Scale of the Universe 2

Or, how to feel small and insignificant.

Humans can't comprehend large numbers. It's only when a bigger and a smaller number or objects are placed side by side that the differences are obvious, and even then it can be hard to comprehend. The creators of the Scale of the Universe series have done a great thing here.

(The Large Hadron Collider is bigger than Vatican City? Seriously?)

(Actually it's bigger than Uluru as well. And the Titanic looks quite comfortable sitting next to the International Space Station.)

(I need to think a little.)

Blue Ball Machine

It's sorta like a Rube Goldberg machine, only insane.

But check out all those details! Those hypnotising, hypnotising details.

Logorama

Yet another short animated film! This time it's Logorama, which is about a world built almost entirely out of familiar corporate logos and mascots. The short was critially acclaimed, even winning an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and it's easy to see why. Go check it out!

I Just Had a Friendship Aneurysm

[shudder]











No wait, I have more to say.

It's...it's just like those children's shows. Those shows for extremely yourng children. Those extremely saccharine cartoons dripping with sugar and treacle and sing-along-songs and pure undiluted sweetness.

[shudder]

Teddy Bears

The heck is this thing? I'll give a dollar* to anyone who can explain it.
*Offer may not be sincere.

Saturday Morning Watchmen

Who watches the Watchmen? Kids, apparently.

No, no, it's a parody. As should be clear from all the digs at the original Watchmen graphic novel as well as all the 80s cartoon references. But as I read through the comments on it, I found that while most reviewers loved the humour, some were offended at the light-hearted perversion of a very serious story. Kinda makes you think, what with all the recent movie adaptations such as GI Joe, TMNT and Transformers. What it would have been like if the mature treatments were the originals and the goofy cartoons made up later?

Anyway, I'd totally watch that cartoon.

Update XXI: These Titles are Getting Longer

Okay, so the most of the crunch is over. One more piece of Honours business to settle, and then it'll all be up to other people. Which means relaxation until graduation day, drawing comics, that sort of thing. Oh, and eating M&Ms peanuts. Lots of them.

I found a moth in my mug the other day. It didn't even have the decency to be dead.
...I hate moths.

I don't know what these flowers are, but they have a gorgeous scent.



I've decided that Copperpot is the greatest food company since PepsiCo - they manufacture dips with awesome-sounding names like hummus, tzatziki and guacamole. In spite of hailing from various countries, all of these dips taste fantastic. Even on their own. Yes, I've tried. It may be that the sauces themselves are inherently delicious in their own right, but I'm letting Copperpot have the credit for now.

The brilliant mind behind Concerned has a - well, not new, but newly-discovered by me - blog chronicling the exploits of an NPC and his attempts to lead a life completely lacking in eventfulness. Start reading it from here. While the adventure - or lack thereof - is set in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you don't have to have played to game to get the humour. It's funny that the exploits of a nobody, especially one so hideous, can be so riveting, but there you are.

Colour IQ test! I managed to get a score of 0 (perfect), which is great news both for my eyes and my laptop's colour calibration. Maybe now I'll stop second-guessing my colour choices when illustrating something... Anyway, give it a go!

Dalek Workout - turns out even those evil guys need to exercise from time to time. I agree with one of the comments, the corny music absolutely makes it.

DE_dust2 - CounterStrike humour! The funny thing is that I actually have a friend who refers to himself as "SWAT". And we all know a Camper or a Newbie.
Take note, since this is about CounterStrike, practically everyone dies in the end, even the awesome characters.

I'm linking to this purely because I never thought Movie!Megatron could be so goshdarned adorable.
Also, Thumper, you horrible creature. How could you.

Anyway, that's all for now. More photographs and things later.

Escape the White Chamber

I'd first like to say that the opening date of At World's End is a clear sign from the powers that be that I should buy tickets to watch it, as opposed to waiting for it to come to Star Movies.

My classmates introduced me to the brilliant White Chamber, a point-and-click puzzle game in which you must escape an isolated chamber McGyver-style, using whatever items that may have been carelessly left in the room. Whoever set up the White Chamber must have been particularly careless, because among other things the player can find a crowbar, a mysterious remote control, a manual (with pictures!) and a Yamaha motorcycle.

Part of the challenge with the game is learning the rules. In a real situation if someone were locked in such a room, their first action would be to pick up the table and pitch it through the garage window. Naturally, that is not an option here, and certain items can only interact with each other in certain ways and under certain conditions. The game also contains an element of the supernatural (or perhaps really advanced technology), so there really isn't any way to define what is possible or impossible.

That is not to say that there is no help for the player. Other than the opening scene, the game is marked by almost complete silence, broken only by sounds triggered by certain actions and snatches of an eerie tune which plays only when an important item is present in the scene. Once an item is in the inventory, it can be examined for a short sentence describing it; examining certain areas in the room will also trigger the display of messages, supposedly from the player talking to themselves, which serve as useful hints.

The creator of White Chamber, Toshimitsu Takagi, also created a number of other rooms, including the original Crimson Room, the creepy, grostly Viridian Room, and the simplistic - but no less challenging - Blue Chamber. However, in spite of being the most recent, White Chamber is possibly the easiest - the items which can be picked up interact in the most predictable ways, and there are no items hidden in obscure, hard-to-reach locations as in the Crimson Room. The greatest challenge is in learning how to perform certain actions, but once this is achieved it is merely a matter of putting things together. Perhaps this is what makes this game more successful as a logic puzzle - there is less emphasis on blind luck, and more on thinking things through.

As a whole it's a great game, especially for the puzzle-minded. I'd recommend it to anyone with a few free days to burn - and you'll need those few days, because once you're immersed in the White Chamber, its mysteries will haunt you until you figure the way out.

White Chamber requires the latest version of Adobe Flash Player to run. Get it here.

Bittersweet Moments

The internet is an ugly and wild place, but as with life itself there are the thinkers and believers.

First we have Tuesday's edition of Count Your Sheep, which I only just had a look at. Adis is a brilliant writer, and only he could have turned a punishment into something with deeper meaning. This strip is so sweet, and yet sad.

The other thing is this little animation which was created for Christmas, but there's no harm in looking at it now.
It made me cry.

If there is anything I've learnt from these, it is that every single thing you have in life is a precious gift. Don't let them go to waste.