when the universe was still young

UDF Skywalker V1.0 is a web-app that allows you to scan the Ultra Deep Field Image taken by the Hubble space telescope. The individual images have been combined into a seamless whole withiin the application.

A bit of background on the UDF:

The Ultra Deep Field obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope is the deepest view into the sky by humankind to date. This image combines 800 frames with a total exposure time of 1 million seconds. The 10.000 galaxies that are visible have distances out to times where the universe was just 800 million years old, one seventeenth of its current age.

Now, that’s interesting. That’s 800 million times more interesting than the bullshit they go over on the evening news every night.

Just a tiny piece of the UDF

flash earth

From the designer: “Flash Earth is an experimental [web] application that uses online imagery from online mapping websites without official consent.”

http://www.flashearth.com

Where’s the coldest place in the Universe? Right here on Earth.

Well, maybe.

The Coldest Place in the Universe

Where’s the coldest spot in the universe? Not on the moon, where the temperature plunges to a mere minus 378 Fahrenheit. Not even in deepest outer space, which has an estimated background temperature of about minus 455°F. As far as scientists can tell, the lowest temperatures ever attained were recently observed right here on earth.

The record-breaking lows were among the latest feats of ultracold physics, the laboratory study of matter at temperatures so mind-bogglingly frigid that atoms and even light itself behave in highly unusual ways.

Read the entire article. 

Living in a garbage truck

Seriously, if I won something like this, or could afford it, I might do it. I’ve never been space intensive, and the interior of this rig is pretty spiffy.  Just think of the freedom…

Lots more pictures after the link.

http://www.itsjustabitoffun.com/date/2007/8/20/

Pop-Up Tester

The page linked below generates various types of pop-ups, using various techniques. It’s a good way to tell how well your browser, or your pop-killer program is working. I have standard Firefox pop-up control, and only two kinds of pops got through, the “drop-down banner” and the “sticky pop-up.” All the others failed.

However, there are a couple really annoying “pop-unders” that get through fairly routinely. The page doesn’t have a test for that.

http://www.popuptest.com

Send an E-card from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

http://www.mfa.org/collections/index.asp?key=36

Recipes from all over the world

World Hearth Circle of International Cooking

The great gonzo’s ridiculously dangerous and downright foolish stunt game

Personally, I think shooting a screaming Gonzo (the muppet) out of a cannon is hilarious, and great fun.

http://muppets.go.com/games/muppets-flyinggonzo.html

Encyclopedia of Spices

http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/spiceref.html

Copter

Reminds of an 80s arcade game.

http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf