Links posted in October 2006
October 31, 2006
Curious George: Hosting Mystery A client of mine wants to switch hosting companies but cannot find/remember/dig up the present hosting info. I have been trying to sleuth it out but no luck. [more inside]
Cool multi-touch computer interaction
Forget about your mouse and keyboard, this is the future. via dzone
[more inside]
Curious George: Occupational blogs? Do you have any recommendations for blogs that let me walk a mile in someone's occupational shoes? I want to read the ups and downs about working on a construction site, driving a train, being a flight attendant, being a mailman, whatever. I really haven't had much luck fishing this stuff out of the sea of teen angst and vaporous blogs. Recommendations?
Eroica!
Fabulous, in-depth Flash exploration of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major. (via MeFi).
[more inside]
In
the spirit of Hallowe'en: Suspense! Chills! Shiver!
via YouTube
World's largest Pumpkin Gaia affirms that it's an orange alert day.
Horrors! [alas in PDF] but nonetheless a wealth of short stories and novels from some of the greatest writers in the genre as well as lesser-knowns.
October 30, 2006
The House That Must Be Mine [more inside]
Tom Waits Interview in the Observer
"Waits talks like he sings, in a rasping drawl and with an old-timer's wealth of received wisdom. It's as if, in late middle-age, he has grown into the person he always wanted to be.
His tales are often tall, and his metaphors and similes tend towards the surreal. 'Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them,' he quips. 'Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.'"
via linkfilter
Did you ever stumble into an online community that made you feel like you'd stepped through the looking glass? Warning: Lots of crappy, pop-up-laden webhosting. (Possibly NSFW, depending on how seriously you want to be taken by your co-workers in the future.) [more inside]
A transcript from Frontline on the De Beers diamond cartel. This aired over ten years ago, but it's still relevant, I think. I found it fascinating. I've read about the diamond cartel before, but this had more history and info than I'd seen before. (Warning: pretty long.) [more inside]
Curious George: 60s Fancy Dress Help me with some fancy dress ideas for a 60s themed party on Saturday. [more inside]
The Skool Rules Also nowen as Klassrooms & Matrons ... [more inside]
October 29, 2006
Fixavote.com Election Consultants "provides unparalleled results by focusing on the outcome rather than the process. Using state-of the-art technology, we overcome the challenges of competition and ensure election results for our clients." (To make it even more evil, it's Flash-based) [more inside]
Hot Rod Cartoon Mags - Hot hot rod action
October 28, 2006
Slow news-day filter This showed up as a headline on Yahoo! News. [more inside]
A friend of mine went to Chernobyl last week [more inside]
Trainwrecks.
Many of us get a bit gleeful when we come across a truly priceless flame-out or pile-on *cough*Daisy May*cough* but they can be hard to find. If only there was some site that filters out all the boring, rational threads for us...
Stevie Wonder's live 1973 performance of "Superstition". Performed with members of his Wonderlove backing band on "Sesame Street", of all places.
October 27, 2006
Monkeys, monkeys, and more monkeys Just shootin' the breeze.
The Highest Scrabble Scores Ever Doubters and haters say: good players wouldn't have given Michael Cresta the chance to make quixotry for 365 points, and good players wouldn't have shot the moon for it. Scrabble fans say 830 points by one player? Hot damn!
Yesterday:
"Q Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me . . "
Today: White House denies Cheney hailed 'water boarding'
Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary: "You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will," Snow said. "You think Dick Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on."
(emphasis added)
And now today's Pop Quiz: How Dumb Do They Think We Are?
[more inside]
Rahner's Rotten Rentals [embedded Real video], Seattle Times critic Mark Rahner's Halloween movie roundup, pays tribute to the heroically shlocky TV horror hosts of the 60s and adds a grateful nod to the horror hosts of today.
Curious George wants to play house. Idly thinking about Jan Smithers yesterday, I got to wondering: who was your childhood / pre-adolescent celebrity crush? Who did you want to play house with? Play doctor with? Cuddle up with and have them all for your very own? [more inside]
Are you a girl? Is it Halloween?
Now why don't you come down to Girls' Costume Warehouse?
Ostensibly a commercial for a costume store that ran locally in New Joisey.. funny.
