noise to signal:
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One for the fairy tale fans

Peter Turnley in Haiti

These are the best photographs I've seen from Haiti: Sensitive, empathetic, and strong. No sensationalism, just telling stories the best way photography can.

Haiti: Between Death and Life, by Peter Turnley.

This may be my favorite story ever.

The short version is this:

It's apparently a big deal to be the #1 song in the UK in the week before Christmas.

For the past four years, the winning singer from X-Factor, an American Idol style show in the UK, also presided over by Simon Cowell, has also been the person to get the #1 spot before Christmas.

This year, fed up with the pre-chewed music coming out of the commercial machine, a couple of Brits started a facebook campaign to elect, by purchases, a different song.

Who did they pick as the band and the song? Why, Rage Against The Machine, of course, singing Killing In The Name.

And the result? This story's happy ending:

Internet: 1, Simon Cowell: 0

This one's for the Harry Potter fans who want to know the rest of the story

Whoa, two videos in the same day?

Nerdy fun: What would the earth be like if it had rings like Saturn?

Hey kids, let's fire an anvil 200 feet into the air. AWESOME.

via gizmodo via monoscope.

Sumit Seru's God of Small Things

God of Small Things from Sumit Seru on Vimeo.

Really lovely.

Jim Carroll died this weekend. Respect.

Only approved questions get asked

I should include an uncharacteristic warning here: This excellent and powerful video includes some disturbing shots of racial violence and warfare.

Watch out, or the boobie monster will get you.

I kinda always knew this

Nas and Nick Cannon bring the big guns

The death of hip hop gets reported every year, and it seems to revitalize itself regardless. Nevertheless this is the most hard core jeremiad I've seen.

(Via the estimable Ms. Morgan)

Something else for the Seattleites: cool weather photos from the Washington coast

From the excellent Doug Plummer:

"So what if it's unprecedented: It's 103° in Seattle. It's 63° here on the coast. Historical weather events, such as the one we're having in the Northwest, are overrated. I've run away."

Something for the Seattleites

Yet another internet-era music video

Utterly clever and delightful use of webcams.

Only Uncle Vinny knows how much it chaps my ass to say: RT @jonathancoulton.

A dim lit shot of dangling balls

Oh heck yes.

Via the excellent saedigh.

Hi, a real human interface

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.

How to make a baby

That's some serious planning.

Via Tim.

I needed a little GBS to get through my afternoon

And by the looks of things, you could use some too. Remember to turn it up.

Here's a little chorus help for those of you who are jumping around singing:

That's how they showed their respect for Paddy Murphy
That's how they showed their honour and their pride;
They said it was a sin and shame and they winked at one another
And every drink in the place was full the night Pat Murphy died

There now, don't you feel better? Visit the Great Big Sea boys for more.

Forget guitar hero. This is a REAL game.

Don't miss the Alpine Legend site.

Even I don't park this badly

Elmo and Ricky Gervais level with each other

Smaller fans of Elmo might want to skip this video. It's not awful, but it's... let's say... out of canon.

Via the excellent Stacy.

YouTube has begun to remix itself. The network has come alive. The message comes in size medium.

(via sayunclecomics)

Beardyman shows us how a master makes funny noises with his mouth

That video's all him, with no electronics, but he does some pretty cool things with multitracking as well.

(Via Jörg Colberg)

Elizabeth Gilbert says smart things about the creative process

Via the excellent Christina.

Don't divorce my friends

From the Courage Campaign's site:

Ken Starr, who led the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton, filed a legal brief last month -- on behalf of the "Yes on 8" campaign -- that would forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year before the passage of Prop 8.

Watch "Fidelity" and sign our letter to the state Supreme Court. Tell the Supreme Court to invalidate Prop 8, reject Ken Starr's case, and let loving, committed couples marry. DEADLINE: Valentine's Day.

193,526 people have signed this letter (as of Thursday, February 12). Our Courage Campaign community goal is 200,000 signers. Will you add your name now?:

couragecampaign.org/Divorce

Seriously. Can you look at those happy faces and think that their joy is any kind of threat at all to your life?

Via the excellent Stacy, who wore a dress yesterday. I might try that tomorrow.

Great photo essay by Paolo Pellegrini

Great Performers, in the New York Times magazine.

(doesn't matter where you start; that becomes the beginning of the list and you can click all the way through)

Gorgeous stuff.

Oh yeah. Laser cats.

The Colbert Report on the War on Photographers

Nice take on the latest chapter in this idiocy. Favorite quote, from Mr. Maisel: "Terrorists don't need a photo to know that Penn Station is crowded at 5:00."

You'll recall that I've had my own annoying experiences with security, as have many other photographers.

The possibilities of dSLR video

Shumba Live! from Doug Plummer on Vimeo.

Not that I've shot anything more elaborate than adorable videos of La Ragazza with mine, but as the estimable Doug Plummer shows above, the possibilities are vast.

Plus, seeing Shumba play always makes me smile.

Lovely

(Via the excellent Doug Plummer)

Supernat shows how it's done

Like that? Check out Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme.

This is weirdly awesome.

Waiting patiently

Apparently Tan Dun is collaborating with Youtube to create some sort of collaborative symphony. It'll be interesting to see the results, but what I found entertaining was poking around the audition videos people have submitted. They're supposed to submit one video of themselves playing their part from the piece Tan Dun composed, and another piece of their choosing.

PiccChick1, here, is auditioning for the piccolo part. Which is a bit... empty... between the opening and about 1:35, but she counts patiently, the metronome ticking quietly in the background:

This video makes me inexplicably happy

Steve Goodman: A true loonie

One year in 40 seconds

One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

Neato. Via TumbleDrew.

Why we miss Eartha

I don't even know what to say about this

myspace.com/custommummyq

Oh, Hummer, how I loathe thee.

Via Salon's article The short, disgusting life of the Hummer, which includes these two wonderful notes:

2002: Beginning in 1992, a series of tax laws combine to create large tax credits for certain Hummer buyers. By 2002, the New York Times reports that, thanks to changes in the tax code during the Bush administration, an eligible buyer can deduct $34,912 of the $48,800 base price of the Hummer.

[ . . . ]

July 2002: The Hummer H2, a smaller and friendlier Hummer based on the Chevy Tahoe, goes on sale in dealerships. Its base price is $48,800, and it gets 10 to 16 miles per gallon. Even so, the H2 uses more energy in its manufacture and for fuel in its first 24,000 miles on the road than the Toyota Prius does in its entire lifetime.

USA! USA!

Buskers around the world

Apparently part of a multimedia project by a group called Playing for Change. Neato.

Via the excellent Christina, who says "Turn up the volume for full enjoyment."

This one will twist your wig.

Thanks to Uncle Vinny.

Standing up for Love

What is this to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace that love?

The world is barren enough! It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us, all of us, to go forward.

Via the estimable Stacy.

The American Experiment at work

I saw this official White House photograph today and it struck me that this photo — despite my dark, dark moments over the last few months — is a demonstration of how this country is supposed to work.

Despite the incredibly deep ideological* divide between these two men, there they are, starting the process of handing off power from one to the other.

They're just sitting there, talking. No riots, no troops in the streets; we had an election, we won, they lost, and everything moves forward. That's beautiful, really.

* And, dare I say, intellectual. Yes, I did.

Seattle was a little excited Tuesday night

Another link from Geogeek, who should really get his own damn forum :-)

This has nothing to do with the election, but it's beautiful

The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.

Looks like it's from a "painting game" in development called The Unfinished Swan

Time to remix this one again, baby

Thanks to Geogeek for the link.

They can see you too, and they're looking

Thanks to the GeoGeek for the link.

I know you've probably already seen this

But you need to see it again. This kills me every single time.

David Alan Grier says it all with the last line.

Words for the wise

Tilt-shift video. Yeah, baby.

Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

(Via the excellent TumbleDrew.)

Richard Hernandez' "Scenes from a Vacation"

Scenes from a Vacation from richard hernandez on Vimeo.

Nikon has recently released details of their new d90 dSLR, which among the usual goodness one expects from a dSLR these days includes one feature that has me very, very excited: High resolution video.

Of course, your pro shooters all use real video (or film) cameras, which have all kinds of control and interchangeable lenses and that sort of thing. But for the occasional video shooter the best we've been able to do is to use either a compact video camera or the movie mode of a little digicam like my G9. Neither of those have a heck of a lot of control.

Richard is using an adaptor to mount a lens onto his compact video camera, but the principle is the same; being able to use high-quality 35mm lenses to capture video -- say, to control depth of field, or to use a fisheye lens -- is quite alluring to me.

Not alluring enough to spend the money to switch platforms... but it's a good time to be a photographer, that's for sure.

Should I be worried that I identify with Wingdings?

It's good to relax on the way to work.

I love me some satire. And the first song here is some brutal satire.

Firefighters with too much time on their hands

Um... wow.

What's it all about? This review on the IMDB shines some light.

Yeah, I added it to my Netflix queue.

Thanks, George.

Via Harry Shearer, who has this to say:

I marveled at the quality that I've come to admire more than most others in this business: his persistence. George seemed to love what he did, and so he kept doing it at a very high level...

George grew tougher and sharper over the years, putting more of himself, and his intellect, at the service of his always nimble, always adventurous comedy mind. And, while his comedy was dark, his spirit with his peers was generous.

Ira Glass has good things to say

Game shows used to be awesome

I take back every mean thing I've ever said about Celine Dion

God help me, I find this hysterical.

Everyone sounds great!

That's right folks, it's the "beamz music performance system" from Sharper Image.

Note especially the half-hearted attempt to pick up on an ancient cultural reference.

Apparently satire isn't dead yet

That there aforementioned Circus Band cd

Just got a note from the Circus that the CD is available NOW NOW NOW:

Prepare yourself for a brand-new dose of our peculiar brand of musical insanity. Our fourth CD, "The Half-Wit's Descent," is waiting for you! Immerse yourself in tales of narcissistic crooners, lascivious hussies, Coney Island sideshows, and parading pink pachyderms. Check the indie record stores in Seattle, or buy it now on CD Baby:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/circuscontraption4

Available in a beautiful printed version, or an instant gratification MP3 download version. Go! Click! Buy!

Now I'm depressed

Via Tom Tomorrow.

