Links to Procrastinate With...

This is just fun!
HEMA

From Cave Paintings to the Internet:
An Annotated Interactive Timeline on the History of Information and Media

IMB Live Piracy Map 2008

Really bizarre flash animations:
NAILS

Video of the Moon transiting the Earth:
Earth from 31 Million Miles Away

The Lego Minifig Timeline

Get Lamp - the teaser trailer for a documentary about the people who created the first text adventure games.

Stuff for a Snowy Day

This is probably the best use of YouTube I've ever seen!
The Time Machine -- Choose Your Own Adventure Video

Best. Tribute. Song. EVAR!
Star Wars

Portrait of Obama only 500 microns wide (and other nifty tiny things!):
Peering into the Micro World

Photographs and media commemorating the bombing of Nagasaki:
Remembering Nagasaki

This is an interesting way to visually convey information:
Worldmapper

The Eyeballing Game

Just A Little Post

It's amazing what ends up in our newspapers! (This is one of my favorite blogs):
Criggo

Breath-taking pictures of the sun!

I'm a child of the 80s, I admit it, these made me laugh:
A Ha - Take On Me: Literal Version
Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels: Literal Version

This is actually really cool:
Carcade lets you play your neighborhood

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

Some of my immense disappointment in Colin Powell and his actions during the first term of the Bush Administration has been alleviated by this speech he gave to Meet the Press. I'm impressed not just by his endorsement of Barack Obama, but by the points he makes about the polarization of this country and the current stance of the Republican party. I find myself regaining some of the respect I once had for him. I think this is a wonderful and important speech.

It's Been So Long...

I don't known why I haven't posted anything in so long, but I have a whole pile of links to share with you!

Science Debate 2008
-- See how Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain answered 14 questions on the state of science and the future of America.

Jesus Christ Quits Christianity After Viewing Republican Platform

Wordle.net -- a site for generating beautiful word clouds from any text.

Unnecessary Knowledge (just hit refresh)

One of my favorite paranoid music videos of all time:
The Chemical Brothers - Believe

A wonderful video for Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down

A wonderful site that collects photography from underground sites all over the world:
City of Ember: Underground

Adam & Jamie from Mythbusters create the Mona Lisa in 80 milliseconds using paint balls. (I want so badly to get a job someday working for these guys!)

Holy crap, this looks fun!
Crazy Mountain Bike Ride

10 Seriously Unusual & Outlandishly Weird Asian Hotels
-- Personally, I'd like to stay at several of them!

From the guys who brought you The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment:
EepyBird's Sticky Note Experiment

This is truly geeky in so many wonderful ways:
Chemical Party

Freestyle Rap Battle Translated

Absolutely Amazing Aerial Photography

Sea Organ -- A Musical Instrument Played by the Sea

And, to conclude...
NINJA CAT!

My Good Deed

The company where I'm working now has had an opening for a database admin since the beginning of summer. I found out about a month and a half ago that one of the temps on my data entry team this summer has many years of experience as a data admin -- and he's an amazing worker! So I encouraged him to throw his name in for the open position. Well -- he got offered the job yesterday! His official first day in the office is Sept. 15. I'm really happy for him, he loves this company, he needs something more reliable than temping, and I'm glad I get to work with him again. It feels good to know I helped make this happen. Yay me!

Here are some links to celebrate:

20 Best Websites to Download Free EBooks

Fantastic and interesting photos of the Beijing Olympics (a couple are NSFW!)

Hurra Torpedo -- Total Eclipse of the Heart
Hurra Torpedo -- All the Things (S)he Said (this is one of my favorites!)
-- I posted these guys a long time ago on my MySpace blog... but it's high time we all revisit them!

The Empire Has Invaded!

Death Star Over San Francisco

Twistori -- An fascinating little app based on Twitter.

Phelps Go Crazy!!!

And here are two links that are completely unrelated to Michael Phelps:

The Periodic Table of Awesoments

Pick a satellite to view Earth

Random Stuff

This is what happens when a thunderstorm hits an erupting volcano.
(More spectacular pics can be seen here.)

Interesting anarchist website. Spend some time browsing.

