Link Round-Up: More Things on Heaven and Earth

My links folder is so backed up, it actually takes two or three seconds to
add another item to it. So, bear with me while I clear it out. Let’s start with
some images and goofy stuff:

• An
  awesome series of photos from the City of Heroes website. They
  held costume contests, encouraging players to dress up like their online characters.
  The players are sometimes lumpier their avatars, but go to
  great lengths to duplicate their virtual selves. Incidentally, Marvel
  Comics is stupidly suing
  City of Heroes for permitting characters to build knock-off versions of
  Marvel characters.
• You may have seen this before, but Dunstan Orchard has this remarkably cool
  feature on his weblog.
  There are 90 versions of his top banner (an illustration of a view from his
  parents’ house), which changes
  in real-time based on the time of day and weather.
• Via Wonderland,
  here’s art
  built out of Max Payne 2.
• John Udell tries out some
  speech recognition software. I’m still underwhelmed.
• Slightly fun make-your-own
  punk rock site. Bad language and on-stage burping ahead.
• Via Clive,
  a demonstration
  of the accuracy of the virtual environments in the Grand Theft: Foo
  games.
• This Fark
  Photoshop contest made me laugh and reminded me of the Hall.
• Everyone else has apparently had
  more sex than me. Loud Flash-flashness ahead.
• An amusing video, in which the
  photocopier strikes back.
• An amazing
  pixel art poster.

And then we can get a little political:

• A very attractive, if somewhat paranoid, anti-Bush
  movie.
• Some remarkable photos from the
  attack on Falluja.
• Is that the flag of Chad
  or Romania?
• While searching for something, I happened upon this
  expense report from the Correctional Service of Canada. There must be
  thousands of these online.
• These people are
  trying to imagine the future of BC. Why is their average age at least
  50?

And then some gadgets:

• A US
  $20,000 suitcase.
• The #1 name in flatulence
  odor control products. I’m not kidding.
• Via the Howdy
  Kid, Konfabulator is now available
  for Windows. I’ve always thought it looked pretty nifty, but was never
  sure about its usefulness.
• Tod has fallen in love with his
  CableCuffs. I told him he should definitely submit those to Kevin Kelly’s
  excellent Cool Tools
  newsletter and site.
• Now this would be useful–a
  solar panel for your iPod. My own experiences with charging batteries
  with solar power have been disappointing, but this purpose-built device should
  do a better job.
• Via Gizmodo,
  a t-shirt
  with a zipped pocket. You know, for the carrying of gadgets.

And finally, movie stuff:

• C’mon, Colin
  Farrell as Bond? He’s a decent-enough actor, but he’s such a thug. If
  you check out the
  characters he’s played, ‘dapper’ or ‘suave’ don’t immediately spring to
  mind.
• I could get into this
  whole movieoke craze.
• Locations from Ghostbusters
  in a Spiderman 2 game? I’ve got no idea. Carry on.
• The boys from Tagline are
  a bit skeptical about the new Bridget Jones movie.