Saturday March 15, 2008

Space Saturday

• Things of which make men proud of themselves, which is pretty nice, but can somebody please translate it into American for me?
• Did you see Google Sky? Microsoft is working on something similar and slicker, but, frankly, i don’t really see the point. Also, the earth and moon as seen from Mars.
• I don’t understand . . . why doesn’t Pat Condell just tell us how he really feels?
• Chuck Klosterman explains how to win at rock-paper-scissors.
• Just to get this out of my sodding browser tab: Cheese fries (worst food ever). Related: the good and bad of 7 of your favorite things, from chocolate to beer.
• How do I love Nicholson Baker? Let me count the — ok, whatever, but: The Charms of Wikipedia.
• 18
• Funny Games — a movie critics love to hate.
• Are you still not using Yubnub? And btw here is the guy who invented it. Or probably “created” is a better word.
• Something you’ve probably heard of already: The Daily Swarm.
• Sentenc.es: make like short e-mail.
• Ok, now I’m going to link to something that I have no idea what it means, except that it’s almost impossible to understand out of context. ready? go.
• Get rich and famous fast: start a blog. Things of which to blog, in possible order of preference: Tumblr, Vox, Wordpress. If possible, buy a friggin domain name and attach it to one of those (easy wth tumblr).
• Historical fonts you can download and use. (But please don’t.) Also, here are some fancy contemporary fonts.
• Franklin on being an artist and the internet. About right.
• Capsule review: my new camera, Canon SD870is, compared to my recently died camera, Canon SD400. Worse: the body is bigger and made of all-plastic (400 was all metal and had nice art-deco style flourishes), no optical viewfinder, easy to accidentally turn on when pulling out of pocket, (apparently) no way to boost saturation. Better: wide angle lens (yes!), higher iso/IS = low-light photos, interface improvements (e.g. customizable button). Indifferent: bigger screen. Ongoing gripes: no way to shut off shutter beep without muting entire camera, including movie playback, no auto-iso (ok technically there is, but it only boosts by one level), crappy auto-retracting lens cover lets lint in when camera is in my pocket. Overall: jammin.
• How to tell if you’re being followed.
• Amazing abandoned wooden houses in Russia. Every time someone links to something on English Russia it’s amazing.
• My new homepage. Also, you saw It’s not lupus, right? (I’ve only seen one episode of this show in my like, but it happens that it was the lupus one.) “He’s not responding because it’s not Lupus!”
• How to make a ball out of dirt, should you ever have the need.
• Oh, the daffy things people make.
• And, since it’s easier to get you people to look at things when I embed them, here:

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Saturday February 16, 2008

King of my village Saturday

• Trailer for King of My Village.
• Steven Wright. He released an album in 1986 called “I Have a Pony.” Now, 22 years later, comes his second album: “I Still Have a Pony.”
• 231% of your daily cholesterol: the Hungry Man All Day Breakfast.
• Barack Obama speaks at Google: “We will put government data online in universally accessible formats.” And LOTS of good stuff, mostly in the Q&A after his 15-minute opening remarks. Not at all related, and in fact pretty retarded, barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com.
• Things of which smart people changed their minds.
• Have I linked him before?: Bruce fucking Schneier.
• Let’s take this shit to the next level: Bicycle touring 101.
• Top 10 Rock Songs Black People Love: “#4 Pour Some Sugar On Me – Def Leppard. Fill a room with black folks, start this video on the TV, and by the end of the second bar of that guitar intro every black person has turned around watching the screen. If whites are in the room, we will smirk, nod, then resume talking and drinking with you. If no whites are in the room, one wannabe-hardcore-looking black guy will move in to switch the TV off, saying, “What y’all watching this crazy— white s–t for?” Other black folk in the room will move in and block him from the TV. “Whoa whoa whoa. Calm down. No.” Pause. “I like this.” Guaranteed. Black folk, admit you have been in a room where this happened.”
• Hey look, my man Michael Pollan did a TED talk.
• Observation: “dir /b > playlist.m3u” generates a perfectly reasonable playlist file, except that it somewhat peculiarly includes “playlist.m3u” in the file, which crashes Winamp. As bummers go, having to open a file in notepad and delete one line is not so bad.

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Saturday February 9, 2008

Oily Saturday

• Shifting Sands, Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of oil operations in Alberta, Canada. Presented in interesting zoom&pan style, some with voice explanations.
• The Rules. Somebody tell Peggy about this, she’d love it.
• Former sanitizer of rental movies is accused of paying teens for sex — the hypocrisy at the center of social conservatism continues its march into the open.
• Some hippie thing: Jesus Dress-up.
• How to eat sushi at a bar (YouTube).
• Crazy photos from a nuclear explosion.
• Let’s have some music, yes? Caravans, To Whom Shall I Turn, Jens Lekman, A Postcard to Nina (solo live on ukulele, and note that this song as a few of the best lines ever in a song, e.g. “I send back out-of-office auto-replies,” and so what the heck, one more bonust Jens: The Opposite of Hallelujah ), 80s cheese, Michael and Adrienne sing Who’s got the Crack?, Sinéad O’Connor, Troy (no fun at all with a green screen), Parliament Funkadelic, Mothership Connection, The Sea and Cake play Jacking The Ball, live in Japan 2003, and 10 years earlier, at their first gig, and Animal Collective, The Purple Bottle.
• Finally, here’s everything on the internet you never want to see. You may go to the post and read the descriptions, but do NOT click any of the links. You have been warned.

