Some shaky cell phone snapshots from a trip to the Guggenheim this weekend.
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.
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Mac and PC duel transformers style! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLbJ8YPHwXM&fmt=18]
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.
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Leaked footage from the upcoming adaption of Maurice Sendak's classic book Where the Wild Things Are. Spike Jonze is the director. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z46Yym346QA&fmt=18]
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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.
DJ Mayhem & MC Mouthmaster Murf raps and recaps Robocop in 10 minutes. They previously covered Predator.
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I dig Brooklyn artist Anthony Lister's series of reimagined comic book icons.
fat bat man
captain america - hero hostage installation
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The Economist has a fascinating profile on Victor Bout, an infamous Russian arms dealer upon whom "Lord of War" starring Nicholas Cage was loosely based. Nicknamed the "Merchant of Death," Bout now sits in a Bangkok prison awaiting extradition to the US.
Mr Bout’s genius was to employ impoverished ex-Soviet pilots, ready to risk their lives for hard currency, and to send his aircraft anywhere they were needed (he rarely flew on them himself). At times that meant getting United Nations peacekeepers into Somalia, or delivering aid for the British government. More often, as the UN eventually described, he provided the logistics that kept cruel civil wars alive. Reportedly Mr Bout supplied, simultaneously, both the rebels and the government during Angola’s civil war.
Similarly, he collaborated first with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and then, after one of his aircraft was impounded for months by the Taliban, switched to trading with the Islamists. He probably helped the American forces to fly material to Afghanistan and certainly did so in Iraq. He was active in eastern Congo, where years of war have led to the deaths of millions.
Also, read this detailed account from Mother Jones of the sting that led to Bout's capture and arrest.
Sandy Nicholson's "2nd: The Face of Defeat" is a collection of poignant photographs of people who finished in second, or in other words, as first losers in seemingly every contest or competition you can imagine.
It was a tie and the word I got wrong was 'bungalow', b-u-n-g-a-l-o-w. But I spelt it b-u-n-g-a-l-o. I'm going to remember that for a really long time. Then I got 'galore'. I was so proud of myself, but also kind of sad because just one word knocked me out.
- Joshua Polera, 2nd, Primary Category, Spelling Bee of Canada, Ontario Championship Finals
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The top 10 quotes of 2008 from the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations.
3. "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." - former Sen. Phil Gramm
4. "It's not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number." - A Treasury Department spokeswoman explaining how the $700 billion number was chosen for the initial bailout.
5. "The fundamentals of America's economy are strong." - John McCain.
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