Fink's Links - Weekly Roundup

(Sorry, too many links this week, so a bonus post)...

Sat there bored? Don't know where to go? Well here we go with part two of the week's summary of all that is amusing (one way or another) on the interweb, starting with a nice (theme setting) archive of (often hilarious) "Fail" pictures commonly used as comments on sites like Fark (some well-worn classics, some shiny and new)...I laughed out loud at "I can haz millionaire"...(this one is probably worth bookmarking ;)

A post that is so funny I won't ruin it by saying anything about it's contents...just read it and weep...EPIC FAIL...

Following the FAIL thread (as it's funny), a group of Croatians fall at the first hurdle by forgetting Rule 1 of Innernet 101 (which is, for reference, "Don't believe everything you read on the innernet") when they plotted to get themselves into the Guiness Book of Records under the (obviously well known) "Most amount of people dressed up as Smurfs in one location at any one time" category...a few red (rather than blue) faces there then (even the national press and TV were in attendance)...

An extremely cheap camera tripod that fits easily in your pocket? I am soooo making one of these...quite why you can't buy them for a quid at Jessops I have no idea...(Missed opportunity - FAIL) ;)

A close-up shot of the protesters "Worst Late Western" tickets (Class "Cattle Truck", Fare "Daylight Robbery", Route "Hell & Back" etc.)...First Great Western just left the barriers open in response and quietly admitted there was some "room for improvement"...funny (if serious) stuff...FAIL for First (not suprising), WIN for protestors...

An excellent Wired article regarding the facinating but terribly sad story of two pioneers of AI who both ended up taking their own lives, one of them doing so while blogging from an internet cafe...strange but true...very good read...

Off to Science Daily now for a fantastic article about Indiana's notorious serial killer "The Black Widow", could it be that she didn't die in a house fire a century ago, but faked her death and moved on to kill again? Each step in the re-opened investigation is just deepening the mystery...(would make a great movie if it turns out to be so)...

If you are now feeling far too smug and happy about your lot (after all those FAIL articles), then bring yourself firmly back down to Earth by spending a few minutes watching the thoroghly miserable "World Clock", totting up quite a number of depressing statistics about the globe we inhabit (in real time)...(click the "Now" button to zero the figures and watch them build)...urk...!

Veering into neutral territory now, with 192.com being very busy indeed, buzzing the skies over London with a high-resolution-camera-equipped aeroplane...check out the "Superzoom" on various London landmarks (it lets you reach in almost too close, giving the ability to clearly pick out individual pigeons, should you so desire)...the shadows cast by people walking in Trafalgar Square are particularly interesting...

Thanks to Nikon (although this is actually quite old), meet the Universcale - starting at a million light years (being the extremities of space) through meters, nanometers right down to the Femto-scale (beyond the powers of 'uman-beans to view) and listing all the units of measurement (apart from "miles") inbetween (with interesting facts about each)...just to help you put things into perspective, not quite as good an illustration as Tom Hanks gives you at the Hayden Planetarium show in New York (which manages to make one feel very small indeed), but still pretty good...

Now time for a WIN - Nautical engineering comes full circle, with the staggering discovery that we can help reduce carbon emmissions by augmenting the engines on container vessles with, *gasp*, a SAIL...certainly meritous of inclusion in Metro's "No Sh*t Sherlock", and amazing because the writer seems to think this is some sort of new-fangled modern concept...*slap*... ;)

And *finally* a couple of pictures just to round off with (and lighten the mood), a *perfect* cat photo...(hmmm, hope this doesn't become a running theme!)...and a hermit crab coaxed to live inside a shell made from glass...incredible! :)

Promise I'll stop now, more next week... ;)