Wikipedia is an amazing thing. With such excellent articles on thousands of topics, it’s a bit disconcerting that apparently, many folks are simply using it to read up on penises, oral sex, and Family Guy.

This is one big hole. It’s an open pit mine near Mirny, Russia, East Siberia. A few stats: 525m deep, 1200m in diameter. For those of you who don’t do metric very well (like me): that comes out to a little over .3 miles deep, and .75 miles in diameter.

I read about this yesterday and thought it pretty cool: the New York Times is now offering TimesSelect to university students and faculty for free. With TimesSelect, you get access to op-ed columnists, news columnists, and “The Archive”, which consists of the New York Times all the way back to 1851. All you need to sign up is an email address ending in .edu. Check it out.

Speaking of the New York Times, here’s an article from today’s paper about Richard W. Sonnenfeldt, who was the chief interpreter for the Nuremberg war crimes trials of the leading Nazis in 1945-1946. It’s interesting to read what Sonnenfeldt said about some of the top leaders, like Goering or Speer: that they were just like people you’d be meet on the street.

Here’s a (mostly complete) transcript of Will Wright’s talk at SXSW. It’s pretty long, but worth the read. And, if you don’t know what Spore is, you can read more about this video game here. And, if you’re now interested in Will Wright and the Spore video game (and you should be), here is an interview with Will Wright about the game.

In one of my previous Asteroid Belts, I linked to some stuff about a tomb being found, which supposedly held the remains of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and their family. Here’s a bit more about it.

What if the asteroid that killed off dinosaurs had missed? (via the link maniac, kottke.org) There’s even a bit of speculation that dinosaurs might have evolved like humans, but most scientists (and me as well, as an aside) think that’s nonsense. While it’s hard to predict how life on earth would have evolved, in short: dinosaurs probably would have continued to rule the joint, getting bigger and smarter. Humans might have popped up on the radar for a bit, but most likely, we wouldn’t have stuck around too long.

Bint Battuta of Bahrain writes briefly about a friend telling her of his time in prison during the 1990s. He was imprisoned in the wing for political criminals; in this wing, many of the inmates held classes for each other, “like a university.” The man in question taught poetry.

I chat online quite a bit with friends, and I use emoticons often. However, the Japanese seemingly use a whole hell of a lot more. Do they offer classes on their emoticons? All joking aside, I don’t understand a lot of them. Most emoticons I’ve seen are pretty common sense, like the colon with the parenthesis creates a smiley face, etc. By turning your head sideways, you can actually see the face being produced. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing in a lot of those emoticons…

Nils goes productive on us. I wish my browser was so organized. As an aside, I hope I’m not the only one who strained my eyes while trying to see all of the websites Nils has on his quickbar.

Apparently, locking up female koalas cause them to become lesbians. Well then! I’d add a further comment to this, but I don’t really know what to say.

A man from Palmer, Alaska may face criminal charges for using a wifi connection, provided by a public library, after hours. I’ll grant that the guy was being silly, moving from one wifi connection to another, after being told to knock it off. However, if the public library doesn’t want people using the wifi connection after the library is closed, wouldn’t it be simpler to just set up the connection to turn off when library closes?

Interested in what the United States Congress is up to? Check out OpenCongress. From the site: “OpenCongress brings together official government data with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind each bill.” It sounds promising.

Today’s college students are far more narcissistic than their predecessors.

A jobless German used a false name to order five thousand dollars worth of food from a catering service, so he could treat his friends to something special. Unfortunately, he got caught.

Update: This is probably ancient, and I’m probably the last person on the planet to see it, but I’m going to link to it anyway, just because it’s so amazingly bad. The Worst Album Covers Ever.

Speaking of fantasy novels… if you love Tolkien (and you should, you know), you should enjoy this interactive map of Mordor. On that page, there’s also quite a bit of history about Mordor. Pretty nifty.

Yesterday was International Mother Language Day, and I missed it. Damn. I’ll be writing up a post about this, and language in general, fairly soon.

Oh dear. A man broke kicked in his neighbor’s door and charged in with a cavalry sword, because he thought he heard a woman being raped. What he heard was, in fact, a porn movie. His intentions were noble, but that’s just embarrassing… He gets bonus points for owning (and being willing to use) a cavalry sword.

According to Devin, over 74% of wood-shop owners have named their sons Pinocchio. Can you imagine the liar jokes?

Apparently the government in New Delhi is finalizing a law that will provide for punishment for people who neglect their elderly parents. After reading about children throwing their own parents out onto the street, I think this is a wonderful piece of legislation.

