December 23, 2007
Auggie Wren's Christmas Story
Auggie Wren's Christmas Story, by Paul Auster. Read by the author and brought to life in the movie Smoke.
Make sure to clean your logfiles.
Ever admired those hard-working hackers, toiling away to get you the programs you've always loathed to have? Have you ever dreamt of exploring the innards of someone else's computer but have held back due to those pesky legalities? If you said yes to either of the above questions or just want to play an online hacking simulation, then SlaveHack is the website for you. [more inside]
Jack Benny Christmas Shows
Enjoy a heaping helping of old time radio with classic Christmas specials from The Jack Benny Show. [more inside]
The Four Horsemen
The Four Horsemen: Just in time for holidays, enjoy a pleasant chat between the world's most famous atheists - Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett.
The Marines Will Like My Shooting. And They Are Going to Like Me.
Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? is a Flickr set of the pages from Helen Palmer Geisel's (Dr. Seuss's first wife) now out of print children's book that gained notoreity for its depiction of children doing fun & very dangerous things like joining the marines, playing with guns & fighting American Gladiator style.
I'm too sad to tell you...
A site for artist Bas Jan Ader (wikipedia) who was last seen in 1975 when he took off in what would have been the smallest sailboat ever to cross the Atlantic. Site includes his most famous piece, I'm Too Sad to Tell You.
and other Curiosities, Antiquities and Gadgetry too numerous to mention!
Virtual Tour of Steve's Weird House. "Stephen resides in a Victorian home that is a cluttered combination of museum, library and art gallery, decorated with that old-world Addam's Family charm. Not only is every inch of every wall covered with art, but all the ceilings are also decorated." (Via.)
eclectic galleries
artjob.ru is a Russian site worth exploring with some pretty awesome, eclectic galleries (some nsfw). Naoto Hattori, 134 paintings of surrealistic Mona Lisas transformed and more l Child Soldiers Dream Simply of Being Children ads for Amnesty International/photographs by Michael Lewis l Christian Lohfink's playfully mischievous and dark humor photographs l Elliott Erwitt's superb black and white photographs, many iconic l [more inside]
Robinson Jeffers
Electric Christmas Trees
Eric Volz Freed
Eric Volz Freed. Following a thirty-year sentence and a later appeal, Eric Volz was set free by a Nicaraguan court. As discussed in The Blue previously. His family's statement.
Walldogs
"Wall Dogs" were sign painters that crafted ads directly on the walls of buildings (in time becoming Ghost Signs, previously posted on Mefi 1, 2, 3) and their craft is not dead.
Privatize profit. Socialize risk.
Push Capitalism. Bill Moyers' interview with Dr. Benjamin Barber about the state of our modern capitalist society and how he believes capitalism threatens American democracy. PBS.org streaming video. [more inside]
3D Animation Short Films in Spanish
One Gorilla Drumming
It's an advert for chocolate. It's a man in a gorilla suit drumming to a track by Philip Collins Ltd. It's been very popular. It's won awards. It's been spoofed. And it's been mashed-up... some bad (Metalica (sic), ACDC, Guns and Roses), some good (Bonnie Tyler, Subsource, A Skillz, Bon Jovi, Deep Purple, Nirvana) and some utterly sublime ('Enders, Bodyrockers, Cameo). But great adverts don't always equal great sales. Bonus: Monkey Drummer. (Previously)
Тхундербирдс являются дороге!
Russian cold war bombers - The Tu 95 Bear and
Tu 160 Blackjack, based in central Russia, which resumed long range patrols in August.
Street fighting men first had to pay their dues
You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you can get what you need. [more inside]
Stand up! Stand up and be counted...
Census sensitivity. The Economist takes a look at the politics of enumeration.
Proof positive that Japan is a sick, sick place.
After I posted this article, many people asked me who listens to that berserk music. Well, it's most popular with Japanese girls lumped under the general term "gyaru". It is not really a fashion movement per se, as it has fractured into scores of rapidly-evolving subgroups--usually hostile to each other, even though many appear the same to the uninitiated. In fact, the book Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno, published in 2007, is already said to be out of date. This website is a bit more current.
What do "gyaru" look like? There are now quite a few slideshows of gyaru on the streets of Tokyo on YouTube. Examples: here, here, and here. And for those who need to buy these "fashions", the primary bibles are FRUiTS and Egg. There is something wrong with that country.......
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