Wow. These manta rays in the Sea of Cortez jump out of the water and actually fly. A great article with a half-dozen amazing photos.

Thanks Boing Boing.

Many of the latest Daily Show clips can be viewed at Common Bits.org. Highlights include the John Roberts hearings, Evolution, and much from Lewis Black.

Jeffrey Yamaguchi, over at 52 Projects has a long list of What Not to Do instead of starting your new project.

Do not check your email. Do not go to nytimes.com. Do not decide to organize your cd rack. Do not turn on the television. Do not clip your nails...

Dial B for Blog found this great 1940 comic book where Superman flies to Germany and Russia, knocks Hitler and Stalin's heads together, then drops them at the League of Nations. Rock on, Man o' Steel.

via Backwards City

If someone is washing their hands, it's more likely to be a woman than a man, at least according to a new study and survey of American public restrooms. By the way, the absolute worst offenders are fans of the Atlanta Braves. No joke.

The Sneeze.com would like pedestrians to either 1. Hurry up across the crosswalk when a car is waiting, or 2. Pretend to be hurrying up across the crosswalk when a car is waiting. I agree wholeheartedly with this post.

All I ask is the people crossing the street show a little hustle when they know there's a car wating on them. I know they don't have to, but I would like it because the rage I feel while they saunter along is going to give me a coronary.

I'd even be happy with the Coach's Trot-- you see that in sports when the players are all running to their lockers, and the fat old coach just moves his arms around to make it "look" like he's running.

Now that the weather has turned better in Antactica, the British Survey Team is "Snow Kiting," which is a lot like, well, surfing, but with a kite. And on the ice. Lots of cool pictures on the site.

You can type your name into the Cyborg Avatar and come up with a cool acronym.

via Karobella.

Apparently the U.S. government has an extra $100 billion dollars lying around, and they're going to use it to send humans back to the moon.

I like these Asia Photos from Doug Brown.

Thanks Jaf Project.

Methinks that Cathy Schlund-Vials may spend some time on this site. It's Photoshop Frogs.

via Boing Boing.

An artists group has placed a 200 foot long pink rabbit on a 5000 foot mountaintop in Italy. Why? I don't know. I'm actually more interested in the 'how?'.

via Bibi's Box

Q: Who likes zombies (especially hot ones) more than The Daily Pick?

A: No one.

Q: Who takes the fun out of zombies more than philosopers?

A: No one.

The simplest version of the conceivability argument goes as follows:

(1) Zombies are conceivable.

(2) Whatever is conceivable is possible.

(3) Therefore zombies are possible.

(Kripke used a similar argument in his 1972. For versions of it see Chalmers 1996, 93-171; 1999; 2002; Levine 2001; Nagel 1974; Stoljar 2001.) Clearly the argument is valid. However, both its premisses are problematic. They are unclear as stated, and controversial even when clarified. A key question is how we should understand ‘conceivable’ in this context.

-------

By the way, this image is from Chad Michael Ward, who has zombies, cyborgs, and yes, even winged girls. This site is not safe for work.

President Bush is falling in the polls, and he's also taking an everlasting bubble fall, similar to the bikini-clad woman fall we featured a few months back.

If Mr. Bush gets stuck, you can help him out by clicking and pointing him in the right (left?) direction.

Thanks Presurfer.

Hands On Worldwide has some terrifying and beautiful photos of the Katrina cleanup.

There is a new sixth update on the The Winged Girl site, and a new mailbag is up on the MFA Blog.

The Wall Street Journal takes authors to task for their way-too-long acknowledgments pages.

Author Jonathan Santlofer spent days toiling over a crucial part of his new thriller, "The Killing Art," trying to fit in 58 separate characters, including a wealthy arts patron, a gallery owner, a poet, a psychiatrist and a famous Hollywood actress. He kept adding, deleting and rearranging. Even as his book was being sent to the printer, he begged his editor to make one final change.

Mr. Santlofer's literary challenge: The acknowledgments. "They might be two of the most thought-about pages in the book," he says.

