Blogger Play: Watch the blogs go by
Today we’re pleased to launch Blogger Play, a neat little toy we’ve cooked up to show you photos and blog posts as you’ve never seen them before.Shortly after Blogger launched photo uploading two years ago, one of our engineers whipped up a web page that would show us the pictures that were being uploaded in real time. The result was fun, often beautiful, but above all, compelling. We couldn’t stop watching.
Over the years we’ve kept this photo scroller as part of the Blogger offices, on a monitor or projector, as an interesting (distracting?) slideshow, and a reminder of the diversity and vivaciousness of Blogger blogs. The fame of the scroller spread within Google, until one day we were asked, “so, when are you launching this?”
“Um…,” we replied. But we knew a good idea when we heard one. We got our UI people to come up with buttons and fadey effects and we got our engineers to make the whole thing fast and robust. A bit of work later, and now we can share it with all of you:
Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs. You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click “show info” to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it. We also wrote a Blogger Play FAQ with more information.
A caveat: we use many techniques, including Google’s SafeSearch technology, to keep the images clean. Nevertheless, on rare occasions an image that you may find vulgar or obscene will slip through our algorithmic filters. Google does not pre-screen the images that appear in Blogger Play, nor is it responsible for their content. To report a terms of service violation, you may fill out this contact form.
Archive
Here’s a car/scooter accident caught on film that took place in Kaohsiung, the city where I used to live in southern Taiwan. Miraculously, the scooter driver only suffered very minor injuries (scrapes and bruises). Traffic lights are often (sometimes always, depending on the intersection) considered mere suggestions. I’ve learned to watch the cross traffic like a hawk when I have a green light!
Looks like they have a few kinks to work out before this technology is truly mature. Nonetheless, it’s fascinating, and well, a bit scary, from a Biblical standpoint.
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid‑term:
“Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof.”
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
“First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So, we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities. 1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2) Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Therese Banyan during my Freshman year “That it will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then (2) cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic.”
The student got the only A.
Last weekend was Moon Festival, so practically the entire nation of Taiwan observed a 4-day long weekend vacation (Monday and Tuesday off), had barbeque’s and stared at (worshiped?) the full moon. Monday I went to the beach in Nanliao with Tim and Julie (both from church), Dougal (Julie’s dog) and Bean (my dog). We just sat around and talked and watched our dogs chase each other into the ocean. It was nice. Bean hasn’t been around the ocean much yet and is generally unhappy around water, so it was amusing to watch her cautiously approach the water’s edge just to be chased up the beach by every new wave. I swear she’s a cat, down deep inside. 
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