To display the most relevant entries to you in priority,
vote for the stories you are interested in
()
and reject those that you are not interested in
()
This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our
site for full content.
Super Utilities is a
collection of applications that will fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. Comprising four
focus modules designed to do everything from cleaning your Registry to removing spyware
infestations. Super Utilities is a megamart of system-maintenance tools designed to keep your
computer running smoothly. Super Utilities’s integrated suite of programs can get your
system running at peak performance levels in few minutes.
Description:
System Cleaner: Make your PC faster, more stable, and more efficient by cleaning and optimizing
your hard drive, memory, software, and Windows Registry. Security Doctor: Protect your PC from
thousands of potential spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers and tracking threats. Privacy
Protector: Keep your sensitive information safe from prying eyes. System Maintenance: Easily
perform complicated system maintenance tasks, and keep your computer running quickly and
smoothly. Special Tools: More easy-to-use tools that make your computing safer and more
efficient.
SWSW Interactive opened on Friday in Austin, Tex., drawing a crowd of thousands and a collection of
speakers that includes director Quentin Tarantino, Twitter founder Evan Williams, and Microsoft
Researcher Danah Boyd. Here's what you can expect from it.
Print Canada Store Canada's leader in wedding and event supplies offering a wide range of
christening and baptism favors for your special party.We now have 4 different collections of favors
some have minimum orders and some collections have no minimums.Allow 2 weeks for delivery for most
favors so order early.
Our full line of favors can be viewed at http://weddingfavors.printcanadastore.com/74.html
This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our
site for full content.
Ashampoo Photo Commander is probably the only tool you need for organizing,
editing, sharing and presenting your digital photos. In addition to this it can also be used for
managing your audio and video files, with high-quality integrated players.
Finding photos is easy, no matter how big your collection is: You can sort and search for images
and duplicate images by names, tags and other attributes, view your collection by folder or date,
view thumbnail previews of all your images and more. Instant previews and full-screen mode are
always just a click away, along with integrated viewers and players for video and audio files.
All the photo editing tools you need are included, you don’t need additional software:
Enhance your images with the one-click optimizer. Remove the “red eyes” from flash
photos, adjust colors, contrast, hue and many other parameters, resize, crop, rotate and add a
wide range of special effects, including some brand-new effects in version 8.
Features:
Many improvements in the user interface
New calendar mode: Display images in all selected folders in a single list, sorted by year,
month and date
New filmstrip browser mode: Shows thumbnails as a “rolling filmstrip” below a
preview window
New multiple folder preview: Shows contents of all selected folders in a single window,
including sub-folders
New function to add descriptions to photos – displayed as a caption and
stored in the photo, readable by other programs
Improved editing tools with anti-aliasing for all objects for smoother images and higher
quality
Instant printing for single and multiple photos – just click and select
Print for an instant Print dialog with preview
Even better interactive full-screen mode for photos and videos
Faster photo viewer with better zoom features
New, more effective method for finding duplicate photos
In Data Mining Techniques for the Life Sciences , Vol. 609 (2010), pp. 17-44.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), as a primary public repository of genomic
sequence data, collects and maintains enormous amounts of heterogeneous data. Data for genomes,
genes, gene expressions, gene variation, gene families, proteins, and protein domains are
integrated with the analytical, search, and retrieval resources through the NCBI Web site. Entrez,
a text-based search and retrieval system, provides a fast and easy way to navigate across diverse
biological databases. Customized genomic BLAST enables sequence similarity searches against a
special collection of organism-specific sequence data and viewing the resulting alignments within a
genomic context using NCBI’s genome browser, Map Viewer. Comparative genome analysis tools
lead to further understanding of evolutionary processes, quickening the pace of discovery. Tatiana Tatusova
Le téléfilm Un gentilhomme, faisant partie de la collection Contes
et nouvelles du XIXème siècle, sera diffusé mercredi 31 mars à 21h35.
Un inédit réalisé par Laurent Heynemann. Scénario de Jean Cosmos et
Laurent Heynemann. D'après Octave Mirbeau. Avec : Daniel Russo (Le marquis[...]
Après deux inédits programmés la semaine précédente, diffusion
du Mariage de Chiffon le mercredi 31 mars 2010 à 20h35. Dans le cadre de la
collection Contes et nouvelles du XIX ème siècle.
D'après GYP. Réalisé par Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe. Scénario de Anne
Andrei. Avec : Christa Théret[...]
I have a collection of 22 Las Vegas Silver Strike coins with a face value of $10 each. They are all
0.999 pure silver and in mint condition inside of individual plastic containers. The following list
is the number of coins I have from each hotel that I have collected over the years. I will sell
them individually or as a whole collection... They are listed as follows: Hotel Name / (Number of
Coins) / Description / eBay BUY NOW Price (or Price Range in actual coins were unfound on eBay)
McCarren... (1)... Royal Flush... $50.15
Imperial Palace... (1)... Rolls Royce Silver Ghost... $50.44
Rio Suites... (1)... Dancing Woman... $50.44
Bellagio... (1)... Las Vegas... $21.02
Aladdin... (2)... Simbad... $50.44 each
Bally’s... (2)... Triple Sevens... $50.44 each
Riviera... (2)... La Cage 1993... $52.68 each
Mandalay Bay... (1)... Two Parrots... $50.44
Mandalay Bay... (1)... Two Fishes... $50.44
Barbury Coast... (1)... Valley of Fire... $21.06
Barbury Coast... (1)... Lake Mead... $21.06
Barbury Coast... (1)... Hoover Dam... $21.06
Flamingo... (2)... Las Vegas 1946... $11.61 each
Flamingo... (1)... Bugsy Siegel... $23.17
Flamingo... (1)... Las Vegas 1994... $92.59
Luxor... (1)... Pharoh’s WIngs... $17.90 – $50.22
Circus Circus... (1)... Dinosaur Looking Down... $17.50- $50.44
Circus Circus... (1)... Ferris Wheel... $17.50- $50.44
Full Collection 22 Coins
Face Value $220.00
eBay Asking Price $835.11
I would be happy to entertain any reasonable offer between those 2 price ranges. Motivated seller
(but I won't give them away!).
TypeBook Creator 2.4.3Veenix TypeBook Creator... Preview, organize and create font
sample/specimen books of your font collection.
Veenix TypeBook Creator allows you to quickly and easily view, create and print beautiful and
well organized type specimen books and font sample sheets of all your fonts, whether they are
active in your System or just sitting somewhere on a hard drive.
TypeBook Creator uses Veenix's GlyphLogicEngineÂ@ smart font technology to analyze font
characteristics and automatically organize your fonts by font energy-color as well as into 16
different standard font classifications: text fonts, sans serif fonts, serif fonts, picture,
script and thematic fonts, monospaced fonts, fraction and expert fonts and more. TypeBook Creator
offers 16 classic specimen page layouts and numerous easy to use customization and categorization
options.
WHAT'S NEWVersion 2.4.3:
Font Energy-Color Sort which sorts fonts according to their visual energy
New "Quick Mix Suggestions" (Version 2.4)
Direct support for International A4 paper sizes
Options to automatically add and remove fonts in System Folders
New Welcome/Set-up window to initialize several user options
New "Enlarge Preview" feature
New start-up warnings for missing fonts/unmounted volumes
New "Modern Large" Specimen Layout
New "Color Energy Swatch Book" Specimen Layout (Version 2.3)
New "Batch Remove From Category" feature
Recoded using Apple's latest font & imaging technologies
Une collection qui confirme ses qualités avec un deuxième opus toujours signé
Rodolphe et Puchol. Pour "Le Vampire de Düsseldorf", un intérêt
supplémentaire : plonger dans la réalité de l'Allemagne juste avant
l'avènement du nazisme. Quoi de plus efficace qu'une enquête aux trousses d'un serial
killer ? Avec ces portraits de monstres devenus célèbres, la série Assassins
offre aux faits divers sanglants une perspective historique précieuse. Ce deuxième
volume (...) - Albums / 03, 2010
This collection of wazaif will resolve all your problems the ISLAMIC way.
