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December 31
New Year's Tradition: Banishing Words
(yes, I've done this before) L.S.S.U has been making lists since 1976, but after all the censorship battles of the last year, they probably should be using less threatening terminology than "banished". Still, most of the terminology in this Hall of Shame list certainly deserves to be discouraged, derided and degraded.
Of course, Creative Deity Matt Groening does his own annual list of
Forbidden Words, and some webhead has developed a cool webtool:
The Forbidden Words Flagger.
posted by wendell at 9:20 PM PST - 31 comments
Compare the death count
from the tsunami to the deaths at the World Trade Center using graphs. Rob Cockerham took a break from his victimless pranks to help put things in perspective. Those without a giant monitor will have to do some horizontal scrolling.
posted by fleener at 1:19 PM PST - 114 comments
DOJ coup d'etat.
Ashcroft is gone. Now, six days before the confirmation hearings of Alberto Gonzales, the
acting Attorney General,
Daniel Levin, issues a
new official memo (pdf)on torture, reversing and specifically repudiating the definitions of torture from
the August 2002 memo addressed to Gonzales. The new memo states, among other things,
'we disagree with statements in the August 2002 Memorandum limiting "severe" pain under the statute to "excruciating and agonizing" pain [...] or to pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death'
posted by boo at 9:09 AM PST - 18 comments
Our country is more humanitarian than YOURS is!
No it's not. Yes it is. See? We donated more aid than you did. Well, we doubled our donation. So there. But yours are loans, not donations. Nuh uh. They're donations. Are not. Besides, we'll triple ours. And we'll send planes. You wouldn't. Watch us. Well then, we'll just octuple ours. Yeah? I bet you won't. I quadruple dog dare you. I hate you... you know that, right?
posted by miss lynnster at 8:45 AM PST - 105 comments
Veddas (or Wanniya-laeto): the
ancient and
presently endangered
forest-people of
Sri Lanka. (more:
1,
2,
3,
4)
"...the surviving Wanniya-laeto community retains much of its own distinctive cyclic worldview, prehistoric cultural memory, and time-tested knowledge of their semi-evergreen dry monsoon forest habitat that has enabled their ancestor-revering culture to meet the diverse challenges to their collective identity and survival."
posted by moonbird at 8:02 AM PST - 6 comments
"11. Wilco A Ghost is Born:
Wilco is a band for people who think they are intellectuals about music, the Wilco man is always unhappy so his songs start very quietly in order that people don't wake up with a start. It is all for nothing because halfway through someone will play a guitar solo with a chairleg."
Shelley Winters, of
Scary-Go-Round, reviews the Top 20 albums of the year as picked by John Allison (the creator of Scary-Go-Round).
(Oh, and the rest of the archive is worth a gander too, as is John Allison's previous strip Bobbins.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:24 AM PST - 25 comments
The World Community Grid
is a project to use spare CPU cycles to help the world. The Grid is Windows only, but
Folding@Home is a cross-platform way to spend your extra CPU cycles, in an effortless (for you) quest to cure disease. And of course there's the original donated cycle project,
SETI@home.
posted by mosch at 6:59 AM PST - 12 comments
Complexification
Jared Tarbell 's summer update to the gallery is the most mesmerizing example of computer generated art I"ve ever seen forming on my monitor.
The Sand Traveler is a rendering of 1,000 traveling particles, each in pursuit of another. Over time, patterns of travel are exposed as sweeping paths of color.
posted by hortense at 5:40 AM PST - 18 comments
December 30
Indeed.com
is what a job search aggregator was meant to be. I stumbled across it and have found it immensely helpful. It indexes every job site that Im aware of, corporate employment pages, newspapers and craigslist then makes the jobs searchable based on keyword(s) and (optionally) location. Searches can be made into RSS feeds, e-mail alerts, etc. Current beta only work for jobs in U.S.
posted by jperkins at 6:05 PM PST - 24 comments
Why Does Archbishop Desmond Tutu Hate Our Christian Moral Values?
In an interview with MSNBC, the nobel prize winner slams George Bush. "I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here [during apartheid]vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view."
posted by expriest at 3:03 PM PST - 95 comments
AARP Says No To Bush ...
The AARP is coming out strong against private Social security investment accounts, saying they "will actually make the problem worse, not better." In January they plan to spend
$50 million on an ad campaign opposing privatization.
Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly has also been awesome in pointing out that the common wisdom that Social Security is in trouble is
just not true.
posted by nathanrudy at 11:04 AM PST - 116 comments
"Massive misinformation"
from Arab news networks such as
Al-Jazeera is hampering the US effort in Iraq, Rumsfeld told the troops during his Christmas Eve visit to Mosul: "Everything we do here is harder because of television stations like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyah." In remarks that were not quoted in the American press, the defense secretary went on to tell the troops, "We don't go out and hire journalists and propagandize and lie and put people on payroll so that they'll say what you want. We just don't do that and they do and that's happening" (which is itself
meta-misinformation.) Meanwhile, the Pentagon's multimillion-dollar solution -- the CIA-funded Iraqi news network, Al-Iraqiya (featuring
"Iraqi programs that make you laugh, cry, and learn") -- has become
"an irrelevant mouthpiece for [coalition] propaganda" according to one of its own former correspondents, veteran news reporter Don North.
posted by digaman at 10:24 AM PST - 21 comments
Twisting Tongues
in Other TonguesThis page was originally created to give a good group of tongue twisters to people in speech therapy, to people who want to work on getting rid of an accent, or to people who just plain like tongue twisters. I hope you enjoy them.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:17 AM PST - 32 comments
December 29
Kurds are the Closest Relatives of Jews
Funny, They don't look Jewish:"Research has just begun into the ancient ties between Kurds and Jews. It would be interesting to see if the various Jewish groups have as strong a family tie to Kurds in the maternal lineages as they do in the paternal lineages. Preliminary studies indicate that Jewish populations in eastern Europe and Yemen have maternal origins that contain much more non-Israelite ancestry than their paternal origins. Despite this admixture with other groups, the Jewish Judean people ultimately began their existence in an area within or nearby Kurdistan, prior to migrating southwest to Israel. This exciting research showing that Kurds and Jews may have shared common fathers several millennia ago should, hopefully, encourage both Kurds and Jews to explore each others' cultures and to maintain the friendship that Kurds and Jews enjoyed in northern Iraq in recent times (as chronicled in Michael Rubin's recent article "The Other Iraq"). As Rubin indicates, the Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani once visited Israel and met with Israeli government officials. Rubin refers to the Iraqi Kurds' "special affinity for Israel" and writes that "In the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Jews and Israel are remembered fondly, if increasingly vaguely." Let us hope that this relationship can be renewed and strengthened."
posted by Postroad at 4:56 PM PST - 51 comments
Steve Perry Fan Fiction
"11:30 Halloween night and Steve Perry pulled up to the very dark and deserted pumpkin patch in his Toyota Land Cruiser and when he came to a stop he looked out through the gloom to see if anyone else was here and in his own way he was hoping, hoping that some of his old band mates would show but with the reaction he got he really didnt expect them to be here but he could hope couldnt he."
posted by Swampjazz! at 12:18 PM PST - 58 comments
Forget Verdana, heres
sIFR: anti-aliased text in your browser in any font you like.
The next big thing? Just a kludge? Heard about it already?
posted by Termite at 11:36 AM PST - 160 comments
Chuteless Jumps:
Russian I.M. Chisov survived a 21,980 plunge out of a plane with
no parachute. He landed on the steep side of a snow-covered mountain with only a fractured pelvis and slight concussion.
posted by thisisdrew at 11:22 AM PST - 41 comments
Like most people who love mythical creatures (cryptozoology), I also collect stamps (philately). At last, someone has combined these twin fetishes in one
easily displayed fashion. My favorites include the
Loch Ness Monster and his ancient cousin the
Kraken, especially
these two which feature a guest appearance by Mickey Mouse.
posted by jonson at 9:17 AM PST - 23 comments
Carmen, ah! souviens-toi du passé!
