mcdspot

To the guy who compiled this list of the ten most worthless college majors, I have only this to say:

Hey, do you want fries with that?

We’ve just got to give newly-discovered plant and animal species all the media attention they can get. Introducing the top ten new species of life discovered in 2007.

Gore Vidal isn’t putting up with any of this crap.

This guy takes old digitized photographs from the new york public library and makes them look unnervingly three-dimensional. Check out them out here.

Kevin Kelly has a good post here about books that have changed his life. I’d love to write one of these once I have the time. I concur with him on Leaves of Grass and Finite and Infinite Games.

A nice retrospective of some of the images sent back to Earth by NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft over the past four years.

Wonderful site design.

from Teach the Controversy

This has to be one of the more interesting movie reviews I’ve ever read.

Originally uploaded by tsevis

this guy does some interesting work.

Good question.

science is cool.

I hate to quote from any work by William Dembski, but in this case I must. This is the story of William James Sidis, one of the most intelligent people in modern history. Dembski provides a tantalizing story:

William James Sidis (1898-1944) is by some regarded as the most intellectually gifted person who ever lived. His IQ is estimated to have been between 250 and 300. At eighteen months he could read the New York Times. At two he taught himself Latin. At three he learned Greek. At four he was typing letters in French and English. At five he wrote a treatise on anatomy and stunned people with his mathematical ability. At eight he graduated from Brookline High School. He was about to enter
Harvard, but the entrance board suggested he take a few years off to develop socially. So he entered Harvard at eleven. At sixteen he graduated cum laude. He became the youngest professor in history. He inferred the possibility of black holes twenty years before Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar did. As an adult, he could speak more than forty languages and dialects.

Yet the stress of possessing such an amazing intellect took its toll on Sidis. Instead of being appreciated and admired for his intellectual gifts, he was regarded as a freak—an intellectual performer to be stared at rather than a fellow human being to be cherished. As a teenager at Harvard, he
suffered a nervous breakdown. As a professor at Rice University, he was unable to bear the constant media attention. In his early twenties, he resigned his professorship and withdrew from all serious intellectual pursuits. In 1924, a reporter found him working a low-paying job at a Wall Street office. Sidis told the reporter that all he wanted was anonymity and a job that placed no demands on him. Sidis spent the rest of his life working menial jobs.

If you were ever wondering exactly what the differences between the AK47, the AR15, and the Mosin Nagant rifles are, you can completely satisfy your queries here.

This may be bogus, but apparently a 28-foot, 1-inch alligator was recently found and killed near Centre, Alabama. He was found snacking on a full-grown deer.

“I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”

– George W. Bush, in an interview in which he expressed regret over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood.

Is it me, or is there SOMETHING REAL FISHY ABOUT THIS BAND’S NAME? What does it mean? Who are these people?

Update 1: My curiosity got the better of me, so I wrote the band this note:

Hi, this request is going to sound strange, but I’m wondering what your band name “Bastard the Obvious” (aka McDowell Crook)” means?

The reason I’m asking is this. My name is McDowell Crook. Fo real.

Should I be flattered or offended? Or am I confused? Why on earth do/did you have “McDowell Crook” as a band name?

I mean, it’s certainly a kickass name. Ahem. But I still wonder why.

I hope they answer my question, but when your Myspace page looks like mine does, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever be taken seriously.

Update 2: Aaaaaahahahahahah! I just received the following message in response:

I was just thinking of some names to use in lieu of my own name, and some friends and I were drinking one night and were tossing around a bunch of different names and somehow came up with McDowell Crook. It’s not meant to be offensive in any way, and it wasn’t chosen after any one particular person. It just happens to be a complete coincedence that your name is what got put together on the latenight by a group of drunkards.

Wow. I mean, how in the heck did they come up with that? Other than it being a supercool name, of course. Lots and lots of Pabst Blue Ribbon and an internet connection I suppose.

It’s official. My name can beat up your name.

The fellas over at Woot cracked me up:

Today’s the day for Steve Jobs’ big Apple WWDC keynote speech. Of course, we’re all as excited as any other group of socially maladjusted techno-bores. But why wait around for real-time coverage on some inferior blog when you can get the scoop first right here on Woot.com?

(all times Pacific)

9:55 AM: Anticipation building. Tension high. Apple cops break up a knife fight in the fourth row. No apparent injuries.

10:01 AM: John Hodgman appears onscreen, completely nude and racked by tremendous sobs. “I’m a PC. I’ve wasted my life. I don’t deserve to live.” More weeping. No Mac guy. Screen fades to black. Tremendous applause.

10:02 AM: Here comes Jobs, clad in a bandanna headband and denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off, fist-pumping across the stage to the tune of “The Kid Is Hot Tonight”. Announces new iTouch Loverboy Edition.

10:06 AM: New iPhone will run on hydrogen fuel cells, just to be extra-hip.

10:10 AM: iTunes rentals will no longer carry “be kind, rewind” stickers.

10:14 AM: iPod market share now stands at 113%.

10:16 AM: Apple Stores will now have dress code, guest list, two-drink minimum.

10:18 AM: Jobs shows pie graph illustrating how this year’s pie graphs are 38% awesomer than last year’s.

10:23 AM: Despite calls from supporters to carry his fight to the convention floor, Jobs is suspending his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president.

10:26 AM: iPhone’s real-time video monitoring of every person on Earth still 3-5 years away.

10:28 AM: 10.6 will have Disney Princesses theme.

10:32 AM: 10.7 security features will automatically lock out anyone over 47.

10:36 AM: New MacBooks will not have monitors, which Jobs calls “stale…a thing of the past.”

10:42 AM: Jobs joined onstage by some “very special, really super” guests: Steve Ballmer’s two sons, bound and gagged with duct tape. “I really hope we can find a way to end this thing, Steve,” Jobs says, fidgeting with a cricket bat. “I’d hate to get blood on my new suit.”

10:50 AM: New Startup theme written by Kevin Federline.

10:56 AM: When Jobs says “boom” for the fifth time, Joel Johnson wins WWDC Keynote Bingo.

11:02 AM: Expects to complete “free iBook for everyone in Brooklyn” program by August.

11:21 AM: Sorry, fell asleep when he brought up new Dashboard widgets. Hope I didn’t miss anything.

11:23 AM: Introducing new resolution-independent UI development, Jobs drops to one knee, performs monologue from King Lear. Seems well-received.

11:31 AM: One more thing…Apple Bob.

via John Tracy