April 8, 2009
Is Silicon Valley a systemic risk?
Is Silicon Valley a systemic risk? Treasury decides to treat venture capitalists like hedge funds The Obama administration wants to regulate venture capital firms to prevent systemic risks. Silicon Valley residents are scratching their heads and asking: What risks? The rest of us should ask why Washington is targeting a jewel of the American economy that had nothing to do with the housing bubble.
No, it's not about sex.
Beautiful mutants I can hear in the distance - I think they're calling our name.
Famed band Devo (mostly famous in the outside world for Top 20 hit Whip It) has a new album, due fall 2009. [more inside]
MugTube?
Cowabunga!
Don't call me an actor.
Hear (and see) Billy Bob Thornton go off on radio. Mr Thornton and the Boxcutters were the featured guest for the first half-hour of CBC Radio's "Q with Jian Ghomeshi". The host made the unpardonable sin of referring to Mr Thornton's other vocations. Cringe-worthy radio ensues. Shades of Joaquin Phoenix? [more inside]
Not so "magical" anymore, is it?
Disney made one movie, and they've been tracing it ever since.
Before there was Photoshop
The New York Evening Graphic was published by Bernarr Macfadden, body builder, health crusader, and prolific author (Strong Eyes [1901], How Success is Won [1904], and Brain Energy [1906] to name a few of his hundred titles).
[more inside]
These Guys Kissed Several Girls Just to Try It
Take Cover, Gay Marriage Apocalypse A-Brewin
Oh noes, those gay newlyweds are causing Biblical rainstorms!! An ominous new TV ad by the National Organization for Marriage -- who helped pass Prop. 8 in California -- features a "rainbow coalition" of folks to warn America that marriage equality advocates want to "take away" your "freedom" by pushing the issue "far beyond same-sex couples." Unfortunately for NOM, the profound seriousness of this threat has been undermined by a leak of audition reels for the ad.
"I change the video... I change the music... I can do a lot of things."
Metafilter is certainly no stranger to music mashups, or even live music mashups, but a few artists are taking things a step further with live music and video mashups. Not prerecorded mashups of live music and video, but live performances of DJs (often calling themselves "VJs") mashing up music and video together on the fly. [more inside]
Solar Prayers
Once every month, Jews bless the moon. Once every 28 years, they bless the sun! This custom dates back to the Talmud, but is also found in other sacred Jewish texts, such as The New York Times.
Sometimes, there are misunderstandings. [pdf] Previously reserved to a pious handful of observant Jews, it's on the mainstream media radar this time around, possibly because of its environmental implications.
Here's an interesting depiction of the ritual in modern American history, which explicitly deals with its connection to solar power.
Foreign Military Financing?
The Average Man's Tax Dollars from thetoiletpaper.com
Hands Across the Dugout
New York Mets pitcher Johan Santana has an individual handshake ritual for every player on his team.
DEA's Greatest Success?
In May 1995, the American government's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made an attempt to disrupt the supply chain of methamphetamine precursors, such as pseudoephedrine, by shutting down two major suppliers of the precursors under authority granted by the Domestic Chemical Diversion Control Act. Was it successful? Only temporarily, according to new research by Carlos Dobkin and Nancy Nicosia. (via)
ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody
From the International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody - This is the report in its entirety. [pdf]
From Mark Danner: US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites and The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means [more inside]
From Mark Danner: US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites and The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means [more inside]
A Temple of Texts
William Gass's personal library. The photos accompany this article by Gass about his love of books -- specifically about collecting them over his life and "living in a library." [more inside]
the missing letters are u, c and k.
At GDC this year, Heather Chaplin to game developers: "You're a bunch of f***ing adolescents." Chaplin, co-author of the book Smartbomb, spoke at the Game Developers Conference during a panel called the Rant Session. [more inside]
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Falling blocks? Check. Pipes? Check. Irritating faux steel drum soundtrack? Check. It's Connecto 2. [warnings: flash, music, risk of addiction]
Close Range
Cops hate knives
Women Are Heroes Phase Next
Graffiti Project in Kenya Slums — more than a year after he took the original pictures, French photo artist JR has returned to Kibera, Kenya. He was reunited with the women who had accepted to be part of his WOMEN project at the end of 2007 (previously). 2000 square meters of Kibera slum rooftops have been covered with photos of their eyes and faces. Most of the women will have their own photos on their own rooftop and the material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. They are on view from the railway line that passes above them, and will be visible for Google Earth. (via Africa.Visual_Media)
God, Memes and Steel
Jared Diamond on the Evolution of Religions. (SLYT)
play-acting
Look around you. On the train platform, at the bus stop, in the car pool lane: these days someone there is probably faking it, maintaining a job routine without having a job to go to.
Electricity Grid in the U.S. Penetrated by Spies
According to an article posted in today's Wall Street Journal, the electricity grid in the U.S. has been compromised by foreign spies, leaving it vulnerable to disruption. Last year, the CIA acknowledged that the system had been compromised and that the goal had been extortion. In response, the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission issued new cybersecurity specs for the power grid, to which companies such as GE have begun responding. But could it be that the new security efforts are motivated by government officials who stand to gain by this attempt at drastically increasing government control over the Internet? [more inside]
That guy on the $10 bill
An interesting article / biography of Alexander Hamilton has appeared in the current issue of City Journal. Authored by neo-con darling Myron Magnet the article avoids some of the harsher criticisms of Hamilton, but does address his weakness for young women.
Accountants have a sense of humor?
Stuff Accountants Like -- As the US tax return deadline approaches, take an inside and humorous look at the professionals who you either love, hate, or whose revenue recognition principles you may blame for the mortgage crisis. Or maybe, perhaps, pity?
Desky
Thought you guys might want to try this Pepsi Blue Bumptop Thingy. Like a real desk? You decide. Previouslah [more inside]
ATM card skimmer removed and examined
In the Netherlands somebody has removed an ATM card skimmer and examined it in detail. This site is in Dutch only, but appears to show high resolution photos of an ATM card skimmer with integrated PIN-capturing video camera.
What do you get when you guzzle down sweets?
What's a soda lover to do when Passover Coke has, well, passed over? Find other cane sugar sodas, of course! [more inside]
Requiem for the steppenwolf
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