Some of the people on the list were a bit perplexed. Among them was Diane Keaton, thankee No. 46. "I have not contributed anything," says the Academy Award-winning actress, "and I mean zero."

Metroactive.com has a great article about the history of skate punks in San Jose, CA.

Thanks Grow a Brain.

If you could be reincarnated as a cute animal, what cute animal would you be? If you care about such things, and who doesn't?, then take the Cute Animal Quiz, at cukeducky.com

I was hoping to be a monkey, but I ended up as a pony. Yet another of life's dissapointments that I will have to, somehow, bear. Sigh.

This album cover of recovering addicts is just one of the many strange covers at Museum of Bad Album Covers.

Via Bibi's Box, via The Crime In Your Coffee

And also... Bibi has collected over a dozen links to other album sites on the web. Thanks Bibi.

Ulimeyer has started a new illustration blog. There's a number of hilarious PG-13 rated spoofs of famous animated movies here. Along with his regular illustrations. Terrific work.

Via Drawn!

I like these photographs from Solimon Lawrence. They can be found at the Kelly Writers House on the UPenn site.

Now I finally understand (sort of) the difference between affect and effect. If you've got a question about grammar, Doctor Grammar has probably answered it already. And, he's answered it, to my observation, clearly and directly.

Thanks Presurfer.

The Groovy Age of Horror features great movie posters and essays about monster movies from the mid 20th century.

Thanks Bibi's Box.

Johnny Depp did okay after 21 Jumpstreet. What happened to the rest of the cast? What happened to other 70s, 80s, 90s bands, actors, and others? Check out The Bubble Burst.

Thanks Presurfer.

An ingredient in green tea has prevented Alzheimers disease-like brain damage in mice, researchers report. The compount, called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), decreased production of the protein beta-amyloid, which accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and causes nerve damage and memory loss.

"If beta-amyloid pathology in this Alzheimer's mouse model is representative of Alzheimer's disease pathology in humans, EGCG dietary supplementation may be effective in preventing and treating the disease," Dr. Jun Tan said.

DYSWIS is a cool photoblog from Montreal.

What would the New Orleans flood look like in your city?

"Most individuals across the country have no idea the magnitude of the disaster and the enormous need and help that is needed. Using the maps below, individuals can accurately imagine the size of the disaster by comparing their city. With the "hitting home theme" more individuals may be inclined to help or support relief efforts."

via Presurfer and Idle Type.

Conversation During Lobotomy -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/conversation-during-lobotomy.html

Surviving with Wolves (and other animals): FeralChildren.com -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/surviving-with-wolves-and-other.html

McSweeny's Open Letters -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/mcsweeneys-open-letters.html

Chemical Engineers were the highest paid college graduates in 2005. The rest of the top ten is here.

Friend of the Pick Ben Peterson writes...

My friend Josh Davis just had his book (Underdog Nation) come out. He has a fun website heralding all of the world's most obscure sports. He competed in several of them and writes about them in the book.

RetroCrush interviews former carnival workers about how carnivals cheat at games, and how you can beat them.

"Wanna win that 'throw the ball in the basket' dealie? Throw the ball at an angle (ie: at a basket a few doors down from the one in front of you). The ball will rotate around the basket wall before coming to a stop. Some carnivals won't let you do this, and have notices posted. Some don't, so you either win and collect your prize, or get into a knife fight with a carnie."

Thanks Cynical-C.

The San Francisco Chronicle has many of the transcripts from firefighters and others on 9/11.

"I just felt like the darkness the loneliness and being alone was the worst thing I ever experienced in my life and not being able to breathe. There was no air. Whatever this explosion was simply sucked all the oxygen out of the air."

Also, some additional photographs from 9/11 are here.

Illustrations from Imphead.

Via Drawn!

The parasitic worm wins this fight with a grasshopper, but what's interesting is how the worm wins. Apparently, it brainwashes the grasshopper into a suicide death dive. No joke. From Cynical-C.

