linkmachinego.com

1 October 2007
[movies] Ridley Scott Has Finally Created the Blade Runner He Always Imagined — Ridley Scott on the absolutely, positively, Final Cut of Blade Runner‘The director’s cut removed the voice-over and that silly ending and put in the unicorn daydream, but the disc didn’t look that great. And it should look great, because Blade Runner at the time was pretty formidable — it’s pretty formidable even now, actually. A lot of people don’t notice whether they’re watching something beautifully technical or not, but it’s important to me. So that always got in the way of the director’s cut being the final version. I think it’s final now because I’ve done all the nips and tucks and tidied up one or two of the visual areas that we couldn’t do properly at the time because we didn’t have the technology.’
[internet] An IM Infatuation Turned to Romance. Then the Truth Came Out — great Wired article proving once and for all that on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog (and how that can destroy lives) …

He tried to explain what drew him to his computer. “When I’m talking to Cindy or you like this, face-to-face,” he said, “it’s hard for me to say what I feel.” As Tommy, however, the words came easily. And then there was Jessi. He loved her, or at least believed he loved her, though he knew he was “never going to meet her.” His plan was to “kill Tommy off” in Iraq, but Cindy intervened too soon. He nearly committed suicide because of his guilt about having lied to Jessi.

2 October 2007
[comics] Funny Adam West Batman / Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns Mashup

batman '66 / dark knight returns mashup

3 October 2007
[diana] 30 lawyers, 11 jurors and one angry billionaire – Diana inquest begins — Guardian report from the delayed inquest into the death of Princess Diana and Dodi … ‘As he spoke, the coroner’s words appeared in transcript on a screen above the court, like a teleprinter giving the Saturday football scores. The foreign words appeared mangled phonetically: Bastille became Bas eel, Orly transmogrified into Orally airport, Giovanni Versace appeared as January Verse Chi and, best of all, the paparazzi turned into pap rats.’
4 October 2007
Facebook and David Cameron‘The Tory leader may yet regret drawing attention to an area of the internet where political debate is indeed lively. Others dedicated to Mr Cameron on Facebook include Keep Cameron out of Number 10! (594 members), David Cameron is a twat (71), If David Cameron shows up at Glastonbury festival we will sacrifice him (59), and the particularly popular Stop David Cameron … his lies make baby Jesus cry (1310).’
5 October 2007
Another Facebook Spoof

a funny facebook spoof

7 October 2007
[movies] The Real Deal — an exhaustive examination of all the various versions of Blade Runner and a look at what’s different in the Final Cut [via Feeling Listless] …

Scott’s final cut — was painstakingly assembled from original elements, including the original 65mm negative. De Lauzirika has been working on it over a seven-year period. “And this time, Ridley approved every single thing that went into it — every single cut, every single effect,” he says. “We’re right back to square one,” Galvao says of The Final Cut elements. “We scanned the cut negative, plus the negatives we dug out of vaults in England, here at Warner Bros., and [co-executive producer] Jerry Perenchio’s vault as well. We went through and viewed every frame of every roll that we could find.” “Honestly, I got to go through 977 boxes and cans of mag, IP, INs, 65mm visual effects comps, 35mm original dailies … everything ever printed,” de Lauzirika says.

