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December 6
Did it just knock the bullet off course?
Detcord burns extremely quickly. One of the finest applications of high speed photography I've ever seen. Merry Christmas! [more inside]
Oslo gets a long winter, a decent summer, and a short spring and autumn
In years past, Eirik Solheim has been interested in capturing the passing of a year, as seen in his wooded yard in Oslo. In 2010, he set up his camera to take an image every half hour, and from that, he selected 3888 photos to serve as single pixel-wide samples in a photo collage of the year. He also selected 3500 shots for a timelapse video of the year, with and without zoom. [more inside]
There are only 18 shopping days left until Christmas
And no doubt you need to find gifts for people you dislike. Ideally gifts that are plausibly considerate, thoughtful gifts but aren't. [more inside]
In which Andrew WK explains exactly why love is essential
Hey, Andrew.
I dig your music and what you stand for, but I'm kind of getting sick of all the hippy-dippy love stuff lately. Please don't take this the wrong way, I just think your whole message has kinda gotten corny. Maybe I'm out of line, but I don't see how all this cheesy lovey-dovey stuff makes sense in the real world. You're naive. Sometimes love just doesn't work. Sometimes people need to experience a bunch of bad shit in order to wake them up and see the truth. You have to admit that sometimes violence is the only way to make real change and get people's attention. Love isn't always the answer, man.
I dig your music and what you stand for, but I'm kind of getting sick of all the hippy-dippy love stuff lately. Please don't take this the wrong way, I just think your whole message has kinda gotten corny. Maybe I'm out of line, but I don't see how all this cheesy lovey-dovey stuff makes sense in the real world. You're naive. Sometimes love just doesn't work. Sometimes people need to experience a bunch of bad shit in order to wake them up and see the truth. You have to admit that sometimes violence is the only way to make real change and get people's attention. Love isn't always the answer, man.
RIP, Frank and Louie
Frank and Louie, the world's oldest Janus, or two-faced cat, has passed away in Worcester, Mass at the age of 15. Since the normal lifespan for such a cat is one to three days, it is safe to say that he (they?) more than beat the odds. There's another video in the Boston Globe article.
(Canine) Guardians of the Corpse Ways
Guardians of the Corpse Ways is a thorough one-stop resource for all of your canine Underworld mythological needs. Why did countless cultures associate dogs with the realm of the dead? Here's a tiny sample:
"The essence of the hellhound is his intermediary position - at the border of this world and next, between life and death, hope and fear, and also (given its pairing with the dog of life) between good and evil. For this role, the dog is perfectly suited, being the domestic species par excellence, the tamed carnivore who stands midway between animal and human, savagery and civilization, nature and culture [26].
'The growl of the hellhound is yet another expression of this liminal position, for the growl is a halfway station between articulate speech and silence. It is a speech filled with emotion and power, but utterly lacking in reason. Like death itself, the hellhound speaks, but does not listen; acts, but never reflects or reconsiders. Driven by hunger and greed, he is insatiable and his growl is eternal in duration. In the last analysis, the hellhound is the moment of death, the great crossing over, the ultimate turning point.' [27]" [more inside]
The true history of the Paisley design
How Ambi became Paisley: "It began as a teardrop in Babylon. Where the sunlight came from Astarte, shameless goddess of the fecund feminine. The boteh. Stylized rendition of the date palm shoot, tree of life, fertility symbol. It danced through Celtic art, until the heavy feet of Roman legionaries tramped over the Alps. Then it fled the wrath of Mars and Jupiter, dove underground as Empire rose ." From Shailja Patel's Migritude. Here's a short film about the Migritude project (book on Amazon).
"Mostly dead is still slightly alive"
"Re-Do Studio is a design studio founded by two friends Gaspard Tine-Beres and Tristan Kopp. They are dedicated to investigating alternative ways of production with the aim of shortening the cycle between the final consumer and the manufacturer." [more inside]
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
What I've Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings. D. Brian Burghart, editor of the Reno News and Review, has spent two years compiling Fatal Encounters, a croudsourced national database of police violence and publishing stories with his findings.
