Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
We had a bottle of this Bone Dry Red Cabernet at my in-laws' home in Kentucky. It's from Elk Creek Vineyards in Owenton, Kentucky. I don't really drink wine, so I can't comment on its quality. But I think the label is just fantastic.
Bobby Farrell, frontman of 1970s disco legend Boney M., died in St. Petersburg yesterday. December 29 also marked the 94th anniversary of the death of Rasputin, the subject of their most successful hit.
Rah rah Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen.
Now there was a cat that really was gone.
Rah rah Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine.
It was a shame how he carried on.
Boney M was also the first Western band to be invited to perform in the Soviet Union, where they performed in Red Square.
Raw footage from "Wired In," a never-completed series on the technological trends and innovations of the early 1980s. Here is unedited tape of Bill Murray doing takes for a promo, shot in NYC. He rants about technology.
• "People have hands... Watches should have hands."
• "Who in the hell is thinkin' up this stuff? High tech stuff."
• "I don't mind robots. I mean, R2D2 was alright. He was a fine actor."
Denis Dutton, who founded and edited the website aldaily.com, passed away on 28 December 2010. Dutton was born in 1944, and was also a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He was a founding member of the New Zealand Skeptics. Although Dutton is "nearly irreplaceable" in running Arts & Letters Daily, a longtime collaborator will continue to produce the site.
The light beaming from above reveals a tower of calcite on the cave floor that is more than 200 feet tall, smothered by ferns, palms, and other jungle plants. Stalactites hang around the edges of the massive skylight like petrified icicles. Vines dangle hundreds of feet from the surface; swifts are diving and cutting in the brilliant column of sunshine. The tableau could have been created by an artist imagining how the world looked millions of years ago.
Upcoming Appearances • April 2 at Skeptics in the Pub, Boston, Mass.— 7:00 pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square. Please RSVP. •April 4 at MIT: "Shedding Light, Online", a discussion about how blogging and a dynamic audience helped shape my book, Before the Lights Go Out—4:00 pm in Maseeh Hall. Please RSVP. • April 6 at Carnegie Mellon University: More details to come
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs • April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—3:30 pm in the Rocky Mountain Innosphere. • April 19 at The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis: Book Launch Party! Come enjoy snacks, a presentation by me, and some fun with the Bakken's Leyden jar.
• April 21 at Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul: Earth Day Tweetup event with Will Steger and Sean Otto—events run 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• May 2 at University of California, Berkeley: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—6:00 pm, location TBA.
• May 3 at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter—Lunchtime lecture, time and location TBA.
• May 3 at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito, Cali.—7:00 pm.
• May 30 in New York City—Panel on local and DIY energy with the New America Foundation
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum • July 5-8 at CONvergence in Minneapolis, Minn.—exact times and dates TBA
Upcoming Appearances • April 2 at Skeptics in the Pub, Boston, Mass.— 7:00 pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square. Please RSVP. •April 4 at MIT: "Shedding Light, Online", a discussion about how blogging and a dynamic audience helped shape my book, Before the Lights Go Out—4:00 pm in Maseeh Hall. Please RSVP. • April 6 at Carnegie Mellon University: More details to come
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs • April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—3:30 pm in the Rocky Mountain Innosphere. • April 19 at The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis: Book Launch Party! Come enjoy snacks, a presentation by me, and some fun with the Bakken's Leyden jar.
• April 21 at Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul: Earth Day Tweetup event with Will Steger and Sean Otto—events run 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• May 2 at University of California, Berkeley: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—6:00 pm, location TBA.
• May 3 at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter—Lunchtime lecture, time and location TBA.
• May 3 at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito, Cali.—7:00 pm.
