LinkMachineGo

[al.qaeda] Inside Al-Qaeda’s Hard Drive — a look at the files from a computer looted from Al Qaeda after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan … ‘Renovating our computer doesn’t mean buying a new one but making sure that adjustments are made to suit Abdullah’s [bin Laden’s] work. There were many technical problems with the computer.’

[paper] Why I love… Shredding … ‘I refer here not to the squalling style of guitar playing typified by Eddie Van Halen but instead to the unbridled visceral pleasure of slicing unwanted scraps of paper into small mountains of confetti. Elton John has the right idea: one of his homes has a room just for shredding. He knows how satisfying it is seeing an old gas bill grated into a thousand tiny pieces.’

[comics] The Grant Morrison Experience — nice PR site from Vertigo – includes a video interview and a sneak peak of Morrison’s latest comic We3 … [via Barbelith]

[movies] Five Things You Probably Didn’t Notice in The Shining — interesting commentary on Kubrick’s Horror Film … ‘Kubrick deliberately undermines all the most frightening moments in the book. He’s still trying to scare you, but not the way it’s usually done. Jack Torrence is trying to kill his wife with an ax. Isn’t that frightening enough? Isn’t violence terrifying all by itself? Kubrick feels no need to cheat you by not showing what’s on the other side of the door. To Kubrick, Ozzie and Harriet is the ultimate snow job, and a man, woman and child trapped alone together is the most horrifying prospect imaginable.’

[web] Do You IMDB? — profile of the Internet Movie Database. ‘…how does IMDB work? It’s easy to imagine some airplane hangar in a dusty, out-of-the-way desert location, and inside is a sea of desktop computers manned by 20-something Oompa Loompas in T-shirts, jeans and Converse. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.’ [via Sashinka]

[urban.myth] Son of a Gun — another urban myth examined by Snopes … ‘It seems that during the Civil War (May 12, 1863, to be exact), a young Virginia farm girl was standing on her front porch while a battle was raging nearby. A stray bullet first passed through the scrotum of a young Union cavalryman, then lodged in the reproductive tract of the young woman, who thus became pregnant by a man she had not been within 100 feet of! And nine months later she gave birth to a healthy baby!’

[comics] Michael Chabon’s Keynote Speech at the 2004 Eisner Awards … ‘Children did not abandon comics; comics, in their drive to attain respect and artistic accomplishment, abandoned children. And for a long time we as lovers and partisans of comics were afraid, after so many long years of struggle and hard work and incremental gains, to pick up that old jar of greasy kid stuff again, and risk undoing it all. Comics have always been an arriviste art form, and all upstarts are to some degree ashamed of their beginnings. But frankly, I don’t think that’s what’s going on in comics anymore. Now, I think, we have simply lost the habit of telling stories to children. And how sad is that?’

[comics] Doonesbury Goes to War — interview with Garry Trudeau from Rolling Stone Magazine. ‘…I was overwhelmed by some of the letters that came in about B.D. It was so emotional. People wrote that it made them feel they had a personal stake in the war — like someone they knew had been harmed. People were even more astonished when B.D.’s helmet came off. It signified his vulnerability and made it all the more difficult for them to accept. I was talking to a soldier in the hospital, and I said, “I draw this comic strip, and I have this character named B.D. who lost his leg.” The soldier’s eyes widened: “B.D. lost his leg?!” Here’s this mangled, broken hero lying in his bed, and he’s concerned that this character he knows had such a terrible thing happen to him. It was very moving.’

[comics] V for Vendetta Annotations — includes an interesting list of pop culture influences which Alan Moore and David Lloyd drew on whilst creating V for Vendetta [Related: More Moore Annotations]…

‘Orwell. Huxley. Thomas Disch. Judge Dredd. Harlan Ellison’s “Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman.”, “Catman” and “Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World” by the same author. Vincent Price’s Dr. Phibes and Theatre of Blood. David Bowie. The Shadow. Nightraven. Batman. Farenheit 451. The writings of the New Worlds school of science fiction. Max Ernst’s painting “Europe After the Rains.” Thomas Pynchon. The atmosphere of British Second World War films. The Prisoner. Robin Hood. Dick Turpin…’

[blogs] Spyware Warrior — useful blog ‘Waging the war against spyware’.

