I built up on my nerve and successfully used the old-fashioned elevator at the hotel I’m at in Frankfurt. It’s a continuous, and continuously-moving, loop of open cubicles, large enough for two skinny people, or one American. No waiting, no doors. You step in as an empty compartment approaches and hop out as it moves past your floor.

The clerk assures me that there have been no injuries, although it seems easy to hurt yourself: mis-time your exit and you will be part way between the elevator and the floor as the elevator moves on. I’m surprised the lobby isn’t littered with severed arms and torsos split cleanly in two.

On the other hand, I only got in once the clerk assured me that if I panicked and was unable to force myself to hop out, it doesn’t turn the compartments upside down at the top of the loop.

Damn thrilled-crazed Europeans!

[Tags: elevators europe human_vegematics ]

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Just a reminder: MyFairElection.com is asking people to sign up to report on the conditions they find at their local polling place so that the site can create a “weather map” of electoral fairness.

[Tags: elections democracy crowdsourcing e-democracy ]

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Chris Daly read my over-worked, under-thought article on bits and atoms, and sent me this poem by Emily Dickinson:

Part One: Life

CXXVI

THE BRAIN is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.

[Tags: poetry emily_dickinson brains ]

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John Kelly at Shifting the Debate has posted a diagram of the 100 most blogged political videos, showing their distribution across the party chasm. Bruce Ettlinger, of the Berkman‘s Internet & Democracy project blogs about it, calling out some particular vids.

[Tags: politics videos ]

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I’m about to begin a 4-city, 3-country, 7-day around the world trip, from Germany to China to Vancouver, arriving home on the morning of Election Day. And you know what I’d really like to find? A printable statement that explains in Chinese that I am a vegetarian, that I don’t eat any animals, including fish or shellfish, or anything made with animals (including fish juice in sauce, animal juice in soup, etc.). Any one have a quick pointer before I leave in a couple of hours?

[Tags: vegetarian ]

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Leslie Madsen Brooks at BlogHer writes about museums using Twitter. It’s a whole lotta links and a whole lotta love, including a link to Beth Kanter’s interview with MuseumTweets (= Amy Fox).

[Tags: museums twitter lesley_madsen_brooks beth_kanter amy_fox everything_is_miscellaneous ]

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Remember this “wassup” ad? Here’s the update. BoingBoing says it’s the same cast.

[Tags: politics obama humor ]

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Stanford’s posted a great collection of cigarette ads designed to hide the fact that sooner or later you’ll be coughing up blood. (Thanks to Tim Hiltabiddle for the link.)

[Tags: advertising cigarettes propaganda stanford ]

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Adolf Hitler Is A Meme

Yeah, it’s Hitler. Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah, those things aren’t supposed to go together. But I think this is a terrific piece. Brilliant, even.

Now let the pre-emptive defense begin [SPOILERS AHEAD]: Would the Internets have brought down Hitler? Nah. But that’s the overstatement that makes this video provocative and funny. And the statements revealed by the overstatement I think are true: The Internet is able to trivialize everything, for better and for worse. E.g., The connected culture of the Internet makes it harder to take demagogues (or at least a certain style of demagogue) seriously.

Or, as Barry Goldwater once didn’t say: Trivializing the self-aggrandizing is no vice, although aggrandizing the trivial is not much of a virtue.

FWIW, I can’t find a way to take the reference to “6 million views,” with its obvious call to the 6 million members of my family who were murdered, that isn’t disturbing.

[Tags: hitler internet_culture lolcats satire banality_of_evil evil_of_banality ]

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Mass TLC has honored a bunch of people, two of whom I know and respect to the nth-est degree: Paul English of Kayak and Paul Graham, the essayist and mentor. (Both worked at Interleaf in the late ’80s or early ’90s.) Congrats! (I’m sure the other honorees are equally honorable.)

[Tags: paul_english paul_graham mass_tlc ]

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