· Immense collection of wazaif
· PERFECT for anyone who has problems/desires
· Arabic and English prayers
· Thorough instructions
· Counter to keep track of your recitations
· Perfect for travel/reciting during extra time
· EXCELLENT Gift!
This immense library of wazaif allows you to resolve your problems by providing instructions, a
counter to keep track of your recitations, and prayers in Arabic and English!
Why waste money on so-called ”religious” imposters claiming to fix
your problems? Instead, gain nearness to Allah and give these tried-and-tested wazaif a chance.
Whether you desire wealth, protection from Allah, health, righteousness, fixing of marital
problems, children, knowledge, piety, zikr-Allahi etc.—we’ve got you
covered.
Forget big, bulky books or carrying tasbeehs in public. This is an excellent tool for performing
duas wherever, whenever you please—in absolute privacy. This is ideal for
anyone who has any sort of desire or problem!
Be sure to tell all your Muslim brothers and sisters!
                      Â
                        Â
  Il y a quelque chose de guilleret dans l’idée de carte
postale qui s’accorde mal avec ce qu’il est advenu de l’idée de la
politique, surtout lorsque celle-ci est associée à l’Histoire. L’une
est toute légèreté, l’autre moins. L’accouplement même
d’« icône » et de « politique » produit un effet inattendu.
à défaut du sacré, la religion est leur socle commun. Dans un cas comme dans
l’autre, les fidèles sont appelés à se rassembler, à
espérer, à chanter, à communier. Propagande ? Cela va de soi.
L’ensemble réuni dans Cartes postales des icônes politiques. Les leaders
du XXème siècle (120 pages, 14,50 euros, Les quatre chemins) est issu de la fameuse collection de cartes postales
léguée par John Fraser à la Bodleian Library de l’Université
d’Oxford. Il l’avait entreprise dès son plus jeune âge, un jour de
visite à la cathédrale Saint-Paul de Londres, en se rendant solennellement
propriétaire d’une carte représentant la fière statue de Nelson.
Seules les cartes de TchangKaï-check et de Yasser Arafat ont été
prélevées dans un autre fonds d’archives, mais elles n’en
relèvent pas moins de la même logique. Parfois, le reportage s’insinue dans
les rets de la propagande et humanise l’icône. Ont-ils songé au risque
qu’ils faisaient courir aux correspondants, ceux qui ont inventé de placer
l’effigie d’un leader au dos d’une carte à découvert ? Rien de
tel pour dénoncer un individu à son immeuble. Du pain bénit pour les
renseignements généraux et l’on sait que le troisième degré
n’est pas leur fort. Il suffit d’envoyer une carte postale du Führer
accompagnée d’un texte complice pour créer des ennuis à son meilleur
ennemi. La rumeur de la ville se nourrit de ce peu d’indices. On voudrait
toutes les observer à la loupe, ne fût-ce que pour vérifier qui, de Dieu
ou du diable, se niche
vraiment dans le détail. On scrute jusqu’à se rendre à
l’évidence : ce qui ébranle le plus notre tendance à la nostalgie, ce
sont encore les fines écritures au bas ou sur le côté, la mention du nom du
héros en lettres couchées dans le sépia, suivie par le nom et
l’adresse du photographe, ce qui a le don de porter notre part de rêve à son
acmé. Certains mystères demeurent intacts : quelle est cette espèce de long
gant noir posé sur la cuisse du kaiser Wilhelm II ? Golda apostrophe-t-elle le monde
devant une forêt de micros ou un bouquet de roses ? Est-ce la main d’Allah qui
prolonge le bras de l’imam Khomeini ? On abandonnera aux experts l’analyse
comparée de la carte postale réunissant Mubarak et Sadate sur un même plan,
le contraste entre l’argenté de l’un et le doré de l’autre, les
sept rangs de décorations face aux huit rangs de décorations, et le chamarré
de la ceinture qui fait la différence. Telle est l’image qu’ils
ont voulu laisser : mais est-ce bien celle que l’on voudrait retenir ?
L’Å“il fait son ménage, l’inconscient range les signes, la
mémoire garde ce qui lui chante. Pinacle de la réminiscence. Tels qu’en
eux-mêmes, l’éternité les fige. Autant de Charlot que l’on
n’oserait imaginer sans leur canne. à chacun son attribut. Le photographe ne
l’a peut-être pas voulu mais notre regard l’exige. On guette l’hiatus,
mais non. Pas d’Arafat sans son
keffieh, pas de Gerry Adams sans sa chemise à carreaux, pas de Churchill sans son «
V », ni de Guevara privé de cigare. à Steve Biko, l’extraordinaire
fixité du regard suffit et, même de profil, tout est dit de sa
flamme. On pourrait dresser une typologie des invariants : la tête
découverte, le sourire, le nombre de médailles... Autant de
critères. Au concours de breloques, l’empereur Hiro-Hito est champion.
Certains portraits se lisent comme des déclarations de paix ; d’autres, plus rares,
comme des mots d’amour. Toutes ne sont pas posées dans le cadre artificiel du
studio. On a l’air de déranger Nehru et Gandhi dans l’intimité de leur
conversation, mais Nkrumah nous inviterait plutôt à partager l’humour du
même Nehru. Comment naît et meurt une icône laïque ? Voilà bien une
énigme. Poses et attitudes reflètent une histoire des mÅ“urs qui
englobe, à travers coiffures et vêtements, une histoire du goût.
NÅ“uds de cravate, lunettes, verre, montre, couleurs, sourires : tout est à
déconstruire dans le sentiment inouï que dégage la chaleureuse
photo de reportage de Martin Luther King en campagne. Ce qu’aucun metteur en scène
ne saurait reconstituer. Quelque chose de l’ordre de la fraternité. L’effet de
contraste est saisissant avec le portrait de famille de Hailé Sélassié qui
nous glace le sang. Mais il n’est pas sûr que le Saint-Siège pardonne au
collectionneur et à l’éditeur non seulement d’avoir figé un
Jean-Paul II à la peine cherchant appui, mais encore d’avoir fait figurer au milieu
de ces icônes laïques l’héritier d’un pouvoir qui le situe bien
au-delà. On pourrait établir une anthropologie du regard des grands hommes à
travers cette collection : Clemenceau nous envoie promener, Lloyd George nous invite à
lire son courrier par-dessus son épaule, Hindenburg nous exécute, la suffragette
Emmeline Pankhurst n’arrête pas de travailler, Nasser en tombeur et pas seulement du
roi Farouk, le Tchèque Masaryk semble avoir coiffé une casquette pour la
première fois de sa vie d’homme d’état, Indira Gandhi si perdue dans
ses pensées qu’elle va partir en lévitation, Walesa tout aussi
songeur mais pas près de s’envoler, Woodrow Wilson ne fait aucun cas de nous, Castro
voit loin, le tsar Nicolas II au bon regard nous renseigne aussi sur la mode des poils du visage
en son temps, Staline et Lénine semblent attendre deux camarades-partenaires pour un
bridge, Trotski repose en protomartyr de l’Internationale, Kemal est déjà
dans l’Olympe, Eva Perón plus haut encore dans le nirvana des dieux, Sakharov
emprunté, Benito dans son grand numéro de claquettes, Mao les petits oiseaux, Tito
en ses soucis, Franco en son sourire faussement épanoui qui lui donne un air de ravi de la
crèche, Hitler toujours prompt à ramener un petit enfant dans le champ, Roosevelt
aussi mais au moins c’est le sien... Seul Lawrence, si simplement humain, semble
déplacé. Sauf qu’il fut un vrai chef politique et qu’il demeure une
légende. S’il est une icône naturelle, c’est bien lui. Il est des
nôtres, il est nous. De Gaulle, lui, est à nous. D’autant que c’est le
meilleur de lui qui pose là, bien planté de profil dans le paysage, saisi en
contre-plongée de manière à lui conférer davantage de hauteur encore,
les poings fermés sur les hanches, l’esprit de résistance fait homme, une
statue de bronze incarnant un « non »
d’airain. C’était avant le temps de l’hygiéniquement
correct et du principe de précaution qui auraient censuré sa cigarette
fichée au coin des lèvres.Certaines sont des réclames bien comprises. On
n’a rien inventé de mieux depuis la carte des éditions Plon vantant les
mérites de Grandeurs et Misères d’une victoire du Tigre en personne. La
fratrie Kennedy ne pourrait décemment échapper à une campagne de
publicité de Ralph Lauren. Peu feront date
dans l’histoire du portrait, beaucoup dans celle de la propagande. Toutes appartiennent
à l’Histoire. Esthétiques ou politiques, elles sont destinées à
s’inscrire dans la durée. La mosaïque timbrée de ces portraits
postés dessine en creux une chronique du siècle échu, ce moment de
l’humanité si assombri par les deux totalitarismes qu’il pourrait bien passer
dans les manuels comme le siècle des ténèbres. Ce qui n’a
pas changé ? Le culte de la personnalité. Il prospère y compris sous de
proches latitudes pourtant peu connues pour abriter des républiques bananières.
