You have to be a hardcore punctuation...: "
You have to be a hardcore punctuation nerd to care about this, but I know someone does: Newspaper writers are confused about whether they should 'correct' the movie title The 40 Year-Old Virgin.
"(Via blog.)
The iPod shuffle shuffle: "Hey, I've got one just like that! Wanna swap?"
(Via MacDevCenter.)
The Case for the Legalization of Marijuana: "Sixty thousand people are behind bars today for marijuana offenses. This is costing taxpayers $1.2 billion per year (Thomas). Is it really worth it? Marijuana should be legalized in the United States for all to grow, distribute, purchase, and use, because marijuana prohibition causes far more damage than marijuana itself. Those in favor of prohibition would have you believe that marijuana destroys people's lives. They would tell you that innocent little Johnny would have been successful, but then he smoked some weed and his life was ruined. This is far from the truth. The reality is that people who are not going to succeed are in a position in which they are more likely to smoke marijuana. There is no causal relationship however, between marijuana and personal success."
(Via Kuro5hin.org.)
The Genetic Origin of Ashkenazi Genius: "A genetics paper published in the Journal of Biosocial Science in June, ‘Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence,’ makes the following claims about Ashkenazi European Jews: They have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group. Their intelligence advantage is genetic. Their intelligence advantage is recent. Jews as a whole are not of above-average intelligence, just the Ashkenazi. Ashkenazi intelligence is a result of natural selection. The paper is important not just for what it says about the Ashkenazi, but also for what it says about the nature of intelligence and genes. A surprising amount of favorable press coverage was generated over it—positive coverage appeared in both The Economist and The New York Times—despite the fact that the authors are claiming that: a) some racial differences in intelligence exist, and b) that they can be genetic in origin."
(Via Kuro5hin.org.)
Hannibal Lecter: Transhumanist Icon: "In certain circles you hear the word Transhumanism a lot lately. This is the idea that new technologies will make people so intelligent, powerful, healthy, and long-lived that we will not be merely human any more; we will transcend what is commonly called the 'human condition' and become something more like gods. Of course it's very difficult to imagine what it would be like to become something so much better and different than ourselves. But it's also an old dream of ours, and some of our brightest thinkers have tried to imagine it for us. Come with me on a slightly different reading of a character you've probably already met: One of the most well known and yet clearly transhuman characters in modern literature is Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer who has now appeared in three novels by Thomas Harris. (Note: In case you are one of the six people left who have never read these books or seen the movies, this review does spoil all the endings.)"
(Via Kuro5hin.org.)
Daily Show on Scientology: "Cory Doctorow:
The Daily Show recently tackled the subject of Scientology and celebrity, focusing on the woo-woo origin story that involves the Galactic Tyrant Xenu banishing pure energy beings called Thetans to Earth. The segment is incredibly funny.
Link
(Thanks, Whip!)
"
(Via Boing Boing.)
Macrofocus bug photos for sale: "Cory Doctorow:
Last spring, I blogged about Rick Lieder's incredible macro-focus insect photos. Instead of shooting bugs in a studio under lights, Rick crouches motionless in his garden for hours at a stretch and waits for his moment. The results are naturalistic and outstanding -- breathtaking, even.
A lot of people asked Rick if he had art lithos of his photos available for sale. He took the hint and has started to offer large, limited-edition prints of his bugs for sale via PayPal. (NB: Rick is also a talented and prolific science fiction and fantasy illustrator whose paintings and drawings grace many of the finer books at your local bookseller)
Link
(Via Boing Boing.)
Auteurs Glimpse Digital Future: Ray Bradbury at DGA event: "Xeni Jardin:
I filed this report for Wired News today about the Directors Guild of America's annual Digital Day event, which gives filmmakers a look at revolutionary new movie-making gear. Future-lit legend Ray Bradbury (who hatehatehates being called a science fiction writer) spoke there.
'When I go into meetings at the big studios, I try to hide the fact that I love movies,' Ray Bradbury told an audience of filmmakers at the Directors Guild of America's yearly Digital Day event this weekend.'You, too, have to disguise the fact that you love making movies.... If you revealed it to them, you'd never get paid.'
Addressing an overflow crowd of more than 600 at the guild-members-only gathering, the 85-year-old author admitted to being a voracious film fan since childhood -- so much so that he keeps a TV set in his home tuned in to classic movies all day.
Bradbury's name appears in more than 50 years' worth of writing credits for movies including It Came From Outer Space, Fahrenheit 451, and the big-screen adaptation of Moby Dick for director John Huston. But he expresses little love for some of Hollywood's more recent big-budget blockbusters.
'I hope we start making better films,' he said, acknowledging that some of his own midcentury favorites might seem silly to audiences today.'We've been making a lot of lousy ones lately. But I'm writing an article called 'Better Silly Than Stupid,' and anyone who's seen Van Helsing knows what I'm talking about.'
(Via Boing Boing.)
Batman does BDSM: "David Pescovitz:
"
(Via Boing Boing.)
The Quill Awards (you care; you just...: "
The Quill Awards (you care; you just don't know you care) has listed the top five nominees for each of their 19 categories, and the awards ceremony will be televised on October 22. So how'd they do?
General Fiction
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Zorro by Isabel Allende
Graphic Novel
American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
Bone by Jeff Smith
In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman
Marvel 1602 Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove
Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
Poetry
180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day edited by Billy Collins
Ariel: The Restored Edition by Sylvia Plath
Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell
Blue Iris by Mary Oliver
Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes
(Via blog.)
Syntax of Things spends some time...: "
Syntax of Things spends some time going through the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book online image archive. He comes across this picture of a young Ernest Hemingway, looking like a somewhat jauntier Leonardo DiCaprio.
"(Via blog.)
