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From Astronomy Picture of the Day.

The Milky Way Over Devil’s Tower
Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (TWAN)

Explanation: Was Devil’s Tower once an explosive volcano? Famous for its appearance in films such as Close Encounters, the origin of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, USA is still debated, with a leading hypothesis holding that it is a hardened lava plume that probably never reached the surface to become a volcano. The lighter rock that once surrounded the dense volcanic neck has now eroded away, leaving the dramatic tower. High above, the central band of the Milky Way galaxy arches across the sky. Many notable sky objects are visible, including dark strands of the Pipe Nebula and the reddish Lagoon Nebula to the tower’s right. Green grass and trees line the foreground, while moon-illuminated clouds appear near the horizon to the tower’s left. Unlike many other international landmarks, mountaineers are permitted to climb Devil’s Tower.

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God I love “The Intern” blog!

INTERN is back at it today, and was relieved to see that the eds hadn’t found a perkier, more mentally stable intern in INTERN’s absence (the old intern switcheroo apparently happens sometimes: on the train this morning, paranoid fantasies that Nemesis Intern had taken over and would be sitting there licking INTERN’s rightful decline envelopes when she got in). All is well.

INTERN has been meaning to make a list of her favorite small presses, and for this particular batch she has whittled it down to:

a) presses whose books were so good and smart and bizarre they reading them was akin to taking a psychoactive substance.

or

b) presses based in Vancouver, BC (INTERN had a Can-lit fetish for a solid 8 years).

and/or

c) presses whose editor or author at some point bought INTERN a misguided beer.

Tsunami Editions: Daring, almost psychotically experimental poetry press associated with Vancouver’s Kootenay School of Writing, actively publishing between 1984 and 2001. If you can find a copy of Brixton Fractals by Allen Fischer, read it. It will blow your dome.

LINEbooks: More experimental/political/Language-inspired poetry out of the Vancouver scene. Check out Reg Johansen’s Courage, My Love and pretty much everything else they published in 2006.

Anvil Press: Anvil Press publishes a whole whack of books every year, but INTERN always looks forward to when they publish the winner of the International 3-day Novel-Writing contest every year (which is, btw, coming up in September: www.3daynovel.com)

Tuumba Press: Who wouldn’t love a small press founded and still edited by, um, Lyn Hejinian? Wait, anyone?

Arsenal Pulp Press: Because they have a book coming out about knitbombing, or something—where vegan hipsters go out at night and knit cozies around city telephone poles. And that’s neat.

Muumuu House: Because they randomly sent INTERN a book of poetry in the mail, and it was good. That’s enough to make them an instant favorite, in INTERN’s books.

Now INTERN has a pile of submissions to read so high its top ms is actually in danger of setting off the sprinkler system.

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Filed under: Cool tools, Productivity, Beta Beat

The BusyCal public beta is out! I got a preview of BusyCal while at WWDC this year, and have been anxiously awaiting the chance to put it into action. As the developers state on the homepage: “Think of it as iCal Pro.” The next step from the makers of BusySync, BusyCal offers a full calendaring system with Bonjour and Google Calendar sync, iPhone sync via iTunes or MobileMe, full read-write access for multi-user calendars, and a plethora of other features and goodies.

Dated to-dos are embedded in the calendar, optionally carrying forward if not completed on their due date. You can add recurring to-do items with the same carry-forward functionality. There are customizable views, including sortable list views, plus shared sticky notes, customizable graphics, live weather and forecasts (with sunrise/set times and moon phases), all in an easy-to-grasp, iCal-like interface.

If you’ve ever thought, “Gosh, I like iCal, I just wish it had about 20 more useful features and could sync across my LAN and the internet,” take the public beta of BusyCal for a spin. BusyCal will cost $40US per computer, or $10/computer for BusySync owners. Doing the math, BusySync is $25, plus the $10 upgrade is $35, so you could save yourself $5 taking the upgrade path, even with a new purchase of BusySync.

TUAWBeta Beat: BusyCal from BusyMac originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Cult of Mac, Found Footage

I’m sure it’s not going to be to everyone’s taste, but I think this video is really cute and it made me smile. Happy Monday!

YouTuber CBGFilms put together a great compilation of why his generation uses a Mac. Interestingly, these are the same reasons I use a Mac. Stability, usability, tight product integration and elegant design are reasons why Mac users of all all ages drink the Kool-Aid (or the unicorn tears, as it were).

Great job, Charlie!

So why do you use a Mac?

[H/T Chris Pirillo]

TUAWFound Footage: Why we use a Mac originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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He wants to turn this country into a totalitarian nightmare, just like CANADA!

What’s not to love about having our healthcare decisions made by insurance company accountants?
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Radical Publishing’s Shrapnel is one step closer to becoming a real, honest-to-God movie now that director Len Wiseman (Underworld, etc) has signed on. The graphic novel—written by Nick Sagan, Mark Long, and M. Zachary Sherman, with art by Bagus Hutomo—is billed as a “Joan Arc in space” story. During the …
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