.hguoht ,dluow uoy yhw enigami t'nac I .esrever ni epyt ot deen reve uoy fi ereh kcilC

Interesting photos of a huge sandstorm in Iraq. This is from Snopes, so we know they weren't photoshopped.

I like this guy.

I Am Takin That Computer Away, 2004, acrylic on offset lithograph, framed, 24 1/2 x 44 inches

What was your most un-smooth moment?

This guy has some great concert shots from the '70s and '80s on Flickr. I really like these of Dylan.

Back when I was a reporter for the Post-Herald, one of my favorite sources of stories was the 2000 Census. I'd go here, type in something like "asian muslim teenagers" and presto--I had a story about the growing (or diminishing) numbers of chinese islamic youth. It makes for an interesting search. Well, now you can see the numbers in a different light. The Social Explorer is a map interface of the census data, with zoom features not unlike Google Maps. I did a search for the distribution of males and females in the state of Alabama by county and got the following info:





Fellas, the gals outnumber us. Unless you’re in Birmingham, of course. Very interesting.

Wow. I mean wow. No, really--wow.

If you're in law school and you need yo' rhymes, check this guy out.

Lesser quantums tried to fade this, but I'm back. Reversion style.
To A for Life, then I come back. Reversions stacked like that, cause y'all are slack like that, and class is whack like that.

Yeah, Gilbert'sTM ain't got that.

Crazy conveyance in F[ee] S[imple] D[eterminate], best not front that shit'll come back to me, rapidly. Exams are slappin' Me. ASP don't do jack for me.
Right of Re-entry, hell, I got that too. Got crazy conditions on this place, so watch what you do. Got the lot? Maybe so, maybe not. There's not way to know, so you drop crazy flow bout possession, seisen, feudal time reason, it melts in your mind like a stork chocolate reisen.

(via Garrick)

Ligers are actually being bred for their skills in magic.

Ted Nugent has finally, and totally, freaked out.

Check out the photos from Daniel's latest hobby. His troupe, Djintanna, is performing tonight at UNCA's campus in Asheville. If you happen to be up that way, check it out. He'll be playing Eros, the embodiment of all human sexuality, of course. As he notes:

Oh, I will be wearing wings. You know you are living a good life when FINISH WINGS appears at the top of your to-do list.

This shopping cart should make any homeless guy jealous. Check out the features:
* AM/FM/Cassette Radio and speakers
* Video screen w/ TV tuner
* GPS Tracking
* Refridgerator/warmer
* 10" Rubber wheels
* Can crusher
* Slide out seat
* Alarm w/strobe lights
* 81 Neon and L.E.D. Lights
* Tent
* Solar Powered battery charging system
* Deep cycle battery- Optima Yellow top

Due to a mystifying increase in popularity of crack-brained theories like creationism and intelligent design as viable explanations of the orgin of life, I tender this interesting and informative site on T.H. Huxley, scientist, president of the Royal Society, and Darwin's Bulldog. Darwin was a timid chap and might not have published Origin of Species but for Huxley, as this letter written to Darwin in 1859 shows:

"[I trust you will not be] disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse and misrepresentation which, unless I greatly mistake, is in store for you. Depend upon it, you have earned the lasting gratitude of all thoughtful men. And as to the curs which will bark and yelp, you must recollect that some of your friends, at any rate, are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often and justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead. I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness."

We should remember this important and influential man.

This is rather amazing.

I'm definitely ready for my own AirScooter.

It's almost summer, and that means sand sculpting.

  

Chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken-chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken!

Every Day You Play
by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you,
and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains,
bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you what spring does to the cherry trees.

If this is real, I'm moving to Idaho. Check out IDAHO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 29

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 29 BY WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE 1 A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 2 STATING LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND COMMENDING JARED AND JERUSHA HESS AND THE 3 CITY OF PRESTON FOR THE PRODUCTION OF THE MOVIE 'NAPOLEON DYNAMITE.'

This is my favorite provision:

"WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN' IDIOTS!" and run the risk of having the "Worst Day of Their Lives!"

Update: It's for real.

I cracked up reading this one. Some graduate students at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a random computer science research paper generator. You just plug in some author's names, and presto, you're ready to submit a paper to the 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics Conference. Feel free to check out my latest project: "Ambimorphic Epistemologies for a* Search"

This is an amazing flash site about the world's forests, with lots of quality photography. It doesn't make me want to go for a walk in the woods, though--it makes me want to sit inside and stare at the computer screen.

622 free music videos

The Long Emergency: What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle? By Howard Kunstler.

For all of you ultra-savvy computer folks who have converted to the Firefox browser, let me heartily recommend that you try out the Scrapbook extension. It rocks my little laptop world. Here's the deal: this little app lets you download web pages for offline viewing. Whole pages, with images, embedded video, links, etc. You can even program it to download all the pages that are linked to on that page. Pretty nifty. You just right-click on a page and hit "Capture page as.." and whallah.

