May 1, 2008
My boyhood, for instance, which no longer exists, exists in time past, which no longer exists.
Who can remember the color of a stranger’s belt, and the precise angle of the back corner of an old movie theater’s lobby, but not the number of his own apartment, or any of the movies he saw? What kind of memory is that?The Memory Addiction of Augusten Burroughs
Ruthless with Scissors
Augusten's Blog [more inside]
Kinetic sculpture in glass
Bandhu Scott Dunham makes kinetic sculptures out of glass, including the steam engines that power some of them. He discusses how they are made in this podcast. For videos of these sculptures in action, you can view the collection in his gallery or watch some home videos.
Second Life Twitter Typewriter
Giant Twittering Typewriter in Second Life. Type here (SLURL) and press the carriage return and it posts to here. Yay. [more inside]
What's the difference between Democratic and Republican congressmen? $55,000.
Want to live it up at the U.S. party conventions and get access to Senators and Congressmen? USA Today has posted the campaign committee price lists:
Democratic Senate and Congress
Republican Senate and Congress
If you've got the dough, you may conveniently request a convention package online from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the NRSC have other price lists on their sites, but it seems like the DSCC and DCCC sites keep theirs under wraps.
Democratic Senate and Congress
Republican Senate and Congress
If you've got the dough, you may conveniently request a convention package online from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the NRSC have other price lists on their sites, but it seems like the DSCC and DCCC sites keep theirs under wraps.
"Gravity pretty much is irrelevant"
Name that note
Perfect Pitch is a neat little game that lets you test your pitch recognition abilities. Previously.
Not available in any store, at any price!
Starting in 1979, late night TV viewers had their ears assaulted by hard-sell ads for musicians they had never heard of (or didn't know sang), such as Roger Whittaker (bio), Jim Nabors, Boxcar Willie (bio), Zamfir (master of the pan flute - bio), and yodeller Slim Whitman (bio), whose voice literally causes heads to explode. The ads made astonishing claims -- "sold more albums in Britain than the Beatles and Elvis combined!" And a lot of viewers -- some perhaps stoned -- called now. (Roger Whitaker -- 4 million albums. Slim Whitman - 4 million albums. Boxcar Willie - 3 million. Zamfir - 1.1 million). Others just watched, dumbfounded. [more inside]
People, places, things
Honoring Daumier
Honoré Daumier is one of the great French artists of the 19th Century, beloved of no less an aesthetic judge than Baudelaire. Most famous as a lithographer and caricaturist, over 5000 of his lithographs and engravings can be seen, in high resolution, at The Daumier Register. One of the best places to start are the many online exhibits of his work.
Amnesty International's waterboarding advertisement
Amnesty International recently staged a real waterboarding session to reinforce its campaign to get this type of torture stopped.
Amnesty claims its commercial is the "video the CIA doesn’t want you to see”.Starting this month the commercial will show in Britain in movie theaters during the previews. Possibly NSFW.
Must I Bank?
The Financial Services industry has seen it before; massive job cuts after the dot com collapse of 2001 forced many out of the business, some permanently. [more inside]
Kids These Days
A seven year old borrows his grandmother's car, hits a couple of mailboxes, two parked cars and two moving cars. And he's not sorry just one bit. (SLYT) [more inside]
Single-Note Solos
During the Spring of 1996, Neil Young and Crazy Horse were recording a new album at his ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. To prepare for the forthcoming tour, they embarked on what has become known as ‘The Northern California Bar Tour of 1996’. If you want to learn how to sound like Neil Young, you need to study these three photos taken at one of the shows. They provide a glimpse of what Neil calls ‘the whizzer' (PDF interview about his equipment). It's a device that physically turns his amp's knobs via switches on his pedalboard. Of course, you also need to be playing an exact replica of Old Black through vintage amps that are ready to explode. If this all sounds too complicated, you can shell out money for the Crazy Horse pedal by Durham Electronics, which was designed to be 'Neil Young in a box’. Yeah, because that's totally possible.
Leaving Behind the Ragdoll
The Euphoria Engine allows for more realistic motion of game characters, and will be featured in a new Star Wars game due out this summer, and a football game, to be released sometime later this year.
Boeing 777 PTQ
Boeing 777 assembled in 4:13 (SLYT)
May Day strike protests Iraq war
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports today, to protest the war in Iraq. [more inside]
Ducks in Alberta died a crude death
Ducks die a crude death. Alberta's oilsands (previously) (map) have a new emblem -- hundreds of ducks coated and killed in oily toxic sludge. About 500 birds landed and died in an oil sands pond. The pond full of toxic sludge sits along a major flight path for migrating waterfowl. [more inside]
It's Easy Being Green
Lesbians vs. Lesbians
Winding the May Pole
The Countertraffickers
William Finnegan reports on rescuing the victims of the global sex trade. You can also listen to Finnegan talking about the research for the article. (New Yorker)
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class
Keyboard calligraphy
Keyboard calligraphy "To produce such a typeface, Müteferrika knew he had to analyze Arabic script. Calligraphers might learn to make the correctly shaped letter combinations by practice, without conscious application of tens of thousands of rules, but for machine reproduction of the script, deciphering those rules was exactly what was essential."
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