Jessica Hische created this great graphic that accompanied the New York Times Buzzwords of 2008 article. You can view the complete typeface at her blog.
[Via]
Viewing entries in
News
Here are some of the questions readers submitted that Slate's Explainer "felt ill-equipped or unwilling to answer in 2008."
• I am an 11-year-old boy and girls in my class harass me constantly and I want to file a restraining order against one of them. Is that possible?• Why don't humans have a mating season?
• How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails?
• If there is so much oil in the Middle East, could one missile (such as the ones used to penetrate bunkers and caves) explode deep underground and hypothetically blow up a few countries?
• During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees?
Read rest here.
[Via]
Foreign Policy collects their list of the 10 worst forecasts of 2008.
“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will enter the Presidential race in February, after it becomes clear which nominees will get the nod from the major parties. His multiple billions and organization will impress voters—and stun rivals. He’ll look like the most viable third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. But Bloomberg will come up short, as he comes in for withering attacks from both Democrats and Republicans. He and Clinton will split more than 50% of the votes, but Arizona’s maverick senator, John McCain, will end up the country’s next President.” –BusinessWeek, Jan. 2, 2008
Uhm, no.
The Indian naval fleet is on fire in the gulf of Aden against the Somalian pirates! On Saturday Indian warship INS Mysore and their commandos captured 23 pirates and their arms cache.
Soon after, steaming at full speed, the deadly INS Mysore also reached the spot. By then, all 23 pirates had clambered onto the 10-metre-long dhow -- later identified as `Salahaddin' -- in a bid to escape.INS Mysore then opened fire across the dhow's bows with its heavy-calibre machine guns, forcing the sea bandits to come to a complete halt. A detachment of heavily-armed marine commandos promptly sped across to the pirate dhow in their fibre-glass inflatable boats.
"Seeing the Marcos, the pirates surrendered quite easily, even though for some time they pretended to be plain fishermen. A search of the dhow led to the discovery of the large arms cache and three outboard motors,'' he said.
[Via]
You know this already because all of you are intelligent and brilliant, but zeitgeist of course is a German word meaning "spirit of the times." Aggregating the billions of searches on their site, Google recently released their annual zeitgeist highlights from around the world.
- Follow Shaq on Twitter...and he's been using TwitPic to upload RIDICULOUS photos like this one.
- The Thanksgiving meat monstrosity that is the Turbaconducken.
- "Instead of out-of-work men asking, 'Brother, can you spare a dime?' we have executives asking Congress if it can spare $100 billion." Daniel Gross puts some perspective on the current banking crisis.
- Beautiful winter photography.
- What happens in your body in the first 60 minutes of drinking Coke.
- Naughty wallpaper.
- The different in unspoken communication between girls and between bros.
- Toshiba bullet time. Tres cool.
- Military getting stealth robocopter.
- Guitar Hero as training for bionic arms. And future cyborg robots. I bet Cable from the X-Men would be wicked on Guitar Hero.
- Future Suri. I don't know why this is so absurdly funny to me. Poor child.
- Recent Vogue editorial where one 20-year-old model is photographed to appear 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 years old. Impressive work by some talented people.
- My future shower.
- Top 10 non-Asian artists with Asian sounding names.
- 100 essential jazz albums.
RSS reader dump.
- Escape alarm clock. WANT.
- Bike Hero.
- Rooms for rent for the Obama inauguration.
- Indian navy beats up on pirates!
- Mom pants horror.
- HAHAHA!
- I love you.
- Sonics basketball fan files for free agency.
- Insane drift racing! It makes Fast and Furious look like the documentary of the Model T.
- I really WANT this mini digital camera.
- The death spiral of Internet surfing.
- Mormons Seeking Forgiveness.
- Bacon floss. I usually support bacon but this is terrible.
- Neat background story to the Dove campaign.
- How A-bomb testing changed people's brains.
- I want everything from this store.
- Comparison of headwear worn by gnomes by %.