The 233 [mostly] female cigar rollers
(las cigarreras) at Seville's
Altadis tobacco factory are urgently trying to defend the last remaining trace of the four-hundred-year-old tobacco industry in Seville, which is certain to cease production by 2007. Responsible for manufacturing six million cigarettes a year for Altadis,
las cigarreras claim to be "the rightful heirs of the feisty
Gypsy heroine" Carmen, idealized in
Georges Bizet's 1875
opera of the
same name. "Invoking what they see as Carmen's 'independent, unbending' spirit, these contemporary
las cigarreras have organized a protest every Wednesday, between shifts, for more than a year to save well-paying local jobs as well as the factory itself, a link to the gritty history that spawned the
romantic legends."
posted by naxosaxur at 8:10 AM PST - 8 comments
Heartless response
An American couple survived while diving off Thailand during the tsunami. Because they had lost all their possessions, they had to have new passports issued. At the Bangkok airport other governments had set up booths to assist their citizens. The couple searched there for officials from the American consulate for three hours, before finding them in the VIP lounge. Oh, and
U.S. officials demanded payment before taking any passport pictures.
posted by fleener at 7:27 AM PST - 166 comments
Bittersweet Bears
"When a loved one becomes a memory, make the memory a treasure." Teddy Bears made from the clothing of a loved one.
posted by ColdChef at 6:56 AM PST - 16 comments
"Me, I fart loud - I can't be a hypocrite. I get these parts, but I never get to play 'em because I fart out loud. Why can't we all fart together? Let thy arse make wind!"
It is my
pleasure to
introduce you
to the late,
great Timothy Carey, possibly the
weirdest of all Hollywood character actors. A follower of
Salvador Dalí and
Le Pétomane, Carey was a
Method actor who was pals with
John Cassavetes, a muse of sorts for
Stanley Kubrick, alleged discoverer of both
Frank Zappa and
Ray Dennis Steckler, and one of the
dedicatees of Reservoir Dogs. Not only that, he wrote, directed, and starred in one of the all-time
strangest American films,
The World's Greatest Sinner, and wrote and directed the world's only Dalí-inspired play about death by flatulence.
Against all odds, Timothy Carey has a
website, and if you're interested, you can
buy his movies, posters, and other odds 'n' ends (warning: doesn't appear to have been updated particularly recently).
Truly, in the words of his
tombstone, "A Super Nova of Original Thespian Talent."
posted by Dr. Wu at 12:31 AM PST - 12 comments
The Brill Building
, located at 1619 Broadway in the heart of New York's music district, is a name synonymous with an approach to songwriting that changed the course of music. Housing legendary songwriters like Carole King, Jerry Leiber, Neil Sedaka, and Burt Bacharach, the Brill Building created some of the
greatest hits of the
rock'n'roll era. [more inside]
posted by rocket88 at 12:10 AM PST - 11 comments
December 28
Arctic Blue Books Online
- 'a searchable, World-Wide Web version of Andrew Taylor's unique index to the 19th Century British Parliamentary Papers concerned with the Canadian Arctic. '
posted by plep at 11:32 PM PST - 2 comments
Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present
: This list is not intended to be an exhaustive compilation of microprocessors, but rather a description of designs that are either unique, or representative designs typical of the period, not necessarily the first of their kind, or the best. It includes material from text books, magazine articles and papers, authoritative descriptions and half remembered folklore from obscure sources, as such, it has no bibliography or list of references.
via Linkfilter.
It gets a little technical at times, but it's interesting reading if you're into the guts of these fun little toys!
posted by starscream at 7:42 PM PST - 4 comments
The Global Baby Bust
Summary: Most people think overpopulation is one of the worst dangers facing the globe. In fact, the opposite is true. As countries get richer, their populations age and their birthrates plummet. And this is not just a problem of rich countries: the developing world is also getting older fast. Falling birthrates might seem beneficial, but the economic and social price is too steep to pay. The right policies could help turn the tide, but only if enacted before it's too late.
posted by Postroad at 4:00 PM PST - 108 comments
Losing the War,
an insightful memoir by writer and journalist
Lee Sandlin.
Note: It's not about Iraq. Or is it? "A year later, in the second winter of the invasion, as the army inched forward on a final, desperate push into Stalingrad, a daring joke began making the rounds in Germany, a mock dispatch from Stalingrad HQ: 'Today our troops captured a two-room apartment with kitchen, toilet, and bathroom. They have succeeded in retaining two-thirds of it despite fierce counterattacks by the enemy.' Few of the tellers realized just how accurate this description was.
