This is what it looks like to fire a gun under waterSEP 28

Lovely photo of a gun being fired under water.

And here's a slow motion video of the same. Gunfire starts around 2:10.

(via neatorama)

US state matching gameSEP 28

Starting with a blank map of the US, the object is to place each state in its proper place.

My average error was 8 miles. A better test would be to start each state with the blank map...placing Colorado in the western part of the country without any guide is much tougher than doing it last. (via @notrobwalker)

Zidane head-butting statue unveiled in ParisSEP 28

A 15-foot-tall statue of Zinedine Zidane head-butting Marco Materazzi by sculptor Adel Abdessemed has been placed in the courtyard of the Pompidou Center in Paris.

The statue, entitled "Headbutt," is by the Algerian sculptor Adel Abdessemed, and coincides with an exhibition of his work in the museum. "This statue goes against the tradition of making statues to honor victories," said Phillipe Alain Michaud, who directed the exhibition. "It is an ode to defeat... Zidane's downward glance recalls that of Adam, chased from paradise."

But as Michaud knows, and surely as Abdessemed intends, it is both not so simple and much simpler. It is an ode to more than defeat; but it's also a representation of very basic feelings complicated by literary analogy. The Headbutt was full of anger, stupidity, and recklessness, but beneath them lay a damaged sense of honor. This makes it hard for even the calmest football fan to wholly begrudge Zidane his actions.

Robocars, whistlecars, and robotaxis, oh mySEP 28

Brad Templeton imagines how the design of cars and other transportation systems might change with widespread use of driverless cars. I especially like the robocar used as a mobile office or a place to get a good night's sleep as you travel from one place to the other.

The in-car environment will become more of a work and entertainment space than just a travel space. Passengers will expect things like a screen, a keyboard, and a desk. Passengers may wish to face one another (though not all are comfortable riding backwards.)

Quiet will be a very important consideration, though passengers will be allowed to wear headphones if desired, unlike drivers today.

The smooth ride (especially on the highway) of a robocar may generate demand for cars for night-travel, while the passengers sleep. Such vehicles might aim to make a trip last 8 hours rather than make the fastest possible trip, and as such would be much more energy efficient for such trips.

(This also requires a very low crash rate, as seat belts don't work as well on flat beds.)

My guess is that the first big market for driverless cars will not be the US but somewhere smaller, more urban, and more used to experimentation with alternate modes of transportation. (via the atlantic)

Younger version of Leonardo's Mona Lisa to go on displaySEP 28

The Swiss-based Mona Lisa Foundation is presenting an earlier version of the famed Leonardo da Vinci painting. According to one foundation member, "We have investigated this painting from every relevant angle and the accumulated information all points to it being an earlier version of the Giaconda in the Louvre." Seems like a good excuse to listen to The Rolling Stones sing Mona (I Need You Baby).

Syndicated from Dave Pell's NextDraft email newsletter.

MicronationsSEP 27

Hutt River, around 5 hours north of Perth, Australia, is one of about 70 micronations in the world, and has its own constitution, capital, and a postal service. What it does not have is international recognition. Australia has roughly half the world's known micronations.

What it lacks, like all other micronations, is recognition from a single sovereign state. That hasn't stopped some of Leonard's followers from attempting to advance Hutt River's foreign policy. The 2007 opening of an embassy and consular section in Dubai caused a minor diplomatic scandal with Australia, which accused the Hutt River "ambassador" of being a con man selling bogus travel documents. And though Hong Kong earlier this year included Hutt River on a list of legitimate places of incorporation, the move was widely dismissed as an error or a practical joke; Leonard himself is unsure of how it came to pass.

(thanks, Alex)

In which Mars Curiosity finds a river bedSEP 27

Earlier this month, the Curiosity rover photographed a dry stream bed on the surface of Mars.

That's the Mars river bed on the left and an Earth river bed on the right. Note the flat smooth rocks in the Mars pic. Pretty cool.

Opium paraphernalia collecting is a slippery slopeSEP 27

From Collectors Weekly, an interview with Steven Martin about his new book, Opium Fiend. Martin collects opium paraphernalia and got addicted to the stuff (the collectables and the opium) while living and collecting in SE Asia.

In 2001, I was working as a fixer and translator for a good friend of mine, Karl Taro Greenfeld, a journalist for the Asian edition of Time. He wanted to do a story about the remnants of opium smoking in Laos, which, at the time, was the only country in the world where you could see opium smoking in the traditional Chinese manner-that is, with a pipe that's designed to vaporize the drug and a lamp as a source of heat and all the crazy, little tools and accoutrements. Through some weird quirk of history, this sort of opium smoking was eradicated every place else, but Laos still had the traditional public opium den that anybody could walk into, recline, and have an attendant prepare opium for them to smoke.

