The Long Now Foundation

The Long Now Foundation is a foundation dedicated to long term thinking. They want people to think about things not only in their lifetimes, but thousands of years from now. They have a variety of interesting projects including a project to catalog all of the world's languages, a long term betting pool, and a massive project to build a clock that will run constantly for ten thousand years. They've got some cool stuff, and I think you should check it out.

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.

The Museum of Unworkable Decives

For thousands of years humans have dreamed of creating a perpetual motion machine, a machine that could do useful work while functioning without any sort of input forever. Science says that this is impossible, but that hasn't stopped people from trying. The Museum of Unworkable Devices has extensive information on perpetual motion machines past and present, as well as detailed scientific explanations on why they won't work. It also has some optical illusions, and a few drawings by Escher and the like. Check it out.