my.bicycle

Sid Meier’s Civilization Reggae ( .mp3 ) ( costikyan )

The sci-fi monster (called Gojira in Japan) went on to star in more than 27 films, many of them featuring (Akira) Ifukube’s music. He also created Godzilla’s roar - by rubbing a resin-covered leather glove along the loosened strings of a double bass - and its footsteps - by striking an amplifier case. (...) In 2003, he received a Person of Cultural Merit award, one of Japan’s highest honours. —Telegraph | News | Akira Ifukube ( McKenzee )

Married To The Sea re-appropriates non-copyrighted images and period-correct typefaces, and couples them with clever, frequently anachronistic new text. (n. b. I will call this neither a mashup nor a remix while in The Other Michael’s virtual presence) Observe: Also check out “Big Willie” Shakespeare’s related “ Prose Before Ho’s ” T-Shirt. (both thanks to KD Amig-O’Bryan)

(link to actual page of Multi-Touch Interaction Research at YouTube) This link at Engadget shows the RnD version of a Mitsubishi model that may not be far off. Also see MAKE: Blog: The Future of Interfaces Is Multi-Touch . As a long-time user of chorded interface technique, I find all this very exciting.

(...) there are “seven riddles” about this underground world, a secret Subtokyo of tunnels; the parallel subways were only mystery number one: “The second reveals a secret underground complex between Kokkai-gijidomae and the prime minister's residence. A prewar map (riddle No. 3) shows the Diet in a huge empty space surrounded by paddy fields: “What was the military covering up?” New maps (No. 4) are full of inconsistencies: “People are still trying to hide things.” The postwar General Headquarters (No. 5) was a most mysterious place. Eidan’s records of the construction of the Hibiya Line (No. 6) are hazy to say the least. As for the “new” O-Edo Line (No. 7), “that existed already.” Which begs the question, where did all the money go allocated for the tunneling?” Shun even claims to have uncovered a secret code that links a complex network of tunnels unknown to the general public. “Every city with a historic subterranean transport system has secrets,” he says. “In London, for exam

Watch as a lucky kid gets a Nintendo 64 for Christmas . ( Joystiq )

In his “Cherish the Chips” series, bitpop artist Nullsleep talks up his new Nintendo DS based sequencer

The finalists for the independent game festival are up, and reviewed at GameSpy . When they try to get you to sign up for FilePlanet subscribership, just hit the links to the developer’s page and download it directly from them or one of the file mirrors.

Fashion, portraiture, and beauty photographer, Satoshi Saïkusa has some fascinating, very NSFW transgressive trans-Pacific pictures featuring western models in Japanese themes. ( kawaii noir )

SF Signal has a mess of good reading listed : “O One” by Chris Roberson “Red Hands, Black Hands” by Chris Roberson “Pictures on a Cafe Wall” by Damian Kilby “The Dog Boys” by Tim Pratt “Bleeding West” by Tim Pratt “The Man Who Wasn’t There” by Gregory Benford “Remade” by Charles Stross “Daydream Nation” by Paul Di Filippo “Angel of Light” by Joe Haldeman “Operation Terror” by Murray Leinster “Goliath” by Neil Gaiman “I, Cthulhu” by Neil Gaiman “The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds” by Neil Gaiman The Spriggan Mirror by Lawrence Watt-Evans (novel) Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper (a mystery novel)

music (for robots)’ entry on “dark cabaret” reminds me that I wanted to tell everyone here to run out and pick up Dresden Dolls , since it is teh s3x . They have some songs and videos for download at their site, if you want a taste before committing to a full hit, but it is some seriously good stuff. The retail CD comes with videos as well.

