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March 2011 Archives
March 31
"The paper puts forward a small but novel idea of how we can cut down the incidence of bribery. There are different kinds of bribes and what this paper is concerned with are bribes that people often have to give to get what they are legally entitled to. I shall call these 'harassment bribes'. Suppose an income tax refund is held back from a taxpayer till he pays some cash to the officer. Suppose government allots subsidized land to a person but when the person goes to get her paperwork done and receive documents for this land, she is asked to pay a hefty bribe. These are all illustrations of harassment bribes. Harassment bribery is widespread in India and it plays a large role in breeding inefficiency and has a corrosive effect on civil society. The central message of this paper is that
we should declare the act of giving a bribe in all such cases as legitimate activity [PDF]. In other words the giver of a harassment bribe should have full immunity from any punitive action by the state."
[more inside]posted by vidur at 11:00 PM PST - 37 comments
Smilin Stan Lee, co-creator of everyone from Spider-Man to
Striperella, is teaming up with Arnold Schwarzenegger for a comic and cartoon called
The Governator. According to the article,
Athe Governator will have a fleet of super vehicles at his disposal, a closet full of “Super Suits” that allow him to fly and perform other super stunts, and a team of colorful sidekicks, such as Zeke Muckerberg, the precocious 13-year-old computer whiz who acts as the Governator’s cybersecurity expert. Naturally, there will also be recurring supervillains — including an evil organization called Gangsters Imposters Racketeers Liars & Irredeemable Ex-cons (or G.I.R.L.I.E. Men, for short).
There's an
excerpt on the EW site. Excelsior!
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:58 PM PST - 54 comments
And here is
Ten Dreams, your
Symbolist,
Magical Realist, and
Metarealist brain/eye candy art source, featuring, among scores of many other artists and subjects,
Alma Tadema,
Bouguereau,
Ernst,
Hundertwasser,
Klimt, and
Maxfield Parrish, too. And then there is the
Ten Dreams of Ten Dreams, and not an exemplar known to me included.
[more inside]posted by y2karl at 1:04 PM PST - 7 comments
In 1971, a clinic in Brazil bought a radiation therapy machine. Fourteen years later, the practice closed and was abandoned. On September 13th, 1987, two men sold the inner canister of the machine for scrap. Upon breaking it open, a scrapyard employee found sparkling, glowing blue powder. It was distributed to family and friends, who used for decorative and magical purposes.
Sixteen days later, 112,000 people were in Olympic stadium, being tested for radiation poisoning. [more inside]posted by nevercalm at 10:32 AM PST - 123 comments
March 30
"
I've never been in a stadium that feels like this one. Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, people from different castes and classes, speakers of a dozen languages, all citizens in the Republic of Sachin. The stern cops give wide smiles and thumbs-ups. The chant goes from "Sachin! Sachin!" to "Hoo … ha … IN-DI-A!" They are interchangeable."
[more inside]posted by vidur at 7:54 PM PST - 74 comments
Texas Republicans have been turning against the
ideas on immigration supported by George W. Bush, who actively courted Latino voters in his
1998 gubenertorial election campaign (
cached), and in his
two presidential election campaigns. In 2010,
some 12,000 Republican delegates came together, many proposing new directions on immigration reform. By January 2011, there were
more than three dozen immigration-related bills filed, a number of them creating heated debates. By the of March, there were
nearly 100 immigration bills written or filed, some with
serious loopholes. (Rep. Debbie Riddle,
previously.)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:31 PM PST - 57 comments
"The finished Strahov library panorama , released Tuesday on Martin’s website, is a zoomable, high-resolution peek inside one of Prague’s most beautiful halls, a repository of rare books that is usually off-limits to tourists... Martin’s panorama lets you examine the spines of the works in the Philosophical Hall’s 42,000 volumes, part of the monastery’s stunning collection of just about every important book available in central Europe at the end of the 18th century — more or less the sum total of human knowledge at the time."
posted by languagehat at 5:40 AM PST - 24 comments
March 29
Voina are a group of revolutionary artists. The most controversial of all was Voina's final stunt before the arrests, which the artists called "Palace Revolution". Members overturned seven police cars, some of them with officers inside, at St Petersburg's Palace Square one night last September.
Obviously, a group called "war," is going to attract a certain amount of
controversy, but they're also going to attract some
allies.
Right now, they're just trying to dodge the fuzz. Who knows? Maybe they're just
dicks.
posted by snottydick at 11:23 AM PST - 18 comments
Popular Chicago Brewery Goose Island has
been bought by Anheuser-Busch. Moreover, brewmaster Greg Hall has resigned and will be replaced by Brett Porter, former head brewer of Deschutes Brewery.
posted by IjonTichy at 9:46 AM PST - 139 comments
Following the success of
The Haunter of The Dark, the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcasts presents two new readings,
From Beyond and
The Picture in The House, by Andrew Leman and Bruce Green. Both recordings are available "In 3D". Alternatively if you like your Lovecraft with both pictures AND sound, the HP Lovecraft Historical Society version of
The Whisperer in Darkness is complete and being shown at worldwide film festivals - it's a talkie! (The HPLHS are now also offering a rather handsome
"official membership" pack.) Want something more interactive?
Cthulhu Dark offers a complete Lovecraftian tabletop RPG system that fits on two sides of a sheet of paper. Please note:
"If you fight any creature you meet, you will die. Thus, in these core rules, there are no combat rules or health levels. Instead, roll to hide or escape."posted by Artw at 6:35 AM PST - 21 comments
March 28
"My name is Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano and, alas, if you are hearing or seeing this message it means that I’ve been murdered by President Álvaro Colom, with the help of Gustavo Alejos." Rosenberg went on, "The reason I'm dead, and you're therefore watching this message, is only and exclusively because during my final moments I was the lawyer to Mr. Khalil Musa and his daughter Marjorie Musa, who, in cowardly fashion, were assassinated by President Álvaro Colom, with the consent of his wife, Sandra de Colom, and with the help of . . . Gustavo Alejos."posted by vidur at 6:27 PM PST - 48 comments
In 1975, with $3,000 in savings
Roxanne Quimby and her boyfriend moved to Maine. They bought a tract of land on which they built a cabin and an outhouse. Near her Guilford homestead, Quimby later met beekeeper Burt Shavitz and used his beeswax to create candles (making $20,000 in her first year selling at local crafts fairs) -- and later their (yes, the two
cofounded a company together) best selling product
Burt's Bees Lip Balm (it's
Burt's image that still graces many of the company's products). With the phenomenal success that followed, she
sold 80 percent of her shares in the company to New York investors in 2003 (
eventually the company was sold to Clorox) to help
fund significant land purchases. For years Maine sportsmen have been outraged with Quimby for forbidding hunters, loggers, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles on the 120,000 acres of woodlands she now owns. Quimby has recently offered a compromise. She wants to
donate 70,000 acres to help create a new national park (
Maine Woods National Park) while "
setting aside another 30,000 acres of woodlands ... to be managed like a state park, with hunting and snowmobiling allowed."
[more inside]posted by ericb at 2:00 PM PST - 49 comments
The Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookstore. "Argentinians are a famously literary people. In coffee shops, parks, on the bus and even while walking down city streets, their heads are often buried in a book. So it’s only fitting that Buenos Aires can lay claim to one of the world’s most incredible book stores: The Ateneo Grand Splendid."
posted by Fizz at 12:00 PM PST - 29 comments
Let's say just for a moment that you were ready to cash out. Quit your job. Sell your house. Take you and yours out of the rat race with a few hundred of your friends and family and relocate onto arable land. What tools would you need to sustain a livable—maybe even comfortable—lifestyle?
Open Source Ecology suggests you start with ~2.6 million dollars and
these |
fifty |
machines (← watch this first), collectively referred to as the Global Village Construction Set.
posted by carsonb at 11:28 AM PST - 48 comments
The father of packet switching - Mr. Baran’s invention was so far ahead of its time that in the mid-1960s, when he approached AT&T with the idea to build his proposed network, the company insisted it would not work and refused.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 10:24 AM PST - 24 comments
In the summer of 1968, Jim Henson met Johnny Hart, the co-creator
The Wizard of Id. The comic had been syndicated in US papers since 1964, and Henson and Hart discussed making a TV show based on the comic, featuring puppets by Henson and co. In early 1969, a short test pilot was shot and shopped around the TV networks. Over a year later, ABC supported the idea of a feature-length film, but by this time, Henson was busy with
Sesame Street and other Muppet productions, so the program was scrapped. Earlier this month, the
Henson Company posted
the short test pilot on YouTube.
[more inside]posted by filthy light thief at 10:13 AM PST - 44 comments
A Cyclops' cave the wanderers brave
And find much milk & cheese
But as they eat, foul death they meet
For them doth Cyclops seize.
From
The Young Folks' Ulysses [PDF], by H. Lovecraft, poet, aged seven. One of the "freely available editions of obscure, outlandish and otherwise outré works of semi-fine literature" from
the electric publishing wing of
kobek.com.
posted by Iridic at 9:32 AM PST - 8 comments
There's a map for that. If you're looking for a graphic (in a SFW way of speaking) of Penis size around the world...Read it and weep... or what's in the water in Bolivia.
posted by tomswift at 9:02 AM PST - 110 comments
OK News Sobering statistics in 2011 America:
One in three families with children relied solely on the mother's earnings in 2010, but women's earnings accounted for only about a third of married couples' income.
Women still earn less — about 77 cents for each male dollar. [more inside]posted by zooropa at 6:58 AM PST - 75 comments
"Most actors will go their entire careers without doing a movie like Stand By Me, or working with a director like Rob Reiner. I got to do both when I was 12. For a long, long time, I felt like I needed to top or equal that, and it wasn’t until I was in my early 30s that I accepted that it’s unlikely to happen -- movies like Stand By Me come along once in a generation."
The cast of
Stand By Me(link has autoplaying sound,) recently recorded some interviews to promote the re-release of the movie on Blu-Ray. Wil Wheaton has
blogged about reuniting with the cast and missing River Phoenix.
(Via)posted by zarq at 4:46 AM PST - 50 comments
Tahrir Documents is an ongoing effort to archive, translate, and make available printed matter from the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and its aftermath. We are not affiliated with the papers’ authors nor with any political organization, Egyptian or otherwise. [more inside]posted by jng at 12:20 AM PST - 6 comments
March 27
Have you ever looked at a goopy mess of ketchup and mustard and though, "I wish I could somehow pick this up with perfect precision and transfer it to some other surface?" Well,
now you can*!
[more inside]posted by kmz at 11:18 PM PST - 76 comments
Just before intermission, Cowie took the stage and began juggling a ball with her feet until suddenly she popped it in the air, swished her right foot around the ball twice, kicked it up again, then rotated her left foot around once without letting the ball touch the floor. She bent her right foot back behind her body and caught the ball on the sole of her shoe. “I could feel the excitement building in the auditorium,” she recalled. “I could hear the oohs and the aahs. I could sense the shock.” ¶ For her finale, Cowie lay on her back and juggled the ball over her head with her feet. As they applauded, Green Hope students turned to their friends with the same question: Who is she?
