I've only read the (strangely touching) section on ema, but this web site looks really cool: Quirky Japan Homepage.
I don't actually copy all the FP items from BoingBoing, it just seems like it. Here's some cool labels from products containing drugs that are no longer legal. Check out the "Dragees Antiseptiques au Menthol" that were also au cocaine, "pour affections de la gorge."
Here's a few posters from Poland in the 50s- amazing design, and they look strikingly like the American WPA posters from the 30s and 40s. All of them offer an interesting intersection of politics, art, and attempts at social engineering.
Through the immensely interesting and perceptive blog by Bruce Sterling, a link to the changing face of the War of the Worlds.
A concern-making article about problems with iPod battery life- I wonder if there is any data on whether the new batteries work any better.
Update: lots of people have ended up looking at this page, so I figured I'd better update the information. Turns out that updating the iPod software makes the battery life much longer. It's 8 hours instead of the 10 it started out being when I first got it, I'm betting that it's the clock they added. Now all of my accessories tell me the time. Fwuh.
Here's what a Poultry Offal Icer does. About what you'd expect.
Another source of excellent words: Offal Separator.
Hot damn! Penn & Teller have a new series, called Bullshit! Premièring on Showtime 24 January.
It's time for people to roll out their best-of lists for the year, so here's one from my excellent co-worker Angie B. She has excellent taste in books for teens, so I plan to read each of her top ten books for teens in 2002 (in order by author):
Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman
Left for Dead by Pete Nelson
This Land Was Made for You and Me by Elizabeth Partridge
What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci
with honorable mention to:
Three Clams and an Oyster by Randy Powell
The Parallel Universe of Liars by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson
Seven for a Secret by Mary C. Sheppard
Gossip Girl series
Entertaining Victorian science experiments. "Mad! Mad, they called me!! But I'll show them..." Might be a good companion to the extremely entertaining graphic novel, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" or any assorted steampunk fun.
Kroger is trying out a fingerprint id system to link you to a store credit account. It's being tested in Texas. I don't know which is stranger: the idea that Americans would flock to this sort of freaky digital (ha ha) identification scheme, or the possible return of grocery store credit. It's very retro-future.
Another bit of philosophy to add to my newly renovated world-view, courtesy of Irony Central:
"If you think about things, it’s creepy. But the alternative is WORSE. Not think about things? To Hell with that!"
Today's featured book is The Art of Food Sculpture: Designs and Techniques, by Yuci Tan. It features some standard stuff like radish roses and onion chrysanthemums and some amazing Chinese-style melon carving (including carving beautiful designs into the surface of the melon), but the crowning achievement for this volume: beautiful roses and chrysanthemums made from ham and salami. Mmmmm! Fleshy flowers!
The Stranger summarizes a study by the Future Music Commission, pointing out that weakening the regulation of radio station ownership results in consolidation of station ownership and a reduction of the diversity of what is heard on the radio. Most interesting is the discussion of radio station formats-- they really aren't all that different, when you look at what songs they actually play. But I bet you already suspected that.
Among the better ways to watch tv, a season at a time on DVD.
BBC has launched an all-hours all-spoken word radio station! Includes loads of comedy, plus mystery and SF (including the Goon Show and Discworld dramatizations).
The LA Public Library's collection of historic menus is available online!
New York Public Library's immense menu collection is still not digital, but other interesting things are.
The "US PATRIOT"* act makes it legal for the feds to demand library records, and illegal for the library to tell anyone about it. Libraries often attempt to solve social problems with bland signage. Here's a few to tackle this latest challenge.
*I use SarcastiQuotesTM because I feel that it is neither patriotic nor American. Discuss.
They look a little like "If They Mated" on Late Night, but this is celebrity gender reassignment with Photoshop contest winners. Some are just silly, others are strangely affecting. Check out Sarah Michelle Gellar.
One of my favorite non-fiction reads is Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage by William Rathje. This guy posts a bit of trash on the web every day.
My oh my- I need to take a look at these gems of freakish video somewhere with a fast connection and no easily-spooked co-workers.
The Geisha asobi blog, in English, in Japan- very interesting!
The redirects for www.forcedperspective.org appear to be fully functional once again, thanks to the kind folks at junkie.tv.
A (short) profile in The Stranger on a vocal advocate of the Harm Reduction school of thought on the drug war mentions that King County, WA, govenment officials are fairly accepting of this philosophy (as is the local ACLU)- who knew? On other legal fronts, this week's Last Days column has updates on the fight for legalized sodomy in Texas.