For the tea fans in the crowd

Elemental - Cup Of Brown Joy from Moog on Vimeo.

Great and terrible

And now we break for a public service announcement.

I just wanted to play tag. I never thought I'd be "it".

The Algorithm March

Make sure you watch through at least to the second half, after the pythagoras switch.

Dick Gregory brings it

Via Whileseated.org.

Beatboxing flute. Whoda thunk.

Hey, if you've got it, flaut it.

Glass is cool

Watching this reminded me that during glaze formulation class when I was in college, the teacher mentioned that the ideal glaze would contract slightly faster than the clay as the whole pot cooled off, because that would make the pot stronger.

I could never wrap my head around the idea then, but watching this video made it completely clear. Thanks, youtubes!

Some love notes are more elaborate than others

Several weeks ago, Sarah Silverman had a surprising announcement on her boyfriend's show. Weeks later, he provided a response. The two videos below are the evidence. Your mileage may vary, as they say, but these had me weeping with laughter.

Not, uh, "family friendly".

Fry and Laurie take the piss out of Uri Geller

That's this schmuck, by the way. Watch James Randi expose Geller... it's a hoot.

Kronos Quartet... with David Sanborn... playing a Willie Dixon song.

Only about three of you will dig this as much as I do.

African fractals from TED

Here's a fun trick.

RIP Lucky Dube

Bob Marley said
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
But little did he know that
Eventually the enemy
Will stand aside and look
While we slash and kill
Our own brothers
—Lucky Dube

Goddammit. Songs aren't supposed to be prophecy.

All I know is, I'm weeping. From laughter? Maybe.

It's all about the hamiltons, baby

It's back on YouTube, which means you need to watch it again. Oh yes, you do.

Nobody does satire like The Onion does

In The Know: Are America's Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?

What happens when german students in Helena, Montana, discover bad German techno?

Something a whole lot like zis.

Really lovely ad

Hamada Shoji at work

One of my clay heroes, Hamada Shoji. Hypnotic and beautiful.

Beautiful parody of iPhone hysteria

One of the oddest and most inspired musical performances I've seen lately

Up there! In the sky! It's... wait, what?

Thank Vishnu for Bollywood.

(via the estimable Madfoot)

Photographer shout-out: John Lok

Despite my feelings about the Seattle Times' editorial quality, they're lucky enough to have several terrific photographers on their staff.

This morning, one of them knocked it out of the park with two very different photo essays. John Lok has a great series of photos about people living the Iraq war here in the US:

And in the "Gender: F" insert, he has a very different series of photos of women finding the perfect bridal gown:

It's always great to see photographers getting more interesting photos into a daily paper. In the first image, he's using a Holga "toy camera" with a crappy lens and light leaks to beautiful effect. In the second image, he's at the other end of technique, with a tricky-to-do-well combination of flash on the bride (to keep her sharp) plus a slow shutter speed and a bit of camera pan to add some motion to the background and a little glow to the bride.

Nice work, John.

For more on either technique: Michelle Bates has a new book out on toy camera photography which I've heard is very good. I'd be remiss if I didn't also include a link to the Strobist site here — if you want to learn more about the kind of technique John's using in the second photo, I can't think of a better place to start.

(Both photos copyright John Lok and the Seattle Times, of course)

No photo this morning ...

... we got back from Portland too late last night for me to deal with any of the photos I shot this weekend.

Instead, I'll point you to a website connected with a wonderful book that the Kid's cousin's parents gave us this weekend, called The Century Project.

Here's an excerpt of the project statement from the photographer:

Century is a chronological series of nude photographic portraits of women from the moment of birth through one hundred years of age.

While the biological continuum is an important part of the project and provides a vital framework for other issues, this is much more than a mere developmental chronicle.

Many of the photographs, for example, are accompanied by personal statements written by the participants themselves. These are often highly personal and intensely moving. The combination of words and pictures has proven to be very powerful based on all public and media responses to exhibitions and publications to date.

The subjects portrayed are, quite simply, real-life people. They are not stars or models. They span all ages, body types, and have a rich variety of experiences to draw upon and to share. CENTURY is about real women in real bodies, not the caricatures in the worlds of media and advertising.

Terrific stuff. Go check it out. And I'll be back tomorrow.

The meteorologists are a little giddy at NOA'A

And who can blame them, what with the winter we've had so far?

Short term...for the first time in months...not much to talk about...phew thats nice. Skies are clear with the winds diminishing rather quickly...partially due to pressure gradients weakening and also to decoupling with the strong radiational cooling taking place. Already have a bunch of readings in the teens in the outlying areas and up in whatcom county. Would expect that we will end up with some single digit low temperatures in the outlying regions by morning...especially in areas with a significant snowpack. Those single digit readings will be the outliers rather than the rule however.

With one significant exception...friday will be very much like today. The exception being that the winds will be much lighter which should make for more pleasant conditions. Especially if you are walking due to your car sliding on the ice into a ditch. Icy roads abound...so be careful out there. Forecasts looks pretty good at this point and have no plans to update this evening. Cerniglia

Rob Paravonian hates Pachelbel's Canon

A taste of Nate

99.9% of the movies on Atom Films, despite their heavy funding and early excitement, are dreck (as I've said before).

Here's a short documentary that's actually terrific:

The illest MF in a cardigan sweater

Not, uh, family friendly.

Talk like a pirate, bubbeleh

Since it's Talk Like a Pirate Day and all, I wanted to make sure all you shipmates didn't miss this tidbit BoingBoing linked to a few days ago...

Ahoy, mateys ! Thar be Jewish pirates!

[ . . . ]

While some Jews, like Samuel Pallache, took up piracy in part to help make a better life for expelled Spanish Jews, Kritzler said others were motivated by revenge for the Inquisition.

One such pirate was Moses Cohen Henriques, who helped plan one of history's largest heists against Spain. In 1628, Henriques set sail with Dutch West India Co. Admiral Piet Hein, whose own hatred of Spain was fueled by four years spent as a galley slave aboard a Spanish ship. Henriques and Hein boarded Spanish ships off Cuba and seized shipments of New World gold and silver worth in today's dollars about the same as Disney's total box office for "Dead Man's Chest."

Henriques set up his own pirate island off the coast of Brazil afterward, and even though his role in the raid was disclosed during the Spanish Inquisition, he was never caught, Kritzler told The Journal.

[ . . . ]

The great wave of videos begins

Uncle Vinny reminded me that these were beginning to show up, and when I looked for it, there it was: YouTube brings us one of the most visually original videos in MTV's history. I can't remember offhand exactly when this arrived, but for me it stood out in a sea of posterization and explosions, hair bands posturing next to burning trash barrels, and literalist concert videos.

Joss Whedon on equality

I'm not that big of a fan of his work -- I don't dislike it, it just doesn't move me that much -- but what Mr. Whedon has to say about strong women and equality is smart and funny and true.

Stevie. On Sesame Street. Playing "Superstition".

This has been going around for a few days, but if you haven't seen it, man, this is a good reminder of how !)(#@* brilliant Li'l Stevie was at his peak: playing "Superstition" on Sesame Street.

Go! Watch! Weep!

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

In honor of President Bush and I finally agreeing about something -- namely, his creation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument -- I thought I'd show off some of our beautiful aerial imagery of many of those islands, like this terrific image of Kure Atoll.

You can see many more in my Northwestern Hawaiian Islands collection on Windows Live Local.

Wikipedia also has an entry on the NWHI, if you want to get edjimicated.

Best diet coke and mentos video ever

There have been a bunch of videos circulating in the last few months showing the reaction when you combine diet coke and mentos candies.

None of them, however, compare to what the mad scientists at Eepybird.com have done. Watch and wonder, my friends, for it is truly a beautiful world.

Yet another dorky web toy

Not exactly "Stomp"

Classic publicity photos

Jennifer Sharpe, of the wonderful (and soon to be reborn) Sharpeworld web site, is the proud posessor of The Kriegsmann Files, also known as a moldy pile of publicity photos.

But oh my, what publicity photos.

I can't decide which is my favorite: nbuda funkshun? sadok savir? No, I think I'm going to have to go with silverlight:

The red square game

A fun little game based on incredibily simple rules and relatively simple code: The Red Square Game.

My best time in 10 minutes of play? 12.281 seconds. What's yours?

Nifty live Beck number

Now that's a rhythm section.

Haner gives good forecast discussion

From this morning's forecast discussion for Seattle at the NOAA site:

Short term...many of our point-to-point pressure gradients have started weakening since 06z...some quickly. However...the base of the negatively tilted trough remains southwest of the forecast area at this time. Was considering letting go of the high wind watch for at least the northwest olympic peninsula...but have decided to first let the upper trough axis and surface front move by first. Indeed...the wind at buoy 29 has actually been coming up for the past few hours...and the wind at hoquiam flipped back around to an easterly direction this hour...so believe the party`s not over yet. As for the foothills...the ksea-keat pres grad has weakened over the past few hours...and the wind at the snoqualmie river bridge on i-90 has trended down since 1 am...but it again concerns me that the front has not actually moved by yet. Often times...strongest winds come in the pre-frontal regime immediately in advance of the front.

Once the negatively tilted front moves by later this morning...much colder air aloft will move in with 500 mb temps dropping down to near -35c. 700-500 mb lapse rates become quite steep...reaching the 8-8.5 c/km range. Will spread the mention of thunder onto the coast and as far inland as the southwest interior...though a stray strike during afternoon heating just about anywhere would not surprise me through this evening.

(reformatted for legibility... why they continue to show this in all caps on the site is a question I haven't really investigated)

One of the more peculiar relationships with a piece of kitchen equipment I've ever seen

It's Kelly Dobson's "Blendie". So great.

(Via Talking Crow)

More than meets the eye!

One for the boys in the crowd.

Sure, this is all fun and games, but we know where this leads... dancing and rebellion.

Unexpectedly Phildickian silliness

Direct link to this video.

It's turning out to be Japan Week here at Noise to Signal. Who knew?

Vital information for Sushi eaters

Direct link to this video.

If only they had the magic phrase

The boys at Penny Arcade seem to be having the same problem as me.

If only they had used the magic phrase.

Japan is an odd place, chapter 783

Now I know what killed Betty Friedan.

