- Here’s a question: Who inherits your iTunes library? Maybe a follow-up to that: would you want someone to inherit it?
There’s a significant difference between shelves of books or stacks of records and folders of e-books or mp3s. There’s no re-sell value to the latter, for instance, either because of the difficulties of transferring the files or because of restrictions inherent in the licensing agreements we sign. So the only reason to bequeath your digital media is if you feel the person receiving it in your will actually will want it.
- Ass-whooping on NPR.
- In other news, they were still printing Nintendo Power Magazine?
- Writing credits in documentaries: apparently a bigger issue than you might think.
- And finally, Space Stallions!
More information here.
parody
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
- I could be reading this wrong, but I think the New York Times compared Joe Frazier to Hitler.
- And Ethel Merman to Kim Kardashian.
- When is honey not honey? Apparently when it’s most of the honey sold in stores in the U.S.. [via]
- So presumably you’ve heard of If Day, right? It was “a simulated Nazi invasion of the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and surrounding areas on February 19, 1942.” Yeah, I’d never heard about it before either. [via]
- And finally, Cormac McCarthy’s Yelp page. Hysterical:
He pulled another cold french fry from the greasestained Happy Meal box. He ate it slowly. The sun rising behind him over the limestone bluffs. The barren valley and the road winding through it still in morning’s blue shadow. He wiped his hand on his jacket and checked the breech of the big Weatherby. Bullet as long as man’s finger sitting there. He lay down on the blanket, the rifle’s barrel resting on the saddlebag, and glassed downcountry with the telescopic sight. The dusty road was empty. He waited. [via]<.blockquote>
Thursday various
- The Call of Cthulhu by Dr. Seuss [via]
- Don’t trust anyone you meet online. [via]
- Perks of Being an English Major [via]
- Science fiction vs. literary fiction
- And finally, Ira Glass’ sex tape:
For the most part, this is pretty SFW visually, although fairly explicit in other ways. I include it mostly because it’s a pitch-perfect parody. [via]
Wednesday various
- “When It’s Not Your Turnâ€: The Quintessentially Victorian Vision of Ogden’s “The Wire†[via]
- The Content Farm: “Informative articles about every topic, written by people with a passing knowledge.” [via]
- War Dog:
Dogs have been fighting alongside U.S. soldiers for more than 100 years, seeing combat in the Civil War and World War I. But their service was informal; only in 1942 were canines officially inducted into the U.S. Army. Today, they’re a central part of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan — as of early 2010 the U.S. Army had 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed (the largest canine contingent in the world). And these numbers will continue to grow as these dogs become an ever-more-vital military asset. [via]
- If Housepets Were Libertarians
- And finally…
X-Men: First Class Title Sequence from Joe D! on Vimeo. [via