Archive for February, 2007
Project Censored
Project Censored is Sonoma State University’s media watchdog project. More than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members scour the media looking for stories that the major media outlets are ignoring. These usually aren’t stories the media has missed; often these stories were purposely ignored by the national media. Each year they come up with a list of the 25 most censored stories and publish a book. Most of the contents of this book are also available for free on their website. Some of this years stories include:
- Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
- Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
- Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
Project Censored is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country’s major national news media.
Popularity: 10% [?]
February 22nd, 2007
Popularity: 11% [?]
February 22nd, 2007
Cool Tools
After reading Kevin Kelly’s book, New Rules for the New Economy I came across his Cool Tools web site. This site is updated daily with great products that either work really well, are better than comparable products, or are a great bargain. A lot of the cool tools are only useful for a select group of people; but that select group will find the tool invaluable.
Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. I am chiefly interested in stuff that is extraordinary, better than similar products, little-known, and reliably useful for an individual or small group. I depend on friends and readers to suggest things they actually use.
Popularity: 14% [?]
February 21st, 2007
Popularity: 27% [?]
February 21st, 2007
The Dilbert Blog
This blog, written by Dilbert author Scott Adams has quickly become one of my favorite blogs. Scott generally posts once each morning. He is incredibly witty, often writing what he has dubbed “Philosotainment.” These Philosotainment posts are either moronic/antagonistic or thought-provoking; depending on your perspective. I don’t take it too seriously and am definitely on the thought-provoking side of his audience. He covers an array of topics, often returning to creationism, free will, and business topics. One great post to get started with, titled Good News Day, describes how he lost and regained his voice:
My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection.
Popularity: 8% [?]
February 20th, 2007
Fear of flying: Welcome aboard
This parody of a pre-flight safety announcement from Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is includes everything that has run through my mind while waiting through the standard airline announcement and much more.
Water landing:
Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero.
Seat belts:
Also, please keep your seat belt fastened when seated, even if the seat-belt light is not illuminated. This is to protect you from the risk of clear-air turbulence, a rare but extremely nasty form of disturbance that can cause severe injury. Imagine the heavy food trolleys jumping into the air and bashing into the overhead lockers, and you will have some idea of how nasty it can be.
Mobile phones:
On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.
Popularity: 8% [?]
February 9th, 2007
everyday
Noah took a picture of himself from about arms length everyday for over six years. He then strung these 2,356 photos into a five minute video set to piano music. The result is surprisingly captivating as you see Noah age from twenty years to twenty six years old. You can see time go by as his hair and clothing change from day to day while his haunting dark eyes stare straight ahead throughout.
Apprently Noah plans to keep it up:
I would like to request that whoever is around when I die take my final photo.
Popularity: 18% [?]
February 8th, 2007
Monster Operatives
Monster Operatives is a fake reality series about a team of “agents” hunting vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. The series is surprisingly well written and decently acted. It includes action sequences as the operatives fight creatures of the night and video funny video confessionals from the operatives. There are currently seventeen episodes at about five minutes long each.
a mix between Kevin Smith, X-Files, and Cops
Popularity: 17% [?]
February 7th, 2007
Dangerous Beauty: The Art of the Shiv
This is a fascinating and frightening gallery of prisoner made shivs.
From Wikipedia:
A shiv (from the Romani word chiv) is a slang term for a sharp or pointed implement used as an improvised knife-like weapon. The shiv is the favored weapon of inmates in prisons across the world. It is famous for its versatility - a shiv can be anything from a glass shard with cloth wrapped around one end to form a handle, to a razorblade stuck in the end of a toothbrush, to a sharpened spoon. Some inmates have even sharpened the ends of pork chop bones to make them into weapons.
There are some innovative designs here made from very limited resources. The shivs in this gallery were confiscated more than twenty years ago from New Jersey’s Rahway Prison (now East Jersey State Penitentiary), a maximum-security facility that houses more than 1,500 inmates serving sentences of twenty-five years to life. Prison is a scary place!
Popularity: 14% [?]
February 2nd, 2007
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