January 2009
36 posts
Seed: 2009 Will Be a Year of Panic →
Bruce Sterling paints an abysmal picture for the new year through seven key predicitons. Among them:
2. Intellectual property. More specifically, the fiat declaration that properties that are easy to reproduce shouldn’t be reproduced.
Declaring that “information wants to be free” is an ideological stance. A real-world situation where information can’t be anything but...
Own the Day: D'Souza v. Hitchens →
At one point, early on in the debate, I clapped for a particularly good point that Hitchens made. I stopped right away because I realized that I was surrounded by Christians in the Mezzanine. It made for an interesting rest of the night because each time a good point arose I had to decide whether it was a good enough point to clap and endure the glares or if Hitchens was just being an ass again.
NYT: The Fabric of History →
A New York Times reporter went to the innaugration (unofficially) and shares his candid shots from the event.
And it wasn’t like New Year’s Eve, and it wasn’t like the roar of the crowd at the football game…it was something that was quieter…. I suppose one could almost say it was like a gospel miracle. It was only for a few seconds, but you felt the electricity go...
The Guardian: Lonely hearts club band →
Normally on the first few dates I borrow mannerisms from the more interesting people I know and very often steal phrases and anecdotes from them along with concepts and ideas from obscure yet wittily-written books. It makes me appear more attractive and personable than I actually am. With you, however, I’m going to be a belligerent old shit from the very beginning. That’s because I...
Buzzfeed: Aretha's Hat Is Everywhere →
Thx Trace!
watching The Fifth Element on @boxee. check it out... →
watching Starship Troopers on @boxee. check it out... →
craiglist: Letter to Straight People I Meet at... →
I am not a fashion designer. But, yes, your ass does look fat in those jeans. I am not into Appletinis. I like Bourbon. Straight. I am not butch. Telling someone that they don’t “act gay” is not a compliment, folks. Being “butch” is not a noble attribute. Nor is femininity a negative attribute. How would you like it if I came up to your husband and said:...
WatchNeil deGrasse Tyson describes our precarious situation with Asteroid Apophis, which stands a good chance to impact the Earth and obliterate the west coast on April 13, 2036.
I met Tyson briefly once at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and was really impressed. He’s a cool guy.
Watch
A Coworker Describing the Greeley Rodeo
Her: “And they were always just wild and nuts, with lots of rednecks and……” (she looks left and right, then leans in and whispers) “…….Mexicans.” Me: (leaning in and whispering back) “….Why are we whispering about Mexicans?”
WatchFor some reason I am in love with this song.
Fire threatens northern outskirts of Boulder →
Ferocious Chinook winds fed a wildfire that ripped across a 1,000-acre swath of Boulder County on Wednesday — threatening the city’s northern outskirts, destroying at least three structures and forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents as well as horses, llamas and other animals.
The winds, which in recent days have sucked the moisture from grass and brush along the Foothills,...
Milky Way Transit Authority →
Our galaxy is unimaginably vast, and we really have no idea what is out there. We are discovering new planets in other star systems all the time, learning new facts about the galactic core, and even learning about whole new portions of the galaxy. This map is an attempt to approach our galaxy with a bit more familiarity than usual and get people thinking about long-term possibilities in outer...
Runaway Stars Go Ballistic →
New images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reveal 14 young, runaway stars plowing through regions of dense interstellar gas, creating brilliant arrowhead structures and trailing tails of glowing gas.
These arrowheads, or bow shocks, form when the stars’ powerful stellar winds, streams of matter flowing from the stars, slam into surrounding dense gas. The phenomenon is similar to...
Spaceflight Now: Hubble and Spitzer show Milky... →
This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. It offers a nearby laboratory for how massive stars form and influence their...
What you’re hearing is the sound of...
Watch
Wow.
Nice.
Gems Point to Comet as Answer to Ancient Riddle →
Something dramatic happened about 12,900 years ago, and the continent of North America was never the same. A thriving culture of Paleo-Americans, known as the Clovis people, vanished seemingly overnight. Gone, too, were most of the largest animals: horses, camels, lions, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, ground sloths and giant armadillos.
Scientists have long blamed climate change for...