John Keegan, in his book
The Second World War, quotes a German officer's description of the fighting in the city: 'We have fought for fifteen days for a single house with mortars, grenades, machine-guns and bayonets. Already by the third day fifty-four German corpses are strewn in the cellars, on the landings, and the staircases. The front is a corridor between burnt-out rooms; it is the thin ceiling between two floors.' This was where Hitler's vision of the world finally foundered. After striding like a colossus over a continent, the German army was in the end unable to force its way up a flight of stairs."
posted by digaman at 1:40 PM PST - 20 comments
"Things just happen, he had decided;
they happen and they happen again, and anybody who tries to make sense out of it goes out of his mind."
For this reason, Tom Rath, the hero of Sloan Wilson's 1955 novel
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, decides not to "make sense" of the the atrocities to which he bears witness during World War II. Instead, he accepts that war is in itself irrational, and that he must simply forget its horrors before returning to civilian life.
This New Yorker article contrasts Wilson's 1950's stoicism with today's veneration of the grieving process and suggests that this change in attitude has led us to vastly underestimate our own capacity for coping with trauma. The author also draws some interesting parallels with
a controversial study in which victims of childhood sexual abuse were found to be no more likely than others to suffer from mental health problems as adults. Intriguing stuff, to say the least, and as I read it, I can't help but think of Johnny Cash's
"The Man Who Couldn't Cry"(Note: Having thankfully never been subjected to war or sexual abuse myself, I am in no way attempting to demean the anguish of those who have. Rather, I'm more interested in the idea that people are stronger than they give themselves credit for, and how different upbringings affect our experience of trauma.)
posted by idontlikewords at 1:03 AM PST - 41 comments
December 27
"Not My Head!"
Drinking games based on movies or television shows are
legion, but surely the most epic, erudite, witty, and hangover-inducing is "Not My Head": the
"I, Claudius Drinking Game"! Whether or not you've ever seen the 13 part
BBC series on which it's based, the
rules are quite simpleand since every
episode contains plenty of
banishments,
poisonings, and
orgies, you can be sure you'll be working through those bottles of red wine pretty quickly. Dress as your
favorite character for extra debauched realness - and remember, you can't tell the players without a
scorecard! (Especially when you're drunk.)
posted by contraposto at 9:19 PM PST - 22 comments
eScholarship Editions.
Like ebooks? Want something free, nonfiction,"scholarly", publicly accessible, and more recent than
Gutenberg ? (Lately I'm on an Ancient History kick.) My problem with this "eScholarship" site is they try to make it hard to download a whole ebook to read offline. For one of those, for people who are interested in 20th-century political history-cum-theory that's never had much to do with any U.S. election, today I'm recommending
the Platform.
posted by davy at 8:52 PM PST - 12 comments
Greeks, postmodernity, and the rethinking of democracy
Found this fascinating interview on openDemocracy by way of
meat-eating leftist. Greek opposition minister George Papandreou, son of former socialist Prime Minister
Andreas Papandreou, says some interesting things about the changing nature of representative democracy and the new fluidity of citizens' political and social identities.
Given our diminishing democracy in this country, it is refreshing to hear a politician say that individuals in society need to be empowered and that political leaders must listen to and trust individuals.
posted by mountainmambo at 7:20 PM PST - 14 comments
Update from Holland.
After the filmmaker Theo van Gogh's murder by Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch creed of tolerance has come under siege.
posted by semmi at 4:24 PM PST - 12 comments
One man's retirement math: Social Security wins
At the heart of President Bush's plan to sell Social Security private accounts is a simple notion: You're always better off investing your retirement money than letting the government do it.
By doing it yourself, you can stow some money in the stock market, and over the long run will get a better return on that investment than today's Social Security system offers.
The idea is broadly accepted. That's why the administration's plan to partially privatize the system sounds appealing to many. But that better return won't always happen.
Just ask Stanley Logue of San Diego.
For 45 years, the defense-industry analyst paid into the system until his retirement in 1994. But with all the recent hoopla over reform, Mr. Logue, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, decided to go back and check his own records. Would he have done better investing his money than the bureaucrats at the Social Security Administration?
posted by Postroad at 11:09 AM PST - 80 comments
Thanks for the new living room, neighbor!
