I don’t sit around all day websurfing, honest.

• Cool Tool: Peopleware
  Might be useful if I make it up the foodchain a bit.
• eBay Guides – . How To Win Something In A Claw Machine .
  The internets really do contain Everything.
• Portico: An Electronic Archiving Service
  “The mission of Portico is to preserve scholarly literature published in electronic form and to ensure that these materials remain accessible to future scholars, researchers, and students.” A non-profit ally in the quest for OA/OS?
• HST’s obituary for Nixon: “He was a crook.”
  “… hubris-crazed monster from the bowels of the American dream with a heart full of hate and an overweening lust to be President”, snork. More where that came from as the High Priest of Gonzo beats the Worst President Ever (until W) like a red-headed step-mule.
• Small stinky whitish balls coming out of my throat. | Ask MetaFilter
  Spouse, do not read this. Other readers, beware: if you click through, you may never eat again. I created a new tag, “foulandhorrible”, just for this. The biologist’s lament: why O why must I love things that squick me out? Gaaaa, erg, I can’t look, I gotta look.
• MaxSpeak, You Listen!: CARBON OFFSETS – OFFSIDES by Gar W. Lipow
  “Mommy, where do carbon offsets come from?” “Well, you see honey, when a major polluter and a consultant love money very much they express that love together in a very special way. And nine months later the consultant produces an extremely long piece of paper.” *snort* Followed up here with links to several resources. Note to self: read and think, also ask carbonfund.org to respond.
• Alicublog: movie review, Walk The Line
  Why is no one paying Roy to write movie reviews? (Or, if they are, someone please point me there.) This is what reviewing should be: sharp and clear, informed and reinforced by a wide background of experience and critical thought. Also, funny and spoiler-free.
• arc90 lab : tools : Unobtrusive Sidenotes
  It’s all about tangents. No, not those kinds of tangents. We’re talking about the kind where you’ll be sharing a thought and you sort of, umm, go off elsewhere. Some people call them asides, digressions, departures…you get the idea. We are of the belief that footnotes — at least the ones worth reading — suck. They suck because they are elsewhere, usually far away from the line-of-sight we’re focused on when we read. It would be nice to be able to optionally just glance over and take that brief little detour if we so choose. It’s footnotes on steroids: sidenotes. Via jd.

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• Crooked Timber » » Introduction: The Wealth of Networks seminar
  CT seminar on Benkler’s book.
• Matthew_Wheeler
  “Matthew Wheeler took his first picture through an ice lens in response to a challenge by Scientific American and CBC calling on listeners to light a fire with a lens made entirely of ice. Too easy by far – Matthew took it one step farther and started photographing the natural beauty of his surroundings through the ice lenses he made.”
• Rhosgobel: Deducing adjunct salaries
  Very useful examination of adjunct teaching salaries. “Radagast Responds” could be a mine of useful info! (Bottom line, though: avoid adjunct appointments, for they are teh suck.)

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• Open_Access_Journals : Open Access Journals
  I wish they wouldn’t use Yahoo for this. Is there no open source alternative?
• 3QD: Why We Do Not Eat Our Dead
  Why shouldn’t we eat people?
• bootstrap analysis: what to do if you find a baby bird
  “”I found a baby bird and it couldn’t fly. What should I do?” The short answer is — Nothing. Leave it alone! The long answer is here in the Bootstrap Public Service Announcement #2: What to do if you Find a Baby Bird.”



• Testosterone Nation – The Most Hated Man in Bodybuilding
  “…who is it that the professional bodybuilders call a freak? Who is the freak’s freak? Answer: Greg Valentino.” This is the freakiest physique I have ever seen, bar none. 3500mg/wk of steroids at his peak; 5’6″, 235 pounds and 27″ guns on-cycle. Kids, do not try this yourselves, at home or anywhere else. Update: note the disparity between forearms and upper arms; consensus seems to be that much of the apparent bulk is due to injecting an inert oil directly into the tissue. Kids, don’t do that either.
• METRONOME ONLINE – free!
  Just what it says: an online metronome.
• One thousand paintings ( 1000 numbers = 1000 paintings )
  “One number, one painting – the number is the art is the limit is the price. Each of the one thousand paintings is unique, showing a number between 1 and 1000.” Sorta goofy, but I might have bought a cool number if any were left.
• michael regnier photography | gallery archive
  Processed photos, not sure whether I like the trick or not. Via Chromasia.
• Guardian Unlimited Books | Review | The mythmaker
  I haven’t read enough Heaney to have an opinion, but this interview is a good read and I liked this: “My favourite poem in this area is a two-line dedicatory verse at the front of it: ‘The riverbed, dried-up, half-full of leaves. / Us, listening to a river in the trees.’ That settles it. You know? Obligation, earnest attention, documentary responsibility – fine. But what about the river in the trees, boy? Poetry has to be that, and it’s very hard to get there.”
• Media Matters – “Media Matters”; by Jamison Foser
  Right:
  

