April 26, 2006
happy fun vacuum time
CSS Love Song
Hands to Boag A love song about web standards with lyrics like, "Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards"...
I'm betting Spock; maybe McCoy.
Trekkergate escalates! Canadian blogger J. Kelly Nestruck puts out the call for pics of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, closet trekkie. (I wonder if Harper has has an autographed photo of William Shatner?)
You want something because someone else does
Mimetic rivalry on a planetary scale. Rene Girard is the author of several books developing the idea that human culture is based on sacrifice as the way out of mimetic, or imitative, violence between rivals. When one rival is successful in obtaining the love object, violence is precipitated, which falls on the head of certain scapegoats, of whom Jesus Christ is the archetype. The violence can be traced in literature.
Short? Commercial? Sellout?
Wes Anderson does a 2-minute commercial for American Express. (YouTube link). As you might expect from Wes Anderson, the results are "quirky" to say the least. Another bigshot director, M. Night Shayamalan, has made one as well. This certainly isn't the first time big companies have hired A-list directors. I wonder who's next?
Da Vinci Code Inspires Judge
“Smithy code” The secret lies in HBHG and DVC. According to news reports the Judge who recently ruled in the Da Vinci Code plagiarism case has included his own code in his high court ruling (PDF). At this time, no one seems to have decoded it all...
BBC Programme Catalogue
The BBC Programme Catalogue: an index of 946,614 radio and television broadcasts, dating back 75 years. (Via BB.)
Force in the House - super cool lightsaber duel
OK - Lucas has pretty much ruined Star Wars for me. Still, lightsabers are freaking kewl with a capital K, and true to its title, this one is quite probably The Best Home Made Lightsaber Duel Ever.
Man, I wish I was a Jedi!
High Yield Investment Programs
In the murky world of HYIP (high-yield investment programs), on the wrong side of the Internet tracks, Team Aaron and Shara were very well known. They had tens of thousands of fans, eager to know which programs were still paying 1-2% per day (or more!). Now their fans will have to resort to other sites to see who is still paying. Curiously, these programs only seem to take anonymous, non-disputable forms of e-payment, such as e-gold. Now, all that is left of them is their farewell website. Did they retire on all of the referral fees, as some suspect? It is impressive that such effort is dedicated to this snake oil, but the law of large numbers must make it work. Who can resist 1.5% an hour return on investment? Is this what has become of anonymous micropayments?
Darfur: 400,000 dead, 2.5 million driven from their homes
Is the Bush administration really serious about NATO and UN protection to stop the Darfur genocide?
"Is it only
weak and incompetent, or is it two-faced?"
What can U.S. citizens do to help end this genocide? For starters, take to the streets: you can register for an April 30th demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge & at the Presidio, or in Washington, DC. You can also ask your Rep. to sponsor House Resolution 723, a measure that urges the President to help deploy a NATO bridging force to the Darfur region.
What can U.S. citizens do to help end this genocide? For starters, take to the streets: you can register for an April 30th demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge & at the Presidio, or in Washington, DC. You can also ask your Rep. to sponsor House Resolution 723, a measure that urges the President to help deploy a NATO bridging force to the Darfur region.
Ladies, you should know better!
Get Rich Quick?
Stock Spam Effectiveness Monitor Spam comes in, graphs come out. You are not buying stock based on spam, but surely someone must be, or else you wouldn't be flooded with more spam everyday. This tracks one user's inbox and the stocks spammed therein. A bit more analysis here and here
HOWTO: Host an orgy
Do it for someone you love.
Flatulence free legumes or, a more to the point headline. Although I thought ABC news might be a bit more scientific in their phrasing. Nope.
Check Out My Breasts
Hey Metafilter, check out my breasts! (NSFW)
50th birthday of the shipping container
Happy 50th birthday (bugmenot) to "the box that changed the world". (Video interview with the author, here.) On April 26, 1956, Malcolm McLean, a trucker from rural North Carolina, hired a crane to hoist 58 trailer-sized steel cargo boxes onto a refitted oil tanker. This modest experiment would profoundly alter international trade and the global economy, eventually creating the "biggest real-time datastreaming network in the world."
In the olden days, before 1984, not very many people used computers....
Apple Computer 1984 Newsweek Advertising Insert :: a complete scan of Apple's 16-page advertising insert in Newsweek magazine, introducing the new and revolutionary Macintosh computer.
Wednesday Flash Design Fun
Leo Burnett Ad Agency - A pretty cool site, and, says this rank amateur, the best implementation of Flash I've ever seen (and I hate Flash).
A Valedictory Forbidding Antacids
Vittles and verse - two great tastes that taste great together. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the poetry of cookery.
As an appetizer, Chris Tusa serves up a tasty bowl of gumbo; next comes the entree, Mark Strand's comforting pot roast.
Meanwhile, Shanna Compton imagines herself as the food itself -- eager ingredients in the skilled hands of Jacques Pepin.
If you'd prefer to dine out, Charles Simic presents the menu of Cafe Paradiso, while Don Winter, a former night manager at a Niles, Michigan Burger Chef, proffers a more downmarket culinary experience. Bon appetit!
(Poemhunter.com previously on MeFi here. )
It's still the 60's here!
From colorful Eugene, Oregon, comes the new independent film HIPPIES about a group of folks who have not given up their values or their vices, and set about saving the earth. Trailer here. (Note release date.)
Of course, the Oregon Country Fair is still going strong and weird
(minor muddy boobage in last link)
Of course, the Oregon Country Fair is still going strong and weird
(minor muddy boobage in last link)
Better just shoplift it, then
The new DMCA: the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.
iKarma
I can't work out if iKarma
is a well-intentioned stab at applying the power
of social software to the world of business, or simply a
well-intentioned scrape at the bottom of the Web
2.0 barrel.
The Difference Engine
Charles Babbage's Difference Engines. One built in 1853. A subsequent design completed in 1991. And again in Lego. Both designs recreated in Meccano parts. [more inside]
How far do the protections of the First Amendment extend in public school?
The Ninth Circuit (maligned by many as a hotbed of extreme
liberal judicial activism, but defended by others PDF) issued its opinion in the case
of Harper v. Poway Unified School District last week. Judge Stephen Reinhardt - who, to some people, embodies
the alleged evils of the Ninth Circuit - issued the majority opinion, and Judge Alex Kozinski filed a strong dissent. The majority opinion held that a high school
principal who ordered a student to remove his T-shirt that said "Homosexuality is Shameful" did
not violate the student's First Amendment rights, reasoning that "limitations on speech" are
permissible in cases where speech is "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students'
minority status such as race religion and sexual orientation," and the limitation is "narrow, and
applied with sensitivity and for reasons that are consistent with the fundamental First Amendment
mandate." [more inside]
« Previous day | Next day »