A parasitic worm that makes the grasshopper it invades jump into water and commit suicide does so by chemically influencing its brain, a study of the insects’ proteins reveal.

The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water.

Frank Feijen is the webmaster of Happy Palace, a collection of some of the most unusual, strange, and lovely images found anywhere on the web. On some days you'll find two new pictures, on other days you'd find a dozen new additions or more. It's quite difficult to categorize or summarize the images. To say that is an eclectic mix is a vast understatement. On a page from this past week I found a book cover for "Les Femmes Docteur" (a buxom young doctor holding a syringe, with a patient strapped to the table in the background), a movie screen from a drive-in theatre illuminating a vast field of hay and grass, and a screen cap from a movie titled "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." Frank is definitely a fan of the 1950s, and you'll find many images from this era. "Happy" seems an appropriate adjective in the title of the blog. There's a playfulness to the images selected, and Frank is a fan of bright colors, stark black and whites, and interestingly, people smiling in a strange combination of the artificial and the sincere. Happy Palace provides commentary on many of the images, plus links to many of the sites where the images first appeared.


Tom Kealey: I wonder if you could articulate your web surfing experience in some way. It's almost beyond my comprehension how you have found, and continue to find, such a variety of surprising and strange images. Where do you start from? And where does that take you? What would an average "thread" of your day of surfing look like, and where are one or two of the most odd places you've found an image for Happy Palace?

Frank Feijen: Well I do find a lot via other great web searching sites like yours (and Grow a brain, Look at this, PCL linkdump, Cynical-C, Agence Eureka to name but a few) of course, and there are a lot of those. Another thing I like to do is use Google Image. Just type in a word (any silly word will do really) and you get page after page after page of images (and links to related sites) and all you have to do is look hard and start clicking away. It’s a lot like going through a flea-market really: you see a lot of junk and stuff not worthy of closer inspection, but you may stumble upon some real interesting stuff too, and even, occasionally, on some Treasures. And some days you’re really lucky and it’s Bingo all the time and some days it’s just tiring. But fun. What happens a lot too is that when I am searching for one thing, via Google or Answers.com, I find something else. And I scan a lot of stuff too of course – love those vintage National Geographic’s (and other found magazines or books)!

Tom Kealey: I did my best to explain your interests in the intro, but I fell short. What in an image catches your eye? What themes do you think run through Happy Palace? Horror movies and pulp fiction come to my mind, as well as 1950's advertisements. But these would account for only a portion. What other categories, specific or general, does Happy Palace embrace?

Frank Feijen: Phew that’s a hard one because it’s true I do like a lot. Love scientific images, old photos, found photos, snapshots, X-ray photos, ephemera, design, vinyl sharity, art, retro stuff etcetera, but I think if there is one thread, although this might sound cheesy, it’s about embracing life and celebrating life and all of the good stuff life has to offer. Knowing very well it’s often pretty hard to embrace and celebrate life, and there is a huge amount of stuff around that needs a good butt-kick or acid-like criticism - but maybe that’s exactly why I decided I wanted to be on the positive, happy site, so that’s where I usually am.

Tom Kealey: Your previous site was called One Man Safari. One day in June or July, you decided to delete the entire blog. This wiped clean somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand posts. How did that decision come about? It's one of the cleanest breaks I've ever seen on the net, as far as not only leaving one project, but destroying it and then immediately starting anew. What did you hope to achieve in that break, and have you?

Frank Feijen: I am not sure if I can explain that step, because it was really an split-second kinda decision/impulse, though I did feel a bit burned-out/burned-up I guess. I just thought that if I could start a blog just like (finger snap) that ( because that’s how it started, I was just curiously clicking and suddenly Hey, I had a blog too!), I could end it too, just like (finger snap) that. And I wasn’t even completely sure I would restart again – what tempted me though was coincidentally finding this pretty template the next day that I am now using. I do believe, however, I must say, that destroying, or to put it more mildly: starting a-fresh is part of every creative process and is sometimes really refreshing (and even: necessary). And yes, it did re-fresh me and energise me – but I promise will not be so bold (and brutal, leaving no notes) again.

