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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