Says it all

"The Republican Party is a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of 'Weekend With Bernie,' handcuffed to a corpse."
(from here)

Can't Stop

Magic Pen Physics

Beat It

This is a trainwreck.

The Bush Legacy

Two recessions.
One terrorist attack, 3000 people dead.
Two wars, lost.
One city, destroyed.

Heckuva job.

The Edge of Life

This site explores just how small life can get and what happens in that fuzzy area between life and pseudolife.

Rate of Change

In just a few years the consensus on two big issues, universal health care, and climate change has completely shifted. It's remarkable how five years ago these two issues were ignored and people raising them ridiculed. Now it's considered a given that both need to be taken on and addressed in a big way. They are also two issues in which the United States is lagging behind the rest of the world and needs to play catch up to compete.

Fun

Cursor*10. (via Metafilter)

No warning

The mysterious deaths of 1,700 people in Cameroon.
(via delicious popular)

Space legos

An animation showing the assembly of the ISS. (via Robotwisdom)

Brick walls

Randy Pausch gives a talk about life and following your dreams.

The story of Oedipus

Homework gone terribly wrong. NSFW (via delicious popular)

Space

Pictures from orbit. (via delicious Popular)

Oil

Who has it and who uses it.

Wisdom

Keep your desire turning back within and be patient. Allow the fulfillment to come to you. Gently resist the temptation to chase your dreams into the world. Pursue them in your heart until they disappear into the Self, and leave them there.

It may take a little self-discipline - be simple, be kind, stay rested. Attend to your own inner health and happiness.

Happiness radiates like a fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others. Do not strain after your needs of life - It is sufficient to be quietly alert and aware of them.

In this way life proceeds more naturally, effortlessly.
Life is here to enjoy.

-Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

iPhone: The Morning After

Engadget has a thorough review of that new phone that came out recently.

On the downside, it's inexplicably missing some basic utilities and features that are standard on current phones (IM, MMS, voice dialing, voice memo, cut and paste, mp3 ringtones etc.). The camera is also several generations behind with no video capabilities, no flash, no digital zoom, or alternate modes. And working with email is cumbersome by all accounts.

On the plus side, the battery life is great.

But seriously, no one is buying this thing for the features, they are buying it for the interface, which definitely lives up to the hype. And most of the flaws will be fixed with the inevitable firmware upgrades, even the frequent crashes.


The never buy a 1st generation product rule seems to be true in this case. This is an ambitious product that will hopefully move the whole industry forward, but at the moment, it's more of a work in progress.

It rocks

Wolfgang's Concert Vault is a set of concerts made available by mondo promotor Bill Graham aka Wolfgang Grajonca that are free to stream. They've got tons of material from Pink Floyd, and Devo to Motley Crue and U2.

Edible structures

3d printing with sugar. (via Metafilter)

Surprising a Grizzly and her cubs

Johan looked up. Jenna was running toward him. She had yelled something, he wasn't sure what. Then he saw it. The open mouth, the tongue, the teeth, the flattened ears. Jenna ran right past him, and it struck him — a flash of fur, two jumps, 400 pounds of lightning.

It was a grizzly, and it had him by his left thigh. His mind started racing — to Jenna, to the trip, to fighting, to escaping. The bear jerked him back and forth like a rag doll, but he remembered no pain, just disbelief. It bit into him again and again, its jaw like a sharp vise stopping at nothing until teeth hit bone. Then came the claws, rising like shiny knife blades, long and stark.

A harrowing story of a bear attack in Montana.

Live from New York

If you were in New York and you wanted to see an episode of Saturday Night Live you could go to the studios and wait in the standby line. But to be one of the first 100 or so who get a ticket you would have to get there on Friday afternoon and spend the night. This is the story of a guy that has done that 539 times.

Future <-> Present

Jan Chipchase's job is even more interesting than his name. One of the hats he wears is as a human behavioral field researcher for Nokia. He spends much of his time traveling around learning about how people use their phones and applying that information to the phones he helps to design. (via Nussbaum on Design)

It keeps going and going...

Can you believe these things are still going after three years? What are the odds that one of them will still be exploring by the time the next rover lands in 2009?

Unsustainable

U.S. Energy Flows (2002). (via Metafilter)

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Michael Pollan on what to eat. (via Metafilter)

Any questions?

This is your spider on drugs. (via Metafilter)

Superbad

James Brown remembered on Fresh Air with interviews with Bootsy and Maceo.

Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance, stop. Move in, stop. Pull out, track right, stop.

High, high resolution panoramas. (via Metafilter)

Random Rant

Today I went to my bank to get quarters (because laundry is expensive) and would you believe that they didn't have any? The clerk looked in the drawers then wandered around the bank out of eyesight and came to tell me that there aren't any. I looked at her blankly.

"You don't... have...any quarters?"

I was confused.

"This is a bank, right?"

"Yes"

Before I could ask another question she told me to wait and went to go ask the manager to get some from the vault. I told her I would wait to the side so she could handle the long line of customers that I had been at the front end of moments before. The manager brought two rolls and I was off to do my laundry but still unsure of what had just transpired.

Croc jumping 101

Outtakes from Live and Let Die. (via Of Interest)

Growing Popularity

Visualizing Diggs in real time in two different ways. (via Businessweek)

Are you some kind of tough guy?

What happens when you become a parody of yourself? Chuck Norris finds God and Chuck Norris Facts. (via Metafilter)