The Hello World Collection

If you're at all interested in learning a programming language, odds are that the first program you learn will be "Hello, World". This program simply prints the phrase "Hello, World" before ending. Of course, there are different ways to write the program for each programming language (of which there are thousands) and so, The Hello World Collection was born. It attempts to list the instructions for writing this program in over 300 languages, ranging from C++ to Whitespace (a programming language in which the only valid characters are the space, the tab and the enter key; resulting in a code where there is only white space.)

Check it out: here it is in my favorite language, Perl:

print "Hello World!\n"

See why it's my favorite? On the other hand, here it is in Ook:

Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook.

Ugh.

Stephane Halleux

I've always wanted to be the guy who could just crank out artwork every day. Just go home, pick up some metal, and make a little guy who would just stand there on my desk. I wanted to be Stephane Halleux.

I love this guy the best. He reminds me of Batman.

Zombie Simulation

Do you like zombies? I sure do. I love them in their symbolism, but I mostly love them because they're dead, but they're still walkin' around. I stumbled upon this little gem a few months back and was lucky enough to find it again. Good for me! It's a zombie sim. Basically, the little gray dots are zombies and the little pink dots are humans. You get to watch as the humans panic and run around screaming as the the zombies (five times slower) gang up and devour them (for lack of a less gruesome phrase). Of course, the programming is pretty minimal, the humans have no choice but to become zombies, and they'll just run straight into a zombie if its random number generator tells it to. Like any good internet fad, it has inspired numerous spinoffs. Here's one that adds the element of military officers (they're the guys in blue), who can kill zombies (they're the living dead in green). Here's one that's really more like a game than a simulation: Players click on areas to kill everything nearby, zombies and civilians. If you can kill all the zombies, a winner is YOU! Also, apparently zombies can eat through the walls. Wacky. Here, however, is my favorite, a straight up simulation with tons of extras. You can read all the details through the link, but basically the humans (once bitten) have a 50-50 chance of either becoming a zombie or just dying. Also, when confronted with a zombie, they have a 50-50 shot of either killing the zombie or running away panicked. When the human numbers dwindle, the odds of them killing a zombie increase (up to 90%). In addition, humans are smarter, and will rarely run into zombies on purpose now. Click the links, sit back, and enjoy the sight of green pixels eating pink pixels.

Garfield Minus Garfield

Who knew Garfield could be so much better without Garfield? Check it out here. Warning: Many images are angsty or worse; existential.

Eccentric Genius

With such an ambitiously named website, you would expect nothing short of eccentricity and genius from Kaden Harris. And that's precisely what is delivered, with amazing little brass and wood kinetic art pieces appropriately named "Antiques From A Parallel Universe."

Marvel at a tiny little desktop trebuchet or guillotine. Witness the majesty of my favorite piece, the The Original Model 420 Pneumatifor Infumationizer. (Infumate: verb; act of drying in smoke. Pneumatic: adj.; of or pertaining to air, gases or wind. I'll let you figure out what the 420 stands for.)

Yep. Anyway, this guy always has a little something on his site for sale. Plus he has a book (with some projects on the linked site. I'm gonna make a fog machine).

P.S.: He seems slightly hesitant to call his art Steampunk, not wanting to put a label on his art. However, I already have a Steampunk category, so in it goes.

Czech Dream

Today, I'll be talking about Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda, two Czech film students who pulled off one of the most daring hoaxes in recent memory. Like a latter-day, anti-consumerist Piltdown Man, these two spent thousands on an advertisement campaign (by BBDO, who is pretty big in advertising, don't you know) for a hypermarket that doesn't exist. Television and radio spots, hundreds of billboards and hundreds of thousands of posters, all advertising "Český Sen" or "Czech Dream" with slogans like "Don't Go, Don't Rush, Don't Buy." Long story short, after building up some buzz, over 3000 people showed up on an empty lot with a giant storefront in front of them. Eventually, the two intrepid masterminds cut the ribbon and thousands swarmed up to what they thought would be a new place to get their cheap stuff. And what happened when shocked, confused, frenzied shoppers found that they were stampeding to get to a 100-meter-wide facade over some scaffolding?

Wacky. They made a documentary about it all. It's in Czech, but since it's at the top of my Netflix queue, I hope it has English subtitles.

