The spectacularly obtuse blog

I stands for Intelligentsia, I suppose

• A bit of excercise (via)

• An eight-foot tower made out of human teeth. Not sure I wanted to see that, actually.

• At the mountains of madness indeed.

• Early Star Wars storyboards (via)

• An interesting take on the map of Europe (via)

• A-Z of English words with surprising origins. The book they've used as a source certainly has been praised.

May the coercion be with you

• One ring to rule them all, mate, or, Australia remapped. (via)

• 10 most unique lakes of our world. Lake Baikal included. Can I just say... Siberia?

• Guidelines for cats. Our lads seem to have these well memorised. (via)

• Blahblahfish (via) translates from English to a language of your choice and back, letting you see what was lost or gained in translation. For example, the simple line "May the force be with you" turned into
• May the will be with you (Hungarian)
• May the force possibly withdraw you (Filipino)
• May the coercion be with you (Serbian)
• May vivacity prevent you (Slovenian)
• the May force is with you (Korean)

Quickie

• An amazing collection of five centuries of board games at BibliOdyssey. Go and be amazed. I might add that Call of Cthulhu: Arkham horror is probably the awesomest board game ever, if you can spare eight hours for playing, because who can stop when you're stuck in R'Lyeh or wherever and Cthulhu or one of his sweet cronies is just about to devour everyone and everything? (Scrabble isn't a board game; Scrabble is pure bliss.)

• Five things I learned about women from James Bond books. Quite what you'd expect. (via)

Snow

• I must've missed something on history lessons and in university, but I honestly didn't know that Chairman Mao wrote poetry. One of his most famous poems is called Snow.

• A guide to snowflakes

• Flickr bits: window frost,  hoar frost, frost and fog, Highland frost, Finnish frost, frosted leaves,  Polish frost. And what's a post without a Siberia link?

• Everyone's probably heard that Eskimos have n+1 words for snow -- or not. (Straight Dope on Eskimo words for snow)

Helloooo

First things first. I am not on hiatus. I'm... er... simply being busy. Two different things. Right? Right.
...and now for something completely different:

• PG Porn is "for people who love everything about porn. Except the sex." And it has Nathan Fillion in it.

• A male-to-female transsexualism gene has been found, which would serve as a nice reminder for some, in the light of some recent news from Finland. It's nice to know  there is a biological basis for transgender and transsexual phenomena, but sometimes these sort of findings only underline the notion of two "absolute" genders, leaving no room for variation (which does exist, starting from biological facts and anatomy).

• Google flu trends: sort of cool, sort of scary. Web searches on flu are harmless enough, but for some reason, words such as "governments", "police states" and "an illusion of internet privacy" spring to mind.

• Vicar hospitalised with potato up his bum. And what a lovely explanation he had! (via)

Hi, world

• I couldn't help but snigger at these reviews. The book does have a bit of an unfortunate name, I suppose. (via)

• Steampunk Darth Vader

• Bizarre new deep-sea creatures found off Antarctica

• Lots of train horn sounds (via)

• The semicolon has stirred up a huge debate in France

Invisible democracy lolz

• Flickr: The LOLsheviks pool (via)

• Some useful math tricks and 25 English language oddities (1, 2)

• It is just you, everything isn't shit is a blog and a book that answer the question posed by this book. (via)

• Zombies are coming (via)

• The lost border, photographs of the Iron Curtain (via)

• Historical maps of Europe (via)

All hail Microsoft!

• Nice photoset from Iceland. I like all those greys and blue-greys. (via)

• My favourite X-ray oddity this far: the Burmese python that swallowed an entire electric blanket. (via)

• Best of Itchy & Scratchy (via)

• A mummified dinosaur has been found, and suddenly I'm 10 years old again, wanting to know just about anything and absolutely everything about it. (via)

• A report on stallion fighting in China and more on horse fighting. I suppose there will always be stupid buggers who'd do anything for money. (via)

• Microsoft end user agreement: "By touching any computer ever made, you agree to the terms of this agreement. ... Microsoft shall have the rights to your first-born child. This child shall be called Bill or Billina." (via)

• Lovely 70s fashion ads and surreal German educational charts from the 50s and 60s (via 1, 2)

• There's something incredibly appealing about old colour prints and transparencies, like this 1942 photo of sheep grazing in Butte, the 1940 photo of a church in New Mexico, or the one with a horse and a dog, all by Russell Lee, who also took many touching B&W photos. 

My ideas, let me show you them... not.

• Photo of Niagara Falls frozen in 1848 (via)

• Reposting (I think) UK Moths (via)

• A nice clickable periodic table poster (via)

• Oh my, what a sad old photo.

