Diary of a Mad Natural Historian

I found the Rather Difficult Font Game (via Making Light) and, though I’m typographically illiterate, did some guessing, hoping/dreading that Comic Sans might turn up. It did.

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The screencap above is for all the residents at 62 Achewood Court.

Two worthwhile posts from James Wimberley having to do with the high places of Asia: a suggestion for a China-tweaking name for the world’s second-highest peak and some excellent thoughts on Tibet, occasioned by the continuing multi-venue farce that is the torch relay.

Go, then, and read.

I’ve been getting a lot of hits on searches for Gabrielle Drake - something I find myself taking a perverse pleasure in. I thought I’d use the google and see what was coming up; before I got anywhere near DoaMNH, I encountered this essay, Crash! Full-Tilt Autogeddon, on the Ballardian. Yes, Ms. Drake appeared in a 1971 short titled Crash!, opposite some guy named J.G. Ballard. Click through and read the essay - meanwhile, I’ll just continue to shake my head in amazement.

Indeed, the egocentric popular culture of today, the all-invasive media landscape in which the private becomes public — the Myspace glossolalia of intimate, private space projected onto a global screen — can perhaps be understood in these terms, a result of what Ballard sees as ‘the shared experience of moving together through an elaborately signalled landscape’.

Mild warning - the film is titled Crash! after all…

My guess is that the Olympic torch relay will continue to be newsworthy today when it hits San Fransisco (now that’s going out on a limb). As we watch things unfold, allow me to recommend a couple good posts on the torch and the Olympic movement, such as it is nowadays.

James Wimberly:

In contrast, the wider political message of the modern Olympics is vapid. The torch in particular, lit at Olympia by pretty girls dressed vaguely as priestesses in skimpy chitons, is a pseudo-religious fraud. The torch relay was actually invented by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympics; its tainted origin lies in the racist propaganda immortalized by the twisted genius of Leni Riefenstahl. No black, Jewish, or disabled athletes needed to apply then. Paradoxically, the public legitimacy of the protests depends on a measure of acceptance of the fraud as a symbol of a real value which the Chinese and the IOC are betraying; rather in the way the Church of England grew from its origin in cynical politics into a genuine religious tradition.

Henry Farrell:

The current debacle though seems to mark an important change in the politics of the Olympics. As best I understand it (I am open to corrections if wrong), in the past, Olympics politics have involved inter-state rivalry, and have been driven by decisions on the part of traditional political elites. The US boycott of the Soviet games in protest against the invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 resulted from a decision by Jimmy Carter, and the tit-for-tat boycott by the Soviets and their allies of the LA games in 1984 resulted from a top level decision too. The dynamic driving the Beijing Olympics seems to me to be rather different; what we are seeing is that the politics of boycott is being driven by mass-publics, and most recently by protestors, rather than by political leaders.

The post’s title refers to this guy.

Some people (me) post GPS data from lame little trips on Rte. 128. Others - see here - post data on bar-hopping. In this case, the bars are floating on the igarapé do Tarumã Açu (a tributary of the Rio Negro), just west of Manaus. I’ve got radio towers and he has peacock bass - don’t know about you, but I’d rather be there.

I’m working on converting Mr. Lawrence’s track data to something that’ll show a path in Google Earth - so far, I’ve gotten waypoints and that may be where it ends - we’ll see.

Two new blogs I’m going to add to my Netvibes RSS feed: Diego Rodriguez(metacool)’s Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness and Mister Jalopy and Mark F.’s Dinosaurs and Robots. I hope I don’t need to explain Mr. Rodriguez’s new place to you; Dinosaurs and Robots says about itself, “Rather than focus on the newest trend, we will seek authentic, handy, rarefied, disgusting, illuminating, delicious, mysterious, intoxicating, commonplace, historic, intensely personal, entertaining and enlightened objects, both priceless heirlooms and exquisite trash.” Sounds good to me. Uniting both new blogs - a certain, shall we say, augmented, Ford product.

Gmail Custom Time:

Just click “Set custom time” from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient’s inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option.

Whaddaya mean, “What’s today’s date?” Oh, right…

Enceladus - en-sell’-ah-dus

I look these things up so you don’t have to (OK, OK - you already knew - let me maintain what little dignity I have left *grin*).

03.26.08– NASA’s Cassini spacecraft tasted and sampled a surprising organic brew erupting in geyser-like fashion from Saturn’s moon Enceladus during a close flyby on March 12. *

For life to persist once it has been established requires an environment of liquid water, the essential elements and nutrients, and an energy source. At Enceladus, we have evidence for liquid water, but we don’t know its origin. We have observed simple organic chemicals there, and the March 12 close flyby indicates there are some complex organic chemicals, as well. An energy source of some sort is producing geysers. As Cassini’s exploration continues, we’re seeking to bring together more pieces of this intriguing puzzle. * (via Bruce Sterling)

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Enough to make a biophile like yrs truly do a little jig of delight.

And I do mean blasts -

• S: (n) good time, blast (a highly pleasurable or exciting experience) “we had a good time at the party”; “celebrating after the game was a blast”
• S: (v) blast, blare (make a strident sound) “She tended to blast when speaking into a microphone” *

From the Hemmings blog, an ad for Dr. Old’s creation - the 442. I went as fast as I’ve ever gone (in a car) in a friend’s 1966 442 - probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but what are you gonna do? Lest we all wax too nostalgic, I read a comparo in Car and Driver matching classic muscle cars against the VW GTI/Civic Si’s of the world and the newer little thangs ate the old iron up. There’s a lot to like about the old stuff, but when gas hits $4/gallon here in the states this summer, well…

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From Make:, another vintage noisemaker - homemade Leslies! A Hammond B3 and Leslies - a pair that’s worth their own ‘Got a Match?’ post… Again, as a result of misspent youth - I’ll always associate Leslie speakers with the J. Geils Band (local boys make good - Mr. Faye Dunaway, though from the Bronx, will always mean early 70’s Boston to me).

The youtube of the homemade rig:

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And the J. Geils Band - couldn’t find anything era-appropriate that had the whole band going, so you’ll have to settle for Magic Dick:

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“27 more minutes, before I say bye-bye…”

All are worth clicking through to (if you haven’t already read them, of course).

• Adam Greenfield on the (re)discovery of the Velvet Underground’s Gymnasium set.
• Curious Expeditions on bioluminescence.
• Bioephemera on the Waldseemuller 1507 map of the world. Word of the day: mise-en-abime; example here.