[lists] List of the Top 10 Fictional Detectives — from Mark Billingham … ‘I first encountered [Sherlock Holmes] through an eccentric maths teacher who would read The Speckled Band and other Conan Doyle adventures to us instead of teaching fractions. He also used to balance chairs on his chin, but that’s another story. I’m still fond of Holmes to this day, especially now that I can see him as the crazed, controlling junkie that he clearly was.’

[london] Odderection Man — mental health problems or performance art? You decide…

Odd Erection Man, Oxford Street, London

[blogs] The Daily Mail Watch — they read the Daily Mail so we don’t have to … ‘Jon & I have realised that we might have to actually shell out some more dosh to the Filthy Rag as some of their webcontent is subscription only.’

[reading] How Many Words-Per-Minute Do You Read? … ‘You read between 350 – 400 words per minute. Well above average reading level. (The average rate is between 200 – 250 words per minute.) It is assumed that you did not skim the words nor fail to understand the meaning of what was read’ [via del.icio.us]

[blogs] The Guardian uses Blogging to Tap into Niche Publishing — Simon Waldman on the Guardian’s plans for blogs. ‘…offering blogs from columnists such as Simon Hoggart or Gary Younge was also one of the things under consideration.’

[comics] Superhero Costume Boots — for the well dressed crime-fighter … ‘Ever see a superhero wearing shabby boots? Not if he’s serious about keeping the world a safe and villain-free place. Our superhero boots are top notch, one piece constructed, Lex Luthor stompers!’

[comics] Morrison’s Big-Time Return To The DCU — Newsarama interview with Morrison regarding two new DC Projects. Morrison On JLA: Classified: ‘Aquaman has no beard and John Stewart is Green Lantern so it’s pretty much set in some kind of current continuity but I’m afraid it’s not the gloomy ‘adult’ world of Sue Dibny’s shredded lycra pants so keep well away if it’s attempted rape you crave. Cannibalism, yes, rape, no. My DCU is a day-glo, non-stop funhouse, where the world is threatened every five minutes and godlike beings clash in the skies like fireworks.’

[blogs] This Isn’t London — lots of amusing made up facts about London… ‘All of London’s dogs are owned by the same company. Amalgamated Canine Industries was founded when the dog population of the city was nationalised under the Attlee government in 1948, and its holdings were leased back to the pooches’ former owners. Since then, this company has, in various forms, regulated all dog activity in the capital.’

[comics] State of the Art — Charlie Higson reviews McSweeney’s 13: The Comics Issue … ‘Why does the novel maintain its exalted status as the pinacle of human achievement? Any idiot can write one: you just need patience and a massive ego. It seems extraordinary, when we are surrounded by so much visual information, when we rely on the visual to tell us so much, and the lines between comics, films, advertising, TV and computers are becoming so blurred, that comics should still be considered trivial in some quarters.’

[comics] ‘Watchmen’ unmasked for Par, Aronofsky — details from Hollywoodreporter.com … ‘”Watchmen,” the seminal DC Comics limited series, has landed at Paramount Pictures. Darren Aronofsky will develop and direct the project, which is being written by David Hayter.’

