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May 31, 2005
Today's Links
Finally - the identity of "Deep Throat", the whistleblower whose inside info gave Washington Post reporters Woodward & Bernstein the edge they needed to help bring down the presidency of Richard Nixon, has finally been revealed. Former FBI Deputy Chief Mark Felt has owned up. Cool!
Being on diet is a constant challenge to find meals that satisfy my desire for delicious food but also keep to the requirements of the diet. I'm on Weight Watchers - which is a good system for me. I have WW cookbooks, and most of my other cook books have enough nutritional information that I can gauge the recipes' suitability for my diet. Back in the day (1974) when WW was still a 'new thing', they released recipe idea cards as part of their program - and of course, food photography being what it was at the time, and diets being what they were, the choices being offered seem quite alien. But it's the photography that really grabs you.. It doesn't necessarily make you hungry, though. Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974.
On that subject, before I even read down the first page at that site and saw that it was linked from the WW page, I saw the images and thought of James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food - a true classic of online nostalgia repositories, the Gallery collects a plethora of absolutely awful cookbook photography from the 40's, 50's and 60's. The rest of Lilek's site is a marvel, too. Check it out.
Further on the subject of 'food' - here's an amusing little morsel of cinematic confection...
Here's a gallery of images created using POV-Ray tracing. AWESOME! One of my favourites also exists as a QuickTime VR. And here's a forum at CGtalk.com that has a great collection of CG work.
iPod Stories is a site run by a professor in Toronto, researching the impact of consumer technology on the social fabric. Interesting!
Posted by Hamish at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2005
Today's Links
My father has been going through a nostalgia binge for the serials he watched as a kid - Dick Tracy, Captain Marvel, Buck Rogers, etc... Which got me thinking about the 'serials' I watched as a kid on Saturday Morning teevee. A number of them were quite similar (even in relative production quality!) to dad's shows - Wonder Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century ... but two of my real favourites were Shazam! and Isis. Featuring live action and morals spoken to the camera at the end of each episode, both shows were filled with the kind of whiz-bang goodness seemingly telegraphed directly from the pages of a comic book. With the power of the Internet, I was able to find some linky goodness to Shazam and Isis online: Isis, Isis, Shazam!, Shazam!, -- and here's a key to the television schedules of the 70's and 80's. - and another.
Awesome photo essay of the Spaceship graveyard in Baikonur, Kazakhstan - and an article to go with it.
Photography updates:
New pictures of Ethan and Chloe from this past weekend can be seen at their sites: Ethan's Pictures Chloe's Pictures.
Also there's new stuff on my photoblog here.
Posted by Hamish at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2005
Today's Links
Fark.com reports that the Pepsi company is having a competition this summer where one lucky 7-UP purchaser will win a trip into space. [actually a suborbital venture on the first spaceplane developed using the SpaceShipOne design] That's a bit of a step up from the Willy Wonka factory tour - although I doubt the winner will find a golden ticket in the bottle - just a little rubber seal in the cap. Sigh.
I am the proud owner of a Darth Tater - Hasbro's entry in the ironic-Star-Wars-toy department. A group of school children in Seattle were so taken with the little Spud Lord of the Sith that they have assembled a collection of Darth Tater puns. "Luke, I am your farmer"... awesome!
Posted by Hamish at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2005
Today's Links
I posted this rant on Tribe Magazine's bulletin board in response to a fellow who posted an inflammatory message from a small-time producer who was decrying the effect of 'downloading' on his bottom line.