  The dominant political force of our time is not Karl Rove or the Christian Right or Bill Clinton. It is not the ruthlessness or the tactical and strategic superiority of the Republicans, and it is not your favorite theory about what is wrong with the Democrats. The dominant political force of our time is the media.

  Wrong:

  … it can’t go on.

• Eschaton
  Quoth Atrios: “My short reading list, in rough chronological order (of relevance not publication), to have a good sense of what’s going on in the media (and its intersection with politics) in this country would be: On Bended Knee Backlash Sound and Fury Queer in America Fools for Scandal Hunting of the President Blinded by the Right A Vast Conspiracy One Scandalous Story What Liberal Media Republican Noise Machine Attack Poodles Lapdogs”
• Judith Shklar: putting cruelty first.
  “…although intuitively, most of us might agree about right and wrong, we also, and of far more significance, differ enormously in a way we rank the virtues and vices. Those who put cruelty first, as he guessed, do not condemn it as a sin. They have all but forgotten the Seven Deadly Sins, especially those that do not involve cruelty. Sins are transgressions of a divine rule and offenses against God; pride, as the rejection of God, must always be the worst one, which gives rise to all the others. Cruelty, as the willful inflicting of physical pain on a weaker being in order to cause anguish and fear, however, is a wrong done entirely to another creature. When it is marked as a supreme evil, it is judged so in and of itself, and not because it signifies a rejection of God or any other higher norm. It is a judgement made from within a world where cruelty occurs as part both of our normal private life and our daily public practice. By putting it irrevocably first–with nothing above it, and with nothing to excuse or forgive acts of cruelty–one closes off any appeal to any order other than that of actuality.”
• Merchant’s Encyclopedia of HTML
  Nice summary; includes a scribble page.
• Iris Tour – a photoset on Flickr
  Don’t just look at the thumbnails, click through. There are some really good photos in this set. Makes me wonder about the Digital Rebel vs the G6.

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• TrueMajority Oreos
  One-eighth of the Pentagon budget could more than pay for health insurance for every US child who needs it, fully fund the Head Start program, restructure US K-12 education, make a serious dent in world hunger and begin to cure the US addiction to fossil fuels. This would reduce US defense spending to a level just under four times its nearest world rival, Russia — which happens to be an ally.
• Index of Science Tracer Bullets Online. Listed by title (Science Tracer Bullet – Science Reference Services, Library of Congress)
  The Library of Congress SCIENCE TRACER BULLET SERIES contains research guides that help you locate information on science and technology subjects. With brief introductions to the topics, lists of resources and strategies for finding more, they help you to stay “on target.”
• Life’s harsh lessons ‘make you more gullible’-study
  Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich — schwächer: “A six-month study in the University’s School of Psychology found that rather than ‘toughening up’ individuals, adverse experiences in childhood and adolescence meant that these people were vulnerable to being mislead. […] The study found that while some people may indeed become more ‘hard-nosed’ through adversity, the majority become less trusting of their own judgement.”
• Cool Tool: X-treme Tape
  Electrical tape simply does not work in a marine environment. Even duct tape won’t stick to something wet. Try getting any tape to stick to a rope or line on a boat. Or try to get a waterproof seal on a hose leak. X-treme tape can do all these chores with flying colors because it is a non-adhesive, self-bonding wrap. It’s not really tape since it’s not sticky. This stuff is sort of magical. You stretch it on and it self-fuses tight under tension. It works in cold and wet, and won’t melt on hot surfaces, so you can use it on engines. It is easy to apply even when it is below freezing. The tape doesn’t stick on itself until you want it to. Once tightened this silicone based wrap forms a reliable bond even in water. I use it as an insulator around wires, like electrical tape. I wrap the end of ropes with it. X-treme tape bears up for many seasons under constant UV and sunlight and the extreme cold, heat, and wet of harsh weather.
• eBay: Art Director–INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS to my work (item 6626642598 end time May-09-06 08:45:49 PDT)
  Am I missing something? Is this not fraud — or rather, enabling and encouraging fraud? How are the ads in question going to benefit anyone unless they pass the work off as their own?
• Ave Maria Grotto, Cullman, Alabama
  The spousal unit just *loves* this stuff. OK, OK, %so do I%.
  

