February 20, 2008
Psi Not?
"You bend your words like Uri Geller's spoons", sang Toad. But how is it that science can dismiss Geller as the fraud he is without experimenting on every psychic claimant? Surely someone claiming telekinetic powers might be telling the truth? Quantum physics to the rescue.
"Garlic: The Silent Killer," "Juicy Beans," and 39 other fascinating projects of SCIENCE!
Crystal Meth: Friend or Foe High school science project alchemy: dumb shit into comedy gold.
thermal appliances for the poor
Turbo stove busts the inventor. A handy stove that promises to save remaining forests can me made simply and cheaply for people who cook indoors with gathered wood. Others show how to make it yourself.
The Soul of France
Flirting with the Forbidden, for centuries, Romans and French have enjoyed the pleasures of a unique songbird. Once caught, this tiny bunting is kept in a small cage, where its eyes are poked out. It is then force fed oats, millet, and figs until it's plumped up to four times its size. It is subsequently drowned alive in cognac, roasted at high heat, then served as an exquisite - and illegal - meal. Traditionally the diner enjoys this delicacy - approximately the size of a human thumb - underneath an embroidered napkin. The head is bitten off, the entire body eaten in one crunchy bite. Said to embody the "soul of France," it was, reportedly, the last meal of Francois Mitterrand. Writer Michael Paterniti recreates the experience of dining on l'ortolan, superbly told in an episode of "This American Life."
A urinely,Why not use it to make children's toys? Children are always breaking their toys.
What do you get when you mix vegetable oil and urine? No, it's not tome fetish -- well, not yet, anyway. It's self-healing rubber, of course. (Via.)
Never will another spitwad go unpunished.
Waiting for Mary
The Leonard Schrader Collection
The [Leonard Schrader] Collection consists of 8,462 vintage lobby-cards and 5,000 related items - many the sole surviving traces of long-lost silent films - acquired by late screenwriter/filmmaker Leonard Schrader over the course of 27 years.
New York Talk Exchange
In an information age, telecommunications such as the Internet and the telephone bind people across space by eviscerating the constraints of distance. To reveal the relationships that New Yorkers have with the rest of the world, New York Talk Exchange asks: How does the city of New York connect to other cities? [more inside]
Six (million) and out
The ultimate in fantasy sport: Each of the eight cricket franchises in the new Indian Premier League had a total of $5 million (£2.57 million) to bid at auction in Mumbai for the players who would represent them. The players receive the winning bid as their annual salary.
Unlikely stories, likely
Poet, playwright, novelist, mural painter, experimentalist, illustrator; a “fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian”; and perhaps “the greatest Scottish novelist since Sir Walter Scott,” Alasdair Gray has a new book out. [more inside]
Cotten pickin' good
Elizabeth Cotten [previously] sits down and talks with Pete Seeger. She plays the "Wilson Rag," "Mama, Your Papa Loves You," and Pete joins her for "Freight Train." (Lyrics are provided for "Freight Train," so you can all sing along, too.) [more inside]
The Moth: Listen to Stories
they're more like can openers than iron chefs
Torture is a blunt instrument
Five myths about torture In a Washington Post column, Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy, explains why five beliefs about torture are wrong. In a Harper's interview, he answers six questions. "Yes, torture does migrate, and there are some good examples of it both in American and French history. The basic idea here is that soldiers who get ahead torturing come back and take jobs as policemen, and private security, and they get ahead doing the same things they did in the army. And so torture comes home. Everyone knows waterboarding, but no one remembers that it was American soldiers coming back from the Philippines that introduced it to police in the early twentieth century." [more inside]
Food with Eyes
Food with Eyes. Found when I searched for the phrase after seeing some of Lileks' cast off mascots. Oddly, in this list of creepiest fast food mascots, only one or possibly two are food with eyes.
Not enough? Don't just look at food with eyes; don't just eat it; be food with eyes.
Previously.
phlatluigi?
College student researches his own cancer
Josh Sommer is a student at Duke who is researching and advocating to find a cure for chordoma, a rare type of cancer that he was diagnosed with during his freshman year of college. He's not new to being an advocate-- when he was in high school, he and his mom (Dr. Simone Sommer) spoke publicly about the dangers of toxic mold, which they had both experienced firsthand.
Blacker than black, it's gone
Apparently, the new black is... really, really black. "Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black." But what possible benefit to society could come from this blacker than black substance? Why, invisibility cloaks, of course! [more inside]
GTFO noob
Magical dragon-faeries? Flaxen-hair'd elflords? Dank scary dungeons, reminiscent of Grandpa's basement? Kids' stuff. Whether you're a Camwhore, Emo Kid, or Troll, Forumwarz everything relevant about the Internet (i.e., Forums and IM) distilled down to a browser-based RPG. Buy warez from shady Russian dealers, upgrade your hacking/whining skills, pwn total strangers by crashing their web sites, and join or fight a shadowy government conspiracy. You have nothing to lose but your dignity.
essays and short stories in the New Yorker and "Best American" series
Here are the essays and short stories originally published in The New Yorker that were later collected in Houghton Mifflin’s annual “Best American” anthology series (1915-present). [more inside]
What Europeans think of each other
Equal Opportunity Geeks
Move Over Alpha Geeks, Here Come the Fangrrls an article about thousands of women gathering for a sci-fi convention, and what it means in fandom circles. [more inside]
Blacken Chinese Man
Reh Dogg is quite the man.
Serving the Tiny Masters
Michael Cook likes to play with wormspit. And to share his interest in sericulture he's created a site devoted to the raising of silkworms, including the Cecropia, North America's largest moth. Not to be confused with the Hawk Moth, another very large moth, Cecropias are members of the Saturniinae family. Saturniid adults have vestigial mouth parts and no digestive system so they usually live no more than a week. So perhaps it’s best to get down to business right out of the cocoon. (SFW Moth Porn) [more inside]
Never Gonna Make You Cry
Obsolete Skills
What do making a poultice out of deer fat, IDDQD & IDKFA, and balancing the tonearm on a turntable have in common? They are obsolete skills.
AND AMAZING FRIENDS!
Wheel of branding, turn turn turn, tell us what resonates with our target demographic. Lego… anime… pokémon!
Windows Vista Sensei spends his time "traveling from place to place in a quest to help the underprivileged global citizens… With his sense of clarity he possesses the things that legends are made of." If that marketing copy isn't compelling enough, there's a game, a conference, a web comic and a series of "webcasts" you can complete to earn the "311t3" Source Fource figures. Collect them all! [Compare][Contrast]
Windows Vista Sensei spends his time "traveling from place to place in a quest to help the underprivileged global citizens… With his sense of clarity he possesses the things that legends are made of." If that marketing copy isn't compelling enough, there's a game, a conference, a web comic and a series of "webcasts" you can complete to earn the "311t3" Source Fource figures. Collect them all! [Compare][Contrast]
How I built my house for £4,000
The next-gen hot 100 (game) developers 2008
Next Generation presents the Hot 100 Game Developers of the year. See which developers are lighting up the world of games in 2008. For the impatient: skip to the end. [more inside]
paper's hero: bill blackbeard
"Bill Blackbeard is a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers. This major collection, consisting of 2.5 million clippings, tearsheets and comic sections, [spans] the years 1894 to 1996... [more inside]
Bono's Joshua Tree RIP
Iconic joshua tree has fallen... many fine photographs centering on the national park and lots of information about the trees are included on this fan site. via [more inside]
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