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Sun Apr 24 04:34:23 EDT 2011
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Microbe Wiki - MicrobeWiki is a free wiki resource on microbes and microbiology

A few famous microbes:
Strep Throat
Botox
HIV
Legionnaires Disease
Oil Eating Bacteria

Also: Microbial Mythology



I learned to program... - I learned to program...

[ via ]


Packa Pappas Kappsäck - Micheal Johansson makes installation art (that doesn't suck -Ed.) from household items


Fire in the Hole: R.I.P., Hazel Dickens - Hazel Dickens, bluegrass and country singer, daughter of West Virginia, half of the singing group Hazel & Alice, and a voice for American miners, died on Friday at a hospice in Washington, D.C. She was 75.

Listen to what we have lost with her passing:

"Fire in the Hole" (as heard in "Matewan," the 1987 film by John Sayles)

Profile, Part 1 and Part 2

"Deliver Us From the Gathering Storm"
("Matewan," 1:07-1:57)

Godspeed and thank you, ma'am.


From Me To You - If you like the subtle and lean animated gifs of If We Don't, Remember ME (previously) you'll probably like the ones at From Me To You (via this ask metafilter question)


The shortest distance between two points is often uninteresting - Oakland artist Momoko Sudo paints lines. One at a time, free-hand.


Ebru Aqueous Surface Art - The Internet can be a powerful tool when it comes to collaborations between artists of all ilks. Laptop band Project Jenny, Project Jan harnessed said power when it set out to create a video for its new song, "Lucky Me," producing a lovely, painterly video courtesy of a Turkish Ebrû artist the band had never met. Hikmet Barutçugil redefined the aspects of Ebrû with a scientific approach and managed to transfuse marbling into other disciplines, from architecture to popular crafts.

Barutçugil, one of the most important masters of the art of marbling alive today, in this interview, discusses the point he has arrived at in his long journey with watercolors. In this video he demonstrates his technique. [previously on MetaFilter] [via]


Never has something more accurately been called a teaser trailer - Terraria is a recently announced game that is currently in closed alpha. It is similar in play style to the Internet favorite Minecraft (previously, and previously-er, and previously-er), except it operates in a 2D, sidescrolling world. Players harvest resources to craft items and structures to defend themselves against enemies. A teaser trailer is available here, and a more extensive gameplay trailer is available here. The developers are currently uploading "let's play" videos on to their youtube account: part one here, and part two here.

This thread on minecraftnews has a little more information.

The current thread about the game over at the official minecraft forums.

Notch, Minecraft's original developer, tweeted about the game here, which seems to be the way that it's spread.

Here is a bulleted list of features in the game, compiled by me, since most information so far is contained in video format:
  • Resource harvesting similar to minecraft: hack a tree with an axe to produce wood and acorns. Hack stone with a pickaxe to produce gravel.
  • Randomly generated worlds.
  • Water that operates according to gameworld physics.
  • Crafting is similar to Minecraft, with a bench being built first to build more complex items.
  • Trees can be planted from acorns.
  • The mouse pointer seems to be the main way that player interact with the world, and appears to be context sensitive.
  • Lots of monsters, spawning depending on the current area of the map.
  • There's actual currency that can be dropped by monsters, or found through exploration.
  • NPCs with different functions in the game world. So far a merchant, and a newbie guide.
  • Interactive block elements, such as doors.
  • Dynamic lighting, with light emanating from held torches.
  • Day / Night cycle with monster waves appearing at night.
  • Special walls can be placed to prevent monsters from spawning in structures.
  • Depending on how structures are built, different NPCs (a merchant, for example) will spawn, NPC spawning can also depend on other factors, such as total ammount of money held by players on a server.
  • Moon phases will affect monster behavior. Normally zombies will slowly try to destroy doors, but during a 'blood moon' they will be able to open them.
  • Moon phases will also cause different special events to occur, such as giant boss monsters.
  • Platforms can be built that allow walking across or jumping through depending on how the player interacts with them.
  • Bombs, jetpacks, grappling hooks, and guns, among other items.
  • Magic.
  • Dungeons.


