The 'Quirky' New Wave

Here's a well-written article on the subject of movies called The 'Quirky' New Wave. Some knowledge required, as director and movie namedropping occur. From the article:

"I, like most other right-minded people, hate the word 'quirky': it seems to lead far too easily to other distasteful terms such as 'wacky', 'zany', or even that most pointless of critical adjectives: 'weird'. So try to imagine my dismay when, time and again, I read reviews that consistently tar some of my favourite new American films with the quirky brush. What exactly does this word mean to these reviewers? And what is it about these films that makes them so quirky?"

Aktieskole

Hvis du har lyst til at sætte dig lidt ind i handel med aktier er Euroinvestors Aktieskole en god introduktion til emnet.

Sænk Aldrig Farten

Sænk aldrig farten - Interview ved Anna Libak, Weekendavisen nr. 5, 2.-8 februar 2007 med Anders Fogh Jensen:

"Samfundsdiagnose. Det er aldrig for sent at blive en succes. Eller en fiasko. Derfor må man konstant holde sig i gang. Samtale med filosoffen Anders Fogh Jensen om projektsamfundet."

You Can't Tell People Anything

Here's an interesting article from one of the old-timers in the tech industry on the troubles of communicating an idea called You Can't Tell People Anything.

The Psychology of Security

Bruce Schneier, security main man, just wrote an excellent essay called The Psychology of Security.

Default Router Passwords

Maybe you can use a comprehensive list of default router passwords.

Build Your Memory

Kudos to the site BuildYourMemory. Pretty much all you need to read to do just that.

The Antioxidant Myth

Interesting article called The Antioxidant Myth. The name pretty much speaks for itself.

Online Education

Here's a really valuable Massive Resource List for Autodidacts.

Interrogation

If you are interested in the subject of interrogation, this thorough 31-page article called The Dark Art of Interrogation by Mark Bowden is a worthy read. It focuses mainly on the grey area between interrogation and torture.

Albert Hofmann 101th Birthday

On this here 101th(!) birthday of Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, I bring you his book LSD: My Problem Child.

Data Mining

A good article on data mining - the extraction of 'hidden' data from large amounts of data. It's called I Have Nothing To Hide - or the Sainsbury's Lesson.

Retorik Magasinet

Jeg vil gerne slå et slag for det fremragende blad RetorikMagasinet. Du kan læse Weekendavisens rosende omtale af bladet her.

What Happens To Your Body If...

Healthbolt has this short but interesting list of What Happens To Your Body If You Stop Smoking Right Now? Also interesting is the list of What Happens To Your Body If You Drink A Coke Right Now? Hell - I'll even throw in this list of 14 Reasons It’s Particularly Harmful For Women To Smoke.

Faulty Arguments

With this quality List Of Fallacious Arguments you'll be prepared to sidestep faulty logic in arguments. Your own as well as others.

9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Following up on the Lauren Hill racist myth post below, here's a throughout cover story from Popular Mechanics called Debunking the 9/11 Myths.

Lauren Hill Racist

I can't believe people believe this ****. Lauren Hill never said anything racist in any interview, MTV or otherwise. Seriously - if she did, it would be everywhere on the net. Here's a short article on the history of the rumor.

Please. Treat unsubstantiated facts as fiction.

"Claim: During an MTV interview singer Lauryn Hill said, "I would rather die/have my children starve than have a white person buy one of my albums."

Status: False.

Origins: In 1996 a caller to the Howard Stern show claimed Lauryn Hill of The Fugees made anti-white statements during an MTV interview, to the effect that she rather see her child starve than have a white kid buy her album."

How Cellular Phones Work

The article Cellular Telephone Basics taught me how cellular phones actually works. Nice. As a shorter, but not superficial, intro to the subject I also recommend How Cellular Phones Work from the excellent site Howstuffworks.

Onelook

Onelook Dictionary Search is an astonishingly useful ressource. It let's you look up an english word or term in 98 different quality, online dictionaries in one go. It also offers a powerful wildcard search.

