About five years ago I created a series of what I called Toy Worlds to be 3D interfaces to Cosma.
You can see all of my Toy Worlds on my page on the Kuula service that I use to post them.
That was a phase that I thought was over — I moved on to exploring other technologies for making 3D websites (more about that in the spring). However, I got nostalgic for Toy Worlds while I was pulling out holiday decorations this year, so here is a brand new Toy World.
Click and drag to look around and click on objects to learn more about them.
I’ve been immersed in working on updating Cosma pages about technical subjects like computers and the internet lately.
Make that TOO immersed, I needed a break.
Given it’s Easter weekend, make that a bunny break!
First, I dug up my old Bunny Fix post from 2020. That was fun, but those bunny clips were only a few minutes long. I wanted more, so I headed to YouTube in search of some more bunnies.
However, I didn’t find any because I got distracted by a video about Easter traditions.
Some of the traditions were fun and familiar, but others not-so-much. The Scandinavian Witches, Czech Switches and Cold Water in Hungary weren’t so enviable.
Of course, that cute Australian Easter Bilby caught my eye. I set off on a YouTube safari in search of them. Here’s one of the better videos I found.
Those bunnies and foreign traditions were fun distractions, but my favorite Easter thing to do remains coloring Easter eggs. That is why I was a sucker for this video about ways to dye them. It is a bit long, but each time you think the ideas won’t get any more creative, they do.
I’m both a geek and a softy for cool numbers, so I’ve known of Pi Day since not long after Larry Shaw made news about it with his escapades at the Exploratorium in the 1980s.
Although, I’m more aware of it than “usual” because I’ve been working on the Mathematics page on Cosma — it just naturally came up 🙂
If you don’t know what Pi Day is, then there are lots of ways to find out about it.
In fact, when you Google Pi Day, you’ll get around a whopping 1,290,000,000 results. Ironically, if you Google Pi Day Facts you’ll get a slightly more overwhelming 1,300,000,000 results (Hummmm, that’s “interesting”).
A simple way to cut through all that would be to search out the Wikipedia page about it.
However, I prefer going to the source, so I’m partial to the Exploratorium’s Pi Page.
One thing they fail to mention is the whole “Pi Day Food” thing. If you Google Pi Day Deals 2023, you will see that sources ranging from CNET to Good Housekeeping will give you advice on where to get deals on Pies and Pizza.
Now I personally prefer to learn about things using YouTube videos.
Alas, searching YouTube for Pi Day is only a bit less overwhelming than searching the Web. There are thousands of videos, and many of them are, non-coincidentally, 3.14 minutes long.
I spent awhile rummaging through them and think this minute long video is one of the best.
Onward, one of the reasons that Pi Day is so near and dear to my heart is that it is also one of a triad of holidays that serve as a prelude to the official start of Spring on March 20th (the other two were St. Pat’s and the Holi Festival of Colors).
… but, I had also fallen deeper down the rabbit hole that is Jigsaw Puzzledom.
I couldn’t help noticing that my search for Around the World Jigsaw Puzzle also brought up a video about a different puzzle from Ravensburger entitled Disney Moments. Here’s a mini-documentary about their 40,320 piece monster.
You may have noticed that the video covered just about everything that most normal people would ever want to know about how puzzles are made. However, if you want to know more, then here’s a recent article from the New York Times that I stumbled upon.
Then I got curioius and did some fact checing. Guess what?
The Guinness World Records website says that the jigsaw puzzle with the “mostest” actually had a whopping 551,232 pieces, and it was completed by 1,600 students of the University of Economics in Vietnam.
Nice trivia.
In addition, the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of jigsaw puzzles is held by Luiza Figueiredo in São Paulo, Brazil. This 360° video shows a quick glimpse of her epic collection of 1,047 puzzles.
If you would like to learn more about the history of jigsaw puzzles, then you might also be able to get your hands on the book The jigsaw puzzle: piecing together a history by Anne Williams (the historian featured in the CBS Sunday Morning clip above).
Finally, if you’re still reading this post, let alone doing any of that stuff, then you’ve fallen deep into Jigsaw Puzzledom, too.
If that’s the case, then you should know that you’re in good company. Here’s an article that explains that you belong to a club that includes the likes of Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Bill Gates and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones!
Alas, no matter how great the company, I had to finally drag myself out of Jigsaw Puzzle Land to share this with you, and then get back to work on what I should be doing (i.e. a much needed overhaul of this Cosma web site).
I will leave off here, but if you continue exploring Jigsaw Puzzledom on your own, then there’s a few things you should know.
First, be careful about calling yourself by a term like “Puzzler.” It’s colloquial. The correct, technical term to use is Dissectologist.
On the other hand, if this post has just gotten you in the mood to work a jigsaw puzzle, right here and now, then you will probably enjoy the online puzzles at Jigsaw Explorer!
I decided to go rummage around YouTube for some bunnies.
My quest began with searching for a random cute bunny that I could just watch for a awhile. Instead, I found a 360° video about the Japanese island Okunoshima.
Jackpot!
This video from NowThis explains why Okunoshima’s nickname is “Rabbit Island.”
Note, as is usually the case with 360° YouTube videos, it makes sense if you watch it in the regular way, but it’s more fun if you interact with it and look around.
Of course, there are plenty of other videos like that on YouTube. For example, you might enjoy a 17 minute long 360˚ video of a relaxing walk in a Norwegian forest.
Here’s the thing, though. As neat as 360˚ videos and experiences can be, they are no substitute for the real thing when it comes to physical activity. If you don’t happen to have ingredients for “forest bath” nearby (i. e. an actual bunch of trees), then just go for a regular walk, in the real world, as often as you can.
So get out there and get moving to stay healthy and less stressed, whether or not you happen to be lucky enough to have a forest 🙂
The house is known as the Kalil House, and as is generally the case with Wright houses, there’s an interesting aspect to the architecture. In this case the house is one of seven “Usonian Automatic Houses” that Wright designed. They were intended to be moderately priced and used concrete blocks that could be assembled in a variety of ways.
That sounded like a sort of “LEGO” house, so I wanted to know more!
Interesting concept, but not my personal favorite example of Wright architecture.
However, while I was trying to find out more about how the house looked, something else caught my attention. The website for the sale of the house had a 3D tour.
Neat! Of course, I had to check that out!
That tour was created using a platform called Matterport. The core of their business is that they do a 3D scan of a space and host the 3D model on their platform so users can navigate by simply matching a blue circle attached to their cursor to white circles on the 360° image and clicking.
Matterport is clearly used for selling high-end real estate, but it’s also been used for other types of spaces, and their website has a gallery of interesting tours. The Arts & Culture and Historic sections feature hundreds of great sites. No surprise, I took some (de)tours.
I also accidentally tripped over something else.
There’s another Wright house up for sale, or in this case auction, in October. It’s in Phoenix, and it’s known as the Circular Sun House or the Norman Lykes House.
Once I found that, I decided a try a simple Google Search to find out if there were any other 3D tours of Wright houses
.
Sure enough, there were, which also meant more (de)tours for me!
There was even a tour of Taliesin West, which was Wright’s desert laboratory that was mentioned in the video about the Norman Lykes House.
Then my journey took yet another unexpected turn due to this article.
For all the praise Frank Lloyd Wright garnered in his 70-year career, the architect was equally a magnet for controversy in all its forms. With three wives and eight children (seven biological, one adopted), the architect spent much of his adult life racking up sensational, though not untrue, headlines like “SUIT ENDS WRIGHT ROMANCE; Sculptress Who Fled With Architect to Japan Obtains Alimony” (New York Times) or “ISSUE WARRANT FOR WRIGHT; Architect’s Wife Seeks to Re-enter Their Wisconsin Home” (also New York Times), each referring the personal tumult that seemed to follow the architect through much of his adult life.
Wow, so Mr. Wright wasn’t boring!
I did a tad more research about Wright’s life and found a trailer for a documentary about him entitled Frank Lloyd Wright: Murder, Myth & Modernism. It starts out covering his architecture, but it doesn’t end there!
I found out more about the “Murder” in the title of the movie in a YouTube video from the Smithsonian Channel entitled A Horrific Tragedy at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home, but it was so gruesome that I could not bring myself to include anything but a link to it here. I will caution you that you should take the word “horrific” seriously as you decide whether or not to click the link and watch the video!
Finally, on a brighter note, according to an article on Atlas Obscura, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy says that there tend to be between 15 to 20 properties for sale at any one time. These days, a fairly high percentage of those are bound to have 360° tours to explore, so that means that Wright fans can enjoy some new Wright architecture (de)tours with just a bit of clicking.
It’s a weird and wacky world out there, and Guinness World Records (GWR) loves to remind us of that fact from time to time.
Just last week they released their 66th Edition of extreme factoids and an accompanying media blitz to rain outrageous strangeness down upon the media landscape.
It all started with a silly little one minute video. Here’s a link to it.
They also have a YouTube Channel where they post separate videos about the Stars.
Finally, they distribute their press release, and voilà, there’s a media frenzy.
The next thing you know, news organizations starved for something to cover besides politics, the weather, the state of the roads and whatnot, latch on to it and print articles like this one.
