11 September 2010
[comics] Tom Spurgeon On Alan Moore’s Interview About Watchmen And DC … ‘If Alan Moore thinks every single writer in comics today sucks balls, if he thinks the worst of the best, if his reputation is slightly diminished today in part because of an unsuccessful movie adaptation with which he wanted nothing to do, and even if he lends himself to wisecracks about his hair and his religious practices and his apparent drug use, none of that changes for one second his lamentable experiences with one of its major publishers. Alan Moore has earned his frustration, his suspicions and his occasional flashes of anger. He should be listened to and learned from, not dismissed and certainly never mocked.’
10 September 2010
[books] Charlie Higson’s Top 10 Horror Books … ‘There has been a lot of fuss recently about the film of this book. But the book – which is every bit as extreme and upsetting as the film – has been around since as long ago as 1952. Amazing how you can get away with so much more in books without people really noticing. “Oh, it’s a book, it must be good for you.” Well, this book is certainly not good for you.’ (Higson on the Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson.)
8 September 2010
[space] Carl Sagan – Pale Blue Dot … ‘Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.’
7 September 2010
[joke] How many SEO experts does it take to change a light bulb, lightbulb, light, bulb, lamp, lighting, switch, sex, xxx, hardcore? [twitter]
6 September 2010
[london] Is There A Tube Strike? … useful single serving site for London commuters … ‘Yes! Today.’
[space] Stuart Clark’s top 10 approachable astronomy books … ‘Understanding the celestial objects and our place within them has been a passion of mine for my whole life. I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t consumed with curiosity about the universe. These books span the entire history of mankind’s fascination with space. All of them capture the fascination of astronomy and the human stories behind this most noble of sciences.’
4 September 2010
[comics] Go Look: Jack Kirby predicted Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” Rally 40 years ago … ‘It’s the others, Godfrey! Those who don’t think right!’
3 September 2010
[parkour] Professor Longhair, Big Chief … Amazing Daredevil-esque Parkour on Youtube … [click for video]
[books]
Digested read: Tony Blair A Journey … ‘You know, I had a tear in my eye when I entered No10 for the first time in 1997, though it wasn’t, as the Daily Mail tried to claim, because I was choked with emotion at how far I had come since I was a young, ordinary boy standing on the terraces of St James’ Park, watching Jackie Milburn play for Newcastle. It was because Gordon had hit me. Ah, Gordon! He meant well, I suppose, in his funny little emotionally inarticulate way.’
2 September 2010
[comics] Mark Millar’s CLiNT Is About What You’d Expect … Chris Sims reviews the first issue of CLiNT magazine ‘If nothing else, I figured it’d be interesting to see how it was all put together, but after reading the everything in the first issue, from Millar’s typically half-serious, over-the-top hucksterism in the intro (“Grandpa had ‘The Eagle,’ Dad had ‘2000AD’ and now you’ve got ‘CLiNT,’ you lucky people”) to the last page’s anonymously-written “secret diary of a celebrity pot-head,” I could really only come away with one thought: It certainly is a magazine put out by Mark Millar.’
1 September 2010
[funny] Go Look: 10 Photos Capturing Moments of Spontaneous Badassery [Page 1 | Page 2] … ‘He’s practically a goddamn action figure up there: He comes complete with Uzi (mid-cock), Italian wingtips and a mustache made out of revenge.’ [click for the photo]
[lifehacks] What Should I Do to My Work Laptop Before I Leave My Job? … ‘How can I get my laptop sparkling clean so I can preserve my privacy and avoid runing afoul of IT or any corporate policies?’
