January 2006 Archives

These are SVU (Special Valentines Unit) only though. Drat - I would have loved to see such valentines for the main series. [via BoingBoing]

Not as funny as the Shining mashup but hey.

Flash Earth

Grant McCracken has a post on Adam Smith's take on why we love gadgets. Here's the relevant quote from The Theory of the Moral Sentiments:

A watch, in the same manner, that falls behind above two minutes in a day, is despised by one curious in watches. He sells it perhaps for a couple of guineas, and purchases another at fifty, which will not lose above a minute in a fortnight. The sole use of watches however, is to tell us what o'clock it is, and to hinder us from breaking any engagement, or suffering any other inconveniency by our ignorance in that particular point. But the person so nice with regard to this machine, will not always be found either more scrupulously punctual than other men, or more anxiously concerned upon any other account, to know precisely what time of day it is. What interests him is not so much the attainment of this piece of knowledge, as the perfection of the machine which serves to attain it.

How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniencies. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew's-box1, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.

1I have no idea what this is as OED is not to hand. Google turns up this contemporary reference of a box owned by a Jewish peddlar. Incidentally, "Jew box" is an anti-Semitic term for TV. Eccch.

The Charts of Karl Hartig. Via Coudal.

Part I, Holocaust edition.
Part II, McDonalds edition.

Via Quipsologies.

Like To Kill A Mockingbird, if Atticus were mean and Scout ran off with Calpurnia.

I'm not suggesting that you should -- but my plugins / search engines / bookmarks somehow became corrupted, and I needed to uninstall and reinstall. The uninstall engine (by design, I assume) does not get rid of these settings, so if you need to completely nuke Firefox from your system, find this directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\[YOURNAME]\Application Data\Mozilla

And delete it. The "Application Data" folder may be hidden, so you'll need to go to Windows Explorer and hit Tools > Folder Options > View and hit the "Show hidden files" radio button.

Funny, erotic stories by Polly Frost and Ray Sawhill—read by hot actors

These stories--part of a soap-opera type cycle about life and lust in LA--are as hilariously satirical as they are um dirty. Read more about the most excellent Polly here. Stories read by: Karen Grenke, Mason Pettit, Sarah Kozinn, Jake Thomas, Lynn Harris, Lyndsay Becker, Tami Mansfield, and Alex Kosene

The Knitting Factory (Tap Bar):
6 PM, $5.00

The PostSecret book is out. Worth getting.

The strange secrets of humor, fear and a guy who makes big money making little people laugh. Via cardhouse.

Back in December, Lynn guest-posted here on the plight of dying gay cop Laurel Hester whose partner was denied penison benefits by the local (Republican) board of freeholders. Well Lynn recently emailed me that they've reversed that decision, and started a trend. The Big Gay Picture has the update.

Liz just tagged me with the four meme. Read on if you want to know fun facts about me! Ha! Also I mutated the meme, because I like doing that.

Harry-Go-Round has a reprint of this bizarre strip where Charlie Brown and Lucy Van Pelt fall out of Peanuts and into a cartoon version of The Des Moines Register and Tribune -- including where the color comics are printed.

Via Boing Boing.

.

Via memepool.

Space!. Via Whedonesque.

Back in 2002 (have I really been blogging that long?) I blogged about Where's George?, a site where users track the movement of paper currency. (Follow-up: the bill I put in that day hasn't been found since; also, Duplex is one of the worst movies ever made.)

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute are using the data from Where's George to predict how disease spreads. Basically they are using currency as a proxy for how people travel. See also article in Science Blog and /., which notes that the folks at the Iowa Electronic Market are using prediction markets to forecast the spread of influenza.

We fans of Firefly, take to the web! Firefly Season 2 is trying to resurrect the brilliant-but-cancelled series. Go and fill out a brief survey saying how much you'd be willing to pay in a hypothetical pay-per-episode scenario.

Update: The folks at Whedonesque are skeptical.

101 Dumbest Moments in Business from Business 2.0.

It's like They Rule, but for terrorists. Below, the Padilla - Al Qaeda linkage. (Click for full map.)

Via Gadgetopia.

Man Has Cardiac Arrest at Cardiologist Ball. It's like rain on your wedding day.

Via Coudal.

Update: Playable version (requires Firefox 1.5).

"If the public understood the economics of earning a Ph.D., people would think 'naïve economic loser' whenever they hear 'Ph.D.'"

-- Gary North

Parody of Get Firefox.

