Reminder: I'm speaking tonight at the University Bookstore in Seattle as part of the Clarion West reading series -- hope to see you there! Where: University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE in Seattle. When: Jul 8 2008, 7PM Link, Link to Clarion West events calendar...

UK-based Russell Porter chronicles alt music culture in the Porter Report with aggressive wit and offbeat charm. Today, part two of his exclusive two-part interview for Boing Boing tv with the soulful Brit singer-songwriter Alice Russell, whose musical influences include Chaka Khan, Jill Scott, Aretha Franklin, and Minnie Riperton. Here's the Brighton beauty's Wikipedia entry (with a decent discography); here's her MySpace page with tons of musi
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Maintaining a historic home is an expensive business. Tissington Hall, a 400 year old house in Derbyshire with a mere 12 bedrooms, had a £16 000 bill for heating alone last year. The current owner sat down a cried when he inherited it and it's £100 000 annual running costs. Weddings and functions obviously help, but why not follow Doddington Hall and open a restaurant and farm shop? Because it's just not going to cover the £150 000 per room you
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Rental Car Rally. (From the guys who brought Street Wars to NYC). That is all.

In July 1988 the art exhibition Freeze, largely organised by Damien Hirst, gave birth to the YBAs... twenty years on the artists involved are reuniting for another exhibition.

Cosmin Bumbu?, Romanian photographer. His fantastic photographs of the mines at Rosia Montana are a good place to start. Another site with some additional work (and poorer navigation.) here. Short bio here.

At least a couple of us here at Mashable are fighting to keep off the “Blogger 15.” So where do technology bloggers turn for help when trying to lose weight? Web apps, of course! We’ve put together a list of over 25 Web apps that will help you count calories, find support, [...]

Far right groups in Switzerland have collected enough signatures to force a nationwide referendum on banning minarets, the distinctive towers of Islamic architecture

World leaders hold a tree-planting photocall at the G8 summit in Japan after agreeing to halve carbon emissions by 2050

If Russia is now voting for UN sanctions against Zimbabwe, so will I, said the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, at today's G8 meet

Tens of thousands of voters in Grenada are expected to head to the polls today, in what political observers are calling a high-stakes race between prime minister Keith Mitchell's ruling New National Party and the opposition National Democratic Congress

Seventeen states consider bills allowing or requiring pregnant women to view ultrasound images before undergoing abortion procedure

The appearances are an effort to court Hispanic voters who constitute a growing and important segment of the US electorate

Filed under: Wearables Nah, the Wizard isn't a reality just yet, but we can certainly envision this taking up its fair share of shelf space in the not-too-distant future. Dreamed up by the vivid imaginations at HJC Design, this emergency parachute pack would theoretically provide an "automated public safety solution with up to 250-meters of reciprocating lifeline technology." Beyond that, it seems like a pretty invigorating method of avoiding the
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Boston.com has a nice story on the growing trend of companies keeping real-time tabs on what their customers say on the Web: Hurry up, the customer has a complaint By using services like Twitter and Google blogsearch, companies can quickly respond to people who vent their frustrations. In some cases, they can actually provide real customer [...]

Marc Ambinder: Barack Obama’s vice presidential selection team has begun to ask potential candidates for information and documents, a signal that the formal vetting phase of the search process has begun. Last week, members of the team gave Sen. James Webb of VA a list of what they needed to begin their investigation of his [...]

Reuters - DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc plans to use chips from Intel Corp for the creation of 3-D movies, the companies said on Tuesday.

Filed under: Jessica SimpsonTMZ.com: Jessica Simpson's secret weapon against the pappers last night -- a little sunscreen.Yoko Romo and Tony were gangbanged as they left the Key Club, but their driver had an innovative (though not exactly street safe) way of blocking the shots. See... Read more