'Maid in Japan' cafes treat geeks like lords

TOKYO (Reuters) - "Welcome home, Master," says the maid as she bows deeply, hands clasped in front of a starched pinafore worn over a short pink dress.

This maid serves not some aristocrat but a string of pop-culture-mad customers at a "Maid Cafe" in Tokyo's Akihabara district, long known as a Mecca for electronics buffs but now also the centre of the capital's "nerd culture".

"When they address you as 'Master', the feeling you get is like a high," says Koji Abei, a 20-year-old student having coffee with a friend at the Royal Milk Cafe and Aromacare.

"I've never felt that way before."

Maid cafes dot Akihabara, which has become a second home for Tokyo's "otaku" -- roughly translated as "geeks". They're known for their devotion to comics and computer games and can easily be identified by their standard outfit of track suit, knapsack and spectacles.

In the cafes, girls dressed in frilly frocks inspired by comic-book heroines wait hand and foot on customers, mostly male, who might have once been obsessed with naughty schoolgirls and nurses.

At one cafe, maids get down on their knees to stir the cream and sugar into the customer's coffee.

At Royal Milk, diners can follow up a meal with a range of grooming services, including ear cleanings.

Maids at some of the more attentive shops even offer to spoon-feed customers at their table.

Maid cafes have mushroomed since they first emerged about four years ago, evolving from cafes where waiting staff emulated characters from a popular series of role-playing video games, often dressed in schoolgirl-inspired uniforms.

[ . . . ]

Best. Shrub. Impression. Ever.

Link to this video.

This guy nails everything that annoys me about Shrub's oratorial style. Particularly the smirk. Lord, how I hate the smirk.

Via Uncle Vinny.

Valuable advice from Chris Rock

Too bad about the video quality, but still, nearly Swiftian in its precision.

Direct link to this video.

Update: Talking Crow just forwarded me this closely related link.

There are no new ideas

Or at least that's how I feel after browsing through a few of the hundreds of comparisons of duplicate ad concepts at Coloribus.

Oprah brings the pain

I don't know how many of you have been following the recent furor surrounding James Frey's book "A Million Little Pieces", but even if you haven't, this is fun to watch.

The incredibly brief summary:

1. James Frey publishes his memoir about his struggles with addiction, crime, and jail.
2. Oprah chooses it for her book club as her first modern selection after her recent "classics" series.
3. Lots of people read it, embrace it, change their lives based on it.
4. The Smoking Gun publishes an expose that shows clearly that the book is almost entirely fabrication, and that Frey is a lying little frat rat.
5. Oprah initially refuses to drop him, and supports him on Larry king.
6. Then she takes the path of righteousness and Frey makes the mistake of going back on her show.

There are several more clips up on YouTube.

All of this of course does bring the question: Were people's lifechanging experiences any less true because the book they based them on was a complete lie? Discuss.

What's up Da?

Another video via the redoubtable Anusha.

*Da, apparently, is Tamil for "dude".

Still the best cat video montage ever

My favorite clip starts at about 1:08. Watch for it and understand.

We're a musical people

Abi Meleibt, by the way, means "At least I'm alive".

Old age and guile whips whiney yuppie

On a side note, woohoo, Google added website embedding to their video archive!

(via Ms. Talking Crow)

Australian scientists: Maybe they need a little more to do around the lab.

Missing spoons stir scientists into action

Australian scientists have proved what is common knowledge to most people - teaspoons appear to have minds of their own.

In a study at their own facility, a group of scientists from the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health in Melbourne secretly numbered 70 teaspoons.

They then tracked the movement of the spoons over five months.

Supporting their expectations, 80 per cent of the spoons vanished during the period.

The spoons in private areas of the institute lasted nearly twice as long as those in communal sections.

"At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a workable population of 70 teaspoons," they wrote in Friday's festive edition of the British Medical Journal.

They say their research proves that teaspoons are an essential part of office life and the rapid rate of disappearance proves that this is under relentless assault.

Regretting that scientific literature is "strangely bereft" of teaspoon-related research, the scientists have offered a few theories to explain the phenomenon.

Taking a tip from Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books, they suggest that the teaspoons are quietly migrating to a planet uniquely populated by "spoonoid" life forms living in a spoonish state of Nirvana.

They also offer the phenomenon of "resistentialism" in which inanimate objects like teaspoons have a natural aversion to humans.

On the other hand, they suggested, people might simply be taking them.

Possibly the greatest parody hip-hop line ever.

Plus a nifty "embed this video in your site" code snippet:

JDE called this "The best thing ever." I suggested that certain Chinese dumplings are better; we're debating.

Anyway... I won't spoil the line, except that it goes "you can call us __ __ by the way __ ___ ___".

Ludakrishna? MC Vikram?

You know it baby, courtesy of the overshod Anusha: A song and a video.

(Google video seems to be down again briefly, but here's another link to the video)

Virtual Earth is now Windows Live Local

That is, http://local.live.com/.

And we've released a shiny new version. Besides general UI improvements, map style improvements, and higher-resolution aerial photos worldwide, we've also added high-resolution "Bird's Eye" imagery in a bunch of places in the US. Naturally I need to point you to some samples.

First off, I'll show off my map improvements. We went from the perfectly fine but a little sparse map style on the left to the much richer and more attractive map style on the right. (click to see at actual size)

And now for some fun links to imagery.

Let's start with classy little place in Beverly Hills. Be sure to click on the second item in the scratch pad so you can see the guest quarters I've arranged for all of you to visit.

In the same category of the obnoxiously rich, some people's commute is nicer than others.

Sometimes the super rich share, though, and we get to see something like the Getty Museum.

And then there's also cows.

Although some of our imagery isn't as current as I'd like, it does mean we get to see some amusing things in the aerial imagery, like frame numbers. There are more, but I'll let you look for those. Having different eras of imagery also means that you can see things like subdivisions in the process of being built.

And, of course, with the bird's eye imagery we can also act as virtual tourists, which believe me we've all been spending some time doing. Here's an old friend.

Sure, I'd be glad to babysit your child ...

I have a Barney video I can show them.

(UPDATED: Link is working now)

Squirrel Wars

Doug Plummer is battling squirrels:

I am locked in a battle in which there is no hope of success. My foe is craftier, more persistent and patient, and has better manual dexterity than me. For months we have been been testing each other’s resolve, ramping up arms and strategies, trying to outwit our enemy. Property damage has ensued. Physical blows have been exchanged. It is a good thing I do not own a gun, for I would use it against my foe with no remorse.

I am battling squirrels.

Oh yes he is. Damn funny. Go, read.

Great photo essay

Highly recommended: Melina Mara's great photo essay Changing the face of power: Women in the U.S. Senate.

I didn't realize there were only 14 women in the US Senate -- as Mara points out, that's seven times what it was twelve years ago. Nice to see that two of them are our Washington State senators, Cantwell and Murray.

Now that's an insult

Ordinarily I don't find prank phone calls that funny -- they're often too long, belabored, and gratuitously disgusting. But I have to thank Kim for passing on this very funny prank call by the excellent Roy Wood Jr.

Why is this one different? Because the victim gives as good as she gets. I only wish I could throw insults back at someone that fast, furious, and fluently.

At work? Headphones only.

Holy smoke, the strain is starting to show on the first lady

Or something. Belledame222 over at FetchMeMyAxe has a few frightening photos of Laura Bush.

Clip and save: great design ideas for next year's jack-o-lanterns!

A little post-hallowe'en safety video

Thanks to Kim for passing on this safety warning video about a popular Hallowe'en joke.

The voice-over is right: If I'm ever trapped in a horror movie, I want this guy with me.

Turn off your police scanner, bubba, it's time for the modern world

From a colleague here in the electron mines, here's a super cool Virtual Earth "mashup" using Virtual Earth to display near real time Seattle Fire Department 911 calls.

Baby got... somethin'

OK, back in 1992 Sir Mix-A-Lot graced us with his loving tribute to big bootie, Baby Got Back.

A few months ago, Southpaw gave us a Christian take on it with Baby Got Book. It's actually pretty good, too, unlike most most attempts at "christian [insert popular music style]".

Now, Jonathan Coulton gives us a... slightly different take on the song. I laughed.

(Thanks to Beth for the link)

A few good films from Atom Films

Generally I've found that the films on Atom Films stink -- too long, poorly edited, pointless, immature humor, the list goes on. For some reason, though, I keep going back to look for something good, and in the last week I've actually seen a few I liked. In no particular order...

• Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers: Musicians break into an old couple's apartment while they're out and do all those dumb noisy things you did when you were a kid. Or last week. Whichever.
• A Ninja Pays Half My Rent: You think you've had odd roommates. Would you PASS THE SYRUP???
• Prey Alone: Basically an all-chase scene short film. Super high production values. Despite what they say, I did see the end coming, but it was still big fun. RFKJ, I'm looking at you.

Remember that scene from Wayne's World?

You know, the lip-syncing to Bohemian Rhapsody?

Ever want to see member of the British Navy do the same thing?

Well, now you can.

Really, really funny.

More on the creationists

Saedigh is trying to give me an aneurism by forwarding me more stories about fundamentalist idiots.

The Bible as museum guide

God made dinosaurs on the sixth day of Creation, the same day he made people, according to Rusty Carter's interpretation of the Bible.

"The word 'dinosaur' was not invented back then, but in Job 38, there's two large creatures, behemoth and leviathan," said Carter, director of the Littleton-based Biblically Correct Tours, as he prepared to give his first tour of the school year.

Either or both creatures were probably dinosaurs, he said.

Nineteen kids trailed behind Carter on Saturday morning at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, most of them nodding knowingly as their tour guide pointed out flaws in exhibits.

"What do you guys think? Is the world really 4.5 billion years old?" Carter asked. "Nonsense!" one girl called out. The adults in the group smiled.

Carter said demand for his religious tours of secular sites has been continual since the company's founding in 1988, but the media's attention has exploded recently as local and state school boards across the country debate how to teach evolution.

[ . . . ]

For Tanner Cameron, a fifth- grade student at Shaffer Elementary, a public school in Littleton, life's history finally began to make sense Saturday.

"Ohhhh," he said as Carter's colleague Tyson Thorne explained how fossils form. Thorne's story included water, mud, sudden catastrophe ...

