Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Bitworking: Stigmergy and the World-Wide Web
"or how we all became ants building a nest we can't even see"
The Book of Urizen
from the Library of Congress
mmmmm...ephemera!
Pray for Winona
...or whatever
The lead industry lines up at the trough
What other toxin lobby can we coddle?
The Zyklon-B industry??
Brian Eno: America as Gated Community
that's the alter-Eno again
The Peanuts Arcana Tarot Deck
Go ahead, Charlie Brown...pick a card!
Scoop: How U.S. Schools Create Sheeple
"Why Most Americans Are Unable To Perceive
And Protest America's Slide Into Fascism"

Sunday, December 29, 2002

Scott Mutter: A More Perfect World
Online Exhibit from the American Museum of Photography
white noise on white noise
"Attention...Kleenex Softique...Kleenex Softique"
Punk Kittens
It's a fuckin' feline freakout, sponsored by the White Stripes
Book of the Future
an interesting project over at the BBC
Play guitar just like Django and the gypsies!
selling your soul is entirely optional
A Chail Letter for Scientists
"In the Midwest, Prof. K. failed to pass on the letter,
and in a budget cutback his entire department was eliminated."
MusicMoz
"aims to be a comprehensive directory of music,
built by volunteers around the world"
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.

H.L. Mencken
Star Wars Origami
insert Tab A into Slot 3PO

Saturday, December 28, 2002

The single most published book of all time is the Bible.
Can you name the second most popular book?

Several fresh batches over at Gapingvoid
"cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"
Bush, Again: Slash Taxes for Rich, Increase National Debt
We can wipe out the horror of public funds
in our time...actually, just give us eight years.
Crying in Early Infancy
100 Sonnets by John Tranter

Friday, December 27, 2002

The Fantastic Typing CyberMonkey
"To be or ..KJDFKJIJEKJF DMNVJ MNC
NVCMNC VMNJHDNDHFJLKKJD MVCK"

(well, that was close...)
Some fresh updates over at Eric Conveys an Emotion
You know the website for a Dutch fine arts museum
is going to be exceptional, jah?
Dow Chemical Sues Survivors of Toxic Gas Disaster
"In a stunning example of corporate insensibility, Dow Chemical,
the worlds largest chemical company, and new owners of Union Carbide
is to sue survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India.
While the site of the disaster lies covered in toxic waste and survivors struggle
with continuing ill health and deadly pollution from the site,
Dow has decided to add to their woes with a Indian lawsuit."

("living improved daily -certain exceptions apply")
FLY GUY
Do try FLY GUY...
your pants will flap perceptibly
with the sheer thrill of velocity!
spamnet from Cloudmark
Free distributed spam fighting filter,
join the fight or be e-buried alive
ANDRÀS BÖRÖCZ
some shadowbox sculptures
featuring anthro-pencil-morphic figurines
what's new pussy cat
it's like 'concentration' with cat pictures,
because the internet exists primarily
so that cats can see pictures of each other
Spam You Silly!®
"Oh Sweet Jesus, please make it stop!"
Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002
according to Jakob, who should know
Buru Buru Dog's
"How many cute actions do you know?"

Thursday, December 26, 2002

Christmas spirit story (from Fox News!)
A police officer got a Christmas gift of $3,000
from homeless people who wanted to thank him
for standing up for them.

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

The Year in Ideas
from New York Times Magazine
(free registration required)

Sunday, December 22, 2002

Get Creative
In which The White Stripes (and bassist)
present Creative Commons
Top-secret Iraq Report Reveals
U.S. Corporations, Gov't Agencies
and Nuclear Labs Helped Illegally Arm Iraq

Snowflakes in Vermont
photomicrographs from the 1920's
by W.A. Bentley
Worldometers
(ulp!)
Automatic Treasures Machine
a service for all the kids
from the British Library
Some of our favorite TreeHouses
*sigh*
our dream home is SO out of reach
The "No...Really, They Hate Us Because of the Freedom" Department:
US wrecks cheap drugs deal
"Cheney's intervention blocks pact
to help poor countries
after pharmaceutical firms
lobby White House."

