11:24 AM (2 comments)
An ex-FBI official (and, admittedly, one of the suspects) has come out and is claiming he was Deep Throat.

1:24 AM (1 comments)
The military will soon begin mass-fabricating rocks. To drop from planes. So they can spy on anyone nearby (via DefenseTech.)

1:21 AM (0 comments)
I thought about appending this to yesterday's paranoia post, but it really deserves its own: via Tim Boucher, Exit Mundi, a collection of end-of-the-world scenarios that includes a few I hadn't considered in detail before--like Verneshots and to impotence. Fast and loose, but fun.

12:25 AM (0 comments)
A classic idea returns as a hoax exposed by Adrants: an underwater train from Paris to New York.

Not to be outdone, Adland provides a link to Czech Dream, a movie where the filmakers used "television and radio spots, 400 illuminated billboards, 200,000 flyers" to draw "4,000 people" to the opening day of a store that didn't exist. The trailer doesn't seem to bear out the 4,000 number, but it does show the faux-reality hucksters getting roughed up.

To wrap up this advertising-themed post, I pass along the latest piece of online viral marketing from Burger King: Sith Sense, where you get to play 20 Questions with Darth Vader.

1:16 AM (0 comments)
For my paranoid friends (and you know who you are*), I offer a weekly piracy report and the annual report on Risks in Global Filmmaking (via Incoming Signals and Boing Boing, respectively.) To them I add an archive of Japanese warning signs.

* or DO you?

1:15 AM (0 comments)
Vin Diesel invented the Kazoo as humanity's last line of defense against the vorlons. (via memepool)

1:13 AM (0 comments)
Over on Fluxblog, the story of a different John and Yoko--John Williams and Yoko Kanno:



Update: I just realized that this is the third time this week I've seen a strip by this artist, M.E. Russell. Synchronicity, or well-executed publicity? Dunno if I care.

3:05 PM (0 comments)
Listening to old Bill Cosby albums today, I was inspired to look up the rules of Buck Buck, found on Games Kids Play--a fun (and often loony) collection of playground rules. Frankly, some of them are in need of a FAQ.

UPDATE: Dr. Chris passes along the history of Buck Buck, which leads much further back than I would have ever guessed:

In The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, written about A.D. 65, there is an incident at Trimalchio's feast involving his favourite serving boy: Trimalchio, not to seem moved by the loss, kissed the boy and bade him get on his back. Without delay the boy climbed on horseback on him, and slapped him on the shoulders with his hand, laughing and calling out "Bucca, bucca, quot sunt hic?"