Of All The People In All The World

I'm not quite sure what Stan's Café is, but they're doing something great in the UK. For the past couple years, they've been making giant piles of rice. What for? Demonstrative purposes. Until now, demographics have been represented by numbers, which are, of course, fine. However, numbers are, in and of themselves, rather dry. One way to solve that is through visual demonstration. If very single person on Earth was represented by a single grain of rice, numbers would be a whole lot easier to swallow. For your viewing pleasure I present a sterling example:

Imagine the number of people on Earth. By now, it's gotta be near 7 billion. Seven billion, so what? It's just a number. Now imagine 104 TONS of rice just sitting there in front of you. Pick up one of those grains. That's you. Gives you the jibblies, doesn't it? I couldn't find a picture of one hundred tons of rice, but rest assured, if 100 tons of tiny grains were dropped on you, you'd die. That's a lot of rice. Here's a video interview with someone who is somehow involved with this project. It's also an advertisement, so when you hear the words "At regeneration.org..." turn it off. It only gets boring from then on.

OK, that's all! Except for these.

This one's terrifying. It's all the people who saw the final episode of American Idol. OK, so, here's the site, but there's not really anything there.

The Tinkertoy Computer

I can only presume it's operated by magic, but I found a link to an article about a tic-tac-toe playing computer composed entirely of Tinkertoys and string. No electricity, no wires. Check it out here.

Women In Art

Miss Tigri

Whoa-ho. And here we have Miss Tigri, French painter and graphic designer. Her paintings of morose, almost solemn women recalls Art Nouveau, maybe some Art Deco influences. There's really nothing I can say that her paintings can't. So enjoy!

Weird, wonderful stuff. Check out her blog here.

Fantastic Wallet

You ever seen Pulp Fiction? Well, why not? It's a wonderful movie. I was thinking about it earlier, specifically, the final scene. The final scene of this film is a work of cinematic prowess that has gone unchallenged since its conception. Anyway, I really liked Jules' wallet (you know the one). And so, I found it. Here you go.

P.S.: The below blurred word is one of questionable taste. I would think this would be evident, but you never know. If you're gonna follow the link, prepare to see the full unblurred wallet in all its glory.

Generative.net

What is generative art?

"Generative art refers to any art practice where the artist creates a process, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is then set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art." At least, that's what it is according to Philip Galanter. Who are you and why do we put so much stock in what you say, Philip? What's your agenda? Who do you think you are? I'm just messing with your head, Philip. I love you and your wacky definitions.

In fact, Philip's is the best description I've heard for this crazy thing. Perhaps the best demonstration I can give you is Levitated.net, the Exploration of Computation. Go to first page and play around with the oil droplets. WHOO! Let the good times roll. After that, click on "Open Source" beneath that. They have dozens of other applets (You need Flash, but if you don't have Flash by now, you shouldn't be on the computer).

Anyway, Generative.net has a whole bunch of stuff like that, so take a look.

Freakazoid!

Any of you who were alive during the early 90s and spent a lot of time watching cartoons might remember the old Warner Brothers cartoons. The Animaniacs were the big ones, followed closely by Pinky and the Brain. However, the show that was the bee's knees, the cream of the surreal crop, was Freakazoid! (exclamation mark included). It was canceled after a season and a half, but not to worry, most of the episodes can be found online here. For those of you who want the condensed versions of all the glory that was Freakazoid!, watch these:

Now, if you're not going to watch those, just watch this. It sums up the general feel of the show perfectly (it's 10 seconds long, for God's sake).

Unwords

Many of you, no doubt, have seen or at least heard of that Urban Dictionary thing. I don't much care for inebriated halfwits posting their "funny" definitions of words that don't deserve definitions. It's an entirely different thing, however, when someone comes up with a clever word for, say, the level of hardness in fruit when squeezed. Firmth. As in "That peach was really good. Had firmth."

Or maybe "rampriot", a word described as "the free-for-all that erupts as soon the flight attendant utters the phrase, 'Please remain in your seats until the plane has come to a complete stop.'"

These can all be found at Unwords.com. It's pretty radical.

GLOWING ENDORSMENT AHEAD.

Unwords. Changing the English language, one word at a time.

Steampunk Watches

In what is becoming kind of a trend here, I wish to present, for your approval, some more steamjunk, my personal noun for steampunk artifacts. The steampunk watch! No intrepid explorer would be caught dead without one of these neat-o timepieces. Also submitted for your approval is my personal choice, the model I am forced to call the "Submariner", because the entire site is in some squiggly Asian language.

Blonde Redhead

OK, so this group was kinda big in the late 90's, but I'm bringing them back. Also, I just found out Blonde Redhead's genre is "shoegaze." That's when bands don't move at all, just stand there playing instruments and staring at the ground, thus "shoegazing."

