Not Often Infrequent Consistency!

Wednesday? Roundup for 04/21/2010

Hey, site's been down due to some webmaster (patthews) installing a messed up comment plugin to wordpress.  The podcast is still being produced but not yet finished, and we're waiting until classes are over for the semester, but until then we're going to try to keep bringing you the Wednesday Roundups. This week's roundup features fonts, 3d printers, iPads and a rant on copyright.

This week's featured blog is McSweeney's.  I'm not sure what they do, but they're everything I could have hoped to be.  Crazy posts that seem to be exercises in creative writing with no real agenda and no common theme, but they have segments that repeat, like lists or mnemonics.  This week's features posts are:

• Book club discussion questions for your tax return documents.
• A letter to that yoga teacher who uses too many metaphors.
• A prom accidentally themed for 1908 due to a typo.
• A list of quotes; are they from death metal or William Blake?

From Dudecraft:

• Crazy posters for Mercedes Benz.
• A person sculpted from mirrors.

From LifeHacker:

• What font should you use?  This flowchart should help.

From BoingBoing:

• Apparently George Washington owed a lot of money in overdue library fines.
• I love things that acknowledge their place in the universe.  This paper knows it's impaled in a binder.
• iPads are so intuitive that even a cat can use it!
• Commenters are actually referencing a real animal when they talk ALOT.
• The way to caption ever New Yorker cartoon that we featured last week also works for EVERY COMIC EVER!
• This video (game) hits way too close to home with how true it is.  I really like how this guy uses his second life.
• If you didn't get enough longcat before, here's your fix.
• A time traveler in a picture from the 40's?  Nope, all the facts check out, but he still looks weird if you ask me.
• A video on copyright.  Please watch this. I can't agree enough on this point.  <rant>I will someday produce music and I wish I could give digital copies away.  For hard copies, obviously monies need to change hands, but for ones and zeroes it's just copying.  If I ever become a famous musician I will still have a day job to make money because entertainment is art and recreation.  Pay for tickets to shows, pay for physical copies of media, but for digital media I don't believe people should pay.  If I can use my phone to go on youtube and listen to any song ever (especially on channels made by the artist) how is it different to have the song directly on my phone?  That's a form of copying.  If you watch TV at a friends house and they have TiVo so you can skip commercials, then the stations broadcasting the shows get NO MONEY from you and no ad revenue since you didn't watch the commercials, and that's the same as stealing the content. </rant>

From Make Online:

• I wish I had a 3d printer to print this mecanum wheel.  Not only are 3d printers awesome, but look into this wheel, it's pretty amazing (here's a link to videos of the wheel in action on youtube).
• As far as things to print on a 3d printer, how about a Rubik's Cube?
• Apparently you can print directly from the screen of an iPad.
• CLOCK ALERT!  I love this idea for a clock, and now you can make it yourself.  (Or make on for me, my birthday is coming up soon...)
• Speaking of birthday's, these foldable robut sculptures are pretty neat.

From How Stuff Works:

• Lungs can breathe outside of the body.

From There I Fixed It:

• A car fashioned into an X-wing.  Need I say more?

From Cake Wrecks:

• This one's for you, Joe!  Cakes that are wrecked and dedicated to teachers.

Now for the comic roundup!

• Questionable Content has a strip about dinosaurs pooping coffee.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has a strip about how to end war on earth, with ironic consequences (don't forget to mouse-over the red button for a bonus panel).

Well, that's all I have for now, please stay tuned for next week's roundup, and the podcast will definitely start soon, don't give up on me now!  See you next Wednesday!