Related to my previous post, I came across a site today that translates for you one of the more important phrases in any language: how to order a beer.
Sure, in English it’s “One beer, please” but did you know that in American it would be “Brewski here, please!”
Some other languages from the full set of 50:
| Lakota (Sioux) | Wan-jee m’nee-pee-gah, ee-yo-kee-pee! |
| Latin | Cervisiam, sodes! |
| Lithuanian | Pra-shau vie-na, al-lows! |
| Norwegian | Ehn url, tahk! |
| Old English | An beor, nu! |
Tessellation is when geometric shapes repeat in an endless pattern. Squares in a grid is a simple example of a tessellated pattern. A honeycomb is a tessellated hexagon.
Even a soccer ball is a (slightly more complex) tessellation.
But there are tons more — and here’s a page of them, with pretty colours and all. The one at the top mixes squares with triangles.
(Props to Joel Johnson on Twitter)
There’s not much I can say about Basil Wolverton that others haven’t said better and earlier. You may recognize his work from Mad Magazine, as I did, or perhaps from the work of the many artists he inspired.
I just happened across the poster below, which I love, and which generated this post. Click on it for a full-size image:
The Mitchell Library in Glasgow is huge — like, ridiculously huge. It’s got over 1.2 million volumes, making it the largest reference library in Western Europe.
Among it’s collections are numerous photographs, and many of them have been scanned and placed on the internet in recent years.
And that gives us what they call the “Virtual Mitchell” which allows you to search through about a century and a half of photography about the streets, people and places of Glasgow.
So, obviously, I searched for “Great Hamilton Street” (okay, I browsed, but the name kind of did attract me, when I came across it).
In 1898, above, Great Hamilton Street was home to a pub: “Old Burnt Barns.” By 1925, unfortunately, the pub had closed, replaced by a pawn shop.
Not long after that, the road was attached and somewhat straightened, and Great Hamilton Street was no longer — subsumed as part of the London Road. It just doesn’t have the same ring.
Happily, though, I’m pleased to note, thanks to the magic of Google Maps’ Street View, that the corner of London Road and Green Street, which used to be the Great Hamilton Street home of Old Burnt Barns, now appears to house The Carlton Bar.
And that calls for a drink.
This is a clever idea, and would be loads of fun in the right decor — perhaps you could have a set of end tables with long tablecloths, in cyan, orange, red and pink which you could call Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde?
I wonder, though, if the effect would be lost if you actually filled the shelves up with books whose spines weren’t bright yellow?
At any rate, you can contact the designer at this website and order one. No price is given, but I’ll bet shipping is pricey. Unless it’s shipped flatpack Ikea-style.
Or unless you can somehow ship it off to the left, appearing simultaneously at the right.
(via)
Darn it — this is the kind of thing I rely on the Internet for, and yet somehow I miss it until the very last 40 minutes.
Today (Monday) is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, marking five decades of bubble wrap. At least as reported by the Christian Science Monitor:
Sealed Air Corporation’s Bubble Wrap, like Kleenex, Post-Its, and, well, Snuggies, has come to occupy one the rarest gems of consumer acceptance: adoption of its brand name as the generic term for the product. And because an Indiana radio station decided it nine years ago, today, the last Monday in January, is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, a day when folks the world over are encouraged to pause, ponder, and, well, pop little plastic bubbles of air.
There are oodles of online “pop the bubble wrap” games. In fact, I’ll embed one here:
But if you want the real deal, head on over to the Sealed Air Corporation website.
Amy and I are jazzed for the final season of Lost, which premieres on Tuesday, Feb. 2 (check local listings). And we’re probably going to either have or attend a party. And, of course, it’ll be a theme party.
A couple of seasons ago, for the finale, we downloaded print-your-own labels to make regular household goods into Dharma brand foodstuffs. It was a blast to cut them and tape them over the regular labels, and they were a hit at the party we took them to.
Now, with just 10 or so days left until the final season starts, I’ve dug out that old zip file, and I’m uploading it here for you:
Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I found that zip file way back then, although some of the files credit InsanelyGreatTees (which has since pulled the post). A quick search online shows me that my little zip file has been far outclassed, too, by the way.
I’ve already got more than enough for my needs, and I think the zip file I’ve uploaded will be more than enough for yours, but if you’re looking for Dharma labels that you could use for everything in the cupboard — from disinfectant spray to eyedrops to merlot — then check out the mega-post at Max Pictures’ Blather.
In the meantime, if you’re planning a Lost party, you could take it a couple of steps further, like one friend of mine is planning: everyone has to come dressed as a different Lost character.
Now, in the comments, please speculate as to the direction of the final season.
This is a sweet rebuttal to my mother, who thought that I was wasting my time with “that fantasy game Dragons and Dungeons crap.” She never understood why I wanted “an Intendo” and also disliked my love of “Married With Children” and Stephen King. She later came around on sitcoms when she happened across an episode of “Roseanne” that gave her a snarky comeback, which she promptly appropriated.