Make a Mix Tape for Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston
and THEN you'll be all set for the holiday

Saturday, December 21, 2002

Behavioral Vitamins
Interesting lecture by Lionel Tiger
Isidore-of-Seville.com.
Ancient Links you had no idea you needed so

Friday, December 20, 2002

Troubletown
presents the Christmas miracle machine
(here's some more)
The Unseen Gulf War by Peter Turnley
some digital photojournalism
Orchid Smuggler Nabbed at Customs
"Also, I have some monkeys in my pants..."
Hey Kids!!
Japanese comics-art tutorials
Mangia, mangia!!!
Orchid Fever by Susan Orlean
In honor of "Adaptation" opening in Boston,
here's the New Yorker article
that germinated the whole shtick
Invisibles!
toughest movie quiz I've never seen
Rooting Out Evil - Mission USA
In the new year, Rooting Out Evil will be
sending a team of volunteer weapons inspectors
into that greatest of rogue nations,
the United States of America.

Thursday, December 19, 2002

"The Y2K that never happened"
Beth Israel Deaconess info-systems crash

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

Fabrique
from oculart, which...is....uh...
A Binary Clock Experiment
get it............yes/no
don't get it....yes/no
Toasted Cheese
Online Writing Community & Literary Journal
EastGerman political cartoon from1986
The caption says: "Of course Star Wars works!"
presents from ellen
thank you thank you thank you
we love and admire and adore ellen
just because
jorn's timeline of knowledge-representation undergoes further refinement
Outrage accessories
from the gwbush.com store
Operation Internal Look
Yes, folks- that's O.I.L.!
It's the blockbuster advance-preview
trade-show teaser for Desert Storm 2
and it's going on right now!

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

L'chaim, yo!
from the Lower East Side,
a panoramic view of the Bialystoker Synagogue
Real-world Rube Goldberg Machines
First, click this
New York Curmudgeon Tours
"Take a walk with a real grouch
and get a jaundiced view of the soft underbelly..."
Creative Commons is one day old!
aaWHOOOOOgaaaa!
c'est la Silophone
History Is a Dance of Life
Paul Wellstone at the ninetieth anniversary party
for The Progressive magazine
Our Job Is a Simple One: Stop Them
from Howard Zinn at The Progressive
"Another point:
By now we have reached a point in human history
when the means of war have become so horrible that
they exceed any possible good that can come out of using them."

The Flea Markets of Paris
"welcome to the attic of the world"
Resonance 104.4 fm
"Resonance104.4fm is London's first radio art station,
brought to you by London Musicians' Collective.
It started broadcasting on May 1st 2002.
It will continue for a year.
Its brief?
To provide a radical alternative
to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting."
Flash-game intro's to music
from the 'beeb'
Philosophy for Stick Figures
"What We Know" is that
for everything we come to know
there's a pop-up ad for something
we don't want to know
inter - Face
"Try me"
(*wink *wink)
Major Bummer's Totally Depressing Guide to the Holidays
Major Bummer is a (re)tired foot soldier
of the No Salvation Army.

Most Loathsome People in America, 2002
never mind #1, who is #3?
(The Best Best-of yet)
Dear Brother
from The American Lady's and Gentleman's Modern Letter Writer
at 18th Century Schoolbooks
Flexwindow
"Have you ever wished updating your web site
were as easy as, say, sending an e-mail?"
New Tax Plan May Bring Shift In Burden
The Treasury Department is working up
more sophisticated distribution tables
that are expected to make the poor appear
to be paying less in taxes and the rich to be paying more.

Technical Difficulties
"...please don't watch, it's embarrassing!"

Monday, December 16, 2002

Hooooooweee doggies!
It's Dr. Humphrey Bates' Possum Hunters
singin' MY WIFE DIED SATURDAY NIGHT
at the The Roots Music Listening Room
vintage country 78 rpm platters done up all mp3-fancy
I think I'm in love with pac-man?
I hate racists and smokers. Smokers are fucking jokers. Jokers are copulating with smokers. The world's a madhouse, and I'm the indoor plumbing.
Kana Flashcards
arigato gozaimas!
The age of manipulation
"...the social chaos we see around us resulted
from the shattering in the eighteenth century
of the coherent system of moral understanding
that originated with Aristotle.
What was torpedoed in modern notions of the self,
McIntyre thinks, was the notion of a 'telos',
the idea that the point of individual existence
was a well-lived life
- a life devoted to a transcendent good."

