Only cute when magnified?

An astute commentator on the previous post asked "Could termite build a rocket to the top of their mound?" A trick question! The correct answer is that several tropical specises may already have the requisite machinery, and may thus only be a simple exaptation or 2 away from answering that question in the affirmative. Many termite species possess nasute soldiers (cf above and
this post), which can shoot poison glue at a distance of several tens of cms. Is it not highly plausible that this nozzle could evolve into a propulsion device? Or maybe it could be shot at the peak of the mound, thus serving as a tether, which could serve as an elevator cable? Great scott! Maybe NASA better hire some nasute soldiers to solve one of their engineering dilemmas!?!?


Also: did you know that some termites cultivate fungus gardens that look like the outside of your brains?



HA. But do you wanna make your brain look better (on the inside)? Then I suggest you check out Ubuweb, an enormous repository of awesome writing and sound files from a wide variety of artists and thinkers!

High lights that I've found thus far include:
an essay by Lou reed
An Angus Maclise piece
an entire unreleased album by JOHN OSWALD called Mystery Tapes






And now, to flipflop into something completely different --
Here are some totally awesome awesome awesome breakcore mixes.
This one is by Sickboy a Belgian whose album on Tigerbeat6 is hands down the best album of 2004 that I didn't hear til 2005:
Milk Plus Mix - Sickboy
And this is by a newcomer named Cardopusher. He's from Venezuela, and he made one of the best tracks on the Let's Break compilation:
Buenos Glitches - Cardopusher

And if that gets your termite mound geotaxing negatively, here's a page full of freely downloadable breakcore live sets from the luminaries of the genre.





And, finally, no post would be complete without some Texas rap.

Somanyshrimp has a post with some essential tracks from the new Chamillionaire mixtape.

And, here's a track with Cham's former collaborators, Paul Wall (depicted below) and Michael Watts. Notable because it includes a verse from Watts himself, who is much better known as the heir apparent to DJ Screw's crown as the king of the opiated beverage slowdown style.

Freestyle - Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Michael Watts





I probably needn't remind you that PW won the coveted #1 Grill of 2005 award, but it may come as a surprise that he accessorizes brilliantly enough to set off his Charlie Brown T with a matching Charlie Brown watch (how many Cracker Jack boxes did that take I wonder?). Do you think he said "bling bling" while they took this picture?