More here.

Thanks Tessa!

When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.

Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated”.

So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.

See the rest of the article, from the BBC (via Martin).

I’m a little late to this party, but the similarities here are pretty uncanny. I had also forgotten what a great job Burgess Meredith did as the Penguin.

Guilloches

An article about making those beautiful geometric patterns often used on banknotes and certificates. They were formerly used mainly for security, but have become more of an aesthetic thing now.

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Parking Day

An event which aims to reclaim parking spots by creating small parks or social spaces in them for a single day.

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Ta-Ka-Ta-Ka-Boom

For those of you who don’t live here, or who aren’t aware, Canada’s nationalized broadcaster, the CBC, is holding a contest to find new theme music for our major hockey broadcast, Hockey Night in Canada. The entries are all online for people to listen to, comment, and rate them.

This is an entry to the contest. Listen to the pre-amble for a bit (it’s important for comedic effect) and then jump to 2:20 for the actual song. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Looks like it was submitted after the August 31st deadline though, so HNIC may not be able to use it.

We’ve all heard about the issue of waste caused by disposable soda bottles and cans. Under Soviet rule, they had this efficient, if slightly stomach-turning solution: the communal cup soda fountain. There’s only one glass cup, and everyone uses it. When you’re done, you place it on the right side, upside-down, and it’s cleaned by jets of water, ready for the next thirsty person that comes along.

I should be clear that, to the best of my knowledge, the countries formerly under the U.S.S.R. don’t use this system anymore. The only reason I came across it was because one was in a statue park, where the communist-era monuments depicting Stalin, Lenin et al were gathered, along with other Soviet miscellany after their empire collapsed. The soda machine has been kept running, I assume, as a reminder of those times.

My girlfriend snapped a photo of it when she was in Lithuania a couple of years ago. Her brother (pictured) was the only one brave enough to drink from it, though in effect I suppose it’s no worse than drinking from a cup in a restaurant.

I took this photo of a confusing sign on a small boat trip I took the other day. What on earth does this infographic mean? It looks like a group of people being attacked by puppets. Icons can be very useful, but only if they’re easily understood. An emergency seems like it would be a time when you’d want to be particularly clear.

World Changing on Worldwide Energy Policies

A report on renewable energy. Not for everyone, but has some information on Germany’s renewable energy program, one of the most extensive in the world:

Germany generates 14% of its energy needs–a total of 31,000 MW–from renewable energy. This share has increased 1 percent each year for the past decade.

In Germany the typical consumer pays $1.97 USD/month (1.25 Euros/month) to invest in the renewable energy infrastructure.

Just goes to show how renewable energy doesn’t have to be as expensive as some people think.

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Martha Cooper’s Vintage Hip Hop, Graffiti, and B-Boy Photos

The Current has a piece on the great photography work done by Martha in the 70’s and 80’s, before Hip Hop had gone mainstream.

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OE Cake Physics Engine Toy

It’s a simple drawing/physics program that lets you build whatever you want from the ingredients they give you (springs, elastics, water, gas, fire, etc. Shown at left is a kettle boiling water and turning a small windmill.

If you’re anything like me you will be able to spend hours at this.

I’m at the cottage today, but thought I’d post these photos of some funny stencils we saw in the Contemporary Art Museum of Vilnius, Lithuania.

I have absolutely no background for this, but apparently there’s a monkey on top of Tel Aviv’s city hall. Pretty great photo by my friend Jax.

Update:

Ah, ok, it’s actually a duck. I jumped the gun a little bit by posting it without doing further research. Artist Dudu Geva thought Tel Aviv was so ugly he created some funny animals to liven things up a little.

“My initiative stems from the fact that the city is lost,” Geva wrote in 2003 in the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha’Ir. “Tel Aviv is so ugly that you need to erase entire streets and start from scratch. At least let us decorate and celebrate in the streets. The city hall is a lost building. If a giant duck were placed on its roof, everything would change.”

Kate Beaton draws funny comics, mostly about history. They’re generally pretty entertaining. If you’re like me you’ll want to access the Livejournal page, from which you can subscribe to her RSS feed.