Movie Stuff

If you like movies, here's a couple of ressources.
IMDB - Internet Movie DataBase is one of the most impressive databases online. I have never drawn a blank - not even with regards to obscure, 'foreign' movies.
Rotten Tomatoes is a collection of movie reviews from a lot of (mostly American) sources. The generel opinion at the site is sometimes surprising. Be prepared for some stereotypical hammering. Metacritic is a similar site.
Filmz is a danish site, which works. It brings you news on movies and the industry.
I also recommend Apple's trailer-site, if your in the mood for trailers and teasers. The amount is pretty impressive, and it's updated.
For further movie information, check the movie label below. Also check the video label to see the clips on this site.

Very Short Stories

Wired has this article on Very Short Stories. Six word stories. I really like the concept. Example from the article:

Gown removed carelessly. Head less so.

Youtube For Money And Fame

Google has started paying the creators of popular video clips on Youtube advertising revenue. Very interesting indeed. Here's an article from News.com.

Sideways

Prøvede at skrive en filmanmeldelse. Filmen er Sideways, og som det fremgår, kan jeg rigtig godt lide den. Har lige fundet ud af, at den har vundet 91 priser, så det var der åbenbart også andre, der kunne. Men gør dig selv en tjeneste, og lad være at se traileren. Den sucker.

20 Smart Companies to Start Now

From the article 20 Smart Companies to Start Now - Business 2.0 Magazine, CNNMoney.com:

"Asking venture capitalists for great startup ideas is a little like asking Curt Schilling what pitch he's going to throw next. When we posed the question to dozens of VCs and investors around the country, more than a few indignantly shot back, "Are you out of your mind?"

But after some friendly prodding from our reporters, a surprising number of them couldn't help but start jawing about companies they would love to build - if only the right people could be found to perfect the technologies or the business plans and make them seem possible.

The result is this list of 20 tantalizing business ideas, ranging from a host of new websites and applications to next-generation power sources and a luxury housing development. This isn't small-time thinking, either: These investors -which include some of Silicon Valley's most successful VCs as well as serial entrepreneurs like Steve Case and Howard Schultz are backing their ideas with a collective $100 million in funding to the entrepreneurs who can get them off the ground."

Europe Just Says Maybe

The article Europe Just Says Maybe from Newsweek is an excellent overview of the state of illegal drugs policy in Europe. It shows an European trend moving from old fashion no tolerance to damage control.

Act Normal

Quote from the 1994 anti-normal rant Act Normal:

"Who is it that gets together in mobs and hunts down, tortures and
kills people who are different from them? Who is it that teaches modesty,
courtesy, and generosity but lives in depravity, rudeness, and greed? Who
is it that can gather together the time, energy and money to murder
millions and destroy cities, for the sake of a flag, deity or economic
system? Not weirdos, not kooks or cranks or nuts. It's the "Normal"
people who do those things."

Helmet Social Psychology

This study from Bath University suggests wearing a helmet might make a collision more likely. Interesting.

Bukowski

Oh, yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

Charles Bukowski

This poem is one of the Charles Bukowski poems recited in the excellent documentary Charles Bukowski - Born Into This. My recommendations.

Liquid Explosive My ***

I don't know if you know, but the London liquid explosive thing can not be done. Please distrust your media.

Writely

Google now has an online word-processor as well. It bears the name of Writely, it works, and it can pretty much do what Microsoft Word does. Furthermore it gives you the ability to create either read-only or editing permissions for other people on the documents you create. That's just *so* Web 2.0.

Five Ways to Kill a Man

Edwin Brock wrote this really nice poem called Five Ways to Kill a Man.

7 Reasons the 21st Century Is Making Us Miserable

I think this article, 7 Reasons the 21st Century Is Making Us Miserable by David Wong, is splendid. No less. It hit me in the soft ribs, and I think it concerns plenty other people in this here world as well.

Mental Calculation

For the matematically inclined, this article from Wikipedia on Mental Calculations has some good info on how to do calculation in your head. The methods I liked the most are Indirect calculation, Using square numbers, 9 and 3 rules, Approximating square roots and Squaring numbers near X.

