Nice Net Nibbles

This is a selection of stuff I've found interesting from the net from the last three months. Can't remember who sent it all to me.

These happy pots are cleverly created from the reflection of the adjacent burners, a piece of pasta and a bottle top. (Link)

Damn! This kid is funny...

Last year was the 10th memorium of Carl Sagan. He is one of my heroes and you can read what people have to say about his memory here.

You can download free documentaries from this site. Some of them are really good.

Another really clever design idea. Great toy.

This is a clip from an Attenborough documentary which I've seen a few times in the last few months. It's obviously getting people freaked out.

If you like maps and you have a social conscience, then this site is going to keep you locked in for a long time. It's fascinating.

This one is funny for a while and then disconcerting. Find out where Santa is...

David Bayne has been visiting SHADE and told me about the black ring he wears on his finger. It's worth reading David's blog to hear the story.

I found this video amazing. It expanded my ideas about what constituted thinking, personality, personhood.

This is a practical joke I'd love to try. Somebody's car has been covered in post-it notes!

Here is an interview with Richard Dawkins about his recent book, "The God Delusion." I think he makes some valuable points. This is why I tend to agree more with Dawkins scientific "fundamentalism" more than with religious fundamentalism. I found this quote from Dawkins particularly meaningful. Dawkins wants this to be read at his funeral:

"We are going to die and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they're never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place, but who will, in fact, never see the light of day, outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. ...In the face of these stupefying odds, it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. Here's another respect in which we are lucky. The universe is older than a hundred million centuries. Within a comparable time, the sun will swell to a red giant and engulf the earth. Every century of hundreds of millions has been in its time, or will be when its time comes, the present century. The present moves from the past to the future like a tiny spotlight inching its way along a gigantic ruler of time. Everything behind the spotlight is in darkness, the darkness of the dead past. Everything ahead of the spotlight is in the darkness of the unknown future. The odds of your century being the one in the spotlight are the same as the odds that a penny, tossed down at random, will land on a particular ant crawling somewhere on the road from New York to San Francisco. You are lucky to be alive and so am I."

And on a similar vein, Peter published a valuable contribution on his blog.