Aujourd’hui, la carte postale est électronique ; le statut de l’icône
politique a changé. Les gens ne croient plus rien. N’importe qui peut manipuler des
photos grâce à Photoshop. Mais la Toile, qui est la plus grande pourvoyeuse
d’images, n’est pas seulement le média qui permet le trucage : elle est aussi
celui qui, dans le même temps, le met à nu, le dévoile, le dénonce. Le
simple fait d’écrire à un ami au dos d’une vraie carte postale est
considéré, au-delà du geste anachronique, comme un acte de résistance
à l’empire du tout-technologique. L’usage conserve un tour
délicieusement désuet. Quitte à joindre deux ou trois cartes dans une
enveloppe lorsque le monologue est abondant. Mais on imagine mal nos contemporains du monde
politique français mériter ce statut envié d’icône. Pas de nom.
Il faudrait aller voir du côté d’Obama ou de Mandela. On en
reparlera au début du XXIIème siècle, pour la nouvelle édition.
(Paul von Hindenburg, Nicolas II, Tito, Eva Peron, les frères Kennedy,
Saddam Hussein)
Publication Date: 2010 Mar 12 PMID: 20223986Authors: Roch, S.Journal: ScienceThe matrix of
evolutionary distances is a model-based statistic, derived from molecular sequences, summarizing
the pairwise phylogenetic relations between a collection of species. Phylogenetic tree
reconstruction methods relying on this matrix are relatively fast and thus widely used in molecular
systematics. However, because of their intrinsic reliance on summary statistics, distance-matrix
methods are assumed to be less accurate than likelihood-based approaches. In this paper, pairwise
sequence comparisons are shown to be more powerful than previously hypothesized. A statistical
analysis of certain distance-based techniques indicates that their data requirement for large
evolutionary trees essentially matches the conjectured performance of maximum likelihood
methods--challenging the idea that summary statistics lead to suboptimal analyses. On the basis of
a connection between ancestral state reconstruction and distance averaging, the critical role
played by the covariances of the distance matrix is identified.post to:
CiteULike
Upon first glance we were skeptical. Generally when someone says they're launching a
business directory it's an SEO play with little value to users. Nevertheless, the small business web directory is a pleasant
surprise. The group is providing a variety of useful resources to help startups integrate
services and scale up their internal operations.
Sponsor
Launched at last year's SXSW, the small business
web is a group of software as a service companies that have joined forces to offer cheaper
services to clients. Companies like Batch Blue Software,
Freshbooks, Mailchimp, Shoeboxed and
Outright have been integrating APIs in order to help
businesses flourish. This week's launch will help startups stretch their dollars even further.
If you were fiddling with multiple platforms to manage your finance, human resources and
analytics tools before, the directory can help you fix this through third party service
integration. While a number of resource lists are available for accounting and domain management
services, this collection is geared specifically towards productivity and life hacking. To check
it out visit thesmallbusinessweb.com.
I just couldn’t resist… I joined the game, but did it the other way around.
I could only file 51 new FTBFS (Fail To Build From Source) bugs this time. Looks like
Squeeze is getting closer!
I’ve also been doing rebuilds of Ubuntu lucid. There are currently 561 packages that fail to build from source in
lucid/amd64, versus 430 in sid/amd64 (I will start rebuilding squeeze instead of sid after
the freeze). Surprisingly, only 131 packages fail in both. I would have expected that number to
be much higher.
Short Version: We now have so much storage in our homes that we could probably,
each of us, start our own Rapidshare service. But how do we get all that data to the other
machines on our network or, better yet, out onto the Internet?
Devices like the Iomega iConnect allow us to place storage space on our internal networks and
expose that data to the world, as needed. However, the iConnect also creates a local iTunes
share, adds a Time Machine back-up location, and performs a few other tricks all for $99. While
it’s not perfect, it’s pretty cool.
The Iomega iConnect Wireless is, in short, a NAS
without drives. You can stuck up to four devices onto this thing and even print wireless over
your network. When you need to grab a file from one of your drives – and if you’re
like me, you have plenty – you just connect to that drive. When you take the drive out of
the network it disappears. Add it again and it reappears. The system also offers a remote access
service with your own private URL mapped to the iConnect.
The device is fairly easy to set up. You connect to a network, run the enclosed software, and add
a disk. As soon as a disk is plugged in it appears as a share on your network. A click and
you’re in.
Setup is very straightforward. The desktop UI is barebones and the web UI isn’t much more
complex. It isn’t for the average user but you could set it up for Grandma and tell her how
to watch her soaps. Besides, it has a Torrent client built right in so she can DL her things on
the DL.
For $99 you get a lot of features. Is it better than something like the Netgear Stora? That depends on
how many loose drives you have in your collection. If you need to get your data online in a
hurry, however, this is a good solution.
In the comments for our quick
look one reader, Bryan, found that the device doesn’t support the Drobo, which is a
problem. It also seems to only support FAT, FAT32, and NTFS, which could be a problem for larger
files. However – and I haven’t tested this – most devices like this will handle
large files thanks to the sharing properties and protocols used. The disk format seems to be
invisible to OS X.
Like many in the insulated west, I've long been fascinated by North Korea, what life is like in
there, and what will happen to the peninsula after the walls come down. (Of course, I'm half a
world away, so I have the luxury of being fascinated with North Korea. Life inside the country, I
suspect, is beyond rough and might get even worse in the first years of inevitable reunification.)
I've read extensively on the country, enough so that I almost understand the concept of juche. And
I've explored the country a bit in my fiction. My novel-in-progress has a sequence in which an
over-the-hill rocker is invited to perform a goodwill concert in Pyongyang, although I'm not sure
the subplot it's part of will earn space in the final draft. My hometown website boston.com
(disclosure: I used to consult for 'em) has a terrific feature called The Big Picture that tells
news stories in photographs. A year and change ago, the section ran a gripping Recent scenes from
North Korea, a collection of 32 photos, all taken in 2008, some from wire services, some from
freelancer Eric Lafforgue's then-recent trip, some shot inside the nation, some shot across the
border. And now you can see On the Spot with Kim Jong-il, 31 photos from North Korea's state-run
"news" agency, showing Dear Leader, usually in a parka, inspecting various industrial facilities.