May 1968 Graffiti
...from France!
ToonTalk
"Making programming child's play"
BBC NEWS | Health | 'Fear gene' could unlock mental illness
"The discovery of a gene in mice that plays a role in learning to be afraid could provide clues to the origins of severe mental illness"
Bar Signs
"When words come out whiskey can't get in.
Remove the roadblocks to drinking success
with this arsenal of non-verbal communication."
Lester Bangs interviews Eno

(the other onE)
What Kids Can Do
In Their Own Words
The lyrics to Rubber Biscuit
Dan Ackroyd's finest moment
Cultural Commentary in 10 Easy Lessons
"...there's an astonishing abundance of cultural criticism these days...
If you removed the five or 10 most abused forms of criticism, there would be a deafening silence. Or perhaps room for other kinds of commentary to grow. "

Saturday, December 14, 2002

Thursday, December 12, 2002

The Young Man's Book of Amusement
(1854) "For information only.
Please don't experiment with high voltages or chemicals
unless you are fully conversant with safe laboratory practices"
Baloney Detection Kit
Carl Sagan takes us beyond
billions and billions of confounding spinmeisters
Spank the Donkey
*please...pass it along!*

"Start talking to people and building things
Stop defining "citizenship" by the mere act of voting.
Stop fearing what will happen if you give up on the Democrats.
Stop pretending the system isn't broken.
Stop pretending the Democratic party is interested in fixing it."
the letter project
your message here, with calligraphy animated by real people!
Unseasonal changes
report from London of an edge in the air
Timeship
all aboard!
)(WarDriver Bumper Stickers
warning! I brake for bandwidth
Lorem Ipsum Generator
what is 'lorem ipsum', anyway?
doesn't Microsoft hold the patent?
The Letter Project
animated calligraphy from real live people!
formandcontent: worldview desktop v0.9
mmmm...information overload...in real time!
Guardian Special reports: Daniel Ellsberg
In 1971 Ellsberg leaked documents that exposed US government lies
and helped end the Vietnam war.
He tells why he did it, and why he is calling
on today's officials to do the same to the Bush regime
- and prevent a war in Iraq
breathe (the overdose game)
well-meaning but twisted
public-service edutainment
please...play as directed
mixoftheweek.com
"Your one-stop web resource for soulful dance music and other beautiful sounds"
Pandromeda's MojoWorld Generator
spin your own alien vistas
Polish Poster Gallery
ah the world of surprise and wonder
that is Polish posters!
Procrastination Research Group Home Page

"No you never get any fun,
Out of the things you haven't done,
But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
Because the suitable things you didn't do give you a lot more trouble than the unsuitable things you did."

(Ogden Nash 1929)

The Secret Bestseller List
ssssh! it features Chomsky and Bill Pitt!
Will abortion-seekers need 'death warrants'?
getting speechless again...
Online Training Simulation
"You are the training manager in a large, progressive company.
Someone in senior management has read about online training,
and has charged you to develop three online courses.
You get 12 turns and a $200,000 budget,
which you can spend in six ways..."

Plans for municipal hitch-hiking into NYC?
or just a friggin fiasco up the pike?

An online barter community
like e-bay without cash!
Massive postcard swap forming
calling all elementary schoolkids and teachers!


The All-New 2002 Google Zeitgeist Year in Review
a kind of cross-section
of the collective unconscious
keyword by keyword
Very cool little plug-in web-service
lets you instantly check local library availability of books
you see mentioned in passing
Excellent convocation of independent radio sources
because, apparently, the revolution is not being televised
Another report on the blogosphere
by a librarian (a human librarian)


grumpygirl's The Questioning Ant
holds forth on the phenomenon of blogging

Extract from a survey on urban "feral children"

"In 1996, Ivan Mishukov left home. He was four years old.
Ivan's mother could not cope with him or with her alcoholic boyfriend,
so the little boy decided that life on the streets
was better than the chaos of their apartment;
and just as Moscow has its homeless,
so it has its wild dogs...Out on the streets, Ivan began to beg,
but gave a portion of the food he cadged each time
to one particular pack of dogs.
The dogs grew to trust him;
befriended him; and, finally,
took him on as their pack leader."

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Training caregivers to serve the homeless

"The combination of past trauma, lack of supports,
and managing a precarious life with a poor view of the future,
results in these young people being depressed, angry,
and 'emotional'. They have low self-esteem,
and drug and alcohol abuse is common.
Previous negative experiences either with adults
or with support services,
combined with poor communication skills,
often results in young people appearing hostile
or aggressive when seeking support.
This needs to be recognised and understood."

