1 December 2006
[games] Asteroids Revenge – amusing Flash sequel to the classic Atari Asteroids computer game. [via Waxy’s Links]
2 December 2006
[life] ‘Our two poos have combined…’ — Jon Ronson reporting from the toilets on a RyanAir Flight. ‘…here in the toilet, I have an epiphany. “If there’s someone waiting outside,” I think, “I’m going to hold the door open for them!” I nod to myself and open the door. There’s a man standing there. “Here you are!” I say cheerfully. Together, we glance at the space I’m welcoming him into – a tiny, brown, disgusting cubicle. He furrows his brow, slightly taken aback, and enters. I cram myself back in my seat. “That was a nice and well-balanced thing for me to do,” I think.’ [Related: Out Of The Ordinary: True Tales Of Everyday Craziness on Amazon]
3 December 2006
[xmas] ‘Tis the Season — an Xmas blog from Anna and Meg. Also worth checking out is Meg’s Mince Pie Mania Flickr Group: ‘This group is all about capturing the ultimate Mince Pie. It’s a Christmas favourite but no-one can agree on what makes it just right. Some argue it’s the deep fill mince, others the shortcrust pastry and others still prefer half and half. I’m on the half and half side but your challenge this Christmas, should you chose to accept, is to get photographing those Mince Pies…’
[london] Monopoly Map … ‘A geographically accurate map of the elements of standard London Monopoly’ [via qwghlm.co.uk]
4 December 2006
[google] How Google handles hacked sites — interesting post from the head of anti-webspam at Google on why a website got de-listed from their index and how Google deals with the problem … ‘So talkorigins.org has these porn words and spammy links, and it’s all hidden via sneaky JavaScript. We have pretty good reason to believe that this site was hacked, but it’s still causing problems for regular users, so Google has to take action…’ [via Scobleizer]
5 December 2006
[secondlife] Second Life Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians: ‘…an avatar consumes 1,752 kWh per year. By comparison, the average human, on a worldwide basis, consumes 2,436 kWh per year. So there you have it: an avatar consumes a bit less energy than a real person, though they’re in the same ballpark.’ [via the Guardian’s Technology Blog]
6 December 2006
7 December 2006
[tv] Imagine Links — nicely annotated link list covering Alan Yentob’s BBC documentary on the Internet. ‘I did try to track down Yentob’s myspace and livejournal but they appear to have been removed.’
8 December 2006
[iraq] Steve Bell: I Will Leave Forn Policy to the Grown Ups.
[politics] Dick Cheney’s Google Searches: ‘birdshot pellet removal, quail hunting “involuntary manslaughter”, katherine harris naked, iraq exit strategy, mullah omar MySpace’
9 December 2006
10 December 2006
[film] Hot Fuzz — another trailer this time for the new movie from Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. [via Sore Eyes]
11 December 2006
[time] Accurate Time — website which tells you how accurate the time is on your computer … [via Linkbunnies.org]
[drink] What Happens To Your Body If You Drink A Coke Right Now? … ‘In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.’ [via A Welsh View]
12 December 2006
[comics] Howard’s End? — Journalista takes a look at Howard Chaykin’s career … ‘Armed with a drawing style that owed more to J.C. Leyendecker than Jack Kirby, a storytelling sensibility closer to Raymond Chandler than Chris Claremont, and design chops seemingly on loan from God, Chaykin produced work during the 1980s that in many ways still has yet to be equalled by anyone creating adventure comics to this day. American Flagg!, Time2, Blackhawk, The Shadow: these were graphically challenging works of surprising and lasting storytelling sophistication, capable of entertaining thinking adults like few other works being produced outside the still-embryonic art-comics scene at the time. An implied blowjob scene from Blackhawk, not actually depicted but suggested through clever use of juxtaposition and framing, shocked DC Comics’ readership but signalled that Chaykin was an artist capable of anything…’
13 December 2006
[rumours] The 40 Best Celebrity Rumors Ever … On Richard Gere and Gerbils: ‘…none of Gere’s interviewers have had the guts to go there, or maybe there’s some kind of publicist-issued fatwa, but Gere has never publicly addressed the rumor. Would you?’