*WARNING: NSFW requires FLASH contains SWEARY WOIDS*
[more inside]
October 26, 2006
Got a sense for geography? Test your knowledge of world geography alone or against another online player. [more inside]
100 Million Year Old Bee
Experts believe pollen-dependent bees arose from carnivorous wasp ancestors. With the arrival of pollinating bees, flowering plants blossomed on Earth. Prior to 100 million years ago, the plant world was dominated by conifers which spread their seeds on the wind.
Do we have bees to thank for all the flowers in the world? Mayhap!
[more inside]
World Press Freedom Index The association Reporters Without Borders just released its 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index. The UK is 27th and the US is 53rd. [more inside]
Woman presses lawsuit against her family for "deprogramming" attempt. Another take. The jury is still out on the whether the Dominion Christian Centre of Hamilton, ON is a cult or not. [more inside]
Curious Music Trivia Mayday George! Okay, so me and my buddies are doing this fun trivia thing. We're given a hundred short music clips and we have to get their titles. We got all the answers except two... [more inside]
Housetrucks and housebuses - homebuilt RVs/rolling homes. Rustic, cute, cozy. (via CoolTools)
Why we're fucked Long, harrowing article clinically dissecting exactly why the war in Iraq can now never be won, if indeed it ever could. Appalling, but there you are.
It's time to LIE BACK AND THINK OF ENGLAND [more inside]
October 25, 2006
Mary Worth in real time. Here's a solid month's worth of Mary Worth comics, acted out. Takes about 5 minutes. They use camera angles based on the comic panels. Fun, in a bad-film-noir kind of way.
Very short stories ... in six words.
A Wonderful Bird is the Pelican... Horror in London Park!
"Paris Syndrome" - It's so horrible it will make you have a psychotic break.
A Good News Day for Scott Adams
The creator of Dilbert lost he voice 18 months ago due to Spasmodic Dysphonia.
There is no cure.
Yet he has managed to work out how to speak again.
[more inside]
ITunes code "cracked" Adds extra layer of "copy protection". Real Soon Now -- shop around for your iPodian needs.
October 24, 2006
Bush Uses The Google Yes, hot on the heels of the megahit "The Internets", the red hot despotic act POTUS releases a new single The Google, on which the eponymous "Google Maps" is misunremembered, but email - is eschewed. [more inside]
Son of Weird Animal News!
We lead with a Snoring Horse that has a life-saving operation on its hooter. Elsewhere, a duck kills a giant Pike but does not live to quack.
And that's not all!
[more inside]
Tokyo Zombie!
LA Zombie! Florence Zombie! Texas Zombie! Hawaii Zombie! Adelaide Zombie! Winnipeg Zombie! New York Zombie! Kitchener Zombie!
At radio free #mofirc [listen!] we have a lot of zombies. What we need is some fresh blood and brains....
Mmmmm braaaains....
[more inside]
The 2006 Living Planet Report was released by the WWF today. The group’s biennial statement on the state of the natural world, says that on current projections humanity will be using two planets’ worth of natural resources by 2050 — if those resources have not run out by then. [more inside]
Comic Cover Database (over 120,000 comic covers)
Something Stinks in Norway The smell of home ... [more inside]
Boing Boing Blogs Beautiful Book Building, Bashes 'Bashi. Brilliant! [more inside]
Pumpkin Carving With Klingons.
And a cat.
via
October 23, 2006
Amazing New Product! Erstaunliches Neues Produkt!
Products. Useful. Sleek. You will buy or possibly make them!
vom blauen Filter der Liebe
Foley-Phile? Play along at home with the Mark Foley action figure! With kung-fu grip (on a bottle of hooch) and pants-falling fun! [more inside]
Guinevere Project cancelled - I don't know why, but something has happened to the British Rocket Group's project to send a probe to Mars.
Coke vs. Pepsi takes on a new meaning in San Juan Chamula, a village where Mayan indigenous beliefs intersect with Christianity. While it is illegal to take photos inside the local church [based upon a Mayan belief regarding the travel of the soul through mirrors], you can catch a glimpse here [if you dare!]
Identify the movies depicted with office supplies I just cannot get the one with the markers on either side of the dotted line or the one with the person under the roll of tape, despite searching here and here
Rendez-vous des singes. Roryk and I are having a monkey meetup somewhere in Paris, on Monday, November 20th. Sometime after 18h00. Please consider this your open invitation to join us, and/or suggest where we could go to stop our blood-alcohol levels from becoming dangerously low. [more inside]
Pictures of Geckos Eating Jam - Geckos at Wikipedia. Do you like Geckos?
