October 3, 2005
willywillies
Martian dust devils (gif movies) NASA’s Mars rover Spirit has caught a bevy of dust devils racing across the surface of Mars.
Gay Germ Theory
Glen Baxter's surrealist cartoons
His entire oeuvre soon began to attract the attention of the leading New York art critics: The weird world of Glen Baxter
One big American family
The family trees of American politicians - There are those with very long blue blood pedigrees, and there are those with very short and unknown pedigrees. There are also some surprises, like a certain Democratic senator and possible '08 Veep pick being somewhat closely related to the current Veep, or that certain ex-mayors have family trees that were apparently a bit inbred back in the old country. Other fun tidbits: Newt Gingrich's father was illegitimate, John Kerry is related to the rabbi who created the Golem of Prague, Pat Buchanan is related to both FDR and Marilyn Manson, Wesley Clark's father was a Kohan, Martin Luther King was born Michael Louis King, and Gary Hart was born Gary Hartpence, which was in turn derived from an ancestor named James Eberhart Pence. (more non-politicians here)
April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005
Frederick August Kittel, known as August Wilson , passed away yesterday.
The playwright wrote tremendously strong plays wining the Pulitzer Prize in both 1986 for The Piano Lesson, and in 1985 for Fences.
2005 saw the production of the finial play (Radio Golf) in his cycle of 10 plays examining African-American experience in the 20th Century in the United States.
Broadway will honor him by dimming the lights tomorrow (Oct 4th). As well, on Oct 17th, the Virginia Theatre on Broadway will be renamed for Wilson.
A 1990 audio program from MPR about Wilson. (RealAudio, 54 mins).
Thank you Mr. Wilson
Reborn Russian car.
Video from the Lotus team. People from Lotus car design team have found a bloke who owns 6 years old Russian “Lada” and decided to give it a complete makeover.
Jeannot's Floorboards
Plancher de Jeannot: Jeannot moved his bed to the dining room, next to the stairs, and began carving the oak floor: 'Religion has invented machines for commanding the brain of people and animals and with an invention for seeing our vision through the retina uses us to do ill...
Isn't that your missing Bronco, Sarge?
Are cars stolen in the US used in Iraq suicide attacks? The FBI's counterterrorism unit has launched an investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering some vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq were probably stolen in the United States.
I can't get the 8th one
Monday Flash Fun - A simple, but fun shell game. How quick are your eyes?
Putting your stomach where your mouth is
A young, average intern looking for a research project and an older, oft-ridiculed pathologist from an Australian hospital were scoffed at for a decade for daring to challenge the conventional wisdom that stomach ulcers were caused by stress and diet. It took the intern's self-promotion skills, and a extraordinarily bold move of ingesting a large quantity of the Helicobacter bacteria they believed were the dominant cause of ulcers, giving himself severe gastritis and subsequently curing it with only fairly standard antibiotics, before the medical world started taking notice. Despite the ongoing resistance of an 8 billion dollar industry in over the counter heartburn medication, the two have been finally rewarded with a Nobel Prize for uncovering the easily diagnosed bacterial cause and fairly simple cure of over 90% of peptic ulcers.
From slime square to times square
Revisiting Spore (audio interview with Will Wright) - also video of Will Wright talking at GDC on content creation issues (Scroll down,
and registration required for the video).
Rockhead
Roy Moore – the “Ten Commandments Judge” – has announced his intentions to run for Governor of Alabama. Moore has followed closely in George Wallace’s shoes both as a judge (each began court with prayer) and with attention getting antics. As The Atlantic noted recently, “In style if not in substance, Moore's religious populism is a lineal descendant of the race-baiting that propelled Wallace to the statehouse a generation ago.” Here’s hoping level heads prevail in Alabama in ’06.
Rejoice In Delay's Misery
Ol' Festerpants
700 hobo names as read by John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise (accompanied by Jonathan Coulton on the git box).
They're out to Get You!
Welcome to EUROBAD '74
Welcome to EUROBAD '74, an exhibition of Europe's
worst interiors of 1974.
Polio remains a dogged foe to WHO efforts to eradicate
"It was a terrible time." (bugmenot) "50 years ago, Rhode Island suffered through its last -- and worst -- polio epidemic." [more inside]
Everything (is) illuminated.
Enluminures is a French archive of images from illuminated manuscripts. It has digital galleries covering war, eating in the Middle Ages, and the hunt, as well as several other subjects. (Note the tiny page indicators at the top of the galleries.) Most of the images are available through the search page, however, which includes not only subject, title, creator and type of decoration indexes, but also the ability to look only at one library's contributions. Other threads about illuminated manuscripts here.
[Unfortunately, this French site uses Javascript to link to images and I couldn't figure out a way to present examples here.]
[Unfortunately, this French site uses Javascript to link to images and I couldn't figure out a way to present examples here.]
Andy Rooney on the war in Iraq
I'm not really clear how much a billion dollars is but the United States — our United States — is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into.
Andy Rooney speaks out against the war in Iraq. Transcript and embedded Quicktime video. (via BoingBoing)
Andy Rooney speaks out against the war in Iraq. Transcript and embedded Quicktime video. (via BoingBoing)
Symbols
✙ ☪ ◊? The addition of a third protective symbol (fourth, if you count this happy lion) will allow the Magen David Adom of Israel to join the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies after over 50 years. It might look odd, but a lot of other symbols we take for granted have interesting recent origins. ☮ was designed in 1958. ☣ was created by Dow in 1966. ☢ first appeared as a doodle in the 1940s. The symbols of the planets have many origins, but here on earth, the origins of ☺ remain so convoluted that it might take a fictional "symbologist" to sort it all out.
Rees Returns
Flood Patrol The hiatus is over. David Rees chimes in on Brownie and Company.
"the inclusion of Christopher Hitchens has already raised eyebrows in academia"
Another year, another list of top 100 intellectuals of our time from Prospect Magazine and with Foreign Policy. Self-confessedly anglocentric, but with an effort "to include thinkers from outside the west", it raises the perennial 'where are the women' question (now in good company with 'where are the scientists') and sanctions the decline of: the left, France, Europe, psychology, psychiatry and philosophy. The ever present Germaine Greer says "these lists are always so right-wing" and her inclusion is "absurd and completely unjustifiable". You can vote your 5 favourites and suggest other names.
Bush names Harriet Miers to Supreme Court
Bush nominates Harriet Miers Bush has nominated Harriet Miers to replace Justice O'Connor. The first woman elected to the Texas Bar, she was Bush's personal attorney in Texas, and has served as Counsel to the President since Feb, 2005.
Washington Post
Google News search
SCOTUS Blog
Washington Post
Google News search
SCOTUS Blog
The Religious Policeman
Conversation between two mothers in a Saudi supermarket: "Oh hello, haven't seen you for ages, how's little Abdullah?" "Little Abdullah? He's really big now. He went off to Iraq to be a suicide bomber. And little Mohammad?" "Same thing. No longer little either. He also went off to be a suicide bomber in Iraq." "There you go. Don't children blow up quickly these days?" After a spooky year-long hiatus, The Religious Policeman blog is back, now sticking it to the Saudi Arabian authorities from the safety of England.
Why Skype-eBay was the Worst Kept Secret On Wall Street.
Why Skype-eBay was the Worst Kept Secret On Wall Street. The traders on Wall Street knew way before the “tech crowd” that the acquisition was a foregone conclusion by Thursday closing. The leak might have come from a cabbie in New York who overheard the eBay Executives. And you thought they didn’t understand english….
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