  The Ave Maria Grotto, known throughout the world as “Jerusalem in Miniature”, is a beautifully landscaped, four-acre park designed to provide a natural setting for the 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous historic buildings and shrines of the world. The masterpieces of stone and concrete are the lifetime work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of St. Bernard Abbey.

• Bulletin of the World Health Organization – A clearing house for diagnostic testing: the solution to ensure access to and use of patented genetic inventions?
  In genetic diagnostics, the emergence of a so-called “patent thicket” is imminent. Such an overlapping set of patent rights may have restrictive effects on further research and development of diagnostic tests, and the provision of clinical diagnostic services. Currently, two models that may facilitate access to and use of patented genetic inventions are attracting much debate in various national and international fora: patent pools and clearing houses. In this article, we explore the concept of clearing houses.
• Waxy.org: Daily Log: Star Wars Kid, Redux
  Matt actually looks pretty badass in this. That look on his face says “don’t fuck with me”. Of course, it also says “I’m a giant dork and I know it”.
• Hullabaloo
  Digby’s right, it almost feels like a threat: “If Democrats gain power we’ll have to do actual reporting again, and we’re not going to stand for that.” Push back. Demand that the grownups be put back in charge.
• Are you a defensive Pessimist? Take this quiz to find out!
  As it happens, according to this quiz I am a dp. Maybe I should read the book. Via Dr Shellie.
• SEATURTLE.ORG – Satellite Tracking
  “Welcome to Satellite Tracking at SEATURTLE.ORG. The goal of this program is to provide marine animal researchers with an easy-to-use tool for collecting, managing and sharing their satellite tracking data in near real-time.” Cool. Wonder how much actual data you can get your hands on?
• Larry Beinhart: With All This Horseshit | The Huffington Post
  Fuckin’ A: “Get on the stand and regale with tales of success. Of plots thwarted. Of desperate measures intercepted. Of terrorists captured or killed. Tell us how you’ve located Osama bin Laden. It’s been over four and a half years. Unlimited budget. Unlimited military might. No visible moral constraints. Tell us how you’ve tracked him down, hung him high and busted up his ring!”

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• Welcome to the Blog Carnival Index
  Blog Carnival Index: 3838 editions of 313 carnivals as I link this. It feels like too many already, but with literally millions of blogs I guess there’s plenty of room for more carnivals. One more facet of the Intarweb Big Question: what to do with all this information?
• Bitch PhD: custom bras
  This link is for the spouse. The spouse!!! (Marked this blog post not the Julianna Rae site because several other options are mentioned in comments.)
• Caveat Lector » Random thought
  “Unlike many open-access advocates, I admit openly to being anti-for-profit-journal-publisher. I worked for a service bureau. I saw those folks at their stupidest and worst. I want no part of ’em. Don’t trust ’em. I’m glad when they do the right thing, because I’m glad when anybody does the right thing, but if what I do hurts ’em, there will be no crocodile tears from me on their account.”
• Hunter S. Thompson and the Myth of Objectivity – frassle
  Damn, jd doesn’t write much, but when he does it’s worth reading.
• Great-Grandmother gets “do not resuscitate” tattoo.
  This is great:
  

  Eighty-year-old Mary Wohlford has informed family members of her wishes should she ever become incapacitated. She also has signed a living will that hangs on the side of her refrigerator. But the retired nurse and great-grandmother now believes she has removed all potential for confusion. She had the words “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” tattooed on her chest. […] Said Wohlford: “I don’t believe in lawyers too much.”

