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magic
Wednesday various
- Tintin’s Lovecraftian Adventures
- Along the same lines: What If…Herge Created the X-Men?
- And also, what if Charles Schulz illustrated H.P. Lovecraft? [via]
- Today in infographics: The Rules of Magic, Doctor Who Timeline, and Good Versus Evil in the Superhero Comic Color Palette [via and via]
- The truly odd story of New York’s Hartwick College and their “Methuselah” trust from a one-time benefactor:
Because thanks to an eccentric New York lawyer in the 1930s, this college in a corner of the Catskills inherited a thousand-year trust that would not mature until the year 2936: a gift whose accumulated compound interest, the New York Times reported in 1961, “could ultimately shatter the nation’s financial structure.†The mossy stone walls and ivy-covered brickwork of Hartwick College were a ticking time-bomb of compounding interest—a very, very slowly ticking time bomb.
One suspects they’d have rather gotten a new squash court. [via]
- Sorry, folks on my Christmas list: Mailing Chicken Pox Lollipops Is Illegal, Reckless. Maybe just a card? [via]
- A Tree Grows in Queens (Right Through An Auto Body Shop!) [via]
- “Sure. Alternate realities. You could have, like, a world without shrimp. Or with, you know, nothing but shrimp…” – Anya
First top predator was giant shrimp with amazing eyes. (“You have amazing eyes! Please don’t eat me, giant killer shrimp!”)
- The Higgs boson: Why scientists hate that you call it the ‘God particle’ [via]
- And finally, Bobby McFerin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale [via]:
Thursday various
- Today is Harry Houdini’s birthday. In honor of that, here’s a look at his Scene and Prop List. [via]
- I don’t know… ordering the removal of a mural depicting your state’s labor history from the lobby of your state’s Department of Labor seems like kind of a dick move. [via]
- As, frankly, do these new farm “protection” bills discussed by Mark Bittman — although, there, there’s some dangerous precedent being set:
The Florida bill would require anyone wishing to photograph a farm to first secure written permission from the owner. And what if they don’t? First-degree felony. The implicit goal here is to deter and criminalize damning undercover exposés….The bill would also make it illegal for an agenda-less passerby to snap a picture of a farm from the side of the road, but my best guess is that those “crimes†might not be prosecuted quite so diligently.
- The Phantom Menace in 3-D? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me…oh, god, what is this? Like the at least the sixth or seventh time? Shame very obviously on me, George Lucas, but I will not be going to see this. [via]
- And finally, an interview with Terry Jones. He discusses, among other things, Monty Python‘s less than certain start:
I mean, even right up until the middle of the second series John Cleese’s mum was still sending him job adverts for supermarket managers cut out from her local newspaper.
Wednesday various
- Roger Ebert on the MPAA’s rating system. [via]
- A 21st-century Moby Dick isn’t the single worst idea I’ve ever heard… At least, that’s what I thought before I saw the trailer. At least Barry Bostwick seems to be having fun. [via]
- Teller on why Harry Houdini mattered. [via]
- Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior [via]
- And finally, Carrot Track, a cute little game from Orisinal. [via]
Thursday various
- I’ve been having a lot of fun using my iPad this past week, but it’s never occurred to me to embed it in a kitchen cabinet. This is simultaneously a ridiculous and very cool use of the device.
- Also at the crossroads of the ridiculous and very cool (with a little bit of creepy thrown in): Dinseyland’s new Living Character technology. There is a little “Uncanny Valley” action going on here, but none of the children in the audience seem too perturbed. [via]
- I was glad to hear that author Peter Watts will not be serving jail time for an incident that happened at the US/Canadian border back in December. But I’m still ashamed that this is the way we (sometimes) treat our visitors in this country. [via]
- Of course, we are the nation that gave the world Justin Bieber, who doesn’t even know what the word ‘German’ means.
- Then again, we did give the world Ricky Jay via]: