flickering pictures

Just a little stub of a post today — I’m swamped at the moment, and I my typing fingers need a rest after that little novella the other day on press freedom in Gaza. A new mall in Nanjing, China will apparently host only stores that sell knockoff brands, such as “McDnoald’s,” “Pizza Huh” and [...]

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I’m a little pressed for time, and I didn’t have the foresight to set up a delayed post last night, so just a little one today: Hardware giant Logitech has just announced the sale of its one billionth mouse, meaning it has made one mouse for every 6.7 people on the planet. If a mouse [...]

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Chinese astronauts walked through space this week, the Russian and Venezuelan navies staged ominous joint war games, Myanmar freed 9,000 political prisoners, and a man flew across the English Channel with a jetpack and a parachute. But the only story in the news for the last few days has been the growing worldwide economic meltdown, [...]

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From an exchange between the eminently reasonable British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) and the lunatic hothead American Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), in the movie Dr. Strangelove (1964): Ripper: Mandrake? Mandrake: Yes, Jack? Ripper: Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water? Mandrake: Well, I can’t say I [...]

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The good people at FlowingData (I’m really getting hooked on that site) have put together a neato animated bar chart to show the ups and downs of gasoline prices across eight U.S. regions since April 1993. Back then, the price the pump was a mere $1.07 per gallon — or a piddling 28 cents per [...]

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Eight people have paid $1,000 each for an iPhone application called “I Am Rich” that does absolutely nothing except put a shining red ruby on your screen, signalling to people that you’ve got far more money and obnoxiousness than you know what to do with. From the Times: Cheaper than a Porsche, and arguably as [...]

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A California company called LS9 says it has done the impossible: come up with cheap, homegrown, renewable “carbon-negative” oil to satisfy the world’s growing fuel needs. With bug poo. From the Times: To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs -– very, very small ones –- so that when they feed on agricultural waste [...]

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[Edit: as of 14h15 EST, the site seems to be up and running again -- nice and speedy, too. I'm impressed.] As of 13h00 EST (10h00 PST), or right about the time this post is published, Firefox 3 will be unleashed upon the masses, and it’s apparently good. Really good. As if you needed another [...]

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According to BusinessWeek, microfibre rags can remove both dirt and germs, and clean “surfaces mechanically, not chemically, by scraping them with microscopic precision.” In fact, they completely eliminate the need for harsh chemicals like Tilex, Clorox, Windex, Ajax and all those other nasty cleaners that end in “x.” So why are the cabinets under our [...]

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I’m really not into fashion. When I can get away with it, I generally wear whatever’s clean and functional, and the sniff test occupies a hallowed place in my fashion decision-making process right between the have-I-worn-this-for-the-last-two-days test and the is-it-stained-anywhere-obvious test. Still, this man was a legend in his field, and his work has affected [...]

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