"They're fossilized from the flood!" Cameron exclaimed. "So maybe the dinosaurs became extinct because of the flood?"

The biblical flood fossilized dinosaurs, Thorne said, but dinosaurs made it onto the ark - all the animals did. He suspects Noah brought baby dinosaurs (because who would want an adult tyrannosaur around?), and the creatures succumbed to overhunting or climate change.

As I said in response, "Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah."

I once asked a very orthodox Yeshiva student about evolution and whatnot. He said that they didn't really see a contradiction between believing that the bible is literally true and that science shows the world was billions of years old. "We can't limit God with human logic," he said. "Science is a tool God gave us to explore and celebrate creation." Maybe that's why they kicked us out of every country in Europe at one time or another: we don't use our faith as an excuse to be stupid.

(Some of us, unfortunately, use it as an excuse to be racist... but that's a whole 'nother story.)

One for the boys in the crowd

Courtesy of RFKJ, my partner in loving the dangerous DIY technology, here's a couple of guys who built their own automated sentry gun out of a BB gun and a web cam. Don't miss the video.

Yeah, baby. You know that the real ones must cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Another "I wish I had thought of that" link

Ji Lee prints speech bubbles, pastes them to posters and billboards, and then goes back and photographs what people wrote in them. Yowza.

McSweeney's offers some perspective

"People, in general, lack perspective. I say everyone should have to busk, out on a street corner, or in a public market, at least twice a year. Not necessarily playing Neil Young tunes on the guitar, either. Do your job, for change, in front of the 17th Avenue liquor store. Then go back to work and complain about having to share an office."

(McSweeney's, via Uncle Vinny)

And now we take a break from the depressing ...

... to move on to the creepy!

Parasitic Hairworm Charms Grasshopper Into Taking It for a Swim

Only in science fiction do people's minds get possessed by alien beings. For grasshoppers, zombification is an everyday hazard, and it obliges them to end their lives in a bizarre manner.

Biologists have discovered and hope to decipher a deadly cross talk between the genomes of a grasshopper and a parasitic worm that infects it.

The interaction occurs as the worm induces the grasshopper to seek out a large body of water and then leap into it.

The parasite, known as a hairworm, lives and breeds in fresh water. But it spends the early part of its life cycle eating away the innards of the grasshoppers and crickets it infects.

When it is fully grown, it faces a difficult problem, that of returning to water. So it has evolved a clever way of influencing its host to deliver just one further service - the stricken grasshopper looks for water and dives in.

The article has more details, and even better: it has pictures, oh yes it does.

Nice little video ...

... from Pablo Korona:

ATL to Midway

Circus Contraption in New York City

That's right, folks, my weirdo circus friends are about to become the worm in the Big Apple*, setting up shop at Theater for the New City for the entire month of September.

Here are the details about the show.

Here's where you buy tickets.

And here, my friends, are some sneak preview photos taken by yours truly at the final show of their Seattle run, to give you a little taste of what's coming your way. Enjoy!

* Yes, I'm sure that's one of the most overused clichés in the city.

Cool music videos

From their website:

Pleix is a virtual community of digital artists based in Paris. Some of us are 3D artists, some others are musicians or graphic designers. This website is the perfect place to share our latest creations.

My personal favorite so far has been "Itsu" (sorry, no direct link)

A few fun links to Virtual Earth

Here are a few fun map views people on our team found while we were working on Virtual Earth for those long months.

• Cargill Salt's brine evaporation ponds. (They have some information about the ponds on their site)


• Disneyland from the air!


• As Joe said, apparently in this neighborhood keeping up with the Joneses means owning a tennis court.


• Fun with our vendors' data processing artifacts: Ghost airplane!

The commercial that always cracks me up

OK, this is a peculiar thing for someone who watches nearly no television to post about, but bear with me.

Marc Lucas, a fellow member of the WELL, is a copywriter and creative director in the advertising industry.

I love many of the ads in his reel, but the one that always cracks me up is this one for a shipping company. I think it's the guy's expressions, which are beautiful and subtle; in any event, give it a view and enjoy it as art.

Yet another peculiar diversion

La Pate a Son. It reminds me a bit of The Marvelous Toy:

When I was just a wee little lad,
Full of health and joy,
My father homeward came one night
And gave to me a toy.
A wonder to behold it was
With many colors bright
And the moment I laid eyes on it,
It became my heart's delight.

Refrain:
It went "Zip" when it moved and "Pop" when it stopped,
"Whirrr" when it stood still
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.

(via BoingBoing)

Wonderful gallery of WPA posters

Ah, the Library of Congress online. Do I love any website more? Possibly not. They have so much great stuff online, from field recordings by musicologists to visual archives like this one.

I'll let them speak for themselves:

The By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress's collection of more than 900 is the largest. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts and were added to the Library's holdings in the 1940s.

Some really wonderful things there, many of which are available as high-resolution archival images, suitable for printing out at home. I'm fond of this one:

I sent the link to this site out to the "Design Inspiration" mailing list at work with the subject line "If you are on deadline, I beg you, do not open this e-mail." Mwah hah hah.

(via J-Walk)

The Monster Engine

Dave DeVries has an amazing painting series based on "one single question: what would a child's drawing look like if it were painted realistically?"

The beautiful result is The Monster Engine.

It won't surprise any of you to find out that I'm most enthralled with the creepy monster ones. Superheroes... not so much.

Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!

Jake Shimabukuro, modern master of the ukulele, knocks out a stellar version of Why My Guitar Gently Weeps in Central Park.

The concert footage and interview are both pretty good, too.

(via John over at J-Walk)

Dharma smackdown

OK, guys, time for another lecture on "Sutras: Not just something to mumble while you're digesting breakfast".

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Five Thai Buddhist monks have been defrocked and fined after a brawl with monks from a nearby temple, police and newspapers said Tuesday.

The street fight was the culmination of years of antagonism between monks from the two temples who had often exchanged curses, insults and rude gestures as they collected alms on different sides of a road, the Manager newspaper said.

"When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So am I," it quoted one of the defrocked monks, Boonlert Boonpan, as saying after the brawl in the northeastern state of Nong Khai Monday.

Boonlert said he usually carried a knuckle-duster in his shoulder bag during the morning collection of alms on which Bhuddist monks depend, it said.

Boonlert and the four other monks, all aged between 15 and 28, were each fined 1,000 baht ($25) by police for public brawling and were defrocked by senior monks, Wut Pomraksa, head of Nong Khai police station, told Reuters.

But Boonlert was unrepentant.

"If senators can fight in parliament, why can't monks?" he said.

Eating China

David F. Gallagher, over at Lightning Field, has just gotten back from China, and posted (among other great photos of the cities and whatnot) a gallery called Eating China.

Thanks, David. Now I'm going to be hungry all damn day.

Great...

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Nice bouquet! Good nose!

Waiter, There's a Fish in My Wine!

BEIJING (Reuters) - The French used grapes, Russians fermented potatoes, Koreans put ginseng in their drink and Mexicans distilled cactus plants to make fiery tequila.

Now China is introducing fish wine.

Sun Keman, an entrepreneur in the northeastern port city of Dalian, has formed the Dalian Fisherman's Song Maritime Biological Brewery, with a plan to use his background in the fishing industry to make fish into wine.

"Different from China's thousands of years of brewing, the brewery will clean, boil, and ferment fish for making wine," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The company already had orders from Japan, Russia and other parts of China, it said.

Tipplers might also take heart in knowing the brew is purported to be good for them.

"Experts said the wine is nutritious and contains low alcohol," Xinhua said.

Lego/cats/church

What else is there to say? You have to go see for yourself.

(via Memepool)

So cold...

Wow, check out these pix of frozen lake spray in Geneva:

As they say: "Attention, certaines images peuvent choquer les personnes sensibles au froid!"

Spam spam spam spam

I'm guessing that most of you have had at least one spam e-mail once in a while. No, no, it's a strong statement, but I'm willing to stand by it.

If you're curious about that industry at all, you might be interested in a conversation going on right now at Inkwell, hosted by yours truly, with Brian McWilliams, author of Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements. It's a fascinating read, and it promises to be a fascinating conversation over the next couple of weeks.

Join us, won't you, he said in his oiliest tv announcer voice.

http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/

Michael Wolf's "Architecture of Density"

Tim pointed me to these amazing photos of high-rises in Hong Kong, by Michael Wolf. From the website:

ROBERT KOCH GALLERY is pleased to present Architecture of Density, an exhibition of large scale color photographs by Michael Wolf. Wolf has lived and worked in Hong Kong for ten years. Stimulated by the region's complex urban dynamics, he makes dizzying photographs of its architecture.

One of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world, Hong Kong has an overall density of nearly 6,700 people per square kilometer. The majority of its citizens live in flats in high-rise buildings. In Architecture of Density, Wolf investigates these vibrant city blocks, finding a mesmerizing abstraction in the buildings' facades.

Some of the structures in the series are photographed without reference to the context of sky or ground, and many buildings are seen in a state of repair or construction: their walls covered with a grid of scaffolding or the soft colored curtains that protect the streets below from falling debris. From a distance, such elements become a part of the photograph's intricate design.

Check out the rest of them: Michael Wolf's Architecture of Density.

Geez, whaddya think I am, a rocket scientist?

How can you expect me to remember everything?

Professor's Saturn Experiment Forgotten

SPOKANE, Wash. - David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn's largest moon.

"The story is actually fairly gruesome," the University of Idaho scientist said in an e-mail from Germany, the headquarters of the European Space Agency. "It was human error — the command to turn the instrument on was forgotten."

[ . . . ]

"I (and the rest of my team) waited and waited and waited," he wrote, as the probe descended. "We watched the probe enter and start transmitting data, but our instrument never turned on."

Officials for the European Space Agency said last week they would investigate to learn what happened. They were not available for comment on Thursday, nor did NASA officials immediately respond to telephone messages.

[ . . . ]

"In total, the core of our team has invested something like 80 man years on this experiment, 18 of which are mine," Atkinson wrote. "I think right now the key lesson is this — if you're looking for a job with instant and guaranteed success, this isn't it."

I will never again complain about months of work on a project being thrown away.

For your weird game pleasure

Yet another cool puzzle game, with the best illustrations yet!

(via Christian)

Tsunami

You can find current information, as well as some pointers on how to help, at the very informative Southeast Asia Earthquake and Tsunami site.

Not to mention the usual crowd:
The Red Cross
UNICEF
World Vision

Our friends at WorldChanging are also keeping a steady flow of links and information going.

Two unrelated things

First, an excellent cartographic essay showing how deceptive many of the maps we've been seeing in the US are. It made me feel less isolated, that's for sure.

Second, a little language learning to lighten the mood.

A few choice words on religious bigotry

Those of you who don't read Strange Brouhaha regularly should go see what the redoubtable Mr. and Mrs. Jahrling have to say on the subject of religious bigotry.

You don't want to argue theology, trust me. At least, I don't. And you don't want to get into the whole "Jesus never mentions homosexuality in the Bible" thing either, because that's a logical fallacy. Silence doesn't imply approval or disapproval. It doesn't even imply that it's a non-issue. Just leave that alone. You don't want to get into "Leviticus this" and "Romans that." That's a minefield that bigots know very well. (You might counter the former with Matthew 5:17, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill," with, I think, the heavy implication being that Christ will fulfill, or complete, the Old Testament by being the vehicle of the New. And the latter...I don't hold much with Paul, so I find non-gospel evidence uncompelling. YMMV.)

Just ask someone who comes at you swinging the Bible if they know what John 3:17 says.

and

As I said to Rob, something is really wrong with people who are that homophobic. Or for whom homophobia is that important. It boggles my mind. You want some Jesus? Jesus would get in these people's faces and yell "PEOPLE ARE STARVING!! And according to the theology you PROFESS to believe, they're all ME! So if you don't want me to bitch-slap you when you die, SHUT UP ABOUT THE GODDAMN GAY BISHOP who is also me AND START DISHING OUT FOOD AT THE SOUP KITCHEN!!"

(amen, sistah!)

Chris' Flowers

(Apologies to those of you who get the inside joke of the title)

My friend Christina Florkowski has finally taken the wraps off of her formerly sekrit project, and man oh man has it been worth the wait.

This lovely image to the right is my personal favorite from the series, but there are seven others just as cool up there. Go, check it out... and, of course, buy prints!

Yeah, baby

Tom Waits, Paramount Theater, October 18, Center Mezzanine, Row G.

Yes. Be jealous. :-)

DAMN RIGHT

How (*&(! American are you? (Feel free to take the test if you're not any kind at all :-)

(Via the Wonkette)

Gaylen Morgan's "Floating Worlds"

In this afternoon's Photo-Eye newsletter was a link to Gaylen Morgan's Floating Worlds portfolio, and boy is it great.

These are the photos I'm always trying to take when I'm at the ocean, and they just never quite turn out. Morgan, however, has nailed it. They carry a sense of stillness and anticipation that I love.

Fighting fire with fire

My latest personal hero has come up with a unique way of fighting the good fight against homophobia:

Me: “If you all don’t lower your voices and cease calling me Satan, I will have to sing show tunes.”

The other straphangers look at me with stony faces.
I begin to sing.

“Its very clear, our love is here to stay. Not for a year, but forever and a day…”

Preacher lady and the Jesus police start mumbling and beseeching G_d to strike me down and boil me in molten tar. (I look better in silver.)

The train reaches Wall Street. Confused subway riders check out the scene. I begin swaying and feeling the music.

The slamming Bible man looks like he is going to pop a blood vessel. “I cast ye out, Satan.”

I go into jazz dance crouch and then spring up to belt out, “THAAAAAAT OLD BLACK MAGIC, HAS ME IN A SPELL…”

Bible man has to get off the train as I wriggle and shimmy. “That same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine!”

Bible man exits. SHOW TUNES 1, FUNDAMENTALISTS 0.

Follow the link. It gets even better.

(via boingboing)

Never say that one person can't make a difference.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Children tussling over a key-chain mace sprayer in a downtown Washington building on Wednesday triggered a chemical release that sent one person to hospital and briefly agitated U.S. financial markets.

Horseplay, not terrorism, was to blame for an incident that led to the evacuation of a building and a short-lived fall in the U.S. dollar, said Cathy Lanier, commander of special operations for the Washington police department.

Juvenile Questioned After Washington Chemical Scare

One of the coolest things I've ever seen

Problem: Your water supply is erratic and the high-water table smells funny. You could pump deeper, but that would take more power, and you live in a poor South African village. Where will you get the energy from?

Solution: You hook a merry-go-round to the pump. Yeah, baby.

From Worldchanging.com, the coolest new site I've been introduced to lately. The good folks from Worldchanging are involved in a fascinating public conversation on the WELL for the next couple of weeks; go check 'em out. This is one site I'm going to be spending a lot of time with.

Absolutely, sir. You and OnStar are speaking the same language.

Recommended: Transcripts of OnStar Service Conversations Not Selected for Commercials, from the good folks at The Morning News.

You’ve heard the spots, where the helpful voice of the OnStar satellite representative rushes to the aid of the panicked motorist. But have you heard them all? John Warner digs through the transcripts that didn’t make the final cut.

Yeah, I laughed.

OK, so the Brits are having a little problem with the sauce

Andrea posted a photo of drunk women hailing a cab, which is from this article on binge drinking in the UK.

The article is about what sounds like a huge upsurge in binge drinking, and talks about the connection in the UK between drinking and violence:

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, a general practitioner, said the relative cheapness of alcohol, the introduction of fruity "alcopops" aimed at teenagers and the rise of happy hours and all-you-can-drink deals were partly to blame for the problem.

"It seems that the acme of modern British experience is oblivion preceded by nastiness," he wrote.

I wasn't that surprised -- the Brits have always been hostile drunks -- but then I read this section of the article:

The overnight Saturday train from London to Aberdeen, a favorite for men on stag nights, was canceled recently because no guards would agree to work on it, The Guardian reported.

"It was like an alcoholic bullet flying through the night," one guard told the newspaper. "The buffet car was a cesspool. They were climbing into the berths with Christ knows who. It was madness. They'd pull the emergency cord. They'd vomit. Break guitars over each other's heads. You can't be having that on a nice train."

Dang.

In honor of the unruly women I know ...

... I present Arianna Huffington's most recent column, In Praise of Unruly Women.

An excerpt, with a killer last line:

Last week’s Olympic Trials featured women going faster, higher, stronger than ever before. And our movie screens are filled with indomitable, determined women like “Kill Bill’s” Beatrix Kiddo or Keira Knightley’s kick-ass Guinevere in the new “King Arthur.”

But try to apply these attributes to politics and the media start acting like it’s 1958 — they suddenly don’t know how to handle smart, accomplished, complex women. Judy Dean wasn’t glamorous or supportive enough, Hillary was too smart and too strong, and Teresa is too loose-lipped and too unpredictable.

So it really isn’t much of a surprise that the political wife the media seem most comfortable with is Laura Bush, who has chosen to take on the image of the perfect 1950s sitcom housewife.

She’s the Harriet Nelson of first ladies, the quintessential deferential spouse, praised by her husband for not “trying to butt in and always, you know, compete” and lauded by the media for her ability “to balance strength and subservience.” I guess I missed the moment when subservience became a virtue.

Those wacky dolphins

Currently at InkWELL, Susan McCarthy is discussing her new book, Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild.

It's already an interesting and funny discussion. Here's an anecdote from Ms. McCarthy to entice you to take a look:

A bored dolphin can come up with some pretty bizarre behaviors. A funny example is the summer at one oceanarium when all the dolphins went crazy for seeing if they could balance on the tops of the walls around their tanks. Usually they could, but sometimes they fell out onto the walkways around the paths, and the oceanarium workers had to get together and heave the dolphins back into the tanks. (We're talking about hoisting 400 slippery pounds over a waist-high wall.) When the workers saw dolphins jumping up to try to balance on the walls, they would yell at them to stop, but the dolphins found that even more entertaining.

Y'all come read!

New technology in a 2000 year old art form

From a Disney (yes, Disney) press release:

Disney Debuts New Safer, Quieter and More Environmentally Friendly Fireworks Technology

GLENDALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 28, 2004--After years of research and testing, Walt Disney Imagineering has perfected a new innovation in fireworks launch technology, marking the pyrotechnic industry's first major breakthrough in decades.

The new technology uses compressed air to lift fireworks, virtually eliminating the need for smoke-producing black powder and other materials at launch, significantly reducing ground-level smoke and noise while continuing to provide a highly entertaining show.

Super cool. I wonder if this will allow fireworks to go higher, as well, since they won't be dependent on a increasingly more dangerous launch charge?

(Via /.)

A film noir period

Maciej has moved to Montreal:

My own apartment (a sublet) is on the second floor of a building in a gentrifying Greek neighborhood, with a Jewish neighborhood just a few blocks away. Fresh bagels and rotating meat are available to me 24 hours a day. Climbing up into the apartment, I can see directly over the frosted glass of XXX ADULTE into the "new arrivals" section, which is the height of convenience. I can also see the small TV where the bored clerk and his assistant watch non-pornographic movies all day. They are in a film noir period right now.

Another goofy little game ...

... to steal your sleep with.

Quest for the Rest.

(Via "There's no Me in Tim")

Full disclosure: I needed a hint from Tim to get started.

The Japanese Restaurant Scam

Via the brother comes one of the funniest videos I've seen:

The Japanese Restaurant Scam.

(Tepp*ny*ki!)

A diffferent kind of fan art

OK, photos of random people at comic conventions may not be your cup of tea, but scroll down nearly to the end of Jennie's photos to find the pictures of two guys engaging in the silliest bit of fan appreciation I've seen in a while: They went around to their favorite comic artists' tables, and asked the artists to pose as though they were kicking the fans' asses. Yes, it's that funny.

(you can also search on the phrase "These guys are so kick ass." if you don't want to scroll all the way down.)

Another little flash game to drive you crazy

Much more direct than the red room: Drag the little guy through the maze. Don't touch anything.

Oh, seems simple, does it? OK, you try it if you think you're so smart.

