Eclecticism

Sometime between November 2nd and November 3rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging: The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It's designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box.
• In Landslide, John McCain Is The President Of AOL: (Just in case there weren't enough reasons to avoid "A-O-Hell"….) AOL.com's homepage political poll results are in, and the site's calling a landslide for Republican John McCain. Not only does he carry swing states Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, in the poll, but McCain also scores upset wins in California and Massachusetts. Or maybe the poll says more about AOL users than it does US voters. The reader who pointed us to the results writes: "Proof Republicans only use dialup."
• Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004: Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug. (Gotta be honest, I've been wondering about this myself. I just don't have the time to devote to the blog that I used to, and most of what shows up here is mirrored from Twitter. Not throwing in the towel yet, but…considering options.)
• Why Pushing Daisies Is The Best TV Show You’re Not Watching: I wish that headline wasn't true, but the ratings back me up; not enough people are watching ABC's Pushing Daisies. Bryan Fuller's secretly twisted yet romantic detective show may bring the dead back to life on a regular basis, but it also goes out of its way to prove Isaac Newton and Stan Lee right every week as well. Hilarious, more cynical than you might expect and with the best ensemble cast on television right now, we're giving you four reasons why it's time to put your preconceptions aside and get onboard the Pie Wagon before it's too late.
• Ask a Wizard: War of the Worlds 2.0 – The Post Mortem: A bunch of twitterers did a realtime modern reenactment of The War of the Worlds a few days ago. Pity I didn't know about it beforehand, it looks like it was a lot of fun.

Sometime between 06:15 and 16:48, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Man Burns Himself Alive In Red Square: Authorities haven't figured out why he did it, though they found a lab coat and a pair of goggles on the ground by him and it has been determined that he soaked himself in gasoline beforehand. (One more reason I'm going to hell: as freaky and sad as this is, when I read the bit about the "lab coat and a pair of goggles," my first thought was, "Has anyone checked in with Dr. Horrible lately?")
• Roy The Forklift Driver: Joe the Plumber? Tito the Builder? Just Johnny-come-latelys. Meet the original "everyday" darling of the conservative set: Roy the Forklift Driver. The parallels are freaky. From The Onion, May 29, 1993.
• Pre-emptive ejection: Audience members removed at McCain rally in Cedar Falls: “When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.” Elborno said even McCain supporters were among those being asked to leave. “I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”
• NASA – NASA Twittering: A list of NASA's missions and projects with Twitter accounts. Pretty cool, I had no idea there were so many!
• Thanks for the memories: Do you know Seattle's official song, "Seattle, the Peerless City?" Rapture flows freely in lines such as, "her bosom's gemm'd with pearly lakes," and "greater far than ancient Rome." How was it chosen? Not after lengthy deliberation. Seattle city archivist Scott Cline said the songwriter asked the City Council to adopt his ditty. It was 1909, and the council said sure — if Councilmember Frederick Sawyer would sing it right there in front of everyone. A notation on the back of the sheet music in Seattle's archives reads: "As sang by the peerless soloist Sawyer." (Aww, c'mon…no MP3? I want to hear this!)
• Chart Porn: War and Social Upheaval Cause Spikes in Zombie Movie Production: Is there really a connection between zombie movies and social unrest? We decided to do some research and find out. The result? We've got a line graph showing the number of zombie movies coming out in the West each year since 1910 — and there are definite spikes during certain years, which always seem to happen eerily close to historical events involving war or social upheaval.

Sometime between 11:36 and 18:34, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Synchronized Presidential Debating: Did watching the 2nd and 3rd debates give you a feeling of déjà vu? This montage of synced-up footage from all three presidential debates confirms our deep-seated belief that every debate was exactly the same.
• The Unfinished Swan: The Unfinished Swan is a first-person painting game set in an entirely white world. Players can splatter paint to help them find their way through an unusual garden. The game is still in development and no release plans have been announced. Our goal is to have a near-finished version ready by March of 2009.
• I love The Stranger’s response to the Mariners freaking out about a potential strip club near the ball park:: Oh, yes, think of those impressionable children! You’ve got thousands of juvenile eyeballs staring for hours at gigantic billboards for beer—while sitting in bleachers packed with people drinking out of supersized, logo-emblazoned beer cups—and at their overpaid sports idols standing around and chewing tobacco. And in case their little Play-Doh brains can’t make it down the the ballpark, television networks are clamoring to blast the beer logos along with a few extra beer ads into their homes on television. That’s all hunky-dory with the Mariners. But heaven forbid a few hundred of the kids would walk past a building that they aren’t allowed to enter where there’s nudity. That might send the wrong message.
• ‘LIQUID CIGARETTES’ LAUNCH RAISES STINK IN BRITAIN: The soft drink, containing 15 per cent nicotine, will offer smokers an alternative to shivering outside bars and restaurants. Even the cans of Liquid Smoking look similar to red and white cigarette cartons. "We've got a product that has the same effects as nicotine, but which you can drink in restaurants and on flights," the Independent quoted Martin Hartman, of the United Drink and Beauty Corporation, as saying.
• Down with Stripper Heels: A Candy-Corn-and-Bile-Flavored Halloween Pep Talk: If you’re really that woefully devoid of creativity here’s an idea: try looking at the costumes available online or at your local Halloween Adventure, but remove whatever they want you to believe makes a costume “SEXY.” So, instead of “SEXXXY NURSE,” how about, “Nurse?” Lose the stripper heels, pasties and the see-through skirt, mix in a two parts self-esteem and maybe a little dignity if you’ve got it lying around, and BAM! —you’re on your way.
• 6 easy steps to migrate your Mac using Time Machine: If you use Time Machine in Leopard, then transferring your stuff to a new Mac might be a bit simpler than you thought. With Migration Assistant, you can easily transfer Applications, Documents, Settings, and more. In this Mac 101, we're going to show you how it's done, and how you can do it yourself!
• Obama’s Ace in the Hole: Writing about the potential effect of the new, young voters, Don Tapscott reminded me of one of the things I'm most looking forward to watching in the next few years: how the influx of voters who've grown up with constant 'net connection and near instantaneous data flow is going to affect politics. I'm thinking it's going to be a major force for change. Good change.