If you haven’t seen Sean’s “Mini-me” series of Photoshop images, you really must, if for no other reason than that if I have to be creeped out by them, so do you. So far he has done Kirsten Dunst,  Carmen Electra, and Johnny Depp.

In the early 1940s, German secret police agents in Nazi-occupied France were on the lookout for a woman with a wooden leg. She was known only as “the woman with a limp,” but the Gestapo’s many wanted posters described her as “the most dangerous of all Allied spies,” asserting that the Nazis “must find and destroy her.” Her name was Virginia Hall.

I find the name of the blog this is on apt, because the article is damn interesting. Here’s the link.

Dude gets the hair on the back of his head to look like a face. As said by the great Boing Boing, that’s just creepy.

Ah, yes, those nasty Germans, terrorizing the world. Not with bombs, oh no. Something much, much worse. Dresden fruitcake! I suppose we’ll all have to move underground to avoid the terror. However, that’s okay, because if we move underground, we can live in a place like this. And yes, I really would love to have a home like that. Hobbitesque to the extreme!

And, alas, that is all. I felt it was time to bring back the Belt, even if it was just with a few links. Hopefully next week will be better!

I posted this trailer for Requiem for a Dream back in August. Now, I give you the trailer for Toy Story Requiem. Just like the first one, it isn’t safe for work. Pretty good job on mixing the two movies together, I thought.

A type of fungi infects insects, forces them to climb up to a height, and then makes a giant spike burst out of their head. Err.. ow? However, if you’re going for gross factor instead of creepy, you can’t go wrong with giant carnivorous centipedes. As a personal aside, reading the article about the giant centipedes actually made me a bit queasy. Then again, I find even tiny centipedes unnerving, so it’s not really that surprising.

This image is a wonderful example for what I was talking about when I said books weren’t going anywhere.

Have you ever wondered what really happens to a human when they’re exposed to the vacuum of outer space? Now you can find out.

This big half-wheel image showing the development of languages is really quite cool. It’s not very practical, because you often have to turn your head at odd angles to read it, but I like it anyway.

PermaTabs, an extension for Firefox that lets you mark tabs as ‘permanent’. They’ll automatically load everytime you open Firefox. Oh yes, I will be installing this.

Squirrels to be given contraceptives. This is certainly odd. I was surprised to read that apparently, the U.S. has done this in the past. I never knew that squirrel populations got out of hand in such a way. Then again, they are after all just another animal, so if there’s a bunch of them making baby squirrels, and then they all have lots of baby squirrels… well, it could be a problem, I suppose.

While reading the wonderful Languagehat blog, I came across this jewel: proofreading marks. I know very little about proofreading, and I certainly didn’t know that there was an official set of proofreading marks. Also from Languagehat, I found a link to this set of humorous additions to the marks. I particularly like the symbol for “remove permanently from your lexicon”.

Some Orthodox Jews attend a Holocaust denial conference because they want the Israeli state to be completely and peacefully dissolved. This is an interesting take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jews wanting to make Israel disappear? I’d never heard of this at all.

Border agents find an alligator in a suitcase. Snippet:

Then agents asked the man, whose name was not released, if he had anything else inside the car they should know about.

“The guy says, ‘There’s an alligator in there,’” Easterling said. “He says, ‘He’s in the suitcase there.’ And when (the agent) opened the suitcase, sure enough, there was a cayman in there.”

I must say: if some guy told me that there was an alligator in a suitcase, I most likely would not open it. I’d take it back to the department and perhaps have someone qualified (like a professional animal handler!) do the opening. Opening a suitcase with a live alligator in it sounds like a quite excellent way to get maimed. I mentioned this to my mom and she said that perhaps seeing people on TV handling alligators has made people forget a bit of reality: alligators and crocodiles are mean little bastards, and will snap at you just for the hell of it.

A Texas Representative wants to pass a bill to allow blind hunters to use laser sights. I was not aware that blind people regularly hunt, but I suppose it could be doable with a spotter. I don’t particularly understand how you’d get the same thrill out of it with some guy saying, “Drop your gun 2 inches and you’ll be on target.. now a little to the left.. up some…” but.. oh well. To each their own I suppose!

A teenage shoplifter was caught because they filled their pants with a bit too much: when she tried to run from the store, her pants fell to her ankles. See, that’s what you get when you’re greedy! Snippet:

Police also found a potato peeler, ice cream scoop, a set of measuring spoons, two cake decorating gel tubes and six Rollo candy bars on Dwiggins, according to court documents.

I’m surprised they didn’t find a kitchen sink in there. It sounds like this teenager was really wanting to bake. Hmm. Let’s see. A cake with candy bars, ice cream, and mashed potatoes in it? Yuck. I’ll pass, thanks.

