Sexy People

My friend Peter made me so happy this morning by pointing me to this site. Nothing else to say, because words would just ruin it.

Update: More pictures worth a thousand words—or a hundred thousand.

It's Like a Short Story Idea Generator

Anonymity is simultaneously one of the banes and blessings of the Internet. Some, such as political dissidents, use it to denounce tyranny while protecting themselves and their families from reprisals. Some cowards hide behind it to take pot shots at others that they are too weak to own up to. Whether you consider the anonymous cowards or dissidents depends on their context and your perspective.

One way Web anonymity is sometimes used is as an outlet for our demons and dirty laundry. SecretTweet enables anyone to anonymously post to Twitter. Reading through the posts, it's easy to understand why they already have around 12,000 followers on Twitter. The topic tag cloud is a catalog of raw human angst and emotion: politics, friendship, friend, debt, weight, work, church, parents, abuse, depression, affair, virgin, Love, job, pain, loss, wife, dating, loneliness, Friends, lonely, money, ex, life, health.

Posts are occasionally funny: "I think little richard is creepy as hell." Some are sexy: "We had sex on your sofa." Most rip the heart right out of you: "Your early dementia is killing me faster than it is killing you." Yet all of them are compelling because we, like the posters, are vulnerable and voyeuristic and exhibitionistic. In other words, all too human.

Hollywood Gets Better at Predicting Future

Less than a week after a Continental Airlines plane crashed into an Upstate New York home in a manner prefigured by the cult classic Donnie Darko, we learn from The Silicon Alley Insider that until recently IBM had a patent for a suit of armor that enabled the wearer to dodge bullets Neo-style.

I guess IBM pulled the patent once they realized that being thrashed around by a robotic suit trying to dodge bullets would break your neck and just as surely kill you as the bullets themselves.

Why Not Just Go to the Library?

The Andrew Vanacore of the AP reports that America's sour economy might provide an opportunity for otherwise dying dial-up Internet providers. Vanacore states:

Pew [Internet & American Life Project] estimates the average monthly bill for broadband users came to $34.50 in 2008. That means for the year, a NetZero subscriber [who pays $9.95 a month] would save nearly $300.

What Vanacore misses, though, is that we've gotten used to the higher connection speeds of broadband and all of the multimedia benefits they bring. Many people cannot imagine living without music or video downloads or the ability to send large attachments with email—all of which effectively cease as options with dial-up. More importantly, people have gotten use to such options being available to them at home whenever they want.

I grant that to some frugality—or even a more fundamental need to eat and pay rent—might trump the need for instant-entertainment access. But then why not just get rid of Internet access altogether, use your local library's computers and high-speed access, and save the additional $120 a year? With library attendances across the nation hitting record numbers and still on the rise, I suspect that's precisely what the public is doing.

Books Are the Reason I Am Poor

Alastair Harper gives the lie to the current popular consensus that somehow books are better for us and the children than newer media, such as video games.

Although he wrongly asserts in the Guardian's Books Blog that a "book is as neutral as any container"—all media contain inherent biases that force us to think and view the world in a certain manner—he rightly observes that no lifelong bookworm he's ever known spends "weekends rolling in little pits of money in penthouses."

And as for the supposed moral superiority of books:

[B]efore I started reading, I was a rather subservient, slow little boy who never really did anything wrong, but never did much right either. Books inspired me to be very naughty indeed; and, with the simple moral logic of youth, I perceived them to be on my side, not authority's, which was what made me want to read them.

High School Library, the Game

My friend Albert brought this to my attention: High School Library.

There's not too much say about this, except I find it fascinating that a new medium, such as the Flash video game, promotes such an outdated image of librarianship.

Bart Simpson, Scientologist

Now here is an interesting question: Can the voice of a character be trademarked? If so, who owns the rights to it, the voice actor or the show on which that voice became famous?

This question might be answered in the coming months, because Nancy Cartwright, the voice of one of the most famous cartoon voices in television history, used her distinctive vocal rendition of Bart Simpson in a robocall promoting Scientology, which she apparently has been a slave to follower of for many years.

In case the Village Voice's post on the subject is stolen by Thetans mysteriously disappears, or you're too lazy to link through, I offer the YouTube clip: