- Boy, when Mark Twain called you an idiot, he didn’t fool around. “…scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link” indeed!
- New York woman falls, rips Picasso painting. Well that’s embarrassing! Gawker [via] has more.
- The Chinese have re-named a mountain “Avatar Hallelujah Mountain,” after the James Cameron movie. Because of course they have.
- S.C. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Helping Poor to Feeding Stray Animals. They sure do know how to pick ’em in South Carolina, don’t they? [[via]
- And finally, a lovely quote from China Miéville:
The truth is different. Chrononauts litter no less than any other tourists. The past is a dump, each epoch a tip of its futures’ rubbish. There are no police: only overworked binwomen and binmen endlessly shovelling junk into timefills. They slog uninterrupted: the detritus is all over the place, and unnoticed by us natives. We stub our toes every day on things discarded from times to come.
weird
Monday various
- Exploding Chewing Gum Kills Student. I have to admit, this sounded like a hoax or urban legend when I first read about it, but it seems distrubingly legit. At least, I didn’t find anything discounting the story at Snopes. [via]
- Well this is disappointing and surprising: the Internet Review of Science Fiction is closing after its February issue.
- Grant Morrison on what appeals to him about comics as a storytelling medium:
The essentially magical qualities of inert words and ink pictures working together with reader consciousness to create a holographic Sensurround emotional experience. What else?
- I’ve seen some talk about how 2010 is the real end of the past decade — that the decade is still going on, that is — since there was never a Year Zero. I think this is maybe true on a very pedantic, technical level, but I also think it’s a battle that was lost two thousand years ago, in Year Ten. When people talk about the last decade, they’re including 2000-2001, not miscounting. As Bad Astronomy points out [via], the argument that 2010 isn’t the start of a new decade suggests that “people [are] confused on how we delineate time.”
- And finally, Daniel’s Daily Monster:
Every week day (starting from 7th May 2009) I draw a little monster card to go in my son’s lunchbox.
These are just really delightful. [via]
Wednesday various
- A computer that can generate bad puns? Ladies and gentlemen, I have been rendered obsolete! [via]
- “Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal.” Looks like dread Cthulhu has finally discovered Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- You know, if I was best known for smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer on stage, I might be a little mean and bitter too.
- Oh my. Particle physicists have been searching for the “boob element” for decades! [via]
- And finally, Unusual Stop Motion: Videogame [via]
Monday various
- “US pop star Britney Spears, seen here in August 2009, took aim at some of the tabloid stories that have dogged her through 2009, publishing a list of the top 75 articles deemed to be the most ridiculous.” Number one on the list? That she used to be an internationally famous and successful recording artist.
- “Everywhere I turned, I found pain and loss, a procession of wasted lives, people who never fought Ali and, thus, won’t ever have someone come looking for them.” Muhammad Ali fought 50 men. Only one disappeared.” [via]
- “The gases which formed the Earth’s atmosphere — and probably its oceans — did not come from inside the Earth but from outer space, according to a new study.” [via]
- MC Frontalot uses Dungeons & Dragons to quit smoking. [via]
- And finally, “Are the Stars?” [via]
Thursday various
- Over at Small Beer Press, “$1 from every book (or ebook, zine, subscription, etc.)sold from now until December 31, 2009, will be donated to Franciscan Children’s Hospital.” Those are some terrific books (or ebooks, zines, subscriptions, etc.) for a really worthwhile cause. More details here.
- Mark Bittman asks: Could Industrially Raised Meat Be Illegal?
- Some of these minimalist TV posters are more clever than others, but a small few are actually kind of inspired. Provided, I guess, you know the shows in question. [via]
- Ladies and gentlemen, the happiness hat [via]
- And finally, because I can’t possibly top this: “A Chinese man who trained monkeys martial arts to entertain shoppers was shocked when they turned the tables on him.”