The
New York Times Magazine profiles soccer
freestyling star Indi Cowie.
Photos of a few tricks.
Video includes demonstrations.
posted by grouse at 9:47 PM PST - 20 comments
"The United Nations-authorized intervention in Libya has pitched ethical issues of the highest importance, and has split progressives in unfortunate ways. I hope we can have a calm and civilized discussion of the rights and wrongs here." Professor
Juan Cole of the University of Michigan writes
An Open Letter to the Left on Libya.
posted by dvorak_beats_qwerty at 8:01 PM PST - 253 comments
bloom.io develops "pop-cultural instruments for data expression":
Fizz takes your Facebook or Twitter connections and shows growth and changes to your social ecosystem.
Cartagram places geo-located photos from Instagram on the surface of the planet.
Newsmap (Flash required) draws Google News sources from different countries and visually treemaps them. The developer of Newsmap,
Marcos Weskamp, also wrote the
Etsy geolocator and
Flipboard, a personalised social magazine for iPad.
[more inside]posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 5:15 PM PST - 9 comments
Biggest Rabbit was "Roly-Poly." The remains of a 26 pound prehistoric rabbit were found on an island believed to have been without predators, accounting for their size. "He was probably on an evolutionary vacation," said Brian Kraatz, an expert in rabbit evolution, like an "islander beach bum."
posted by zizzle at 11:17 AM PST - 33 comments
The Women@NASA website was developed to encourage more young women to pursue careers in math, science, and technology. Through a collection of videos and articles, the Women@NASA project shares the stories of 32 women across the agency who contribute to NASA’s mission in many ways.posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:30 AM PST - 31 comments
Natalie Barney was a
muse for her age.
A chance encounter with
Oscar Wilde when only six years old ( she would later have an affair with his niece
Dolly) helped change her outlook on life.
She
moved to Paris and in 1909 started her famed salon at Rue 20 Jacob, with its
Temple de l'Amitié (Fr.) sometimes called the
Sapphic centre of the Western World and which ran for 60 years.
This was where Ezra Pound
met Olga Rudge.
Although polyamorous Natalie had a 50 year relationship with
Romaine Brooks.
In 1927 she started an Académie des Femmes (Women's Academy) to honor women writers. The cast of females involved in
Natalie Barney’s Fridays is vast and includes: Sylvia Beach, Djuna Barnes, Mina Loy, Colette, Nancy Cunard, Janet Flanner, Radclyff Hall, Hadine Hwang, Zita Jungman, Marie Laurencin, Toupie Lowther, Liane de Pougy, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Renee Vivien, and Virginia Wolff.
Here are a
couple of brief interviews with her biographer; and
some photos.
In 2009 Dayton got around to
honoring her but by July 2010 the marker had been
vandalized.
posted by adamvasco at 8:05 AM PST - 13 comments
"The Life of Reilly" the film of Charles Nelson Reilly's autobiographical one-man show (no Match Game stories) is on Youtube in its entirety, in 28 bite-sized (approx. 3 min. each) pieces.
Opening,
"I Thought You Were Dead",
The Bronx, mom and dad,
Puppets and Stickball,
"Save It For The Stage",
"You can't be in the play!",
An actor was born,
Dad and Disney,
The State of Regret,
aunt and uncle,
an Ingmar Bergman adolescence,
What Mrs. Treski told him,
"I hope it burns to the ground!",
from usher to actor,
"Do you remember...",
Uta Hagen's Class (and his classmates),
the Hal Holbrook story,
"they don't let queers on television",
Off Broadway,
Kate Treski and Molly Picon,
a family Christmas tradition,
dad and mom and Miss Marion,
56 times on TV this week,
Shakespeare with Johnny,
Burt Reynolds' father,
"thank my mother",
on teaching Acting,
Epilogue: A Pelican. You will laugh, you will cry, you will [BLANK], you will see he really was as awesome
as Weird Al says. (
via)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:06 AM PST - 36 comments
March 26
The Cultural Cognition Project at Yale looks at the cause of polarizing debates such as: global warming, gun ownership, school shootings, terrorism, nanotechnology, public health, nuclear power, foreign wars and just about every heated thread in Internet history. In short, the polarizing issue is "risk"- the perception of risk, and the proposed solutions to risk. It turns out people see risk in polarizing ways according to where they stand on a scale of cultural beliefs.
[more inside]posted by stbalbach at 9:03 PM PST - 46 comments
"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative," says Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist, a Toronto and New York-based startup that provides Web-based interior design services. "From a cost savings perspective, to get something off the ground, it's huge. Especially if you're a small business." In the last three years, Fallis has used about 50 unpaid interns for duties in marketing, editorial, advertising, sales, account management and public relations. She's convinced it's the wave of the future in human resources. "Ten years from now,
this is going to be the norm," she says.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:27 PM PST - 234 comments
Two people involved in marathon, inspirational artistic efforts:
Six-year-old
Jack Henderson is offering to
draw anything in exchange for a donation to the Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh, which treats his little brother Noah for bronchiolitis.
Meanwhile, artist
Patrick Joyce, aka The Incurable Optimist, is trying to paint 100 portraits before motor neurone disease (also known as ALS) robs him of his abilities, and, ultimately, his life.
Their works include, respectively,
A rubber duck riding a bike shooting lasers, and
Professor Stephen Hawking.
[more inside]posted by penguin pie at 4:41 PM PST - 5 comments
"The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin. Mr. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse — an unprecedented one, privacy experts say —
of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones."
posted by Scoop at 11:24 AM PST - 45 comments
Many people have described the popular freeform game Minecraft as
"kind of like Lego", so a few enterprising stop-motion animators have decided to
jump on that idea.posted by The Whelk at 9:21 AM PST - 27 comments
March 25
Draft Tommy Lee Jones for Senate. Texas’ conservative voters aren’t about to send just any Democrat to the Senate in 2012. Hell, it’s been seventeen years since a Democrat has won any statewide race here. That’s quite a record and one
we’d like to see broken. To do that, whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2012 better bring something awfully special to the race. Tommy Lee Jones is the only Democrat (or potential Democrat) who does. His name ID, near-universal popularity, fundraising ability, residence in and love for this state, his success as a cattle rancher, Spanish fluency, his image as a
western tough guy and his
impressive academic credentials would instantly make him the frontrunner, regardless of who the Republicans nominate.
posted by valkane at 7:55 PM PST - 96 comments
"I called Sam and asked him if he wanted to come to dinner but he said he had softball practice and I said that was a damned shame and hung up. When I got to Sun City Bea and Rob were at were at the bar, behind tattooed women and men with guitars. They were sitting in the shade and their beers were half empty. We drank beer and ate pho but Rob was restless and did not talk very much..." Ernest Hemingway, Yelper. Fill free to riff up and add your best Imitation
Hemingway below. Here is a
guide and a
sampleposted by growabrain at 3:23 PM PST - 8 comments
In
2009, there were 423,773 children in foster care in the U.S., one of those children is "Jacket," who at age 20 months in
December 2009 was placed into foster care with her foster mother
Rebecca. Rebecca, single and in her early 30s, had already fostered a few young children and started
blogging about it.
[more inside]posted by k8t at 1:17 PM PST - 42 comments
In preparedness circles, EDC means
Everyday Carry, being items one keep on or near one's person at all times, to help with both planned and unforeseen events during the day. A lot of opinions about what should be in an EDC kit exist, but the minimum usually recommended seems to be a cell phone, light source and small folding knife. The
EDC blog shows pictures and lists of submitters' EDC kit.
[more inside]posted by Harald74 at 8:05 AM PST - 218 comments
Cruise Missiles: The Million-Dollar Weapon (SLHP) In the opening days of the assault on Libya, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a barrage of at least 161 Tomahawk cruise missiles to flatten Moammar Gadhafi's air defenses and pave the way for coalition aircraft.
In fiscal terms, at a time when Congress is fighting over every dollar, the cruise missile show of military might was an expenditure of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. Each missile cost $1.41 million, close to three times the cost listed on the Navy's website.
posted by Dragonness at 8:01 AM PST - 113 comments
A week ago, University of Wisconsin History Professor Bill Cronon wrote a
blog post about the organization he claimed was driving much of the legislation in Wisconsin:
ALEC. Shortly after that, he wrote an
op ed for the New York Times about the legislation.
Now, the Wisconsin GOP have sent a FOIA request to the University requesting all emails that Cronon may have sent containing the terms "Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union ..." and others. Cronon
responds, calling it an "Attack [on] academic freedom". (via
TPM)
posted by demiurge at 7:34 AM PST - 119 comments
Criggo is a blog that posts amusing newspaper bloopers and oddities - bad headlines, poorly chosen pictures, strange advertisements, etc. The blog only has the past month's worth of posts, but it's archived in its entirety
here.
[more inside]posted by flex at 6:53 AM PST - 15 comments
March 24
Three grand masters have been
caught cheating at a chess Olympiad. The team members communicated using instructions disguised as phone numbers and and an ingenious system relating positions within the room to positions on the board. Details of the system and the way it was revealed can be found
here, and the French Chess Federation's report (in French)
here.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:01 PM PST - 74 comments
Message With a Bottle is a pretty darned charming tumblr by a stay-at-home dad who writes post-it notes to himself about parenting and fatherhood.
posted by Shohn at 7:06 PM PST - 33 comments
World control panel Continuing a trend of modern parents that put the boring, lifeless drones that raised you and ruined your life to shame, is Steve Lodefink, a UI designer for the Walt Disney Internet Group in Seattle. His latest project, The World Control Panel, was designed at the request of his son, Harlan. Harlan wanted a light panel to use for secret missions when he and his friend play "agents." The resulting UI design, which took three weeks to build, displays a variety of light combinations and includes a voice recorder and the Larson Scanner (used in Knightrider and Battlestar Galactica).
posted by hincandenza at 5:41 PM PST - 33 comments
Five Alaskans have been
arrested and
charged with plotting to kill judges and State Troopers. At the time of their arrests, they had
obtained illegal guns, grenades, and silencers.
Schaefer Cox, the leader of the group, identifies himself with the
Sovereign Citizen Movement and is a member of the Alaska Citizens Militia. The militia—one of
hundreds of active “Patriot” Groups in the United States—maintains a
website with pictures of bears, videos, and a list of Acts of War, which include “mandatory medical anything” and “involuntary involvement in anything.”
[more inside]posted by charmcityblues at 4:03 PM PST - 90 comments
The
3DS, Nintendo's new handheld console, is coming out next week in the US, and is already out in Japan. The console's big feature is its "glasses-less 3D" screen, which achieves its effect via a
parallax barrier. One of the console's lesser-touted features, however, is that there are two cameras on the back of the device, which can be used for taking 3D pictures, and also for playing
augmented reality games, using an included card for tracking.
The augmented reality features also include the ability to render a tiny version of your
mii on a tabletop. If you're somewhat ambitious, you could even make your own, larger version of the tracking card to render your mii "life-sized". And if you're
REALLY ambitious...posted by luvcraft at 2:21 PM PST - 37 comments
Game programmer and designer Mike Dailly has been
making games since he was 14, back in 1984. It was then that he met
David Jones,
Russell Kay and
Steve Hammond at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club, a group that gathered at Kingsway Technical College in Dundee, Scotland. These four chaps would go on to form
DMA Design, home to
Lemmings and
Grand Theft Auto,
amongst other games. Dailly has been sharing stories and materials from the archives of DMA, including
The Complete History of DMA Design,
The Complete History of Lemmings (
previously),
GTA prototypes,
graphics and
early game design docs (when it was called "Race 'n' Chase"), and more....
[more inside]posted by filthy light thief at 12:49 PM PST - 16 comments
Get yer dose of Friday Flash Fun with this
Fezalike:
Sky Island is an adorable 8-bit platformer that involves perspective-shifting and tropical tunes.
posted by tybeet at 11:33 AM PST - 11 comments
Since the fur-coated Boot Girls’ particular services were suggested by the iridescent colors of their calf-length, patent-leather boots and shoelaces, suitors had to be intimately familiar with their semaphore-like advertising before accompanying them to nearby apartments. Naturally, only devoted aficionados could decipher such specific messages with confidence. Other potential clients had to buy special primers, where Berlin’s complex street semiotics were thoughtfully decoded for the uninitiated.
-
Sex tourism in Berlin during the Jazz Age, along with some
illustrations from the period.
(Racy rather than obscene, but somewhat NSFW)
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:15 AM PST - 16 comments
Raw Music International is a prospective television series about music from around the world that would usually escape the attention of folk not living in the middle of it. The first episode has already been shot in Kenya, and the folk behind it are currently trying to get it funded. But until it gets broadcast, we can read their accounts of going out and recording the
hip-hop,
reggae and
more trad-ish music of Kisumu. If you're interested in THE MUSIC AND NOTHING BUT THE MUSIC, head over to their
Soundcloud page.
posted by Dim Siawns at 10:45 AM PST - 3 comments
March 23
Looking for something familiar with a twist? Best told from their About Us Page: Vitamin Records was formed in Los Angeles in 1999 to provide music lovers with high quality string quartet, lounge and electronic tributes to major pop and rock artists. Vitamin's mission is to offer fans exciting versions of their favorite songs performed in new musical contexts.
[more inside]posted by filmgeek at 8:44 PM PST - 22 comments
In over 35 years of friendship and conversation, Walter Michaels and I have disagreed on only two things, and one of them was faculty and graduate student unionization. He has always been for and I had always been against. I say “had” because I recently flipped and what flipped me, pure and simple, was Wisconsin.
When I think about the reasons (too honorific a word) for my previous posture I become embarrassed. ... The big reason was the feeling — hardly thought through sufficiently to be called a conviction — that someone with an advanced degree and scholarly publications should not be in the same category as factory workers with lunch boxes and hard hats. Wisconsin has taught Stanley Fish that academics are workers too. Marc Bousquet (author of
How the University Works) responds at the
Chronicle of Higher Education with
five lessons for academics from Wisconsin.posted by gerryblog at 6:46 PM PST - 48 comments
Scott Atran, has appeared
previously on Metafilter. He released a book a few months ago called, Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists. Atran has spent many years studying terrorists, particularly suicide bombers. His research disputes the assertion that terrorists are primarily driven by religious belief, but instead youth culture and group dynamics.
[more inside]posted by KaizenSoze at 4:17 PM PST - 42 comments
Eerily calm - Civil Defence New Zealand has released footage of post-earthquake Christchurch.
posted by Catch at 4:06 PM PST - 12 comments
Coalition health reforms will spell the end for the NHS and lead to U.S. style system, claim researchers. 'Prof Allyson Pollock, from the Barts and The London School of Medicine, and David Price, senior research fellow at its Centre for Health Sciences, write in a paper published on BMJ.com that the legislation “amounts to the abolition of the English NHS as a universal, comprehensive, publicly accountable, tax funded service, free at the point of delivery”. They say the Government “has repealed the health secretary’s duty to provide or secure the provision of comprehensive care” in order to create a commercial market in care. Instead, under the new system the state "finances but does not provide healthcare", in “equivalent to Medicare and Medicaid schemes in the US”'. Meanwhile, Dr Kim Price, claims '
the UK coalition government's planned NHS and welfare reforms, and their use of 'nudge' theory, hark back to ideas on welfare and recession from the end of the nineteenth century, according to studies by a University of Leicester historian whose research paper has recently been published in the Lancet'.
[more inside]posted by VikingSword at 4:03 PM PST - 33 comments
The video game
SEGAGAGA, a Japan-only release for the Dreamcast, is an incredibly odd bit of gaming history. A business sim (of sorts) it tasks the player to lead Sega to victory over its rival the evil DOGMA Corporation (a thinly veiled analog for Sony). Loaded with in-jokes obvious and obscure, it is a love letter to Sega fans, and it was one of the last Dreamcast games made before Sega went third party. After a four-year hiatus,
the Segagaga fan translation project has resumed work on localizing this most unusual game.
Intro video.
Edge Magazine interviews the director.
[more inside]posted by JHarris at 3:59 PM PST - 24 comments
March 22
Libya: Six injured as US team botches rescue of downed airmen. 'US forces sent into Libya to rescue two downed American airmen botched the mission by shooting and wounding friendly villagers who had come to help, witnesses have said. Libyans who went to investigate the US warplane's crash site said that a US helicopter had come in with guns firing, creating panic and wounding onlookers, some of whom had to be taken to hospital; one 20-year-old man is expected to have his leg amputated.'
[more inside]posted by VikingSword at 3:51 PM PST - 127 comments
Last year, the unofficial Dean of the White House Press Corps,
Helen Thomas, spoke about the State of Israel on camera.
(Previously) Her
replies:
"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," and that the Jews
"can go home" to
"Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else," sparked media
outrage, prompted her to issue an apology and
retire. After months of being out of the the public spotlight, she has now given
her first long-form interview, which will appear in the April issue of Playboy Magazine. In it, she explains what she meant, tells us how she would like to be remembered and expands upon her positions regarding Israel, Jewish political influence, Presidents Bush and Obama, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
posted by zarq at 10:47 AM PST - 224 comments
March 21
Bernard NotHaus has been
convicted of possessing and selling coins that resemble United States coins, violating
U.S.C. 18 § 486 and other US statutes. This follows three years after a raid on the Liberty Dollar offices. The trial took four days, the deliberation all of two hours. The US government is now pursuing a forfeiture case against Liberty Services for approximately $7 Million. (
previously)
[more inside]posted by Hactar at 11:42 PM PST - 158 comments
A new kind of book has been created in Holland, where its sold over 1m copies since it came out in 2009. Now finding its way to England, called the "flipback", the pages are super thin Bible paper with a special lay-flat spine and small format, making it suitable for reading with one hand, thumb page-flips, and shirt pocket storage.
posted by stbalbach at 9:08 PM PST - 63 comments
"
n arratives is a surreal, offbeat humour, low-key comedy cartoon show in amazing MULTICOLOURWIDESCREENMADNESSTECHNOLOGY." Apparently the first in a series. (SLVimeo; German with English subtitles.)
posted by ixohoxi at 7:55 PM PST - 7 comments
How two American kids became big-time weapons traders - "Working with nothing but an Internet connection, a couple of cellphones and a steady supply of weed, the two friends — one with a few college credits, the other a high school dropout — had beaten out Fortune 500 giants like General Dynamics to score the huge arms contract. With a single deal, two stoners from Miami Beach had turned themselves into the least likely merchants of death in history." (
via; previously on
arms contractors)
posted by kliuless at 6:00 PM PST - 69 comments
"Another nagging idea which slowly grew from a whorl in the tub to a Pacific gyre was that, as I wrote piece after piece, it seemed like I was just imitating myself, if that makes any sense. I had always prided myself on not being formulaic (say, Monday jokes and lasagna jokes), so this presented a grave problem. I have always wanted Achewood to be something that didn’t exist before, including earlier versions of itself. ... Like a sparrow birthing a clenched human fist, Achewood must be reborn in strange ways over time to achieve this ideal."
Chris Onstad announces an indefinite hiatus to the popular web comic
Achewood. [more inside]posted by codacorolla at 4:41 PM PST - 137 comments
Captain Video and his Video Rangers was a television series that was staple of the
DuMont Television Network. The series first aired in the middle of
Golden Age of Science Fiction, and with an initial air date in 1949, it was the first science fiction television series in the United States, complete with
futuristic gadgets. The series was aimed at children, with
public service announcements for kids,
the a special ring (
or three). Recorded and broadcast live five to six days a week, the series had a run of thousands of episodes, though most are now considered lost.
24 episodes are in the
UCLA Film and Television archive, and a few episodes have made their way into public domain compilations, and online (
three random episodes episodes on Internet Archive; and
same three episodes on YouTube). Continue in for more on the good Captain, and the network he called home.
[more inside]posted by filthy light thief at 1:12 PM PST - 19 comments
The US Library of Congress
has updated their site to be more user friendly. Collections are now very easy to explore. All of the fun of wandering around a library without leaving your chair.
[more inside]posted by kensch at 12:58 PM PST - 11 comments
Exodus International, the so-called "ex-gay" organization, has
just released an iPhone app that, according to its website, is "designed to be a useful resource for men, women, parents, students, and ministry leaders." The Exodus website further boasts that its app received a 4+ rating from Apple, meaning that it contains "no objectionable content." Many are
not pleased. [more inside]posted by xedrik at 10:19 AM PST - 279 comments
In the mid-1990s, a man named George Wood created a TV show called
Flights of Fantasy on a Maryland public-access channel. The show was was dedicated to videogames, and gained quite a few detractors; Wood was not known for his playing skills, research, or good taste, and the production was rather cheap. He would also tend to go off-topic, sometimes markedly so.
It had a small following, being a local public-access show, but would have been lost forever had Wood not joined a video gaming association called NAViGaTR, who archived the entire series, edited each episode, and put them online as
Gaming in the Clinton Years.
