November 28, 2004
You Suck! No, YOU suck!
Sometimes you steal the goat, sometimes you hack the game. But you know you've accomplished something when you get the fans to heckle themselves. [last link QT video]
New Perspectives Quarterly: The Scientific Imagination - An overflowing cornucopia of food for thought.
From Between Being and Becoming by Ilya Prigogine, The Future Won’t Look Like the Present by Stephen Hawking to The Fate of the Religious Imagination by Czeslaw Milosz, to mention but a few, finds New Perspectives Quarterly: The Scientific Imagination presenting an overflowing cornucopia of food for thought. And that's just this issue--Check out the archives, too. Essays--by an impressive cohort of authors--abound on a myriad of topics.
What would Jesus read?
The Online Parallel Bible provides provides easy reference to two dozen versions of the bible. This may help research absurdities pointed out on sites like the Skeptic's Annotated Bible some of which are just translation errors.
When every one is somebodee, then no one's anybody!
WHO IS BOB PARR? Critics, bloggers and other commentators have, usually off-handedly, linked The Incredibles to Ayn Rand. Well, it turns out the Objectivists are taking the comparison quite seriously. Yet the more exact, direct forebear of "if everybody's special, then nobody is" is clearly... Gilbert & Sullivan, no?
and everyone else should wear a Scarlet Letter
You'll surprisingly discover that while monogamous, heterosexual, drug-free, non-adventurous travelers might seem a bit boring at some parties, they're hugely popular at blood banks! (An actual television station editorial, via tvbarn2.)
Retailer 'Targets' New Market
Target : Entertainment : Marijuana Presuming the URL will stop working at some point in the next few hours, here's a screenshot for posterity.
Health Care for Children as a Pro-Choice (and Pro-Life) Policy
Health Care for Children as a Pro-Choice (and Pro-Life) Policy Georgetown Law Professor Mark Tushnet suggests that if the government were truly interested in stopping abortion, they would do so by providing health care and other social interventions. Not by overturning Roe. His position makes sense, considering that abortions have gone up since Bush took office.
When I said I wanted to be your dog...
For all those late nights spent wide awake, trying to wrestle with that most cursed of all questions, "How would The Stooges sound if they played trombone, tuba and drumset?", your quest will now be fulfilled. [preceding text written by the trombonist]
World Sunlight Map. The darkness looks a little creepy.
World Sunlight Map. A neat little map showing the encroaching blob of darkness as parts of the world slip in and out of nighttime.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland
Haruki Murakami is one of Japan's most widely translated authors, yet he still answers his readers emails. He has compared the process of writing to simultaneously designing and playing a video game. He is sometimes dismissed as a pop-writer, but the fifty-something's life and works have already garnered him a critical autobiography. He has investigated and written about the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks for his book, Underground. His novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, transcends elements of both cyberpunk and detective fiction through a combination of surreal allegory and an almost stoic immediacy. It all begins with the impossibly slow ascent of an elevator.
Bin Laden in Sweden
Bin Laden in Sweden Check out his HIP posse
Fighting fire with...Coke?
Max Keiser wants to take down Coca-Cola. He's the founder of KarmaBanQue,a boycott portal that has information for activists, and the occasional scary Photoshop job.
Matthew Shepard story on 20/20
New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder The piece on 20/20 Fridaynight about new "revelations" in the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard supposedly tries to prove he was not murdered because he was gay. The family responds to the broadcast.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
Bongard problems are a benchmark of sorts for visual pattern recognition; they're also just fun puzzles, and this guy has got the definitive collection.
Post de Double
but the ending still sucks
HalfLife 2 Case. I want one.
Stem cells vs. spinal cord injury
A team of Korean scientists have enabled a woman who has not been able to stand up for the last 19 years due to a spinal cord injury to walk on her own (103 MB .wmv), thanks to a transplant of stem cells from umbilical cord blood. [Via Future Hi.]
Tom Claytor, Bush Pilot
Tom Claytor is a bush pilot who set out solo in 1990 to fly around the world. He keeps a website showcasing his pictures and detailing some of his incredible experiences. He is still abroad and recently did aerials for the upcoming Thai film, First Flight.
