June 2010
1 tag
I imagine a giant in metallic armor, leaning on our house, then falling down. No, scratch that: an army of metalclad giants. That’s what the thunder sounds like when lightning strikes right outside your house. I don’t know exactly where, but it sounded like it was right outside, and I was glad I was on the right side of our house walls. We had a thunderstorm Friday that came sneaking...
“In yesterday’s issue, The New York Times did not report on riots in Milan...”
– The New York Times, March 11, 1975. (via)
Don’t you just hate it when you start following a train of thought, an idea, an argument, but due to insufficient data or lack of creativity, you fail to reach any sort of definite conclusion? The dreaded “here’s a half-dozen sparkly rainbow thoughts, and just like the rainbow, when you come to the end of it you’ll discover there’s nothing there, and actually the end...
“What happens if we steal their rackets? If we steal their rackets, the zombies...”
– This is what happens when you’re liveblogging tennis and the match won’t. Ever. Stop. The longest game in the history of the sport started yesterday, continued today and was halted, to be resumed tomorrow, at ten hours played and 59-59 in the final set. If the bloggers who are just...
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, n. →
Collection of imaginary dictionary entries whose principal feature is the disappointment you feel when a description you identify with descends into overwritten poetic mishmash.
Captured by the Norwegians
1958. A Swiss immigrant to the United States publishes his documentary book from his new homeland, Les Américains, to little acclaim. (We all know what happened next with that book.) The same year, an American immigrant to Norway, Robert Robinson, publishes his documentary book from his new homeland, Captured by the Norwegians. Robinson’s book lacks the pessimism and the foreword by Jack...
The SCP Foundation →
Various agencies from around the world operate to maintain human independence from extra-terrestrial, extra-dimensional, and extra-universal threat. In the past humankind has been at the whim of these bizarre artifacts and similar phenomena, but we have now reached a point in history where we can begin to control and contain these defiances of natural law.
I just spent way too much time on this...
Today's Guardian →
Phil Gyford wanted an online newspaper that had less friction, more readability and what he calls “finishability”:
Finally, I wanted finishability. I wanted to be able to read today’s news, know I’d read it all, and that I’m done until tomorrow. Again, this is not too difficult if you’re willing to accept that the contents of the print newspaper is a reasonable solution.
So he built...
Continued experiments in taking folk beliefs literally: consider the idiom or belief that dead people “live on in the memories of those who knew them.” It’s a saying that manages both to be comforting and not to invoke supernaturalism. Metaphorically, it makes perfect sense. But picture this: a foreign organism, a parasite, somehow having distributed itself, hive-mind like, over...
“I have come to define freedom as the maximum tolerable amplitude of the...”
– Erik Naggum.
Finding Nighthawks →
The search for the diner that inspired Nighthawks. Did it ever exist? (via ck/ck)
Manifesto →
How’s your personal brand going? I think mine’s doing okay. I’ve finally reached a point where I have more followers on Tumblr than I have published posts. That must be good, right?
What am I talking about? I’m not a brand. There’s a whole industry that seems to think that 1) they are entitled to making money on the internet, and 2) they are allowed to use any means...
“Watching the bulls fight is almost like watching boxing or wrestling. But with...”
– Korea: where bulls say “fuck this” and bow out of fighting out of existential ennui.
The Doubleton →
Presenting the newest advance in Computer Science: the doubleton design pattern. It’s like the singleton, only one more! Twice as many, twice as good, am I right? (via)
3 tags
33 sub 50
My microfiction project is on life support. It pains me to admit it, but when you haven’t written anything in four months, the project’s probably dead. This will serve as an archive of the fifty-or-fewer-words stories I did write. (Each story/vignette is one paragraph.)
I ordered several bottles of happiness to my door. An unfortunate mishap at the post office switched my bottles with...
Learn something every day: argumentum ad baculum is the fallacy of punching someone in the face until they agree you’re right.
What’s taking so long, Mr. Babbage? →
Why aren’t there any quantum computers yet?
1 tag
“Africa lends herself to the dystopian gloom of failed states, the iron rule of...”
– The Future of African Science Fiction. (I think I can count on one hand the times I’ve linked to a site I first heard about in a dead-tree newspaper. This is one of those links, oddly enough.)
British Petroleum. (Sorry, I mean BP.) They’re bad guys now, you may have heard. Except you won’t hear much about that around here. They’re starting production off our shore, you see. The “new Horvnes supply base” is a half hour walk from my house. BP promises the world, of course. In August, they’re holding a big concert to celebrate how awesome they are. Even...
I started watching Breaking Bad. I have a chemistry exam tomorrow. I could almost convince myself it was relevant preparation.
Anyway, beyond a compelling story, the show has wonderful cinematography. Lots of shots that feel like you could blow them up and they’d fit right into the contemporary photography scene. (In a good way.)
