Visited Countries #
Andrew Denny points us in the direction of this little site, which lets you plot the countries you've visited on a map. Here's where I've been recently (only went abroad for the first time in 2004, and now I fly overseas at least twice a month!)
technorati tags:abroad
Qantas Gripe Sheets #
Found this great little selection of Qantas gripe sheet problems and solutions on Maryam's blog. It's on Spaces so Microsoft might want you to log in before you can see it, or do some daft redirection on login.live.com (is it me or is this the single most annoying thing on Spaces?)
BBC News Most Popular Stats #
The BBC have added a 'Most popular' link to their news website, including live stats at the bottom of every article. The full stats page includes a quite fascinating world map, showing readership from countries around the globe in real time.
Well worth a look.
3D Displays #
More from Urban Screens (a site dedicated to large displays in urban spaces - added to my aggregator today) - this time, it's about 3D and almost-holographic displays. There seem to be two major competitors in this apparantly growing, and certainly interesting commercial sector.
IO2 Technology have developed a projector system that renders images in 'thin air'. It's not true 3D - the projection itself is 2D, but the effect looks interesting nonetheless. Depending on exactly how they're doing that projection (I have a few unqualified ideas) perhaps projecting several 2D layers will give a true 3D effect?
Fogscreen is another option (perhaps working in a similar way - IO2 are quite vague). Here the image is projected onto a screen of "dry fog" - 100% water apparantly (if somebody knows how that isn't a contradiction let me know). The system creates a screen of 1.5m by 2m - roughly 2.5metres diagonal, if my in-head Pythagoras is correct. Fogscreen can also become interactive, should you want. Fogscreen is supposed to be 'free from turbulence', but the video [WMV] on their site shows there might be some - particularly if you insist on waving your hand through the fog!
People as Pixels #
Strangely interesting article I found today, about crowds holding up cards to form large pictures. The largest was performed in Portugal in 1999, where the stadium crowd at the National Stadium in Lisbon formed an image of a player kicking a football. The aricle also goes into some detail about the use and principle of pixel-people for various ways and means. [Via Urbanscreens, photo from 4to40.com]
Lightning Tracker #
I've written about this before, but interesting little bits like this deserve some attention. Today I had the live storm tracker loaded up, watching some impressive thunderstorms track across eastern England from somewhere near Hull to Norfolk. They've all died down this evening, but maybe there'll be some more tomorrow.
I actually had the PNG representation up - it doesn't refresh automatically but takes less resources and is almost as informative at a glance.
Link Catchup #
Right, I haven't posted anything particularly interesting lately, so here's a bit of a catch-up:
- Google Spreadsheets is released, albeit to a limited group - looks like an interesting AJAX app. Bit on the thin side by the looks of things, but then how many people use Excel for anything more complicated than accounts or modelling?
- Portsmouth is set to become the first city in the UK to implement a city-wide 20mph speed limit.
- Windows Vista Beta 2 is now generally available - although it looks like their servers are swamped!
- The Tories could be offering spaces to bloggers at their annual conferences (nothing new - see also 2004 US Elections, but still something to keep track of)
- For those of you that are interested, the Blogtalk conference this year is Oct 2-3 at Vienna in Austria. I went a couple of years ago - it was a great conference and the city is gorgeous! Still in two minds about this year though.
- In other news I have just returned from a canal holiday. Photos soon!
Google Adwords Video #
Google currently support Flash and image ads (as well as the usual text ads) - now they're adding Video ads to their options. It's an interesting addition - doesn't seem overly intrusive (as long as they don't play automatically, which they currently don't).
Google Attribution of DMOZ #
Thought: By using DMOZ-based descriptions in their search results, shouldn't Google be posting the standard DMOZ attribution notice at the bottom of their pages?
Mapping in detail #
I found a nice little website from the UK goverment today - it's called Empress.gov.uk and can be used to find (for now) roadworks in various parts of the country.
However, this particular mapping site goes into extraordinary detail, including showing the boundaries of each household.
What's even more interesting again is the Javascript in the page revealing the possibility of aerial photos:
var g_bShowAerialPhoto = false;
Now that will be interesting.
(Also worth noting, for computer-y people, is that the entire system is built using VML. Unfortunately it doesn't have the same rendering speed as Google Maps, but it's stil pretty clever stuff)
Google Earth #
In a moment of schadenfreude (I've been waiting for an excuse to use that word for a while) I wondered if there'd be any visible car accidents on Google Earth. You'd think the M25 would be a good start, but alas London's greatest motorway is strangely devoid of incidents (and traffic for that matter).
In fact, the M25 is clear. The M4 is clear east of the A34 junction (I got bored after that, and the M27 is clear. I can only imagine they took the pictures on weekends anyway, because the motorways are usually busier than that (maybe the satellites are used for spying on other things during the week?)
Maybe the editorial team make a point of checking for accidents? It's the same kind of action they take on motorway webcams when there's a crash. 'Down for maintenance' - yeah right.
I wouldn't want you to think I'm sick and twisted by the way - more curious :)
Sex before you present #
BBC News | Health | Sex 'cuts public speaking stress'
"...they underwent a stress test involving public speaking and performing mental arithmetic out loud.
Volunteers who had had penetrative intercourse were found to be the least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who had engaged in other forms of sexual activity such as masturbation."
Damn. I have a presentation to make today and only just spotted this on the way out.
Next time you're sitting in a lecture, watching the news or going to the theatre consider how the speakers and actors might be getting over their stage fright!
Tablet PC Art #
My goodness these pictures are good - not necessarily the artwork (although there are some great ones in there) but the way it was done. All the 'paintings' were done on a Tablet PC using some software called Art Rage. (via Scoble)
PHP Easter Egg #
A PHP Easter Egg has been found. If you append ?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42 to a PHP-powered website, you'll get a picture of a dog.
Here's Blogwise
And this blog
(via Neil Turner)