MPAA finds itself accused of piracy. Basically they made a copy of a movie that was submitted for ratings review, because it was critical of the MPAA itself. Via Digg, where this choice comment was made:

"The courts recognize that parties are entitled to make a copy of a work for use as evidence in possible future proceedings." I think it's great that the MPAA acknowledges this. Now I have no problems copying movies. I'm simply hanging on to copies of them on the off chance that one day I might have to file a lawsuit against the producer of the movie.

*Headline courtesy of CMOM

Here's the info...
Taj Lounge
48 W. 21st St.
Phone: 212-620-3033

Band starts at 8:00 PM featured dancer appears after 8:45 PM. DJ Drajja spins Arabic/North African world beat sounds after 10 PM.

Boing Boing reports that Loopmanics is going out of business -- and that all their books are half-off. No better time to pick up some outlaw books on privacy, drugs, revenge, survival, anarchy, etc.

I liked the Warren Beatty character -- but if they played that Leonard Cohen song one more time I would have killed myself. Didn't they make any happy movies in the early 70s? 2 stars.

50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005

FILMS PRESIDENT AND MRS. REAGAN VIEWED (Chronologically Arranged). Via Cynical-C.

Part I: Ferrofluid Sculptures. Not CGI.

Part II: Ladybug Cockroaches. Not Photoshop.

Part III: Olivo Barbieri's aerial photographs. Not models.

A Slab-Serif Blackletter Font-Off. Via Coudal.

This is a blog [Link] where my friend david and his friend julia (a chef turned MBA student) buy surprise dishes for strangers at restaurants and then write about their reactions.

When two fashionable women, mother and daughter, sat down, Julia looked at me and I looked back, and we called Patty over. It didn't take long to decide, they should get something sophisticated, something uncommon – the burrata, a sort of super fresh, almost premature mozzarella with cream, was the clear choice.

And it was well-received. Our grateful neighbors at the bar were actually neighbors of and regulars at Via Matta; they have the fortune of working nearby in fashionable shops and dropping in regularly. As you would expect at Via Matta, they were sophisticated travelers and had lived in Italy. We chatted about Random Apps and about the dangers of driving and skiing in Europe vs. New England.

This is a fairly subversive action, especially in Boston, where people generally don't interact as much as they do in NYC. Sometimes they confuse the staff and the other diners with their behavior:

The recipients of our random app were rather suspicious. They thought, for sure, that I was a food critic. As we tried to explain that we were just trying to be nice, they decided we were slightly crazy, as no one ever sends a Random App of Kindness.

I like reading it for the food descriptions, but also for the stories of how people react to the unexpected gift, and whether they like the food that was chosen for them. They've met some interesting people this way, including Herb Chambers (the biggest car salesman in Boston) and a Kennedy cousin (who invited them for brunch).

Last week I had lunch with Forrest Bryant, a friend from the Pennsylvania Governor's School for International Studies. He was in town for the International Association for Jazz Education conference, and we caught up over some pastrami. He's a DJ at KZSU and a fellow blogger. And now (drumroll) he's the newest member of Team Ishbadiddle. Welcome aboard!

Escape Pod is up to podcast #37, a recording of Cory Doctrow's story "Craphound." BTW, am I the only person who simply downloads podcasts, treating them more like music files rather than blog entries? I've never gotten into using pod software ...

And is playing one a wicked act?

"I can't stop watching this. I especially like that her hair looks like it's chasing itself around the top of her head." Warning: contains music, Paris Hilton. Via ebrB

Like the Star Wars GIF. But with more Venkman. I like the split-screen aspect, very Woodstock, eh? Via eyebeam reBlog.

Do Not Mug Caricaturists. Mimes Still OK. Via Cynical-C.

[13:14] ishbadiddle: Apple vs. Postal Service
[13:14] ishbadiddle: i first thought -- the USPS has videos?
[13:15] lazylokovax: Weren't the band sued by the delivery company?
[13:16] ishbadiddle: "gosh i was confused -- i went to buy stamps and got this CD by accident"
[13:17] lazylokovax: "I asked them how much it would be to insure my package, and they were all like, huh?"
[13:18] ishbadiddle: maybe the delivery service should sue Apple
[13:18] lazylokovax: and then Apple could sue the band, and it would be one big sue-chain!
[13:19] ishbadiddle: but wait -- Apple records could also sue everyone too
[13:19] lazylokovax: haven't they already?
[13:20] ishbadiddle: yes but now that Michael Jackson owns them they were countersued by angry parents
[13:22] lazylokovax: Angry Parents? Isn't that the latest Canado-Hungarian Alt-Gypsy band?
[13:22] ishbadiddle: they were, but they were sued by a group of angry parents, so they changed their name to "Basket of Puppies"
[13:23] lazylokovax: Which in turn got sued by Long John Silver's for infringement on their trademark for their extra-large side dish of hush puppies
[13:25] ishbadiddle: which was then named in a joint suit by the shoe company and the descendants of Robert Louis Stevenson
[13:27] lazylokovax: I think I'm starting to see the last visible dog

Qu’est-ce que c’est ?

Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure. Via Waxy.

Gadgetopia reports that Britain has plans to use a network of cameras to automatically track movements of vehicles on most of its major roads. Oh, and they're also using something called "Intelligent Road Studs." Cue slap bass, please!

Of course such a system is becoming possible here as well. As EZ Pass approaches ubiquity, so does the possibility of its use not only to catch (stupid) violent criminals / terrorists etc but also to enforce traffic laws. After all, they know who you are, when you were at Point A and when you were at Point B. Now if a car leaves Point A at 11:58 ... hey, your ticket is in the mail (or better yet, just added to your EZ Pass balance.)

I have also long been convinced that the "Amber Alert" system has a covert purpose. Why invest so much in a national watch system designed for a relatively infrequent occurence?

One commenter on Gadgetopia likened the British system to Alan Moore's (must-read) 0930289528:V for Vendetta:

One frame early on has a little “for your security” sign on a surveillance camera. At the time I didn’t think people were stupid enough to fall for that one.

Speaking of which, I don't have high hopes for the upcoming movie but these posters are great, aren't they?

In our first year of business school, we had a course on Leadership. One of the classes was on Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a bit of hagiography -- was anyone really going to say anything bad about Rev. King? -- and yet I came away feeling as if everyone had missed the point.

Of course they showed The Speech. In the discussion afterward, one of my white sectionmates reacted to the King's dream that "little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers." "I want that for my kids," she said, nearly tearfully, and while I couldn't begrudge her the desire or the feeling, I also couldn't help but think: your kids are not the issue here. King struggled for justice for an oppressed people, not so your kids could have a black friend at school.

Over at Afro-Netizen, Chris Rabb's post is worth reading:

I am perrennially frustrated whenever I witness the dilution and corporate hijacking of the King legacy, words and iconography.

I recall a few King days ago commiserating with a friend Byron after attending an underwhelming luncheon celebrating the Rev. King. I said that it was long on rhetoric and short on substance. At home, I was met with messages emblazoned on my television set that featured wanton mischaracterizations and highly abridged and purposely narrow samplings of King's prolific words, thoughts and positions.

Case in point, if you watch television it seems as though the late Rev. King only gave one speech in his short lifetime. But, instead of citing one of his many other speeches, I decided to simply reprint the rarely publicly referenced first ten paragraphs that precedes the now decontextualized shorter portion of what I call the Broken Promise speech (popularly known as the "I Have a Dream" speech)

In the recent Quispologies.

Via Coudal.

I recently put together a disc of Windows freeware for my father and stepmother (Pa & Mary, did you get it yet?) for their new PC. Most of these I have used and some I rely on frequently, some I haven't used at all. These are mostly office and system programs but there's some games included as well. Are there any (Windows) programs that should be included in v 2.0?

067974066X:Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said starts as familiar Philip K. Dick paranoia. An immensly famous man wakes up in a strange motel room. The world is exactly the same as before -- but he no longer apparently exists. Everyone's forgotten him, and he is officially a nonperson. Since it's a totalitarian surveillance society, the latter is quite a problem. Merely getting around without papers is perilous. While his predicament is familiar, the titular policeman is a far more interesting character. New word in my vocabulary from this book: "irreal," which does sound like one that Derrida would have used. Random fact I just discovered: this book was adapted into a play.

0679740678:The Man In The High Castle is a better read, though no less puzzling. I'd read it in high school -- I think it was the first PKD book I've read, either that or the tattered copy of a collection of short stories I have somewhere -- so I thought I'd reread it. (Debbie's on a counterfactual history kick, so she read it too, although now I can't remember which one of us read it first.) I was confused enough that I made Jay reread it too so he could it explain it to me, being the PKD scholar among us. His explanation was that there was no easy explanation, which works for me.

Ishbadiddle was born 5 years ago today! You can read through our greatest hits if you're feeling nostalgic (and not nostausia.) Or browse the 2,020 subjects we've covered in 22 categories. Thanks to all our commenters and authors for your contributions.

Any suggestions for the next five years?