25 Years After the Montreal Massacre
For 45 minutes on Dec. 6, 1989 an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal's École Polytechnique and killed 14 women. Marc Lepine, 25, separated the men from the women and before opening fire on the classroom of female engineering students he screamed, "I hate feminists." Almost immediately, the Montreal Massacre became a galvanizing moment in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women. December 6th is now commemorated in Canada as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Twenty-five years after the Montreal Massacre, the Montreal Gazette interviews four of the survivors: Jocelyne Dallaire Légaré, Heidi Rathjen, Nathalie Provost and Michèle Thibodeau-DeGuire. [more inside]
One Does Not Simply Assume Sean Bean Always Dies
Red Cup Nation
The student is lying on a public bench, at the end of a trail of vomit. He is unconscious; his front pocket gapes, a wallet falling partway out. An officer shakes him, and again, finally rousing him. “How much,” the officer demands, “have you had to drink?”
This week the Chronicle of Higher Education published a multi-part series about drinking at college:
A River of Booze: Inside one college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
6 Campuses and the Liquor Surrounding Them
Protecting the Party: With focus on sexual assault, students look out for one another while drinking just as much
Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Binge Drinking: Decades of attention without much difference
On Camera, Alcohol Is Central to College Experience
4 Campuses Respond to Risky Drinking
This week the Chronicle of Higher Education published a multi-part series about drinking at college:
A River of Booze: Inside one college town's uneasy embrace of drinking
6 Campuses and the Liquor Surrounding Them
Protecting the Party: With focus on sexual assault, students look out for one another while drinking just as much
Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Binge Drinking: Decades of attention without much difference
On Camera, Alcohol Is Central to College Experience
4 Campuses Respond to Risky Drinking
Brave New Middle Market.
The Boy Who Grew Up by Christopher Barzak is a Peter Pan story featured in the first issue of Uncanny Magazine, a kickstarter funded SF/F magazine co-edited by Hugo Award-winner Lynne M. Thomas and Hugo Award-nominee Michael Damian Thomas. Issue One contains fiction by Kat Howard and Max Gladstone (Gladstone previously) as well as non-fiction essays including "The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Films On The Web".
Dance of the Christmas Jumpers
Andy, why are you making these films? It's easier to do than painting.
The Making of an Underground Film, originally broadcast on CBS News with Walter Cronkite on New Years' Eve 1965, begins with reporter Dave Dugan saying, "Not everyone digs underground movies, but those who do can dig 'em here." in front of the Bridge Theatre in New York City's Greenwich Village. An interview with avant-garde filmmaker and exhibitor Jonas Mekas then segues into footage of the making of Dirt by filmmaker/poet Piero Heliczer, as a pre-Nico incarnation of the Velvet Underground (with both Maureen Tucker and original percussionist Angus MacLise) plays silently in costume in the background. Other highlights include interviews with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick, plus the uninterrupted airing of a Stan Brakhage film in tribute to poet Michael McClure.
Out of the Past (and Present)
Eric Rosenberg is a graphic designer that got his start twenty years ago helping to create the distinctive look of The Hudsucker Proxy. His website features some of his work over the years on films including Fight Club, The Truman Show, Almost Famous, Dreamgirls and a whole lot more.
"We are all proud to have brought Krem to life in the game"
In the investigate hub where you can ask Krem about his past in Tevinter, the first draft had him deserting after fighting off someone who discovered his secret and tried to assault him. My friends noted that this played directly into the sad “attacked trans person” cliché, and while it was plausible, it was an ugly event that could well trigger trans people who have experienced harassment in real life. The goal was for Krem to be a positive character who was living his life happily now, and I revised his departure from Tevinter accordingly.Despite lead Dragon Age writer David Gaider being worried about opportunities to include trans characters in any but minor roles in AAA games only a year ago, Bioware did do just that with the inclusion of Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi, a trans man voiced by Jennifer Hale. In a blog post his writer, Patrick Weekes, talks about the challenges in creating his character.
December 5
The crash team entering the delivery room was the first sign
The specialists began to use terms such as "quality of life" to describe all the things she was likely to be without. My husband, Michael, realized it was going to be nearly impossible to pry me away from her bedside. He asked what he could bring me from home: a change of clothes, sweater, food, or something to read? I asked him to bring me anything by Anne McCaffrey."Changes Without Notice" is one reader's personal essay about discovering a book at just the right moment. An afterword in Dragonwriter says a little more about how things turned out. [Via and previously.]
Gritty, not glossy: 70s films
"Why were American movies so much better in the 1970s than in the decades since — and most of the decades before? Simple. Our movies then were not as inhibited by censorship (self-imposed) as they were prior to the '60s.
