Link Dump

Is it time for more links? Yes, I think it is.

• Magic Burger Crystals – Amazingly weird but fascinating video depicting a product with a bunch of plastic molds and packets of crystals. If you follow the instructions, you end up with a tiny meal – two burgers, some fries, and a soda. I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be eating a burger (including bun and cheese) that was grown out of microwaved wet crystals, but apparently it is edible and tastes like a real burger. It is, of course, from Japan. (via Chizumatic)
• More on DRM and ebooks – After Charlie Stross’s last musings on ebooks, in which he recommended that publishers remove DRM in order to compete with Amazon’s monopolistic position in the market, it seems that Tor books announced that they will be removing DRM in order to compete with Amazon’s monopolistic position in the market. Ok, they didn’t actually say that, but it was an encouraging move, and Stross goes into some more detail about DRM and ebooks. As always, an interesting read.
• Biometric Passports Make it Harder for Undercover CIA Officers – An interesting and probably unintentional effect of requiring biometrics when people enter your country. Technologies like iris scanners are cleaner than fingerprints, and they work faster, and they hurt spycraft: “For a clandestine field operative, flying under a false name could be a one-way ticket to a headquarters desk, since they’re irrevocably chained to whatever name and passport they used.” Huh.
• In Comfortable Retirement, and Getting Tired of It – Trevor Pryce played in the NFL for 14 years. He’s now 36 years old and retired. And bored. I always wondered what these folks do after their (usually shorter than 14 year) career has ended, and I guess this is the answer. I also wonder if I would fall into the same category if I were to retire in a couple of years. My fear is that I’d be a little like Peter from Office Space and be happy doing nothing. I suspect I’d figure something out though.
• Wanderlunch – College Humor sent someone to Dubai so they could eat that disgusting looking Pizza Hut thing with mini cheeseburgers in it. I don’t know whether to applaud this or do a facepalm.
• Alternate Movie Posters – Most of these are really beautiful, Mondo-quality posters.

That’s all for now…

Happy Easter everyone. Time is short so here are some quick links:

• The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On – I forget where I found this (Kottke, I think), but they noted that the video seriously channels the style of Wes Anderson, and it does. It’s also a mildly interesting story (and a really pretty poster).
• Mallrats Magic Eye – Is it actually a sailboat/schooner? – Apparently not! Personally, I’ve never actually been able to see one of those posters. Once I started feeling like the guy from Mallrats, I gave it up…
• The Comedy Button: Episode 23 – AKA the Brodeo reunion. Fans of 1Up’s infamous GFW radio will love it. Unfortunately, it’s all a bit of a tease. I wish these guys got together more often…
• Eclipse: The McBain Series – Brilliant.
• The Last Starfighter Video Game – You know the video game at the beginning of The Last Starfighter? Well someone went ahead and made the game (and is attempting to actually set up the arcade cabinet).

That’s all for now!

Well, tonight was beer club, so I’m not quite in shape to do anything particularly detailed. Here are some interesting links I’ve run across of late:

• Titles in search of a script – So apparently Stanley Kubrick used to keep a running list of potential ideas for movies called “Titles in Search of a Script”. Some examples:
  

  PARTITION MAGIC

  (Five vehicles for Sharon Stone. Partition Magic was the name of a software package in the days of DOS that almost allowed you to run two programs concurrently.)

  ONLY MINISTERS OF THE THIRD REICH MAY USE GREEN INK

  (Stanley read somewhere that this was, in fact, true. He thought it would make a great art house double bill with Wim Wender’s 1971 film, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick.)

  COFFIN NOT INCLUDED

  (A 1940s noir thriller. When I was researching props for the morgue scene in Eyes Wide Shut I had a catalogue from a company that supplied funeral parlour equipment. One of the illustrations showed a bier with a coffin on it. The caption read: “The Excelsior Bier (coffin not included.)”)

  SOME LIKE IT COLD

  JACK THE SNIFFER

  (An intriguing double-bill for forensic science buffs.)

  And lots of others. I would totally see all of these movies.

