randomWalks

Astronomy Picture of the Day—not that great today, but browse the archives for some amazing pictures.

I would love to find some of these Three’s Company bubble-gum trading cards. For more pop culture wackiness check out the Objet of the Week archive.

Sequential Tart is a Web zine working to raise awareness of women’s influence in the comics industry. One great feature is the Bizzare Breasts column, in which an anatomically impossible drawing is critiqued and, when possible, repaired.

Now I know how a catalytic converter works. Of course, if you really want to know how stuff works….

WebApps is also tracking browserware. Here’s one I am going to have to investigate further: Zaplet, “the new way to communicate that turns your email into a live, shared place.” I don’t know what that means either.

Ars Technica’s recommendations detail what components you’ll need to DIY good, better, and best boxes suitable for running Linux, BeOS, and various Microsoft OSes. Once you’ve got it, their Complete System Buider’s Guide explains how to put it all together. I’m putting the ‘good’ list on my Palm for quick reference; one of these days I’m gonna build me a linux box. thanks, FactoVision.

Random walk along a line: a simulation.

Feed weighs in on the suburban sprawl tip:

“Do there exist man-made places that are as valuable as the nature they displaced? How about your hometown Main Street? Or Charleston? Or San Francisco? Few would dispute that man has proved himself capable of producing wonderful places, environments that people cherish no less than the untouched wilderness. The problem is that one cannot easily build Charleston anymore, because it is against the law. Even the classic American Main Street, with its mixed-use buildings right up against the sidewalk, is now illegal in most municipalities. Somewhere along the way, through a series of small and well-intentioned steps, traditional towns became a crime in America."

“Watch this transcendent one-hour comedy about high school kids trying to figure out where they fit in and you will experience the painful laughter of recognition. And you will fall in love with the show’s motley crew of nerds, stoners, brainiacs and confused souls and you will say, ‘How come nobody told me this was so awesome?'” Joyce Millman has been telling you since September. “Freaks and Geeks” is in desperate danger of being cancelled, but it’s on tonight at 8pm EST on NBC. If you’re concerned, you can help keep the show on the air.

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, the Archbishop of Bologna and a leading contender to succeed the Pope, said last week that the Antichrist was “already on Earth in the guise of a prominent philanthropist … [who] espoused vegetarianism, pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights,” though he declined to identify the beast by name. Others have identified Antichrists by name: David Hasselhoff, George Dubya, and Pope after Pope, and many more.

“What deeply worries him is that these technologies collectively create the ability to unleash self-replicating, mutating, mechanical or biological plagues. ‘If you can let something loose that can make more copies of itself, it is very difficult to recall. It is as easy as eradicating all the mosquitoes: They are everywhere and make more of themselves. If attacked, they mutate and become immune. . . .'” Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems has come to the conclusion that “advanced technology poses a threat to the human species.” Look for his forthcoming Wired article to be published on Tuesday.

<img src=“https://omega.randomwalks.com/imgs/blog/weeklycatshow.gif" width=“150” height=“82 vspace=” 8” hspace=“6” border=“1” align=“left”> “Actually, you are strong and tough, Robert. But Billy is weak and nervous and crazy about Dance!!” Props to NetDyslexia for turning me on to the incredible Weekly Cat Show.

I’ve been meaning to consolidate my dozen-plus email addresses, and email vs. email looks like the way to do it. An elimination tournament is just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, in early sparring my hotmail account seemed to be able to take any challenger—but certainly there’s a winner among my endless supply of randomwalks aliases! thanks, gmtplus9.

James Fallows asks why the best high schools in the nation didn’t make Newsweek’s list of the best high schools in the nation, and Jay Mathews (who devised Newsweek’s ranking system) responds.

I like nothing better than a good tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of the detritus of consumer culture. Don’t miss the archives. thanks, Boing Boing.

Speaking of rockin', I would do anything for this Microcker t-shirt, but I won’t do that.

What browsers will Mac users be rockin' 6 months from now? Raul Gutierrez has the lowdown.

“‘Frankly, when I hear this claim that in [Silicon Valley] they don’t discriminate, that makes me deeply suspicious,’ he says. ‘Why do people inside high tech think they can filter out their prejudices and only hire based on skill, when people in other industries can’t? To my way of thinking, there’s no industry or group of people who are beyond prejudice and free of discrimination.'” Paul Igasaki of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission knows what time it is.

“The truth is that hardly anything is as real as it used to be. Stone or brick on a building, despite the solidity it connotes from the days when thick piles of stone and brick actually held up the floors and roofs above, is now all veneer, four or eight inches thick and arranged on the outside of an equally thin, hollow, framed wall.” Anita’s LOL introduced me to Ken Friedlein’s wonderful architecture column The Built World.

“The first draft really took shape when I found that I needed to slow way down and distract myself at the same time so I used a paintbrush and Tuscan red watercolor and painted the manuscript on legal paper, trying to concentrate on the calligraphic aspect of writing rather than trying to craft beautiful sentences. I figured as long as the sentences looked beautiful, the rest would take care of itself.” Lynda Barry talks about Cruddy, her latest book.

Lasers in the Jungle is a good site for Paul Simon fans.

It must have been an incredible sight on Tuesday when a huge cloud of ash rolled down the slopes of the Mayon volcano.

Once your form arrives (with a unique 22-digit number) you may be able to fill out the 2000 census online. This census is particularly interesting because to indicate your race, you can now check as many boxes as apply. Salon offered some extremely offensive and ignorant, though sometimes informative, coverage of the issue last month.

I saw Goodfellas for the first time last night, and now I want to watch Animaniacs for all those Goodfeathers cartoons I never quite got.

According to MacDeals, hundreds of lucky jerks got Nikon CoolPix 950’s for only $510 yesterday through Accompany.com. My birthday is coming up, I just might have to treat myself.