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Saturday January 26, 2008

Charge Saturday

• That’s your boyfriend, via whitch, Corey Worthington.
• George W. Bush thinks his favorite painting is of brave missionaries, but it’s actually of a horse thief!
• The internet is great because it’s a vast source of almost unlimited information and data. Check out these data: kill stats for the four Rambo movies.
• ahh
• Apple scored LAST on Fortune magazine’s list of socially responsible companies. Stick that in your iPod and rip it.
• Christopher Hitchens has been tearing it up over at Slate. Here he is pointing out that Huckabee is a fucking racist.
• Nice photograph of a lady sitting on a refrigerator.
• The two most promising measures were dropped from the stimulus package.
• Arto Lindsay, just because it’s wrong that a search of this site for his name doesn’t return any results. And on this occasion, some links? Why not: Interviews: one, two, three. Music: Beija-me, Copy me, Kukikeller.
• Funny cat-breathing game.
• My favorite person of the moment is Wendy Spero, and because I don’t trust you people to click through, here’s the pertinent video:
  

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Saturday January 19, 2008

Punishment Saturday

• Tom Cruise Scientology rant video. As one of the commenters puts it, HOLY SHIT. And courtesy of Rex, here are the takedown notice and Respect the Cock.
• New material pushes the boundary of blackness.
• Chinese punishments from 1804.
• Here’s something you’re going to want: Tenori-on.
• Artists take note: these nice people will make wallpaper, at any size, out of any image you like.
• I’m officially over Chris Matthews. His new book is null-skumbingly terrible, and now it turns out he’s kind of an asshole. (After you’ve watched that, you may be interested in seeing the apology that followed.)
• A list of changes made to the first three Star Wars movies.
• The strangest, most wonderful thing, ever. (Roughly, animations of two rabbit prisoners and their interactions with a sadistic door.)
• Slober slober.
• 10 physically modified people. You know, tattoos and stuff. Sillyness.
• If you absolutely must have a website, the least you can do is make it look like this.
• Flash game: Dogfight (an easy one). Related: Do pilots practice crash-landings?

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Saturday January 12, 2008

Newyear Saturday

• I don’t remember how I found Barrett Emke’s work, but I really like it.
• A few interesting ideas from lifehacker that may or may not be worth getting into: Jott, Sandy, Remember the Milk, Postful (would be cooler if it did 50¢ postcards). I haven’t really done anything with any of these, but as of 2008 I’m on Google Calendar, and my all-time favorite is ringfo. Also, for your computer, there’s Texter and Xplorer2.
• World leaders in youth and age.
• Randy Newman – A Few Words in Defense of Our Country. Also don’t miss Short People.
• Re-interperting the original Star Wars movie on the basis of episodes I-III. I just watched all of these, and I’m not sure I’m going along with all this, but interesting anyway. (And btw, if you don’t watch all six SW movies in the new intended order asap the terrorists have already won.)
• You probably saw this already, or don’t care at all, but crappy logo trends from 2007.
• “[T]he peanut butter, jelly, Bubbies, toaster hash browns, salt and vinegar chips, and chopped microwave sausages spread across a sourdough breakfast baguette that won (and probably nearly stopped) my wife’s heart.” — a celebration of peanut butter.
• Art Fag City’s Worst of the Web, because I don’t want to make the same mistakes.

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Saturday November 17, 2007

Deep space Saturday

• If you’re ever in deep space without a pressure suit, exhale. You have two minutes to live, but if there’s oxygen in your lungs they’ll rupture.
• You didn’t know about it, you don’t care about it, and I haven’t even watched it yet, but here it is anyway, just so I can say I linked to it later on: Quarterlife.
• A little fashion photography. Take a look — it won’t kill you!
• Why does a salad cost more then a big-mac? Because the US government subsidizes corn and soybean production, which lead quite directly to lower-cost junk food. “Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies.”
• Some real-world observations about quality and manufacturing in China.
• Earthrise/Earthset.
• The Mailer/McLuhan debate.
• If you don’t click this link, Dick Cheney will shoot you in the face.
• How to build a cable release and light-activated release for Canon SLRs.
• Glimpse of the forthcoming Firefox 3.
• New (last week) Malcom Gladwell.
• Zeitgeist and response.
• A survey of digital tampering with news photographs. “Redbook’s editor in chief Stacy Morrison said, ‘The retouching we did on Faith Hill’s photo for the July cover of Redbook is completely in line with industry standards.’”
• Hanging out on the space station (you’ll want to mute your sound before clicking).
• Iraq hotel reviews.
• Lou Reed ’74: Walk on the Wild Side and interview.
• Thank you for making it to the end, you pathetic, needy little punk. Now take what you deserve: What celebrities are watching on YouTube.

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Saturday November 10, 2007

Around the world in 60 seconds Saturday

• “A Dresden police report written shortly after the attacks stated that the old town and the inner eastern suburbs had been engulfed in a single fire which had destroyed almost 12,000 dwellings including residential barracks. The report also said that the raid had destroyed ’24 banks; 26 insurance buildings; 31 stores and retail houses; 640 shops; 64 warehouses; 2 market halls; 31 large hotels; 26 public houses; 63 administrative buildings; 3 theatres; 18 cinemas; 11 churches; 6 chapels; 5 cultural-historical buildings; 19 hospitals including auxiliary, overflow hospitals, and private clinics; 39 schools; 5 consulates; 1 zoological garden; 1 waterworks, 1 railway facility; 19 postal facilities; 4 tram facilities; 19 ships and barges.’”
• Ikea’s crazy accounting scheme. Note: it’s run by the world’s largest non-profit foundation, which is apparently primarily a tax shelter.
• The new postal rates are a threat to the freedom of the press.
• Williamsburg’s new Polish/Slovakian beer hall. I’m jealous.
• Reflections on GuoDuGongYuan by Ariel, Silvia, and Ross. Wonderful.
• New version of Feed the Head. Starts the same, then goes crazy.

