August 13, 2010
Magic highway
Advancing the Art of Magic
Theory 11 is your source for the latest and greatest magic tricks, instructional magic videos, and playing cards. [more inside]
How to operate the first digital computer.
Learn how to operate the world's first fully electronic digital computer in this helpful instructional video. No, not ENIAC - the Atanasoff Berry Computer. Here's an operator's manual. More information about the reconstruction.
The Age of Uncertainty
The Age of Uncertainty is my new favorite blog. It's by a gentleman bookseller who works in a warehouse in Sussex processing lorryfuls of used books. He shares the most interesting things he finds, commenting with wit and sensitivity. He also writes entertainingly about his everyday life. Let me point you towards his series of extracts from a diary that came to his warehouse, detailing the life of Derek, an employee of the government who converted to Mormonism. It was a fairly normal life, but the excerpts are fascinating. Here are the entries in order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. He also posts beautiful images he finds, such as Victorian color plates: 1 and 2. Still, it is the remains of ordinary lives washing up on his shores that most enthralls me, such as this tear-inducing post about a family photo album which was sent to his used books warehouse.
Is sexism gone-dola?
After 900 years, Giorgia Boscolo has become the first female to pass Venice's rigorous gondolier examination, something she has been trying for years to accomplish.
The Defund ACORN Act is Constitutional
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the Defund ACORN Act of 2009 is not a Bill of Attainder (pdf). [more inside]
Best of the YouTube
Devour seems to have good taste in videos. Hand-picked videos from YouTube isn't really a new idea, but Devour seems to be executing it really well.
Livin' Small
It's an important topic for many of us: how to live well in a tiny apartment. You can be seriously organized, or use Ikea furniture in unusual ways. You can do it with modular walls, or you can build an awesome loft. It's a topic that many people care about: Apartment therapy has an annual contest devoted to small apartments, there's a Flickr group devoted to it, and of course Metafilter has covered some of this ground before. (Inspired by.)
Ftagn!
Intrigue! Mystery! Doom! Dungeon Escape!
Animated danger! Flashing lights! Exciting sounds! Dungeon Escape! Quick reflexes or DOOM! Happy Flash Friday, from MeFite luvcraft [via mefi projects]
Free's Gold
Record label Fool's Gold, run by DJs A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs, has just put their entire catalogue online for free streaming with links to paid downloads for each track. [more inside]
Omar Khadr
d'ohhhhh... ahh... d'ohhhhh... ahh...
Little Feat co-founder Richie Hayward lost his battle with liver cancer
Richie Hayward, who, along with Bill Payne and Lowell George founded arguably the greatest jam band in history succumbed to complications from liver cancer. In addition to his contributions to Little Feat, Hayward sat in on sessions with a veritable Who's Who of contemporary musicians, from Joan Armatrading to Warren Zevon. Previously on the Blue: Ready, Willin,' and Able. [more inside]
27 comments - This was by far the largest reaction I'd ever received.
Bringing It All Back Home. The relatively long-running (since 2006) webcomic Bellen! will come to a close in early September as its author goes on to other things (pdf). In preparation for the end of the series, the creator is taking "a longer eye-opening look into the origin of Bellen!" which dispenses with the strips regular old timey-yellowing paper style "because there are no more veneers in Bellen! it’s the pure unadulterated truth from here on out." An interesting look at the creative process in the digital age.
So please you, something touching the Timelord Hamlet. Captain Picard.
The Royal Shakespeare Company presents Hamlet, starring David Tennant as Hamlet, Sir Patrick Stewart as Claudius and the Ghost, Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius, Mariah Gale as Ophelia, and Edward Bennet as Laertes. Directed by Gregory Doran. [more inside]
[Insert joke about Ayn Rand dealbreaker here]
Looking for love among the bookstacks? Try Alikewise, a dating site based on book tastes, instead. [more inside]
Meet aliens, create life, watch the polar ice melt
12 Events that Will Change Everything is an interactive article from Scientific American that offers rich information on potential major discoveries or cataclysms that could change the world, as well as their chances of happening. The list is a surprisingly sane look at future discontinuities as these sorts of lists go: it includes human cloning, artificial life, asteroid collisions, ice caps melting, and room temperature superconductors. For less sanity, see fifty or so ways the world could end at Exit Mundi.
Affectionate Men
Bob Bragman has been collecting images of men being affectionate with each other for many years. Here is a small part of that collection posted on sfgate. Some are tender, some are awkward and some are from long ago.
Hindenberg Omen - In Effect
Yesterday the conditions for the Hindenburg Omen, a combination of technical analysis indicators suggesting an increased probability of a market correction were all met (maybe) for the first time since 2008. Fortuitous timing for the soon to be released movie of the same name, if no one else. (Previously).
Tonight, I keel u.
Traveler to the undiscovere'd country
Science as Fan-Fic
Back in January, Dr. Megan Argo and an international team working at Jodrell Bank detected a powerful jet of energy from supernova 2007gr. Her way of announcing it? Doctor Who fan fiction describing the event from a TARDIS eye view. [via]
What a save!
When greedy sports team ban press photographers, cartoonist saves the day. Southampton Football Club decided to ban press photographers from their home matches, and sell their own photos to the press. Plymouth Herald hires a cartoonist instead. [more inside]
"All that is visible must grow beyond itself, and extend into the realm of the invisible."
Cyglo Tires Will Help You Live Out Your Light Cycle Fantasy. Just in time for the release of Tron: Legacy, a British firm is gearing up to release a bicycle tire embedded with LED bulbs. While these lighted rubber tubes won’t lay down trails for your opponents to crash into, they may very well keep you safe. Cyglo tires are intended to create a highly visible ring of light to maximize cyclists’ visibility on busy roads. No pricing has been set yet, but we understand that the flying disc to destroy MCP will be sold separately. Watch Cyglo in motion.
Mind the gap
Hopes and Prospects
Noam Chomsky A brief interview with Chomsky. Starts with some I/P stuff, then talks about Bush and Obama and then his new book.
"The ones you are concerned with are the victims, not the powerful, so the slogan ought to be to engage with the powerless and help them and help yourself to find the truth. It’s not an easy slogan to formulate in five words, but I think it’s the right one."
Matt Simmons passes away
Matt Simmons, investment banker to the oil industry, has passed away unexpectedly. (Previously, previously) Simmons was a vocal proponent that peak oil is at hand and authored an influential analysis of Saudi oil reserves that lends credence to his view. An energy policy advisor to Dick Cheney, and regular on financial media, Simmons believed emergency action to counter peak oil is required, beginning with independent audits of global reserves.[PDF] [more inside]
Going (London) Underground
The London Underground. Every Londoner has used it, but has everyone really seen it? The old map is looking a bit dusty. Perhaps its time for Geographic precision or maybe 3D projection. If we add bicycles to the map, is it still an underground? [more inside]
prettymaps from Stamen Design
The stuff that dreams are made of ...
"... some guests turn off all the room lights, turn on the train set lights and play with the diorama until dawn." Room 1304 of the Akihabara Washington Hotel in Tokyo (Japanese link) used to be a twin, but the second bed was removed to make room for a train set featuring 30 meters of track and a model Tokyo Tower. The room is available for 'only' 23,000 yen (weeknight rate), but be warned, you are expected to bring your own trains to run on the track (rental trains apparently also available). See some video of the room in this TV news report, read about it in this (English) news story, or follow along with the room's own Twitter feed (also in Japanese).
Make Art! Change the World! Starve!
All you ever wanted to know about print processes
"Graphic Atlas is a new online resource that brings sophisticated print identification and characteristic identification tools to archivists, curators, historians, collectors, conservators, educators, and the general public."
The Devil's Dictionary X!
"Repairing the English Language since 1998." Based on Ambrose Bierce's Original Devil's Dictionary [more inside]
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