Anyway, I never actually played Dungeons & Dragons — I played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which I guess makes me advanced at life. Also, I got pretty good at spinning dice. I once spun a four-sided die, no lie.
What if YOU were the Tetris block? What if, when you hit the “rotate” key, it was as if, from your perspective, the whole world rotated around you?
Well, I’ll tell you what — it sure makes the game a heck of a lot harder.
Play it at firstpersontetris.com.
I’m trying to think of a frozen, slushy martini recipe that these olive penguins would go well with. They would also, I think, be a nice adornment to the right kind of salad, or you could just plop a whole group of them on a white plate as a fun appetizer.
Anyway, I think they’re pretty self-explanatory from the pictures above, which are from mattea.tanner’s Flickr stream, but if you want step-by-step instructions, try these ones.
Essentially, the carrot slice gets turned into the nose and feet, the two olives make the body and the head. The white stomach can be made from either cream cheese or mozzarella.
(via SeriousEats.com)
I once read about a version of Risk/Monopoly where, every time you pass Go, you not only get $200 but also the chance to play a turn on the adjacent Risk board.
Now, someone has done something similar with Super Mario Bros. and Tetris. Two iconic games, with very different styles of play, yet they’ve been merged.
It’s ridiculous, but it’s fun.
(I don’t know what the copyright status would be, so enjoy it while you can!)
I’m not sure whether to pity or to envy students from the cross-country club at Leeds University. They decided to spend New Year’s Eve at Britain’s highest pub — the Tan Hill Inn.
That’s when the snowstorm struck, cutting them off from the outside world. According to a story in the Guardian:
Student Nathan Martin said that spirits had remained high.
“It’s been fun – like the ultimate lock-in,” he said.
The inn’s assistant manager Mike Carter said: “Everyone’s had a good time – people were peeling carrots and potatoes and helping to make dinner on an evening. It was a really nice atmosphere.
After two days behind 7-foot-high snowdrifts, supplies of draught beer were running low — they only had one brand left. But they’re still doing better than some:
An even longer siege by the weather is still under way at Cape Wrath on Scotland’s north-western tip, where John Ure, 57, is waiting for his wife Kay to return with the ingredients for Christmas dinner. Mrs Ure went shopping in Durness, 11 miles away by boat and car, on 19 December but the road was then closed by snow and she has been holed up in a friend’s caravan ever since.
“I’m looking forward to a belated Christmas dinner but it might be Burns’ Night – 25 January – before it happens,” she said. She has regularly phoned her husband, who has ample supplies and has promised not to open any Christmas presents until she gets back.
In an era where we take international travel (even with the in(s)ane security requirements) pretty much for granted, it’s humbling to remember that, a few hundred years ago, most people rarely left the villages where they were born. And if they did, it was a major journey, with no guarantee they would return.
Pretty amazing that extreme weather can enforce that same mentality, even today.
That’s Abraham Lincoln up there — without his trademark beard or top hat (but with the stern-faced look that all people had for the camera back then). It’s part of a cool little blog that Amy left up for me, which showcases then-and-now photos of people.
As the Mitch Hedberg bit they use in their “About” page puts it:
One time, this guy handed me a picture of him, he said, “Here’s a picture of me when I was younger.”
Every picture is of you when you were younger.
“Here’s a picture of me when I’m older.”
You son-of-a-bitch! How’d you pull that off? Lemme see that camera… what’s it look like?
Although they have some famous people, like Lincoln, as well as Einstein and Bill Gates, most of the site so far is just average, ordinary, everyday people (unless they are famous but I don’t recognize them — the site is first-name-only, most of the time).
It’s worth looking at just to see how people change, but also stay the same, but I also loved checking out the old colours, old fashions and old photographic compositions that people have uploaded.
Looks like the blog is just getting started. I wish them well!
Amy found me a great “op-chart” at the New York Times. It’s essentially a giant grid — on one axis is every year from the last decade, but on the other, it’s a series of things that may have defined a year: what was “newish” that year, for example, or who the “maverick” or the “champion” of the year was. And it’s all handled graphically.
So you can follow the grid down, for example, to see a full year in icons. Or you can follow the grid across, to see each year in sequence, but under the same subject heading.
I’ve put a slice of the chart above. See if you can figure out the years and the subject matters before you click here to see the whole thing.
So, how many cups of coffee do you drink in a day? I tend to drink upwards of three or four regular-sized coffee mugs full of black (no cream or sugar or girlaccinos), but I’m never sure how many “cups” that is. When I make coffee, for example, I make either eight or 12 “cups” — according to the carafe. But I sure don’t get that number of mugs out of it.
I suppose some simple experimentation would answer my question. But I drink coffee when I am tired and unmotivated — hardly the best time for a science project.
For more on the health benefits (alleged) or concerns (even more alleged) that come from coffee consumption, you should check out the extensive Wall Street Journal article I pinched the chart above from.