October 22, 2006
Marmaduke Explained. Never again scratch your head in bewilderment as the nuanced subtleties of Brad Anderson's daily cartoon escape you.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year. The winners, a sifaka, some penguins, a seal, a baby gorilla.
Pumpcompkin? Compumputer? [more inside]
Australian tourism to the USA to hit new all time low.
CLOCKWORK TIGER!!! CLOCKWORK TIGER!!! [more inside]
Garfield is the best comic strip ever ... once you remove all his dialogue. This is the conclusion of the forumites at the inimitable Truth and Beauty Bombs forums. I have to say -- they make a compelling case. I know I won't be reading Garfield the same way again. [more inside]
October 21, 2006
Dying to Get Big: The nightmare world of bigorexia. [more inside]
Life's Greatest Inventions Of course, given that the article is six weeks old, it's possible that other great life-preserving inventions/discoveries have been made since, rendering this Top Ten list obsolete. [more inside]
October 20, 2006
Urinetown: The Musical! The show is meant to be a comedy, featuring satire of the corporate world, sight gags, parodies of musical theatre conventions in general and Les Misérables in particular, and jokes that poke fun at the show itself (including the unattractive title). [more inside]
Curwee-wee-us George I am confused about this new obsession/toilet fetish. [more inside]
Knicker Vicar to the Rescue Concerned clergyman bravely confronts New Zealand's chronic underwear shortage. [more inside]
Splice (make music online)
Curious George: 'Office' Politics Are there no sexual harassment concerns in Britain? [more inside]
Line Rider
Draw a line, hit "play", watch the sled guy ride it.
Simple. Friday. Flash. Fun.
Wheeeeeeee!
The Dark Side of Tufty the Road Safety Squirrel.
Because it's time to move ON, people!
via
Libraries as pr0n for book-lovers.
I imagine some of these libraries feature urinals...
Ooh, yeah baby, show it to me, baby, show it all to me. You know what Daddy likes.
Point WC, l'escale bien-être (the well-being rest stop) Luxury public toilets. The main website (in French). [more inside]
Urina Hurry? No pot to piss in? Use a portable urinal. Could be useful in Turkmenistan.
When the gods drank urine. A Tibetan myth may help solve the riddle of soma, sacred drug of ancient India.
Maca denies wife pot in which to piss. The Evening Standard reports Mills filed a 13-page petition with the court in London, alleging, among other things, that McCartney "would not let her have an antique bedpan under their bed to save her crawling to the bathroom at night."
Indonesian Urinal etiquette
in case you find yourself in a rut.
Don't know why, but the urinals of Jakarta often have massive ice chunks in the bowl
The Sloan Flushometer Urinals wouldn't be what they are today were it not for the innovation of William Elvis Sloan (1867-1961), inventer of the Sloan Valve Company Royal Flushometer. This amazing feat of urinal engineering prevents the need to use unsightly toilet tanks and delivers a precise and reliable amount of water every flush. Every time you flush a urinal think highly of Sloan! Uh, not that one.
Sure, you know about urinals, but do you know how to use them? [more inside]
Urinal game!
Interactive urinal uses the pee stream to control a character.
More aiming fun: - mothball soccer, anyone?
Public toilets of Australia Also contains urinals.
Controversial Urinals Removed! You know, these charming conversation pieces.
URINALS IN SPACE!!!! The "HabLab" module is part of the international Space Station, currently in orbit around the Earth. [more inside]
October 19, 2006
Urinals of North America [more inside]
Urinals of Europe A Basic Guide
Turkmenbashing President Saparmurat Niyazov - or Turkmenbashi, as he likes to be known - has just unveiled a gigantic glittering book-shaped building celebrating press freedom. [more inside]
URINALS AROUND THE WORLD
via everlasting blört
Finally, the internet on a disk.
Odd ramblings on web stuff and other random topics: "Why
didn't God create little green mammals?", "Another Product that Doesn't Exist Yet, but Would be a Natural...", and my personal favorite, "You Can't Take It With You. com...".
[more inside]
Curious birthday poetry George
-
A friend of mine has a birthday near.
I'll gift her a poem for her to hear.
I'm stuck for titles of such rhymes.
I hope the monkeys can save me time.
[more inside]
Is it time to link Russia and the f-word? The Economist says that the signs are worrisome. [more inside]
U.S. school bans tag fearing lawsuits. T.O. school banned talking during lunch.