"And they were not as obsessed with huge box office grosses and commercial values as they became afterward — following the stunning financial success of those two '70s superhits, 'Jaws' (1975) and 'Star Wars' (1977). Instead, during most of the '60s and '70s — liberated both by the collapse of the old studio system strictures and by the greater acceptance of film as art from critics and audiences — American filmmakers of all generations, from Martin Scorsese ('Mean Streets') and Hal Ashby ('Harold and Maude') to Sidney Lumet ('Dog Day Afternoon') and Mike Nichols ('Carnal Knowledge') to Alfred Hitchcock ('Frenzy') and Billy Wilder ('Avanti'), tried things they wouldn't have dared in the decades past. More often than not, they succeeded." (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune) [more inside]
"And they were not as obsessed with huge box office grosses and commercial values as they became afterward — following the stunning financial success of those two '70s superhits, 'Jaws' (1975) and 'Star Wars' (1977). Instead, during most of the '60s and '70s — liberated both by the collapse of the old studio system strictures and by the greater acceptance of film as art from critics and audiences — American filmmakers of all generations, from Martin Scorsese ('Mean Streets') and Hal Ashby ('Harold and Maude') to Sidney Lumet ('Dog Day Afternoon') and Mike Nichols ('Carnal Knowledge') to Alfred Hitchcock ('Frenzy') and Billy Wilder ('Avanti'), tried things they wouldn't have dared in the decades past. More often than not, they succeeded." (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune) [more inside]
Cat elevators
The most common form of cat elevator is a bucket or basket. A compilation of YT videos, with a twist. [more inside]
Tales from Failed Anatomies
The Thing In The Pit
Drowning in Sand
Intelligences
Philosophy
The Unspeakable Oath presents audio versions of several Dennis Detwiller stories following the successfull Kickstarting of the Delta Green fiction anthology Tales from Failed Anatomies.
Drowning in Sand
Intelligences
Philosophy
The Unspeakable Oath presents audio versions of several Dennis Detwiller stories following the successfull Kickstarting of the Delta Green fiction anthology Tales from Failed Anatomies.
I don't believe in evolution I believe in Jibbers Crabst
I don't believe in evolution I believe in Jibbers Crabst. Matt Inman gives the keynote address for BAHFest (previously) West, and explains why Darwin is wrong and why we are all the creation of a fire breathing lobster.
Indigo Girls - Backstage At The Greek
In July 2014, Indigo Girls did a show at the Greek Theater in LA with Joan Baez. They filmed a series of videos backstage discussing their songs and their songwriting process. In Part 1, they discuss and perform Amy Ray's song Devotion. (album version, lyrics) [more inside]
I used to pedal my bike up Snake Road and trap muskrats in the salt pond
Following Hook Creek past ghost towns and discarded highways to the lost waterways of New York City. - By Nathan Kensinger
Being proud of weird kids
Having parents who go the extra mile to show their support can make a big difference. German Ad Doesn't Need Words To Speak Volumes About Supporting Your Kids (Huffington Post) and original ad on Youtube, Sag es mit deinem Projekt (Hornbach). [more inside]
Friday Night Music
Mr. Krugman’s musical reawakening came sometime in early 2011 when Arcade Fire won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Up until that point, as is true with many baby-boomers, he believed that “the great age of modern music ended sometime in the 70s.” Arcade Fire convinced him “that the wonder goes on.” Indeed. [more inside]
I might as well do this one too
The 2014 Grammy nominations -- save for album of the year, which will be announced tonight on a CBS "Very Grammy Christmas" special -- were announced today. Familiar names are in all the top spots, including Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Iggy Azalea and Pharrell Williams. Best new artist nominees are Azalea, Sam Smith, Haim, Bastille and Brandy Clark. [more inside]
Into the indestructible realm of mystery and dream
Steven Millhauser is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction author known for his erudite, witty and surreal writing style that blends the magical and the real. Enjoy the full text of Eisenheim The Illusionist (pdf, 20 pages), the story that inspired the 2006 film The Illusionist. [more inside]
How Al-qaeda is like boy scouts
"His breakthrough insight was that the best terror cells work a lot like a big nonprofit group. Like the Boy Scouts of America." From studying the scouts, he determined the best way to stop terrorists is to target their bureaucrats – not top leaders.