14 December 2006
[facts] 100 Things We Didn’t Know This Time Last Year … ’76. The day when most suicides occurred in the UK between 1993 and 2002 was 1 January, 2000.’ [via Linkbunnies.org]
[net] Map of the Internet — neat hand-drawn map of the address space of the internet. [via Waxy’s Links]
15 December 2006
[future] Bruce Sterling’s Final Prediction — Sterling’s last column and Prediction for Wired Magazine … ‘The Internet, for instance, crawled out of a dank atomic fallout shelter to become the Mardi Gras parade of my generation. It was not a bolt of destructive lightning; it was the sun breaking through the clouds. Everything we do has unpredicted consequences. It’s good to keep in mind that some outcomes are just fabulous, dumb luck…’
16 December 2006
[drm] Bill Gates On The Future Of DRM — Some interesting quotes. Gates on DRM: ‘People should just buy a cd and rip it. You are legal then.’
[comics] Eddie Campbell on the murders in Ipswich: ‘I used to think Alan was making too much of the recurrence of names and odd details in the Whitechapel Murder cases, but here it is all over, with a Police Superintendent Gull, and one of the victims named Nicholls.’
17 December 2006
[wikipedia] My Wikipedia Contrail: Larry David … ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm was credited with helping clear a Los Angeles man named Juan Catalan of a first-degree murder charge. Catalan, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, maintained his innocence, saying he was at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game on May 12, 2003, during the time of the slaying. During the game, an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm was being shot in Dodger Stadium which contained footage of Juan Catalan with his daughter. When told that his show had released a wrongfully accused man, Larry David commented in a New Yorker article, “I tell people that I’ve now done one decent thing in my life. Albeit inadvertently.”’
18 December 2006
[fun] Where is Jesus? — can you find Jesus in a crowd? [via Meowwcat]
[itunes] iTunes Power Tips — some useful ideas from Lifehacker … ‘Want to separate your speed metal collection from your spouse’s Broadway tunes fetish? How about your, ahem, grownup movies from your regular collection? Used to be that you had to maintain separate playlists, or log onto the same machine under different usernames to do so. But with iTunes 7, just hold down the Shift key (Option on the Mac) when you launch iTunes to create or choose a separate iTunes library.’
19 December 2006
[xmas] Professor Richard Dawkins Speaks at Fair Hills Kindergarten Regarding Santa Claus — a ‘short imagined monologue’ from McSweeneys … ‘I can see that the topic makes many of you uncomfortable. However, this should not be viewed as a bad thing. You may weep now, but your tears are a positive, not a negative. You are now facing the truth, which comes in many forms and is not always comfortable. This is a fact that you will be exposed to again and again throughout your lives. If you wish to live a life that contains only comfortable information and not necessarily the truth, then yours will be a highly deluded existence. Your intellectual maturity depends on whether or not you are capable of accepting the truth at this early age. That is why there is no better place to begin than with the absurdity that is Santa Claus and Christmas Magic.’ [via Kottke’s Remaindered Links]
[comics] For Sale on eBay: Ultimate X-Men, Collected 1-3, 4-8 by Mark Millar and Andy Kubert.
20 December 2006
21 December 2006
[media] VLC Version 0.8.6 — New release of the swiss-army knife of Media Players – it will play anything.
22 December 2006
[comics] Have A Cosmic Christmas, Earthlets! — a slightly bonkers Kevin O’Neill Christmas Cover for 2000AD.
25 December 2006
[xmas] Merry Christmas to Everyone … from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. [via Blah Blah Flowers]
26 December 2006
[xmas] A News of the World Christmas — from Pandemian.
27 December 2006
[xmas] Attack of the Sprouts — sick of sprouts? Try this game to release some tension… 
[via Minor 9th]
[via Minor 9th] 29 December 2006
[trivia] 100 Things We Didn’t Know Last Year — from BBC News for 2006 … ‘Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p.’
[net] Just Can’t Get E-nough — the New Scientist on unhealthy habits created by technology. On Cheesepodding: ‘In certain circles there is even an ironic cool to be had from out-cheesing your friends. There is a problem, though. As with all addictions, you end up needing bigger and bigger hits to get the same buzz. Once I started downloading Celine Dion power ballads, I knew it was time to stop. Fortunately, I have found a variant that is, if anything, more entertaining. I download songs I know my wife hates and put them onto her iPod while she isn’t looking.’ [via the Guardian’s Technology Blog]
30 December 2006
[comics] Two Free Crime Comics to Download: Criminal #1 and Cross Bronx #1.