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March 31, 2008
[films] Recovering Reality … More from Errol Morris on Abu Ghraib … [via Kottke] ‘When Brent Pack talks about [Gilligan’s treatment] as being standard operating procedure, I find that a powerful and odd moment. He’s sincere, he’s not a bad guy, and yet he’s telling us something that is actually surreal and disturbing—even more so because he’s not a bad guy, because he’s being sincere. Or just seeing Lyndie England and how devastated she was by all of this. I’m moved by it. Call me crazy, but I am. She gives this final speech, which to me is so sad, about how maybe the whole world is just backstabbing and lying. You’ve got all of these players caught in this strange drama. The perversity of it all.’
March 28, 2008
[funny] YouTube – 24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot … see Young Jack Bauer fight international terrorism with 1994′s technology … ‘Lycos is dry… trying Encarta now.’
March 27, 2008
[comics] The Art of Gerhard … great site looking at the non-comics work of Gerhard – the amazing background artist on Dave Sim’s Cerebus. [via meowwcat]
March 26, 2008
[movies] From hell … Joe Queenan on the worst movies of all time … ‘While it may disappoint those who welcome my occasionally unconventional opinions, I am firmly in the camp that believes that Heaven’s Gate is the worst movie ever made. For my money, none of these other films can hold a candle to Michael Cimino’s 1980 apocalyptic disaster. This is a movie that destroyed the director’s career. This is a movie that lost so much money it literally drove a major American studio out of business. This is a movie about Harvard-educated gunslingers who face off against eastern European sodbusters in an epic struggle for the soul of America. This is a movie that stars Isabelle Huppert as a shotgun-toting cowgirl. This is a movie in which Jeff Bridges pukes while mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that has five minutes of uninterrupted fiddle-playing by a fiddler who is also mounted on roller skates. This is a movie that defies belief.’
March 25, 2008
[blogs] Civil Serf blogger faces disciplinary action … ‘The unnamed civil servant at the heart of the controversy is said to be a fast-track civil servant who, on her blog, said that she was “just senior enough in my department to really know what’s going on, but not senior enough to attract suspicion from my blogging”. [...] Followed closely by political observers, the blog attracted an influential following and was the subject of an investigation to discover its source. Last week the blog went off-line and a civil servant was reported to have been confronted and admitted authorship. She has been suspended, according to reports.’
[fun] HEMA – Online Store … Watch and wait for a couple of seconds as this great flash animation turns an online store into a Rube Goldberg device.
March 24, 2008
[records] The 8 Least Impressive Guinness World Records … a list of some real stinkers … On the largest collection of traffic cones: ‘David has a collection of 137 different, presumably stolen, traffic cones. Based on the picture, this includes “The orange conical one”, the “off-orange conical one” and the rare “yellow pointy one that someone drew a penis on the side of.”David owns approximately two thirds of all the types of traffic cones ever made, which is more impressive when you realize that means someone out there is actually a traffic cone historian and can thus validate the scope of his collection.’
March 23, 2008
[movies] Errol Morris talks with Werner Herzog … ‘If everything was planned, it would be dreadful. If everything was unplanned, it would be equally dreadful. Cinema exists because there are elements of both in everything. There are elements of both in documentary. There are elements of both in feature filmmaking. It’s what makes, I think, photography and filmmaking of interest. Despite all of our efforts to control something, the world is much, much more powerful than us, and more deranged even than us.’
March 21, 2008
[movies] Standard Operating Procedure — trailer for a new documentary from Errol Morris about the events in Abu Ghraib prison. [via Kottke]
March 20, 2008
[politics] The Boris Johnson Generator … a web page which creates a Boris Johnson speech automatically … ‘My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters I love tennis with a passion. I challenged Boris Becker to a match once and he said he was up for it but he never called back. I bet I could make him run around. Watermelon smiles Sorry.’ [via qwghlm]
March 17, 2008
[tech] Therapist Emulator Eliza discusses the death of her creator Joseph Weizenbaum … * Are you sad that Joseph died? Don't you care?
> Perhaps in your fantasies I am sad that Joseph died? Don't me care?
* I would like to think that you would be sad.
> We were discussing you, not me.
March 16, 2008
[underground] Cooling the Tube … interesting look at the issues surrounding cooling the train carriages and stations on the London Underground … ‘When an underground train tunnel is first constructed, it’s at the native soil temperature of around 14°C. Temperature problems start to show up 20–30 years later; this timescale has been seen over and over again in different lines/metro systems throughout the world. Basically the tunnel is a closed environment with a lot of energy sources. The soil around the tunnel gradually dries out and becomes a much better insulator — they’ve measured this on the Victoria line and found that the soil is dried out for several metres’ distance from the tunnel.’
March 15, 2008
[life] Spyware another Weapon for Domestic Abuse … ‘Safe computing has joined finding safe housing as a list of requirements for people fleeing abusive relationships.’
[books] The 100 Best Last Lines from Novels … ‘P.S. Sorry I forgot to give you the mayonnaise. –Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America (1967)’ [via Kottke]
March 14, 2008
[comics] “…He sure as hell is angry, but he does have moves.” … Progressive Ruin looks at the issue of Denny O’Neil’s The Question where he teams up with Rorschach … ‘Moore and Gibbons aren’t credited at the beginning of the comic with anything in this issue, but they are given a special “thank you.” I wonder if either of them were even aware Rorschach went walkies into this book, and out of their control.
