8 August 2008
[tech] Internet Protocol Address Exhaustion Counter … a web page counting down the number of days until we run out of internet addresses (on the current scheme) … ‘892 days’
7 August 2008
[comics] Spotlight on Howard Chaykin … some interesting points from a panel with Chaykin at the San Diego Comic-con … [via Beaucoupkevin]
At one point in the panel, just to clarify (or maybe rationalize) his language, Chaykin said, ‘anybody under 18 who would actually be interested in sitting and listening to me is obviously on drugs.’
[twitter] Nigel’s BBC Schedule Twitterbots … ‘What’s On Now’ Twitter Pages for every BBC Channel / Network.
6 August 2008
[gywo] Get Your War On – Animated … nicely done cartoon of the brilliant webcomic … ‘America loves a list…’ [via Fimoculous]
[bdj] Ask a call girl … Salon asks three American High-Class Call Girls: How Realistic is the Belle de Jour TV Series? (compare and contrast with the time the Guardian asked Cynthia Payne the same question) … ‘I guess as an ex-call girl, it’s fun watching the show and seeing what is real and what’s completely off. I think it glamorizes the business a bit. Being a high-class call girl is a cool life if you know what you’re doing, but a very hard life too, which I don’t think they depict well on the show — just how stressful it really is.’ [via Fimoculous]
5 August 2008
[comics] Retronomatopeya … Cute Flickr set of sound and movement effects from Comics [via Metafilter]
4 August 2008
[friendfeed] Friend Feed of LinkMachineGo … if you are web stalking me you will find this integrated feed with LMG, Flickr, Delicious and other assorted links interesting. I’m finding Friendfeed useful and wish more bloggers I follow used it.
3 August 2008
[comics] What can I learn from comic books? … interesting list of educational / information-rich comic books from Ask Metafilter … ‘Oh, and while I suppose this may go against AskMe ettiquette — you really shouldn’t answer your own question — I’d like to add that nearly everything I know about American history and politics from the late 1970s through the early 1990s I learned from Doonesbury.’
1 August 2008
[comics] So Superman Went Ballistic … Batman describes a fight with Superman … ‘I’m the goddamn Batman.’ [via Sore Eyes] [more…]
31 July 2008
[comics] Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet … ‘Al Gore-or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al-placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity’s hubristic folly…’ [via Beaucoupkevin]
30 July 2008
[comics] R. Stevens Steers Diesel Sweeties Back to Its Roots … Wired interviews R. Stevens on Why Diesel Sweeties is Going Web Only Again … ‘I did my taxes. I realized that I made less money than the last year that I wasn’t syndicated. It’s a hard business and it takes years and years to build up a client list and get paid. I just kinda thought to myself that I spent years and years learning how to make money off the internet. Why should I continue to injure myself, when I could just do what I’m good at? Get creative again, get excited again, change my business model and learn new things, rather than be constantly struggling with deadlines.’
[comics] The Voices of Marvel Comics 1965 … featuring Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Flo Steinberg, Sol Brodsky, Artie Simek, Sam Rosen, Chic Stone, Wally Wood, Dick Ayers, Don Heck and Stan G … ‘In 1965, Marvel released a special recording featuring the voices of the famous Marvel Bullpen (the staff at the comic book company), to the Marvel Comics fan club members, The Merry Marvel Marching Society.’ [more…]
29 July 2008
[web] Using your Browser URL History to Estimate Gender … I’m not sure how accurate this is but it guessed right for me … ‘Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 12%. Likelihood of you being MALE is 88%’
[comics] Has The Comics Industry Really Done All That Well During Legitimate Recessions? … interesting analysis from Tom Spurgeon … ‘For Miller the key is how comics gets tied into factors of risk. “I’ve said before I think ‘economics is local’ where this is concerned — the prevailing structural conditions in the field often trump whatever is happening outside — or, better put, they either amplify or stifle the negative stuff coming in from outside. Conversely, if our model is fouled up, we don’t feel the positives from an uptick in the economy — just see the late 1990s!”‘
28 July 2008
[funny] Infinite Motivational Poster … goes on forever… almost. ‘SINGULARITY – Approaching the Self-Referential Event Horizon – Not even Light can Escape.’ [via Waxy’s Links]
[tv] Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes … Jon Ronson’s wonderful documentary about the 1000’s of archival boxes on Kubrick’s estate in Hertfordshire and what they say about the reclusive director.
