Second Life

So, I am trying out Second Life.

I decided to have a look after a story about a pitched battle at some French campaign headquarters.

So I go to John Edwards' headquarters. Totally deserted.

But what should be on the very next island but the corporate headquaters of The Electric Sheep Company.



Yes, here it is in all its glory.



Here I am in awe of their main lobby. That's a suspended 3d sheep ladies and gentlemen.



So I rush to the main auditorium, but their Quicktime presention didn't load. I was crushed.



I teleported to another place, and complained to Buddha. He was unmoved.

Clovis artifacts do not end debate over first Americans

The antiquity of the peopling of the Americas has been, and continues to be, one of the most controversial issues in American archaeology.

For many years, it was accepted that the Clovis culture represented the earliest appearance of people in this hemisphere.

The hallmark of the Clovis culture is a particular style of grooved spear point that is found from Alaska to northern South America.

Traditionally, the Clovis culture has been said to date from 11,500 to 10,900 years ago, but a comprehensive and critical review of the radiocarbon dates for Clovis in the Feb. 23 issue of the journal Science has narrowed the range to 11,050 to 10,800 years ago.

Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans, and Thomas Stafford, director of Stafford Research Laboratories, argue that "in as few as 200 calendar years, Clovis technology originated and spread throughout North America."

Read more here.

Yet another fucking condo project

This time at the corner of Yonge and Bloor.

And they aren't fooling around this time. 80 stories. A block away 2 other condo towers are rising ("to over 2 million!" See more here.)

So another area will be closed off to street life (yes, this corner could use a face lift...but a condo?) and the rich take over.

Fuck 'em.

The councilor Kyle Rae* thinks he's doing us all a favour too:

If the tower does get built at Yonge and Bloor, the building may earn another distinction – by blotting out a few other towering eyesores, according to Rae.

"I sorely would like to hide the Royal Bank building on the northeast corner," he says. "It's brutal. Hiding that building at the northeast corner by this one on the southeast corner would, I think, be a gracious thing to do.

"I'm in favour of masking the unfortunate."

That could be the slogan of condo builders everywhere....

*Thanks to Andrew at blogto.com for the correction

Sue Teller Mashes It Up

Google goes back to pre-Katrina maps

Google's popular map portal has replaced post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery with pictures taken before the storm, leaving locals feeling like they're in a time loop and even fueling suspicions of a conspiracy.

Scroll across the city and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and everything is back to normal: Marinas are filled with boats, bridges are intact and parks are filled with healthy, full-bodied trees.

"Come on," said an incredulous Ruston Henry, president of the economic development association in New Orleans' devastated Lower 9th Ward. "Just put in big bold this: 'Google, don't pull the wool over the world's eyes. Let the truth shine.'"

Read more here.

Man Gets 10 Years in Thai Graffiti Case

Think a little highly of yourself, do we O King of Thailand?

Know what a Raspberry is? Nobody's that important.

A Swiss man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for spray-painting graffiti over images of Thailand's revered king, the first conviction of a foreigner in at least a decade under strict Thai laws protecting the monarchy.

Oliver Rudolf Jufer, 57, who had pleaded guilty to five counts of lese majeste, or insulting the monarchy, had faced a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison.

Judge Phitsanu Tanbukalee said Jufer was given a reduced sentence since he had admitted his wrongdoing.

Read more here.

Cavemen Preferred Full-Figured Ladies

Thin may be in now, but prehistoric men 15,000 years ago prefered full-figured gals, suggest dozens of flint figurines excavated from a Paleolithic hunting site in Poland.

Since almost identical depictions have been found elsewhere throughout Europe, the figurines indicate a shared artistic tradition existed even then.

Read more here.

The Lips Mural

I don't live in Montreal anymore, and I wonder if this mural is still there. It seems to have been there in 2006 (see Flickr image below).

All I can find online is an article from 1998:

"Newcomers to Montreal always notice it; to lifetime Montrealers, it's ingrained in memory. At first it jumps out at you: you think it's some nice graffiti art and expect it will be gone next time you go by. But it never goes away, and over time it just blends into the background and you stop paying attention.

The art in question is, of course, the steamy lip mural behind Place des Arts, at the corner of Jeanne-Mance and Ontario. According to Montreal cartographer David Widgington, the mural has been up there for over 20 years. For that reason, Widgington decided to highlight the mural in his book Montreal Up Close: A Pedestrian's Guide to the City, co-authored with Kirk Johnson.

Explains Widgington: "It's supposed to be symbolic of the hot Montreal summer: red lips, mouth open and steam rising around the hot sun. It's in really good shape, considering how long it's been up there--it's not peeling or cracking at all." Unfortunately, says Widgington, his research failed to turn up some key information: exactly who painted it, for whom and the date it was completed all remain a mystery.

It was there in 1972, but I don't know how it got there either.

As for it being "symbolic of the hot Montreal summer", that is nonsense. As it was painted in c. 1971, the smoke is much more likely symbolic of something else entirely.

Of current works, these 4 seem to come up most often.

Michael Jackson wants Vegas robot

Michael Jackson is in discussions about creating a 50-foot robotic replica of himself to roam the Las Vegas desert, according to reports.

The pop legend is currently understood to be living in the city, as he considers making a comeback after 2004's turbulent child sex case.

It has now been claimed that his plans include an elaborate show in Vegas, which would feature the giant Jacko striding around the desert, firing laser beams.

