full by definition
A new breed of computer warriors. From a new breed of German artists, for you German artist fans.
For seven years now I've been background processing on what a digital collectible might be. Finally, Cartoon Network introduces Cartoon Orbit, which is so complicated that only an adult could even hope to understand it. Or maybe a child.
I don't know. But take the 10 minutes it requires, to understand what they are up to, it's beautifully done. Here's the Toonomic overview. Read me indeed.
If you're looking for me in there (and you shouldn't be), I'm Tara Metalluspterodactyl7. If you think that's difficult to spell, you would probably agree with the other, pre-teen, users of the site.
I quite like Beezly Draw Ghost63's collection. Funny how quickly aesthetics emerge.
As Vin Diesel once said, I live for this shit. You may also want to check out the 2000-year conspiracy to conceal Jesus Christ's bloodline.
Ever wonder about those spliced blurbs in movie ads? Some hard, scientific research.
There's lots of experiments like this, but then, this one is today's. "PostcardX is about exposing a part of yourself to a random person somewhere out there in the ether. you can send a postcard with your latest poem or life instance."
Like a message in a bottle, except the message is the bottle.
This seems directly related to blogs: One in four employees has a serious Web habit, spending more than one entire workday each week surfing non-work-related Web sites while at their desks, according to ZDNet. Irwin? All of you? "What's the job number for Saturation?"
flipping through the paper version of the nytimes today and came across the online diary section in circuits. it touches on everything from dreaming about celebrities to "collective conciousness" imaging to drawings of people on subways - all in a very blog-like manner. so the question is, what makes a blog a blog? i mean, isn't every newspaper a sort of blog, publishing/posting the things it thinks you'll find interesting? even this?
"Q. How often is Worship Assistant updated? Is there a charge for updates?"
See for yourself.
Some experiments involving the postal service, via the annals of improbable research. Pushing the envelope, indeed.
Seen this guy? That's Oscar, one of the three dummy heads used to dupe the guards when Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers busted out of Alcatraz. Soap, toilet paper and human hair.
I bring this up now, because it looks like the prison hacks have learned a thing or two from their charges. It's a sad day for dummies. It's a sad day in general.
Meanwhile at the World Memory Championships...
"Each event starts with a cry from the starter: "Neurons-on-the-ready … Go!" Competitors must then accurately memorize thousands of items including long numbers, unfamiliar names and faces, quotations, dates and random words. The grand finale is a race to memorize the sequence of a pack of shuffled playing cards in less than a minute."
It came up in Germany, for only slightly obvious reasons, that no one actually knew what the "D" in "D-Day" stands for. Destroy? Demand? Deliberate?
As it turns out, it stands for nothing in particular, or, to quote the Defense Technical Information Center it refers to the unnamed day on which a particular operation commences or is to commence.
But that really sounds much better when surrounded by its cousins: C-Day, M-Day, W-Day. H-Hour. L-Hour. All of this on Zulu time, I'm not making it up.
I guess this is probably some little page he put up to demo iPhoto or iWhatever at MacWorld, but still, it's pretty funny.
Specious reasoning by the creator of a comic book character who appears to have been MIT's inspiration for its $50 million Defense Department grant proposal. As far as I know (this being a military project, so what do I know?) this has not yet become reality.
The French learn to talk backwards. It's called Verlan, apparently. Here's a primer. No wonder their civilization is superior.
harper's weekly review, updated on tuesdays, is like a blog minus the links.
Sign in the window of Terry's Deli on Varick Street: "September 11th / All Sandwiches 1/2 Price."
Terrorists and psychopaths make science fiction into reality.
Or science fiction fanatics are overly speculative.
An inventor has designed a camera attachment for guns that will automatically photograph the target at the instant the trigger is pulled.
I also like the patent at the bottom of the page for a device that can conceal a weapon in a holster designed to look like a cell phone.
News from all over. Begin on the west coast, where ephemeralist Rick Prelinger has inked a deal with the Library of Congress for his 140,000 cans of obscure films. Then to D.C., where an LOC employee has found a willing taker for his HUGE collection of porn
I've heard of killing people over a dollar, but this is just sick.
Making homebrew wireless antennae (or "cantennae") out of Pringles cans, coffee cans, etc. Reminds me of when I was a kid...
OK, it doesn't have cute stoner chix or mark frauenfelder, but this informal survey of switchers by Tim O'Reilly almost made me tear up with pride (as a longtime Mac fan).
I wouldn't normally post buckshot like this, but figured it was better than posting each solo...
1. Nothing a little perfume can't fix
People do not like the smell of close family members, new research shows — the aversion might help prevent incest.
2. Shine on you crazy diamond
A US firm says it will turn your cremated ashes into a diamond (or, I guess, "die-mond") for the loved ones you leave behind to cherish.
3. Introducing Caffeine-free Diet Himalayan Twist
Soft drink giants Coca Cola and Pepsi, were slammed last week over the painting of their logos on Himalayan rocks.