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko at 8:45 AM PST - 12 comments
Fully (sic) is "Crikey’s very own language blog for discerning word nerds. Sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Australian linguists getting all hot and bothered about the way we communicate." It's the Aussie equivalent of
Language Log, frequently linked here on the Blue. To get you started,
Does Moomba really mean ‘up your bum’? (Answer: Nobody knows for sure, but the search is lots of fun.)
posted by languagehat at 7:03 AM PST - 9 comments
Over the years, he's become so well versed in restaurant labor law that his attorneys don't even charge him for filing lawsuits anymore. 'They take them on spec,' he boasts. 'By now, they know that if I file something, it's legit.' Eddie Santana, restaurant rebel,
has filed 30 lawsuits against companies — nearly all restaurants and bars — for everything from illegal tip pools to excessive uniform costs. He's netted $144,924.79 after attorney fees from 20 separate settlements. And from the nine suits still pending, he hopes to make another $100,000, if not more.posted by shakespeherian at 6:51 AM PST - 49 comments
March 20
Wijnanda Deroo: Inside New York Eateries "Continuing her long-term exploration of the architectural interior as a genre of photographic investigation, artist Wijnanda Deroo has scoured New York's five boroughs documenting the full spectrum of the city's culinary institutions. From Café des Artistes to Papaya Dog, the Russian Tea Room to Yonah Schimmel's Knishes, Deroo's viewfinder alights on diverse sites (and sights) where we New Yorkers sit (or stand) to consume our daily bread." More interiors at the artist's website --
Indonesia ::
Curacao ::
Mexico ::
Berlinposted by puny human at 10:44 AM PST - 5 comments
Harmony Korine's Ushimini Wam. A 16-minute short where Ninja and Yo Landi from South Africa's Die Antwoord, "play trigger-happy, gun-toting misfits who bond throughout the film by sharing cartoonishly huge joints, sticking-up business owners, and seeking refuge and shelter in the woods."
posted by geoff. at 9:34 AM PST - 18 comments
March 19
The
Légion Étrangère is a French special forces unit comprised mostly of foreign nationals who wish to fight for France, and the promise of a French citizenship. They are today considered an elite unit, on par with or superior to the British SAS or Russian Spetsnaz, and have in their long history served in campaigns as far-flung as
Mexico and
Vietnam, but are most famous for their image as colonial shock-troops in North Africa and the Middle East. Legionnaire fought Legionnaire in the Second World War during the
Syria-Lebanon Campaign, as the Vichy's 6e Régiment Étrangère d'Infanterie lined up against the Allied 13e Demi-Brigade de Légion Étrangère in a critical, yet unsung battle for North Africa. Their first campaign was in
Algeria - will their latest be in Libya?
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:33 PM PST - 47 comments
Pictory is a showcase for people around the world to document their lives and cultures. Anyone can submit one large, captioned image to each of Pictory’s editorial themes. The recent theme was
Infrastructure, where Japan’s near-simultaneous earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis has provided a graphic reminder about the centrality of infrastructure in our lives. Another theme was
Platonic Love Stories, about the folks who laugh at the same dumb jokes you do, have been there for you through thick and thin, and are still friends with you despite it all.
Pictory of the Day photo blog.
The Pictory Feature Archive. Here are the
presently open themes.
[more inside]posted by netbros at 4:34 PM PST - 6 comments
Posh Nosh "I once ate a Flayed Swordfish And Guava Millefeuille that reminded me, in one sweet mouthful, of a Sea Interlude by Britten, a painting by Turner and one of Michael Holding's rampant, perfect-length balls. Sniff your computer screen. What does it remind you of? Roasted fruits? A Hockney? Cherry blossom? No. It reminds you of nothing.
Computer screens look, smell, feel (even taste) like nothing. They're devoid of sensuality. People who stare at screens all day should be shot. But there are so many millions of them. There simply isn't time."
Architect's Fish and Chips ::
Birthday Parties::
Paella ::
Beautiful Food ::
Bread and Butter Pudding ::
Leftovers ::
Sauces ::
Comfort Food :: (BBC 2, Arabella Weir, Richard E. Grant, each episode 9 mins.,
previously)
posted by puny human at 9:57 AM PST - 43 comments
Chickam 2011 has begun. Live cam of a chicken-egg incubator run by a Something Awful regular. So far five chicks have hatched, please welcome Rambo, Spaghetti, Weedcat, Pompadour and Duck.
[more inside]posted by Iteki at 8:24 AM PST - 28 comments
March 18
Welcome to Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages On these pages, I present solid information on (currently) 117 different spice plants. Emphasis is on their usage in ethnic cuisines, particularly in Asia; furthermore, I discuss their history, chemical constituents, and the etymology of their names. Last but not least, there are numerous photos featuring the live plants or the dried spices.
posted by halcyon_daze at 6:43 PM PST - 28 comments
In 1967, Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov
went up in a capsule he knew would never get back (NSFW gruesome image) to earth in one piece. He could have bowed out of the mission, but that would meant his good friend, Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space) would have drawn the mission instead. So Vladamir launched knowing it was a suicide mission. The CIA was listening in , and recorded what may have been Vladimir Komarov's last words, amid cries of rage. Adding to the tragedy, Yuri died in a plane crash the next year.
posted by COD at 12:25 PM PST - 103 comments
What is a photocopier? Ten pages of Ohio Supreme Court testimony where a Cuyahoga County, Ohio, office worker deliberately tries to muddy the waters in a deposition. Hilarity ensues.
"If you don't know what that means in an office setting, please tell the court you don't know what it means in an office setting to have a photocopying machine."posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:06 PM PST - 85 comments
Comment OR Vote: "A civilized cyberspace being necessary for the sanity of a free state, the right of the People to be secure against unreasonable Internet comments shall not be infringed. No person leaving a comment, or any legal incident thereof, on any web site shall vote in any federal, state, or local election within two years, or within such lengthier period as the Congress or the legislatures of the several states shall direct."
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:30 AM PST - 44 comments
[
Basetrack]
is an experimental media project, tracking the deployment of 1/8
– 1st Battalion, Eighth Marines, throughout the duration of their
deployment to southern Afghanistan. A small team of mobile media
operators is embedded with the battalion, transmitting their reports
and reflections from Helmand province as they travel across the
battalion’s area of operations.posted by nushustu at 10:26 AM PST - 1 comments
The Texas House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee voted 5-3 Wednesday night to advance legislation to allow concealed handguns on college campuses. Over half of the Texas House has
signed on as co-authors of the bill. University of Texas System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa
disagrees.
Utah beat them to it.
posted by the Real Dan at 8:41 AM PST - 106 comments
Abortion has always been a
hotspot in the
culture wars. But of late, the anti-abortion movement has had some huge wins, often sliding in under the radar of pro-choice supporters. Idaho bans abortions after the 20th week, claiming that mother's
shouldn't have the right to make a fetus uncomfortable. Nebraska also banned abortion after the
20th week, so did
Oklahoma.
Oregon,
Minnesota,
Georgia,
Indiana,
Iowa,
Florida,
Missouri, and
Ohio are also considering joining the
31 states that currently have such a ban.
Virginia passed a law that will
shut the doors of almost every abortion clinic in the state. And various areas are now enacting laws that suggest a fetus is
significantly more important than the
carrier of said fetus. One judge ruled that a girl couldn't have an abortion because she had
bad grammar.
It is quite possible that women who are in their 40s right now may be the only generation of American women that possessed full reproductive rights for their entire child bearing years.
posted by dejah420 at 8:30 AM PST - 213 comments
Shallow diver breaks world record for paddling pool jump. "A US shallow diver has broken his own world record by swan-diving 36ft (11m) into a paddling pool containing just 12in (30.5cm) of water.
Darren Taylor, also known as
Professor Splash, dived into a pool of near-freezing water in Trondheim, Norway, making the jump his 13th Guinness certified record.
Mr Taylor, who is from Colorado in the US, has 25 years' professional high-diving experience and works as a stunt diver."
Via: BBCposted by Fizz at 7:50 AM PST - 37 comments
The incredibly influential and loved music show
120 Minutes returns, with Matt Pinfield returning as host. The MTV2 premiere happens later this year, while the web version
120 Seconds debuts today.
[more inside]posted by naju at 12:32 AM PST - 63 comments
March 17
Computer security vendor RSA, maker of two-factor authentication SecurID,
has been hacked by unknown parties. In an
open letter to it customers RSA Executive Chairman Arthur W. Coviello, Jr. calls the attack the work of an Advanced Persistent Threat, meaning a highly skilled, well-funded group acting deliberately & precisely to achieve a specific goal. RSA's clients include many Fortune 100 companies, US Government, Military & Intelligence Community organizations.
posted by scalefree at 8:27 PM PST - 118 comments
Aboriginal Science Fiction was started in 1987 to rethink the look and feel of SF magazines; Charles Ryan published it in full sized magazine format, on glossy paper, with four-color interior illustrations and it sold well.
Aboriginal kept up a
full schedule through 1991, when a personal financial crisis nearly shut him down. He kept putting out the occasional issue until 2001, but the irregularity made it hard to find.
Aboriginal courted new writers, one of whom was
Robert A. Metzger, an electrical engineer and laser specialist who wrote quirky, fun hard SF stories. After Aboriginal mostly folded and he got
shafted on his first book deal, he mostly walked away from writing. He's drifted back in a bit since 2001, but fortunately at some point along the way he decided to put some of his
boomerang era pieces online. And that's how it's possible for you to read one of the most haunting, breathtaking short stories I've ever read:
In the Shadow of Bonesposted by localroger at 3:45 PM PST - 17 comments
The official "StreetView" map of China is eerily reminiscent of SimCity, rendered in perfect isometric perspective without a pixel out of place:
Shanghai, the
Forbidden City,
Guangzhou, and
Hong Kong. That hasn't stopped companies from trying to create a more true-to-life photographic alternative: there is coverage of
Hong Kong and
Macau in Google Street View; sanction to cover the rest of China appears to have been given to
City8, which covers 40 cities. (The latter site is in Chinese, but Chrome or language plugins do a decent job of translating the content).
[more inside]posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:06 PM PST - 34 comments
Babylon:
Surreal Babies "Babies hatch from eggs, bubble from cauldrons, are fished from rivers, emerge in the cabbage patch, sit atop clouds, and ride in zeppelins. They play instruments, drive automobiles, fly in balloons, harvest the fields; an anarchistic world of baby heaven. The postcards were a source of inspiration to many artists in the 1920s and '30s, in particular to both the Dadaists and the Surrealists. They were collected by Paul Éluard, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Hannah Höch, Herbert Bayer, and Man Ray. The popular images excited inspiration in these artists because of their boundless inventiveness."
posted by puny human at 11:34 AM PST - 10 comments
"No Toilet, No Bride": Count the number of public toilets for women in India, or the availability of something as basic as low-cost sanitary napkins, and the invisibility of women’s needs becomes apparent." Private toilets may increase in number:
"There are signs of change, though, and one of the most surprising may be in the matrimonial market. Four years ago, the Haryana government started its "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign, painting walls across the state with the slogan: 'I won’t allow my daughter to marry into a home without toilets.'posted by emhutchinson at 11:23 AM PST - 34 comments
Colin Stetson is an unusually gifted sax player. He's worked or is working with Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, GY!BE, Bon Iver and others. He's opened for Arcade Fire, Tim Hecker, and The National. What's most unusual about Stetson is that he's able to make all the sounds you hear with one horn, utilizing no loops or overdubs.
