Unenforced Optimism

I'm still going through my backlog of interesting articles, and I read a couple of unrelated-but-not articles today.

The first is an article on Japan's manga industry and, in particular, the dojinshii [sic] markets, a thriving completely-illegal-but-tolerated public marketplace for the sale of fan fiction. The manga industry is tolerating the infringement of its copyrights both for market research and talent spotting purposes.

The second is an article about unenforced laws in the U.S. and both why and how they fell out of enforcement.

The confluence of the two articles is probably pretty predictable based on the sources that I pull from, but it makes me think that, despite the moral bickering that we get up to in this country, everything's going to be OK in the end. I can wish that people would have a little more perspective in the here and now but will settle for being right in the long run. I am the king of complacency.

• Wired on Manga
• Slate on Unenforced Laws
  

Writer's Strike

So, that's where my Daily Show and Colbert Report went. Good for them. And hurrah for John Oliver.

Music Video for Friday: "Antibodies"

I think I'm going to add the pointing and humping move to my repertoire. Mix it up with the dice shake.

Zero Punctuation

Here (for my enjoyment) are the funniest and best damned game reviews I've ever seen:

Jurassic Parking

Comic

Music Video for Friday: "Turn Into"

Wizards are Gay

I love these; they're awesome! Unfortunately, the colors are, ironically, too gay for me. Plus, the orange would make me look like a pumpkin.

clipped from tcritic.com

Mona Lisa: Cyborg?

I'll admit that I am an utterly reprehensible knuckle-dragger when it comes to "fine art". So much so that the Louvre didn't even make it on the agenda when we were in Paris. The turtles humping in the zoo were far more interesting.

Which makes it all the more surprising that I find this guy's OCD obsession with the Mona Lisa so fascinating. Maybe it's just the sheer archaeological detective work going on here. Or maybe it's just the mix of new with old.

Probably that's it. If she were holding a batt'leth or had a prosthetic laser eye, I would have been lined up to see her with the rest of the mooks.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Parisian engineer Pascal Cotte says his ultra-detailed digital scans of the painting allow him to effectively burrow through layers of paint to "see" into the past of Leonardo Da Vinci's 16th-century portrait of a Florentine merchant's wife. The world's most famous painting originally included both brows and lashes, according to Parisian engineer Pascal Cotte, who says his 240-megapixel scans of the painting reveal traces of Mona Lisa's left brow, obliterated by long-ago restoration efforts.

Beautiful Useful Design: Needle Disposal

Just cleaning out some of my old starred items on Google Reader, and I ran across this article, which I had totally forgotten.

It's this brilliant cap which can be permanently affixed to any old soda can, turning it into a safe needle disposal system for medical personnel in areas with no biomedical waste disposal facilities. I love the current trend of low-tech design and technology to ease the lives of people who've got it tough enough already.

clipped from www.businessweek.com

Singstar Bollywood

Now I just need to get my long white shirt and install the waterfall in the living room. I'm not sure if we know enough people to do this up proper, though. Thankfully, it's not even slated for the US yet. Time to get to work making new friends.

clipped from www.joystiq.com Eurogamer reports that SingStar Bollywood will hit European store shelves this Friday. Lucky for some of you, the game features phonetic English lyrics so gamers don't have to learn Hindi in the next three days. If you've never been treated to an over-the-top Bollywood production, we have some toned-down examples after the break along with the song list for SingStar Bollywood.

The End of Wal-mart?

Well, probably not the end. It's not like Wal-mart is actually losing money, but it looks like, after 20 years of horrifying virus-like expansion (seriously! check out the video in this article) the country has finally reached the saturation point. I can only hope that the niche super-stores (bizarre to even say something like that) will be able to continue to carve away at their market-share until the company is destroyed in a ball of apocalyptic fire and discount SpeedStick.

clipped from online.wsj.com American shoppers are increasingly looking for qualities that Wal-Mart has trouble providing. "For the first time in a long time, quality has a chance to gain on price," says Lee Peterson, a vice president at Dublin, Ohio-based brand consulting firm WD Partners Inc. But the Internet is transforming the retail definition of scale. The once-stunning compilation of 142,000 items found in a Wal-Mart supercenter doesn't seem so vast alongside the millions of products available on the Internet. At the same time, the cost of creating and sustaining a national brand is rising because of media fragmentation. Niche brands, created by Internet word of mouth, are winning shelf space and sapping profits required to fund big brands' advertising. Manufacturers such as Apple Inc. and Phillips-Van Heusen Corp., lacking the retail distribution or presentation they crave, are opening their own stores. One result is that retail giants hold less sway over their customers -- and over their suppliers.

Lol Secretz

Ah, I love Post Secret. I think it's just because I'm a voyeur at heart, but it's a very sweet (as in nice) site that I have to turn off my natural cynicism and misanthropy to read.

It does take itself way too seriously, though. Which is where Lol Secretz comes in. It makes me giggle.

Ask Me About My Crippling Shyness

Want! So! Bad!

A version without the extra room for boobs, obviously.

clipped from www.glarkware.com

South Park Online

Despite the fact that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are multi-millionaires now, I still think of them as being just regular guys. Or, at least, being on the side of regular guys. So, the fact that they've managed to squeeze creator profit-sharing out of one of the largest media conglomerations in the world is just fucking amazing and great for them.

I wonder what this is going to mean for other shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.

clipped from www.nytimes.com groundbreaking new contract Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker have just signed with Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central. The contract creates a new digital hub for all things “South Park” and also brings Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker half of the ad revenue their show generates.