Anyway, Vic and his ’80s hair start reading, and it’s apparently compelling reading since he immediately nods off.’
March 13, 2008
[comics] The Daily Batman … ‘A Batman a day keeps the doctor away.’
March 12, 2008
[comics] Flipped!: David Welsh Presents His Current Favorite Manga Series … interesting list of Manga to lookout for… ‘If your comics reading list doesn’t include any sexy pulp, may I humbly suggest that you’re cheating yourself?’
March 11, 2008
[people] The Obituary of Count Gottfried von Bismarck … ‘When not clad in the lederhosen of his homeland, he cultivated an air of sophisticated complexity by appearing in women’s clothes, set off by lipstick and fishnet stockings. This aura of dangerous “glamour” charmed a large circle of friends and acquaintances drawn from the jeunesse dorée of the age; many of them knew him at Oxford, where he made friends such as Darius Guppy and Viscount Althorp and became an enthusiastic, rubber-clad member of the Piers Gaveston Society and the drink-fuelled Bullingdon and Loders clubs. Perhaps unsurprisingly he managed only a Third in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.’ [via Metafilter]
[tv] The Fonz Jumps the Shark … from YouTube – the origin of the phrase Jumping the Shark … ‘The phrase reached the height of its influence in the early 21st century. As it became more widely known, many fans began to consider the phrase over used. In particular, the phrase has become used by some to describe any development which they don’t like on a show. This has caused some viewers to conclude that “jump the shark” has itself jumped the shark.’
March 10, 2008
[comics] The Further Adventures of Li’l Bruce Wayne … Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog on a long forgotten Batman comic … ‘It is notable, however, as being the first published comic book work of writer/artist Frank Miller.’
March 9, 2008
[42] What on earth is 42? … BBC News on the Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything … ‘The answer can be interpreted in two ways. One is that it is a bad joke, implying that there simply is no answer, no meaning, no sense in the universe, and you would be no worse off if you jumped into the nearest black hole. But the other interpretation is that the joke was wise. It shows that seeking numerical answers to questions of meaning is itself the problem. Digits, like a four and a two, can no more do it than a string of digits could represent the poetry of Shakespeare.’
March 7, 2008
[life] Possessed – fascinating online documentary about obsessive hoarders … ”POSSESSED’ enters the complicated worlds of four hoarders; people whose lives are dominated by their relationship to possessions. The film questions whether hoarding is a symptom of mental illness or a revolt against the material recklessness of consumerism. When does collecting become hoarding and why do possessions exert such an influence on our lives?’ [via Waxy]
March 6, 2008
[conspiracy] Or perhaps: New Theories Suggest Kennedy Wasn’t Shot … ‘After 11 years of painstaking research, Musashi uncovered testimony from anonymous eyewitnesses who claimed that unopened packets of duck sauce and soy sauce were hastily removed from Air Force One after the assassination. According to the book’s findings, the extremely high levels of monosodium glutamate combined with the stress of mediating an intense international ballistic-missile crisis caused Kennedy’s systolic pressure to mount to the point where the right rear quarter of his cranium “shot clean off.”‘
March 5, 2008
[funny] The Onion on Kennedy’s Assassination … ‘Kennedy slain by CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons – President Shot 129 Times…’
March 4, 2008
[comics] Big Brother With a Bleeding Heart — interesting blog post critically looking at Alan Moore’s work on V for Vendetta and Watchmen … ‘Rereading this really crystallized for me what I think is the biggest problem with Moore’s writing — his weakness (to paraphrase Borges) for appearing to be a genius. Moore’s an extremely smart writer and plotter, and he fancies himself a metaphysician and political seer. As a writer, he tends to have all the answers, and while that can look pretty amazing when enmeshed in the story, when you take a step back, the discordant cacophony of all the begged questions starts to get a little irritating. Evie occasionally yells at V and tells him he’s a pompous asshole who cares more about puzzles and quotations than about human beings. Of course, Evie always backs down and accepts that V only tortured her because he loves her…but it’s hard not to feel that Moore is loading the dice. It’s Moore, after all, who sits behind that mask; it’s him who’s rigged the game.’
March 3, 2008
[apollo] The Moon Museum — Apparently, there is a small museum of art on the Moon hidden in the leg of the Apollo 12 lander … ‘[Andy] Warhol’s contribution, which is obscured by the thumb above, is described as “a calligraphic squiggle made up of the initials of his signature. Actually, it’s a drawing of a penis.’ [via Kottke]
March 2, 2008
[wikipedia] Nicholson Baker on The Charms of Wikipedia … ‘Without the kooks and the insulters and the spray-can taggers, Wikipedia would just be the most useful encyclopedia ever made. Instead it’s a fast-paced game of paintball. Not only does Wikipedia need its vandals—up to a point—the vandals need an orderly Wikipedia, too. Without order, their culture-jamming lacks a context.’ [via Metafilter]
March 1, 2008
[books] 50 Crime Writers To Read Before You Die … ‘We wanted to compile a list of writers we had, jointly and severally, loved. We wanted to include writers like Dashiell Hammett, who brought something new and exciting to the genre; like Elmore Leonard, who turns an old trick in it with incomparable style; and like Poe, who invented it. We did not, except incidentally, take into account popularity.’ [via Metafilter]
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