The Matazone blog

It’s that time of year again:

Click to watch the animation.
(4 mins long, better with audio on)

This is my first animation in a year. It only took around 50 hours to make. Jeepers. Enjoy, and Happy Halloween!

While dredging the oceans off the coast of Iceland, scientists found the oldest living animal ever discovered. The ocean quahog clam was found to be 405 years old after scientists counted the rings on its shell, which makes the clam a youngster back when Shakespeare was writing his plays. A bit like trees, clams’ shells create rings with the seasonal changes, recording the environmental conditions.

There is a slight problem. To count the rings, they had to kill it. Go team science. Apparently they named the clam Ming, after the Ming Dynasty, and not because it was intent on destroying the earth with alien weapons. I think it’s more common to name creatures when they’re alive, otherwise abattoirs would be very strange places indeed.

More here.

Speaking of Shakespeare, have you been reading my webcomic? I’ve been writing a mash-up of Romeo & Juliet and Star Trek. It’s probably best to start reading here.

Then why not spruce it up with some artwork?

The Pink Tentacle website explains more:

Each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety.

They’ve been doing this since 1993. Well, why not, eh? It must pass the time.

Funny, and I couldn’t agree more. Halo 3 is good, but not so exciting that the world is going to give up games forever after experiencing the moment of nirvana that many reviewers think the game contains. It’s good fun if you’re playing with someone else, but most things are. For a single-player game it’s decidedly average. Nothing is really new, and the innovations that the series had have been equalled or bettered by other games released since.

Maybe I feel like this for me because I’m not a frag-addicted multiplayer gamehead that would put electrodes on my arms if I thought it would speed up my twitch response, but most of the time I just want to sit down and enjoy a good game by myself. Most of the time I play games to get away from the idiocy of humanity, not so I have to encounter idiots from around the world in my living room.

Back in 1974, a chap and his friends hid for the night in the World Trade Center and set up a tight rope. The next day he put on a show up there for an hour before being arrested. News footage here.

You may have already seen this (link source here), so the reason I’ve linked to it is that I completely adore the punishment handed to him by a judge. It’s heartwarming to know that justice officials could be so lovely, and it makes me wonder whether that could possibly happen today – somehow I doubt it. The judgement given is in the last ten seconds of footage. Lovely.

Ever wondered what it would look like if you combined the movement of 1000 through a racing game into one movie? Wonder no more! The result is really very beautiful, although perhaps a bit longer than needed.

Ever thought that a beer or two a day makes you smarter? Apparently it does! (If you’re a rat, tests haven’t been performed on humans yet.) Sadly, several alcoholic drinks per day does appear to make you less intelligent, but moderate daily alcohol intake makes you smarter than a teetotaller. Huzzah!

Ever wanted to see roads in Japan in the virtual window thingy that you can see all around from while moving along the road? … Err… What? Just click one of the little ‘VM’ icons on the junctions, then click one of the arrows, then move your mouse around over the pop up window and enjoy!