There is a finer point to be made here, though. Guinness World Records is a business, so they tend to delve into a “records for hire” approach sometimes.
That is why I was able to find a 360° video with this description.
Watch the All-New F-PACE defy gravity in a Guinness World Record-breaking 360° loop. As we celebrate our 80th anniversary, our new performance SUV was driven with daring precision by Legendary Stunt Driver Terry Grant, showcasing its lightweight design, agility, sports car speed and performance.
Yes, indeed, for better or worse, profit motive or not, they do a great job of catering to all sorts of interests — they even had a cool 360° video for me to post about here!
Lest you think you’re safe from their hijinks, I highly recommend that you check out their Showcase organized by interests. Better yet, you may wish you’d stuck to cat videos, because the website has a category for animal lovers!
Oh nooo… there you gooo…
Happy Weekend!
Find out more about competitions and the rest of the World in general …
I concluded my last post about Sand Art with highlighting how Booking.com offered the chance to stay in a sandcastle as a promotion for Coney Island’s Sand Sculpting Competition. Here’s a link with more on that unusual “opportunity.”
That may have sounded like a one-off type of oddity, but in truth, it wasn’t.
Booking.com is known for cooking up some “unique” promotions. For example, here’s a silly clip on what they did for that illustrious holiday, National Avocado Day.
No matter what your passion happens to be, there’s bound to be a place to stay for it.
The reason that I’m so aware of this is because awhile ago, with amusement, I realized that there’s some sort of lodging related to almost every subject on Cosma. Sometimes those experiences end up as adventures like Sand Art. That’s why I have a huge stash of links to “thematic” lodging that range from mildly amusing to pretty wild.
For example, there’s some kind of place to visit for what ever kind of transportation.
There’s also a place called Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort in Saariselka, Finland where you can have all sorts of winter fun and then chill in glass igloos and watch the northern lights.
If something isn’t covered in this post or those sites, then you can probably find something with a search for “Your+Interest+Hotel 🙂
That’s how I found a place for my inner librarian called the Library Hotel. It’s on Madison Avenue in New York City, and the rooms are organized by Dewey Decimal! Here’s a link to a video about it.
So, next time you are booking lodging, I hope you will consider looking for something a bit less “traditional” that will fit your interests and maybe even become an adventure in its own right!
It’s hard to believe that such a place could become more intriguing, but I just stumbled across another 360° video in which archaeologist Guillermo de Anda explains how there’s more belowEl Castillo than meets the eye — a lot more!
That video hardly scratches the surface of what Guillermo de Anda and Gran Acuífero Maya are discovering about underwater caves and their importance to the Maya.
Not only was Chichén Itzá built over a cave, but that cave is connected to Sistema Sac Actun which is now considered to be the largest underwater cave system in the world. In addition, sinkholes called cenotes serve as a network of entrances to the cave system!
The most mind boggling thing of all is that divers are finding both Maya relics and much, much older human artifacts in the the underwater caves. Here’s a link to a video about the discovery.
I was searching YouTube when a video about “fair chimneys” came up in my results.
It sounded so whimsical, I couldn’t resist checking it out.
It turns out that fairy chimneys are geological formations, also known as hoodoos, that form within sedimentary and volcanic rock in dry, hot areas around the world.
While that may not be that interesting, the video about them is quite enticing. It’s footage of an area of Turkey called Cappadocia where fairy chimneys have been carved out to be homes, churches and even whole villages for millennia.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this “fairy chimney” inspired adventure.
If you’ve become as enchanted as I have with Cappadocia’s fairy chimneys, cave hotels and hot air balloons, maybe even added visiting them to your bucket list, then here are some links to where you can learn more.
It’s still early, and there’s a place called Knockdrin Castle that might still be for sale. I’m pretty sure we can’t afford it, but it will be a hoot to take a quick 360° tour. We do have those lovely lottery tickets for sale in the US, so you never know 🙂
Okay, the festivities will be starting, so it’s time to get back to Dublin and take in the parade. Thanks to SEDA College, we have a three minute preview taken last year.
There you have it. I hope you enjoyed this brief virtual vacation, and the good news is that you still have plenty of time to head out and celebrate St. Paddy’s Day in your own way.
If you do decide to make a real Visit to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day, then there are a few things that you should know, though.
Lest you believe that caring about such things is for boring old, incredibly geeky grown-ups, here’s a link to a segment from The Ellen Show where a 3-year old shows she knows her stuff.
If you haven’t heard of it yet, then it might strike you as a bit strange, but it’s become a real craze over the last year or two. Here’s a link to a short video about how it all started.
Okay, I confess I was still skeptical. Then I found this video of a cute baby goat, and I started to believe that there could be something to it after all 🙂
If you want to try it yourself, you might be able to get in on an “official” Goat Yoga class if you live in CA, FL, IL, KY, MI, MN or OG.
