Spirals

Did you guys see this?

Apparently it was just a failed Russian missile launch. But still, wow.

Background & Photos

Auto-Tune the News

I didn’t know what to think about these at first, but I have decided I like them. There are 4 so far (with varying levels of quality).

Zodiac: Guy Ward Hendrickson

New outrageous news on the Zodiac killings that scared the shit out of the bay area in the ’60s. After two years of examining evidence, a group of lawyers are came forward a few hours ago to give the public a name: Guy Ward Hendrickson.  Hendrickson’s daughter, Deborah Perez is claming she wrote some of the Zodiac’s letters, has a pair of glasses from one of the last known murders, and came along with her father for a couple of the murders. The problems with this story are that Perez claims that she just figured all this out in 2007, and she has a documentary coming out next year about, guess what, the Zodiac.  All the evidence is being turned in to the SFPD, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Short version with all the highlights here.

Legitimate journalism here.

UPDATE:

Today’s new is that Deborah Perez is a little nuts.  The Chronicle interviewed her half sister and she’s denying everything. Then there’s news from the SFist that you’ll just have to see for yourself HERE because it’s that outrageous. You’ve got to admit that the story she cooked up was entertaining at the very least.

Big day for news

CERN scientists discover cell that started the Big Bang

The entire internet is being rebooted

The Guardian switches to Twitter “Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters.”

Google introduces Auto Pilot for Gmail and Google Chat.

Even more news here

The Swirlies are back!

After a five year hiatus, The Swirlies have reemerged and will be playing a few shows over on this side of the continent. I will be going Friday and posting my thoughts in response to this post if anyone is interested. I believe I turned at least a few of you onto the swirlies, yeah? Anyhow, get their older stuff here for free. The one you want is They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of Salons. Enjoy!

more and more

Torrenting the New York Times?

Time has a nice piece about how to fund print journalism.  With journalism being an interesting topic for journalists, I’m sure you’ve at least seen a few items on catastrophic failure of print media and how no one can afford bureaus that can adequately cover the news.  I mean the Chronicle might be loosing a million dollars a week, and it’s the only game in town, as far as SF proper.

I’ve heard people say the Goog might feel charitable and buy a paper (Google’s not a charity and a newspaper isn’t a way to make money), or we should let papers fail and have everyone get their news from bloggers…

A real solution hasn’t come out of any of this brainstorming, but Time gets close.  Internet ad revenue is falling. It really wasn’t paying the bills anyways.  The only real solution might be for there to be an iTunes News.

The article points out that even as the audiences are growing, the papers are still bleeding money.  The news is still considered valuable, but now we’re used to getting it for free.  Many of the new readers are young, and have grown up with free access to information.

Micropayments seem to be one of the few viable solutions, but who’s to stop me from going to download today’s paper illegally.  I mean, it’ll take seconds.  Its not an HD rip of Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties or anything.  iTunes did get people to pay for music downloads, but as far as I know, it was people who didn’t know how to use Napster in the first place.  This will be a hard paradigm to shift.

Well, all that ranting and no solutions from me either.  Man, I need to get a job.

9am, C-SPAN and Me

Get your ass up early and swich to the cable access channel/C-SPAN/MSNBC to wach some free political drama.  Roland Burris is going to go up to Harry Reid and give him the finger, and I’m gonna love it.  I hope.  The swearing in is at noon EST, but there might be some shuffling before then.  Really,  it’ll probably all be pretty borring.  But watch this guy work it.  Here’s hoping.

The Korean Candidate

Two Items:

Many young democrats will try to ‘ride the top of the ticket,’ getting a bounce because they’re on the same ballot as Barack Obama.  This is a hallowed political tradition in the U.S.  In Brazil, the tradition calls for putting whatever name you want to call yourself on the ballot.  Six politicians figured ‘Barack Obama’ was a popular enough name and are running as Barack Obama.

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Kim Jong Il has maybe had a stroke and no one outside of North Korea knows who’s maybe running the country/military while Kim is in his coma.

Or he’s been dead since ‘03 and they’re just using body doubles.  Toshimitsu Shigemura a professor from Waseda University in Tokyo thinks so.  And look at this side by side…

This ones a bit small I know.  More compelling photos below.

One Good Reason to Be Home

I cannot believe that this I didn’t know about this for all these years.

World’s Largest Burrito – La Costena, Mountain View CA 1997

More impressive pics here, and here.

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Get your downloaders ready.  Music coming up this afternoon.

Earth Screams

Here’s what the planet earth sounds like. It’s pretty awful.  Sadly, I couldn’t get a big juicy MP3, but you’ll be able to get the picture.

Thanks George.