Sodaplay

It's a special birthday post! Whose birthday? Mine! I was born twenty-one years to the minute before this post goes up. So to celebrate my birthday you get a special blog post. You're welcome.

Sodaplay was one of the first cool websites I found on the internet about a decade ago when I first got regular internet access. It's been going on ever since, and I still think it's cool. Sodaplay lets you build virtual machines out of muscle-like parts that can move, make music, and more! If you can't figure out how to build stuff you can check out the Sodazoo and look at the cool things that other users have build. It sure brings back memories. Check it out.

Strange Maps

Strange Maps is a website dedicated to showing you the strangest and most interesting maps they can find. There's a map of what the world would look like if the planet stopped spinning, a map of Libyan dictator Muammar Gadaffi's plan to carve up Switzerland's land among it's neighbors, a map of the United States made entirely out of pumpkin peels, a map of heaven, and much much more. You'd never have thought there were so many cool maps, but there you are.

Check it out.

Face of the Future

Face of the Future is a website that allows you to take pictures of faces and morph them in various way. It's easier to show than tell, let me show you a few ones I did.

You can take a picture with a face in it



















And change its race


















Or its age

















Or even do weirder things




































As you can see the quality of the output varies depending on whose picture you use and which transformation you select. Some of these came out great, but I couldn't get a single pic of female Bush that didn't look horrible. So play around with it, see what you can do. It's a fun thing. The site uses Java and the app can take a few minutes to load. Give it time. Check it out.

Joseph Wu's Origami Page

I love to make things with origami, which is the Chinese and Japanese art of paperfolding. You know, like those little paper cranes. I'm pretty good at it if I do say so myself (and I do) but I'm nothing compared to the genius of Joseph Wu. Joseph has pictures of all the wonderful things he's folded, and even some instructions for a few of his models. Even if you don't like to make origami, you can still marvel at this guy's artistic skills. Check it out.

Tsui Design & Research Inc.

I live crazy artists, don't you? It's my philosophy that artists are supposed to be nuts. That's just the way it ought to be. Eugene Tsui of Tsui Design and Research Inc. is a delightfully demented artist who designs weird buildings and funky unisex clothing. He's great! Check it out.

Bent Objects

Bent Objects is a blog of human-like figures that the author makes out of paper clips and other small objects. It's good for a few laughs. Check it out.