Fun Stuff 2004

Dec 23, 2004

* * * * * * * * * * The Fun Stuff 2004 Issue * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here's a review of every Fun Stuff entry this year. Note that these come every week in e-mail only, not on the website - so if you don't already subscribe to this e-mail, sign up here.

I'd like to congratulate the makers of I Love Egg for winning the prestigious Good Experience Fun Stuff 2004 Award: in my opinion, the best entry all year.

* * FUN STUFF 2004 WINNER * *
"Cutesy" doesn't even begin to describe this Flash movie. But it's a *must-see*. I love egg!

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All Fun Stuff entries, from Jan. 7, 2004 through today:

Weird, weird, weird music... "outsider music," you might call it. Check track 7: a tuba playing Lonely Bull.
http://www.comfortstand.com/catalog/001/

Very well implemented: virtual whiteboard and chalkboard.
http://www.pvsusa.com/pvsdrawingboard/pvsdrawingboard.php

(Two drawbacks: (1) there's no eraser - only a "clear all" button, so you erase everything or nothing; (2) the "tell a friend" feature sends the e-mail in HTML only.)

Fun game for kids: switching the heads and tails of different animals. The interface is cute and fun, though not totally intuitive.
http://www.switchzoo.com/

Several stories from the Old and New Testaments... in Legos.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/garden_of_eden/gn02_04-06.html

Who needs to pay big bucks for a "branding firm" to create a new company name? Just click Name Generator in the left column of this page (thanks to Seth Godin for the pointer):
http://www.wordlab.com/

While you're at it, take a look at recent trends in logo design (please, no more swoosh logos!):
http://www.gdusa.com/feature/4_03/trends.php

If you're really into this topic, I found this in the archives of Good Experience...
http://www.goodexperience.com/images/ntfirms041300.gif

Picture of lightning hitting a tree - I think it's legit:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/lwx/lightning/lgtng-hits-tree.jpg

Fun DJ simulation:
http://www.marleentimmer.com/worteldrie/djtrainer/djtrainer.html

Surreal stuff. Don't miss the meat gallery:
http://www.surrealcoconut.com/home.html

If you didn't see its commercial during the Super Bowl, here is one of the best websites I've seen in recent memory... brilliant satire:
http://www.shardsoglass.com

Old government and school films! Dating, hygiene, etc. (See "Most Viewed Films" on the right side.)
http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php

A fan created his own movie trailer for "The Hobbit":
http://www.lathamfilms.com/hobbit.html

Old Disney animated shorts:
http://disneyshorts.toonzone.net/index.html

Cool short movies of events being slowed down (i.e. cat lapping milk):
http://tinyurl.com/2fcy4

Subway maps from different cities, compared at the same scale:
http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/index.html

Lots of maps from the Library of Congress:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html

For example, here is Portland, Oregon in 1890 - even with a little piece of the map ripped out:
http://tinyurl.com/2h7g8

Pay $150 for a hammer that doesn't work! This is for real: an online store that sells "useless tools."
http://tinyurl.com/263bg

A photo for every minute of the day:
http://www.humanclock.com

It wasn't just Bill Murray in the movie. Again, for real: American celebs in Japanese TV commercials.
http://www.japander.com/japander/

Fold a Jules Verne-style submarine:
http://www.tin-soldier.com/paper/downld/narwaldownld.htm

Free paper toys to fold:
http://papertoys.com/

Japanese robots to fold, if you can read Japanese instructions:
http://www.robo-t.com/r-kata-s.html

And finally... 1924 mechanical typewriter turns into a windows PC:
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/underwood/

Here's the "Click & Build" donation page on the website of Habitat for Humanity. Here you can specify what elements of a house to donate, by clicking on different parts of a cartoon house. Perfect use of the Web for a nonprofit donation page.
http://www.habitat.org/donation/clickandbuild

Reminiscent of the Human Clock from last week's newsletter, here's the clock that shows pencil and paper and... ahh, just watch it.
http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/storage/monocrafts_ver3/03/

Random art:
http://gs2.sp.cs.cmu.edu/art/random/

(Better is to look at the Archive of *Best* Random Art)
http://gs2.sp.cs.cmu.edu/art/random/archive/index.html

List of online museums
http://www.coudal.com/moom.php

Googlephrases: Search Google for a long, slightly obscure sentence fragment, enclosed in quotes, and then revel in the Web-zeitgeist.
http://www.goodexperience.com/columns/04/0331.phrase.html