• First direct evidence of Flying Spaghetti Monster. Har har.

• A few ways to come up with amazing ideas -- well, the "amazing" part isn't always a given, but I can vouch for many of these. Personal favourites: 1) hiking, 2) reading, and 3) the one not listed: insomnia. I always get the bestest of ideas when I'm too highly strung or weirded out by something to fall asleep. It's just that when you rethink these "brilliant" and "fresh" and "original" ideas later in broad daylight, you realise they always sound as if you were just stoned out of your brains (original tends to describe them, in a way, only it's the worst possible way). Oh, and ditch notebooks if you don't need to sketch or draw, just carry a decent phone with some sort of a notebook widget. (via)

Morning routines

• Repost: So you've decided to be evil -- a step-by-step guide to joining the forces of darkness (via).

QUESTION #1: How do you start your morning routine?
...

D) Have a cup of coffee, read the daily newspaper and then plot the downfall of western civilization.

• Star Trek minutiae (via)

• In photography, timing can be everything (via)

• Better Gmail 2 for Firefox (via)

• Typography in HP:OotP, a Flickr slideshow. Pretty. (via)

Lizardite, mimetite & co.

• A few nice business cards -- I rather like this one. (via)

• The top ten movie spaceships makes me want to say "bah, humbug": Serenity should be sharing #1 with Millennium Falcon. (via)

• Mineral of the day archive (via)

• Picto is one of those simple but annoying little games you just... can't... stop... playing! You've been warned. (via)

• A blog of New and improves stereotypes, such as "Belgians evolved from crabs, not apes," "Maori tribesmen have and innate sense of insurance law" and "The Russian national anthem is actually plagiarised Star Trek fan fiction (but to be fair, it is quite moving)". (via)

Baby Sauron

• Katastrofala omslag (very, very bad album covers) and men who look like old lesbians (via)

• The 25 most baffling toys from around the world: page 1, page 2. #5 includes "Baby Sauron". Heh. (via)

• The big picture book of viruses (via)

• Early Image, a collection of illustrations from popular sources, published prior to 1923. Nice dinosaurs. (via)

• Magnus Loiri, Saimi Enestam, Jyrki Gallen-Kallela, Heljä Kaurismäki, Hessu Filatov, Arsi Karpela, Sampsa Päätalo -- the Finnish names produced by the fake name generator sound sort of right, only... sort of surreal too. (via)

• Abandoned swimming pools (via)

LOL vincit omnia

• Nice steampunk laptop (via)

• LOLsaur (and LOLSauron, I suppose). Bonus track: LOLPilgrims.

• World beard and moustache championships 2007. Yikes. (via)

• What a feisty kitten!

• Russian fantasy art, credited to Vsevolod Ivanov, but Ivanov was a novelist?! The style is interesting: rather clichéd fantasy art, but there's an interesting twist to it that looks clearly Karelian to me.

• Philosophical health check (via)

• Cinema fiction vs. physics reality, an examination of ghosts, vampires and zombies.

• Common errors in English

• Yoda speak generator

Slowly but surly

• Are you sick of all the neat and tidy short URLs? Try Huge URL. (via)

• Bees in a bell jar -- you know, this is what the internet is for. Cool stuff that exists in ordinary but more weird and awesome and sort of Lovecraftian ways than most of us could ever imagine. (via)

• Work smarter, not harder (via)

• Riika from Oulu has a nice photoblog (via)

• Cover letters from hell. My favourites: "I am seeking a new position as i have recently been laid" and "I am getting to my goal, slowly but surly". (via)

• Cthulhu cakes and Death Star cake (oops, missed my birthday... maybe next year)

• Now there's a bit of wool (via)

• The steampunk tree house just about defines the concept of  "wonderfully weird" (via)

Dord

• English words with uncommon properties and A collection of word oddities and trivia (both via). These collections are simply delicious:

"DORD is a non-existent word entered into the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary by mistake. The following is taken from The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics by Herbert C. Morton (1994):

When the guidelines for etymology in Webster's Third were nearing completion, Gove took time out to add the story of dord to the lore of how things can go wrong in dictionary making. Dord was a word that had appeared spontaneously and had found a quiet niche in the English language two decades earlier."

• Spelling with zombies uses a zombie alphabet (via)

• Look at this dog (via)

• MegaFauna lists remarkable prehistoric mammals (via)

This & that

• Weird holidays (via)

• Free rice: test your vocabulary and donate rice through the UN

• The 1964 Peel P50 is really something!