In case you needed any further news about
the earth moving, residents in Berkeley, CA have found themselves embroiled in a property-line quagmire as the result of
the shifting earth. Small quakes and unstable ground have caused real property to slide as much as 20 feet in the last century, though property lines remain firmly fixed, in some cases causing bitter disputes between neighbors who find themselves with new and sometimes unwanted "improvements" relocated across into their survey area. Even in California where the earth moves
all the time,
the law still hasn't quite caught up to these trickle events.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:46 AM PST - 17 comments
The Evan Parker Scott case
bears more than a passing resemblance to the
Baby Richard case of several years ago. Once more, a toddler who barely knows what's going on is being confiscated by the parent who gave him up in the first place. Is the domestic adoption system broken?
posted by u.n. owen at 10:43 AM PST - 13 comments
xixax
is a film community/bulletin board. In addition to forums for new films (released and rumored), stuff on DVD, and tech goodies for filmmakers, they've got director forums for Wes and PT Anderson, Scorsese, Lynch, the Coens, Soderbergh and many others.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 12:09 AM PST - 2 comments
December 26
''The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker" (Reviewed by Walter Kirn)
"Of more than 68,000 pieces of art that could have been included in its pages, only about 2,000 have been printed on paper, while the rest are reproduced on two CD's attached to the inside of the front cover." I gotta git me one a 'em. Kirn also says "a fool who can laugh at his folly is not a fool but something rarer and finer: a self-ironist." [New York Times, wants registration.]
posted by davy at 7:14 PM PST - 22 comments
Place Project.
A suitcase with a camera and a blank book travelled the world. 35 designers have translated the world around them into their pages. After 18 months and 170.000 km it will be presented in Barcelona. November 23 - December 12, 2004.
posted by yoga at 2:51 PM PST - 5 comments
Everything's bigger in Toulouse. The
world's biggest plane has started rolling off assembly lines and is expected to take its first flight in March 2005. The quarter-billion-dollar, twin-deck, four-aisle plane can carry 555 passengers. Thanks to its design's outsized wings, future versions of the
economical plane may carry as many as 800 passengers.
With the A380,
Airbus hopes to do to Boeing what Boeing did to its competitors over 30 years ago with the 747. Already, Airbus Industrie has
outsold and out-delivered Boeing for the last two years. But don't boycott just yet! It turns out the A380 is
51% American-made. Parts are so big they don't fit in this
whale-like record-size
transporter (though this
Russian monster may have a
claim); they are transported to Toulouse on a
barge.
More pics. Let's hope this latest high-tech aerospace gamble does better than
the last one.
Europe, of course (troll alert), already makes the world's
biggest truck, the
fastest trains, the
best cars (sorry Japan), and the
most successful rocket launchers.
On a darker topic,
10 years ago, French commandos boarded an Airbus and killed Islamic terrorists planning to fly it into the Eiffel Tower.
posted by Turtle at 1:29 PM PST - 63 comments
It's Kwanzaa!
Today begins the seven day
celebration of the
principles which make the African People and their descendants, and ultimately Humanity, great.
While I don't celebrate, I will take the opportunity to
learn more about the holiday and to hold the Seven Principles in
mind.
Now it's back to watching my new
In Living Color and
Chappelle's Show DVDs.
posted by Eideteker at 12:10 PM PST - 85 comments
A massive earthquake - the largest since 1964 - centred off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra has caused tidal waves that are devastating coastal areas around the Indian Ocean including
Sri Lanka, India and
Indonesia.
Eyewitness report from the south coast of Sri Lanka.
The death tolls are still rising, there is the risk of further tsunamis and it is being estimated that 100,000s of people will be left homeless.
posted by i_cola at 1:43 AM PST - 193 comments
December 25
Unproduced screenplays,
including
Edward Ford, written by Lem Dobbs (
The Limey) and
one (pdf) by
Charlie Kaufman (
Eternal Sunshine..., Adaptation, Being John Malkovich). The Dobbs script is
often cited as one of the best (if not
the best) unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. The site also has scripts by Al Jean and Mike Reiss (
Simpsons,
Sledge Hammer!), Adam Fierro (
The Shield), T. S. Cook (
The China Syndrome), Nicholas Kazan (
Homegrown,
Reversal of Fortune,
Frances), John Kamps (
Charley Varrick,
Madigan) and others.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 10:22 PM PST - 12 comments
"The Exidy Sorcerer
. . . It does everything I wanted [it] to do and some things I never dreamed of." It even uses . . . are those 8-track tapes?! We have come
so far in so short a time. What a world we live in! Link goes to old Advert.
via]
posted by johnj at 7:34 PM PST - 26 comments
Peace Art Project Cambodia
--turning the detrius of war into
art, in hopes of a more peaceful future. More info
here, and
here.
