Scientists in the UK have quantified the
Scientists in the UK have quantified the beer goggle effect. (via cd)
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Entries for December 2005
Why is the incidence of cancer in
Why is the incidence of cancer in India so much lower than in the US?
Thumbnails of images that look like porn
Thumbnails of images that look like porn but aren’t really porn. May be NSFW, but not really.
Having not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the
Having not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the US is now refusing to work on its successor. Says Elizabeth Kolbert, “Without the participation of the United States, no meaningful agreement can be drafted for the post-2012 period, and the world will have missed what may well be its last opportunity to alter course.”
43 songs about the blogosphere (full-size). There’s “Checking
43 songs about the blogosphere (full-size). There’s “Checking My Stats On An Hourly Basis”, “I’M THIRTEEN AND EVERYTHING SUCKS”, “You’ve Never Heard Of This Band I Love”, and sentimental favorite “Don’t Read Kottke (But I Steal His Links)”.
Sunken forest of Nantucket
Scientists have found evidence of a sunken forest off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. (thx, malatron)
There’s a new indoor skiing area in
There’s a new indoor skiing area in Dubai the size of 3 football (soccer) fields. Photos here and official site here. Dubai is the new Las Vegas.
Director’s commentary for Primer
Keeping up with all of the extras they include these days on DVDs is exhausting, to say nothing of watching all the movies themselves. But I made a point of listening to the director’s commentary for Primer and was not disappointed. If there’s a Shane Carruth fan club, sign me up. Case in point: for the single special effect in the film, he filmed a scene with a DV camera, uploaded the footage onto his computer, added the effect digitally, dumped the modified video onto tape, filmed the video playing on a camcorder screen with the film camera, and made the whole thing look like it was supposed to be done that way because he didn’t have the money to do it any other way. It’s all about constraints…which ties into the main message of the movie as well.
Also, Carruth confirmed my feeling that Primer really isn’t a sci-fi film…what’s happening with the characters emotionally is the focus of the film.
This image has 75 references to musical groups in it. Cute.
This image has 75 references to musical groups in it. Cute.
English, as She is Spoke at McMurdo
English, as She is Spoke at McMurdo and Pole, AKA slang from Antarctica. (via his purpleness)
Photoshop contest results: unretouched celebrity photos. Love the Botox-less Madonna.
Photoshop contest results: unretouched celebrity photos. Love the Botox-less Madonna.
Is Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building, causing
Is Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building, causing earthquakes? “The considerable stress might be transferred into the upper crust due to the extremely soft sedimentary rocks beneath the Taipei basin. Deeper down this may have reopened an old earthquake fault”. (thx, malatron)
Steven Johnson on the ride into Hong
Steven Johnson on the ride into Hong Kong from the airport. “The approach into Hong Kong is as breathtaking as any I’ve ever experienced.” I agree completely.
Cl1ff N0t3s for the
Cl1ff N0t3s for the millennials: mobile service will condense books into short text messages. “For example, Hamlet’s famous line: ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’ becomes ‘2b? Nt2b? ???’”.
Cool letter boxy stacking thing. (Oh, just
Cool letter boxy stacking thing. (Oh, just go and type something.)
Six Apart’s response to several weeks of
Six Apart’s response to several weeks of server slugishness was fantastic…they asked each customer how they wanted to be compensated based on how much the server downtime affected them and their site. You don’t see the honor system much in business these days.
McLibel
McLibel is the story of two Londoners fighting a libel lawsuit that the McDonald’s hamburger people brought against them in English court. Without access to legal aid and being fairly broke, they defended themselves against McDonald’s phalanx of lawyers for two and a half years before the judge delivered a verdict that they had libelled McDonald’s, but also that McDonald’s had done some pretty bad things as well. Worth a watch as a companion to Super Size Me or Fast Food Nation. More information on the case is available here and here.
