Animoto is a web site that makes videos. You can upload some pictures, select some music, and Animoto will put together a video for you. It’s all very automatic.
The obvious comparison is with Windows Movie Maker. Animoto has fancier transitions, but Windows Movie Maker has more capabilities. Animoto makes decisions for you, Windows Movie Maker puts you in control of the details. Different strokes.
The World Superhero Registry features real life superheroes. My first reaction was that these people are disturbed and pathetic. But then… the police wear costumes. Boy Scouts wear costumes. There’s a local “neighborhood watch citizen’s patrol” and they have costumes. Matching T shirts are kinda minimalist costumes, but they are costumes. So the superheroes… disturbed and pathetic maybe, but in degree, not in kind.
I saw an image with curved zebra stripes and I wondered what would happen if I colorized it and put it into a kaleidoscope. This is the result.
See also:
Tokyo correspondent jde sends this item: Hello Kitty beer.
Live at the Witch Trials has a tactile Rubik’s cube. I’m tempted to build a tactile Sudoku and try to solve it with my eyes closed. Sounds really, really difficult.
A JavaScript kaleidoscope program.
So I’m reading in Scientific American about the differences in color vision between African primates and South American primates. The authors present a plausible explanation involving common ancestry, followed by genetic isolation 40 or so million years ago when South America and Africa drifted apart, followed by different random mutations on each side of the Atlantic.
All of which got me thinking about the Argument from Design. I understand why people find deliberate design more plausible than a series of random accidents. But suppose you frame the question in a different way:
Which is more plausible, a series of random accidents, or a deliberate plan to make things look like a series of random accidents?
Because that’s really the Creationist alternative: on a Thursday afternoon 6,000 years ago, God created primates in South America and Africa and made their DNA just similar-but-different enough to look like they had a common ancestor 40 million years ago and had different random mutations since.
So: randomness for No Reason, or the appearance of randomness for a Hidden Reason? Either way, you end up at Just Because. I prefer the simpler version.