Sometime between October 27th and October 28th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• NBC’s Chuck takes a jab at microsoft’s zune: The Zune jab in last night's episode got a good laugh out of me.
• Who’s behind the “Wassup 2008” Obama ad? Not Budweiser.: It was all possible, Stone says, because Budweiser never owned the rights to the idea. He’d originally made it as a short film independent of the brand, and Budweiser had only leased the rights, paying a mere $37,000 for five years of use. Back then, people gave him a hard time about the low price. Now Stone, a diehard Obama supporter, says it’s more than paid off.
• What Sarah Palin Is Saying – Anil Dash: Sarah Palin has been unsurprising in her criticisms of Barack Obama's credentials and policies, fulfilling the traditional role of the vice presidential candidate being the most aggressive and pointed rhetorical attacker in a campaign. But a closer look at her deliberate use of vernacular and language reveals that she has gone far beyond any other candidate in vice presidential history in the dangerous and irresponsible implications of her attacks. She has phrased her attacks on Obama in a way that avoids accountability to the press while specifically addressing the subset of her audience who are most likely to advocate extreme actions against Obama.

Sometime between 10:54 and 19:48, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• MTV MUSIC: MTV's new music video archive site is really impressive, over 20,000 videos to browse through. Pity the newer ones aren't encoded widescreen, though (at least, none that I've found so far have been).
• Standalone VCR party finally ends, JVC shuts the door as it leaves: Today, friends, is a day worth remembering. Today truly marks the end of an era, as so far as we can tell, JVC really was the only company still producing standalone VCRs. Of course, the outfit will continue to serve customers with a need to play back VHS tapes by offering up DVD / VHS combo units, but those looking for a shiny new slice of retro in 2008 will be out of luck after remaining inventories dry up. All told, over 900 million VCRs were produced worldwide, with 50 million of those boasting a JVC label.
• The Associated Press: Sen. Ted Stevens found guilty in corruption case: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that threatened to end the 40-year career of Alaska's political patriarch in disgrace. Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that threatened to end the 40-year career of Alaska's political patriarch in disgrace. Stevens, 84, was convicted of all the felony charges he faced of lying about free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor.
• German police seek speeding British Muppet: An Audi TT with British registration plates has been repeatedly caught speeding on roads in the Bavarian city of Bayreuth. But because continental speed cameras are set up for left-hand drive vehicles, the cameras keep missing the driver’s face. Instead, they keep capturing clear views of a manic Muppet-like toy which the cheeky Brit has propped up on his passenger seat.
• Daily Kos: RIP John Galt: There's something in Ayn Rand's works that appeals to everyone at some point in their lives. Everyone wants to identify with the specialness of Dagny Taggart or Howard Roark or John Galt. Everyone feels, at some point in their lives, as if they are the true hub of the universe. Then rational people grow the hell up and get over it. There's no more substance to Rand's objectivist view than there is in a child fantasizing about being a fairy princess, and even less to admire. John Galt is dead. We can only hope he stays buried.

Sometime between October 25th and October 27th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Daily Kos: RIP John Galt: There's something in Ayn Rand's works that appeals to everyone at some point in their lives. Everyone wants to identify with the specialness of Dagny Taggart or Howard Roark or John Galt. Everyone feels, at some point in their lives, as if they are the true hub of the universe. Then rational people grow the hell up and get over it. There's no more substance to Rand's objectivist view than there is in a child fantasizing about being a fairy princess, and even less to admire. John Galt is dead. We can only hope he stays buried.
• Obama for president: Opinion | adn.com: The Anchorage Daily News — from Palin's home state — endorses the Obama/Biden ticket. (For reference, the ADN is the more liberal of the two Anchorage papers, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Anchorage Times come out in favor of McCain/Palin).
• Thrill the World/West Seattle, 1st performance of 3 today: Video! 166 zombies performing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" in Pioneer Square this morning.
• American Civil Liberties Union : Surveillance Society Clock: Using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This " Constitution-Free Zone" includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.
• Apple donates $100,000 to fight Prop. 8: "Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees' same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person's fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation," the company said in a statement posted on its Web site Friday