You give humanity a creative tool, the first thing a human will do is - well - make a tool with it. Since the Spore demo’s release, it’s become a bukkake wave sweeping the web: comedy pornographic images via Spore. Spornography - aka “Sporn”. Has it reached a climax yet? We don’t know, but we think it’s as good a time as any to stop and survey the lie of the land. And, yes, it’s sticky.

Beneath the cut you’ll find gathered a large selection of the phalluses, the pseudo-sex-acts and general disturbing animated parts of the gamers’ subconcious. For God’s sake, don’t click it at work.

Right - we’re dividing these into loose categories. There’s certainly some we’ve missed - there’s a brilliant missionary position one I can’t find again - but it’ll do for now. If you’ve got a favourite, please, post it in the comments thread and we’ll work it in later.

A bunch have been posted to YouTube and have been taken down due to terms-of-use
violations.

The funniest one is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPKvwd9vJZY

--timball

NSFW: A Beginners Guide To Sporn | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

a guy I met at hacdc has a really rad selection of bookmarks.

--timball

myself248's bookmarks on del.icio.us

HacDC is a non-profit organization and space dedicated to technical, artistic and social collaboration. We are technologists, tinkerers, crafters and codemonkeys who call DC home. We collaborate across disciplines for the benefit of cultural, charitable and scientific causes. We create, learn and teach as a group, inviting our neighbors around the block and around the world to join us!

HacDC is fun. Thus far we've had a python sprint, a lock-picking class and built some rather impressive shelves. At some point we'll have to play "the wtf-box" cause there's enough old and whacky equipment to be dangerous.

I've joined, you should too!

--timball

HACDC

The Landsat Program

The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Since 1972, Landsat satellites have collected information about Earth from space. This science, known as remote sensing, has matured with the Landsat Program.

Landsat satellites have taken specialized digital photographs of Earth’s continents and surrounding coastal regions for over three decades, enabling people to study many aspects of our planet and to evaluate the dynamic changes caused by both natural processes and human practices.

Awesome... the landsat program now has made available it's data in an awesome java based format!

--timball

The Landsat Program

Which brings us back to the “why bother” question and how we might better answer it. The reasons not to bother are many and compelling, at least to the cheap-energy mind. But let me offer a few admittedly tentative reasons that we might put on the other side of the scale:

If you do bother, you will set an example for other people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change, markets for all manner of green products and alternative technologies will prosper and expand. (Just look at the market for hybrid cars.) Consciousness will be raised, perhaps even changed: new moral imperatives and new taboos might take root in the culture. Driving an S.U.V. or eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded as outrages to human conscience. Not having things might become cooler than having them. And those who did change the way they live would acquire the moral standing to demand changes in behavior from others — from other people, other corporations, even other countries.

All of this could, theoretically, happen. What I’m describing (imagining would probably be more accurate) is a process of viral social change, and change of this kind, which is nonlinear, is never something anyone can plan or predict or count on. Who knows, maybe the virus will reach all the way to Chongqing and infect my Chinese evil twin. Or not. Maybe going green will prove a passing fad and will lose steam after a few years, just as it did in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan took down Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the roof of the White House.

An idealistic though thought-provoking take on "going green." Be more proactive -- consume less and plant a garden.

-janelane, sign me up

The Green Issue - Climate Change - Environment - Energy Efficiency - Consumption - New York Times

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pcinstitute/psref/tabook.pdf

If you want to buy an ibm laptop you should only look at tabook.pdf

--timball

tabook.pdf

For at least six years, as I've become increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration's repeated betrayal of constitutional -- and conservative -- principles, I have defended Vice President Cheney, a man I've known for decades and with whom I served and made common cause in Congress. No longer.

I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush's transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney's belief in "the military option" and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.

What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of "those about whom we should be greatly concerned"?

Mickey Edwards (fmr R-OK 6th district) was in the house leadership w/ VP cheney back in the day. The best quote from the article:

It is Cheney's all-too-revealing conversation this week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public's disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: "So?"

"So," Mr. Vice President?

Policy, Cheney went on to say, should not be tailored to fit fluctuations in the public attitudes. If there is one thing public attitudes have not been doing, however, it is fluctuating: Resistance to the Bush administration's Iraq policy has been widespread, entrenched and consistent. Whether public opinion is right or wrong, it is not to be cavalierly dismissed.

Just read the thing.

--timball

Mickey Edwards - Dick Cheney's Error - washingtonpost.com

What is EOL?

Welcome to the first release of the Encyclopedia of Life portal. This is the very beginning of our exciting journey to document all species of life on Earth.

Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about all life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goals are to:

* Create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike.
* Transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating virtually all known data about every living species.
* Engage a wide audience of schoolchildren, educators, citizen scientists, academics and those who are just curious about Earth s species.
* Increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

Yeah this is nifty.

--timball

Encyclopedia of Life

Welcome to the original bartender's guide. This book was first written and published by Jerry Thomas (1825-1885) in 1862. This the original guide on mixed drinks and bartenders reference. This book is a vast resource for making drinks, at least in the 1800's. However, many of the methods and cocktails are as valuable today as they were back then.

This book is over 118 years old and the copyright have long since expired. This means it can be legally published without any legal encumberment. This is such a valuable resource for bartenders that it should be publicly available, since finding original copies is very difficult.

The online version of this book has been divided into 84 pages. A full index of the book is currently being developed, but the book can be browsed using the links on the left hand side or by the back and next links on each page. Each page has a four to eight drinks, so the links do not describe every drink on every page. Please refer to the Index.

In the future a fully searchable version of this book will be published. Please feel free to browse this book and share it with anyone who would be interested. Or, if you are looking for modern cocktails, mixed drinks or commentary on the latest spirit, please visit the Art of Drink weblog.

Public Domain Mix-o-logy. The Jerry Thomas was the definitive bar book of it's time. Be sure to check out his recipes for various flips.

--timball

Jerry Thomas :: How to Mix Drinks (A Bartender's Guide)

General

* Myths related to bit budget
* Special codes for captions and descriptions

Speed

* Bitrates
* How fast can subpictures be displayed?

Subpictures

* Run-length encoding; subpicture data size
* Encoded picture lines
* Screen area
* Colour
* Aspect ratios

Audio
Nothing as yet. Mostly covered in Speed.

This is a long webpage about the finer parts of dvd authoring. Quick summary: "It's not easy."

--timball

Finer points in DVD accessibility capabilities (Joe Clark: Media Access)