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Friday, November 30, 2001
monkeys!
A young long-tailed macaque, holding a grape, looks on as its older partner gobbles down a larger share of food gathered Sunday, Nov. 25, 2001, at the annual monkey feast in Lopburi, Thailand. The event has been hosted since 1989 by local businessman and "Monkey King'" Yongyuth Kitwatananuson, who believes the monkeys that have traditionally roamed Lopburi were behind his family's good fortune. So each year is payback time.(AP Photo/David Longstreath) Thursday, November 29, 2001
investment in robots
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The clear leader in using industrial robots is Japan, which accounts for over half of all units in the world. Investment in robots worldwide increased markedly last year, with almost 100,000 new units installed, raising the total stock of robots to 750,000 at the end of 2000. But the global downturn has led to a sharp reduction in investments in North America and Asia in the first half of 2001. Wednesday, November 28, 2001
(via most-viewed)
(via haddock)
(via robotwisdom)
Tuesday, November 27, 2001
who's got the crack? by the moldy peaches courtesy of metascene
bam bam by sister nancy courtesy of babemonster
l'il pad by motodestra courtesy of anewnoise Monday, November 26, 2001
reasons for liking tolkien by jenny turner (via metafilter)
The politics of The Lord of the Rings, in short, comprises a familiar mixture of infatuation with power with an awareness of one's own helplessness beside it. One's best hope, really, is to suck up to the big people, in the hope they will see you all right. It's the perennial fantasy of the powerless. Things would indeed be hopeless were it not for your secret friend the Big Bad Elf-Queen, who will come along when you finally call for her and wreak revenge for you on all the nasty kids at school. [related: the
ring of power by erik davis]
daydream believer by bob jacobson (via plastic)
The problem is that our culture does not appreciate the things I truly enjoy most in life, such as wandering around a city aimlessly, or sitting on a comfortable piece of furniture and staring absently into space--activities, if one can call them activities, that are of absolutely no value to anybody in the world but me, unless you count their value to the people who must interact with me. Usually they get to interact with a slightly happier me when I have been allowed to be sufficiently inert. [related: idle theory by chris davis]
looking the world in the eye by robert kaplan (via blogdex)
The most telling passage in The Soldier and the State is in the preface, where the twenty-nine-year-old Huntington came to a conclusion that formed the template of an entire career. On the one hand, he conceded that "actual personalities, institutions, and beliefs do not fit into neat logical categories." But on the other, he argued passionately that "neat logical categories are necessary if man is to think profitably about the real world in which he lives and to derive from it lessons for broader application and use." A scholar, in order to say anything significant, is "forced to generalize." The true measure of a theory is not that it accounts for all the relevant facts but that it accounts for those facts "better than any other theory." Without abstraction and simplification there can be no understanding, Huntington maintained. Those who concentrate on the imperfections of a theory, without coming up with a better alternative, are helping no one. Thus begins a book of relentless, empirical generalizations. [related: review by kurt kuhlmann]
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