{"id":1665,"date":"2005-10-23T13:54:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-23T21:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=1665"},"modified":"2005-10-23T13:54:00","modified_gmt":"2005-10-23T21:54:00","slug":"1665","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=1665","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\">Linkpharm:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/xkcd_drawings\/4052.html\">Honor <i>Monty Python<\/i>: promote surreal humor<\/a>. There&#8217;s some other great stuff here, too. My own favorites are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/xkcd_drawings\/4779.html\">George Clinton<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/xkcd_drawings\/3065.html\"><i>Pi<\/i> equals<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Speaking of <i>pi<\/i>: <a href=\"http:\/\/keithschofield.com\/pi\/std.html\">a terrific music video<\/a> from  Hard &#8216;n Phirm, with the digits of <i>pi<\/i> sung in harmony to the 190th decimal place. [<a href=\"http:\/\/waxy.org\/links\/\" title=\"Waxy.org Links\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>More music: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jonathancoulton.com\/2005\/10\/14\/thing-a-week-5-baby-got-back\/\">&#8220;Baby Got Back&#8221; as folk song<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/\" title=\"Boing Boing\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>More video:\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/media.putfile.com\/coats\">Men in Coats<\/a>, a comedy magic act [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsfromme.com\" title=\"Mark Evanier\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>the aptly titled <a href=\"http:\/\/mirror.randomfoo.net\/memes\/2005\/06\/Tom_Cruise_Kills_Oprah.mov\">Tom Cruise Kills Oprah<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.monitorduty.com\/\" title=\"Monitor Duty\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jonnn.phanfare.com\/album\/16617\/16618\/715436\/\">Romance of the Jedi<\/a> (I think this one may give the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tatteredcoat.com\/archives\/2005\/09\/28\/the-shining-redux\/\">recut <i>Shining<\/i> trailer<\/a> a run for its money) [<a href=\"http:\/\/waxy.org\/links\/\" title=\"Waxy.org Links\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>More music and video: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us\">All your base<\/a> are belong to&#8230;well, Queen, apparently, at least according to this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwned.nl\/ayb\/\">terrific Flash mash-up<\/a> of AYB with &#8220;Bohemian Rhapsody&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/\" title=\"Boing Boing\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>More weird translations:\n<ul>\n<li>the lyrics to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tlg.uci.edu\/~opoudjis\/Klingon\/sesame.html\" title=\"Sesame He bom\">theme to <i>Sesame Street<\/i> translated into Klingon<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/maximumverbosit.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Maximum Verbosity\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zompist.com\/spoke.html\"><i>English As She Is Spoke<\/i> vs. Babelfish!<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinxia.com\/afap\/\" title=\"Angels from Another Pin\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>More magic: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ananova.com\/news\/story\/sm_1577408.html\">David Copperfield to &#8216;magic&#8217; girl pregnant<\/a>. You just can&#8217;t make things like that up. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsfromme.com\/\" title=\"Mark Evanier\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><i>Serenity<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.swartzer.com\/writing\/serenity2000.php\">in 2000 words or less<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinxia.com\/afap\/\" title=\"Angels from Another Pin\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.videobusiness.com\/article\/CA6269329.html\">Drive-through video stores<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hackingnetflix.com\/\" title=\"Hacking Netflix\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pervivere.blogspot.com\/2005\/09\/holly-shelf-unit-batman.html\">How to make a secret bookshelf door<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/\" title=\"Boing Boing\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dcs.gla.ac.uk\/Ansible\/thog.html\">The worst scifi sentences ever published<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.krazydad.com\/visco\/\">a few thousand science fiction covers<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/backwardscity.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Backwards City\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>More cover stories:\n<ul>\n<li>the American Society of Magazine Editors&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/nile.doceus.com\/editorial\/top40covers.htm\">top 40 magazine covers<\/a> of the last four decades [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsfromme.com\/\" title=\"Mark Evanier\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/books.guardian.co.uk\/print\/0,3858,5308750-110738,00.html\">a modest proposal<\/a> for no more author photographs [<a href=\"http:\/\/backwardscity.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Backwards City\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m okay with that, as long as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thudfactor.com\/textpattern\/1235\/mug-shot\">this<\/a> gets to be the jacket photo of Tom Delay&#8217;s tell-all book from prison.<sup>3<\/sup><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lostremote.com\/archives\/006342.html\">TV news euphemisms<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tvsquad.com\/\" title=\"TV Squad\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><i>Paradise Lost<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/main.jhtml?xml=\/news\/2005\/10\/12\/wparad12.xml&#038;sSheet=\/news\/2005\/10\/12\/ixworld.html\">as a movie<\/a>? No word yet on which role Keanu Reeves will play. [<a href=\"http:\/\/bookslut.com\/blog\/\" title=\"Bookslut\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Made-up_words_in_The_Simpsons\"><i>The Simpsons<\/i> neologisms<\/a><sup>1<\/sup> and <a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.infoworld.com\/openresource\/archives\/2005\/10\/weekend_fun_the.html\"><i>The Simpsons<\/i> in Arabic<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tvsquad.com\/\" title=\"TV Squad\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>Some cityscapes:\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lizhickok.com\/assets\/portfolio\/pages\/01city.html\">San Francisco made out of jelly<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/\" title=\"Boing Boing\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pubadmin.newark.rutgers.edu\/ReinventingNewark\/index.htm\">Reinventing Newark<\/a>, visions of the city that never was [<a href=\"http:\/\/backwardscity.