March 16, 2009
There is actually a fantasy adventure series on television
Legend of the Seeker is a syndicated TV show based on Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels from some of the people behind the mid-90s Hercules show and Xena: Warrior Princess. It is in a similar vein, yet now with more earnestness. The entire series is available on Hulu for your enjoyment.
Do you ever dream of monsters?
They follow you on the escalator and bother you at the bus stop. They spook your horses and frighten your children. But deep down, they just want to be loved.
Belgian animators Thijs de Cloedt and Wouter Sel from Volstok Telefunken have imagined monsters for all occasions. [Website in Flemish]
The enlightenment was a reasonable time
The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare wrote a book called Candy that got him into trouble with Frederick the Great. Philosophers were unknown yet, and the fundamental stake was one of religious toleration slightly confused with defeatism.
Dear valued customer
Dear valued customer [pdf]:
There is currently a global shortage of acetonitrile that is likely to last into the first half of 2009. So, er, don't wait: Tackle the acetonitrile shortage!
Simple Life via Ringo
Ringo's Dada Japanese TV songs/ ads 197? For those of us who have consumed everything else. On the Internet this is the last subway stop. (and will cheer u up)
#2
#1
(there are more)
#1
(there are more)
Reinhold Niebuhr
Scott Nearing (1883-1983)
He was fired from his university for challenging the most prominent evangelist in the country. He was put on trial for criticizing American war policy. He became an inspiration for the back-to-the-land movement. At the age of 100, he chose to stop eating.
The Headstone Reads - Victim of the Beast 666
The Search for Lilly E. Gray In the Salt Lake City Cemetery, there is a gravestone for a woman named Lilly E. Gray with an inscription that reads, "VICTIM OF THE BEAST 666." Many people have attempted to research this stone and Lilly, but strangely always hit a brick wall, as there is no information aside from her obituary, which states only that she died in a local hospital from natural causes.
Flickr, Find A Grave and About.com for more spookiness.
Camera Found - International effort pays off
The owner of a camera stolen in Krakow and bought on E-Bay is reunitied with their pictures An amazing story about an international effort to track down the owner of a camera stolen in Krakow, Poland.
The camera was bought on E-Bay and found to have 1100 pictures on it. Through some fantastic work by members of the Australian Photography Forum, the owner of the camera was found by analysing the pictures.
Space Twits
A space shuttle is fired to sky. People from all around the place gets a camera and shoots it. They publish the photos on Twitter. Result: Awesomeness.
It does exactly what it says
Journalism 2.0?
Newspapers might be dying, but does it matter? Here's what journalism 2.0 looks like: Spot.us is crowd-funded news for the masses, ReportingOn is Twitter for journalists, Everyblock is ultra-hyperlocal and Connectifyed tells us it'll analyze our social networks.
Voices from the Black Sites
Interrogation techniques used by the CIA on al-Qaeda suspects "constituted torture", according to a report by the International Red Cross.
Contracting SyFyllis
Sci Fi has a new name. Now it's SyFy. The Sci Fi Channel is distancing itself from its geek demographic by rebranding its network. The former SyFy Portal website (a nerd news outlet) has been rebranded "Airlock Alpha" after selling the name to an "undisclosed recipient".
A Portrait of the Artist as Young %@&*!
Art Spiegelman, author of award-winning graphic novel series Maus and the man behind upcoming McSweeney's release Be a Nose!, "was once banned from Robert Crumb’s house, loves chicken fat and hates the term 'graphic novel'". [more inside]
Ann Arbor Smackdown
There's a showdown in Ann Arbor, MI between geeks and suits. It starts when local public tax-funded parking garages start posting the number of available spaces on their site. A few geeks decide to make it more useful while driving so they code up some asterisk hacks to scrape the page and bridge the web content to a phone and presto! you can call to hear which garages have the most spaces available for parking. Not so fast says the city and they shut down access to the site from the app and stop publishing real-time stats (mostly grumbling about a loss of "control"). Geeks are in an uproar (mostly trying to teach the suits what "public domain data" means). This long ass blog post tells the entire tale from both sides of the fight.
Hummingbirds are pretty, but they're also grumpy and they like to fight.
The Case Against Breast-Feeding
Hanna Rosin has written a piece for the Atlantic claiming that the actual health benefits of breast-feeding are surprisingly thin, far thinner than most popular literature indicates. This is pretty controversial following "decades of indoctrination delivered with evangelical fervor," causing American women "to take it as an article of faith that if they don’t breast-feed their children, they'll grow up to be underachievers plagued with health problems and lacking a bond with their mother". [more inside]
A battle of perceived qualities
Sennheiser, a family-run company with an interesting history of searching for audiophile quality, has created what it boasts as "the new standard for audiophile headphones."
But will it matter in the long run, when the next generation of listeners enjoys the "sizzle sound" associated with lower bitrate MP3s? (via) [more inside]
"Beauty is as beauty does"
Tara Wheeler, Miss Virginia 2008, will shave her head if she can raise $500,000 for pediatric cancer research by April 11th.
Need a lift?
Kelly G lifts people and asks them questions. Annoying, obnoxious, but everyone has to have a hobby. [more inside]
Crying Freeman
Chas Freeman says goodbye. While not a direct appointee of President Obama or in a position to make policy, Chas Freeman found himself the middle of a firestorm over being selected as chairman of the NIC. [more inside]
The Obama Proxy
Having grown tired of all the ludicrous conspiracy theories about Barack Obama not being eligible to hold the office of the President, one lone writer gives us his own deranged take with "The Obama Proxy". The descendants of the Melchocki Indians will not be amused.
The Future of Eating Out
The Inamo restaurant in London's fashionable SoHo district isn't known for its splendid food or accommodating waitresses. Instead, this new Asian fusion eatery is getting raves for its use of a touch pad-projection system that allows diners to send food orders directly to the chefs and makes the dining experience fully interactive. It's all one graphic application, with new iconography for signs and menus, graphic wallpaper and tablecloths, shopfront etched patterns and illuminated screens. [more inside]
Pictures don't lie
Photomontage timeline, 1850-2007. Spirit photography, trick photography, comic montages, Photoshop, etc. [more inside]
For the good of the Union!
Asymmetrical Information and Hooker-nomics.
A nation and its moral progress can be judged by the manner in which its animals are treated
Bay Area resident Michelle Hamilton has been adopting and caring for dozens of abandoned and neglected animals in the past decade, racking up tens of thousands of dollars in debt. To call this a "predicament" for Hamilton is a little misleading. She sees only one option when faced with the choice of paying for the care or treatment for an animal in need: she pays, regardless of cost.
Dungeon Days
Hey, role-players! Want a break from rules-light, cinematic systems? Nostalgic for the days when dungeons were sprawling and tough and the centerpiece of your gaming night? Well, Monte Cook is there for you with Dungeon-a-Day. Using a unique subscription business-model, he's building a mega-dungeon just for you. New content is released every day, complete with encounters, maps, photos, podcasts, and diagrams. Basically, it's an attempt to use contemporary networked tools to deliver a very old-school experience. (And no, I don't work for Monte - I just think this is awesome!)
Happy Birthday, Jimmy Madison!
James Madison is more responsible than any other single American for one of the nation's greatest characteristics -- religious freedom.
Economic policy in a squeeze bottle
The Wrekin Ruby
When Wrekin Construction went into administration last week, it blamed the Royal Bank of Scotland for demanding repayment of an overdraft. However, the 2007 accounts show that among the assets of the company is a ruby it called the "Gem of Tanzania". Wrekin had bought the stone off one of its shareholders for £11m worth of shares - more than four times the record for a single ruby at auction. [more inside]
Leftist Elected in El Salvador
In light of the Salvadoran right’s fear-mongering campaign in advance of the Central American nation’s Sunday presidential election, which has sought to portray leftist candidate Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front (FMLN) as a kind of dangerous foreign agent of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, perhaps it’s instructive to consider the political history of the past four years.
Brave New Welfare
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