Read more here. If you dare.

Mysterious hexagon spotted on Saturn

A strange hexagon shape over the north pole of Saturn was first spotted by the two Voyager spacecraft has been revisited by the Cassini probe. The 26 years between sightings indicate it is likely a permanent feature on Saturn, according to NASA scientists. In fact, Cassini found a second hexagon, significantly darker than the orginal. This is the first time the feature has been captured on one image.

On NASA's Web site, Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

This image was captured at night by Cassini's infrared mapping spectrometer. The red color indicates heat generated from the planet's interior.

Read more here.

'I have never been a bimbo'

I have got further with Pussy Galore than James Bond managed. Did he ever share a narrow bed with her in a dressing room at the Lyric Theatre? Maybe in his sexiest dreams. Honor Blackman - who played the gun-wielding, judo-chopping pilot with the bonkers name in Goldfinger - can still talk incessantly about Sean Connery, even though that was four decades ago. "Nobody will ever be as good as Sean," she tells me. Honor, you have to work on your pillow talk.

Read more here.

Why the Greeks could hear plays from the back row

An ancient theatre filters out low-frequency background noise.

The wonderful acoustics for which the ancient Greek theatre of Epidaurus is renowned may come from exploiting complex acoustic physics, new research shows.

The theatre, discovered under a layer of earth on the Peloponnese peninsula in 1881 and excavated, has the classic semicircular shape of a Greek amphitheatre, with 34 rows of stone seats (to which the Romans added a further 21).

Its acoustics are extraordinary: a performer standing on the open-air stage can be heard in the back rows almost 60 metres away. Architects and archaeologists have long speculated about what makes the sound transmit so well.

Read more here.

'Song of the South' may be released

Walt Disney Co.'s 1946 film Song of the South was historic. It was Disney's first big live-action picture and produced one of the company's most famous songs — the Oscar-winning "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." It also carries the story line of the Splash Mountain rides at its theme parks.

But the movie remains hidden in the Disney archives — never released on video in the United States and criticized as racist for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. The film's 60th anniversary passed last year without a whisper of official rerelease, which is unusual for Disney, but President and CEO Bob Iger recently said the company was reconsidering.

Click the image for "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah".

Read more here.

Yellow Submarine trailer

Nothing is Real.

Oh no

CBC News is projecting a Liberal minority government in Quebec.

The Liberal party and Action Démocratique du Québec had running neck and neck in several closely-contested ridings, with the PQ trailing behind for most of Monday night.

This is the first minority government in Quebec since 1878

The Golden Compass

Unfinished leaked trailer

Tolkien Jr and The Children of Húrin

The first new Tolkien novel for 30 years is to be published next month. In a move eagerly anticipated by millions of fans across the world, The Children of Húrin will be released worldwide on 17 April, 89 years after the author started the work and four years after the final cinematic instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of biggest box office successes in history.

The book, whose contents are being jealously guarded by publisher HarperCollins - is described as "an epic story of adventure, tragedy, fellowship and heroism."

Read more here.

Rome II ep 10

Thaaaat's all folks.

HBO's Rome has wrapped up, is finished, done.

We began tonight with a jump cut to right after the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., and follow the events up to Octavian's Triumph in Rome.

Though marred by my usual gripe (the Tweedles are right there, central characters at the making of Empire), Rome's handling of "Antony & Cleopatra™" and their dealings with Octavian were almost underplayed (Cleopatra's meeting with Octavian is the best example. Not underplayed was Antony's impression of Joe Pesci), here done with close cropped or close up shots.

As I've said all along, Rome can handle the history, it's the fiction they sucked at.

Given that, I will give the writers one point: they did produce a tear inducing scene of deathbed forgiveness.

"Greeks talk a whole pile of nonsense. Fuck 'em"

So the series is over, though it had enough set ups for a 3rd season (look at the exchange between Livia and Atia for example).

And as before, Tweedle Dumb and another character (I don't want to give away who, but it maybe the writers greatest liberty taking with History) walk into the distance in the last shot of the show. Dumb's actions in Rome were bizarre, but at least he was consistent in his inconsistency, as were the writers of the flawed series.

Canadian Forces Recruting Ads

What do you make of them?

Missoula County

Seems the little tin pot dictators of Missoula County have taken it upon themselves to "amend" an initiative voted in by 55% of the population, because they think the voters didn't understand it.

Holy Fuck.

Missoula County commissioners voted Wednesday to narrow the scope of a ballot initiative that deprioritizes adult marijuana crimes, despite the unwieldy presence of community members who opposed any changes.

The countywide measure, dubbed Initiative 2, was approved by 55 percent of Missoula's electorate in the November election, and calls on authorities to make all adult marijuana crimes a lowest law-enforcement priority, including felony possession, growing and selling.

Until now.

Following Wednesday's public hearing, which drew opposition from almost 30 residents and attracted an overflow audience more than twice that size, the commissioners approved the amendments in a 2-1 majority vote.

The commissioners scheduled the public hearing in response to a contentious proposal by County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg, who urged the commissioners to amend Initiative 2 so it excludes felony amounts of marijuana, arguing that voters didn't realize the full range of the measure when they supported it...

...But perhaps what roiled Wednesday's attendants the most was Van Valkenburg's assertion that “a gut feeling” led him to believe Missoula's electorate misinterpreted the ballot language.

Read more here and here.