Stream three tracks and
download one or watch
two videos of him play.
posted by dobbs at 9:12 AM PST - 28 comments
The Unst Bus Shelter website has been updated, and remains as charming as ever, 10 years on. It has been occasionally mentioned on the Blue, but the new version of the site shows that it just keeps on getting better. The shelter has even been praised by UK film critic, Mark Kermode
who visited it when it doubled as
a two person cinema. It has also hosted the crown jewels, beer drinking hamsters and music festivals.
posted by quarsan at 7:46 AM PST - 15 comments
March 16
"To someone my age (47) Keith Richards (67) in his memoir Life has a kind of rare healthy post-Empire geezer transparency. But for my younger friends, it’s no longer rare; it’s now just the norm. What does shame mean anymore? my friends in their 20s ask. Why in the hell did your boyfriend post a song called 'Suck My Ballz' on Facebook last night? my mom asks. But nothing yet compares to the transparency that Sheen has unleashed in the past two weeks—contempt about celebrity, his profession, the old Empire world order..."
Bret Easton Ellis on Charlie Sheen and the worlds of pre- and post-"Empire," i.e., celebrity.posted by bardic at 11:48 PM PST - 110 comments
"
At a hearing of the Lahore Sessions Court convened for security reasons at the Kot Lakhpat Jail today, CIA contractor Raymond A. Davis was arraigned on double homicide charges and then quickly acquitted and released. Attorneys for Davis and the victims' families announced that they had entered into an agreement in which Davis offered compensation to the families -- $1.4 million total -- and they forgave him."
[more inside]posted by vidur at 5:58 PM PST - 60 comments
Public Job as Only Route to Middle Class. 'While that might not seem like much, jobs' 'with benefits and higher-than-minimum wages, are considered plum in' the town of
Gallipolis a 'depressed corner of
southern Ohio. Decades of industrial decline have eroded private-sector jobs here, leaving a thin crust of low-paying service work that makes public-sector jobs look great in comparison.''Now, as Ohio’s legislature moves toward final approval of a bill that would chip away at public-sector unions, those workers say they see it as the opening bell in a race to the bottom. At stake, they say, is what little they have that makes them middle class.'
[more inside]posted by VikingSword at 1:34 PM PST - 183 comments
On Sunday, ESPN aired an acclaimed documentary about the University of Michigan's
Fab Five. In one segment the members of the Fab Five discuss their hatred of the Duke University basketball program, and Jalen Rose goes so far as to say that at the time he felt like Duke players were
"Uncle Toms".
Link goes to clip of relevant segment (1:24), after a short ad.
Grant Hill, who played for Duke against the Fab Five,
responded in today's New York Times. [more inside]posted by auto-correct at 12:45 PM PST - 88 comments
#30daysofbiking "The only rule for 30 Days of Biking is that you bike every day for 30 days—around the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you—then share your adventures online." This round starts April 1st.
[more inside]posted by jillithd at 8:50 AM PST - 61 comments
Tour the solar system from a browser window. "Eyes on the Solar System", currently in beta, from JPL and Caltech.
Yes, you have to allow a 3rd party plugin. Sorry about that.
Zoom in to earth, and the sunrise line is accurate for the current time. Zoom to asteroids, satellites, or planets. Rewind time to watch Voyager go home.
posted by lothar at 8:41 AM PST - 19 comments
Professor Sheila Addison was fired from John F. Kennedy University for performing in a burlesque revue. Steven Stargardter, president of the university, said that her actions brought “public disrespect, contempt and ridicule to the university”, although she never publicized the show on campus, discussed it with students or identified her affiliation with JFK when she performed. Meanwhile, a male colleague in another department was performing at the same time in a one-man show in which he was partially nude, and he publicized his show on campus and invited students and colleagues. He was not disciplined.
posted by kyrademon at 7:58 AM PST - 132 comments
March 15
Dickens condemned it over 160 years ago: "I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay. I hesitated once, debating with myself, whether, if I had the power of saying 'Yes' or 'No,' I would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I solemnly declare, that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree." But this very moment, over
25,000 prisoners in the U.S. are being subjected to it. Its
horrific effects are
well known.
[more inside]posted by storybored at 2:16 PM PST - 60 comments
"In the Bible, God appeared to Ezekiel as a “wheel within a wheel”. Spirals and concentric circles are commonly found in petrogylphs carved by cultures long dead. Similar visual effects are reported during extreme psychological stress, fever delirium, psychotic episodes, sensory deprivation, and are reliably induced by psychedelic drugs." Form Constants and the Visual Cortex, or Where Psychedelic Visuals Come From.
posted by Taft at 11:44 AM PST - 51 comments
Toshio Hirano is from Japan.
Toshio Hirano lives here now. He came to this country following a
particular sound and has made a career of it. He even has a
movie about him (
YT trailer)! He plays monthly
here in San Francisco. Last night, as I watched him sing the blues, I reflected on how different yet connected our two countries are. Join me in sending good thoughts to our brothers and sisters in Japan.
posted by Jibuzaemon at 9:30 AM PST - 8 comments
A Lie of the Mind : 'Brain tumors are funny, but they're not hilarious.'
On the Fourth of July 2010 I was walking to the train with my favorite person ever, Mike O’Malley, and had several massive, uncontrollable seizures. [...] I am now under the care of new specialists because of an insurance issue, and am kind of starting from scratch again regarding treatment. This blog is meant to record this bizarre process.posted by shakespeherian at 9:04 AM PST - 7 comments
The
Grant museum of zoology in London has
been called "A restored Victorian treasure-house crammed with specimens from a bottle of preserved moles to extinct zebras and (just identified) the legs of a dodo. And all this was put together by the man that taught zoology to Charles Darwin"
The entire collection has been closed for almost a year as all 67,000 specimens were moved from a tiny (
but charming) space to a new larger space.
The new Grant Museum and its reopening.posted by vacapinta at 8:01 AM PST - 9 comments
Long-time bullying victim finally snaps: a video of an incident at a Sydney High School has gone viral over the internet three days prior to Australia's
National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence. Police and bullying experts are concerned about the level of online support that the fed-up victim's actions have received after the video, filmed by his miscalculating tormentors, was posted to Youtube (since removed and reposted multiple times). The 16 year-old has been suspended from school, but already has an
online tribute to his actions and thousands of Facebook supporters.
posted by moorooka at 3:21 AM PST - 728 comments
March 14
Why Not a Negative Income Tax? "What kind of program could help protect every citizen from destitution without granting excessive power to bureaucrats, creating disincentives to work, and clogging up the free-market economy, as the modern welfare state has done? [Nobel-prize winning economist Milton] Friedman’s answer was the negative income tax, or NIT."
posted by shivohum at 10:20 PM PST - 106 comments
Wes Freed (some images NSFW) is a painter who combines Southern gothic subject matter with an outsider art style. He's best known for his work with the great Southern rock band
Drive-By Truckers and has designed most of their album covers, posters, and merchandise.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:36 PM PST - 27 comments
What do you mean you don't remember Olegco Gaming? They were like the best developer for the Atari! They had classics, like Cool Beens, and Ghost Garden Man. Don't tell me you never played Baron of the SkeleBone Zone! Well, you take a look at all of their games
on their archive site. Now try to be a little more knowledgeable before we talk about video games again... thanks.
posted by codacorolla at 3:34 PM PST - 18 comments
"Anyone who was around New York City in the late 1980s and early '90s couldn't have missed the work of the
AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, better known as
ACT UP. Its group's activism reached a fever pitch during the early '90s, when the iconic black '
Silence=Death' posters and t-shirts seemed ubiquitous downtown and served as somewhat more defiant symbols for the Gay community than the rainbow flags that took over to serve that role slightly later. ...
So what were we to think as we wandered through
Barneys Co-op in Chelsea yesterday when we spied a whole shelf full of
T-shirts featuring ACT UP's famous imagery [priced each at $50 ... 'a portion of that price tag will go to the activist group'] as if they were magically transported there from 20 years ago?"
[more inside]posted by ericb at 3:07 PM PST - 48 comments
Thinking about natural disasters in your area? There's a map for that! For earthquakes,
there is an interactive map of the US showing the maximum peak ground acceleration that your area has a 10% chance of encountering over the next ten years (about
PGA,
worldwide risks), and a
map of global tsunamis. For weather, look at
all F5 tornadoes in the US,
tornado risks abroad,
US hurricanes and cyclones (this map can also do hail, floods, drought and other weather hazards), and
billion dollar natural disasters in the US. For bonus worries:
global nuclear sites and
volcanoes.
More generally, a PDF of
Presidential disaster declarations and
Reliefweb's global crises maps. And a
big map of all natural disasters going on right now.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:21 AM PST - 23 comments
Who invented the cloacascope? Who could pinpoint minute structural characteristics of charred bird feathers and identify the bird species or family based on the feathers? Who was the oldest of 15 children and worked for more than 50 years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History?
Roxie (large image).
Roxie C. Laybourne, feather
detective,
pioneer of
forensic ornithology.
[more inside]posted by cashman at 11:02 AM PST - 13 comments
Cloning trees to stop global warming! Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is a non profit organization that creates clones of ancient trees and uses them for the purpose of functional forestation. They are doing their part to stop deforestation and fight global warming by planting these cloned trees in different area across the planet. They are also preserve some of the oldest living things on the planet for future generations as well!
posted by Mastercheddaar at 9:20 AM PST - 63 comments
Filming in North Korea is a bit of an iffy task, and you never know when a minder may decide to confiscate your memory cards or camera. That was a risk I didn’t want to take, so I decided not to reveal to them the fact that my 5D was capable of shooting video. I taped up the back screen with black electrical tape. Pyongyang Style – North Korean Haircutposted by finite at 12:09 AM PST - 57 comments
March 13
"The plan was money. The architect was money. The designer was money and the builder was money. And if you ever wondered what money would look like if it were left to its own devices,
it's Dubai."
posted by vidur at 10:31 PM PST - 69 comments
Does this machete go with my tiara? "Pageant hopefuls decapitate, skin snakes at Rattlesnake Roundup: To win the Miss Snake Charmer beauty pageant requires beauty, grace, talent and a strong stomach. It's probably the only pageant in the country that requires the winner to decapitate and skin a snake."
posted by Fizz at 4:38 PM PST - 82 comments
Researchers at UCSD have modified an MP3 file so that when it is played on a car's stereo system it modifies the stereo's firmware and opens up a security back door into the car's operating system. Using it, they were then able to control the door locks, the car ignition, and change the speedometer reading.
[more inside]posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:14 AM PST - 148 comments
Should you be allowed unrestricted knowledge of your own genetic makeup? Or should your doctor be the one to decide how much you can know about your own genes? Currently
direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies (such as 23andMe) allow consumers to discover which genes they have inherited. But some influential people are arguing that the general public is harmed by the ability to freely access this type of information. The American Medical Association is
urging the FDA to make it so that genomic information is only available to a person through a personal physician or medical counselor. As a counterpoint the geneticists at the Genomes Unzipped website provide a six point statement on why
People Have A Right To Access Their Own Genetic Information.