• Martin Scorsese’s Film School: The 85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film – I’ve only seen about 20 of these movies, which I find represents about an average percentage of movies I’ve sen when it comes to lists like this. Still an interesting list.
• Weyland Industries – Not a lot of stuff her just yet, but fans of Aliens will get a kick out of this website, which features, among other things, a spoof of a TED Talk given by Sir Peter Weyland.
• Future Doorknobs or Lack Thereof – John Scalzi does this thing every year where he answers reader questions, and this guy asks him a hysterically funny question:
  

  It appears to be a near-universal assumption by science fiction writers, directors, and producers, that there exists a set of precipitating events leading to our complete abandonment of doorknob technology. Do you share this assumption? Would you be willing to speculate on the reason for this assumption, or on the nature of the developmental pathway? Do you foresee any significant downsides, should this eventuality come to pass?

  Awesome question and Scalzi comes up with a decent answer.

• Filmmakers weren’t always gibbering idiots when it comes to ratings – An interesting counterpoint to the likes of documentaries like This Film Is Not Yet Rated, based on a DVD extra. Some interesting quotes from filmmakers, like this gem from David Cronenberg:
  

  Well, every picture that I’ve done has originally gotten an ‘X’ here in the States. But you have to understand that I live in Ontario, Canada, which used to be the most liberal province and now is the most restrictive. So I have to agree, or let me amplify what John [Carpenter] was saying. When I came down here to talk to the MPAA about ratings, it was still a relief compared with what happens in Ontario, which is where they take your picture. They take every print. And they cut it. And they hand it back to you and they say this is your new movie. They keep the pieces that they’ve taken out—and you go to jail for two years if they’re projected, if you put the pieces back. And that’s real censorship.

  Interesting stuff.

That’s all for now!

It hasn’t been a while since I’ve done one of these (in fact, I just did one a few days ago), but I’m doing another one anyway. Because I feel like it and you’re going to like it, that’s why.

• An Open Letter to Chris Dodd – Eric S. Raymond lays down why SOPA/PIPA/ACTA annoys the “technologists” in a concise and well articulated fashion.
  

  I can best introduce you to our concerns by quoting another of our philosopher/elders, John Gilmore. He said: “The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

  To understand that, you have to grasp that “the Internet” isn’t just a network of wires and switches, it’s also a sort of reactive social organism composed of the people who keep those wires humming and those switches clicking. John Gilmore is one of them. I’m another. And there are some things we will not stand having done to our network.

  I’m not sure I 100% agree with everything he says and I’m virtually certain that Chris Dodd won’t read this (or understand it if he does), but I do think it’s well written and insightful.

• Loss by Elisha Cooper – Notably because she (apparently Elisha is a guy – my bad!) coins a new German word and it’s fucking brilliant:
  

  Schtolenfünken is the German word that describes the feeling of letdown and disappointment that occurs when people we think are good (cyclists) do bad things (steal my wheel), and yes, I made the word up.

  Heh. (via Steven)

• Pronunciation Manual – So there’s this thing on YouTube where people post these videos that explain how to pronounce certain words or names, like famous German mathematician, Hilbert (That’s for you Mike, if you’re reading this). Then there’s Pronunciation Manual, which does the same thing in the same format, but is completely wrong and completely hilarious. I have spent at least an hour listening and relistening to the videos on this channel, and it was glorious. Some favorites: Chipotle (this one now pops into my head all the time, for no reason), Haute Couture, Zach Galifianakis, Schadenfreude (we should get that guy to try and pronounce “Schtolenfünken”), Tag Heuer (which I wouldn’t mind actually knowing the pronunciation of… and yes, that’s also available.) and Bruschetta. Unfortunately, there are multiple folks contributing to the channel, and some are much more creative and funny than others. For example, this entry on Thesaurus strikes me as dumb and uncreative, and Panties is pronounced correctly, even if the guy saying it is being incredibly creepy. Actually, I’m pretty sure that most of my favorites are the same guy… Anyway, there’s also Renunciation Book, which has the skinny on how to pronounce McDonald’s Glyph.
• And the Angely said unto thee – Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself…
• Shopping For Idiots – Two guys go shopping for non-existent items and have to explain these ridiculous items to people who work at the store. For the most part, the people who work at the various stores are unflappable. Some example items: fancy boy lip glitter, ankle grease, disposable slacks, non-alcoholic whisky, Mormon disco ball, and, of course, a toddler sized shark cage.
• Reset Button: Megatextures – Shamus continues his sporadic video series explaining minutia of video game technology, and it’s, as always, a really interesting take on something that could be really dry and boring.

