Antique typewriters. Welcome to the Martin Howard Collection of Early Typewriters. Comprised of typewriters from the very beginning of the typewriter industry (1880s & 1890s), it is the largest of its kind in Canada. The collection contains many rare and historically important typewriters, showing the remarkable diversity and beauty of the world's first typing machines. (Via)

House passes Healthcare reform. All that's left is voting on a reconciliation package for the senate to sign. But the house has passed the senate bill, which means this is basically a done deal.
Matt Yglesias recommended a song for Jim DeMint, who famously said that if HCR was stopped, it would be Obama's "Waterloo"

Fiverr -- What would you do for $5? "I will do voice over and/or voice acting for you for $5." • "I will write a Short Bed Time Story for $5." • "I will write anything appropriate on my forehead and wear it to public school all day for $5." Any requests? "Do a 30 second video commercial for my website." • "Reduce/eliminate echo in an audio file." • "Ask a girl out for me."

Well, here goes. I really resent the term, but I use it because it's recognized and accepted. I'm gay. From some seventy years of personal experience, I can tell you that there's not much "gay" about being homosexual. For the first twenty years of my life, I had to live in the shadows, in a culture that was — at least outwardly — totally hostile to any hint of that variation of life-style. James Randi (previously), at age 81, has come out. He discusses the announcement in more detail on the JREF podcast For Good Reason.

An Australian Madoff? Trio Capital, an Australian fund manager, has been ordered to wind up its funds after being unable to account for $123 million in its Astarra fund since investigations began in October. The fund "has a total of $426 million under management - including superannuation savings of about 10,000 Australians." Some worry what this means for more potential frauds in Australia's "privatized social security."
The Syndey Morning Herald has more: the initial scrutiny, the whistleblower, the fears, hope fades.

John Hempton, blogger and hedge fund manager based in Australia, notified the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in September. He outlined his story of delving into the problems in a January post, explaining to non-Australians how the Superannuation system (privatized Social Security) makes this fraud a significantly bigger story.

Dominck McCormick, the fund manager who initially tipped Hempton, has written a fantastic summary of what red flags existed, the role of due diligence, and how the financial planning industry can move forward.

Hempton has an eye for frauds. He previously tussled with hedge fund Ponta Negra, whose manager recently plead guilty to defrauding investors. Ponta Negra shared an office and marketer with Paradigm Global, a fund of hedge funds owned by the son and brother of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. Hempton had found connections between Paradigm and other questionable funds. This included several connections to eccentric Allen Stanford's Stanford Financial Group, which remains frozen and under investigation for fraud. Hempton first investigated Astarra because of its connections to Paradigm.

Other links at Hempton's blog discussing Astarra: Astarra Marketing, Submission to the Superannualtion review discussing industry structure and regulations, The Regulator's Culpability, Debating accusations of jealousy.

(Hempton was previously linked to on the blue for an interesting index proposal)

Last month, Arundhati Roy decided to visit the forbidding and forbidden precincts of Central India's Dandakaranya Forests, home to a melange of tribal people many of whom have taken up arms to protect themselves against state-backed marauders and exploiters. She recorded in considerable detail her face-to-face encounter with armed guerillas, their families and comrades.

Streets of Plenty is a documentary set in Vancouver's DTES of Corey Ogilvie's 31 day homelessness experiment whose thesis wasn't resolved until the 26th (and last) day.
In it, the protagonist starts living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside with nothing but a pair of underwear and a backpack. He attempts to answer his own question of how an individual can journey from a life of waiting for fiance's return from a weekend in Whistler to crack. Along the way, he sees how the various institutions of the DTES enable and/or assist those who have chosen that life and the effects of this life on an individual's health and sanity.

You say Potato, I say...
Google translation.

"I would have liked to think I'd have gone out with a bit more flair." Margaret Moth, CNN photojournalist, has died of colon cancer at 59.
An October 2009 Here and Now interview with Moth (starts 5 minutes into the show) regarding Fearless, a 2009 CNN documentary about Moth's life.

