(via Warren Ellis)
A declaration of war that is eery and evocative. “For the good of mankind and for our own enjoyment”
This will make sense only if you’ve seen the leaked internal Tom Cruise Scientology video, one of the more frightening things I’ve seen recently. This is why people bask so comfortably in the warm glow of secular society, zealotry is off putting at best, and at worst, sparks equally intense opposition.
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http://www.flock.com/
I’m a little behind the curve on this but it’s built on firefox and is like a browser built for Web 2.0. (or so it seems.) Just the newsreader alone is worth ditching firefox completely. All my bookmarks and gotten unruly anyway and the last few FF releases have been slower and slower on innovation and performance.
I’ve really got to clean out my browser tabs. I have about 3 times more tabs open then normal because I keep meaning to link to things here and not getting around to it for one reason or another. Yesterday I finished a book and today I spent a long time watching the Macworld Keynote along with the rest of the internet.
mildly weird shit follows:
Letters in folds of skin made with clothespins: here.
(Via Coilhouse)
Art in a few easy steps: 1. tattoo pig 2. kill pig 3. skin pig 4. preserve pig’s skin 5. PROFIT?!?!: here.
(Via Coilhouse I think…)
Letters From Johns: here. An interesting, if unsurprising, site that collects anonymous accounts of men soliciting sex workers. The editor is hoping to also do “Letters from Hookers” but assumes a lack of submissions there means most of the women are too busy working to write emails.
(Via warrenellis.com)
A project by xkcd author to stop repeticious chat in his IRC channel by way of forcing every user to write a sentence unique to the history of the channel. here.
(Via xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe)
USB GPS receiver for 50 dollars here.
(via a search on Amazon)
And finally:
Dark Winter is a net.label dedicated to releasing dark ambient, atmospheric, and unconventional music from around the world. All Dark Winter releases are available for free download in 192kpbs MP3 format.
(Link to the label here)
I downloaded this:
Formication’s Agnosia which I’m really enjoying. Track 1 from that album:
I think it’s an interesting layered piece that changes slowly and subtlety throughout. Regardless of my badly articulated reasons for liking it, it’s appealing nonetheless.
I’ve played some Soul Caliber for Game Cube, I guess it was the 2nd game? Anyway, I hope this game is giving me another reason to eventually find a Wii, and is not a PS3 exclusive title. You’ll see why I am enthused at the end of this trailer.
(Via Penny Arcarde’s take on reconciling the new characters from earlier today.
I laughed until I cried and then almost fell off my chair.
This kind of shit doesn’t even phase me anymore.
(MOAR, something of a meme atm.)
both more or less via the fine people @Whitechapel
GOD I LOVE THE INTERNET.
GOODNIGHT INTERNET.
Link to a web-based keyboard teaching app, tells you how fast you type.
(Via Kottke.org)
I averaged about 35 WPM and topped out around 48 WPM. This is very different than real typing conditions for me since I have what I’m typing right in front of my face, which is I guess a little faster than writing a sentence in my head a little ahead of typing it out into the screen. I tend also to stop writing the sentence in my head if I make a mistake typing and have to back up to fix it. It’s interesting to think about how you do something as rote as typing a thought into the computer. And it’s nice to know I type that fast, they always ask a WPM on job applications.
Edit: I hit 60, but it gets easier when you’re typing full words.
This pretty much sums up some of my thoughts on why I think I love just knowing things.
I’m a sucker for charts’n’graphs.
The only thing better than data is data about data. Data about data is information that, in quantity, becomes knowledge, which is just a short hop away from wisdom. And when wisdom shows up, you know you’re this close to figuring it all out.
As a nerd who erroneously believes that the world is a knowable system, charts’n’graphs further the illusion that I’m one epiphany away from this complete knowledge.
Though I don’t think the whole world is a ‘knowable system’ since creation is too often just going to blow your mind with how elegant it is I think with enough information and enough time to chug away at it and permutate possible outcomes you can make best-possible decisions. Anyway, I’ve got to get back to reading blogs with more consistency. There is a lot of great stuff out there.
As you can tell, my Twitter usage skyrockets with my phone is the only way for me to record things electronically. hopefully my XO will alleviate this problem. (it should arrive by Jan 15th.) I’m already looking into getting a fuller version of Linux running on the thing if the UI proves as heinous as I expect. If the product is as disappointing for me as an end user as some reviews seem to portent I’ll have to look into an Asus EEEPC. expect a gratutious unboxing and review when I get the thing. There is a lot of tinkering that will go down.
(Quote from here via Kottke via Daring Fireball via Rands in Repose.)
This skinny Mac Keyboard with trackball mouse is about the worse keyboard and pointing combination ever. I need to remember to buy a laser mouse one of these days to replace my ancient M$ optical one.