January 2010
26 posts
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The Third & The Seventh →
(It’s not embedded because it wouldn’t do it justice. Click on the link and watch it in fullscreen.)
Daring Fireball linked to this short film a while back and it’s been sat in my open tabs ever since. So when I finally got around to watching it today, I had entirely forgotten what it was. The sudden memory, about halfway through, that this is entirely computer graphics*, blew...
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Mr. Gimmick →
camerondaigle:
Your must-watch video of the day.
I’m not particularly into computer games; but I found this series of videos about an obscure and insanely difficult NES platformer utterly compelling—I enjoyed it more than I’ve ever actually enjoyed playing such a game, that’s for sure.
The engaging annotations (which discuss the game’s design, technology, and...
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Sleep Talkin' Man →
whileyouweresleeping:
A wife compiled the best musings of her sleep-talking husband in a blog.* I’m only skimming through it now, but here are some of the ones I like best, so far:
You can’t be a pirate if you don’t have a beard. I said so. MY boat, MY rules.
Your mum’s at the door again. Bury me. Bury me deep.
Flap’s on fire. Your flap’s on fire! Chili in the vagiiiiina. I’m a bad bad boy.
...
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The Irony Mark
Have you seen this SarcMark thing? It’s a “new” punctuation mark which has been reported by many of the slightly less salubrious media outlets (and even some of the more reputable ones).
The articles seem to come in two formats:
Straight-up copy-and-paste-from-the-press-release from the company that is selling* this new product,
Slightly amused tone, lots of telegraphed...
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Short Cuts →
Apropos our recent link to Dallas Foods’ sublime critique of Noka chocolate, friend of WYWG Tom sent us this piece by John Lanchester on Kraft’s hostile bid to take over Cadbury.
The Roald Dahl quote regarding the revolution in chocolate-making during the ’30s is particularly good:
According to Roald Dahl: ‘In music, the equivalent would be the golden age of Bach, Mozart and...
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nostrich:
nsbarr:
Exploring Tumblr today, I accidentally ended up getting a funny little ribbon on the bottom-right corner of my avatar. This signified that I had donated money to Haiti relief, which I hadn’t done. To remedy the situation, I tried to remove the ribbon. This proved to be impossible. Left with no other options — except hypocrisy — I gave some money to Doctors Without Borders....
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“Baboons are very sensitive to who stands where in their society’s hierarchy. If...”
– In Monkey Babble, Seeking Key to Human Language Development - NYT.
mills:
This article astonished me. I plan on using this exact baboon technique to sow hierarchical confusion at my office. Also:
“The Campbell’s monkeys give a “krak” alarm call when they see a leopard. But adding an “-oo”...
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squashed:
When I was very young my mother drafted a letter to her editor, whose name had slipped her mind. As a place holder, she wrote, “Dear Bozo”. She forgot to change this. And, when awkwardly explaining her Dear Bozo letter, she blamed me. “My kids were messing around on the computer.”
I don’t hold a grudge—because I learned a valuable lesson. Be very careful with place holders. When I’m...
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What's Noka Worth? →
nostrich:
This is way out of leftfield, but a surprisingly interesting (and rather long) read. Broadly, it’s a review of Noka — a high-end chocolatier in the US — but what it really is is a thorough and complete trashing of them. The chocolate is trashed, of course, but so are their business practices, their management, and their advertising. Also included is a lot of insider-y talk about...
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squashed on airports:
I dislike airports … for the same reasons I dislike police states. No liquids. No powders. No acting weird. No objection to random searches. No putting blankets on your lap. What’s the obsession with security? Once you’ve strengthened cockpit doors so planes can no longer be used as missiles, what separates them from any other potentially crowded area? Why the excess...
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“we go the horse races….my wife, who grew up with horses, picks the elite...”
– walrusoflove, in a rather splendid comment on FreeDarko’s similarly excellent post about the accessibility of transcendent athletes.
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“You know those sets and moves you think of when you’re daydreaming/tired/high,...”
– Calvin Son of More Than a Stance, in their end-of-decade round-up of The Top B-Boys of the 2000s.