[windows] Lookout V1.2 — If you use Outlook you need this – fast Google-esque searching of your emails … ”An addin to Outlook to quickly search all of your email, contacts, calendar, and filesystem.’ [via Joel on Software]

[comics] Dave Sim’s Follow-Up to Cerebus … ‘The Collected Dave Sim Letters: Just when you though The Last Day would end it all, scheduled for Spring 2005, is a compilation of Dave’s responses to EVERY letter that he received since 2001 (when Carol West quit). 691 pages (at least in Word). Dave’s been working on these responses, at a rate of 3-4 letters per day, since his post 300 “vacation” ended on January 23, 2004. He’s now working on an INDEX for the volume, using Word’s INDEX function. It took him 4 hours to get through the first 19 pages (of the 691).’ [via Meowwcat’s Cerebus Links]

[politics] Kilroy, the Apricot Jam in the Tapioca Party — nice sketch by David Aaronovitch on Kilroy and UKIP’s first day at the European Parliment in Strasbourg … ‘Kilroy slumped low in his seat, emaciated, well-preserved, brown and scowling, listening to the proceedings through headphones pushed back towards his neck. It was as though Pharaoh Senwosret III had been teleported by mistake from the mummy room at the Cairo Antiquities museum to the dock at the Nuremberg trial.’

[apollo] July 21st 1969: Neil Armstrong – The Awful Truth

‘TRANQUILITY: I abso-fucking-lutely am standing on the surface of the fucking moon. I am talking to you from the goddammed fucking moon. Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket.

HOUSTON: Holy Shit.

TRANQUILITY: Holy mother of fuck. The fucking moon. Over. ‘

[comics] The Fink Brothers – Mutants in Mega City One — a MP3 curiosity from the 80’s – Suggs and Carl from Madness perform a song about Judge Dredd and Mega City One as “The Fink Brothers”. Probably of interest to aging fans of 2000AD only … ‘From Justice Hall to Zappa Block, We patrol the streets around the clock! Judge, Judge, Judge, Judge, Judge, Judge, Judge, Judge Dredd! My God, my brain’s exploding!’

[comics] Every Generation’s Favourite Superhero — profile of Spiderman… ‘For each new generation of teen inadequates, he is the hero-as-nerd, the shy, tongue-tied, non-jock ninny who nevertheless wastes the bad guys and gets into the bra of the top cheerleader. He is always stuck somewhere between 17 and 22. He is the Immortal Teen who, for brief periods, turns into the Urban Ãœbermensch. For the mag-loving kid in the omniplex stalls, he could so easily be one of them. That’s why fans, anoraks and commentators discuss his exploits as if he’s a friend and call him by the matey diminutive “Spidey”. No Batman fan ever dreamt of calling his hero “Batty”.’

[kook] Bobby Fischer’s Pathetic Endgame — 2002 profile on Bobby Fischer’s long downfall … ‘The old Bobby Fischer was back, and more bizarre than ever. This was made eminently clear when Fischer informed tournament officials that he wanted the toilet in his bathroom to rise higher in the air than anyone else’s.’

[bittorrents] UK Nova — BitTorrents for UK TV. [via Haddock]

[comics] Collector Amasses Complete DC Collection … ‘A private collector in the northeastern United States has accomplished the astounding and unprecedented feat of assembling a complete collection of every comic book ever published by DC Comics. For those of you who have trouble visualizing the enormity of the task, that’s over 30,000 individual comic books!’

[cartoons] Useful — All Steve Bell’s recent Editorial Cartoons as an RSS Feed.

[quotes] Sally Emerson’s top 10 books of quotations … ‘One test of excellence when judging a collection of quotations is finding something intriguing every time you open a page. For instance: “Everything goes wrong for a government which is going wrong” – Richard Crossman, Diaries, Dec 1 1986.’

[blog] The Guardian’s New Media Top 10 includes Belle De Jour … ‘And sneaking in at number 10, anonymous call girl blogger Belle de Jour, who sparked a ludicrous media guessing game over her identity that led to a book deal for the author, makes the list as a representative of the millions of online bloggers and the year that blogging went overground.’

