There is a pool of photos on flickr collecting amusing graphs based on popular song lyrics.
This one is by the user boyshapedbox
Found via Neatorama
February 27th, 2008
songs graphed
This one is by the user boyshapedbox
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February 21st, 2008
Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116
From Clickmarks via BoingBoing.net:
Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (pronounced /ˈalˌbin/) was a name intended for a Swedish child who was born in 1991.
Because the parents (Elizabeth Hallin and an unidentified father) failed to register a name by the boy’s fifth birthday, a district court in Halmstad, southern Sweden, fined the parents 5,000 kronor (US$682 at the time). Responding to the fine, the parents submitted the 43-character name in May 1996, claiming that it was “a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation.” The parents suggested the name be understood in the spirit of ‘pataphysics. The court rejected the name and upheld the fine.
The parents then tried to change the spelling of the name to A (also pronounced /ˈalˌbin/) instead. Once again, the court did not approve of the parents’ ideas for naming because of a prohibition on one-letter naming.
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February 14th, 2008
word love
I noticed that the dictionary.com word of the day is themed today for Valentine’s Day, and so I decided to check back and see what the word was for the previous Valentine’s days. Turned out a nice crop of interesting words:
2000: Wheedle \HWEE-d’l; WEE-d’l\, transitive verb:
1. To entice by soft words or flattery; to coax.
2. To gain or get by flattery or guile.intransitive verb:
1. To flatter; to use soft words.
2001: Billet-doux \bil-ay-DOO\, noun; plural billets-doux \bil-ay-DOO(Z)\:
A love letter or note.
2002: Philter philter \FIL-tur\, noun:
1. A potion or charm supposed to cause the person taking it to fall in love.
2. A potion or charm believed to have magic power.transitive verb:
1. To enchant or bewitch with or as if with a magic potion or charm.
2003: Osculation \os-kyuh-LAY-shuhn\, noun:
The act of kissing; also: a kiss.
2004: Buss \BUS\, noun:
1. A kiss; a playful kiss; a smack.
transitive verb:
1. To kiss; especially to kiss with a smack.
2005: Inamorata \in-am-uh-RAH-tuh\, noun:
A woman whom one is in love with; a mistress.
2006: Spoony \SPOO-nee\, adjective:
1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental.
2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.
2007: Beau ideal \boh-ay-DEEL\, noun;
plural beau ideals:
A perfect or an idealized type or model.
2008: Amative \AM-uh-tiv\, adjective:
Pertaining to or disposed to love, especially sexual love; full of love; amorous.
February 11th, 2008
CERN could be to time travel what stone wheels were to automotive travel?
February 8th, 2008
The Jonestown Death Tape (November 18, 1978)
The aftermath of the massacre, with the vat of poison in the foreground.
Found on Archive.org, freely downloadable: An audio recording made on November 18, 1978, at the Peoples Temple compound in Jonestown, Guyana immediately preceding and during the mass suicide or murder of over 900 members of the cult.
Quote from the person who submitted the audio:
I acquired the source cassette tape from a schoolmate c. 1979 whose father was an FBI agent
The sound levels were increased as close as possible to clipping when I mastered to CD-R from cassette and then normalized to -18dB average RMS power (loudness) in Sound Forge
An interesting website for further research is the Jonestown Institute [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu], a website containing transcripts as well as commentary on this and other recordings recovered by the FBI from Jonestown after the mass suicide
Chilling but fascinating stuff! More information in this very informative wikipedia article.
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February 8th, 2008
cd clock
powered by my new clock crew tattoo:
It’s a bit rushed, I guess, but it turned out alright.
February 2nd, 2008
The Seafarers
A nice quote from Stanley Kubrick’s (otherwise-pretty-lame) first colour feature, The Seafarers.
“Nobody knows better than a sea-faring man that any man, however independent he is, isn’t entirely independent. He’s a member of something larger – of a family, of a community, of a nation. Or, bring it back to sea-faring: He’s a member of a crew. A crew of men like himself, banded together for one essential common purpose.”
February 2nd, 2008
More scientific wonders…
Sperm has been made from bone marrow in a lab! Men no longer necessary for reproduction? Next step: making sperm from a woman’s cells, enabling lesbian couples to have children with genetics from both sides of the family.
A beautiful panorama of a Martian landscape composed of pictures taken by mars rovers. Interactive!
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February 2nd, 2008
To PIE or not to PIE
I turned up for my exam today but the professor didn’t. Odd.
Regarding stem-cell research, something which fascinates me, here’s some exciting news, via BoingBoing, via somewhere else:
A 65-year-old Finnish man received a new upper jaw that was grown in his abdomen using his own stem cells. Scientists had isolated stem cells from the patient’s fat, and sorted out the type of cells that could grow into bone tissue. The cells were applied to a custom jaw-shaped scaffold and implanted in his abdomen for nine months. Tissues grew around the scaffolding, which was removed and attached to the man’s skull to replace his upper jaw, which had been removed due to a tumor.
Also from BoingBoing today is this great roundup of Louis Theroux shows on googlevideo. I think I’ve seen every one of them – great stuff!
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February 1st, 2008
PIE
That’s Proto-Indo-European. I have an oral exam on Saturday on the subject of Indo European linguistics.
Click the image for a bigger version…
Then print it 100 times and wallpaper your room with it.
Found the image via wikipedia. Not sure where it’s from.