The new Circus Contraption show

This is really a call to everyone in the Seattle area: I have just come from seeing the latest Circus Contraption show, and friends, I have to tell you: It's fantastic. Funny, sexy, graceful, and creepy, it's entirely unlike anything else you're likely to see. The music is wonderful, the acrobatics are awe-inspiring... really I should just stop trying to describe it, because the only way to understand is to go yourself.

So go! See for yourself! The show runs for another three weekends, Friday through Sunday, so you have plenty of opportunities to see them.

(And for my friends in the San Francisco area, no be sorry: The Circus will be spending the month of August at CELLspace, near the Mission. See either web site for more details closer to August!)

Martin Torgoff's Can't Find My Way Home

There's an interesting discussion going on right now in Inkwell, the Well's open-for-free-to-the-web area for discussions with authors (which is worth a more general look, anyway -- lots of interesting discussions are archived there).

The current discussion is about Martin Torgoff's new book on the history of drug use in America, "Can't find my way home". Topics have ranged widely, from legalization, treatment, the pros and cons of 12 step programs, to the therapeutic uses of MDMA and the shaky relationship between drug use and creativity.

So... checkitout: Martin Torgoff's Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age.

Our army deals out "justice"

I'm hard pressed to choose the dumbest part of this video (WMV, sorry), but I think it's that the soldiers leave the wood on the damn car.

It's great, though, innit, that we have the kids from Lord of the Flies dealing out vigilante justice because they've got the biggest stick on the island.

Crap. We're going to be paying for this shit for years to come.

(Via Tom)

Your Kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-des site of the day

What do you do when you adopt the cutest chocolate lab puppy in the world?

Why, you register a site for him, of course.

(Via his dogmommy's photo blog, actually)

Anyone hungry?

I guarantee LuncheonLoaf.com will kill or injure your hunger pangs.

(Via Scott)

Kindergarten styro-prints

In his own words, my friend Scott Randall...

... had the great honor of being an art docent for my daughters kindergarten class one day this spring. I'm not an art teacher, but I got to play one for a day. It was a ton of fun.

I wanted to do a printmaking activity, but it needed to be something that the kids could do in a single session that was about an hour long.

Check out the super-cool results: kindergarten styro-prints 2004.

Rare good news on the Hawaiian endemic species front

The history of our Hawaiian endemic species, especially of birds, is not a pretty one in the last two hundred years or so. Introduced predators (mongoose &c.) and diseases (avian malaria &c.) have done a number on them.

(There's a whole rant here about the attempted destruction of Hawaiian culture in general, and how attacks on and dilution of the native flora and fauna ties into that -- but I'm going to skip that for now and accentu-ate the posi-tive)

So imagine my delight when I checked the Honolulu Advertiser site this morning and saw this article:

Once-endangered 'amakihi bird thrives in state's lowland forests

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Once thought to be incapable of surviving in Hawai'i's lowland forests, the 'amakihi forest bird is not only living there once again but actually thriving in some low-elevation areas, scientists have discovered.

A team of researchers at the Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center has found the small, yellow-green honeycreeper living and breeding in low-elevation forests of the Big Island in densities two to three times those found at disease-free high elevations, despite high rates of malaria infection.

In addition, the data show an increase in range and abundance of 'amakihi at low elevations in the past decade.

The discovery is remarkable because most native Hawaiian forest bird populations were decimated after the accidental introduction of mosquito-transmitted avian malaria and pox in the last century. Many native birds simply vanished from lowland forests, where the climate is favorable for mosquitoes and disease transmission, while some became extinct.

In recent years, however, there have been an increasing number of sightings of 'amakihi in the lowland forests of the Big Island and Moloka'i, and even in suburban areas of O'ahu, including 'Aina Haina, Manoa, and Nu'uanu.

Now, scientists have documented the low-elevation comeback, proving that the bird with the sewing-machine trill isn't just visiting lowland regions but living and breeding there. Blood samples taken from the lowland 'amakihi indicate that many of the birds got malaria, survived and became immune.

[ . . . ]

For more on this subject, I recommend Alan Ziegler's excellent (and very readable) Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology, and Evolution.

I suppose this post will change the results

Hey look, I'm a ring bearer

Well it seems like you're already a ring bearer,
you don't need the Ruling Ring. Of course, you
constantly think of all the things you could do
with ultimate power!


If You Received The One Ring, How Would It Affect You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Phildickian ceremonies, and a bit of melancholy

Maciej is in Warsaw, helping his countrymen celebrate joining the EU:

The screens were projecting some impossibly overproduced television special, most of it in German, which periodically brought in a grinning, bespectacled Polish announcer who stood patiently at the front of our stage. He spoke sometimes in Polish, sometimes in the indeterminately accented World English that will one day take over the planet. The whole show was masterminded back in a German studio, where a tall blonde mistress of ceremonies cut between our own announcer and similar sound stages in seven other capitals (not a hint of Malta or Cyprus, unfortunately). I got a creepy Philip K. Dick watching her, waves of German flowing out from loudspeakers across the Old Town, but it didn't seem to faze the crowd. Once in a while, a Polish translation would kick in, making us appreciate its absence.

The announcer brought out Cold War relic Katarina Witt, who looked like she had just been removed from cryogenic storage deep in an East Berlin bunker. Witt confessed to an early crush on some Polish figure skater in the eighties, by way of illustrating why European expansion needed to happen. Our announcer gave a rubber grin and said, in English "But Katerina! While you were falling in love with a Polish ice skater, millions of Polish men were falling in love with you!" Her sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithm responded with a smile.

Only a few minutes left until May. All of the windows and doors in the house are open to the soft spring dark, and the peepers are singing outside. The moon is a high bright ghost. I have had a good green salad and a glass of red wine for my solitary supper. Maciej (the entity formerly known as the mister) is in Poland for the E.U. celebration all month long, and I have got the house blissfully to myself. It is a lovely life, sometimes.

Which I thought might be just a clever turn of phrase, until I saw the link list on Maciej's blog this morning:

Nobody's Doll
The artist formerly known as the better half.

Ah well. I wish them all the best.

Thanks for your, uh, sympathy?

Sadly, I can't remember who pointed me to the incredibly creepy Yahoo Greetings card...

... but it's pretty damn creepy.

How long 'til this isn't funny?

From Eric Seiden:

Operator: "Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. May I have your national ID number?" Customer: "Hi, I'd like to place an order."

Operator: "May I have your NIDN first, sir?"

Customer: "My National ID Number, yeah, hold on, eh, it's 6102049998-45-54610."

Operator: "Thank you, Mr. Sheehan. I see you live at 1742 Meadowland Drive, and the phone number's 494-2366. Your office number over at Lincoln Insurance is 745-2302, and your cell number's 266-2566. Which number are you calling from, sir?"

Customer: "Huh? I'm at home. Where d'ya get all this information?"

Operator: "We're wired into the system, sir."

Customer: (Sighs) "Oh, well, I'd like to order a couple of your All-Meat Special pizzas."

Operator: "I don't think that's a good idea, sir."

Customer: "Whaddya mean?"

Operator: "Sir, your medical records indicate that you've got very high blood pressure and extremely high cholesterol. Your National Health Care provider won't allow such an unhealthy choice."

Read the rest here...

A little Polish travelogue

An apparently homesick Maciej has posted a rather lovely travelogue about his native Poland which includes a recipe for "Highlander Tea" and instructions on how to smuggle Polish grain alcohol into the US. As well as a bunch of cultural information, oh and some memoir, too, I guess.

If you think of Poland as shaped like home plate, the Tatra mountains run just along the country's southern tip, right where the catcher would be if the catcher were Slovakia (and Hungary were the umpire). I understand that baseball metaphors may be lost on some of my readers, but chances are anyone unfamiliar with baseball comes from a country that does a decent job teaching European geography. No harm is done.

Songs to wear pants to

No, that's the name of the site, Songs to Wear Pants To.

Here's how it goes: Readers send in song suggestions, ranging from very simple ("Be Bjork") to more complex ("Please write a romantic song about the joys of eating chopped liver off of the naked body of a girl named Vanessa -- oh, and make it hip hop smoothed out on the r&b tip, with a pop feel appeal to it.")

Then Andrew, a guy in Toronto, makes a short song based on the suggestion.

And you know, some of them are pretty good by themselves, and some of them are just funny in context, but it's a great idea all around.

(Via the recently reanimated Sharpeworld!)

Oh, great.

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Love letter to Philadelphia

The Bakerina has written a beautiful love letter to Philadelphia:

While the city has plenty to recommend it, and I will be pleased and happy to show it off to anyone who wants to visit, I will allow that my affections may not be completely transferable. I love Philadelphia because, simply put, I fell in love down there, and thus even the darkest, saddest, chronically-broke-and-underemployed-bookstore-clerk memory still has a warm amber-and-rose patina about it. To me, this city is love.

Go. Read it. Feel the love.

And be consumed by the desire for a really good cheesesteak.

Possibly the wittiest graffiti I have ever seen

Sam Javanrouh and Derek have found a doozy.

For the amateur video types in the crowd

Johnny Chung Lee gives the world plans for his very clever $14 Steadicam. And the world is grateful.

Via Coudal, who also report the following:

Now that's a t-shirt

Not neccessarily for every day wear, but in the right situation, this t-shirt could be the perfect fashion accessory.

In a red room, with yellow curtains

(apologies to Cream)

I'm just going to quote Coudal on this one:

I'm still stuck in the Crimson Room but I bet it's cool once I get out.

'Cos, you know, I'm stuck there too. But Anusha is all smartypants about having gotten out of it in 20 minutes two months ago... so I'm pretty sure it's possible.

Good news for mis homies embarazados

Chocolate During Pregnancy Has Good Impact on Baby

LONDON (Reuters) - Pregnant women rejoice. Eating chocolate is good for the baby, say Finnish researchers.

Scientists at the University of Helsinki, who asked 300 pregnant women to record their chocolate consumption and stress levels, found that daily treats had a positive impact on the newborn baby's behavior.

Six months after the infants were born the mothers who had eaten chocolate reported more smiling and laughter in their offspring.

"And the babies of stressed women who had regularly consumed chocolate showed less fear of new situations than babies of stressed women who had abstained," New Scientist magazine said Tuesday.

Katri Raikkanen and colleagues who conducted the research admitted they can't be certain that chocolate consumption and the babies' behavior are not linked with other factors.

"But they speculate that the effects they observed could result from chemicals in chocolate associated with a positive mood being passed on to the baby in the womb," the magazine added.

Did you fool anyone this year?

I didn't even try, to my great shame. But then I read this site, and was re-inspired for next year.

I'm not even going to try to pick one of the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time to excerpt. Just go read down the list, and laugh, and laugh.

(Via Coudal Partners)

Well, after we talked it over like reasonable people...

Hells Angels Target Students' Logo Use
Apr 2, 3:41 PM (ET)

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - When graduating from a high school called "Hellu," wearing a class shirt that reads "Hellus Angels" might seem like harmless school spirit - unless it's worn in a bar where Hells Angels members have strong feelings about trademark infringement.

After a student at the Helsinki school was pressured to hand over the shirt to two bikers at a local bar, the school received a request to collect all the remaining shirts and forfeit them to the Finland chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti said Friday.

The motorcycle club took offense at the use of its "Deathshead" logo, a winged, helmet-wearing skull. The organization claims a trademark on the logo registered to the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corp.

The school promptly agreed with the Hells Angels and is collecting the shirts from its students, admitting the biker group had a strong case.

"This is clearly a stolen logo. It's just a matter of thoughtlessness on the part of the kids," deputy headmaster Eeva-Riitta Mustelin was quoted as saying, adding that the bikers did not want to go to court over the matter.

Yeah, I bet they promptly agreed... :-)

Can't complain today

Given all the times I've whined here about the crappy Seattle weather, it's incumbent on me to give props where props is due: It's beautiful here today.

High 70's (mid 20's C) and sunny, sunny, sunny. Yeah, baby. I dig this.

Your craft project for today

In the category of "Some people have too much time on their hands" comes this page from our Nihonjin friends, who have put together a set of rather cool Science Fiction Paper Models.

They're PDF files you can print out on a color printer (probably on heavy paper, ideally) and cut and fold to your heart's content.

Check out this sandcrawler model from the site:

(Via Coudal Partners)

Light-transmitting concrete

OK, this is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while.

A young Hungarian architect has invented a way of emedding an array of glass fibers into concrete, such that it transmits light and shadow from the outside. It's not transparent by any means, but it totally changes how we can think about concrete.

Here's a couple of sample images from the site:

In that second image, the tree shapes on the right are actually shadows cast on the "LitraCon" from the outside.

Imagine having a wall of this stuff in your house -- or just panels here and there -- day-long moving art. Could there be a more perfect material to build a house of worship with?

What excites me even more, though, is the idea of how this can change the way buildings and neighborhoods look at night. Instead of light spilling from windows, the entire house will glow softly. Imagine coming home to that at night.

For the car enthusiast/cook in your family

It's a blender with a tachometer.

Uh, yeah. Whatever.

While I'm in a many small links mood

I should send you to this really excellent essay on the value of practice for photographers, by the excellent Michael Reichmann, one of the clearest thinkers writing about photography on the web.

Wow.

Russ Campbell just blew my mind.

So, New York is cold, I take it.

Andrea seems to be getting tired of it.

Listen to the marsupial for a minute

Those of you who lived in Eugene from around 1987-1992 will probably not be surprised that this wombat manages to sum up nearly all of my political, environmental, ethical, and philosophical views.

My weekend craft project

Matchstick rockets. 'nuff said.

YEAH baby.

Passion: The Blooper Reel

Those crazy kids over at The Morning News have uncovered the blooper reel for Mel's little film.

A sample:

Jesus carries a heavy wooden cross through Jerusalem, assisted by Simon (Jarreth Merz).

Jesus: Wait a second. [puts down cross]

Off Camera: What is it?

Jesus: [wipes right eye] There’s something in my eye.

Simon: Oh my God, it’s a mote.

Off Camera: [laughter]

Now that's a garden

Josie, over at Latitude 13, describes the garden of the new house they just moved into on Guam... which suddenly makes me a little less excited about spring in the northwest. What can I say, I'm whiny.

My father and brother visited a couple of days ago and we walked around the yard identifying all the flowers, plants and fruit trees that surround the house. We have: a star apple tree, a guava tree, 2 mango trees, 2 lemon trees, an orange tree, many pepper trees, a breadfruit tree, a betelnut tree, dozens of banana trees, a macadamia nut tree, a plumeria tree, an achote tree and many more flowers, trees and bushes I don't know the names for. Dad ended up cutting down a ripe bunch of sweet bananas that would have gone to waste had he not been there to notice them. It's so lovely to have a garden. Fresh flowers will be on the table regularly.

My fellow former and current residents of Hawai'i, of course, will say "Oh great: not one stinky-fruit-dropping-all-the-time-in-the-yard mango tree, but two!"

Critterbox

Ordinarily I'm not a fan of cute intro pages -- just let me see the damn site, please, thank you very much -- but I'm totally in love with the tastefully brief Critterbox intro page.

Oh, and they have fun stuff, too, I guess. But that intro page just makes me happy.

Green David

Well, Debra and Chris flew to Kaua'i yesterday for a week or so of lazing around on 'Anini beach. And according the Princeville Resort web cam (you too can control it with their little Java applet!) it looks like a pretty nice day at Hanalei Bay:

And how does that make me feel? Well... what do you think?

It's no accident it looks vaguely roman

OK, I thought our 36" TV we got as a gift was pretty excessive for just sitting on our butts watching videos. But Steve Jenkins had somewhat higher aspirations for his home theater system.

I mean, ya throw around the expression conspicuous consumption, but this takes the freakin' cake.

(Via Uncle Vinny, who says "This filled me with hate.")

Build, uh, a thing.

Check out this great Flash, uh, device, that allows you to drag objects onto a thing, and, uh, make stuff happen.

Yeah, yeah, I know that's fricken' vague. But when you go look, you'll see what I mean.

Make sure you try it at least twice, in different orders.

Mmmmm... apples.

Bakerina waxes erotic about apples:

Oh, the way these apples smell. The Black Twigs are tart and bright, and smell of the cider they could eventually be pressed into. The Cortlands are sweet, and smell vaguely of leaves and blossoms. The Winesaps, forever and always my favorites, they smell of earth, wine, cold cellars, lying on wet grass, mystery. I can't stop myself. I pull out one of the more oversized of the Winesaps, almost the size of a Red Delicious, large for this varietal. It snaps, then gives, against my front teeth. The flesh is a little softer than it is at the height of season, but it still provides plenty of the resistance that makes apples so satisfying to eat out of hand. The juice is both tart and sweet, apple wine, and there is plenty of it. It is tart and zippy, smooth and piercing, cidery, winy, round and gorgeous, here baby, there mama, everywhere daddy daddy. How could anyone consider this too straightforward and sincere to be a real pleasure?

A space program I can get behind

Send Bush to Mars!

101 dumbest moments in business

Business 2.0 posted their 101 Dumbest Moments in Business list today. My favorite (which will probably contribute to my already unfavorable psychological profile) was #89:

All that time spent ghoulishly watching QVC's Knife Hour, wasted.

On a live QVC broadcast in September, a guest demonstrating the virtues of a 12.5-foot telescoping ladder slips and plummets to the ground. As cameras quickly cut from a shot of the demonstrator writhing in pain, studio host Lisa Robertson intones, "He's moving, he's OK."

Of course, #19 was pretty good, too -- less ghoulish, more cynical:

He was never a big fan of business class.

As American Airlines teeters on the brink of bankruptcy in April, CEO Donald Carty goes to the unions, hat in hand, begging $1.8 billion in wage concessions from its 110,000 workers. Yet even as he's preaching his stirring, we're-all-in-this-together line, the company quietly files an SEC report outlining a luscious, salary-tripling bonus scheme and a bankruptcy-proof, $41 million pension plan for its top 45 executives. "It's the equivalent of an obscene gesture from management," says union leader John Ward. Salvaging the labor deal and likely staving off Chapter 11 in the process, AA's board kills the bonuses, and Carty resigns in disgrace.

A vignette

Hearth and Heart

Jane posted a beautiful essay yesterday on learning to cook well.

A brief taste to entice you to read the whole piece:

But slowly I discovered again how much I love to cook. I love the entire process, from strolling through a farmer's market or a really good grocery store picking out the produce, or exploring unfamiliar spices at an Indian dry good store, constructing in my mind the shape of a meal built upon the flavors and textures I encounter that hour. I love to read cookbooks even when I don't plan to make anything. I learned so much about food from reading MFK Fischer and Julia Child and Marcella Hazan. They treat even the humblest ingredients like precious jewels. Child spends an entire chapter on the proper treatment of an egg. It can bring tears to my eyes.

Canada taunts the US

And boy, do we deserve it.

See Talking to Americans.

(Via Nicole, herself a Canadian!)

Three links for your consideration

Now that it looks like everything's up and running and happy, I can point you to Groundwaves, an internet radio project the brother-thing put together. As he says on the site,

GroundWaves is a commercial-free no-format internet radio station that is dedicated to unsigned and small-label bands that never get radio airplay in major markets and to listeners who are bored with the repetitive and unadventurous nature of corporate radio. GroundWaves is in the spirit of college and pirate radio, only more obscure by design. Unsigned bands from anywhere in the world and of any genre are encouraged to submit material to be played on the wire. GroundWaves has no playlists, no channels, and no favorites. If an artist has a recording, an artist can be broadcast on GroundWaves.

Which is a noble and beautiful goal.

In other news, my old friend Robert Jahrling has joined the blogging community. Soon I won't ever have to actually talk to any of my friends to know what's up with them; we'll all just be posting and commenting on every detail of each other's lives. Before interpersonal communication dies completely, however, you should go to his site and enjoy the irony of being an actual Hawaiian in Wisconsin. If you think I have reason to whine about the cold... his actual blood is pissed off at him.

Finally, last night I met Laurie Kellogg at a One/Northwest event. Laurie, you see, has a web site with some very fine photos on it, but Google doesn't know who she is -- although it knows all about her namesake. The solution? Since Google knows all about me -- and since I like her site -- here I am, linking to Laurie Kellogg.

Oh, that's gotta hurt

1. Streakers invade Spokane restaurant.
2. Streakers exit Spokane restaurant.
3. Streakers chase after their car, which they left running and unlocked to make a quick getaway, and which was thereupon stolen, in 20° weather. Still, uh, nekkid.

