Best of the Blank
There Can Be Only One.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Float
Float Documentary Trailer from Phil Kibbe on Vimeo.
You're all a bunch of sissies
How much is salvation worth?
Dr. Ron Cavanaugh, treatment director for the Alabama Department of Corrections, says many inmates put their defenses up, denying responsibility for their crimes and blaming others. But the meditation practice, he says, chips away at those defense mechanisms…
…Cavanaugh says inmates who go through the course have a 20 percent reduction in disciplinary action. But it hasn't been an easy sell in Alabama, a state known for harsh punishment policies like chain gangs and hitching posts.
-NPR
Do you know this bling?
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Why aren't you demonstrating?
Photo: Joey Reid 2009
From Umair Haque,
For decades, the richest grew even richer, as national debt mounted, middle-class people tried to make ends meet, and upward mobility fell. Government failed to address these problems, and the governed felt increasingly disenfranchised — and partisan. Mass unemployment metastasized from a temporary illness to a chronic condition. One of its major cities decided to erect a permanent tent city, for a permanently excluded, marginalized underclass.
Egypt's Revolution: Coming to an Economy Near You
Hit the link for the reveal!
Penguin Classics ultra mega super 1.21 gigawatts box set
The Penguin Classics Complete Library is a massive box set consisting of nearly every Penguin Classics book ever published and is available on Amazon for only (only!) $13,413.30.
From Edwin A. Abbott to Emile Zola, the 1,082 titles in the Penguin Classics Complete Library total nearly half a million pages--laid end to end they would hit the 52-mile mark. Approximately 700 pounds in weight, the titles would tower 828 feet if you stacked them lengthwise atop each other--almost as tall as the Empire State Building. But don't worry, a nice set of bookshelves will hold them side-by-side just fine.
If you're on the fence about purchasing this item, here's a review from someone who did:
This is an orgy for a book-lover. I have had a wonderful time from the moment I placed the order. They arrived in 25 boxes shrink-wrapped on a wooden pallet, over 750 lbs. of books. It took about twelve hours to unpack them, check them off the packing list (one for each box), and then check them off the list we downloaded from Amazon.com. They take up about 77 linear feet.
It would be fun to see HBO do something like this...a massive DVD or Blu-ray box set of all their hour-long dramas: The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Big Love, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Canivale, Rome, etc.
Tags: books Penguin Books"How much is a planet worth?
Over at Boing Boing, Lee Billings has an interview with Greg Laughlin, an astrophysicist who recently came up with an equation for estimating the value of planets, a sort of Drake equation for cosmic economics.
Tags: astronomy Greg Laughlin interviews Lee Billings mathematics physics science"This equation's initial purpose, he wrote, was to put meaningful prices on the terrestrial exoplanets that Kepler was bound to discover. But he soon found it could be used equally well to place any planet-even our own-in a context that was simultaneously cosmic and commercial. In essence, you feed Laughlin's equation some key parameters -- a planet's mass, its estimated temperature, and the age, type, and apparent brightness of its star -- and out pops a number that should, Laughlin says, equate to cold, hard cash.
At the time, the exoplanet Gliese 581 c was thought to be the most Earth-like world known beyond our solar system. The equation said it was worth a measly $160. Mars fared better, priced at $14,000. And Earth? Our planet's value emerged as nearly 5 quadrillion dollars. That's about 100 times Earth's yearly GDP, and perhaps, Laughlin thought, not a bad ballpark estimate for the total economic value of our world and the technological civilization it supports.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Carl Zeiss joins the Micro Four Thirds revolution
Another big name is jumping headfirst into the increasingly popular Micro Four Thirds waters with the announcement from Olympus today that Carl Zeiss has signed up as a member of the MFT System Standard Group. What that basically entails is that the folks responsible for some of the finest optics in the world will start making lenses directly compatible with Olympus and Panasonic's camera standard. You could, of course, have tracked down adapters to get Distagon glass working with your GF2 before, but it sure is nice to see the big boys producing hardware designed specifically for this relatively new category of camera. Full press release after the break.
[Thanks, Ken]
Continue reading Carl Zeiss joins the Micro Four Thirds revolution
Carl Zeiss joins the Micro Four Thirds revolution originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 05:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments"Freaky Fauna
Book covers from the collection of Bouwe van der Molen aka Freaky Fauna
'I found this book cover in the trash.'
(Benefits of living in Amsterdam.)
book cover, Introducing Monkeys by V.J. Stanek
book cover, Geologie für Jederman by Prof. Dr. Kurd v. Bülow (1974)
Cover by Nicolaas Wijnberg, De Nagel Achter het Behang by A. Koolhaas (1971)
Read FF's post on Wijnberg
Cover by Nicolaas Wijnberg for book by Karel Van Het Reve
(Brother of Gerhard Reve, author of one of my favorite books, Werther Nieland)
Previously:
Stacks of Books Crushing Me one & two