[comics] Not Funnies — long NYT article on Graphic Novels … ‘In certain ways, graphic novels are an almost primitive medium and require a huge amount of manual labor: drawing, inking, coloring and lettering, most of it done by hand (though a few artists have begun to experiment with computer drawing). It’s as if a traditional novelist took his printout and then had to copy it over, word by word, like a quill-wielding monk in a medieval monastery. For some graphic novelists, just four or five panels is a good day’s work, and even a modest-size book can take years to complete.’ [thanks Kabir]

[blog] Belle De Jour: Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl — BDJ’s novel has aquired a synopsis over at Amazon: ‘Belle de Jour is the diary of a London call-girl. The author will remain anonymous, but she’s from a nice middle-class family, in her late twenties, writing a phD who writes about her rather unusual job with humour, affection and honesty. This isn’t a salacious catalogue of sexual encounters, rather it’s the unfolding story of her life: the difficulties in juggling her very understanding boyfriend with her profession; the question of what to wear to work; the problems associated with managing pubic topiary and the often hilarious hypocrisies she bears witness to every day. And of course, there’s the odd sexual encounter thrown in for good measure… It’s witty, compelling, educative and oddly moving. Belle is a twenty-first century Moll Flanders who will appeal to women because of her honesty and guts, and to men because she lifts the lid on what call girls are really thinking…’

[comics] Interview with Craig McGill – Grant Morrison’s Biographer … ‘As I mentioned, the book is now about everything in his life – school years, when he dressed as a woman, the drugs, the friends, the fallouts, magic. Everything. Doing it chronologically will make it easier for the incoming reader who is not au fait with Grant’s work and the book will probably run in a very linear sense. I think if I had to sum up one core part of it, it would be honesty. It covers all of his life, but he’s being very blunt with himself and about others. There’s an emotional core to the book, I don’t know if there’s a focus on one part of him, more than any other though.’

[tv] Northmoor — well done Edge of Darkness fan-site … ‘Edge of Darkness is the product of the years 1982 to 1985. These were the days before détente, when born-again Christians and cold-war warriors seemed to be running the United States.’ [via Haddock]

[comics] Grant Morrison: Master & Commander — a huge Popimage interview with Grant Morrison … ‘What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he’s just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time.’

[royalty] Remembrance Di — Diamond Geezer visits the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and Kensington Palace and spots a fantastic placard and poem to the dead Princess … ‘Today you would have been 43, You were so lovely, Why did you have to die, Why, why, why, why?’

[blogs] Random Reality Bites — the Guardian interviews UK Ambulanceman blogger Tom Reynolds … ‘The Londoner’s blog, Random Acts of Reality, charts the ups and downs of his life as an emergency medical technician, or EMT, for the ambulance service. Since he started blogging a year ago, Reynolds has built up a dedicated audience who have been absorbed by his accounts of dealing with knife fights, spurious call-outs and little old ladies grabbing his testicles.’

[web] Group Hug continues to pull me back … Kissing the Stripper and Grandma: ‘…while I was with a stripper, I kissed her a few times. And after showering and brushing, of course, the next person I kissed on the lips was my grandmother, on mothers day.’

[web] Ghosts in the Machines — “What happens to your online self when you die?” – a question most bloggers have probably asked themselves occasionally … ‘The multitudes of LiveJournal communities and Web pages devoted to deceased young people are a testament to how real some of the relationships between online friends can be, and also how persistent online culture has become, even in the way we approach mortality. Pieces of people’s lives become nonphysical totems to their memory and exist indefinitely until the next hard drive wipe or crash.’ [via del.icio.us]

[comics] Women in Refrigerators — a list of female characters in comics who have been “killed, raped, depowered, crippled, turned evil, maimed, tortured, contracted a disease or had other life-derailing tragedies befall her.”

[virus] News from the Lab — a weblog written by the F-Secure Antivirus Research Team … ‘I think we’ve seen more virus writers caught during year 2004 than during last five years combined.’