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Saturday November 3, 2007

Celestial Saturday

• Jacqueline Hassink’s bank boardroom photos.
• Some blogs I should might be reading: one about google, and the one by Bruce Sterling.
• With Cheeseburgers.
• How not to display your artwork on the web, via, and also see, Jörg’s rant about same.
• The Fully loaded touring bicycles. Sift through, but if you get bored, just don’t miss this one. And speaking of bicycles, Sheldon Brown is my new main man. ‘nuff respect.
• The ten most incomprehensible Bob Dylan interviews of all time.
• The badger debate.
• Ross gets slightly political about the situation in China.
• How many bacon jokes is he going to do? A lot, actually.
• An interview with Paul K of BibliOdyssey on the occasion of the publication of his book.
• How Apples stores work.
• The impressive photography, and rather interesting flash website, of Ralph Schultz.
• American terms and their British equivalents.
• The map of the world, resized according to various factors. Above: tourism receipts.
• I thought I posted this before but apparently not: hate to break it to you, but Mother Teresa was a hypocrite and a fraud. She had a sick obsession with suffering and gave much of the money intended for the poor she was supposedly helping to sacred religious causes. Oh, and also, she stopped praying in 1959 and didn’t believe in God. See you Monday!

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Saturday October 27, 2007

Port-au-Prince Saturday

• Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Start from the airport, and explore from there. Update: This is the main airport. Thanks, Dig.
• Kool Noo blog: Everyone Forever.
• Four songs by the Blue Ribbon Glee Club, a choir that performs punk songs from the 1980s. Clash’s Spanish Bombs and Fugazi’s Waiting Room, for instances.
• To not bother with: Graphic desgin in the white cube.
• “Beaver Group is an artistic and political collective based in downtown New York. Their map theorizes an instant connectivity between New York and London, Tokyo, Baghdad, Singapore, and Thailand, among others, marking Manhattan at the crossroads of international trafficking and global politics. The final product resembles the scrapbooks of revolutionaries.”
• Colorized photographs of Europe from the 1800’s.
• Nuts that are not really nuts:, almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, macadamia nuts, peanuts, pine nuts, pistachios. Why the fuck do we even bother having words for things, then?!
• Normal places with lots of germs. Water fountains, especially in schools, and supermarket shopping carts.
• This game is beyond me, but it sure looks interesting.

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Saturday October 13, 2007

Noney Saturday

• Julien Dupont motorbike freestyle. You would think that, unlike BMX tricks, this would have important real-world applications. From the video, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
• Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century.
• What you need is your own personal moon.
• ‘They can’t all be pretty ones.’
• I do not believe your 65-foot filing cabinet skyscraper,
• . . . but I might be persuaded to believe 831 fluorescent tubes powered by the electromagnetic field surrounding overhead power lines.
• Florida Bicycling Street Smarts. Very Highlights-for-children, but actually has lots of useful information. Recommend chapters 6, 8, and 9.
• How does it feel to die, in case you haven’t seen it yet. Terrifying.
• “There is a crack, there is a line, and eventually there will be a scar and that scar will remain.” A mysterious crack installed in the floor of the Tate Modern. Another photo.
• ezee’s flickr stream. Eye-popping pictures from India.
• These here internets sure do love lists. Andrew Bell compiles the ultimate one. Wow — there goes your weekend.
• G-force test. I felt relaxed and refreshed after watching this.
• Noney, the people’s currency. Get away from me you dirty commies.
• Instructables.
• “Leave the World Trade Center excavation exactly as it is and use the space as a freshwater pond, planted with pink, white and yellow water lilies. Stock it with bass, sunnies, fat-head minnows and turtles. Fishing for children under 12 only. A small statue of Voltaire shall be installed there, too.” #6 in Danny Lyon’s 10-step plan for New York City.
• The photography of Myoung Ho Lee and Sage Sohier.
• Taco Bell is opening stores in Mexico, apparently targeted to the upper class.
• Caution: this game has educational overtones. It’s still sort of fun, though. Bonus points if anyon can solve the ‘Loop the loop’ level, which seems broken.

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Saturday September 29, 2007

William Burroughs is underrated Saturday

• Taliban photos.
• Update: The terrorists are laughing at us. (via Bruce Schneier)
• Selections from Matrix-L, including unpublished letters to the Los Angeles Times.
• A bunch of new Ted talks have been released. Check out this one: 10 ways the world could end and what we can do to make it not.
• Stories from Prague: Káva and Pivo.
• We’re forgetting about William S. Burroughs entirely too fast.
• Huh, what is this? Update: It appears to be an archive page from a Japanese blog dedicated to one particular vending machine, and how the items offered by that machine change from day to day, featuring some great diagrams. How we should feel about this remains an unanswered question.
• Motorcycle doctors in rural Africa.
• LOL big lenses.
• This week in “Google’s Plan to Conquer the World,” Google Gears. You know those online apps that Google launched a few months ago? Not so online anymore.
• Those of you who do not understand why Eric Clapton is considered a god of the guitar should watch this video and then you’ll see. (Also: Star Wars Redo)
• At this point i might be delirious, but this is funny. “Question: what has a fruity lining and is approximately six inches long? Answer: a highly inappropriate joke!”
• Hey look, the Onion is producing videos now: ‘Students First In Line’ Program To Offer Job Training At Needy Schools.
• Try to care less about something: Woody Allen is directing an opera.
• The mayor of San Diego, a republican, changed his mind about gay marriage.
• Don’t go to college. Animal Collective told you, Vice Magazine told you, and this guy proved it with numbers.

