Archive for November, 2004

So you were asking about the Death of Cable Television? It’s getting easier everyday to use BitTorrent and RSS to have your computer download the latest episodes of your favorite TV shows automatically– and commercial free .

Administrators at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. are advising guards who watchover the recently opened retrospective of artist Dan Flavin’s work to wear protective sunglasses and take frequent breaks. The 44 fluorescent-tube illuminated works by the minimalist artist have made guards complain of headaches, anxiety, and nervousness

There’s drunk scientific proof to support the theory that filtering cheap Vodka through a Brita makes it taste better.

London-based industrial designer Afroditi Krassa has made World View, a virtually weightless lighting fixture made with 91 LEDs suspended from a silver helium balloon.

While the music’s okay, the site for Billy Harvey is pretty great. It nails the music’s cuddly slacker vibe.

Vigon does the Harlem Shuffle.

Two Armored Personnel Carriers tanks showed up at a rinky-dink little anti-war protest outside the Westwood Federal Building west Los Angeles Tuesday night. A video was shot of the odd scene on Wilshire Boulevard.

That slippery, complex spot where religious conservatism and liberal tolerance meet is not only a problem in Ohio but also The Netherlands. The murder last week of dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh as he walked down an Amsterdam street has made the normally laidback Dutch people fearful and nervous of a rapid radicalization of Europe. Dutch police say van Gogh was murdered by a 26 year-old Muslim radical with dual Dutch and Moroccan citizenship because he made a film offensive to Muslims. While the film is only a 10-minute long English-language short, it’s indeed a powerful critique of the treatment of women under Islamic law. Watch Theo van Gogh’s film Submission online.

Chicago-based artist Sabrina Raaf has a new piece called Translator II: Grower which is a robot that travels the perimeter of a room measuring levels of carbon dioxide and drawing green blades of grass along the walls in heights corresponding to the CO2 levels.

Look out fat guy! Mr. Toast is sneaking up behind you!

Ashcroft has resigned because, well, he finished his job. The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved, Mr. Ashcroft wrote in his five-page, handwritten resignation letter. Glad that messy terror business is over.

It’s a story too hot for the mainstream media to touch right now. MsNBC’s Keith Olbermann is investigating allegations of voter fraud in Ohio and Florida. Big fraud, like the optical scanning vote machines were hacked. November 2nd there were more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters, said Olbermann. It’s true, the story comes from somewhere between Edward R. Murrow and a guy wearing a tin-foil hat, but the story might be gaining some mainstream legs. The original data for the story can be seen here: A Surprising Pattern of Florida’s Election Results. I don’t know if we should believe this either.

If you’re looking to crawl back into your shell, maybe drop off society’s grid or really get back to the basics, the Danish designers/artists of n55 have just the thing for you. The Snail Shell System is a shelter space for exactly one person. Mobile on both on land and water, it can be rowed, moved by a kite or hooked up to a vessel, for example, a ferry. The unit rests on one flat side and can be anchored in lakes, rivers, harbours or at sea. On land, it can be placed in city spaces, fields, forests etc.

All the king’s horse and all the king’s men may not be able to counter the current administration’s irresponsible fiscal policies. The world financial markets are bearish on Bush’s economic policies and are bailing on the dollar.

10×10 is a fascinating way to see what news is happening now. Every hour 10×10 picks the top words and pictures in leading news websites and puts them together in a 100 picture grid. They are aiming to build an archive that lets you see and click news history hour by hour.

I lost my frog. Him name is Hopkin Green Frog. P.S. I’ll find my frog.

An F-16 on a training mission with the National Guard shotup a New Jersey middle school this week. Only one person, a school custodian, was in the school when it was hit with gunfire around 11pm Wednesday night. The pilot’s intended target was a firing range about 3 miles from the school.

It is a great day here. From the deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound to the snow capped mountains of the Cascade Moutains, the sun shines and the birds sing here in the Great Republic of Cascadia. A land of beauty and prosperity, Cascadia is rich in natural resources, with vast forest, prosperous ports and a worldwide dominance in computer software, aerospace, coffee roasting and internet retailing. Also a nation of great hospitality, Cascadia gives a hardy welcome to our southern siblings in the soon to be annexed fourth Cascadian prefecture, NoCal. Due to recent political developments in neighboring countries, some have claimed our Republic is a part of a larger nation. But let us be clear: Cascadia a free and independent nation that will never seek a permission slip to defend itself.