The 5 Greatest Things Ever Accomplished While High.

Eight Reasons Even The Innocent Shouldn't Talk To The Police.
(It's kind of a long video, but well worth watching.)

What happens when you crap in outer space?
(You'll never look at shooting stars the same way again!)

Amazing views of Jupiter and its moons.

And for those of you who didn't see this posted on Facebook:
Scala sings "Creep" by Radiohead.
(From one of the best music blogs on the net - taking tiger mountain.)

Let's See What's Hiding In My Bag O' Tricks

Universe Sandbox: An Interactive Space Simulator

The Ultra-Condensed Classic Books

Lit 101 Class In Three Lines Or Less
(and, of course, McSweeney's is always a fun read!)

More from Gizmodo and their tour of the Lego Factory:
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Lego
Lego Storage Buildings

The Growth Of Walmart Across America

A Letter From Kurt Vonnegut (written while he was incarcerated in a Nazi POW camp)

Garbage Bag Street Artist

Journey At The Center Of The Earth

Can't. Stop. Laughing!

Imagine the greatest thing in the whole world. Imagine if every little girl got every pony she ever wished for -- only BETTER 'cause ponies can't sing!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Oh Hell Yes!

David Cronenberg has adapted his movie version of The Fly into an opera... with music by Howard Shore. How can this possibly be less than the most brilliant thing ever?

And for those of you who love science and history, it appears that several episodes of James Burke's brilliant series Connections are on YouTube. This show completely altered my view of history. If you've never seen it, it's well worth a look!

Links!

Where the Hell is Matt?
-- Seriously, this guy is my new hero. This is so wonderful in so many ways!

The Neuroscience of Dance.

J.K. Rowling gives an amazing commencement address at Harvard.

The Lego Secret Vault

Photography:
Silent World
Homo Sapiens
London Bananas
Bubbles (Flickr slideshow)

Gallery of SciFi & Fantasy Art

Greatest TV ad EVAR!
(This should have been two posts down.)

An Argument in Favor Of Copyright Law

Amidst all the controversy surrounding Digital Rights Management policies and copy-protection of digital music, and given my own vehement stand opposing all such policies and technologies, I sometimes lose sight of the fact that copyright law was created for very good reasons, and that it accomplishes very good ends.

For example, one of my coworkers this summer currently has a small role in a production of the musical “Ragtime” being put on by the Wilmette Park District, in celebration of their 100th anniversary. I suspect that the Wilmette Park District Board of Directors didn’t exactly know what they were getting into when they decided to do this play this summer; they probably remembered how popular it was a few years ago and thought it would be a big spectacular show that’s fun for the whole family. Anyone who has seen the musical or read the book it’s adapted from knows that this isn’t your regular ol’ fun-time musical. The purpose of this play is to explore the problem of racism and how ragtime music was so effective in combating it and bridging the gap between widely different parts of American society. There’s serious thematic intention here. Of course, like all purposeful explorations of the reality of racism in society, the script for “Ragtime” does feature the occasional use of racial slurs – particularly “nigger”, “kike”, and “mick”. None of these occurrences are gratuitous and all of them serve a necessary purpose. After five weeks of rehearsal, and only three weeks before the show was supposed to open, some members of the Board of Directors announced to the cast they were going to make some changes to the script: specifically, they wanted to remove all uses of the words “nigger” and “kike” from both the dialogue and the lyrics (although I find it very telling that no one on the Board had any objection to the use of the word “mick” – this is the North Shore, after all). The reaction from the cast was immediate and furious. Apart from the censorship and artistic insult, taking out all the references to racism completely undermines the entire point this play trying to make! You can’t talk about a problem without openly acknowledging the reality of the problem. The African-American lead – who is, by all accounts, spectacular in his role! – threatened to walk off the show then and there, and several other central cast members made similar ultimatums over the following days. By the time the Board of Directors made this announcement, they had already written to the publisher requesting permission to make these changes. Two days after they made their announcement, they received the publisher’s response – denying their request and refusing permission to make any changes to the script. Apparently, the publisher of the musical “Ragtime” receives such requests quite frequently, mostly from high schools and community theatres, and they refuse all of them. The authors unilaterally decreed that no one is allowed to change a single word of either the book or lyrics.

