Link Dump

As usual, just some interesting stuff I’ve seen on the internets lately:

• It Happened to Me: A Serial Killer Wrote Me a Letter – Julieanne Smolinski humorously relates the story of how she came to be pen pals with Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker!). As it turns out, “Evil uses floral stationery.” (I was going to do a pull quote from her first letter to Ramirez, but I decided that the whole article is too good and you should really read the whole thing.)
• Jefferson changed ‘subjects’ to ‘citizens’ in Declaration of Independence – This is from a while ago, but it’s an interesting look at how technology is helping us make new discoveries in history.
• Tree Fort by an Awesome Person – I want one.
• Can I Stream It? – A pretty useful service, except for the fact that for most movies the answer is “no”. Still, if you ever find youself itching to watch Tango & Cash, this will tell you that yes, it’s available on Amazon Prime Instant Viewing. Yay?
• A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage – A little melodramatic, but an interesting look at the way McDonalds uses the McRib and the scale at which an entity the size of McDonalds operates.
• Kevin Smith’s Army – Sam Adams (not the beer guy) takes the gloves off and badmouths Kevin Smith pretty hard here. To my mind, Smith stopped being amazingly funny when he started smoking pot a lot. I’m not a smoker myself, but I don’t normally have a problem with stoner comedians (indeed, I quite enjoy bad stoner comedies from time to time). Now he’s just occasionally funny, and he certainly seems to have a lot of issues with people criticizing his work. On the other hand, this article comes off as somewhat childish. And Red State, Smith’s latest movie, isn’t a comedy. Of course, it’s not that insightful either (and other movies have tread the same ground better), but it was an interesting exercise for Smith. While I don’t think he’s had a tremendous career, he’s also only put out one legitimately bad movie (Cop Out), and he’s got an excuse there: he didn’t write the script. I’m actually somewhat interested in his next (and purportedly final) movie (the one about hockey or something).
• The Same Picture of Dave Coulier Every Day – The greatest, most innovative niche blog ever.

That’s all for now…

Usually I feel bad about doing these so often, but I haven’t done one for almost two months and I don’t have much time tonight, so here are some links to interesting stuff:

• The Mummy Meets Human Resources – Sometimes I just can’t fit a horror short into the 6 Weeks of Halloween, so here you go. This one’s really funny though.
• Star Wars Talk to Your Kids PSA – This is an old one, but it’s damn funny and will hit home for anyone who has played a part in introducing someone young to Star Wars. In my mind, there’s no question. Start with the original trilogy and hold off on the prequels as long as possible. Then again, my nieces seem to love the prequels. Even Jar Jar! Gahh! It makes me think that 30 years from now, my niece will be bemoaning that her kids like the Star Wars sequels from the 2020s. Or something.
• Tiny Legs of Fire – Uh, yeah, I don’t know how to describe this. A bizarre compilation of weird clips. Well worth watching though.
• timeu.se: What Do People Do All Day? – An interesting data visualization that aggregates data from twitter, plotting various keywords against the time they are mentioned most on twitter. Perhaps not the most rigorous of data sets, but a fun tool to play around with.
• Floppy Music – Imperial march – Man, some people go to extraordinary lengths to make Star Wars references. Still, I was impressed at how well these guys were able to imitate the Imperial March theme with floppy drives…
• Innovation Starvation – I think I’m contractually obligated to post about any new Neal Stephenson writing, so here you go. It’s an interesting article, and it speaks to something that kinda hits home for me. One of the reasons I took up beer brewing as a hobby was that most of my creative endeavors ended up being accomplished in the digital world. Sometimes, though, it’s good to actually get hands on with stuff and make things out here in meatspace.
• Hobo Signs – It turns out that homeless people have an absurdly detailed symbolic language for marking territory. Things range from warnings (“A crime has been committed here. Not a safe place for strangers”) to advice (“A doctor lives here. He won’t charge for his services”) to, well, maybe bad advice (“There is alcohol in this town”). Interesting stuff.
• Interview with Hank Azaria – A surprisingly interesting interview. I particularly enjoyed his story about working with Pacino in Heat:
  

  I don’t know if you remember, but I say something like, “I don’t know why I got mixed up with this stupid broad,” and he says [Does a loud, spot-on Pacino impression.] “‘Cause she’s got a great ass!” He just screams it. And that was the line, but Al kind of yelled it for the first time, and he did it so completely out of nowhere that it scared me. So much so that I just went, “Jesus!” Not in character, just as Hank. I got frightened, and I went, “Jesus!” And then Al improvised [As Pacino.] “I’m sorry. Something happens to me when I think about a woman’s ass.” Or whatever it is that he said. And that actually made it into the movie! Michael Mann told me not to improvise, and the one line that I said that wasn’t scripted made it in there because… I don’t know, I guess because it was a good moment. Because I was scared of Al. [Laughs.]