[more inside]posted by Jason Malloy at 7:28 AM PST - 98 comments
"Canyon Crest K9 Training Center owner, Ron Pace,
saves the life of a boxer with CPR (SLYT; 7.52) during a regular training session. During the session, the dog suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing. Ron immediately applied CPR. Within a few minutes, the dog regained consciousness."
[more inside]posted by bwg at 6:41 AM PST - 27 comments
March 12
Amidst the massive aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami being discussed in
this thread, the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plants
continues to unfold. For objective information, discussion, and analysis of the ongoing efforts to stabilize the fuel cores in the boiling water reactors of the type in Fukushima, nuclear engineers such as
@arclight are providing laypeople with a much needed crash course on the inner workings of nuclear reactors.
[more inside]posted by Dr. Zira at 9:06 PM PST - 3157 comments
March 11
College Bowl was an American tradition for more than 50 years: two teams of four players each, who are read a toss-up question which anyone could answer alternating with a bonus question which only the team which got the toss-up question could answer. It was officially cancelled in 2008, due to a variety of factors. A strange new format dominates its successors: pyramidal quiz bowl.
[more inside]posted by curuinor at 9:07 PM PST - 61 comments
In 1989, Bill "Calvin and Hobbes" Watterson gave a famous address at Ohio State U.'s Festival of Cartoon Art:
"The Cheapening of the Comics" (transcript). Twenty-two years later, successful webcomic artist Dave Kellett (of
"Sheldon" about a boy and his non-imaginary talking duck, and
"Drive" a sci-fi comic with a convoluted premise and funny aliens) offered a new-generation response at the same venue: "The Freeing of the Comics" (YouTube part
1,
2,
3,
4,
5). While Watterson told how and why newspaper comics were (and are) dying, Kellett explained how webcomics can (and do) replace them (although not necessarily for Watterson).
[more inside]posted by oneswellfoop at 9:04 PM PST - 28 comments
Hipster Faith "To remain relevant, many evangelical pastors are following the lead of hipster trendsetters. So what happens when 'cool' meets Christ?"
posted by klangklangston at 5:22 PM PST - 136 comments
Here’s what we think the Editor Trends Study tells us: Between 2005 and 2007, newbies started having real trouble successfully joining the Wikimedia community. Before 2005 in the English Wikipedia, nearly 40% of new editors would still be active a year after their first edit. After 2007, only about 12-15% of new editors were still active a year after their first edit. Post-2007, lots of people were still trying to become Wikipedia editors. What had changed, though, is that they were increasingly failing to integrate into the Wikipedia community, and failing increasingly quickly. The Wikimedia community had become too hard to penetrate. -
The Wikimedia Strategy March 2011 Update discusses wikipedia's declining ability to retain new editors. Meanwhile the case of the
deletion (and restoration) of the article on the
remarkably notable Old Man Murray highlights the bad decisions that can occur when insular admins and editors favor deletionist sentiment and bureaucratic rule-waving over the input of outsiders and a basic level of research.
posted by Artw at 1:47 PM PST - 96 comments
Enrique Metinides:
In the Place of Coincidence "On Feburary 2011, Enrique Metinides will turn seventy-seven. Fifty of those years have been dedicated to what is called in Mexico “red note” photography. Sensational images of the tabloid press, images of accidents, deaths, disasters.
Metinides’ images capture exquisite and compelling moments from such tragic events. His photographs a complex dynamic which both attract and repel; photographs which become engraved in our imagination through the power of the aesthetic experience." [graphic content]
posted by puny human at 1:08 PM PST - 4 comments
Kraftwerk, after being silent since
2003, finally has a new release of original material. It's not exactly what we were
expecting.
posted by smcdow at 11:57 AM PST - 23 comments
March 10
Rep. Peter King (R-NY), not content with
questioning Muslim loyalty, has introduced
HR 607, the "Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011,"
to take away HAM radio from amateur operators, and sell it to he highest commercial bidder in order to fund some kind of separate internet for cops.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:58 PM PST - 72 comments
"The
Earth tide is a little-known daily event, similar to the oceans' more familiar tides. But the sun and moon's gravity doesn’t just pull on water, it deforms the Earth itself, causing the ground beneath us to bulge toward the pulling heavenly body."
[more inside]posted by Paragon at 6:48 PM PST - 12 comments
Ron van der Ende is a sculptor living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He specializes in wall mounted bas-relief constructed from found wood. The original color and texture of the wood is utilized to form a gripping and sometimes photo-realistic mosaic. The realism is further enhanced by the perspective built into the relief.
[more inside]posted by netbros at 3:45 PM PST - 15 comments
The Wire's
Felicia ("Snoop") Pearson has been arrested as part of large scale drug raids
according to the Baltimore Sun.
Life imitates art, but in this case art had closely imitated life, as Pearson was not a trained actress, but grew up in tough Baltimore neighbourhoods and has a conviction for second degree murder for an act at the age of 14. However in recent years she had been involved in anti-violence campaigns and other work with young people.
posted by philipy at 11:40 AM PST - 101 comments
The Facebook profile I could not get removed. Writer
Susan Arnout Smith joined Facebook only to find she was already there, as a fake profile trolling for sex. Needless to say it was difficult to contact Facebook about the matter, and sometimes difficult to convince friends and colleagues it wasn't really her. Eventually though, she tracked down the perpetrators. Radio Netherlands interview
here.
posted by JanetLand at 10:44 AM PST - 45 comments
As your airline takes you from Point A to Point B, do you ever wonder about all the points in between? Enter
MondoWindow (in beta today), which mashes up satellite photos, air traffic data, wikipedia, and flickr to show where your plane is, and what's nearby on the earth below, provided your flight has wifi.
[more inside]posted by underthehat at 8:33 AM PST - 17 comments
March 9
Progesterone caproate injections have been used to reduce the likelihood of premature births in at-risk pregnant women for years. Up until now, the drug was custom-compounded by wholesale and specialist pharmacies, legally, but without federal approval. These injections cost between $5 and $15 a dose and were regularly reimbursed by insurance companies and Medicaid.
Last month, the FDA announced
their approval of a commercially produced version of the compound, to be marketed under the brand name Makena by a company called KV Pharmaceuticals.
No stranger to controversy and trouble, KV barely survived a rash round of
layoffs and wrongful termination lawsuits. Their former chief executive
now faces criminal charges surrounding the company's failure to notify the FDA that they were producing oversized morphine tablets.
(He could also do for a shave, it appears.)
Now, KV has announced that the new drug will be available at a cost of
$1,500 per dose,
bringing the total pregnancy term cost of treatment to $25,000-$30,000, from its former cost of $250-$300, a
100-fold increase—but it gets worse...
[more inside]posted by disillusioned at 11:47 PM PST - 63 comments
"The
Old Idaho Penitentiary State Historical Site was a functioning prison for 101 years. It was built in 1870 and the first prisoners were brought in 1872. The buildings on the site were
built by inmate laborers. The Old Idaho Penitentiary grew from a single cell house into a
complex of several buildings holding Idaho's most notorious criminals. The
Old Pen received over 13,000 inmates with a maximum population of 603 inmates. There were 222 women inmates (including repeat offenders.) Closed after
riots in 1973,
some say it's
haunted.
posted by bwg at 11:25 PM PST - 5 comments
Steampunk Insects. "Tom Hardwidge’s Arthrobots are robotic insects — steampunk creations made from upcycled gears, nuts, bolts… and bullets!"posted by Phire at 6:00 PM PST - 15 comments
Carnaval (or Carnival) week is over in Brazil, and the judges have decided: the winning samba schools of the two main parades in the country, Rio and São Paulo, were Beija-Flor and Vai-Vai. And both chose musicians as their themes.
Beija-Flor honored Roberto Carlos, known as the king of Brazilian music. From his origins in Jovem Guarda (an early form of Brazilian pop and
rock'n'roll) to the adoption of romantic melodies, he is considered a living Elvis Presley.
Vai-Vai, on the other hand, chose as a subject
João Carlos Martins - whose life could be a MeFi post in itself.
[more inside]posted by Trielli at 5:55 PM PST - 2 comments
"I figured I'd explore for a bit and before I knew it I was 50 yards within a huge cave gazing at the most beautiful, otherworldly sight I had ever laid eyes on," he tells us. "It was like stepping into Superman's lair and every changing shade of blue lured me deeper and deeper."
Inside Glacier Caves. [more inside]posted by Rinku at 4:59 PM PST - 20 comments
Film Film Film (1968), an award-winning Soviet animated short (
1,
2), depicts the many unalloyed joys of filmmaking, from writer's block to studio censorship, working with children, unforeseen script revisions, delays, running over budget, technical difficulties, and uncertain audience reception.
[more inside]posted by Nomyte at 4:39 PM PST - 4 comments
A thread at Apple's Support site has popped up with frustrated users describing nearly identical iTunes account disruptions: up to hundreds of dollars of charges are being racked up by fraudulent buyers, using iTunes gift card balances and even credit card information to fund the purchases.
[more inside]posted by Khazk at 2:37 PM PST - 71 comments
Library Rights Are at Stake in New Supreme Court Copyright Case Article by Marc Parry appeared in: "Chronicle of Higher Education" March 8, 2011, 4:12 pm
Does Congress have the right to restore copyright protection to foreign works that have fallen into the public domain?
That issue is at the heart of a major copyright case that the Supreme Court agreed to hear yesterday. Its resolution could have implications for libraries’ ability to share works online, advocates say.
posted by naight at 11:25 AM PST - 27 comments
Something has happened to the world. Everything has been flattened into 2D - except you. Now the world needs you to put things back to normal.
Antimatiere is a small puzzle game where you move 2D objects around on walls and floors to solve problems. It also has a slight resemblence to
Portal in that placing doors and windows punches holes through the mentioned walls, allowing you to pass between different rooms. Warning: Requires the
Unity Web Player plugin to run.
[more inside]posted by ymgve at 7:31 AM PST - 35 comments
The New York Times asked Gallup to come up with a statistical composite for the happiest person in America, based on the characteristics that most closely correlated with happiness in 2010. Men, for example, tend to be happier than women, older people are happier than middle-aged people, and so on.
Gallup’s answer: he’s a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year.
And here he is. (single link NYT-filter)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:45 AM PST - 77 comments
March 8
New Hampshire House Republicans are pushing for new laws that would prohibit many college students from voting in the state - and effectively keep some from voting at all. "Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," [State Speaker William O'Brien] added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings."
WaPo.
Youtube.