The complete works of Charles Darwin online, free and searchable. Not just the published stuff, but some things that have never before seen the light of day, such as field notes including the notes he took on the Galapagos Islands. Enjoy, monkeys!
Masturbate for peace. Because you can't love others without loving yourself first. (Also, assume this is NSFW.)
"Your words are lies, Sir. They are lies that imperil us all." -- Keith Olbermann. (Crooks and Liars link; content available as txt, WMV and MOV.) [more inside]
October 18, 2006
Graphical representation of weighty matters. Such as: beer consumed vs. ability to pass in drag; size of inheritance vs. Grandma's access to slot machines.
How to Save Electricity, by Michael Bluejay. Terrifically useful information in an excruciating drink-from-the-firehose format. Check out the rest of the site for similarly interesting and well-informed writing packed into sprawling HTML table-based eyesores.
U.S. government looking at way to tax virutal game economies. Gee, what a great idea. Next, we should tax games of Monopoly. [more inside]
White Moose must die? There's a white moose on the loose in Norway. If you want a nice trophy for above the fireplace, lighten up the place a bit, better get going, 'cuz you can't do it here no more.
What if Google had an attitude and wanted to waste your time? Ms. Dewey pretty much fills the bill.
Hypothermia
Hyperthermia
Levels of Consciousness
and
Slush!
[more inside]
Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas, has Fucking Had It with You, Man.
Also: Conversations Overheard at the Suburban Neighbourhood Pool, if the Suburban Neighbourhood Pool was in Deadwood.
skunked? Curious George: cribbage quandary. [more inside]
October 17, 2006
Participation Inequality.
In most online communities:
- 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
- 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
- 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.
(And 0.1% just steal posts from MetaFilter.)
US Govt using acid during interrogations? Not that we're breaking the law, and even if we are, it's not against the law, and we'll do what we want because these people are 'enemy combatants' so screw you, Geneva convention.
The Defence of Duffers Drift "Now if they had given me a job,...like fighting the Battle of Waterloo, I knew all about that, as I had crammed it up..."
October 16, 2006
Monkey on your back!
Like a ta-da list for someone else, only cuter and with monkeys.
via 43 Folders
Curious George: Help me choose a font! I'm trying to pick a typeface for paper/PDF documentation to go with a scientific software program I wrote. The non-serif typefaces are a bit hard on the eyes for some of the longer paragraphs, but classic serifs (Garamond/Palatino/etc) look really messy when I write various commands in all-caps. Is there a font that is well-suited to what I'm trying to do? And yeah, besides Comic Sans.
Drivingmenuts Does LA! OK, hide your sisters and break out the bananas! I'm visiting Los Angeles! [more inside]
Should the library categorize Thus Spake Zarathustra as fiction or non-fiction? The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote.
A large gallery of pictures of beautiful Iran . This gallery has everything: the art, architecture, people, and the natural beauty of Iran. Also, a nice smaller gallery. Fewer pictures, but a little more commentary from some visitors to Iran. [more inside]
Curious George curious of local history. What's some local history from your neck of the woods? [more inside]
Bomb Or Not?
- This site helps you improve your bomb detection skills, so that you can become a better inconvenience to travelers Skilled Government Agent.
The (British) National Trust wants to record One Day in History in what it calls the biggest ever blog.
UK university lecturers to be asked to keep eyes open for angry radical students. [more inside]
The beautification of the Democratic Party. Democrats seem to be fielding an uncommonly high number of uncommonly good-looking candidates... Democratic operatives do not publicly say that they went out of their way this year to recruit candidates with a high hotness quotient. [more inside]
Rabbit
(56.9 MB .mov). "When a boy and girl find an idol in the stomach of a rabbit,
great riches follow, but for how long?" Animation by Run Wrake (via MeFi).
October 15, 2006
Tampon Blowgun!
Have a shootout between rival tampon brands, or use it as a fun alternative to paintball.
Also popular among blowgun enthusiasts: Paper darts!
Paul McCartney the pantihose [more inside]
The Inner Life of a Cell.
An 8-minute Flash production that may be the most eerily beautiful thing you see today.
And just try not to laugh at the motor protein shuffling along in fuzzy slippers.
Life at Low Reynolds Number
"Some essential hand waving could not be reproduced."
[more inside]
October 14, 2006
How Time is Perceived in Comics - Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources explains.
