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September 30, 2005
Bill Gates is worth $51 Billion. Apparently a good haircut costs $51 Billion and fifty cents.
This guy has made a 'family-rated' trailer for Stephen King's The Shining.
An applet for displaying animations of n-body orbits (planets)... Kinda neat.
The 100 Most Often Mispelled Misspelled Words in English.
Posted by Hamish at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2005
(click to enlarge) My photography
(click to enlarge)
My photography was featured this morning (between 7 and 8 am) on photosig, the photographer's critiquing group I joined a few months ago... psig is a great resource - 50,000 photographers all sharing images and providing advice and counsel on eachother's work.
Posted by Hamish at 09:52 AM
September 23, 2005
A page with lots of
Jebus, this guy has a lot of mint-in-the-box action figures..
Posted by Hamish at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005
Lovely Rita Meter Maid
The Oil Drum is a terrific resource of information surrounding Hurricane Rita. It's all there for weather and peak-oil nuts.
Posted by Hamish at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005
Signage
Is it too much to ask that a company providing instruction in the English language be able to spell properly? Or at least choose a sign rental company who can?
Posted by Hamish at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)
Sometimes my arms bend back
This is the best new culinary invention since the Spork! A Pizza Fork with integrated pizza slicer.
A cool collection of high-speed photographs of splashing liquids.. "Liquid Sculpture".
A page devoted to the marketing genius that was Elephant Memory Systems - in the early eighties, it was a good thing to use Elephant diskettes in your computer - why? Because Elephant Never Forgets.
A photo essay on Heritage USA, the theme park that was once the centerpiece of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Praise The Lord television ministry. Awesome.
For the past few years, Marc Merlin has been exhaustively photographing his experiences at Burning Man - this year's collection is no exception - over 2,800 images.. link to the photo essay: here.
Posted by Hamish at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2005
Blow the man doon
Yar, today be Talk Like A Pirate Day. Avast me hearties...
Sorry but this is just too weird not to post: The Moscow Cat Circus is coming to Toronto on November 5-6. First of all, I didn't know it was even possible to train cats to do anything more than look at you when you call their name, and secondly, a whole circus of them? The organizers of this must be insane by now. Be sure to click on 'animated version to see the full horror that is their website. Buy your tickets now.
Posted by Hamish at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2005
Here's a good quote: "CNN's
Here's a good quote:
"CNN's Jack Cafferty made an interesting point earlier today. When Terri Schiavo's tube was pulled, congress got together on a weekend, at night, faster than an ostrich with a rocket shoved up its ass. Apparently that was considered an emergency. But thousands of black people living in poverty stranded in a disaster zone? They'll convene on Friday."--
Now THIS is funny.. Dubya apparenntly isn't allowed to take a pee without asking his minder, in this case Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. He wrote this note to her while sitting at the Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the UN on Tuesday. You just can't make this stuff up. I'm surprised he didn't put up his hand and ask for a hall pass.
Gillette, not to be outdone by the Schick Quattro 4-bladed razor, has shot back by announcing a FIVE-blade razor. This is getting out of hand. Any more than three blades and your hairs get caught and gum up the razor. Sheesh. The best part about this is that the Onion AND MAD magazine (in 1979!) nailed this one long before the product actually got developed. And they thought they were joking!
The Guardian (UK) has an article with an analysis of the contents of Diet Coke.
Posted by Hamish at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2005
When the Levee Breaks...
When the Levee Breaks
- by Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie (1929) - also recorded by Led Zeppelin - the song was originally about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Lord, mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home,
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down south
They go no work to do,
If you don’t know about chicago.
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin’ ’bout me baby and my happy home.
Going, go’n’ to chicago,
Go’n’ to chicago,
Sorry but I can’t take you.
Going down, going down now, going down.
Some interesting parallels between the Mississippi Flood and now:
"Great Mississippi Flood From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.Not much has changed between then and now, one might say...This article is about the Great Mississippi Flood in 1927.
The Great Mississippi Flood in 1927 was the most destructive river flood in United States history.
In the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 the Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles or about 16,570,627 acres (70,000 km ). The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet (10 m). The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states.The flood affected Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee with Arkansas being hardest hit with 13% of its territory covered by floodwaters.The flood began when heavy rains pounded the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September the Mississippi's tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On New Year's day of 1927 the Cumberland River at Nashville topped levees at 56.2 feet (17 m).
By May of 1927 the Mississippi River below Memphis, Tennessee was a watery oval up to 60 miles wide (100 km).
The flood propelled Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, in charge of flood relief operations, into the national spotlight and set the stage for his election to the Presidency. It also helped Huey Long be elected Louisiana Governor in 1928.
As the flood approached New Orleans, Louisiana 30 tons of dynamite were set off on the levee at Caernarvon, Louisiana and sent 250,000 ft /s (7,000 m /s) of water pouring through. This prevented New Orleans from experiencing serious damage but destroyed much of the marsh below the city and flooded all of St. Bernard Parish. As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the dynamiting, made it impossible for flood waters to seriously threaten the city.
By August 1927 the flood subsided. During the disaster 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved to 154 relief camps. Over 13,000 refugees near Greenville, Mississippi were gathered from area farms and evacuated to the crest of an unbroken levee, and stranded there for days without food or clean water, while boats arrived to evacuate white women and children. Many African-Americans were detained and forced to labor at gunpoint during flood relief efforts.