- Flaming truck.
- Best lunch bags ever by a mom who is setting the bar REALLY high for other moms at that school.
- Periodic table wine. I WANT.
- How many players are still active from video games RBI Baseball and Tecmo Super Bowl?
- You are beautiful.
More RSS dumping.
- Airport security theater.
- Japan's fastest video game controller masher.
- Who put this dick on my back???
- Terrorists are like the rest of us. They hate commuting.
- Strunk and White and software programming.
- Apple grenade launcher.
- Jussipussi.
- What personnel is essential during a zombie attack?
- Heartbeat of a street. Tres cool.
- The 9 phases of dating.
- Tranformers BBQ logo. Transformers, PIG OUT!
- Awesome alarm clock.
- Wonderbra pillow.
- New York Times Bill Cunningham shooting in the rain.
- 10 most fascinating savants in the world.
- How to get rid of that body in your freezer.
- Skateboard stairs.
Emptying the contents of my RSS reblog recycle can.
- Conde Nast's problem with the Internet. Mr. Newhouse, I am available to bring your flagship magazines into the 21st century AND monitize the transition as well!
- Prop 8 protest sign. Fabulous is now furious!
- Rock Band creators receive $300 million bonus.
- A lot of Starbucks cups in the trash.
- iPod speakers made with just four paper cups and toothpicks.
- Elite New York City restaurants in bidding war for 2.15 lb white truffle. Approximately 140 over priced dishes can be produced with this one truffle.
- Timelapse London. I told you I'm a sucker for this overplayed technique.
- My new favorite derivative of the "jump" photo meme: Kiss the ceiling photos.
- Funny billboard. Not so funny for 4th graders.
- One of my all time favorite TV sitcoms might make it to the big screen. Yaaaayyyyy!
- Sauron's eye discovered to be located on Saturn. [Insert joke about Uranus.]
- Superman does weed, dude.
- Teddy bear suicide.
- Moye's (as usual) brilliant analysis of the live puppy cam.
- Aliens Lego. I WANT.
- The difference between "friend" and "best friend."
- Vogue nesting dolls. I WANT.
- Hand made fonts. Oh, to have disposable income otherwise known as "silly money"...
- What the (horrifying) face of cosmetic surgery addiction looks like, especially when cooking oil is injected in the face. Ya'll Koreans need to take it easy with all this plastic surgery stuff. This is where I conveniently downplay my Koreanness in favor of my Mexicanness.
- Armless man steals TV. HAHAHAHA.
- Another freakish Chinese citizen. This time with 8 toes on each foot, and no thumb. WTF.
- Cool tattoo. But to echo Nada Mas, giraffe? Really?
- Personal flip books.
- Creative hand painting.
- 5 real life missions for 007.
- Coolest flip flops EVER. I WANT.
- The next "Michael Jordans."
- Passive aggressive notes. It's fine if you don't want to click on that link. I mean you've only read this far but I understand if you don't want to read this one.
- Make a muppet. I WANT.
- Lomo sidekick camera bag. Slick.
- Funny choking ad. Not funny IRL.
Phew.
This is an interesting read for any aspiring creative wondering how on earth they will be able to sustain themselves. Kevin Kelly argues that the "solution is to find 1,000 True Fans." But what is a True Fan and how will they support you?
A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.
Read full text here.
According to Jason Kottke, reflecting the historic nature of the event the post-election The New York Times headline on November 5 that succinctly stated "OBAMA" is only the fifth time the Times has used this bold 96 pt. type.
MEN WALK ON MOON NIXON RESIGNS 1/1/00 U.S. ATTACKED OBAMA
As this significance was reflected in newspaper headlines not just in the US but around the world, The Rockdale Citizen in Conyers, GA decided to place "the local re-election of a sheriff and a dog attack at a school as bigger news than Obama's win, which was placed below the fold with the small header: 'Obama Triumphs.'"
