Routine Order

Since I wrote about the wedding magician, I have been browsing the web for small magic tricks that I can manage to pull off. In addition to the videos on YouTube, I came across Magic Trance - a site with a lot of “magic”. If you sign up for their mailing list, you get some good magic trick ebooks. In fact, one of the videos on youtube is how I got to the Magic Trance website. You can catch a video with some simple magic tricks for beginners on the site. Check out the magic tricks page for more videos and tricks.

There is a link to a “web page that can read your mind”. I think I have that one figured out. Try and see if you can figure it out for yourself. There’s another coin trick which was one the first I learnt, way back when I was in middle school - the disappearing coin act. It goes as follows: you show two coins, one on each palm face-up. You slam your palms down onto the table, and mysteriously both coins show up under your left palm. Learn how to do it.

I have seen bracelets, rings and chains that consist of inter-woven silver and gold. I thought it was interwoven platinum and gold, but I was probably wrong. Here’s a sample:


That’s a fine piece of Jewelry from David Yurman. There are entire blogs dedicated to David Yurman Jewelry!

The company was established in 1979 and the reason why you see it around a lot is because they use top models, like Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, and Amber Valletta to advertise their products. In the US, you find David Yurman Jewelry at Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and at David Yurman Flagship stores. The jewelry is very highly priced - even over-priced. I guess they have to make the customer pay for their high profile product placement and advertising. However, you can find deals online. You can even find David Yurman inspired jewelry and David Yurman replica bracelets for example. Ebay has a “fine” selection of Yurman pieces too. But you better know how to spot a genuine item. You could always play it safe and pick up a replica for $69.00 instead of the original for $6900. Beauty is surface deep, now, isn’t it? I couldn’t say the same for quality, I suppose!

Note to self for the future: Hire a wedding magician to add magic (quite literally) to the wedding. I am really impressed by this magician’s website. Too bad he’s based in the UK, though. The website looks spiffy, smart, and well designed. He’s been getting some rave reviews from his clients too. How can you not like a magician who blogs. Here’s a review from Rob’s blog:

“We are the small house-party that Rob refers to in his blog of September 9th, and I’d like to add that for the group who attended the house party we are still getting comments as to how brilliant you were on the night. The card tricks were baffling and the “mind-reading” trick with the dice was absolutely brill, along with all the other tricks you did whilst moving around the groups. The evening went even better than I thought, and perhaps close-up magic to a small group will catch on in this part of the world because 45 people went home very happy with a great memory of a cracking evening. Thanks again Rob for making the party go so well”. Pope family - Coventry

For perspective, here’s the post from September 9th where Rob talks about the house-party.

Rob, the only thing your blog could really use is smarter permalinks with text, instead of the “?p=XX” kind of links

David Airey, the dude who does logos is having an awesome prize giveaway on his blog. Each one of his prizes seems better than the other - with custom blog designs, books, free consultation and advice all thrown in the mix. If his own site logo is anything to go by, he designs a wicked logo, too. Check him out!

Let’s hope I win one.

The Tintin Movie is bound to be released in 2009. Yes, it is true.

“After 25 years, they finally said ‘OK, let’s go’,” Nick Rodwell, head of Moulinsart NV, said of the protracted talks with Spielberg since the early 1980s.

- International Herald Tribune

The movie will be created by DreamWorks, that outfit headed by Steven Spielberg. Moulinsart Studios, the owner of Hergé’s rights to Tintin confirmed as much awhile ago. So far, we don’t know which of Tintin’s adventures will be featured in the movie, which could be the first of many, if the first succeeds. If I have anything to do with it, it should be a success!!

The above video, recorded live at Penn State, is by comedian/musician Rob Paravonian, who has been a favorite on the Dr. Demento Show. He shares his frustration at having Pachelbel’s Canon in D major follow him everywhere. Everywhere.

Everyone including U2, Greenday and other pop music icons recycle the same chords and progression - don’t believe me - watch the video. It is amazing to think that it never struck me - I love the Canon as much as any ordinary classical music geek, but failed to see it all around me, all the time. Since I saw the video, I have picked up the annoying habit of trying to find chordal similarities between pop/rock songs and classical pieces. Annoying habit, I must say.

