November 30, 2005
The Lord's Wal-Mart
xoxoxoxo
Museum of the African Diaspora
MoAD is San Francisco's newest museum. The Museum of the African Diaspora is the latest addition to the SOMA neighborhood's expanding cultural riches, and promises to be fascinating (and, as far as I can tell, unique in the world). [more inside]
Open Street Map
OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world, using uploaded GPS traces. So far: London and several other cities have been mapped. (via dataisnature)
Myself, I like a black seabass. Grilled.
How Many Fish are in the Sea? During the heady days of the late 19th century, in response to a perceived decline in coastal finfish stocks, Spencer Baird and his clutch of young naturalists at the Smithsonian set out to find the answer. In 1871, Baird founded the U.S. Fish Commission. The Comission set up operations in Woods Hole, MA, where it continues its work today as the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (a branch of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service). The Fish Census of 1880 established the fist benchmark on fish populations in coastal waters; crews of Gloucester schooners competed to see who could bring the most bizarre fish finds up from the platueaus of the Grand Banks, and America’s first research vessel, the Albatross, was purpose-built for the project. Baird's protege (and later successor) George Brown Goode compiled the data into the first comprehensive reference work on American fisheries. Known to students of salt water as “Goode’s Fisheries”, the report (beautifully illustrated) remains invaluable to researchers today, as today's fish populations dip into an even more drastic decline.
high lonesome heresy
In 1244, Montsegur
saw the slaughter of the Cathars
and their protectors, ending the Albigensian
Crusade
that Pope
Innocent III
had declared in 1208.
Stop, drop, and promptly soil yourself.
One dry scotch pine tree, plus one string of old christmas lights, has the potential to add up to a really bad day. [qt] This can happen after a tree has been drying for three weeks or so. [pdf]
So please - keep them watered!
The Cloud Game
Have you ever wanted to fly through the clouds? Even if it was in a hospital gown? Cloud is a beautiful, simple, and free 3D game developed by students at the USC Interactive Media Center and funded by a grant from Electronic Arts.
Sic et non
De Villepin: The French riots didn't happen. Riots? What riots? There were no riots. (Jean Baudrillard: "That's right, Dominique, you're getting the idea.)
Thoughtcrimes R Us
The CrimethInc Reading Library offers essential dissident reading material including Your politics are as boring as fuck and Days of War, Nights of Love. Also available as free downloads are printable anarchist pamphlets, magazines, and posters. (Any remaining supporters of the Bush regime will be sure to appreciate this and this). There's also a collaborative blog.
(An earlier incarnation of the CrimethInc publishing organization was previously discussed here.)
IE goes boom!
Google pays $1 for every IE user converted to Firefox - but why? Google don't own Firefox, so is this only to piss off Microsoft?
Wireless City
Your stocking is stuffed with anarchy
The latest music video from legendary metal band Karkis totally rocks my holiday spirit.
New take on traffic calming
Calm down. A new, humorous, attempt at "traffic calming". I know, I know, a lot of it was previously discussed. Some think it's a good idea (hey, we've even got some in my neighborhood!). But there are others who disagree. I never thought it would be such a heated topic! (or noteworthy by Wired, even.) Aaaah... the hell with it. Maybe the way to go is NO RULES.
A novel in twelve fish.
Gould's Book of Fish (full contents of Chapter One) by Tasmanian author/historian/Rhodes Scholar Richard Flanagan is a critically lauded 2002 novel that is the most interesting and accomplished work of fiction I've read in years. Set in the 19th century on a penal colony off the coast of Tasmania, the book is narrated by William Buelow Gould, a convict, charlatan, and possible madman.
Here is an audio interview with Flanagan; here's an audio clip of the author reading from his book. (.ra files)
Yes, the book is a few years old, but it somehow passed under my radar; and, anyway, a good book is timeless.
(Picking up the piscine gauntlet thrown down by Plutor.)
Why do you have to be a strike-breaker, is it a lesson that I never knew?
NYU President John Sexton warns striking grad students that they must resume teaching or lose their benefits. After weeks of marching outside Bobst library and refusing to teach classes, NYU grad students have been sent a letter from President John Sexton, warning them that any TA who does not return to work next week will lose their stipends and eligibility to teach next semester. Until recently, NYU was the only private school that allowed graduate teaching assistants to unionize, following a 2000 NLRB decision, which was subsequently reversed. NYU claims that it has negotiated in good faith and that the union's demands would limit decision making that should remain in the hands of academics, while the grad students argue that they cannot trust NYU's admistration to take care of them without unionization (and representation by the UAW). Meanwhile, many undergrads paying tuition upwards of 50K/year will have to retake classes or opt for pass/fail. Do you sympathize with highly educated American grad students who receive free tuition, health insurance, and stipends in exchange for modest teaching duties (when many other students depend on student loans), especially compared the with 19th century coal miners, third-world factory workers, and modern-day wage slaves we normally associate with unions and strikes?
