stray bullets

HIV/AIDS Emerged as Early as 1880s Until now it was thought that HIV-1 Group M, the strain of HIV that causes the most infections worldwide, originated in 1930 in Cameroon. Epidemic levels of AIDS and HIV-1 infections started appearing in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo), around 1960. Findings from the new study, however, suggest that the virus most likely started circulating among humans in sub-Saharan Africa sometime between 1884 and 1924.

John Le Carré: The Madness of Spies The gun was indeed part of me: so much so that I had ceased to notice its presence on my hip. Stooping to address the ball, I was startled by the clang of a heavy metal object striking the tiled floor, and looked around to identify the source. Finally, I saw the Browning lying at my feet, but by then the inn had emptied itself of customers and landlord. I retrieved it, returned it to my waistband, and picked up the briefcase. “Abort,” the A.I.O. ordered, pausing only to finish his beer. Le Carré shares some personal history.

The Secret of How the Titanic Sank New evidence has experts rethinking how the luxury passenger liner sank (via)

A mannequin on a toilet and dry porridge – it's the Turner Prize The Turner Prize, the annual award for artists that never ceases to raise furious debate on what constitutes art and what should be dismissed as nonsense, yesterday proved it was not about to change the habit of a lifetime.

also:
Russian rap video soldier sent to Siberia
The Essays of Francis Bacon
The Speech Accent Archive (audio - very useful for actors) (via)

Snake Charmer

image: b a l w a n t's photostream

Legendary and Mysterious Art of Snake Charming Revealed

stray bullets

Mexico's Cocaine Capital The bullet holes in the safe-house door tell you who's winning Mexico's drug war. The armor-piercing ammunition, fired from the inside by drug traffickers, shredded the 20-gauge steel like small cannonballs; the rounds fired from the outside, by federal police, merely punctured the metal like so much bird shot. After that midnight firefight on May 27--the result of a botched police raid in the desert city of Culiacán in northwestern Mexico--seven cops lay dead. Only one narco gunman died; the rest, at least half a dozen, escaped. For neighbors, the carnage carried an unambiguous message. "I realized," says Victor Rodríguez, a fishmonger and family man, "that the power of the narcos has surpassed the power of my government."

Cyber War and Cyber Terrorism in India India is also suffering from the menaces of cyber war and cyber terrorism. Nobody cares about any these threats in India. Far more citizens were concerned of the Amarnath issue than by potential risks of nuclear conflict, or near-breakdowns in Net and mobile security. China's intensified cyber warfare against India is becoming a serious threat to national security. (via)

India's 'fragrant' rubbish dumps Authorities in the western Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) have been dousing rubbish dumps with perfume to lessen the putrid stench. Loved this: "Segregation of garbage is the solution to reducing stench," he said. (via)

also:
He dreamt up Bond, but did Fleming also create the CIA? (maybe helped) (via)
13 things that do not make sense (via)
A Conversation with Malcolm McDowell (audio)

viddy:
Buzz Aldrin Interview
Jay J. Ames, private investigator with hands of steel
Gordon Bradt's Six Man Clock Kinetic Sculpture
Interview with Douglas Hofstadter (en français)

stray bullets

We've got our wires crossed: The bizarre stories of people whose brains have rewired themselves (don't miss it) Meet the Englishman who emerged from a stroke speaking with a French Accent, (Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare but recognized medical condition) and the man who can taste words.

Cooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart For a long time, we were pretty dumb. Humans did little but make "the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years," he said. Then, only about 150,000 years ago, a different type of spurt happened — our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials, such as bone, and invented many new tools, including needles for beadwork. Responding to, presumably, our first abstract thoughts, we started creating art and maybe even religion.

Is Our Solar System a Rarity in Milky Way? Three Northwestern University researchers have learned that our solar system in which the Earth orbits our sun is the exception in the Milky Way rather than the rule.

A Bridge between Virtual Worlds The first steps to developing virtual-world interoperability are now being tested between Second Life and other independent virtual worlds... I remember hearing a radio interview with one of the founders of Second Life where he claimed that some characters from World of Warcraft found their way into Second Life and started hacking people up. I still can't figure out if he was just bullshitting or not. Maybe not. (via)

Mystery Surrounds Leavenworth's Underground City Some Leavenworth residents have been unknowingly walking around above an underground city, and no one seems to know who created it or why. I'm surprised we haven't heard more about this. (via)

