I, too, would like to note that, for a mere $10,000, I could tell you that puppies sell.
(The main point: a publisher [Nolo Press] spent hundreds o’ thousands o’ dollars to decide what would help it sell more books, and it decided that thing was a friendly golden retriever added to its covers.)
P.S. Above-pictured puppy is in no way affiliated with the aforementioned Nolo Press.
(via The Millions)
https://www.swordbilled.com/count-me-in/
https://www.swordbilled.com/electrific/
“…and this is—it’s your full-time job? Mm-hm, I see. So— So— And, so how long have you been in the telemarketing business?”
A borderline brilliant “counter-script” to use against telemarketers, presented in a lovely choose-your-own-adventure/flowchart format. Done up by the folks (folk? organization?) at EGBG, though it’s not entirely clear what EGBG is. Whatever it is, it’s (based?) in the Netherlands.
(via, originally, the ever-helpful BoingBoing)
https://www.swordbilled.com/yes-but-to-whom-am-i-speaking/
Then see for yourself.
A clever anatomy tool that lets you play with various facial expressions, seeing how muscles and whatnot react (that’s the technical phraseology, I believe). Who knows what you might accomplish if you actually knew what you were doing, kind of.
How to get there:
Click on APPLICATION, then on LEVEL II (if you can handle it).
Take it from there.
P.S. This particular face expresses doubt, in case you were wondering.
(handily via WFMU)
https://www.swordbilled.com/perhaps-you-doubt/
Because, truly, what do you need more than additional ways to tie your shoes (and other stringy things)?
(via BoingBoing)
https://www.swordbilled.com/knots/
No, really!
Monty Coles was 900m in the air when he discovered a stowaway peeking out at him from the plane’s instrument panel — a 1,35m black snake.
“Nothing in any of the manuals ever described anything like this,” the 62-year-old Cross Lanes resident said. But the advice given 25 years earlier from his flight instructor immediately came to mind: “No matter what happens, fly the plane.”
…
While maintaining control of the single-engine plane with one hand, Coles grabbed the reptile behind its head with his other.
(P.S. If this reference means nothing to you, consider yourself charmed.)
(hat tip to XOverboard)
https://www.swordbilled.com/snake-on-a-plane/
(2005) dir. John Hillcoat – w/ Guy Pearce, Emily Watson, Ray Winstone, David Wenham, Richard Wilson, and Danny Huston; and let’s not forget John Hurt as an ornery bounty hunter (as opposed to what, indeed) – written by Nick Cave
Synopsis: Set at the end of the 1800s, The Proposition, as it might be expected, is about a Deal, an Offer. Captain Stanley (Winstone), capturing part but not all of a notorious outlaw gang—the dread Burns gang—gives one fellow (Pearce) an ultimatum: kill his older, wiser, more bloodthirsty brother, or his little helpless brother dies. This is the aformentioned “proposition”. Of course it’s not as straightforward as all that. There’s frontier philosophy, and blood, and ominous rain & thunder.
Review: All in all, The Proposition is excellent. Its faults and its strengths share a common root: Nick Cave. The problem is, if you’ve heard one Nick Cave song or if you’ve heard ten, you can predict the ending of this movie, more or less. Or at the very least, you can roughly sketch out the route it’s going to take. As far as fifty minutes into the movie, I had a hard time viewing this as anything more than an extended music video of a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds song, which made it hard to become fully immersed in the movie. Mind you, it was a good song, and a well put-together music video. But it takes a while for the characters to fully emerge. Once that happens, though, the sparks fly; titans clash, gears click, etc. It works, pretty much.
Rating: [••••] out of [•••••]
https://www.swordbilled.com/proposition/
Now you have a forum for it, via the entertaining and succinctly-titled “Covers.” A site for the discussion of cover design, with a searchable database of book covers (surprise!), searchable by, e.g., designer, author, etc.
https://www.swordbilled.com/youve-always-judged-books-by-their-covers/
A way to search for chemicals by drawing pictures. (Formerly Chmoogle, until Google complained.)
https://www.swordbilled.com/emolecules/
The Internet being what it is, it’s useful to have ways of sorting all that information. To be able to get at it later, easily. First there was Furl, which I’ve used in the past and loved, then there was Yahoo!’s My Web (which is my current default choice), and now there’s Google Notebook, which is nifty for its own reasons.
All are excellent resources & tools, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to use them. I’m leaning towards MyWeb as a sort of all-purpose information sorting tool, with Google Notebook as a more project-specific tool. (Furl is arguably the most powerful of the bunch, but I haven’t yet figured out the best way to make use of it, sadly.)
https://www.swordbilled.com/information-agglomeration/