October 23, 2009
Midnight Moondog
A puzzle game without a single Sokoban level
Friday non-Flash Fun: Robozzle is a surprisingly deep puzzle game. If you don't want to install Silverlight, there's a Javascript version. [more inside]
Like a Surgeon
Before hippies, even.
Jeff Altman took some of his grandfather's 16mm Kodachrome home movies and made some really nice HD transfers out of them: San Francisco circa 1958, Disneyland in 1956 (part 2).
What if copyright law is more complicated then a damn flower?
Take my movie—please. Nasty Old People is a Swedish movie about just that. However, it's been released freely on the web by its creator, Hanna Sköld, under a Creative Commons License, being the first Swedish film to do so. [more inside]
bluestab's blog meets AfricanAfrican aka NegroArtist.com
Chanteur puissant à la voix rocailleuse. And here is bluestab's blog And here, via Babelfish is bluestab's blog in an English of sorts. Then, while, looking for mp3s to match the tabs, I came across the universe of African American history and culture that is AfricanAfrican aka NegroArtist.com, a site so big it has two URLs. [Billy Mays] But, wait--that's not all! [/Billy Mays] [more inside]
The South Will Not Rise Again
AP article about the chant "The South will Rise Again." In the past few years University of Mississippi officials have done away with both the waving of the Confederate Battle Flag at football games and Colonel Reb, the school mascot who resembles a white plantation owner. However, the school band, nicknamed "The Pride of the South," still plays "From Dixie with Love" at each game and the students still shout "The South will Rise Again" at the end of the song. The AP has a nice article on recent efforts by both the student government and the new school Chancellor, Dan Jones, to end this "tradition."
Blacksmithing again
A Day in the Life of a Blacksmith (start here) is the 1869-70 diary of an apprentice blacksmith in Medfield, Massachusetts, in blog form.
Brought to you by the American Antiquarian Society and its new blog Past is Present.
Four wheels and a mission
On July 4, 1916, Gussie and Addie Van Buren set out from New York on two Indian Model F motorcycles. Though it was well before the creation of an interstate highway system, they reached San Francisco on September 2 and Southern California on September 8. [more inside]
Do not use "nonprofit" as an adjective. Use "broke."
Fake AP Stylebook is making Twitter worthwhile. (Single-link Twitter post. But damn, really; it's funny).
Candy for the Eyes
Something vivid and sweet for Friday:
Liz Wolfe takes beautiful photographs.
Cool Hunting interviews Liz.
Liz Wolfe takes beautiful photographs.
Cool Hunting interviews Liz.
China and Pollution
Lu Guang, a freelance photographer, took disturbing photos of the effects of pollution in China. [more inside]
Fox "upset-the-White-House-won't-call-it" News
Fox News's bent on the news is well known, but recently the White House has begun actively excluding the network, including skipping Fox's Chris Wallace on a recent round of Sunday morning news shows. “We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction ... that Fox is a traditional news organization.” says White House Depty Communications Director Pfeiffer (as has Press Secretary Gibbs and others). The responses range from concern about an attempt to control the media to a feeling that it's about time. Is it just about Fox's anti-Obama pundits, or is it also about Fox's consistent errors and misinformed viewership? Or is the White House attempting containment so that Fox's ratings-gold style and ideas don't take over the rest of the press?
The Real Slim Worf
Did you even DOOO the reading?
Do you feel disappointed in government? Does Obama seem a little too meek for the Presidency? Do you wish he'd make larger structural reforms? Maybe, suggests Matt Taibbi, there's an answer. [more inside]
The Ubiquitous Banana
"Miller produced a memo written in 1978 by Jack DeMent, a senior Dole [Food Company] executive, that reflected a proposed policy that 'people in the areas to be treated will be notified to the effect in the language of the workers involved.' Miller said a comment found on the draft undercut the good intentions. The comment read: 'This is not operationally feasible and does not need to be implemented.'" [more inside]
"He takes a $1.98 tape into Folsom Prison and comes out with an album."
"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash played two concerts at Folsom State Prison with June Carter, Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and his band, the Tennessee Three. At Folsom Prison, drawn mainly from the first show, is often ranked as one of the best albums of all time and turned Cash's career around. Reporter Gene Beley covered the concert and recorded some songs from the audience. [more inside]
Pilots overshoot MSP. Whoops!
