Michael Jackson fans are committing suicide.
“Let me tell you about the time I interviewed Michael Jackson.”
Jackson episode of ‘The Simpsons’ to air on Sunday.
Michael Jackson White by Paul McCarthy.
Quincy Jones on Michael Jackson.
List of the world’s best-selling albums. #1 Michael Jackson’s Thriller, over 100 million copies. #2 AC/DC’s Back in Black, 45 million copies…
New Zealand airline issues nude safety video. The cabin crew’s uniforms are nothing but body paint.
Oklahoma woman accepted a box of Frito-Lay chips in exchange for oral sex.
India decriminalized homosexuality. Homosexuality is still punishable by death in five countries.
Obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year.
McDonald’s conquered France—its second-biggest market in the world.
What is especially surprising is the powerful link between physical activity and mental acuity. Staying fit helps us keep cognition more robust as well.
Study shows US seniors ’smarter’ than English seniors. The finding is surprising because older people in the US are known to suffer more from cardiovascular risk factors and diseases, which are generally associated with more cognitive decline and poorer mental function.
A major impediment in the fight against cancer is that most research grants go to projects unlikely to break much ground.
The United States is experiencing what Japan did in the 1990s, but seven times faster.
A new network architecture could dramatically reduce the radiation exposure from cell phones.
Malcom Gladwell on Chris Anderson’s new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.” Related: Anderson defends himself by saying it was hard to figure out how to attribute to Wikipedia, since its entries are subject to constant changes, so he didn’t.
Sexist jokes favor the mental mechanisms that justify violence against women.
Pondering whether work delivers real meaning or just keeps us out of trouble.
Dan started playing online poker full time, made money and quit college.
Prince Walid bin Talal and Bill Gates bought the Four Seasons company in 2007, for $3.8 billion.
Email logs can provide advance warning of an organisation reaching crisis point. The number of active email cliques, defined as groups in which every member has had direct email contact with every other member, jumped from 100 to almost 800 around a month before the December 2001 collapse.
The price of a gram of cocaine in different countries.
“At this point, Farrah has to die,” he said. “It’s the only cover left for her.” Needless to say, she’s missed her chance. The Eclipsed Celebrity Death Club.
Blacks in Space. If sci-fi is the future, why is it so white?
Armed bandits targeted a Brooklyn day care center where the owners ran a drug den in the basement, with a 10-pound marijuana stash and more than $100,000 incash. About a dozen children, ages 1 to 10, were napping when the robbers - posing as parents - entered the facility.
Blackout ‘77 - A Night To Remember: The Official U.S. Collector’s Edition.
A massive upward trend: Temperature since 1880.
Why left to right punches are more aggressive, powerful and shocking.
Does microwaving kill nutrients in food? Is microwaving safe?
Ten things you didn’t know about your resume.
“The Amazing Girlfriend Manager” (Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch).
New kid. (video)
Stripping alive is not OK. (video)
Many people are confused about what exactly a “coif” is.
Canadian tween calls out 50 Cent for “whoring” himself with all his endorsement deals.
I don’t know where to begin. I didn’t read Homer’s Iliad. But i read “the Odyssey,” the sequel. A long time ago. I believe that at the end of the Iliad, Ulysses leaves Troy to return home to Ithaca, where his family and his fans are waiting. The trip (the “odyssey”) takes almost 10 years during which he meets (a) junkies, (b) Circe who turns men into swines, (c) alluring rowdy creatures who turn out to be killers (half bird half lesbian internationally known as “the sirens”), (d) john rambo-esque giants with unpronounceable names, (e) etc, and (f) Calypso, a sea-nymph interested in witchcraft who used to have a career in porn jacking off sea elephants before focusing on wanabe heroes. All bitches when not creeps, with the notable exception of (g) Nausicaa, who is awesome and will ultimately save Ulysses.
I got interested in Calypso (from the Greek kalupso, “i will conceal”)—technically the second main character of the book given the arithmetic fact that on a 9 year-trip, Ulysses spends 7 years in captivity on Calypso’s island.
Calypso falls in love with Ulysses, and like Terence Stamp in The Collector, she entertains and tries to seduce him, to force his love. It doesn’t work. Ulysses isn’t interested. “I want to move the hell out” are the only words he knows. It seems it’ll take a bigger effort to have him for ever, and to be loved in return.
Notwithstanding the lack of reciprocity, and, even more depressing, Ulysses’ bad graces, Calypso’s libido doesn’t fade, or even plateau, she wants him so bad, he’s so handsome and veiny…
By the way, for his trip back home, Ulysses would have to sail and face the crowded seas, the lures and troubles and dangers and attacking freaks, he would have to risk his life, to get into a lot of “does god exist?” kind of games. On the other hand, on Calypso’s island, he’s safe.
However, this assured safety proved insufficient to decide Ulysses’ love, as were the entertaining sessions. Perhaps a bonus package would make matters easier? One dreaded sunny day, Calypso stakes it all and offers immortality to Ulysses, and she adds eternal youth, on top of abundance of love, seaside dinners, star gazing, music… (clearly Homer had access to decent mdma.)
Are you starting to get the picture? (maybe someone’s going to read this and think, “I can totally relate”) (1) staying young for ever, but staying with Calypso for ever too (you gotta be in it to win it!), or (2) risking your life to go back home, and reunite with your wife.
What needs to be underlined here is that as soon as Ulysses gets back to Ithaca, he’ll be celebrated as a hero, he’ll be worshiped (for his victory over Troy, the trojan horse, etc). And we know that the laws of megalomania suggest that being admired by a crowd is a strong plus.
