1 September 2009
[life] Some good advice: Are You Happy? YES/NO [via More(ish)]
2 September 2009
[gmail] Send mail from another address without “on behalf of” …. useful tip for Gmail users to send e-mail from another SMTP server with a custom e-mail address.
3 September 2009
4 September 2009
[comics] By Day, A Mild Mannered Comic Strip Artist … Chris Weston – He Fights Crime! … ‘I held up my drawings, and the policeman’s eyes widened with astonishment! “That’s him!” he splutterd. ” ‘Ere, come and have a look at this!” he called to his colleagues. They trotted over, took a look and exclaimed “That is spot-on! It IS him!”. Seems they’d already picked up a suspect who matched my drawings exactly…’ [via Metafilter]
[comics] Neil Gaiman’s Bookshelves … can anybody spot where the comics are in these photos? (click on them for high resolution pics.)
7 September 2009
[internet] 50 Things That Are Being Killed By The Internet … ‘#41: The usefulness of reference pages at the front of diaries .. If anyone still digs out their diaries to check what time zone Lisbon is in, or how many litres there are to a gallon, we don’t know them.’
[movies] Matt Haughey on Julie and Julia: ‘There was this one scene. Julie is in her cube and she’s ecstatic that a post got 53 comments and she high fives her coworker, and moments later her husband calls and says he just noticed she’s #3 on the most popular Salon blogs list and her arms shoot up out of her cube in victory and I began to cry tears of joy. I sat in the theater thinking about my little blog…’ [via Robot Wisdom]
8 September 2009
[ads] The Classified Dating Ads of the London Review of Books … ‘They call me Mr Boombastic. You can call me Monty. My real name, however, is Quentin. But only Mother uses that. And Nanny. Monty is fine, though. Anything but Peg Leg (Shrewsbury Prep, 1956, ‘Please don’t make me do cross-country, sir’). Box no. 0473.’
9 September 2009
[comics] Funny business … Jon Ronson visits the Beano’s offices … ‘When I arrived this morning, one of the writers, Claire, was sifting through the pile of letters that had come in from fans during the week. I picked one up at random. It was from a little boy, aged six. He had assiduously drawn a picture of a man standing outside a gym. “This is Jimmy Gym,” his letter read. “He should be in the Beano. He’s always in the gym training.” “Are you going to print this one?” I asked Claire. “No,” she replied. “The picture wouldn’t reproduce well.” She glanced at Jimmy Gym with a mix of compassion and steely resolve, and gently placed him in the No pile. “You have to learn to be ruthless,” she said.’
10 September 2009
11 September 2009
[apollo] A List Of The 106 Objects That Apollo 11 Left On The Moon … ’33. Defecation Collection Device (4)’
[comics] Dirk Deppey on Paul Levitz stepping down as publisher of DC Comics: ‘…one has to ask: How many initiatives has Levitz botched over the years? From the serial alienation of the company’s most profitable writer, Alan Moore, to the unholy debacle that was Minx — one of the many, many publishing lines created under his oversight that were badly conceived, badly executed, badly managed and badly promoted from start to finish — Levitz has in recent years presided over what can only be described as one of the most embarrassing periods in DC Comics’ corporate history.’
14 September 2009
[comics] George And Lynne Explained … amusing explanations of the midly NSFW and sexist newspaper strip … ‘By the way one man is wearing a low cut back top and another wearing a vest and choker it suggests that they like her outfit for its fashion sense rather than the way it shows off her cleavage. So this is a gay super pub with its own multistory car park…’ [via Metafilter]
15 September 2009
[tv] Oh no! They’ve taken my beloved Ceefax … ‘The numbers for my favourite pages – “316” for live football results, “101” for news, “606” for “Now and Next” programme info — are more familiar to me than my bank pin code. And then, of course, there’s the “Mix” button, superimposing Ceefax over whatever dross my wife is watching. Marital compromise at its best. To those who have yet to experience the switchover I say this: cherish the wonder of Ceefax before it is snatched from you.’
16 September 2009
[weird] 20 most bizarre Craigslist adverts of all time … For example, Pope Hats: ‘Because of this terrible economy, I’m having to shut down my business. I have OVER 1300 Pope hats (replicas) that I REALLY need to get rid of. The pope hats came from China and are a little too small for most adult heads and are also irritating to the skin, so you would need to have long hair or wear a smaller hat underneath (just like the REAL POPE). Dogs do not like to wear these pope hats, but maybe a large cat or maybe a nice dog would wear one.’