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Guardian Unlimited Film | Being Charlie Kaufman
Adaptation meta-obsession overseas

Elihu Vedder's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
If William Blake was an art-deco-influenced Arabian potentate...

Monday, December 09, 2002

Canadian Donutshop culture
mmmm...Canadian Donuts!
Counterspace
excellent intro to typography,
complete with fun-filled doo-dads

Sunday, December 08, 2002

Not in Our Name
Statement by Philip Berrigan

"Keep the Pledge and put flesh on it.
And please, please, please, don't get tired."


oneword.
massively distributed free-association project

1. review the word of the day
2. click on "write"
3. click on "go"
4. you have one minute to respond
5. click "submit"
The Robo-Candidate
smugness incarnate
Tim Flach Photography

otherworldly...and yet...

404 Research Lab
advancing the science of immediate obsolescence
180 Degree Computer Monitor at Hammacher Schlemmer

Yo!
UFOs In European Art
from the newly-esteemed no sense of place

Lo!

Friday, December 06, 2002

Top Ten Digital Photography Tips
from the O'Reilly Network

The Empire That Was Russia
by the "Photographer to the Tsar",
see for instance the Profile of an Uzbek Woman
Review of My Neighbor’s Teenage Son’s House Party
"...By then I realized
my head wound was not going to stop bleeding on its own,
and that it was only a matter of time before my wife
was going to begin wondering why letting the cat in
was taking so long, so I left."

"Christopher Monks was not one of the cool kids."
Robert Christgau: Random A-List
record review-a-rama
(by one of the perpetually cool kids)
Creating Web Applications with Mozilla
the on-line book
jump on in!
Oblique Strategies
creative divination resource
from eno
More Writing Resources
are you getting all this down?
Book review: 'The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide'

They "...conform, more or less, to the rules of their species:
basic patterns of physiology, territoriality, social hierarchy,
reproductive behavior, parental care, and so on,
and the ones that don't fit generally get eaten."
Weblogs Compendium
thorough resource page
Feeware Spybot - Search & Destroy by PepiMK Software
it's more than just viral marketing, it's plague-ware!
Ten Things You Didn't Know about Your Books
did you know that when you're not looking, they end differently?

Thursday, December 05, 2002

Database of Bookbindings
from The British Library via Craig
here's an example
can I borrow that when you're finished?
Maybe you should have a look at The DiIulio Letter
before it's "groundless, baseless..." and shredded!
The Perpetual War Portfolio
"About the PWP:
...an evenly weighted basket of five stocks
poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war.
Stocks are selected on the basis of popular product lines,
strong political connections and lobbying efforts,
and paid-for access to key Congressional decision makers."
Study Guide for Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)
(no George Clooney here whatsoever)
What do we care What the World Thinks in 2002?
from The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

MoMA Film at The Gramercy Theatre | Documentary Fortnight
well, we can enjoy the descriptions anyway

Tuesday, December 03, 2002

Malaspina.com
Free Great Books Search Engine
Total Information Awareness about Poindexter himself...

shall we start with his phone number,
or satellite images of his backyard?
Crimes of War : What the Public Should Know
hi monkey!
oh...and hi samantha and michael!
Seuss, Forsooth!

"...FOX:
But soft, behold, lo where chicks come again!
Chicks with bricks and blocks and clocks come.

[Enter CHICKS with bricks and blocks and clocks.]

Mark me, mark me, my lord Knox, sir.
Let us hold watch with bricks and blocks, sir.
Let us have after with chicks and clocks, sir.
A mote is to trouble the mind's eye,
In the most high quick trick brick stack,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell
As stars with trains of fire from a quick trick block stack.
What if it tempt you toward the flood my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of a quick trick chick stack,
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some quick trick clock stack?
My fate cries out, my lord Knox,
Socks on chicks and chicks on Fox.

[Enter GHOST..."

Monday, December 02, 2002

Please Remember To Tip The Pizza Delivery Driver
those guys are the real heroes, too
Homeland Security Department Unveils Official Seal
So much pork they're calling it the "Hormel" Security Act...
"Ha ha, made you look!"
"The cat may be the only animal
who savors the perverse or reflects on it."
Camille Paglia

Now whoooooo's my little mwah mwah mwaah?
A short sort of a story: "Alkaline, Come Home"

"When I was born the young doctor had to cry before I would..."
Artist paints a word on each of sixty cows
waits for them to wander and mingle
into poems.

