At last, it’s over

The last (I hope) Snuggies joke ever.

94% of email is now spam…again

From Slashdot:

Thelasko writes: "A NYTimes blog reports that the volume of spam has returned to is previous levels, as seen before the McColo was shut down. Here is the report on Google's enterprise blog.

Well that’s just bad, dammit.

Good luck, alt-weeklies…

… the Decider has opened up shop in San Francisco.

Adam Savage interview

The folks at Lifehacker have an interview up with special-effects guru, and Mythbusters co-presenter, Adam Savage.

Amy Poehler Profile

… at Newsweek. Wait a minute – no mention of the Upright Citizens Brigade? Stop the Internet! It’s all gone wrong!

“Wall Street” screen writer interviewed

From the, well why not? file at Newsweek:

Instead of being greedy in the mid-eighties, screenwriter Stanley Weiser was creating America's most enduring symbol of greed: Gordon Gecko. As portrayed by Michael Douglas in "Wall Street," Gecko was an insider trader who, not unlike today's financial villains, had one underlying idea: "Greed is good." Weiser spoke with NEWSWEEK's Kurt Soller about his take on toxic assets, the reprehensibility of Bernie Madoff and, ultimately, why greed belongs in the movies—not real life.

It was an iconic film, in its day. But, to a certain extent people drew the wrong message from the film, apparently.

Wanted: used Skee-Ball games

From the Consumerist:

Roy and his friends have from Austin, TX just joined the Brewskeeball skee-ball league and are having trouble locating a used one they to buy so they can practice without stuffing token after token in the ol concentric-ringed bandit.

Just when I think I’ve heard it all… though, this would probably be cheaper and more space-efficient that having your own bowling alley. And hey, anybody got a used Whack-a-Mole for sale?

Fans of pointless, acrimonious discussion may be interested to note…

… that there’s a discussion of the Simpsons over at the A.V. Club. Oh, and some sort of interview with Matt Groening, too.

“Illustrated Cross Sections of Awesome Machines”

Now that sounds like a must-have book. Seriously.

I have a headache

… I know that I mostly use this site to poop out links to various internet gems that you’ve already seen, but I couldn’t help but note that this comment thread over at the A.V. Club is full of puns, which I love, but also to which I am allergic. Thank you, that is all.

Rick Steves: Political theorist

From Salon:

But even saying you're trying to understand terrorists' motives still grates. Don't you think?

Yeah, people don't like to hear that. They think it's showing weakness to the terrorists. But we have to think more carefully about why we are angering so much of the world. I'm just trying to say, Hey, look, we're 4 percent of this planet, we've spent as much as everybody else together on the military, and we've got military bases in 130 countries. Yet only we can declare somebody else's natural resources on the other side of the planet are vital to our national security. Only we can be pissed off if they elect a government that nationalizes their own natural resources.

You know, I’ve always assumed that Steves must have a lot of ideas about geopolitics; someone who travels as he does couldn’t help but form opinions.

Yet, there’s a seriously jarring sensation reading this stuff from a guy who seems so unconflicted and happy showing people the importance of bringing comfortable walking shoes to Europe.

Arizona wants big boom

From Consumerist:

Consumer-grade fireworks are currently illegal in Arizona, but the sate government is considering passing a bill that would give the fire marshal the power to regulate the sale of them. This has caused an outcry from anti-fireworks types who say that even the less powerful consumer-grade products are too dangerous. Unfortunately, one of the most publicized opponents is a guy who was severely burned in 2004 because he was launching mortar-style fireworks from his moving car, and one blew back in through the window and set his stash on fire.

Emphasis theirs, is I believe how you say it. Wow.

Nothing but remainders

From thebookseller.com:

London indie Crockatt & Powell is switching the majority of books in its Fulham Road branch to remaindered stock.

Co-owner Matthew Crockatt said the move was partly due to Daunt Books opening at the old Pan Bookshop site late last year as well as the worsening economy.

It’s interesting that this might become a new trend (if two more articles about similar events crop up), but we’ve seen remaindered-only book stores up and down Northern California forever. They are fun (yay, cheap books!) and sad (oh, those poor authors!).