Flash Mob Opera
Brand New Flashmob Opera from Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield.
Candid Camera
"I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again." "I'm an attorney, I will sue you." "I'm going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you." FlickrNation's Thomas Hawk gets service from the manager of a New York City camera store. (via Digg)
Standup comedy cultural hot button Wikipedia hack.
Standup comedy cultural hot button Wikipedia hack. Standup comics! Need a cultural hot button topic for a joke? Check out Wikipedia articles with the most revisions.
Comedy gold. Just pick a topic and start riffing.
super monk
Super Monk [.mov, 35mb, animated]
Signaling Vulnerabilities in Wiretapping Systems
Signaling Vulnerabilities in Wiretapping Systems. The technology used for decades by law enforcement agents to wiretap telephones has a security flaw that allows the person being wiretapped to stop the recorder remotely [bugmenot]. It is also possible to falsify the numbers dialed [pdf].
Gulf Stream weakening
Atlantic currents show signs of weakening, according to a new study from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. I just hope these findings don't provoke the nightmare scenario of a sequel.
Judge Rules Against BlackBerry Settlement
The ongoing patent dispute between the patent firm NTP and BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion (RIM) reached a new low today when a U.S. appellate court judge named James Spencer ruled that an earlier settlement of $450M payable to NTP was not valid as it was not finalized properly. Even though the USPO has re-opened the NTP patents and has subsequently rejected most of the patents used in the patent infringement case, RIM was seeking to uphold the earlier settlement in order to avert the possibility of all sales and services from being halted in the United States.
Portraits of Home
Portraits of Home: A set of 55 wonderful pictures relating to housing issues in greater Minnesota. This comes from a "Photography Exhibit Documents the Housing Challenges Facing Minnesota's Working Families".
39¢ Heroes
39¢ Heroes. On January 8, the price of a First Class US Postage Stamp will creep up another two cents. But fear not, True Believers, because 20 of those new stamps will feature costumed crusaders from DC Comics "including Superman, Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, Batman, Green Arrow and many more." (Newsarama has more on the story, including the featured cover images for each hero.)
Ho! Ho! Ho! Friend or Foe!
Ho! Ho! Ho! Friend or Foe! Falwell fighting for Holy Holiday! Bill O'Reilly joins the fray! But wait, where does the White House stand on this vital issue?
InternetTV for the Masses sans BigBrother
Free Speech TV! Veoh allows anyone to create and broadcast their own TV show or a Channel full of shows. Not small streaming videos, but FULL-Screen, TV-Quality video. Veoh does not transcode the content, but rather offers it in it’s native encoding, and does not limit the file sizes/length of video. Veoh’s goal is to become the platform for producers of all sizes (from individuals to studios and everyone in between) to have a democratized TV broadcasting system. Take the tour. (audio/flash)
Webcast on Relativity
Slutsky and Hutch
One Man Gathers... ah, whatever
Outrage in Deadheadland: fans are furious since the Grateful Dead pulled thousands of freely available concert recordings from Live Music Archive. Some threaten boycotts. Are the Dead really looking out for "Grateful Dead Values" or simply protecting their commercial interests? Have Deadheads been spoiled by free access to the music? Bassist Phil Lesh says he had no say in the matter, Barlow thinks it's "like finding out that your brother is a child molester," and heady bloggers are torn. Or is it all moot anyway? "The idea that they could stop people from trading these files is absurd... It's no longer under anyone's control. People have gigabytes of this stuff." (Previously on Mefi.)
Shareholder activism
Carl Icahn's Time Warner efforts find a powerful ally in "white-shoe" investment bank Lazard. Wall Street M&A advisors have been hesitant to support efforts by Icahn and his hedge fund brethren in their share-holder activist efforts for fear of alienating fee-paying corporate clients (investment banking, legal and registration fees on the Time Warner/AOL deal were approximately $300 million). By hiring Lazard, which is led by banking legend Bruce Wasserstein (1,2,3), Icahn is surely raising the intensity of his campaign against Time Warner management. Icahn has been successful in previous shareholder activist campaigns, most notably against Blockbuster (1,2), and talks a pretty mean game. Wall Street will be watching this closely - hedge fund activism is becoming a very real fear for company management/directors: Circuit City/Highfields Capital, Wendy's/Pershing, Bally's Fitness/Pardus Capital & Liberation Investment Group, Axciom/ValueAct Capital, MSC Software/ValueAct Capital (reg. required), Beazer Homes/Tontine Capital (second story on page) and more.