Yick Wo.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:52 PM PST - 90 comments
This is what pi sounds like. At least, that's one person's interpretation. There are certainly
plenty of others, including
touchtone pi,
hammered dulcimer pi,
violin pi,
smooth techno pi,
crazy awesome pi,
vaguely unsettling pi (sounds best with headphones), and
lots of piano pi. Pi has even done
a duet with its buddy e. Nothing here that tickles your fancy? Think you could do better? Why not
make your own pi song? Hell,
make two! If you're having trouble remembering all those pesky digits, don't worry:
there's a song for that, too.
(pi as music previously on metafilter)posted by Captain Cardanthian! at 10:42 PM PST - 21 comments
Anatomy of a Crushing: Imagine you're a relatively small company (Pinboard) and news leaks that your vastly larger competitor (Delicious) might be about to disappear. A huge bonanza? Sure, if you can keep the site running under traffic that's suddenly 20 times higher than normal.
(previously) (via)posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:58 PM PST - 21 comments
"Ron Schiller, NPR Foundation's senior vice president for fundraising,
was recorded secretly on Feb. 22 by Republican filmmaker James O'Keefe, who is well known for his undercover stunts targeting various agencies. Schiller is seen on a videotape during a luncheon with men who were posing as members of the fictitious Muslim Action Education Center."
* [more inside]posted by ericb at 12:20 PM PST - 205 comments
The re-invention of silk "For a millennium, traders brought silk fabrics from the Far East along the Silk Road to Europe, where the beautiful yet tough material was fashioned into dazzling clothes. Today
bioengineers (video interview)are infusing the natural protein fibers spun by silkworms with enzymes and semiconductors. They are processing the modified strands under varying temperature, shear and acidic conditions to create
novel materials with remarkable properties."
posted by dhruva at 11:22 AM PST - 13 comments
Comedian Mike DeStefano has died of a heart attack at 44. DeStefano told wrenching tales from his life as a recovering drug addict, like the MOTH monologue in the title link, which begins with a very bad day he had while caring for his wife as she was dying of AIDS (NSFW language).
[more inside]posted by itstheclamsname at 9:04 AM PST - 24 comments
TODAYMoms contributor
Mayim Bialik, PhD (yes,
Blossom Russo) writes about
sharing a bed with her two children, ages 5 and 2.
"
Do I sleep as well with my kids in our bed as I would without? No. But it will be over soon, and it’s not weird to want to be close to your children when their physiological and psychological development dictates that they need to be held close."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:21 AM PST - 101 comments
March 7
1699 US Military personnel are still considered as POW or MIA from the Viet Nam conflict, but one is finally coming home.
The remains of James Moreland are being returned to the US, and Kathy Strong, who's worn his POW/MIA bracelet since she was 12, can now, 38 years later,
take it off.
posted by tomswift at 6:48 PM PST - 37 comments
Fractal Lab is an interactive WebGL fractal generating app that allows you to virtually explore 3D fractals in a web browser (Chrome or the latest Firefox 4 beta).
[more inside]posted by crunchland at 2:46 PM PST - 20 comments
A hapless painter is endowed with the ability to understand the speech of forest creatures. Little does he know that the evil King Cactus is planning to destroy the forest using his monstrous grinding machine and an army of magically animated polearms, or that he will play an instrumental role in thwarting the scheming xerophyte. Released in 1986,
Čudesna šuma ("The Magical Forest") is Yugoslavia's first feature-length animated film. Created in collaboration with a US production company, it's available in English as (hold on to your hats, folks) "
The Elm-Chanted Forest."
[more inside]posted by Nomyte at 2:38 PM PST - 7 comments
Meet the Geminoid DK, who looks exactly like Associate Professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark. If you're wondering why on Earth someone would want an exact robotic double of themselves, besides being TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY AWESOME, the
Geminoid is going to be used for researching "emotional affordances" in human-robot interaction, the novel notion of "blended presence," as well as cultural differences (from different continents) in the perception of robots.
posted by amro at 10:00 AM PST - 32 comments
American
women at work, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The ratio of women's to men's earnings, for all occupations, was 81.2 percent in 2010. Of course, it was also at this level in 2005 and 2006. Give it another 40 years or so to women to get paid what men do for working the same jobs. Though the trend is stagnant at the moment (see Chart 1 on page 3 of this
2009 PDF) some are
optimistic about the
progress women have made.
[more inside]posted by cashman at 8:03 AM PST - 48 comments
March 6
(SLYT) -- Suppose you are a pop star out on tour. Suppose that one night, your flight gets cancelled, stranding you -- and lots of other passengers -- and that subsequent flights also get cancelled and delayed, and that the other passengers are starting to get really angry, to the point that some tempers are starting to flare. What do you do?
Well, if you're Cyndi Lauper,
you get one of the airport mikes and lead a singalong.posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:44 PM PST - 56 comments
The
Program for Public Consultation carried out a different kind of budget poll -- they asked each of their respondents to generate a package of tax increases and spending cuts sufficient for substantial deficit reduction, then averaged the results.
The outcome was not what you might expect. The mean package included twice as much tax increase as spending cut: big deficit-reducing moves included substantial income tax increases for the highest brackets and deep cuts in defense spending. Republicans cut less spending than Democrats, as did people who identified as "very sympathetic to the Tea Party." Hardly anybody likes the reduction of the estate tax. Why is the public consensus so different from the Washington consensus?
Read the full report (.pdf) Or
try the interactive budget exercise.
posted by escabeche at 8:07 PM PST - 52 comments
Rock-Paper-Scissors: You vs. the Computer. "Computers mimic human reasoning by building on simple rules and statistical averages. Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating basic artificial intelligence. Choose from two different modes: novice, where the computer learns to play from scratch, and veteran, where the computer pits over 200,000 rounds of previous experience against you."
posted by bwg at 4:46 PM PST - 74 comments
Can Metal, specifically Iron Maiden, cross cultural boundaries
and help build world peace? So asks Mark LeVine in AlJazeera. When some of the biggest names in Metal during the 80s performed at
the Moscow Peace Festival in 1989 lots of critics gave a shrug. Iron Maiden, which has a following the world over, could be part of an unsung musical movement that is providing home for a community that crosses national and cultural lines.
posted by kmartino at 3:40 PM PST - 38 comments
How Soul Music Became "Soul Music."
A writer takes the occasion of the release of
Adele's new album,
21, to explore the popularity and implications of the young British soul singers.
"Because if we're truly living in an age that defies stereotypes and explodes clichés, where distances of all kinds have been virtually obliterated, then everything—timbre, blue notes, pronunciation, timing, diction—is available as stylistic options." [more inside]posted by beisny at 1:50 PM PST - 36 comments
"Our Census Business Practice successes include the U.S. 2000 Census, the United Kingdom’s 2001 Census, and Canada’s 2006 Census..."
[more inside]posted by ReWayne at 7:36 AM PST - 14 comments
March 5
Dr. Hoover has discovered
evidence of microfossils similar to Cyanobacteria in freshly fractured slices of the interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites. The scientist's conclusion is that the fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies. The implications are that life is everywhere, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets.
posted by Surfin' Bird at 2:29 PM PST - 150 comments
Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world's largest active volcanoes. The Boston Globe presents photographer Oliver Grunewald's amazing
photo essay of a June 2010 expedition to the lava lake sheltered inside the crater.
[more inside]posted by Joe in Australia at 5:31 AM PST - 34 comments
March 4
A scathing grand jury report accused the Philadelphia Archdiocese of providing safe haven for as many as 37 priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Most of those priests remain active in the ministry. 'The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes — “on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey,” as the grand jury put it — has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago. The extent of the scandal here, including a cover-up that the grand jury said stretched over many years, is so great that Philadelphia is “Boston reborn,” said David J. O’Brien, who teaches Catholic history at the University of Dayton, referring to the archdiocese where widespread sexual abuse exploded in public in 2002.'
[more inside]posted by VikingSword at 3:31 PM PST - 127 comments
Of Another Fashion:
An alternative archive of the not-quite-hidden but too often ignored fashion histories of U.S. women of color.posted by lalex at 2:40 PM PST - 11 comments
Blunt Assessment: The Need for Legal Weed in Philadelphia. To many inside the criminal justice and pro-legalization arenas, the racial disparity in Philadelphia's pot arrests is nothing short of an ongoing conspiracy. Offenders caught possessing 30 grams or less get to make a deal: Agree to pay a $200 fine and attend a three-hour treatment class and avoid going to trial and risking jail time.
posted by fixedgear at 5:29 AM PST - 61 comments
March 3
"Formed by Rocket Matsu in 1995,
Pascals is a fourteen piece acoustic orchestra that makes very unique and original tunes with the pianica, many kinds of toy instruments, violin, cello, banjo, guitar, winds, accordion, and more. The sounds is always seasoned with spirit, wit and humor. And it gives people a feeling of freedom."
[more inside]posted by Rube R. Nekker at 10:46 PM PST - 3 comments
"New Economy, New Wealth - We are entering a post-industrial age with a very different economy and needs for a different view of wealth. What does this mean for us?"
A presentation by Arthur Brock, using
Prezi (
previously). I recommend viewing it full-screen.
posted by baejoseph at 9:27 PM PST - 19 comments
Orange County tea party members protest and hurl epithets at a local muslim organization's relief dinner to raise money for women's shelters and raise aid for homelessness and hunger in the US
Here is the video. Watch as members of congress show their support for this extreme show of xenophobia and racism.
posted by wooh at 8:24 PM PST - 364 comments
Where's Tyche, the 10th 9th planet? Getting the full story. John Matese and Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette recently made the news when they announced the possible discovery of a gas giant planet they named
Tyche in the Oort Cloud, at the extreme edge of the Solar System (
previously). Now ars electronica breaks down the evidence behind the announcement, what can be done to confirm or disprove its existence & how long it could take.
posted by scalefree at 5:44 PM PST - 17 comments
"I was intrigued by your recent expression of the interest in the 'actual weight' of the outlandish pumpkin head of the total A-hole, R. Limbaugh. By grand good chance, a friend of mine is a professor in bio-physics here at the university, and, with some sophisticated instruments, and his professorial savvy, he was able to take the measurements necessary for the
calculations directly off the video screen."
posted by Scoop at 4:06 PM PST - 37 comments
Around
one year ago we saw some of the recent events in solar power. At that time solar panels topped out at a peak efficiency of around 290W for a 1.99 x 0.99 meter 72-cell module, with a lone rare and expensive
315W module that was used to build team Germany's
solar decathlon winning house. Since then prices have dropped a lot, and China is advancing in commodity tech.
[more inside]posted by thewalrus at 1:56 PM PST - 80 comments
This is the extended version of Marc Silber's visit to Ansel Adams' home and darkroom . You'll hear his son Michael talk about some of Ansel's most iconic images, including the breakthrough he had when he first visualized the image of Half Dome. This led to the development of his unique and masterful style. You'll also see much more of his darkroom and hear about how Ansel worked and see the darkroom he custom built, like none on earth. Join us now for this rare, behind the scenes look. (SLYT 17:04)
posted by spock at 1:33 PM PST - 5 comments
Have you ever wished Tom (of Tom and Jerry) was more like Dirty Harry? Maybe just shoot Jerry once in a while? Then you're in luck!
