Friday, December 26, 2008

Day After Christmas Videos

For readers of SAM outside of North America (South America, most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) this may seem like just another Friday but for us, it is the day after Christmas and no one is doing anything but recuperating. Even if they are at work, believe me...they are still recuperating.

With this in mind, I offer a bit of light entertainment. Happy Holidays to everyone!

From Improbable Research, "Violent Chess":



From MakeUseOf, "Beaker's Ode To Joy":



and "Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager":



and finally, from Gizmodo, "Nerf Vulcan":

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Top Ten Uncracked Codes (Funnbee.info via INTELST)

INTELST, the US Army's listserve for intelligence professionals, pointed me this morning towards a Funnbee.info post that catalogs the 10 most famous uncracked codes (in case you are bored over the holidays...).

The list includes:

  • Kryptos
  • Linear A
  • The Phaistos Disk
  • The Shugborough Hall Inscription
  • The Chinese Gold Bar Cipher
  • The Beale Ciphers
  • The Voynich Manuscript
  • The Dorabella Cipher
  • The Chaocipher
  • The D'agapeyeff Cipher

For more info on any of these, click on the link above!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Where The Oil Comes From (RMI via Google Maps Mania)

Google Maps Mania recently featured this interactive map/data mash-up from the Rocky Mountain Institute that shows where US oil imports have come from over the last 30+ years. It is an interesting way to look at this data. Sorry, no embed feature (again!) so you will have to click on this link to see the interactive version. The YouTube video below gives some idea of what the site delivers.



Related Posts:
Good Resource On International Energy