  Now that’s a tough old lady — and she may not have solved the problem but she has certainly focused some attention on it. Kudos. (via)

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• HousingZone.com – A Zero Energy Home – 5/1/2006 – CA6332828
  Good news: “Ideal Homes built the first zero energy home in the country priced under $200,000. The modest one-story, three-bedroom, two bathroom home produces as much energy as it consumes in a year, achieving net zero energy consumption.” It’s 1650 sq ft, plus (?) a 2-car garage. I wonder what they could do with 1200 sq ft, no garage? (via rebecca blood)
• The Observer | Magazine | Give me a shelter
  Profile/interview: WorldChanging/AfH’s Cameron Sinclair.
• Creek Running North: Fuck your civility
  Fuckin’ amen. Chris Clarke: “I have decided I no longer trust anyone who insists on others being civil. The bumper sticker from ten years ago said “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” That needs updating. If you’re not outraged, then you’ve decided that the suffering that exists in the world is just fine with you, as long as you don’t feel it. And if you’ve decided that, you don’t deserve civility.”
• Model purge on anorexics makes weight vital statistic – World – Times Online
  Some sense at last. “LEADING figures in Israel’s fashion industry, alarmed by the number of young women suffering from bulimia or anorexia, are supporting a move to ensure models have “normal”, healthy figures.”
• BBC – Radio 3 – Discovering Music Archive
  Shame about the rm format.
• stardust holiday :: the NASA bedrest project (v5 stripey goodness)
  What else would you do during 3 months’ enforced bed rest, except blog? Via Matt.
• we*heart*prints
  “a compilation of beautiful, affordable art prints”
• Majikthise : Polanski, the Academy, and rape
  Great thread on art and ethics, taking off from the example of acknowledged great director and convicted child rapist Roman Polanski, and the question of whether we ought morally to refuse to watch his movies.
• Prozac’s target revealed
  Prozac treatment specifically stimulates the generation of “amplifying neural progenitors” — the second step in the neurogenesis pathway from stem cells to mature neurons.
• Alas, a blog: the Chris Bliss Diss
  Amp liked Garfield’s routine; I think it’s kinda boring. Mad props for skill, but boring to watch — and Garfield is kind of an ass.
• Robert J Lang: Origami
  Amazing origami. I particularly like the bronzes as a way of rendering the paper art permanent.
• photo-eye | Explore Art Photography
  More galleries from photo-eye.
• Don Hong-Oai: 2 portfolios at photo-eye
  These are extraordinary: toned silver gelatin prints made with multiple negatives in the style of classical Chinese painting.
• White Hat
  “dude, sorry to put this here but i felt the need to warn you that sharing the root of your C drive is a bit silly.”

A bunch of links about open access/open science/collaboration:

• Peter Suber: 6 things every scholar should know about OA
• Peter Suber: What you can do to promote open access
• Effect of open access on citation impact: a bibliography of studies
  From the Open Citation Project. Via Stevan Harnad.
• Caveat Lector » Open Access
  Self-described “repository-rat” Dorothea Salo’s “open access” blog category. An eye-opener for someone like me, coming to OA from a researcher’s point of view.
• Caveat Lector » How are we doing?
  “…I’m probably the wrong person to ask whether open access will fly. Still–I think the world will change in our direction. Utopia, certainly not. An entirely open-access landscape, certainly not. A world where many more people have unfettered access to much more research and scholarship–yes. I think we’ll get there. Here’s why I think that.” Via Suber.
• E-LIS – Taking Stock of Open Access: Progress and Issues
  Abstract: Purpose — Aims to provide a broad overview of some of the issues emerging from the growth in Open Access publishing, with specific reference to the use of repositories and Open Access journals. Design/methodology/approach — A viewpoint paper largely based on specific experience with institutional repositories and the internationally run E-LIS archive. Findings — The Open Access Initiative is dramatically transforming the process of scholarly communication bringing great benefits to the academic world with an, as yet, uncertain outcome for commercial publishers. Practical implications — Outlines the benefits of the Open Access movement with reference to repositories and Open Access journals, to authors and readers alike, and gives some food for thought on potential barriers to the complete permeation of the Open Access model, such as copyright restrictions and version control issues. Some illustrative examples of country-specific initiatives and the international E-LIS venture are given. Originality/value — An attempt to introduce general theories and practical implications of the Open Access movement to those largely unfamiliar with the movement. Via Suber, of course.
• Mark Elliott on Stigmergic Collaboration — CooperationCommons
  “As stigmergy is a method of communication in which individuals communicate with one another by modifying their local environment, it is a logical extension to apply the term to many types (if not all) of Web-based communication, especially media such as the wiki. The concept of stigmergy therefore provides an intuitive and easy-to-grasp theory for helping understand how disparate, distributed, ad hoc contributions could lead to the emergence of the largest collaborative enterprises the world has seen.”
• Public Knowledge Project
  “The Public Knowledge Project is a federally funded research initiative located at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University on the west coast of Canada. It seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research through innovative online environments.”