The creators of “A Night at the Hip-Hopera,” The Kleptones, have released an EP preview of their forthcoming album. As they say on the site, “ If you want it, come and get it, but you better hurry, cos it's going fast... ” ( waxy )

Here is a mouse-trap style Rube-Goldberg machine set up entirely within the physics of Half-World 2. ( waxy )

The future’s getting weird and scary. My futurist friend Matt Jones said to me the other day that, in one sense, the future is a race between the Bright Spime Future and what other smart friend Dr Joshua Ellis has termed the Grim Meathook Future. What’s the Grim Meathook Future ? Take a look at New Orleans -- what is now called the K-Hole, the hole that Hurricane Katrina left in the United States. Everyone knew in advance that the 2006 hurricane season was going to be a freak one. The K-Hole is the remains of a massive system failure. That’s the Grim Meathook Future: infrastructures that cannot cope. Dead bodies laying for two weeks on the streetcorners of the most powerful nation on earth: that’s the Grim Meathook Future. Things turning backwards. I live on an island that’s just been informed that there’s probably not enough water to go round this summer. Turn that sentence around in your heads a few times. —Warren Ellis, THE MINISTRY 03 - What Goes Into the Sausage?

Baby Movie photoshop contest at Something Awful.

Is Concerned “A humor comic based on the world of Half-Life 2,” machinima ? Machinimanga ? There is also an interview with the creator , Livingston.

Yes, it’s a Final Fantasy XII themed energy drink called “Potion.” No, I haven’t tried it yet, but the testers at work seem fond of them.

I recently started watching the updated Battlestar Galactica series, and am mucha-lucha hooked. It’s enough to make me happy I saved the copy of Maxim that featured the delicous meat-Cylon, Tricia Helfer , that’s for sure. I must have been displacing the personality of the characters played on the actresses involved, because I didn’t expect that the actress who plays “Boomer,” Grace Park , would also pose.

Kotaku has some shots of promotional displays for the upcoming Rumble Roses game we’re making. I guess sex does sell.

MAKE: Blog features a Light up animated Pac-Man bicycle wheels displayed through rotating LEDs. Cute! ( kotaku )

Bizzare headlines, such as “Mexican To Be Sold In Nuclear Deal” and “North Korea Found Garrotted In Bus” are either coming from parallel dimensions , or are the algorithmically mashed-up results of robot-trawling this dimension’s top news stories. I like NewZoid . Update: “Army Charges Seven Paratroopers for Sex on Gay Site” belongs on NewZoid, but is real . ( warning: AVN hosts NSFW ads)

“They also distract victims by spraying tomato sauce on their clothing or dropping bundles of banknotes on the ground before grabbing valuables and fleeing.” Saturday, a 55-year-old man lost a bag containing $40,000 in a shop in central Hong Kong while trying to pick up three $100 bills left by a gang of four South American men, it said. — Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

Conversational Terrorism is rife with lessons about other unfair tactics to employ in debate or, indeed, any conversation. This is akin to a follow-up post to my other one , ages ago, about fallacies and how to recognize them.

I didn’t know about wiktionary, the wiki-based dictionary (sister project to wikipedia) until today. I also didn’t know what ACME stood for in the Wile E. Coyote / Roadrunner cartoons until finding wiktionary...

All kaiju (“monster”) movie fans, Godzilla and King Ghidrah fans, rubbery-monster fans of all stripes should check out the CG movie, Negadon ! (Thanks, Weezie!) (btw: The old site, which I’d intented to blog last October: Trailer of the independent CG film “ NEGADON-the Monster from Mars ”)

(thanks, timk)

Japanese publisher Yuke’s announced that they will establish a US branch called “Yuke’s Company of America” this month, and will begin to publish game titles in North America. The first game will be the PS2 racing simulation game D1 Grand Prix , coming in summer 2006. The-Magicbox

YouTube - Microsoft iPod (thanks, timmeh) Update: Holy moly. It is a real Microsoft video . (thanks, timK)

music (for robots) takes a gander at the post- 4AD-label -riffic Projekt catalog, exposing some real gems. Make sure to rename the files or tag them up in iTunes as soon as you can, or you’ll find yourself unable to remember what the hell they are, or where you found them. At least that’s what happened to me...