This is what Bill Watterson has been up to - Cul de Sac is a daily newspaper cartoon by DC-area artist Richard Thompson (previously). In July of 2009, Thompson announced on his blog that he had been diagnosed with Parkinsons's disease. Earlier this year, friends of Thompson launched Team Cul de Sac, a fundraising project for Parkinson's research. The project has been accepting donations of artwork by cartoonists, to be published and sold in a book later this year. One recent donation to Team Cul de Sac is particularly noteworthy: a brand new painting by Bill Watterson.

Watterson also wrote the introduction to the first collection of Cul de Sac comics. In it, he said of Petey Otterloop, the character in the painting: "I think my favorite character is Alice's older brother, Petey. A haunted, controlling milquetoast, he's surely one of the most neurotic kids to appear in comics."

(High-res of painting.)


The Mark of Cain - "The Mark of Cain" is a 73 minute documentary by Alix Lambert about Russian prison tattoos and the "Thieves-in-law" who often wear the tattoos.

Anyone interested in this subject would probably find these books worth a read: "Russian Criminal Tattoos Encyclopaedia" vols 1, 2 & 3 and, the book that accompanies the film, "Russian Prison Tattoos" also by Alix Lambert.


Andreas Cellarius and his Harmonia Macrocosmica - Andreas Cellarius was a scholar of the 17th Century who produced one of the most famous cosmological atlases of all time, Harmonia Macrocosmica, featuring 29 beautiful plates (large, high-quality scans), illustrating various aspects of the Universe as understood by the Western science of his time. It's impossible to pick favorites among them, but here are three examples: Phases of the Moon, Sizes of the Celestial Bodies and Stars and Constellations of the Northern Sky.


May your remains one day be discovered by someone with a strong grounding in Middle Range Theory - Lewis R. Binford, one of the most influential American archaeologists of the last half-century and an early advocate of a more scientific approach to investigating ancient cultures, died on April 11 at his home in Kirksville, Mo. He was 79.

An interesting general introduction to Archaeology is provided in the compiled lectures that became In Pursuit of the Past, Binford (1983, with a new edition in 2002). Binford pointed out a need for archaeologists to be continuously self-critical as they work towards a balance between theory and practice. He also emphasized that it is a field "wholly dependent upon inference to the past from things found in the contemporary world" and pointed out that this is fundamentally different from the approach of most fields where the past is seen as the period that helps us understand the present and predict the future.
Professor Binford brought about a virtual revolution in archaeology in the 1960s and 1970s by elevating its status from a descriptive study of antiquities to a scientific discipline devoted to anthropological understanding of ways of life of ancient societies. His 'archaeology as anthropology' proposition emerged as a dominant paradigm in contemporary archaeology.

This trend, popularly known as New Archaeology, laid emphasis on a regional approach to archaeological sites, method of hypothesis testing; and culture as a system of inter-related components serving as means of human adaptation. These concepts have now become central tenets of modern archaeology and made Professor Binford a legendary figure.

Professor Binford's field studies covered archaeological sites in North America, Europe, Africa and Middle East. His major contributions include interpretation of differences in prehistoric stone tool assemblages in terms of seasonal variations in human activity – early man as a mere scavenger of leftovers from carnivorous kills rather than a mighty hunter; and emergence of agricultural way of life due to innovative initiatives of splinter hunter-gatherer groups that moved away from their parent communities.

He also made pioneering contributions to ethnoarchaeology and conducted prolonged investigations of the Nunamiut Eskimos of Alaska. He published about a dozen major books on archaeology. These include 'New Perspectives in Archaeology,' 'Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology,' 'Bones; Ancient Men and Modern Myths' and 'In pursuit of the Past.' Three volumes, entitled 'An Archaeological Perspective,' 'Working at Archaeology' and 'Debating Archaeology' are collections of his major research papers. His last major publication, 'Constructing Frames of Reference,' was published by the Chicago University Press in 200l and dealt with 400 hunter-gatherer societies across the world.
Lawrence Guy Straus; Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Editor, Journal of Anthropological Research has published a very thorough, interesting glimpse into the life, impact, and ideas of Lewis Binford [PDF].


The Sabich - The Sabich is a popular Israeli pita sandwich based on the traditional Babylonian-Jewish Shabbat morning meal. It it is usually seasoned with Amba, the mango pickle condiment of Indian Origin which the Baghdadi Jewish community of India brought to Baghdad (along with Sambusak, a variant of the Simosa).