4. The Oprah Book Club it ain't
Quick report on what Dubya is reading these days.
Let's see. If you look at the Parent Television Council's Annual "Top 10" Best & Worst TV Shows (2000/2001 Season) you get a nice ranking of the top prime time shows in terms of viewership in the "Worst" list. But how, then, "Sabrina the Teenage WITCH" rank so high on their list of shows appropriate for good christian teens? I'd like to see the point scoring system they used...
...at least in the SimsWorld. An interview with Will Wright in an otherwise overly intellectual e-zine about video games. He provides some interesting graphs of the way people play the Sims...
George Gurley sits down with Ann Coulter. Things get said. Ann: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." A friend of Gurley's: "Oh, I’d fuck the shit out of her."
An Iranian soft drink named after a holy spring in Mecca is said to have won an enthusiastic reception in Saudi Arabia.
Nickled and Dimed. Maureen Kennedy, 16-year waitress of a Friendly's, suspended for delivering breakfast one minute late.
..in our UFO hysteria, that is.
The truth is out there.
From brain-computer interface to reading the minds of terrorists at airports.
"We're close to the point where they can tell to an extent what you're thinking about by which part of the brain is activated, which is close to reading your mind. It would be terribly complicated to try to build a device that would read your mind as you walk by."
Hm, pretty soon you could be arrested for looking at somebody funny.
This is the literary equivalent of that point in multiplayer first-person shooters where you've just died a grisly, horrible death but you can still move the camera around and you can see your body lying there, guts splattered everywhere, and the rest of the players are running around looking for other people to frag and you're just lying there contemplating how you died and how you could have avoided it, what you did wrong, how angry you are at those blockheads running by, and you realize how little detail they have, you notice that they (and you) are just made from a handful of irregular polygons with some textures slapped on but it doesn't really matter because everything's going by so quickly...
Truth stranger than fiction department. Some LES squats have been sold to the squatters for $1, and the plan began under Guliani. You may all, like me, find this amazing, given that Guiliani stormed the 13th St squats with a TANK in 1995. Anyway, the best part of this article is the last paragraph, defining "squatters."
ebay item of the week: 131 year old Indian man, surrounded by midwestern insurance agents. Some nice understatement in the item description. A lot of scratch for a postcard.
An odd (late?) real-world application of dot-com business planning. Free baby carriages! Just don't mind the H&M ad.
Got junky ships that need to be scrapped? Or wondering where you're going to move those panties or toothbrushes rolling off the assembly line/sweatshops? Welcome to the Great Indian Bazaar.
Warner bros buys rights to This American Life stories.
Laugh or cry...anyone?
Can Bush get any more disgraceful? What with being a former Harken CEO (hello?) and now being a former owner of a baseball team (hello??!), Bush couldn't be in a worse place to comment on the baseball strike.
I guess building AI to distinguish between spam and friendly email is not so easy. Paul Graham gives it a go and comes to some interesting revelations about the indicators for spam using a statistical approach. The idea of compiling a corpus of spam is an intriguing (if unappetizing) one.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 15, 2002- 6:00 p.m. EDT
The following is a statement by Daniel Peres, editor-in-chief of Details magazine:
"Details magazine has learned that it was misled in relation to an article published in its August 2002 issue. The article, "Dudes Who Dish", which carried the byline of Kurt Andersen, was not, in fact, authored by him. Mr. Andersen had no involvement whatsoever in the preparation of the article. Details is actively investigating this matter and apologizes to Mr. Andersen and its readers for the publication of this article."
###
RELEASE
August 15, 2002- 6:00 p.m. EDT
The following is a statement by Kurt Andersen:
"I was shocked to learn a week ago that in its August issue Details magazine published an article, "Dudes Who Dish", under my byline. I did not write this article and had no role in its creation. The whole affair has been unsettling. I appreciate, however, that once Editor-in-Chief, Daniel Peres, became aware of this despicable act perpetrated against me and the magazine, Details responded swiftly and conscientiously to alert its readers and the public generally."
"People want to talk," he said. "Not about business or gossip or money. There are very few places where people can talk unconditionally, without an agenda."
ebay item of the week. Pushing old-school skate punk nostalgia to dotcom-bubble-like extremes. I used to ride a Zorlac Craig Johnson. My advice: Never lend your skateboard to a friend.
You: Union Square Park, yesterday, blue-ish skirt, and no panties...
And other missed connections.
No joke, this. Akklaim wants to brand five suckas by having them forfeit their identities and rename themselves Turok. A littlelife imitates David Foster Wallace?
The president's name? Of course the White House knows the president's name. Except when it doesn't. Get there before it's gone.
[via fuckedworld.com]
Not to be outdone by Turkmenistan, Berkeley "could become the first city to enact Aristotle's ancient law of logic -- that every entity is equal to itself." Would that it were so! [courtesy metafilter]
It appears Saparmurat Niyazov's knack for renaming things didn't stop with the Turkmen calendar.
