Lilmissnever engages in some succession planning:

One day, when it is safe, I will write a brilliant novel about my job. In the meantime, I am writing a handbook for my successor, a work that will guide the neophyte through the strange and murky waters of my occupation.

"Here," I will say, bestowing wisdom upon some international bright young thing. "Read this. You are going to need it."

In this book, there will be chapters on net neutrality, warrantless wiretapping, RIAA lawsuits, and workplace privacy! There will be chapters on patents and neat little flow charts detailing the elements of defamation. My replacement will learn to explain packet forging and data splitting with grace and ease. [...]

Finally, there will come the most awesome and eldritch lore, subtleties of this job that can only be learned through months of non-stop communication with people who may or may not be insane, diving into a river of sewage and plucking out the perfect, pertinent, on-message test case. [...]

[Via dsandler]

When data center cabling becomes art.

The real question is how long some of those neat, beautifully symmetrical arrangements of cabling will last after a couple of months of re-patching.

A nice use of split-screen to depict what happened as Oceanic Flight 815 crashed from the viewpoint of half a dozen different characters at once.

[See also 8:15.]

[Via Fimoculous]

The FAIL Blog.

[Via GromBlog]

Guillermo del Toro is being lined up to direct the two 'Hobbit' films.

There's no question del Toro has what it takes to make a good fantasy film, but part of me wonders why we need to return to Middle Earth at all. Will The Hobbit, a smaller and less epic story, get the audiences New Line is hoping for to return the cinema seven years after the release of The Return of the King?

(My customary pessimism about the prospects for belated prequels/sequels is kicking in big-time.)

[Via Ghost in the Machine]

It's that time of year again: the Web-Goddess Oscar Contest 2008 is under way.

Go and vote, and see if you can pick up the coveted Striking Writer Sock Monkey.

Fuck Planet Earth.

To quote one MetaFilter poster:

That was fucking hilarious. And fucking juvenile. And fucking awesome.

[Via MetaFilter]

'Real-life' superheroes in the United States:

Geist's breath fogs the winter air as he surveys the frozen Minneapolis skyline, searching for signs of trouble. His long duster flaps in the breeze as his eyes flick behind reflective sunglasses; a wide-brim hat and green iridescent mask shroud his identity from those who might wish him harm.

Should a villain attack, the Emerald Enforcer carries a small arsenal to defend himself: smoke grenades, pepper spray, a slingshot, and a pair of six-inch fighting sticks tucked into sturdy leather boots. Leather guards protect Geist's arms; his signature weapon, an Argentinean cattle-snare called bolos, hangs from a belt-holster.

A mission awaits and time is of the essence, so Geist eases his solid frame, honed from martial arts training, into his trusty patrol vehicle—a salt-covered beige sedan. Unfamiliar with the transportation tangle of downtown, he pulls a MapQuest printout from his pocket, discovering his goal is but a short cruise down Washington Avenue.

Soon Geist faces his first obstacle: parking on the left side of a one-way street. "Usually one of my superpowers is parallel parking," he chuckles as he eases his car into the spot, emerging victorious with a foot and a half between curb and tire. He feeds a gauntleted fistful of quarters into the parking meter, and then pops the trunk on the Geistmobile to retrieve his precious cargo. On the street, he encounters businesspeople on lunch break—some stare openly; others don't even notice his garish attire. "It's easier in winter," Geist says with a laugh. "Winter in Minnesota, everybody's dressed weird." [...]

[Via cityofsound]

A lovely chess anecdote:

Alexander Alekhine and José Raúl Capablanca, the reigning world champion, played for the world chess championship title in 1927 in Buenos Aires. During the contest there was a brief dispute as Capablanca wanted the competition to be annulled after 12 games and an even score. The night after the dispute an extraordinary event happened. Capablanca was, by the way, a slim, petite, extremely prim and proper Cuban diplomat. Never a hair out of place nor a wrinkle in his clothing. As Capablanca later told it: "I was in my hotel room, preparing to go to sleep when there was a knock on my door. I went to the door and opened it and saw an unkempt drunkard with a vacant stare and a bottle of rum in his hand. He said 'I want to play you. One game. Come on! Let me play just one game.' I refused at first but after his continued entreaties I decided that the quickest, easiest way to get rid of the man was to play him." So Capablanca sat down with the stranger at the chess board. Capablanca took black. The stranger beat him in 24 moves. Capablanca was astounded. So astounded he carelessly ran his hand over his hair knocking a few hairs from their carefully placed position. He went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face and came back into the room. "Another! Another!" shouted the stranger and took swigs from his bottle. Capablanca took white this time. The stranger beat him in 19 moves. Capablanca pulled his hair in frustration. He couldn't understand what was happening. He said to the stranger: "Let's go see Alekhine, he must meet you." The stranger replied: "Hurray! I can play him too!" So Capablanca called Alekhine in his room at the same hotel. Alekhine answered: "Hrufn… what?!" Capablanca said: "Alekhine, I must come see you. I have to show you something extraordinary." "It's the middle of the night!" replied Alekhine. "Nevermind the time, this could change everything!" Alekhine harrumphed an agreement and Capablanca pulled the drunk stranger through the quiet hallways of the hotel which were disturbed by the stranger's cries of "Hurray!" and "One more!"