Changing the past? What if we could? Scientists haven't ruled the possibility out ... [more inside]
Afghanistan, marijuana and white phosphorous. O_O
October 13, 2006
Chernoff Faces "Chernoff faces display multivariate data in the shape of a human face." [more inside]
radio free #mofirc : an Internet radio station by and for the members of #mofirc and Monkeyfilter. [more inside]
Grameen Bank wins 2006 peace prize. It's a simple but powerful idea: microcredit. "Dilwara Begum became a Grameen borrower 11 years ago. She began with just one milk cow. Then, about four years ago, another loan helped build a poultry barn, a productive enterprise that takes the whole family to manage. The weekly yield of about 7,000 eggs is picked up every other day and taken to the capital, Dhaka, about three hours away." [more inside]
Ornithopter -
First successful* flight in the news.
*Success is a relative concept. [9MB mpg]
[more inside]
Eros and Modern Art (NSFW), an exhibition at the Foundation Beyeler, following their previous Eros: Rodin and Picasso (NSFW).
Tito: male belly dancer. He's starting to shake... He's starting to shimmy... Gotta admit, dude's got moves. But he also does martial arts stick dancing, which is very, very manly. *cough* [youtubey goodness]. [more inside]
Tiny Dinosaur Theory
- also, Ugly Overload.
Via everlasting blort
LOTR quizzes from "The Thain's Book", an online LOTR encyclopaedia. My best score is a miserable 56.2%.
A Low Impact Woodland Home and all for 3,000 quid. Warning: link may contain beards
More tiny people in big-people settings.
October 12, 2006
Auckland MeFi meetup Monkeys are bound to be welcome at tomorrow's Mefi meetup in Cornwall Park. Bananas optional. Sorry for the late notice - we'll do better next time.
How to dispose of an elephant carcass - the FAO is brimming over with Interesting Stuff: [more inside]
Calvin & Hobbes Mash-Up - I'm not sure who came up with this, but it made me unspeakably sad.
In 1954 an article looking at the health of UK doctors was published. Richard Doll was one of the authors. It was to become a landmark, with regular follow ups over the next 50 years, and Richard Doll was on the author list to the end. [more inside]
Fingerprints everywhere! Good old-fashioned projective psychology now in software form. You really could tell everything about a person by the way they walk. Really. No, really.
The Double Bubble Bubblegum guy has a hobby. 'The microcar, a vehicle born out of need, was a child of its time and became the symbol of a people's spirit.' [more inside]
All Libyan pupils to get laptop and web access
October 11, 2006
Make your own LED Rat Throwie
Disturb your friends, and perhaps yourself. Just in time for Halloween!
NSFAnyone who opposes taxidermy. Contains graphic step-by-step photos. Not for the squeamish.
via core77
Curious George: Do you p0wn Do monkeys game online? [more inside]
Mark David Chapman Denied Parole
BeatleFilter/Newsfilter:
ATTICA, New York (AP) -- John Lennon's killer was denied parole for a fourth time Tuesday because of the "bizarre nature" of his crime.
Mark David Chapman, 51, must remain at Attica Correctional Facility for at least two more years for gunning down the former Beatle outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980.
Monday, Oct. 9th was John Lennon's birthday.
[more inside]
For the footy-minded, a blog with lots of links to lots of goals. Also for the footy-minded (or merely footy-curious), footballing world has a global goal of the month compilation. Here's September.
Meet Thumbelina, the world's smallest horse
15 more minutes for the Beamer family.
For those of you who missed Larry King Live on the nights of September 12, 13, 14, 15, 2001 through a week ago last Wednesday, Todd Beamer, all evidence would show, was a hero who helped down Flight 93 instead of letting the jet crash into Dick Cheney. Oh...wait...
No, no, hero he is. But now, his dad is reminding us all of the undeniable link between the hijackers of that flight and the war in Iraq.
Stand and salute, you patriot, you.
GooTube Video, stolen from MeFi
Curious Bread Making George Hey you monkeys, do any of you have a breadmaker? Does it make good bread? Real GOOOOOOOD bread. I love fresh baked bread and I've been getting mine from the local superstore baker. But I can't help but wonder are those breadmakers worth it? Does breadmaker bread beat the baker's bread? Or is it just another kitchen gizmo that'll gather dust in a couple of months?
Curious George: ISO SFU Looking for the Six Feet Under theme ringtone. [more inside]
October 10, 2006
Happy Birthday Thelonious Monk
Happy Birthday to a jazz legend, a musical genius, and all around hep cat.
