- White Castle aromatherapy candles? I’ve never eaten there, but this doesn’t sound like a good thing at all. [via]
- Stephen Hawking says: don’t talk to aliens. But what if they offer us candy? Space candy! [via]
- Digital Domesday book unlocked, underlining the dangers inherent in digital archiving. [via]
- By now you’ve seen Jon Stewart’s interview with Ken Blackwell, right? If not, you really should. Mostly, Stewart just has to let Blackwell talk.
- And finally, I got a kick out of this Super Mario Bros. clone: Enough Plumbers. [via]
weird
Monday various
- I’m not afraid of clowns — sometimes I think I’m maybe in the minority on this — but how can an evil clown who stalks children possibly be a good idea for a birthday present? [via]
- Doctor Who regeneration was ‘modelled on LSD trips’ [via]
- Meanwhile, I think I like Stephen Moffat’s definition of the show:
It’s about a man who can travel in time. It’s a television show set at every point in history at every place in the universe. It’s not bound by logic or genre.
How could that not be fun?
- Don’t you forget about me. A.O. Scott on The Breakfast Club.
- And finally, David Simon on Treme [via]:
Well, Pablo Picasso famously said that art is the lie that shows us the truth. Such might be the case of a celebrated artist claiming more for himself and his work than he ought, or perhaps, this Picasso fella was on to something.
By referencing what is real, or historical, a fictional narrative can speak in a powerful, full-throated way to the problems and issues of our time. And a wholly imagined tale, set amid the intricate and accurate details of a real place and time, can resonate with readers in profound ways. In short, drama is its own argument.
Wednesday various
- The very real problem of digital decay:
Electronically produced drafts, correspondence and editorial comments, sweated over by contemporary poets, novelists and nonfiction authors, are ultimately just a series of digits — 0’s and 1’s — written on floppy disks, CDs and hard drives, all of which degrade much faster than old-fashioned acid-free paper. Even if those storage media do survive, the relentless march of technology can mean that the older equipment and software that can make sense of all those 0’s and 1’s simply don’t exist anymore.
Imagine having a record but no record player.
Does this mean the people in my office who print out a copy of everything are on to something?
There’s also the fact that, on a purely aesthetic level, digital archives tend to be pretty boring things. A novelist’s handwritten notes, for instance, are a lot more interesting to future readers than his half-finished draft in Microsoft Word. I think Emory University’s archive of Salman Rushdie’s work — this “access through emulation to a born-digital archive” — is a neat way to address this fact. [via]
- The writer and editor in me liked this: Sentenced.
- Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project — a teacher eats her school’s cafeteria food every day for lunch, with pictures! [via]
- I don’t know that being able to identify Star Wars figurines with your mouth really makes you much of a fan so much as just a really weird kid. [via]
- And finally, FutureStates : Play [via]:
Thursday various
- Terror as mall shark tank cracks. After yesterday’s tragic SeaWorld attack, should we be worried? [via]
- Meanwhile, here’s a really strange and sad story about the world’s loneliest whale. via]
- Last Thursday, I posted a link to a site called Please Rob Me, which suggests those away messages that say you’re out of the house could lead to home invasions and burglaries. Waxy.org, where I found that link, offers this reality check.
- It’s understood that Rush Limbaugh is a race-baiting evil asshole, right? Just checking. [via]
- And finally, Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy [via]:
Tuesday various
- Will singing “My Way” in the Philippines get you killed?
Still, the odds of getting killed during karaoke may be higher in the Philippines, if only because of the ubiquity of the pastime. Social get-togethers invariably involve karaoke. Stand-alone karaoke machines can be found in the unlikeliest settings, including outdoors in rural areas where men can sometimes be seen singing early in the morning. And Filipinos, who pride themselves on their singing, may have a lower tolerance for bad singers. [via]
- Salon.com on Kevin Smith: The face of flying while fat:
And then I read Southwest’s apology to Smith, which includes such gems as “If a Customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a Customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.” And I think, first, “If we allowed a cramped, restricted seating arrangement? Because ‘The Greyhound of the Skies’ is positively roomy when there are no fat people on board?” And second, I think, “Translation: Fat paying customers’ fully expected discomfort only becomes a problem for us if it also makes the paying customers we care about uncomfortable.” [via]
- Speaking of apologies, does Tiger Woods owe you one? Probably not. [via]
- A neat, albeit a little disturbing, H.R. Giger cake [via]
- And finally, the truth behind elephant brain power:
“We are a bit limited by how little we know about elephants, but the odd glimmers we get seem to be rather remarkable.”
Incidentally, today is your last day to listen to Inside the Elephant Mind on the BBC player. [via]