Anyway, I hear you all saying "Free music? What's the catch?" Well, normally there is no catch. But there is today! For some reason, all the tracks are mislabeled save the first. Some of you won't care, but some, like me, will. Figure it out yourself. Use a lyrics website or something.

This is Blonde Redhead's 2004 album, Misery Is A Butterfly.

Gregorian

You may remember back to when I posted a link to April Winchell's Audio Page, with a little list of songs I though were pretty alright. One of those was Smells Like Gregorian Spirit. This song was mislabeled. As it happens, there is a band called Gregorian who specializes in chanting modern pop hits. True story. Don't believe me? (Of course you do, but it offers me chance to show you this)

Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

Have you ever been insulted by the logical leaps that movies require you to make? Like when a gun never runs out of ammo, or the heroic main character takes a pull on a cigarette, then tosses it into a nearby pool of gasoline, setting the entire warehouse ablaze as he walks away smoothly? Me too. Here to make you feel even more smug and superior about film is the Intuitor website, with their Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. Among the topics covered, you'll find the "sparking bullet" (when bullets ricochet, they don't spark at all. Handgun bullets are copper-coated lead. Copper is specifically chosen because it doesn't heat up to the degree steel does, and therefore won't spark, blowing up the entire gun in your hands. Cool, huh?), "flaming cars" (Bullets striking a gas tank could never blow up a car, nor could falling from great heights), "space explosions" (there's no air in space, therefore no sound to travel through. Apparently, the early Star Trek episodes got it right and displayed explosions with no sound), and the ever-popular "visible laser" (laser tripwires would be invisible unless pointed through a cloud of smoke or something, an idea that Hollywood has been more consistent about in the past years).

Also on the site are movie reviews based on their scientific accuracy. Worst movie: The Core. It was both terrible and inaccurate. Read the review here.

Internet Movie Script Database

I found this wicked cool site the other day. Ever wanted to get the idea of a movie without having to sit through it? For example, I find most horror movies intriguing, but lack the spine to sit through one. Now I don't have to. The Internet Movie Script Database has hundreds of movie scripts that I can take for a test drive. Which is good, because most movies I see are sheer drivel. Case in point: the upcoming Witless Protection film. Who was responsible for this travesty? Someone had to write it. I don't fault them, thousands of scripts worse than these are written weekly. It starts to be sad when someone from Lionsgate, a previously reputable film distributor, says "Hey, I like this. Yeah, let's do it." Then someone else had to direct, someone who looked at the script and said "I can see nothing wrong with the ideas here." Then actors had to express interest in it. Somewhere along the line, you would expect someone to say "Wait a minute. This movie is terrible." But no. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me. Yeah, I got problems with Hollywood.

Movie Posters

You can find movie reviews in hundreds, probably thousands of places online. If you restrict yourself to B-movie cinema or Swedish films made during the 70s, there are maybe dozens of sites. But I'm pretty sure there is only one site that reviews the movie posters.

Welcome to the Internet Movie Poster Awards. They're often the first place I go to look for upcoming movies, aside from Apple's trailer page. New in the past week, for instance, is "Quantum of Solace," the new James Bond flick, one to go down in history as having one of the most bizarre titles of any James Bond flick (It's the name of one of Ian Fleming's short story compilations, but still). But that's not all. The site also tracks movie posters from 1999 and decides which are the best, worst, funniest, most artistic and some other categories I forget.

Anyway, give it a whirl. At the very least, you'll find some posters for movies you didn't know existed.

Albums That Don't Exist

Whoohoo! That was fun! I just made six album covers. Well, let's say five, that first one sucked big time. Here's the site for reference, but you don't need to go there, I'm about to explain how it works (Actually you could go there, he has dozens of covers, and they're all better than mine).

OK, so first, you go to a random Wikipedia page. You could follow the link or just click "Random Article" in the Wikipedia sidebar. That's your band or artist. Next, you go to the quotationspage.com random quote generator. Go to the last quote on the page. The last four words of that bottom quote is the name of your album. Finally, go to FlickrStorm. FlickrStorm is great because it allows you to specify "non-commercial photos" under advanced setting. No copyright infringement! Yay! The third photo on the page is the album art (refresh the page to get random keywords). It's that simple. Observe:

I think my favorite is the Wallago Attu album. Also, wanna hear something weird? Both Taha and Billy Fraser are football players. I mean soccer.

EDIT:

PostSecret

"PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard." The website is here.

