If you have a spare LCD screen or two, why not make your own Virtual Windows? I could think of stranger uses for such a thing (such as having the screens broadcast what was in another room, or just featuring completely inappropriate landscapes.) On the other hand, would streaming winter scenes make a hot room feel cooler?
Category: Web
Do you Crash?
The web is a many splendored thing. There’s now a fairly extensive archive of CRASH magazine, a magazine devoted to the Spectrum computer that I barely remember reading back in the ’80s. I think my friend subscribed. Cool.
Pinball’s Golden Decade?
Oh man, you better believe I want this book. These are the machines I grew up playing. Here’s a description from the Amazon site.
The Pinball Compendium: 1970-1981: “Exciting and challenging, pinball games have been enthusiastically played since their inception in the 1930s and are treasured by countless collectors worldwide. This lavishly illustrated book chronicles pinball games from 1970 through 1981, one of the industry’s most prolific eras. Hundreds of machines from Gottlieb, Williams, Bally, Chicago Coin, and other manufacturers are showcased — including many never before published. The extensive text provides descriptions of the games, their special features, historical significance, release dates, and designers. Collectors will love the exclusive interviews with some of pinball’s greatest designers and artists. Current values are listed for each machine shown in the book. Along with its companion volume (covering the 1930s to the 1960s), this is a wonderful reference and a tribute to all who were part of pinball’s fascinating history. 8 1/2′ x 11′ 800 color & 30 b/w photos Price Guide/Index “
A bit pricey, though.
Thank goodnes that in the mean time there’s this.
David Woodard’s Dreammachine
Interview with David Woodard, collaborator with William S. Burroughs and builder (though not inventor) of the Dreammachine.
DW: In college, I found the Dreamachine would cure my own writer’s block. When I mentioned this to Burroughs, he concurred. That is the extent of what I know about his use of the machine for that purpose. In 1997, when we were both living in Lawrence, Burroughs tended to use his two Dreamachines together as a postprandial ritual along with a marijuana cigarette. He would write the following morning.
I think the Dreamachine’s most distinctive property is its (potentially insidious) subtlety. The machine is similar to absinthe, in that both create a residual language-oriented delirium of which the user tends not to be aware. Fortunately light pulses do not yield the additional effect of Syphilis-like rotted brain stem.
Before I go rushing out to buy one, a handmade Dreammachine will set me back $500. Damn.
An open letter to all my favorite bloggers
Can we talk a little bit about RSS feeds? As a devoted blog reader (and writer) I use an RSS reader to keep up with all my blogs. My request, my wish, is that all blogs be turned on to “full post” in the preferences of whatever service you are using. If I have to continually click through to your site to read a post, what is the point of an RSS feed to start with?
My recent sojourn into the working world of the cubicle has also brought another negative regarding less-than-full posts in the feed: While I can access all my blogs through my RSS reader, the “evil-corporation-that-shall-remain-nameless” web blocker will not let me continue through to read posts on certain sites, those marked “personal” and “political” equally.
So please, switch on “full post” in your prefs. It doesn’t hurt. Do it for your readers.
Pop and Politics don’t mix…yeah, right.
A site with analysis of television, music, and film, and how it affects our place in this world (while all around tell you it doesn’t, except when it pleases them), PopPolitics.com is back up after a hiatus of sorts. Glad to see it has a blog and not just a series of articles. Hours of good reading here, folks.
I’m a Creep
Here’s a wonderful flash animation of Radiohead’s Creep, apparently animated by one lone fella (whose name I’ve forgotten).
By way of BoingBoing
Crazy Like a Sarcoptic Mangy Fox
Baltimore mystery animal case solved! It’s a mangy fox.
Baby Mystery Animal Caught, Identified
The mystery may be over as one of the creatures roaming through central Maryland was finally captured on Saturday.
According to the veterinarians at Falls Road Animal Hospital, the animal was a male red fox. However, Dr. Michael Herko — a vet at the animal hospital — and the man who caught the fox say it is not the mysterious creature videotaped in July, but a relative.
Dear God, What Have We Done?
For years, women have been asking men to be more sensitive, communicative, more emotional. Now all the young dudes are like that and it’s driving the single women nuts! This funny article from the NY Observer is a discreet lesson in “watch out, you may get just what you wish for.”
Glaringly obvious
Here are some sites that I often use, but I’ve never linked to because I assume people know them. I must have forgotten the “ass out of U and me” ur-Prince adage.
Snopes should be in everybody’s bookmarks. A one-stop-shop for Urban Legends, Snopes is up to date on the latest hoaxes. When I get a forwarded email from a friend of a friend of a friend saying “George Bush called fetuses ‘feces’ in a speech” or “Tom DeLay eats children,” I go to Snopes, no matter how much I’d like to believe it. (The latter is absolutely true, however). Snopes also tells you if something is true, with references. I then copy and paste and email the forwarder back. The madness must end!
I just started using Phil Gyford‘s revamped Internet watcher called Byliner. A simple and effective free service, it allows you to track your favorite writers across the web. Find a writer through Byliner’s search engine, subscribe, and then receive emails when that writer has posted a new piece. Obviously this works (as it was designed to) best with newspaper columnists. You can have up to 30 writers on that list.
(Update: As of 2008 Phil Gyford discontinued Byliner.)
I’m also surprised at the people who don’t know about the Internet Movie Database, even people who are obsessed with films. This has been around since the beginning of the Net (I think). Time ya got with the program.
Oh, and brand new is my friend Rachel Howard’s web page and blog. She’s come a long way since our days at the Independent, and now has a book coming out next year, as well as a steady gig as a dance reviewer. I write on dance too, but she knows far more than me. She use big words too. Ugh.