This article on calculating the day of the week of a given date is really good. It taught me how to calculate the day of the week of a given date.

Social Psychology Basics

I am still in the finishing chapters of Dr. George Boeree's Social Psychology Basics. Good one. Basically it's just a free textbook. If that turns you on, it's cool.

Findarticles and Magportal

I've written about it before, but I find it worthy of repetition. FindArticles and MagPortal - databases of free articles. An impressive amount of free articles from specialized magazines.

Terrorlov

Justitsminister Lene Jespersen sendte i begyndelsen af marts det såkaldte terrorlov-forslag til høring hos de berørte myndigheder og organisationer med høringsfrist til den 24. marts 2006. Forslagene er udarbejdet af en arbejdsgruppe, der 25. august 2005 gik i gang med at vurdere terrorberedskabssituationen i Danmark, med anmodning om at være færdig tre måneder senere. Forslagene er bilag 1 til den samlede rapport.

Jeg vil desuden i forbindelse med delforslag 15 om krav om lagring af al(!) internettrafik -

"15. Arbejdsgruppen anbefaler, at § 15 i lov om konkurrence- og forbrugerforhold på telemarkedet ændres, så udbydere af elektroniske kommunikationsnet og -tjenester får pligt til at indrette deres tekniske udstyr på en måde, der gør indgreb i meddelelseshemmeligheden muligt uanset teknologisk fremføringsform. (Kapitel 3, afsnit 4.3.1)."

- henvise til sikkerhedsguru'en Bruce Schneier's glimrende artikel Why Data Mining Won't Stop Terror.

Online Newspapers

Here you'll find links to (links to) online newspapers from all around the world.

On the Matematics of the Lottery

I am one of the people who like to compare the chances of winning the lottery to the chances of getting hit by all sorts of things. This article by Mark Dominus makes some pretty good points on the subject that have made me rethink my point of view on the subject.

ManyBooks

ManyBooks is a pretty impressive collection of free eBooks. You can download the books in a variety of different formats, including PDF and iPod Notes. I think you will be able to find most classics there. As a measure of the size of the collection, the listing of authors starting with the letter S amounts to 420.

The Lie About the Lie Detector

Oh, the number of times you have been told by people on your television that it is possible to cheat a lie detector and thought "Yeah, well - how?!". No more. I give to you The Lie About the Lie Detector - a 220-page all-you-need-to-know PDF on the subject, created by AntiPolygraph.org.

There is nothing like the feeling of "I'm not supposed to know this".

Propaganda Tactics and Fahrenheit 9/11

Seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 I was amazed by the overuse of psychological tricks. I felt the movie was a shameful example of propaganda at it's worse, which irritated me since I found Columbine to be a good documentary. In the article Propaganda Tactics and Fahrenheit 9/11 Dr. Kelton Rhoads uses the movie as a case study in propaganda. I recommend it highly.

Brave New World

Back in 1932 Aldous Huxley wrote the novel Brave New World. It's available for free on the net because of it's age, as is lots of other great books. Read it. It's amazingly prophetic. And really good too.

Reality as Subversion

Douglas Rushkoff har skrevet artiklen Reality as Subversion. Jeg har læst den. Jeg kunne godt lide den.

Logiske kortslutninger

Her kan du læse en ret god gennemgang af en række almindelige logiske kortslutninger. Lær dem, og undgå dem.

Forhørsteknik

I anledning af sæsonpremieren på den fremragende serie 24 timer - 4. sæson i DK, 5. sæson i US - får du lige CIA's gamle forhørsmanual fra 1963 KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, og den kortere opfølger fra 1983 Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual (selve den scannede version af sidstnævnte her). Lisa Haugaard har skrevet en god artikel bl.a. om disse to tekster, ved navn Textbook Repression: US Training Manuals Declassified.

Rusmidler

If you seek information on drugs, you should visit Erowid - a really impressive collection of informaion. Know this archive. And know Lycaeum - another impressive large of information on the subject of psykoaktive substances.