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Saturday September 22, 2007

Text Saturday

• This is why I don’t do things like this: because eventually, Google will just come along and make it better (and in this case, I still need some convincing that this is worth any effort at all).
• Jason Kottke’s gems from the archives of the New York Times and first NY Times restaurant review, circa 1859?
• Richard Dawkins: What if you’re wrong?
• Cramming hurts your long-term memory.
• Chuck Klosterman, the Author Photos. In his book IV, Klosterman discusses the outfit in the last photo. He purchased it from a Gap where a mannequin was wearing all three items (shirt, sweater, jeans), because “(a) I assume the kind of people who dress mannequins spend a lot of time considering aesthetics, (b) this eliminated the decision making, and (c) I am somewhat ‘mannequin-shaped.’”
• Famous literary lines and how to use them in conversation.
• Bid farewell to the hyphen.
• Book sculptures. See also the photography of Abelardo Morell.
• William Strunk Jr’s The Elements of Style, pre-White’s additions (but you really do need the full version, with White’s stuff).
• Great History Channel documentary about Freemasonry. No conspiracy theories here, just lots of great history. (Also lots of goofiness — “the concept of the three”? “the concept of the four”??)

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Saturday September 15, 2007

Foodie Saturday

• Pika — fun light-painting animation video.
• Custom fake ATM receipts with your name and any balance you choose. $16 for a year’s supply (one per week).
• How to launder money.
• Amazing robot farming machines.
• 10 amazing churches, plus a bonus dog chapel.
• Amazing dog escape video.
• Goofy new Battles video.
• Think before you click this — do you really want to see a guy lift a 14 pound elephant statue with his eyelid?
• To do: replace your pocket camera’s firmware with a hacked version to give it extra powers.
• Note to the internet: I made you, and I can destroy you if you keep it up with crap like this.
• ?
• Esquire magazine: The Falling Man (As in 9/11).
• Anyone cam make a vidoe, put it on YouTube, and claim that it was scheduled to run on the Discovery Chanel and then mysteriously yanked. Who knows: Conspiracy of Silence.
• I’m just not so sure about the map of humanity.
• Inbox Zero at Google Talk.
• A list of the supposedly worst torture devices in history. Somehow not as impressive as I’d have expected.
• You want silly? Ok: Using Deconstruction to Astonish Friends & Confound Enemies.
• “I’m a scientist, so I’m going to do this not with rhetoric, but by marinading you in a little bit of data.” Dan Gilbert talks about happiness.
• How to spend $27,000 on food in one day (plus a bullshit diamond-encrusted cake).
• New Jens Lekman album, 9.0 on Pitchfork.
• Here’s a little something for those of you who think you can watch anything: video of a guy who will eat anything. You might watch the intro bit, but as soon as he bites into that fish eyeball you’ll be out of there.
• Flash game of the week: Mansion impossible. It’s actually Mansion Pretty Easy, but sort of fun. Try to get anything better then 15 years for a score.

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Saturday September 8, 2007

Infection Saturday

Well, the weird computer infection persists, but it seems to have calmed down enough for me to do some basic computerin’. I might even check my e-mail sometime this weekend. Meanwhile, I just spoke to a friend of mine who’s computer has been taken over, with some remote hacker moving her mouse pointer, going to websites, and even opening a command prompt window. Yikes!

• Best thing to do: use it as an excuse to re-format your system and re-install everything.
• Leo seems like a nice guy. If he’s addressed your problem you may be in luck.
• TigerDirect Unlawfully Restrains And Verbally Abuses Customer For Not Submitting To Receipt-Showing Demands, using my photo! See also, ‘you may not see my receipt’.
• What the internet gets right: an endless stream of striking images.
• Chuck Klosterman on R Kelly. Skip the paragraph that starts “The first 12 chapters” because of spoilers, and you’re going to want to watch Trapped in a Closet, parts 1-5.
• Found photos of a woman tracing her life from childhood to middle age.
• Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya’s gulag drawings.
• Love this: vincentgallo.com contact page.
• Speaking of infections: what you need to know if you’re getting into the adult entertainment industry. This is a 2-hour thing, so feel free to skip around.
• Karl Grobl talks about his camera straps. Riveting. More how-to from Karl.
• Interesting from Lifehacker: Flight simulartor hidden in Google Earth, related to above: wipe your hard drive and reinstall Windows, Windows desktops.
• Hey everybody, Jason’s back.
• Torrentspy blocked in US. Proceed directly to The Pirate Bay, myBittorrent, or mininova. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, well, you’ll need Azureus. Update your virus definitions. Advanced: Stop your ISP from throttling bittorrent speeds.
• Review of State of Fear, Michael Crichton’s 2004 book “about” global warming.
• Look at this. Now read this. Discuss.
• Arm and Hammer Easy-Flush cat litter is now and forever gone.
• 6th element – 碳 – カーボン – 탄소 – углерод flickr pool. I’m through with flickr, but still.
• It’s time to stand up to my e-mail.
• Can anyone be a designer?
• 10 incredible recordings.
• Marilyn Manson on the O’Reilly Factor.
• OK, now please go back to Fimoculous and start again, from scratch.
• Update: I forgot to give you a silly flash game. Sorry; here you go.

