Ripping Yarns

2006-02-15T10:01:00.000+00:00

PBWiki

I've been using Peanut Butter Wiki (www.pbwiki.com) to keep notes and some work-related bookm arks that have no place on del.icio.us. Best use of it so far has been to use as a notepad while taking an MCSE course where we we kindly provided witInternet access. That way I didn't have to lug a notepad around with me and I could easily share the notes with colleagues.

2005-03-24T17:34:00.000+00:00

RollingStone.com: The End of Oil
The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of hope -- that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from now, when we hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts.

2005-03-23T12:39:00.000+00:00

Project Delphis: Mystery of the Silver Rings

Some dolphins can create vortices in water that form helixes and 'silver rings' and can teach each other how to do the same trick. Does this fulfill the criteria of art?

2005-03-11T16:52:00.000+00:00

Beijing hackers attack e-Tibet via trojan horse/a>

Offices of the Tibetan exile administration have recently started receiving emails disguised as originating from Sonam N. Dagpo, "Additional Secretary" (sic) of the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) in Dharamsala, and purportedly carrying the text of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's 10 March statement as an attached file.

Promptly denying authorship of the insidious emails, Dagpo, Secretary (no longer additional secretary), warned us that the attachment was actually a virus.

2005-02-23T16:06:00.000+00:00

Hunter S. Thompson 'to be fired from cannon'

Friends of journalist Hunter S. Thompson say they want to blast his cremated remains out of a cannon in a final salute to the gun-loving writer who committed suicide last weekend.

"If it can be done, we will do it," said Boston attorney George Tobia Jr., who represented Thompson for about 15 years. "Maybe it will be part of a public thing or maybe one night a shot will ring out and people will know."

It's what he would've wanted.

2005-02-10T15:43:00.000+00:00

C4 Guantanamo reality show

This could be both timely and brilliant. Channel 4 has filmed a documentary which places volunteers into a simulated Gitmo (based on declassified documents and testimonys) to explore the use of torture in the War on Some Terror.

2005-02-10T14:55:00.000+00:00

What's In Popeye's Pipe?

During the 1920s and '30s, the era when Popeye was created, "spinach" was a very common code word for marijuana. One classic example is "The Spinach Song," recorded in 1938 by the popular jazz band Julia Lee and Her Boyfriends. Performed for years in clubs thick with cannabis smoke, along with other Julia Lee hits like "Sweet Marijuana," the popular song used spinach as an obvious metaphor for pot.

In addition, anti-marijuana propaganda of the time claimed that marijuana use induced super-strength. Overblown media reports proclaimed that pot smokers became extraordinarily strong, and even immune to bullets. So tying in Popeye's mighty strength with his sucking back some spinach would have seemed like an obvious cannabis connection at the time.

2005-02-10T10:39:00.000+00:00

Watchmen movie in '06

I can only assume that they were waiting until after Constantine so it will appear to suck less in comparison.

2005-02-03T17:15:00.000+00:00

Stewart Lee interviews Alan Moore

Transcript from the Radio 4 'Chain Reaction' series.

2005-01-13T10:28:00.000+00:00

Blood Music

Biotech resaerchers in the UK have discovered that cells in the human body may use 'morse code'-like patterns of signals to activate and deactivate genes.

2005-01-12T15:56:00.000+00:00

MP3 Pocket Watch

You can keep yuor iPod Shuffle, I want some retro geekery.

2005-01-04T16:26:00.000+00:00

Will Eisner, RIP

Will Eisner passed away on January 3rd, 2005 at the age of 87 following quadruple bypass heart surgery.

Well, that's 2005 off to a fucking brilliant start, I don't think. Eisner was a genius who wrote and illustrated some of the most human comic strips in the canon - he also pretty much invented the concept of the Graphic Novel and played a big role in the late '80s realisaztion that comics were art in more than just the obvious sense.

2004-12-16T17:32:00.000+00:00

My Own Private Tokyo - By William Gibson

Gibson revisits Tokyo, hangs out with Douglas Coupland & Michael Stipe, observes teenage manga nurses in Harajuku and generally blisses out.

2004-12-14T11:39:00.000+00:00

New Disney ride-based flick prompts amusing Conrad comparison

On the proposed movie version of the 'Jungle Cruise' ride (think Haunted Mansion, on a boat) a spokesman for Mouse-subsidiary Mandeville Films came out with this gem:

[the film is..] "an adventure film with comedic elements, but its core is almost a family version of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness,' [...]" (emphasis added)

Tee hee.

2004-11-30T17:12:00.000+00:00

BandAidDilemma.net - Your conscience is clear

* Buy as many copies of Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid 20 as you can afford.
* Destroy them in amusing ways, on camera.
* Send us the pictures.

2004-11-22T17:05:00.000+00:00

Hitherby Dragons

Rebecca Borgstrom & her wonderful, deranged stories.

2004-11-18T16:17:00.000+00:00

The persuaders

Interview with Clotaire Rapaille, a psychiatrist turned marketeer who looks for 'codes' in the human brain that advertisers can exploit.

And the campaign for the Hummer -- the Hummer is a car with a strong identity. It's a car in a uniform. I told them, put four stars on the shoulder of the Hummer, you will sell better. If you look at the campaign, brilliant. I have no credit for it, just so you know, but brilliant. They say, "You give us the money, we give you the car, nobody gets hurt." I love it! It's like the mafia speaking to you. For women, they say it's a new way to scare men. Wow. And women love the Hummer. They're not telling you, "Buy a Hummer because you get better gas mileage." You don't. This is cortex things. They address your reptilian brain.

2004-11-15T11:35:00.000+00:00

The Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn

When memes collide...

2004-11-02T10:59:00.000+00:00

The Great Old Pumpkin, by John Aegard

Peanuts vs Lovecraft.

As you are no doubt aware, I am the issue of solid Dutch stock—the prosperous Van Pelt family of St. Paul. Mine was a comfortable and happy childhood, and I spent much of it in the devoted service of the Great Old Pumpkin.

2004-11-01T15:18:00.000+00:00

Human Universals

A list of attributes shared by all human cultures.

2004-10-26T14:24:00.000+01:00

John Peel is dead, alas

Fuck. This is bad.

2004-10-22T14:53:00.000+01:00

The Doctor Is In

Dr Hunter S Thompson returns with his take on Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 2004.

Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?

If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a "liberal" candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House today -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the once-proud, once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White House on November 2nd.

Nixon hated running for president during football season, but he did it anyway. Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.

You bet. Richard Nixon would be my Man. He was a crook and a creep and a gin-sot, but on some nights, when he would get hammered and wander around in the streets, he was fun to hang out with. He would wear a silk sweat suit and pull a stocking down over his face so nobody could recognize him. Then we would get in a cab and cruise down to the Watergate Hotel, just for laughs.

2004-10-20T10:14:00.000+01:00

MirrorDot - Solving the Slashdot Effect

When a site gets slashdotted, it can really spoil your groove. MirrorDot keeps the party going! When Slashdot posts a new story, MirrorDot automagically parses the story and mirrors any linked pages. Do not let the Slashdot effect kill your buzz. Yeah baby!

2004-10-20T09:56:00.000+01:00

Creative Commons

The Creative Commons site hosts lots of information about open licensing models for artistic works plus a search engine for CC licensed works themselves.

2004-10-12T12:22:00.000+01:00

Prescription Drug Database

RxList is a pretty comprehensive-looking prescription meds database.