Link via: Bookninja

Weird cable tv antics

From the AV Club:

After retiring their popular hour-long Behind The Music rock documentary series, which aired in some incarnation from 1997 to 2006, VH1 is now planning to revive this summer, starting with new episodes on ‘Lil Wayne and troubled Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland. Returning to the show is Jim Forbes, whose narration brought gravitas to the Behind The Music’s dependable three-act formula (meteoric rise/tragic fall/wistful reconciliation) and inspired countless parodies.

See, this is the kind of thing that bothers me, these times when cable networks abandon their original, core programming, in order to branch out into realms they have no business futzing around with. I mean, music on VH1? Seriously?

Roman laughter

From the Guardian:

We may admire the satires of Horace and Lucilius, but the ancient Romans haven't hitherto been thought of as masters of the one-liner. This could be about to change, however, after the discovery of a classical joke book.

Celebrated classics professor Mary Beard has brought to light a volume more than 1,600 years old, which she says shows the Romans not to be the "pompous, bridge-building toga wearers" they're often seen as, but rather a race ready to laugh at themselves.

… and what’s the deal with these togas? Who’s the marketing genius who came up with these? Thank you, goodnight!

Link: Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book [Guardian]

Spying on keystrokes

From Slashdot:

"Two separate research teams have found that the the electromagnetic radiation that is generated when a computer keyboard is tapped is actually pretty easy to capture and decode[….]”

Link: Slashdot: Researchers Sniff Keystrokes From Thin Air, Wires

End of the world fantasies

It worries me a little that so many people seem to rub their hands and salivate whenever the breakdown of society comes up in conversation. It generally implies either that: A) They want to be dead, or; B) They think that it would be the perfect scenario in which to prove their own worth, as evidenced by their ability to survive, thrive, and kick-ass with ruthless efficiency, as they mow down hordes of whatever ethnicity they prefer to imagine is the most evil. To wit:

The economic crisis has most of us worried about a lot of things. How will I retire? How will I pay the mortgage? Will I have enough ammo and MREs to outlast crazed “urban” hordes marauding the countryside?

I’m especially worried about the last one after seeing Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News raising apocalyptic free-for-all as a very real possibility. With ominous music and images of swarthy people burning American flags, refugees, rioters, and military on the move, it was the very definition of public-service reporting, if by “public service” you mean “losing your mind.”

Link: CJR: Black Helicopters Spotted at WSJ Sister Network

Used books: good or bad?

SF Signal asks: Does the used book market help or hurt the publishing industry? Answers can be found from L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and Nick Mamatas, among others.

A new type of ice… wait a minute

From Slashdot:

ScienceDaily is reporting that a new ice chain structure may provide a better method for seeding clouds and causing rain: "Ice structures are usually built out of simple hexagonal arrangements of water molecules and this hexagonal building block motif is easily observed in the structures of snowflakes. However, during their studies Dr Angelos Michaelides and co-workers from the Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin, and the University of Liverpool have discovered a natural nanoscale ice structure formed of pentagons."

Oh, you’d better believe that there’s about a billion Ice-9 jokes in the comments.

Take That, Economists!

From Newsweek:

One of the not inconsiderable side effects of the current economic meltdown is the demise of the economic expert, if experts they truly ever were. Experts took a quieter bath in 1989, when communism collapsed without a single Sovietologist coming near to suggesting the possibility of the demise of the totalitarian behemoth. So, too, did few economists call the global economic collapse that began last autumn. The entire Dismal Science, as Thomas Carlyle called economics, and all its practitioners seem to have been asleep at the wheel.

I'm sure I've mentioned my problems with economists, before.

Fan Delusion

Musings on Fandom, from Ozaku:

More insidiously, Fans, become so attached to the way they believe a thing should be, that they begin to think it is the way that things are. They start to feel as if the creator of a series actually *owes* them, for being so engaged in the series - even if they have never once financially supported the series in any way. "My love," this kind of Fan says, "is worth something. You *owe* me for my loyalty." This leads to what I call "Fan Delusion."