By MARIE BORAN
Between two ferns
The Funnyordie.comwebsite is a repository for all things hilarious on the web, but it's not just about random short sketches. It also has some quality web series, the highlight being Between Two Ferns. This is hosted by Zack Galifianakis, who you'll know as the fat guy from The Hangover movies. He is the master of beautifully-crafted awkward moments and bizarre non-sequiturs. Watch the one starring Will Ferrell. The slapstick at the end kills.
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Science 140
Explaining science in 140 characters or less, this is online crowd sourcing at its best. Using the #science140 hashtag, science-minded individuals can add their snappy definitions to Twitter where Science 140 is collating them with the end goal of printing a book. Science 140 was created by science communicators
Humphrey Jones, Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, Paul Dywer and Maria Daly. It covers topics ranging from quantum physics to cheesy science jokes.
Electric Imp
The smart home seems like a futuristic concept involving lots of expensive new appliances that are networked to talk to each other. What about the ability to make your devices connected by adding a $25 device the size and shape of the familiar SD card? Electric Imp is a tiny device that uses a smartphone app for adding network info to it and you can programme it from your web browser. Expect to see Imp-ified products hit shelves later this year and hobbyists can begin using in with developer boards.
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Many Eyes
This is a free data visualisation tool from IBM and a great way to begin playing around with data to create interesting charts for work or in the classroom. For a quick start, go to the Fingal Open Data website ( data.fingal.ie/ViewDataSets/) and download an Excel file; I chose "2011 bathing water quality". Open it up, copy the numbers and headings. Paste this into the Many Eyes text box, give it a label and you're ready to create scatter plots, pie charts, network diagrams and more.