“The reason I like the Boy Scouts,” Atkins said in an interview, “is they face a lot of the same management challenges that al-Qaeda does.” [more inside]
The Mesmerizing Architecture of Mosques
The Mesmerizing Architecture of Mosques "Iranian photographer Mohammad Reza Domiri gives us an opportunity to see the entirety of these incredible spaces all at once. His fully panoramic, expansive photographs of centuries-old mosques reveal the genius of their geometries and complexity. The effect is dizzying in a different way, like some kind of fractalized religious hallucination."
zugzwang
The Mysterious Disappearance of Peter Winston: How does one of the world’s top chess prodigies just vanish from a New York street? - by Sarah Weinman [more inside]
The Secret History of the Toll House Cookie
The entire creation story of the Toll House Cookie™ is full of half-truths and outright misinformation. It’s time we knew the truth about the history of chocolate chip cookies. (sl, the Toast.) [more inside]
Veteran Art Project
The Veteran Art Project is a visual experiment by 27-year-old photographer Devin Mitchell "who is exploring a part of the veteran’s experience that is sometimes difficult to articulate." [more inside]
I Really Love My University, Which Is Why I'm Going on Strike
For the first time in its 39-year history, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation of the University of Oregon is on strike, and here's why . [more inside]
Against detoxing
"it’s the marketing equivalent of drawing go-faster stripes on your car." The Guardian slams the detoxing craze.
(SLG)
That Letter Will Go On Your Permanent Record
If you ever wrote a letter to Neil Armstrong it's probably now archived at Purdue University. The first man on the moon saved over 70,000 pieces of personal correspondence, and that probably includes that letter you wrote in late July 1969 when you were in the 2nd grade.
The Worst Idea of All Time
Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt have a podcast. A podcast with the very appropriate title The Worst Idea of All Time. It's a bad movie review podcast, but with a horrible, hideous twist: the hosts review the same bad movie, Grown Ups 2, every week. For a year.
Digital Einstein
The Princeton University Press has made publicly available 5,000 documents from the Einstein Paper Project, with more volumes to come.
I'm going to punch Cardassia out of orbit. Hold my calls.
"It allows you, at any time you want, to shoot fireballs at will."
Pyro fireshooter lets you shoot fireballs from your hand. It is hard to imagine a social or work situation this would not improve, from job interviews to meetings to dates. Make sure to watch the insane (in many ways) video.
Everything is Problematic
Gender equality in Architecture
If women built cities, what would our urban landscape look like?
In february the architectural review asked Why do women really leave Architecture?
In february the architectural review asked Why do women really leave Architecture?
100 Years of Beauty in 1 Minute
December 4
UK's Premier Foods accused over 'pay and stay' practice
Premier Foods, one of the UK's biggest manufacturers, has been asking its suppliers for payments to continue doing business with the firm.
Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze (graphic)
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze (graphic)
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
i like the way / you know / that i / like / how you look
"Every Night" by Hannah Diamond is a perfect piece of 21st Century Twee. The song is the first official, find-it-in-shops single from PC Music (previously, previouslier and thoroughlier), and an ideal example of the sound. Diamond is a key member of the (small) music collective and a designer for LOGO Magazine. She has previously dropped two tracks: Attachment and Pink and Blue, and was featured featured on label founder A.G. Cook's Keri Baby ). All four songs are delicious. [more inside]
JokeFilter
Hillary, Voldemort 2016! You know it makes sense!
It is definitely not US election season, which means only one thing - Unauthorised superPAC ads for Hillary Clinton 2016!!! (Are you excited? I am excited!) Leading off this year - StandWithHillary - a SuperPAC targeting white men in rural swing states. But can it beat 2008's "as seen on metafilter" classic Hillary4U&Me [more inside]
Useless Toilet Paper Machine
The Fall of The New Republic?
Today, The New Republic's editor-in-chief Franklin Foer and literary editor (and thirty-year veteran of the magazine) Leon Wieseltier both resigned in a shake-up that also includes moving the magazine to New York from Washington and reducing its number of print issues from 20 to 10 per year. Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker reports that "the top editors are gone & mass resignations are imminent." The impetus for the resignations, according to Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, is apparently that Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder who purchased the magazine in 2012 at age 28, and Guy Vidra, its new CEO, "are afflicted with the belief that they can copy the formula that transformed the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed into economic successes, which is probably wrong, and that this formula can be applied to The New Republic, which is certainly wrong." [more inside]