Link Banana

I sometimes fancy myself rather spartan, but living with only 100 things — as Dave Bruno is trying for — sounds like a bridge too far.

“Stuff starts to overwhelm you,” says Dave Bruno, 37, an online entrepreneur who looked around his San Diego home one day last summer and realized how much his family’s belongings were weighing him down. Thus began what he calls the 100 Thing Challenge. (Apparently, Bruno is so averse to excess he can’t refer to 100 things in the plural.)

(via kottke)

Matt Kirkland has stripped away the fluffy cuteness behind Elmo and other plush toys to reveal the creepy-looking robots underneath.

(via kottke)

A few months ago, a team from Rensselaer and Rice Universities made a surface the blackest black that was ever called black.

(via kottke)

For some reason, I’ve watched this video every time it’s shown up in my feedreader (which has been a lot). There’s something great about it.

(originally via Kottke)

Speaking of Hitler… The Telegraph tells the rather interesting story of the German archeologist who inspired Harrison Ford’s character:

Like Jones, Rahn was an archaeologist, like him he fell foul of the Nazis and like him he was obsessed with finding the Holy Grail - the cup reputedly used to catch Christ’s blood when he was crucified. But whereas Jones rode the Grail-train to box-office glory, Rahn’s obsession ended up costing him his life.

(via kottke.org)

Because I didn’t know slugs could be so colorful.

(via kottke.org)

Apparently dogs, like people, are made peaceful by oppulence:

Adaptations by individual dogs have added up to a dramatic shift in canine culture. Begging is a submissive activity, so today there are fewer all-out interpack wars, which sometimes used to last for months, according to Mr. Poyarkov. Within packs there are more stable social hierarchies that allow the whole group to prosper.

(via kottke.org, where Cliff Kuang is making me feel like a chump)

Pretty much all you need to know.

(via kottke.org)

David Brooks again earns my admiration. From his well-executed history of nerdiness:

But the biggest change was not Silicon Valley itself. Rather, the new technology created a range of mental playgrounds where the new geeks could display their cultural capital. The jock can shine on the football field, but the geeks can display their supple sensibilities and well-modulated emotions on their Facebook pages, blogs, text messages and Twitter feeds. Now there are armies of designers, researchers, media mavens and other cultural producers with a talent for whimsical self-mockery, arcane social references and late-night analysis.

They can visit eclectic sites like Kottke.org and Cool Hunting, experiment with fonts, admire Stewart Brand and Lawrence Lessig and join social-networking communities with ironical names. They’ve created a new definition of what it means to be cool, a definition that leaves out the talents of the jocks, the M.B.A.-types and the less educated.

Or “a picture that uses a pair of legs to frame something, usually a torso, in the picture.” Print Magazine — which appears to have little talent at web design — has documented hundreds of examples of what it calls “the most popularly copied trope ever used.” Am I the only one that thinks it’s a little bit dirty?

(via kottke)

Logoblink has amassed a collection of campaign logos from 1960 to today. I’m not sure which is more remarkable: how little they’ve changed or how much they’ve stayed the same. (Editor’s note: That childish quip is an unfair slight of all the interesting oddities that makes the list worth viewing.)

(via kottke)

Jason Kottke notes an interesting phenomenon. Rather than technology advancing to make computer-generated characters look eerily-but-not-completely lifelike, poorly executed Photoshops of real people can make them looks eerily-but-not-completely lifelike.

In what seems a fitting follow-on to the previous story, I finally read a few-week-old story by Jared Diamond in The New Yorker.

My conversations with Daniel made me understand what we have given up by leaving justice to the state. In order to induce us to do so, state societies and their associated religions and moral codes teach us that seeking revenge is bad. But, while acting on vengeful feelings clearly needs to be discouraged, acknowledging them should be not merely permitted but encouraged. To a close relative or friend of someone who has been killed or seriously wronged, and to the victims of harm themselves, those feelings are natural and powerful. Many state governments do attempt to grant the relatives of crime victims some personal satisfaction, by allowing them to be present at the trial of the accused, and, in some cases, to address the judge or jury, or even to watch the execution of their loved one’s murderer.

(via kottke)

News to me: the notoriously secretive Bob Dylan has a radio show on XM. Vanity Fair has compiled an excellent list of the show’s features and quirks. If the graphic’s too hard to read, or you just want more details, the expanded text is available here.

(via kottke, who explains the inspiration for the graphic)

• Because they give us pictures like this.
• And also some like this.

(both via kottke)

It sounds frivolous but that’s doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful. In fact, that may make it more so.

(via kottke)

From the file labeled “Clever enough to excuse it’s shallowness,” a short audio story. Copious profanity ahead.

(via kottke)

Last week, Mario Batalli’s seemingly-bogus claim that pizza in New York was unlike anywhere else because of the city’s water got a lot of play. Thankfully, Mr. Kottke’s gathered some sensible rebuffs to this theory, the best of which is:

There are a lot of variables for such a simple food. But these 3 FAR outweigh the others:

1. High Heat
2. Kneading Technique
3. The kind of yeast culture or “starter” used along with proper fermentation technique

All other factors pale in comparison to these 3. I know that people fuss over the brand of flour, the kind of sauce, etc. I discuss all of these things, but if you don’t have the 3 fundamentals above handled, you will be limited.

There’s something about these unfinished Egyptian hotels that may be even creepier than abandoned ones.

(via kottke)

Also of note, Disney World’s Ghost Resort.

Finally recognizing that they might want to do something about this newfangled Wikipedia thing, Britannica is openning up. Sadly, only a little.

Since they don’t have a good quotable bit about it, they’re essentially letting “web publishers” gain free access to the content, and then allowing them to link to it and make the whole article readable by the world at large. It’s rather a Byzantine — and thus unlikely to make a big splash — system, but I have to give them some credit for trying.

(via kottke)

In similar trying-to-get-with-it news, CNN is selling shirt that feature it’s embarrassing headlines.