The dots of November 29,2004
With too many links to post individually, I'll try what I've been meaning to try for a while, that is to write a connect-the-dots summary of the day's interesting links.
It starts with a troubling Salon piece called,
"The Day I Almost Led the Iraqi Army," one reporter's story about being there:
Right after the fall of Baghdad, hundreds of desperate disbanded troops asked me -- a middle-aged journalist -- to give them jobs. That's when I knew everything was going terribly wrong.
Side-reporting: one of the great boons of the web. But what's next? What happens if Salon becomes (more of) a profitable, mainstream, conglomerate-acquired news source? How about an amateur collective news source from the makers of the
Wikipedia? Wired has a
story today about the
Wikinews experiment where anyone can write up a news story that anyone else can edit. Bottom-up feeding, with the end goal of neutral, balanced, unsponsored reporting. "Open source news"? Why not? And speaking of open sourcing, why not make a
searchable repository of code? And give everyone
free music while you're at it? (Courtesy of the cool french arts/culture Blogotheque.)
Well, if opening up media isn't your thing, how about opening up the conceptual box and messing with biology? Today we learn that
rabies can be cured by inducing coma--rabies makes the brain attack the body, so this doctor figured if you put the brain to sleep, the immune system takes care of the rabies, and when it's all gone then you wake the brain back up. We also learn today about the first successful
stem-cell cure for paralysis. Wow.
Remember back when fighting nature had less to do with cells and more to do with robots? (This isn't a very good segue, but...) The
Morris Museum is showing off its Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of 700 historic mechanical musical instruments and automata (mechanical figures). They're even more wondrous than you'd think. Check out the Clown Illusionist, c. 1890-1900:
Its all about illusion! This automaton performs a trick that results in its head disappearing--and then magically reappearing--on a table (complete with blinking eyes). Then, with a gentle wave of a feather fan, the head is back where it belongs! All is done to music, as this automaton contains a two-tune, cylinder musical movement.
Less wondrous but nonetheless entertaining: the 2d automata of
Juicy Panic. And even less automatic but on the other hand three-dimensional is
Magic Pony, the site for evil plushies. Along the same bent of cute/evil/amusing:
BIO (By Invitation Only) badges, such as, "I Hate Dolphins." Limited edition, cheap but treasured. Speaking of shopping, have you heard about
Beijing's 6 million sq.ft. mall? That's 2 million more than the Mall of America. Largest in the world, takes two days to see all of it, "230 escalators, more than 1,000 shops, restaurant space the size of two football fields, and a skating rink..." Ok, but do they have
Banana Guards and
USB Mincepies? If Banana Guards have a je-ne-sais-quoi quality (they don't, but work with me here), and USB Mincepies have a I-don't-know-what-they-are quality, then the
Concubine Masturbator has a definite I-don't-want-to-know-whatness. A thoroughly questionable use of latex. Perhaps no more (or equally) useful but (and) certainly more intriguing is this
1960s Japanese sex manual:
Nice. Maybe it'd be best to end with the the hairy lady, but my connect-the-dots sequence leads me instead to
this collection of Japanese commercials.
And now, everyone get back to work.