• How to remove tourists from your photos (via)

That time of the year

• This must be the coolest pencil sharpener ever (halfway down the page) (via)

• Vintage Halloweed postcards (via)

• Zombie cake and some lovely eyeballs (via)

• The best (and most scary) family portrait I've seen

My blog. Let me show u eet.

The book is finally out, and life goes on. Sort of. One can hope.

• Beautiful aerial photography by Alex MacLean, and kite photography from India by Nicolas Chorier. (via 1, 2)

• Ha & LOLZ (via 1, 2)

• More LOL: LOLTrek, Bowiekitten, LOLHouse, and a Potions master, brewing glory and whatnot.

• The world's creepiest places and the six most terrifying foods in the world. What, no roasted guinea pig or Ukrainian fat bars? (via 1, 2)

• A model of Scrooge McDuck's money bin (via)

• Caring for your introvert. As for the book title "Now why should extroverts make all the money" -- yes, why? (via)

Wow

Finally... Captain Star on YouTube!

• It is written on stars: 1, 2, 3
• Rocket to nowhere: 1, 2, 3
• Ned Nova: 1, 2, 3
• The Collector: 1, 2, 3
• Day of the Zooties: 1, 2, 3
• No future: 1, 2, 3
• The worm turns: 1, 2, 3
• A galaxy of stars: 1, 2, 3
• The atomic alarm clock: 1, 2, 3, 4
• The edge of the universe: 1, 2, 3
• The gravity of the situation: 1, 2, 3
• Nine heads are better than one: 1, 2, 3
• Waiting for Sputnik: 1, 2, 3

Misc.

• Sliding blocks is a Flash game that will, eventually, drive you crazy.

• I really like the idea of Electric sheep. (via)

• The alternative dictionaries: slang, profanities, insults and vulgarisms from all the world. (via)

• All the Calvin & Hobbes strips from 1985 to 1995 (via)

I'm in ur comix

• ...stealin ur hobo cats: I has a bukkit, I has a flavr, they be stealin mah buckit, u eated my sosij,  ceiling cat is watching you, monorail cat, all ur bass are belong to us, it can be caturday yet, Cthulhu fhtagn!

• Scenic landscape images by Ladislav Kamarád. Iceland, Czech republic, Karakorum, New Zealand. (via)

• Deleted images (via)

• Born today (via) -- there's also On this day by the Beeb and NY Times.

• doPDF adds a virtual printer to you computer that lets you print any document to a PDF. Handy.

• Where are the great photos on Flickr? Dozens of interesting links in the comments. (via)

Sundayish

• A few great old photos at Shorpy. It's amazing how sharp some of these old B&W photos are. Amazing midtones too.

• Want to write a novel badly? Here's how! "Don’t let your character’s established traits get in the way of a good plot twist. Just because your hero is a priest who preaches non-violence (we’ll call him Father Angeltoe) doesn’t mean he can’t be an expert marksman with an itchy trigger finger." (via)

• A few curiosities: creatures that look like hairless dogs from hell, abandoned mining machines (I wonder what the car is supposed to be doing up there), beautiful ice mountains and weird early electronic games

• Boring postcards (via)

• A 13-yr-old Finn has caught Reuters faking pics (via)

• The fact that Russians have resumed drilling Antarctic ice to reach the huge underwater freshwater lake is alarming as such. But it's even more alarming that this comment on Elder Gods keeps cracking me up. Speaking of which...

• I don't know what to think of Stephen King. I don't like his novels, but I've been fascinated by some of his columns. The man has a way with words, even if it's not the way I usually enjoy as a reader. What I do know is that I prefer his column on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows over Christopher Hitchens' review (consider yourself warned of Deathly Hallows spoilers). I don't appreciate the slightly condescending tone of Hitchens' review, or the weird Shakespeare allusion at the end, but he does point out some interesting aspects. Part of the books' charm, to me, is that religion is rather nonexistent in the world of Harry Potter, but "the main characters nonetheless have a strong  moral code and a solid ethical commitment". And not just the nice and lovable main characters; simply consider Snape. (Never mind his motives, which may be a totally different story.) (via 1, 2)

• Could someone please tell me what a "Harry Potter Ringwraith" is supposed to be? Reminds me of Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan, where McGonagall calls Dumbledore "King Arthur" and "Gandalf".

How hideous is the semi-colon

• Gaisma: sunrise, sunset, dusk and dawn times around the world. (via)

• Beckett on film consists of 19 plays that were broadcast in Finland six years ago. I've always liked Beckett, and the films I managed to see were ever so nicely done. Now they're available on DVD, but how on earth is an underpaid nonfiction writer going to afford a 130 € DVD box?

