…is something I’d like to be able to tell you. Maybe someday. In the meantime, here are some great links from the past seven days or so.

1. Simple Electric Motor
2. Mathematicians Solve Traffic Jams
3. Cultural Elite or Not? Interesting article. Of course, if you don’t care about cultural elitism or whatnot, have a look at this version of “Little Red Riding Hood” as interpreted by Monty Python.
4. Whales May Be Related to Deer. Oh, have you heard of the most famous of them all? Rudolph the Red-Nosed Whale had a very shiny hump. And if you ever saw it, you would even say, Holy cow, is that thing landing on my roof!?
5. How to Create Mad-Hot Creative Flow
6. Apples for the Army. Says the article: “…the military is quietly working to integrate Macintosh computers into its systems to make them harder to hack.” Not so quiet anymore, eh?
7. 101 Ways to Monetize Your Blog without Annoying Your Readers. Watch for the dcrBlogs.com t-short coming soon.*
8. Five Predictions for Web Video in 2008. So sayeth the soothsayer: “Great writing + better than average production * reasonable length = gold.” Color me there. Mike, you reading?
9. Cyber Brahma. No particular article. He linked to me so he gets a link back. Do pop by and pay him a visit though.
10. Exploring the Hollow Earth
11. Why Photographers Hate Creative Commons. Interesting article on the potential fall of creative commons.
12. Man Loses 400 Pounds. The power of friendship.
13. Save Time on Your Web Searches by Using Operators. No, you don’t have to dial 0.
14. 99 Headline Techniques Revealed. You might have guessed that I liked #25.
15. 6 Reasons to Slow Down While Eating. #7: So your friends and family don’t think you were raised in the wild by a pack of ravenous wolves.
16. 400 Prominent Scientists Dispute Man-Made Global Warming. Or, take a look at Al Gore’s trophies some of which are real.
17. New Nanowire Battery Holds 10 Times the Charge of Existing Ones. Or, you can just use your power drill to recharge your batteries.
18. Make your own imitation Silly Putty. Looks more like goo than the Silly Putty I remember. On second thought, you might want to wear rubber gloves while handling that imitation Silly Putty as borax has some toxicity.
19. Video Games Done in Legos

Sure, the list numbers 19, but there are actually 24 links here to keep you entertained this Christmas Eve. Television still in reruns or running 50-year old specials people were bored with 48 years ago? Bah. Humbug. The web is where it’s at!

Merry Christmas!

*No, not really.

Same one as before, this time with some added detail. Acne or battle scars? Maybe an acid wash.

Four days ago, two gifts showed up at my door, courtesy of A Nice Place in the Sun.

They were:

Miss Stocking

and

Dick Van Elf

According to Ann, Miss Stocking “wants places to hang” and Mr. Van Elf wants to “sweep chimneys, in addition to laugh, dance, and sing.”

These gifts are for “Blogs that encourage, year round, the same energetic and imaginative sense of wonder that is apparent throughout the Christmas season.”

The unfortunate thing is that, in addition to wanting a place to hang, Miss Stocking also wants to be the center of attention. This irks Mr. Van Elf, who keeps getting pushed out of the way each time he tries to clean the chimney. So, the chimney never gets swept and there is only so many times you can hear “Chim Chim Cher-ee” in a bad British accent before you start to go mad.

So, some regifting is in order.

Miss Stocking will find her new home with Joanne, Lizeth, Nina and Jeanne.

Dick Van Elf will be heading on over to Mike (feel pity for him for making the same mistake he chided people for a day earlier), Jon, Chris and Pete. Pete might be interested to know that Dick Van Dyke reportedly uses some of the same 3D software I do.

I am also going to add a new gift, the gift that keeps on giving:

You can, of course, keep the fruitcake for yourself, or pass it along to another blogger. It will last for years and years, if you can’t resist the urge to eat it right away. It’s so good you’ll no doubt want to savor it year after year and only eat a little bit at a time. Just keep it in a t-shirt soaked in wine, and you could pass it along to your grandchildren.

Of course, who doesn’t like a good fruitcake, right?

Anyway, this fine gift goes to Beth, David, Deborah, Doug, Erina, Ernie, Jason, JD, Lewis, Michael, Mike, Phil, Rolando, Sabrina, Terence and, of course, Ann.

Enjoy the holidays everyone!

I think I may finally be getting the hang of it. Still a lot to learn and I probably ought to finish reading the manual, but sometimes you just learn more by doing. Just have to figure out the one misstep I’ve taken a couple times where the object I’m working on, as well as the grid lines and everything else, vanish from the window. I cannot seem to get them back again without closing the file and re-opening. Not sure if it’s a bug or something I’m doing.

