Interesting Links

I was going through my email and finally looking at the jokes and links people sent me - ones I knew were for fun. I decided to post them here because some are interesting.

a) Mount Everest - 360 Panorama View: http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full22.html
Want to see what it's like from the top of Everest, but don't want to go through all the training and effort to get there? Well this photo allows you to get a 360 degree view from the top (so it claims). One problem, you can't look up or down.

b) 2012's 25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries: http://www.networkworld.com/slideshow/27499?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2012-01-23#slide1
A quarter of a century! A lot has happened in that time. This photo slide show shows some of the top geeky things that started or happened 25 years ago (in 1987).
There are a couple of the slides I'd like to personally comment on.
- Slide 2: Star Trek: The Next Generation.
"Who would have guessed that southern Alberta would become such a Trekkie hub? . . . the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo" is ". . .  pulling together the first reunion of the principal cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. . . ." These are excerpts from an article I read in the paper yesterday. To read the full article go here: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Star+Trek+Next+Generation+cast+reunited+Calgary+Comic+Expo/6070207/story.html

- Slide 12: Foreseeing Siri
Around minute 2 of this video I realized they were foreshadowing a fair amount of Apple's progress into 2011/2012. . . . Not only Siri, but in essence the IPad as well, and other non-Apple luxuries we take for granted, like quick internet searches. At the 1:45 mark you hear the professor ask about a paper published 5 years ago. The 'Siri' precursor calls up an article published in July 2006 . . . doing the math, the events in the video take place in at least 2011. There are other indicators that the video takes place around 2011. Finally, the copyright at the end is 1987!.

c) Miniatur Wunderland: http://devour.com/video/miniatur-wunderland/
The email with this link was titled: "World's Largest Train Set now includes Airplanes." This was no real surprise to me. As interesting as it is, I caught a glimpse of them on the TV show Daily Planet (http://www.discoverychannel.ca/Showpage.aspx?sid=13287) (back before Jay Ingram left the show). Regardless, I thought is was worth posting, because it is a marvelous looking place.

d) The Virtual Academic: a random sentence generator: http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/randomsentence/index.htm
Not just one of those typical random name generator sites, this one supposedly helps you with your term papers . . . though if you suddenly write as follows, I think your instructor might get suspicious:
Pootwattle, the Virtual Academic(TM), says:
"The unanalyzed arbitrariness of narrative authenticity is symptomatic of the linguistic construction of process."
There is also a function for a review of the generated sentence. Here is the review of that sentence:
Smedley, the Virtual Critic(TM), responds:
"Pootwattle's inspection of current critical thinking concerning the relationship between the unanalyzed arbitrariness of narrative authenticity and the linguistic construction of process deserves to be better known."

And now I will leave you with these final words (sentences):

The reading of indeterminacy is often confused with the differentiation of the natural. The ideology of the gendered body may be parsed as the disintegration of panopticism. The disarticulation of communicative rationality is symptomatic of the nostalgia for binary opposition. The reinscription of the eclectic recapitulates the representational validity of the image. The unanalyzed arbitrariness of narrative authenticity is symptomatic of the linguistic construction of process.