That is all for now. You are excused.

It’s been a while since I did one of these, so here’s some links recently unearthed by my chain-smoking monkey research squad:

• The Witch Watch – Most of the folks who read this blog probably also read Shamus, but just in case you don’t, Shamus just released his first novel, The Witch Watch (well, technically, he wrote a few other things first, but I think he’s hoping to make a career out of this now). It’s available in various digital formats right now, but there will be a print edition available starting on Friday. I actually started reading this last night, and I’m quite excited to pick it up again tonight (this is one reason you’re getting a link dump tonight instead of something more substantial). Main character Gilbert is instantly likeable despite the fact that he’s a rotting corpse, and there’s suitably mysterious circumstances surrounding his awakening. Fantasy has never been my favorite genre, but I really like this book so far (according to my Kindle, I’m about 15% done)… Anyway, check it out!
• Echo Rift – While I’m plugging my friends’ creative works, check out this web comic book about a dimension-hopping Rabbitoid Knight. I’m not huge into comics, but there seems to be a limited subset of the web comic community that are doing things like this – narrative storytelling as opposed to comedic comics. It’s excellent stuff, and well worth checking out.
• Star Wars – Brock’s Dub – I like how Darth Vader is a big Tyler Perry fan. Anyone want to go to Space-Arby’s?
• What if Star Wars: Episode I was good? – It’s about 12 minutes long, but it’s actually really good. I wish this was the movie we got, but alas, it was not to be.
• Cost of Living – I saw this great short film at Fantastic Fest (posted about it here) and now it’s available online. Well worth a watch, especially for video game fans. Make sure you watch through to the end of the credits.
• Extra Hot Great Podcast: Eggybread Wonderlatch – One of my recent podcast discoveries, this particular “mini” episode kept me laughing for pretty much the entire 5 minute duration. Half the fun is the inflection and cadence the guy has when rattling off alternate names. Fans of Benedict Cumberbatch (British actor who plays Sherlock Holmes on the most excellent Sherlock BBC series) will certainly get a kick out of this (again, only 5 minutes long).
• The Death and Return of Superman – Well made analysis of that weird time in comics when every character was being killed (including Superman) and then magically came back to life. And how ridiculous all that is. Not sure who is really responsible for this, but the guy narrating is pretty good, and the live-action recreations are actually done by a lot of celebrities. And are absolutely awesome.

That’s all for now. Go forth and multiply.

As I compile my top 10 list and design my next homebrew, my chain-smoking monkey research squad has found some things that might interest you:

• T-Rex Trying… – Gotta love a good niche-blog. This one chronicles the woes of the T-Rex as it unsuccessfully attempts to use its tiny arms to accomplish mundane tasks. My favorite is T-Rex trying to use a buffet with a sneeze guard… Brilliant.
• Freetail Brewing’s response (.pdf) to a Cease and Desist order is hysterical. Apropos of the T-Rex trying site, check out the PS here (“Please enjoy this drawing of a T-Rex waving white flags, which was suggested for inclusion by my attorney.”) It’s not quite the most epic response letter ever, but it’s still pretty awesome.
• Burgled in Philly – Interesting story of a burglary in Philly where the victims got their stuff back by lying to the police while manipulating one drug dealer to lie to another drug dealer. A ringing endorsement for lies.
• Issued: Normal – Library card by a Harry Potter fan.
• Manos in HD – So someone has taken on the improbable task of restoring Manos: The Hands of Fate – generally regarded as the worst movie ever made. The film rose to cult status when MST3K featured it in one of their episodes (one of the highlights of the series, IMHO). Amazingly enough, the restored footage looks pretty incredible.
• Olly Moss is Cruel – I should learn how to jailbreak my kindle.
• Tweet of the Week – Mike Shaver reflects: “It’s not clear to me how Wikipedia can delete any living human’s page for lack of notability when Worf’s son has a page.” It’s only partially true. Worf’s son appears on a List of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unless his dedicated entry was deleted or something. Still a funny tweet.