Listen to some tunes, watch Straight, No Chaser and appreciate the momentary dancing note that was Thelonious Monk.
As usual, via the Blue(s)
[more inside]
Live vicariously in the now, Canada. What's in a month?
What's my name SIR! A U.S. Marine Sergeant is auctioning off naming rights for himself, to help orphans. Oddly, GoldenPalace.com not yet on list.
Curious George: What happens in this poem? Literary minded monkeys, help me interpret the text of a French song I'm performing at the end of October. On one level it's kind of obvious, but I've got a lot of unanswered questions. Come inside, read the thing and help me out, won't you? [more inside]
October 09, 2006
Old Superstitions [more inside]
... Just Us, We Caught The Bus:
"None suspect that idealistic committed little folk-singer Bob Dylan is in fact the amazing Zimmerman -- faster than a proxy ballot, more powerful than an ulterior motive, and able to buy tall buildings with a single bond!" [More inside]
[more inside]
A nifty little site on writing and typography. (Via Metachat.)
Planet enters 'ecological debt' [newsfilterish] The demands of humanity upon the planet have finally reached the tipping point in our headlong race to kill the planet before we kill eachother.
Poohsticks As a fan of A.A. Milne's Pooh books I thought I would share my 2 year old daughter and I's favorite game. A wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. [more inside]
Children's Letters To God
"Dear God, I am Amareican, what are you?"
"Dear God, I think the stapler is one of your greatest invention"
"Dear God, if you let the dinasor not exstinct we would not have a country. You didthe right thing."
via
[more inside]
Youtube analysis of David Bowie's teeth. And another sexy youtube link with one of his best early songs. [more inside]
Youtube analysis of David Bowie's teeth. And another sexy youtube link with one of his best early songs. [more inside]
October 08, 2006
Unlocking the Mysteries of Svchost.exe
If you are using Windows XP, Svchost.exe launches at startup and usually runs several instances of itself, which you can see by accessing task manager (by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del). What is it? What is it doing? Do you need it running? Here is some information on it.
October 07, 2006
The Pinky Show explains the war in Vietnam
for the young & the young at heart.
WARNING: This page contains an embedded Quicktime 7 movie approx. 42 megs in size, but I guarantee that it is worth it & you will enjoy watching it since it is an interesting history lesson explained by two cartoon cats with ky00t voices. Unless such things do not interest you. In which case.. why are you here?
[more inside]
Don't criticize Dick
or you will be arrested by the Gestapo SS Secret Service.
October 06, 2006
My hands are bananas. Keep the monkeys away from my hands! [more inside]
Papa Ratzi toying with abolishing Limbo. Unbaptized babies, Plato to go to Hell, Divine Comedy to have rewrite.
The Sound of The Universe Being Born
Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle calculates what the universe sounded like in the first 750,000 years of its existence. Then ratchets it up a few hundred thousand times (okay, 100,000 billion billion times) so we can hear it.
"During the 100-second recording, the frequencies fall because the sound waves get stretched as the Universe expands. 'It becomes more of a bass instrument,' says Cramer"
Something Bootsy already knows, baby! Kirk Out!
Totally sampled and ripped from TheFi
In which is revealed a device to encourage the recitation of tongue twisters. This may be old, juvenile, and requiring of translation from our Asian monkeys, but I'm still glad we didn't have these in school.
MoFi London/Dublin/Firenze Meetups!
It's a bit last minute, but I thought I'd bump this very old meetup thread to the front page to (1) alert any eyes in those locales who haven't followed that old thread and (2) taunt all of you who can't go.
We'll be meeting up Monday the 9th in London...where? Dunno. Let's work that out here.
We'll be meeting up in Florence...when? where? Dunno. Let's, like, talk about it and stuff, baby.
[more inside]
October 05, 2006
Lucas to Feature Films: You're Dead To Me Now
"We don't want to make movies. We're about to get into television. As far as Lucasfilm is concerned, we've moved away from the feature film thing because it's too expensive and it's too risky."
George says for the $200 million it takes to make a big picktcha, he'd rather make 50 little ones. And, that that's where movies are going.
What do you think?
Curious George - Where is your blog? Yes, we have a wiki. And now we have a page where you can list your blog. [more inside]
Star Trek Auction at Christie's. Lotsa stuff from Star Trek's 40 year history are being auctioned off right now, so what are you doing reading this? (Christie's site is a little slow, what with all us nerds jamming the signal.) Go. GO NOW.