8 October 2007
[london] The Best Named Business in the History of West London … from Ben Hammersley.
9 October 2007
[comics] Alan Moore: the wonderful wizard of… Northampton — another interview with you-know-who … ‘People have asked me why I made the first chapter of my first novel so long, and in an invented English. The only answer I can come up with that satisfies me is, to keep out the scum.’
[london] No Job. No Money. You’re Fucked. — amusing fake Evening Standard Headline Poster. Part of a larger flickr set – London Newspaper Billboards.
10 October 2007
[comics] Brendan McCarthy Showreel on Youtube‘I recently found this old VHS showreel inside a cobwebbed cardboard box in a storage room. It features art and designs from over a decade ago. Some of what’s there looks a bit dated, as you’d expect, but it’s a fun little romp nonetheless. So I thought I’d post it up for your viewing pleasure…’ [via Barbelith]
11 October 2007
[tv] Charlie Brooker reviews Billie Piper’s Secret Diary Of A Call Girl — extremely funny, NSFW and surprisingly, goes easy on Billie and Belle … ‘We love a morality tale us Brits. Especially if it’s disguised as a fuckfest.’ (more…)
12 October 2007
[food] Fraser Lewry’s Animal Alphabet — Fraser of Blogjam attempts to eat an animal for each letter of the alphabet … ‘I’m a) not allowed to use Latin names, and b) if I’m struggling to come up with an animal beginning with ‘R’, for instance, I’m not allowed to use “ring-tailed lemur” because all lemurs are filed under ‘L’. Not that I’d eat lemur, of course, because they’re an endangered species, which brings me to c) no endangered species.’
13 October 2007
[comics] Rob Liefeld on Alan Moore‘He once called us up to tell us that he had just been in the dream realm and talking to Socrates and Shakespeare, and to Moses, dead serious, and that they talked for what seemed to be months, but when he woke up, only an evening had passed, and he came up with these great ideas. And I’m tellin’ ya, I think it’s shtick, dude. I think it’s all shtick. I’m gonna start saying that stuff. Cuz you know what? It makes you instantly interesting. Like ‘O yeah, last night I was hanging out with Socrates. Came to me in a dream. We played poker. We dropped acid.’ That’s the kinda stuff Alan would say all the time…’ [via BeaucoupKevin]
14 October 2007
[space] NASA Announces Plan To Bring Wi-Fi To Its Headquarters By 2017‘NASA has suffered from a public credibility crisis in recent years due to perceived incompetence, a failed mission to Mars, the damaged and dormant Hubble telescope, and its inability to procure a long enough USB cable to reach all the way over to engineer William Chen’s cubicle. But NASA officials argue that a secure high-speed line could prevent disasters such as a 2005 incident in which an employee attempting to download the movie trailer for Cheaper by the Dozen 2 crashed the Mission Control Center mainframe computer for two weeks.’ [via Qwghlm]
15 October 2007
[weird] Right Brain v Left Brain Optical Illusion … I see this rotating anti-clockwise until after concentrating on the feet it flipped on me and started rotating clockwise. Weird! :) [via Kottke]
16 October 2007
[comics] Preview of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier — the latest from Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill … ‘The story is set in an alternative-history England roughly 50 years after the Martian invasion of 1898. Quatermain and Murray, both strangely younger than when we saw them previous (and they were quite old back then — like, liver-spotted and wrinkled-prune old), are trying to track down a mysterious book that contains secrets about their League adventures and revelations about other League teams throughout history. Natch, there are some baddies who are desperate to make sure the dynamic duo fail in their quest.’
17 October 2007
[comics] Orbital Comics Top 10 Lists — amusing lists posted in Orbital Comics in Central London … [via Kottke]

a top 10 list from orbital comics in london

19 October 2007
[ipod] The iPod Death Clock‘When will my iPod Croak? Depending on how you use (or abuse) it, we can take a guess at how long your little friend has left in this world.’
20 October 2007
[blogs] Stephen Fry has a Blog — this is old news but it passed me by. He doesn’t do brief blog entries: ‘I don’t seem to be able to keep things brief. So my advice is that you read it in bits. Or print it out and save it for a rainy day or a recalcitrant motion.’
21 October 2007
[comics] Travels in Toon Town Part 1 | Part 2 — first two parts of an on-going blog column on the architecture of cities such as Mega City One in comics … ‘Without Mega City One, Judge Dredd [..] would be a rather dull read. Dredd is a tiresome, unemotional leather-clad fascist who beats, shoots, and locks up ‘perps’ in tiny cells called ‘iso-cubes’. His emotional range is minimal, his dedication to upholding the law, unswerving. Yawn. Thank ‘Grud’ then – as Dredd himself might say – for the city and its buildings, its people and robots and the endless freeways and ‘pedways’ that spiral upwards for miles into the sky. Put simply without Mega City One, there would be no story to tell.’
22 October 2007
[funny] Entire Precinct Made Up Of Loose Cannons

