Why would Mel Gibson make a movie about the ancient Middle East and fill it with white people? William Rivers Pitt answers at length and with restraint. Me, I think Gibson is a bigot; end of story. And if you think I’m going to go see his grubby little porn flick, think again. (via Eliot)
Orgnet.com (heh) has a nice simple introduction to social network analysis and interesting examples of the method in action. I particularly liked the analysis of book buying habits (2003 version here) and viral spread. (link-fu props to John Q at Crooked Timber)
I bloody knew it. It’s the same everywhere, and don’t let the bastards tell you otherwise.
Pix Populi is a Los Angeles photoblog by Neil Baylis. I like.
(via Boing Boing) How to make matchstick rockets. You know I’m going to have to try this.
These look like heaps of fun: for example, watch some of these quicktime movies. Sadly, they seem mainly to be available through unethical suppliers like Wal-Mart. They are manufactured by Swiss toy company ACTIVE PEOPLE, who don’t say where their factories are, and distributed in the US by the icky-looking Body Time Wellness.
Leuschke points to this review of this book, which I have added to my predictive model of things I will like in the future.
Tolerance.org has some fun tests aimed at uncovering hidden biases. According to the one I just took, I have little or no automatic preference for or against a particular body type (thin or fat). (Being on the chunky side myself, I’d have expected to be somewhat pro-fat.)