Del Close's skull isn't Del Close's skull after all
Card-Carrying Monkeys You stare at your computer screen all day, as if it were a crystal ball. Why not get your fotune told while you're at it? [more inside]
Does this make you sleepy? For those among the monkeys that like to squee.
Vibestreamer.
"....is a free MP3 streaming server that allows you to connect and stream your music using only a standard web browser. - Play your music anywhere!".
That is all.
October 04, 2006
"Who are these children?" NRCC head Tom Reynolds surrounds himself with kids in order to not be asked awkward questions about the Foley thing. What a clever trick!
Network 2.0 - Finally, a fairly comprehensive list of original shows on the internet that's organized and has a user-friendly interface. The question is, will anyone watch? [more inside]
Kids say 'Yuck!' to healthy school lunch - "In schools up and down Britain, a new term has meant a new menu. The nation was shocked last year when a television campaign by Jamie Oliver, perhaps the country's best-known celebrity chef (and there are lots of them), exposed the poverty of school lunches here..." [more inside]
Bet
on how long a couple will last. Vote, or click on "see how everyone else voted on this couple" to see other couples.
But how do I collect my winnings?
United States Constitution v2.0
On the heels of sanctioning torture and denying people the right to hear why they're being jailed, the fearless US Republican leaders have just said "The Hell With It" and pooped out New! Improved! Constitution 2.0!
[more inside]
Curious George: Who would want to be me anyway?
There's a lot of crap on this laptop. And it served me well for many years but now I have a new best friend and am naturally wanting to kick this one to the curb. But before I sell my friend, I need to brainwash it, eg. get all my personal info and files off of it so no one tries to clone me or steal my identity or anything silly like that.
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October 03, 2006
I ♥ disease NY. New York's foray into the trans-fat bannination debacle makes me wonder... [more inside]
North Korea announces nuclear test. Only a few months after the series of missile tests, NK raises the bar. Neighbouring countries, who have mostly put in place economic sanctions after the missile testing, are understandably nervous. The announcement alone resulted in the Yen declining today. [more inside]
Curious George: Doggie Dilemma
I live in a neighborhood of townhouses. There are no fences, and no one really has a yard, but there's a lot of common open space with walking trails going between and behind the buildings. I have several neighbors with dogs. Most of them are responsible dog owners, but one couple insists on letting their two large mutts run wild right beside my house.
After what I thought was a reasonable request to keep their dogs on leashes, I continue to see the dogs run loose, and now I get piles of dog shit left on my lawn most mornings.
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Funny Japanese-English Translations - Just to post something completely mindless after yesterday's marathon. Enjoy.
5,000 years of Middle East history in 90 seconds
a flash-based movie showing who's occupied the Middle East lands over time. G'wan, learn something today.
via the MetaFian Empire
"The main purpose of our talk was to be humorous." The press is buzzing about a problem in FiFox's JavaScript which "could lead to remote control of any affected computer, including Windows, Apple, and Linux systems." But -- as hard as it may be to believe -- journalists may be sensationalizing the issue.
"I was bitten by a radioactive reindeer the other day..." Apparently, Mark Foley's IM exchange with an underage page was taken the wrong way, and he was only conversing with a guy who wants to be a hand model but is mutating into a reindeer. Here's an excerpt. [more inside]
October 02, 2006
Jasper Wong Psychadelic Mr T art. And some other stuff. (Flash, some content may be NSFW.)
Can't Touch This.
Ladies and gentlemen I present...Little Superstar
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There Is No God - A case for atheism by Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller. [more inside]
Truth in Advertising - the full 12-minute short film. I realize that portions of this have been around for a while, but this is the whole thing (featuring Colin Mochrie of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"). Funny stuff.
"Daddy I want to be a politician, or a religious leader." [more inside]
Patent medicine cards. Some of UCLA's collection of patent medicine trade cards have now been digitised - only a sample yet, and searching seems to be the only way of getting at the images, but still worth a go. via
What the first man on the moon really said. Just a small word like "a" makes all the difference in the world.
October 01, 2006
Is this girl masterbating because she loves her phone so much? (Totally SFW)
Com-Mix (cartoon strip creator) [more inside]
Froomkin on Woodward on Bush. I have been tempted to share Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing column as an FPP for a long while, but let it go, as I figured, well, what the hey, the Monkeys probably read him anyway. [more inside]