Actually, Karl's story was more about the backpackers who were coming to Southeast Asia and causing a resurgence of opium smoking, especially in Vang Vieng, just north of the capital, Vientiane. This one little town was a must-stop on the backpackers' circuit. Karl, who had at one time been addicted to heroin when he was living in New York City, wanted to do the story, but he didn't want to get anywhere near the opium, obviously. While I was hired to translate and set up interviews, he asked me to smoke the drug so he could observe and write the details into his story.

It wasn't the first time I had smoked opium. When I was traveling in the Southeast Asia mountains, the villagers would often invite me to smoke opium with them. But I had never really given it much thought until I did this story. Unlike the tribal kind of paraphernalia I had seen in the mountains, these Laotian dens were using the traditional Chinese accoutrements. After we visited the den, we went back down to the capital. I told Karl, "Hey, why don't I take you to an antiques shop I know about that has opium pipes? It might be an interesting souvenir." He ended up buying one, and I thought, "Why don't I get one, too?"

From 2000: what if Apple was the largest company in the world?SEP 27

So this is fun. Back in February 2000, I wrote a post about Amazon being awarded a patent for their affiliates program. In it, I wondered about a world where Apple was the largest company in the world:

And that brings us to Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft is perhaps the largest target of this sort of "boycott", organized or otherwise. People hate Microsoft. Companies hate Microsoft. It's the company you love to hate. Apple, on the other hand, is one of the most beloved companies in the world. People love Apple.

But what if Apple were Microsoft? What if Apple had won the battle of the PC and was the largest company in the world? People would hate them. Why? Because they would be using the same tactics as Microsoft to stay ahead and keep every bit of that advantage in anyway that they could. Apple is the way it is because they are the underdog.

I'll even argue that life would be worse under Apple's rein. Apple controls the OS *and* the hardware: if we were under Apple's boot instead of Microsoft's, we'd be paying too much for hardware as well as the software.

Nailed it! Or not. That third paragraph is pretty wrong...one of the things that contributed greatly to Apple's rise is their commitment to pricing their products competitively. And software is cheap.

As for Apple being the underdog, I've always thought one of the interesting things about Daring Fireball, even from the beginning, is that John Gruber never treated Apple as an underdog. In his esteem, Apple was the best company making the best software and hardware, and the DF attitude with respect to Microsoft was very much like that of Jon Lovitz's Michael Dukakis in a debate with Dana Carvey's George H.W. Bush on SNL: "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy". Gruber proved correct...what looked like an underdog proved to be a powerhouse in the making. (thx, greg & andy)

Praystation meets PinterestSEP 26

Designer Joshua Davis is putting many of his past designs up on Pinterest. Lots of great stuff there. For example, here's the first version of Praystation. (via ★antimega)

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore eventSEP 26

To celebrate the release of his new novel, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan is doing two related events at the Center for Fiction in NYC.

Second thing first: At 7pm on Thu, Oct 4, there will be a launch party at the Center for Fiction hosted by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Electric Literature. RSVP here.

But before the party, Robin will be interviewing a variety of people over a 24-hour period and streaming the whole thing online. I am one of the scheduled interviewees and I have no idea what we'll talk about. But because my slot is right before the party starts, after almost 20 non-stop hours of Robin interviewing people, it's possible we'll just change into our sweatpants, split a pint of Cherry Garcia, and spoon on the couch.

Joe Biden will be right over to take your orderSEP 26

Hilarious New Yorker piece by Bill Barol imagining Vice President Joe Biden as a waiter in a restaurant.

Our fish special is halibut with a mango-avocado salsa and Yukon Gold potatoes, and it's market-priced at sixteen-ninety-five. Sounds like a lot of money, right? Sounds like "Hey, Joe, that's a piece of fish and a little topping there, and some potatoes." "Bidaydas," my great-grandmother from County Louth would have called 'em. You know what I'm talking about. Just simple, basic, sitting-around-the-kitchen-table-on-a-Tuesday-night food. Nothin' fancy, right? But, folks, that's not the whole story. If you believe that, you're not... getting... the whole... story. Because lemme tell you about these Yukon Gold potatoes. These Yukon Gold potatoes are brushed with extra-virgin olive oil and hand-sprinkled with pink Himalayan sea salt, and then José, our prep guy. . . . Well. Lemme tell you about José. (He pauses, looks down, clears his throat.)

I get... I get emotional talking about José. This is a guy who -- José gets here at ten in the morning. Every morning, rain or shine. Takes the bus here. Has to transfer twice. Literally gets off one bus and onto another. Twice. Never complains. Rain, snow, it's hailin' out there.... The guy literally does not complain. Never. Never heard it. José walks in, hangs his coat on a hook, big smile on his face, says hello to everybody -- Sal the dishwasher, Angie the sous-chef, Frank, Donna, Pat.... And then do you know what he does? Do you know what José does? I'll tell you what he does, and folks, folks, this is the point I want to make. With his own hands, he sprinkles fresh house-grown rosemary on those potatoes (raises voice to a thundering crescendo), and they are golden brown on the outside and soft on the inside and they are delicious! They are delicious! They are delicious!