Moreover, you can then edit the pages you've saved. Well, you can write notes and highlight passages. To wit:

You do the editing from this little tool bar at the bottom of the window, shown here:

This extension just came in super-handy on my seminar paper. I didn't need to print out the pages I found--I just saved 'em.

It seems the Vikings might have invented the telescope over a thousand years ago.

This is the view from folks on the ground whenever anyone does a Google Maps search like this. For another view, see this.

On a related note, this site keeps a log of interesting Google Map discoveries made by various bloggers. My favorite is this one, where some fellow has written the name "DAVE" in big letters in a field in Illinois (look right in the middle). Indeed, grafiti has been taken to new levels.

It's official: reading poetry makes you smarter.

"If literature is food for the mind, then a poem is a banquet, according to research by Scottish scientists which shows poetry is better for the brain than prose."

I like reading the news. This is my new homepage.

After a bit of research, I've decided that my next bicycle will definitely be a track bike. Lightweight and quick, track bikes have one fixed gear, which means the pedals are always in rotation. Unfortunately, it's considered old skool and hardcore to remove the brakes from them, and many are made now without any brakes at all. Luckily, some of them do. Why do this? It makes riding much more of a workout, basically. And then there's always street cred.

"Damn, icedoutgear, I gotta give ya'll some love! I just got my bracelet, watch and shorts and it's only been like 3 days since I ordered it! The watch and bracelet are so tight... looks just like the picture. Thanks for answering my emails too. I will definetely order more hip hop clothing and hip hop jewelry from ya'll in the future and I'm gonna let all my homies know that iced out gear .com got the best hip hop jewelry out there !!!"

Great article: Life's top 10 greatest inventions.

(click to enlarge)

Latest news on the B-15A iceberg, the world's larget floating object:

"The sheer scale of B-15A is best appreciated from space. The bottle-shaped Antarctic iceberg is around 120 kilometres long, with an area exceeding 2500 square kilometres, making it about as large as the entire country of Luxembourg."

This is the Annotated New York Times, a site that tracks NYT stories with real-time reactions from blogs. Read the stories, then see how they fare in the blogosphere. The fact that the Times even cares what bloggers have to say about the articles is interesting, although I have noticed that blogging journalists have been getting a bit of press lately. What a great way to keep the ideas alive after the stories have run.

1. Things which rock:
   • Adam and Ticla are married and expecting
   • Nate and Jill are engaged and expecting
   • Zack and Jan are married

Congratulations and best wishes to all y'all. Let me wish you, in my most eloquent terms, many years together that rock.

On a related note, Daniel has a new addition to the family: Jackson.

Anyone know how to teach a dog how to back up properly?

Once again, I am impressed by Google. This time, the cause celebre is Google Maps, which provides fast and accurate visual browsing of the entire nation. But the new feature is the satellite zoom, which is rather amazing. This is Ada:

What? You can't see it? It's right there, in the middle.

Steal this LP. This is Abbie Hoffman's 1969 record album, Wake Up America! in MP3 format.(via)

In the near future, rather than brushing, people will use small wands of blue light to kill bacteria in the teeth and gums.

Enter a zip code to locate a non-corporate cafe near you.

I haven't had a chance to read the whole article, but this piece on Hinduism looks provocative. Here's the opening excerpt:

"Hinduism is largely a fiction, formulated in the 18th and 19th centuries out of a multiplicity of sub-continental religions, and enthusiastically endorsed by Indian modernisers. Unlike Muslims, Hindus have tended to borrow more than reject, and it has now been reconfigured as a global rival to the big three monotheisms. In the process, it has abandoned the tradition of toleration which lie in its true origins."

YaGoohoo!gle

Well, Mayberry Ada witnessed quite an event this afternoon. We had a big fire to beat the band. Mary Pat and I were driving for some mexican when we noticed a dark haze covering the sky. Being the meteorological expert I am, I thought it was receding storm clouds. Mary Pat, she thought it was a fire. We crossed Main Street, happened to look downtown, such as it is, and saw nothing but smoke and flashing lights. Turns out Ada'a largest building was on fire, and engulfed it was. Thick oily smoke rolled from under the roof in yellow plumes, and deep licks of fire flashed from the windows. After a few camera shots we headed out, and as the day faded we could see the growing fire from five miles out. Sad to say, little old Ada won't be the same tomorrow.

Garrick also took some great shots of the fire here.

Scientists have discovered water on Mars.

The National Press Photographers Association presents the best of 2005 photojournalism.

Now that the debacle of this poor girls's death is over, one journalist takes the cue and makes his living will. How true.

I figured this might be happening, but this is the first actual story I've read about the cyber-homeless. This kid lives in New York City, and spends every day at Starbucks chatting with ladies online. That's all he does. At night he goes to a nearby 24-hour Kinko's and sleeps upright in a chair. In the morning he bathes at a local church, and then heads back to Starbucks, lugging his desktop computer with him.

Sad, but amazing. There's a rich sociological study somewhere in here.

"Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler... with predictions of his future behavior and suggestions for dealing with him now and after Germany's surrender"