[An amusing side note: Rumor has it that someone from the Wilmette Park District Board of Directors wrote directly to E.L. Doctorow, the author of the novel, asking him to step in on their behalf and persuade the publishers of the musical to give permission just this once for them to make changes. While I gotta admire the sheer chutzpah of the act, the day E.L. Doctorow allows anyone to mess with his work is the day you can go buy Icees in Hell.]

This is why copyright law is so important – it’s what protected this production from interference that would have ruined the play. It places sole discretion for making changes to a work in the hands of its creators and keepers and gives them the power to enforce their decisions. Copyright law has become so entangled with sales and marketing, especially in this digital age of P2P networks and file sharing, that we forget that a profitable bottom line had nothing to do with the creation of copyright in the first place. The original intent of copyright law was to prevent plagiarism, to assure that the creator of a work retained exclusive credit for it, and to make sure that no unauthorized or unacknowledged changes could be made to it. The purpose of copyright law is to protect the integrity of creation. It was only as the entertainment industry became a Very Big Money business that the corporations that market and sell artists' work realized that they needed a way to protect their market share, just as the artists needed a way to protect their work. So they shanghaied copyright law to serve purely financial ends and it’s not an entirely natural fit. They had to twist copyright law in order to make it serve the task, and I believe this twisting is the cause of so many of the problems we’re seeing with DRM; they don't originate from anything intrinsic to copyright law itself. At its best, the protection that copyright law offers gives artists the freedom and security to work and create without fear that their creations will be stolen from them. At its worst, it’s been hijacked by a bunch of ridiculous Luddite reactionaries who want to beat the industry down and keep us stuck in a status quo that's already two decades old. I think the solution to the problems that plague the modern realm of digital media isn’t to get rid of traditional copyright law – artists still need the inviolable legal right to own their own work. Rather, we need to redress the backward financial notions still held by the media corporations and bring them kicking and screaming into the future. After all, there’s still plenty of money to be made in music, movies, books, and art… just not in the old ways that they're used to.

[UPDATE -- My coworker got a call from the producer of "Ragtime" this afternoon and was informed that they're canceling the show! One week and one day before their first preview, after seven weeks of rehearsal, after spending more money than they've ever spent on any production before, after boatloads of PR, and the Wilmette Park District is so frightened of saying a few offensive words that they're just going to scrap all of it! And there's no way they can get anything else up in time. It'll be the July 4th weekend of their 100th anniversary summer and they're not going to have anything to offer. Serves 'em right, I guess.]

There Is No Hyperbole In This Post

Awesomest apartment EVAR!

We're living in the least violent time in human history EVAR!
(A wonderful TED talk from Steven Pinker)

Biggest work of art EVAR!
(The artist's website)

The most detailed photographs of Saturn EVAR!
(A retrospective as the Cassini mission nears its 4-year mark)

Time-line of the biggest internet memes EVAR!

Who Says Science Can't Be Funny?

And cute...



And this is just beautiful...

The Music of My Life

Sorry I've been away for awhile. My old computer became non-functional a couple weeks ago and my new computer had trouble getting to me. But it's here now! And it's so beautiful!


Now that my new computer is up and running (and oh so wonderful!) I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time re-organizing my iTunes playlists. This has gotten me thinking about all the music I own and have owned, all the music that I love and that has played such an important role in my life. The music I listen to is one of the fundamental ways that I define myself. I've realized that there are ten albums that literally changed my life when I first heard them. I don’t want to downplay the role that all my music throughout the years has played, but these ten albums are the ones that led me to all the rest. The discoveries I made listening to this music are the keys that unlocked the doors and let music flood into my life.