What would Gawker look like if it
What would Gawker look like if it got bought by the NY Times? (via waxy and panop)
I think I have a new favorite
I think I have a new favorite liquid: ferrofluid. Apply a magnetic field to it and you get some pretty and pretty weird patterns. Watch the videos…the formation of a rotating “H” mongram in the first linked movie is mesmerizing (almost literally). (thx, alex)
The Scientific American 50, the 2005 “research, business and
The Scientific American 50, the 2005 “research, business and policy leaders of technology”. The flu, nanotech, stem cells, and climatology are among the hot topics this year.
Fun with threaded comments…the denizens of
Fun with threaded comments…the denizens of Kuro5hin recite the lyrics of the monorail song (from The Simpsons) as a series of threaded comments.
For The Life Aquatic soundtrack, Seu Jorge
For The Life Aquatic soundtrack, Seu Jorge covered a few David Bowie songs in Portuguese. Now he’s released an entire album of them.
Emigre Magazine has published their last issue (69,
Emigre Magazine has published their last issue (69, dudes!). Rick Poynor, in his farewell post on Design Observer, says goodbye to Emigre. Emigre fueled my interest in design back in the day.
Gallery of turn-of-the-century postcards from when Kodak
Gallery of turn-of-the-century postcards from when Kodak enabled people to make postcards from any photo they took. From a new book called Real Photo Postcards.
Video of a Ferrari driving through the
Video of a Ferrari driving through the streets of Paris at up to 140 MPH, running stop lights, going the wrong way up one-way streets, and generally being insane.
A just-concluded eGullet conversation with Ruth Reichl,
A just-concluded eGullet conversation with Ruth Reichl, currently editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine and former food critic for The New York Times.
Forthcoming books in the increasingly mature Harry
Forthcoming books in the increasingly mature Harry Potter series. “Harry Potter and Some Seriously Bad Acid”.
Once again, Rex has bravely volunteered to
Once again, Rex has bravely volunteered to keep track of all the “best of” lists for 2005. Slim pickins so far, but as the lists start rolling in, this will swell to hundreds of items.
Maggie Mason fills us in on 15 luxury
Maggie Mason fills us in on 15 luxury gifts that are worth splurging on.
Bruce Schneier on the sorry state of
Bruce Schneier on the sorry state of airport security. “Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcement of cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. Everything else…is security theater.”
The top 40 bands in America (in 2005) according
The top 40 bands in America (in 2005) according to a small group of music bloggers. Indie rock-heavy, if you like that sort of thing. Off to check out The National.
Nikon has issued a recall for certain
Nikon has issued a recall for certain batteries used in the D100, D70, and D50…the battery has a flaw that may cause it to overheat and melt. Check the site for your battery’s lot number to see if you’re affected.
Paul Ford has some fun at Business 2.0
Paul Ford has some fun at Business 2.0’s expense and invents Blogverthacking[TM] in the process.
Starting on Monday, Dec 5th, Ricky Gervais (
Starting on Monday, Dec 5th, Ricky Gervais (of The Office and Extras fame) will doing a 12-episode series of podcasts for The Guardian. (thx nicholas)
For the nerd in your life: a
For the nerd in your life: a hand-crocheted scrollbar scarf, with repositional scroller.
Photos of some difficult runways on which
Photos of some difficult runways on which to land a plane. (via tmn)
Update: Oops, looks like that link has some NSFW ads on it. Sorry about that and thanks to everyone who wrote in. I totally didn’t see the ads when I looked at the photos before…my ad blindness is now complete if I’m missing pr0n.
You can watch the entire program of
You can watch the entire program of Frontline’s The Last Abortion Clinic online. “With states across the US passing regulations limiting access to abortion, does Roe v. Wade still matter?”
Richard Dawkins’ letter to his daughter Juliet
Richard Dawkins’ letter to his daughter Juliet on good and bad reasons for believing. “Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority, or revelation?”
A business book on teamwork called The
A business book on teamwork called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (excerpt) has gained a following among pro football coaches and players.
