Silliness:

A final story from Isaac Asimov.

There are at least two sides to every story they say (I always felt there was as many sides as people, but hey.) Here's a different side to a story which has been in the news lately.

A super smash bros clone in flash, pretty funky.

If you know this woman, do not under any circumstances cross her. She's dangerous.

Silliness:

What happens when a lighter explodes.

I was going to comment on how I think this is funny, but actually I'm seriously worried that American police resorted to using a stun gun on a greased naked student.

Even using a logarithmic scale that's a long way away.

Silliness:

So, the internet's dominated by the immature and childish. But it's funny none-the-less.

I'm quite enjoying this blog, on being an Aussie learning to cope with Japan.

Eat food, helpful advice on eating healthily. The irony of the article saying it's not going to spend too long elaborating, and going on for 12 pages isn't lost on me.

Celebration:

It's Ellie and Mine's anniversary today... Also today the following things have happened.

Silliness:

Looks like America may get a national health care system – hey, they can have ours we seem to be demolishing it anway.

This is a cool toy, a spirograph rendered in flash.

Hah! I'm 48.6% smarter than the average person taking this test.

Geekiness:

42 questions we don't know the answers to.

Silliness:

An infallible guide to problem solving.

Heat-rays! Well, that's it we're living in the future – now where's my flying car?

A list of infallible plans to take over the world. Woo!

A six minute time-lapse film of Edinburgh and surrounds; apparently took two years to make.

Silliness:

Lessons learned from 80s cartoons.

Selective cleaning deemed apparently as graffiti.

These are quite good, drawings made of words.

PS:

Happy Birthday Mum!

Silliness:

Fantastic, although the use of "Nano Ipod" rather than "iPod nano" has me wondering what sort of self-respecting child would write this essay.

Sheese, doom and gloom all round then – the Religious Right in America are the next-gen fascists apparently.

Silliness:

Second life getting too much for you? Try getting a first life.

Thank heavens I rarely express an opinion on anything…

Geekiness:

According to this guy, there's a chance that I may live forever. Some people accuse scientists of playing god, well – he's certainly got the beard for it.

Umm, is this the same NSA who spy on people?

Silliness:

Colbert is O'Reilly and vice versa, so how did they end up in the same place twice without some sort of explosion?

Bizarre lists of things said girl's boyfriend says. I'm not sure how funny some of them are though.

Powerful stuff, not fun to read, just the alarming account of a Camp X-Ray detainee.

Alarming stuff, and an object lesson in how not to drive when it's Icy.

Man sells his entire life on eBay.

Classy animation and an established formula, play quite possibly the most famous game in the world online.

Worst slogan ever, although pampers could use it if the foundation repairs people go bust.

I hate it when spam looks so much more exciting than it actually is.

For a second I thought I could earn large jetpacks using eBay. (That would be awesome beyond words.) When instead it's just regular old large paychecks.

One of these days I'm going to move into my delusional world permanently because it's much more fun there.

Silliness:

I love this blog, graphs can express quite a bit of stuff.

Websites' average users represented as pictures.

The coolest toaster in the entire universe… Let's hope someone makes it. (Not to George Watson who designed it though, sometimes toast is in different thicknesses – plus people like crumpets too.)

A BMJ study into why their teaspoons keep disappearing.

Umm… this is my life, aarrgh!!!

Ellie's Link:

Nottinghamshire art student uses chocolate as medium, I tend to use it as a large.

Silliness:

A brief comparison of US and Canadian healthcare gives no doubt as to the usefulness of the NHS.

And they say nothing happens in small countries like New Zealand; tell that to the brave police who rescued this kitten.

So the Germans can be just as silly as Jeremy Clarkson, Dodge Viper vs. Go-kart.

Surely this can't be accurate; are Australian's all dumb, or is it just a damning indicator of the inaccuracy of IQ tests?

Holy Cow! A cure for cancer? Which was discovered ages ago? And we just didn't realise it cured cancer? (disclaimer – it cures a lot of cancers, not all cancer generally.)

Geekiness:

An old advert for Windows, as the description says, all so-so until about 7 minutes in where the mad people take over.

There but for the grace of god, and a huge amount of technical knowledge I'll never have, go I.

Silliness:

This is just completely insane, a human slingshot.

The full version of the floating boat video from the other day – includes talking with lungs full of sulphur hexafluoride.

Advertising done better.

How to have a stressful life.

Geekiness:

I have to try this when I get home, but create a virtual garden based on your internet usage.

Silliness:

Who made this? I want them rewarded with large piles of money! What the hell is an Aluminium Falcon anyway (doesn't work with an English accent though, that joke.)

Whoa, do you think the Bungie design team can sue? This is scarily close to Master chief's look.

How's the lake they threw this into doing now I wonder? Seems like an extreme way of disposing of sodium.

Ellie's Link:

Where do they come up with these ideas? Be nice to nettles week happened last May, but it's still pretty odd.

Silliness:

That's one dense gas – watch a ship seemingly float in midair.

This is possibly the weirdest thing I've seen in a long long time.

