» Curio City

Which is also known on the tubes as CurioCity.org.

Here you'll find the flotsam and jetsam from the collisions between my interests and the Internet, a bit of cosmic debris, and the small, crunchy bits that collect in the gutters of my mind. If you like what you find, you may also like the longer original works at Hidden City. On the other hand, if you are interested in the person behind this collection, you can find out more than you need to know here, or find my on seemingly numberless services as mkhall. And if you are the person who likes to do such things, you can leave me a message at 786/664-7070.
Credits
© Theme edited heavily and created by Zatanna

RSS | Archive | Ask
When courts decide for same-sex marriage, those who oppose it say it should be the choice of legislatures. When legislatures decide it, those who oppose it say it should be the choice of the voters. I have no doubt whatsoever that if the voters decide it, those who oppose it would be in the courts trying to stop it. The folks who oppose same-sex marriage don’t really want any one to say it’s okay. They just want it not to exist.

Cory Booker Gets It Right – Whatever

Click through and watch Cory Booker be awesome.

(via tbridge)

Okay, Newark, you elected this guy? From now on, any time I may make a Jersey joke? Assume it doesn’t apply to you. Your mayor is righteous! 

(via tbridge)

930club:

After teasing fans at a recent show about a finished (and somehow still unreleased) album, we can now be certain of a 2012 arrival for Fiona’s follow up to 2005’s Extraordinary Machine. Happy Friday indeed!

Cool, new music from Fiona. Also, has it been that long since Extraordinary Machine came out? Also, Fiona at the 9:30 would be awesome.

930club:

After teasing fans at a recent show about a finished (and somehow still unreleased) album, we can now be certain of a 2012 arrival for Fiona’s follow up to 2005’s Extraordinary Machine. Happy Friday indeed!

Cool, new music from Fiona. Also, has it been that long since Extraordinary Machine came out? Also, Fiona at the 9:30 would be awesome.

a softer world: 765
Sadly, GPOY, far too often.

a softer world: 765

Sadly, GPOY, far too often.

scribnerbooks:

annadevries:

cmasonwells:

Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing, via The Trad

Know them. Love them.

Amen.

I rarely agree with writers’ advice on writing — I tend to trust them much more for matters of hard liquor and or sexual perversions — but this is pretty good.

scribnerbooks:

annadevries:

cmasonwells:

Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing, via The Trad

Know them. Love them.

Amen.

I rarely agree with writers’ advice on writing — I tend to trust them much more for matters of hard liquor and or sexual perversions — but this is pretty good.

(via wilwheaton)

Of course, whenever people discover that other folk are going out of their way to give handouts, some will get lazy and simply try to trade off this goodwill. It’s a telling point, actually, that this was already a danger in the very early church – because you only get that problem arising if the church is being generous. The line between ‘deserving poor’ and ‘undeserving poor’ is very, very hard to draw, and one of the things about poverty, whether one has work or not (some jobs pay so little that the people who do them are still well within the poverty trap), is that it is depressing, and actually saps the energy and nerve and vitality in ways that people like me, who have never been out of work and never been truly poor, can only appreciate by being with and ministering to people who are genuinely and chronically poor. There is a real danger that in a go-getting country like the USA those who have initiative, energy, advantages of birth and education, can easily look down on those who have none of those things. It simply isn’t the case that every human starts at the same level point so that the rich are those who’ve worked for it and the poor are those who couldn’t be bothered. Throughout the Bible God seems to take special note of those trapped in poverty, and we should do the same.

N.T. Wright (via azspot)

preach, preach

(via tiffanyb)

(via tiffanyb)

bornofanatombomb:

Today’s Style

Okay, I like the style, but that’s not why I’m reblogging this.
The combination of green of that shirt and the orange of that tie have triggered something in my memory, something submerged just under the surface. In my childhood there was something — a toy? a poster? — using precisely those colors, and it was something that meant a lot to me.
I’m verbal, not visual, or least that’s how I see myself. Yet somehow, there are any number of small color cues which touch off visceral responses in me, the kind I feel as pressure in my chest, intense longing for not just that unknown item, but for the ability to recall something which once meant so very, very much to me.
Try as I might, I cannot scrape away enough of time’s accumulation to unearth that wonderful item in lime and tangerine.

bornofanatombomb:

Today’s Style

Okay, I like the style, but that’s not why I’m reblogging this.