And that’s all for now.

As I spend some time compiling nominations for the 6th Annual Kaedrin Movie Awards (a thorough and comprehensive process that takes weeks!), my chain-smoking monkey research squad has run into some other fun things you might be interested in…

• Facial Hair and Presidential elections – The other day at lunch, I wondered aloud why so few presidential candidates have beards or facial hair of any kind. As with all discussions of marginalia, we naturally turned to the internet and found this stunningly detailed account of facial hair and elections. Author Nicholas Whyte is also pretty free-flowing with the snark, making it quite the humorous read:
  

  Only five US presidents have sported full beards, and another four had moustaches of varying degrees of glory. These were all during the half century run of the dozen Presidents between Lincoln and Taft, of whom only Andrew Johnson and McKinley were clean-shaven.

  Probably owing to Lincoln, the “Republicans have historically been the hairier party.” And Democrats… well:

  The Democrats have never had a properly bearded candidate. Their losing candidates in 1864, 1868 and 1872 had really stupid beards – one a wee tuft combined with a luxurious moustache, the other two with grotesquely extended sideburns meeting below. The only successful Democrat who even went as far as a moustache was Grover Cleveland, who won the popular vote three times running in 1884, 1888 and 1892. (Cleveland lost the electoral college in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, so far the last American President with a proper beard.) The hairiest Democrat was Winfield Scott Hancock, whose huge moustache did not help him in the 1880 election, and Democrats with moustaches lost in 1864 and 1904.

  Really excellent work here, with everything you could ever possibly want to know about facial hair and presidential candidates. I love the internet.

• The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown – Well, yes, I work for a retail website so you bet your arse I can’t wait for people to get off this horrid browser, but that’s not why I’m linking to this site. The reason this is hysterically funny is that the site is actually run by Microsoft. (hat tip to Dave)
• My Top Ten Top Ten Top Ten list – Yes, it’s a top ten list consisting entirely of links to other top ten lists… of top ten lists. Have I mentioned that I love the internet?
• The Best Things We Read All Year – Yeah, there are a lot of good things to read in here. I hope you have some time, because you’re going to be reading these for a while.
• The 20 Unhappiest People You Meet In The Comments Sections Of Year-End Lists – Speaking of lists, here’s a fairly comprehensive list of the types of annoying comments you’re likely to get. If you’re popular. None of my lists ever seem to generate comments from the likes of:
  

  11. The Person Who Thinks You Were So Close. “I like all these picks, but you ranked The Descendants as your #4 and Martha Marcy May Marlene as your #5, and they should be the other way around. FAIL.”

  I’m not quite Harry The Hipster-Hater, Who Really, Really Hates Hipsters (as I’d never leave a comment like that), but I’m pretty close, because fuck those hipsters.

• How Pixar screwed up cartoon cars for a generation of kids – Boy, critics really had a great time ridiculing Cars 2 this year, and many have pointed out the absurdities of anthropomorphizing cars (to the point where it’s becoming a bit boring to do so), but I can’t believe this is the first time anyone’s pointed out this particular incongruity:
  

  The eyes of anthropomorphized cars are the headlights, not the windshield.

  And there’s no exceptions here. Having a cartoon car with the eyes in the windshield is wrong, just wrong. And that includes you, too, Pixar.

  Heh.

And that’s all for now. If my crack squad of chain smoking monkey researchers stays on track, you may see the nominations for the 2011 Kaedrin Movie Awards on Sunday. But who knows. Brilliant researchers sometimes work in strange ways.

‘Tis the season for linkage:

• The Grinch’s Day Out – The guy they got to play the Grinch is fantastic…
• An Interview With the Christmas Bunny – It turns out that the Easter Bunny is quite the entrepreneur.
• It’s a Wonderful Extra Life – Poor Luigi.
• Twas the Night Before Quismas – Christmas is different for Klingons. Part of a series of TNG Mashups about Christmas… (other good ones: Jingle Bells, Picard Smells and Captain’s Yule Log)
• The Simpsons Christmas Cards – Happy Holidays, Peace on Earth, And a Morphistic Quiznox to our Allies on Rigel 7. Also, seeing Maggie all growns up is really weird.

That’s all for now. Have a great holiday!