17 September 2009
[work] Does your e-mail reveal how productive you are? … ‘When analyzing managers, Cataphora tries to determine who is passing the digital buck. One tendency of a bad manager is to forward e-mails with questions like What do you think of this? rather than offering specific ideas or meaningful instructions. In contrast, certain people in the organization collect and then answer many of these open-ended queries. They seem to be the people who are really making decisions.’ [via As Above]
18 September 2009
[999] History by numbers … a brief history of of the UK’s emergency number 999 … ‘On June 30, 1937 the Assistant Postmaster General, Sir Walter Womersley, told the House of Commons that the new emergency service would be trialled in London. For reasons now lost to history, MPs burst out laughing at the announcement that the number would be 999 (perhaps because, amid the gathering storm of war, it sounded like a German saying “no” three times).’
21 September 2009
[comics] Psychological Violence In Late 1970s/Early 1980s UK Girls Comics … notes from a talk at Interesting 2009 … ‘The huge success of Tammy, which ran from 1971 to 1984, was partially based on some actual research by IPC magazine into what girls enjoyed reading about. Apparently they liked to be made to cry. Vulnerable amnesiacs who avoided multiple, mysterious attempts on their lives to discover their parents had been killed in some kind of transport ‘accident’ sent sales figures of up to a quarter of a million a week…’
22 September 2009
23 September 2009
[funny] Nadir Of Western Civilization To Be Reached This Friday At 3:32 PM … ‘According to the panel, the final event will occur at 3:32 p.m., when a tourist, believing the impressive structure to be a giant mall, will enter Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and, not finding what he is looking for, ask where “the damn Radio Shack is supposed to be.” The man, dressed in Crocs and sweatpants and determined by researchers to be the final catalyst in humanity’s epic downfall, will then loudly expel gas.’
[comics] On Writing, Collaboration and Superheroes … interesting look at the dynamics between writers and artists creating comics … ‘If Bendis and Maleev’s take on Daredevil falters at times in its disregard for the formal properties of comics, it is also guilty of rolling out age old tropes for the “revival” of superhero titles. One is left with the impression that mainstream comics writing has not only stagnated but in all likelihood regressed in the last decade becoming competent yet mediocre.’
24 September 2009
[space] The Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life Gets Weird … ‘For instance, Leitner said, we can send rovers to Mars carrying antibodies that detect traces of chemicals and bacteria that would indicate life. But because we can only make antibodies to known substances, this method will be limited to finding Earth-like life. “When we try to find a definition for life, in most cases, such a definition is more a summary of the specific properties of terrestrial life,” Leitner said. Because life on Earth requires water, most of the search for extraterrestrial life thus far has focused on the “habitable zone,” or the relatively narrow region around a star where liquid water could exist.’
[funny] Go Look: The Ultimate Productivity Blog
25 September 2009
27 September 2009
[funny] 10 Best Things We’ll Say to Our Grandkids … ‘Our bodies were made of meat and supported by little sticks of calcium.’
28 September 2009
[books] Excerpts From An Interview With James Ellroy … ‘My dad had another stroke the first week I was at Polk. I got flown home to LA, in my uniform, on emergency leave. Two weeks later, he had yet another stroke. I got flown back again, just in time to see him die. His final words to me were, Try to pick up every waitress who serves you.’
29 September 2009
[movies] Philip K. Dick on Blade Runner … ‘As for my own role in the BLADE RUNNER project, I can only say that I did not know that a work of mine or a set of ideas of mine could be escalated into such stunning dimensions.’ [via @girlonetrack]
30 September 2009
[comics] A Review Of Big Numbers #3 by Alan Moore & Bill Sienkiewicz … ‘The opening chapters of his From Hell and Watchmen are compelling, but no one could guess those works’ ultimate richness from those chapters alone. The same would have been all but undoubtedly true of Big Numbers. The third chapter brings a fuller understanding of what was lost by the failure to complete more than a quarter of the book. The failure is beyond a disappointment; it’s about as close to an artistic tragedy as one can imagine.’