Sarah Yake points us to this Johnny Walker commercial:
http://tinyurl.com/22592

Gertie's beverages:
http://www.patheticgeekstories.com/gertiebeverages.html

By the way, if you haven't explored that site, you should. Gel speaker Maria Schneider draws readers' embarrassing stories from adolescence.
http://www.patheticgeekstories.com

Dictionary of nonverbal communication cues:
http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/entries.htm#Entries

(Don't miss the deconstruction of the Big Mac:)
http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/bigmac.htm

Calculate the speed of light with some marshmallows and a microwave.
http://www.physics.umd.edu/ripe/icpe/newsletters/n34/marshmal.htm

Funny costumes:
http://www.stagecraftinc.com/htmlFile/TPWI.html

Geek humor: Rebecca St. Martin points us to a parody of tinyurl...
http://hugeURL.com

And, a great one this week... random comic strip paired with a random punchline. Zen-funny. (Reload the page to see a new pairing.)
http://www.monochrom.at/erheiterer/process.shtml

Nice screensaver-type animation:
http://ugokie.diginauts.com/flash/hotaru/hphotal.html

Fun online exhibit on biodiversity (especially fun for kids):
http://tinyurl.com/2fund

Several illusions and puzzles in one Flash animation:
http://www.sagadvd.com/Extra/visual%20hallucination.swf

Crazy about (or driven crazy by) cicadas?
http://www.cicadamania.net/

Some witty people with way too much free time label hundreds of CDs with a single Sharpie marker, just to see how much ink it contains:
http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/sharpie/sharpie1.html

Internet fads you may have missed:
http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=24853

Songs about cicadas.. featuring Gel 2004 performer Lee Feldman:
http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/openmic/index.php?episode=current

A well-designed site about the nine planets of our solar system.
http://www.nineplanets.org

The Infinite Cat Project. Rather than explain it, I'll just suggest that you start with any cat, and click "Next Cat" again and again and again.
http://www.infinitecat.com/

Bad 70s interior design:
http://www.omodern.com/Eurobad/euro.html

"Kitchen clones of America's favorite brand-name foods" (thanks to Mike Krypel for the pointer):
http://www.topsecretrecipies.com/

Fake roadsigns (neat signs, but horrible navigation on the site - click "Artists", click through their designs at page bottom):
http://www.bopano.net/

Lots of links to paper-folding fun...
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/06/18/web_zen_paper_model_.html

Finally, software that admits to doing nothing for everybody! (Thanks to Gel speaker David Greenberger.)
http://www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/index.html

One-page cartoons for 5- to 15-year-olds, showing them how to build all kinds of stuff:
http://www.howtoons.net

Optical illusion: undulating almonds.
http://tinyurl.com/5kwta

Fun music video (in Flash), featuring They Might Be Giants:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/expfilm.html

Google way back in 1960. (Thanks, Kevin Fox!)
http://fury.com/images/weblog/google_circa_1960.jpg

QuickTime VR (panoramic) shot from the moon landing, put together from Neil Armstrong's photos. Don't miss the zoom-in feature (hold down Shift).
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen3/f29.html

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2004 Results - bad opening lines of fictional novels.
http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2004.htm

Cute, low-tech animation
http://j-walkblog.com/blog/docs/platform.htm

Common English mispronunciations. (My pet peeve: "nucular". Now, if we could get a page on the constant misuse of the word "literally"...)
http://yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html

A must-see: cassette vs iPod (thanks to David Pogue):
http://homepage.mac.com/danielturek/PhotoAlbum50.html

Whoa... duuuude.
http://zongrila.net/swirl.htm

You know blogs are overripe when the INCREDIBLE HULK gets one.
http://incrediblehulk.blogspot.com

Long list of fun or good sites, picked by the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/technology/circuits/12diar.html

Strange and cool design stuff:
http://www.bodytag.org

Reader Kim Antonson sends us to the Museum of Hoaxes:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoaxsites.html

The ugliest Powerpoint file ever created:
http://www.clicktoaddtitle.com/slides/roundtwo_harpold.ppt

Funny because it's the dumbest thing ever - the "hyperlink policy" on the Olympics website. They want you to send them a printed letter asking for permission to link to their site:
http://tinyurl.com/3refd