The impact on smaller producers has more to do with the record labels' seemingly undaunted quest to find the perfect product - i.e. one that is marketable quickly and flexibly for significant financial gain, but which can also be dropped at the first sign of drift on the part of the buying public. What this means is that they are focussing on the Britney Spears and Limp Bizkits of the world and dropping up-and-coming musicians and bands like flies when they determine they may take a long time to develop a fan base - i.e. longer than immediately with their first breakout hit. A couple of years back the RIAA decried a drop of something like 25% in revenues for the big five (now four with Sony BMG - BMG just bought Columbia House too, so it's even tighter out there now) ... but they neglected to publicize the fact that they had also released significantly fewer new works by bands - something like 30,000 fewer than the previous year. The drop in revenues has a lot to do with the following:- less variety for the consumer - retailers are offering less music in favour of DVDs and other products which are an easier sell - the full force of the entertainment industry is behind them on this one. Go into an HMV and do a quick assessment of the percentage of shelf space devoted to music, video and other and see what you come out with.-- consumer malaise - negative perception of the music industry as a result of the downloading fiasco
- economic reality - people have been spending less on frivolities like music
- what new music there is, sucks - the music industry is focussing less on talent than it is on marketability. Music has always been 'product' to the labels- which makes sense - they are in business to sell music. But they have lost touch with the responsibility they have as shepherds of art - musicians as a group are artists and as such are typically horrible organizers (right brained) and bad controllers of their own time, craft and lifestyles. Managers and handlers have to care for them in order to 'develop' their careers and market their abilities effectively and creatively while preserving the quality of the art. Once the managers stop managing the music and focus on the performer-as-celebrity only, the music suffers and the long term effect is that the whole industry loses credibility - not only among the listening public but particularly among the artists themselves. Artists see the raw deal they're getting and so choose to stay independant - and suffer for it because they aren't managed properly, so they either drop out of the business or they never go to the next level. It's a vicious circle. If even one major label decided to shift their business model BACK to music-first, it would have a tremendous effect on the industry and the public would take notice. Can you imagine a travelling festival of new talent - sort of like Lolla or Edgefest but all new bands, for a good price, marketed with the full force of a record label... or a properly run music incentive system, or a record store that burns cds for you from a system with ALL the label's music online for a reasonable price? All of this is possible if the labels could get rid of their addiction to quick-fix crack music. I stopped buying big five/four music about five years ago - I only buy Canadian or Independant music now. I'll be the first on the bandwagon if I see a label come back to the music and mean it. Until that time, I will continue to ignore their pap and stupid reliance on big sellers.
This guy has figured out how to use Amazon.com's image processing system (for their book covers, etc) to produce amusing results. Ah the wonders of arbitrary systems. Also, the site seems to be a good resource for finding materials having to do with Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic.
Posted by Hamish at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
Today's Links
Yesterday I mentioned evolution disclaimer stickers being placed on science textbooks - well, at least in that case something is being done about it because a number of concerned parents sued their school district to discontinue the practice - and they won their fight yesterday when a judge ordered the stickers removed.
A labour of love, BBS: The Documentary, has finally been released on DVD and is available for ordering. It's high time the BBS era was looked at seriously. The website behind the man who made the documentary, is a storehouse of BBS nostalgia. Check it out!
More remixed romance novel covers! Ahh...
If you ever have to ship a brain somewhere, the power of the internet provides helpful step-by-step instructions to get that brain where it needs to go!
Posted by Hamish at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2005
More Links
Fresh Patents:
Automatic Grocery Bag Opener - apparently to aid those who have no control over their wrists.
Extraction of Facts from Text - the "Joe Friday" of electronic text scanning.
Cool furniture at www.straightlinedesigns.com - a Vancouver, B.C. company!
Posted by Hamish at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
Today's Links
The afternoon CBC talkshow Here and Now, hosted by the very capable Matt Galloway, is today featuring a story on German "Hobby Indians" - Germans who dress as North American indians. Fascinating. The legit indian community doesn't really know what to think about it - considering that the Germans are proving themselves so good at producing their own accurately designed and implemented clothing and accoutrements.
findarticles.com seems to be a wellspring of hard-to-get magazine articles from the present, recent and not-so-recent past. For instance, here's an article from the May, 1993 issue of OMNI on the 25th anniversary of "2001: A Space Odyssey" - a good read.
In this time when science textbooks are being labelled with warnings of their 'evolutionist' content and the 'leader of the free world' promises to veto stem cell research, it is all the more important for articles like Scientific American's July 2002, "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense" to be reprinted.
ttcrider.ca has a handy PDF guide to where the exits are at each station on the Toronto subway line, so you can plan your trip efficiently.