Someone at Google copied a Yahoo! page, but in the end, I think Yahoo! had it coming to them. I didn’t search his site: does anyone know if Jeremy has a huge rant about Yahoo! copying Google’s work? I’m doubting…

Best Blog Or Not, Keep At It. Nils has a great post here on why, when it comes to blogging (and just about anything else, too!), perseverence pays off. I’ve tried blogging in the past and always quit after I didn’t have three million readers within a few months. This time I’m in it for the long haul because I’m doing it for the right reason: I enjoy it. If I don’t have any readers, oh well. As Nils noted, I like having readers, but I’d still be doing this even if I didn’t. It’s come to be a part of my (almost) daily routine.

Dear God. The entire cast of Battlestar Galactica – in Simpson form. I think most of them are pretty good, but the one for Starbuck doesn’t do much for me. I see the attitude, but Starbuck’s looks just aren’t there. I like how Ellen has put a bunch of daggers in Saul. Backstabber, indeed! I really hope she’s gone from the show. I didn’t care for her at all, but I suppose that was the idea.

The Zune sucks. Snippet:

The setup process stands among the very worst experiences I’ve ever had with digital music players. The installer app failed, and an hour into the ordeal, I found myself asking my office goldfish, “Has it really come to this? Am I really about to manually create and install a .dll file?”
But there it was, right on the Zune’s tech support page. Is this really what parents want to be doing at 4 a.m. on Christmas morning? The new Zune portable media player represents Microsoft Corp.’s effort to compete against Apple’s iPod will include wireless technology to let people share their favorite songs, playlists or pictures with other Zune users.

And then, the Microsoft response to the Apple iPod fell on its face. With that, the battle was over. That didn’t take long.

Tabitha Vevers paints pictures of women having sex with squid and other ocean creatures. I don’t know what else to say besides, what – the – frak? These are just bizarre. I don’t really know what else to say about them. Here’s a snippet of the explanation:

“My recent Cape paintings feature human and sea life in a metaphorical embrace where land meets sea. In Rapture (II.06a) the man-sized lobster suggests a thick-shelled, but passionate lover, while the giant squid in Embrace (VI.06a) embodies a seductive many-limbed partner.”

A metamorphical embrace where land meets sea? Come on. It’s women and squid getting it on.

A couple brings in their lawyers to go over a sexual consent form before getting it on. This is hilarious. Not really safe for work, or for mixed company. No nudity or anything like that, but they are after all gabbing about sex.

An ancient tsunami ravaged the coastline of three continents; the tsunami was caused by 6.6 cubic miles of rock crashing into the water at a speed of 224 miles per hour. This makes some of the modern disaster movies look like kids’ play.

Kamigoroshi wrote a really cool post on growing up with your blog. Snippet:

The bottom line in all this is to grow up with your blog. Your blogs are a part of you, so whatever you pick up in life, you will put down online. If you picked nothing up, you have nothing to put down and that will show whether you give up on blogging or it all goes downhill from there. Live life, learn what you like, and otherwise appreciate it along with people who share their own appreciation for the matter. Blogging is no different from how you would conduct yourself in the real world. Whatever skills you pick up on either end would benefit the way you see yourself and the world for that matter.

Very nicely said, Kamigoroshi. In the past I tried to force my personal blog to be something it really wasn’t; I was trying to make it popular, to get people to read it, etc. Ironically, the harder I tried, the more seriously I took it all, the crappier my blog got; the less I enjoyed writing; and the less people read it! This time around I’ve been pretty casual about my blog, and I’m loving it. And, funny enough, now that I blog passionately but don’t take blogging seriously (if that makes sense), people actually read it.

11 Web Claims. A few that really made me chuckle:

“We’re still in stealth mode, but you can sign up for an exclusive Alpha-tester invite” = “We’re figuring out what to do with this domain name, but it was too expensive to just let go.”

“We use semantic clustering to enhance results relevancy” = “Our results are taken from another search engine, but will anyone buy us? Please?”

A couple of short films that a friend of mine emailed me about: Animator vs. Animation, and then the sequel, aptly titled Animator vs. Animation II. These ooze with creativity and fun. I really liked when the My Computer icon blocked the fireball from the stick figure man with a brick wall that said “FIREWALL”. Cute.

WEBoggle. Word game, with lots and lots of other folks. It’s quite addicting. After playing four or five rounds, it’s clear that my vocabulary is rather weak. I was getting 30-40 points where the winners were getting 150!

Find that mystery linguist woman. A linguist, after teaching a class and using chalk during it, goes to the post office to mail some bulky packages. The post office workers notice white powder on the packages, as well as on the lady’s clothes. It is clearly weapons-grade anthrax. The post office is shut down, with people being ran out of the place, and police and specialist teams are called in. All of that for a bit of chalk dust. Oops?