"One animal seemed especially inspired
— with "away" written on her side,
she broke loose from the herd for a while."




Spinning-Godzilla-Eye-View of Tokyo
Yow! How do I get off of this thing?
Become a tiny, naked computer entity
Then, when (or if) you've figured things out,
walk around, chat, stay out of trouble...
watch out for the pigs!
Joseph Smith: Magus, Freemason, Kabbalist and Gnostic.
The remarkable founder of the only truly American religion.

(I swiped the link and code directly from a Metafilter post,
purely for educational purposes.
Thanks y2karl!)
When Francis Bacon was a child,
his baby-sitter would lock him in a closet
repeatedly, and for hours at a time.

Eventually he stopped screaming,
and became a painter.
:: errata erratum ::

don't know quite what it's supposed to do...
but it's by DJ Spooky...
and it involves Marcel Duchamp masks.
MyBeerBuddycom
MyBeerBuddy
will NEVER organize
a stupid "intervention"
World's Worst Web Page
"This web was designed to graphically demonstrate
the most common mistakes
made by new Web Page designers."

totally not loud enough
and no typo's!

PeopleCards.net :::: The Official People Trading Card
trading cards of real live actual people
"guaranteed celebrity-free!
collect all six billion!"
NetGram - Send Postal Mail Using Electronic Mail
what...paper?
why not Morse Code?
or smoke signals?!
Help Ibiblio help you
"a place where our friends can share their skillsets,
list projects they would like to work on,
and those in need of help can list their projects."

Say Keng LEE: Listmania

almost too many resources
for accelerated-self-mega-improvement
...and snappy grooming tips!

Sunday, December 01, 2002

oooo's and/or aaaah's part 8
(not available in stores!)


Best crushed-Russian-beetle-shell-based
recycled-lumber anti-gravity scooter
in a long time!
oooo's and/or aaaah's part 6

aright! a remote-control clock!
click it back to Sunday afternoon again!
Flash Tutorials
now get to work!
Literary Devices
"What happens when the Internet
takes over from Shakespeare and Goethe?"

(All your cultural achievements are belong to us!)
Composite-sketch toy
best Russian flash-based face-constructor in a while!

Here's a Tarot
that's even eerier than you'd expect
ooooo's and/or aaaaaa's part 5
Whoa...I wish I was 7 through 12!

Scribbler rocks pretty good.
(Could this be my Canadian doppelblogger?)
Crooooow!
"Since May, I've been working for the crows,
and so far it's the best job I ever had."
Tom Tomorrow
wonders if you've been paying attention
Propositions of the Atelier de Poesie Ouverte

"12. The opposite of open poetry is propaganda."

"27. It’s time for adolescents to start bringing us their poems and stop hiding them."

A Day In The Life Of My Mouth
speechless...just speechless
US Warplanes in Missile Attack on Iraqi Oil Refinery
Our first target: the offices of the oil-for-food program.
Non-existent Pentagon Department of Misleading Information
denies any knowledge.

Another chance to get in on the ground floor!

pssst! I think Disney is breaking into cloning!
LetsBlowItUp.Com
when violent computer games just don't cut it anymore
The 13 Scariest White Guys in America
Warning: Contains characters and situations
which may be disturbing to some viewers

Absolutely NO ONE will be seated
twenty minutes after the election!!!!
How to Start Your Own Cult
with tips on how to finish your own cult
B3TA : INTERVIEWS : EMMA CLARKE
the lovely voice of the London Underground,
I'd mind your gap anyday!
Speaking of motion pictures, the Adaptation trailer is worth a look.
Solaris, Rediscovered
Wired weighs in on some background details,
such as the author of the original novel.

"His stories involve accidents, malfunctions,
misinterpretations, mistakes of perception,
dogmatic blindness.
A person encounters a system,
and the results of the encounter
reveal the limits of both.
Now, 40 years after its publication,
Lem's own book has gotten away from him,
like some small mechanism in a wayward machine."


Earth View
don't we look so blessed from up here?
Kate Greenaway's Book of Games
from 1900 (no first-person shooters)
also from childrensbooksonline.org
Joan of Arc page images from 1918!
courtesy of the childrensbooksonline.org
Web-based check-up
helps find Unsolicited Commercial Software