Don Van Vliet, aka ‘Captain Beefheart’, dies aged 69
American musician and painter Don Van Vliet, best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart, has died aged 69.
Van Vliet’s death in California, from complications from multiple sclerosis, was announced by the Michael Werner Gallery in New York.
My Life With A Camera In 3’29″
Made using Pummelvision.
At the Movies
I made a movie about movies. I was not aware of this when I made the movie.
The case of the fearless woman
The journal Current Biology has published a study of a woman known simply as SM who, because of damage to her amygdala, has no fear response.
She apparently hasn’t felt fear as an adult, not even 15 years ago in an incident described by the researchers. A man jumped up from a park bench, pressed a knife to her throat and hissed, “I’m going to cut you.”
SM, who heard a church choir practicing in the distance, looked coolly at him and replied, “If you’re going to kill me, you’re going to have to go through my God’s angels first.”
The man suddenly let her go. She didn’t run home. She walked.
“Her lack of fear may have freaked the guy out,” Feinstein said.
This just in: Delicious is NOT Shutting Down
Andrew writes to update yesterday’s post about Delicious shutting down:
I am traveling, but this ought to be posted in a timely fashion.
Looks like Delicious is simply looking for a new home, and won’t be shutting down.
In a blog post today, Delicious says “No, we are not shutting down.” But they aren’t staying at Yahoo either.
Yesterday, it was all but confirmed that Yahoo! was sunsetting Delicious, one of the most popular social bookmarking services. They do admit that they are not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, and are looking for a home outside of the company.
23,000 Teddy Bears + 1 Hockey Rink
It’s fun to watch without context, but the story is here.
Pet Sounds
Buddha would be a good name for a bulldog.
from the comments
By the way, where are those cows? I’m starting to get a little worried. You think they would have at least called by now.
Father Christmas fucked my pussy (Christmas pussy song)
(thanks, Aaron)
dear clusterflock
Know any Larry King jokes?
quote out of context
She has strode forth naked and clothed, shoeless and shod, sword wielding and weaponless. She has been accompanied by a dog (for fidelity), a snake (for hatred) and a whole menagerie of other sidekicks that would befuddle the modern courthouse visitor, including an ostrich, whose supposed ability to digest anything was seen by the ancients as a useful attribute for the machinery of justice.
I feel like this should be on Star Trek or something
So I played around with the free demo a bit, and it’s touchy. You have to do a little bit of moving around and refocusing before it will correctly identify the words on a page. I have no idea how good the translation software is, but Google Translate is notorious for hilarious mistranslations, and this is running on a phone, not a huge server farm.
But still, character recognition algorithms, digital camera sensors, and machine translation are always improving. Even in the state it’s in right now, it’s damn impressive, and you can really see how something like this will be commonplace in a few years when the kinks are worked out.
Royal Tenenbaums Pencil Set
A Wes Anderson fan made this pencil set — a good alternative to fan fiction, I think.
(via)
‘Tis the season for the ubiquitous sweater
Print of a Christmas card design. Gertrude Abercrombie, artist. Archives of American Art.
Having grown up in the Midwest where cold weather and snow are a given in winter, I’ve always had fondness for “sweater weather.” Being a lover of kitsch and pop culture, I feel a wave of delight whenever I see someone swathed in jingle bells or sporting a woolen menorah (and if it lights up all the better). ‘Tis the season for the ubiquitous sweater, and what better time than now to look to the Archives of American Art’s collections for sweater inspiration!
delicious
For those who are unaware, Yahoo’s delicious bookmarking service will be no more. You have two alternatives:
1. Export all of your delicious bookmarks into your browser.
2. Use pinboard, a minimalist bookmarking service “for introverts.”
Damn it, Facebook
Me and Brian Beatty and Lucy Foley just got switched to the new profile against our wills. And there are good reasons not to want the new profile, which is why I resisted.
Wolverines merit endangered species protection, but must wait
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced Monday that the wolverine warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act, but the listing will be delayed because other species take higher priority.
Wolverines, who are members of the weasel family, are only a candidate for listing, and their status will be reviewed annually, the agency said.
This kinda steams me. I like wolverines, and I invite any female wolverine with kits to come to my neck of the woods. We have deep snow that settled early this year, so she can dig a den for her youngsters out behind my house, and I will help her guard them.
I ♥ Ferrara Pan Candy
Deron’s post about the disincentives offered to sales staff of Just Born candies (makers of Hot Tamales, Peeps, and Mike and Ike) reminded me of my favorite Chicago confectioners, Ferrara Pan.
I love these makers of Lemonhead, Red Hots, Boston Baked Beans, and Atomic Fireballs.
Octodad: a day in the life
My review(-ish thing) of Octodad is over at The Idler.
I sell the iphone 4ghd in good conditions. it is the 33giggybite modil
I am sell me phone of i. it is the biggest one out it hav the 33 giggybites in it. i want to sell so i go back home to my country so i leave this USA cause it no do me no good! this phone is not great condition of bad so this why i sell for cash price of 600. pleese no give me a small price. i my wife three son and seven of the daughters wan go back home so i need big big price. it is brokn from the jails so to use on cincinatti’s bells servers. i use on that servers and it move maybe lots of slow and it no work for the www internets some of the times for me when i alook on craigslist at the pictures that the womans put on for sell themselfs. i no the phon cost lots but i only ask the 600. i think you for look at my ad here.
headline of the day
Anti-Gay Activist: Gay Rights Groups Stole The Rainbow From Us!
Mark Cuban Championship Series?
After two failed bids to buy a Major League Baseball team, billionaire Mark Cuban is seriously considering trying to use his money to create a playoff alternative to college football’s Bowl Championship Series.
Cuban, the outspoken owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, told ESPNDallas.com on Wednesday that he is “actively interested but in the exploratory stage” of creating and funding a playoff system to crown a champion for major college football.
“The more I think about it, the more sense it makes as opposed to buying a baseball team,” said Cuban, who tried to buy the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers within the last few years. “You can do something the whole country wants done.”
dear clusterflock
What class would you teach?
According to Josh Merchant, a 24-year-old co-founder of Lymbix, the company eventually plans to allow clients to prevent employees from sending e-mails that violate their “tone policy”
ToneCheck, an e-mail-outbox filter that works as a sort of emotional spell-check, offers typists a chance to reconsider their words before hitting “send.” If the content of a message exceeds a preset threshold for negative emotions like anger or sadness, the e-mailer is confronted with a warning and a chance to revise. Drawing on the opinions of thousands of people who have been paid to evaluate the emotional charge of various phrases, the software can also detect unseemly levels of positive emotions like affection or elation.
From The New York Times Tenth Annual Year in Ideas.
Josef Schulz
From his series, factual, 2001-2008