At this point in time, Peter Jackson won’t be directing The Hobbit. What a bummer. Ever since the release of Lord of the Rings, all of the Tolkien fans have been clamoring for a movie adaptation of The Hobbit by Jackson and Co. Now it looks like New Line Cinema may get a different director and move on with the movie, due to Jackson suing them. (I can certainly understand them not wanting to work with him for that reason.) I’m guessing that if they get a new director, The Hobbit will fall on its face. Who knows, though. Maybe even if they get a different director, if they nab the previous cast (Ian Holmes, Ian McKellen, etc.), it might work. However, if they don’t get Jackson, they won’t be getting WETA, WETA Digital, etc.; would they have to totally recreate Gollum? What about Andy Serkis? Andy Serkis is Gollum. No one else will suffice.

A rather old MTV commercial about Günter the German. It’s kind of cheesy, but I love it. For those who are just dying to have the full song that’s in the background, it’s Die schwarze Barbara by Heino, master of German kitsch music.

Sniping: The perfect killing method, but clear targets are few. I thought this was an interesting article. It’s about Marine snipers in Iraq. As the war has progressed, the effectiveness of sniper teams has declined, for a variety of reasons. For one, the Iraqi insurgents, after four years of war, know where all of the best sniper spots are. Marines have also been given rules as to when they can engage:

Potential targets must be engaged in a hostile act, or show clear hostile intent.
The marines say insurgents know the rules, and now rarely carry weapons in the open. Instead, they pose as civilians and keep their weapons concealed in cars or buildings until just before they need them. Later, when they are done shooting, they put them swiftly out of sight and mingle with civilians.

A 92 year old woman was killed in a shootout with police. While it’s sad that it happened, it’s amazing that she actually shot three of them before she was killed:

One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said.

Pretty good shot for a 92 year old, wouldn’t you say?

Bush screws America [video]. Not safe for work, or mixed company. A bit tasteless, sure, but still hilarious.

Don’t wait for the muse. Cool post about why you shouldn’t sit around waiting for the muse. Instead, jump in and start doing something. The muse will show up eventually. The article makes me think of NaNoWriMo a lot. Now I just need to follow the article’s advice and get back to writing…

A researcher uses his understanding of the human brain to get $500,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. This is a pretty interesting article. It introduced me to a few memory techniques that I wasn’t aware of, in particular “priming”. Snippet:

The priming of a memory occurs because of the peculiar “connectionist” neural dynamics of our cortex, where memories are distributed across many regions and neurons. If we can recall any fragment of a pattern, our brains tend to automatically fill in the rest. For example, hearing an old Madonna song may launch a cascade of linked memories: your high school prom where it was the theme song, your poorly tailored prom outfit, your forgotten prom date, the stinging embarrassment when you threw up in the limo.

Since the producers allow contestants unlimited time to work out answers (as long as they’re not just stalling), I knew that I could employ the most basic of priming tactics: talking about the question, posing scenarios, throwing out wild speculations, even just babbling—trying to cajole my prefrontal neurons onto any cue that could trigger the buried neocortical circuits holding the key to the answer.

The article also discusses intuition and how to deal with it. At the end of the game, on his million dollar question, the guy actually went against his intuition (and his priming technique) and chose to walk with $500,000, because he thought the answer he’d come up with was wrong, due to it being the one that intuition made him think of first. After walking, he discovered that he had had the right answer. D’oh.

Viking ship to ply North Sea; no invasion planned. Okay, let me get this straight. They have a 100-foot long replica of a Viking warship. They will have 65 crew-members. And they won’t be invading anywhere? And they won’t be going dressed up in Viking gear? To quote Gollum, “You ruinnssss it!!”

An amazingly cool animated short about the rise and fall of human civilization from the viewpoint of two sentient rock beings. I loved this little video. Like Tom, though, I’d really like to know more. A sequel is in order!

From Google Docs and Spreadsheets Unsupported Browser page:

If you are working to fix problems with a specific browser and would like to bypass this check, just add &browserok=true to the end of the Google Docs & Spreadsheets url.

Please note that it is a violation of intergalactic law to use this parameter under false pretenses, so don’t let us catch you at it.

And, it won’t work very well — really.

It’s things like this that make me like Google. Maybe it’s just part of their plan to conquer the galaxies, but I can’t help but like a gigantic company that has retained its sense of humor.

Sunken Roman ship from the 1st century thrills archaeologists. In other news, a Viking ship was found in a similar state. Apparently, archaeologists weren’t very happy with the find, because all it contained was a few barrels of rotting shark meat.