Digital Library

Thousands of books available online. (via Robot Wisdom)

Not a Good Time

Chris Byron joins the bandwagon and rips on AOL TW after their staggering $54 billion write-off.

The Bachelorette

The (not so) new genre of weddding porn appeals to women's insecurities and plays off their Cinderella Complex. Harmless escapism or unrealistic expectations? (via the null device)

While even recently canceled 'Ally McBeal' sweats and fantasizes in her own disturbing Skeletor way, wedding porn takes all the dirtiness out of romance. Each scenario is meant to get our hearts (but not our parts) fluttering. This isn't about sex, it's about shopping.

Afrotastic

The big hair of the ABA. (via Fark)

Bad News

Francis Boyle, an expert on international law, lays out some pretty heavy accusations. According to him, the common thread between Gulf War illness, Bush's scuttling of the Biological Weapons Convention verification provisions, and the FBI's silence in the Amerithrax investigation is the government covering up its research into biological weapons. (via Robotwisdom)

Finally, the New York Times broke the story. Yes, the United States government is violating the Biological Weapons Convention. The CIA operation Bacchus. We are developing an immune resistant strain of anthrax with DNA genetic engineering. We have developed super weapons grade anthrax in quantities and strengths that have no legitimate defensive purpose at all. We had a bomb factory down there where we are simulating the production of biological agents. It is very clear that we are now back into the business of research and development of biological agents, in clearcut violation of the Biological Weapons Convention and my statute the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act.

Gun Running

The Dutch report which led to the collapse of the government also drew back the curtain on the US' violation of the UN embargo to arm the Bosnians. The reason the CIA and DoD got away with it was because they were also the ones enforcing the blockade. (via Robot Wisdom)

Rare Alignments

Astronomers today discovered one of the rarest events in the known universe: President Bush, environmentalists, and the CATO Institute lined up against corporate welfare. They went on to say the next such alignment may occur sometime at the height of the next election cycle.

Expanding Markets

Maybe now that the Chinese have Viagra they'll stop killing rhinos to get boners. (via FMH)

News From the Front

Robert Young Pelton, who makes a living writing about the world's most dangerous places, was interviewed about being on the bleeding edge of the Afghanistan campaign, hanging with the Green Berets. (via rc3)

Trophy Envy

Ya that's it baby.

Lucas Speaks

An article about George Lucas and his new movie. It's worth reading if you haven't yet and are into Star Wars.

Ramble On

Bruce Sterling delivers a speech (rant) on spam, Bollywood mafia, and the Dell dude. (via Null Device)

Surreality

The Galerie Morpheus includes surreal and science fiction art from artists such as H.R. Giger and Jacek Yerka.

Beast of the Month

The chairman of the FCC, Mike "Mercedes Divide" Powell, is at it again. At a recent speech he essentially called citizens (described here as consumers) too stupid to care about the issue of media concentration. (via Drudge)

Discussing concerns that the proliferation of media giants can stifle the diversity of ideas, Powell said, ''What really is the Disney [or Rupert Murdoch] viewpoint that comes through on their programming? The `Citizen Kane' anxiety ... could be genuine in some instances. But it is very difficult to discern what exactly are these viewpoints that are eking through that we're worried about. ... I think to the average consumer this is too sublime a concept for a lot of them to be agitated by.''

I think it's the views that aren't "eking through" that are the problem. But what do I know? I'm just a consumer and I don't get agitated by sublime concepts. *Yawn* When is Celebrity Boxing on?

Babies can be powerful eye-magnets

An interesting downloadable book about design and layout, Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes, written by one of the former writers for the TV series Dinosaurs.

The Print Ad Principles:
1. Capture the reader’s attention like a stop sign and direct it like a road map.
2. Make an emotional connection before attempting to convey information.
3. Write headlines that offer a reason to read more.
4. Use pictures to attract and convince.
5. If you want people to read your text, make it readable.
6. Test before, measure after.
7. When everyone zigs, it’s time to zag.

Druid Porn

Tree sculptures. (via Gammatron)

Bitterness

This guy is angry.

Our peace-mongering prez
Spent a year dithering on Israel and Palestine, now wants a solution "without delay." Nice statesmanship, stupid too-late indecisive mushmouthed president fucker!

Bands that didn't stay broken up:

Asia
Are you kidding me? Stop fucking around and put those Taco Bell uniforms back on.

The fact that he used the word 'dither' shows that he's an overeducated gasbag with too much time on his hands. Funny stuff. (via Metafilter)

Chronicling the Future

Tim O'Reilly has an article an the future of the internet. It starts out slow (You're kidding, wireless networking and file sharing will be important?) but picks up when he starts talking about web services and making use of the massive amount of data on the net. I've always thought that Amazon has a goldmine of info on buying habits by location, genre, etc. This is a taste of what's to come. (via rc3)

Existential Crunch

A highbrow explanation for why we like nuts and chips from the Nonverbal Dictionary. Other entries include Superball, Tickle, and Eye-blink.

The Mystery of Laughter

While it doesn't answer why, one of the jokes in this article did make me laugh. (via TDG)

Every Breath You Take

gattaca! gattaca!

Tiny specks of moisture emitted from the mouth during speech can provide sufficient material to pinpoint a suspect using new supersensitive DNA techniques. The invisible moisture from breath can be left on telephones or on discarded material used by criminals to mask their faces.

(via NWD)

Still Weighting

What idiot decided that gyms have to carry dumbells in every weight from 5 to upwards of 150 pounds. Outside of Venice beach nobody ever uses anything above 60. Those 120 pounders just sit there, meanwhile everyone is looking for the 25s. They could just scrap one 100 pounder and get 5 20s out of it. No one would miss it.

Bad 80s Cartoons

X-entertainment reviews a My Little Pony cartoon.

I had no idea how violent and borderline masochistic the villains got. The lead villain is some gigantic half-goat creature who enslaves and caresses little ponies, keeps them in bags, and uses magic to turn them into dragon slaves. He also manages to threaten murder at a rate of once per every 3-4 statements.

Doing the Impossible

Somehow David Ronfeldt managed to write an article about NASCAR that's interesting if long. Maybe because he answers the basic question: why the hell does anyone watch this crap. The article ends up being more interesting than watching an actual NASCAR race, which I'll admit is setting the bar pretty low.

In aerodynamically intense stock-car races like the Daytona 500, the drivers form into multi-car draft lines to gain extra speed. A driver who does not enter a draft line (slipstream) will lose. Once in a line, a driver must attract a drafting partner in order to break out and try to get further ahead. Thus the effort to win leads to ever-shifting patterns of cooperation and competition among rivals. This provides a curious laboratory for several social science theories...

Mapping Terror

Some guy with time on his hands decided to put together a chart of the connections in the hijacker's network. (via The Cellar IotD)

Wipe Out

My dreams have come true. I've been looking for Hello Kitty toilet paper (via Gammatron) for the past couple years ever since I first heard that it exists. In one HK store the manager told me it wasn't available here then bragged about how she was able to get a few rolls through a connection like she was talking about scoring coke.

To me, there's just something fascinating about wiping your ass with a cartoon character, especially an ultracute one. No, what I have can't be cured and yes I realize I should have just done a Google search.