Saturday linkyloo - 06 Oct 2007

love on the edge Yowza.

MIT - On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study Hilarious, and also handy.

placeboKatz: Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words? Did you know that Michael Jackson ripped off his moonwalk from Marcel Marceau? Go read this for more such nuggets o' interest about the world's most famous mime.

Equator: The History Tablecloth SO cool! I'd love to have this tablecloth, mainly because I'm a sucker for incorporating beautiful lighting in the most unexpected of places, especially if it's interactive.

Angry Retail: Celebrity Weighing Scales Just hilarious. Apparently, Prince weighs less than Oliver Twist, but more than Gary Coleman.

deputydog: 7 amazing holes Sounds obscene, but it's actually just really jaw-dropping geological formations (with one or two man-made ones in there to throw you off). Their size really scrambles your brains.

Rough Type: Transacting Friendship All about how our friendships have become 'bureaucratized' through Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, etc. I completely agree - but you have to admit, it's handy for making announcements about events and stuff.

TIME: The Disease of the Future Ad-hocracies. Yeatsian gloom. All because technology is accelerating faster than the rate at which we can adjust. Daily culture shock, predicted by an article from 1970, which I find awesome.

Damn Interesting -- Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom I LOVE stories like this, where giant chunks of our planet get swallowed up without warning, and no lives were lost in the process. Fun for the whole family! Also, you can't really argue with the awesomeness of a title like "Swirling Vortex of Doom". Rock on.

Chicago Sun-Times: Stop me if you've heard this one I love the idea of mixing stop signs with humor, I only wish folks had thought of this earlier.

Friday linkyloo, 05 Oct 2007

Talking Heads: This Must Be The Place I just watched Wall Street, and now I'm in a Talking Heads state of mind. Also, did you know that Stewart Copeland did the score for the film? And did you know that Copeland's dad worked for the CIA, and his mom was an archaeologist? And did you know that Copeland grew up in Egypt and Lebanon, speaking fluent Arabic? Oh, IMDb, I love you.

Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians: What I Am Every girl in my high school looked like Edie Brickell, and this was 1990 through 1995. Interesting. Also, is it just me, or does Edie look a little...under the influence?

Paula Abdul: (It's Just) The Way That You Love Me This represents everything right about the late 90s to me. Which wasn't much, to be honest, but it's all in this video. Whew. Makes me want to wear a bajillion pearls and pointy heels, and candy-apple-red lipstick.

pic via Dark Roasted Blend Why oh WHY can't NASA release more photos like this? I totally want one just like it, only with my own family.

Vertical Soccer Advertising at its finest. But why does Tokyo get all the fun?

The Dilbert Blog: Mild Super Power Scott Adams's writing very nearly appeals to me even more than his Dilbert strip at this point. SO terrific.

chicagotribune.com: Principal defends hugging crackdown Wow, if only this problem had existed in my high school, I think we all would've been a tad less surly.

The Click Five - Jenny Should I be embarrassed that I really like this song? Should I be further embarrassed that I really like this video, with the band members mugging adorably for the camera in the close-ups etc.? Sigh.

Blur - Parklife Damon Albarn, in 1994, was hottt. Good gravy. And why can't my life look like this video? I already have the rainbow umbrella, which I suppose is a decent start. Side note: the production design reminds me of that on "Pushing Daisies." Most excellent.

Christopher Farah - Palestinians on the Brink: Don't Count Out Hamas - Politics on the Huffington Post To quote: "Many modern breeds of nationalism started out, in large part, as responses to enemies or outside forces, but that makes them no less legitimate now. There would have been no American revolution without a repressive Britain to revolt against. Modern Zionism is in large part a European phenomenon, a reaction to European Ant[i]-Semitism . . . . there's no shame that Palestinian nationalism has its roots in opposition to Israel. If anything, it's logical. But like those other nationalisms, Palestinian nationalism does need to evolve beyond a reactionary stage, or it will not be able to thrive, or even survive." Well said, Mr. Farah, well said.

Wednesday linkyloo

I'll be doing video game testing at USC this afternoon, joining the brave new world blah blah. Should be unboring.

Stencil Revolution: Bleach on fabric tutorial via Boing Boing Just beautiful! And you can truly do it yourself.

