Darwin / Obama mashup posters
BoingBoing recently featured a bunch of Darwin/Obama mashup posters:
I like. There are a couple more versions, on badges and t-shirts too. A bunch of us on twitter are putting in a bulk order to save on shipping. Let me know if you'd like in...
Don’t wanna be
Aw.
Via various places, but initially @flashboy. See also Songs of Praise, subtitled.
Inauguration Photosynth
CNN's The Moment combines hundreds of user-submitted images of the Inauguration into one 3d scene. It's navigable (although rotating may induce brainfuzz) and you can zoom into specific pictures. Pretty impressive: it uses Microsoft's Photosynth technology, which I really must have a proper play with. Requires Silverlight.
Update: Metafilter has links to satellite images of the inauguration crowds. Humanity = ants.
Watching the Inauguration
I have a few computer-based jobs this afternoon, so I'll pretend to do them while watching the inauguration.
The BBC's Obama montages are practically making themselves - the guy looks presidential just standing still. I'm looking forward to the speech.
Update later:
That was fun. I liked that the BBC reporters couldn't help but get caught up in the atmosphere, and it all got quite exciting.
The i-hate-gay-people religious chappie was pretty annoying, but I enjoyed watching my twitter timeline fill up with sarcastic comments. As one of them pointed out, his speech was the usual schtick of giving deities credit for the work of man. Obama and his team pulled off a hell of a win, but apparently it was all god's doing. Whatever.
Happily, Obama's speech more than made up for it. I thought it was impressively not-simplistic, even in the sentence construction - you had to pay attention to fully catch the meaning of many rhetorical flourishes. Modern political speeches are often full of short, basic sentences, so that was refreshing.
And I doubt it was deliberate, but the sun glinting off his newly-installed presidential lapel pin was Proper Hollywood.
I obviously liked the promise to "restore science to its rightful place", and this has gone down well on plenty of my favourite blogs. But this was little compared to the later reference to America being a land of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and..." - I'd heard him say this before, and was really, really hoping he'd do it again - "non-believers". Spec. Tacular. Atheists were for once recognised as valid people in the US political process, and in front of George "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens" Bush Sr, too.
Then came another religious dude who spectacularly missed the point of the speech by praying for god to fix everything for us. Sigh. Still, despite the unfortunate religious sandwiching, the meat was fulfilling.
I'm a fan of soaring oratory and grand ideals. Cynics will be, well, cynical, but I don't care. It's worth hoping.
Going down in flames if that was required
President-elect Obama has chosen Susan E. Rice as his UN ambassador. She sounds good:
During her first run at the State Department, Ms. Rice was a point person in responding to Al Qaeda’s 1998 bombing of United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But her most searing experience was visiting Rwanda after the 1994 genocide when she was still on the N.S.C. staff.
As she later described the scene, the hundreds, if not thousands, of decomposing, hacked up bodies that she saw haunted her and fueled a desire to never let it happen again.
“I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required,” she told The Atlantic Monthly in 2001. She eventually became a sharp critic of the Bush administration’s handling of the Darfur killings and last year testified before Congress on behalf of an American-led bombing campaign or naval blockade to force a recalcitrant Sudanese government to stop the slaughter.
It'd be nice if the world could get better at stopping genocide. Via Norm.
Oregon wins the meme
I am assured this is real:
The site has newspaper front pages from around the world, but none top this.
Also, the Obama campaign has uploaded a Flickr set of behind-the-scenes election night photos. It's widely suspected this is why Flickr fell over for a while yesterday - certainly the view count isn't increasing, suggesting it's all very, very cached.
President Obama
0520. The guy can make a speech. That was a hell of a night - totally worth staying up for.
Obama meets Bartlet
As written by Aaron Sorkin:
OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.
BARTLET I can’t give it to you.
OBAMA Why not?
BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.
OBAMA Why?
BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.
Although the argument may be moot:
In the wake of an epic financial meltdown that threatens to derail the U.S. economy for years, Barack Obama announced he was ending his run for President of the United States, declaring to a stunned nation, “Man, this is bullshit.”
...
The new de facto leader of the Presidential race, Sen. John McCain, was unaware of the development until told about it by a reporter. When asked how he felt about Obama quitting, McCain replied: “Senator Obama would like to fool the American people that he is the quitter in this race. He’s not. I already quit in 2005, well before Obama even thought of quitting. That’s quitting you can believe in.”
Both via undoubtedly wonderful websites that I've completely forgotten.
Barackrolling McCain
This is all over the Internets, but I thought it was funny:
See also this handy guide to the candidates.
Not really up to blogging at the moment. Back at some point, when I've snapped out of whatever it is I'm in.
Arugula and Eagles
I cannot remember the last time The Daily Show had an off episode. Maybe it's the prime fodder offered by the US election coverage, or maybe they're just getting really, really good. Here they are on the subtle and not-so-subtle dissections of Obama/McCain by the mainstream networks:
Jon Stewart is entirely responsible for my increasing use of the word 'fuck'. I used to reserve it for extreme situations, but Mr Stewart has shown how it serves a certain rhetorical need. Sorry, mother.
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
