Death was what the Atlantic wall and Siegfried line were all about. Whenever I came across these grim fortifications along France's Channel coast and German border, I realised I was exploring a set of concrete tombs whose dark ghosts haunted the brutalist architecture so popular in Britain in the 1950s. Out of favour now, modernism survives in every high-rise sink estate of the time, in the Barbican development and the Hayward Gallery in London, in new towns such as Cumbernauld and the ziggurat residential blocks at the University of East Anglia.

Brilliant.

JG Ballard on modernists and death

Here's the latest news about performance artist Rachel Bevilacqua (AKA Rev. Magdalen), a SubGenius reverend who lost custody of her 10-year-son after a pink judge saw photos of a SubGenius convention she participated in.

Boing Boing: Update on SubGenius child custody case

This is the entire Scientology South Park Episode.

YouTube - South Park - Scientology Episode

When the trend is not your friend: Do not catch a falling knife !

The Wall Street Journal (free) looks at the most recent Presidential polling data.

There are pawns being placed to prevent us from falling into a trap...

Growing Anxiety About Iraq Threatens Republicans

Something extremely weird is going on over on Digg.com. Today for the third time in a short period, a story got promoted to the front page where a blogger raises a baseless rumour about Google buying Sun. And as is explained further down, it appears that this is the result of a coordinated effort to fool Digg into promoting the story.

Here is the money quote:

"I don't think it's possible to game Digg because it requires such a mass of people who have been vetted through our algorithms." - Digg CEO

Sure dude. Thats not a story thats going to work for very long...

Silicon Valley Sleuth: Scoop: Digg is used for Sun stock manipulation

"It was like we put LSD in the punch at the school prom and it was just way more than they can handle."

"But people do not want to get their minds blown by Walt Disney Studios, they want to be reassured by them. Young people who were 10 and 12 weren't aware of the politics so they went to the movie and just dug it. But people who were 35 and had two kids - they bought their tickets, sat down, and it just ricocheted off the back of their heads and they couldn't handle it at all."

So Tron didn't make much money in the box office, but its clearly an important film that a lot people know about. I wonder how much it made from secondary releases.

Tron's World | Tom's Hardware UK and Ireland

After a year in the making... researching, number crunching, layouts, stock gathering, and lots of procrastinating, i am proud to say it is finally done.

the SUPERDEVIATION, or "spot" as it was known to some, comes now with the final title.

Death and Taxes: A visual look at where your tax dollars go.

This visualization is very interesting. There is a deliberate attempt to remove social security and medicare from the picture here. I wish they were added back in. I also wish this kind of visualization was available for every budget year.

deviantART: Death and Taxes: ... by ~mibi

I'm a graduate student in the Kennedy School at Harvard. This short, anonymous, 5-minute survey is part of a research project that seeks to get a better understanding of why people use -- and how they value -- these collaborative news sites.

Collaborative News Survey

Creamy pink snow has covered the northern regions of Russia’s Maritime territory, news agencies reported Monday.

Creamy Pink Snow Covers Russian Region - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM

If you remove Garfield's thought balloons, it goes from an unfunny comic to a rather sad, poignant story about a lonely man who has wasted his life talking to his cat.

Creepy.

lakini_malich: Jon seems crazy to be talking to his cat like that.