Eerie Sounds of Saturn

Music of the Spheres

Perfect background noise for a Halloween party, or a low-budget flying-saucer movie: NASA's recordings of eerie radio emissions from the planet Saturn (via the Cassini space probe) can be downloaded as a WAV file here. I'm a big fan of "white noise," particularly as a sleep aid (somebody snores), but these unearthly tones would give me nightmares.

(via Incoming Signals)

Evil Clown Generator

Evil Clown

I've never liked clowns, and I was terrified of them as a kid. Something about their unpredictable antics made (makes) me uneasy. The Evil Clown Generator is fun, though--maybe because I get to have some control over what happens on screen. You can click on buttons to change the jester's facial features, or just hold your cursor over eyes, nose or mouth to see a rapid-fire series of different evil/funny expressions.

Ah-Choo

Ah-Choo

Fall must be coming -- I'm sneezing my head off and my nose itches. Yet it was 90 degrees today (32 C), and they're talking about the possibility of both hurricanes and wild fires on the Weather Channel. September is a schizoid month. I like it better than drowsy August, though, when the whole lazy, heat-stroked world seems to have collapsed onto a chaise lounge. September is more serious and stimulating, but not quite percolating yet. I'm tired of all this tropical air. I want to wear a jacket, buy a pumpkin, get busy and clear my head. And my sinuses.

"How I failed the Turing test"

Human? Prove it

Convincing online correspondents that you're not a chatbot can be difficult (more difficult than making them think you are a celebrity), as Jason Striegel found out: How I failed the Turing test.

(via Scribbled Lines)

Nine Eleven

911

Nine-eleven again. This is the first anniversary when I haven't felt much of anything, even though I watched the towers collapse with my own (bugging) eyes four years ago. It seemed like the end of the world then, but here we all are. Well, not all of us . . .

Word of the Day: ordalian

Word of the Day

odalian (adj)

Relating to an ordeal

Owing to his "delicate" back, Zachary considered any task requiring physical labor to be an ordalian imposition.

Fractals

Strange Attractors

These fractal images have a weirdly organic look. Kind of beautiful.

(via The Presurfer)

Quote of the Day: Horse show judge to the rescue?

Quote of the Day

"...This is the price we as citizens pay when people who don't really care much about the citizens to begin with reward their flunkies and sugar-daddies with patronage appointments. This is the price we pay when horse show judges are entrusted with the responsibility of protecting us from dangerous circumstances. This is what failure of the institutions intended to defend us from dire circumstances looks like. From all appearances, we're on our own from now on since these clowns don't seem to think that there's a thing in the world for which they need to apologize."

More at RuminateThis: The Deadly Cost of Politics

(via wood s lot)

Random Title Generator

Books That Never Were

Rough Consort
The Green Crying
The Butterfly's Sorcerer
The School of the Servants
Forgotten Witches
Academy of Night
The Silvery Husband
Death's Wings
The Game of the Healer
The Burning Dream
The Angel of the Moon
The Trembling Secret

They may sound vaguely familiar, but the titles above, spawned by the Random Title Generator, are entirely fictitious. Rough Consort sounds like it could be a nasty Princess Diana bio. Forgotten Witches could be about Salem's B-team. The Silvery Husband--or I Married a Robot? The Burning Dream--the story of an overly ambitious pyromaniac, perhaps. And The Trembling Secret sounds like a long-lost Wilkie Collins page turner.

Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Sad Horns

Catastrophe's whirlpool
pulled the doomstruck down

stilling their vibrations,
stirring a gumbo

of rainbow poison,
wood, nails and upholstery,

filling a lake
thick with dead fish,

the soft, liquefying
faces of the drowned.

You
put on dark glasses,

knew nothing
about sheeted things on wagons.

Weeks later,
memory drains,

and the sea slinks back
with a dolorous sigh.

The sun bakes the ruined walls,
while elsewhere

the world hums on,
and here the sad horns moan.

This is the United States

Dead bodies everywhere; link to NOLA blog

"Dead bodies everywhere"

A Katrina/NOLA blog with updates every few minutes: The Interdictor

As the Martian Anthropologist points out, with competent and concerned national leadership, it all could have been forseen and avoided.