Were they arguing? Were they asleep? It's not clear yet why two pilots overflew the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles before turning around in Wisconsin. What is known is that they dropped radio contact over Kansas, that Air Force fighters were put on alert, and that, according to MN Public radio, passengers saw cops and stern-looking men in suits waiting on the jetway when they were finally allowed off the plane. MSP alt-weekly City Pages aggregates info about the flight as it comes in, and discussion on local sites is spirited.
Web page? Is that something a duck walks on?
On your mark! Get set! We're riding on the Internet! Cyberspace! Sex-free! Hello virtual reality! Slightly NSFW
google ron wyden
Health care around the world
-Hawaii: The state has had success over 35 years of requiring employers to provide health care benefits.
-Singapore: Its health care is first class, cheap and market-driven.
-Taiwan: "more than 80 percent of the population is happy with the system"
-China: "300 million people have no coverage at all"
-Dutch: "America is going to go Dutch"
-US: "I just wanted to flag for colleagues that their bosses should be careful using the talking point that under the Dem bill, Americans who don't like the coverage they have, will be able to choose something else... more than 90 percent of Americans will remain barred from shopping for insurance in the exchange."
-Hawaii: The state has had success over 35 years of requiring employers to provide health care benefits.
-Singapore: Its health care is first class, cheap and market-driven.
-Taiwan: "more than 80 percent of the population is happy with the system"
-China: "300 million people have no coverage at all"
-Dutch: "America is going to go Dutch"
-US: "I just wanted to flag for colleagues that their bosses should be careful using the talking point that under the Dem bill, Americans who don't like the coverage they have, will be able to choose something else... more than 90 percent of Americans will remain barred from shopping for insurance in the exchange."
The only people who can change the world are people who want to.
Fat Hitler
Last night, leader of the BNP Nick Griffin controversially appeared on the BBC's flagship political discussion programme Question Time. Missed it? Cassetteboy provides a handy summary.
Living on $500,000 a Year
But most years were pretty close to $24,000. Despite his high income, he was not able to save or, as he said, “amass capital.” Fitzgerald reported every dollar he had entered in his ledger. He was impeccably honest in his reporting. But Fitzgerald did press tax conventions on some occasions. On his 1924 tax return, he deducted $2,450 as a business expense for a “trip to Europe for the purpose of obtaining material for stories, etc.” The American Scholar examines F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tax returns.
When you were young, you cried only for yourself.
Cookie Rolling
Death by Joystick
Douglas Rushkoff's latest piece for the Daily Beast got pulled; everything goes to 404.
However here's a transcript.
The set-up doesn't feel much different than the playroom of a die-hard videogame enthusiast—except no one is smiling, high-fiving, or celebrating his hits. They speak in the cool monotone of commercial airplane pilots—
Copy that we got eyes on em… 3-0-5 rifle time of flight 15 seconds…. that's 10 seconds… 5-4-3-2-1 - and splash…
And with that, presumably, some people on the other side of the monitor were blown up.
Jane Mayor writes in the New Yorker that according to the New America Foundation’s study, that in the forty-one drone strikes conducted by the Obama Administration in Pakistan; 98 percent of those killed were civilians. Americans have been insulated from the human toll.
Problems With Killer Drones (related UAVs over Sadr City and Death From Above).
The set-up doesn't feel much different than the playroom of a die-hard videogame enthusiast—except no one is smiling, high-fiving, or celebrating his hits. They speak in the cool monotone of commercial airplane pilots—
Copy that we got eyes on em… 3-0-5 rifle time of flight 15 seconds…. that's 10 seconds… 5-4-3-2-1 - and splash…
And with that, presumably, some people on the other side of the monitor were blown up.
Jane Mayor writes in the New Yorker that according to the New America Foundation’s study, that in the forty-one drone strikes conducted by the Obama Administration in Pakistan; 98 percent of those killed were civilians. Americans have been insulated from the human toll.
Problems With Killer Drones (related UAVs over Sadr City and Death From Above).
"The original Port Huron Statement . . . Not the compromised second draft."
The Sixties Project - The Sixties Project began as a collective of humanities scholars working together on the Internet to use electronic resources to provide routes of collaboration and make available primary and secondary sources for researchers, students, teachers, writers and librarians interested in the Sixties. [more inside]
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