It’s that time of year, April Fool’s Day. As of 5 minutes ago.1
The internet has definitely embraced all that is AFD, but no company has done it quite so well, and quite so regular as our favourite future SkyNetters, Google. This year its pretty simple, but so wonderfully glorious: 8-bit NES reference always wins on the tubes.
I won’t bother you with anymore text, you just need to know two things.
1) The intro video hosted at YouTube, of course, is where most of the joke lives.
And 2)
You can actually quest over at Google Maps. Sadly there are only a few places worth questing to, and my house just isn’t one of them, evidence below.
UPDATE:
It has been pointed out to me that I missed out on the crucial change to StreetView®. A crime, to be sure, for which I hopefully can make amends with this cap from my Calgary home.
Probably like ten by the time I finish typing my nonsense. ↩
For some of you its that horribly awkward moment having applied to programs and waiting to hear some sort of response. For the rest of you I ask you to reach back in your memories and recall a similar point. Maybe its when you applied to college yourself, or a job you really-or not really I suppose- wanted. Heck even that split second after you ask someone out and are in angsty anticipation of the response will give you a taste of the no-so-wonderful feeling it is to wait.
This is just a really roundabout way of introducing a couple of reasonably entertaining college recruitment videos. All I’m saying is more PhD programs, and companies, should try to spice up the dull and stressful procedure with some light, or graphic, farce. Ok, so I just hate waiting, enjoy these vids anyway.
Here we go then: the Central Institute of Technology1 released this video about learning to teleport. Be forewarned, the whimsy doesn’t last all the way through to the end.
Next up is a less inventive entry by the university of Huddersfield. Its pretty camp, but the ‘main’ scientist is probably one of their drama students because he pulls of the doctor-esque role quite well, for a commercial. As well, there is a voice cameo by none other than Patrick Earl-grey-hot Stewart.
I know, I know, I’ve already posted some brief nonsense on halloween, but this couple of things really raised the bar on halloweening that I had to share them as well.
First up is this lovely comic, ostensibly based on a true story which I really hope happened.
If this really did happen it would be the greatest thing to hit halloween since people really stuck to the latter disjunct in “Trick or Treat”.
We must end the halloweenery with adorbs. I present you with clearly the best thing this October.
Halloween is upon us, most adult-type folk have already done their celebrations over the past couple of days, and as a result we get wonderful internet nonsensery before the occasion actually occurs.
Quick aside, as a child I always thought it was the ‘State Puft Marshmallow Man’, which given that the name is printed on the hat marks me as a particularly unclever child. Though I’d like to think it had something to do with the Red White and Blue colouring of the beast. Man kids are dumb, amiright?
Halloween is much more of a thing back on the other side of the pond, North America, and over there the costuming of houses and parties is almost as big a deal as that of people. From cotton spread super-thin for spiderwebs to renting a fog machine and throwing a stuffed mascot suit of a dog off the roof tethered to a dynamic climbing rope to scare the little costumed urchins begging for sugar-based sustenance. And yes, if you are wondering, that oddly detailed example come from your authors checkered past. However, if you think you’ve done a good job decorating, think again. I present an animatronic zombie. Sorry, a remote-controlled animatronic zombie.
I defy you to watch this in full screen, preferably in silence in the dark but not everyone is that emo, and not be creeped out by it.
Let’s wrap things up with some good new fashioned super-high speed photography. Of pumpkins. Being smashed. Because really that’s why 1000fps cameras were created, slow-mo destruction. Which incidentally is a great name for a prog-rock band.
This is Halloween: Costumes, props, kids, pumpkins, and all kinds of fun.*
*Yes I know the whole candy side of things is unrepresented, as is the standardapproachtofemalecostuming that I’m sure is being overblogged about at Jezebel and other such sites. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as pro-feminism as the next guy, I just can’t be bothered to beat the undead, yet startlingly sensual, dead horse of ”Sexy ____”ing on the 31st.
… if only to test out the new software. That’s right folks after a couple of years of on and off posting, using MovableType, I have caught up with the blogosphere (circa… when that was not an ironic title for this sizable chunk of the tubes) and I am now migrated over to WordPress.
The idea of migrating a blog, with all kinds of embedded content throughout the posts is a daunting idea, but this was actually quite painless. There is this handy wordpress plugin “moveabletype import” that did the trick. The quirkiest part actually was the fact that I wanted to retain the URL, so had to bounce around with file/folder renaming. But it all seems to be working just fine. The RSS feed(s) is the one untested feature, and the true purpose of this post. If all went well, the RSS feed will bump over, otherwise I will have to tinker. Or at least post the new URL.
Coming with this new software is the decision on what theme/layout I will ultimately decide on, in the coming weeks be prepared for more changes, as I experiment. Also posts. I plan on adding this endeavor to my schedule to help structure yet another logic-filled semester.
Speak soon,
-A
[UPDATE] Looks like the two softwares are battling it out. Website is all kinds of messed…
mnk/, U.S. /mnirk/ a person who rules over the whole world or universe.
1848Tait’s Mag.15 706 The hierarchy will extend from the unarch, or head of a phalange, to the *omniarch, or head of the universe. 1898W. WALLACELect. & Ess. on Nat. Theol. & Ethics vii. 407 The titular omniarch..sits ruling the nations from Constantinople. 1959 E. WEBBER Escape to Utopia xi. 187 In time all mankind would be organized in 2,985,984 phalanxes with an Omniarch ruling from Constantinople.
Magniloquent? Hardly. Inflated sense of self? More than likely.
mn
k
