Peter McArthur

My favorite RSS feeds right now

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:30:57 -0400

Pepys’ Diary is the diary of Samuel Pepys, who acted as a kind of Secretary of the King’s Navy. New entries are posted daily - today’s is from July 6, 1665. The plague started appearing in London during that month. It’s strangely and heavily hyperlinked to annotations and google maps, which appear with modern tube stations, but whose streets are pretty much the same 340 years later.
FiveThirtyEight.com is a daily recap of all statewide presidential polls (as well as some national and senate polling). It’s well-written with a statistical bent. He weights each day’s polls by historical accuracy & age, running test elections 10,000 times to show a breakdown of all possible outcomes. No more “Newsweek says this, CBS says that.” He’s got Obama winning 308.9 to 229.1.
Austin Kleon is a writer who draws.

Recommend: Netherland by Joseph O’Neill Like Bellow with the sound all the way down....

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:11:43 -0400

Recommend: Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

Like Bellow with the sound all the way down. (contrary to the reviews it’s not about 9/11)

pile: Peter and I were listening to the new Girl Talk album and...

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:56:58 -0400

pile:

Peter and I were listening to the new Girl Talk album and he had the bright idea to remix the Macbook Air ad.

"I’ve never met anyone, except for people who are profoundly depressed or trapped in some neurosis,..."

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:39:23 -0400

“I’ve never met anyone, except for people who are profoundly depressed or trapped in some neurosis, who exhibited a novelistic consistency. Usually they can’t remember where they were or what they did last week. They often don’t look the same from day to day. Some change so often from moment to moment, they seem like two or three people at once.”

- Leonard Michaels, Paris Review 184, “The Lost Interview” p 161

This is the first good video I’ve seen on youtube (from a...

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:03:00 -0400

This is the first good video I’ve seen on youtube (from a scientific perspective) (thx casey)

"Duly noted: don’t store the liquor near the ice."

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:54:02 -0400

“Duly noted: don’t store the liquor near the ice.”

- Ara

jake: what were we clapping for?

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:18:58 -0400

jake: what were we clapping for?
peter: casey pugh
peter: one of the programmers here
jake: oh rlly
jake: what did he do
peter: he made a new video browser for the right side of the clip page and it was pushed

"Denis Johnson’s last book, Tree of Smoke, won the National Book Award. Now, reports the New..."

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:39:00 -0400

“Denis Johnson’s last book, Tree of Smoke, won the National Book Award. Now, reports the New York Times, his new novel, Nobody Move, will appear in four monthly installments in Playboy, beginning with the July 2008 issue, which hits newsstands today.”

- via Jacket Copy, an LA Times publishing blog.

Tree of Smoke is the best new book I’ve read in three or four years, so I’m really excited for this.

Solutions to rising sea levels

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:06:00 -0400

Dredging
Boiling
Remove all the whales

Sido - Ihr Habt Uns So Gemacht (Feat. Massiv) This is kind of...

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:58:00 -0400

Sido - Ihr Habt Uns So Gemacht (Feat. Massiv)

This is kind of like Weird Al, except without all the words.

Confirmed! 9th Street Espresso carries Stumptown Hairbender

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:14:00 -0400

Confirmed! 9th Street Espresso carries Stumptown Hairbender

From latimes: It was the first time in history one...

Mon, 26 May 2008 22:54:00 -0400

From latimes:

It was the first time in history one spacecraft was able to take a picture of another during a landing on an alien planet, a feat some Phoenix team members doubted could be achieved.

And then this tidbit, a setup for an awesome robot disaster movie:

The single glitch was the failure of the sheath known as a bio-barrier to fully deploy around the robotic arm. That sheath was installed as a safety measure, to prevent the spacecraft from contaminating Mars with bacteria from Earth. Officials said that failure to deploy would not affect the operation of the arm.

"I just talked to the director out there and they are working like junkyard dogs to get that done as..."

Tue, 06 May 2008 23:49:00 -0400

“I just talked to the director out there and they are working like junkyard dogs to get that done as soon as possible.”

- Mayor Rudy Clay re: the vote counting in Gary, Indiana. I’ve never heard an expression truer to its place.

Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learnt To Speedup Actions Not Words on...

Tue, 06 May 2008 11:51:23 -0400

Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learnt To Speedup Actions Not Words on Vimeo (via Vimeo)

Ted and Peter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:34:15 -0400

Ted and Peter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

fat:

It’s about time that Peter and I had our own wikipedia entry.

omg

Human beings are animals, but that’s a bit misleading, sort of like calling a golden retriever...

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:18:00 -0400

Human beings are animals, but that’s a bit misleading, sort of like calling a golden retriever a dog. Human animals have domesticated bees, which are hardly animals. It used to be, the human:bee ratio was 1:3 at most. But ever since bees were first cultivated — hatched in crops and set loose in groups of ten or more — bees have in effect fed cows, which are animals, but are also cattle. Let’s call this the cattle-bee system.

Anyway, diesel fuel is fashioned from lead paste, which if you’ve ever donated plasma, it’s sort of like that. But from the earth. It’s not pretty coming out. It pays the most. Most of the earth is like that; deep below the ground. A lot of people don’t know that. They think it’s in Wyoming, or maybe South America. But most of the earth is actually below ground. Which is impervious to humans, unless you believe articles like this.

The Final Countdown

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:35:00 -0400

The Final Countdown:

Ted interviewed me for my previous job, in October 2000. We’ve worked together since then. I really don’t know what Monday will be like.

I would be absolutely terrified except that he’s agreed to continue sharing his .emacs files.

I think Muxtape should have a “hardcore mode” that forces you to plan out two sides, and if you go...

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 02:35:19 -0400

I think Muxtape should have a “hardcore mode” that forces you to plan out two sides, and if you go over the time limit for one side a song just cuts off. - jeffrubinjeffrubin

This is the last out of yesterday’s cubs game. The ball is...

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:35:00 -0400

This is the last out of yesterday’s cubs game. The ball is past Kendall. It’s a strikeout. Nobody, except maybe Kendall and Wood, know that yet. The crowd is still watching the pitch. Lee is waiting for a ground ball. The catcher is thinking about fishing. The umpire is watching the catcher’s glove.

By David Sameshima, via bcb

Justin gave a great presentation at the NY tech meetup tonight. Simple and straightforward like...

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:15:00 -0400

Justin gave a great presentation at the NY tech meetup tonight. Simple and straightforward like muxtape. I started making mixtapes about the time I started on the internet, and 15 years later you can use a web browser to buy helicopter tickets and trade put options on celebrity death bets. You can rate the trade and find the two traders like yourself, perhaps so you can ask them to leave town. And Justin went and made mixtapes. Something so straightforward and optimistic.

I couldn’t be happier for him. I’m incredibly sad he won’t be coming into work anymore.