Letter Never Sent

Upside down Christmas trees. Stupidest Holiday Fad Ever. Hell, let’s just turn everything upside down.

Gigantic Apes Coexisted with Early Humans “A gigantic ape standing 10 feet tall and weighing up to 1,200 pounds lived alongside humans for over a million years, according to a new study. Fortunately for the early humans, the huge primate’s diet consisted mainly of bamboo.”

Gawker Media peeps annoyed with Movable Type Slowness “Ever since I started posting to Lifehacker several times a day, I’ve developed a deep resentment for the software that publishes the site, MovableType. There are days when it takes between 40 and 50 seconds to publish a single post. Fifty seconds probably doesn’t sound like a long time to you, but when you do it a couple of dozen times a day – what with edits and updates – we’re talking about almost half an hour of my life, snatched from me. I’m a perpetual mugging victim.” MT has been in my experience good for sites that don’t update all the time, but bad if you’re constantly rebuilding and adding content. Add to it the license situation and WordPress stands out as the superior alternative.

Lot 328: a pair of embarrassing trousers “You are bidding on a mistake. We all make mistakes. We date the wrong people for too long. We chew gum with our mouths open. We say inappropriate things in front of grandma.

And we buy leather pants.”

First wild beavers for 500 years Beavers have been reintroduced to England, 500 years after they were hunted to extinction for their fur.

Barnacle Press A collosal compendium of our collective comic culture. A real treasure you will need to bookmark. I compell you! There is much to gnaw on here that will make your drawing hand itch with anticipation.

How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester Courtesy of digg. Productivity is the most important thing in almost any enterprise.

Japan developing remote control for humans “I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced — mistakenly — that this was the only way to maintain my balance.”

The Gospel According to Anne Rice “I was ready to do violence to my career.” But she sees a continuity with her old books, whose compulsive, conscience-stricken evildoers reflect her long spiritual unease. “I mean, I was in despair.” In that afterword she calls Christ “the ultimate supernatural hero … the ultimate immortal of them all.”

Label your books with call numbers I need to do this, although I doubt I would remember what each category stood for.

Cool optical illusion. Wow.

Quiz: Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You? My results: “Kosh – A reclusive seer shrouded in riddles, you reveal very little and only what is deemed congruent with your plans. “Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth.” Kosh is a character in the Babylon 5 universe.” Kosh is a Vorlon, a race that has never been seen. I like that. I also agree with the quotation about understanding.

Rumor: Cheney to Resign; Rice as V.P. 2008, the year of the XX chromosome? “Some observers are whispering that the driving force behind the Rice-for-Cheney scenario is political pundit Dick Morris’ new book “Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race.” In the book, Morris and co-author Eileen McGann warn that Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the U.S., unless she can be stopped.”

NBA Institutes Dress Code “”When you are selling a sport overwhelmingly populated by young black males to an older white audience, the reality is that impressions, first or otherwise, often determine your product’s success,” Smith wrote. ” … Indeed, there’s a racial element here. But since there are 60-year-old black parents and grandparents just as appalled by some players’ attire, there is a generational element too,” he added. “

How the snail cross the ‘bridge’ Looks like it rests the shell on one side of the divide, stretches the anterior end to the other side then pulls the shell and tail across. Via

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes

Recent example of “open source warfare” “He revealed that one trigger used in a recent Iraqi bombing was a three-way device, combining a command wire, a radio signal and an infra-red beam – a technique perfected by the IRA.” I’m curious how infrared signalling can be jammed since it is directional, unlike radio. Via

Bittorrent: The Great Disrupter “I didn’t have any clear plans when I first started,” he says. “I wasn’t worried, partially because what I was doing was really cool, and partially because I’m broken and can’t feel anxiety.”