Hay Bales by Ryan McGinnis A gorgeously ominous picture of a tornado. And a hay bale. Trust me, it's dramatic and breathtaking and deserves to be a Thomas Hart Benton painting.

untitled photo Sneakers with no wearers, only the reflections have remained intact -- just wonderful. Did I mention I love whimsical-yet-ominous photos? Yeah.

Terrific tire-swing diagram of corporate madness Pretty much says it all. Adorable, sleek, darkly informative, and wickedly funny.

Rough Type: Corpse-generated content Macabre yet practical. The final sentence made me chortle out loud for a good five minutes afterwards.

belated Tuesday linkyloo

Ever spend 15.5 consecutive hours with somebody you just met, simply because they were worth it? I had a terrific Tuesday, thank you for asking.

Onwards and upwards:

BBC News: Big Brother is watching us all It's really, really happening. Urk.

funcollector.com: daredevils doing what they do best Just glorious!

The Postmarks - Goodbye Adorably peppy, for when you need to distract yourself from Big Brother.

Blur: The Universal Takes A Clockwork Orange and makes it, well, pretty. And sweet.

Physorg.com: Printing in 3-D Revolutionary, in a "Today's the day we start living in an episode of Star Trek" kind of way. YES! ::air guitar::

Monday linkyloo

Happy first of October! Back when I lived in Chatham, NJ, I had a math teacher in seventh grade named Mrs. Licato who made a pretty big impression on me. Amongst other pearls of wisdom, she told us that on the morning of every first of the month, we should chant "Bunny bunny, bunny bunny, bunny bunny," and then make a wish, all before getting out of bed or speaking to another person. Then the wish would presumably come true. I did this for years, which just goes to show how desperate I was for the world to be that easily magical. And, by the end of every month, my wish would entirely fail to be realized. Darn that Mrs. Licato!

She was a terrific math teacher, though.


The Daily Journal: Car wreck saves choking driver's life Crazygreat.

The New York Sun: Students Know Less After 4 College Years Sadly, this doesn't surprise me in the least. I think it probably applies to me, too.

Slate.com: Alan Greenspan discovers that human beings are...irrational! To quote Greenspan: "[T]he human race, no matter how one defines it, is not smart enough to do better." Most interesting, and again, hardly surprising.

International Herald Tribune: In the shadow of horror, SS guardians frolic A sizable chunk of my family perished in the camps, and the ability of the SS to compartmentalize their jobs in their lives like this is something I've discussed with my parents quite a bit. Most interesting.

The New Yorker: Cool for School Former members of Blue Man Group have started their own nursery school, and it. totally. rocks.

belated Saturday linkyloo

More weekend fabulosity.

Wikipedia: Dyson sphere So, I'm sure you know what a Dyson sphere/ring/swarm/shell is, but I think it bears a refresher. It's such an elegant idea.

Beyond batteries: Storing power in a sheet of paper I can't wait to have my business card actually display my three-minute reel, on the paper.

Barry Bonds' HR Record Tainted by Elbow 'Armor'? Wow, did you know about this? How did his elbow contraption make it past everyone? The days of non-cyborg sports seem to be numbered. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see Transformers playing croquet.

NYT: An Opportunity for Wall St. in China's Surveillance Boom Ah, fascism and corporatism meet again.

Morissey Dance by Toothpaste for Dinner Oh, wow, this makes me feel like it's 1995 all over again, what with the bad MIDI and .gifs. Love it!

belated Friday linkyloo

So, I was very busily having an awesome weekend, hence my belated postings. Have fun!

Kodak "Winds of Change" AIO Printers More brilliance. I quote: "SWEET MABEL, I ALMOST LOST CONSCIOUSNESS."

Shrinking kilogram bewilders physicists This bewilders me, too. Wait, does this mean we all weigh less now? [cue rolling of eyes]

The gamma-ray annihilation lasers are coming! via Boing Boing Too nifty. And scary. Did I mention nifty?

Reason Magazine - Will Super Smart Artificial Intelligences Keep Humans Around As Pets? via Disinformation. Let us bow to our demon robot overlords.

Rough Type: A very silly report on "fair use" Nicholas Carr is rapidly becoming one of my favorite skeptics. I'm all for fair use, but not when the hype is inflated to outrageous proportions.