How well are you familiar with YouTube celebrities – Numa Numa, the Star Wars kid, leave Britney alone, Coke and Mentos, etc? If you missed any, of if you want to refresh your memory, here are they all on one page. The first clip is a music video “Pork and Beans” by Weezer band. After that, each and every one of them in a separate, original video. Loads of fun!
Tag: history
What Did You Change Your Mind About in 2007?
Slashdot runs an excellent discussion on the topic of “What Did You Change Your Mind About in 2007?“. If you want to learn more about what people on the Web had changed their minds in 2007, try this Google search – plenty more there.
What did I change my mind about in 2007? Short answer: Google. Continue reading for the long version.
Continue reading What Did You Change Your Mind About in 2007?
Good bye, Netscape
People all over the web are saying good bye to Netscape. Since Mozilla and Firefox started to get better, Netscape sort of faded away. Now it faded away so far that AOL decided to end the support for the browser. This is the time when thousands of people all around the world, including yours truly, suddenly felt very old and broke out into uncontrollable nostalgia…
If you want to read more about the sentiment, here are some links for you:
- Slashdot:Â AOL to Shut Down Netscape Support/Development
- Boing Boing:Â Â RIP: Netscape Navigator (1994-2008)
- Web Worker Daily: End of a Browser Era
Chess bits
I’ve been fascinated by chess for as long as I can remember. This is one of those games that brings it all together – intelligence, suspense, entertainment, magic… Unfortunately, I wasn’t ever any good at playing chess, or even understanding most strategies. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying a game now and then.
I have recently came across two interesting bits about chess. One is this post on the gaping void blog with the history of chess pieces. It explains where from the names and looks came, as well as why the pieces move the way they move. Another one is this Battle Chess web site (in Russian). Battle Chess is a variation of the chess game, which, as the site says “is a war, not a game”. What they do is let each chess player arrange his pieces on his part of the board any way he wants. The second player does the same. The trick is that they don’t see each others positioning before the game starts. And then they start. Sounds exciting. And innovative. Which I guess isn’t very easy to do with a game a few centuries old.
Time dimension to Google Maps
One thing that Google Maps could benefit from is a time dimension. Imagine, being able to scroll the time-line while looking at the satellite picture of the same place. You could see how cities are growing, roads built, and rain forests destroyed. You could see traffic jams. You could see how building shadows drop to find the better parking in a hot place like Cyprus…
I guess Google will have to collect much more data than they already have though.