randomWalks

Tip: if you get something permanently inked into your skin in a language you can’t read, be sure you know what it says.

The Grey Lady weighs in with her version of a weblog! I wonder if this will become a regular feature. Update: the fine folk at MetaFilter have pointed out that lists of links are “as old as the web” (thanks) and that the New York Times has been posting such lists for some time.

Fun with Flash: an exhibit of handheld paintings and a gallery of banner-ad art. The images at both sites are inspired, but don’t forget that interface is art too.

I wonder if Bruce Tognazzini knows that, according to GirlHacker (whose site exemplifies that elusive symmetry of journal and links that I sometimes strive for), a company called Bluelinx is developing a technology, Q-Zone, which is intended to solve the problem he described in his essay “Cellphone Solution in Search of a Champion” of cellphones ringing in inappropriate places.

so i was like "hi, this is Darcy from Kozmo.com and I am sorry but we are out of stock on Buttman's Anal Adventures" and the guy would be all "uh, yeah, i didn't order that, my roommate did" and i would be like "well, can I suggest Buttman in Budapest instead? we'll throw in a few hundred kozmo points good toward your next rental! thanks for using kozmo" it was humiliating!

The 3,000 year history of the soybean, again from Whole Earth. I’ve long been a fan of tofu and soymilk, but recently I’ve discovered how tasty the soybean itself is – just boil it with salt. Delicious!

Like most migrant mushroom pickers, Nancy has no bank account, no checkbook, no credit card. "In the last ten years I haven't taken a steady job once," she says with obvious pride. "It's pretty much been mushrooms and huckleberries."

From the National Food Safety Database: storage tips for the top-20 fruits and top-20 vegetables sold at supermarkets. With tips on picking ripe fruit, this one’s going in my Palm for sure.

The other day as I was driving to work I noticed the big print on a historical marker I had never seen before: “Fairfax Nike Missile Site”. Huh? Those words are accompanied by a whole paragraph of teeny text, so the next time I’m not late to work I’ll pull over to read it and take a picture.

Macrumors.com has a link to a couple of pictures of Sony’s new Palm-based PDA to be announced at this week’s PC Expo. Palm Infocenter contributor Mike Cane filed a report from the expo covering many new Palm related products and announcements.

If a man is provided with a length of gummed linen cloth with a length of 12 yards on each side and 12 yards high, he can jump from any great height whatsoever without injury.

The next time you drop a measuring spoon into your in-sink-erator, you’ll sure be glad they have a Web site. We were about to give up on ever using our sink again before I learned I could fix it with a 1/4" allen wrench.

Although it may be unintentional, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines as they exist are really a fundamental form of institutionalized racism in a rather destructive and insidious format.

Last Friday’s Weekend section of the Washington Post featured DC hip-hop on the cover. It quotes a local artist speculating that the reason homegrown hip-hop hasn’t taken off commercially is that “go-go is the music of this land… that’s what gets support from the neighborhood kids.” Since that’s the case, why doesn’t the Post cover the go-go scene?

IronChef.com has been reborn as IronSteph.com, “An UNOFFICIAL Site of All Things Iron Chef”. Yay! The Iron Chef world is gearing up for what promises to be an incredible show tonight when the chefs travel to New York City to battle with the Food Network’s Bobby Flay. Time Out New York has a short interview with eccentric millionaire Chairman Kaga – or, rather, with the actor who portrays him. The battle airs at 9pm EST for 2 hours, after which I will be logging on to FoodTV.com for a “tell-all” chat with Bobby Flay.

This illustrated procedure for disassembling a Magic 8-Ball is fascinating. How many sides does the polyhedron inside have? How many positive and how many negative answers? And what does that blue fluid taste like? Find out all this and more…

I saw a woman get arrested at a Restoration Hardware in Palo Alto for yelling at some of the rich customers. She was yelling "You rich bitch!" and things like that. I thought, Here's real social resentment - here comes the revolution!

Subvertise – “this shared web-gallery of radical arts exists to document, develop and promote the artform of the post-corporate millennium - subvertising. Whether you need outrageous illustrations for your campaign literature, graphics for understanding and explaining complex social issues, or inspiration for an action, this website is for you.” If you like the idea, lean about ways you can help out.

indy Magazine turns out to be the independent comic news/reviews Web site I’ve been looking for. Unfortunately they don’t seem to review every issue of every independent comic that comes out every week – even a review of every title would be nice – including of course, all one-shots, compilations and the like. Am I asking too much? With sites like epinions and Amazon.com turning their users into content producers to provide multiple reviews of everything under the sun, I don’t think so.

I’m sorry, but this is hilarious.

Adrian Tomine’s diaries read sort of like his comic, Optic Nerve. I’ve wondered since I was a kid exactly how comic pages were composed (“how do they know how big to make the word balloons?") and Marvel’s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way wasn’t much help, but Tomine has sprinkled his diary with some glimpses into the method (and madness) of his process.

O’Reilly, known for publishing definitive books on a wide range of computing technologies, has released Mac OS in a Nutshell. The book is sure to appear on the bookshelf of “the Mac person” on whom you rely for troubleshooting and assistance – so why not get a copy for yourself?

I was churned today by the monkey fist, and all I got was a few new lousy friends. If you don’t stop by the #mf channel (irc: monkeyfist.com:6667), you should at least take a gander at the Daily Churn now and then – it’s a log of links that come up in the irc chat. Imagine a random set of links filtered by a handful of uncommon minds – there’s no telling what will turn up, but it’s certain to be interesting.

No Lye, No Soap! Can not make soap without LYE!

Retrogression (“a journal of music and revolution”) is a great weblog. I’d add it to my list of daily reads, but it hasn’t been updated since May.