Boston Phoenix interview with Harvey Silverglate on his book "Three Felonies A Day," in which he explains how federal justice has become sufficiently perverted in this nation that federal prosecutors, if they put their minds to it, could find a way to indict almost any one of us for almost anything. [h/t: madfilkentist]

Carl Jung wrote and illustrated a book about his own internal psychic journeys, and for decades his family has kept it closely guarded. It's just been published with translation. Here's the New York Times article about it. [h/t: sunspiral]

Interesting article in Newsweek regarding when and how kids start discriminating based on race. [h/t: ultimatepsi]

(Last of the tab-clearing links posts! At least for now. :-)

11 minutes long, but worth it. Two guys from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" provide an alternative to "stand up" comedy. :-)



[hat tip: filkertom]

Funny but pointed!



Hat tip to hsifyppah. Discussion here, including a link to the following "beat poem" by Tim Minchin:



...which in turn reminds me of a favorite quote of mine, one I recently reread:

I have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He’ll hold up a flower and say, “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. But then he’ll say, “I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull.” I think he’s kind of nutty.

First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people-- and to me, too, I believe. Although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. But at the same time, I see much more in the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells inside, which also have a beauty. There's beauty not just at the dimension of one centimeter; there's also beauty at a smaller dimension.

There are the complicated actions of the cells, and other processes. The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life? There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

- Richard Feynmann, What Do You Care What Other People Think?, p. 11.

[hat tip to filkertom, who correctly warned, "Not safe for work. Or anyone, really."]



(And yes, frighteningly, it's real.)

[thanks to ceo]

( additional info )

EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

[The second video comes from the same guys who brought you the "Diet Coke & Mentos experiments". Hat tip to ruthling for the link.]

So, lately ultimatepsi and I have gotten increasingly interested in Sign Language. At Concertino, we learned many fun (though not necessarily useful) signs from hsifyppah, so that we could sign such phrases as "Jesus is not a squid" and "The lobster eats me". At Confluence, UltimatePsi (in particular) picked up a bunch more, including the signs for "pirate", "elephant", "freedom", "soldier", "lie", and "prison", plus some actually-useful ones like "all", "in", and "day". It was also the first time judifilksign signed any of my songs ("Happy Song Virus"), but I quickly discovered that I can't watch her while I sing or else I get totally thrown off! (UltimatePsi watched some and picked up signs for "alien" and "prison"/"cell". Alas, there's no video.)

The thing that fascinates me most about ASL translation is the grammar and rephrasing, so I've included literal translations when available.

( The second and third videos are NSFW! )

A rather ingenious mash-up synching up Fred Astaire movie clips to "Smooth Criminal":

Still more tab-cleaning-out. :-)

[Thanks to maedbh7 for introducing me to Tim Minchin.]
( Videos! )