This week’s whimsy is brought to you by Lego artist Ian Heath’s brick tribute to Freddie Mercury.
You can read about Heath’s inspiration and see larger pics on his blog, The Living Brick.
Please share any bits and pieces you have come across recently that have surprised, delighted, intrigued or otherwise positively engaged you.
NB: the weekly whimsy thread is a stoush-free zone
- Gloria Fuertes
Found a fascinating fungi in the yard this morning, of a pinkish hew with tentacles, a bit like a sea anenome but fleshier or a starfish perhaps. By this afternoon the little plant had all but withered away. I will send the pics to a site that can hopefully identify this plant, but in the meantime I am gazing at the photos in wonderment.
I’m happy to share them if anyone is interested.
[Geek alert on]
Mind blown… Google search will graph mathematical functions. Try searching for
sin(x)
Or if you like boobs/balls, and really who doesn’t
sqrt(1-x^2),sqrt(1-(x-2)^2)
The graph is interactive, navigates like Google Maps. Try this exotic rather exotic equation
(sqrt(cos(x))cos(200 x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(9-x^2), -sqrt(9-x^2)
Cool yeah? Unfortunately my favorite, the Batman Equation, does not graph well, as it exeeds the 35 character search limit of google and I cant crack it.
Everything at knowyourmeme.com
That sounds like it could be Aseroe rubra, Robbo – we get them here sometimes. We have some old logs that will occasionally sprout bioluminescent fungi, just magical at night, but they only last a night or two.
Everything at knowyourmeme.com
Yo, dawg! I herd you like memes so I put a meme in this comment so you can meme while your comment!
We have some old logs that will occasionally sprout bioluminescent fungi, just magical at night, but they only last a night or two.
In other fungi news, we’ve had one spring up in the park next to our house which looks like someone threw up brilliant yellow scrambled eggs.
unless, of course, somebody under the weather from too many Christmas drinks events actually *has* thrown up scrambled eggs.
Su, we once found phosphorescence in the water at our favourite Sleepy Fishing Village (TM) on the southern coast, near Orbost, where it’s not supposed to be. Grab a tree branch and swoosh it through the water and it all lights up (a whole lot of tiny critters getting very very cross, I imagine.) Beautiful. We’re going there again in a few weeks, I’ll see if there’s any then.
No, I’m not eating them Adrien, sheesh. Apparently they taste horrible, but aren’t toxic, so that’s a lose-lose for the recreational mycovore : )
Helen, wow another sign of warming oceans? It’s one of the lovely things about night sailing in the tropics– the phosphorescent wake.
The chemicals involved are luciferin, acted upon by luciferase — even the nomenclature is whimsical.
If you have an iOS device (iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone) or Android device you have probably come across the remarkable puzzle game “World of Goo”.
http://2dboy.com/
These people are raking in some serious cash in the mobile device app market, mainly because when the PC version first debuted, some 3 years ago, they very publicly unconcerned about the high level of “piracy” the game was encountering on file-sharing networks.
When it hit the lucrative mobile device market the game was widely known to the keen gamer and proved a runaway success.
Piracy as a business model, if you will.
dear Ootz
i’m impressed; that’s cool.
yours sincerely
alfred venison
Nativity Sets
H/T to The Lady Garden
Yup…CMMC I whiled away a very pleasant couple of days between Xmas and New Years a couple years back, stuck in a World of Goo.
Funnily enough, this year’s casual gaming hit Angry Birds is a remake of a castle-smashing-catapult-type game available for a couple of years too. Only Angry Birds is cuter, so it seems to have a much wider appeal than the too-boyish catapult game did. But it’s the same game, same physics, just different sprites.
Not trollin’ for a stoush here on the Whimsy thread, just sayin’!
Thanks Su, it more resembles clathrus archeri but it is not that fungi either.I will endeavor to establish this fungi’s name but with dial-up this task is very bloody difficult.
But it does remind us that there are still things out there that we will find fascinating if we but take a look around.
Under “delighted” and “positively engaged” – If you haven’t listened to Geraldine Brooks in the ABC Boyer lectures, podcast it. It’s really a wonderful listen. She is such a great character, up there with Margaret Attwood I’d say.
It’s not a triffid is it Robbo? Lovely kingdom the fungi – they either look like aliens, bits of exploded carrion or bits of exploded alien carrion. Let us know when you’ve tracked the name down.
Space Battleship of the road.
Nodding my dittohead again! I don’t normally seek out the ABC radio, but caught podcasts of Geraldine Brooks’ Boyer Lectures on my travels — really rewarding listening.
http://www.blueswami.com/List_of_Australian_Fungi.html
try this robbo if you’re still there.
Robbo, if you’re still there, google ‘alphabetical list of australian fungi’ and choose the blueswami link.