One of the stars of Douglas Adams’ Last Chance To See is making a hopeful comeback. In the past two months, 23 new kakapo chicks were born. At this time last year, there were only 62 kakapos in the world.
Watch what you write… The Mouse is listening
A New York Post reporter gets sacked for reporting on the details of the Disney/Winnie The Pooh lawsuit. Was the story in error or did Murdoch’s News Corp. (who owns the Post) cave in to pressure from Disney? Note that the Post did not retract the story.
Information Wants to be Worthless
Bruce Sterling on the post post-Internet collapse environment…
Graying cyberpunk that I am … all carpal-tunnel and bifocals … I can well remember some weirdo pals in the Information-Wants-to-Be-Free contingent, idly wondering what would happen if the business world ever “discovered the Internet.” Obviously they would buy up every machine in sight and try to make a profit at it. That much was dead obvious, for that was the period’s Reagan-Thatcherite modus operandi. Clearly all us artsy cybergoofballs would have to find some other place to chatter and swap our lies, like, say, faxes or CB radio.
But one scenario was way too far-fetched and idealistic, even for the likes of us. What if it turned out that the Net was just plain too much for business to handle? That it was downright toxic to free enterprise?
What Me Sell Out?
The destruction of childhood anti-authoritarian icons Part II.
Although Mad’s founder, the late William Gaines, once vowed to teach kids not to believe in ads, his cartoon protege has chosen another path, dishing out product endorsements for everything from Lucky jeans to Tang to computer gear. “Advertisers are realizing Neuman puts a smile on people’s face and creates immediate brand recognition,” says Joel Ehrlich, senior vice president of advertising and promotions for DC Comics and Warner Bros.
May the ghost of William Gaines eternally haunt these bastards. [via bOing bOing]
Antarctic Ice Shelf Breaks
500 billion tons of Antarctic ice disintegrates in less than a month. Yup, just keep telling yourself that global warming doesn’t exist. And if it does, it’s your fault for consuming not the fault of MegaCorp, Republicans, etc. [via bottomquark]
The timber industry rewrites Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax”
Written specifically to counter the book “The Lorax”, by Dr. Seuss, our industry believes “Truax” more closely represents todays forest management than the scenario described by Dr. Seuss.
I am so utterly offended, I don’t know where to start.
Commercial fishermen demand answers to ‘black water’ mystery
Commercial fishermen along the Southwest Florida coast are reporting a massive dead zone that is almost devoid of marine life in an area of the Gulf of Mexico traditionally known as a rich fishing ground.
They’ve dubbed it black water, and they’re demanding that local, state and national government agencies find out what’s causing it.
[via Robot Wisdom]
Pioneer 10’s slow down solved
Remember the Pioneer anomaly? This was the unexplained slow-down of Pioneer 10 (and Ulysses apparently) that was causing folks to conclude there was a trans-Neptunian planet or some sort of unknown electromagnetic effect that we didn’t understand. Turns out the answer is a little more ordinary – the slow down is caused by radiation of waste heat from the spacecraft’s power generators. [via 2012]
Entertainment Execs, Fear Not the Net
Business Week, of all places, has a clear-headed analysis of the dead-end that the music industry has driven itself into. [via Scripting News]
Classical ensemble to perform Lou Reed’s
Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music is the Mt. Everest of industrial noise records. Other records may be more violent, more atonal, maybe even more noisy, but nothing comes close to the power of MMM’s unstoppable racket and hallucinatory paranoia. Naturally, it’s one of the most polarizing works of art in the world. Genius? Shit? You be the judge.
Naturally, MMM was the subject of many a high school dare for us – how much of it can you listen to before you either smash the record, smash your head, or both? The mere mortals among us dropped out immediately, but a couple of us could last past the initial clatter and settle in to some sort of addled haze through the rest of sides 1 and 2. My stopping point was a couple of minutes into side 3 when some high-frequency combination comes on that makes my head feel like it had been invaded by aphids. We actually did find the legendary 8-track tape version of MMM at a Barstow, California truckstop in 1983, but I don’t know what happened to it.
Remarkably, a German avant-garde group called Zeitkratzer accomplished the impossible by transcribing MMM and scoring it for strings, winds, piano and accordion. Sort of like Bang On A Can‘s take on Music For Airports and In C. Anyway, Zeitkratzer is performing it this weekend with Reed. I wish I was there.