[web] The Grand Support Email Speed Contest — how long does it take 10 companies to respond to a simple emailed question? [via meish.org]

[comics] Are you a Red Dupe? — An important announcement from Haunt of Fear #26… [via Pete’s Linklog]

[comics] The Dark Knight Returns — interview with Paul Pope (from Wired). On Batman: Year 100: ‘[Batman’s] mask symbolizes the last hope against a corrupt government encroaching on individual privacy. “He’s someone with the body of David Beckham, the brain of Nikola Tesla, and the wealth of Howard Hughes, who is pretending to be Nosferatu,” Pope says.’

[web] The Last Google Result — What is the last Google result for a search term? [via Gordon McLean]

[mobiles] How I Stalked My Girlfriend … ‘For the past week I’ve been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I’m going to tell you how I did it. First, though, I ought to point out, that my girlfriend is a journalist, that I had her permission (“in principle …”) and that this was all in the name of science…’

[photos] Spotted on Flickr: Dave Gorman’s Photostream.

[4] The Four Things Meme … [I was tagged by Sasha]

• Four jobs I’ve had: I’ve been a Free-paper Delivery Boy, a part-time Butcher’s Assistant, a sorter in a Baked Bean Canning Factory (White Beans = Good. Black Beans = Bad) and a PC Support Guy at Leicester University.
• Four movies I can watch over and over: Kelly’s Heroes, Alien, Heat and Apocalypse Now.
• Four places I’ve lived: King’s Lynn, Portsmouth, Leicester and London.
• Four TV shows I love: 24, The Sopranos, Blackadder and Quincy.
• Four places I’ve Been on Holiday: Great Yarmouth, Florence, Ireland and Derbyshire.
• Four of my favorite dishes: Full English Breakfast, Gnocchi with Gorgonzola, Fish and Chips and anything Pickled.
• Four sites I visit daily: del.icio.us, Flickr, Bloglines and BBC News.
• Four places I would rather be right now: The Smiley Face Crater on Mars, 2003 UB313, the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Site and Europa.
• Four bloggers I am tagging: Belle de Jour, Neilalien, Robyn and Chris.

[wikipedia] Six degrees of Wikipedia — finds a path between two Wikipedia articles using links in the text.

[comics] Mutants in Mega City One Video — a video of Carl and Suggs from Madness performing as the Fink Brothers from Judge Dredd. Contains bits of the video for the song plus a confused appearance by them on a Saturday morning kids TV program called Saturday Starship circa 1985.

[mobile] Mobile Phone Tracking: FollowUs … probably the service used in the Guardian article on Stalking your Girlfriend. [Update: Sasha tried it out.]

[london] London Tube Map with Anagrammed Station Names … ‘A Retard Cottonmouth’

[google] The Register: 40-Metre Profanity Spotted from Space … ‘It beats crop circles for crowd-pleasing entertainment value. Quite who Eddie is and why his name is writ large in rural England, we’ll leave that to readers to explain.’

[comics] Wondercon ’06: Grant Morrison Spotlight — GM update from Newsarama. ‘…about issue #4 [of All-Star Superman], Morrison said readers will see a transvestite Jimmy Olsen on page one.’

[film] Art School Confidential Quicktime Trailer … from Dan Clowes and Terry Zwigoff. [via Pete’s Linklog]

[comics] Getting a lot of traffic today: Batman Valentines Day Card … ‘I fight a war that can never be won. I strive toward a goal that can never be reached. I am haunted. I am relentless. I am tortured. Won’t you be my valentine?’

[comics] Grant Morrison on Batman: ‘Morrison said Batman coming out of 52 OYL will be a more of a “fun guy, more healthy”, more like the “Neal Adams, hairy-chested, love-god” version of Batman.’

