Dollhouse living room built into the bottom of a customized PC box, one of the coolest casemods I've ever seen. Originally spotted at BoingBoing.net.

Below are simple links to other interesting stuff I've come across on the web in the last day or two; they may or may not concern literature or photography, or indeed the arts at all. You can click here to learn more about how I compile this list and what software I use, if you're interested.

Financial analyst: "MySpace is currently worth next to nothing"
Respected financial columnist Henry Blodget recently had a write-up that's causing a lot of attention: he claims that has-been social network MySpace is currently worth "next to nothing," just four years after Rupert Murdoch bought it for almost $600 million. And of course the irony is that it's completely Murdoch's fault as well, for not bringing a single technological improvement to the service in the four years he's owned it, allowing Facebook to basically run away with all the traffic they used to have. When you concentrate on advertising to the detriment of everything else, this is what happens, a lesson all tech executives need to learn and so few do.

Report: "Most people can be tricked into thinking they're looking at HDTV"
It's called the "placebo effect," and it's not just limited to medicine; according to a new report by a research company in the Netherlands, the vast majority of people they tested came to believe that they were watching a high-def television signal when they really weren't, just by telling them that they were watching a high-def signal and attaching a fake thick cable to the back of the TV in question.

Mojo Nixon's entire catalog available for free at Amazon through October
Don't know who Mojo Nixon is? SHAME ON YOU.

Ten secret power players within the Indian government
A dense article, but well worth wading through.

The surprisingly fascinating history of Alvin and the Chipmunks
Who knew that the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks was also the author of the gimmick-song hits "Witch Doctor" and "Come On-A My House?" Or that the original Chipmunks album was made because the record company in question was weeks away from declaring bankruptcy, and wanted to do something with all their blank vinyl instead of handing it over to the bank? I certainly didn't! (Via BoingBoing.net.)

Arizona newspaper quotes psychics as scientific experts
Sheesh, no wonder American journalism is falling apart at the seams right now.

Taplin: "McCain has been wrong about literally every military prediction of the last ten years"
Another great post from futurist Jon Taplin, arguing that we shouldn't bother listening to anything John McCain has to say anymore concerning international military situations; as he demonstrably proves in this article, after all, McCain's been wrong with literally every prediction he's made on the subject over the last ten years, from insisting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to predicting that the war over there would "be won easily," to his declaration that Sunnis and Shiites have "no history of clashes." When lined up in a row like this, it's scary to see how completely wrong McCain has been about virtually every international military issue of the last decade.

"Luxury entrepreneurs" are abandoning Dubai by the thousands
Why? Because the country has no bankruptcy laws, which means that simply bouncing a check there can get you a decade in jail. According to this article, the streets of Dubai are literally lined with abandoned luxury cars and the like right now, as thousands of former entrepreneurs flee the country just hours ahead of the law.

NYT: "Leno's dismal ratings are threatening to bankrupt NBC"
Wow, so the news is apparently a lot worse than we even realized; according to the New York Times, the ratings for Leno's new nightly prime-time variety show have sunk completely into the toilet (averaging only five million viewers per episode, and with many of them actually having far less than that), which is now dragging every show around it into the ground as well, not to mention the coveted local news programs around the country which is all the affiliates care about. Insiders remaining anonymous are calling the failed experiment "complete calamity" and "utter disaster," and for the first time there seems to be serious questions about whether NBC is even going to financially survive this latest boneheaded maneuver.

Surprise! Gervais "romantic comedy" is actually a vicious screed against organized religion
As much of a fan of Ricky Gervais as I am, I admit that I'm surprised that the people behind his latest movie, "The Invention of Lying," did such a poor job of actually communicating what the movie is about -- because far from the simple romantic comedy the commercials made it seem, it turns out that the entire last hour of the film is a vicious screed against organized religion. (See, the movie's about an alternate Earth where everyone always tells the truth, and the first human who learns how to lie; what the commercials don't tell you is that this is the same guy who invents religion for the first time in this alternate universe.) As Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn points out there, the move has completely backfired on the movie company, with bad word-of-mouth among tricked middle-class suburbanites leading to a 50-percent decline at the box office in the movie's second week. I confess, it's hard for me to be sympathetic.