(Lest we forget, it's also the sad anniversary of the The Great Boston Molasses Disaster.)

From pbloom.

M-LAW's Wacky Warning Labels

... oh, just go watch. Report back and comment. Via robotfilter.

The Famous "Sushi Pants" Story

This movie had more heart and, well, brains than I expected. Very funny, and best use of "White Lines" in a movie yet. Be sure to check out the TV clips on the DVD extras. 3.5 stars.

I'm sure I would have loved this chopsocky / romcom / ghost / horror / zombie movie in 1987. 3 stars.

... your cellphone records are for sale. For instance, AMERICAblog bought General Wesley Clarke's records for a three-day period for $89.95. CBS News is reporting on this tonight.

Microsoft drops hotel in English Channel. Via The Map Room.

The thing to do now is smuggle in Coca-Cola from Mexico. But Atlanta ain't happy about that. Grant's take:

TCCC is acting like administrators of the Roman empire who have discovered that they must now contend with a small group of enthusiasts in Gaul who worship Rome and Romanness with new intensity. The Roman decision: put them down! Because the passion of the zealot is dangerous even if it happens, for the moment, to run in your direction. It's the principle of the thing. "We don't want your zeal," says the administrator, "we just want your obedience."

And, lest we forget, don't let ECHELON overhear you bragging that you "just scored some Mexican Coke."

Essential Albums of the 2000's. Scroll down for future-y goodness.

Reading Treehugger jogged my memory of a brilliant packaging design I'd seen somewhere before (was it this J-Walk link?): interlocking plastic bottles.

The brilliant part is, you can re-use these as building materials!

Here's a house made out of 30,000 liter bottles.

The company, EMIUM, is in Argentina. Now why isn't anyone manufacturing these in the States yet?

(Thanks to Watershed Media for enabling me to Google the manufacturer)

Disguised as Burgers!

Beyond DeLay :: 13 Ethically Challenged Members of Congress according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Here's the list:

* Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
* Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA)
* Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
* Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)
* Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
* Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)
* Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA)
* Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
* Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC)
* Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
* Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT)
* Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN)
* Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

Via Cynical-C.

Whitedust: Future Trends of Malware

Book Covers, via Coudal.

Map of national stereotypes based on Google searches for [Fill In Nationality] are known for...

Via Waxy.

My label of the Devo-Disney album as the "First of 2006's Signs of the End Times" was picked up by Paul Curry of the Courier-Journal of Louisville, KY. So there, it must be true!

It's like 5-Card Nancy. But with Garfield.

Via robotfilter.

Coined by Colin:

Nostausia: A familiar memory of things past that eventually made you want to barf. Applies equally to college, jobs, and relationships. Related to GRR: gastro-reflexive regret.

Anti-Grav Hyperdrive!

The said extra forces are: "A repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate"; and a second resulting from the "interaction of Heim's fifth and sixth dimensions and the extra dimensions that Dröscher introduced". Crucially, it "produces pairs of 'gravitophotons' - particles that mediate the interconversion of electromagnetic and gravitational energy".

Yeah! I love it when science writing sounds exactly like sci-fi. Plus, you know, hyperdrive. Via adampsyche.

Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a Plane!

I have no idea what this program actually does but I'm always glad to see references to one of my favorite 0440407028:books in one of my favorite fantasy series.

Chart showing Google frequencies for different spellings of "Aargh." Via eyebeam reBlog.

So argues Mark Steyn in It's The Demography, Stupid (in the New Criterion, reprinted in the WSJ.) His basic point is that European democracies, in order to afford social welfare programs, must rely on immigration, since their birthrates are declining. And since those immigrants are mostly Muslim, they are in fact importing their own fifth columns. Eventually the character of those countries will change, the Muslims will take over, the social welfare state carries within it the seeds of its own destruction, etc. Al Qaeda's dream of global domination will be achieved through immigration and reproduction.

What do you think?

Via Arts and Letters Daily.

Evidently you can't show smoking on Thai TV -- and that includes the Simpsons!

Via Cynical C.

* Yes, I know it's Thailand, but there's no alliteration with "Simpsons Censored In Thailand." Sue me.

80 Cent. Via memepool.

The finalists for the 2005 Movie Poster Awards have been announced over at IMP; my own comment on the poster for Doom was included.

Ain't that the truth! Rated Gee

Too young to die... too fast to learn to spell.

More bad tattoos. Via The Morning News.

Does someone out there have my copy of 0802133630:My Life in the Bush of Ghosts? (The book, not the Brian Eno album. I can't remember to whom I lent it. Thanks.