This guy wants to rid the world of a terrible evil: the dime. Of course, he wants your help in the fight and is willing to take all of your dimes as donations to aid in the fight. Right.
DVS is a form of close-captioning - but for the blind - a separate audio track that accompanies the dialog of a show, describing the action. This blog of a radio station somewhere in the US, includes a 21 megabyte mp3 file of the DVS from the "Rupture" episode of The Simpsons. Quite humorous!
Posted by Hamish at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
Today's Links
Those ads that decry filesharing of movies ("Grips Make Movies", etc..) are a bit cloying at the best of times. Like filesharing is killing the jobs of filmcrews everywhere. This little site has a bunch of parodies that poke a little fun. My favourite is "Fluffers Make Movies"...
The Full Story on the 350kph, 700bph Fulda Maybach Exelero - a car beyond all cars.
Google has created a customizable homepage for users that consolidates many of the various services they offer into one convenient hub. Includes Gmail, news, weather, stock tickers... etc..
Have you tried Sudoku yet? It's a wonderfully challenging game. A 9x9 grid (split in to 9 3x3 cells) - each axis has to have the numbers 1-9 distributed across the grid, vertically as well as horizontally, such that no number is on either axis of a given square more than once. Link goes to a Mac OSX client but there are clients for Windows as well.
Posted by Hamish at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2005
Today's Links
What will they think of next? As I contemplate my son's progression through the standard assortment of toys, games and developmental activities, I look forward to his gaining the extra mobility that a bicycle provides. Now a team at Purdue University have come up with a trike that changes to a bike as the rider gains speed. Cool!
Atomfilms has, or will have soon, an online collection of award-winning Star Wars fan films that were actually screened at Cannes around the release of the third film, which opens today in Toronto. Oh, and Worth1000's having a photoshop context on the subject of Star wars, too.
If you've never thought about joining an online multiplayer game, The Kingdom of Loathing might change your mind.
Imagine if the cops had access to Google Maps back in the Dirty Thirties. Well, it's not the Depression any more but you can find out what the gangsters are up to in Chi-town, down to the intersection, with Google Maps as a backend.
A collection of literary classics available online for free, in PDF format. Nicely laid out, too.
Posted by Hamish at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2005
Today's Links
Today is the 25th Anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption. The MSH Observatory of the US Geological Survey has a really cool series of pictures before during and after - I especially like the one taken in late April 1980, three weeks before the eruption occurred, showing the pressure building visibly on the mountain, as a bulge grow by 1.5 meters a day until it popped in spectacular fashion, blowing 1/3 of the mountain's mass sky high and carpeting the surrounding countryside in a pile of ash.
Not your average news story: Woman on Bus Uses Breast Milk to Douse Amputee Set on Fire By Teenage Thugs
filmcritic.com's list of The All-Time Top 100 Voices in the Movies.
Aside from its aggressive title, Attack of the 50-Foot Fuckers is an entertaining distraction from one's daily routine.
Posted by Hamish at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2005
Today's Links
I'm so happy! My Creative Commies t-shirt arrived yesterday. I've ordered an "individual-i" shirt as well.
For more information about the Creative Commons, go here.
Info about Copyleft (Wikipedia).
The Book of Cool. Cool.
An awesome collection of photographs of an abandoned amusement park.
The Parade of Unfortunate Star Wars Costumes - uncool but strangely beautiful.
Posted by Hamish at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2005
Today's Links
One-Dimensional Tetris. Masterful. I could watch it all day. And judging by the high scores, many people have done just that. They also have an MoMPG (Mono Multiplayer Game).
Remember when Ask Jeeves actually gave answers? Well, someone has decided to reinvent that wheel and came up with BrainBoost, a so-called "Answer Engine"... most of the time it's pretty good at finding what you're asking about although the parser isn't quite perfect. It does seem to have a sense of humour, however... I typed in 'Define irony" and got this:
( a. - ) Made or consisting of iron; partaking of iron; iron; as, irony chains; irony particles. ( a. - ) Resembling iron taste, hardness, or other physical property.