Alekhine was the very opposite of Capablanca. A bear of a man and a famous drunk who'd later lose his world chess title Max Euwe partly because of his drinking habits. When Alekhine opened the door his hair was mussed and his moustache bushy on one side and waxed down on the other. Two empty bottles of vodka lay on the floor. The stranger offered his rum to Alekhine and said: "Have a drink before our game, old chap!" Alekhine took the bottle and swigged heartily, then turned to Capablanca and said: "What is this nonsense, José Raúl?! Why have you brought this wretch to my room in the middle of the night?" Capablanca said: "You have to play this man, Alekhine. It's incredible. It's just… just play him!" Alekhine harrumphed and said: "Alright, after I beat him I'll throw both of you out, but don't worry, José Raúl, the organizers will hear of this tomorrow." So Alekhine sat down at his chess board with the stranger who stared vacantly out the window. Alekhine took white. The stranger beat him in 17 moves. Alekhine sobered up immediately. He stood up from the table, matted down his hair and the bushy part of his moustache and sat down at the table, taking white again. He held the stranger to 25 moves this time before losing. As Alekhine later said: "I couldn't believe this little shit had beat me so easily. And all without seeming to focus even for one second on the board. Capablanca and I were dumbfounded. We'd gotten our asses handed to us by some wretched idiot who'd wandered in from the streets." Alekhine was asked what he and Capablanca did then. "Well, the guy had beat both of us, the two best chess players in the world, in the middle of our championship bout. So there was but one move we could make in this situation. We killed him and threw the body in the harbor."

Charles Arthurs says All this online sharing has to stop:

The IFPI – the International Federation of Phonographic Industries – is the global music industry organisation whose very name tells you how long ago progress overtook it. On Thursday it published its digital music report for 2008, which says boldly that "the spread of unlicensed music on ISP networks is choking revenues to record companies and investment in artists, despite a healthy increase in digital sales in 2007, up approximately 40% on the previous year". [...]

The IFPI's solution? Sort it out at the internet service provider level. "ISP cooperation, via systematic disconnection of infringers and the use of filtering technologies, is the most effective way copyright theft can be controlled. Independent estimates say up to 80 per cent of ISP traffic comprises distribution of copyright-infringing files."

You know what I say? Damn right. Let's get ISPs to stop copyright infringement. But, um, music people? Better form an orderly queue. You think you were the first to suffer from your content getting ripped off and spread to the four corners of the earth? Get to the back of the line, bud. There's a few people ahead of you. [...]

Understanding art for geeks.

So, so good.

[Via GromBlog]

Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Lost:

2) We never escape our past: TV shows, particularly in America, are notorious for showing how people overcome their past to forge a new future. I call ‘em “transcendence narratives”. Every happy ending – of the ex-con gone good or she who was lost now being found – always misses out on the hard stuff of rebuilding a life and the constant back-and-forth of ‘escaping your old self’. From Jack’s obsessiveness to Mr. Eko’s guilt to Sawyer’s emptiness after killing Locke’s father, no character gets a fresh start on the island. Even Locke, who miraculously walks again, struggles immensely with betrayal by his father. No-one just walks away from who they were – they only learn how to confront it or deal with it, and even then, it never fully goes away.

[...]

4) Evangeline Lily is ridiculously, insanely hot: Wait, what? How did that get in here?

[...]

[Via Fimoculous]

Fred Clark has posted a fascinating analysis of the difference between the way President Bush uses language designed to appease right-wing¹ evangelical Christians and that used by presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee:

Unlike Bush, Mike Huckabee really is a native speaker of the evangelical idiom. He isn't just parroting phrases spelled out phonetically for him by some Wheaton-alum speechwriter, he's talking the way he naturally talks. The effect for evangelical voters is thus the same — they are reassured he is "one of us." But the effect for everyone else is quite different, because unlike Bush's dog whistles, everyone else can hear Huckabee's allusions too and non-native speakers have a hard time making sense of what he's saying.

If the world ends up listening to speeches by President Huckabee for the next four years, the art of translating Huckabee's words is destined to be the Kremlinology of the early 21st century. Not that interpreting politicians' speeches haven't always required reading between the lines to some extent, but teasing out the implications of evangelical language is something of a specialist skill.

¹ I add the qualifier 'right-wing' because despite the way the term 'evangelical Christian' is sometimes used in the media – particularly in the UK – there are plenty of left-leaning evangelical Christians in the United States. It's just that in the US they're rather less of an organised, visible bloc of voters than their politically conservative coreligionists.

Photographer John Moore's photograph of Mary McHugh at the grave of her fiance Sgt James Regan was one of the most striking images of 2007.

Moore has posted the story of his visit to the Arlington National Cemetery that day.

After spending much of the last six years covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I felt like I needed to visit Arlington National Cemetery this Memorial Day weekend. I felt like I owed it some time.

I went with my family – my pregnant wife and my young daughter. Separately and together, my wife and I have covered a lot of heart-wrenching stories around the world, but Section 60 was unlike any place we had been.

[...]

Section 60 is not about a troop surge or a war spending bill or whether we should be fighting these wars at all. It is about ordinary people trying to get through something so hard that most of us can’t ever imagine it. Everyone I met that afternoon had a gut-wrenching story to tell. [...]

[Via The Year in Pictures]

See if you can guess why the Wake County library system's computer christened one user 'Suzanne the 1000th Malone' before you reach the answer towards the end of the linked article.

(To rule out one obvious answer, there weren't 999 other users by the name of 'Suzanne Malone.')

A particularly fine APOD: Comet McNaught Over Chile.

Could it be that eleven short months from now it'll be Jeremy Paxman starring in the Marks & Spencer Xmas ad?

[Via LinkMachineGo]

The Orbit Books web site has the prologue of Matter, Ian M Banks' first Culture novel in eight years.

Not many clues about the story this time round in the prologue, but I don't care: it's been eight years, and the Culture Ship List could do with some new entries.

[Via Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]

Dolphins playing with bubble rings: hypnotic.

[Via Peace Dividend]

The 2007 Feltron Annual Report is a sight to behold: beautiful, informative, and the product of more time spent collecting and collating data than any reasonable person would consider worthwhile.

[Via cityofsound]