Alden Bates' Weblog

Weekly World News: Monkeys Type Shakespeare Play

Ripshaw assembled 5,000 monkeys and an equal number of typewriters. The monkeys were rewarded with bananas every time they filled up a page with letters.

"Ninety-nine percent of it was nonsense," Ripshaw says. "But one of the monkeys put up a blog on the Internet, and it has a big following."

Snicker

Today's Get Fuzzy. Egads, I say. That's a wee bit disturbing...

Edit: I didn't mean to end up ranking so high for Get Fuzzy on Google. My apologies to anyone who landed here expecting something deep and meaningful about the comic and found instead a (now) dead link and two pathetic sentences of comment.

The comic, which is no longer there because comics.com take them down after a couple of weeks, was during a period when Darby was suffering from an injured arm. ISTR it looked like Bucky was doing something obscene to Satchel.

I guess this is more proof Google is broken.

Adoption Centre

This makes me wish I had the software to make SWF files, so I could make a pet Dalek.

Have you committed a thought crime today, citizen?

Best use of Flash EVAR!

Until about half an hour ago, I had completely forgotten that R2D2 and C3PO once appeared on Sesame Street many years ago. I fully remembered the episode of the Muppets where Luke and co turn up, of course, but the Sesame Street episode had completely slipped my mind for the last 20 or so years since I saw it.

But that's why Encyclopedia Obscura exists - to remind us that there are weird and wonderful corners of life which shouldn't be forgotten. Like stupid tie-in products.

It's cool, go browse.

Mr. Rogers' Ghost Terrorizing Children, courtesy the Weekly World News.

"His ghost is the same as he was in life -- sweet, friendly, soft-spoken -- but when you're a floating, transparent wraith, the effect is totally different. Saying 'Howdy, neighbor' and 'Can you say "death"? ' to a five-year-old when you're a spirit is terrifying to them. Children have been freaking out," says Specter.

A workmate 'o mine stumbled on this software called SBaGen which uses your computer's soundcard to generate Sequenced Binaural Beats. From one of the accompanying text files:

The basic idea of binaural beats is that by applying slightly different frequency sine waves to the two ears, a beating affect is created in the brain itself, due to the internal wiring of the brain. If, in the presence of these tones, you relax and let your mind go, your mind will naturally synchronize with the beat frequency. In this way it is possible to accurately lead the brain to various states, according to the frequencies that you apply.

Groovy.

Textual @traction

What makes the film unique is that the audience does not actually get to see the messages on screen. Instead, by pre-registering, they receive the texts to their own phones at the same time as the characters on screen.

The chorus of text message beeps would be deafening.

Am about to turn 31 in about 25 minutes time. Gah.

From the Weekly World News: How to tell if your prostitute is an extraterrestrial - a classic.

Electoral Vote Predictor - all eyes are on the US for the upcoming election.