10000 Sheep

What happens when you get 10,000 workers to draw a sheep...

This

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I have been experimenting with some 3d in flash. I bought a book by Robert Penner that had some basic ideas around creating 3d and I have been evolving from there. My mate Pete has been adding the visual design while I work on the interface and engine. Its really starting to take shape, soon it will be ready to use. If you would like a sneak peak view it here: Blog+
Feel free to offer feedback about it.

Google Zietgeist 2005

Google is constantly collecting data on the search queries made using its search engine. And they often release generalised statistics to the public. Each year they release some interesting statistics related to those statistics. 2005 is no exception with very interesting statistics involving the bombings in London, hurricanes in America and Star wars.

Google Zeitgeist 2005

Last.fm vs Pandora

We all get bored of our music collections sooner or later. Luckily these days we can resort to either last.fm or Pandora to spice up our music lives. I have over 20 gig of music on my computer but i'm totally sick of it. So I started listening to Pandora, a radio station that creates its play list based on artists or songs you recommend. While I love Pandora for its simplicity I have noticed one downfall. It does tend to repeat songs if you come back day after day. Last.fm on the other hand is a little more complicated to use, it has many more options. But these options really allow you to tailor your radio station the way you want it. And it appears it have an inexhaustible supply of songs to draw from. One more interesting point with last.fm is the way the site allows you to see what other people who listen to your favourite artists also listen to a la amazon. So at the moment my vote goes to last.fm.

Avalanche on Ruapehu

Although currently based in London I'm originally from New Zealand. So when my friend sent me this link about an enormous avalanche on Mount Ruapheu, an active volcano in the North Island of New Zealand, it had quite an impact. I have climbed to the top of this mountain and skied down from the summit several times. And never once considered that it could be a serious avalanche risk, I never thought we had enough snow in New Zealand for serious avalanches.

This has to be the biggest avalanche I have ever seen truly amazing stuff.

Thanks for the link Barry.

New Game - Sony Ericsson W810i

I just bought this new cell phone and it's really quite a big upgrade from my last one. This cell phone has a 2 megapixel camera, Mp3 player (with memory stick support up to 2 gig), internet support (it runs opera) and normal cell phone functions. What surprised me the most was the quality on the camera, up until recently cell phones have had crap cameras but this one is capable of taking shots that you can post on flickr. Which means I now have a camera on me at all times, providing I don't get mugged because some punk also likes my new game. I'm pretty happy it's certainly an all in one tool. Here are the specs

Bhutan's happiness formula

The BBC has a photo survey on Bhutan's quest for happiness, both amazing images and amazing facts about Bhutan's quest for happiness. Bhutan takes happiness so seriously its part of its government policy, they even measure GNH, Gross National Happiness.

Know the world

How much do you know about the world outside of your country?

Well Icaro Doria, a 25 year old Brazilian working for the Portugese "Grande Reportagem", a magazine similar to "Time", wants to open your eyes. His brief was to bring across the concept that the magazine offers profound journalism about topics of real importance to the world of today. The resulting campaign has been a huge sucess with his flag adverts spreading all round the world in chain emails. extra word here.

Here are his flag adverts:
* Brazil
* United States
* Colombia
* Angola
* China
* Europe
* Somalia
* Burkina Faso

Harry Beck and the tube map

Carrying on my tube theme from yesterday. How do you get around the labyrinth officially known as the London Underground? Well that's also an interesting story. I remember learning about the London Underground map at university in one of my Visual Design History lectures. The map we all know and love today was originally designed by an Underground electrical draughtsman, Harry Beck.

The original map that his replaced was geographically correct but becoming harder and harder to read as more lines were introduced to the Underground. Beck based the map on electrical circuit diagrams and stripped the map back to its fundamental elements. Beck's map is not too different from the map we have today.

Smoking on the tube

I have been living in London for just over two weeks now. In my first week I was catching the tube around quite a bit. To be honest I think the tube is a bloody amazing piece of public transport. There are over 900 million journeys on the tube a year, that's more than all the other train services in Britain combined. Now for a more disconcerting fact about the tube. 40 mins in the tube is the equivalent of smoking 2 cigarettes. Luckily I take the bus to work so I don't really use the tube much. But for someone who takes the tube to work and back everyday they are doing the equivalent of smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes a week. Check this site out for more amazing facts about the tube.

Alive

My blog is finally alive. And it's inside my one pager site thanks to a little php. Big thanks to Dan Taylor for telling me what crazy PHP function I needed to extract part of an HTML page. Ok time for lunch.