Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand, When we with daisies lie, That commerce will continue, And trades as briskly fly. Read the rest
Late-stage journalism
Someone cosplayed the Javits Center at this year's New York Comic-Con (which is held at the Javits Center)
Tired: cosplaying the carpet at Dragoncon (even if you do get bonus points for attracting spurious copyright threats from the venue!); Wired: cosplaying the venue itself!. (via Neatorama) Read the rest
Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" goes open-access
It's been 15 years since the publication of Steven Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, a mindblowing, back-breaking 1,200-page book that (sort of) says the whole universe is made up of recursive fractals, also noteworthy for the frequent repetition of the phrase "A new kind of science" in its early chapters. Read the rest
TED talk about remixes and appropriating made by remixing and appropriating TED talks about remixing and appropriating
Paul Fuog pieced this together out of 15 TED talks: it's pretty great, except what's with the low-energy narration? It's not very TED-like. Read the rest
Giant 3D printed D20s to hold your D20s (and other dice!)
3D Creations' 3D Printed D20 Dice Box are giant D20s that you store your D20s (and other polyhedra) in. Read the rest
I put some Doom in your Doom so you can Doom while you Doom
Fans of recursion rejoice: someone has put a playable version of Doom... inside Doom.
Ecstatic NSA spooks delight in spying on spies who are spying on spies
A tranche of fresh Snowden leaks published in Der Spiegel by Laura Poitras, Jacob Appelbaum and others detail the NSA's infiltration of other countries' intelligence services, detailing the bizarre, fractal practices of "fourth-party collection" and "fifth-party collection." Read the rest
"Citation needed"'s Wikipedia entry
Regrettably, the Wikipedia entry for "Citation needed" ("a common editorial remark on Wikipedia, which has become used to refer to Wikipedia in wider popular culture") doesn't include any actual assertions tagged with [citation needed].
On July 4, 2007, the webcomic xkcd published a comic which depicted a protestor holding up a "citation needed" sign during a political speech.[7]
In late 2010, banners with the template appeared at the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,[8] and in February 2011, at a more serious demonstration in Berlin against German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who had been embroiled in a scandal after it was discovered he had plagiarised portions of his doctoral thesis.[9]
The New York Times has commented on the propensity of some "stickler editors" for adding the template to unattributed facts,[10] and has used the phrase in an online headline.[11]
(via JWZ) Read the rest
Anti-Super-PAC Super PAC
George Soros's son Jonathan is running a Super PAC that will run attack ads targeting candidates who oppose abolishing Super PACs. Read the rest
Recursive D&D dungeon is a procedural dungeon-generation system
Tavis sez, "A mind-blowingly recursive poster that represents the AD&D rules for procedural dungeon generation as a flowchart which is drawn as a dungeon. From the The Mule Abides blog at NYC's intersection between role-playing games, the gallery art scene, and how Kickstarter can jam 'em together. Cory's linked the Mule before as HOWTO have a D&D party for 8-year-olds; also featured in this post is a nifty Kickstarter for the first publication from the Play-Generated Map and Documents Archive, similarly linked for Homemade D&D module, 1981."
(Thanks, Travis!) Read the rest
Recursive phishing email
Bruce Sterling received a phishing email purporting to be a followup to a report of a phishing email. Coming soon: a phishing email purporting to be a phishing email purporting to be a followup to a report of a phishing email.
US-CERT is forwarding the following Phishing email that we received to the APWG for further investigation and processing.
Please check attached report for the details and email source
US-CERT has opened a ticket and assigned incident number PH0000005007349. As your investigation progresses updates may be sent at your discretion to soc@us-cert.gov and should reference PH0000002359885.
Phishing email arrives disguised as phishing email Read the rest
Top ten top ten top ten lists
In celebration of the new year, David "Everything is Miscellaneous" Weinberger has written up his "Top Ten Top Ten Top Ten list" -- a list of ten great lists of top ten lists. He also includes seven articles about why we like top ten lists.
The Top Ten Top Ten Lists of All TimeSmosh’s Top Ten Top Ten Lists of 2011
Top Ten 2011 Top Ten Lists about CleanTech
Top Ten of top ten horror movie lists
NYT Top Ten Top Ten Lists for 2011
Top Ten Top Ten Lists about Agile Management
Top Ten Top Ten Video Lists of 2011
Top Ten Christmas Stuff Top Ten Lists
Law and Order builds replica of Zucotti Park; Occupiers occupy it
Law and Order was shooting an episode about Occupy Wall Street, and the production team built a perfect replica of Zucotti Park, as it was before the brutal eviction of the protesters by NYPD. So members of the original Occupy camp went and occupied it.
As of about 1:00 a.m., the police had begun to push protesters out of the park and dismantle the set. "NYPD does not respect Law And Order," the crowd chanted cheekily. At one point, an occupier asked an officer, "Are these real barricades, or a set piece?"
Within about an hour police had cleared out the protesters, which was less time than it took clear the real Zuccotti, but probably more than they'd need on a TV show. "You guys just cleared a fake Zuccotti Park," the tweeter @NewYorkist told a police officer, who countered that they'd done no such thing: "We didn't clear a fake Zuccotti," he insisted. "They're taking the set down."
VIDEO: OWS Occupies Movie-Set Replica Of Itself, for Real
(Thanks, Mmechanic!) Read the rest
