Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody

I can think of no finer use for YouTube than to allow you to see this....

Playing D&D with small kids

I played a little D&D with all three of my kids...ages 5, 11, and 13...this weekend. I hope to post about this in more detail at some point, but right now I want to link to this post where a fellow outlines a very simple RPG setup he did for his six-year-old; it contains lots of good idea as far as framing the game in terms a young child might grasp:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?484693-Playing-D-amp-D(ish)-with-My-Six-Year-Old-Daughter

That guy thought about things more carefully than I have. We managed to get to a short actual play session after two short character-making sessions.

I'd like to make it very clear that though I think about games a lot and talk about them a lot, I almost never actually play. Somehow friends keep getting the impression that I've gotten actual play going. These sessions with my kids are the first in several years.

Ooh, hey, looks like Wizards of the Coast has a free game/adventure all-in-one thing, in downloadable PDF form. You can find that here: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/monsterslayers

Central vacuum cleaners

Ever heard of these? I think I saw a house that had one of these once: vacuum hoses in the walls, like plumbing. Always seemed like a super strange concept. Here's more than you'll ever want to know about 'em:
http://www.oldhousejournal.com/magazine/2002/jan-feb/vacuum.shtml

Water, water, everywhere

You know how people say you should drink lots when you're sick? Yeah, there's actually no science to back that up. Everyone just thinks it makes sense.

Yeah, and that drink 8 glasses of water a day thing is way overstated, too.

Can you believe anything about water? Water's just full of lies, man.

Did you know Google color codes its employees to assign priviliges?

Not only that..they have a yellow-badge class of workers who are denied basically all of the privileges Google is so famous for.

http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/portfolios/70411-workers-leaving-the-googleplex

XKCD tetris heaven

First XKCD proposed it, then someone built it: a game of Tetris that every now and then throws you a block constructed to exactly fit your board's needs.

http://www.gudmagazine.com/games/heaven/

When this was first linked on Metafilter, I couldn't get on the site -- I assume all the attention was more than their provider could keep up with. But it's up now.

No-bullshit fables

These short comic strip versions of well-known fables gave me a chuckle. My favorite is the Ant and the Grasshopper, which postulates an ant who, 'not being a sociopath', works something out....

http://www.cracked.com/article_19180_if-classic-fables-actually-told-truth-5Bcomic5D.html

Church Tank

I didn't know there was such a thing as that artwork known as the Church Tank, but now I do and so do you. It's by Kris Kuksi. Here's a gallery topped by another of his constructions, which also has lots of other interesting sculptures:

http://www.copronason.com/conjoined_web/index.html

ADDENDUM: Oh, my...here's a walkthrough video of a complex piece. I like how he seems to be blending model-building and sculpture here: http://vimeo.com/8313218

Physics game, cellular music

I've been obsessed with The Powder Toy all weekend. It's a simple 2d physics sim where you drop powder of different materials onto the screen, and stuff happens. Seeds, water, gunpowder, and acid all add to the fun. Here's a version you can play in a browser...and a more involved version you can download.

And that version includes cells from the Game of Life, which quickly take over....and that leads me to this music toy based on cellular automata. You place cells in a grid, they move around according to rules, and music happens.

All of this, as usual, thanks to Metafilter.com.