John Day's Orchids
The orchid scrapbooks of John Day. Over the course of 40 years, John Day participated in the popular Victorian pursuit of orchid collection. He collected his stunning paintings of the plants into 53 scrapbooks, a selection of which is available online at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. [via the remarkable BibliOdyssey]
USA! USA!
US-Made Suicide Bombs - These are by US military, law enforcement agencies or commercial security firms - whether for training or marketing or spooking the public
In new music (express) we trust?
Every year, the NME posts it's chart of the albums of the year poll - this year however they've decided to rig the results purely for commercial purposes. (List inside)
Gannon's in Baghdad now?
U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press --As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories ...
The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor ...
Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. ... The Lincoln Group is involved, and the military's "Information Operations Task Force". Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday cited the proliferation of news organizations in Iraq as one of the country's great successes since the ouster of President Saddam Hussein.
National Strategery for Victory in Iraq
National Strategery for Victory in Iraq. Some might recommend having a strategy for victory before the war starts, but President Bush unveiled our National Stategy for Victory in Iraq (deconstructed here) today at another recitation of his "major speech" on Iraq at a captive audience at a military installation. [more inside]
Could Alzheimer's be a form of diabetes?
Could Alzheimer's be a form of diabetes?
Well, I'm not looking forward to taking those insulin shots....via Medgadget
Well, I'm not looking forward to taking those insulin shots....via Medgadget
'80s Arcade Classics
Arcade Classics from the '80s. A few hundred games, all playable online. Watch out for popups. [via]
Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Homer Simpson
Tom Wolfe is screaming. "Aaaaaaaahh! Wait, no, that wasn't good, let me start over." "How did you scream last time a boulder was hurtling toward you?" asks Carolyn Omine, executive producer of The Simpsons.
Slowly, Wolfe transforms. Even now, this episode's director, Mark Kirkland, is circling Wolfe, snapping pictures. Soon, a team of animators will render Wolfe bug-eyed and yellow-skinned. A year from now Wolfe -- with fellow guest stars Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen --
will appear on television alongside Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and the bartender Moe in an episode of "The Simpsons" parodying highfalutin literary culture.
Catholic Church's gay guidelines
The Catholic Church reaffirmed its opposition to gay priests yesterday when it published long-awaited guidelines. But has it really faced up to the issue? The church considers homosexuality a "serious personality disorder", and the Pope's views are well documented. But according to the guidelines, it is a "tendency" that can be overcome in as little as three years. (The Guardian's Emily Wilson brilliant compares it to smoking: "a few years off the fags and you're nice and pure again".) The guidelines only applies to future priests, not the many existing closeted priests. And what exactly has it got to do with the endemic child abuse, which the report was originally conceived to address?
First Amendment issue or lacking common sense?
Does the First Amendment matter on campus? A column in the Winthrop University (SC) student newspaper comparing today's racial climate for whites to the oppression blacks faced before the Civil Rights movement has caused quite a stir south of the Mason -Dixon line. The column by Christine Byington, who is biracial, criticized blacks who complain about the University. She eventually had to withdraw from school due to overwhelming pressure. Should she have known better than to write about a very touchy situation?
Fish in your beer (Isinglass)
Serious vegetarians know to keep on the lookout for isinglass and other animal products in their beer. Isinglass is a fish-derived additive that's primarily used to help speed up the clarification of cask-conditioned ales, although some beer-makers will use it to reclaim batches that didn't filter properly. You can help keep your diet swimbladder-free with this awesome list.
Fritz Richmond dies
Fritz Richmond, former washtub bass player for the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, has died. Richmond pioneered the use of the homemade washtub bass, and taught himself to use the jug as a musical instrument. He was one of the favorites of the Cambridge folk scene of the 1960s. More here.
Orhan Pamuk
On December 16th the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk goes on trial charged with insulting the Turkish nation, after stating that the killing of 30,000 Armenians and Kurds by the Ottoman Empire was genocide (as discussed before).
The trial is being seen by some as a key test for Turkey as it starts on the road to EU accession.
Listen to him talk about his work and read extracts.
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