Category Archives: Fun

It’s a spherical video in a mathematically triplified space with symmetry in space-time

Vihart: Peace for Triple Piano. (YouTube 3D video, 4:15min)

This has got to be one of the most amazing things done with a 3D camera I’ve ever seen. Pro tip: Watch this in fullscreen mode on your phone so you can look around by moving the entire phone, and use headphones to get the full 3D sound effect as well.

Make sure to also watch

Henry Segerman: The Making of “Peace for Triple Piano”. (YouTube video, 13:52min including a “flat” version of the above 3D video).

In this video Vi Hart and Henry Sergerman explain how the video works: how they made one grand piano and one Vi look like three, but one Henry look like only two at the same time.

Vi writes a little more about this project on her weblog: Vihart.com: Peace for Triple Piano.

(This was published back in February, but I only now realized that the RSS feed of this YouTube channel stopped working.)

“Are you sure there isn’t something else we could calculate?”

XKCD What if: Earth-Moon Fire Pole. “My son (5y) asked me today: If there were a kind of a fireman’s pole from the Moon down to the Earth, how long would it take to slide all the way from the Moon to the Earth? – Ramon Schönborn, Germany”

I loved this and am tempted to use it in one of my next physics lessons…

Link via MetaFilter.

Friday Fun

OK Go: The One Moment – Official Video. (YouTube, 4:12min)

A music video that was shot in just four seconds and then slowed down to fit over four minutes of music. Here’s how they did it:

OK Go Sandbox: OK Go Sandbox – One Moment of Math. (YouTube, 4:33min) “Damian Kulash, lead singer of OK Go, discusses the immense amount of math behind their video,“ The One Moment“ .”

The rest of the OK Go Sandbox is worth checking out as well.

“Surely you’re not calling just to hear the dulcet tone of my voice, but if you are – get a life!”

NPR: NPR Newscaster Carl Kasell Dies At 84, After A Lifelong Career On-Air.

“Every weekday for more than three decades, his baritone steadied our mornings. Even in moments of chaos and crisis, Carl Kasell brought unflappable authority to the news. But behind that hid a lively sense of humor, revealed to listeners late in his career, when he became the beloved judge and official scorekeeper for Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! NPR’s news quiz show.”

Peter Sagal on Twitter: I am extremely sad to tell you all that my dear friend and colleague for 16 years, Carl Kasell has passed away at the age of 84, from complications of Alzheimer’s. He was, and remains, the heart and soul of our show.

Peter Sagal also wrote a remembrance: Peter Sagal: Carl Kasell ‘Was Kind Down To His Bones’.

“The day I met Carl Kasell, in 1998, he just reached out and shook my hand and said my name. And then he said it again. I think he knew how exciting it is for all of us public radio nerds to hear your name, spoken by that voice, and he wanted to give me a gift.”

Listen to Messages by Carl Kasell and Carl’s Special FX.

Most links via MetaFilter: Imagine a man of my stature being given away as a prize.

“Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge.”

The Guardian: Don’t panic! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is back. “It’s the biggest thing to happen to the universe since the Vogons blew up Earth. Our writer grabs a babelfish and goes behind the scenes as the space satire returns.”

“The original cast has been reunited to record a new radio series of the intergalactic comedy that, from small beginnings in 1978 on Radio 4, grew into a juggernaut that spawned a TV series, a Disney film, a much-loved series of books, several stage shows and even a video game.
[…]
The new series combines unpublished material, dug out of Adams’ notebooks by archivist and superfan Kevin Jon Davies, and newer plotlines drawn from And Another Thing, Eoin Colfer’s book continuing the saga, which was commissioned by the Adams estate after the author’s sudden death at the age of just 49 in 2001.”

I’ve read the four-part trilogy and enjoyed the original radio play. Looking very forward to this!

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