February 20, 2010
Chatty Jerk Aims To Please
An eloquently spoken and helpful jerk has been appearing on Chatroulette. His interactions with strangers must be seen.
Asaekkiga
Asaekkiga a comic by Yang Young Soon
Cruise Elroy
Chasing Ghosts is a terrific documentary that follows the fates of the winners of the 1982 arcade world championships and the short lived era when coin operated Video Arcades boomed and then busted coming to a crashing end shortly after 1984. It focuses primarily on the first player to play a perfect game of Pac Man, meaning going 256 levels, on one man and eating four ghosts on every powerpellet (in the first 19 screens after that the ghosts don't turn) and ending up on the kill screen and finding all the hidden dots there. (Warning lots of Youtube.)
Phil Collins Remembers the Alamo
“A cobra among garter snakes”
He was... "...the meanest, toughest, most ambitious S.O.B. I ever knew but he'll be a hell of a secretary of state." -- Richard NixonAlexander Meigs Haig, Jr.,, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, who served US Presidents Nixon (as a military adviser, deputy assistant for national-security affairs, and chief of staff), Ford (chief of staff), and Reagan (secretary of state), has died at the age of 85. Haig commanded a batallion during the Vietnam War (where he was seriously wounded), managed the White House during the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon, and was himself a former Presidential candidate. [more inside]
Luna Commons
Luna Commons is a database of sixteen free digital image collections built using Luna Imaging's Insight software. And there's a lot of cool stuff, well over a hundred thousand images all available for download in good resolution. Here are some of the collections featured: Pratt Institute Fashion Plate Collection, The Farber Gravestones Collection, Maps of Africa, Cornell Political Americana Collection and the The Estate Collection of art by HIV+ artists. The advanced search allows you to search across all collection, for example seeing everything across all collections about animals or New York or your birthyear. Whatever you look for, it's gonna bring up a boatload of interesting images.
Apocalypse Wow
Tanks for the memories...
His bank was threatening forclosure on his $350,000 home, so one Iowa man takes the next logical step: he bulldozes it to a pile of rubble. [embedded local news video]
The Art of Choosing a Title
The Land of Underwater Birds - a novelist looks at the art of choosing a title for your novel.
Raw Material for Puns
When Alan Cooper was in the second grade, his teacher introduced him to "homonyms," those words, like "caret" and "carrot" that are pronounced the same, but are spelled differently, and that have different meanings. The concept intrigued him, and over the years he has maintained an ever-growing list. Alan Cooper's Homonyms. [more inside]
Eighty-six the Excelsior
Feel like having some Uncanny X-Pasta (PDF) or an Incredible Hulk Burger for dinner tonight? Sadly, you'll have to time-travel back to 1998 to visit Marvel Mania, the short-lived Marvel Comics theme restaurant (PDFs) that briefly graced Universal Studios.
Pat Graham Photography
Have One On Joanna
"My brother had an MC Hammer album that was riddled with silent patches because my mom had erased the dirty bits from the cassette. I really don’t know how she did it — that might be a lost art — but she had it mastered." Harpist Joanna Newsom talks to The Times Online about her lackadaisical approach to paying the cable bill, last year's experience with vocal cord nodes and her new triple LP Have One On Me.
A Demon's Portion
this is only a coincidence
You have reached 1-800-I Feel OK.(mp3)
To leave your own OK Soda Related Coincidence, Press 1.
To listen to Coincidences, press 2.
To respond to the OK Soda Personality Inventory, Press 3.
To hear other fascinating options press [more inside]. [more inside]
Amerithrax case closed
The investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks (dubbed "Amerithrax" by the FBI) is now closed. Yesterday, the Department of Justice released a 92-page summary [pdf] of their investigation. Their conclusion -- that USAMRIID scientist Bruce Ivins was the culprit -- was backed by an impressive amount of evidence, including microbiological detective work (p. 23 ff). But some of the investigation was downright bizarre.... [more inside]
The master of Spin Boldak: Undercover with Afghanistan's drug-trafficking border police
Drinks are on the house!
Sick of the Tea Party? Then try The Cocktail Party! (no, not that Cocktail Party). With a platform that includes nationalizing the banks, abolishing marriage, establishing national healthcare, and opening national borders, the Cocktail Party is for "left wing urban homosexuals and the people who love us." Is America ready for this self-proclaimed "motley crew of miscegenated sex crazed lushes who read Marx and Fanon, seeking to support our lifestyles by taking resources from the rich and powerful and redistributing them with abandon"? Or perhaps a more important question: will they make a difference?
Seize on, Emily.
Speculations have been made about Van Gogh, Julius Caesar, Dostoyevsky, Napoleon, and many others. A case has been made to add Emily Dickinson to their ranks.
Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, other authors give their own lists of personal dos and don'ts (Part 1, Part 2).
Mapping in Crises
“We are not moving concrete or water but we are delivering situational awareness.”
Mobilizing immediately after earthquake, professional (fb) and volunteer emergency mappers (aided by instantly released satellite imagery and the structure of the OpenStreetMap project); came together in impromptu “Crisis Camps” rushed to meet the need for information on missing persons, roads, emergencies calls, existing infrastructure, damage, and now internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps. [more inside]
Kit Williams' Masquerade: The Full Story
In 1979, British artist Kit Williams buried a golden hare in the UK countryside and published a book of painted clues detailing, for those clever enough to solve the riddle, the hare's whereabouts. Mefi's own Paul Slade shares the entire intriguing saga on his website, PlanetSlade. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
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