UK-Odd Summary (Reuters)
Reuters - Sebastian Vettel thinks he could be on to a winner after trading in Kate's Dirty Sister for a younger model, Luscious Liz. The German Formula One driver, overall runner-up in the championship last year to Britain's Jenson Button, spoke lovingly of his new Red Bull car at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix Thursday.
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Vettel hopes to turn Luscious Liz into a winner (Reuters)
Reuters - Sebastian Vettel thinks he could be on to a winner after trading in Kate's Dirty Sister for a younger model, Luscious Liz.
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How obscure security makes school suck
Recently out of Virginia's public school system, youngster James Stephenson writes in to say that being a kid sucks. So what's new? A gauntlet of cameras, invasive searches and authoritarian security theatrics that don't make schools feel safer—but do tempt administrators into privacy abuses such as Lower Merion's recent webcam-spying scandal.
Special feature: "Seen Not Heard: How obscure security makes school suck."
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Free ebook download: Scott Kirsner’s “Fans, Friends & Followers”
To coincide with South by Southwest, journalist Scott Kirsner is making his 2009 book Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age available free, in digital form, for the duration of the festival. You can download it here.
Lots of folks you've seen at SXSW are featured in the book, including artist Natasha Wescoat, pioneering videoblogger Ze Frank, singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton, Burnie Burns of "Red vs. Blue," comedian Eugene Mirman, documentarian Curt Ellis, DJ Spooky, and plenty more. And, if you're at SXSW this year, Kirsner will be conducting a "fireside chat" with Ze Frank on Saturday.
Scott Kirsner's "Fans, Friends & Followers" (PDF)
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Boyoyo Boys, “Back in Town” (Greatest Song of All Time of the Day)
Everyone from Malcolm McLaren to Paul Simon heard something in South Africa's Boyoyo Boys that they wanted to appropriate. Their '80s records are lively and surprising, both original and emblematic of their time. You can hear where whole chunks of popular American music, from Graceland to Vampire Weekend, were born and raised. After listening to "Back in Town," you'd have broken a UN boycott to work with them, too.
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Original D&D art from 1974: our craptastic nerd origins
Something Awful's Steve and Zack have an excruciating look at the artwork and rules from the original, 1974 version of Dungeons and Dragons, which appears to have been drawn by a hyperactive 12-year-old during an extremely boring math class. I remember seeing these not long after getting my first set of the AD&D hardcovers and thinking that they looked intriguing, if a little thin. I also produced an enormous amount of artwork that looked like this for the dungeons I created.
The Original Dungeons & Dragons
Previously:
- Exclusive Gallery: Dungeons and Dragons 4.0's "D&D Insider ...
- Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 Makes Remote Pen-and-Paper Play Easier ...
- Ultimate D&D-playing dungeon. And I do mean "ultimate."
- Flowchart: How D&D is a gateway drug to every flavor of nerdiness ...
- No D&D for US prison inmate serving life
- Election 08 as a Dungeons and Dragons campaign
- Writers describe the positive impact of D&D on their lives
- D&D on multi-touch table
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Magic trick reverso: putting the tablecloth back on the table!
Magician Mat Ricardo writes in regarding this morning's post showing a motorcycle (seemingly) pulling the tablecloth out from beneath a very long table's-worth of place settings: "Here's what I do - for 20 years-ish I've been finishing nmy cabaret act by putting the tablecloth back on the table, underneath all the stuff. Took me years to invent, and I'm the only person in the world performing this trick. Maybe I need to get out more, but what can I say - it's a living!"
You can see the gag around 2:15 in the video, but it's well worth watching the whole thing. I was gutted to learn that I missed Mat last weekend when I took the kid down to Covent Garden in London to see the performers, but I'm looking forward to catching his act next time we head down.
Mat Ricardo showreel (Thanks, Mat!)
Previously:
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Anti-war Resolution Fails
Anti-war lawmakers got a rare chance to debate the Afghan war on the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday before voting on a resolution to bring home the troops and end the 8-year war. The resolution failed, with a margin of 356 to 65, as...
Widespread support for toilets that separate crap from urine
People in seven European countries have expressed willingness to try "NoMix" toilets that keep crap and urine separate, allowing for more efficient waste processing and less seepage of urine-borne pharmaceuticals into the water supply. The study was conducted with 2700 people in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark, with 80 percent supporting the toilets. Even higher numbers were willing to use urine as fertilizer.
The article doesn't discuss infrastructural issues, though: would you need a second black-water sewer for the yellow gold?
NoMix toilets get thumbs-up in 7 European countries
Previously:
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Close Race Makes Challenges Likely
Early vote tallies indicate the coalition of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki will likely win a plurality in the country's incredibly close election. The narrow margins expected will set the stage for challenges to the results for weeks to come; a...
Movie Derivatives Coming Soon
Two new movie futures exchanges are being created that would allow movie studios to hedge against a film's box office performance, spreading the risk if the picture is a dud. Last week, 90 Hollywood executives watched a demonstration of The Cantor...
L.A. Police Baffled by Suave Thief
They call him "Rico Suavé." Dressed to the nines, one man has been pulling off daring thefts from some of Los Angeles' most exclusive environs. On Oscar night, with all of Hollywood gathered together and a massive security force in town, the man...
Do We Need An Eight-Track Museum?
Got any eight-tracks in your basement? James "Bucks" Burnett, the former manager of Tiny Tim, might like to them for a museum. Burnett used to own a record store and after two successful temporary exhibits thinks it's time that the much-maligned...
Wall Street Sequel Delayed
Fox is holding Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to Oliver Stone's 1987 film about finance titan Gordon Gekko, till September 24. The movie's original release date was April 23, but Fox thinks the film has a good chance of being included in...
Exhausting the entire problem space of animated teddy-bears, cars, people and pigeons
Animator/composer Cyriak just posted this surreal video featuring infinite giant teddy bears climbing out of the sea at the Worthing shore and crossing the road. You'd think that this would be thin gruel for three minutes' worth of animation, but you'd be wrong: it turns out that the number of variations on the themes of pigeons, people, teddies, cars and shore is a lot greater (and weirder and funnier) than instinct would suggest.
Previously:
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House Moves Against Earmarks
With midterm elections on the horizon, Democrats and Republicans are competing over which party can take the toughest stand against earmarks, which send federal money to particular projects. On Wednesday, Democrats proposed ending the practice of...
Disease Sources Become Clearer
In a finding that would have been impossible before the completion of the human genome map, scientists have found the bit of DNA that causes inherited diseases in families. A Houston researcher, who himself suffers from a recessive genetic disease,...
CEO Sees Boom Ahead for Citi
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit will tell investors Thursday that he expects Citi to earn as much as $20 billion within the next few years, The Washington Post quoted sources as saying. Those kind of gains would mark a serious turnaround for the company....
Palestinian President Pulls Out of Talks
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced Thursday that he will not participate in peace talks with Israel following Israel's decision to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. Earlier this week, in what observers saw as a rebuke to Vice...
Lesbian panic shuts down Mississippi high-school prom
ACLU Demands Mississippi School Allow Lesbian Student To Attend Prom With Girlfriend
(Thanks, Steve!)