Now, draw a line in the sand. Immortality/mortality. In the current context, accepting immortality means staying on that island, which means being hidden from the world, “concealed” (hence Calypso’s name), which equals being invincible and eternally young, maybe happy, but with nobody except Calypso knowing about it. It means being forgotten, ending up Nobody. Goodbye hero’s career (heroes’ exploits must be known in order to be praised). It’s starting to look like a really bad deal. And so of course Ulysses refuses, and chooses death (one day he’ll die) over being immortal. What matters to him, is being immortal in people’s mind, in books, in History. Not on that island, not only in Calypso’s eyes.
Celebrity the new drug.
It sounds weird, but if you want to be eternal, accepting immortality from a sea-slut should be at the very bottom of your list.
Ulysses: “I’m glad someone invented death.”
Personally, I wouldn’t mind being dead to the entire universe if instead i was immortal on my little island, in total boredom with my calypso-loving-dude. But maybe that’s just me.
{ stereohell }
photo { Dennis Stenild | S Magazine, 1 }
… if everything that exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on ad infinitum.
photos { Grore Images }
San Francisco conceptual artist and journalist Jonathon Keats is trying to rejuvenate literature in the age of hyperspeed media by writing a story that will take a millennium to tell.
The catch? The story, printed on the cover of the recently released Infinity issue of Opium Magazine, is only nine words long.
“Given the printing process I’ve used, you can’t take in more than one word per century. That’s even slower than reading Proust,” said Keats, who has copyrighted his mind, tried to pass a Law of Identity and attempted to genetically engineer God. (…)
The cover is printed in a double layer of standard black ink, with an incrementally screened overlay masking the nine words. Exposed over time to ultraviolet light, the words will appear at different rates, supposedly one per century.
“The precise quantity of ink covering each word is different, so that the words will appear one at a time,” Keats said. “Provided that your copy of Opium is kept out in the open, and regularly exposed to sunlight over 1,000 years to be read progressively by the next dozen or so generations. Or very, very slowly if you happen to be Ray Kurzweil.”
photo { Grant Willing }
Assuming for a moment that birthdays are evenly distributed throughout the year, if you’re sitting in a room with forty people in it, what are the chances that two of those people have the same birthday?
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll ignore leap years. A reasonable, intelligent person might point out that the odds don’t reach 100% until there are 366 people in the room (the number of days in a year + 1)… and forty is about 11% of 366… so such a person might conclude that the odds of two people in forty sharing a birthday are about 11%. In reality, due to Math’s convoluted reasoning, the odds are about 90%. This phenomenon is known as the Birthday Paradox.
washington, DC craigslist
Actor needed for emotional role – One day high pay
Date: 2009-04-17, 12:52PM EDTMy deceased aunt gave my two kids a Cocker Spaniel a few months back. The dog has been a terror and become overwhelming for me. I am a single father raising two young children. I cannot face telling the kids that the dog must go. I have found a good home for the dog, and just need someone to transport the dog, and play the villain.
Premise: You will be the dog walker hired by daddy (me) to walk Skittles. I will introduce you to the kids, and you will tell them you are going to help Skittles get her exercise when Daddy is too busy to walk her. At that point you will walk Skittles to your car and take her to her new family 20 minutes from my place. Then return holding just a leash. The story will be that Skittles broke free of the leash and took off. At this point prepare for crying, things being thrown at you, and possibly cursing. My kids are young and dramatic, their girls.
Pay will be $500. The job will take roughly 2 hours at best.
This job is ideal for an actor looking to diversify their role base, or someone who genuinely likes to make children cry. Acting experience is a plus, but not necessary. Please inform me of any prior experience in this kind of situation.
photo { Mark Ryden }
A 16th-century lawyer, Hippolytus de Marsiliis, noticed how water slowly dripping onto a rock eventually created a hollow in the stone. It got him thinking: What would happen if a human being’s forehead was subjected to the same treatment?
Legend claims it eventually drives the person crazy. For reasons unclear, the procedure came to be known as “Chinese water torture.”
photo { Swimming Pools photographed by J Bennett Fitts | more }
I begin my day reading the news and listening to Finneran’s Forum, a local, early-morning broadcast concerning all things Boston politics here on Boston’s WRKO. I then work my way through the CNN, The Huffington Post, Politico, New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Herald websites—in that order. I listen to NPR’s late morning shows and then switch to Rush Limbaugh. After Rush, it’s back to NPR while I read whatever magazines I have delivered: Time, Improper Bostonian, The Atlantic, Wired, Newsweek…
I think you get the point: I’m well-informed. And by “well-informed,” I mean that I get my information from a myriad of sources in order to keep myself Zen.
So would someone please tell me why I know absolutely nothing about almost everything? Sure, I’m able to digest and metabolize the information I receive on a daily basis, but by the end of the day, I’m no better off for it.
illustration { FlipFlopFlyin }
{ Weng Weng is Agent 00 in For Your Height Only, 1979 | BadMovies.org | Review + video | Amazon }
A research project cuts the electric cord, wirelessly charging an electronic device.
The idea of wireless power transfer is, of course, not new. Physicist Nikola Tesla proposed it in the late 19th century. However, funding for his projects ran out at about the same time that the modern world decided to take a wired approach. And for more than a century, wires have done the job well enough. But with the advent of portable electronics that seem to need constant charging, wireless electricity is coming back in style, and researchers are exploring ways to make it practical. In addition, plug-in electric vehicles are another motivating factor, as plugging in a car (or forgetting to plug one in) is a burden that consumers may not want to bear. (…)
Intel’s wireless power project uses magnetic fields to transfer energy.
related { From sand to silicon in ten easy steps: Discover how cutting edge science transforms a day at the beach into Intel Core i7 processors. How silicon chips are made. }
