Oh God, this is really spooky

An artist superimposes images of her modern, adult self into snapshots of her as a child. More here.

Via. Again.

Tweenbots

I want one! I want one!

Via.

Twitter-ing catflap cats

Croydonian has the bizarre, geek-tastic details. The cats' Twitter page is here.

Beaming in from Planet Stupid...

...also known as America, is the news that just over 4 out of every ten American adults believe that dinosaurs and early humans lived on the earth at the same time. (Wonder if the rising tide of creationism in the US played a part in some of those responses?)

I have to admit that I love these surveys, apparently specifically designed to encourage other nations to laugh at Americans. "Bloody hell, 72% of Americans think that France is in Africa! Ha ha!" Brilliant.

Still, I have to confess that one of the other 'blimey they're pig ignorant' factoids in this story - Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. - made me pause for a minute. Year or day? Day or year?

Oh God. Am I Dumb As A Yank?

Fact of the day

New clothes lose up to a thousandth of their weight over the course of a year to their wearer's belly button in the form of belly button fluff.

As discovered by JMP's favourite scientist, Austrain chemist Georg Steinhauser.

Ah, the glamour of academia

An early candidate for quote of the month:

By the beginning of the third year of my PhD, I knew more about lizard faeces than I had ever thought possible.

- David Bennett, who is suing Leeds University for throwing out 35 kg of lizard poo that he had collected. Post-grads: strange bunch.

Teen sexting (born out of time)

I realise that it's a tough time to be a teenager and going to school today. Gangs...bullying...lots of nastiness.

But.

I can't help be a bit jealous when I read of what seems to be a full-blown epidemic of teenage girls sending sexy photos of themselves to their male schoolmates. I mean, when I were a lad, you had to screw up the courage to buy a copy of Razzle with your mates after a day full of maths and double physics, and then go home to watch George and Mildred* and the nine o'clock news with your parents in front of the one TV in the house before going to bed. Nowadays, it seems, you're getting pictures of sexy Mandy in your English class sent to your phone before you've even got on the bus. Then, after a hard day of sociology and sex-education, it's back home to surf filth on the computer in your room, until you fall asleep with your head on your keyboard and your short trousers round your ankles.

The world's smallest violin is playing here for you, lads. 

* kudos to the chap (inevitably a chap) who spent an evening of his valuable time writing the Wikipedia entry for George and Mildred.

Soramimi kashi

Soramimi kashi means, in Japanese subculture slang, mistranslated lyrics. You get the original lyric, translate into Japanese slang in Japanese characters, romanise the Japanese text, then translate back into the original language of the lyric.

Confused? Of course you are. I'm not sure I fully understand it myself, and I've been studying it for a full 5 minutes. Never mind. The Wikipedia page gives some great examples. Here's Metallica, for Paul:

Enter the Sandman

'Til the sandman he comes...
千代田生命行こう・・・
Chiyoda Seimei ikou...
Let's go to Chiyoda Life Insurance...

Supervolcano eruption imminent?

And now, in news that puts our other concerns in some context, I have to report that blogger Captain Haddock considers that the evidence is mounting that the supervolcano [TM BBC docu-dram department- more properly a 'volcanic caldera', natch] at Yellowstone in the US may be about to erupt. There have, the good captain reports, been 500 tremors there this past week.

If it were to erupt, it could be, well, tricky. A chap from the Open University, Stephen Self, cheerily reports that it "could result in the devastation of world agriculture, severe disruption of food supplies, and mass starvation. These effects could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilization." Ooh-er. On the other hand, the National Park's site is still saying that "There is no evidence that a catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is imminent."

Fingers crossed, eh?

Abandoned London

Nice idea: guy cycles round central London early on the morning of Christmas Day taking photos. Cue Oxford Street spookily deserted, etc.

More on Flickr here.

Something fishy

From the television listings for Christmas Day (Christmas Day!):

National Geographic Channel:

4pm Monster Fish Caught Redhanded

5pm Megafish

6pm Fishzilla

7pm Monster Fish of the Amazon

Sinister. I just hope the authorities are keeping an eye.

Fuzzy Britain

This is a composite of 14 representations of Britain on 14 different world maps, adjusted to scale.

Sorry, I can't do the necessary technical malarkey to shrink it down to fit properly, but you get the drift.

Ben Terrett, a graphic designer who blogs at the trendy looking Noisy Decent Graphics, created this image. He became interested a few years ago in different cartographical representations of Britain. He began with the rather standard expectation that Britain would tend to be represented rather bigger than it really is, especially on older maps, because he expected a correlation between Britain's power and importance in the world, and its relative size on maps. So far, so ho-hum. What he didn't expect was significant differences in the shape of Britain, not only in older maps but between modern maps too. Mr Terrett comments -

"If you look at all the maps (separately), they all look kind of OK. When I put them all together, it looks like madness. Like people taking liberties with the truth.”

Madness seems a bit strong...but it does seem odd. I mean, isn't this stuff supposed to be standardised by now?

Still, as the Strange Maps website, which linked to this, reminds us -

"All maps are lies."

My brain hurts

An optical illusion from the Telegraph. This one is the 'Adelson Checker Shadow Illusion'. Apparently it is only an illusion that the 'white' squares in the shadow of the green cylinder (such as B) are a different colour from the 'black' squares outside (such as A). In fact, says the Torygraph, A and B are exactly the same shade of grey (much like, say, John Hutton and James Purnell).

I simply don't believe it.

More illusions here.

Two things learnt today

1. David Davis' Desert Island Discs include Dire Straits and Phil Collins. What a man of the people he is.

2. Trevor Howard always ensured that his movie contracts gave him the day off whenever a test match was being played. Pure class.

Legal news

The wonderfully named Taichi Takashita (fnarr fnarr) has launched an online petition for the right to marry a cartoon character. In a challenging manifesto, he writes:

"I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world. However, that seems impossible with present-day technology. Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorise marriage with a two-dimensional character?" (source)

"I am no longer interested in three dimensions" may be the oddest sentence I have read this year. That aside, the idea raises a veritable firestorm of legal, ethical and moral issues, including how to ascertain the consent of the two-dimensional party to the marriage, and whether gay marriage is permitted. And what's the right minimum legal age for the cartoon?

The more pressing question though is who (if you weren't already happily married in this boring old 3-d world) would you marry from among the dimensionally-challenged? I think I'd go for her with the long blonde hair off Scooby-Doo; or Lisa Simpson in 10 years' time; or...

Don't buy your fags at Iceland

Deep within a Daily Mail article on Ms Kerry Katona is buried this bombshell:

"She also admitted she is still smoking, despite reports she was warned that it could cause her nipples to fall off."

Your blogger is in shock, fanning himself limply with copies of OK! magazine. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

The real reason McCain will lose the election

He's much shorter than Obama. Obama is about six foot one, McCain five foot six. Starting with Hoover in 1928, arguably the election nearest the start of the Movietone News and then TV era, the taller candidate has won 16 of the 20 elections, or 80%. Interestingly, W is one of the three Presidents to buck the trend, in both his elections (the other two are Carter and Nixon. Hmmm. Carter, Nixon, W. You might think those who can buck the natural trend would be particularly impressive, but obviously not). Still, Kerry was so tall (six foot four) that his height made him look a bit dorky and, disastrously, aristocratic and "French"; and Bush didn't actually beat Gore, did he?

More details in this oddly charming Wikipedia article.