It's an astonishing series of portraits of a man and a culture disconnected from reality, surveying
an empire that does not exist....
I just started playing magic again after about a 2 year break, and I sold my collection when I
stopped a while back. (I regret it now) But I picked up some Zendikar, WorldWake, and M10 stuff and
I have several friends that have been playong for years that I can trade with and get cards I need
from.
Do you guys have any suggestions of maybe some combos I could run, or any staple cards I might have
missed since I havent played for a while? I know I want Uril as my general, just because he was in
the first booster pack I opened when I started back and I took that as a sign haha.
Continuing from last week's look at some of the B-list pulp heroes who transitioned
to the comics... and a couple who didn't.
*
I really shouldn't refer to The Phantom Detective as a B-lister. He was the was
one of the earliest pulp-hero headliners to get his own book -- Feburary 1933, shortly after the
Shadow and a month before Doc Savage.
And the Phantom's adventures also had the third-largest run after the Shadow and Doc, racking up
a hundred and seventy stories between his 1933 debut and the final adventure published in 1953.
So who was the Phantom? (He was only ever referred to as "The Phantom Detective" on the
cover -- in-story it was always shortened to just "the Phantom.")
The Phantom was Richard Curtis Van Loan, a rich playboy idler who was orphaned at an early age.
He knocked around for a while enjoying his inheritance until World War One (or just "the Great
War," as they called it in 1933) when he became a pilot and downed a lot of German planes. The
"danger and excitement of testing himself against death" proved addictive for Richard, and upon
his return to the States, he found the playboy lifestyle to be dull and meaningless. On a dare
from his friend newspaper mogul Frank Havens, Richard took on a case the police had been unable
to solve and, naturally, solved it.
Usually rich playboys turn to fighting crime out of revenge. The Phantom Detective did it on a
bet.
That was it. Richard van Loan had found his calling. He would fight crime. Dressed in a black
dinner jacket and a silk domino mask, the Phantom quickly became the court of last resort for law
enforcement all over the world, with only his pal Frank Havens knowing his true identity.
Basically, it was Batman without the angst. Publisher Frank Havens even summons Van Loan with a
flashing red light from the top of the newspaper offices when the police need to consult the
Phantom, and yeah, I think that predated the Bat-Signal.
The Phantom Detective is actually the longest-running of all the pulp heroes. Both the Shadow and
Doc Savage had more adventures, but in terms of actual years published, the Phantom has them
beat.
Weird to see that mid-50s style on a hero pulp cover.
He hung in there until 1953, four years after 1949 (the year the Shadow was
canceled, and thus when the classic hero pulps are usually pronounced dead by most fans.)
The Phantom also had a moderately successful run as a backup strip in Thrilling Comics,
though I don't believe he ever got the cover. Unlike many of the other pulps that were translated
to comics, he made it across virtually intact.
About the only real change was that the four-color version of Van Loan tended to operate in his
tux-and-domino mask outfit more often than in the pulps, where generally the Phantom was
operating undercover in one disguise or another.
And of course, it was only natural that in the mid-60s a paperback publisher would venture a
trial balloon reprint program.
But like many other publishers discovered, apparently Bantam's success with Doc Savage was a
one-time deal and the series sputtered out after just a few entries. These paperbacks are
actually harder to track down than the original pulps.
I think the reason the Phantom Detective hasn't ever been successfully relaunched, unlike the
various other hero pulps that have been revived from time to time, is partly because the whole
idea of the wealthy gentleman adventurer is something that's very much of its time -- you can't
really update that concept the way you can a scientific superman or a shadowy figure of
vengeance. In fact, it's not just pulps and comics -- that whole Richard Hannay/Lord Peter
Wimsey/Bulldog Drummond school of upper-crust suspense fiction got shut down right around the
same time the Phantom Detective did, in the early to mid-1950s. Or, rather, it got split into two
genres -- the hardboiled private-eye archetype absorbed some of it, and the rest got incorporated
into the James Bond gentleman-spy thing. (Do I spend way too much time thinking about this sort
of thing? Yeah, probably.)
The other reason the Phantom Detective relaunches never got that much traction is because,
really, there's not much going on there. Unlike Walter Gibson's Shadow or Lester Dent's Doc
Savage, the Phantom wasn't the product of one authorial voice. The first year, the stories were
by "G. Wayman Jones," a pen name for D.L. Champion. After that the house name changed to "Robert
Wallace," a pseudonym that was kind of a catch-all for a host of authors, notably Ed Burkholder,
Henry Kuttner, and Norman Daniels. Dozens of guys worked on The Phantom Detective over
the course of its twenty-year history, so the editors tended to keep it a simple, accessible
property for any new writers to come in and take over.
The net result is that the run of 170 Phantom Detective adventures are wildly uneven, especially
in the first ten years. Most of the stories tend to be plot-driven adventure with a puzzle or a
gimmick -- there's very few character bits going on in the stories at all. Generally, Richard van
Loan is dedicated, brilliant, athletic, etc., and occasionally he pines for Frank's daughter
Muriel Havens, whom he loves but could never ask to share his life of danger. And that's about
it.
Nevertheless, the later Phantom Detective stories are quite good and even the early ones are fun
to read once in a while. So it's nice that High Adventure has the character in its
rotation of regulars, which is where i discovered him.
There's also a history of the Phantom Detective available through Altus
Press,The Phantom Detective Companion.
It comes with an index, lots of great historical essays by pulp historians like Tom Johnson and
Will Murray, and it even reprints most of the Phantom Detective comics by
Everett Hibbard. I found it to be a remarkably entertaining book in its own right just for the
historical essays, and I'm not even all that into the Phantom. Definitely worth a look.... it's
available on Amazon.
Or you could just pick up some of the High Adventure back
issues. Quite a few are on sale for $3.00 each at the moment -- cheaper than many comics
-- and you'll find the Phantom Detective reprinted in #68, #74, #91, and #108.
*
Another High Adventure regular that I've been enjoying reading about is the
Green Lama.
In the beginning, the Green Lama's pulp career was not terribly distinguished -- or all that
long, for that matter. He appeared in fourteen issues of Double Detective, from April
1940 to March of 1943. The stories were all written by Kendell Foster Crossen, under the pen name
of "Richard Foster," and I think they're a lot of fun.
The Green Lama was actually a wealthy New York idler named Jethro Dumont. During his college
years, Dumont had traveled to Tibet in search of enlightenment, and during his ten years there
eventually became a Buddhist priest. His studies led him to learn many mystical secrets that
granted him near-superhuman abilities-- it's all about breath control!-- and he also learned to
create the illusion of even more supernatural abilities by the clever use of certain radioactive
salts. Armed with this knowledge and the desire to better humanity, Jethro Dumont returned to New
York and assumed the crimefighting persona of.... the Green Lama!
The idea was to duplicate the Shadow's successful formula as much as possible without committing
actual plagiarism: Young WASP socialite-type journeys to the mysterious East and learns a lot
of cool stuff which he then uses to fight crime on the mean streets of New York. The trouble
was that a mysterious black-clad avenger with two blazing .45s and a fearsome laugh is a lot
scarier than a soft-spoken priest in a green bathrobe, and so the Green Lama's pulp series
fizzled after a couple of years. Double Detective got a new headliner and that was that.
The interesting thing about young Jethro and his green-robed alter ego, though, is that he
actually did a lot better everywhere other than in the original pulp magazines.
For a B-lister, this guy gets around.
He appeared in Prize Comics for 27 issues, almost double the number of his pulp
appearances.
Then the Green Lama got his own comic title and that lasted for eight issues.
There was even a radio show and a fan club.
Yes, it was once possible to be a CARD-CARRYING fan of the Green Lama.
