I found this site, http://type.salsen.com/, which consists of typography jokes. At first, it just seemed lame, but as I read on, I started to find it funny in a charming way, like discovering a cargo cult.

I've been having some fun the last few days playing flash-based point and click games. These are the sort of things where you explore a space, collecting and combining objects, solving puzzles and so on. Many of them take the form of escaping from a locked room. There's an excellent annotated list of these games at Read more... )

Just in case anyone wanted to know...

We've not been affected by the Southern California fires, other than getting some poor air quality (which may be just from the Santa Ana winds, rather than the fires specifically). I do have friends in San Diego who have been evacuated, and in one case has probably lost his house.

If you've not read Stephen Fry's blog, at http://www.stephenfry.com/blog, go and do so straight away. It is wonderful.

This (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/136048main_bm_012004.jpg?) is an incredibly striking picture. It really shows how much the gulf stream contributes to the climate of the UK and North West Europe.

This (http://www.digital-cameras-group.info/2007/04/18/the-top-pentad-tips-for-pickings-your-digital-camera-on-holiday/) must surely be the result of bad machine translation (or bad OCR).

On Abbot Kinney in Venice, I saw a shop which I rather liked. It's called ADHD, which stands for Art Decor Home Design. Their slogan: why start one project when you can almost finish three?

If you've ever wanted to simulate pig diseases, go here: http://www.thepigsite.com/diseaseinfo/problemsolver.php. I know you probably haven't ever had this urge, but just in case. The site might also help you if you are looking for a job in the pig industry.

My esoteric and rather pointless PhD thesis concentrated on the semantics of quantification and anaphora, something which can be seen in so-called donkey sentences such as Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it. Discussion of such sentences originates with mediaeval philosophers, although I observed in a footnote that the Stoic philosopher ( Read more... )

I am amazed at the total uselessness of many US taxi drivers. I've had this experience in Boston, LA and San Francisco of drivers who (a) do not know how to get anywhere and (b) do no understand directions. Witness a taxi ride I had back from LAX to my home today (Yellow Cab #6694 in case anyone wants to know). It's about 4 miles: get onto Lincoln ( Read more... )