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BB: How the Soviets would have you sleep.
BB: Just how recently the milk-tolerance gene emerged.
NY Mag by way of Daring Fireball: Internet privacy is the first generation gap since Rock and Roll.
(None/almost none of the shit in here should be news to any of you, but it's nice to see it explicated/explained by someone on the gap's bubble.)
Speak up, by way of Kottke: Graphic design in Idiocracy.
(Makes me want to see the film even more, now.)
Wikipedia article on New Silent generation in America (hypothesis: they are silent because they are, at most, twelve years old right now) includes handy list of American generations.
We're Generation Y, by the way. If you don't believe me, check the list of Generation Y's defining moments.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
What Japan Thinks.com tells us how one's room turns off Japanese men or women.
Chip the size of postage stamp computes at 1 Teraflop.
No, fuck you! Your cell phone will have a chip in it capable of doing a trillion calculations per second and you will fucking like it, capisce?
TV Squad pre-reviews the This American Life TV show, which is coming soon to Showtime.
BB: First in-tact colossal squid caught off New Zeland.
I, for one, welcome our new cephalopod overlords.
BB: Chimps use spears to hunt vertebrates.
Add this to the fact that any time 12 or more chimps hunt together, they have a 100% success rate (a stunning fact for the animal kingdom) and you've got a pretty formidable primate.
Though, I've got say that I, for one, think that the squids could take 'em, could squid survive outside the ocean (and thank god they can't).
Lars, aim away from your keyboard, it's the trailer for the This American Life TV show.
Coming soon to Showtime.
indexed strikes again. This time, it's vaguely dirty.
I've always been curious about Second Life, and I'm glad someone did a reasonably hilarious review.
He named his character Wenis Swindlehurst.
That's comedy.
By way of Boing Boing.
The Regina Spektor album is good. (Just a note before we start: I bought the "Bonus Track Version" off of iTunes, and while I feel like it dilutes the through-line of the rise-and-fall of the album, it's worth it for the extra tracks, which flesh out Spektor's range.)
Anyway, one of you plugged it a while back, probably Susan, I think? Too lazy to check. I didn't buy it off that recommendation (though I still like you, Susan) because a few years ago I stopped buying CDs off the recommendations of all but the smallest of small groups of people. Basically that group boils down to: Matt (sometimes) and Andy (fewer times) and Lars (fewer times, still). And that's about it. It's not that I don't like the rest of you, but what gets me interested in an album seems to be wildly different than just about everybody else, and that's OK. That's the way it should be.
But that won't stop me from having the unmitigated gall to recommend the Regina Spektor CD to you. It's solid and, better yet, it's what that first Nellie McKay album should've been. They remind me a lot of each other, too. Not just the fact that they are pale, petite piano playing gals that deliver strange, quirky music, but also in, it feels like, musical background and goals. Even their elocution, at times, is strikingly similar.
But where McKay gets too caught up in her own cleverness to deliver on the intense promise of her talent and intelligence, Spektor manages to walk that fine line; "Edit" could've used another verse or two's worth of writing but then maybe that's the joke of it, given the lyrics. Even songs like "Uh-Merica" which could've devolved solely into an excercise, Spektor still manages to come up with the goods, in this case with the lyric "there's nothing like / emptying a cartridge / at the sun." Good stuff.
I bought the McKay album off the strength of "Ding Dong" (which is the best song on that album) and felt burned when McKay's cleverness couldn't sustain itself enough to make up for her unwillingness to settle into a form. And while Spektor display some of that same restlessness, the individual songs themselves are brilliant little self-contained gems. Whether the slow dance of "Samson" (brutal in its simplicity), the danceable meloncholy of "Hotel Song," the scattered geographic play of "Dusseldorf" the thick Soviet swell of "Apres Moi" or the bright, slickly produced and ingenious pop of "Fidelity" and "On the Radio," Spektor switches gears between songs, rather than mish-mashing everything together like McKay.
Anyway, that's just my take. I welcome disagreement.
A further question: where does Fiona Apple fit into the petite, piano-playing songstrix conversation? And is there anyone else like these three that I've missed?
(Fuck! I did my whole review and forgot to mention "That Time," which rocks hard, and, additionally, could've been one of those songs that devolved into crap after starting out with a clever (or, well, semi-clever) premise. And then it almost does and then ... BAM! She pulls it out and hits you with the last half of the last verse and completely kicks your ass. Or, mine, at least. Shit. So good.)
Giz: Rubik's cube for the lazy.
BoingBoing: Early Iraq war plan: 5000 troops only by Dec 2006.
Techdirt: DMCA takedown for clip illustrating how copyright owners eggagerate their rights? Hilarious.
Kottke: Nerdy band uses infographics to tell the story of love. Reminds me of the title sequence for Eurotrip. A little.
I think that's all...
...for now.
A little late, but worth it: This Valentine's Day, say it with a wolverine.
Did you know that 46% of all women expect at least one wolverine for Valentine's day?
My V-Day Away Message:
Dear The Ladies,
What gives?
Cordially,
Me
Kendall's Reply:
Dear The Pot,
Black!
Kisses,
Kettle
Krugman on John Edwards' Healthcare Plan.
I listened to Edwards describe this on Talk of the Nation last Thursday while driving and swooned so badly I almost had to pull over.
Q. Have you given up on posting?
A. No, I just haven't had anything interesting to say. Went on Tucson/New Orleans/Tucson trip and that kinda took me out of it for a while.
Q. Oh, yeah! How was that?
A. Tucson was good. NO was much better than expected.
Q. Still teaching for the Princeton Review?
A. Yes, but my latest class makes me want to stab them.
Q. Are you, um, going to do, like, anything with your life or anything?
A. Yes. Returning to Tucson for Summer II and then the Fall and Spring Semesters. Applying in Dec 07 to grad schools in Philosophy for Fall '08 admission. (Probably.)
Q. Tucson, huh. Why?
A. That's where they keep the University of Arizona, sadly; though it could be worse. It could be Phoenix. Or Boerne.
Q. Nailing anybody?
A. No.
Q. What's up with sloths? Are they hardcore?
A. Yes. Sloths are hardcore.
Q. What's the funniest card to be on indexed lately?
A. Juvenile.
Q. Written anything lately?
A. I've written precisely one story in the past year. It is available for reading.