Like most of the pulp heroes that jumped to comics in the 1940s, Jethro Dumont got a power
upgrade. In the comics, he merely had to utter the mystical chant "Om Mani Padme Hum!" and he
would be transformed into the Green Lama, gifted with the power of flight and invulnerability,
along with the other mystic powers he had in his pulp adventures.
(I'm pretty sure they skipped the bits with the radioactive salt.)
The strip was drawn by the great Mac Raboy, who also did Captain Marvel Junior for Fawcett. So as
silly as the stories often got, at least the strip always looked good.
But when the early 1940s superhero boom in comics faded, the Green Lama faded with it. Just
another forgotten Golden Ager for the archives.
Except, for some reason, no one forgets the Green Lama for long. People keep trying to revive the
concept. Partly, of course, this is due to the magic words "Public Domain."
But there are quite a few old characters from the 1940s that are available now on that basis, yet
somehow it's Jethro Dumont and his green Buddhist robes that keep catching the imagination of new
writers and artists. AC tried it briefly...
And Dynamite Entertainment has included the Green Lama as one of the headliners in their
Project Superpowers series by Krueger and Ross.
I haven't really been interested in any of the comics revivals, though there's also a new prose
anthology that came out last year from Altus Press that sounds kind of cool.
And there are some lovely archive editions of the original Green Lama strips from the 40s
available from Dark Horse as well.
There are a whole lot of other archive edition hardcovers ahead of this one on my list, but damn,
that looks like a nice book.
Not bad for a B-lister.
But really what I enjoy the most are the original prose adventures from the 40s, the ones by
Kendell Crossen. Of those original fourteen, six have shown up in High Adventure so far,
and I imagine that there are more to come.
*
The Shadow wasn't the only success story that pulp publishers were anxious to duplicate. Editors
were on the prowl for the next Doc Savage, too.
Even the editors of the "Spicy" line of pulps from Culture Publications wanted in on some of that
hero-pulp money.
They looked a lot more lurid than they were... but shopkeepers still hid them under the counter.
The Spicys were a slightly naughtier brand of pulp, with more lurid plots and leeringly perverted
villains. As a general rule shopkeepers kept them under the counter, though the truth of the
matter was that, as Charles Beaumont wryly observed, despite all the torn dresses, creamy bosoms
and licking of lips on display, there was really nothing in the "Spicy" line of pulps that
disproved the theory that babies are brought by the stork.
Nevertheless, someone there had the bright idea of taking the basic Doc Savage idea and giving it
the 'spicy' treatment, and that gave us Jim Anthony, Super-Detective.
Jim was a lot like Doc but with added nudity and sadism.... and less sensitivity. Jim Anthony was
described as "half Irish, half Indian, and all-American". He inherited great wealth, though it's
not clear from whom since his grandfather Mephito was a stereotypical Indian Chief whose dialogue
was largely confined to comments like "Ugh. Bad medicine for grandson."
Like Doc Savage, but, y'know, nakeder.
Jim was not only a gifted athlete, but could even see in the dark and had a "sixth sense." He
excelled in the sciences, both real ones like physics and psychiatry, and made-up ones like
psychic electro-chemistry. He owned businesses around the country, including the Waldorf-Anthony
Hotel in New York, were he maintained a penthouse apartment and secret laboratory. There was also
the Tepee, his hidden mansion in the Catskills Mountains, and the Pueblo in the southwest, a
hotel/resort built at an oasis.
Like Doc, Jim Anthony also had a few aides -- along with his grandfather, there was also his
chauffeur and pilot Tom Gentry, his British butler Dawkins, and his incredibly hot fiancee
Delores. Delores often ended up with her dress in tatters, as was traditional in the Spicys.
However, not to be outdone, Jim did most of his crimefighting stripped down to yellow swim
trunks. No explanation was given other than that it was his "preferred working uniform."
Seriously.
There were only twenty-five or so Jim Anthony adventures published, and after the first ten the
"international man of action" angle was scrapped in favor of a more hard-boiled, Mike Hammer
vibe. All of the stories appeared under the house byline "John Grange," but the shirtless
super-sleuth was actually created by Victor Rousseau. Later, most of the stories were written by
Culture Publications go-to guy Robert Leslie Bellem, the man that also gave us Dan Turner,
Hollywood Detective.
Jim never made it to comics, for obvious reasons. But he's in the High Adventure
rotation, and Altus Press -- again! -- has published a new collection of prose stories that looks
kind of cool.
Jim Anthony's time in comics may have come, though. I can see him headlining a Vertigo series, or
something from Wildstorm, maybe. It could work.
*
I was going to talk a little about the Black Bat, but Brian really covered it
all a couple of years ago in this Legends Revealed entry.
I had a vague memory that Tony Quinn, the Black Bat, had indeed made the leap from pulps to
comics and there had been some sort of makeover into a less-Batman-looking character, but that
was it. I ran into a huge brick wall trying to track it down, so I am indebted to commenter Ed
Love mentioning in the replies to last week's installment that a version of The Black Bat did in
fact appear in Exciting Comics, where he was renamed The Mask.
I did a little digging, and sure enough, if you squint, it's him. Tony Colby instead of Tony
Quinn, and the costume got tweaked a little, but it's recognizably the same characters in the
same story.
Even the origin made it across essentially intact.
I don't have any profound thoughts about the Bat... other than that, again, I'm glad he's in the
High Adventure rotation. (Normally I wouldn't be plugging a publisher quite so hard but
I really do love that this particular reprint book is out there, it just fills me with joy. I
love High Adventure even more than Bill Reed loves Axe Cop.)
I don't know why, exactly, I love this stuff so much. It's not really that good
-- not in the sense that we usually talk about "good comics" around these parts, anyway.
Sure, there's lots of good stuff in the old pulps. C.S. Forester and Mackinlay Kantor and Ray
Bradbury all started there. Whole genres of modern fiction were birthed in those pages -- Asimov
and Campbell and Heinlein created science fiction as we know it today, Hammett and Chandler and
their brethren invented the modern private eye story, while over in the shudder pulps guys like
Robert Bloch were taking horror out of the old Gothic mansion and putting it in the suburban
tract home down the street. Pulp magazines have a legitimate literary legacy that needs no
apology.
Here's the catch, though -- I love the crappy pulp stuff just as much as the genuinely well-done
work. Sometimes even more. I own a lot more books starring Ki-Gor, Lord of the Jungle than I do
the collected works of Ray Bradbury.
I think the appeal for me about pulp fiction is its purity. It's
nothing but story. There's none of the ironic self-conscious awareness that's permeating
superhero comics these days. It's a world where a guy in a green bathrobe can fight crime with
radioactive salt, or a half-naked guy can defeat a European terrorist with his electro-chemical
psychic writing machine... and the authors believe in it so completely that you can't help but be
swept along.
I miss that. You can sort of see that hell-for-leather, let's-go spirit in a few modern comics,
but it doesn't turn up nearly as often as it ought to in an industry that makes its bread and
butter on the adventures of brightly-clad people with powers and abilities beyond mortal men. I
don't just want to believe a man can fly. I want to believe he can do it and that it's
fun.
*
REMINDER! My students and I are going to be at the Emerald City Comic-Con all
weekend, at M-19 and M-20 in Artist's Alley. Come say hello, and maybe
kick in a dollar or two for the AfterSchool Art Program if you feel so
inclined. We'd sure appreciate it.
Hier sortait Sonic Classic Collection, qui comprend les trois premiers épisodes ainsi que
Sonic & Knuckle. Sega fête l’évènement avec une vidéo qui
ravira surement les nostalgiques. Rappelons que le titre se voit aussi agrémenter d’un
mode musée comprenant vidéos et images de l’hérisson bleu le plus rapide
du monde. Contrairement aux versions originales, il sera possible ici de sauvegarder à tout
moment, ce qui devrait grandement faciliter le challenge proposé.
