The Friday 13 Feature - Unlucky #1

Seen as unlucky by many people (surely they can't all be wrong?), The Friday Feature celebrates superstition and classic examples of happenings that most would describe as unlucky.

You cannot get more 'unlucky' than becoming extinct!
Today we celebrate the Dodo - gone but definitely not forgotten.

First recorded by explorers in the late 1500's the last Dodo died, and a species became extinct, in 1681.

The Dodo (originally Didus ineptus) was unfortunate to have evolved as a result of geographic isolation and to have died out by direct and indirect human interference.

However, the phrase 'Dead as a Dodo' ensures it's life and fate will live on.

Also, the nice people at Dodo Towers also ensure that the Dodo will not be forgotten.
See http://www.dodopad.com/tour/tour_guide.html for a tour of the towers.

You might even want to have you very own personal or academic Dodo Diary (perfect for doodlers)
http://www.dodopad.com/pages/whatis.htm

TGIF13

P.S. Many years ago I formed the Dodo Diners Club for friends who were Biology Teachers in London. Twelve of us met for dinner on Friday 13th with a 13th place set for our 'absent guest'.
Rather fittingly, the Club met only once!

Take care out there ....

Digital Easter Eggs

This Good Friday Friday Feature covers some of the treasures hidden within digital applications, an Easter Egg Hunt of the digital kind.

Some software, web and games developers leave hidden messages or extra features in the programs they work on that can only be accessed by those who know the unusual program commands or keyboard combinations that reveal the secrets left behind. These suprises are known as 'Easter Eggs' probably because of the tradition in many countries of hiding eggs so people have to hunt for the goodies at Easter.

These Easter eggs aren't meant to be found easily. Originally, most companies would remove Easter eggs if they were found while the product was being tested. Thankfully, not all were found and some companies now encourage developers to build in features that can be found by accident or by word of mouth. Click the right spot, edit the right file, or type in the secret sequence and, presto, you'll find anything from a list of the names of the programmers who created the product to a full-blown, multimedia tribute to the developers or sometimes even a game you can play.

See this article (http://journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/archives/ber/2007/11/19/digital-easter-egg-hunt/index.html) for further details.

Easter eggs in the 1997 version of Microsoft Office include a hidden flight simulator in Microsoft Excel and a pinball game in Microsoft Word. Here are some more examples....

Facebook
From your main Facebook account page, click on the small, downward-pointing arrow on the blue bar on the top of the window. A small menu should pop up. From there, click "Account Settings" and then the "Language" tab at the very bottom. Scroll down and select English (Upside down) or, my personal favourite, English (Pirate). Save the new setting to see what happens to your pages :-)

Yahoo
A little audio treat (check your speakers are working) for users of the US site.
Go to the US Yahoo homepage (http://us.yahoo.com/?p=us) and click on the Logo's exclamation mark!
I would like to know the story behind that!

Amazon
In Febuary 2002, the owner of Amazon setup a hidden page.
Go to http://www.amazon.com and look at the bottom of the 'Shop by Department' and click on the 'Full Store Directory' link. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and in the centre of the white space at the bottom of the screen is a hidden link (Use your mouse cursor to locate and then click on the link).

Google Search
The fun loving developers at Google have created all sorts of hidden treasures. Some of them work best in Firefox or Chrome and rely on you using the "I'm Feeling Lucky" search. In the old style Google, there was a button below the search box but in Google Instant, start typing the search phrase and then hover over the suggested searches that appear - a link to "I'm Feeling Lucky" appears to the right of the suggestion.

In the Google Search examples below, the IFL means you need to use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" link as described above for the best effects. Enjoy ....

• Into the search box, type 'do a barrel roll' without the quote marks (this also works by typing 'z or r')
  An homage to Star Fox 64, a 1997 cult Nintendo game.
• In December, type 'let it snow' for a seasonal experience.
• Into the search box, type 'askew' without the quote marks.
  Computers can be so literal!
• IFL - Type 'Google Grav' and then hover over the suggested search 'Google Gravity' and click on "I'm Feeling Lucky".
  NB: Use the browser back icon to go back to the time before gravity had its effect.
• IFL - Type 'find Chuck Norris' for some live saving advice.
• IFL - Type 'Mentalplex' for the most advanced way to search the web.
• IFL - Type 'pacman'.
  The Google Doodle really does work.

I hope you enjoyed these Digital Easter Eggs and if you want more here's a couple of links to explore:

http://www.eggheaven2000.com/

http://www.eeggs.com/

 I love digital eggs but I think I love chocolate ones more.
Off now to hunt for my choccie eggs, yum yum.

TGIGF

Time To Adjust Your Sundials

A digital sundial!?

We've just had the Vernal Equinox, March 20th at 5.14 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time*).
Following closely, we are about to go into Goofy Time (aka BST) where we all have to get up an hour earlier.

That's not the reason why I'm suggesting it's time to adjust your sundials (I keep mine set to 'real' GMT all year round) but because it is good practice to adjust your sundials a couple of times a month. I'm assuming here of course that you all have a sundial (and if you don't - why not!?).

Sundials are the perfect renaissance device, an elegant combination of science and art that can be experienced many days of the year. Use your favourite search engine's image collection to see the beauty of design arising from simple to very hard celestial maths.

Here's The Science Bit
Because the Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle and the Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbit, a solar day is only 24 hours long on 4 days of the year. The graph below shows how 'fast' or 'slow' a sundial is compared clock time (designed around an average 24hr day). The data comes from using the 'Equation of Time'.

http://www.jamesriverstudio.com

Today (March 23) you sundial will be 6.5 minutes slow.

Interestingly, if you could plot the position of the sun in the sky at noon at different times of the year you would get the elongated figure 8 shown in the image at the top of the post, the analemma (see http://www.analemma.com for further details).

The fascination of sundials or shadow clocks continues into the digital age.
A photographer/designer came up with the idea and the design for a bulbdial clock a few years ago (http://www.ironicsans.com/2008/03/idea_the_bulbdial_clock.html). A year later, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories turned the design into a DIY kit to make for yourself (http://evilmadscience.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/156).


Apart from garden sundials, I have the Pocket Sundial from http://www.testtubegames.com on my iPhone - it always works no matter the weather!
Another great example of how location enabled devices can do all sorts of clever stuff.

I better stop now - the shadow says it's time for a lie down ...

TGIF

* I know the initials should be CUT but an argument between the British and the French, who wanted TUC (temps universel coordonné), resulted in the inspired? compromise where UTC would be used (representing neither the French nor English phrase - brilliant!).

Top image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial