January 29, 2009
200 Centimeters under the Sea
"To pedal the 3700 kilometres of open water from Cape Verde off the west coast of Africa to Barbados in the Caribbean should take around 50 days..." Engineer and machinist Ted Ciamillo has built a human powered mini-submarine, designed around a larger version of his Lunocet carbon-fibre "tail" for divers, for an Atlantic Ocean crossing.... The "SubHuman project".
A sweet little video for an Oren Lavie song
Yes yes! Pick me!
Save the Words. Do lost words still have meaning? Just because society has neglected them doesn't make them any less of a word. How do you get lost words back in the dictionary? With lexicographers scanning publications and other communication for words not currently housed in the dictionary, all you need do is use your adopted words as often as possible. Go, Adopt a Word.
Like graocracy.*
* - government by an old woman or women. [more inside]
to take brass and fire into his mouth
The Music Text Composition Generator
The P22 Music Text Composition Generator allows any text to be converted into a musical composition. This composition is displayed in musical notation and simultaneously generated as a midi file. The P22 Music Composition Font was proposed in 1997 to the John Cage Trust as an accompaniment to the John Cage text font based on the handwriting of the composer. The idea was basic and simple-every letter of the alphabet was assigned to a note on a scale. This would allow for any text to be converted into musical notation.
Your Cheatin' Car....
Do you cheat? Do you have a car? Sorry.
If A Tree Falls in the Forest, The Man is Still Wrong
Most wives are Mad at Dad. "We're mad that having children has turned our lives upside down much more than theirs. We're mad that these guys, who can manage businesses or keep track of thousands of pieces of sports trivia, can be clueless when it comes to what our kids are eating and what supplies they need for school. And more than anything else, we're mad that they get more time to themselves than we do."
Somebody alert Jeff Goldblum
Scientists from the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland have managed to teleport information from one isolated atom to another over a distance of one meter, without it ever crossing space. Here's how they did it. [more inside]
Douchecastle stumbled to my apartment in the wee hours all lathered up and nostalgic.
I bang the worst dudes (Sorry Mom)
Dear Deer
Your morning coffee in a cup this big.
Nuclear Proliferation Has A Home on the Interwebs
One of the kings of nuclear proliferation has his own website. No mention of house arrest though.
One man's extreme...
Extreme pornography illegal in Britain since Monday, 26 January, thanks to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. Aside from changes to custodial sentencing guidelines (and early release guidelines to ease overcrowding), the most controversial aspect of the law relates to the legal definition of extreme pornography.
An image is deemed to be extreme if it "is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character" and "it portrays in an explicit and realistic way, any of the following
(a) an act which threatens a person’s life,
(b) an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals
(c) an act which involves sexual interference with a human corpse
(d) a person performing an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive)
BDSM groups, among others, have campaigned and protested against the law. Aside from concerns about the legality of kink, some have pointed out that some comics and graphic novels would also fall afoul of the new law.
Knighthood For A Deserving Capuchin
While some may think him a sellout, others see folk hero. The good people of St. Paul, Minnesota? They're gonna knight him tonight. [more inside]
The Red Belt Moves On
Jiu-Jitsu legend Helio Gracie has died. From sickly child of a poor Brazilian family to a fighting legend, Helio Gracie (nicknamed Caxinguele or Squirrel by his family), inspired a paradigm shift in Martial Arts. He will be Missed.
No Panic in Detroit
Man found dead [warning, graphic] in the former Detroit Public Schools Book Depository. [more inside]
No Jesus for you!
The Jesus Project, established by The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, is "the first methodologically agnostic examination of the question of Jesus’ historical existence." The Project recently held its first conference, which included presentations from several individuals who argue against the historical existence of Jesus. R. Joseph Hoffmann, Chair of the CSER, writes, "I do not think we are dealing with a man who became god, but a god who was made man."
Phony Guantanamo Recidivism Numbers?
"The Department of Defense claimed in a dramatic press briefing on January 13 that “61 in all former Guantanamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight” of terrorism."
...troubling is the Defense Department’s listing of the released Uighurs, who were completely exonerated by an internal military hearing. They’ve done nothing wrong. However, one of them wrote an op-ed column for the New York Times proclaiming that “I was locked up and mistreated for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during America's war in Afghanistan.” He also said in the same editorial: “The United States [is] a country I deeply admire.”
That’s “suspected of going back into the battlefield”? Only if you are delusional. [more inside]
65 years ago, was to lift the blockade of Leningrad
Every day we go on to the streets, dying at his defenders who thought about us. About us, that they were not destined to see. But we can remember!
And imagine that the horror that the people was to survive.
WWII era Photographs, I assume, of Leningrad combined with current photographs. This era has also recently been portrayed effectively by David Benioff in his novel City of Thieves. Found the pictures via Warren Ellis who thinks the photographer may be Sergei Larenkov.
And imagine that the horror that the people was to survive.
WWII era Photographs, I assume, of Leningrad combined with current photographs. This era has also recently been portrayed effectively by David Benioff in his novel City of Thieves. Found the pictures via Warren Ellis who thinks the photographer may be Sergei Larenkov.
"Luckiest fan in America"
Deadly Symbiosis
Deadly Symbiosis: Rethinking race and imprisonment in twenty-first-century America.
ZOMBIES AHEAD!
Xstream(ing) videos . . .
Enjoy a wide selection of free extreme sports shorts [flash] in the "Sweetspots" section of the Nike ACG website.
Includes further ridiculousness shot in the same location as this previous post
It is pronounced "uh-GRIK-oh-lah."
Vegetable farming! Boar breeding! All the maniac thrills of 17th century agriculture -- on your tabletop! Since its introduction two years ago, Agricola has grown from being a German hit to a runaway success worldwide -- at least among the niche market of serious board game fans. [more inside]
Best two out of three! Thousand.
RPS-101. All 5,050 gestures and outcomes; the interactive chart. [previously]
Direct descendant of RPS-25 [Flash Game] [previously]; RPS-15, -11, -9, and -7; evolved from RPSSL.
All of these are more complex forms of Rock, Paper, Scissors [previously]
What would the World RPS Society [previously 1 2 3 | documentary] think of this inflation?
(International versions also available via AskMetaFilter: Japanese, Korean)
Direct descendant of RPS-25 [Flash Game] [previously]; RPS-15, -11, -9, and -7; evolved from RPSSL.
All of these are more complex forms of Rock, Paper, Scissors [previously]
What would the World RPS Society [previously 1 2 3 | documentary] think of this inflation?
(International versions also available via AskMetaFilter: Japanese, Korean)
World Building
Interview with Jon Schindehette, senior art director at Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons and Dragons. See more fantasy art at his blog, ArtOrder.
Some articles about Blade Runner
Flying Jetpack
"OK, it's the 21st Century," you say. "Where's my jetpack?" Here you go!
Bomb, Blitz, Fumble, or Pass - Super Bowl Ads Go Long
It's time to get ready for the Super Bowl... Ads! Adland has freely available archives of 37 years of commercials from the big game, over 2,800 ads - from 1969, when Winston, Salem, Camel, Tareyton, Pall Mall, and Silva Thins smoked up the Bowl *cough-cough*, all the way to 2008, when the best-liked ad was Bud's dalmation inspiration (how do we know it was best liked? SCIENCE!). Some highlights of the collection include: [more inside]
Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East.
Work by more than 20 contemporary artists from the Middle East is being showcased at the Saatchi Gallery.
"Their art isn't (like so much western art) about consumerism or celebrity or art itself; it's about suicide bombers, religious police, unending war, and the denigration of women in Islamic societies."
"Their art isn't (like so much western art) about consumerism or celebrity or art itself; it's about suicide bombers, religious police, unending war, and the denigration of women in Islamic societies."
The Motorots are attacking Zantoo!
Invasion of the Big Robots! Say what you will about the decline of Garfield, but he had his brighter moments, like the time he woke up in the wrong cartoon and had to fight the big robots. Garfield and Friends writer Mark Evanier tells the story behind this budget-busting episode. [Previously] [more inside]
So here is our most important piece of advice: remember who your dad really is.
Sasha and Malia, here is some advice to you from two sisters who have stood where you will stand and who have lived where you will live:The Bush girls friend Sasha and Malia [more inside]
May you never lay your head down without a hand to hold.
Nicotiana alata, up close and personal
Your ISP: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant"
Wanna test if your ISP (or company or university) is blocking or throttling BitTorrent traffic? Want some tools to diagnose network problems in your "last mile" connection? Google to the rescue: M-Lab! Predictably, with the recent announcement and publicity, the servers are now getting hammered. So post this? You can help: Host a Glasnost server (tests for BitTorrent). *Results so far. Coming soon are apps to "Determine whether an ISP is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic" and "Determine whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations". Power to the People, bay-bee!
Can the BBC survive?
A biased shadow of its former self, a waste of money dominated by champagne socialists, a victim of media fragmentation, a political pawn or still the trusted heart of the UK's (and, arguably, the world's) broadcasting world? As scandal after scandal threatens to undermine confidence in the BBC and the voices calling for the dissolution of the licence fee gain a more cohesive platform, can the BBC survive, - is it the solution or the problem, and can the British public really afford to let it die the death of a thousand cuts?
On the day after the BBC announces it will put every UK publically owned oil painting online and the Director General talks about the BBC's "special responsibility" to culture in the UK, what should the role of the BBC be and, perhaps more importantly, what should it cost?
Physio-logical
The high cost of Lisa's tiger-repellant rock
Leaving office, President Bush claimed "that he took 'a deliberate and comprehensive approach' to preventing terrorism that combined military action overseas with strong defensive measures at home."
[As early as 2002] "We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt... Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism."
[. . . . FBI Director Robert] "Mueller actually circumvented the Justice Department and the OMB to get resources. But he was shut down" by the [Bush A]dministration. [. . . . Testifying in October 2004, ] Chris Swecker, then assistant director of the criminal investigation division said ... "The potential impact of mortgage fraud on financial institutions in the stock market is clear. If fraudulent practices become systemic within the mortgage industry and mortgage fraud is allowed to become unrestrained, it will ultimately place financial institutions at risk and have adverse effects on the stock market."
When Karaoke Attacks
The video for Metronomy's A Thing For Me features a psychotic karaoke ball. Single Link Music Video.
TripAdvisor's Dirtiest Hotels 2009: Don't Let The Bedbugs Bite
TripAdvisor's 2009 Top Ten Dirtiest Hotels in the USA, Asia Pacific, UK, and elsewhere. Topping the list: the Hotel Carter, Times Square. [The Carter recently mentioned here.]
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