- Scientists develop ‘golden fleece’ lozenge to fight off all cold and flu bugs [via]:
The pill, which would cost 20 pence a day and would be taken once before breakfast, could be sold over the counter in as little as two years.
- “Most expensive” foods like this often seem like a cheat to me — of course it’s expensive if it’s served in a solid gold dish! — but this one seems like it might actually earn its hefty price tag, if only because the most expensive ingredients are also edible. That said, there’s not a chance I’m paying $750 for a single cupcake. [via]
- Arachne Jericho on embracing the inconsistencies in the Sherlock Holmes universe and why a gay Holmes/Watson relationship really isn’t such a stretch.
- I once tried getting a book endorsement from Desmond Tutu. When his assistant turned me down, I didn’t turn around and fake one. This is one of several reasons why I am not an African dictator. (Nelson Mandela Foundation accuses Congo president over fake foreword) [via]
- And finally, a fascinating story about a Wired writer who tried to disappear. I was particularly amused by the idea that his trackers created real Twitter accounts to look like automated spambots to draw away suspicion. Seems like the inverse of how these things usually work. [via]
food
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.”
Saturday leftovers
- Michael Schaub on being an English major:
I remember being an English major at a Big 12 school in the mid-’90s. This was an agriculture- and engineering-heavy school where liberal arts departments were isolated in a building that permanently smelled like paint thinner. Whenever I’d tell people I was an English major, they’d look incredulous and say “What are you going to do with that? Teach?” Like in the same tone you’d say, “What are you going to do with that? Trade blowjobs for meth?” Good times!
I was an English major at a pretty agriculture- and engineering-heavy school myself, so I know the feeling. Even my undergraduate advisor told me, “You know, you really can’t get a job with this degree.” (My advisor within the English department was a lot more encouraging, but I met with him all of once, the day I declared, and he left Penn State around the time I graduated. So take from that what you will.)
- Are you now, or have you ever been, a Lovecraftian horror? [via]
- Will we be telling our grandchildren (or even our children) about this thing we used to call “fish”? [via]
While the climate crisis gathers front-page attention on a regular basis, people–even those who profess great environmental consciousness–continue to eat fish as if it were a sustainable practice. But eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant should be considered no more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer or harpooning a manatee. In the past 50 years, we have reduced the populations of large commercial fish, such as bluefin tuna, cod, and other favorites, by a staggering 90 percent. One study, published in the prestigious journal Science, forecast that, by 2048, all commercial fish stocks will have “collapsed,†meaning that they will be generating 10 percent or less of their peak catches. Whether or not that particular year, or even decade, is correct, one thing is clear: Fish are in dire peril, and, if they are, then so are we.
- Sorry I missed this around Halloween (and by dint of not living in Chicago), but I think a zombie-preparedness fitness class is a terrific idea!
- Has xkcd been watching the Penn State Monty Python Society’s Mall Climb?
- Ken Jennings takes the logic of Pixar’s Cars maybe a little too far.
- Speaking of Pixar, this Pixar opening parody is pretty great. [via]
- Imagine if the producers of FlashForward had gone with Robert J. Sawyer’s original concept and made the Large Hadron Collider responsible for everything that happens? Imagine how laughable the show might seem then. [via]
- I’ve never been remotely tempted to buy a bootleg DVD, despite an abundance of them on the streets of Manhattan. Still, their cover art can be pretty delightfully bizarre. [via]
- NBC sued over font usage. Really.
- Well, Coldplay does kind of put me to sleep anyway… [via]
- According to a recent survey:
Almost half of British consumers have lied to their friends about seeing a classic film to avoid the embarrassment of admitting ignorance of great movies.
I’m reminded — as it seems I often am, often enough that I should probably get around to reading the book — of the literary parlor game described here, where everybody one-ups each other with all the books they haven’t read. (The “winner is an American professor who, in a rousing display of one-downmanship, finally announces that he’s never read Hamlet.”)
For the record, of the “top ten classic films people most lie about seeing,” I’ve seen all but one of them. Can you guess which one I haven’t seen? [via]
- I often find it a little ridiculous what parts of the internet they do and don’t block in my office: blogger.com, but not www.blogger.com; twitpic.com, but not Twitter itself. We have a YouTube channel, for instance — I’d link to it, but there’s nothing there right now — except I can’t visit it at work, even when I’m working with our UK team to upload video to it. Glad I’m not the only person who thinks these policies are a little outdated:
As I’ve said a whole bunch of times, the “competition†for those of us in traditional media industries—book publishing, broadcasting, newspapers and magazines—is no longer other book publishers, broadcasters, or newspapers and magazines. Instead, our “competition†is now the plain fact that, even if you stipulate that 99.9% of the for-free internet is worthless nonsense, the remaining 0.1% is large enough to absorb anyone’s attention full-time for the rest of their life. For anyone with an internet connection, running out of interesting things to read is completely a thing of the past.
- This is probably the subtlest Rickrolling I’ve ever seen. [via]
- And finally, Birds on the Wires [via:
Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.
Tuesday various
- John Seavey on the “Vote With Your Wallet” Fallacy as it applies to comic books:
And of course, the worst part is that DC and Marvel are the bread and butter of the modern comics store. For all that people encourage buying indie comics as a way to vote with their wallets, if DC and Marvel (possibly even just Marvel) got out of the publishing business and decided to focus on their movies and videogames, it would be an utter apocalypse for the comics industry. All the other companies combined do not sell enough copies to keep a comics store in business. And without comics stores, indie publishers have very few places to sell their stuff. So voting with your wallets…might actually mean buying DC and Marvel books you hate just to keep the store you like in business.
The business model of the comics industry would drive Warren Buffett mad.
- Is Detroit on its way to becoming a food desert?
About 80 percent of the residents of Detroit buy their food at the one thousand convenience stores, party stores, liquor stores, and gas stations in the city. There is such a dire shortage of protein in the city that Glemie Dean Beasley, a seventy-year-old retired truck driver, is able to augment his Social Security by selling raccoon carcasses (twelve dollars a piece, serves a family of four) from animals he has treed and shot at undisclosed hunting grounds around the city. Pelts are ten dollars each. Pheasants are also abundant in the city and are occasionally harvested for dinner.
Not a single produce-carrying grocery chain in the city. From the little I saw of it a couple of years ago, I’m sorry to say I can believe it. [via]
- Is Accelerated Reader’s only criteria for assigning points the number of pages in a book? It sure seems that way, if Hamlet can be “worth fewer points than the fifth installment of the Gossip Girl series.” Shouldn’t some other factors be taking into account? [via]
- “When Henry Hudson first looked on Manhattan in 1609, what did he see?” This, apparently. I got to see a little of the Mannahatta Project a couple of weeks ago when I accompanied my mother to an after-hours members event at the Museum of the City of New York. Interesting stuff. [via]
- And finally, when the police shoot the Fire Chief in the courtroom over speeding tickets, you know that, just maybe, something’s wrong. [via]
Thursday various
- The next Twilight movie, which doesn’t open in theaters until November 20, is already selling out. On the plus side, this means it’s less likely that anyone can force me into seeing it.
- Meanwhile, Television Without Pity wonders what if every vampire kept a diary? [via]
- Just last week, Gail Simmons was reminding Top Chef viewers that “The language and structure of the kitchen in America is still very much dominated by French terminology…”
Now I learn that Julia Child, author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has never been translated into French. Apparently, the French see her cookbook as dated and a caricature. C’est la vie.
- In praise of the sci-fi corridor [via]
- And finally, Russell T. Davies and David Tennant’s exit interview for Doctor Who. They’ll be missed! [via]