黑猫警长 (Hei Mao Jing Zhang, literally Black Cat Police Chief, more commonly translated as Black Cat Detective) was a hugely popular children's cartoon that ran from 1984 to 1987 in mainland China. Episodes featured the eponymous police chief taking down criminals any way he could, whether it's shooting fleeing mice in the back, burning locusts with exploding arrows, or administering beatdowns with shock batons. Beyond the police brutality, children also got to see baby animals eaten by giant eagles and learn about sexual cannibalism in praying mantises. And it's on
Youtube!
[more inside]posted by kmz at 12:33 PM PST - 21 comments
Romantically Apocalyptic is a morbidly funny webcomic from Russo-Canadian digital artist
Vitaly Alexius (
interview,
gallery). Set in the
starkly diaphanous wreckage of post-nuclear Manhattan, it follows
an eccentric contingent of Soviet soldiers as they poke through the detritus of the past and contend with the mutants, cultists, aliens, and other horrors that inhabit the ruins. The comic's
striking art style is the result of an arduous process, using
"Photoshop, live actors, dead actors, sexy assistants, greenscreen, a camera, and a Wacom tablet" to composite "6 years worth of textures: 1 terabyte of stock footage, shot in real abandoned, forgotten places of our world." This multimedia ambition has burgeoned into plans for a
community-powered animated/live-action web series (
teaser video,
animatic,
fanart). While waiting for that to come together, be sure to spend some time on
Kimmo Lemetti's excellent
Gone With the Blastwave (
previously), a very similar webcomic project with a more subdued palette that turned out nearly fifty pages of richly-illustrated post-apocalyptic humor before going on indefinite hiatus.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:30 PM PST - 18 comments
Buzzfeed.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or
why.
posted by awesomebrad at 12:29 PM PST - 32 comments
1. Tin Huey T-Shirt.
2. A silk-screened poster from the Sept. 22, 2000, Mary Timony (of Helium) concert in Oberlin, Ohio.
3. "Crazy Rhythms" by the Feelies (on white vinyl).
4. A big-ass dining room table.
5. The Futon.
6. One audio MiniDisc of the Black Keys' first live performance, July 2002.
7. 7. One black-and-white photo of Patrick and me, taken in 2003, at Apple Studios.
A marriage, and divorce, in seven mementos.posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:37 AM PST - 28 comments
"
Towards a Sustainable Global Golden Age" (four youtube links) is a talk by Carlota Perez comparing the current revolution in information and communications technologies (ICT) to four prior technological revolutions. She argues that each revolution has started with a long phase of experimentation driven by finance, which leads to a financial bubble and subsequent crash. The short phase of recovery from the crash is followed by a long phase of consolidation driven by concrete productivity gains and government policy. She believes that NASDAQ was the crash in the ICT revolution, and that we are still in the recovery phase, partly because cheap oil and manufacturing labor facilitated a reemphasis on unskilled-labor- and energy-intensive means of production. She speculates on what may come out of the consolidation phase she hopes we're now entering.
[more inside]posted by Coventry at 4:51 AM PST - 4 comments
March 2
Green electricity from the artificial, tethered
ray (the fish, not the beam). Video
here.
posted by megob at 11:55 PM PST - 21 comments
Can you get hooked on diet soda? 'Government surveys have found that people who drink diet beverages average more than 26 ounces per day (some drink far more) and that 3% of diet-soda drinkers have at least four daily. Are these diet-soda fiends true addicts? And if so, what are they addicted to? The most obvious answer is caffeine -- but that doesn't explain the many die-hard diet drinkers who prefer caffeine-free varieties.' But at least it's not sweetened soda with all attendant problems,
such as high blood pressure, so what about artificial sweeteners?
[more inside]posted by VikingSword at 2:16 PM PST - 180 comments
"Like most committed crystal meth smokers, when he wants to share his pipe Duze does not take no for an answer." Clancy Martin, the author of How to Sell and a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, is hitchhiking from Kansas City, Missouri, to New York City in order to catch the last day of Christian Marclay's The Clock at the Paula Cooper Gallery.
Part I,
Part II [more inside]posted by not_the_water at 1:13 PM PST - 12 comments
The Modern Art Iraq Archive (MAIA) is a resource to trace, share, and enable community enrichment of the modern art heritage of Iraq. Explore the works by artist, browse through related textual materials, or add your own images or stories to the archive.
posted by sciurus at 11:45 AM PST - 2 comments
In his Oscar acceptance speech, documentary filmmaker Charles Ferguson reminded viewers worldwide that "not a single financial executive has gone to jail" for the fraud that created the 2008 financial meltdown. His film Inside Job (on Netflix
DVD) explains, among other things, that the crisis was avoidable. See also the
Inside Job trailer and a subsequent
followup video in which Ferguson says that many sources "mysteriously backed out" before being filmed. He also
spoke at MIT in January.
posted by mark7570 at 9:38 AM PST - 55 comments
"The day with its cares and perplexities is ended and the night is now upon us. The night should be a time of peace and tranquility; a time to relax and be calm. We have need of a soothing story to banish the disturbing thoughts of the day, to set at rest our troubled minds, and put at ease our ruffled spirits. And what sort of story shall we hear? Ah, it will be a familiar story. A story that is so very, very old, and yet it is so new. It is the old, old story of …" the
2012/13 touring production of
Einstein on the Beach.
[more inside]posted by williampratt at 9:32 AM PST - 21 comments
so the moral of the story is
always wear a condom
because otherwise
you are going to have to resort to an impromptu skull c-section
with a shovel
Myths Retold. [more inside]posted by KathrynT at 9:32 AM PST - 50 comments
Minecraft mastermind Markus "Notch" Persson has
officially announced his company's next project:
a hybrid online board game/trading card system called
Scrolls. Spearheaded by Mojang co-founder Jakob Porser (
interview) and with backstory penned by Penny Arcade wordsmith Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, the game will consist of turn-based battles between collectible "scrolls,"
illustrated character cards strategically deployed on an abstract gaming grid. In an interesting inversion of the
Minecraft model, the game itself will be free, while updates in the form of additional scroll packs will cost a nominal fee -- a business model gaming analyst Sean Maelstrom decries as
"snake oil." Mojang, for their part, is unafraid and even eager to target an untested slice of the gaming market, and is angling to get their playable prototype of
Scrolls ready for a possible Alpha release this summer.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:50 AM PST - 128 comments
bites "is a unique comprehensive resource for all those with a personal or professional interest in food safety. Dr. [Doug] Powell of Kansas State University, and associates, search out credible, current, evidence-based information on food safety and make it accessible to domestic and international audiences through multiple media. Sources of food safety information include government regulatory agencies, international organizations such as the
World Health Organization (WHO) and the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), peer-reviewed scientific publications, academia, recognized experts in the field and other sources as appropriate."
(Description from website.) The folks responsible for bites also run the more entertainingly named
barfblog.
posted by cog_nate at 7:06 AM PST - 10 comments
The Japanese word
kōgei (also as
kougei) [工芸], basically translates as 'crafts', or even 'handicrafts'. In many places in the world, such products are generally considered as something lesser than 'arts'. In Japan however ... Please meet Mr. Lionel Dersot, Tokyo resident for 25+ years, who is ready to take you on a (bilingual) survey of some wonderful work in the field, both old and new, at his blog '
The Daily Kogei' -
Un petit détour bilingue dans l'artisanat japonais et bien plus, diffusé de Tokyo.
posted by woodblock100 at 5:55 AM PST - 9 comments
The Hoxton Window Project: “I had no plan, I had no thought, I had a pen and decided to take it for a walk. My brain is a mess, my mind a ball of spaghetti charged with tiny electrical pulses being generated by a team of termites on a treadmill. I put it all up against the glass, I hope it will delight and intrigue and not leave anyone aghast” says window artist
Jon Burgerman.
Frame features the work of digital creative company
Unit 9 at a square in central London.
posted by honey-barbara at 5:22 AM PST - 4 comments
March 1
Thanks to long rainy days and a lot of funky global culture and cross-pollination, Seattle has long been known as an epicenter of music and related creativity where people riff off of each other and freely beg, borrow and steal ideas. But how incestuous is it, really? Who has collaborated with whom? Played gigs together? Worked on albums together? Exactly how complicated is the Seattle music scene? It's so complicated that it needs a map - the
Seattle Band Map.
Via Wired.posted by loquacious at 11:27 PM PST - 17 comments
To mark it's fifth anniversary superhero fashion blog Project Rooftop announced it's ultimate challenge:
redesign Aquaman. With
the winners in did they succeed in restoring some dignity to the King of the Sea after years of Superfreinds jokes?
posted by Artw at 4:41 PM PST - 88 comments
After more than 30 years at the New York Times, Frank Rich is departing the newspaper to write a column for New York magazine and its website. Rich has had a Sunday column for 17 years, which followed 14 years as a theater reviewer. [...]
The changes come as the NYT prepares a major overhaul of the Week in Review section. Rich’s weekly 1,500-word column (previously most columns were around 800 words) was part of an expanded Op-Ed page that the Times introduced in the Week in Review section in 2005.
Since then, the proliferation and acceleration of commentary on the web has called into question the role of a weekly opinion section. It’s also called into question the state of most weekly magazines, but for a variety of reasons—including its web sensibilities, New York magazine has been able to withstand those pressures (even Gawker’s Nick Denton has praised the publication).posted by not_the_water at 9:00 AM PST - 56 comments
Reuters Special Report: U.S. cables detail Saudi royal welfare program "The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and reviewed by Reuters, provide remarkable insight into how much the vast royal welfare program has cost the country -- not just financially but in terms of undermining social cohesion.
Besides the huge monthly stipends that every Saudi royal receives, the cables detail various money-making schemes some royals have used to finance their lavish lifestyles over the years."
posted by Dragonness at 8:14 AM PST - 110 comments
Meet Andrew Myers, one of the most patient modern-day sculptors around. He starts with a base, plywood panel, and then places pages of a phone book on top. He then draws out a face and pre-drills 8,000 to 10,000 holes, by hand.
As he drills in the screws, Myers doesn't rely on any computer software to guide him, he figures it out as he goes along. "For me, I consider this a traditional sculpture and all my screws are at different depths," he says.
Other work by Andrew Myers.
posted by chavenet at 7:20 AM PST - 44 comments
Amanda Hocking is 26 years old. She has 9 self-published books to her name, and sells 100,000+ copies of those ebooks per month. She has never been traditionally published. ... And it’s no stretch to say – at $3 per book/70% per sale for the Kindle store... there is no traditional publisher in the world right now that can offer Amanda Hocking terms that are better than what she’s currently getting, right now on the Kindle store, all on her own. (related)posted by Joe Beese at 7:07 AM PST - 244 comments
