Browsing people’s Flickr accounts I came across pictures from CANstruction.

Canstruction® combines the competitive spirit of a design/build competition with a unique way to help feed hungry people. Competing teams, lead by architects and engineers, showcase their talents by designing giant sculptures made entirely out of canned foods. At the close of the exhibitions all of the food used in the structures is donated to local food banks for distribution to pantries, shelters, soup kitchens, elderly and day care centers.

The official Web site has pictures of this year’s winners, but I think it’s much more fun just to browse the Flickr photos tagged with “canstruction”. Check out the list of participating cities to see whether you can still catch the show somewhere.

Following up on the last post regarding dissertation completion, I thought I would acknowledge the role of paper that came up as a theme in the panel this morning. There were two of us recent PhDs on the panel and it turns out both of us turned to playing with paper as a way to take breaks from our dissertation writing. I picked up papier mache the Spring of 2003. Given the results, it is not surprising that I gave it up after the dissertation was complete. The other recent graduate on the panel said he was doing lots of origami at the time. Go figure.

All of this relates to keeping healthy during the process. It is important to take breaks. In fact, I do not believe it is possible to do good work without taking breaks. So what is your preferred break activity? I am especially interested in responses other than “blogging”.;)

Support Bloggers’ Rights!

In addition to fighting for bloggers’ rights they work on lots of other very important projects.

Wow, there is some serious pumpkin-carving talent out there.

Do you like to play sudoku? Do you prefer images over numbers? You may for this game. Picture sudoku lets you choose images from photo-sharing site Flickr with which to fill your sudoku puzzle. You can specify the tag and/or the user whose images you want to integrate into the game.

Examples:
Chicagoland sudoku (with just my photos)
turtle sudoku (with everyone’s photos)
long-shadow sudoku (with everyone’s photos)
chocolate sudoku (with everyone’s photos)

As you can see, the possibilities are endless.

The game also gives you a “blank” with which to erase placement of photos. If you are intrigued by a picture and want to see it in full size on Flickr then just click on the asterisk next to its name in the left-hand column.

Have fun!

[thanks]

Halloween prep,
originally uploaded by eszter.

Before you carve your pumpkin, do a practice run here to see what the outcome will look like.
[thanks]

My Southpark character,
originally uploaded by eszter.

A few weeks ago I had Meetro running and communicated with a few folks. One of them created this Southpark character based on the photo of me on my Meetro profile. If you know me you know that this isn’t exactly what I look like. That said, it’s a pretty good rendering of the picture.

FYI, Meetro is an instant messaging application that adds a geographical component to interactions by letting you know who from the network is in your physical proximity.

This short film by zefrank seemed to make it to some corners of the blogosphere in March, but I don’t think it got the type of exposure it deserves. Go behind-the-scenes to learn about the making of the yellow-orange-red alert system (Tinky Winky reference and all!:). Warning, only visit the rest of the site if you have plenty of time to spare!