Depending on how your bookmarks are set, you may have been having trouble getting to this site over the last few days. We at FP apologize for any inconvenience and are working to rectify the situation. Of course, if you're still having trouble, the probability that you're reading this is pretty low.
I read the executive summary, and was fascinated on the differing rates at which certain health web sites were filtered. Breast cancer, that favorite example of useful information that is filtered proffered by the anti-filter crew, had the lowest rate of being "accidentally" filtered in its category. Perhaps even because it had been a favorite example. Jock itch and yeast infections were filtered at a much higher rate. Among the highest rate of non-sex-education related health topics that were filtered? Breast pumps. Insert your own joke here.
In the category of actual health information with some sexual content, but not qualifying as pornography, that was most filtered: information on gay health. Unfortunately, most people are under the impression that the filters used in schools and libraries filter only pornography, and only what your average mostly rational person would consider pornographic. In truth, the vast majority of filters use a much broader brush, including many "controversial" topics that don't directly involve naked cavorting. This means that even if these filters get better at what they are supposed to do, this will still result in children and teenagers being kept from information they need on sexual orientation, among other things
The Kaiser Family Foundation released the results of a study yesterday, concluding "Internet filters most frequently used by schools and libraries can effectively block pornography without significantly impeding access to online health information - but only if they aren't set at their most restrictive levels. As filters are set at higher levels they block access to a substantial amount of health information, with only a minimal increase in blocked pornographic content." Reuters summarizes this with Web Filters Block Some Health Sites, Study Says, while the moronic and evil Concerned Women for America conclude CWA Says 'Kaiser Study Confirms Unfiltered Truth: Internet Filters Know It When They See It' and N2H2 (a filtering company here in (the) lovely (greater) Seattle (area)) proclaims Internet Filtering Scores Major Victory in Kaiser Family Foundation Study. Apparently 87% blocking (a solid B when I was in school) constitutes a "major victory." The (PDF) list of example blocked sites is fascinating.
From a public radio station (so no ads!), the Retro Cocktail Hour- actually two hours of swanky tunes with ample archives for those of us who forget to tune in on time!
I'm frequently suspicious of news stories that confirm my worst suspicions of people, but the absolute worst generalizations about SUV drivers come from the marketing companies that help sell them and the people who design them. The book that the article is based on has a 47 person waiting list, though I don't know if I care that much to bolster my beliefs.
The gap in posts for the last many days is a good indicator that I pretty much only post from work. Here's a cool interview with the armorer for the Lord of the Rings films. Neat!
Tapeworm birth-control: "It's all right, honey; I'm taking my parasite every day." An interesting twist with this one is that it works for men or women. I'll have to ask my contraceptive experts if they know anything about this.
Another BBC story, this one about Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and its forthcoming adaptations. It's a much better work than the Harry Potter stuff, and far more subversive. I'm glad to see that "There has also been opposition amongst the religious right in the US. But it has not stopped Pullman's books selling over three million copies in America."
Thermoacoustic refrigeration from the BBC. My favorite nugget of trivia is pretty far down in the story: "Sounds of 165 dB would cause a person's hair to catch fire..." Since that's 30,000+ times the pain threshold, I imagine there would be other ill effects, as well.
This just in, I'm gonna be union! Further news as it develops.
I'm at one of those places in life where almost every song seems SIGNIFICANT and MEANINGFUL. Yes, I'm turning into a teenager again. So far my top hits are "No Such Thing" by John Mayer and "Giant Step" as sung by Taj Mahal. If I take notes, I could make a mix CD to commemorate my inner turmoil.
If your trip is more about the destination than the voyage, there are some pretty good deals available at Travelocity. You have to book by December 12, travel by April 4, 21-day advance purchase, and travel only on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday; but the round-trip fares to popular (for some definition of popular) destinations are down around $200. Y'know, for when you know 21 days in advance that you're really going to want a Saturday-Tuesday break.
This article showed up on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to. I have mixed feelings (so what else is new?) about the state of "personalization technologies." The existence of those profiles seems like a dream come true for the Total Information Awareness people (does your TiVo think you're a terrorist? You aren't the only one), despite the fact that they are clearly not all that useful for drawing conclusions about the profiled people. Or maybe the people complaining are just in denial.
My chosen on-line shopping site (buy.com) offers such recommendations as "People who bought Malcolm in the Middle also bought Big Fat Liar," but they either don't base their promotional mail on their customers' purchasing history or their algorithms suck, since I keep being surprised every time a new MST3K shows up at Silver Platters.