Forced medical testing
I found this and was quite surprised that it would happen to anyone (then I kept reading and was more surprised). But at least this kid was a semi-adult and chose the school he went to. But, it's been done to children, too. Perhaps they've never heard of HIPAA. (via Entertainer)
Losing Languages
Losing Languages. It's estimated that between one and four languages are lost every year, the result of the only remaining speakers dying off. Many have been actively surpressed in the past, such as the Mayan and Ryukyu languages - some of which are said to be further from Japanese than English is from German. Is it worth the effort to preserve languages? Are languages and culture intristically linked?
Prof Irwin Corey explains it all for you...
Professor Irwin Corey, the world's foremost expert on EVERYTHING, has quite a good website. Special highlight for lit geeks: the text of his acceptance speech on behalf of Thomas Pynchon when Gravity's Rainbow received a National Book Award citation, and an audio extract thereof.
What was your question?
The Ask Crystal Show: the answer to all your questions. Who needs Ask MeFi when you have her? [via adampsyche]
Michael Moore directs new video
The new video for "Rockin' In The Free World" by Neil Young The new video for "Rockin' In The Free World" directed by filmmaker Michael Moore is now posted on the Warner Reprise site as reported by Baron on BNB.
The video intercuts footage from the film Fahrenheit 9/11 and performance footage of Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing the song on the 2003/4 Greendale tour. Much of the audience footage appears to come from the May 18, 2002 broadcast of the Rockam Ring Festival in Nurburgring Racetrack, Eifel, Germany.
Diagram of Powerlessness
Outlandish Josh Josh Koenig, itinerant bohemia actuator, actor and web designer/activist for Music for America, has posted his analysis of John Gaventa's Power and Powerlessness with this wonderful diagram (PDF, image available in his post) of the dynamics of power.
File under surreal tapes
File under surreal tapes. Despite being essentially a links/tips page about music/film/art, Panache is most known for its downloadable mixtapes in realaudio. There are over seven eclectic hours worth of new, old, wellknown and obscure music ranging from brazilian sambafunk, dreamy japanese 70s exotica, modern electronic wizardry to dialogue from films and novelty records etc. Some of the tapes have a rather dreamlike quality - which I believe - is the siteowner's intention.
Gum Stories.
Marqui's
Marqui's "Blogosphere Program" pays bloggers for product placement under the guise of a "social experiment". That reminds me of a funny about the delicious new juice flavor from Fruitopia...
Movies
"A glance at this list, and at the daunting array of actors who have worked with him over the years, many repeatedly, suggests that Mr. Nichols is not only smart but also the cause of intelligence in others. One of the reasons his movies reliably yield pleasure in spite of their limitations is the quality of the acting on display."
It seems that Mr. Nichols is also able to inspire profoundly interesting reviews such as this one in the NYT.
The Communion Cheat
Another EXTREEM! version of christianity. But this one's funny because it trades in The Clash's imagery and denies it. Contrast the in-your-face, Jesus-to-the-max logo with Westway to the World, a documentary about The Clash (the title sequence in the film has the "roughened" quality of the church logo).
Naturally, a church this hardcore and bullshit free has to have a way to reach the kids. That vehicle is Clash Radio, which is not to be confused with Radio Clash. To be fair, it does look like this radical pastor's done some hard livin'. Every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world, right?
Tasty, with Roughage and a Plot to Boot...
How terribly peculiar. Though clever in its own way. The International Edible Book Festival at Colophone features books, that you can... eat.
Sleep paralysis
The terror of a trapped mind is difficult to describe. Have you ever awakened to complete immobility? If so, you probably suffer from sleep paralysis, a condition that afflicts 25% of the American population. Such episodes, which usually only last for a few minutes, can frequently be accompanied by bizarre hallucinations, and some believe the phenomenon is responsible for alien abduction, "Old Hag Syndrome", and the incubus myth. Although most believe the disorder is genetic, explinations vary. Are you an experiencer? Then you understand how frightening it can be. Luckily, you can fight it.
(This is my first FPP in 3 years of reading, so comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.)
(This is my first FPP in 3 years of reading, so comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.)
I once flew there. It didn't take long.
MadeInMTL is a rich media application site that enables the user to explore the city through 15k photographs, 400 texts, 50 hours of video, 40 sound bits, as well as 25 short films that truly capture the spirit of Montreal in a virtual experience." {it be flash and I found it at netdiver}
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