Nos chaussures peuvent être chic et écolo en même temps. Cette
année toute la collection automne-hiver de la marque Olsenhaus sera fabriquée avec de
vieux écrans cathodiques recyclés. Au-revoir similicuir basé sur le
pétrole. Olsenhaus, déjà spécia...
By David Lambert - Warner Home Video has announced a new 2-DVD set, arriving June 29th, title the
Tom and Jerry - Deluxe Anniversary Collection. On the package art seen at bottom, the front cover
reads... (more)
Most tourists head straight for the Uffizi, but Florence has dozens of smaller museums full of
world-class art. The curator of the V&A's new Renaissance galleries was our guide
Stendhal syndrome is a sickness known to afflict those of a sensitive nature who visit Florence.
It's named after the French author, who was left sick and dizzy by the vast amount of art he
viewed on an 1817 visit to the city. There have since been many cases documented of visitors
fainting in the face of Florence's glories. Add in queuing for hours to get into museums such as
the Uffizi and the Accademia, jostling for space once in and then peering over heads to catch a
glimpse of Botticelli's Birth of Venus or Michelangelo's David, and a visit to Florence starts to
look a little dangerous for the health.
Inspired by the opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum's £30m Renaissance Galleries last November, I spent
a day in Florence with the galleries' chief curator, Peta Motture, who convinced me that there
are many gems still to be discovered in Florence which illuminate not just the Renaissance but
the history of art, all without the risk of fainting. We started at tourist central, Piazza del
Duomo, now pedestrianised. But instead of joining the queues to climb Brunelleschi's dome, we
ducked into a smaller building, the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (9 Piazza del
Duomo, +39 055 230 2885, entry €6), where sculptures that once packed the Duomo
and Baptistery are exhibited.
"Not many people come here," Peta promised, "but all the most wonderful original art from the
Duomo is here."
Although just behind the Duomo, the museum was virtually empty. At the top of the monumental
staircase stands Michelangelo's radiant Pietà. It was intended for the artist's own tomb
until, Peta told me, he broke the arm and left leg of Christ in a fit of temper, dissatisfied
with the stone. They were later restored – Peta pointed out the cracks, which
are still visible. Another work, the beautifully mature figure of Nicodemus, is a self-portrait
– Michelangelo himself looming above the other figures, his eyes downcast.
Peta led us upstairs to a gallery at the top where a rust-coloured figure stood alone in the
centre of the room, shocking in its bedraggled emaciation. The polychrome wooden sculpture is not
what one expects, either from Donatello, its sculptor, or in representations of Mary Magdalene.
Hollow-eyed, wearing rags, her hands coming together in prayer, she is an intense figure, almost
frightening. Peta explained that this sculpture embodies the dark mood that engulfed Florence at
the end of the Renaissance. Savonarola was a hell-fire preacher who thought much Renaissance art
was immoral. Donatello had come under his influence, and carved the Magdalene as a beggar, a
pitiful figure whose past decadence is clear in the cadaverous lines of her repentant figure.
Emerging into the daylight, we headed for lunch. Teatro del Sale
(Via dei Macci 111, +39 055 200 1492), is an intriguing mix of private members' club, canteen and
theatre. Buying an annual membership (€5) allowed us entry, then we paid just
€15 to serve ourselves as much food and wine as we liked. After dinner
(€30) in the evenings the room converts to a theatre, with entertainment
ranging from tango to chamber orchestras.
After lunch, Peta suggested seeing some classic Donatellos, so we headed to what was once the
city jail to see the bronze David that scandalised Renaissance Florence with its nudity. The
crenellated walls and tower of the Bargello (Via del Proconsolo 4, +39 055 294883, €4)
feel squeezed into the narrow streets of the centre. This is Florence's oldest public building,
begun in 1255, and it is said to be where condemned prisoners spent their last night. It is now
one of the city's loveliest museums, being to sculpture what the Uffizi is to painting, only
without the queues. The Bargello is serene and quiet, giving plenty of room and time to digest
the beauty of the works and the setting. The atmospheric courtyard is the setting for a permanent
exhibition of sculptures by masters such as Michelangelo and Cellini, as well as Donatello. On
the first floor, in a sweeping 14th-century hall, are some of Donatello's finest works, including
a youthful David in marble, as well as the aforementioned bronze David.
Leaving the Bargello, we wove our way past the shops selling leather in all colours of the
rainbow, to a discreet little building near the Arno. A plaque announced it as TheHorne Museum (Via de' Benci 6, +39 055 2466406, €5),
another secret Florentine gem. Herbert Percy Horne was a late-Victorian Englishman who came to
Florence to study the Renaissance and filled his house with the sort of art that would have been
seen in a home of the period. The collection boasts works by key artists such as Giotto, Filippo
Lippi and Giambologna, as well as furniture and domestic objects from the period.
Over drinks that evening at the top of the Torre dei Consorti, now home to the Hotel Continentale's Sky Bar, we discussed Stendhal
syndrome, and how we had been spared any such cultural indigestion. We looked out at the river
and the Ponte Vecchio on one side, and the illuminated towers of the Palazzo Vecchio and the
Duomo on the other. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer consistent beauty of Florence. But
Peta had shown me that by concentrating on some of the quieter museums, you can still find
yourself standing in front of a dazzling Michelangelo, almost totally alone.
More ways to avoid the tourists
Where to eat
Just 10 minutes east of the overcrowded Piazza del Duomo is the Sant'Ambrogio neighbourhood.
There is a covered market for divine Tuscan cheeses and meats. Florentines stop at
Cibrèo Caffè (Via Andrea del Verrocchio 5r, +39 0552345853) for a
pre-lunch prosecco. Pizza may not be native to Tuscany – neither pizza nor
pasta makes an appearance on Cibrèo's strictly Tuscan menu – but still,
competing for the title of best pizzeria is still taken seriously by Florentine restaurateurs
compete seriously to be the best pizzeria. This corner is home to the Cibrèo empire
– the internationally renowned restaurant where chef Fabio Picchi made his
name serving traditional Tuscan dishes, as well as a trattoria, the café and Teatro del
Sale (111 Via dei Macci; tel: 055 200 1492), a mix of private member's club, canteen and theatre.
Teatro is squarely aimed at locals, with a nominal membership fee (€5), then a
set sum paid at the door for an all-you-can-eat breakfast, lunch or dinner. In the evening the
€30 cover price includes not only the best food and wine in town but then
converts to a theatre where entertainment can range from a tango show to a chamber orchestra.
Antica Porta (via Senese 23,
+39 055 220 527) is a buzzing pizzeria outside the Porta Romana on the south side of the river.
Da Ruggero (via Senese 89r, +39 055 220 542), run by the Colsi family for over
30 years, is a classic Florentine trattoria serving the usual Tuscan favourites. Book a table or
be prepared to wait in the line that snakes out of the door.
Half an hour south, in the pretty village of San Casciano is Nello (via 4 Novembre 66, San
Casciano in Val di Pesa, +39 055 820 163), an unpretentious restaurant with 70s décor but
heavenly Tuscan specialities and wine cellar.
Those who really care about their gelato go to Gelateria Badiani (Viale dei Mille, 20r), famous for its Buontalenti
flavour – named for the Renaissance architect Bernardo Buontalenti.
Gardens and walks
The centro storico's towering stone palazzi and narrow alleys fill with tour groups. For
verdant space head south of the Arno where the ochre and burnt umber facades are backed by
sloping green hills dotted with cypress trees. Head to the Rose Garden (Via di
San Salvatore al Monte), tucked behind a small gate en route to the Piazzale Michelangelo and
open from May to July.
