Over at The New Republic, Michael Crowley writes about the possible demise of the "Rock Snob" - the guy who has dedicated many hours to searching-out and acquiring rare musical gems that he will only share with those special people who deserve to the honor, and who feels a certain smug pity for those uneducated in the details of 70's punk geneology: ex. the High Fidelity guys. Rock Snob is doomed because the sense of exclusivity you could get from knowing you're the only one you know with a copy of The Feelies first album is no longer available: "[t]hanks to the iPod, and digital music generally, anyone can milk various friends, acquaintances, and the Internet to quickly build a glorious 10,000-song collection." And even worse, "...when everything's instantly available online, the thrill is gone."

That's basically true, but as my multi-year search for a digital copy of The Colorblind James Experience's first album proves, not everything is available on line, or even on CD. Even in their hometown, even asking members of the band, even digging through the stacks at the record store where I first bought my casette copy of that album, 15 years ago, no luck. There are still gems out there that require patient excavation.

And, if everything is available for sharing, the Rock Snob can still find joy in pointing to the things people should pay attention to, and what they shouldn't waste disk space on - a self-proclaimed filter. After all, not everyone wil have the specialized knowledge and discriminating taste that he does. Or, even better, he can sit smug and quiet, sharing the knowledge of what's hip with those few who already know: elite, self-satisfied, correct.

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Behold, the first coin-operated video game. 1971.

I was at a job interview and the interviewer gave me two logic puzzles. I'll repeat them:

1. You are on a boat in a lake. You have, in the boat with you, a rock. You throw the rock into the water, it sinks. What happens to the water level on the shore?
2. The classic "Let's Make a Deal" paradox: Suppose you're on a game show and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Any takers? Assuming you haven't seen them already, of course.

A relative of mine is running a series of posts describing some of the roads he took in his latest adventure: driving to Alaska, and back.

No, it's not a Jared Diamond book, it's the story of a guy who takes pictures of flying insects with a home-made laser-activated, multi-flash, external-shuttered, computer-controled flash setup for his Nikon D100.

After ten pages describing all the work he went through to build his device, there are eight pages of images - some of the are spectacular.

Halibut heads and backbone.

Note:

Halibut-heads are not food for the morning, for they are too fat. They only eat them at noon and in the evening, because they are very fat; that is the reason why they are afraid to eat them, that it makes one sleepy.

Boing Boing issues a challenge

We are willing to pay any individual *$250,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Mrs Cleek got a pedometer from her employer. This is part of the instruction sheet:

This is useless, since Mrs Cleek moonwalks everywhere she goes.