Big Pickles

Emily Haines is the lead singer of Canadian indie band Metric, and for some reason tonight I find myself mesmerized by her voice.

Besides the intoxicating voice, she's also a brilliant songwriter and not too shabby on the piano. Metric's two CDs, Old World Underground and Live It Out are your typical hipster indie fare, with shades of electronica and math rock.

But recently she released a solo album called Knives Don't Have Your Back which is much more mellow and gives her a chance to sit at the piano.

You can download a recent concert of hers in its entirety from NPR if you're interested.

And I think she looks kind of like Heather Armstrong.

Labels: music

This is a pretty impressive graphic of every star, planet, moon, asteroid, and TNO in the Solar System (over 200 miles in diameter) all lined up in size order.

I think you'll agree that Mimas, Saturn's smallest moon, is actually the Death Star.

Labels: pictures, science

Ok, I've been reading xkcd for I don't know how long, maybe a year. Just today I noticed that if you hover your mouse pointer over the comic for a second, the title of the image pops up as a comment. It's like a second punchline for every joke!

For example, in this comic about Ender's Game, the comment says, "Bean actually sabotaged it just to give Dink the excuse to make that joke."

Has anyone else noticed this? Am I the last to know?

Now I feel like I need to go back to the beginning and read every single one.

Again.

By the way, if some of them are too long to read, you can see the entire text by right-clicking on the image and going to Properties.

Labels: comics, fun

In January I posted about MIT's OpenCourseWare program, where they intend to eventually offer every class in their catalog online for free.

This is another example of what I think is a great emerging trend of free educational sources on the Internet. Richard A. Muller, a physics professor at UC Berkeley, has been uploading his weekly physics lecture entitled "Physics for Future Presidents" to Google Video for over a year now.

To his own surprise, he has since garnered a worldwide audience. I think it's awesome that there is such a demand for this kind of thing.

Labels: physics, video

I give you three videos of a samurai sword in action.

Those things look pretty sharp.

(Apparently this is what TV is like. In Japan.)

Labels: fun, video

Google Maps helpfully provides driving directions between any two points on the map.

For example, say you want to get from Stanford, CA to Stockholm, Sweden.

It's a long and arduous journey, but I'd say that once you get past Step 33, the rest is easy.

Labels: fun, google

Yay, I won!

My brother-in-law Dan hosts a NCAA basketball bracket at CBS Sportsline each year, and this year I took first place out of 16 participants. (Although the tournament's not over yet, at this point no one can catch me.) I should clarify that there were only 14 serious participants, because two people picked BYU to go all the way.

Now, what makes this so fun for me is that Dan, my brother-in-law, is such a sports fanatic. And although his dad, Rick, actually hosts a sports radio show, his uncle Doug claims to know more about sports than either of them. So it's safe to say that these guys are all into it.

I, on the other hand, have not watched a single minute of college basketball this season. Ergo, these brackets are 100% luck.

Labels: sports

So my dad is becoming quite the bowyer. He does the whole deal with the wood and the fiberglass and the carbon fiber and he bakes it all up nice in a homemade wooden oven in his garage.

On Sunday we all went over for a little shootin'.

Is there a clip? I think we have a clip.

Labels: archery, video

So I'm playing this game after dinner last night, and Melissa casually wanders by and asks about it.

Next thing I know, she's in my spot, playing it.

I go about my usual Monday evening routine, buying airline tickets to Utah and uploading videos to YouTube, and she's still playing it. I think she played it until 12:30. It's funny because I never thought it was the type of game she would be interested in.

But there you go. If you find that you, too, have become compulsively addicted to this game, here are some others in the same vein:

Tower Defence

Flash Element TD

FlashCraft Tower Defense

Labels: fun, games

He always said that he would quit doing The Show on March 17, 2007, I just never thought that day would come.

So sorry to see it go. Still, between all the episodes I missed and his upcoming projects--whatever they may be--I'm sure there will be plenty of Ze Frank in the future for all of us.