Tom Kealey: Following that up, your first post on HP is "So there you are. Happy palace. I am glad to have found you. I think you look kind of pretty and inviting and I think I will enter." It's interesting, in the sense that you have found something, yes, but you are also creating it. Creating something to find, or finding something to create. Can you speak to the creation process, both at the beginning and ongoing, and about the discovery process how you are finding something, not only on the Web, but -- I'm speculating but I think I'm accurate -- within yourself?

Frank Feijen: I must say I firmly believe in Instinct, and Intuition and Gut feelings. I like the human brain a lot, and am in awe of it’s accomplishments of course and for sure, but there is a lot to say for Feeling instead of Thinking too, and to just Follow – or even better and best probably: to combine the two and do the Feeling and Thinking at the exact same time. It’s like picking your clothes in the morning (if you don’t have to be in uniform or something): you just Act, pick something. Or like when you’re painting (a picture) : why did you decide to put that black against yellow there (or that red next to that white or whatever)? A lot of times you don’t know, and you don’t really care to know too.

I think that girl is going to hit that boy in the head. But that's just my opinion. You find this and other great photographs, including many of flowers, at 86.net.

Is this real? Apparently so. Amazing, to my mind at least. Lots of great etch-a-sketch Art at Shaking Up The Art World.

via Jaf Project.

Christine Texiera writes in with the 1974 Weight Watcher's Recipe Cards. The food here, including the above "Snacks on a Stick" don't appear to be very appetizing or very helpful in watching the weight.

Grow a Brain features a great post about the study of Earth's human population:

If we could turn the population of the earth into a small community of 100 people, keeping the same proportions we have today, it would be something like this:

61 Asians
12 Europeans
14 Americans (from North and South America)
13 Africans
01 Australian (Oceania)

50 women
50 men

The Best of Flckr features sites like cyrenaic's photos and much more.

The CG Society has named its award-winners for digital photograph and creative computer graphis, and many of the winning images are posted on the CG Talk site.

Great and unusual (and a little freaky) work here.

Here's that New York Times interview with former FEMA chief Mike Brown. Lots of important insight here into the disaster following the disaster:

When he arrived in Baton Rouge on Sunday evening, Mr. Brown said, he was concerned about the lack of coordinated response from Governor Blanco and Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau, the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.

"What do you need? Help me help you," Mr. Brown said he asked them. "The response was like, 'Let us find out,' and then I never received specific requests for specific things that needed doing."

The most responsive person he could find, Mr. Brown said, was Governor Blanco's husband, Raymond. "He would try to go find stuff out for me," Mr. Brown said.

Governor Blanco's communications director, Mr. Mann, said that she was frustrated that Mr. Brown and others at FEMA wanted itemized requests before acting. "It was like walking into an emergency room bleeding profusely and being expected to instruct the doctors how to treat you," he said.

More haunting photos like this one at Matt Hoyle's altpick.com site.

This photo was part of slideshow from Reuters last week. The caption read: "U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations."

But a closer inspection shows us what the note read: "I think I may need to take a bathroom break. Is this possible?"



Thanks Rachel Richardson!

Suzanne G is a wonderful photographer, artist, and webmaster. Her site is a self-proclaimed "Drawer full of all things weird, grotesque, bitter-sweet, embalmed and fortean." She features a lot of great artists, comic books, poetry, moving images, and audio. The link to her Flckr site has a memorable set of portraits and macro photography.

Rock on, Suzanne!

Chickenhead has the Worst 50 Euphemisms for Doin' It, including:

-- Alphabetizing the Coupons
-- Filling the Emotional Void
-- Paying the Visa Bill
-- Convening the Subcommittee
-- Staying Late for Extra Credit in Math

Post Secrets is updated.

Yeah! A great site from Chicago's Eugene Smith: Monster Cake. A new monster every day.

"A cast of the odd, misfortunate, and downright horrible, brought to you daily."

Via Drawn!