"You can't help but think about what this machine has done to affect so many lives."
And that is really the point. These sculptures are political art at its most powerful - relics of a violent past transformed into expressions of hope for a more peaceful future.
posted by amberglow at 7:32 PM PST - 6 comments
Communication Grill Chang-tei: Chat powered barbeque.
"You have to continue carrying out the chat with the partner surrounding a table.
If a chat is stopped, the fire of an electric heater will go out." (
via)
posted by moonbird at 11:39 AM PST - 14 comments
OverClocked ReMix
This great site has all sorts of music, redone with vastly superior technology and, at times, an eye towards radical reinterpretation. My old fave Metroid has provided quite a few cool reinterpretations.
posted by pabanks46 at 10:17 AM PST - 15 comments
December 24
Wladimir Kaminer represents an emerging Russo-German culture. He is a
DJ spinning Russian wild ska-punk club music, he is a radio talk-show host, the author of several best-selling books depicting the life of Russian immigrants in Germany, and a sort of good-humored emblem of the emerging hybrid culture of Berlin. In
a fascinating interview, he reveals post Soviet Russia, and Russian lives and literature in the West; you can read his stories,
Paris Lost, and
Animal Transport, and the usual
overview of his works and of his significance, in the NYT
Books section.
posted by semmi at 6:03 PM PST - 5 comments
Euro's rise raises 'catastrophic' fears
The euro rose on Thursday, topping $1.35 for the first time ever, amid speculation that the United States would not act to counter the dollar's decline.
.
"If we remain in a situation without any coordination, we can imagine a catastrophic situation" for the global economy, Finance Minister Hérve Gaymard of France told manufacturers during a factory visit Thursday in Strasbourg
posted by Postroad at 5:02 PM PST - 60 comments
Pollstar's Top 25 tours chart for 2004 is out and You'll never guess who was
Number 1! Here's a Hint:
"His 69-city/96-show tour was "by far the biggest tour he has ever done," Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of Pollstar, the concert industry trade publication, told The Associated Press. "It's kind of a renaissance for him."
"
HE" grossed $87.4 million. Celine Dion, Madonna, Metallica and and Bette Midler round out the top 5. Other acts in the top 10: Van Halen, Kenny Chesney, Sting, Toby Keith and Elton John. Yes, this is 2004, not 1984.
posted by Blake at 1:35 PM PST - 37 comments
How much money do first-time novelists make?
Author and upcoming first-time novelist
Justine Larbalestier is constantly asked by aspiring writers what first-time novelists should expect in advance payment for their beloved texts. So she asked some of her author friends what they got for their first novels. The responses ranged in time from 1962 to 2004. What didn't change in all that time was the basic amount: Not much. Quoth Larbalestier: "The life of a novelist is, financially speaking, a mug's game.
Enter at your own peril."
posted by jscalzi at 6:54 AM PST - 66 comments
December 23
Fred Smith's Concrete Park
near Phillips, Wisconsin. "Born in 1886, a tavern owner and former lumberjack, Fred Smith began building sculptures in 1948, in his 60s. He created more than 200 concrete sculptures and covered them with broken beer bottle glass from his tavern. Said Fred, 'nobody knows why I made them, not even me.' " [more inside]
posted by Marxchivist at 10:22 PM PST - 13 comments
World's only revolving building?
The heck with revolving rooftop restaurants, I want to live in Suite Vollard, an entire apartment building whose eleven circular units can each revolve 360 degrees. (Unfortunately for me, it's in Brazil.) More photos are
here.
posted by Kat Allison at 11:48 AM PST - 20 comments
"China's Records In the Eyes of Foreigners"
Pick your favorite China statistic. Is it "GDP of the Shanghai region is equivalent to that of Brazil;" is it "Foreigners invest about $1 billion in China every week;" is it "China has the largest online gaming population in the world;" is it "China produces 2.3 billion condoms each year." NB article from the "People's Daily Online", although original source claimed to be the "French L'Express weekly".
posted by Voyageman at 10:11 AM PST - 12 comments
Merry Christmas from James
My sister sent me this link from a friend that didn't want to send out cards this year - he's not much of a singer but I t
