12:51 PM (0 comments)
Well, I'm fighting back the flu and deadlines, so I'm taking a two-week vacation from compulsively surfing the web. But as promised a few days ago, here are some of the places I surf on a regular basis; feel free to check them out until I come back:

• Metafilter
  
• boingboing
  
• Pop Culture Junk Mail
  
• robotwisdom
  
• Gawker
  
• Daypop
  
• Blogdex
  
• Slate
  
• AICN
  
• Newsarama
  
• Medianews
  
• defective yeti
  
• Buzzmachine
  
• The Bleat
  
• Electrolite and Making Light
  
• Sci Fi Wire
  
• Blue's News
  
• The Morning News

There are more, of course, but that should keep you busy. And feel free to discuss among yourselves whatever niftiness you uncover in this post's comments thread. I'd like to think there will still be a reason to come by despite my silence.

Posting will resume in two weeks, on January 16, 2003.

2:35 PM (0 comments)
An excellent 404 page.

Happy New Year, all.

9:53 AM (0 comments)
The party-game classic Mafia is apparently sweeping New York's party circuit, led by novelist Jonathan Lethem. I once played poker with Lethem (no, not against him, with him--we were actually playing the same hand; long story), and I could see why he would be frighteningly good at it. (via Gawker)

5:13 PM (0 comments)
Although I'm not a big fan of negative reviewing, sometimes folks just build up a head of steam. I particularly love his bullet-point plot summary.

3:11 PM (0 comments)
The UW Physics Department's The Hall of Failure (with the Wing of Obsolescence.) If you only see one thing on those pages, be sure to see this.

2:20 PM (0 comments)
Great; one step closer to robots that will beat us up for lunch money. (via boingboing)

12:05 PM (0 comments)
Well, if I ever go back to grad school, I know where I want to study: the Center for Munchausology in Zurich. Heck, I'd love just to read through their collections.

11:30 AM (0 comments)
Doing some research for a soon-to-come post, I was delighted to come across a website dedicated to the Mad Scientist's Club, including the news that the series is being republished. Hurray for the ressurection of my childhood!

Also found along the way: a terrific Three Investigators site and Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Pirated MP3s.

9:08 AM (0 comments)
Scary, funny, informative--it takes a particular type of article to hit on so many disparate bases, but RUBBISH! does so in its exploration of Portland dumpster diving in the era of Total Information Awareness ("total" unless the information is related to a government official, of course.) (via Mefi)

8:46 AM (0 comments)
"Robber attacks woman with Playstation" (via Blue's News); whether you read the story as it actually happened or as it infers with the misplaced modifier, I still think it's amusing.

7:36 AM (0 comments)
Via the boing, the brilliant Peanuts Tarot. At first I thought their creation had just involved a lot of scannning and Photoshop until I noticed that some of the cards were....darker than your average Peanuts strip. F'rexample:



Dark, but not malicious. I dig that.

11:39 AM (0 comments)
For crying out--anybody who's coming by my place on New Year's shouldn't expect me to have gone to this much trouble. I mean, I'm spending today cleaning up, but I haven't made any special trips to Chinatown yet... (article via Gawker; worth reading, if only to ponder its closing line.)

10:26 AM (0 comments)
Only people who read too many blogs (okay, like me) are overjoyed to find something terse made verbose, as in the Smarter Harper's Index.

2:20 AM (0 comments)
There are moments when you see where your career path might lead...and it's kinda scary. Though it'd be nice to make a quarter-mil a week.

2:01 AM (0 comments)
From PCJM comes a link to a Super Hero Food Collection.