Sometime between October 12th and October 14th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
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McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Dispatches From a Public Librarian.: "Libraries don't earn money for a city, but they do earn a city pride; they enrich lives; and most importantly, they help people get the skills they need to reenter the work force. In hard times, they shouldn't have limited service hours–they should have expanded services hours. When a person goes to a library to get help seeking employment, and they see a notice on the door that says that due to cutbacks the library is not open, it only adds to the persons frustration that there is no hope or places to go for the help that they need. […] Spread the word. If you approve this dispatch (or even if you hate it, but you like libraries) then start a Twitter trend—just tweet #savethelibrary."
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A Brief History of Gummy Bears: "In 1920, a poor confectionery factory worker in Bonn, Germany, decided that it was high time he struck out on his own. Armed with nothing but a bag of sugar, a marble slab, a kettle, an oven and a rolling pin, Hans Reigel began whipping up hard candies in his kitchen, which his wife would then deliver from the basket of her bike. The new company was called Haribo–a smash up of Hans Riegel of Bonn. After two years of middling profits, the Riegels realized that they'd need a gimmick and fast to keep competitive."
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Sendak, Ever-Untamed, Sees Wild Things Adapted: "'I advised [Jonze] to make more mischief, and he made more than most,' says Sendak. 'In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger. And I did not want to reduce Max to the trite image of the good little boy that you find in too many books.' 'Maurice was our sort of mentor in this whole thing,' said Jonze. 'He was the one person that I really wanted to please. The thing that's so great about him is he wanted me, early on he said, `You need to make this your own. Don't worry about me, don't worry about the book, don't worry about what anyone else expects. You have to just make something bold and not pander to children and make something that's as dangerous for its time as the book was in its time.''"
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iTunesLP.net: "iTunes LPs are a new format introduced by Apple in version 9.0 of their popular iTunes software. The idea is to recreate the old LP experience by providing additional content such a lyrics, liner notes, photographs and other content. At this moment these iTunes LPs are available for a select list of new releases on the iTunes store. However we think it would be nice to have many older, out-of-print, obscure albums or albums on indie-labels to get the same experience; and with that in mind we started working on finding out exactly how this new format works, in order to share our results with the community."
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The War on "Real" Science Fiction: "…there is an undeclared war on real science fiction on TV and in movies. The former Sci-Fi channel, now 'Syfy', is a good example of what has been happening to science fiction on television. In 1998 Bonnie Hammer took over the Sci-Fi channel and declared that 'more female viewers were needed'. Over the next several years, the Sci-Fi channel became increasingly feminized losing many of its traditional male viewers in an attempt to go after women viewers. This included making the logos 'warmer and more human' because the logos before were 'too male and too dark'. The biggest change was in the feminization of the programming shown on the Sci-Fi channel." And that's just the beginning. Yup, modern science fiction sucks, and it's all the fault of the girls! Oh, and the gays, too! Girls and gays, ruining sci-fi for all us manly men, who just want to shoot aliens and each other. Girls should only be allowed when they're in peril, wearing skimpy clothing, waiting for us to rescue them.
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Kinder, Gentler Spider Eats Veggies, Cares for Kids: "Each of the world's 40,000 spider species survives by hunting and killing — except, that is, for Bagheera kiplingi, the world's first vegetarian arachnid. Found in Central America, the order-defying jumping spider eats nutrient-rich structures called Beltian bodies, which are found on the tips of Acacia trees. And that’s not all: It looks like B. kiplingi males help care for eggs and young — something entirely unprecedented in the spider world."