Let’s play Žižuku! Vaguely similar in theory to the
Postmodern Text Generator, but practiced individually, rather than Markov-chain-generated text. The creator, Julian Baggini, describes Žižuku thus: "The rules are simple: pick on any widely received idea and find the most clever-sounding way to invert it, so as to create a paradox, or at least the semblance of one."
[more inside]
posted by exlotuseater
on Nov 17, 2012 -
21 comments
The
sport and hobby of
Falconry, or hunting small game with raptors has been around since ~600 bce. What you might not have known is that there is a small industry to provide your hawk or falcon with a
jaunty chapeau, often necessary to keep the bird calm.
More
here,
here, and
here.
And then there's
the crazy.
All you need... is five-hundred geepee...
posted by exlotuseater
on Jan 11, 2007 -
12 comments
The
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count has breakdowns of the casualties of the Iraq War and Occupation, by
home city of record,
name, branch of service, rank, and cause of death, and other statistics such as
ethnicity, as well as a printable list of all
fatalities to date.
[previously mentioned here,here,here, and here.]
posted by exlotuseater
on Aug 10, 2005 -
10 comments
It used to be that there were four basic tastes- Sour, Sweet, Salty, and Bitter. Now there are five.
Umami is the fifth. More commonly thought of as
"Savory", the taste is connected to
receptors that sense Glutamic acid. In fact, the first taste receptor ever
discovered was one that interacts with glutamate.
While
Monosodium Glutamate has gotten a bad
reputation, most sources agree that it's relatively
harmless, and in fact, does add the "more-ish" type of flavor that is ascribed to umami foods. Foods like
mushrooms are high in glutamate, and therefore taste more "umami". Pass the Parmesan cheese, please.
posted by exlotuseater
on Jan 7, 2005 -
42 comments
"I'm having a little get together with some of my friends...." I found this bizarre and disturbing little flash-movie a few months ago. The first link is actually the
second installment in what is now five episodes. There's more (including the first through the fifth) on
his site.
The music is phenomenal- bits of spookiness from
sigur ros and
aphex twin.
When you're all done, there's an interview with the author regarding Salad Fingers
here. People are still trying to figure out exactly who the character is and where he's from. If you look and listen carefully, there are literary references, anagrammed names, etc.
If you liked Salad, you might also like
"Hell"(non-flash)
posted by exlotuseater
on Nov 27, 2004 -
21 comments