Well, I think that’s all I got for now…

Interesting links from the depths of the internets:

• The Greatest Pizza Box on Planet Earth – On Wednesday, I talked about a podcast called the Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin show, and one of the folks he interviewed was this guy Scott, who does tours of NY city’s pizzarias. It’s a great episode of the podcast, and this guy is clearly passionate about his pizza. I stumbled on this video where he discusses pizza boxes, and one of the more advanced boxes that doesn’t make the pizza soggy while still keeping it hot (and which also is reusable).
• Elijah Wood – 7 Minutes in Heaven – I wasn’t expecting much out of this, but it’s pretty damn funny. Also, it’s a ripoff! Only 4 minutes long! Anyway, some funny discussion about furries, boobs, Frodo, and home depot.
• Practical Tips on Writing a Book from 23 Brilliant Authors – Some of it is relatively obvious (“write every day!”), but then, it probably still needs to be said. From what I’ve seen, a lot of aspiring authors spend a lot of time worrying about the business end of things – agents, publishers, and the like – without really writing a lot. But what do I know. Still, interesting reading.
• The Un-Gone – Interesting science fiction short. I like it, and it has an interesting idea at its core, but the conflict is a bit overdone, implausible, and pessimistic. That sort of thing isn’t always bad, but most filmic versions of SF seem to be that way, which is bad. We need more SF movies that get the whole SF sense of wonder that is so prominent in SF literature.
• Darth Vader Goes to Disneyland – I should impose a moratorium on cute Star Wars and Super Mario Brothers links, I think. Still, they’re fun sometimes.

Just a note that I’ll be traveling this week and thus there won’t be a post on Wednesday. See you next week!

As per usual, interesting links from the depths of the internets:

• Anthrax Redux: Did the Feds Nab the Wrong Guy? – Detailed article chronicling the 7 year investigation of the Anthrax attacks of 2001. I find these sorts of devil-in-the-details type of articles fascinating. It turns out that investigating crimes is, like, really hard! Seriously, though, it’s a fantastic article. Wired magazine impresses me more and more these days.
• Our Valued Customers – A blog consisting of actual quotes from customers at a comic book store. In comic form! Also, people are weird.
• Game of Thrones Violin Cover – At first it seems like a simple recording of a guy playing the Game of Thrones theme on his violin. Then it gets more complicated. Then it gets, like, 10 times more complicated. Well played.
• Lowest Score Possible in Super Mario Bros.? – Nerdiness on the internet knows no bounds.
• Three arguments against the singularity – Charlie Stross is such a Debbie Downer. In all seriousness, if you follow all the links in his post, you’ll be busy for hours, and it’s actually pretty interesting, dense stuff. As usual, I’m not really convinced by any of it, but interesting nonetheless.

That’s all for now.

Yeah, it’s Wednesday and I didn’t realize it, so here are some links:

• This Guy Has My Macbook – So this guy’s laptop is stolen, but he has some sort of tracking app on the computer, so he puts up a website with all sorts of pictures, etc… of the guy who stole his laptop. The site goes viral, ends up on Good Morning America, who calls the police, who eventually contact the guy, find the thief, and return the laptop. Heh.
• Hey You! What Song are you Listening to? – This vid of a guy accosting people on the street in NY and asking them what they’re listening to has been making the rounds, but since a 5 second clip in the video led me to download a Black Keys album, which I’m really enjoying, I guess I should link the vid.
• The 500 Mile Email Problem – A heroic tale of sysadmin troubleshooting:
  

  “…But why didn’t you call earlier?”

