...is an interesting search term.
There's the odd Photoshop job, or two.... (via)
Uncyclomedia Commons
Refacing Government Tender
I liked emancipation of the zombie presidents featuring, from left: James K. Polk, Richard Nixon, Martin Van Buren and Abraham Lincoln....
...and, of course, Zombie Lincoln on the Moon.
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Zombie Lincoln....
Monday, January 12, 2009
All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy is nothing short of a complete rethinking of what a novel can and should be. It's true that, taken on its own, All Work is plotless. But like the best of Beckett, the lack of forward momentum is precisely the point. If it's nearly impossible to read, let us take a moment to consider how difficult it must have been to write. One is forced to consider the author, heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence. It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power. Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Near Dark
Near Dark is right up there with The Hunger as one of my favorite vampire movies. It certainly is flawed, but I was more than willing to suspend disbelief for the overall effort. Psychopathic cowboy vampires in the 1980s? I'm all over it.
It seems like someone was cherry-picking at the set of Aliens to cast this, with Lance Henriksen (always a favorite), Bill Paxton and Jeanette "Vasquez" Goldstein starring behind two leading characters that are less memorable, but provide the hook that the rest of the overshadowing craziness hangs on. Best of show has to go to Homer, the child-vampire played by Joshua Miller, who also played Keanu Reeves's little brother in River's Edge, another one of my favorite films from the 1980s.
You can watch it on Hulu.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Byrd's Flight to the South Pole (1929)
Men hauling sledge in the frigid Antarctic night, 1929.
Richard E. Byrd Papers, #7809_38.
Conquering the Ice: Byrd's Flight to the South Pole:
The selection of the crew for the expedition was undertaken with careful consideration. In order to meet the goals of the expedition, a variety of men with a variety of skills would be essential. Ultimately, there were 4 pilots, 3 aircraft mechanics, three radiomen, five dog drivers, a doctor, three surveyors, 4 scientists, a tailor, a carpenter, news media experts, a cook and general hands, that totaled 42 men who wintered in Antarctica. In addition, a boy scout was selected prior to the expedition in a national search. Paul Siple was the winning scout, and accompanied not only this expedition, but all of the Byrd’s subsequent Antarctic expeditions. Siple eventually achieved prominence as a scientist in his own right.
The Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program
Richard E. Byrd (1888-1957) led eleven expeditions to the North Pole and Antarctica. His 1947 flight over the Arctic became associated with a "secret diary" that describes a trip into the Hollow Earth. I've read what there is of this diary and felt it to be a fabrication. One can compare this with the online version of his notebook from 1925-27.
I'd love for there to be a world at the center of the Earth; I've read all the stories. I can't buy into the Hollow Earth theory but I think there could be a deep subterranean world inhabited by strange creatures that we would have no conception of. I suspect that they would be far weirder than dinosaurs or cavemen.
related news: Expedition set for 'ghost peaks'
It is perhaps the last great Antarctic expedition - to find an explanation for why there is a great mountain range buried under the White Continent....
"This region is a complete enigma. It's in the middle of the continent. Most mountain ranges are on the edges of continents, and we really can't understand what these mountains are doing in the centre."
Makes me think of this.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
stray bullets
Pirates die strangely after taking Iranian ship A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates. Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died. Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.” (via)
also:
Interview: Matthew Herbert (via)
The International Dialects of English Archive (via)
Carny Lingo (via)
viddy:
Ken Adam talking about the war room set he designed for Dr. Strangelove (via)
Knots - How To Tie A Monkey’s Fist And Heave A Line
Global Air Traffic Simulation (.wmv download; very cool, much better than the YouTube version)
Fridge Monster
blog of the moment: Great Map (always a fun and fascinating journey)
Thursday, August 21, 2008
stray bullets
The Internet's New Shortcut Now, professors Arvind Krishnamurthy of the University of Washington and Richard Yang of Yale say they have a better way to solve broadband providers' woes. Their algorithm, which they call P4P or "local file-sharing," tracks users' locations to find the shortest path across the Internet. The result, they say, should please both sides of the peer-to-peer debate: Users can download files about 20% faster than conventional file-sharing, while cutting the bandwidth requirements by more than a factor of five. Broadband providers are stoked... content providers, not so much, I'm sure.
Australian "hot rocks" offer 26,000 yrs of power Barely one percent of Australia's untapped geothermal energy could produce 26,000 years worth of clean electricity... (via)
Last work of surrealist Marcel Duchamp discovered The last ever art work created by the influential French surrealist Marcel Duchamp has been discovered in an apartment in in northeastern Spain.