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Saturday August 18, 2007

Mozzarella Saturday

• The Korean pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
• Cursing Winnebago guy. You believe any of that shit?
• Why lead paint is good. “A house painter in the early 20th century would show up to a job with two buckets—one for the paint substrate, one for the lead powder. The more lead he added, the better the paint, the higher the price.”
• A British girl talking about Derrida and . . . I still don’t get it.
• Night photography of the American West.
• Be very afraid: Giuliani’s plan for international politics. Bonus: a great title.
• A few choice excerpts from 17th century women’s guide to looking good.
• Steve Jobs’ recent Apple update [Quicktime]. The new iMacs are cool enough, but the section on the new iMovie is what really got me.
• Not to mention this week in how much Vista blows: the 2008 Olympic committee refuses to run it ‘cause there “could be some problems.”
• How to make your own mozzarella.
• L8dest watches from TokyoFlash.
• A 99¢ fractal photograph.
• A fan-created video for Bjork’s Innocence.
• Don’t bother with this, it’s a to-read for myself: How to make people buy books.
• Quick: name the other two countries in the world besides the US that don’t use the metric system. Answer.
• Richard Pryor on the mafia.
• Olafur Eliasson’s Your House.
• I was waiting for Franklin to link to a super-amazing Strongbad video, because I sure can’t pick one, and now he has.
• To try: leave the store without showing them your bags and receipt. Of course you can.

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Saturday August 11, 2007

Artificial Saturday

• Last week we met Blackle, who’s energy-savings claims were brought into question. So, does it save power? Answer: a rather complicated ‘maybe’. On a CRT, probably yes, on an LCD, probably no. (thx mkh)
• mika-rin’s photos. And by the way, you could do this, you know. Polaroid cameras, film, and scanners are really actually pretty cheap.
• My mom was just in a hospital here. Notice the woods right next door? Well, she was awakened every morning by a herd of muflon that hang out on the hospital grounds.
• Terrifying Chinese car crash-test videos: 1, 2.
• I have been reading with some interest Rob Galbraith’s Canon EOS-1D Mark III autofocus odysey. It seems that Canon’s brand new flagship $4,000 camera has some serious autofocus problems, and Canon’s response for the last two months has been silence. You might think that Nikon would take advantage and release that D3X they’ve been sitting on (by some accounts) since 2005, because there must be some pretty frustrated pros out there right about now.
• Ambient devices.
• ‘You can tell that Rudy Guiliani has read his Orwell.’
• “Cheat to Win” bracelet.
• Top secret, but I’ll share: The Myth of ‘perfect pitch,’ and how to get ‘it’.
• Fun with cell phones. OK, it’s overintellectualized fun.
• Let’s have some music videos! The Unicorns, I Was Born A Unicorn. Akon, Sorry (Blame it on Me). Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls (if you stick with this one it will reward you). Ornette Coleman, 1979. Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Shimmy Shimmy Y’all. (RIP. True story: during a failed stick-up attempt on ODB and RZA, ODB took the would-be robber’s shotgun out of his hands and pointed it back at him.”) Freddie King, Goin’ Down. Fela Kuti, Teacher Don’t teach Me No Nonsense.
• List of artificial objects on the Moon.
• JM Colberg on perspective distortion. Click everything, especially the Monty Python video behind the “my brain hurt” link.
• Recommended text editors. I’m on a PC, so I don’t get BBEdit. I get by with TextPad, but it’s a little old school for me.
• Fix your scratched CD’s with a banana.
• “Science doesn’t work. No one told you because you’re so cute when you get into something.”
• Something totally shocking: Windows Vista is a complete clusterfuck. Can we all just get macs now please? (Answer: no.)
• Food porn: watermelon steak. Say, don’t I have a food blog around here somewhere? I should really update that.
• Prepare to shudder: 45-minute documentary about men who live with life-sized dolls. More here.

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Saturday August 4, 2007

Riot Saturday

• Blackle: Google in stylish, energy-saving black.
• Here’s something to never ever do: IR filter installation walkthrough for a digital camera.
• Newser. Because right now the web is just way too fucking coherent.
• How to speak Pig Latin.
• The pseudo-German photography of Si-Chan Park.
• An oldie, but a goldie: what’s in your bag? flickr pool (featuring 3,900 photos!).
• The Stanford Prison Experiment: creepy video, Wikipedial entry.
• Woody Allen discusses Ingmar Bergman’s death.
• AES+F: something very strange that I don’t understand. In any case, the picture above is from “last riot.”
• How the Mafia works.
• Asshole security guards that harass you when you’re trying to photograph stuff you have every right to photograph.
• The Battles: Atlas.
• Here’s something else I don’t understand: Polyvore.
• Ron van der Ende’s basrelief sculptures.
• Some idiot tries to get rich by putting stupid shit (say, six lighters) in a blender: Will it blend, unsafe version.
• Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science is online in its entirety.
• I’m pretty sure this falls under the category of ‘people with too much time on their hands,’ but I’m presenting it here on the off chance that I’m incorrect: Faceball.
• The most powerful people you’ve never heard of. Well, not you — but most people haven’t heard of them. Via my new kottke replacement, fimoculous.
• Whoa: Gravity Pods game.