What sold me on NPR was the addictive stories pitched by shows like This American Life, and All things considered.

Imagine my joy when I found that This American Life was now on TV! It is! It’s on Showtime at 10:30 PM on Thursdays. The real downer was that we don’t get Showtime at home. I know we’re dumb - the only two channels we get at home are the aptly named Channel 9 and then ABC. Two channels - enough to watch dinner to, not enough to spend hours glued to the telly. I so wish I had showtime at 10:30 on Thursdays though!

But worry not, you still can view some shows on Showtime’s website, and Ira Glass - pictured in the pic above - puts a face to a voice I have known. I can’t exactly say I love the voice. I hate the staccato nature of his diction, and he sounds pompous at times, patronizing at other times. I expected him to be much, much older, paunchy, gray hair, with glasses. I only got the glasses part right.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to catch up with the show. Of course you don’t need a genius like me to figure out that you can find the high resolution videos on bittorrent!

Made With Molecules sells jewelery shaped like molecules. Wonderful gift idea for that science graduate student in your life, or, as in my case, for my significant other who is science-friendly.

A selection of items on sale:

serotonin necklace
dopamine necklace
focus necklace
neurotransmitter earrings
estrogen jewelry
caffeine jewelry

The blur effect you see in the ad is for real - the billboard uses GE Lexan EXL Semi-transparent Resin to blur whats behind the billboard, regardless of weather, season and lighting. See Ian Hart’s page for details. Ian was the guy who designed the ads. The ads take the cake for creative use of polymer technology.

(Via haha.nu)

Otto Frank—who survived the Holocaust by living out Auschwitz—was trying to save his wife Edith, his mother-in-law Rosa Hollander and his daughters Margot and Anne. The 80 letters how his effort to get out of Holland, and how he failed in doing that. These letters were just released and became common knowledge.

Had he got out, Anne Frank, his daughter, might not have written her diaries.

No one writes letters anymore - emails are always to the point and never substantial. The art of writing letters, and documenting one’s own life via letters, is almost dead. One could say blogs are a replacement, but really, who puts their private thoughts, feelings and fears on a blog. Most, like me, just write about what they find interesting, not whats going on in their own lives. Blogs have almost replaced collections of letters as a way to look into particular periods in history and their effect on individuals. I remember reading quite a few highly linked-to Iraqi blogs, and Israeli blogs.

via Time

The girls of engineering calendar was produced with current and past engineering students from the University of Illinois posing in ridiculous poses - none of which are really nude, but all of which are supposed to be sexy.

You can buy the calendar for only $12.95 - I am wondering who’d want to. You can also see a slideshow with about 44 pics in it.

How brain dead does one have to be to realize that reinforcing sexual stereotypes does not unmake the stereotype? We all know some girls are engineers, some girls are sexy, and some sexy girls are engineers. Having revealing photos of the small minority displayed in a calendar does not magically convey the image that all sexy girls are engineers, or that all girl engieers are sexy.

Women in Engineering don’t have to be sexy to be good. They only have to be smart. The calendar, if anything, will reduce the few sexy & smart girls in engineering to fancy sexual objects. Quite the achievement for equality of the sexes in engineering education!

You know what I am talking about… If you don’t, here are some prime examples:

You know how difficult it is to search for something when you don’t know what it is called, but you can describe it. I am talking about google here - it is impossible to end up with the right results if you don’t phrase your search in terms of the exact words used on the page that you’d like to end up with.
Well, I knew these things had to have a name, and I just found out what the name was. It is “violator” - so named since it violates the boxy nature and layout of the rest of the page, or ad or whatever.

Peace be unto you as it was unto me a few moments ago!!!

Stumbling upon Glen Murphy’s Projects is like finding a treasure trove of ideas that are complete and yet can be expanded a lot further!

Check out Sproutliner - a web-based outliner made in the finest tradition, then check out his timeline tool. When you are done, marvel at the ingenuity behind trip. Absolutely amazing! Have to go back there someday when I am not as busy as I am right now.