A truly secret garden also below the Piazzale Michelangelo (on the corner of Viale dei Colli) is
the Giardino dell'Iris (open to the public 2-20 May only), which contains row
upon row of irises, the city's emblematic flower, in every imaginable shade.
For Florence's prettiest "country" walk, take a sharp right out of San Miniato gate onto the Via
di Belvedere and along the medieval wall verged with grassy banks dotted with wild flowers.
Continue beyond the Forte di Belvedere into birdsong, olive groves and ordered tranquillity. The
road leads through the village of Arcetri, with saffron and terracotta-coloured villas, stone
walls with tumbles of honeysuckle and the charming church of San Leonardo – a
mere 20-minute amble out of town.
·Meridiana(0871 222 9 319) flies from Gatwick to Florence from €59 one way. TheRelais Santa Croce(+39 055 2342230), close to all the museums, has
doubles from €250, room-only. Further information on the V&A atvam.ac.uk.
Thanks to this week’s advertisers and partners for enabling us
to bring you the latest social media news and resources. Mashable’s sponsors are as social
media savvy as our readers!
Advertise with us and get noticed.
Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large, diverse audience
— social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, developers, bloggers, and many
more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views a day in addition to weekly recognition
to thank you as our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information and to receive our media
kit and rate card.
Gist helps you build stronger
professional relationships by bringing together information from across the web for all your
contacts and their companies giving you the right information at the right moment to get a first
meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection. Gist does all
the work for you, assembling a dynamic collection of all your contacts and their companies from
your email inbox, your social networks, or even your CRM system automatically building and
updating their profiles as new content is published – by them or about them.
phpFox is a feature packed
social networking script. Our goal is to provide your community with features found on major
social networking sites. The platform gives you full control with your websites layout giving you
the ability to easily create a unique look direct from the comfort of your Admin Control Panel.
Try the new phpFox2 with a brand new engine; our fastest, coolest and most feature packed version
ever. Start tomorrow’s next big thing today with phpFox!
Yield Software’s Yield Web Marketing Suite optimizes paid search (PPC) natural search
(SEO) and landing pages, all in one easy-to-use Web-based system. A simple, intuitive interface
together with sophisticated algorithms work seamlessly to optimize SEM campaigns every minute of
every day, enabling growing businesses and their agencies to lower costs, improve performance,
and increase profitability. Yield also offers a free SEO Analyzer, which delivers a report
covering how well a site is optimized and suggestions for improvement. Yield Software—Web Marketing
Made Easy.
Clickatell offers
mobile social networks the opportunity to measure their return on investment: Not only does
Clickatell offer an Interactive Campaign Manager tool that allows you to monitor and intervene in
your customer campaigns in real time, it also generates and manages database integration and
comes with additional marketing tools. Track the delivery status of your text messages and the
responses; take the guesswork out of campaigning. Your valuable messages will always be delivered
as our products allow for message escalation to alternative delivery gateways. Social networks
are also, through the account management package, given control over network channels and
connectivity options. All necessary tasks have been automated and our central interface allows
you to manage multiple connections and projects at the same time.
Which leading social networking companies have chosen Clickatell as a mobile messaging partner?
Read
our success stories here.
Influxis is
an official Adobe hosting partner and resource for the Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server.
Influxis provides Flash hosting plans for all levels of use – beginner to
enterprise. With a reputation for exceptional customer service, Influxis provides an extremely
reliable international network of FMS servers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
BizSpark is a program which offers new software businesses and
entrepreneurs access to Microsoft design, development, and production tools with no upfront costs
for up to three years. Members can also connect with a nationwide community of Network Partners
– investors, incubators, service providers, and entrepreneurial organizations
– who are keen to help.
MailChimp is a powerful,
easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.
If you’re working for a startup, Sun can help you get it off the ground fast. We created
the fee-free Sun Startup Essentials program offering deep discounts on industry leading, power
efficient systems and storage products, optimized open-source software, massively scalable Web
hosting services, plus free visibility via Sun’s co-marketing engine. It’s time to
build your business on the kind of infrastructure that can scale right along with the
skyrocketing demands of success. Find out about Sun Startup Essentials
today!
MaxCDN – Content Delivery
Network. MaxCDN makes it easy and affordable to get maximum global performance from
your site and enable your visitors to get the most out of their visit! MaxCDN offers: resistance
to the Digg effect, SSL Integration, No Setup Fee, US-based customer service, No Commitments. Get
1 TeraByte for just $10 today!
Eventbrite is
an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations
of all sizes manage, promote and sell tickets to their events. Make your event a success on
Eventbrite.
Additionally, thanks to the following partners for making Mashable happen:
Mashable would also like to thank AttentionPR for their PR support. AttentionPR proves that PR today is measurable,
transparent, and yes, social. Learn more
about AttentionPR.
Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more
spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating,
monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.
iStockphoto offers
easy, affordable inspiration with millions of safe, royalty-free photos, illustrations, video,
audio and FlashÂ@ files. Using the most accurate search in the business, customers download
a file at least every second from a collection of more than five million files for business,
marketing and personal projects. iStockphoto started in 2000, pioneering the micropayment
photography business model, and has become one of the most successful and profitable
user-generated content sites in the world. iStockphoto pays out approximately $1.2 million weekly
in artist royalties. iStockphoto is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and is a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Getty Images. Mashable readers save 10%.
Founded in 1998 as a free service, Dynamic Network Services
Incorporated (Dyn Inc.) now operates two extremely reliable, “rock solid”, global
DNS platforms; DynDNS.com for home/SMB users and the Dynect Platform for corporations and
enterprises. As a leading provider of managed DNS services, Dyn Inc. plays a key role in keeping
the Internet’s DNS infrastructure running smoothly, handling trillions of queries per day
and servicing nearly four million active users. With a range of innovative solutions, from domain
name and e-mail services on DynDNS.com, to failover, load balancing, traffic management and CDN
balancing services with the Dynect Platform, Dyn Inc. remains committed to world class customer
service and engineering excellence. Uptime is the Bottom Line. For more information about Dyn
Inc., visit www.dyn.com, e-mail hello@dyn.com or
call +1-603-668-4998.
ConcentricSky offers web development
and strategic consulting services with a focus on emerging technologies such as Social Media and
iPhone Apps. From simple websites to integrated web applications, we deliver innovative solutions
that exceed your expectations – not your budget.
We can get your name out there.
Contact us for more information about supporting
Mashable’s growth and development. Alternatively, visit our advertise section for more details about:
-Competitive direct ad sales
-Sponsorship Opportunities for Events and other channels
-Sponsored giveaways and contests
-Custom ad deals and partnerships
CPM-based advertising is available through our partner, Federated Media, but if you contact us directly,
you’ll be entitled to exclusive unpublished discounts.
A website that sorts everyday the most relevant information to you.
Vote for the news and Matoumba will learn your tastes and the information that you like the most.
It is all FREE!
Find here the history of the stories you found interesting.
Show this to people who share the same interests as you,
and if they use Matoumba, their own votes will fine recommandations to you.
Super Utilities is a
collection of applications that will fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. Comprising four
focus modules designed to do everything from cleaning your Registry to removing spyware
infestations. Super Utilities is a megamart of system-maintenance tools designed to keep your
computer running smoothly. Super Utilities’s integrated suite of programs can get your
system running at peak performance levels in few minutes.
Ashampoo Photo Commander is probably the only tool you need for organizing,
editing, sharing and presenting your digital photos. In addition to this it can also be used for
managing your audio and video files, with high-quality integrated players.
iWazeefa 1.1
Description:
                    Â
                        Â
  Il y a quelque chose de guilleret dans l’idée de carte
postale qui s’accorde mal avec ce qu’il est advenu de l’idée de la
politique, surtout lorsque celle-ci est associée à l’Histoire. L’une
est toute légèreté, l’autre moins. L’accouplement même
d’« icône » et de « politique » produit un effet inattendu.
