so petty

Tom Petty Is Pissed. And he is right. Great article on his beef with society and the music industry.

woooo

This site is pretty fun. Paint by numbers! Haven't you always wanted to create your own mark Rothko?

love this

An update on the Sokol incident. Two brothers apparently received PhDs for spouting nonsense at Bourgogne University. The article is here. The ivory towers are showing a little yellow around the edges..

what?

This bogus research paper by this guy, Alan Sokol, got into this academic journal, Social Text in the mid 1990s. In it he attempts to prove that "physical reality ... is at bottom a social and linguistic construct." Ha! A hilarious and illuminating story of the power of obfuscation.

Work v Prison

A forward from Kelly:

> Just in case you ever got the two mixed up, this should make things a bit clearer:
>
> IN PRISON...you spend the majority of your time in an 8X10 cell.
>
> AT WORK... you spend the majority of your time in a 6X8 cubicle.
>
> IN PRISON...you get three meals a day.
>
> AT WORK...you only get a break for one meal and you pay for it.
>
> IN PRISON...you get time off for good behavior.
>
> AT WORK...you get more work for good behavior.
>
> IN PRISON...the guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
>
> AT WORK...you must carry around a security card and open all the doors
>
> for yourself.
>
> IN PRISON...you can watch TV and play games.
>
> AT WORK...you get fired for watching TV and playing games.
>
> IN PRISON...you get your own toilet.
>
> AT WORK...you have to share with some idiot who pees on the seat.
>
> IN PRISON...they allow your family and friends to visit.
>
> AT WORK...you can't even speak to your family.
>
> IN PRISON...all expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required.
>
> AT WORK...you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they
>
> deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.
>
> IN PRISON...you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out.
>
> AT WORK...you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside
bars.
>
> IN PRISON...you must deal with sadistic wardens.
>
> AT WORK...they are called managers.

Icannot

Who should run the Internet? The body that manages a key aspect of the internet, Icann, has failed and should be scrapped, argues technology consultant Bill Thompson. Interesting info on just how in the hell the Internet works.

eARTh

The Storm King Art Center celebrates landscape sculptures, those huge things people do in large fields that few people ever see -- until now. Some really good discussion of the relationship between ourselves and the landscape we inhabit, as well as the aesthetics of landscape.

pure genius

This guy rocks. In 1982 he tied 45 six-foot weather balloons to a lawn chair and shot up into the sky to 16,000 feet, was spotted by Delta Airlines jetliner pilots and eventually shot the balloons with a BB gun until he descended to earth near San Pedro, Calif., unharmed. The F.A.A. cited him for four violations of the Federal Aviation Act, including operating a "civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an airworthiness certificate." I love it.

unknown..

What the hell is this? Some weird creature found in Chile. Article is translated through babelfish.

lovely

Beautiful images from the Galileo Project can be found here. Galileo has been in space for 13 years taking thousands of photos and readings, but it is time he left us. On November 4th, the craft will plunge into Jupiter, depleted of fuel, film and functionality. Read the obit here. Where are you, Rocket Guy?

intense

I want a bar of this. Caffeinated soap seems to be the latest in techno geek/silicon valley accoutrement. Now you can start your buzz even sooner in the day! And if the soap isn't enough, you could just take the shower using caffeinated water...

only ten?

The Democratic Underground has identified The Top Ten Conservative Idiots. At last?

nurture/nature

This is a good article on the latest work by Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whom I find incredible. This is what he does. Check it out.

out with the old

A liberal argument for a regime change in Iraq, by Salman Rushdie here. Wonderfully written. Via (viva!) metafilter.

whoaa

Since college and all that implies I have been a fan of recreational mathematics. This site is a listing of some very nice fractal web sites, where you can download eye candy by the bushel. Wow, man..