CNN screw-up

You might have heard about this mess-up at CNN today: they left the microphone of the news anchor on while she took a toilet break during a speech by the President. She must be mortified that half the world now knows that she thinks that her sister-in-law is a control freak.

Come to daddy

Possibly the best music video ever, and certainly one of the freakiest: come to daddy by Aphex Twin, directed by Chris Cunningham.

Hold the front page

Newseum is a nice site: the front pages of 526 different newspapers, updated daily. Tune in on Mondays for the latest Diana news.

Ow!

Geotags on flickr

Flickr has just added an excellent new feature: geotags. You can specify (on an interactive map) where your photos were taken, and then browse your (or other peoples) pictures by location. Here is my map, and here is the map of everyone's pictures. The closer you zoom in, the more the detail level increases. Flickr has to be one of the best sites on the internet.

Chinese menu

Hell on Earth

Maybe the internet isn't that great after all. Some Web 2.0 arsehole had the idea to mix YouTube (good) with karaoke (bad). SingShot (cringe) allows you to record versions of your favourite songs, and then allow other prople to hear them. Like X Factor without the comedy. Or high production values. Or commercial viability. Or talent. Here's an example: a girl kills Somebody to Love by Queen through being utterly average. Here an old man murders Earth Song. Awful.

In the shadows

This is a cool school band. The Shadow Percussion Project took 2 songs from the classic DJ Shadow album Entroducing, and re-arranged it so that it could be played entirely live. Nicely done.

No Oliver Reed?

The 5 most obviously drug-fueled TV appearanxes ever. I suppose Reed was an alkie rather than a druggie. My favourite is the James Brown one.

Sequels on a plane

Sequel names registered

Samuel L Jackson talks about a possible sequel

SnakeTube

Film review: Snakes on a Plane

I have made a picture that will say it a lot better than any words that I can write. Click for bigger.

Still not as bad as Blunt

Nice idea, terrible execution: eClips makes personalised songs for you or your loved ones. Choose an occasion (from an exhaustive list including birthday, Chinese New Year, and Earth Day), choose the name of the person the song is for, add some details, and voila! the song is ready. And if you like it, you only have to pay $5 to keep it forever! Excruciating.

Alternate history

Leading up to the 5 year anniversary, New York Magazine asked various influential people what they think would have happened if the attacks of September 11th, 2001 had not happened. It's a long article, but worth a read. Via kottke.

A capital idea

Here's a fun little capital cities quiz. Helps if you know African capitals, so GW shouldn't bother.

Subliminal choices

This is fun. Likebetter is a website where you have to choose one of a pair of photos that you prefer. After a while, the brain below goes pink, and will try and guess some things about you. Some of them can be a bit vague and cold-reading-ish ("you prefer clear information and hard facts"), while some are quite specific ("you prefer boxers to briefs"). Via Arbroath.

EDIT: how well do you know me?

Wiki Wiki Wah

I love Wikipedia, and I love the fact that you can change pretty much any entry as you see fit. Earlier this month, someone changed the entry for Caprice so that she was born in 1917. Here are the original and vandalised versions. Anyway, here is an interesting article on the history of Wikipedia, including the politics of the seemingly-efficient "mob rule".

Do you have "The Only Way is Up" by Yazz?

Apparently anyone can DJ. According to this article, anyway, it's just a few tricks that look impressive but are actually easy. I am sure that a DJ set by me would be an utter farce, though.

The missing link

As a quick addition to the post below on evolution vs ID, here are the results of a survey that show the US is lagging the world in accepting evolution. 25% of Turks believe in evolution, compared to 40% of Americans and 80% of those in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and France. An interesting article, and check out the gold-coloured sidebar under the Darwin picture for an exhaustive and excellent (if very partisan) series of articles on the subject.

Overkill?

This blog entry eloquently satirises the fact that the UK and US governments have deemed that an entire state of matter (one of only 3 main states of being)is a security risk. This security blog makes the interesting point that the current situation is "security theatre": it gives us the impression that we are safer without actually making us safer. Targeting the tactics rather than the organisation means that all the turrrrrists have to do now is switch away from liquid explosives, and they will have caused uproar and cost us a lot of money. His advice: don’t be terrorised.

How not to release a leopard

Via Arbroath.

Burglary 101

How to pick most types of lock with a $1 key.

Jowlers

This site is just plain weird. Jowlers are photos taken while people are violently shaking their head, so that their jowls go all wobbly. We can't be far off the point where every possible new thing has been thought of already.

World Cup photos

I've finally managed to get my ass in gear and upload my World Cup photos to flickr. Well here they are.

Bo He-man Rhapsody

Via b3ta.

In for a penny...

Well, seeing as I'm doing religious controversy today, lets go on to atheism. This site is an FAQ about atheism, written by an atheist in a blunt style. Worth reading for the theological and philisophical arguments even if you think that atheism is soulless. It answers the question "Hitler was an atheist! See what he did!" by saying "Adolf Hitler was a self‐proclaimed Catholic, who probably believed he was acting under orders from God to wipe out Jewish vermin. He was also a vegetarian, a health‐nut, a violent anti‐tobacconist and quite possibly a meth addict. Go figure."

A big guy did it and ran away

With all the controversy about creationism/intelligent design (wikipedia article) being taught in some British science lessons, here are some useful sites about evolution. This one covers the main myths about evolution, which are usually the arguments used by the ill-informed. From the same site, this page is more dense and scientific, but has some excellent stuff and explodes received facts/myths. Did you know that your lungs are perfectly capable of breathing underwater? It's just your diaphragm that can't cope. Finally, this site is an exhaustive rebuttal of creationist claims.

Friday Movie

Back to the Future

It's all a big conspiracy, man

More Middle-East stuff, this time Reuters being cuaght out publishing doctored photos that have obviously been photoshopped. Tut Tut.

Polish film posters

Still clearing out my backlog of links, here is an interesting site: a gallery of Polish film posters. It seems they don't like the standard US "corporate" posters, and go for something altogether more artistic. The one on the left here is Back to the Future. Via kottke.

Not-so-secret recipe

The owners of a bar in Bristol have worked out the recipe for Coke, and released it to the world. Includes a tiny amount of vodka and many things that you can only buy at the chemical supplier. Via slashfood.

Radio ga-ga

This site is almost impossible to take your eyes off. Updated in real-time, it displays the songs that are being played (as they begin playing) on all the US commercial radio stations.

How to tell if someone deserves a kicking, part 2

They are wearing these jeans. I couldn't agree more with the idiot toys summary: "Anyone considering buying these really ought to be storing their iPods up their arseholes".

Owlcat

OK, seeing as Niall wants some things to interest him, how about an owl that can make itself look like a cat? Japanese TV is way better than British TV...

Watching Beirut Die

Here's a story by a top author, Anthony Bourdain. Usually he is writing about food, but here he is on Beirut being blown up in front of him while he was making a travel documentary. To read the whole article, you have to click on and watch an advert that lasts about 10-20 seconds. It is definitely worth it, though.

Travel map

I'm back. I've been lazy. I can live with that. Anyway, here's something that Niall and Simon will probably like: a site that lets you tell it the countries that you have visited, and then generates a map with those countries couloured-in for you. Here's mine:

Owlcat

OK, seeing as Niall wants some things to interest him, how about an owl that can make itself look like a cat? Japanese TV is way better than British TV...