Several reports on the poor situation in the refugee camps, including one by the Colored Advisory Commission by Robert Russa Moton, were kept out of the media at the request of Herbert Hoover, with the promise of further reforms for blacks after the presidential election. When he failed to keep the promise, Moton and other influential African-Americans helped to shift the allegiance of black Americans from the Republican party to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats.
The aftermath of the flood was one factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities. The flood resulted in a great cultural output as well, inspiring a great deal of folklore and folk music. Charlie Patton, Bessie Smith and many other Delta blues musicians wrote numerous songs about the flood; Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" was also based on the events of the flood. Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks" was reworked by Led Zeppelin, and become one of that group's most famous songs."
Posted by Hamish at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)
Home Made Baloney Recipe
Link to a gallery of over 200 images documenting one fellow's 5-day journey through the first days in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina rolled through. Riveting.
Jacob Appelbaum has been blogging his experiences in New Orleans - some of the images and text are quite graphic (dead bodies).
The boys at ars.technica take a brand new black iPod nano and attempt to destroy it repeatedly, and when they succeed (finally) in causing it to stop playing, they take it apart and perform an autopsy.
Worth1000.com Photoshop Contest: If Goths Ruled the World
Posted by Hamish at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2005
the blame game
Diesel Sweeties has a terrific 'toon today with slogans for (almost) all 50 United States. My favourite is "Main: The Raisin to Canada's Grape."
A good collection of clips of the US Media 'getting it' finally.
Posted by Hamish at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2005
The US media are finally
The US media are finally starting to get the idea about the Bush regime and how disasterous it has been for the US.
The NYT's Thomas L. Friedman on Osama and Katrina.
Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) on The "city" of Louisiana.
BoingBoing has an incredible report from a fellow who works for an environmental cleanup services company on conditions in the New Orleans area:
"My company cleans up waste industrial gas cylinders and specialty chemicals. As such we are in contact with the EPA regularly and often work for the government. As you might imagine, there is expected to be a large number of cylinders recovered from Katrina, and many will probably be in bad shape, or even unknowns, which can present hazard. Today a consultant who works with us and the EPA came back from the Gulf region. Here are some of the things that he had to report:* He said that the 30 elderly who died in the nursing home were simply forgotten. They were supposed to be rescued but someone dropped the ball and they died.
* There are now 130,000 people working in the Gulf region, including 60,000 National Guard. Conditions for these workers, especially the contractors, are extremely hard. Many are sleeping in their cars and have to supply their own food and water. There is as yet no infrastructure in place to support this group. 80% of these people have terrible diarrhea and some have been hospitalized.
* Under Homeland Security, FEMA is supposed to be in charge, but they have been marginalized due to their obvious screw ups. The National Guard is now in charge in the region and they have no experience in these matters. This is aggravating a bad situation.
* The plan going forward for New Orleans is to demolish all the houses and burn them. There is nowhere to bury the waste in the region so they will incinerate it all. Before that can go on, they will have to search every house for chemical hazards.
* They have found large numbers of seals in and around the houses in NOLA and no one is clear where they came from. An aquarium?* They are shooting hundreds of dogs a day to protect search and rescue workers. The Humane Society shelters in the region have over 4000 animals.
* The entire Gulfport region is blocked by National Guard and only authorized contractors can get in. An RV campground has grown up outside the roadblock of 80 or more contractors hoping to get a piece of the action. These people have signs outside saying, "Mold Expert," "Asbestos Contractor," etc. They are having cookouts at their RVs just to try to get people to come and talk to them.
* Cell phone towers are on their way from Germany to get the communication infrastructure back in place. The EPA ordered 40 satellite phones to get their people in contact. Those phones have arrived, but no one ordered SIM cards and these phones are currently useless.
* This contractor has been organizing reverse osmosis (RO) water purification units from all over the country since last Tuesday. He has over 100 units of various sizes available to move into the region, but no one will give the go ahead. No one will sign their name to a piece of paper for fear recriminations later. He says that over 80 million pint bottles of water have been purchased at $0.75 each. The RO units can produce a gallon of water from contaminated water for $0.01 and they can produce thousands of gallons a day. Two are staged near the zone and these alone can produce 250,000 gallons per day. The Army has RO units, but every functional one, and every operator trained to use them, is in Iraq or Afghanistan.
* The Navy ship Bataan, which has been widely reported to be available for producing water, can only do desalination, but cannot handle contaminated water.
* All of the Army's good gear, including vehicles and generators are overseas. Humvees and other vehicles in the Gulf region are breaking down frequently.Certainly I cannot attest to the absolute reliability of all this information, but it is from a reliable source who has been involved with EPA response to hazardous situations for 20 years.
He confirms what everyone else has already said: the clusterfuck down there is beyond all imagining."
--
The Modern Rules of Advertising - from BBC News. It's so true.
Posted by Hamish at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2005
establish his humanity
California Legislature Approves Same-Sex Marriage. Recasting the definition of marriage as between "two persons." About time.
Woulda Coulda Shoulda - United States of Shame (requires freereg login) - a scathing op-ed piece from the NYT's Maureen Dowd... "W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer."
How I failed the Turing Test - One man fails to establish his humanity in an ever-more technological world.
Posted by Hamish at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)