January 2008
71 posts
As I was saying →
I wrote this in 2004, quoting myself in 2001. And it feels like a good time to repeat myself one more time. Every three years… I know it’s bad form to repeat yourself, but I was about to list all the things I hope for the readers of this blog in 2005, and I realised I’d already written it back in 2001, when I said… May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and...
December 2007
32 posts
Your Stuff's Backstory: If It Isn't Grown, It Must... →
Where does your stuff come from? Before the store, before the factory, where did it really begin? If it isn’t made of wood, cloth, or other living matter, it was dug out of the ground. Number one of The Natural Step’s four System Conditions is that “In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the...
A Dog at Christmas →
My dog does not know it is Christmas. She watched lazily as the Christmas tree went up a few weeks ago, but was not disconcerted by it. I don’t know what it says about our housekeeping that our dog, who knows our house the best, can find a six-foot tree growing out of the living room floor and find it no more remarkable than anything else in the room, but it can’t be good. Even when it...
An Investigation Into The Livelihood of Chinese... →
Phoenix Weekly reports on why the Chinese film/television scriptwriters cannot go on labor strike like their American counterparts are doing.
Ang Lee: The Most Misread Person of 2007 →
Mo' monkeys, mo' problems →
Aggressive primates caused Delhi’s deputy mayor’s death, and India’s animal-control experts are fighting back
National Geographic on giant human hoax →
Five years ago, “IronKite” submitted this wonderful photo illustration to a Worth1000.com Photoshop contest on the theme of “Archaeological Anomalies.” The powerful picture was transformed into an Internet urban legend about the National Geographic Society’s discovery of the remains of giant humans in India. Several media outlets reported the story as fact. To this...
The Original Mecca Gets Wi-Fi in Time For Pilgrims... →
In the Islamic world, you’re not a full-fledged devotee until you’ve made a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. But just because you join 2 million others in the crowded streets of the ancient city of Muhammad’s birth doesn’t mean you need to go without Wi-Fi, right? A Saudi Arabian ISP has strung up 70 Tropos 5210 routers across the city in an 802.11a meshed network, and...
dear [not just urban fantasy] author →
Trading Cosmic Places: Neptune and Uranus Swapped... →
“It’s like when the Voyager spacecraft used Jupiter for a gravity-assisted speed boost,” he said. “It slightly pulled on the planet to gain speed, but the fact is that it pulled on the planet.” For Desch’s orbital math to jibe, however, Neptune had to
Great Firewall of China crumbling from within →
Oliver August, a freelance investigative journalist living in China, describes the incompetence and bungling of the bureaucrats who run China’s storied — and expensive — Great Firewall of China. In the fight between Chinese people and the Firewall, the people are winning. There’s even a group of active entrepreneurs who’ll give you Firewall-busting lessons.
From...
An Endangered Tiger, Photoshop, and the People’s... →
In October, the forestry department of China’s Shaanxi province released photos taken by a local farmer of a South China tiger. The photos would have marked the first sighting of the animal, long believed functionally extinct, since 1964. But netizens promptly questioned their authenticity, pointing out that they looked Photoshopped. The incident has sparked a media frenzy, lawsuits, and spoof...
Design for 10,000 Years →
Many unpleasant byproducts of today’s design industry last thousands of years; but what things do we want to last that long? Who besides the Long Now and Yucca Mountain designs things to last 10,000 years? Last Spring, on a road trip, I visited Hoover Dam. It was as impressive as you’d expect for something taller and wider than the Great Pyramid of Khufu, a single structure that...
Beijing: We Are Ready. →
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything but that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening, in fact, it’s because so much HAS been happening. We just released this video in honour of International Human Rights Day and published the new site www.BeijingWeAreReady.com. This is our response to the Chinese government’s painful theme song for the Olympics Countdown “Beijing We Are Ready” which they...
A hunger for books →
From Stockhausen to stock repertoire →
In 1995 BBC Radio 3 sent Karlheinz Stockhausen — who died the other day — a package containing recordings by Aphex Twin, Plastikman, Scanner and Daniel Pemberton. Dick Witts (formerly vocalist in The Passage, an excellent experimental pop group in the early 80s) then interviewed Stockhausen and asked what advice he had for the young composers. Stockhausen said they should give up...
Flotsam, Jetsam and the Three Gorges Dam →
0aaferiu78.jpgOn the left, an aerial shot of the dam (image The Times)
The Three Gorges Dam is the largest project in China since the Great Wall and the Grand Canal. The hydroelectric river dam, probably the biggest concrete construction in the world, spans the Yangtze River. The total electric generating capacity of the dam will reach 22,500 MW, at which point it will also claim the title...
Stalking the stars: 'This is my high' →
They’ll jump fences, dodge security and risk arrest just for a few seconds in their ‘world of fantasy’
FATE’s Aspects ported to Wild Talents →
CANADIANS! Tomorrow is your best chance to fight... →
If you’re a Canadian and you want to talk to Industry Minister Jim Prentice about his proposal for a Canadian DMCA, a copyright law that’s even worse than the ten-year-old American legislation that resulted in lawsuits against 20,000+ Americans without stopping infringement or paying artists, now’s your chance!
This Saturday, Minister Prentice is hosting an open house in...
Aliens Apart →
The universe is set up in a way that keeps everyone isolated.
Your Astrological Sign May Not Be What You Think... →
still a pisces
Offshore accounting →
When I’m traveling I often read The Economist. It’s less depressing, more oriented to the present and the future than some sad old Retro Necro rock mag (oh God, is that what Neil Young looks like now?). And since the style press (in the shape of Monocle) is trying so desperately to ape The Economist just now, why not go straight for the real thing, with all those lovely pie charts and...
China rumoured to be evicting 13,000 each month →
Despite worldwide scrutiny, rights group says 1.5 million people will be displaced in preparation for Beijing Games
Banksy takes Santa's Ghetto to Bethlehem →
Graffiti artist Banksy is staging his annual Santa’s Ghetto art exhibition in Bethlehem this year, in an attempt to shine a spotlight on the plight of the town believed to be the birthplace of Jesus.
China Says Lunar Image Authentic →
The Mummified Dinosaur →
Scientists today announced the discovery of an extraordinarily preserved “dinosaur mummy” with much of its tissues and bones still encased in an uncollapsed envelope of skin.
Preliminary studies of the 67-million-year-old hadrosaur, named Dakota, are already altering theories of what the ancient creatures’ skin looked like and how quickly they moved, project researchers say.
Beijing restaurant serves "Wikipedia" →
Jim Benson enjoyed his “stir-fried wikipedia,” served at a restaurant in Beijing. Link (Via Japundit) (Thanks, Len!)
Can’t see the video? Click here
ODH DG: 1939-1945 →
Out-of-This World Camera Work →
Is Web2.0 a wash for free speech in China? →
This is a picture of Zhai Minglei’s computer after his hard drive was removed and confiscated on Thursday.
Blogger and publisher of the recently-shut-down grassroots newspaper “Minjian,” Zhai posted the photo on Friday along with an account of the questioning he had undergone that afternoon. See John Kennedy’s translation of Zhai’s Thursday blog post describing...
I will see you in far off places →
It’s absolutely part of Morrissey’s value that he provokes debate like the one now raging (well, re-raging, actually, but with the threat of litigation this time) over his comments to the NME on immigration. Thinking with feeling means upsetting people from time to time. In this case, the old paradox about tolerance accepting everything except actual difference has quickly been...