off
Just to show that Jesse’s not the only one that can link to games (though the game he links to is pretty dang fun), here’s one that will (eventually on higher levels) drive you nuts. It sounds quite simple — navigating a little shape through a maze — until you realize your mouse is reversed. Link via b3ta.
Bend Bulletin RSS Feed
As he promised a while back, Jon has hacked together an RSS Feed for The Bulletin. It’s obviously not perfect, and ideally The Bulletin would have one of their own, but this gets the job done for now.
Photography Tip for the Day
In a pinch, you can use a lamp shade post as a tripod as the thread is actually the same on many digital camera tripod mounts. Thanks to Simone for the tip.
WiFi Before I Die
I know where I want to die. I got an e-mail out of the blue from Paul who was visiting his parents at a retirement home here in Bend. He was expecting a “death resort,” but found that Whispering Winds was not only fairly nice, but had free WiFi access (he didn’t mention it in the blog post, but he did mention it to me).
I wonder how common this is in the retirement home industry, especially locally where the things are popping up all over the place (there is a huge one getting built on the corner of Studio and Butler Market which is probably one of the biggest building I’ve ever seen).
So what that also means is that their network connections are probably much faster than they are (thanks to Barney for that bad joke and the headline).
25 Great Calvin and Hobbes Strips
I really miss Calvin and Hobbes. It was a brilliantly written strip that, to this day, still hasn’t been matched. I own many of the collections of strips, and really enjoyed reading good commentary on some of my favorites at this site:
And it’s really a shame that it’s so difficult to quantify this strip’s greatness. I can confidently state that Calvin & Hobbes outclasses the rest of the comic strip world more than anything else has ever outclassed the rest of its medium. Sans this strip, the industry is characterized by guys sitting on rocks making stupid puns, a Family Circus kid misunderstanding the meaning of a word, or an overweight father playing golf while telling jokes such as I LIKE GOLF and GOLF IS HARD. It’s a medium that doesn’t really deserve something as good as Calvin & Hobbes, but it got it anyway, and the newspaper-reading world was made a better place by it.