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Backwards City\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>the beautiful <a href=\"http:\/\/siologen.net\/pbase\/thumbnails.php?album=9\">Europe Underground<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/boingboing.net\/\" title=\"Boing Boing\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.emagazine.com\/view\/?2849\">Cities of the Future<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/mumpsimus.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Mumpsimus\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientistspace.com\/article.ns?id=dn8184\">Edible moon buggies<\/a>? [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baddaystudio.com\/gravityblog.html\" title=\"Gravity Lens\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/toadking.org\/images\/2004\/05\/22panels.JPG\">22 comic panels that always work<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/bookslut.com\/blog\/\" title=\"Bookslut\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>More comics:\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcsweeneys.net\/2005\/10\/17cody.html\">Doctor Doom for Homecoming King<\/a><sup>2<\/sup><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsfromme.com\/archives\/2005_10_20.html#010479\">real-life Captain America?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>More life imitating art:\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.monitorduty.com\/mdarchives\/2005\/10\/we_beat_star_tr.shtml\"><i>Star Trek<\/i> predicts transparent alumninum<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mosnews.com\/feature\/2005\/10\/10\/bloggingpredicted.shtml\">19th-century Russian prince predicts blogging<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baddaystudio.com\/gravityblog.html\" title=\"Gravity Lens\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reason.com\/hod\/bb091305.shtml\" title\"Dhalgren in New Orleans: What an old science-fiction novel can tell us about the Big Easy\">Samuel R. Delany predicts disaster in New Orleans<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.neilgaiman.com\/journal\/\" title=\"Neil Gaiman's Journal\">via<\/a><sup>4<\/sup>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Some life <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artgraphica.net\/art-shop\/prague-kutna-hora-bone-church.htm\" title=\"Kostnice Ossuary (Church of Bones)\"><i>becoming<\/i> art<\/a><sup>5<\/sup> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/\" title=\"Boing Boing\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>And some life <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gawker.com\/news\/international\/on-the-upside-generalissimo-francisco-franco-is-still-dead-132418.php\">life just not getting this art thing at all<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Guernica_%28painting%29\">more on the painting in question<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Video-game developers are, on the whole, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scifi.com\/scifiwire2005\/index.php?id=32936\" title=\"Game Developers Are White, Male\">white heterosexual men with a college education<\/a>. While it&#8217;s sad that other groups are under-represented in the field, is anyone really surprised?<\/li>\n<li>Surf and turf all in one package: <a href=\"http:\/\/mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp\/national\/news\/20051014p2a00m0na010000c.html\">Mysterious &#8216;half-animal, half-plant&#8217; marine microbe discovered by Japanese researchers<\/a> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.warrenellis.com\/\" title=\"Warren Ellis\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skepticsannotatedbible.com\/\">Skeptics Annotated Bible<\/a>  [<a href=\"http:\/\/backwardscity.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Backwards City\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/font><\/p>\n<hr width=\"10%\"><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"1\"><sup>1<\/sup> Fake words.<br \/><sup>2<\/sup> There&#8217;s just something inherently silly about a character with the last name &#8220;von Doom,&#8221; isn&#8217;t there?<br \/><sup>3<\/sup>Okay, okay. I&#8217;ll settle for him just <i>going<\/i> to prison. Or for him just going away. Can&#8217;t we at least swing that?<br \/><sup>4<\/sup> Gaiman has more to say on the subject <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neilgaiman.com\/journal\/2005\/09\/nature-of-predictive-sf.asp\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;ve noticed a few times in the last decade that Science Fiction, as a body of literature, has been at its most accurate as a predictive medium in the places that nobody knew or expected or imagined &#8212; often in the places that people weren&#8217;t even certain at the time were Proper SF. Every now and again I find myself reading the papers and realising that Ballard wrote it already, or Dick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On the whole, I don&#8217;t think science fiction is <i>too<\/i> reliable a predictive tool, and I suspect it gets just as much, if not more, wrong than it does right. (For instance, not to bust <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/article\/0,,2-2005480567,00.html\" title=\"Sci-fi is a fact say fans\"><i>The Sun<\/i>&#8216;s bubble<\/a>, but I don&#8217;t know that William Gibson was the first to suggest the Internet, or even that the vision of it in <i>Neuromancer<\/i> much resembles what we have today.) Gibson&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.sjsu.edu\/faculty\/wooda\/149\/149syllabus2gerns.html\">The Gernsback Contiuum<\/a>&#8221; is a powerful reminder of why we should probably be <i>thankful<\/i> that sci-fi often gets the future wrong, but it is still interesting to note where and how our present resembles (or doesn&#8217;t) the science fiction of the past.<br \/><sup>5<\/sup> Although, when <i>I<\/i> die, I think I&#8217;d prefer to maybe go with something like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/chicagotribune\/LegacySubPage2.asp?Page=LifeStory&#038;PersonId=15361018\">this<\/a>. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/\" title=\"Homo Sum\">via<\/a>]<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Linkpharm: Honor Monty Python: promote surreal humor. There&#8217;s some other great stuff here, too. My own favorites are George Clinton and Pi equals Speaking of pi: a terrific music video from Hard &#8216;n Phirm, with the digits of pi sung in harmony to the 190th decimal place. [via] More music: &#8220;Baby Got Back&#8221; as folk &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=1665\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-1665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}