Neil Gaiman: "Neil Gaiman 1997 essay on the myth of artistic inspiration"
(Via metafilter.com.)
Shoot someone? Not Smith & Wesson's fault. Copy a movie? Grokster's fault: "Mark Frauenfelder:
Good stuff from Daily Koz.
Regarding Grokster:
'We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties,' Justice Souter wrote.
Regarding guns:
Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved the National Rifle Association's top priority ahead of a $491 billion defense bill, setting up a vote on legislation to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits over gun crimes.Link (thanks, Earl!)"'The president believes that the manufacturer of a legal product should not be held liable for the criminal misuse of that product by others,' said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
[Senator Larry] Craig said such lawsuits are 'predatory and aimed at bankrupting the firearms industry,' unfairly blaming dealers and manufacturers for the crimes of gun users.
(Via Boing Boing.)
Web Zen: pixel push zen: "Xeni Jardin:
map of washington, d.c. |
pixelgala |
pixelbot |
favicons |
alphabet of blog favicons |
pixel moon |
city creator |
what if |
a guide to pixel art |
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).
Reader comment: Paul Bragiel says,
gfxzone has some of the best pixel art from the demo scene going back from c64 through amiga onto the pc. Check out the 8bit galleries especially... some amazing stuff in there."
(Via Boing Boing.)
Karl Rove is fucked: "So you might have heard by now that Karl Rove was named by Newsweek as the source of the leak that outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Wilson Plame. As of now the internet is a flurry of speculation"
(Via Kuro5hin.org.)
Karl Rove is fucked: "So you might have heard by now that Karl Rove was named by Newsweek as the source of the leak that outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Wilson Plame. As of now the internet is a flurry of speculation"
(Via Kuro5hin.org.)
Blog-homage to '70s pinball cheeseball art: "Xeni Jardin:
On his blog, intergalactically famed illustrator Coop (father of all devil-babes) waxes poetic on pinball machine art he's collected over the years, including those designed by Dave Christensen.
Few outside the world of serious pinball maniacs would recognize Christensen's name, but I consider him a major influence on my own work, despite the fact that I only learned his name less than a decade ago. I grew up in the seventies, and I can distinctly remember playing machines designed by Christensen, and being mesmerized by the blinking tableaus of lowbrow decadence, images filled with lots of in-jokes, eyeball kicks and a heaping helping of big-boobed sexy girls that tantalized my adolescent libido.
(Via Boing Boing.)
Behold the iUke: "Mark Frauenfelder:
Andy Ihnatko presented a ukuele with a USB port at this week's Macworld. iGuitar built it for him. Andy promises to upload some sound samples soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the iUke: a tenor-scale ukulele with an integrated USB port. Plug this uke into a Mac and GarageBand will see it as a standard digital audio device, without any additional boxes, adapters or special cables needed.
(Via Boing Boing.)
Plankton levels have dropped precipitously: "Mark Frauenfelder:
For reasons that mystify scientists, ocean temperatures are rising, which is killing off the plankton. As a result, animals higher on the food chain are facing mass starvation.
'Something big is going on out there,' said Julia Parrish, an associate professor in the School of Aquatic Fisheries and Sciences at the University of Washington. 'I'm left with no obvious smoking gun, but birds are a good signal because they feed high up on the food chain.'This spring, scientists reported a record number of dead seabirds washed up on beaches along the Pacific Coast, from central California to British Columbia.
In Washington state, the highest numbers of dead seabirds - particularly Brandt's cormorants and common murres - were found along the southern coast at Ocean Shores.
Bird surveyors in May typically find an average of one dead Brandt's cormorant every 34 miles of beach. But this year, cormorant deaths averaged one every eight-tenths of a mile, according to data gathered by volunteers with the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, which Parrish has directed since 2000.
'This is somewhere between five and 10 times the highest number of bird deaths we've seen before,' she said.
Reader comment: Antoine Charvet says: 'You should read this Wired article that describes this 'Ecohacker' Michael Markels who proposes dumping iron filings into the world's oceans to create plankton blooms and sequester CO2 as well as provide food for the world from the resulting fish that feed on this stuff!'"
(Via Boing Boing.)
JG Ballard on CSI: "David Pescovitz:
Our friends at RE/Search, publishers of the excellent 'JG Ballard: Quotations' and the forthcoming 'JG Ballard: Conversations,' point me to Ballard's take on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, from the Sydney Morning Herald:
Television today is an ageing theme park, which we visit out of habit rather than in hope of finding anything fresh and original. At times I think the era of television is over, but then it suddenly comes up with something rich and strange.Link (free reg. may be required)
A few years ago, I began to linger over a series called CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. After only a few episodes, I was completely hooked, for reasons I don't understand even today...
The series unfolds within an almost totally interiorised world, a clue to its real significance. The crimes - they are all homicides - take place in anonymous hotel rooms and in the tract housing of the Vegas and Miami suburbs, almost never in a casino or a druglord's gaudy palace.
A brutal realism prevails, the grimmest in any crime series. Suburban lounges and hotel toilets are the settings of horrific murders, which thankfully are over by the time each episode begins. Gloves donned, the cast dismantle u-bends and plunge up to their elbows in toilet bowls, retrieving condoms, diaphragms and bullet casings, syringes, phials and other signs of the contemporary zodiac. Faecal matter and toilet paper are never shown, perhaps reflecting American squeamishness, though evidence of anal intercourse and vaginal bruising is spoken of like tennis scores.
If the crime scene is brightly lit, the outdoor world is always dark. A car crash or street shooting always takes place at night, when the city seems deserted and dead. Light and safety are found only in the crime lab, among its high-tech scanners and its ruthless deconstruction of human trauma.
(Via Boing Boing.)