Without further ado, the ten albums that changed my life – in the order that I first heard them – are:

1) Simon & Garfunkel: Sounds of Silence
2) Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison
-- My Mom listened to Simon & Garfunkel and Johnny Cash all through my childhood (and The Beatles and The Doobie Brothers and The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan and ABBA and Elton John). To this day these are the artists that all others must answer to.
3) Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
-- My first experience with Beethoven came sometime in my grade school days. It was through Beethoven that I first discovered what music could be, how powerful and undiluted. Taken with all the other music I heard growing up, Beethoven gave me my first taste of the limitless variety of music that is possible.
4) Metallica: Master of Puppets
5) Pink Floyd: The Wall
-- I first heard both these albums in 7th grade and until I had, music wasn't a very important part of my life. After hearing these two albums, music became a daily necessity for me. And being a metalhead was the first time in my life that I actually had a social circle I belonged to. Metallica brought me out of my shell and helped me find my way to being a fully social person. I was a pathologically shy child and my sister once told me that in 7th grade I suddenly stopped walking around staring at my shoes, my chin came up and I started looking other people in the eye. It was a change wrought by heavy metal and thus began some of the happiest years of my life. My experience is totally backwards from most metalheads, I know, but what are you gonna do?
6) Jane’s Addiction: Nothing’s Shocking
7) Nirvana: Nevermind
8) Nine Inch Nails: Pretty Hate Machine
9) Duke Ellington’s Orchestra
-- I first heard all these in 10th grade. My eyes were opened and my life was altered forever in ways I can’t describe. It’s as though everything else I’d ever listened to was preparing me to finally hear these albums. I will remember every lyric to every song and every note on all these albums until the day I die.
10) Radiohead: Pablo Honey
-- Radiohead is my favorite band of all time (with Jane’s Addiction in a very close second). They are everything music should be – talented, inventive, intelligent musicians with absolute mastery of their craft making breathtaking, powerful, thought-provoking, untamed music. Need I say more?

(As an 11th album, I’d include anything by The Pixies, but I actually didn’t first hear them until late in high school and so they didn’t have as big an impact on me as maybe they would have if I’d heard them earlier in my life. They've since taken their rightful place as one of the most important and central bands in my personal pantheon of musicians; they are, in my opinion, the single most important and most influential rock band from the 80s to the present day. But while they are important to me now, my life had already been revolutionized by the artists they’d influenced before I had my first taste of them.)

So that’s my list. There have been an uncountable number of other bands and albums that have brought me tremendous joy, grief, release, and wisdom, bands that have challenged me, comforted me, and given me nourishment to grow, as I’m sure there will to continue to be for as long as I’m alive. But these ten albums are the signposts that will forevermore guide me.

Haven't Posted in Awhile

Let's see what's been piling up on my computer...
Three-Dimensional Computer Simulation of a Type 1a Supernova

I never knew sand was so beautiful!

MUTO by Blu
-- Check out all of Blu's work, it's incredible.

Handy Latin Phrases

I guess that's not much for such a long dry spell. Oh well.

OMG Awesomest Thing EVAR!!!!!

WANT!

clicky

In Honor of the 126th Anniversary of the Death of Charles Darwin

Born February 12, 1809 – Died April 19, 1882

The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

Evolution: 24 Myths and Misconceptions

And one non-Darwin thing...

This could be the greatest video game in history:
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
Worlds Collide

They're Made Out of Meat

Wonderful short film adaptation of one of my favorite SF short stories:



Speaking of AWESOME -- This make me want a Wii:
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
(makes me want a Wii... heheheh!)

Kitteh Boxing!

I found this site to be surprisingly compelling (I think it's the imagery):
Dear God

Holy Shit! These are AWESOME! If, ya know, you're a complete and utter geek like me...
Star Wars Re-Visioned
Steam Punk Star Wars
Star Wars 1942

Being a bibliophile and one possessed of a deep and abiding fascination with both history and cryptography, this presents a truly compelling mystery:
The Voynich Manuscript
-- The wiki
-- The Museum of Hoaxes article

This is kind of old but the photography is amazing!
Tree People

Artists interpret their favorite literary figures:
Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!!

Unique

(OK, so it's kinda mean, but it made me laugh!)