‘The officers’ darkest moment reportedly came in November 1992, when they shot and killed three dozen children who darted out of a dark alley holding toy guns. Following the incident, Henderson traveled to the San Pedro, CA marina where all 34 officers docked their houseboats. He found them passed out with bottles of Wild Turkey in their left hands and .44-caliber Magnum handguns in their right.

“I dragged every one of those sorry bastards into the shower myself, brewed 28 gallons of coffee, and made them drink it. By the time I was done, it was 3 a.m. and I was completely exhausted, but I got them back on the right track,” Henderson said.’

23 October 2007
[comics] Partying with the ‘Dickster’ — Peter Bagge meets Dick Cheney.
25 October 2007
[games] Update on the Cover of the 1970’s game Mastermind — includes a recent picture of the couple on the packaging of the game 30 years after the original … ‘Clearly, those two are plotting world domination, and are taking a break from their evil schemes to play a little mind game with you. They will win. It is a foregone conclusion. But you’re happy to be their little plaything, because they are so urbane and suave, and maybe if you play along with them they’ll be nice to you after they take over the world, and MY GOD THEIR TABLE IS SO SHINY.’ [via Blackbeltjones]
[funny] Religious Lolcats: I’m In Ur Ground… Testing Ur Faith. (more…)
26 October 2007
[books] Children’s Books You’ll Never See‘The Magic World Inside the Abandoned Refrigerator’ [via linkbunnies.org]
[twitter] Twitter Feed of LinkMachineGo — if you use Twitter you might find this stripped down feed useful.
27 October 2007
[comics] When did you last see your tutor? — fabulous ‘affectionate recollection’ from Eddie Campbell on Posy Simmonds‘I had a lady friend in 1981, just before the book under discussion appeared, who followed Posy in the Guardian (as she checked in on Feiffer in the Observer Sunday magazine and Claire Bretecher in the Times Sunday magazine whenever those other papers fell within reach) who had no idea what the hell I was talking about when I showed her the cartoon novel I was working upon. She saw no possible connect between what Posy was doing and what I intended. I mention this to show how far outside of comic book culture Posy is and was.’
29 October 2007
[funny] Endcat – part of a much larger archive of funny motivational posters

endcat!

30 October 2007
[comics] Excerpts from Posy Simmonds Comics Journal Interview — she’s interviewed by Paul Gravett. Posy on the genesis of Gemma Bovery: ‘…she was treating her lover in such a disgraceful way and she was surrounded by Prada bags and expensive shoe bags. She looked so bored and so miserable and she just exuded a kind of “Alas, what might have been.” This Italian friend, said, “Oh, look. There’s Madame Bovary.” So, later I said to The Guardian, “All right, it’s this.” And they said, “Fire away.”‘
31 October 2007
[horror] Battle of the bloodsuckers — Who’s the best Dracula – Christopher Lee or Max Schreck? …

I have met Count Dracula. The real one. Some years ago, while researching an article about Transylvania, I was introduced to the charming and erudite man who was heir to the region spoken of in Bram Stoker’s book. Having been exiled to Germany with his family throughout the Ceausescu years, the authentic count had returned to reclaim his legacy, and was in the process of restoring his baronial castle, which nestled in the shadow of the Carpathian mountains.

He recounted how, in 1992, while still fighting to reclaim his birthright, he’d wandered into a cinema showing Francis Ford Coppola’s awkwardly titled Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He watched the perverted version of his heritage on screen with a growing sense of frustration. When Gary Oldman, playing Dracula, introduced himself with the line, “I am Vlad, prince of Szekely”, the real count could contain himself no longer. He stood up and shouted across the auditorium: “No, you are not! I am!”