As I write this, there’s only about 9 hours left in 2006. I thought it might be a little too gauche if I let this post slip over to 2007. To start, I’ve reviewed about 30 books here over the past 5 months. I think that works out to a review for every 2 or […]
From Bob Becker’s classic article on the paradoxes of percussion: “Substantial preparation time is often required for only a few seconds of actual performance… A performer who resigned his position as a percussionist with a major symphony orchestra once explained that, ‘Ninety percent of the time I was bored to death, and the other ten […]
I never was that interested in skateboarding, but damn, freebording looks cool–check out the videos. Justin Blanton talks about his first experience on a freebord.
The Early Comics Archive offers samples of comics work dating from around 300AD up to the early 1900s.
The best photos of 2006 from the world of construction/ engineering. [via bldgblog]
“We again asked the Princeton University community to submit images—and, for the first time, videos and sounds—produced in the course of research or incorporating tools and concepts from science. Out of nearly 150 entries from 16 departments, we selected 56 works to appear in the 2006 Art of Science exhibition.”
The Saints Row videogame for Xbox 360 has some pretty severe bugs. Cabel Sasser filmed some of the more egregious ones… and set them to an original musical score. Absolutely incredible! I really hope he does more of these. [via daring fireball]
An interview with SNL writer Bryan Tucker.
One thing people still don’t seem to get is that the show is actually live and on Saturdays - just like the title says (when I got the job my mom asked me what night the show came on), Things are literally being rewritten and changed until minutes […]
A big collection of free movies & documentaries, ranging from Dick Tracy to Phantom of the Opera to Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock to a couple hours worth of Tom & Jerry cartoons.
“In these songs, bricks, squares, pies, stones, and yams are coke, and the cooking, mixing, and weighing required to prepare the drug for clients becomes the inspiration for often inscrutable wordplay.” New Yorker on cocaine and rap. (so… why is this cool?)
Comics legend Stan Lee talks with NPR about superheroes.
If I got a superpower, I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, I gotta get a costume and put on a mask.’ I would say, ‘Hey, I can do something better than other people. How can I turn it into a buck?’
The creator of Marvel Comics mainstays like Spiderman, the […]
These are some great panels from the Little Nemo comic strips by Winsor McKay. The Virginia Quarterly has a nice article on McKay’s influence.
I just learned about Open Culture yesterday. Their mission, as they describe it:
To explore the best of contemporary intellectual life.
To connect users with free, high-quality online media — podcasts, videos, online courses, etc. — that makes learning dynamic, convenient and fun.
To keep users apprised of new cultural developments and resources worth their limited time.
Looks like […]
And then there’s this guy, who chose his Top 2006 Songs from 2006. I don’t know how you could maintain any kind of accurate order with that kind of group, but I suppose it’s the gestalt of the whole thing that really matters.
Excellent. A video featuring every finishing move from Mortal Kombat 3. Fatalities, babalities, friendships, etc. I can’t believe the first Mortal Kombat game came out way back in 1992!
The next Fantastic Four movie will feature the Silver Surfer. The first film wasn’t spectacular, but it was good, clean fun in an exuberant Jack Kirby kind of way. You certainly can’t go wrong with the Silver Surfer, but I really hope Galactus figures in there somewhere.
A collection of 191 versions of the Wham! holiday tune, Last Christmas. This is truly a triumph of international pop culture.
I’m always looking for a new perspective on GTD. I thought David Seah’s review of Getting Things Done was quite good.
The library at Chicago State University uses RFID and robots to file and retrieve books from the stacks, no humans needed.
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel and eventually one of the godfathers of open-source software development, tells all in Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. I don’t care much for biography, but this one did pretty well for itself. It starts off with the story of young Linus, growing up playing […]
New York Times article on the trend of embracing entropy:
Mess is complete, in that it embraces all sorts of random elements. Mess tells a story: you can learn a lot about people from their detritus, whereas neat — well, neat is a closed book. Neat has no narrative and no personality (as any cover of […]
The science of free-throw shooting: “The punch line with our paper is that this is the first evidence that neural activity–brain activity that happens well before the movement ever begins–has a lot to say about the variability or the exact movement that you’re going to get.”
A very good, and very critical review of Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion.
In a brief Economist essay on conversation: “One striking thing about the advice is how consistent it remains over time, suggesting that there are real rights and wrongs in conversation, not just local conventions.”
My grandfather can fall asleep in about 12 seconds. It’s amazing to watch, and he just might be on to something big. Take a Nap! purports to be “The scientific plan to make you smarter, healthier, more productive”.1 Sara Mednick starts off with some nap advocacy, the usual bit about how we run ourselves into […]
The government is celebrating the new year by automatically declassifying millions of secret documents. I look forward to the day when no government information is ever classified, excepting the Shadow Government, of course. [via librarycrunch]
A collection of classic snowman-building panels from Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.
A great collection of stills and posters from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. [via coudal by way of daring fireball]
From an industry survey about a decade ago, The 50 Greatest Cartoons. “What’s Opera, Doc?” takes first place. And here are video links for all but 1 of them.
Nicely complimenting last week’s article about airline security theatre, Andrea Harner has a great cartoon that captures the moment and offers a quick solution for harried holiday travelers. Not recommended at wintry northern latitudes, but it’s been in the 60s down at Atlanta’s airport…
In praise of Dilbert’s 9-point financial plan, which reads:
1. Make a will
2. Pay off your credit cards
3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
4. Fund your 401k to the maximum
5. Fund your IRA to the maximum
[…]
For their first anniversary a couple months back, Visual Complexity created a cool mosaic of the first 360 projects from the year. Huge 2.1MB image here and a ginormous 11.6MB poster is also available.
Students rate their professors… and in return, there’s a blog where professors rate their students. There’s some really interesting commentary there, but I wish they’d ease up on the italics.
If you like jazz standards and finger-tapping, here’s a video of Stanley Jordan playing “Autumn Leaves” on 2 guitars at the same time, soloing while ‘comping himself.
Khoi Vinh thoughtfully bemoans the ubiquity of Chris Ware in Comics for People Who Hate Comics:
In spite of his many and frequent innovations, Ware’s name, to me, has become synonymous with ‘intellectually acceptable comics’ produced for people who basically think comics are crap. His works — especially his commissions — reflect not so much an […]
Here’s a bunch of pictures of tiny foods: A wee salad. A little quail egg. World’s smallest pancake… and cheeseburger. Mini mince pies. And another miniature burger, as seen on tv. Tiniest dill pickle. Really really small frozen yogurt. Fast food (okay, so it’s candy, but at least it’s a full value meal). Tiny cherry […]
“The graphic novel has been a ‘legitimate’ art form for a while now. Does that mean we can start calling them comics again?” Publisher’s Weekly reviewers vote on their favorite comics from 2006. It was a very good year.
I agree that Absolute DC: New Frontier was really good. I loved Scott McCloud’s Making Comics (my […]
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