August 2008
26 posts
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Malwebolence (NYTimes on 4chan) →
[Mitchell Henderson] took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head. The next morning, Mitchell’s school assembled in the gym to begin mourning. His classmates created a virtual memorial on MySpace and garlanded it with remembrances. One wrote that Mitchell was “an hero to take that shot, to leave us all behind. God do we wish we could...
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July 2008
31 posts
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The Bug’s London Zoo. New dubstep out of...
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Diplo & Santogold - Top Ranking Mixtape →
You can download the mixtape. Listening to it now for the first time, sounds pretty good so far.
Recommended for fans of: M.I.A.
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July 2008 Muxtape →
New songs I’ve heard this month that do not suck (or possibly only suck a little). Track list:
Air France - No Excuses
Al Green - You’ve Got The Love I Need (Ft. Anthony Hamilton)
Beck - Youthless
Cat Power - I Believe In You
Ratatat - Mirando
Cadence Weapon - Real Estate
RZA - Try Ya Ya Ya
Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches
Steinski - It’s Up To You (Television Mix)
HEALTH -...
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Randy Pausch, noted CMU prof, succumbs to cancer →
Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose final lecture inspired millions, died early today in Virginia of pancreatic cancer.
If you’re one of the 3 remaining people on earth who haven’t heard of Randy Pausch, watch his Last Lecture.
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Eating Polar Bears Is Okay in Greenland →
Kjartan, my guide in Iceland, basically liked to eat everything, with the exception of seal. “Seal is terrible,” he would say, “it is oily and when you eat it the oil runs down and drips off your chin.” I mentioned this to Salik, who couldn’t have disagreed more. “What? Seal is the very best meat you can eat! Perhaps only polar bear is better!” he said, adding, “and that oil is high in...
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I am stumped by how to excerpt the language on... →
Take a passage signed by zipthwung, an astute online commenter: “pornography if for the ruling classes and their violent vulgar all consuming appetites. Or their slaves.”
Interesting. But so as not to distract you with the typos, should I have repunctuated it, adding commas and plunking a hyphen into “all-consuming”? Should I have turned that “if” to “is”?
…
Consider...
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Economist: Pirates are terrorising the high seas... →
There were at least 50 recorded pirate attacks in it last year; some go unreported after ransoms have been paid. This year’s tally is likely to be twice as high. In the past ten days, a Ukrainian and a German ship have been freed after paying ransoms to Somali pirates thought to be $800,000 and $750,000 respectively. Piracy is plainly spreading more widely across the Indian Ocean. Tanzania...
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“Grass never dies or is allowed to flower and set seed. Lawns are nature purged...”
– Michael Pollan
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Turf War (Elizabeth Kolbert) →
The essential trouble with the American lawn is its estrangement from place: it is not a response to the landscape so much as an idea imposed upon it—all green, all the time, everywhere. Recently, a NASA-funded study, which used satellite data collected by the Department of Defense, determined that, including golf courses, lawns in the United States cover nearly fifty thousand square miles—an...
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Credit Card Forensics by Hal Berghel →
A few years back local law enforcement brought an interesting question to one of my labs: Why were hookers, tweakers, and thugs carrying around pockets full of hotel room keys? Busts of the local street ciminals were producing a virtual cornucopia of hotel room keys of all shapes and sizes. In addition, the cops found gift cards, rewards cards, player’s cards, calling cards, membership...
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Top Albums of the First Half of 2008
We’re just a bit over halfway through the year, so I thought I’d put together my non-binding list of my favorite* albums so far this year:
Girl Talk - Feed the Animals: Although it can’t top Night Ripper, this is certainly the best party mix you’ll hear all year (hip-hop / dj mix)
Cool Kids - Bake Sale: Upbeat hip-hop in the late 80’s style (hip-hop)
Vampire...
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What it's like to weigh 530 pounds →
A very honest look at what it’s like to be very overweight:
I’m 5’6” and I weigh 530 pounds …
I have insulin resistance, hypertension, high cholesterol, gastroesophageal reflux disease, depression and social anxiety and am on medication for all of it. I take a lot of pills! I’ve had to sleep sitting up for the last several months. I do sleep but not long and not deeply…I miss...
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Fannie Mae's Golden Goose: A Lesson In Moral... →
An excellent explanation of Fannie & Freddie’s history, and why they’re in trouble.
Fannie Mae’s original role was to buy mortgages from individual banks, package them up into securities, guarantee those securities against loss, and then sell them to other financial institutions. However once Fannie Mae realized that the “golden goose” allowed them to buy those same securities...
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Train in Vain: NYC to California in at least 77... →
Some good information on why the American train system is so pathetic.
The American passenger rail—once a model around the globe—is now something of an oddball novelty, a political boondoggle to some, a colossal transit failure to others … In 1960, U.S. rail travelers logged 17.1 billion passenger miles (the movement of one passenger one mile), the standard measure of a system’s reach;...
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WSJ on 4chan: Modest Web Site Is Behind a Bevy of... →
Over the last few years, 4chan.org has become one of the most talked-about sites when it comes to launching new memes …
… Each page on 4chan features photos and text. One user will post an image of something to start a discussion on one of the more than 40 different subject areas spanning origami and automobiles. Other users follow up with responses or requests for more images.
...
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Closing on Broadway: Two Traffic Lanes →
In a surprising reshaping of the urban landscape, the city is creating a public esplanade along a portion of one of its most prominent streets, Broadway in Midtown, setting aside the east side of the roadway for a bicycle lane and a pedestrian walkway with cafe tables, chairs, umbrellas and flower-filled planters.
The esplanade, which the city is calling Broadway Boulevard, will run from...
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Teh Intarwebs: Now with more noise!
My name is Filipe, and despite my best efforts, I can’t seem to kick my rabid information consumption habit.
This is not a defeat; it’s my effort to to distill all that consumption into something more useful.
Ready, set, let’s go.