The Community Bookcase

decor8 : The Community Bookcase: "a normal, everyday bookcase with glass doors that you can open and contents inside that are 100% free to the public. No library cards, overdue notices or payment required."

Ah, a fine idea. There are a few bars and cafes with open stacks, but, this is even better. Of course, the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library do a similar service ...

Deep Fried Butter to Hit Texas State Fair

Deep Fried Butter to Hit Texas State Fair - Slashfood: "He wraps butter in dough before frying, so the finished product resembles an especially greasy biscuit. Deep-fried butter is available in four varieties: original, garlic, cherry and grape."

Oh, so wrong. Must have!

Disney snarfs Marvel

Worldwide leader in family entertainment agrees to acquire Marvel and its portfolio of over 5,000 characters. | Marvel.com: "Worldwide leader in family entertainment agrees to acquire Marvel and its portfolio of over 5,000 characters."

Ugg. Family-friendly Wolvernine? Tiny Avengers? The next Kingdom Hearts should be even more surreal ...


At least it wasn't Diamond Comics!

Starve a Vampire. Donate Blood.

Starve a Vampire. Donate Blood.: "The American Red Cross is excited to partner with The CW and Alloy Media Marketing to promote the network s new show The Vampire Diaries"

Now there's some product placement!

The Brains of Early Birds and Night Owls

Lab Notes : The Brains of Early Birds and Night Owls: "Early birds wake up at the crack of dawn and struggle to stay alert and productive (especially in the cognitive realm) in the evening. Night owls perform well in the evening but are worthless if you yank them out of bed too early in the morning."

3 Smart Things About Sleeping Late: "Research by Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders Center found that people who slept eight hours and then claimed they were "well rested" actually performed better and were more alert if they slept another two hours."

I'll sleep to that!

Brightly Colored FastPass To Be Replaced By TransLink

The End Of An Era: Brightly Colored FastPass To Be Replaced By TransLink: News: SFAppeal: "The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will replace all existing fare gates at its Muni underground stations with TransLink-only fare gates by fall 2010 at the earliest, according to a memo sent to the Board of Supervisors."

Oh, I can smell the meltdown from here. Every onboard has to tag the Twiki box? That's going to make for some ugly scrums at busy stops, much less a busted box making people run up and down the stations/trains.

Coming Soon: MUNI/BART to Track Your Every Move: "And how will this work for out-of-town visitors and other people who don't use Muni? There's also the whole Big Brother aspect of our every move being documented on some database."

FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request

FriendFeed Blog: "We are happy to announce that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle..."

Facebook Press Release: "Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams."

Gack! Doom! There go the neighborhoods.

Sin bins for worst families

Sunday Express | UK News :: Sin bins for worst families: "the Children’s Secretary set out �400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes. Around 2,000 families have gone through these Family Intervention Projects so far."

Youch. Bad enough that they're all over the streets. They've even become plot points in BBC shows like Torchwood. But in the houses? That's getting the bad end of the reality show!

Table of Hours, anyone?

The Matrix Online decompiles

Reminder: Check out The Matrix Online before it decompiles - Massively: "The Matrix Online is reminding us all that it's slowing coming undone as the system becomes more and more unstable with each passing day. Ashes raining from the sky, eyes being seen in the clouds, zombies, agents, angels, and demons all appearing out of the system's corruption to wreak havoc across the Mega City."

Oh! What a fine way to go out ... fighting!

Newsgator Shuts Down Its Online Feed Reader

Newsgator Shuts Down Its Online Feed Reader: "NewsGator, the company behind the popular FeedDemon and NetNewsWire feed readers, just announced that it will shut down the NewsGator Online Reader on August 31, 2009. The company will provide users with instructions on how to migrate to Google Reader."

Whoa! Feadreaders are dead? Is it all just a Twitter river of what I had for lunch now?

Tru Blood is now a true drink

Tru Blood is now a true drink - TV Squad: "Tru Blood (the fictional vampire blood-substitute from the HBO series True Blood) is going to be offered as a novelty drink."

Ew. Oh, well, can't taste much worse than Red Bull. Blood and Vodka anyone? Just be sure to order it with a high-pitched whine just like in the stories ...

Pon Farr Perfume

Pon Farr Perfume: "Pon Farr Perfume for Women"

"Drive him crazy"

Ah, well, It's gotta smell better than Red Shirt in the morning ...

Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others

Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others: "Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price."

"The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.”"

Hah! The books disappeared one by one as the clocks struck thirteen.

I love the idea of a passive electronic reader, but hate the form factor of the Kindle ...
Besides the fact that they flash fright-white between pages.

Riding Muni’s 14 Mission — For 24 Hours

Riding Muni’s 14 Mission — For 24 Hours | Mission Loc@l: "It’s possible riders are accustomed to fare increases. They’ve had three in the last six years, doubling the fare from $1 in 2003. The first went to $1.25, then to $1.50 in September 2005, and today we hit the $2 mark."

"The 14’s route passes through San Francisco’s largest enclaves of Filipinos and Latinos and businesses, picking up more than 36,000 passengers a day."

Hard to believe that they increased the Muni fare instead of the hours of parking meter operation. Next year the Fast Pass will go up to $60 plus $10 if you want Bart in the city. I bet that will mean more cash fares, slower boarding, and even worse on-time performance. Sheesh.

The Prisoner

The Prisoner will be free to appear at Comic-Con - TV Squad: "The reboot is a gutsy move by AMC as The Prisoner, created by and starring Patrick McGoohan in the late 1960s, is widely considered one of the greatest series in television history.

Friday, July 24 at 11:30 AM on AMC

Ugg. Now there's a dumb idea. And, yea, I'm gonna watch.

Get ready for even foggier summers

Get ready for even foggier summers: "The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it's about to get even foggier."

"The theory, then and now, is that the hotter the Central Valley gets, the greater the temperature and pressure gradients between the inland and coast will be - therefore forming more fog."

Yay! Dampening down the heat waves would be nice, too.

FWIW, Weather Underground is my fav weather feed ...

Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest,

Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest was fun to watch. Funny to have frantic ESPN announcing all over the contest.

Glad to see two women in the Horsemen of the Esophagus, Juliet Lee and Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas ...

More than you ever wanted to know about gurgitating at Major League Eating

The Biography Channel has I'm a Competitive Eater on Wednesday.

"Look upon our gurgitators, ye Mighty, and despair. Behold these new super-gluttons, these ambassadors of the American appetite, these Horsemen of the Esophagus"

US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive - Telegraph: "The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature."

"Most are former industrial cities in the 'rust belt' of America s Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit Philadelphia Pittsburgh Baltimore and Memphis."

"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said."

That's the spirit! Certainly makes sense to prune services like water, sewage, and trash from areas ...

Also, Life After People on History.Com is really pretty.

Zomblog

Zomblog: "The main difference you’ll see is that the amount of points required for levels has been tuned down, particularly to avoid having large gaps between levels in the middle ranges. As a side effect, many of you may gain levels if your current point total puts you higher on the level curve."

Zomblog : Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves and Slayers apps

Whoa! Shot up stack of levels and splattered notices all over me wall.

Not so sure about the collections, yet, but, they have certainly livened up the forums!

Ancient Robots

Robot Builder has added Ancient Ones ! I may just have to play it a bit, in spite of the fact that the game seems goalless. Whereas Mad Scientist from the same developers is awesome ...

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