12/23/06

atari 2600 portable!

no frickin way!
way!


here is how it was done.

the principia discordia

the principia discordia
blast from the past like whoa.

GREATER POOP: Are you really serious or what?
MAL-2: Sometimes I take humor seriously. Sometimes I take seriousness humorously. Either way it is irrelevant.

GP: Maybe you are just crazy.
M2: Indeed! But do not reject these teaching as false because I am crazy. The reason that I am crazy is because they are true.

GP: Is Eris true?
M2: Everything is true.
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.

GP: Why do you deal with so many negatives?
M2: To dissolve them.
GP: Will you develop that point?
M2: No.

any robert anton wilson fans in the house? he just started a blog on blogger.
robertantonwilson.blogspot.com

12/22/06

realtime earthquake resources

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weve had a couple nice little 3.7 shakes over the past few days centered in berkeley on the hayward fault. ive felt a ton of minor shakes and shimmies since ive been in san francisco, but few substantial ones yet. pretty wild. its insane, once you start paying attention, just how many little earthquakes are happening every day all over the world.
anyway, if anyone is intersted, heres a link to realtime earthquake info, shakemaps and seismographs.
quake.wr.usgs.gov
wheeeeee!

line rider- urban run

for those of you who havent seen it, line rider is a little online app that allows you to draw a series of ramps and hills for a little man on a little sled to ride down.
try it here- linerider.com, and then you might understand how insanely great this is

continuing on a theme


although hagrid should really be dumbledore.

store wars

join cuke skywalker, obi wan cannoli, tofu d2, c3peanuts, and the rest of the organic rebellion as they battle against darth tater and the dark side of "the farm"....funny, clever and remarkably well done star wars parody about organic foods from a few years ago. definitely a classic for the ages. "search your peelings, cuke." heheheh.

american illustration 20-25 & american photography 17-22 archived in full online

ai-ap.com

this is a huge resource. american illustration and american photography are both juried annuals containing hundreds of examples of work from some of the best professional minds(or hands or eyes) in those fields. i used to spend hours at the library when i was a kid looking at these books, and its great to see them available for free online, to browse through anytime i want.

blue planet- the deep

nature is creepy. really, really creepy. particularly in the deep deep sea. this series explores the freakiest of freaky creatures that live down there. narrated by our old chum david attenborough.
part 1 of 5

pt 2
pt3
pt4
pt 5

12/21/06

edo-period wildlife illustrations


pretty substantial collection of links to book scans featuring all sorts of different wildlife.
link
kind of difficult to navigate unless you know japanese, but all you need to do is click on
this icon-and youll find it.
lifted from boingboing who lifted it from pink tentacle. i dont know who they lifted it from. =]

12/20/06

magnetic bracelet



pretty clever. but thats not all!
this is just one in a full line of magnetic jewelry available from dynomighty.com

triumph of a heart

best bjork video ever.

unfortunate

yeah, call me juvenile, but....so i was reading this article on bbc news about a recent study claiming that circumcision dramatically cuts AIDS infection rates, and about halfway through this penis centric article i hit :

"Dr Kevin De Cock, director of the HIV/Aids department of the World Health Organization...."

oh my. how unfortunate.

santacon 2006

this is a new one to me. how have i not heard about this?
this week, all around the country there are hordes of drunken santa clauses (and a healthy dose of naughty little elves apparently) gathering together and ravaging the countryside (or their
perspective cities).
see for yourself-santacon.com has tons of pics.
it seems the san francisco chapter started their day off at hooters.

aftermath-
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12/19/06

leo laporte straight TRASHES the zune

well. how about that?

dr. octagon environmental p.s.a.


kool kieth, a.k.a. dr. octagon does an environmental public service announcement called trees are dyin.
creative and clever as usual.
link

The Knife-We Share Our Mother's Health

this song and video are dope, although definitely a touch on the creepy side.

photographer michael wolf

this man is one of my favorites. probably most well known for his series "architecture of density" in which he explores pattern through the skycrapers and apartment buildings of hong kong,



his work runs a gamut of styles and genres. i am so impressed with his work, and i heartily encourage anyone with even the slightest interest in photography to go digging through his website. his body of work is just so ridiculously amazing and awesome.

link to his site-photomichaelwolf.com

virtual planetarium

this is a pretty neat little tool. you can change your latitude and longitude to reflect your location, as well as date and time, and compare with the sky above you. or the day you were born. or gaze at the sky your lover sees while theyre sitting on a beach in hawaii. without you. explore the skies and click on the stars for their names and information.
neave planetarium

heres a link to find your latitude and longitude-link

christmas tree poster

this is funny. personally i have so many problems with the whole christmas tree thing, i have never actually had one of my own, not only would it be a total pain in the ass, and a total mess, and expensive, but the main issue as far as i am concerned is the wasteland of dead trees littering the streets of the world in the following weeks of xmas. depresses the hell out of me. this is a cute solution. use it year after year, and takes zero space.


for sale at firebox-link

12/17/06

kinetic sculptures

so i just went digging on you tube trying to find this advertisment i saw some time ago featuring an artist whose work was really interesting. he built these huge sulptures that "walked" on their own, under the influence of the wind. so i searched for "kinetic sculpture", and boy did i hit paydirt. the mans name is theo jansen.

here is the bmw commercial i first saw


and a few more videos of his work






this one is neat, horse sculpture project inspired by jansens work


wow, thank god for youtube, huh?
oh, there are more videos of mr. jansens work available if anyone is interested.

now this is ridiculous

this man, Photobucket - Video and Image Hostingwhose name is oscar brufani, makes a living in buenos aires delivering potato chips, but the wal mart there fired him and refused to allow him to enter the building, because they think he looks like osama bin laden. really.
from the story- "Those North Americans are nuts, Brufani thought to himself. Do they really think bin Laden would spend his time delivering chips to a Wal-Mart store in La Plata?"
link

ummm....ewww.

jones soda releases special holiday pack
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the flavors are-
>turkey and gravy (vegetarian)
>sweet potato
>dinner roll
>english pea
>antacid

i think im going to be sick.

new solar power breakthrough


from the u.s. department of energy website:

New World Record Achieved in Solar Cell Technology
New Solar Cell Breaks the “40 Percent Efficient” Sunlight-to-Electricity Barrier

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner today announced that with DOE funding, a concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance. ... making solar electricity a more cost-competitive and integral part of our nation’s energy mix.
"Reaching this milestone heralds a great achievement for the Department of Energy and for solar energy engineering worldwide,”
Attaining a 40 percent efficient concentrating solar cell means having another technology pathway for producing cost-effective solar electricity. Almost all of today’s solar cell modules do not concentrate sunlight but use only what the sun produces naturally, what researchers call “one sun insolation,” which achieves an efficiency of 12 to 18 percent. However, by using an optical concentrator, sunlight intensity can be increased, squeezing more electricity out of a single solar cell.

UPDATE- so i just wanted to add, in plain english, what this means. the argument against solar power being a viable alternative has always been that it wasnt economically feasible, and the return just wasnt enough to warrant fully investing in solar. that argument has just been squashed, or at least squished. this just goes towards proving that with a little time, and investment of resources and brain power, there is far greater potential to alternative power sources than we presently know.
3 cheers for the greening of science and technology. we may yet find a way to survive ourselves!!1

link to full story