from the spam
I am grateful by this page. I love sexy people.
coming out of sleep
The makings of a joke: Hervé Villechaize and Bruce Springsteen are on a plane.
Something, something: Springsteen falls asleep.
Punchline: Deplane, Boss! Deplane!
Jon Stewart on Toxic Political Discourse
He is still the most incisive thinker on the American media machine:
I do think that its important for us to watch our rhetoric, I do think that its a worthwhile goal not to conflate our political opponents with our enemies if for no other reason than to draw a better distinction between the manifestos of paranoid mad men and what passes for acceptable political and pundit speak. It would be really nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn’t in any way resemble how we actually talk to each other on TV. Let’s at least make troubled individuals easier to spot.
Puncture Kit
Boneshaker Magazine ran a piece in their first issue (currently available for download) about Puncture Kit:
Puncture Kit, aka David Osborne, is an Australian chap who conjures up a mix of energetic drum‘n’bass / jungle / breaks from his drum kit-cum-bicycle that he also uses daily to ride around on. It takes just 20 minutes to transform his bike into a drum kit with 5 cymbals, 3 snare drums and a foot pedal.
So, for you, here’s Puncture Kit.
Dear Clusterflock…
How’s your weather?
I’m coming off of 14 hours of manning the phones during snow removal. We don’t have nothing like points east in the last week or so. Still I’ve been up since 3:45 this morning. Phones ringing and answering with calls coming in as I talked. I’d like to think it’s under control. Phones are quiet now, but who can say? We might have another 2.5″ by 6:00 in the morning. I imagine the phones will start again about 2:00 am. I’m off to bed now, I’ll let you know how it goes.
Amazing how things that happened this morning seem like two days ago.
Oooo! And windchills here tomorrow are expected to be -25. It will be a bitter day for our workers. But we’ll be in final clean-up. I don’t know what to expect.
We’ve had metaphoric wars since the 19th century
pleasegodno
Baz Luhrmann Might Shoot ‘Great Gatsby’ in 3D
Luluc – Gillian
Perfect for a quiet snowy day.
spam name
Pandora Sheba.
gaming nostalgia
Gavin, Daniel, and I have been writing about our play through of the classic game Final Fantasy VII. You can find the lot of them here. My two pieces, so far, have been how to play FFVII properly and, my personal favorite, an historical, personal etymology of the verb “housed.”
FYI
According to the American Dialect Society
So should we subsidize or tax research into time travel?
I believe no one understands the underlying science much at all. But there is some chance that the old science fiction movies are correct and that by time-traveling you alter the course of history, thereby obliterating the universe we used to have. I’ll count that as a net negative, while noting there is some chance we end up with a better universe.
On the plus side, the human race will die out anyway. Time travel seems to yield a fairly safe haven. As disaster approaches, keep going back in time a few days, or decades, and that asteroid will never hit you. This is especially appealing if you are transporting back a body (upload?) which is programmed to be more or less immortal and you can take the technology with you, so as to keep on going back as time progresses.
Exactly Perfect
Martha Stewart’s dogs, Francesca and Sharkey, try out some snow saucers.
Bill O’Reilly is a Juggalo?
In explaining the certainty of God’s presence in the world to David Silverman, president of the American Atheist Group, Bill O’Reilly channels his inner juggalo:
O’REILLY: I’ll tell you why [religion's] not a scam, in my opinion: tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.
SILVERMAN: Tide goes in, tide goes out?
O’REILLY: See, the water, the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always comes in, and always goes out. You can’t explain that.
Have you ever stood next to an elephant, my friend?
headline of the day
Nazi-Dressing Alleged Jihadist Charged With Biting Two FBI Agents
quote out of context
The Tribune reports that Malik’s father Rahim says that he likely also picked up some of his legal knowledge from watching television.
My God, what have we done?
As atrocious as the event is, it is the years of vitriolic hate that created the cesspool of politics and the near total collapse of social interaction which terrify me more. No longer do people of differing opinions come together to break bread; instead, they demonized each other as traitors and worse. No longer do people look for common ground; instead, they covet the differences as a wedge to divide and conquer their opponents.
les technologies du passé
from the spam
One thing I have noticed that works for people is having a baby and announcing that on the blog.
Image Out of Context
Actually, I’m not sure context will help anyone.
What’s the difference between white and yellow?
smack-dab
Smith County is the geographic center of the 48 contiguous U.S. states, marked by a small monument and picnic ground. And the high school football team in Smith Center, the county seat, had the nation’s longest winning streak snapped at 79 games in 2009.
Anneka Tran, Solar System
You can download various wallpaper sizes here.
(via @wilfreeborn)
Life in Lake Vostok
Lake Vostok, a fresh water Antarctic lake, has been sealed beneath two and a half miles of ice for 14 million years. But not for much longer.
When the sample can be recovered, however, it’s hoped that it’ll shed light on extremophiles — lifeforms that survive in extreme environments. Life in Lake Vostok would need adaptions to the oxygen-rich environment, which could include high concentrations of protective enzymes. The conditions in Lake Vostok are very similar to the conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, so the new data could also strengthen the case for extraterrestrial life.
Finally, anything living in the lake will have evolved in relative isolation for about 14 million years, so it could offer a snapshot of conditions on Earth long before humans evolved.
