Links, I thinks

Ze Frank re-watches and annotates his 2006 daily videoblog.
Interesting look at his process and evolving tastes.
The videoblog is pretty charming, too.

Chookooloonks has a really clear guide:
understanding your DSLR camera’s manual settings.

This might come in handy some time:
An analysis of the forces required to drag sheep over various surfaces.

OKCupid: Best questions to ask on a first date

Q: Do my date and I have long-term potential?
A: According to OKC, couples with long-term potential are most likely to give matching answers to the following questions:
1. Do you like horror movies?
2. Have you ever travelled around another country alone?
3. Wouldn’t it be fun to chuck it all and live on a sailboat?

According to OKC’s data set, matching answers on these questions were even more predictive of a successful match than questions about sex, god and smoking.

It’s a fun read: here.

Infinite Camel

Thanks to Peneycad for the tip.

Sun melts rock, OH MAH GAWD

So this is a big mirrored parabola thingie that collects 3 square metres of sunshine and focusses it to a pinpoint. Which is hot enough to burn literally anything on earth.
My brain seriously exploded and is now dripping down my neck. It’s pretty hot but this is hotter:

Thanks to Jessie for this mind-melting clip.

What’s it like to be blind?

UPDATE: The link to the webforum was broken; I fixed it. Here.

Here is a very long, very in-depth web forum, where tons of users ask honest questions of a 26 year old man who’s been blind from birth.

He answers all sorts of stuff, ranging from how much he cares about women’s looks to whether he pees sitting or standing, to info about his computer (he doesn’t use a monitor!) to what his computer screen-reader sounds like. Turns out he can listen to his computer-voice at an absolutely dizzying speed (here’s an mp3).

The thread is 15+ pages long and takes forever to go through, but it’s super-interesting, and worth at least a skim. Read it here.

Animals shaking dry

This is just one more reason to love science nerds.

Via MeFi.

Bubbles on the Beach

Not the pet chimp, not the trailer park boy. Something better.

Thanks to Peneycad for the tip.

Momentous!

This evening, you guys!

Six minutes and seven seconds after 5pm, the time will be:

05:06:07 08/09/10.

This happens once a century. Enjoy it!

Do something really numeric. Maybe play Outkast’s Hey Ya or some other song that starts with ONE TWO THREE FOUR and then you’ll have done a whole set of digits.

Or! Tell some number jokes! Like:

Q: What does the zero say to the the eight?
A: Nice belt!

Q: Why was six afraid of seven?
A: Because seven eight nine!

Or:

Three statisticians go hunting. When they see a rabbit, the first one shoots, missing it on the left. The second one shoots and misses it on the right. The third one shouts: “We’ve hit it!”

Porcupines.

Here is an adorable video of a porcupine acting like a puppy. Now I would like one small pine pet please.

Here is a porcupine I met at Science North in Sudbury when I was there on a shoot a while back. His name is Quillan. All he wants to do is nap and eat sweet potatoes. You can pet him if you want. Only in one direction, though.

I learned that porcupines have three kinds of fur: very long thin yellow hairs that feel like cat whiskers, a thick coat of crinkly, oily, dark brown fur, and stiff, hollow, yellow and black quills buried in the fur. If you pet them, they leave a kind of shiny dark dirt on your fingers, kind of like petting a farm dog. The grease in porcupine fur smells like a mixture of cats and motor oil.

And that is what I know about porcupines.
Video via OMGblog.

How to open a wine bottle with a shoe

Just put the bottle into the heel of your shoe, hold it so the bottom is parallel to the wall, and give it a few firm taps against a hard wall. Here’s a demo video; it’s in French but the visuals makes sense.

Do you know the lengths I’ve gone to to find a corkscrew? Trying to befriend snotty neighbours, wandering into Greek restaurants at 1AM, poking around with knives… and all this time I was standing on the answer. I can’t wait to try this. If I show up with a giant purple splotch on my pants you’ll know it was a fail.
Via MeFi.