The World’s Six Most Wanted War Criminals
How to Think Like a Genius Thomas Pynchon maintains that genius lives in work rather than talent. (couldn't find the quote, read it years ago) (via)
Jessica Duchen's top 10 literary Gypsies
Excellent post on John Cage (don't miss it if you're a music fan) John Cage died 16 years ago today.
Iain Banks links
Daily Writing Tips (via)
The Prisoner Production Hazard Checklist
Overheard Comments from United Airlines Employees (figures)
The Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites Not quite as "undiscovered" as I had hoped, but there are some interesting items in there. (via)

viddy:
A Day In The Life Of An MC Escher Drawing (silly) (via)
Creepy Mogwai video
The Yodeling Belgian Cowboy (awesome)

stray bullets

The Girl in the window Three years ago the Plant City police found a girl lying in her roach-infested room, naked except for an overflowing diaper. The child was pale and skeletal, communicated only through grunts. She was almost seven years old. The authorities had discovered the rarest of creatures: a feral child, deprived of her humanity by a lack of nurturing. Audio, video and slideshow tell the strange, sad and ultimately hopeful story of Danielle. (via)

Is that keyboard toxic? Warning: Your keyboard could be a danger to you and the environment. Sound preposterous? Then consider this: Some keyboards contain nanosilver, which, because of its antimicrobial properties, is increasingly incorporated into everyday items even though studies have questioned its health and environmental safety.

Superbugs In August, 2000, Dr. Roger Wetherbee, an infectious-disease expert at New York University’s Tisch Hospital, received a disturbing call from the hospital’s microbiology laboratory. At the time, Wetherbee was in charge of handling outbreaks of dangerous microbes in the hospital, and the laboratory had isolated a bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae from a patient in an intensive-care unit. “It was literally resistant to every meaningful antibiotic that we had,” Wetherbee recalled recently. The microbe was sensitive only to a drug called colistin, which had been developed decades earlier and largely abandoned as a systemic treatment, because it can severely damage the kidneys. “So we had this report, and I looked at it and said to myself, ‘My God, this is an organism that basically we can’t treat.’ ”

Microsoft 'degrees of separation' study interpretation challenged "Researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances," a Washington Post article stated. However, one publication, eFluxMedia, suggested the study was "heavily misinterpreted" by the media.

Mother Earth Naked: A Modern Masterpiece Have you ever wondered what our world would look like stripped bare of all plants, soils, water and man-made structures? Well wonder no longer; images of the Earth as never seen before have been unveiled in what is the world’s biggest geological mapping project ever.

An Anarchist in the Hudson Valley: In Conversation: Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey) We have all these knee-jerk phrases that in the sixties sounded like communist revolution, and now are just corpses in the mouths of real estate developers. "Sustainable development"—that means very expensive houses for vaguely ecologically conscious idiots from New York. It has nothing to do with a sustainable economy or permaculture. They talk about agriculture, they get all weepy about it, but they won’t do anything for the family farms because family farms use pesticides and fertilizers, which is a terrible sin in the minds of these people. So they’re perfectly happy to see the old farms close down and build McMansions, as long as they’re green McMansions, of course, with maybe a little solar power so they can boast about how they are almost off the grid. This is just yuppie poseurism. It’s fashionable to be green, but it’s not at all fashionable to wonder about the actual working class and farming people and families that you’re dispossessing. This is a class war situation, and the artists are unfortunately not on the right side of the battle. If we would just honestly look at what function we’re serving in this economy, I’m afraid we would see that we’re basically shills for real estate developers. (via)

also:
Why Does RCMP Refer to Flesh Eating Murderer as “Badger”?
FBI takes library computers without a warrant
On the brains of the assassins of Presidents
Fairy Tale Geometry: Unfolding Buckminster Fuller's Tetrascroll (more) (via)
Meeting with a Remarkable Man: A Talk with Robert Anton Wilson (2003 interview)
When Computers Meld With Our Minds (brief Vernor Vinge interview)
Defining Female Chauvinism (Rethinking feminism, as it is. I'm no expert, but I think she nails it.) (via)
Queen's Guitarist Publishes Astrophysics Thesis The founder of the legendary rock band Queen has completed his doctoral thesis in astrophysics after taking a 30-year break to play some guitar.
MIT students on quest to build $12 computer (no, not $120) (via)
Saturday Night Lost Long-time SNL set builders Stiegelbauer Associates had the treasure trove of pop-Americana that’s been stashed away for years in Building 280, literally jackhammered to bits last month. (Bummer. Did they even try to find a way to preserve it?) (via)
The Mystery of the Bloodied Room A woman is found lying dead on her bed in a house with walls covered in blood. However, she doesn't have a mark on her and neither she, nor the bed, have any blood on them. The cause of her death is still unknown.
My buddy's art car Alan Evil makes the papers. (more art cars)

viddy:
Britain seen from above A new BBC series makes use of satellite technology to create stunning images of Britain from above. Can't wait to see this. They even track phone chatter. (via)
Anthropologist explores heavy metal in Asia, South America and the Middle East
Magnetic stripe card spoofer (using an iPod!)
Bob Godfrey Documentary A short but delightful BBC special (in two parts) about British animation legend Bob Godfrey.