Selections From H.P. Lovecraft's Brief Tenure as a Whitman's Sampler Copywriter. Toffee Nugget: Few men dare ask the question "What is toffee, exactly?" All those who have investigated this substance are now either dead or insane. (via)
also:
Advice for writers about research (via)
Who were the Neanderthals?
French Authorities Uncover a Bizarre Serial Killer's Trail
viddy:
Man Ray: "Home Movies"
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
stray bullets
Novelist Neal Stephenson Once Again Proves He's the King of the Worlds Stephenson spends his mornings cloistered in the basement, writing longhand in fountain pen and reworking the pages on a Mac version of the Emacs text editor. This intensity cannot be sustained all day—"It's part of my personality that I have to mess with stuff," he says—so after the writing sessions, he likes to get his hands on something real or hack stuff on the computer. (He's particularly adept at Mathematica, the equation-crunching software of choice for mathematicians and engineers.) For six years, he was an adviser to Jeff Bezos' space-flight startup, Blue Origin. He left amicably in 2006. Last year, he went to work for another Northwest tech icon, Nathan Myhrvold, who heads Intellectual Ventures, an invention factory that churns out patents and prototypes of high-risk, high-reward ideas. Stephenson and two partners spend most afternoons across Lake Washington in the IV lab, a low-slung building with an exotic array of tools and machines to make physical manifestations of the fancies that flow from the big thinkers on call there.
Making an Arguement for Misspelling Most teachers expect to correct their students' spelling mistakes once in a while. But Ken Smith has had enough. The senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University in Buckinghamshire, England, sees so many misspellings in papers submitted by first-year students that he says we'd be better off letting the perpetrators off the hook and doing away with certain spelling rules altogether. Disagree. Lern too spel, dumas.
Music and memory: How the songs we heard growing up shape the story of our lives Matching our intuitions about music, researchers have found that music is an important influence on our memories. We associate songs with emotions, people, and places we've experienced in the past.
Tweaking with Sherlock Holmes I just found this fascinating aside on Sherlock Holmes in a 1973 paper on amphetamine psychosis, suggesting that the cocaine-using Holmes displayed the classic repetitive behaviour often seen in frequent users of dopamine-acting stimulants.
The couple who lived in a mall After Michael Townsend and Adriana Yoto found their skyline blighted by a colossal mall, they protested it in an unusual way -- they moved in.
Macbeth (1040-57) King of Scotland Macbeth lived during brutal times. He defeated Duncan I in 1040 and reigned for seventeen years. His story differs from Shakespeare's play written nearly six centuries later.
also:
How can I survive a night in the Alaskan wilderness?
Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene (via)
List of problems solved by MacGyver (via)
The Olympics with MST3k If I hadn't recorded it, I'd think I'm losing my mind. (don't miss it, MSTies) (via)
Cthuugle The complete HP Lovecraft Search Engine (via)
Musée Patamécanique (via)
viddy:
RIAA Lawsuit Victim Becomes Free Culture Activist
World's Largest Record Collection (it's for sale and quite a bargain at $3 million for 2.5 million records)
Jean-Luc Godard: YouTubed
Monty Python on Public TV in 1975
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 2008
stray bullets
America's Dreamtowns the small towns that offer the best quality of life without metropolitan hassles. 140 towns rated (via)
Snooping into a co-worker's e-mail? You could be arrested News anchor charged with e-mail break-ins shines light on line between a prank and a crime.
also:
Today is Stockhausen Day at the BBC Proms (via)
A Field Guide to Surreal Botany an anthology of fictional plant species that exist beyond the realm of the real... (via)
The (Next) 50 Most Inspiring Travel Quotes Of All Time good one: “One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.” – Alfred North Whitehead
Miskatonic University (apply now) (via)
viddy:
Buckminster Fuller World Game Interview (It gets better after the first few annoying minutes.)
"Don't Talk to the Police" by Professor James Duane (via)
The Real News (for real, no sponsors, not for profit)
3 Minute Wonders are commissioned as a series of four shorts from budding new directors who haven't yet had the opportunity to make a film for broadcast TV.
Futility Closet: Plying the Blue - Phantom ships, as they have been called, have repeatedly been seen by various observers. Mr. Scoresby, in his voyage to Greenland, in 1822, saw an inverted image of a ship in the air, so well defined that he could distinguish by a telescope every sail, the peculiar rig of the ship, and its whole general character, insomuch that he confidently pronounced it to be his father's ship, the Fame, which it afterwards proved to be. – Charles Kingsley, The Boys' and Girls' Book of Science, 1881
Phantom ships, ghost ships, even derelict vessels sailing the oceans rudderless and without a soul aboard have always intrigued and creeped me out to the highest degree.