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• Did DNA Come From Viruses?
  Do viruses predate cells, and was the first DNA viral?
• Adventures in Ethics and Science: Plagiarism and Podcasts.
  Call me a Luddite, but I hate podcasts. If I wanted my computer to make noise, I’d lick my finger and rub the monitor.
• Roddick Targets Nestlé after Corporate ‘Sell-Out’
  To put it in the idiom Roddick so consciously adopts: lying slag.
• 3QD: brains and computers.
  A very readable introduction to computer hardware architecture, its relationship to actual computing, and some ideas about brain function that arise from computer methodologies. This is the third of three parts, Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.
• Cool Tool: Forearm Forklift
  I want a set of these for next time we have to move that bloody cabinet.
• How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off
  I really should give this a try.
• Hanzi Smatter 一知半解
  Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture.
• The Conservative Nanny State
  “In his new book, economist Dean Baker debunks the myth that conservatives favor the market over government intervention. In fact, conservatives rely on a range of “nanny state” policies that ensure the rich get richer while leaving most Americans worse off. It’s time for the rules to change. Sound economic policy should harness the market in ways that produce desirable social outcomes — decent wages, good jobs and affordable health care.” Baker also runs the blog Beat The Press, and came up with interesting ideas about how best to divide govt spending between Big Pharma subsidies and NIH research support. The book is available as a free download; see chapter 5 for the reasoning.
• one red paperclip
  “My name is Kyle MacDonald and I am trying to trade one red paperclip for a house. I started with one red paperclip on July 12th, 2005 and I am making a series of trades for bigger or better things. My current item up for trade is one afternoon with Alice Cooper.” On Kyle’s site, you can trace the trade history from one red paperclip to an afternoon with the King of Shock Rock. Brilliant. (Via rebecca blood.)
• The Open Knowledge Foundation – The Open Knowledge Foundation – Home Page
  “A technological revolution has created immense opportunities for increased and more equitable access to knowledge, as well as for its collaborative development. But we are yet to realize much of this potential, and in order to do so two main challengges must be met. First, we must to develop the tools and the institutions to take advantage of these new possibilities for the creation and distribution of knowledge. Second, we must ensure that these opportunities are not eliminated by the ever increasing proprietization of knowledge as individuals and corporations seek to fence off knowledge for the sake of short term profit. The Open Knowledge Foundation exists to address these challenges by promoting the openness of knowledge in all its forms, in the belief that greater access to information will have far-reaching social and commercial benefits.”
• Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog » Blog Archive » The Four Principles of (Open) Knowledge Development
  “Open knowledge means porting much more of the open source stack than just the idea of open licensing. It is about porting many of the processes and tools that attach to the open development process — the process enabled by the use of an open approach to knowledge production and distribution.”
• The Argument For Computational Open Access | Science Commons
  “As the scholarly literature moves to digital form, what is actually needed to move beyond a system that just replicates all of our assumptions that this literature is only read, and read only by human beings, one article at a time? What is needed to permit the creation of digital libraries hosting these materials that moves beyond the “incunabular” view of the literature, to use Greg Crane’s very provocative recent characterization. What is needed to allow the application of computational technologies to extract new knowledge, correlations and hypotheses from collections of scholarly literature?”
• Paper Sculpture – a photoset on Flickr
  No scissors. No kidding.
• TheStar.com – The plight of the orphan space
  Orphan space rejuvenation, what a great idea. I’ve seen some neighborhoods in Portland do this sort of thing.

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