Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has addicted fans and scoffers alike. What it has going for it is it's huge database of articles and the fact that it is current knowledge, updated daily.

On the other side, it must be realized that the articles are edited by anyone who wants to contribute, regardless of their training or credentials.

Four years ago, a wealthy options trader named Jimmy Wales set out to build a massive online encyclopedia ambitious in purpose and unique in design. This encyclopedia would be freely available to anyone. And it would be created not by paid experts and editors, but by whoever wanted to contribute. With software called Wiki - which allows anybody with Web access to go to a site and edit, delete, or add to what's there - Wales and his volunteer crew would construct a repository of knowledge to rival the ancient library of Alexandria.

It's an idea that has taken off in a large way, a great reference source for common inquiries about people, places and things, and an interesting alternative to the static nature of the other encyclopedias of knowledge.

More on the person and the art of R Crumb. There is a written documentary just published, and music, too.

Underground (that's where he likes it) cartoonist, voracious music lover and all-round strange guy from a strange family.

For the past four decades, since his first successes in the countercultural underground "comix" of the 1960s, Crumb has made strange and hilarious art out of his own neuroses.

" La Petite Maison du Weekend is a prototype self-sufficient minimal dwelling. It can be relocated to virtually any outdoor site, where it will provide the basics for everyday life: sleeping for two, kitchen, shower, and composting toilet. Made of a variety of materials and premanufactured components, it generates its own electricity, collects and distributes rainwater, and composts human waste using only the natural dynamics of the site.
The project was constructed in 1998 for the Fabrications Exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts, in Columbus, Ohio."

their description, in photos and plans........link

From the 1930's to the 1950's, a series of architectural proposals for the Soviet capitol that were never completed or built.

Among the far-reaching projections of the first stalinist "five year plans", the 1935 General plan for the reconstruction of Moscow overshadowed all others. According to this plan, Moscow was to become, in the shortest possible time, the showpiece capital of the world's first socialist state.

the delayed action and effects of some of the earth's systems, oceans in particular, claiming to prolong the rate of climate change well past the point that we might do anything about it.

"Even if you stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases, you are still committed to a certain amount of climate change no matter what you do because of the lag in the ocean" ( Gerald Meehl, a climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado )

a study on what we've signed up for.

create blackmail notes with handy letter-image generator

and another whimsical word and image maker, amaztype......enter an author, artist, someone or something else of note, and it will generate the word in a collage of images related to it.

Images are fetched from Amazon database of products, each identified.

the Guardian has a five part series, interviews and rambles on the subject of artist/cartoonist and musician, R Crumb.

"There is a tiny sign by the front door saying Crumb. It is handwritten in a familiar style. The door is unlocked. We walk in. It is dark and gloomy and not a little eerie. There are lights on but somehow they seem to emit darkness. We go up the first of a series of staircases, past guitar and banjo cases, and disturbing pictures of sexualised dolls and distressed cubist paintings. The room is also dark. Cabinet after cabinet is filled with pedantically labelled 78rpm records in brown cardboard sleeves. They look more like an installation than a record collection. Surrounding the latter are myriad other collections - bottle tops, toy cars, tiny musical instruments. In the corner of the room stands a man - tall and thin and slightly stooped - with his back to us. We are in Crumbland."

His artistic style is familiar, (Keep on Truckin' , in the late 60's), but only recently have i been introduced to his music, which is quite fantastic. He is a mean string player.

A technique for painting a watercolour decoration on the ends of the pages of the fore-edge of a book

" In most cases, a fore-edge painting is only visible when the pages are fanned out, expanding the panel formed by front edges of the book and exposing the painting.

The earliest records of fore-edge paintings date back to the 10th century, although the art did not flourish until the late 1600s. Fore-edge paintings are still being produced today and have evolved through the centuries to offer a complex and elaborate variety of paintings. In addition to the standard painting, sometimes known as a 'single', there are split, panoramic and double variations. Split paintings are those in which each half of fore edge bears a different painting. In 'Panorama' types the illustration covers not only the fore edge but the top and bottom edges of the book as well, giving a near-360-degree panoramic view. The 'double' type is amongst the rarest and most collectable. It shows an illustration when the fore edge is fanned out the usual way, and a completely different painting when the pages are fanned out in the opposite direction."

the painting shown, one of three, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Only 2500 British pounds.

In April of this year the Axum Obelisk, 1700 years old, 78 ft tall and 200 tons, will be returned to Ethiopia. It was seized by Benito Mussolini in 1937 and it has been it Italy ever since.

The task (and cost) of moving it is being footed by the Italian Government- broken into 3 segments and transported separately in the only aircraft big enough to carry the pieces.. And fly them to a specially constructed runway in Ethiopia...all at a cost of $450 million.

" Like the Egyptian Pyramids, though, there was another design solution for moving such an artifact.

In 1879, His Excellency Cherif Pacha, the Governor of Alexandria, gave a 71-foot obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle to the United States Government, to be erected in the city of New York."

This obelisk was moved in one piece, in over a hundred stages, over a two year period across the ocean to New York at a cost of about $100,000.

Take the Invisibles Quiz, from Filmwise.

A series of photo-shopped stills from various films with the bodies taken out of the clothes makes it a little tougher to identify them.

a few versions, and one mans vision of the New York cityscape, as it might have been....

" an alternate universe, in which history took a different course. The Empire State Building, with a zeppelin docking, as imagined in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Bryant Park, if they'd never taken down the Croton Reservoir. The Gaudi building, if the Catalan architects plans for the American Hotel had come to anything. As magnificent as the real New York may be, it still doesn't compare with what might have been."

"Well, ya see, Norm, it's like this.....A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells, making a faster and more efficient machine. And...so, that's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

This is a fantastic resource to explore and explore....

A free archive of 275,000 visual items (soon to be doubled, or more), from the New York Public Library, including prints, photographs, maps, postcards, menus, manuscripts, illustrated books....

" The initial 275,000 items in the NYPL Digital Gallery were selected by curators from all divisions of The New York Public Library's four research libraries. Whether it's a historian studying the Revolutionary War, a scenic designer researching old New York neighborhoods, or a fashion designer looking for inspiration in vintage clothing, the Digital Gallery will provide unparalleled resources and access"

there is so much there to see, whether sourcing something specific, or just curious.

there is a current craze with these mashups....mixing a couple or more well-known, but separate tracks together to create a single new one with them both (or all) combined. I have only heard a few, and haven't reached a decision yet on their artistic appeal (to me).

If nothing else, they are certainly interesting to listen to. Mixing artist "CCC" has the Beatles 'Revolver' mashed up with various other artists tunes. The one that caught my ear was "she said,she said' with "crosstown traffic". yikes....