Ghost Ships
Ghost Ships on Wikipedia
Thursday, July 24, 2008
stray bullets
8 things Chinese people shouldn't ask Olympic tourists Posters displayed on bulletin boards in the neighborhood which includes tourist magnet the Forbidden City, and which will host Olympics boxing events, counsel locals against a wide range of potentially awkward conversation topics with foreigners. (via)
How to Frame the Internet: Attention and the New News Cycle The challenge is designing a news website that encourage immediate and full attention. The Washington Post’s web chats with authors and public figures is a good example of this. The opportunity to communicate directly with a person of prominence cannot be done later, nor can one participate in a chat with only half his attention. I would also point to the book readings and events staged in Second Life, if Second Life didn’t seem so pet rock to me. A smart website would start using video conferencing software to have its writers interact with readers. The trick is not to archive the footage immediately. Make viewers mark in their calendars for it. Make them miss it if they miss it. Some interesting points in this post. However, what often seems to be missing in the internet news cycle is the follow-up. Posts are archived and we can go back to what was missed, but as we all know, with the blivets of stories that keep popping up, we as the internet audience tend to drift off and not come back. I often hope for follow-ups to many items I find, but they rarely materialize. I think many bloggers fear being the one that beats a story to death and therefore don't give it the proper earthing out. I'm sure we could have learned more about George Carlin apart from the hundreds of YouTube videos and quotes from his comedy routines, but after a while, no one will touch the story because everyone has moved on. Our hyper-awareness seems to lead to hyper-abandonment.
Printer Toner and Contemplative Prayer: Interview with LaserMonks.com Monasteries all over the world have been self-supporting for centuries, and the practice of monks running a small business is nothing new. Most of them, however, don’t end up experiencing 700% annual sales growth, selling 30,000 products, and competing with Fortune 500 companies. Instead of baking fruitcakes for the occasional visitor, the monks from Our Lady of Spring Bank Cistercian Abbey sell laser toner and business supplies throughout the United States. They’ve creatively branded themselves as LaserMonks, but they offer more than just a great story. They also help businesses save an average of 40% off printer ink and toner, and in turn, the monks donate all of their profits to charity. Laser Monks website
also:
China Miéville's top 10 weird fiction books Telling.
How to Read a Book (via)
Literature Map Very interesting, but based on what readers read, rather than what writers write. (via)
Portuguese team makes first paper based transistor (via)
MoocherHunter - Detect & Track Rogue Wifi Users
Couple choose to live off the government grid Some things you might not have known about your SSN. (via)
Cyber Clean Sanitize your filthy keyboard and peripherals.
You Are Beautiful Spread the word. (via)
viddy:
Peter Gabriel Video on the state of the music industry Not completely boring, like this sort of stuff can be.
The future of knife crime A knife that is also a gun.
Flashback: The KLF Burn A Million Quid
Camera-equipped micro air vehicle weighs only three grams
Monday, July 21, 2008
Scarecrow
Pumpkinrot Scarecrows:
Every year in Lahaska, Pennsylvania, Peddler's Village hosts their annual scarecrow competition. In 2003, I entered for the first time. I called it PUMPKINROT, and it took second place. I lost to an Egg...
Pumpkinrot
via In Tenebris Scriptus
Thursday, July 17, 2008
stray bullets
Planning smart for your food supply Why store? The world we live in today is fast moving, ever changing and full of surprises. On top of this, there has never been a time when the average family has had less food in their homes than now. A hundred years ago, people generally didn’t go to the store very often. As a rule, America was much more agrarian than it is today, with people growing the majority of the plants and animals they ate. Today, many of us would be at our rope’s end after just a couple of days of not being able to go to the grocery store. (via)
Balloons carried gun away in Red Lobster executive's 'CSI'-like suicide "This was apparently an elaborate attempt to make it look like he was murdered..." (via)
Man claims to know source of 'Phoenix Lights' UFO sighting Dr. James R. Bartzen said he has indisputable proof that the so-called "Phoenix Lights" were a product of secret man-made technology being shielded from the public. (via)
Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren't Allowed to See on Google Maps Most of these are understandable, but William Hurt's home in Paris? What's going on over there? Maybe he complained like the Borings. (via)
also:
Umberto Eco interview (via)
China Miéville interview (via)
Restoring Renaissance Frescoes (via)
Disturbing bound feet photos (via)
factoid: After studying it for 47 days, the New York Museum of Modern Art discovered that the Matisse painting Le Bateau was hanging upside down. (link) (via)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
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