I'm starting to love this blog, it's not doing much for my ambition to visit Japan though.

Silliness:

Corona beer won't freeze with all that CO2 dissolved in it apparently (that's my explanation for this cool trick.)

Almost made me laugh our loud in the office, we're all doomed.

As the link said in Reddit – Ninjas now helping police.

Once again, almost laughing out loud in the office, not good – because linux code isn't funny. Anyway, I really wish they'd made Brokeback to the Future.

Silliness:

Here's a huge endorsement for the stability of this particular tug boat.

Drinking of Epic proportions; if you want to get in the record books for being drunk, abandon that thought now.

Today's SLOTD

Silliness:

Complete and horrendous embarrassment, but if you're going to learn a foreign language prepare to embarrass yourself. ("Je suis plein." Tee hee)

Big brother is watching, but he's a kindly soul – really. Don't let this incredibly sinister poster put you off.

Geekiness:

It's a factory for making lego cars, made out of lego – impressive, but why?

Postponed SLOTD from some time I can't remember:

Silliness:

I'm excited, possibly because a probably naff film has a really really cool trailer, or just possibly because I probably naff film isn't naff.

As it said, it will probably get you killed by fundamentalist Christians – but never mind, I found this T-Shirt funny.

Silliness:

Phenomenal talent, but the sounds so good that I think I'm the only person wondering whether that's really him playing (although the fingering's all correct so I guess it must be.).

Destroy websites with this javascript trick.

People genuinely believe that this is a sensible thing to do?

I adore these ingenious devices.

These are the best, but the related sites are good too.

Work!

Huh!

What is it good for?

Well, earning my keep, paying the bills. But apart from that, I don't really see much benefit to it.

I'm more of a play person. I'm the sort of person for whom the phrase "protestant work ethic" can induce physical illness. In all honestly, I look at the sort of things most of the companies I've worked at do from day to day, and I still don't see the benefit of work.

I'm starting to think that most people have actually forgotten about play, and what it is, and how you do it.

And to back this argument up, I shall use one of the "games" commonly played by people who do a lot of work.

Which is Golf.

Now, to me play is an enjoyable activity with clear goals, and good feedback loops which doesn't overly punish mistakes but does reward good playing. Crucially in play, it is the taking part which counts, the game is inherently rewarding to play. Winning is a benefit you get from being good at the game, but the game is entertaining in and of itself.

Golf looks to me like a game invented by people who entirely forgot what play was, and instead created a form of work which gets them out of the office and into a beautifully manicured garden. Where, I ask in all seriousness, is the fun in golf? Perhaps it is derived from the simple satisfaction of wacking things with sticks. Well, it could be, except – and here's where I think golf really departs from play – if you do it even slightly wrong you get punished quite severely. There's no leeway in golf for really letting rip and smashing the ball, so you have to be under complete control the whole time. Now that doesn't sound like fun to me, so where else can you derive the fun? The environment? Golf courses are beautiful in the way a vacant bimbo is beautiful, really appealing to look at, but once you try to have a conversation the appeal evaporates faster than neat alcohol on a hot day. There's only so much grass I can take.

Instead of play you have a very punishing scoring system, a "game" which requires considerable work just to be bad at, and very little to recommend it. Once you start taking into account the ridiculous rules that golf clubs start introducing about appearance, dress, gender and racial traits you get a game which is so far from fun that it belongs in a different dictionary. And then you have caddies. Here's the thing, the game requires so much gear that it's more effort to lug the gear around than it is to play the game, so much so that you essentially recruit a servant to do the lugging for you. Once you have to recruit servants to take the pain out of playing, you must have realised that the game has gone horribly wrong.

Seriously, try to explain to a 8 year old kid why golf is a great game. They'll probably look at you patiently. Perhaps sigh a little and maybe even shake their heads; and go back to playing hide and seek.

Crazy golf on the other hand makes perfect sense, in fact I'd say it's not crazy enough – and I've devised my own full on version of crazy golf which includes all the joys of really smashing a ball, but that's for another post.

In fact, I would humbly suggest that adults go back to playing hide and seek all over again, because they've obviously forgotten why it was they were playing it in the first place. This, I suppose, is where the inspiration for paintball came from, it's hide and seek dressed up in a way as to make it acceptably complicated for adults to play. The simple tenet of hiding for the sake of it is far too simple, and without marshal combat, silly costumes and health and safety rules have to be added in otherwise it's simply too childish for grown ups to play.

Back to the subject, which was work. How much of the time people spend at work is involved in actually producing whatever it is that the company makes its money from (or directly supporting the process)? Too much time is spent informing people who've forgotten what it was their company does about how well it is doing. To the extent that there are vast swathes of people working for any medium to large business whose entire job is writing reports and attending meetings all about how efficiency has dropped and could be improved if only everyone could be persuaded to use less toilet paper. These tasks are not only pointless and futile – but also mind-numbingly boring and stressful.

I'm entirely against work, and firmly believe that we can have a thriving economy while still firing half the population. Which kinda leaves the question what the unemployed half should now do.

May I introduce the concept of play?