msgbartop
Musings and rants about politics and geekery with a distinct Chicago flavor.
msgbarbottom

21 Nov 08 Net Crap (11/18 - 11/20)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

-- Weather When Posted --

  • Temperature: 23°F;
  • Humidity: 41%;
  • Heat Index: 23°F;
  • Wind Chill: 9°F;
  • Pressure: 30.38 in.;

14 Nov 08 Net Crap (11/14)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

-- Weather When Posted --

  • Temperature: 44°F;
  • Humidity: 70%;
  • Heat Index: 44°F;
  • Wind Chill: 37°F;
  • Pressure: 29.81 in.;

13 Nov 08 Net Crap (11/11 - 11/13)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

09 Nov 08 Net Crap (11/8 - 11/9)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

07 Nov 08 Net Crap (11/3 - 11/7)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

  • No kidding. It's written quite seriously.
  • What? The? Fuck?
  • "It's the clash of genres that you've always wanted in new video game Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ, as poor Little Red has to fight undead versions of classic fairy tale characters in order to save the day. Thankfully, this version of Red was taking more than just food to Granny. How else to explain her heavy artillery? Click through for images of some of the undead favorites that she'll have to face"
  • "The CNN anchors were not really speaking to three-dimensional projected images, but rather empty space, Kreuzer said. The images were simply added to what viewers saw on their screens at home, in much the same way computer-generated special effects are added to movies."
  • "The original 'Rocky Horror' is no great cinematic masterpiece. The sets are cheap, the costumes cheaper, and the effects awful. But you know what it's got heart. Lots of it. And an anarchic glee that doesn't care if you get all the references to 50's sci-fi movies. Nor does it care what particular sexual stripe you prescribe to. It's just fun. As Brad and Janet both attest in the film it's not right 'but isn't it nice.' That's what big name stars and production values can't do."
  • "Enough preamble, then. To wit, the 2008 Candy Hierarchy."
  • "These commemorative stickers mark Barack Obama's historic victory and were designed by groundbreaking artist Shepard Fairey—the same artist who designed the world-famous, iconic 'Hope' poster for Obama. You can get one sticker for free."
  • "Concerning yummy burgers from a grill that's never cleaned — there is a 'restaurant' in Memphis called Dyer's (an appropriate name, you'll see) that has been in business over 75 years. Their specialty is deep fried burgers (just the meat, to be totally clear). No, that's not the killer part (well, yes, but it gets better/much worse). The killer part is that they deep fry the burgers in a big kettle of grease that has NEVER BEEN CHANGED in over 75 YEARS. They just top it off a bit if needed (probably not often, since the grease from the burgers adds to it). They just throw the patties in and they sink — when they're done they rise to the top. I became aware of this a few years back from a newspaper article on them moving from their original location — they were treating 'moving the kettle' like they were shifting King Tut's collection. I can imagine a sample of that grease would contain an array of concentrated carcinogens unequaled by even the most outrageous of toxic waste dumps."
  • "Even the Milky Way has a black hole at its core with a mass of four millions times that of the Sun. Before you start running around in circles and screaming, remember this: 1) it’s a long way off, 26,000 light years (260 quadrillion kilometers), 2) its mass is still very small compared to the 200 billion solar masses of our galaxy, and therefore 3) it can’t really harm us. Unless it starts actively feeding. Which it isn’t. But it might start sometime, if something falls into it. Though we don’t know of anything that can fall into it soon. But we might miss cold gas."
  • "While each of Florida’s 27 electoral delegates represents almost 480,000 eligible voters, each of the three delegates from Wyoming represents only 135,000 eligible voters. That makes a voter casting a presidential ballot in Wyoming three and a half times more influential than a voter in Florida."
  • RCN gave me this universal remote when I got my cable box — and the paperwork seemed to have nothing about "Mode Lock," which was what I was looking for. So if the online version is more thorough, I better bookmark it …

