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Check out Parrots, The Universe and Everything, an 87-minute talk that Douglas Adams (one of my favorite authors) gave at the University of California-Santa Barbara a month before his death in 2001. The speech is about the environment and his book Last Chance to See [amazon link]. A link to streaming RealVideo of the talk is available near the bottom of the page…

By the way, has anyone seen The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy yet? I’ve heard wildly varying reviews of the movie, and although Douglas Adams supposedly had a major hand in writing the movie script, one of the main criticisms I’ve heard about the movie is that it butchers some of his funniest ideas and lines from the book. I guess I should see for myself, but I’m curious to hear from other fans…

I’ll continue on the topic of synergy between web sites by introducing GeoFlickrGoogleTagging, not the most elegant term, but one which attempts to convey the juxtaposition of the three web sites involved. Basically, people have geotagged, or added latitude and longitude information to, Flickr picture comments. When these “geotagged” links are clicked on, you are routed to a Google Map of the area via GeoBloggers. This map in turn allows you to see photos of nearby attractions that have also been geotagged. Amazing…

I’m not trying to be a total shill for Google, but people keep coming up with such cool stuff with their products!

Someone has combined Yahoo traffic information with Google Maps to create Google-Yahoo Traffic Maps, which graphically show real-time traffic data for various cities, allowing you to zero in on trouble spots for more information. For instance, here is the Google-Yahoo traffic map for Washington, DC, and here are the original Google Maps and Yahoo Maps and Traffic pages. It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty cool idea…

The omnipresent Google.com has released Google Web Accelerator, “an application that uses the power of Google’s global computer network to make web pages load faster.” For details, visit the information page. So far, I’ve noticed only a slight increase in speed, but I imagine the effect will be more noticeable on pages with lots of links that can be prefetched. In any case, a toolbar icon is installed that tracks how much time you’ve saved.

Update: Having used Google Web Accelerator over the weekend, I can report that it worked very well, allegedly saving me almost 17 minutes out of 40 minutes of loading time. However, I would be remiss in not mentioning some of the controversies associated with the new application, mostly related to security and privacy issues. I can’t imagine that Google didn’t consider these issues, but there are a couple of examples in those links where there are some obvious bugs that need to be fixed; the thread on Slashdot explains some of theose, at least. If you’ve installed Google Web Accelerator and are worried, be aware that there is an option to selectively disable certain sites from being accelerated, although that is kind of a pain. Hopefully Google will work on these issues and make a statement regarding any fixes, because there’s a lot of angry “chatter” out there on the Interweb…

Update: CNet has a good FAQ on Google Web Accelerator, mentioning that Google is addressing some of the issues users have noticed. It was also pointed out that this application is still in beta development, and that for now they have “reached [their] maximum capacity of users and are actively working to increase the number of users [they] can support.”

Heavy.com presents Fat Dynamite, a bunch of audio clips from Napoleon Dynamite dubbed into Fat Albert cartoons. Sweet! 🙂

As Mark Wieczorek says on his page, you may want to avoid A Complete Waste Of Time if you have some work to do, because it is chock full of links to a bunch of cool online games as well as some downloadable ones. Enjoy…

Wired magazine has a nice graphical feature (Flash required) entitled How Star Wars Changed The World. With George Lucas and Star Wars as a starting point, the diagram traces the evolution of “games, sound, film, and effects,” depicting just how large of an impact the original Star Wars movie has had over the years.

Scotsman.com reports that “the world’s funniest joke was unveiled by scientists today at the end of the largest study of humour ever undertaken… The joke which received the highest global rating – submitted by 31-year-old psychiatrist Gurpal Gosall from Manchester – was:”

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed.

The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”

There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”

Check out the latest episode in our Yeti friend’s ongoing adventures, Yetisports 8: Jungle Swing.

Today’s Astronomy Picture Of The Day is a very nice shot of “the Sun, Venus, the Moon, and Jupiter, all rising in the ecliptic plane behind Fire Island, New York, USA.”