jrtom

(I thought it was kinder than spamming my friendslist with 10 or 15 posts in a row. Going to make the tags interesting, though...)

The Redistricting Game: http://www.redistrictinggame.com/

Haven't played it yet, but the concept--teaching about redistricting and gerrymandering by making a game out of it--is very interesting.

Kinetic Sculpture: http://www.glumbert.com/media/kineticsculpture [video]

Very cool. Actually, "kinetic" doesn't really convey it: think "auto-mobile".

Singing Tesla Coil: http://www.hauntedfrog.com/gt/movies/2007/duckon/SingingTeslaShow.html

What else need I say?

US States "renamed" for countries with similar GDPs: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/06/10/131-us-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar-gdps/

A very interesting and informative visualization: it actually tells me about as much about the US as it does about the respective countries. The table at the bottom may be useful to give some context.

Gay Bomb: The Porno Flick [safe for work]: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/06/gay-bomb-the--1.html

Gay Bomb will take us into the future and the year 2012. George the Second has refused to step down as leader of the "free world", and the nations of Europe have banded together to fight the new American military dictatorship. Desperate to fend off its attackers, the US launches the experimental "gay bomb", designed to make the enemy forces drop their guns and turn fag. But the winds of fate blow in a different direction, and soon America is brought to its knees.

This is the best part: it appears that this has been seriously proposed...

Recent news headlines revealed that Pentagon insiders admitted to having truly considered the "gay bomb" as an example of non-lethal chemical warfare in the Iraq War. The Air Force asked for a $7.5 million grant to develop the idea, which was proposed to the government's highest scientific authority.

("Some people you don't need to satirize--you just quote 'em.")

http://www.airspacemag.com/issues/2007/june-july/Seti.htm

A dedicated SETI effort, i.e., one with its own facility.

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/06/binary_marble_adding_mach.html

A mechanical binary adder, with a video of it at work. Very nicely done.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/06/second_movieplo.html

The winner of Bruce Schneier's second annual Movie-Plot Threat Contest...which makes a plausible case for banning water from airplanes.

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/63329/detail/

A very silly music video. Requires a bit of patience; wait until it's about a minute in before you give up on it, and about 2 minutes in it gets impressive.

http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/feelnikon/discovery/universcale/index_f.htm [Flash animation]

Nicely done.

(courtesy of naudiz)

A conversation about a new visualization architecture for JUNG led to one of my friends and co-conspirators on JUNG to refer me to this:

http://www.zoomatron.com/Images/eye.html

which in conjunction with this news about a recent extended quote from Pennsylvania's Senator Rick Santorum:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-10172006-728120.html

inspired me to suggest that I wish I knew how to create such an image of the Eye of Sauron over Iraq...which led to him producing this:

http://papergrapefruit.com/sauron.html

This totally rocks. In several ways. Go check it out if you are (a) a LoTR fan, (b) amused by clever political commentary, and/or (c) interested in nice hacks.

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000198

(which includes some discussion)

Ultimately, Andersen hopes to have his visualization of particle physics used for educational purposes. "The distance between Fermilab and the dinner table is getting larger," he says. "I want to aid communication between a larger audience and physicists, and make this fantastic and beautiful part of our world conceptually available to a broader audience."

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~janhande/sizedmatter/standard_model.htm

(has images of all the particles in the Standard Model)

A very nice idea, indeed. Elegant.