For Pete’s sake*, this one was modeled in Silo and rendered in Carrara.

Anyway, I’ll probably be back to some more substantive posts after Christmas. Comments seem to be down in volume, so either I’ve really been boring people, or they’re out doing holiday things. Hopefully the latter!

Oh, but I do have some gift links coming up as well as some more cool links I’ve found this past week.

*Yeah, like he’s never heard that one before!

On second thought, I’m not very happy with yesterday’s “Let It Snow!” post.

It should have been animated.

There, now I feel better. Not quite happy with the effect though, but I don’t think I should spend any more time on it.

Evidently, Jon would like to see more snow photos. Well, this is Reader Weekend* so who am I to disappoint him?

But maybe that’s not the kind of snow Jon was looking for, but that is the kind of snow you’ll be seeing if you haven’t switched to digital TV or gotten a convertor by January 2009.

And, while you’re shopping for a new TV, don’t forget to pick up some hazardous mercury-filled CFLs, because Congress and Bush have recently banned the safe ones. You know, the incandescent kind that don’t contain mercury. On the other hand, you could start stocking up on incandescent bulbs before 2012.

Of course, if you do switch to CFLs, be careful to never drop the things! If you do and one breaks, you’ll need to:

1. Open the room and evacuate the area for at least 15 minutes!
2. Wear rubber gloves and carefully pick up the fragments.
3. Don’t use a vacuum cleaner or a broom!
4. Put all the pieces in a plastic bag.
5. Put that plastic bag and all cleanup materials in a second plastic bag.
6. Dispose of properly (see below) and wash your hands.

No, I am not making this stuff up. Read the link if you don’t believe me.

Now, for proper disposal, you have two options.

1) Throw it in the trash.
2) In some areas, you cannot throw it in the trash and may have to take it to a special drop-off center or recycling center. Check your local laws and regulations.

It may be tempting to take the bag and mail it to your Congressman, but that would be a really, really bad idea. Do not do it! Let me repeat that: Do NOT do it! You’ll probably end up in Guantanamo Bay. Mercury is dangerous! It’s perfectly okay to have it in your living room or even in your kitchen near your food**, but, for heaven’s sake, don’t go near a politician with it. They’ll probably think you’re a terrorist!

Instead, wait until you’ve cooled off and write a letter to your Congressman, but be careful not to use too strongly worded a letter. Politicians are big on security since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. Mind you, it’s their security they’re concerned about, not yours and mine. Write a mildly kooky-sounding letter and they’ll probably have the FBI, CIA and NSA pulling your records and monitoring your phone, but heaven forbid they actually do something like secure our borders, watch for contaminated imports, and important stuff like that.

And thus you can see how an innocent seeming topic like snow can quickly go political…

*No, not really. Er, maybe.

**The bit about mercury being safe around food is sarcasm. You do not want to ingest mercury. Stock up on incandescent bulbs and use them in your kitchen. I wouldn’t use CFLs in there. Wait until LED bulbs come down in price. In the meantime, stock up on incandescent bulbs!

I was inspired by Deborah’s most recent post…

SNOW-MIN-ATE! SNOW-MIN-ATE! YOU WILL BE SNOW-MIN-A-TED!

The aliens consider paying Earth a visit, but then opt not to do so.

Just a simple GIF. I could post the MOV, but I don’t know if everyone can see that, considering the lack of comments on my last video. Then again, this one would be 35.2 MB, so probably best just to stick with the GIF.

The jerkiness is intentional as I was trying to make it look like an old-fashioned show done with models on strings.

I’m melting! I’m melting!

No flying monkeys… today.

Thirteen interesting links to keep you up at night! No flying monkeys and no limited commentary!

1. 3 Ways to Keep Blogging from Killing Your Business

2. Fool your friends with a Ghost in a Jar.

3. Freelance Fiction Writing - making stuff up for fun and profit!

4. HD Video Projectors Made from Trash

5. Big on Conservation, Short on Diversity

6. Protecting your PHP/MySQL Queries from SQL Injection

7. Seven Abandoned Wonders in America

8. The Year of Global Cooling

9. Seven Habits of Highly Innovative People

10. Why We Do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Studies

11. How to Win at Rock, Paper, Scissors

12. Simpsons House in Real World - not Jessica!

13. Bribe Joanne with Food - Sorry, best I could do for link #13 and Thursday Twelve didn’t have the same ring to it. And, I wanted to have a full, honest-to-goodness, Thursday Thirteen without stretching the concept like I did the last time.

Look at that. I even posted my Thursday Thirteen before Doug. Mind you, he does one nearly every Thursday, but I don’t like routines.

Leave a comment here and I’ll get you some bonus link love…