Monsters & Metahumans

Aggregated mostly from Boingboing, here are some links.

List of Cryptids
One of my favorite things on wikipedia are the lists. This one is a good starting point in all cryptozoological research, and also a good case for a revolution in visualization of information. More on that later.

Ray Harryhausen Creature List
More monsters, now from stop montion dynamo Ray Harryhausen. I really like Kali, from the 1974, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.


A Sixth Sense for a Wired World
Wired magazine reports on the new tiny fad of putting a tiny magnet into your ring finger to aquire a sixth sense, an electromagnetic sense. The operation is done by body modificationists, and so there is no anesthetic, save ice.

People with magnetic implants can't erase hard drives or credit cards. They don't set off airport metal detectors or get stuck to refrigerators. The magnets are small, and once encased in skin, all they do is react next to nerves, conveying the presence of sufficiently strong electromagnetic fields. "The magnetic implant is not the most sophisticated or rich sensation, it was just the easiest to implement with our available technology," says Huffman.

Your new electromagnetic sense will let you detect a live wire, and if you are like author/guinea pig Quinn Norton, your magnet's protective silicone sheath might break down and your body will infect and dismantle the magnet. But Mr. Norton says that his sense returned, diminished, four months later when the magnet reassembled itself.