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"Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want". I'm repeating myself. :) 56 mins ago

QOTD: What books to read

[W]e ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? … A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

– Franz Kafka in a letter to Oskar Pollak

Julian Emmanuel turns three

Julian Emmanuel turns three

Julian Emmanuel turns three, originally uploaded by iandexter.

Happy birthday, Wild Mutt-Echo Echo-Power Ranger! :)

We love you.

– Kuya Gab, mom, and tatay

Robot Sunday: Robot love

No, it’s not what you think.

Directed by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, I’m Here is a “robot love story celebrating a life enriched by creativity.”

The movie is set in contemporary L.A., where life moves at a seemingly regular pace with the exception of a certain amount of robot residents who live among the population. A male robot librarian lives a solitary and methodical life — devoid of creativity, joy and passion — until he meets an adventurous and free spirited female robot.

/via Slashfilm

Link dump: Tubes, vampires, cookies

(It’s time for another link dump, a hodgepodge of web goodness. Enjoy!)

There is a theory — a “unified” theory, in fact — that the universe is connected by “wave tubes”. (Imagine traveling to other galaxies through wormholes ala-Star Gate.) But I digress.

On a less grander scale, but still beautiful, here is the Milky Way, represented as a transit (tube) map.

Milky Way transit map
Credit: Samuel Arbesman

Speaking of tubes (what a segue…), ever wondered how the Internet is made? Wonder no more. Here is an Instructables how-to about making a replica of “The Internet”, as seen in the comedy hit, The IT Crowd. (Embedding is not allowed so here’s a link to the clip of that episode.)

Fun facts about the internet!

  1. The internet is surprisingly small!
  2. The internet is wireless!
  3. The internet is very light! (Of course the internet doesn’t weigh anything!)
  4. The internet lives at the top of Big Ben! (Where it gets the best reception.)
  5. Before being borrowed, it MUST be demagnetised! Preferably by a Grand Master of The Internet such as Stephen Hawking.

Something totally unrelated, but very cool nevertheless: an SF story about vampires, with a twist. (Here is the link to the MP3.) I should look for more of these.

And here’s someone who loves typography: she bakes cookies shaped as Helvetica type. Lorem ipsum dolor sit yummy!

Helvetica cookies
Credit: Beverly Hsu

QOTD: Learning journalism

He was doing journalism in order to eat, which is a very good way of learning journalism. Probably the only real way, come to think of it.

– Terry Pratchett on Neil Gaiman, in Good Omens

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