• The Daily Mail Dictionary
  A useful guide to the Daily Mail – should save you ever having to actually read it.
  (tags: dailymail humour news satire dictionary funny newspaper)
• Amazon.co.uk: Customer Reviews: Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen, Medium Point, Black
  Awesome tongue in cheek reviews on Amazon for a Bic Ballpoint Pen!
  (tags: amazon reviews silly funny)
• Gmaps Pedometer
  A very clever map-based pedometer that can work out the distance your route is and how many calories you burned running/cycling it.
  (tags: google maps googlemaps fitness exercise map distance pedometer running tools)

I’ve been having some great fun with the new computational knowledge engine, Wolfram Alpha. Despite some very misleading news headlines, this is not a search engine, but rather a way to access factual data quickly and accurately.

When you first look at the site, you can be at a bit of a loss to know what to do with it. To get you started, here are a few suggestions for you to try:

• ‘star chart’ – gives you the current sky chart for your location.
• ‘bagel + 10g butter + 15g nutella + banana’ – the nutritional information for my lunch today.
• ‘weather tomorrow’ – weather forecast for your location.
• ‘c major seventh’ – chord information.
• ‘today’ – or type a specific date: gives you significant anniversaries, daylight info, moon phase, etc.

It’s a busy weekend with Li’l Bhaji’s party and catching up with all the chores we didn’t do last weekend due to Akra Jr’s party, so here’s something for you to watch while waiting for actual content.

I know it’s 12 minutes long, which feels terribly long in our 4-minute YouTube video culture, but think of it more as a very short film. It’s beautifully made, and if you like a good love story, you’ll love this.

Via schmutzie.com’s linkblog

• QuackCast
  Great sceptical podcast on all things medical quackery. Mostly, I like it that the podcaster (Mark Crislip) isn't afraid of completely taking the piss out of obviously stupid scams and scammers.
  (tags: podcast skeptic skeptical sceptic sceptical quacks)
• Routes Game – games
  Coughs and Sneezes, Spread Diseases! The more people you infect, the more points you get.
  (tags: swineflu game flash science disease fun games humor)

I wrote a blog post earlier, but I even sent myself to sleep reading it, so I deleted it and thought you’d enjoy this YouTube video instead:

Via Writtenwyrdd

Did you know that…?

In 2003, Dr. Roger Mugford invented the “wagometer” a device that claims to interpret a dog’s exact mood by measuring the wag of its tail.

Or that…?

Humans smell “in stereo.” Scent signals from each nostril travel to different regions in the brain. This may help a person determine the direction the odor is coming from.

Or even that…?

Under the Hays Code (1930-1968), people kissing in American films could no longer be horizontal; at least one had to be sitting or standing, not lying down. In addition, all on-screen married couples slept in twin beds…and if kissing on one of the beds occurred, at least one of the spouses had to have a foot on the floor.

No? Neither did I, but Random Facts did.

It’s one of those fun sites to get lost in when you have some time to spare, like when it’s a Friday afternoon just before a bank holiday weekend.

The quantity of articles seem to be a little sparse, but there seem to be new ones being added regularly. Each article also lists its sources at the bottom, which is handy for cynics like me who are suspicious of the provenance of internet factoids.

Worth a browse, in any case.

• a Smursh of Pete – The Obligatory Swine Flu Funny Captioned Photo
  Wonderful photo and caption!
  (tags: photo kids pig swineflu)
• Matt cartoons witty political cartoons and satirical sketches – Telegraph
  Another great topical cartoon
  (tags: swineflu cartoon piglet winniethepooh matt telegraph)
• Man Flu
  Great spoof news page on the current "crisis"
  (tags: swineflu media spoof)

Okay, I’ve been trying not to get swept up in Swine Flu Fever, but quite frankly the level of hysteria has reached ridiculous proportions.

The media, of course, has reacted with big red headlines about the KILLER DISEASE and vastly over-inflating ‘victim’ figures to get the most public interest. People, more people died in road accidents before the news reader finished her intro. Get a grip.

Finally, I found a great article over at Junkfood Science: Flu Fears which is the most sensible overview of the actual science I’ve found so far. It covers most of the salient points and helps put things a little more into perspective. Like the fact that this is “no more serious than your average flu bug”.

To summarise, I can’t do much better than give you yesterday’s xkcd:

• Feel the fear then sue them anyway

  Terrible PR on the part of the author – not least because her response seems to be diametrically opposite to that which she recommends in her self-help book.

  tags: pr, writing, law, trademarks, sue, self-help

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Carocat‘s comment on my Twilight review has reminded me about the TwitLight series she is currently hosting on her blog.

TwitLight is short for Twitter Spotlight and interviews a new Twitter user every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It’s a great way to find new interesting people to follow and to get an insight into the person behind the tweets. I would thoroughly recommend subscribing to her blog anyway, as she’s an interesting blogger covering a diverse range of topics.

Carocat interviewed me recently, and you can find my TwitLight interview here. She’s also always on the lookout for new willing victims participants, so if you’d like to contribute and you’re a regular Twitter user, send a DM to @carocat.