à défaut du sacré, la religion est leur socle commun. Dans un cas comme dans
l’autre, les fidèles sont appelés à se rassembler, à
espérer, à chanter, à communier. Propagande ? Cela va de soi.
L’ensemble réuni dans Cartes postales des icônes politiques. Les leaders
du XXème siècle (120 pages, 14,50 euros, 
ou du diable, se niche
vraiment dans le détail. On scrute jusqu’à se rendre à
l’évidence : ce qui ébranle le plus notre tendance à la nostalgie, ce
sont encore les fines écritures au bas ou sur le côté, la mention du nom du
héros en lettres couchées dans le sépia, suivie par le nom et
l’adresse du photographe, ce qui a le don de porter notre part de rêve à son
acmé. Certains mystères demeurent intacts : quelle est cette espèce de long
gant noir posé sur la cuisse du kaiser Wilhelm II ? Golda apostrophe-t-elle le monde
devant une forêt de micros ou un bouquet de roses ? Est-ce la main d’Allah qui
prolonge le bras de l’imam Khomeini ? On abandonnera aux experts l’analyse
comparée de la carte postale réunissant Mubarak et Sadate sur un même plan,
le contraste entre l’argenté de l’un et le doré de l’autre, les
sept rangs de décorations face aux huit rangs de décorations, et le chamarré
de la ceinture qui fait la différence. Telle est l’image qu’ils
ont voulu laisser : mais est-ce bien celle que l’on voudrait retenir ?
L’Å“il fait son ménage, l’inconscient range les signes, la
mémoire garde ce qui lui chante. Pinacle de la réminiscence. Tels qu’en
eux-mêmes, l’éternité les fige. Autant de Charlot que l’on
n’oserait imaginer sans leur canne. à chacun son attribut. Le photographe ne
l’a peut-être pas voulu mais notre regard l’exige. On guette l’hiatus,
mais non. Pas d’Arafat sans son
keffieh, pas de Gerry Adams sans sa chemise à carreaux, pas de Churchill sans son «
V », ni de Guevara privé de cigare. à Steve Biko, l’extraordinaire
fixité du regard suffit et, même de profil, tout est dit de sa
flamme. On pourrait dresser une typologie des invariants : la tête
découverte, le sourire, le nombre de médailles... Autant de
critères. Au concours de breloques, l’empereur Hiro-Hito est champion.
Certains portraits se lisent comme des déclarations de paix ; d’autres, plus rares,
comme des mots d’amour. Toutes ne sont pas posées dans le cadre artificiel du
studio. On a l’air de déranger Nehru et Gandhi dans l’intimité de leur
conversation, mais Nkrumah nous inviterait plutôt à partager l’humour du
même Nehru. Comment naît et meurt une icône laïque
? Voilà bien une
énigme. Poses et attitudes reflètent une histoire des mÅ“urs qui
englobe, à travers coiffures et vêtements, une histoire du goût.
NÅ“uds de cravate, lunettes, verre, montre, couleurs, sourires : tout est à
déconstruire dans le sentiment inouï que dégage la chaleureuse
photo de reportage de Martin Luther King en campagne. Ce qu’aucun metteur en scène
ne saurait reconstituer. Quelque chose de l’ordre de la fraternité. L’effet de
contraste est saisissant avec le portrait de famille de Hailé Sélassié qui
nous glace le sang. Mais il n’est pas sûr que le Saint-Siège pardonne au
collectionneur et à l’éditeur non seulement d’avoir figé un
Jean-Paul II à la peine cherchant appui, mais encore d’avoir fait figurer au milieu
de ces icônes laïques l’héritier d’un pouvoir qui le situe bien
au-delà. On pourrait établir une anthropologie du regard des grands hommes à
travers cette collection : Clemenceau nous envoie promener, Lloyd George nous invite à
lire son courrier par-dessus son épaule, Hindenburg nous exécute, la suffragette
Emmeline Pankhurst n’arrête pas de travailler, Nasser en tombeur et pas seulement du
roi Farouk, le Tchèque Masaryk semble avoir coiffé une casquette pour la
première fois de sa vie d’homme d’état, Indira Gandhi si perdue dans
ses pensées qu’elle va partir en 
lévitation, Walesa tout aussi
songeur mais pas près de s’envoler, Woodrow Wilson ne fait aucun cas de nous, Castro
voit loin, le tsar Nicolas II au bon regard nous renseigne aussi sur la mode des poils du visage
en son temps, Staline et Lénine semblent attendre deux camarades-partenaires pour un
bridge, Trotski repose en protomartyr de l’Internationale, Kemal est déjà
dans l’Olympe, Eva Perón plus haut encore dans le nirvana des dieux, Sakharov
emprunté, Benito dans son grand numéro de claquettes, Mao les petits oiseaux, Tito
en ses soucis, Franco en son sourire faussement épanoui qui lui donne un air de ravi de la
crèche, Hitler toujours prompt à ramener un petit enfant dans le champ, Roosevelt
aussi mais au moins c’est le sien... Seul Lawrence, si simplement humain, semble
déplacé. Sauf qu’il fut un vrai chef politique et qu’il demeure une
légende. S’il est une icône naturelle, c’est bien lui. Il est des
nôtres, il est nous. De Gaulle, lui, est à nous. D’autant que c’est le
meilleur de lui qui pose là, bien planté de profil dans le paysage, saisi en
contre-plongée de manière à lui conférer davantage de hauteur encore,
les poings fermés sur les hanches, l’esprit de résistance fait homme, une
statue de bronze incarnant un « non »
d’airain. C’était avant le temps de l’hygiéniquement
correct et du principe de précaution qui auraient censuré sa cigarette
fichée au coin des lèvres.Certaines sont des réclames bien comprises. On
n’a rien inventé de mieux depuis la carte des éditions Plon vantant les
mérites de Grandeurs et Misères d’une victoire du Tigre en personne. La
fratrie Kennedy ne pourrait décemment échapper à une campagne de
publicité de 
Ralph Lauren. Peu feront date
dans l’histoire du portrait, beaucoup dans celle de la propagande. Toutes appartiennent
à l’Histoire. Esthétiques ou politiques, elles sont destinées à
s’inscrire dans la durée. La mosaïque timbrée de ces portraits
postés dessine en creux une chronique du siècle échu, ce moment de
l’humanité si assombri par les deux totalitarismes qu’il pourrait bien passer
dans les manuels comme le siècle des ténèbres. Ce qui n’a
pas changé ? Le culte de la personnalité. Il prospère y compris sous de
proches latitudes pourtant peu connues pour abriter des républiques bananières.
Aujourd’hui, la carte postale est électronique ; le statut de l’icône
politique a changé. Les gens ne croient plus rien. N’importe qui peut manipuler des
photos grâce à Photoshop. Mais la Toile, qui est la plus grande pourvoyeuse
d’images, n’est pas seulement le média qui permet le trucage : elle est aussi
celui qui, dans le même temps, le met à nu, le dévoile, le dénonce. Le
simple fait d’écrire à un ami au dos d’une vraie carte postale est
considéré, au-delà du geste anachronique, comme un acte de résistance
à l’empire du tout-technologique. L’usage conserve un tour
délicieusement désuet. Quitte à joindre deux ou trois cartes dans une
enveloppe lorsque le monologue est abondant. Mais on imagine mal nos contemporains du monde
politique français mériter ce statut envié d’icône. Pas de nom.
Il faudrait aller voir du côté d’Obama ou de Mandela. On en
reparlera au début du XXIIème siècle, pour la nouvelle édition.
Upon first glance we were skeptical. Generally when someone says they're launching a
business directory it's an SEO play with little value to users. Nevertheless, the 
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