FKF Applied Research, with the help of UCLA’s Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, said that Coca-Cola’s “Video Game” ad–a 60-second animated spot that promotes random acts of kindness–scored this year because it elicited the most positive emotions in subjects’ brains.

From news.com.com

Interesting research - they monitor brain activity to see which ads elicit the most “positive” response. They say some ads elicit a fear response and will be quickly forgotten - now we are in hot water. Why? Because people like my girl friend get enormously turned on by horror movies and the like. Going by the idea the FKF research folks put forward, the only movies that make a lasting, positive impression are the feel-good, empathy-generating ones, but we all know that Jaws, Omen etc have been huge hits and have been permanently etched into so many memories, world wide.

I think there is no way to tell which ads were more successful, but yes, you sure can find out which ones were terrible failures - those would be the ads that generated a minimal response from any part of the brain.

Now for your viewing pleasure, here is the best ad, according to the human brain:

It was a neat ad - all things aside, I loved it.

The Old New Thing : Where did the Windows Vista wallpaper images come from? - Interesting story about where the Windows Vista wallpaper images come from. Some came from Flickr users!

“So, how would you like one of your photos included among the default wallpapers in Windows Vista?” The Flickr artists were excited to be a part of Windows Vista

More details at this other post too.

Breastpals.com is Angel Tolentino’s effort to fund Breast Cancer Charities. The paintings are mediocre until you realize they have been painted with 34B brushes!

In December 1995, I was looking for creative Christmas gifts for my friends. One day I was watching my sister Lyn use sponges to paint on canvas. I thought, “I wonder if my breasts could work like sponges?” Inspiration struck! So I bought some non-toxic paint and canvas, locked myself in the bathroom, and figured out a technique to paint with my breasts. Wouldn’t you know it? Breast Pals was born!

She sells various things with her art on it through cafepress and donates profits to breast cancer charities. Featured above are her creations, “Boo-bees” and “Breast Stroke”.

I’ll stop short of saying something wicked cool about testicular cancer.

Hand Shadows by Henry Bursill is a Project Gutenberg book that is short and sweet. I remember the contests me and my cousins used to have late in the night, between the ghost stories to create the most terrifying shadows. There was a scary spider a cousin used to throw - unfortunately that is not in the book. Thanks to haha.nu for pointing me at the right place.


Says the author:

I calculate that I put my ten fingers through hundreds of various exercises before my “Bird” took wing; my left little finger thrills at the memory of “Grandpapa”; and my thumbs gave in no less than twenty times before “Boy” was accomplished. Yet now how easy it is to make the “Duck” to quack, the “Donkey” to bray, “Toby” to wag his tail, and the “Rabbit” to munch his unsubstantial meal.

Of course the Shadows are not to be reproduced perfectly, on “one trial only”; but I believe that in each case I have drawn the due position of the fingers with such care, that the most difficult subject may be accomplished after a few minutes; nor need ingenious youth or parental fondness confine their endeavours to the sketches contained in this book. With a little ingenuity and some patience, new shadows may be produced; and not unfrequently figures appear that one never dreamed of attempting.

Again, the copyright free e-book is available:
Hand Shadows by Henry Bursill

I stumbled upon Art Garfunkel(of Simon and Garfunkel fame)’s Reading List and Music List.

The Reading List is amazing, containing each and every book he has ever read since 1970!!!

His fourth alltime favorite song is his own song, the Bridge Over Troubled Waters.

There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t sleep without listening to Simon & Garfunkel. Thank you for making life livable, Art.

And more…

Through Anil Dash, I ended up on this post at sylloge.com about a John Adams quote, the original version of which seems to be:

The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

I couldn’t help smiling at the pleasure the author of that blog must have got when he finally discovered the quote he was searching for, after lots and lots of looking for it, asking around, etc. And hey, wikiquote says the quote is from a Letter to Abigail Adams from May 12, 1780.

P.S.: Since I quote so much, and would like to cite my quotations AND have the citations visible, in a sematically correct fashion, I should install the block quotations plugin from Chetan Kunte. Someday, soon.