The combination of green of that shirt and the orange of that tie have triggered something in my memory, something submerged just under the surface. In my childhood there was something — a toy? a poster? — using precisely those colors, and it was something that meant a lot to me.

I’m verbal, not visual, or least that’s how I see myself. Yet somehow, there are any number of small color cues which touch off visceral responses in me, the kind I feel as pressure in my chest, intense longing for not just that unknown item, but for the ability to recall something which once meant so very, very much to me.

Try as I might, I cannot scrape away enough of time’s accumulation to unearth that wonderful item in lime and tangerine.

scanzen:

Winston’s shell. Designer Graham demostrates Winston Churchill’s personal pressure chamber, created to enable him to make high-altitude flights safely. In: Life, 10 Feb 1947.
To protect the precious bulk of Winston Churchill in wartime a special one-man pressure chamber was built for the personal plane which carried him many times across the Atlantic and to Casablanca, Moscow and Yalta. Churchill was warned by his doctors that it was dangerous for a man of his age and physical condition to fly above 8,000 feet. The solution was a pressure chamber complete with ash trays, telephone and an air-circulation system good enough to prevent smoke from the ubiquitous cigar from fogging the atmosphere.

scanzen:

Winston’s shell. Designer Graham demostrates Winston Churchill’s personal pressure chamber, created to enable him to make high-altitude flights safely. In: Life, 10 Feb 1947.

To protect the precious bulk of Winston Churchill in wartime a special one-man pressure chamber was built for the personal plane which carried him many times across the Atlantic and to Casablanca, Moscow and Yalta. Churchill was warned by his doctors that it was dangerous for a man of his age and physical condition to fly above 8,000 feet. The solution was a pressure chamber complete with ash trays, telephone and an air-circulation system good enough to prevent smoke from the ubiquitous cigar from fogging the atmosphere.

(via life)

Many people in the Bush administration were insisting [it] was not torture at all. The Inquisition was actually very clear on the matter. It obviously was torture. That’s why they were using it.
— Writer Cullen Murphy, on waterboarding, which was used in the Inquisition against possible heretics. [complete interview here] (via nprfreshair)

(via nprfreshair)

GPOY. Or maybe it just feels that way.

GPOY. Or maybe it just feels that way.

(via owls-love-tea)

…making money from art is not a human right. It so happens that technological and societal blahbity bloos have conspired to create a situation where selling songs about monkeys and robots is a viable business, but for most of human history people have NOT paid for art. I don’t want this to happen again, and I would be very sad if this came to pass, but it’s not up to me to decide. We are constantly demonstrating through our actions what we believe to be the norms for acquiring and consuming content. Right now a lot of us think that it’s OK to download stuff through illegal sites under certain circumstances, and a lot of us think it’s totally fine to use those things to make videos and put them on YouTube even though YouTube profits from it. That’s not ME saying that, that’s US saying that – we’re a nation of pirates and infringers. Based on our behavior, you would not be wrong to deduce that some of us think funny videos on YouTube are more important than honoring intellectual property rights. This kind of thing has happened before. Entire industries rise and fall as the world changes and our priorities shift. Sorry. I believe in copyright. I benefit from it. I don’t want it to go away. I love that we have laws and people to enforce them. But if I had to give up one thing, if I had to choose between copyright and the wild west, semi-lawless, innovation-fest that is the internet? I’ll take the internet every time.

Jonathan Coulton (via azspot)

So maybe we can please stop trying to kill one to save the other and find ways for them to coexist, hm?

(via tiffanyb)

(via tiffanyb)

GPOY

GPOY

Sci-Fi brothel planned near Las vegas
I guess if San Diego ever falls through, Comic Con has a potential new location.

Sci-Fi brothel planned near Las vegas

I guess if San Diego ever falls through, Comic Con has a potential new location.

barackobama:

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

- The White House, responding this morning to a petition on SOPA and online piracy