... well played, Brainboost... well played.
Google Maps is already cool. So is Flickr. But now people are starting to layer stuff on top of them and use them together in marvellously useful combinations. Like HousingMaps. Check it out.
Ever wonder what it would be like to ride a bike at the speed of light? Here's a simulator.
Posted by Hamish at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
Today's Links
Need some graph paper, quick? Here's a collection of PDFs of a variety of graph papers for you to print out... Pretty cool! As someone pointed out on Boing Boing, I wish this was around when I was into Dungeons & Dragons...!
Pac-Man turned 25 yesterday. I'm officially old now.
Grocery Store Wars - you have to see it to believe it...
Posted by Hamish at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
Today's Links
GreenHybrid.com is a website devoted to collecting information on the performance of so-called "Hybrid" gas-electric vehicles. "Dependable fuel economy figures are now available at GreenHybrid.com, where hybrid owners have logged over 5,000,000 miles of driving information in real-world conditions. Unlike government tests and individual accounts, the database analyzes thousands of actual experiences to provide true mileage statistics." Read on for the rest.The hot-selling Toyota Prius averages 48 miles per gallon among over 150 cars from across the country, with most drivers achieving between 45 and 51. The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid delivers 30 miles per gallon while Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV averages 28. All hybrid owners are encouraged to post their data for these and other cars on the Internet's largest hybrid mileage database."
CrashBonsai - little trees with little cars crashed into them. And they're available for sale!
Chinese Watermelon Art - they should talk to the Japanese about cubic watermelons.
Posted by Hamish at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
May 09, 2005
Todays Links
A trailer has been released for the upcoming adaption of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Stills here. It looks awesome.
So you want to play online poker? (from Kuro5hin) - a quick primer for those interested in joining the latest craze in gambling. Those of us who have played the game for years find the explosion of interest in poker both amusing and enticing. Online poker is challenging both to newcomers and expert real-life players alike - the inability to 'read' your opponents' faces and play them against themselves levels the playing field... to a point. The most important thing I learned in poker is that timing is everything, and playing the long game is the only way to win over time - meaning that you see your success in the game as a return on your investment over a succession of hundreds of hands, not just one night's win or loss. If you can play for a thousand hands and be 'up' 5-10%, you're ahead of the game. Most people can't make that claim.
Canadian company Bohn & Associates has licensed the "Jack FM" format to a number of stations in the 'States. And it's being trumpeted as "long playlist, no personalities' ... that's how they started out here, too - when Jack (franchised by Rogers here in Canada) moved into Toronto from Vancouver a couple of years ago. And it was terrific - no blab blab, just a really deep playlist (compared to the rest of Toronto's sorry-ass pop stations). But now... it's just like all the rest of them. The music is still a little better, but they have personalities, and a morning 'crew' and they do the same stupid promos as everyone else, same call-in-for-money competitions... Blah blah blah.
Posted by Hamish at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)
May 07, 2005
Today's Links
Modern as vintage/Vintage as modern - Worth1000.com's photoshop contest of the week. Amazing!Posted by Hamish at 08:33 AM
May 06, 2005
Today's Links
Our friends Tanya & Johann opened their resto "Le Petit Dejeuner" last year and it's been getting very good reviews of late - Toronto Life featured them as having some of the best eggs benny in town, and today BlogTO has a rave in their 'cheap eats' piece. torontobrunch.com has a good feature as well. Congrats T&J!
FARK.com's photoshop contest subject of the day: A Happy Mac OS X 'Tiger' Customer.
This man has a lot of time on his hands - an exhaustive account of The History of the Batmobile is the result. Fascinating. I had no idea the vehicle went through so many different inCARnations.
