OK, let’s see if we can close a whole bunch of tabs on my desktop, and maybe bring something interesting to you at the same time.
- Hollywood might have some cool special effects, but Nature can really create a 60km long rift! One that threatens to carve out a new ocean. Damn that’s cool in a “can you imagine the sheer amount of energy at work here” way. This tangentially reminds me of the scene in that Randall Garrett book where the Strait of Gibraltar opens up again to let the water back into the dried out Mediterranean basin.
- Speaking of real things being weirder and better than what’s in movies, here’s one that sounds like a set piece from a James Bond movie plot: Google Earth geeks have found a military installation in China that includes what appears to be a 900x700m scale model of a mountainous landscape. Go check out the pictures. Who knows what it really is, but it certainly seems like it might be part of a Bond villain’s lair, doesn’t it?
- I am going directly to Hell because I laughed at this cartoon. Sometimes it’s a really good thing I don’t believe in an afterlife.
- This cartoon, on the other hand, I can’t laugh at because A) it’s a little too on point, and B) it completely misses the point. That is that it makes me want to make shrill speeches about the kind of people who would trade privacy for security, AND it makes me want to make shrill speeches about the kind of people who would trade privacy for security theatre.
- Everything you know is wrong! OK, that’s a little histrionic, but there are certainly a bunch of bits of pop science that you think you know that are just wrong. Here’s a list of nine of them. Just to add to the comedy between the time I opened this in a tab to blog and the time I actually got around to writing it, one of the items on the list was itself proven wrong. heh.
- Apparently the odds on the list of proposed Jack the Ripper suspects just shifted again–Aaron Kosminski is apparently now the favourite. I still prefer the story where it’s William Gull.
- I have long suspected that women use their sexuality to steal men’s important brain energies–and now there is scientific backing for it! Also, perhaps not surprisingly men apparently remember their dreams better after sex.
- Remember a little while back when the U.S. Supreme Court restricted the whole “no knock” rule? I think that part of the evidence presented to them clearly should have included this interactive map of botched SWAT and paramilitary police raids–they might have made a better decision.
- “After years of being disparaged by some in the software development community, the waterfall process is back with a vengeance. You’ve always known a good waterfall-based process is the right way to develop software projects. Come to the Waterfall 2006 conference and see how a sequential development process can benefit your next project. Learn how slow, deliberate handoffs (with signatures!) between groups can slow the rate of change on any project so that development teams have more time to spend on anticipating user needs through big, upfront design.” While I recognize exactly how incredibly hilarious that whole site is–at least to anyone who has worked on a release of an enterprise-class software product, I can’t laugh at it–again, it’s a little too on point.
- I am totally installing a Self Destruction Button in my office.
- Mysteriously carved stones, with angry faces, and unknown history? That sounds like something that would form the core of a second-tier horror novel, no?
- You know, I’ve heard lots of comments of the form “Damn, is there anything you can’t buy online??!?” over the years, with more and more of them every year. But I think I have finally found the most unbelievably excellent thing to buy on the internet now. If you’re looking for ideas for presents for me…