[comics] WonderCon ’06: Holy Terror, Batman! — details on Frank Miller’s new 911-inspired comic … ‘Miller doesn’t hold back on the true purpose of the book, calling it “a piece of propaganda,” where “Batman kicks al Qaeda’s ass.” The reason for this work, Miller said, was “an explosion from my gut reaction of what’s happening now.” He can’t stand entertainers who lack the moxie of their ’40s counterparts who stood up to Hitler. Holy Terror is “a reminder to people who seem to have forgotten who we’re up against.”‘

[photos] Dave Gorman: If René Magritte Ran A Brothel.

[comics] Grant Morrison’s International Guide To Living Fabulously — report on meeting Grant Morrison at Isotope Comics in San Francisco … ‘He was immediately thronged by young worshippers and fanboys. Some wished only to press the flesh of the man who wrote The Invisibles, while others had 10 or 12 comics stacked up waiting for autographs. We lurked and waited for the throngs to die down. The most impressive thing to me was just how much patience and genuine interest Grant had with each of his fans. He was always smiling and eager to talk, even egging people on with questions of his own when they were too star-struck to speak.’

[tv] Buffy, Abridged — Seven Series of Buffy crammed into three minutes… [via Pete’s Linklog]

[fun] Tom Baker Says… … ‘Hello. I am Tom Baker and I will be saying things to you by the magic of SMS.’ [Related: Actor Baker becomes voice of text]

[music] Snapshot: Grace Jones — a look at how the image on the cover to Grace Jones’ Island Life was put together … ‘Goude’s photographs were to launch Jones as an icon. Then he let his imagination run free, creating images of her with an imaginary male twin and multiplying her into an army of clones. “Initially, she was flattered by all of my attention,” says Goude on his former muse and lover. “And she’s no dope – Grace is an opportunist and she knew my vision was good for her career. Initially, she let herself be taken over, but then she suspected that I had only fallen in love with her image.” Was that true? “Of course it was!” ‘

[comics] Interview with David Lloyd — the artist of V for Vendetta discusses the comic, the movie adaptation, Alan Moore and comics generally … On V (the comic): ‘Its theme is universal. It sells all over the world – or over lots of it, at least. It’s about tyranny, the right of the individual to be individual, it’s about terrorism…’

[blog] VideoSift … a blog bringing you the best of Google Video and YouTube.

[comics] Scans_Daily: A Spoof of Frank Miller’s Holy Terror, Batman! …

[comics] Batman Kicks al Qaeda’s Ass — Metafilter discuss Miller’s Holy Terror … ‘If Batman turned his attention to anything outside of punching Gotham crooks in the nuts, said problem would be resolved toot-sweet, certainly in less than 200 pages. Unless, of course, he punches each and every member of al Qaeda in the nuts, which would easily fill 500+ pages of nut-punching glory. Batman’s insane and a perfectionist, so that could happen…’

[blogs] Malcolm Gladwell’s Blog … ‘In the past year I have often been asked why I don’t have a blog. My answer was always that I write so much, already, that I don’t have time to write anything else. But, as should be obvious, I’ve now changed my mind.’ [via Metafilter]

[film] Peter Bradshaw reviews Capote … ‘[In Cold Blood] virtually invented the modern genre of reportage. The true-life nature of his subject – the brutal slaying of a farmer’s family in Kansas – had a horrible, unacknowledged sexiness that polite literary fiction could not match; reality gave it ballast and sinew, and Capote awarded himself the novelist’s licence to intuit feelings, ideas, moods. Readers then as now struggled to see how the metropolitan gadfly who wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s could have moved on to this. It was as if Audrey Hepburn has stopped singing Moon River and taken a chainsaw to George Peppard. How the heck had this aesthete-weakling armwrestled American reality into submission?’

[music] MC Hammer Blog — and it looks authentic! … ‘My professional Hip Hop journey began in 1986….’ [thanks Greg]

[comics] Comic Events and Exhibitions Calendar — for the UK, Europe and the US – compiled by Paul Gravett. [via Pete’s Linklog]

[ww2] Distributed computing cracks Enigma code — wartime German code cracked after 60 years … ‘Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. […] I am following the enemy.’ [via Metafilter]