Professor Sasson Somekh reflects on his childhood in Baghdad and discusses amba, among other things.


I had that darn cell phone just a minute ago... - Where's My Cell Phone? Can't find your cell phone? No one around to call it for you? This may help.


John Passmore Edwards - "He did more good in his time than almost any other of his contemporaries" This week marks the 100th anniversary of the death of John Passmore Edwards. Philanthropist, activist, MP, journalist, editor and proprietor, chartist and pacifist, campaigner for peace, for the abolition of capital publishment and flogging and for provision of free libraries. His autobiography.

On public libraries: "All may not use them, but all may do so if they like; and as they are means of instructing and improving some, all are directly or indirectly benefited by them."

He left a legacy of 70 public buildings, largely in London and Cornwall: libraries, hospitals, art galleries, schools and more. After campaigning for the Free Library Act of 1850 he personally paid for a new library in any Cornish town where the Act was adopted, plus the first 1000 books for each.


Powerhouse -
  • It was written by Raymond Scott in 1937, and first heard by the world played by the Raymond Scott Quintette on CBS Radio's Saturday Night Swing Club.
  • It was first recorded in 1937 and released by Master Records. It was later re-released by Brunswick and then Columbia.
  • It contains a middle section that has a greatly different tempo and style from the rest of the song, to the degree that it is sometimes considered to be two different songs.
  • It was a popular tune of its time. Among Raymond Scott's admirers was Carl Stalling, music director for Warner Bros. cartoons. Stalling's appreciation for Scott lead to his music being featured frequently in Warner cartoons. Itself, it has been used in dozens of classic cartoons, especially in places depicting rapid motion or heavy machinery. Despite this, no Warner cartoon contains a complete version of the work.
  • It's now so recognized from its use in cartoons that most people can probably hum portions of its middle potion, and recognize the rest, even if they don't know it's name. It's so connected with cartoons that Cartoon Network used it as a distinctive bumper tune from 1997 to 2003.
  • Regardless of its iconic nature, it's still in copyright and is controlled in the US by Music Sales Corporation, and elsewhere by Warner/Chappell Music.
  • That song is called "Powerhouse."


Performed with harmonicas - Performed by orchestra in 2008 - From "The Piano Guy," Dave Powers plays piano duet with himself - Arranged in Mario Paint Composer - An unusual performance - for the obsessed: Remixed with dozens of different cartoon theme songs from the "Powerhouse" Cartoon Network rebranding – More versions

A few other Raymond Scott songs on YouTube. Don't be surprised if you already know parts of these:
Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals - The Toy Trumpet - Huckleberry Duck - War Dance for Wooden Indians - The 18th Century Drawing Room - Twilight in Turkey

Some audio from the Raymond Scott website.


Your price is lifting mine higher— - A $23,698,655.93 book about flies.


Wibbly wobbley timey wimey samey wamey - Last year, BBC America noticed a spike in piracy of Doctor Who episodes as fans were either frustrated with the 2 week gap between UK and US premiere and/or spoilers and gossip everywhere. The solution, as demonstrated by shows like The Walking Dead, seems to be to broadcast world wide on the same day.

See also the NY Times: New Time Warp for 'Doctor Who'.


"Yes, that's what I want to do – develop visionable avatars." - Comedian Stewart Lee on not wanting to be a "content provider"


It's alive, again! - Days after Google Video announced the impending death of Google Video, prompting jscott to start archiving as many videos as the Archive team could and a subsequent Metafilter post on the best of Google Video, it turns out that Google has relented and removed the deadline. It will also be migrating the videos over to Youtube.


The Thunderclown - Fall in love with Mr. Momus. See the new videosongs from his soon to be released EP, the Thunderclown: Shangri-La :: Willow Pattern :: We Don't Have To Make Children :: I Want To Be Good :: The Teacher :: Midas :: The Thunderclown :: Produced in collaboration with John Henriksson of Tona Serenad.


We're going to need to talk about these false positives on your next performance review, boy shepherd. - Cracked.com and VirusComix join forces to present: Non-bullshit Fables.


The Gutsiest Gal to Ever Gather News! - The Evolution of April O'Neil.


Happy Easter, bunny! - Just in time for Easter, Simon's Cat meets a bunny.


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