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1 August 2007
[comics] 200 Bad Comics

panels from 200 bad comics

[comics] For Sale on eBay: Jimmy Olsen Adventures by Jack Kirby – Volumes 1 & 2.
2 August 2007
[fun] The 50 must-watch Web Video Clips — compiled by the Daily Telegraph of all places.
3 August 2007
[science] The Social Norm Of Leaving The Toilet Seat Down: A Game Theoretic Analysis‘In this paper, we internalize the cost of yelling and model the conflict as a non-cooperative game between two species, males and females.We find that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down is inefficient. However, to our dismay, we also find that the social norm of always leaving the toilet seat down after use is not only a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies but is also trembling-hand perfect. So, we can complain all we like, but this norm is not likely to go away. All hope is not lost though…’ [via Sore Eyes]
6 August 2007
[tv] Medical Reviews of House — a real doctor dissects House‘Even though an infection may not have been at the heart of the problem, the patient still had a dangerously low white blood cell count and needed to be in isolation – isolation which was broken by Dr. House storming into the room in his “Eureka!” moment.’ [via Yoz]
7 August 2007
[comics] I Am Punisher (Black) — Chris’s Invincible Super Blog looks at the one of the odder moments during Frank Castle’s adventures in the Nineties … ‘Thus, wanted by the law, hunted by the Kingpin, and being, y’know, black, the Punisher decides it’s time for a little road trip, and hits the open road for a trip to Chicago in order to take the most appropriate course of action. He starts hanging out with Luke Cage…’
8 August 2007
[blogs] The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks‘Making fun of bad punctuation since 2005.’ [via The Daily Chump]
9 August 2007
[spam] Damn Spam — The New Yorker on Internet Spam [via qwghlm]…

‘After selecting six hundred West Coast addresses, Thuerk realized that he would never have time to call each one of them, or even to send out hundreds of individual messages. Then another idea occurred to him: what if he simply used the network to dispatch a single e-mail to all of them? “We invite you to come see the 2020 and hear about the DECSystem-20 family,” the message read. As historic lines go, it didn’t have quite the ring of “One small step for a man,” yet Gary Thuerk’s impact cannot be disputed. When he pushed the send button, he became the father of spam. The reaction was immediate and almost completely hostile. “This was a flagrant violation of the Arpanet,” one recipient wrote. Another noted that “advertising of particular products” should be strongly discouraged on the network. The system administrator promised to respond at once, and Thuerk was harshly reprimanded. Nevertheless, his company sold more than twenty of the computer systems, for a million dollars apiece.’

10 August 2007
[funny] Let’s face it, we’ve all got frustrated in exams…

using calculus to discover the identity of batman

12 August 2007
[tv] The Real Doctor House — I’m relieved to find out that that the real House doesn’t have a borderline personality disorder. .. ‘Unfortunately, many of the patients Bolte sees are victims of iatrogenic, or doctor-caused, illness. Simply put, they have been misdiagnosed, overmedicated to the point of sickness, or given treatment inappropriate to their conditions. On occasion, this has led to shouting matches with more conventional docs, like the dermatologist colleague who burst into Bolte’s office one day and harangued him-in front of another patient-for telling the mom of an acne-ridden teen to stop feeding her child so much junk food. There’s no evidence that diet has anything to do with acne, the dermatologist shouted. Bolte begged to differ and cited the literature. “The pharmaceutical industry has trained even doctors to believe that there’s a pharmaceutical answer to everything,” he says, shrugging.’ [via Ask Metafilter]
13 August 2007
[couture] Notice in the men’s toilets in Chanel’s office: ‘Pissing everywhere isn’t very Chanel.’ [via Sore Eyes]
[books] Space to think — the Observer interviews William Gibson‘I’m reminded of something Gibson once said: ‘I didn’t imagine that art girls in the Midwest would be flashing their tits in cyberspace… but I’m glad that they’re doing it.’ Does he retain that optimism? ‘You could say, in some ways technology and entertainment culture does not look that good from outside. I mean, if you looked at the internet objectively, sometimes you would think it was just a tsunami of filth, something you would not want anywhere near your children.’ It is though, he believes, an intimately human form of culture. ‘I think that one of the things that sets us most thoroughly apart is the ability to preserve our individual memory. The information of the cave paintings becomes Borges’s library, Borges’s library becomes a laptop computer.’ The internet is the shared memory of the species.’
14 August 2007
[lifehacks] Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret — Lifehacker on Seinfeldian Chains‘He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.” “Don’t break the chain.” He said again for emphasis.’
15 August 2007
[change] Chaos Theory — The Guardian on the changeover to Digital TV and our attitudes to large cultural changes like Decimalisation …