Coined the "Butt Bandit," some guy has been terrorizing the residents and business owners in Valentine, Nebraska.
Beginning more than a year ago, some man has been skipping from one business to another at night, pressing his naked behind — sometimes his groin, sometimes both — on windows. Store owners, church workers and school janitors have had to wash lotion and petroleum jelly off the windows he selects.
This is quite a "pressing" issue for the local police chief who isn't at all amused by the elusive and "slippery" vandal. Puns!
[Via]
Yesterday, after my unsuccessful attempt at finding a copy of The New York Times at any of the newsstands around my office, I went to their actual building near Times Square and waited in line to obtain a copy of the historic edition announcing Obama as the president-elect. I bought four copies and dashed into the subway to avoid the rain.
The Times decided to print another 50,000 copies after seeing this line form in front of their building yesterday early afternoon.
People are selling them for an absurd amount on eBay. I'm keepin' mine.
I don't know why, but embedded videos here from mainly sites like Vimeo or Funny or Die (see most recent Natalie Portman entry) won't appear in some RSS readers, such as Google Reader. I know it's a little annoying, but you'll have to temporarily leave the comfortable domain of your RSS reader to view the embedded content.
Thank you for your continuing readership. You may now return to your regularly scheduled show.
A recent New York Times correction. This reminds me, maybe I should bring this blog back.
I saw her speak years ago in college and she's really quite an inspiration.
While the endorsement choice of newspapers like the New York Times and other national dailies is largely unsurprising, the endorsement of Barack Obama by the editorial board of the Bryan/College Station Eagle is as Andrew Sullivan remarked, "staggering."
In the past 50 years, The Eagle has never recommended a Democrat for president. We made no recommendations in 1960 and 1964 -- when Texas' own Lyndon B. Johnson was on the Democratic ticket -- nor did we in 1968 -- although we did praise Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey's position on the Vietnam War. We did not in 1976 and 1980. In 1972, The Eagle recommend Richard Nixon, in 1984, Ronald Reagan. We recommended George H.W. Bush in 1988 and 1992 and his son in 2000. We recommended Bob Dole in 1996.
Four years ago, the Editorial Board couldn't recommend George W. Bush for a second term, but we also couldn't recommend Sen. John Kerry either, so we made no choice.
This year is different, in large part because of the very difficult challenges facing this nation after eight years of a failed Bush administration. We are faced with a choice between Sen. John McCain, who claims to be an agent of change but promotes the policies of the past, and Sen. Barack Obama, who also wears the change mantle, but offers a vision for the future, even if he has yet to fully explain how he would carry out that vision if elected president in little more than two weeks.
Read full here.
[Via]
Milan Kundera, the reclusive author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being--one of my all time favorite novels--reportedly snitched on a western spy. AP writes:
...Kundera in 1950 informed on Miroslav Dvoracek, who had been recruited in Germany by the Czech emigre intelligence network to work as a spy against the Communist regime.
Dvoracek visited a woman in Prague and left a suitcase in her apartment. She told her boyfriend, who later told Kundera, and Kundera went to the police.
Dvoracek was arrested when he came to collect the suitcase. He was later sentenced to 22 years in prison and eventually served 14, working in uranium mines.
Frank Rich writes:
Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.
What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.
[...]
To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires.
Read more here.
1. Juxtaposition of Obama and McCain supporters. 2. Rednecks for Obama. Seriously.
3. Are you hot or not? Probably not. Except for your mom. Hi-ho!
4. Apple invites media to notebook event on the 14th of October. Looks like MRod will be blogging from a new Apple laptop by the end of October!
5. I'm definitely going to Banksy's new "pet store."
7. Zipper pond.
9. Bill Clinton and Halle Berry's respective Esquire covers juxtaposed. I prefer Halle's.
10. Halo 3: Recon announced. Sticky plasma grenade goodness!
11. Good advice about music being played while you're having sex.
12. MI6 spy's cover slips off during TV interview. Spy FAIL.