[movies] WarGames: A Look Back at the Film That Turned Geeks and Phreaks Into Stars … Wired on War Games … ‘Leonard Goldberg, the producer, shows me some footage they’d shot – it was a scene with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy going into his bedroom, early in the movie, and he shows her how he can change her grades on his computer. She freaks out and leaves. And I’m looking at this and thinking, “What’s wrong here?” Driving home that night, I realized what it was. I stopped the car, found a phone booth, and called Leonard. “I know what the problem is!” I said. “They’re not having any fun!” These kids were treating this as if they’re involved in some dark and evil terrorist conspiracy. If I could change somebody’s grades on the computer, I’d be peeing in my pants with excitement to show it to some girl. And the girl would be excited about it!’
27 July 2008
[funny] Motivation Poster: Jenga … ‘Your Turn’
26 July 2008
[movies] The Shining (with Robots) … ‘The famous tricycle scene re-created with a tribot and a couple femisapiens.’
25 July 2008
[tv] Warren Ellis on Joe 90: ‘I didn’t particularly like this show even as a kid. There was something essentially Wrong about it. Stick a kid with fucked-up eyes in a huge spinning machine with pulsating lights while computers ooze magnetic tape like worms.’
[life] Random Acts of Reality: So Obvious … ‘If this were a ‘Casualty’ or ‘E.R.’ script I’d be laughing at the screen for the scriptwriter having such an obvious cliché while making it all too obvious.’
24 July 2008
[comics] Dave Sim / Cerebus segment from a documentary about Comics … Sim is interviewed on Ken Viola’s 1987 documentary Masters of Comic Book Art … ‘It strikes me as a kind of interesting thing to document for 26 years… 26 years!’ [more…]
23 July 2008
[london] Last year I Killed a Man … a tube driver describes a ‘one under’ on the London Underground …
A smart man inquired, “Do you know there’s a person under your train?” I looked at the blood on the windscreen momentarily before assuring him that, yes, I was aware.
[comics] Blood, sweat and ink … Phil Jupitus on his love of Comic Strips … ‘I asked Trudeau to sign my dog-eared copy of Doonesbury Dossier: The Reagan Years, and when he did I felt like a kid again. Here was a man who to me was more punk than the Pistols, funnier than Seinfeld and a better artist than Picasso. That’s what I like about being a real fan of something – the irrational love.’ [via Forbidden Planet’s Blog]
22 July 2008
[batman] Meanwhile, in London… Police Arrest Batman … [part of the Evening Standard Headline Crisis 2008]
[comics] Frank Miller’s ‘Dark Knight’ brought Batman back to life … a look back at Miller’s Dark Knight Returns … ‘For his part, Miller says, “There are 50 different ways to do Batman and they all work. In fact, I’ve probably done about ten of them. I was once asked if I felt like I’d been handed a Ming vase” when he first took on the character. “I said no, it’s more like an unbreakable diamond. I could smash it against the wall or ceiling without hurting it. It’s just a matter of finding a facet no one’s used before.”‘
21 July 2008
[comics] Alan Moore Still Knows the Score! … Moore interview from Entertainment Weekly … ‘I was also quite heartened the other day when watching the news to see that there were demonstrations outside the Scientology headquarters over here, and that they suddenly flashed to a clip showing all these demonstrators wearing V for Vendetta [Guy Fawkes] masks. That pleased me. That gave me a warm little glow.’ [via Forbidden Planet’s Blog]
18 July 2008
[movies] Peter Bradshaw reviews Errol Morris’s documentary Standard Operating Procedure: ‘The Abu Ghraib scandal was a product of the digital age: ordinary roll-film cameras or Polaroids might have been too conspicuous, there would be no facilities for development, and any resulting prints might have been confiscated or lost. But digital images, immediately accessible and so easily transferable and reproducible, and with ineradicable date and time stamps, were the captors’ undoing. Watching this film is the grimmest experience imaginable…’
17 July 2008
[comics] The 10 Mental Illnesses Batman Indisputably Has … #2 -Munchhausen-by-Proxy: ‘This disorder, which usually exhibits itself in terms of a parent causing the illness of a child in order to garner attention, sympathy, and means of support for themselves, is something close to what Batman does with his many “wards”. Namely, he puts them in constant danger so that, perhaps, he can save them as his parents failed to save him from the life he’s inherited. Also, so he can stand in front of a glass case displaying the Robin togs they died in, so he can feel bad about himself…’
[movies] The letters of Stanley Kubrick … Kubrick on Full Metal Jacket: ‘My intention was not to relish violence for its own sake but to emphasise the reality of both the training process undergone by the recruits and the war situation in which they found themselves. A crucial aspect of this process is the use of language to dehumanise the young men. This had to be presented in a totally truthful way otherwise I would have compromised the reality of the story. I make no apology for taking such an approach. Full Metal Jacket offers no easy moral or political answers. It is not intended to be either pro-war or anti-war. It is concerned with the way things are.’
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