The world’s first seven-sided coins started appearing in Britain’s purses and cash registers on October 14 1969 – strange, alien lumps of cupro-nickel alloy that were greeted with instant suspicion. Bus conductors and Tory MPs fretted that the new 50 pence piece would be mistaken for the old half-crown, causing chaos. Secret documents released years later showed that the Decimal Currency Board – the body charged with decimalising the country by February 1971 – was terrified that the Queen might die before the changeover was complete, forcing it to introduce a whole new set of coins. And according to the BBC, a retired army colonel named Essex Moorcroft founded an organisation called the Anti-Heptagonists, dedicated to eradicating the new 50p on the grounds that it was “ugly” and “an insult to our sovereign, whose image it bears.”

16 August 2007
[photos] Go Look: Do Not Take This Flyer Down. [via Reddit]
17 August 2007
[comics] Incredibly disappointing news: ‘WildStorm/DC Comics regrets to announce that “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier,” by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill, will only be published in the United States due to international copyright concerns and related issues.’ (DC Press Release)
18 August 2007
[windows] Power replacements for built-in Windows utilities – a useful list (as always) from Lifehacker.
19 August 2007
[comics] Comic and Story Paper Family Trees — a website exploring the publishing histories of old British comics. [via Phil Gyford]
20 August 2007
[comics] Legend Horror Classics! Frankenstein!! — Scans of a pre-2000AD comic from Kevin O’Neill … [via Forbidden Planet’s Blog]

Kevin O'Neill's Frankenstein

[comics] Day One: It Begins… Finally! ‘Your eyes do not deceive you: For the next seven days, it’s all-out war on the Dire Wraiths, because… IT’S ROM WEEK ON THE ISB!!’
21 August 2007
[comics] Mike Mick McMahon’s Website — official website for the artist best known for his work on Judge Dredd. [via Chris Weston]
[funny] The London Evening Standard Headline Generator — surreal randomly generated headlines taken from the London Evening Standard’s Headline Boards – Thanks Holly! …

Billie Piper's Fog 'Will Haunt Brown'

22 August 2007
[web] Terraminds Micro Search — useful Twitter search for the web-stalker in all of us.
23 August 2007
[wifi] Is Stealing Wireless Wrong?‘Philosopher Julian Baggini says he can’t see what all the fuss is about. “I’m pro the stealers on this one. If you are doing it systematically to avoid chipping in your bit you are a freeloader and that’s immoral. “But casual and occasional use while travelling is a bit like reading your book from the light coming out from someone’s window. It’s like eating someone’s leftovers.”‘
24 August 2007
[macs] Mac Buyer’s Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac — useful guide – in summary: don’t buy full-size iPod’s or Nano’s because there maybe new versions real soon.
25 August 2007
[apple] Fake Steve on Scotland’s First Apple Store: ‘All joking aside: Scots, I know you’re a restless and angry people at heart, but let’s try to keep it peaceful, bokay? It’s what our brand is about. We’re all about peace and love and staying Zen. Negative people upset us. But if you can get in a few kicks on some filthy bastard Microsoft fans, and nobody sees you, well, no harm no foul as they say, and you will, in fact, be restoring a sense of childlike wonder to my life.’
27 August 2007
[funny] Go Watch: Australian Senator Discusses An Oil Spill‘Some of them are built so the front doesn’t fall off at all…’ [via Back in a Bit]
28 August 2007
[comics] BBC Four’s Comics Britannia Season — website covering BBC Four’s upcoming season on comics. Forbidden Planet’s blog has all the details.
29 August 2007
[funny] What Wikipedia would look like if on paper, broken down — interesting analysis from Qwghlm‘Libel’