Daniel Von Fange

Futuristic City Spire

With more floor space than any building on earth, the city-in-a-building Crystal Island looks like the future, as viewed from 1950, is coming true. The energy friendly design is fascinating.

Police K-9 Chase

Florida police helicopter’s eye view of a K-9 Chase.

via Philip Greenspun

BzFlag

I keep getting addicted to free games. Once I realize I've hit the point of madness, I drag the game into the trash bin and empty the trash. Then a week later I pick up another game, and it starts all over again.

Usually, I'm pretty competent at the things I do. (I do things I enjoy, and with enjoyment comes practice, and with practice comes skill.) And I'm fairly good at games. So when I downloaded BzFlag, an online first person tank game, I was just subconsciously expecting to do well. I started out on the bottom of the score list. No surprise there.

But after weeks of playing, I was still at the bottom of the score list. I stank. I would get killed three or four times before even getting a shot off. I'd press the home key, to look at stats and my accuracy would be the lowest in the server.

This much skillessness was unheard of. I couldn't stand seeing "Brains", my game nickname on the bottom of the list all the time. I did something I have never done since I first played online - I changed my nickname. "Wallace" was what I came up with, and as "Wallace", I continued to dominate last place.

Until three days ago. With no warning, I found myself in second place. Then several times I've been on top of the score list.

Then randomly, I'm back to doing poorly. Oh well, the change was nice for a while.

Pirates

I stumbled on a list of list of pirate attacks during the month of October. While I sit on the couch and answer email, somewhere in the world a ship's crew might be fighting of pirates with flareguns or fire hoses.

GMail Invites

On the miniscule chance that one of my friends wants a GMail invite but does not already have one, I'm announcing that I have six to give away.

Extreme Ironing

Extreme Ironing, the pursuit of taking photos of yourself ironing while doing crazy things.

R U Hiring

Two thousand, three hundred graduates fill the area floor, while thousands of parents and friends fill the stands. Hand painted in white on one graduates black mortarboard - visible to the audience looking as he walked the stage - "R U HIRING"