• May 30 in New York City—Panel on local and DIY energy with the New America Foundation
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum • July 5-8 at CONvergence in Minneapolis, Minn.—exact times and dates TBA
This lovely time-elapsed photo, taken during the August 2010 Perseid meteor shower, only shows one actual meteor. If you start in the middle of the photo, and work your way to the right, the meteor is just above the second-largest tree, clearly moving at a different angle than all the star tracks. Though the photo doesn't show it, the actual Perseid was pretty impressive, according to photographer Darren Kirby:
Despite a winning forecast the afternoon was quite overcast, and I was afraid viewing it may be a bust. However, at about 8:00pm the skies cleared, so [friends] and I took a drive up to Sunset Main Road near the Coquihalla Connector summit to check it out. We were there from about midnight til about 2:00am, and we did see an incredible show. Apparently it wasn't as good as some years, but I was still very impressed. The meteors were shooting off every few seconds or so at times. One was so big it lit up the sky like lightning, and left a tracer than remained in the sky for a good minute.
Over at Sleepy City, an absolutely amazing photo essay of the Paris Metro including all the stations you probably know about, many you don't, and some that have not been accessed by the outside world for more than 50 years. The gallery includes shots of vacant trains sitting at many of these unused stations, including some of the original 1903 Spragues. I could look at photos like this all day long. (Thanks Harold!)
From The Smoking Gun: "As part of an international criminal probe into computer attacks launched this month against perceived corporate enemies of WikiLeaks, the FBI has raided a Texas business and seized a computer server that investigators believe was used to launch a massive electronic attack on PayPal." More details on the firm in question, and another hosting facility in California the FBI is investigating, at the bottom of the piece.
Upcoming Appearances • April 2 at Skeptics in the Pub, Boston, Mass.— 7:00 pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square. Please RSVP. •April 4 at MIT: "Shedding Light, Online", a discussion about how blogging and a dynamic audience helped shape my book, Before the Lights Go Out—4:00 pm in Maseeh Hall. Please RSVP. • April 6 at Carnegie Mellon University: More details to come
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs • April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—3:30 pm in the Rocky Mountain Innosphere. • April 19 at The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis: Book Launch Party! Come enjoy snacks, a presentation by me, and some fun with the Bakken's Leyden jar.
• April 21 at Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul: Earth Day Tweetup event with Will Steger and Sean Otto—events run 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• May 2 at University of California, Berkeley: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—6:00 pm, location TBA.
• May 3 at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter—Lunchtime lecture, time and location TBA.
• May 3 at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito, Cali.—7:00 pm.
• May 30 in New York City—Panel on local and DIY energy with the New America Foundation
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum • July 5-8 at CONvergence in Minneapolis, Minn.—exact times and dates TBA
The combination of soot-spewing smokestacks and prevailing winds out of the West might explain why industrial cities in the Northern Hemisphere so often have their poorest parts of town on the East Side. (Via Eric M. Johnson)
Wikileaks defector Daniel Domscheit-Berg, formerly aka Daniel Schmidt, gave a previously unannounced talk earlier today at the Chaos Communication Congress taking place in Germany. Daniel is a former spokesperson and "number two guy" at Wikileaks; he left the organization after a highly-publicized falling-out with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and vowed to create a Wikileaks alternative, Openleaks. He is also writing a tell-all book about his time at Wikileaks, due out in mid-Feb. 2011, likely in advance of Julian Assange's own memoirs.
At the moment, I can't find an archived recording or slides, but information activist/freelance reporter Heather Brooke was live-tweeting it earlier (she was also at the Assange court hearing in London, for context; she's been on WL-related stories for some time). According to her live-tweeted notes, Daniel said:
• There were many bottlenecks in Wikileaks. Openleaks aims to solve that problem by decentralizing.
• Wikileaks has its place, but cloning it will not lead to more leak projects. A different approach is needed.
• Idealism must carry any leak project. The commercial motive isn't sustainable. An academic model would lack technical expertise.
• Openleaks will focus on how to get more leaks. It will be up to others to open up the publication side.
We had a bottle of this Bone Dry Red Cabernet at my in-laws' home in Kentucky. It's from Elk Creek Vineyards in Owenton, Kentucky. I don't really drink wine, so I can't comment on its quality. But I think the label is just fantastic. 
Denis Dutton, who founded and edited the website 
, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.
