Sunday, September 25, 2005

Sunday, September 25, 2005
10:03 PM
The oldye ones live

Shoggoth on the Roof: parodical Cthulhu musical: "Cory Doctorow:


This is the website for a fictional Cthuthlu-based musical parody of Fiddler on the Roof called 'Shoggoth on the Roof.' It includes an hilarious video documentary on the aborted attempt at staging the musical, a PDF script and program for the play, and many other disturbingly elaborate supplementary materials. (OMG: 'If I were a deep one, blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub!')

Link

(Thanks, Mark!)


"



(Via Boing Boing.)

Friday, September 23, 2005

Friday, September 23, 2005
09:39 PM

50 most cited works of 1976-1983: "David Pescovitz:
In 1987, Eugene Garfield published an article in Essays Of An Information Scientist (Vol. 10, 1987) that listed the most frequently cited works in the Arts & Humanities Index between 1976-1983. As you might expect, it's a heady list. Here's the top ten:

1. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1962


2. J. Joyce, Ulysses. 1922


3. N. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. 1957


4. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations


5. N. Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. 1965


6. M. Foucault, The Order of Things. 1966


7. J. Derrida, Of Grammatology


8. R. Barthes, S/Z. 1970


9. M. Heidegger, Being and Time. 1927


10. E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. 1948
Link(via MetaFilter)

"



(Via Boing Boing.)

Friday, September 23, 2005
09:30 PM

WiFi plastic bunny waggles ears when you get mail: "Cory Doctorow:
The WiFi-enabled plastic Nabaztag bunny lights up and waggles its ears when you get mail.


I'm a newborn bunny, one of a unique species of intelligent, smart objects. I'm 23 cm tall, I wriggle my ears, I sing, I talk and my body lights up and pulsates with hundreds of colours. Thanks to Wi-Fi technology, I'm always connected to the Internet. Oh, and I'll only set you back 95 €.



Thanks to me, your friends and family will have a totally new way of keeping in touch: through the web, text messages, their phone or email… plenty of different ways to send you messages, music, MP3 files that I'll read out to you… or sing out, or even dance. Your friends will no longer be confined to the depths of your computer or phone: they'll come alive in your home, in the noble guise of a rabbit.



Link

(Thanks, Pete!)

"



(Via Boing Boing.)

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Wednesday, September 21, 2005
08:19 PM
that;s what modern newsies need...

Beautiful old newspapers: "Mark Frauenfelder:
Slate editor Jack Shafer has a nice essay about the glory days of early 20th century newspapers.

 Media 1 123125 123019 2111919 2125580 050916 Submarines Tn The heavy reliance on illustrations makes the World look old-timey, but, once you accept the conventions of the period, the pictures take on a three-dimensional quality that rivals the finest modern photography and reproduction. There's something fantastically real to me about this Aug. 13, 1911, World magazine cover illustration of man-meets-beast in 'The Submarine's Encounter—Whales!'

Link (via Paul Boutin)"



(Via Boing Boing.)

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Thursday, September 08, 2005
10:36 PM
Intelligently designed paper

Brain Gain: "Genes Reveal Recent Human Brain Evolution. Two important new papers in the journal Science (available here) from the evolutionary geneticist and rising star, Bruce T. Lahn (see this recent profile from The Scientist), are potentially the tips of some very large icebergs. The papers document how two genes related to brain properties that underwent strong selection during the course of hominid evolution, have continued undergoing strong selection since the emergence of anatomically modern man. The papers wonderfully illustrate how biological evolution is an ongoing process as well as the artificial distinction between ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ evolution, and promise to be controversial for two reasons: First, the brain genes underwent the strongest selection during two periods of cultural and technological efflorescence (roughly 37,000 and 5,800 years ago). Second, the genes are distributed very differently in modern human population groups, existing at very high frequencies in some groups and being very rare in others, ensuring that the modern function of these genes will be a source of more research and much impassioned debate. More observations from anthropologist John Hawks."



(Via metafilter.com.)

Thursday, September 08, 2005
10:34 PM

The news on Katrina from outside the USA: "First off - someone might want to tell George about the internet, or get him a TV feed to ABC news, it was obvious to us foreigners that New Orleans was facing a disaster, including the high probability of the levees breaking well before Katrina struck. Or perhaps just a link to the US National Weather Service which pretty accurately predicated what would happen. But enough on the administration failures - its sure to be done to death by better than me. What's stunning Australians, and I'm sure most other countries around the world is the anarchy that's occurring in New Orleans, the complete lack of community spirit."



(Via Kuro5hin.org.)

Thursday, September 08, 2005
10:29 PM
kewl

Gold Rush-era sailing ship ruin excavated in San Fran: "Cory Doctorow:


Bonnie sez, 'The remains of a massive Gold Rush-era sailing ship dating to the early 1800s have been discovered at the site of a large construction project in downtown San Francisco, archaeologists at the scene confirmed Tuesday.'

Link

(Thanks, Bonnie!)

"



(Via Boing Boing.)

Thursday, September 08, 2005
10:27 PM

Germany in 1929: "Mark Frauenfelder:
 Pictures Deutschland 180
Jaw dropping photos of Germany in 1929. So beautiful and joyful. Compare to the depressing Wal-Mart/KFC/minimall world we're in today. As Nico says: 'It looks like a fairy tale country to me.'
Link"



(Via Boing Boing.)

Thursday, September 08, 2005

10:18 PM


The Boston Phoenix presents Project Censored's...: "

The Boston Phoenix presents Project Censored's 10 biggest stories ignored by the mainstream media in the past year.

"



(Via blog.)

Saturday, September 3, 2005

Saturday, September 03, 2005
09:37 PM
sigh

Cast the wicked out: "American Family Association is at it again, from their Christian News Media Serivce, Agape Press...

'Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.... ‘New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now,' Shanks says. 'God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again.''"



(Via metafilter.com.)

Saturday, September 03, 2005
09:26 PM

Relativity, Uncertainty, Incompleteness and Undecidability: "In this article four fundamental principles are presented: relativity, uncertainty, incompleteness and undecidability. They were studied by, respectively, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. This is a very simple explanation without the technical details, but which tries to show at least the general idea behind each principle."



(Via Kuro5hin.org.)

Saturday, September 03, 2005
09:25 PM


Pat Robertson, Televangelical Terrorist: "Pat Robertson, mass media Christian pundit and televangelical terrorist has decided to use his TV empire to launch an all out crusade against the democratically elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. This past Monday the smiling, 75 year-old, 'man of the cloth' used his 700 Club TV program to proselytize 'You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,' [...] 'It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.'"



(Via Kuro5hin.org.)