XKCD is one my favorite web comics. Today’s strip made me blow coffee out my nose.
Category: Things On The Net
Eliza The Twittering Denial Of Service Attack
Twitter has been buzzworthy for several months now, and I’m shocked, SHOCKED that someone hasn’t yet set up a Twitterbot that posts blocks of spam. For that matter, why haven’t we seen any kind of Twitter/Jaiku/etc. bot? It seems like a trivial off-the-shelf prank for the taking…
Set up a suitably trendy profile (“Hi, I’m lonelygirl16. I’m a undergraduate architecture student in Aachen who loves old watches and the art of Jim Flora. Be my Twitter Follower”), load up the mad-libs generator with enough nouns, verbs, places, and phrases to keep the Army Of The Easily Entertained going and let ‘er rip. Run the bot for a couple months then reveal yourself with a hearty backslapping “PSYCH!” as you enjoy your moment of fame in the “Wired/Tired/Expired” column.
What gives Darknet denizens? I’m disappointed in you guys.
Adventures in the UCLA Los Angeles photo library
Everyone has been linking to UCLA’s new on-line library of historic L.A. photos and I just had to point out some of my favorites:
Automobile crash into billboard on Wilshire Blvd. and Mansfield Street in Los Angeles, Calif., circa 1942.
Los Angeles-based comedian, Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) posing with stuff monkey on Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles, Calif., 1984
3,500 pound industrial robot, Unimate, pouring coffee for a woman at Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif., 1967
Artist Salvador Dali seated in a bathtub at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif., 1944
Two female musicians entertaining passerbys in front of Los Angeles office of Air France on Bastille Day, 1965
Airplane being transported down Wilshire Blvd. to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif., 1937
Buy Land Cheap
Ein amerikanischer Münchener forwarded me these listings for commercial property for sale out in Cadiz in the Route 66 area of the Mojave and I ended up wasting a good chunk of time plowing around through all the Loopnet listings.
I noticed that all 3324 acres of the former Rice Army Air Base (which I’ve blogged about and photographed) are up for sale at $5000 per acre. “Perfect for industrial storage, alternative generation, possible landfill.”
Picture & Movie Of The Month
September 10, 1967: a lovely night for an upscale dinner and cabaret show in Stockholm, Sweden. What’s the show tonight? Some underground band from Britain calling themselves The Pink Floyd…
I can only imagine the hilarity that resulted…
Next is what happens when 100 people suddenly start chasing you:
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(via Brain Damage and TV In Japan)
James Burke’s Day The Universe Changed podcast
Much like Carl Sagan, James Burke‘s books and TV shows are things that I’ll always automatically stop for. Doesn’t matter what the topic is, if Burke is covering it – it’ll be worth your time. His famous Connections series are usually playing on the Science Channel, but his series The Day The Universe Changed is much harder to find. That is until now, as the series is now being podcasted.
Asteroids of the multiverse
One universe destroys for revenge…
“You are an asteroid that’s seen many of your brethren decimated by the evil spaceships in the original asteroids game. The loss of your rock-fellows has hurt and scarred you deeply. For long, your rocky heart has longed for revenge. So now, you’ve finally decided to go to the ships and destroy them.”
While another destroys for art…
Blast Calder’s mobiles to a million brightly coloured bits! Instead of being a mere spectator to the play, irony, and humour of the toys in Calder’s Circus, or a spectator to the free play of the motion of Calder’s mobiles, in Calderoids you get to play with his art yourself when you climb in your spaceship and fly around his sculptures, laughing as you zap them to pieces!
Mr. Rogers: Jedi mind control master
In 1969 the US Senate had a hearing on funding the newly developed Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The proposed endowment was $20 million, but President Nixon wanted it cut in half because of the spending going on in the Vietnam War. This is an video clip of the exchange between Mr. Rogers and Senator Pastore, head of the hearing. Senator Pastore starts out very abrasive and by the time Mr. Rogers is done talking, Senator Pastore’s inner child has heard Mr. Rogers and agreed with him.
[youtube]3Sd7TcVH670[/youtube]
Things I Like – August 2006 “New Blog” edition
1. John Fitch. What do you do after you’ve been a P-51 fighter pilot, competed and won the Mille Miglia, and invented the “yellow barrel” crash drums you see on freeway interchanges. Go for a class speed record at Bonneville of course. Who cares if you’re 89 and the car is a 51 year-old Mercedes?
Somewhere out there Burt Munro is grinning.
2. The Antonov An-2. The world’s largest biplane. It’s kinda homely looking, but it’s as indestructible as a DC-3. I especially like this section from the pilot’s handbook:
“If the engine quits in instrument conditions (blind flying when you can’t see the ground) or at night, the pilot should pull the control column full aft (it won’t stall) and keep the wings level. The leading-edge slats will snap out at about 40 mph (64 km/h), and when the airplane slows to a forward speed of about 25 mph [40 km/h], the airplane will sink at about a parachute descent rate until the aircraft hits the ground.”
Additionally, that slow stall speed means that if you’re flying into a 35 mph headwind, you can travel backwards at 5 mph while under full control.
3. The 77 Water Street Biplane. A full-sized replica Sopwith Camel has been sitting on top of the building since 1969 “solely for the delight of denizens of neighboring skyscrapers.” Snoopy salutes you.
4. Star Trek Inspirational posters. Obvious fun, but I laughed out loud.
5. The “Nukeables” vending machine at the Nevada Test Site. On the tour of the test site, I couldn’t help noticing the utter lack of personality anywhere on the site. Every science lab in the world has cartoons pasted on the windows, or something like the mysterious red “The End Is Near” button on the Mt. Wilson telescope. Something that indicates that there are working people there – no matter how slightly twisted their sense of humor is. There wasn’t much of anything like that at the NTS, except for this terrific vending machine in the cafeteria.
Cameras were banned on the tour so I wasn’t able to get a picture of it, but these folks were able to.
Der Germanist
I’m happy to see that Nicholas is back to blogging again and his latest post on weathering the remaining years of the Administration is cheerfully acerbic. Welcome back.
Should you feel tempted to despair, remember, Leningrad held out for 900 days, never capitulating, with a lifeline consisting of nothing more than a bridge across a frozen lake. Truly inspiring. Of course, about a million people died of infectious disease and sheer starvation, and by 1944 there wasn’t a dog, cat, squirrel, chipmunk or rat anywhere to be seen.