Understanding the Spime
November 1st, 2006 | researchmaterial
This Is What I Think Of Your “Hallowe’en”
November 1st, 2006 | brainjuice
Leslie Powell found this on Flickr:
links for 2006-10-31
October 31st, 2006 | admin
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“…Six months later, the body of that diver finally surfaced, but not in Santa Rosa. It was discovered, the story claims, in Lake Michigan – more than a thousand miles away – naked, waterlogged and with much of its skin scuffed off…”
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Daifunka Asozan, 32, is a “homeless star,” a performer who proudly brags of having no place of his own, but appears to be getting his 15 minutes now because of his self-proclaimed “hobby” of court-watching.
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Unwanted Japanese babies are being sold for huge prices to rich foreigners and, thanks to a lack of laws, possibly even pedophiles and organ harvesters, according to Josei Jishin (11/7-14).
Light Echo
October 31st, 2006 | researchmaterial
Latest views of the V838 Monocerotis light echo from Hubble:
The unusual variable star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) continues to puzzle astronomers. This previously inconspicuous star underwent an outburst early in 2002, during which it temporarily increased in brightness to become 600 000 times more luminous than our Sun. Light from this sudden eruption is illuminating the interstellar dust surrounding the star, producing the most spectacular ‘light echo’ in the history of astronomy.
As light from the eruption propagates outward into the dust, it is scattered by the dust and travels to the Earth. The scattered light has travelled an extra distance in comparison to light that reaches Earth directly from the stellar outburst. Such a light echo is the optical analogue of the sound echo produced when an Alpine yodel is reflected from the surrounding mountainsides…
ENGINE Block
October 31st, 2006 | comics talk
On THE ENGINE today:
* “We dress up and ransom your children for sugar”: Hallowe’en photos
The Perfect News Story: Mafiya, Mammoths, Corruption, Clones
October 30th, 2006 | researchmaterial
Seriously. Corrupt scientist attempts to buy mammoth cells from the Russian Mafiya:
Disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist Professor Hwang Woo-suk says he spent private donations for research to pay the Russian mafia for mammoth tissues to clone extinct species.
Hwang, once celebrated as a national hero, was indicted in May on charges of fraud and embezzlement after prosecutors said he was the mastermind of a scheme to make it look like his team had produced stem cells through cloning human embryos.
He previously told a Seoul court that he spent part of more than US$1 million in corporate donations for “peripheral activities related to research”.
“Some of the money was spent in contacting the Russia mafia as we tried to clone mammoths,” Hwang told the court during a hearing this week.
“But you can’t say that [on the expense claim] so we expensed it as money for cows for experiment.”
links for 2006-10-30
October 30th, 2006 | admin
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The genetic map shows that nearly 200 mutated genes, most previously unknown, help tumours emerge, grow and spread.
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If I knew CSS, I could probably turn this into an auto-updated “webpage badge”.
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CFS.com, owner of the gay website, Cruising For Sex, has just announced plans to shut down all its websites on election day in a campaign company founder Keith Griffith is calling “Don’t Stroke! Vote!â€
Second Life Sketches
October 29th, 2006 | brainjuice
Things I want from Second Life:
* A networked notecard dispenser. That is, a network of dispenser objects that spit out the same notecard, and that notecard only needs to be updated once at a central point, not individually for every dispenser. A networked notecard dispenser would be the equivalent of, say, going to an ATM/cash machine -like device, pressing a button, and having a daily newspaper spit out of it. So I, on my land, have a dispenser device that spits out Bad Signal or something. All I do is drop a new piece of writing, a new notecard, into that first device. You take a copy of the device and you put it on your land because you love me. So your visitors press a button, and Bad Signal spits out. The device auto-updates with a new notecard each time I drop a new piece in to the first device. Some of your visitors like the idea so much that they take a copy of your device and put it on their land. See how that works? A viral outbreak of an independent networked information system.
* Someone to stand up and say that creating replicas of bland middle-class homes for people to stand awkwardly in and not actually do anything inside is just retarded and a stark and utter waste of a massive digital art installation, rich IM environment and potentially system-altering computing/work/media space. It’s not like you’re going to sleep in that bed. At the very best, you’ll watch an avatar of yourself lay on it and look weird and a bit dead. Stop it now.
links for 2006-10-29
October 29th, 2006 | admin
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Very English, arch, crunching and decadent electro
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“Wetpaint allows you to create free hosted websites, using wiki technology. It describes itself as a combination of “wikis, blogs, and social networks” “
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UK police chiefs are urging the government to make flag-burning a new criminal offence, as part of a drive to crack down on Islamic extremists and others preaching violence and religious hate, the BBC has learned.
Costume Parade Ov Doom
October 28th, 2006 | mobilesignals
I understand that most people are doing their Hallowe’en parties tonight. Hallowe’en isn’t a big deal around here, but I got a new appreciation for the costuming after spending the event in San Francisco a couple of years ago.
Send me photos of your Hallowe’en costumes tonight, to warrene@aol.com. I’ll run my favourite ones here on the site.
links for 2006-10-28
October 28th, 2006 | admin
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On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1; In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have bec
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A 10-minute home movie made by Nazi officers during World War II has been found in a church in rural Devon.
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A Swiss orchestra conductor went on trial again Tuesday for his alleged role in a doomsday cult that lost dozens of members in ritual deaths in France, Switzerland and Canada
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The first known organisms that live totally independently of the sun have been discovered deep in a South African gold mine. The bacteria exist without the benefit of photosynthesis by harvesting the energy of natural radioactivity to create food
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A Detroit man with a history of smashing store windows to grab female mannequins…
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Police have arrested a man who dressed in a gorilla suit and briefly snatched a 5-year-old boy at the B&I Marketplace in Lakewood last summer.