Labels: fun, video

Spring is in the air, so the bikes are out of the garage. I told Michael that if he learned to ride without training wheels, I'd buy him a new bike. I figured it would take months of bribing along these lines to get him to take the plunge, but I was wrong. He immediately called me on it.

I guess we're bike shopping tomorrow.

Be sure to check out the video footage.

Labels: kids, video

For my 100th post, I give you a list of Top 100 sites from across the vast reaches of cyberspace.

Oldest 100 Currently Registered .com Domains

Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks of 2006

Top 100 Kids' Books

Top 100 Baby Names of 2006
Michael and Benjamin make the cut; Timothy and Amy do not.

PC World's 100 Best products of 2006

100 Biggest Cities
Where is SLC? Is it really smaller than Boise?

Top 100 Chuck Norris Facts

100 Greatest Theorems

100 Greatest TV Episodes

That should do it for now.

Labels: general, lists

I didn't do a lot of snow fort building as a kid, but this article represents a growing genre that is close to my heart: the "Wow, with my grown-up brains, muscles, and money, plus access to tools like the Internet, I can do all my favorite childhood activities so much BETTER!" genre.

I've been known to apply this thinking to video games, Legos, riding bikes, coloring books, skateboarding, cartoons, and comics, to name a few.

Someday when I'm really old I hope to apply the same kind of thinking to activities I undertook in my twenties. Like college.

Labels: general

Depending on its orientation, invites guests to "Come in" or "Go away."

Labels: general, shopping

This is music that was truly ahead of its time.

I never heard of most of these bands until well into the 90s or later (I didn't hear of Bauhaus until my mission. Of course I waited until I was released to actually listen to the tape.)

Some of them (Durutti Column and Teardrop Explodes) I've still never heard of. Well, now I have. Barely.

Labels: music

Suzanne's post about Starbucks hot chocolate reminded me of The Firearm, a humorous periodical that circulated on the BYU campus during the '01-'02 school year. I never saw it in print (although that was my final year as a student, I wasn't really "on campus" much) but I heard about it and read all the issues online. It's funny stuff, and if you haven't read it before, I encourage you to do so. If you were around BYU at the time, you've probably read them already.

The inaugural issue is classic for it's treatment of Mochas and hardcore boardgaming.

Volume 1, Issue 3 introduced Chimptech, which is still in use in our office today.

As near as I can figure, there are seven issues in Vol. 1 and six in Vol. 2.

Labels: BYU, fun

"I want to help people. I want their life to be a better life. I want them to have what I have. A whole range of guns. Made from office supplies."

Scott and I came across this site years ago, but I had forgotten about it until a binder clip to the back of the head suddenly jogged my memory this morning.

Labels: fun, general

It all started with this site: How many of the 50 states can you name in 10 minutes?

I saw it a couple of weeks ago, but didn't post about it because I wasn't really impressed. First of all, it was kind of easy--I named all 50 in less than 5 minutes. Then you had to wait for the time to run out, and then it didn't even verify your answers. It just popped up a list of the correct answers and you were supposed to check them yourself. Boooring.

But apparently the Internet thought it was the greatest thing ever, because similar tests started popping up everywhere. And the copycats are much better. First of all, they are more challenging: World Countries, African Nations, UN Member States. Also, they sport a much improved interface. The correct answers are verified as you go, and it keeps a running tally for you of how many are left. Very nice.

Not to be outdone, Ironic Sans went back and spiffed up their original States quiz, so now it's high-tech like the others.

Labels: general, geography, quiz

I would like to live like this someday.

Or at least give it a shot.

Labels: general, living

I remember one of my music lesson books had a diagram of Rachmaninov's hands. It showed him comfortably playing a C octave with the 2nd and 5th fingers of his right hand, and his thumb on the G below that.

Anyway, Asians are renowned for their musical prowess but also for their sometimes diminutive stature--which is to say, their piano prodigies don't always have the biggest hands.

This video is one man's attempt to compensate for that.

Labels: music, video