03 Nov 08 Net Crap (11/2 - 11/3)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

02 Nov 08 Net Crap (10/30 - 11/2)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

  • A scrape of the MetaTalk comments database to itemize the various "Metafilter: [Odd Motto]" comments.
  • A scrape of the Metafilter database to itemize all the "Metafilter: [odd motto]" comments.
  • "From car engines to search engines, from cell phones to stem cells, and thousands of subjects in between, HowStuffWorks has it covered. No topic is too big or too small for our expert editorial staff to unmask … or for you to understand. In addition to comprehensive articles, our helpful graphics and informative videos walk you through every topic clearly, simply and objectively. Our premise is simple: Demystify the world and do it in a simple, clear-cut way that anyone can understand. "
  • "News archive search provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. In addition to helping you search, News archive search can automatically create timelines which show selected results from relevant time periods."
  • "There's been no living to be made from short stories in my lifetime. But short fiction endures because it provides a way of introducing writers to new readers, and because there are stories that need to be told at that length. For all these reasons I've decided to open myself to this uncertain future. Starting now, I plan to make all my short fiction and articles available on the web, both in HTML for easy browsing and in typeset PDFs for those who might want to print them. The process of conversion will take a while, but I hope to get to everything eventually, including a number of previously unpublished pieces and even some unsold screenplays."
  • "Music is in these two forms: Full Score, which shows each instrument's individual part, and Piano/guitar/vocal Reduction, an arrangement of the music for only piano and voice parts, with corresponding chord symbols (otherwise known as a Vocal Score). If you're playing this at home, you probably want the reduction." I bookmarked this more for the sheet music, which is kind of cool to look at.
  • "We created DailyLit because we spent hours each day on email but could not find the time to read a book. Now the books come to us by email. Problem solved. The Idea We got the idea for DailyLit after the New York Times serialized a few classic works in special supplements a few summers ago. We wound up reading books that we had always meant to simply by virtue of making them part of our daily routine of reading the newspaper. The only thing we do more consistently than read the paper is read email. Bingo! We put together a first version and began reading 'War of the Worlds' and 'Pride and Prejudice'. We showed it to friends, added more books and features at their request, and presto, DailyLit was born."
  • From Project Gutenberg, scanned in and at this link presented in a Flash reader format that looks like you're actually turning a book page.
  • A fan website for Charlie Kaufman, and this is the subpage containing links to his movies and television scripts.
  • Discussions about various religions and various spiritual beliefs.
  • "Got any good short, silly one-liner jokes? I just wanted to see if there were any fresh ones, as I've picked the few I liked from there already. An example of my current favorite is 'What's red and invisible?' 'No tomatoes.'"
  • "All my faith in God has been obliterated, and the shaky foundations of my philosophy and religion have been torn apart. All the writings of the existentialists and nihilist philosophers seem true to me. My hope is that someone can point me to a book that will offer some sense of meaning in a meaningless world. I don't mean some feel-good novel about the triumph of the human spirit, and I certainly don't mean a religious text."
  • Synopses of any episodes I might have missed on television.
  • All of the articles that are currently on the 43Folders wiki, containing various productivity porn and life hacks.
  • "This wiki is a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction. We dip into the cauldron of story, whistle up a hearty spoonful and splosh it in front of you to devour to your heart's content. Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means 'stereotyped and trite'. In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them."
  • "Mr. von Tetzchner said that Opera‘s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won‘t let the company release it because it competes with Apple‘s own Safari browser." Apple's beginning to act like Microsoft. Booo.
  • "Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents."
  • Come on, you're not really THAT surprised, right?
  • "A smelly rotten-egg gas in farts controls blood pressure in mice, a new study finds. The unpleasant aroma of the gas, called hydrogen sulfide (H2S), can be a little too familiar, as it is expelled by bacteria living in the human colon and eventually makes its way, well, out. The new research found that cells lining mice‘s blood vessels naturally make the gas and this action can help keep the rodents‘ blood pressure low by relaxing the blood vessels to prevent hypertension (high blood pressure)."

30 Oct 08 Net Crap (10/29 - 10/30)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

24 Oct 08 Net Crap (10/21 - 10/24)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

21 Oct 08 Net Crap (10/20)