Monthly Archives: October 2006

A Skateboarding Ramp Reaches for the Sky

NYT: On a recent sunny afternoon, the ramp’s owner, Bob Burnquist, a renowned 30-year-old professional skateboarder from Brazil, peered over the side to treetops below and said: “I’m not afraid of falling. I’m afraid I might jump.” That mind-set helps … Continue reading

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Ten-Button Guitar Hero Controller

Wired: Baker forwarded me this pic, and I’m all, “what?” Why on earth would there be a need for a Guitar Hero controller with ten buttons? Even if it’s in the coveted Flying-V shape that the kids keep asking for? … Continue reading

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GAME MASTER

The New Yorker: At a certain point in the performance, the crazy ambition of Spore became clear: Wright was proposing to simulate the limitless possibility of life itself. The simulation falls between Darwinism and intelligent design, into new conceptual territory. … Continue reading

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Taking the Fight to the Taliban

NYT Magazine: As we rambled back down under the noonday sun, exhausted and thirsty, plucking apricots, almonds and mulberries off the trees, I remembered the Afghans I’d met complaining about Americans pillaging their harvest. It wasn’t hard to see how … Continue reading

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Death in Brescia

Ed Vulliamy, in The Observer: Within 17 days, another six people had been killed across the city, some murders so savage as to defy the imagination. A 23-year-old woman was strangled to death in a church by the sacristan, from … Continue reading

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The real face of Boratstan

Observer: And then she takes us – Steve, my travelling companion, and me – into a cafe where we have a bit of cake. ‘What’s it called?’ I ask. ‘The cake? It is known as “nigger in the foam”.’ So, … Continue reading

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Taking Terror Fight to N. Africa Leads U.S. to Unlikely Alliances

Washington Post: Locked in a prison here, for now, is a desert bandit dubbed the “Bin Laden of the Sahara,” whose capture was secretly orchestrated by U.S. forces after a long chase across some of the most forbidding terrain on … Continue reading

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Todd Heisler To Join New York Times Staff

PDN: Todd Heisler, a Rocky Mountain News photographer who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for his “Final Salute” photo essay, will join the photo staff of The New York Times. Heisler, who starts in December, fills one … Continue reading

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A Look Into the Vault

The Moscow Times: Sosnina said she had been particularly intrigued by the bottle of Yuzhny, or Southern, cologne sent to Stalin in 1949 by a resident of Kherson province in Ukraine. Now dried up to a thick sediment, but still … Continue reading

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Eugene Smith Fund 2006 : Paolo Pellegrin

Magnum Photos: What happened in Manhattan in September of 2001 sparked a monumental response that affected the lives of most of the world’s inhabitants and continues to do so still today. Since that moment Paolo Pellegrin began a journey through … Continue reading

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Paolo Pellegrin Wins W. Eugene Smith Grant

PDN: “Paolo Pellegrin brings a passion and extraordinary eye to a story that has consumed the Western world since 9/11,” said Helen Marcus, president of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, in a press release. “He follows in Gene Smith’s … Continue reading

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Haiti

Magnum Photos: Paolo Pellegrin went to Haiti in February 2006, during the elections, to see the situation at firsthand. Here.

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Australian Muslim leader compares uncovered women to exposed meat

Guardian: Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali delivered his comments in a religious address on adultery to around 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, but they only came to the attention of the wider public when they were published in the Australian … Continue reading

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