Ressurecting my old “Daily Digest” of random stuff that I’ve seen elsewhere on Livejournal or the Internet at Large. Some of it will be informative, some of it humourous, and none of it really worth making an entire post over. Enjoy!
Physorg.com has an article detailing The Most Offbeat Science News of 2005, including researchers in California building DNA profiles from leftovers of a dinner party, the discovery of the stone dwelling puzzle mouse, and the revelation that cane toads are attracted to disco lights.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy food maven Ted Allen spoke with NPR’s Susan Stanberg with turkey tips and other holiday recipes. (The audio link on the page linked requires javascript and RealAudio or Windows Media Player).
Also on NPR, a rememberance of John Langstaff, founder of the Christmas Revels, who passed away last week. I meant to send this to telynor when I heard it on the radio, and figure that it fits nicely here as well.
the_magician and filkertom point to the Music Genome Project. Quoth the Magician:
A group of musicians have listened to tens of thousands of tracks by thousands of artists and figured out a “genetic fingerprint” for each … and then they’ve set up an internet streaming radio station where you can type in an artist you like (e.g. Sarah McLachlan) and they look at the fingerprint (Subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, acoustic rhythm piano, meandering melodic phrasing and mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation.) and play other tracks that they think you will enjoy. You can vote “like”/”dislike” for each track and it will build up a better targetted radio stream for you.
Requires Flash.
kightp links to a delightfully tongue-in-cheek article on the Catholic Church’s decision to close Limbo.
You can buy a tank from Amazon. (Side note to folkmew: Where *else* would you look to buy a tank?)
beige_alert points us towards The Cavalcade of Bad Nativites. Some of this stuff is just pure freakin’ art, man.
celticdragonfly
Bwahahaha. I’ve had people say to me that I live in the “buckle of the Bible Belt”
No!
THIS is the buckle of the bible belt!
But the owls… the owls are just weird.
Whups, the amazon tank link is http://www.wwwamazon.com/
The Limbo thing is very odd.
I shall have to check out the music website. Thanks.
Rob Wynne
Fixed the amazon link. Thanks.
I believe that Owls are only mentioned in the apocryphal Gospel According to Archimedes, and thus don’t figure prominantly in the better known nativity stories.
a_blue_moon_cat
Thanks for the links, I’ll have to check them out. 🙂 Btw, have you heard that ebay is supposedly going to allow the selling of animals? WTF? I got something about this on a list, and didn’t know what to think, like if the poster knew what they were talking about or what.
Rob Wynne
I did hear about that, but didn’t follow up on it. TechDirt is reporting today, however, that they’ve backed down:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20051220/108213_F.shtml
dan_ad_nauseam
I remember when I was back in Conn., the local cable access channel had a series of folk concerts. During one of them, Bill Morrisey was talking about Limbo. He compared it to Rocky Hill.
He said he got into a bit of trouble when he started asking his priest about Limbo. Apparently, the priest told him they didn’t believe in Limbo any more.
Whether they believed in it any less was not stated.
anaisdjuna
cool! i look forward to reading it. i love bad nativities. every year the house on the corner builds one with lit figures around the big electrical box on their lawn.
bizar.