Online Observations » Interesting Websites

Now, THIS, is photography

The Observer — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:41:33 +0000

Anyone can click a photo, and then there are some who actually have an idea about what color is and what light is; and how to change shutter speed or aperture to get the right shot. But then there are those select few, who go beyond the basics of how to use a camera and make the subject so interesting that one can’t help but say WOW. I keep seeing such photos every now and then, and in order to appreciate art, you need to talk about it so that others can appreciate it to.

I present to you some of the work of Romain Laurent. You want to see these photos, and then you want to make sure that you visit his website to see the rest (or if you want to see these ones in a bigger size).

There are a bunch of these tilt photos. I just wonder how he did these. But I wonder the same about all his photos. Here are some more to see before you run off to his website.

Well, enjoy his immense talent.

Nothing funnier that kiddy-speak

The Observer — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:12:17 +0000

One of the most interesting sites on the Internet is one that was put up by Scott Hanselman (as a way to record the words of wisdom of his kids). He opened it up so that others could make submissions as well. The site is called overheard@home. Here are some classic examples from the website:

3 yr old, watching the second hand…

"It’s 7 o’clock….now it’s 8 o’clock…now it’s NINE o’clock!!!"

And this one:

Watching the Pixar movie "WALL-E"

7 year old – "ha ha, WALL-E thinks the booby trap is a pair of sunglasses!"

Me – "Erm, that’s not called a booby trap, its called a bra."

What about this one:

3.5 year old girl to her mother: “Mama, who hatched me?”

Mother: “I GAVE BIRTH to you, honey.”

Daughter: “And Max too?”

Mother: “And Max.”

Daughter: "So you had TWO children!?"

Mother: "Yes."

Daughter: "And what did daddy do?"

There are so many gems on that website that you can go on and on. And it is updated regularly as well. I have it in my bookmarks.

Here’s a neat little site to combat Writer’s block

The Observer — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:56:00 +0000

Are you an person whose paycheck depends on what you write? If yes, then you very well also know what a Writer’s block is – yes the dreaded state, when try as you may, you just cannot jot down any words which make sense. The harder you try, the harder it becomes. While there are many remedies that people suggest to break the writer’s block, here’s a fun page I came across, which might just be what you need.

It works with a dial pad (kind of like a help line) which has various options which present to you various imageries, sentences, thoughts, etc. that you can use to generate ideas. As you can see in the picture, there are many things that you can dial to. You need help killing a character? Well, dial 8. If you need to create a dramatic entrance for your hero, then dial 3.

Of course, this is just a bit of fun. The serious help comes by dialing 0, which takes you to a repository of articles and suggestions from a lot of people, and you can just read away till you break the block that you are facing. Of course, if none of this helps you, then you simply need a vacation. Pack your bags and fly away.

Now if only there was something similar for blogger’s block (which I do believe is different that writer’s block). Any one know anything like this? If yes, then leave a comment. I keep getting this case of Blogger’s block these days.

Now you can play Sherlock Holmes

The Observer — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:46:53 +0000

I have always deeply enjoyed reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Actually, I have always enjoyed reading mysteries, period. That whodunit question always keeps me hooked. I always like to stop in the middle of the novel and try to assemble the clues received so far to see whether I can think like the author. Well, it turns out that there are many people who are like me. They love solving mysteries. I would like to introduce The 5 minute mystery.

This website is awesome. Basically, every day, you get a quick mystery story that you can read in under 5 minutes. Now, its up to you to solve it. You can use the clues given in the mystery to either incriminate or exonerate the suspects in the story. Then you submit the results, and wait for the next day when the solution is released. Depending on whether you got the right answer and depending on whether you used all the clues or not, you get points.

If you are really good, then these points help you get ranked on the Leaderboard, where you can show off your power of logical reasoning. Personally, I think its worth joining the site just to read the stories and the solutions alone (even if you don’t want to solve them). It would be fun reading who stole the rent at the detective’s office, or the dilemma of the gift at the white house.

And this is not just a here now, gone tomorrow website. Its even getting covered in news: ABC News.

Sometimes you just don’t care

The Observer — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:20:34 +0000

Okay, I have stolen the title of this post, and I have stolen the image for this post as well. But it was too good to not share with everyone. Here’s a perfect depiction of what the title says: “Sometimes you just don’t care”. It is by a brilliant artist named Ainara, and her blog is full of such illustrations.

Travel the world for free

The Observer — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:33:20 +0000

How does this sound for a vacation trip? The Fiji Islands, Australia, India, Africa, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Scotland, and Ireland. From the Taj Mahal to the castles of Ireland; from searching for the monster in the Loch Ness, to laying in wait for the big 5 in Kenya. Are you with me now? Can you imagine the adventure already?

Now imagine doing all this back to back over a period of 3 months. Furthermore imagine that you don’t have to pay anything on such a vacation, you get it all expenses paid. Okay, okay, before you think this is a scam and leave, let me reveal it all.

All of the above is yours to be had because World Traveler Internship is taking two interns to an all expense paid trip to all the destinations mentioned above. This trip is sponsored by STATravel.com, the leading service provider for student travel. Of course, nothing in life comes for free (don’t worry, I am not asking you to pay money here), and so there are some minimum qualifications: you need to have crazy willingness to travel the world and tell stories about it; you should be better than anyone you know in creative writing and speaking; you need to be outgoing and should love adventure sports; you need to have killer photography skills; you basically need to rock.

You think that you have all that? Well, you need to prove it of course. Make a video to show all of the above, and post it on youtube (details available on the Internship site), and if you can show that you are all that, you may be one of the two extremely lucky people to be part of this awesome travel trip. Not that you need more reasons to bring out your handycam already, but I am not done. Here are some more reasons for why you need to get going on this:

Liked it? Need more reasons? Check out what the past Interns say and what they did? Oh by the way, even if you think that you are not all of the above, or you have your doubts, its still worth the try, because there are great runners up prizes (personally, I like the second runner up prize better than the first runner up prize).

Well, don’t wait anymore. Get going.

Do you want to know everyone’s secrets?

The Observer — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 07:54:02 +0000

Here’s one of the best blog ideas ever. Its called Post Secret. Its a blog which lets you write your secrets on a postcard and send to the author who promptly posts them on the blog. The author here is a guy called Frank Warren. He started this site in 2005, and has received more than 200 million visitors since then. Every Sunday, the blog is updated with 20 secrets. To me its interesting because you get a window into humanity. Here are some choice ones from last Sunday:

I’m afraid to get married because my husband will find out that I pick my nose.

My wife wants to move back to Japan so our child will grow up with the culture….. I want to back for the pu**y.

Well head over to the blog to see if this is something that interests you: http://postsecret.blogspot.com.

A different take on Horoscopes

The Observer — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:39:13 +0000

Are you the type which likes to check their daily horoscope in the newspaper? I have a friend who really believes deeply in Astrology, and regularly goes to palmists, tea leaf readers, a host of astrologers, and so on. If you are such a person, this post is for you (of course, I am going to let her know about it as well).

Bloomdrops Zany Zodiacs Blog is a place where you can get your horoscopes in a different flavor. Aside from various posts about interesting topics such as “How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci”, you get a weekly horoscope. Now, each horoscope takes you to a lens on Squidoo. This lens is updated on a regular basis for each Zodiac. So, not only do you get a horoscope, but a whole lot of other resources for your Zodiac all in one place. Definitely worth a visit, even if you simply prefer the newspaper.

Looks like LifeHacker is running out of hacks

The Observer — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:46:30 +0000

I love LifeHacker, and should have blogged about it here (but I would imagine, almost everyone in the world knows about this site). Anyway, as a regular reader, I was deeply disappointed with one of their recent posts. Its about a ‘windows only’ screen saver which you can set to turn off your PC in a given time. Why would I even want such a thing when Windows has this built in. Just go and read the comments on this post to get an idea on how dumb everyone thinks this post is.

Since the team at LifeHacker has generally been good over the years, and I believe they are not dumb – the only conclusion for a post like this that I can derive is that they have totally run out of smart things to right about, and in desperation are posting any random stuff. Hopefully, this is a temporary phase.

Be a champ at Scrabble

The Observer — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:59:00 +0000

If you like to play scrabble and often find yourself stuck because you have a large number of hard to use consonants with you, here’s a page which will help you a lot. This page lists 10 words which are legal in the game, are high scoring, and are very short.

Here’s the URL: Win at Scrabble.

Remember one thing though. You should not stop at reading the article. The readers have added a larger list in the comments, making this a nice little resource for Scrabble goodness. Now, go, memorize, and then kick some butt at Scrabble.

My favorite word in that list is Cwm. Never knew that was a word. In fact, even my spell checker in this software that I am using for writing this is saying that its not a word. But, guess what, it is a word.

Happy Playing!!!