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Saturday July 28, 2007

Ghost town Saturday

• The making of Damien Hirst’s $100 million diamond skull.
• Fun with words.
• The Wattson personal energy monitor allows you to monitor your electricity usage minute to minute, and share the info with the world.
• List of words banned from Scrabble in 1993.
• Breathtaking video for a Kanye West song, with Zach Galifianakis and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.
• Origin of the term white trash.
• Fake Steven Wright twitter.
• U: Inbount/outbound tact filters.
• M.I.A.: banned in the USA, weird accusations, censored on MTV, is single, photos from NY show, new music: Boyz (photos from shoot), Bird Flu, new album tracklist and releaste date: Kala, Aug 21.
• Creepy photos of an abandoned village in Italy.
• Lifehacker 10 DIY office projects.
• I don’t like this one as much but whatever: Triangles.

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Saturday July 21, 2007

Lift Saturday

• It has come to my attention that there are people around who still haven’t seen the George Washington video. “Present beware. Future beware. He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming.”
• Hilary Clinton exchanges some correspondence with the Pentagon: “In effect, Edelman was telling her three things. First, you’re practically a traitor for even asking these questions. Second, maybe we do have contingency plans for withdrawal, but we’re not going to tell you about them. Third, run along now, little lady, I’ve got work to do.”
• Pimp my rice paddy.
• Ryan posted this NY bike messenger video, and if you didn’t watch it then, do yourself the favor.
• Top 10 audio recordings. (So what can’t you get on the internet?)
• “Even if you don’t agree that price discrimination on the basis of race and gender is reprehensible . . . you should at least consider the possibility that it’s a bad business strategy.”
• Uhh.. horses like to play with balls.
• Ask a music scene micro celebrity: Steve Albini. Along the way Albini shies away from nothing and sheds wisdom on countless topics, not the least of which is how to deal with people on the internet. Strategy: read only posts by “electrical.” He’ll quote any question he’s answering, and the whole thread is just too damned long to sit through.
• New photos from the battle of Passchendaele. From the Wikipedia page, this aerial view shows the town before and after the battle.
• The White Stripes’ one-note show in St. John’s.
• “Listen. I got into politics because a friend of mine who is a big time corporate attorney thought I’d be good at it. He said I should be a Republican. He explained to me all about crony capitalism and told me I’d make great connections and scads of money. And all I had to do was represent the interests of my friends and donors. They’d tell me what to do.”
• vvork.
• Derren Brown beats toys with 9 chess players simultaneously.
• Over at the NYTimes, the wealthiest Americans ever. In inflation-adjusted $s, most of them were alive in the 1800s.
• Music star real names.
• I know, I know, I’m weighing you down with lots of videos. But here’s an adorable short by Pixar you need to see anyway.
• This lightbulb has been burning almost continuously since 1901.
• Persuasive Games.

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Saturday July 14, 2007

Jelly fish Saturday

• At Ironic Sans, a roundup of terrorist organization logos.
• The loudness war — how record companies are ruining your music (true, even if the example is a bit exaggerated).
• Photo above is from the Black Sea. More here.
• Top 10 strangest deaths.
• New, minimalist Coke can, and the history of Coke cans.
• The pretty fucking impressive sculpture of Kris Kuksi.
• Blah: nature photos. these are from the Smithsonian, and not too bad.
• Charlie Vandergaw is a dude who enjoys hanging out with bears. Hopefully he won’t get eaten like the dude in that Herzog film.
• Segovia tears it up.
• Photos from Pakistan, 2004.
• Apparently American Express jacked this photo from flickr.
• “When Dateline NBC recently asked children to choose between a banana and a rock with a Scooby-Doo sticker on it for breakfast, nearly all chose the rock.” Great moments in product placement.
• Some idiot cheats on Price-is-Right.
• Denis Darzacq’s falling photos.
• Schadenfreude is a German word meaning ‘pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune’.
• Photos from inside a McDonald’s factory in Moscow.
• I’ve had this tab open in my browser for weeks, and since I can’t seem to bring myself to read it, I think everyone else should read it instead: The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence.
• Reversal ring? We don’t need no stinkin’ reversal ring: how to turn a regular camera lens into a microscope on the cheap.
• ‘Bush Lied, They Died’ t-shirt banned in three states.
• Nude LP Covers. Where’s the Blind Faith cover?
• Here is a decent optical illusion. If you stare at the + in the middle, first the moving dot will turn green. Then all the purple dots will disappear, leaving only a moving green dot. “Proof enough, perhaps, that we do not see always what we think we see.”
• BrianBrown’s photostream.
• We build tunnels through things.
• Rare deleted scenes from Shawshank Redemption. “2 not so good deleted scenes from the classic Shawshank Redemption. Rare scenes are from an old VHS taping of a Showtime cable special in 1995, and never seen again. Not in the DVD, because Frank Darabont had regrets about showing these. Both scenes feature Morgan Freeman.”
• The wonderful objects of pan-dan.
• Thomas Pynchon: essay about, literature map, random page from Gravity’s Rainbow, Against the Day deathmarch.
• Michael Moore vs. CNN on fact-checking Sicko: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