[politics] NO-ONE! EVER! TELLS ME! WHAT TO! FUCKING! DO! … ‘And then I’m sitting up last night, sucking cherry menthol throat drops and watching the coverage of the European Election, and gazing at the permatanned face of the vile Robert Kilroy Silk as the UKIP see their tally of votes mounting across the country. And I realise that his entire campaign is based on “No-one tells us what to do.” And I realise that it’s people like Billy for whom that message resonates very deeply.’ [via Mo Morgan]

[politics] Another Interview with Boris Johnson — from the Independent … ‘Asked the inevitable question, Mr Johnson dismissed his own chances of becoming the Leader of the Conservative as “about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars”. However, there remain “fans of Boris” who believe that alongside all the bland hopefuls joining the Tory ranks from banks, public relations firms and the media, he would be the people’s choice for leader of the Conservative Party after Michael Howard steps down.’

[mp3] Winamp Unlimited — the weblog for Winamp has a new home … ‘Winamp Unlimited is your #1 source for Winamp news, rumors, forum highlights, and general propoganda. Awesome!’

[web] ‘Nerd Values’ Help Propel Tiny Craigslist Into Classifieds Threat — more on Craigslist and Craig Newmark … Peter Krasilovsky: ‘One thing about Craigslist — it is real thin. That makes it easy and fun to read, easy to maintain. While newspapers have been adding feature after feature to keep up with (job site) Monster.com’s own feature creep, there is Craig with these little text postings, and they do the trick.’

[comics] Batman on Film — latest news and rumors about the Batman films … ‘BATMAN ON FILM is the voice of the Bat-fan as we lobby for the production of the ultimate BATMAN movie. We’ve been doing this since June of 1998…’

[comics] Remixed Spiderman Strips — amusing, nasty, probably NSFW … [via Die Puny Humans]

[books] The Condensed Bill Clinton — Slate reads Clinton’s autobio ‘My Life’ so we don’t have to… ‘Page 197: “I was so exhausted I fell asleep while the stripper was dancing and the goat head was looking up at me.” Look it up for yourself.’

[film] Unfairenheit 9/11 – The lies of Michael Moore — Chris Hitchens on Fahrenheit 9/11 … ‘I have already said that Moore’s film has the staunch courage to mock Bush for his verbal infelicity. Yet it’s much, much braver than that. From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can glean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of American society, the existence of Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex,” and the use of “spin” in the presentation of our politicians. It’s high time someone had the nerve to point this out.’

[web] The Craigslist Phenomenon — profile of Craig Newmark – creator of craigslist … ‘While he was at his first job, as a software programmer for IBM, he enrolled in ballet and jazz dance classes to meet women. He ended up in the hospital with a hernia.’

[tv] Big Brother Gets Therapeutic — interesting essay on Big Brother’s approach to last Thursday’s events … ‘To anyone who has ever been involved in a drinking session that went a bit too far, nothing especially outrageous happened in the house on Thursday morning. The reports say there were ‘death threats’ – well, Jason (the bodybuilding Scot) did threaten to ‘rip the head’ off Marco (the gay one), but I don’t think he was literally going to do it. Yes there were ‘violent confrontations’, if you think that throwing a plastic tray at someone counts as violence. There was also ‘verbal abuse’, some of which was quite funny – especially when Jason told the strange, wiry, helium-voiced Marco, ‘Don’t fucking disrespect me, gimp boy Gollum’. Yet reading today’s reports you’d be forgiven for thinking that all hell broke loose…’

[film] ‘9/11’: Just the facts? — Roger Ebert on Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 … ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Most documentaries, especially the best ones, have an opinion and argue for it. Even those that pretend to be objective reflect the filmmaker’s point of view. Moviegoers should observe the bias, take it into account and decide if the film supports it or not. Michael Moore is a liberal activist. He is the first to say so. He is alarmed by the prospect of a second term for George W. Bush, and made “Fahrenheit 9/11” for the purpose of persuading people to vote against him.’ [Related: Fahrenheit 9/11 Trailer]

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