How About Some Random Websites?

Yeah? OK, here you go!

Today Is The Day

Those Are My Shoes

(Recommended by a friend. Mad props, yo.)

Mysterious Ticking Noise

Not standard House of Oddio fare by any means, but I'll be damned if I can't stop laughing.

HubbleSite.org

Quite a tableau of sites today: Outer space is pretty okay with me. Anything that can contain every piece of matter ever is alright in my book, as is anything that can have anything as gorgeous as this:

Oooooh. What is it, you ask? That is the Carina Nebula. For the 17th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope launch, NASA cobbled* a mosaic of 48 images together to display a pretty awesome sight. 48 images from the Hubble telescope is a lot. How big do you think the full-sized photo would be? Pretty big. Big enough that the original image releases on the Hubble site displays a warning, "These images should be downloaded, not viewed through a browser... it may cause your Web browser to lock up, or it may crash your computer." True that. It crashed mine. If you insist, however, be prepared to view a 29566 x 14321 pixel image. It's almost 500 megabytes. A photo. You can get the standard (non-computer-crashing) releases here. Alternately, you could get the full idea of the 500MB photo through this Google Earth-esque zoomable image. It's great. Try zooming in on those hydrogen clouds near the bottom right. Before I move on to some other stuff, here's an interactive Flash movie made by the Hubble guys that outlines some of the more interesting stuff in there, as well as explains the science-y stuff a little better.

Alrighty. While digging up this nebula, I found some others. Not as big or as pretty, but very nice nonetheless. The Eagle Nebula, for example:

Or maybe the Dumbbell Nebula, famous for looking like a summer sky:

Or the Helix nebula, famous for scaring me half to death. You might have seen it online elsewhere, labeled as the Eye of God (all the blue color is oxygen (cold water holds more oxygen, so it looks more blue. Now you know)):

Creepy. You can find some other spectacular Hubble photos here. The Nebulae are my favorite, in case you hadn't guessed. If you want still more astronomical goodness, try NASA's pic of the day here. It's not usually worth it, but who knows; you might find something. When you do, post it in the comments.

*I was going to say "composed", but I like "cobbled" better.

Knuckle Tattoos

You remember McSweeney's Internet Tendency? Yeah, they had a list detailing alternatives of the LOVE-HATE motif for knuckle tattoos. Among them, you'll find PORK-RIBS and INTO-MATH. Funny, yes, but only in the real world will you find ELEP-HANT or N3RD-COR3.

This guy got Martha Stewart's Prison ID tattooed on his knuckles as a kinda faux-gang style tribute. The color is "Martha Stewart's Hosta Green."

This guy was gonna get PANC-AKES, but decided waffles kicks pancakes' ass, a sentiment I DO NOT SHARE.

YES. In related news, my heart belongs to this girl.

The "story" behind this tattoo is really, really, simple... I like to eat the soup. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t like a big ‘ol f***in' steaming bowl of soup? If you’re sick, depressed, angry at that f***er in the Hummer who cut you off on your bike and then has the audacity to give YOU the finger, or just hungry... soup is the sh*t! I’m pretty damn sure that my fierce love of soup enabled me to hook up with the hottest soup loving girl in Austin!! The tattoo was done this past winter at the Star of Texas Tattoo Convention in Austin, by my pal Zack Kinsey of Leviticus Tattoo in Minneapolis, MN. If yr. up that way holla at a brotha. Love, Peace, and Soup Spoons. (and check out the Soup Gang Blog)

Seriously, check out the man's blog. He really loves his soup.

A mathematical singularity. 'Nuff Said.

Why did she get this tattoo? "Because I never forget."

Check out some more here.

Tipa Ska

Like ska? Of course you do. Who could possibly dislike ska? I found a Russian (I presume) website that is improbably diverse in its selection of free ska, ska-punk, and reggae tracks. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of organized, high-quality tracks. This may sound like an advertisement, but it's really just a glowing recommendation for a wonderful site. I think that maybe they avoided major bandwidth consumption by having their tracks as ".rar" instead of .mp3 format (It took me a while to figure out that I just needed to delete the letters R-A-R and add the letters M-P-3 to the end. I felt like an absolute fool).

For the ska virgins, try on the track "You" by Mustard Plug (Get it. Get it now), or the not-really-ska-but-still-really-good "What I Got" by Sublime.

Brian Dettmer

There's nothing I can say about Brian Dettmer that I can't better illustrate with pictures. His medium is described as "Altered Book."