If there’s no “official” version available near you, then just enter “goat yoga” and “your location” into your search engine of choice, and something nearby will almost certainly pop up. It really is that popular!
They set up a fake “luxury” store dubbed “Palessi” and filled it with their $20-$40 footwear. Then they invited so called “influencers” to a clever party, and the invitees actually ended up paying up to $600 for the Palessi shoes.
Here’s a link to an ABC News YouTube video and news story about the “prank.”
Of course, it’s shoe haute couture that was being lampooned in the ad. Yes, some people really do pay many hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for shoes.
Lest you think it’s just those of the feminine persuasion who fall prey to expensive shoe fetishes, here’s an article that covers the masculine side of the isle as well.
You may remember learning about the Maya in school, and you may have heard of Chichén Itzá (UNESCO) because it is often included on recent lists of “World Wonders” (as well as being a convenient day drive from Cancún). Here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of what it’s like to see Chichén Itzá.
There are also other less heavily promoted places where you can see Maya ruins, and one of the most impressive and famous is in Tikal, Guatemala (UNESCO). Here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of what it’s like to visit those ruins.
It is actually these ruins that are receiving more attention right now, and that is because an organization called Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya (Pacunam) backed a project to use a “laser” technology called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to discover and map what is being called a “megalopolis” built by the Maya from 250 to 950 CE. Here are links to a video and two news stories about it.
Here is a link to a slightly longer, in-depth story that also mentions a nifty Augmented Reality (AR) application that makes it possible to “navigate” LiDAR data.
One of the more entertaining stories to hit the net recently was a tale of some hearty Kiwis who successfully got away from a local alcohol ban by building their own island in nearby international waters.
Fun stuff, but these guys were certainly not the first to cook up a politically motivated scheme to get away from it all at sea. The concept has a long, albeit somewhat dubious, history. Pirates and the whole Water World fiasco aside, way back in 1960s there was a relatively well publicized, but ill-fated experiment dubbed Operation Atlantis.
More recently, there’s the Seasteaders. They periodically provide updates about how their vision of a floating utopia is just around the corner.
Further afield, here’s a TED talk that presents a take on reasons to take to the seas. It does include a few obligatory libertarian cultural allusions to things like Burning Man, but it also covers environmentally responsible reasons for the movement like safety, sustainability as well as much needed new additions for cities and slums.
If you watch the talk all the way through, you will see that it also covers a few more exotic topics like private floating islands (i.e. really, really huge yachts). If you’ve never come across that concept before, there are hundreds of videos about floating private islands on Youtube.
Now, if you truly love the idea of getting away from it all for libertarian leaning reasons, you could always join the Asgaurdians. Asgardia is Igor Ashurbeyli’s plan for taking the idea of sovereign nation to space. The Asgardians did launch a satellite, but no one is suggesting that if you want to move in with them, you won’t have a long, long wait.
Finally, if you are in a position where headlines like this are not terribly relevant, you may be wishing for a good old fashioned, non-politically motivated island escape. If so, then here’s a nice 360° video from Down Under for you.
Leonardo da Vinci sure gets press for a gentleman who hasn’t been around for five centuries! That’s not to say that it’s not well deserved. Here’s a brief video that gives just a glimpse of why he was such an amazing guy.
Of course, one perennial reason for Leonardo’s popularity is the never ending fascination with how he achieved Mona Lisa’s smile. This video is about just one study about it.
Here’s a link to a video that further explains the fantastic techniques that Leonardo used to create the illusions that make the painting so enigmatic.
Unfortunately, it’s hard for an average person to actually experience the effect for themselves. In case you’ve never been to the Louvre and tried to see the original, here’s a 360° Video that will give you a sense of what you will probably encounter (skip to 2 minutes into video).
It is probably no coincidence that Isaacson’s book was timed to coincide with the auction of Leonardo’s last painting in private hands — the Salvator Mundi was auctioned at Christie’s.
The painting ended up going to Saudi Arabian Prince Badr bin Abdullah, and the Wikipedia page about it keeps tabs on its whereabouts and exhibition status.
Good news — Leonardo as Leonardo may be coming to a screen near you! Leonardo DiCaprio, who is named after da Vinci, is going to be starring in a movie about his namesake, and it will be based upon Isaacson’s book.
Given what Leonardo da Vinci himself documented about his own exotic exploits, well, that should be “interesting” — it would be hard to be boring. Okay, it has the potential to be pretty gruesome, but fascinating nonetheless.
If you want to know about Leonardo da Vinci, but can’t wait for the movie, here’s a link to an older documentary.
