November 5, 2008
It has heart
Let's get slow
It's been a hectic and exciting week and it's barely half over. Let's slow down and take a trip over the ocean... [more inside]
How Obama Did It
How Obama Did It: an in-depth look behind the scenes of the campaign, assembled by a special team of reporters who were granted year-long access on the condition that none of their findings appear until after Election Day.
Applications to ship-in-bottle concept?
Go ahead: diagnose yourself! Are you an Aspie?
Do you have Asperger's Syndrome? Answer these questions and find out. I'm skeptical about this, but I find it fascinating. For years, I've suspected I'm an Aspie, and, as it turns out, I answered the questions exactly the way the researchers predict an Aspie would answer them. My "normal" wife answers them they way "normal" people do. I am almost incapable of understanding the "normal" answer. To me, the Aspie answer is obviously correct. Here is a great discussion about the research. Here is the original research paper (MS Word file). [more inside]
Say good night, Gracie.
Gore Vidal. Ralph Nader. Two men, praise worthy in the past, who perhaps now need to go home and take a nap. 2LYT
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
This thing ain't over yet! Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia has failed to reach 50% of the vote, thereby triggering an automatic runoff election on December 2nd, between him and Democratic challenger Jim Martin, who received 47% of the vote. This gives the Democrats a rare opportunity to concentrate all their efforts over the next month on a state in the heart of the South.
Can we expect President-elect Obama and Jim Martin to launch a concentrated campaign across the state of Georgia, hoping to do what they did in Indiana, and turn a traditionally Republican state blue again? Yes, I suspect, we can!
Music Is the Weapon: Fela documentary from 1982
Fela: Music is the Weapon is a documentary film from 1982 featuring a wealth of live concert footage (from his club in Lagos, "The Shrine") as well as interviews with the legendary Nigerian singer, bandleader and social critic. Here's part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. [more inside]
Dancing in the streets for Obama
People took to the streets to celebrate Obama's victory in New York, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, Boulder, New Brunswick, Oakland, Philadelphia, Gainesville, Los Angeles, Boston, Portland, Atlanta, Cambridge, Madison, Richmond, Baltimore, Santa Cruz, and Washinton, D.C. [more inside]
A retrospective
We're all anticipating the future right now, but don't forget to remember the past, as well. [more inside]
Tubular bells?
"Next-generation loudspeakers could be as thin as paper, as clear as glass, and as stretchable as rubber." Making sound from heat and vice versa is nothing new, but a flat loudspeaker sure would be cool, provided nothing goes wrong. [previously.]
Daddy, we need more Snausages!
Having extracted from their father a promise of a new puppy (in front of 71.5 million witnesses, no less), the Obama girls will soon have a choice to make. Should the First Dog be a golden? A beagle? A poodle? Or maybe a mutt? Of course, they could possibly go for something a little larger. Just be sure to keep tabs on the little fellow.
The World's Safest Railroad
The Subway Sun and The Elevated Express &reswere posters used to inform passengers travelling on the IRT. A couple that tickled my fancy - the unlikely to happen Sociability Limit and an Obnoxious Custom. [via]
Presidential Underdog
Presidential Underdogs: it's not only McCain who lost the elections.
Portals Between Earth and Sun Open Every Eight Minutes
Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth. "Like giant, cosmic chutes between the Earth and sun, magnetic portals open up every eight minutes or so to connect our planet with its host star. Once the portals open, loads of high-energy particles can travel the 93 million miles (150 million km) through the conduit during its brief opening, space scientists say." [Via]
Short Vids: No Fat Clips
no fat clips!!! features a cornucopia of music videos, short movies, commercials, and other kinds of short visual entertainment from around the world, all available for immediate viewing and as high-quality-format downloads. [more inside]
Obama Didn't Need a Weatherman
“I think my relationship with Obama was probably like that of thousands of others in Chicago and, like millions and millions of others, I wished I knew him better.” William Ayers speaks.
Michael Crichton, dead at age 66
Building the ParaSet
I first heard of a 'Paraset' when I saw a message on the QRP-L reflector announcing an upcoming 'June 6th Paraset D-Day' activity. A search for more information soon revealed that the Paraset was a small vacuum-tube transmitter-receiver unit built during WWII in the UK at the Whaddon Hall headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service Communications Unit. Known officially as the 'Whaddon Mark VII', the units were either air-dropped by parachute or carried, by the jumpers themselves, into many of the occupied countries of western Europe. . .
"You named your collaboration QAP? Really?"
The DiVincenzo Code [youtube trailer, geekery]. Faced with a strict demand from a funding agency to allocate research funds towards the dissemination of research ideas to the public, an experimental physics group at the University of Oxford produced a feature-length (55 min) action thriller about murder, ancient prophecy, tea breaks, and quantum computation. [more inside]
PARA 00-34-24 WASHINGTON. JOHN MCCAIN ELECTED PRESIDENT
Thirty years ago 'probably the single most influential graphic novel to have come out of Britain to date' was published, The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot. Interview - Part 1, Part 2.
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
It's morning in America again -- but for the thousands of committed gay couples who got married in California [warning: Dan Fogelberg music, sweet visuals], the long nightmare of intolerance and hate is not yet over with the probable victory of Proposition 8. Supported by the anti-equality stances of Sarah Palin and "divinely" inspired others, and paid for by members of the Mormon Church and the mother of Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, many of the ads for Prop. 8 featured the faces of Obama and Joe Biden, who declared their opposition to the initiative but refused to support equal marriage rights for all, preferring to talk about "civil unions." Even excellent Democratic-leaning politics sites like Talking Points Memo were saturated with the deceptive ads, which overwhelmed those comparing the proposition to other forms of discrimination in California's history.
Nov. 4th plane crash
While most of the world was watching* Obama win, people in Mexico (specially in Mexico City) were busy watching news that a plane had just crashed near one of the busiest intersections of the City, killing all its passengers and wounding at least 40 others in the street and nearby office buildings. The plane, a Lear jet, had eight people on board, among them Juan Camilo Mouriño, Secretary of the Interior [link in Spanish] and at least two other high ranking officials in the mexican federal government. [more inside]
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