By the way, it's one straaaaaange book.

Science's 10 most beautiful experiments. "Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!" Via Cynical-C

Back on World AIDS day in December our own Ennis posted at Sepia Mutiny about how to Fight AIDS in your Computer's Spare Time:

The World Community Grid team has announced the FightAIDS @ Home project. By downloading their screensaver you donate your computer’s idle processing power to the project. The increased processing power will hopefully allow researchers to more aggressively and quickly screen possible HIV-fighting drugs.

It's a distributed computing project -- consider it the terrestrial version of SETI@Home. It's easy to download and the screensaver is kinda cool looking.

But how, you ask, can this possibly be a productivity tool?

Simple! I have mine set to work only when the computer is in screen-saver mode. (You have the option to have it work in the background all the time as well.) So when I'm working, and the screen saver is up and folding proteins, I have a moment's hesitation before I hit the keyboard. Do I really need to check my email? If I do, I will interrupt the Fight AIDS@Home program -- and we will be that much further from a cure.

There you have it: guilt as a productivity tool.

Should you decide to sign up, please join the "Ishbadiddle" team.

Just finished this book and loved it. I think this is the sort of book that is better if you know less about it before reading it — part of its appeal is in the way it’s structured, and I for one enjoyed discovering the structure rather than knowing about it beforehand — but if you want to be convinced by an expert and not just my say-so you can read this review by AS Byatt.

Oh, and here's an actual cloud atlas, in case you want to tell your vertebratus clouds from your undulatus.

You still need a pipe to download it, and the knowledge base to use it. Unless, of course, you've got a Freedom Toaster in your neighborhood. Currently only in South Africa, sadly.

According to retroCRUSH: The World's Greatest Pop Culture Site

Quick Online Tips: 50 Best Firefox Extensions for Power Surfing

The Internet Movie Poster Awards site is taking nominations for best (and worst) posters of the year. You can see all the eligible posters. Here are my picks (click through for full size on the IMP site):

Best:

-- I usually don't like star-head posters but this one captures the whole gay-cowboy-romance thing.

-- Cool. Coming soon to dorm rooms everywhere.

-- I'm sure the dog-tag thing has been done before (Platoon?) but still a great poster.

-- Great use of type.

-- Wow.

-- I love the shapes of the penguins, plus a great tag line.

-- Beautiful poster; I'm sorry I didn't get to see this in the theater.

-- Gutsy poster.

Hard to choose between the Sin City posters; both of these are very Frank Miller:

.

-- a good design undercut by a terrible tagline.

. Wow.

-- The China / USA on the basketball is pretty cool as it sums up the movie in one image.

Creepiest:

-- I'm melting! I'm melting!

. Creepy.

Funniest:

-- I'm sure this poster is funnier than the movie by far.

Worst:

-- I get what they're trying to do -- use "aristocratic" type, get it? -- but it just doesn't work. Confusing.

-- great movie, but the poster seems to be advertising "how to badly photoshop floating heads."

-- a frame grab from the video game would have been a hundred times better.

-- He's fat, get it?!?

-- How much gratituitous cleavage can we fit in one poster?

-- Do I really have to see Adam Sandler trying to look serious?

-- Their expressions say "phoning it in." Makes me not want to see the movie.

-- The flies making puns while on the zebra's ass just adds insult to injury.

-- They all look like they're in different movies. Plus the order of the names doesn't match the order of the pictures. I know this is because "first billing" is decided by agents, not designers, but it still always bothers me. This should have been the poster concept, if weren't so badly 'shopped:

-- Loved the movie. Lousy poster.

Did I miss any?

I'm not sure if BioWillie is the best brand name but if it gets more folks on alternative fuels, so much the better.

The Gathering. Via memepool.

Big ape. Big love story. Big movie. 4 big stars.

How is it that I made it to age 35 without reading this? Shame on the Radnor curriculum! One of my favorite movies, now also a favorite book.

Devo records kids' album for Disney. "For the project, all five members of Devo regrouped to re-record some of its best known songs, including the 1980 hit "Whip It!" with vocals provided by a quintet of kids." Coming soon: "Wiggly World" performed by the Wiggles? "Time Out For Fun" performed by Kidz Bop? Via BoingBoing.

Bowler rolls a 300, dies at lanes. "If he could have written a way to go out, this would be it,'' said Johnny D Masters, who was bowling with Lorenz in the Schoolcraft Miller Lite League.

Joss Whedon on the future of TV. I believe this is the very first Ishlink to TV Guide.

Happy New Year!