There’s a Charles Darwin exhibition at the
There’s a Charles Darwin exhibition at the Natural History Museum in NYC through May 2006. A tidbit not reported in the US press: the exhibition failed to attract corporate sponsorship because “American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution”. Pussies.
Update: This letter sent into TMN throws some doubt on the whole lack of corporate sponsorship angle. (thx, chris)
Sports Illustrated’s photo gallery of the top 10
Sports Illustrated’s photo gallery of the top 10 point guards of all time.
German researchers are studying the mysterious phenomenon
German researchers are studying the mysterious phenomenon of people waking up shortly before their alarm goes off. I’ve been getting better and better at doing this. A friend of mine (can’t recall who exactly) doesn’t use an alarm clock but gets up on time by setting his/her internal alarm clock. Also, this sounds like something Feynman would have been into.
Vietnam wrap-up
We’re back in the US, but here’s one more post about our time in Vietnam.
1. On our way out to the Mekong Delta, we went through an industrial area, with machine shops, brick-making facilities, and the like. As we drove, we passed a three-wheeled bicycle that you see all over in Vietnam, with a cart in the front over two wheels and the driver over the rear wheel in the back. Lashed to the cart were several steel beams, probably 8-10 of them, each about 2 inches tall and 10 feet long, weight of the whole thing unknown, probably several hundred pounds on three bicycle wheels and a non-existant suspension system. And if that’s not odd enough to imagine, the whole thing was moving at around 30 mph, pushed along by a motorcycle whose driver had his left foot on the bolt of the right front wheel, while the respective drivers of the combined conveyance chatted away with little attention to their Rube Goldberg machine. Wish I’d have gotten a photo of it…it’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.
2. Even though the streets of Saigon were packed with motorbikes, you saw very few people wearing helmets, and when they did, they tended to be construction helmets that weren’t even strapped to their heads.
3. I got an email from a reader a few days ago wondering why I was referring to Saigon as Saigon rather than its official name of Ho Chi Minh City, the name given to the city 24 hours after it fell to the North Vietnamese. Most of the city’s inhabitants still call it Saigon, so I was following suit. It’s also quicker to say and to type.
4. Cao Dai is a homegrown Vietnamese religion (established in the 1920s) that is an amalgamation of several other religions. On our trip to the Mekong Delta, we visited a Cao Dai temple, which looked like it was designed by Liberace’s interior decorator. Over the altar was a sculpture depicting Buddha, Confucious, Jesus, and Victor Hugo (!!), and I think they were all holding hands or something.
5. On one of the entry forms you need to fill out before arriving in Vietnam, it lists some things that are illegal to import into the country, including:
weapons, ammunition, explosives, military equipment and tools, narcotics, drugs, toxic chemicals, pornographic and subversive materials, firecrackers, children’s toys that have “negative effects on personality development, social order and security,” or cigarettes in excess of the stipulated allowance.
Children’s toys? Negative effects on personality development, social order and security? Bwa?
6. I can’t find too much about it online, but one of the more interesting things we saw in Saigon was the photography exhibit at The War Remnants Museum. The exhibit consists of hundreds of photographs of the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese call it the American War) taken by some of the best photojournalists who were working at the time, including Larry Burrows, Henri Huet, Horst Faas, Huynh Thanh My, Robert Capa, and Kyochi Sawada. A powerful and moving record of a tumultuous period in history.
7. Speaking of The War Remnants Museum (which was formerly called The War Crimes Museum and was a little more one-sided in the past), it wasn’t until a couple days after I’d gone that I realized that remnants referred to all of the stuff that the US had left in Vietnam after the long conflict, literally the leftovers of war. Tanks, planes, cars, helicopters, guns, photography, children deformed from the effects of Agent Orange, a population depleted of young men, horrific memories, and, finally, a united Vietnam.
Just looking at the Grand Canyon Skywalk (
Just looking at the Grand Canyon Skywalk (more info here) makes me go all queasy. 70 feet out from the edge of the cliff and 4000 feet down? No thanks! Genius idea though.
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