Life is a chair of bullies - Soupy Sales (prev)

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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

stray bullets

Why I'm an illegal downloader My appetite for the more recherché stuff that cinema and DVD distributors ignore has turned me, regretfully, into an outlaw Interesting rationale, but I wouldn't worry too much, they tend to go after people that go for the high profile, mainstream stuff. If you have ever downloaded and used Peer Guardian, you'll certainly know what I'm talking about. (via)

IBM software acts as human memory backup Ever try to remember who you bumped into at the store a few days back? Or exactly what the company president said at the morning meeting? Well, you're not alone. And IBM researchers are working on software that just may help you better recollect all the forgotten pieces of your life. I've always felt that someone would come up with a pair of glasses that would prompt you on the details of the situation around you, help you remember your To Do List or remember birthdays and the names of a customer's kids, but having this ability on your phone or computer is more practical. Think of all the times you would have liked to dial up a conversation when there was a dispute over what was said. This new technology will change the way we live in a measurable way.

Unknown Beatles tape could go for £12,000 A Unique recording made by The Beatles in the 1960s has been unearthed in the attic of a house in Liverpool. (via)

also:
The Awful Truth: Cary Grant on LSD! (not really news, but for those of you who missed it....)
10 SKills You Need to Succeed at Almost Anything (sometimes it feels like our lives are being "hacked" to bits, but I thought this was a good one) (via)
10 Shark-Infested Beaches (via)

viddy:
South Park Imaginationland: The Movie free uncensored directors' cut (via)
An anthropological introduction to YouTube Excellent, entertaining and edifying. (via)

Bloop: The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown. Because the Bloop noise originated near the location of the fictional sunken city of R'lyeh from H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu", the Bloop has been linked to Cthulhu by Lovecraft fans. (via)

Harry Eng the Master Bottle Filler

The Puzzle Museum:

Our venerable curator has gone nearly blind with a magnifying glass but has failed to find any sign of breaks or glue in this plank. It is a One Gallon Bottle and the plank measures about 14 cm x 12.5 cm x 1.8 cm thick.

Even if one could use the key that is loose in the bottom of the bottle, the padlock on the bottom of the plank is too large to fit through the neck of the bottle.

The plank is engraved with Harry's "Think" Logo.

More Eng links here

Abe's ghost

That's Mary Todd Lincoln with the ghost of her husband, as captured by "spirit photographer" William H. Mumler. (more)

More images at The American Museum of Photography

stray bullets

Nukes Are Not the Best Way to Stop an Asteroid Although Schweickart has a great deal of faith in the agency, enough to risk his life piloting their lunar lander, he feels that they issued the misleading statement -- under immense political pressure. It was a nefarious excuse to put nuclear weapons in space.

Adventurer Steve Fossett 'may have faked his own death' "I've been doing this search and rescue for 14 years. Fossett should have been found.... "It's not like we didn't have our eyes open. We found six other planes while we were looking for him. We're pretty good at what we do." (via)

Headline of the Day: Human sperm from dental pulp via mouse testicles

Despite pain, woman believes in better days thanks to 'X-Files' Rock on, Kathy Green. (via)

Her Own Society A new reading of Emily Dickinson.

also:
"Comments on Comments" (a must)
Does everyone have claustrophobia?
Schneier Interviewed by RU Sirius (transcript) (via)
RU Sirius banned from Facebook for using a pseudonym (via)
Tomb reveals ancient trade network (via)
Smithsonian Podcasts (wow) (via)
Medpedia (via) (via)
Twitter me Ishmael Starting today, this Twitter account will post one paragraph from Moby-Dick every hour from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

viddy:
Last.fm + YouTube = music tv goodness (via)
Joel Hodgson's Jollyfilter Test Video proof of concept is sound (via) (via)
Hans Richter - Vormittagsspuk (1928) The nazis destroyed the sound version of this film as "degenerate art".

Of course unmoderated anonymous comments on the internet can be incomprehensibly awful and frustratingly stupid. They can also be heartbreakingly sincere and shatteringly honest. That’s because they’re written by real people, and real people are complicated, messy, and weird. -- Derek Powazek (via) (good one, Guy)