The Steinway of Harmonicas.
A small business start-up in Rockford IL decides to make the best hamonicas in the world. Geared to professionals, and already gaining dedicated fans, it is inspiring.

Canadian author Peter Watts was convicted of disobeying a border guard, but the Port Huron Times-Herald also claims he was convicted of assault. The story--already much-cited on the internet--is wrong on that point and some others. But the web self-corrects at light speed: one of the jurors who convicted him is apparently in the comment thread at the misleading story, debunking it.

Soviet CGI, circa 1968 (SLYT)

Emilio the Moor was a parodying humorist flamenco exponent who died in a domestic gas incident. [via].
A fabulous range, style and humour to boot. There's lots more on YouTube. [related]

In anticipation of tomorrow's WiiWare release of the ridiculously awesome Pixel platformer, "Cave Story" (aka "Doukutsu Monogatari"), the Wii developer Nicalis has been running a series on their blog featuring fan art and artists.
Max Fiedler [http://www.pigsell.com/]

Baz Pringle [http://www.g66.co.uk/, http://www.grafikaone.com/]

Cory Godbey [http://lightnightrains.blogspot.com/]

Sam Miller [http://fargalex.co.uk/, http://fargalex.deviantart.com/]

Michaela Clisson [http://www.michaelaclisson.com/]

Katy Coope [http://www.ktcoope.com/, http://ktcoope.deviantart.com/]

Melanie Herring [http://purplekecleon.deviantart.com/]

James Harvey™ [http://www.harveyjamestm.com/]

Raymond Teo [http://rayteoactive.wordpress.com/]


Previously.

P.S. If you haven't checked out "Cave Story" yet, do so. It's a free download for Mac, Windows and Linux, so you have no excuse not to. Dang it.

Creepy banned CK ads from 1995
>The advertising campaign -- which used images of models who were reportedly as young as 15 -- was meant to mimic "picture set" pornography of the '60s.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the massacre at Sharpeville. Amandla! Awethu!

the day Worthing sea-front was invaded by infinite teddy-bears. The music is available to download here: http://www.beatsdigital.com/track/683463 No teddy bears were harmed in the making of this video. The software used was adobe after effects.

If you enjoy Jonathan Goldstein's contributions to This American Life or his recent book Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! you'll probably enjoy the quirky, self-depricating comedy of his newly podcast (previously) CBC show WireTap, now in its sixth season.
Downloadable highlights (all MP3) include: Visiting Hours (featuring Jordan Jesse Go!'s Jordan Morris), My Impostor (in which Goldstein confronts someone twittering as a funnier version of him), Radical Honesty (featuring frequent TAL contributor Starlee Kine's visit to a cult), Fake It Until You Make It (in which a magazine fact checker tries to sex up Goldstein's vanilla personality), The Answering Machine (in which Goldstein's friend Howard replaces Goldstein with a soundboard), We Are Not Supermen (in which Rob Cordry reads Goldstein's story about Lois Lane's next boyfriend) and 26 Minutes 30 Seconds (in which Goldstein hires one Rap Master Maurice to shame those who have hurt him, in rap form).

The date was February 15, 1996. The place was the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (Google Map), situated some 64 km northwest of Xichang City, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province. At 2:50 AM, the Chinese Long March 3B rocket launched carrying the Intelsat 708, an American communications satellite. Seconds later, the worst space-related disaster in history occurred sparking a technology transfer controversy. Chinese authorities said 6 people died but video footage tells a different story.

The <video tag>, as defined by the HTML5 spec, is an element "used for playing videos or movies". Which codec those videos or movies are in is currently undefined, with the two contenders being the free open source Ogg Theora and the proprietary H.264. With the unveiling of Internet Explorer 9 both Microsoft and Apple are supporting H.264 in their browsers, and comparisons of the standards seem to bear out H.264 as the better of the two. However Mozilla have taken a stance against incorporating H264 into Firefox on the grounds that it is patented and has to be licensed. Arguments are now being made for and against Mozilla sticking to its ideals. John Gruber of Daring Fireball points out that Firefox already supports proprietary formats such as GIF. Um, perhaps not the best example.