• The PC Decrapifier sounds dead useful. I hate shutting down all the unnecessary and annoying processes over and over again. (via)

• Cool Summerisle t-shirt. (via)

• Today's ROTFLMAO: DM of the rings. "Lord of the Rings is more or less the foundation of modern D&D. The latter rose from the former, although the two are now so estranged that to reunite them would be an act of savage madness. Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign."

• Today's WTF: a couple of guys go fishing and catch a deer.

• Digital artist Vlad Gerasimov has designed some very nice wallpapers. The inversed map of the world looks amazing.

Kat Fud

• Edwardian delights, old postcards with lots of nude ladies (NSFW, I suppose). It's amazing how much erotica has changed over less than a hundred years. What on earth were they thinking? (via)

• The cuteness of grammatical errors, i.e. why do we find lolcats funny, and a similar thread at Ask MeFi. And then there's the lolcat of death, of course.

• Not quite Sleipnir: a seven-legged lamb has been born in NZ (via)

• Passive-agressive notes from roommates, neighbours, co-workers and strangers. Mostly scary. (via)

• The geekiest yarn creations on the web. Lovely Space Invaders socks! (via)

• Anymails shows received emails as microbes. It's oddly beautiful; be sure to watch the movies. (via)

The dust speck

• Cosmic view: the universe in 40 jumps is a 1957 book by Kees Boeke, and it reminds me of this. (via)

• The top ten science moments in the Simpsons, chosen by Nature's editorial staff (via)

• Wow. Just... wow. (via)

• Octopus unearths 900-yr-old hidden treasure

• The philolsophers pool on Flick. Yes, lol. (via)

404

• 15 unfortunately placed ads. Ha! (via)

• Too bad this place isn't exactly next door. Seems worth a visit. (via)

• I didn't even know Burton was shooting Sweeney Todd. Now I know.

• Lovely Polish circus posters (page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). With bearded ladies, elephants,  horses and all. (more posters; all via)

• The Jónas Tour, a map that provides direct links to a number of poems by Jónas Hallgrímsson that are intimately connected with particular Icelandic locales. Not all horses in poetry are, er, poetic. (via)

The importance of context

• Scary ship (via)

• "The fuel will be composed of 85 % waste vegetable oil and 15 % virgin rapeseed oil. So, while it will be 100 % carbon neutral, it won't be entirely waste oil. However, Matthew Howe, Senior VP of McDonald's UK was quoted saying "As we get better at the refinement we will be able to remove virgin rape from the process," a line which we sincerely hope never gets taken out of context." (via)

• Is there an artificial god? Douglas Adams' speech from 1998. (via)

• The cloud appreciation society. Gallery.

• Dubai in the fog (photo set) (via)

• Cookthink finds you a recipe based on which ingredient(s) you're craving.

• Photographer Tim Flach's Equus project is very thought-provoking. And it includes Icelandics and Haflingers, which is always nice. Lovely photos; wait for 7, 9, 14, 17, 18, 19, 22, 37, 38, 41, 43. A portfolio from Iceland. I do hate Flash sites you can't link to properly. (via)

Misc.

• Photographic notes from a madhouse (via)

• Stonehenge pocket watch (via)

• The horse project "began with an artist named Scott Wayne Indiana. He knew about the horse rings in many Portland sidewalks and thought it was a shame that we don't tie our horses to them anymore. Scott decided to change that and tied his first pony to a horse ring in the fall of 2005 in the revitalized Pearl District in Northwest Portland. After a few months, he expanded the horse project and asked for some help. Now these horses are showing up all over Portland." (No, not real ones!) (via)

• A collection of Chinese public health posters. Er... (via)

• Whoever it was that linked to this game a few weeks ago: I want your head on a plate.

• A gorgeous new cephalopod (large image) (via)

• Electronic dictionary of the Irish language (via)

• Heh. And some lolruses. And A Spockwork Orange.

Momentarily unpaused

Two wonderfully weird links via:

• Tiny sculptures by Tessa Farmer: dead insects battling with evil fairies
• Insect lab: hybrids of insects and watch parts

Quoth the pessimist

• Good news for lesbian couples who want kids and some straight couples too. In theory, that is. All possible practical uses of the invention will surely be banned. (via)

• Some badass origami and Soviet matchbox covers (via 1, 2)
  

• Things Royal Mail won't carry: I do see why uranium, arsenic and ebola pathogens shouldn't be mailed, but "filth",  "indecent, obscene or offensive material" and "lottery tickets" (except UK ones)?!

• The Star Wars portfolio. Original artwork by Ralph McQuerie. (via)

...

It's amazing how a something you've really liked may lose its taste overnight. I've liked Apocalypse Now for years and years, up until last month.