December 2009
43 posts
Final edition:
Twilight of the... →
Most newspapers that are dying today were born in the nineteenth century. The Seattle Post–Intelligencer died 2009, born 1863. The Rocky Mountain News died 2009, born 1859. The Ann Arbor News died 2009, born 1835. It was the pride and the function of the American newspaper in the nineteenth century to declare the forming congregation of buildings and services a city—a place busy enough or...
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: I Am Locking the... →
A hilarious hypothetical first world problem
Home of Socks and Sandals the world over →
For those sensitive to this particular aesthetic…
sketchy santas →
One of the funniest things I’ve seen recently. Ah, the memories.
A must see.
100 days in Glacier National Park →
World's Largest Milky Way Image Unveiled →
The world’s largest picture of the Milky Way, taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, is being unveiled today at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.
The new image is of galactic proportions, covering an area that is 120 feet (37 meters) long, 3 feet (1 meter) tall at its sides and 6 feet (2 meters) tall in the middle, where our galaxy’s central bulge is depicted.
Quite a sight.
The Map Room: Review: Paris Underground →
Ananova - College education goes to pot →
They never offered official courses like this when I was at school…
James Franco on General Hospital and Performance... →
“If all goes according to plan, it will definitely be weird. But is it art?”
—Actor James Franco’s essay about appearing on General Hospital as performance art.
The GISnet Website →
On the origins of the Compass Rose:
The compass rose has appeared on charts and maps since the 1300’s when the portolan charts first made their appearance. The term “rose” comes from the figure’s compass points resembling the petals of the well-known flower.
snopes.com: The Physics of Santa and His Reindeer →
A good yearly laugh.
WatchTimelapse movie: The Alps — part II (night) on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
Moonride →
We’ve got a soft spot for vintage manuals and instruction books so the Lunar Rover Operations Handbook prepared by LRV Systems Engineering in Huntsville, Alabama on April 19, 1971 has really caught our attention. It’s a geeky read and the handmade nature of the charts and diagrams prepared for a very small list of operators are lovely.
I can’t resist anything Lunar.
via...
Phone Box Experiment →
I haven’t called yet.
Google Mars →
Three satellites circle Mars, two rovers are on the surface and various other probes and drones have been sent to the planet. This has resulted in the collection of some startling images, including this one from NASA. The Big Picture recently assembled a group of amazing Martian landscapes too. You’d think that knowing more would remove the mystery, but so far it’s only deepened it....
Secret Identity →
…The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster
Bank Notes: a collection of Bank Robbery Notes →
Mort de Kiki, tortue géante de 146 ans →
My daughter and I often went to visit Kiki.
Daniel Rozin Interactive Art →
1491 →
Disease was hunger’s constant companion. During epidemics in London the dead were heaped onto carts “like common dung” (the simile is Daniel Defoe’s) and trundled through the streets.
A fascinating article from The Atlantic.
(via Instapaper)
“Simple budget question: Should we now believe that escalating the Afghanistan...”
– David Sirota: Some Simple Questions After Obama’s Afghanistan War Speech (the whole list is good) (via marco)
captin nod: The Phone-O-Scope: Attaching SLR... →
This guy is nuts.
9000 MUST DIE →
“Dear President Obama,
Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you...”
– An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore
So far, I haven’t seen anything from the Obama administration that comes anywhere close to my most modest, conservative expectations for policy change.
Sure, Obama has only been in office for about a year and he still has a lot of Bush’s mess to...