Intricate cover (three bellybands, debossing, and foil) by Jordan Crane for Michael Chabon’s new non-fiction collection Maps and Legends. Published by McSweeneys.
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This is not like London or New York, or even Tehran, another car-clogged Middle Eastern capital. It is literally like living day in and day out with a lawn mower running next to your head, according to scientists with the National Research Center. They spent five years studying noise levels across the city and concluded in a report issued this year that the average noise from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train 15 feet away, said Mustafa el Sayyid, an engineer who helped carry out the study.
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“In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works.”
I KNEW IT! The bastards.
—NYer
How many British children watching Jedi thought a bunch of nerdy scientists stole the Deathstar plans? All stalking through the Deathstar’s corridors in white lab coats, goggles dangling from elastics around their necks.
I wonder if this band is any good
Jeb, they will destroy you.
That’s why I can never find out if they are any good. Otherwise I’d just listen to the streams on their myspace.
Mikhail Kalashnikov doesn’t receive any royalties on his weapons designs, so to supplement his meagre state pension, he started a spirits concern, where he retains a chairmanship.
From the December 1939 issue of Amazing Stories and via one of my favorite blogs, Paleo-Future comes this illustration of an imagined ‘land battleship’.
See also in the PF archives: Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles and Nazi Paleo-Futurism.
Do you ever check out modern mechanix?
No, but it definitely it’s now in my ‘Archaic Futures’ feeds folder.
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There is cinema vérité and kino pravda but no cinematic truth.
—Errol Morris
What if I invent a cocktail called “The Cinematic Truth”? WHAT THEN ERROL MORRIS?
Happy "The Internet is Stupid and Useless Day"
Perhaps in the future, April 1 will become less about ‘jokes’ and more about reminding yourself that the internet is largely stupid and useless the other 364 days too, so like, maybe go outside. The endless feeds will be waiting for you when it starts raining.