  “Well, we hadn’t collected enough data to be sure of what was going on until just now.” Right. This is the chairman of

  *statistics*. “Anyway, I asked one of the geostatisticians to look into it–”

  “Geostatisticians…”

  “–yes, and she’s produced a map showing the radius within which we can send email to be slightly more than 500 miles. There are a number of destinations within that radius that we can’t reach, either, or reach sporadically, but we can never email farther than this radius.”

  It turns out that the users weren’t as stupid as it seems. Refreshing.

• My Drunk Kitchen – So you remember when you discovered Iron Chef, and you’re like, wow, I have no idea what half those ingredients are, but I really want to try all that crazy food their making. Then you see the EpicMealTime guys, and you’re like, Wow, that’s kinda awsome, but I don’t know if I’d actually want to eat it. Then there’s My Drink Kitchen, which looks fun, but yeah, I would never want to eat anything made on that show.
• Restroom Video Game – Dammit Sega, this is why you can’t have nice things. Then again, I’d play this.
• We bought EVERYTHING in a store – A bunch of hipsters buy out a corner grocer in NY. Reading the story behind it is actually pretty cool, though almost insufferably artsy-fartsy.

There. Enjoy.

Recent tales of adventure on the internet:

• Starbucks in Starbucks – Starbuck and Starbuck drinking Starbucks in Starbucks.
• Conan – Otaku kun’s thoughts on the upcoming Conan reboot. While I’m no expert on the subject, I do have an inordinate fondness for the original Schwartzenegger films (yes, even Destroyer, which I recognize as objectively horrible, but love anyway) and there seems to be much truth in Otakun’s post. But the real kicker is his last line, which is a brilliant reduction to the core issue here: “Are we in for EMO Conan? Or will we see him punch a camel?”
• What’s wrong with this Star Trek picture – Funny all by itself, but elevated significantly by the caption.
• North By Lightsaber – Thanks internet, I needed that.
• Hobbes And Bacon – What a wonderful idea. Calvin and Hobbes, the next generation! (also via Otaku kun). Also: naming your child Bacon? Brilliant.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says – Pitch perfect parody of NYT, among other nerdier pursuits. It’s the little details that really make it great – particularly the sidebar. Also, as Jonathan Last points out, don’t skip the comments, which are almost equally brilliant. “Why won’t Lord Vader show us the body?!” (Particularly funny because there is no body.) “Alderaan was an inside job!” And so on. Heh.
• Spin Around – Why hasn’t this camera angle been used in a movie? Like, perhaps, Conan.
• Unreal Stunt – Wow.
• AT&T Phone Conversation By An Awesome Person

That’s all for now!

As per usual, interesting links from the depths of teh internets:

• AT&T Phone Conversation by an Awesome Person: Another tale of heroic defense against telemarketing.
• The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction: Not a particularly new way to look at the Death Star, but an interesting discussion nonetheless:
  

  The more you spend on bureaucracy, the less control you have directly over your Empire. The less you spend on bureaucracy, the more you have to tighten your grip, and the more star systems slip through your fingers.

  So, the Emperor and Tarkin focus on making one really huge, high-impact investment: The Death Star. They throw in Alderaan as part of that investment. This doomsday weapon will supposedly free up their resources to spend less on administration, personnel and infrastructure, and continue to function without a Senate. It seems like a big investment until you realize how much they save by not actually having a functioning government.

  Heh.

• The Most Honest Children’s Book Ever Written: It’s called “Go the Fuck to Sleep”. Pre-order now!
• Inglourious Ponies: There’s apparently a whole series of these, but it’s amazing how well it fits.
• Pizza Hut Order: Pay particular attention to the special instructions. I laughed at this for much longer than I care to admit, and am laughing about it now, just thinking about it.

As usual, a few links to interesting stuff:

• Build Your Own Chopper – Step by step guide.
• How To Use the Bat Signal – Or, more accurately, how not to use the bat signal.
• Gymkhana – No, not the 80s action movie about a gymnast saving the world from the Parmistan threat (that was Gymkata, not Gymkhana), this video is all about crazy driving skills. Would probably make a fun video game…
• How to Piss In Public – Handy guide.
• This Year – A great idea for a blog. This is basically a guide to older podcasts, calling out the highlights and funny moments or insightful commentary for each year of the podcast. Right now, they’re working on the old 1up Yours podcasts, as well as Adam Carolla’s podcast and a few others. It seems to be a relatively new thing, but if they keep it up, it could be a great resource.

That’s all for now…