This is, in my opinion, one of the most essential short pieces written in recent years on the state of race relations in this country:
The Audacity of Bill Cosby’s Black Conservatism

Stephen King once again hits the nail on the head about violent video games:
Stephen King: Videogame Lunacy

I'm proud to brag that I've heard about 3/4 of the music on this list:
Troubadours From Another Heavenly World

I remember seeing this TV special! I still think some of these would have been bad enough to become glorious:
Unsold SciFi and Fantasy TV Pilots

The "Colbert Bump" Scientifically Established?
(From this wonderfully interesting website.)

For those of you who miss making old fashioned mixtapes, this is for you:
Muxtape

This song -- hell, pretty much everything by this band -- is growing on me. It starts out as generic screaming speed metal... and then gets interesting. I'm still not sure if it's all that good, but at least it's interesting. And how many speed metal bands have a female lead singer who can scream like this?
iwrestledabearonce - "tastes like kevin bacon"

This one's just fun:
Living Dead Girls - "Brains"
(The original is pretty funny in its own right -- and there's a flaming hula hoop [around 3:00].)

teehee

The Worst Thing About Taking a 4-Hour Nap in the Middle of the Day...

... is not being able to get to sleep once night falls. But I've filed my FAFSA and taken care of some bills that I've been putting off and I wrote a preliminary draft of my living will.

Why is the middle of the night always so morbid?

Anyway, here are some links you might enjoy.

For my theatre friends: Redneck Mansion. (Scroll down past the pics and read the blurb to find out what this is for.)

Amazing Pictures of the Space Shuttle Being Prepped.

Russian Nuclear Ice-Breakers. (These pics are spectacular!)

20 Pareidolia and Apparitions.

Somewhat related, the premier website for strange phenomena: Fortean Times Magazine.

The Poetry of Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay.
He's autistic and I find the perspectives in his work to be fascinating. Here are a couple articles about him.

The 101 Most Useful Websites. (Slanted toward British readers but still damn handy!)

Remember when people claimed you could hear satanic messages when you played certain songs backwards? You can listen to the best of them here. And best of all -- he provides the supposed lyrics.

Finally: Truck Spills. (Make sure you take a gander at the whale guts!)

Cute Bunny Approves This Post

For anyone who's ever wondered just how fucked up North Korea really is, watch this series of videos:
The Vice Guide to North Korea

It's a long read but I think well worth it:
Exposure: The Woman Behind the Camera at Abu Ghraib.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I really like this song. And, of course, Bob Hoskins:
Jamie T - Sheila

The World’s Oldest Sound Recordings Played for the First Time

A basic history of rick-rolling:
Taking the Rick

My respect for Rick Astley has just gone up a few notches:
Rick Astley Talks About Rick-Rolling

Latrine Graffiti, Kuwait and Afghanistan
(From "The Walrus", one of my favorite magazines.)

Greatest. Robot. EVAR!!!
Yellow Drum Machine

Happy Easter!

Sorry, can't resist a little sacrilege today! ;-P

Jesus of the Week

Bastard Jesus is with you always (See the originals here.)

To quote my favorite line from Catcher in the Rye: "Jesus would've puked."

Requiescat In Pace

Arthur C. Clarke Dead at 90

He was one of my greatest heroes -- as a writer, as a visionary, as a humanitarian, as a man.

Nightmare Wilford Brimley

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

W. T. F. (Watch these right before you go to bed and have some... interesting... dreams):
Scary Forever
It’s Gonna Be Hot (drug mix) [Give this one a minute...]
Death Metal Dog

This song is amazing!
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip "Thou Shalt Always Kill"

Remember a while back when I posted a link to Lasagna Cat? This is one of the guys who produced it. Turns out he’s created a surprising number of the weird videos on the net that have made me laugh my ass off. Just spend some time browsing:
Neil Cicierega’s YouTube Page
Neil Cicierega’s Home Page
The Song of the Count - Lemon Demon Version --> This is one of his. MAKE SURE YOU WATCH THIS ONE! Is it bad that total desecrations of the pillars of my childhood make me laugh this hard?

Incredible story!
"I Fell in Love with a Female Assassin"

Beautiful work:
Edo-Period Monster Paintings

Mmmmm. Mythic-y:
Encyclopedia Mythica

Could be useful:
What Should I Read Next?