"You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
James Patrick Kelly's wonderful sf stories online as free audiobooks
Posted by MacDood
link
James Patrick Kelly, my friend and mentor, is one of the finest short story writers working in science fiction today. His stories are like perfect little gems, and his advice on story-writing was the most important artistic advice I've ever received.
Which is a preamble to some of the best news I've ever imparted: Jim Kelly is releasing audiobooks of his stories on teh net under a Creative Commons license. I know what I'm gonna be listening to before bed and on the tube this month.
$10,000 1965 "kitchen computer"
Posted by MacDood
link
Mitch sez, "Another Jetsonian Relic: A $10K kitchen computer ca. 1965. Notice the orange-and-black Star Trek: TOS design."
(Thanks, Mitch!)
[Boing Boing]
Sunday, April 25, 2004
beach zoom
beach zoom
I had a lot of fun creating this slow loading slide show. Original photos were assembled in iphoto and some were filtered through Photoshop filters to get various effects. The original idea was to create a slide show that self played and I decided to try out the export to quicktime feature which took a while to find as I looked first in Idvd and then Imovie, finally finding it in the original program I started with.
I could have done it with a photoshop export to a web show but this was fun.
Hope you enjoy it
macc
I had a lot of fun creating this slow loading slide show. Original photos were assembled in iphoto and some were filtered through Photoshop filters to get various effects. The original idea was to create a slide show that self played and I decided to try out the export to quicktime feature which took a while to find as I looked first in Idvd and then Imovie, finally finding it in the original program I started with.
I could have done it with a photoshop export to a web show but this was fun.
Hope you enjoy it
macc
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Excellent '60s anti-Beatles pamphlet cover
Posted by MacDood
link
Cover art from a religious tract titled "Communism, Hypnotism & The Beatles." I wish the whole pamphlet were online. Link[Boing Boing]
Digital camera silliness: secret finger trick
Posted by MacDood
link
This page has dozens of photos like the one shown here. Safe for work, but if your boss catches you checking it out, you'll have to let her/him in on the secret. Link (via horkulated)[Boing Boing]
Salon interviews Neal Stephenson
Posted by MacDood
link
Every culture can be kind of defined by what they drink in order to avoid dying of diarrhea. In China it's tea. In Africa it's milk or animal blood. In Europe it was wine and beer. Salon talks with Neal Stephenson. [premium/free day pass] [metafilter.com]
Monday, April 19, 2004
Volume Two of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle...
Posted by MacDood
link
still working on volume 1--fascinating!
Volume Two of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle The Confusion is just as hulking and dense as the last. It includes "a long, detailed description of the mechanics of 17th-century bills of exchange." And yet everyone I know is excited about... [blog]
Wired News: Mr. Clean Available for DVDs
I'm waiting for the opposite service...
Wired News: Mr. Clean Available for DVDs
Wired News: Mr. Clean Available for DVDs
What Makes A Writer A Writer?
Posted by MacDood
link
So You Think You Might Be A Writer? Just because you write? An astute essay by Joseph Epstein poses the uncomfortable question: are you weird enough? There's something very unnatural and unhealthy about writing (as opposed to reading, for instance) - but what is it? [Via Arts and Letters Daily.] [metafilter.com]
Sunday, April 18, 2004
UCLA Geophysicist says major quake to hit LA by September
Posted by MacDood
link
Comment: the only thing to do is abandon LA---
A geophysicist with a good track record of predicting quakes based on fault line stress data says Los Angeles will experience a nasty 6.4 quake by September.
The experts predicted in June an earthquake measuring 6.4 or higher would strike within nine months in a 496-kilometre region of central California, including San Simeon, where a 6.5-magnitude temblor struck December 22, killing two people.Link (Via IP) [Boing Boing]In July, they said they predicted a magnitude 7.0 or higher quake in a region that included Hokkaido by December 28. The September 25 quake fell within that period.
Now they predict a major quake will hit an area that stretches across desert regions to the east of Los Angeles, home to around nine million people, including the Mojave desert and the resort town of Palm Springs, which lies near the notorious San Andreas fault.
Mickey Mouse's dwindling brand
Posted by MacDood
link
Great NYT feature on the dwindling importance of Mickey Mouse as a character, and the attempts of the Disney organization to reimagine Mickey as a relevant character today.
"I was around 6 when I first saw him," [Maurice Sendak] said. "It filled me with joy. I think it was those primary colors so vivid and pure, taken up with the most incredibly beautiful animation, reminding you of Fred Astaire. Oh! And his character was the kind I wished I'd had as a child: brave and sassy and nasty and crooked and thinking of ways to outdo people." The joy leached from Mr. Sendak's voice. "Not like the lifeless fat pig he is now."
Mr. Sendak is hardly alone in mourning the mouse's decline. "Boring," "embalmed," "neglected," "irrelevant," "deracinated" and, perhaps most damning, "over" are some of the adjectives that cropped up in recent interviews with people in the cartoon, movie and marketing businesses.
(Thanks, Warren!) [Boing Boing]
Web Zen: Vintage Electronics Zen
Posted by MacDood
link
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). [Boing Boing]
There IS a cabal
Posted by MacDood
link
Comment: I just knew it---
World Domination LLC (is) a consortium of organizations devoted to the consolidation of global capital by a single cabal or individual, employing the tactics of terror and subterfuge...The most visible public face of our organization is www.villainsupply.com. [metafilter.com]
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Howling at the Moon: Modern-day Lycanthropy
Posted by MacDood
link
If the legends are to be believed, lycanthropy has been with us since King Lycaon was transformed into a wolf, in retribution for serving human flesh to Zeus during a dinner party in ancient Greece. Ever since, the werewolf has followed the human race through whispered tales and popular myth, stalking towns and villages from the Caucasus to Colorado. The popularity and seeming irrationality of these stories has been a traditional target for debunkers of the supernatural. Rationalisations of the werewolf myth have stretched from theories of rabies infection to ergot poisoning. More difficult to dispel has been the delusional convictions of people with clinical lycanthropy. Often submerged in intense psychosis, affected individuals report the feeling of transformation into various forms of animal, some experienced as so unusual, the animal has yet to be identified. [Kuro5hin.org]
Monday, April 12, 2004
"The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use - of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
Sex and gravestones
Posted by MacDood
link
Online photo gallery exploring the sensual female form in cemetary memorial markers.
Link (Via MeFi) [Boing Boing]
Posted by MacDood
link
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Dr. Seuss'"Gerald McBoing Boing" on MP3
Posted by MacDood
link
Delightful MP3 of a 1951 children's record about Gerald McBoing Boing, a boy who spoke in sound effects. Link (Halfway down page)[Boing Boing]
Museum of Unworkable Devices
Posted by MacDood
link
Nice site covering a bunch of inventions that won't work because they go against one or more laws of physics. It also looks at impractical, but interesting inventions, like this water fountain that squirts water out of a replica of a woman's head. Link[Boing Boing]
Saturday, April 10, 2004
The truth about camel spiders
Posted by MacDood
link
Comment: cool spiders---
Here's the myth about camel spiders, the monsters of the Iraqi desert. "Supposedly they leap onto the backs of camels and suck out the blood. I've been told that a couple of these things can kill a full grown camel."Link
"Here's the lowdown on camel spiders, which aren't spiders at all:
In reality, camel spiders aren't some mysterious Arabian creature -- we have them in the United States and in Mexico, where they are called matevenados. They are slightly smaller than the human hand, and while they do run quickly, their top speed is 10 miles per hour, not 25. But they also make no noise, they excrete no venom, and although they can be voracious nocturnal predators, they don't eat camels. They eat delicious crickets and pillbugs, and sometimes scorpions."Link [Boing Boing]
Web Zen -- Music Zen
Posted by MacDood
link
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). [Boing Boing]
New short from Susannah Breslin
Posted by MacDood
link
Former BoingBoing guestblogger Susannah "Invisible Cowgirl" Breslin celebrates a birthday today. She also a new short story out in Ducky Magazine. Dig the phat cover art. Excerpt:
One morning, she woke up and discovered that her head was gone. She had reached up to pat her hair, or rub the sleep from her eyes, or scratch her ear, and she had realized that her head was nowhere to be found. Where, she wondered, had it gone? She had no idea at all. She could not recall, in fact, very well what had happened the previous evening. She had been at a bar, and she had gotten drunk, and then she had come back home. From what she could remember, her head had still been sitting squarely on her shoulders when she had climbed into bed. Perhaps, she considered, her head had run off at some point during the night while she lay sleeping.
Link to "The Woman Who Lost Her Head". [Boing Boing]
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
Bush photomosaic of American dead in Iraq
Posted by MacDood
link
Bush photomosaic of Americans who have died in Iraq since the war president entered office. Link[Boing Boing]
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Uncovered - The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
Posted by MacDood
link
Uncovered is a documentary about the way the White House distorted the truth in an attempt sell the American public and the rest of the world on its pre-emptive war on Iraq. I already thought that Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the rest of that gang were being sneaky about it, but this DVD nailed it for for me. The reason Uncovered is so persuasive is that the director wisely chose to interview only "insiders" for the documentary -- CIA analysts, weapons investigators, Pentagon officials, and former White House counsels. Their comments on the administration's exagerations and spin are devastating. According to the director, even people who support the war in Iraq become angry after watching Uncovered, because it exposes the Bush administration as a pack of thoroughly corrupt liars. Buy from Amazon [Mad Professor]
"I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
web zen: museum zen
Posted by MacDood
link
(1) artifacts
(2) forgotten girlie mags
(3)
adult movie posters
(4)
air sickness bags
(5)
temporary art
(6)
random art
(7)
xerox art
(7)
bad art
(8)
museum of online museums
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). This vintage magazine cover is living proof that The Dude Abides. [Boing Boing]
DaveGate
Posted by MacDood
link
It started out innocently enough. Last Monday, David Letterman, a late-night talk show host with a penchant for sharp humor, aired a clip of President Bush giving a speech in Orlando, Florida. Introduced under the title "George W. Bush Invigorates America's Youth", the video clip showed an obviously bored and exhausted young man attempting to stay awake during a Bush speech. The young man yawns repeatedly, checks his watch, twists his head, and ends up with his hands on his knees trying to stay upright and conscious during the speech. A very amusing clip. Laugh out loud funny as anyone who has seen it will probably agree. After that, things start to get very strange. [Kuro5hin.org]
Friday, April 2, 2004
Batman vehicle models
Posted by MacDood
link
This guy has gone through Batman comics from the 1940s on up, and has built scale models of the cars and planes Batman has used over the decades. Super cool. Link (Via The Cartoonist)[Boing Boing]
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