(Thanks to Beth)

Possibly the most depressing news item I've ever read

From today's Daily Grist:

I AM THE TOXIC WALRUS
Arctic Natives, Minding Own Business, Suffer From Our Pollutants

Toxic industrial chemicals, carried north by wind, ocean, and river currents, are polluting the traditional diet of native Arctic peoples in Greenland and Arctic Canada. The pollutants, including PCBs and up to 200 other hazardous compounds, are first consumed by zooplankton, then travel up the food chain to the ocean-dwelling mammals -- whales, seals, and walruses -- hunted by Arctic natives according to centuries-old traditions. At this point, concentrations of chemicals and pesticides in the bodies of Greenland's Inuit are so high that their tissues can be classified as hazardous waste. Their breast milk is contaminated as well, leading to widespread immune-system and neurological problems among their children. Public health officials are torn about what advice to offer, since -- absent our toxic crap -- the native diet is quite healthy, and regardless, there is no infrastructure to support importing large amounts of (less healthy) Western foods. Arctic native culture is built around hunting, so a change in diet would also have substantial implications for their cultural survival.

We're all wearing the blue dress now

You must, must check out the Freeway Blogger site.

(Via Rosebaby)

Yodeling for everyone

Apparently the cold weather here is making Marcia feel like singing... she's working her way through the Yodel Course.

From the site:

This site will make you smile. Guaranteed. I have been performing yodel music for 15 years. One of my greatest pleasures is to look in the audience and see young and old smiling. That is also the focus of this site. The yodeling this site teaches is of the Alpine variety. Yodeling is fun unique and quite silly. I have enjoyed building and maintaining this site, and Have fun!

Survival by scorn

Mombrain explains how to survive winter in Seattle:

Question: What is the secret to surviving winter in Seattle? Answer: Scorn. Every morning I lean out my bedroom window and yell "Hah! I spit at your rain! I scoff at your darkness!" Then I put on my waterproof undies, bundle myself in fleece, attach a headlamp to my baseball cap, and venture out.

If you've never been to Seattle during the winter, MomBrain is here to tell you: It's not the rain that gets you. It's the darkness. It's frickin' dark all the time. Seattle is so far north that the day is short anyway. But when you add 17 layers of dense clouds blanketing the city without a break from November to April, well, you can see why MomBrain is prone to purple prose and sudden fits of weeping. By March the entire mushroom-white population is blinking like eyeless moles and booking spring-training flights to Arizona. (And I do mean white -- even the three African-Americans who live here are downright pasty by spring. Or heck, maybe we *do* have a more diverse population, but you just can't tell.)

I, of course, am enjoying the smug serenity of someone who is flying to Hawai'i tomorrow, because my parents had the good sense to raise me and my brother in a civilized part of the world. Why we were fools enough to leave, well, that's another story.

Philosophy to start your day out right

Tatsuya-san is getting all philosophical on us over at Sinfest:

And now for some words of wisdom:

• A Zen koan: Zen master said to his pupil, "I own you, bitch. Know that." And the pupil was owned. And he knew it.
• The Tao of Tat: Do not seek your own advantage. That might prevent me from gaining the upper hand.
• Confucius say: One day people from every race and culture will eat my food and bust open my cookie and read my Goddamn philosophy, boyyyyyyyy! East side! Huh!
• Jedi proverb: Fun to put the predicate ahead of the subject, it is.
• Famous Cat Aphorism: Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. Meowwwwwww.
• Crazy people wisdom: Holy bong bong doogle my mixy! Worship my Bangkok, peanut face! Scooby snack vroom!
• Your daily affirmation: I am the shiznit. I am off the hizzle. And doggone it, people dig me!

Why yes, it *is* a roman D20.

Did y'all catch the mention of the roman D20 on Game Girl Advance?

Jane reports:

The catalog entry notes: "Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used. "

Well, I think *we* all know what game it was used for! But my question is, before the fantasy Middle Ages, in what setting did the Romans play D&D? Ancient Egypt? Biblical times? Babylonian?

Anyone bidding?

They're gonna take Vince's phone away

He's playing Opportunistic Psychic again.

Sweet cloud, dude

Don't miss the big version of this beautiful lenticular cloud (photographed near Mauna Kea) at the Astronomy Picture Of the Day site:

As a side note, mad props to Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell, the authors of APOD, one of whom is probably responsible for making sure that there's an 'okina (glottal stop) in their correct spelling of Hawai'i on this page.

Insulin... pass the insulin...

Painfully adorable kitten photos:

Probably a copyright violation, since I recognize a few of the photos from Atsuki Sumida's Kittens in Japan, but what the hell.

Via the irrepressible Andrea Harner.

Mombrain on the pain of motherhood

Mombrain, in classic form, explains about the pain of motherhood:

Let me tell you about the pain of motherhood. Is it defined by childbirth? That's only the beginning! The tantrums? Nah. The rejection of a little boy who doesn't need his mommy quite so much? Oh no. The pain of motherhood reaches its zenith with Legos. MomBrain is here to tell you there is nothing more painful than stepping on a Lego. With bare feet. In the middle of the night. And the pain is all the more exquisite because in a dark house full of sleeping babes you cannot scream. Thus MomBrain has six perfectly spaced little circles on the arch of her right foot, a testament to the pain and sacrifice of motherhood. It may scar. I may limp for the rest of my life. This will definitely be an arrow in my sling of maternal guilt. When the Little Guy has grown into the Medium Guy, I will limp into his high school graduation, refuse all assistance to reach handicapped seating, and reassure him that I will be fine, just fine when he leaves me to go to college and eventually to marry that tramp.

I am bitter.

Those of you who have young kids, or are contemplating having young kids, should really read Mombrain regularly. She rules.

Among my people, this is known as "hell".

Barrow, Alaska (AP):

The sun is setting on Barrow and won't be seen again for 66 days.

The sun was expected to rise at 12:33 p.m. Tuesday and will set just 1 hour and 18 minutes later at 1:51 p.m., according to the National Weather Service in Barrow.

Residents may see a snippet of sun above the horizon for a few more days, depending on their elevation and also the effects of cold temperatures and atmospheric conditions, which can make part of the sun appear above the horizon even when it is actually below the horizon, said the Weather Service's Gina Sturm.

"I'm sad to see the sun go, and I look forward to its return next year. It will be great to have it with us again as we move toward spring," said Marie Adams-Carroll, who has lived in Barrow all her life.

She said she and her husband Geoff Carroll have a sled dog team, and even the dogs can be affected by the dark and the cold.

George Cowan, who lived in Barrow for 17 years before moving to Seattle, was back for a visit and reflecting on life in Alaska's northernmost town.

"It's a bigger deal when it comes back in January after being down for all that time," he said. "One time, when it was due to return, I walked to the Barrow airport to get a nice picture of the sun when it came up. Then when it happened, I missed taking the picture because both the camera and my fingers had frozen up."

Bob Bolger, who works with computers, said he wasn't that concerned about being thrown into darkness for more than two months.

"The sun is greatly overrated," he said.

To mark the occasion, Barrow was planning a "Goodbye to the Sun" two-mile fun event, to start at the sun sign outside of the Ipalook Elementary School. The event, which was to begin at 12:15 p.m., was timed so that participants could soak up the last few rays, weather permitting.

Somehow I knew that

Sadly (or not?) I am only 47% hip.

What's your score?

Not just the ants!

20% of worker ants idle lazybones: study
The Japan Times: Nov. 16, 2003

SAPPORO (Kyodo) Contrary to popular belief, 20 percent of worker ants are not particularly hardworking, researchers said Saturday.

The discovery is the result of observations of three separate 30-strong colonies of black Japanese ants (Myrmecina nipponica), according to Eisuke Hasegawa, an assistant researcher in evolutionary biology at Hokkaido University's graduate school of agriculture, and his research team.

The team transferred three colonies of ants to a man-made nest and marked them for observation. Hasegawa and his team said they observed the ants three hours a day for about five months from May last year.

Hasegawa said they discovered that about 80 percent of the ants engage in some sort of work, such as cleaning the nest or gathering food, but that the rest are mostly idle.

The situation remained the same when the researchers removed six busy ants from one colony; the busy ants that remained had to work even harder while the lazy ants continued to do little or no work.

Scientists have suggested that some ants may avoid working due to old age or inherent laziness. Hasegawa said the idle ants could be contributing something to the colony that they have not yet determined.

Flash-based font browser

Here's a very cool little flash application that allows you to preview the fonts on your system.

It's functionally no different from typing text in Word and choosing different faces, but somehow it's a much better experience. Ain't design wonderful?

Via the estimable Manuel Clement.

A charming end-of-the-world fantasy

Called, appropriately enough, The End of the World.

Via the painfully 80's shades wearing Timmy.

Northern lights

Why yes, I guess the northern lights have been spectacular since the sun started throwing hot balls of radiation at us... here's a good set of photos on Fotolog that shows just how amazing it's been.

Girls Kick Ass

High School Girls Pummel Man Who Exposed Himself
Oct 31, 10:31 AM (ET)

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A man described by authorities as a known sexual predator was chased through the streets of South Philadelphia by an angry crowd of Catholic high school girls, who kicked and punched him after he was tackled by neighbors, police said on Friday.

Rudy Susanto, 25, who had exposed himself to teen-age girls on as many as seven occasions outside St. Maria Goretti School, struck again on Thursday just as students were being dismissed, police said.

But this time, a group of girls in school uniforms angrily confronted Susanto with help from some neighbors, police said. When Susanto tried to run, more than 20 girls chased him down the block. Two men from the neighborhood caught him and the girls took their revenge.

"The girls came and started kicking him and punching him, so I wasn't going to stop them," neighbor Robert Lemons told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Susanto was later treated for injuries at a local hospital. Police said he would be charged with 14 criminal counts including harassment, disorderly conduct, open lewdness and corrupting the morals of a minor.

Lunchboxes

Hey, I had one of these.

From the nostalgia-inducing Lunch Box Bonanza! Gallery.

Via Coudal.com, as so many things are.

Beautiful time-lapse

Here's a beautiful composite image and time-lapse movie shot from the photographer's apartment in Toronto.

(Via Coudal Partners)