Geek-only humor: Essay on designing videogames for grown-up guys:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/wageslave/

"Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines":
http://spamusement.com

Transformers break-dancing (thanks to memepool.com for the pointer):
http://www.wilenkin.com/transformers/Video_player_06_content.html

Not updated recently, but the archives are interesting/weird/gross - not for the faint of stomach (or eye). "The most bizarre items found for sale on internet auction sites":
http://disturbingauctions.com

RealAudio of many of the late Mister Rogers' songs.
http://pbskids.org/rogers/songlist/

Ben Fry points us to his newly improved Zip code finder:
http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/zipdecode/

Dave Lougheed points us to this funny Pepsi commercial
http://www.joeytomatoes.com/pepsicanfu.htm

Footy footy footy footy... (yes, it's strange)
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/35/

Animated bunnies act out "Jaws" in 30 seconds. Outstanding.
http://www.angryalien.com/0804/jawsbunnies.asp

Strange Japanese/African/mod-60s music.
http://www.bellybongo.com/

A New York City baby photographed with many celebrities. Click links on left.
http://www.whoisthatwithjeremy.com/index.html

"You call that mowin' the grass?"
http://www.valtio.org/tex/index.php?p=66

Mary Pat LaBoda points us to this RIT thesis project - an interactive presentation on color. Very well done.
http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com

Plush doll of the Ebola virus (for the person who has everything...)
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/calamities/ebola.html

Dark, but funny, animations:
http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/

Abandoned bikes in NYC:
http://jschumacher.typepad.com/photos/abandoned_bikes/index.html

How to create a flapping paper airplane:
http://homepage.mac.com/keithgreenstein/Flapper/PhotoAlbum41.html

Neat science site:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins

27 photos that changed the world (most depicting not-fun situations):
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm_index.html

A SP-Mologue by the one and only Ze Frank, Gel 2003 speaker:
http://www.zefrank.com/request/index_better.html Many more fun things on Ze's site: http://www.zefrank.com/

Sort of interesting - Google images quiz. See the images, guess the search query.
http://blog.outer-court.com/quiz/

Speaking of search fun, Steve Nelson reminded me about his site:
http://www.bananaslug.com

For geeks only: In honor of the new Star Wars box set, and the release of the outstanding making-of documentary "Empire of Dreams" (now playing on A&E), here's a "scientific" comparison of the weapon systems in "Star Wars" and "Star Trek." No offense to the Kirk-or-Picard set, but I think we all know who wins THIS battle:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html

David Teten points us to this very cool map hack, which overlays a street map (as you move your cursor) over an aerial photo of the Tower of London. It would be more useful if the background was the street map, and the overlay was the photo, but it's still cool:
http://tinyurl.com/3pvs5

Fly these colors all over the screen (use your arrow keys):
http://www.ertdfgcvb.ch/p1/fly_2.html

Free virtual-bridge-building contest:
http://www.bridgebuilder-game.com/c22.php

Jodi Moore points us to someone who writes back to spammers:
http://www.reversescam.com/ (Choose any of the letters under "The Victims" dropdown menu.)

The late, and beloved, Richard Avedon's photos in the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/slideshows/pop/?041004onslpo_avedon

Grated Fanny. Click on links to left to see more "rude food" (heads-up, much of the humor is spicy)..
http://dazbert.co.uk/sites/rudefood/index.php?page=food/gratedfanny.htm

Funny/bizarre Japanese commercial:
http://www.toto.co.jp/tips/cmlibr/CM/maho30l.mpg

More of the same here:
http://www.toto.co.jp/tips/cmlibr/index.htm

Self-explanatory domain:
http://www.badarchitecture.org/

Finally, Ian Stokes suggests the following "call center therapy": "If annoyed with a call centre, go to this web site -
http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/ - and input text such as this: 'Your customer service is not helpful. I want to speak to a real person. I don't want to listen to a robot.'" Also fun to select non-English languages and hear the various accents.