Bruce Sterling goes off on open-source. And Bill Gates. And Linus and Eric Raymond. And you. And me. Basically makes fun of everyone who spends too much time with computers. Because he has too. He should have a one man show with a guy on the the drum kit for the punch lines. But really, it shows you that you don't have to be a programmer to make fun of programmers.
(His allegory of Linux as a Hippie Girl is brilliant!)
(I know, I know, MetaFilter. So sue me.)
Unlike hip and sleek berlin, I had no idea what Bastard Pop was, but now I realize it's one of those phrases that arrives long after the idea. It tastes good, the way anything tastes good when it has the vitamins you've been secretly lacking.
Some translation jobs are harder than others. Witness these queries from the unfortunate translator of the Annals of Improbable Research. "(Is the "prozac" a "forage" for clams?)"
The Memory Hole (a more political thesmokinggun?) has posted the first 320 pages of the FBI's file on Columbine. A perusal reveals plenty of inadvertent excision art on the part of the FBI -- check out page 283. And don't miss p. 288, in which a Shriner reveals the solution to the problem of Youth Who Kill Their Peers.
In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace predicts a world in which years are named after corporate sponsors. In Turkmenistan, a slightly more appealing renaming project for the months of the year and days of the week is underway. God bless em, in a way.
PBS special on the effect television has had on the remote Buddhist nation of Bhutan.
The only good news I can discern in this Observer story about some archi-stars proposing "out of the box" approaches to the WTC site is the slow snowballing of an anti-Muschamp movement. No more ugly buildings!
In Argentina, an hourlong program known as "Human Resources" pits two unemployed people in a contest to win a guaranteed six-month work contract.
While in Italy, a man has turned the Trevi Fountain into a lucrative pool of clandestine profit.
From the Weekly Standard comes a hilarious rant about the suburbs, new and newer. Skip to page two for the ideology, expressed as five goals:
--THE GOAL OF THE TOGETHER LIFE.
--THE GOAL OF TECHNOLOGICAL HEROISM.
--THE GOAL OF RELAXED CAMARADERIE.
--THE GOAL OF THE ACTIVE-LEISURE LIFESTYLE.
--THE GOAL OF THE TRADITIONAL, BUT COMPETITIVE, CHILDHOOD.
ebay item of the day. Elvis at the bottom of the bill.
Question the source, to be sure, but still. "To obtain an Al-Qaeda narrated tape of the obliteration of Russian soldiers, recovered at the scene by Russian intelligence officers bent on revenge, is an art act of the highest order."
An interesting long take on the democratization of luxury at Reason. What, you might ask, do libertarians know about luxury?
I don't have near the geek cred to post this, let alone read it (via metafilter). But anyways, run don't walk to this interview with Eugene Jarvis, creator of defender, stargate, and Robotron: 2084. (And veteran of Atari durning the 8-player "Tank" days.) "The tension of having the world converge on you from all sides simultaneously and the incredible body count created an unparalleled adrenalin rush. Add to it the mental overload of a truly ambidextrous control, and it was insanity at its best."
Teenage 'vampire killer' jailed
A teenager was today found guilty of murdering his elderly neighbour and drinking her blood in a vampire ritual.
Who knew it was so complicated? Now I do, and am glad for this step-by-step guide to the Hajj. Day 3: Going to Mina. Due to the large crowd going to Mina, the pilgrim must remain calm, avoid pushing people, and must be respectful to others. Weak and sick people can appoint others to throw stones at the Jamrahs in Mina on behalf of them.
Is the art getting people to pay you to kidnap them, or getting a journalist to believe it?
Making sure nobody misses this fine service provided by CNN.com. Anybody and everybody invited to submit proposals for WTC reconstruction/memorial. View the current submissions by clicking on the box (on the right) called "Your Proposals."
I've always wondered (privately) why this hasn't been done more often, in Israel as well as the United States? Maybe because it might be more traceable perhaps. Anyhow, more technological jiu-jitsu. This time, I wonder if they were targeting Jew-loving Arabs as well?
Big belcher to attempt world record burp
LONDON (Reuters) - The world's loudest burper will inhale deep breaths and then slurp down a fizzy drink on Friday as he attempts to shatter his own ear-splitting record, a spokesman for London's Science Museum has said.
Solicitor's clerk Paul Hunn from London is hoping to break his own record of 118.1 decibels -- a belch as loud as a pneumatic drill -- which he set in 2000.
Guinness World Records officials armed with a sound level meter and recording equipment will be on hand for the record-breaking attempt at the museum.
"Paul's training tips include eating something spicy the day before to build up gases, breathing in lots of air and then having a carbonated drink before burping," the spokesman said.
The world-record attempt is part of the museum's current "Grossology" exhibition, a look at the good, bad and ugly ways the human body works.
