That’s exactly what the Blender Foundation has done. Not only can you see the movie for free, you can download any of the elements that were used in the film. Even the software they used to create it.
Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.
Category: SOI Blog
I built one of these using a styrofoam cup, but this is much better.
How many times have you received an email forwarded to you from someone that starts off with, “I don’t usually forward these things but…” Here’s a site that I always go visit to investigate all those claims that those forwarded emails make. They do their homework to find out where these things originated and if there’s any truth to the claims. Most of the time they are false and the emails make the rounds year after year.
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US Military’s Ray Gun -UPDATE-
Here’s a great segment from 60 minutes on the ray gun I reported earlier.
If embeded player does not display try this: CBS NEWS VIDEO
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Roadside Giants
I stumbled on this in the Waymarking site. There’s a category of Giant Fiberglass Statues a.k.a. Muffler Men. I noticed a lot of them looked alike and must have been produced by one company for sale. After a quick Google search I found my answer and an interesting story.
Steve: These characters — and many others — were made by a company called International Fiberglass, which I owned and ran during the mid 1960s until around 1974. They were sold as attention getters for retail stores.
Our main business was working with the large oil and tire companies and restaurant chains for nationwide programs. For example, we built a series of Phillips Petroleum cowboys, Texaco Big Friends, and US Rubber Miss Uniroyals. We also did ENCO and Humble tigers, and Sinclair Dinosaurs.
We had a variety of figures which we adapted from one mold — such as golfers, cowboys, spacemen, Indians, muffler men, etc. We also built a bunch of different animals such as horses, steers, cows, giant chickens, etc.
Origin of the Species on Roadside America
On a high volcanic rock plateau in Ethiopia stands a unique Christian holy site, Lalibela. In the 12th century, a crossed-shaped church called the House of St. George was built by cutting away the surrounding rock to leave a 12 meter by 12 meter cross. It is formed out of a single rock without a single seam. The interior was also hollowed out from rock. Lalibela has eleven stone churches, which are connected by tunnels. They were built by a ruler named King Lalibela in the 12th century.
from World Heritage Site UNESCO
Video explaining the history http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/18/video
Awesome aerial pictures of Africa (which lead to this discovery)
http://www.eyes-over-africa.com/
Travel Video on Youtube showing various angles and countryside.
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Getting Things Done
As I’ve learned I may have been practicing this new productivity method with this blog. I started this blog to make a note of one interesting thing or discovery a day. And maybe spread some of that information to others who may have similar interests as mine. I haven’t been very succesful in updating it everyday, in fact as you can see from the calendar on the side bar, I’ve left big gaps with no posts. But I’ve realized that I’ve also created a little depository of interesting things I’ve gleaned that I can go back to later. I will investigate this method better.
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Plastic Bag Crochet
Cristen says we consume 1 million plastic bags a minute worldwide. So she’s come up with a creative way to reuse them, crochet them into hats, koozies and purses.
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Good use for annoying CAPTCHAS
I never knew it had a name but those annoying requirments to enter distorted characters to prove I’m a human are called CAPTCHAS.
“CAPTCHA” is a contrived acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.” wikipedia
Now one of the computer scientists credited with the development of these want to do something constructive with all that wasted time entering useless words and characters.
This led me to think about other uses for wasted energy. Think of all that energy created at health clubs across America. Stair Masters, stationary bikes, weight machines… that energy should be captured and turned into electricity! I believe a popular fitness club could produce enough energy to power itself!