31 August 2010
[comics] A life in drawing … an interview with Posy Simmonds (the film adaptation of Tamara Drewe is out this week) …
Posy – initially Rosemary – Simmonds was born in Cookham, Berkshire in August 1945, the middle of five children brought up on a prosperous dairy farm. She was precociously good at drawing and at an early age learned “that if I drew a fairy very well people would say it was good. But if I then made her smoke a cigarette people would laugh”. Early inspiration came from bound editions of Punch, running back to the late 19th-century, that she could reach off the lower shelves of a bookcase. “The smell of those old magazines which had drawings of Hitler is still for me the smell of war. And it was always completely normal that drawings could have words attached.” 30 August 2010
[blog] Reflections of Fidel … Fidel Castro has a blog!! … On Kennedy: ‘I confess that many times I have meditated on the dramatic story of John F. Kennedy…’ [via Kottke]
29 August 2010
[war] Colonel Kicked Out of Afghanistan for Anti-PowerPoint Rant … ‘He gave his superiors a briefing on “proven organizational methodologies” to streamline IJC, but it went nowhere. “It was only my rant that everyone read,” he says. “My hope is that after they stop being angry at me, maybe they will take a serious look at how they operate.” The irony? His briefing was a five-slide PowerPoint.
‘
28 August 2010
[comics] Alan Moore Gets Psychogeographical With Unearthing … Wired Interviews Alan Moore … ‘If you are brought up in a neighborhood that resembles a rat trap, pretty soon you are going to come to the conclusion that you are probably a rat. If on the other hand you have got to the tool of psychogeography – or poetry, to give it a less trendy and more accessible name – then you can look at the ordinary world around you with the eye of a poet. Finding events which rhyme with other events, what little coincidences or connections can be drawn to these places and people. You can put them into an arrangement that says something new about them.’
27 August 2010
[bb] Top Ten Big Brother housemates no-one remembers … George (BB7): ‘…was less a wannabe, more a neverwas. The self-confessed mummy’s boy walked on Day 13, claiming probable post-BB fame would be too much for him. More likely the prospect of eleven weeks in the company of Nikki Grahame filled him with terror.’ [via Feeling Listless]
[funny] Hungover Owls … “Give me… give me like… five… five minutes. Jesus.” [via qwghlm]
26 August 2010
[life] Placebo Buttons … ‘In many offices and cubicle farms, the thermostat on the wall isn’t connected to anything. Landlords, engineers and HVAC specialists have installed dummy thermostats for decades to keep people from costing companies money by constantly adjusting the temperature. ‘ [via As Above]
[internet] The Acceleration of Addictiveness … Paul Graham on internet addiction (amongst other things) … ‘Several people have told me they like the iPad because it lets them bring the Internet into situations where a laptop would be too conspicuous. In other words, it’s a hip flask.’
25 August 2010
[movies] Kubrick … long, must-read profile of Stanley Kubrick by Michael Herr …
‘He went to the computer that he was using to write the script. He typed, marked, cut, pasted, while I faked interest. When he was finished with the routine, Christiane phoned to say that dinner was ready. As we left, I reminded him that he hadn’t turned the computers off.
[tv] These are Their Stories … nicely done cartoons based on one line summaries of Law and Order episodes from a TV Guide … Lawyer is Secretly a Stripper / Goren Takes on a Chess Master / A Pedophile Uses the Internet.
24 August 2010
[comics] Go Look: nana nana nana nana BATJESUS!
[blogs] World War II Today … blogging World War II one post at a time.
[kubrick] Don’t Open The Elevator … Metafilter discuss the trailer for The Shining … ‘Now I’m imagining the reverse shot, which would be the blood patiently sitting in the elevator, listening to Elevator music, until there’s a *ping* and the doors open and it rushes out.’
23 August 2010
Random Facebook Status Generator … ‘Darren… Subscribes to the tenets of irrelevant herrings.’
[comics] The Top 10 Most Awesome Moments of Luke Cage: Power Man … ‘That is the greatest panel in the history of Luke Cage. It might be the greatest panel in the history of Dr. Doom, and I’d go so far as to say that there’s a good chance it’s the best panel in Marvel Comics history.’ [the panel]
22 August 2010
[people] Jackal novelist blames NSA for wife’s laptop hack … ‘Novelist Frederick Forsyth has accused heavy handed US cyber-spies of destroying his wife’s computer in an attempt to tap into copy he was filling for the Daily Express from West Africa.’
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