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Saturday July 7, 2007

2007.5 Saturday

• That’s right, folks, we’re three-quarters of the way through the 00 decade. As such, I think it’s time we take stock, but I’m going to start slowly, by looking back at the 90’s. Back then, we had this thing called techno, and I’m now going to proclaim Underworld’s Pearl’s Girl the apex of that genere. Here is the original version, with the visuals suitably subsumed by bitmapping, and for those who’ve heard PG more times then they can count, here’s an extended live cut.
• Are you a real American? Take the immigration test. (I got a 95% (1 wrong).)
• Slideshow from a doll factory.
• James Dyson dries his hands. “Well, if you’re interested in saving the environment . . .”
• You call that a light switch? No no, this here is a light switch.
• Font smoothing, anti-aliasing, and sub-pixel rendering. Noteworthy for the “how your brain works” analysis at the end.
• Al Gore’s contributions to the internet and technology.
• “[I]f you weren’t familiar with the fact that this is the first time in history that we in the United States are able to eat mangoes that are actually from the place that mangoes were born, it’s time to get acquainted.”
• The Boda-Boda taxi-bikes of Africa.
• Five good things to absorb while you’re still young. Oh, what the hell, let’s do some more 5vies: Five great reasons to buy a Hummer™, Five more slightly misleading revelations of federally-funded abstinence programs, Five things that must be stopped immediately.
• You have to “skip introduction” and click “music OFF” real quick, but here’s a link to a 9.9 Gigapixel image of an Italian fresco, and an explanation of how it was done.
• Lots of interesting ideas get thrown around in this think-piece about posters.
• You know you want ‘em, and here they are: your human cadaver dissection videos.
• This chickenshit Esquire writer tries “Radical Honesty” and fails. (belated via to DN)
• “The music companies are in a dying business, and they know it. Sure, they act all cool because they hang around with rock stars. But beneath all the glamour these guys are actually operating two very low-tech businesses. One is a form of loan-sharking: they put up money to make records, then force recording artists to pay the money back with exorbitant interest. The other business is distribution. They’ve got big warehouses and they control the shipment of little plastic boxes that happen to have music in them .  . both parts of their business model are fucked.” All this and more, including stuff about getting hit with the clue stick, at the Fake Steve Jobs.
• Greg Packer, man in the street.
• Today’s flash game is a music app: Pandora.
• Next week: album of [this] decade.

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Saturday June 30, 2007

Diffraction Saturday

• History.
• This lazy kid only bothered to learn the second half of Stairway to Heaven.
• How to operate a shower curtain.
• Knife and Sharpening Steel Hardness.
• Holy crap, more annoying then real kids.
• A new American portrait.
• Sokushinbutsu: The Self-Mummified Monks of Japan. “Each day he rang a bell to let those outside know that he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the tube was removed and the tomb sealed.”
• Best Thing.
• Another thing about idiotic disclaimers: Who’s afraid of Time Inc.’s e-mail disclaimer.
• 60’s model poses decoded.
• From a conversation I had last night: How to Select the Sharpest Aperture Considering the Simultaneous Effects of Depth-of-Field and Diffraction.
• “Between 2000 and 2006 I together with writer Cia Rinne undertook travels in seven different countries with a view to gaining an insight into the life of the Roma and the conditions they face. We always tried to spend a considerable length of time among the people whom we wanted to learn about and, if possible, to live with them for a while.” The Roma Journeys.
• Cop vs. skateboarders
• Price of a gram of cocaine around the world.
• For a flash website, this is not too bad.
• Shitty flash, but amazing content: Juilliard Manuscript Collection.
• One day aboard the Space Shuttle.
• Unusual foods.
• Andy Warhol: eating a hamburger, time capsule, philosophy [Click again: loads a different page each time!], Day in the life (with fantastic Velvets backing track), the classic interview, quotes, drawings, and life. Also, possibly the most annoying thing you’ll click all day, a million thanks for Andy Warhol.
• Bloxorz. I’m up to stage 12 20 (and sort of done with it).

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Saturday June 23, 2007

A car you'll never have Saturday

• Unreal videos of the surface of the sun.
• Susan Sontag’s 1975 review of a Leni Riefenstahl book.
• Get your photography on: 2000, from Magnum’s first 60 years, one photograph per year. The the work of Edward Burtynsky. Dismal world. Finally, Michael Poliza’s photostream.
• The Scooter Libby Love Letters, pleas for leniency written to the judge in his case, some by prominent democrats.
• “You can’t really do this at home. But the canard à la rouennaise or duck in blood sauce is an antique, spectacular, barbaric and sophisticated recipe you need to see at least once in your life.”
• A couple of weeks old, but: “To read a dissent aloud is an act of theater that justices use to convey their view that [these fucking men are] not only mistaken, but profoundly wrong.” [Times Select account required]
• The new Fiat 500, w/r/t which good fucking luck, because it’ll probably never be sold stateside. [Also, note that this idiot website will set a cookie and make you register if you try to visit twice.]
• From awake to leave home.
• Related to the Ed Bobb incident (maybe): How a photo can ruin your life.
• Everybody else is linking to it so why can’t I: One day, your computer will be a big ass table.
• Another fun google maps close-up for you to enjoy zooming out of.
• Why are milk containers square when soft-drink containers are round?
• Don’t eat hair from your mom’s hairbrush [warning: disgusting].
• A bunch of kids with welding equipment made a train roller-coaster loop.
• The Dunning-Kruger effect. Also, here’s my monthly link to the List of cognitive biases.
• Not fun, or particularly educational, but build an atom.
• Disney Mars colonization movie from 1957. Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
• Oh, I almost forgot: Czech news station gets punk’d.
• Crap, one more: How to survive a shark attack.