Wikipedia's Lamest Edit-Wars ever. "Occasionally, Wikipedians lose their minds and get into edit wars over the most petty things. This is to document that phenomenon. Please note: edit warring itself is lame. This page is dedicated to edit wars with lame or silly causes, not to exhaustively documenting all the real and contentious edit wars."
A Guide For The Un-Initiated To Buying Guinness In An Irish Pub. "As you near the end of your pint, it is the custom to order another one. It is a well known fact that a bird does not fly on one wing."
Posted by Hamish at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2005
Today's Links
Mainichi News has an article on "What do Japanese kids want to be when they grow up?":
Boys:. . . . . . . . Girls:
1: Baseball Player. . . 1: Restauranteur
2: Soccer Player. . . . 2: Teacher at Daycare/Kinder
3: Scholar. . . . . . . 3: Nurse
4: Carpenter. . . . . . 4: School Teacher
5: Restauranteur. . . . 5: Pet Shop Owner
I have to think those answers would be different in North America.
Fark.com has a photoshop challenge for "What classic video games would look like if they were produced today" - Here's Missile Command:
Wrong on so many levels but ooooh soooo goood...
Posted by Hamish at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2005
Today's Links
RedNOVA reports that NASA is trying to develop artificial gravity for space travel to relieve the effects of weightlessness. And one by one, Arthur C. Clarke's postulations become real.
In the US, the Loews Cineplex theatre chain has announced they will publicize the actual starting times of movies to allow people to decide whether they want to sit through "coming attractions" (ads + more ads + ads for movies with ads in them). I hope this practice makes it up to Canada.
How to make graffiti ... out of moss. This is realllllly coooool, man.
/. reports Tuesday that the owner of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who is also a founder of Red Hat Linux (who knew?) has offered Apple free-use of of the word "Tiger" for the latest iteration of Mac OS X. Apple has been under threat of a lawsuit filed by TigerDirect saying they are infringing on that company's word. Given that The Ti-Cats have been around since 1869, they think they have prior-art on this one. I love it when copyfight battles get turned on their head.
Posted by Hamish at 08:23 AM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2005
Today's Links
Katamari Damacy is an amazing game for the PS2 - in it you play a little guy who rolls around getting stuff stuck to him. The sequel is in previews now and this guy has posted an in-depth look at KD2.
The good folks at DownhillBattle.org have set up "Fort Culture" - a place to collect resources for the copyfight. Articles, links, etc.. It's all there.
The wankers at the Motion Picture Association have teamed with the Boy Scouts in Hong Kong to create a merit badge in Intellectual Property. You might argue that Hong Kong is a good place to start reverse-engineering youngsters to prevent them from going down the dark road of DVD piracy... but do we really need corporate sponsorship of benevolent organizations? Are the Boy Scouts that easily bought and sold? Baden Powell would be ashamed.
Patent of the Week: Chopsticks fix - a holding and manipulation aid: "A chopsticks holding and positioning aid that effectively both assists the user in holding the chopsticks and also stabilizes these sticks into proper orientation, preventing them from crossing over and even creating an effective gentle spring return action but does not interfere with the natural holding techniques of the user."
Posted by Hamish at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2005
Today's Links
Cool! In the anime film "Spirited Away", a young girl and her family happen upon an abandoned amusement park that turns out to be inhabited by citizens of the netherworld. This Japanese website has a really awesome collection of photos of abandoned buildings, parks, etc. from all over Japan.
Here's a terrific collection of pulp-fiction novel art.
Follow-Up: The Americans don't like our government's rejection of the DMCA --- so they're going to 'review' us and press for us to get on board. Michael Geist has some good words on the subject[may be slashdotted].
The Dutch government have proposed a levy on iPods - to the tune of U$4.30 per gigabyte - meaning a 60Gb model would cost an extra U$258 to purchase in Amsterdam. All of that would of course go to the record companies. To which one slashdot user replied:
"1) Smuggle iPods into the Netherlands and trade them for weed.
2) Smuggle weed out of the Netherlands and trade it for iPods
3) ????
4) Profit!"
Posted by Hamish at 07:32 AM | Comments (0)