(via @tadfriend)

What if Apple launched iPhone 5 on Kickstarter?SEP 26

If Apple launched the iPhone 5 on Kickstarter, it would have been the first $1 billion campaign:

$1.7 billion in sales for a weekend...not bad. I got the rough first-weekend sales numbers from Asymco and fudged the rest.

Lucky truck crashSEP 25

It's amazing how the guy in the one truck flies through the destroyed windshield and lands on his feet, with or without the assistance of a magic blankie (you be the judge).

(thanks, alex)

Both Flesh and Not, a new book of David Foster Wallace essaysSEP 25

A selection of previously uncollected essays from David Foster Wallace is coming out in book form in November.

Both Flesh and Not gathers 15 essays never published in book form, including "Federer Both Flesh and Not," considered by many to be his nonfiction masterpiece; "The (As it Were) Seminal Importance of Terminator 2," which deftly dissects James Cameron's blockbuster; and "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young," an examination of television's effect on a new generation of writers.

Wallace's previous collections often included expanded articles with extra material cut from previously published pieces (like the cruise ship one and the state fair one). It would be wonderful to read a longer version of his NY Times piece on Federer but for obvious reasons I'm not holding my breath. Even just the first paragraph makes me want to sit down and read the whole thing for like a fifth time:

Almost anyone who loves tennis and follows the men's tour on television has, over the last few years, had what might be termed Federer Moments. These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you're O.K.

Long profile of J.K. Rowling in the New YorkerSEP 25

On the eve of the release of her first novel specifically written for adult readers, Ian Parker profiles J.K. Rowling for the New Yorker. In many ways, this passage about Harry Potter sums up Parker's take on Rowling herself:

For all the satisfying closure provided by "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," gloomier readers may still detect a note of melancholy; there is a narrowness of life for former Hogwarts students, whose career opportunities barely extend beyond the wizard civil service, wizard schoolteaching, and professional Quidditch. This magical society has no use for science; there's little commerce; and thousands of years of wizarding seems to have generated no culture beyond a short volume of fables and a tabloid newspaper. (Wizard technology is often a cutely flawed approximation of non-wizard technology -- owls for e-mail -- and one wonders how quickly Harry and his schoolfriends could have won their battles against the evil Lord Voldemort, given two or three cell phones and a gun.) In a time of wizard peace, at least, Harry's separation from the real world -- even as he lives in it -- can seem tragic.

In a time of personal prosperity, Rowling's separation from the real world -- even as she lives in it -- can seem tragic.

Things from Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire that are still burningSEP 25

China
Television
North Korea
Vaccine
Brooklyn's got a winning team (maybe)
Disneyland
Trouble in the Suez
Lebanon
California baseball
U2 (albeit a different one)
Dylan
John Glenn
Birth control
Palestine
Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran
Foreign debts
Homeless Vets

It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

Porn stars have the safest sex in the worldSEP 25

Because of the frequent testing and safety measures, adult film stars are perhaps the world's safest community, STD-wise. No one in the industry has been infected with HIV since 2004. Porn star Stoya explains:

The production manager printed out a copy of each performer's page in the APHSS database. I signed my own copy and James's, indicating that my results were mine and accurate and that I had seen James's and was comfortable working with him and his clean test which had been taken less than 14 days prior. He did the same. Then the production manager performed an inspection. He looked in our mouths, at both sides of our hands, and at our genitals to make sure there were no visible sores or open wounds. There was another paper to sign stating that we have no sores or open wounds on or in our mouths, hands, and genitals and had been inspected. We also looked at each others genitals, mostly for fun but if either of us had seen (or smelled) something odd we would have called off the scene ourselves.

(via @claytoncubitt)

Did blowing into Nintendo cartridges really help?SEP 25

Ok, I'm gonna point you to the article discussing the whole thing but based on my years of extensive experience as a kid, I can tell you that blowing into the cartridge absolutely did work. Zelda in particular always needed a good blow before playing. (via @djacobs)

Oh cripes, Fargo to be a TV seriesSEP 25

FX is developing a TV show "loosely based" on the Coen brothers' Fargo.

Joel and Ethan Coen are bringing one of their signatures movies to television. FX has closed a deal to develop Fargo, an hourlong project loosely based on the Coen brothers' 1996 comedic crime drama. The Coens will serve as executive producers on the project, which will be written/executive produced by The Unusuals and My Generation creator Noah Hawley.

(via @fimoculous)