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Saturday May 26, 2007

Parkour Saturday

 

• Marving Gaye sings the national anthem, ’83. I’ve been watching it over and over for months, and I just can’t get over i t.
• Stupid e-mail disclaimers. Please let’s don’t have these, and if you see them keep in mind that they have no leagal force. You can in fact copy, forward, read, quote, and use whatever you like. They’re just, like, asking.
• Cute or not cute!!: Puppy vs kitten.
• Har har funny photoshopped children’s book covers.
• Construction photos of the Eiffel Tower.
• Richard Feynman: I don’t like honors.
• Lol rok sux. And you may also find this to be of interest.
• Huge spooky holes have been turning up in Russia. They’re in the woods where no digging machines could really have gotten, and there’s no sign of where the dirt went, or what the heck they’re even for.
• Slow-mo video of a popping balloon.
• 14-year old proves evolution is wrong, wins Christian science fair.
• Penn & Teller burn a flag in the White House. OK, it’s on West Wing, but the last 30 seconds of this is great.
• Very soon I’m going to read this article about parkour. You can of course search for “parkour” on YouTube yourself and get tons of results.
• Sorry but no, I do not believe this photo of a huge hog.
• And here’s your flash sort-of game for the week: game, game, game and again game.

Links takend from a variety of places, including Cynical-C, Waxy, and Kottke .

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Saturday May 19, 2007

Sofa Saturday

• Underwater tigers. No bullshit: if you click that link you’ll see real tigers. Under water. Do not ask me how, but it’s true. And scary. And amazing. And real. Wow.
• Ceiling height can affect how a person thinks, feels, and acts.
• Here are Your Tubes for the day: Color changing card trick, 4th floor collapses at Israel wedding, May 24, 2001, 747 take-off, Airwolf (ah, yeah), and the last 10 seconds of every Season-1 STtNG episode.
• Read it and take notes: Naturalistic fallacy. If I had a dime for every time I’ve encountered this I’d be rich for real.
• Listening to Words, an online archive of free audio lectures.
• Sometimes you land someone’s home page and you instantly know they’re a bad ass, and clicking around can only spectacularly confirm so. Case in point: Signe Vad.
• Hmm.. maybe this long-assed interview with Jonathan Rauch?
• Words on Skin flickr pool. Hey, does anyone remember that girl that got RHCP lyrics tattooed on her in honor of her dead brother in the first episode of Miami Ink?
• It’s now official: the DRM in HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs will never work.
• And an interview with Wafaa Bilal, the Iraqi you got to shoot last week.
• You’re nobody unless your name Googles well, at the WSJ. Also, Clive Thompson’s response. And speaking of Google, this week’s installment of Google’s long-term plan to rule the world: Gmail powerpoint viewer.
• The Sofa Portraits. Photographer Colin Pantall tracks his daughter as she grows up in front of the tube.
• All teh internets are belong to us: I deleted my JPG account group. For backstory see here. Oh shit, you should probably also read this.
• Web Zen: strange games zen

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Saturday May 12, 2007

Total eclipse of the heart Saturday

• Hurra Torpedo, Total Eclipse of the Heart: one year later, still the best thing on the internet.
• An illustrated guide to GOP Scandals.
• High-larious This American Life parody.
• This claims to be a hangover cure, but it’s way too complicated for that (try pedealite). I’d say it’s really no more or less then pure decadence.
• Skeevy video of underwater creatures: replete with Japanese voice-over.
• Recent ads I enjoyed: Comedy Central, Rolling Stone Magazine, Recycling. And in Pakistan, they’re running ads asking people to keep an eye out for stray radioactive materials.
• “He went off to interview some of the boys from Hezbollah — and they offered him either a mobile phone strap or a baseball cap with the Hezbollah logo on it.”
• Old photos of the pyramids and Sphinx.
• Terre Haute is “located within a 500-mile radius of seventy-percent of the population of the United States.” Miriam Joyce spectacularly calls bullshit.
• What can be done with the VW Beetle.
• History of the real and nominal minimum wage.
• OK, here’s a public service announcement. You know how when you’ve had your computer awhile it gets clogged up with all these programs, and sometimes you try uninstalling something and it doesn’t quite work, and now you have a program that has remnants on your system and the official uninstall won’t work anymore, but it causes glitches here and there? I had a serious problem on my work computer that made it a huge pain in the ass to copy files, and I finally tracked down the solution: behold the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. (Caution: use carefully and at your own risk.)
• Shoot a real Iraqi. For real. Really. (Well, ok, it didn’t work for me. But still interesting.)
• Playing drum & bass on a drum set: Edwordless, Kevin Sawka, xhilikus, and Dave Marsalek.

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Saturday May 5, 2007

Ted Saturday

• A field guide to hot peppers including photos and Scoville heat scores.
• The Copenhagen Consensus: what we should (AIDS prevention) and shouldn’t (Kyoto) do. Video: Bjørn Lomborg explains it.
• The dark side of Snopes.
• Note to Self. (via kottke)
• Last week we had proof that vampires don’t exist. Today, proof of the fact that people landed on the moon.
• Michael Pollan writes about food. He’s a joy to read, and not just because his suggestions benefit one who heeds them and the planet. Read this first — it’s a NYTimes article where he sums up h