Fun On Friday #163: What's cooler than Spock in an advert?

...Two Spocks in an advert.

I would apologise for featuring two Star Trek related Fun on Friday's in a row but this advert was too good to put off for another week.

Fun On Friday #162: You as a Star Trek figure

It's been a long time since my last Fun on Friday but I hope you agree this one has been worth the wait.

Send in a couple of photos of yourself and Cubify will print a 3D figure of you as a character from either Star Trek: The Next Generation; Voyager; or Deep Space 9. How cool is that?

For more details see the Star Trek website, which is where I stole this picture:

And it costs less than $70. Well, a bit out my justifiable price range at the moment... but I can dream!

Fun On Friday #161: Awkward Family Photos

Having just acquired a new camera (see some photos here) I hope I don't take too many like this:

Family Photo, Anchorage, AK,
a photo by djwudi on Flickr.

Find many (many, many!) more on the Awkward Family Photographs site. A quick browse through gives some excellent examples of what not to do! I think my favourite out of the recent entries is Take Me Higher 2. The chap at the back is outstanding!

What about you? Do you have a favourite?

Is there anything to learn from these photos? Attention to detail for one. Looking at the whole frame, not just the bit in the middle for another. And, most importantly, don't take yourself too seriously!

Fun On Friday #160: Diplomacy

I like the game board Diplomacy but I don't think I've played it since I was at university. Maybe one day, when I'm not as busy or exhausted, I'll give the world of online Diplomacy a go.

Diplomacy: Game 1 - Round 1, a photo
by condredge on Flickr.

Looks like fun.

If you have never played Diplomacy, it is an interesting game. Superficially, it looks like the world domination game Risk but unlike Risk, no dice are involved. In theory, therefore, no luck is involved in the outcome. The way it works is that superior numbers always wins.

The problem is that at the start of the game, no one player has enough power on their own to go head to head with the other player. If you want to win, you have to form alliances (hence the name of the game - Diplomacy). The problem is of course that if you want to win, you will have to break the alliance at some point and strike out on your own. If you break to early, you may not have amassed enough personal power to make it on your own. If you break too late, you run the risk of someone else in your alliance stabbing you in the back and leaving you alone and vulnerable. See the Diplomacy Wikipedia entry for more details.

As I say, a fun game... for a given definition of "fun".

Fun On Friday #159: Christmas Game

Thanks to one of my fifth year pupils for introducing me to this game: Snowline

Though, it has to be said, the fifth years were powned by a second year pupil who managed to complete the game in a 40 minute period. (The fifth years only got as far as the second last puzzle!)

And if you finish Snowline, try Snowline 2.

Fun On Friday #157: The Tache-on

This may be my last Tache related post of 2012. Rather than mess about with all that waiting for hair to grow nonsense, I think I might use the Tache-on next year. The results were quite impressive:

The donation page is still open, so it's not too late to give to male cancer charities.

Fun On Friday #156: The End Of The Mo

Thirty days... and it's time for the mo to go. Here then are the edited highlights:

It's not too late to donate to Movember. And not that I want to be grumpy... but Internet chums (with two honourable exceptions) have been conspicuous by their online giving absence, so get clicking and get giving!

Fun On Friday #155: Running Out Of Music

I accept that this week's offering is fun only for a slightly bizarre definition of fun... that definition being: "stuff that I find fun". I hope that you, at least, find it interesting.

Unfortunately, the video can't be embedded, so you'll have to go off and watch Will We Ever Run Out Of New Music? on YouTube.

I like the way he entries to make the mind-bogglingly big numbers accessible. Some of the links with the video are worth a look too.

And tangentially related is this video, which I can embed!

Fun On Friday #154: Stacheify

It is now more than half way through Movember and both my Mo, and money raised, are coming along nicely. But thanks to Daughter Number One, my attention was drawn to an app that provides a hint about the shape of Moes to come:

It is called Stacheify and it reminds me a bit of CrazyTalk in the way it let's you identify key features (eyes and mouth) in a still photograph and then manipulates the image to create an animation.

• Mo-bros: your Moes should already be well established.
• Mo-sistas: Show your support with Stacheify.

And don't forget to donate to Movember.

Fun On Friday #153: Fun with Google

My Higher class were swapping Chuck Norris jokes. Most could only be described as "joke" with a very loose and technically inaccurate definition of the word "joke". But then they Googled, find Chuck Norris, and hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button and... well, follow the find Chuck Norris link, use the I'm Feeling Lucky button and see for yourself.

It amused me. Strictly speaking, it is not a Google trick. I guess the creators of the page use a Google bomb technique to make sure they are at the top of the results list but it made me start looking for Google Easter eggs. It turns out there are loads of them. Here are some of my favourites:

1. I've already posted here on the search: answer to life the universe and everything but it bears repeating.
   
   
2. This is a bit obscure unless you follow the Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode firm review programme or podcast. If you search for Jason Isaacs, immediately above the search results, it says, "Hello to Jason Isaacs".
3. You may have heard of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Search for the Bacon number of an actor and Google will work out links for you. A search for bacon number Jason Issacs reveals he has a bacon number of 2:
   
   • Jason Isaacs and Charlize Theron appeared in Sweet November.
   • Charlize Theron and Kevin Bacon appeared in Trapped.
   
    It is extraordinarily difficult to find someone who isn't a 2! And how's this for synchronicity: as I was typing up this post, what comes on the TV but an advert for a phone company:
   
   
4. And finally, one for the geeks. Search for binary and the number of results found is displayed in binary.

Have you any favourite  Google Easter eggs?

Fun On Friday #152: Movember

Another very late Fun on Friday!

TacheBack - Day 29, a photo by DavidDMuir on Flickr.

A few years ago... 2007 to be precise, I took part in what was then called Tacheback. I was surprised to discover that, just by growing a moustache, I managed to raise £270.50. Well, to be more accurate, by growing a moustache and pestering a lot of people until they sponsored me, I managed to raise £270.50!

So, five years later, here I am growing a moustache for charity again. Tacheback has morphed into Movember but otherwise, it's much the same as the last time. I grow a moustache, grow awareness of male cancer charities and try to encourage people to donate money to cancer charities.

It would be good to raise at least £300 but things have changed since I last tried this. First, when I did it in 2007, it was still relatively unknown as an event, so I was the only person I knew who was growing a tache. That meant it was relatively easy to approach people and demand money knowing that they were unlikely to have already donated. By now though, it is much more well known, there's even another teacher in the school who is also growing a Mo for Movember. And, second, I've changed jobs. Last time I had about 600 staff and students I could extort money from. This time I am in a small school and I believe it is frowned uponto extort money with menaces from pupils.

Anyway, I've made a start. Check out:

• My Movember page
• My donation page

...And a video of progress so far. (Silent at the moment - what would you suggest for a theme song?)

This time, I'm probably going to have to rely more on Internet chums for donations, so is £300 doable? I hope so. With 200 facebook "friends", over a thousand Twitter followers, and many visitors every day to this blog it's not impossible. If twelve hundred people each donate £0.25, that's £300. More realistically (perhaps) if 60 people donate £5 each, that would be £300 too. Last time though, I only managed 34 donors... so it's going to be tricky.

What do you think? Is £300 possible? Send a donation, and help me on my way.

Fun On Friday #151: What the Internet thinks

Still to busy for regular posts but well overdue a new Fun on Friday post.

What does the Internet think about cats?



What about dogs?



Visit What does the Internet think?, enter a search phrase and see what the Internet thinks. Excellent.

Thanks to one of my pupils for this link.