Do you have your Halloween costume for 2005 yet? No? Well, have you considered dressing up as Beaker the Muppet?
http://toughpigs.com/journalhalloween2004a.htm

Ron Lichty points us to this demonstration of how to fold a shirt:
http://telivyel.ferrona.to/maglietta.mpg

Someone collects flight attendant uniforms. Ahh, the Web.
http://www.uniformfreak.com/indexnav/indexnav1a.html

For productivity fans, I wrote a different kind of column here:
http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000065.php

Surprising it took this long: colored table salt.
http://www.margaritasalt.com/colored_table_salt.htm

* * FUN STUFF 2004 WINNER * * "Cutesy" doesn't even begin to describe this Flash movie. But it's a *must-see*. I love egg:
http://www.iloveegg.com/winopen_ani/eggsong.htm

Speaking of egg, not so much fun as useful - shelf lives of various foods:
http://www.msnbc.com/OnAir/nbc/Dateline/Food/shelf.asp

Intro to cluster ballooning. Scroll for pics.
http://www.clusterballoon.org/intro/intro.html

Name that 80s video game (thanks to screenhead.com):
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/arcade/name/index.html I scored 18 out of 20.

One final link to keep you busy for the next couple of weeks: a devilishly simple yet addictive game. I got to level 15 of Nucleus in 64 clicks.
http://www.scenta.co.uk/nucleus/

Tom Kenny, the man who does the voice for Sponge Bob Square Pants, interviewed by Terry Gross:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4172667 And yes, I plan to see the Sponge Bob movie soon! (Thanks to Phil Terry for the pointer.)

Cool game: guess the number of stars - I got 167 on my first try.
http://www.tonypa.pri.ee/12many.html

Strange "I like you" animation:
http://www.scrolllock.nl/

Interesting video on an optical illusion...
http://www.grand-illusions.com/videos/dragon%20illusion.wmv

...with corresponding description:
http://www.grand-illusions.com/dragon.htm

And finally, a robot that completes the first level of Mario Bros:
http://community.middlebury.edu/~tdooley/

The 25 weirdest things you can buy on amazon.com: (like 9,000 ladybugs)
http://tinyurl.com/4fr7y

Bubble wrap, for wrapping those weird gifts. Try manic mode!
http://uk.download.yahoo.com/ne/fu/attachments/bubblewrap.swf

Awesome prank at the recent Harvard-Yale game:
http://www.harvardsucks.org/about.php

Finally, I have to thank Lisa Napoli who pointed this out in her NYT column... this is the coolest thing I've seen on the Web in awhile: a time-lapse video of a four-day drive from Los Angeles to NYC.
http://www.lacquersound.com/english/opener1.html

Panoramic photos from France:
http://www.ecliptique.com/fullscreen2/menu.html

Fish highway. Fish highway! (Click on photos.)
http://www.fishighway.com

Alice in Wonderland, told in Flash:
http://www.feelgoodanyway.com/interactive/Alice.swf

SpiderMan 2, told in Legos: (thanks to Mark Chackerian)
http://movies.yahoo.com/movies/feature/spiderman2.html

Noether's second theorem for graded Lagrangian systems of even and odd variables... the funniest treatment yet!
http://arxiv.org/pdf/math-ph/0412034

A bizarre, bizarre fitness video with... I can't even describe it.
http://www.panasonic.co.jp/olympic/movies/download_movies09.html

And finally, holiday-related entries:

Scared of Santa photo gallery: (NEW Fun Stuff entry for this week)
http://tinyurl.com/7yuuq

Make your own snow people: (NEW Fun Stuff entry for this week)
http://www.bigmikestudios.com/clients/xmasCard04/

A smorgasbord of funny web things with an Xmas theme:
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/17/web_zen_holiday_zen.html

I made an e-card for you - and for all Good Experience subscribers:
http://www.zefrank.com/xmas/pickup.html?ref=57675

If you want to make your own elf-choir carol, try the tool here:
http://www.zefrank.com/xmas

If you're still buying gifts, you might like to read my holiday suggestions, in the Uncle Mark 2005 Gift Guide and Almanac. It has tips on buying technology (and other stuff), for non-techies:
http://www.goodexperience.com/unclemark/unclemark2005.pdf and http://www.unclemark.org

What's the holiday season without watching "It's A Wonderful Life?" Watch it here in 30 seconds, acted out by bunnies.
http://www.angryalien.com/1204/wonderful_lifebuns.asp

- - -

I hope you enjoyed the Fun Stuff 2004 reiew.

Happy Holidays from Good Experience!

And remember.. if you want these Fun Stuff entries in your e-mail every week, they're not here on the blog: you have to subscribe to the Good Experience newsletter.

-mh

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