January 19, 2013

Be true to thine ownself

People have the misconception that a gay person comes out once. It's not true. If you're gay and you're authentic, you're coming out constantly. You're on a business trip, for example. A cab driver asks if you have kids, and you say that you do. Then he asks about your wife. Even though you may be exhausted, you find yourself summoning the energy to have a transformative conversation with a total stranger on whom you are depending to get to the airport and whose reaction you have no way of predicting. It takes a few tablespoons of courage. Every time. But you do it. Because it's who you are, and you've learned long ago not to deny who you are or who your partner is. Because to deny who you are is a betrayal of yourself and the man you love and the children you have together. So you never, ever skirt the issue, no matter how tired or busy you are. You become a Jedi with your truth. Not just the truth, but your truth. Dan Pallotta writes "Never Lie about Who You Really Are" in the Harvard Business Review blog.
posted by infini at 11:52 PM PST - 54 comments

CGBG

In November 2007, a new board game called Yavalath was invented. The rules of Yavalath are simple: Players take turns adding a piece of their colour to a hexagonal board and win by making four-in-a-row of their colour – but lose by making three-in-a-row beforehand. Yavalath has proven reasonably popular as its simple rules allow interesting and surprising situations to develop due to its innovative win with four but lose with three winning condition. But Yavalath is really set apart from the many other board games invented in 2007 by one remarkable fact: Yavalath was designed by a computer programme. [more inside]
posted by rollick at 10:47 PM PST - 20 comments

Raumschiff Orion

Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion [EN] ist eine deutsche Science-Fiction-Fernsehserie, die am 17. September 1966 von der ARD ausgestrahlt wurde, zwei Wochen nach der erste Sendung von Star Trek. Alle sechs Episoden der originalen Serie sind jetzt im Youtube verfügbar:

-Episode 1: Angriff aus dem All

-Episode 2: Planet außer Kurs
-Episode 3: Hüter des Gesetzes
-Episode 4: Deserteure
-Episode 5: Der Kampf um die Sonne
-Episode 6: Die Raumfalle
-Episode 7: Invasion

Aber warte! Es gibt jetzt eine neue Staffel, die einige Jahre nach den Geschehnissen der originalen Serie spielt:

-Episode 1: Angriff auf AE3000

-Episode 2: Die Erde in Gefahr

-Episode 3: In der Höhle des Löwens
posted by dunkadunc at 9:19 PM PST - 32 comments

Battle Beyond the Stars: Seven Samurai... in spaaaaaaace!

If you're sad that there's no Seven Samurai-inspired Star Wars movie in the foreseeable future, or if you want to view James Cameron's first feature film special effects, or early soundtrack work by James Horner, look no further than Battle Beyond the Stars (full film on YT; Wikipedia), Roger Corman's 1980 film that was inspired by Star Wars and Seven Samurai (by way of The Magnificent Seven). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:28 PM PST - 46 comments

Artificial calamari?

If you missed this story, you missed one of the All Time Great stories on This American Life: A while ago, a farmer walked through a pork processing plant in Oklahoma with a friend who managed it. He came across boxes stacked on the floor with labels that said "artificial calamari." So he asked his friend "What’s artificial calamari?" "Bung," his friend replied. "Hog rectum." Have you or I eaten bung dressed up as seafood? Ben investigated. (26 minutes) Dead Ringer. Educational and hilarious. If you prefer, the entire episode.
posted by spock at 6:26 PM PST - 120 comments

DJ Shadow: same as he ever was

On December 14, 2012, DJ Shadow, best-known for his genre-breaking Endtroducing... was booted off the stage in the middle of his set, later tweeting about the incident and his fit there. The venue, Mansion has since issued an an apology, but already has a bit of a reputation for kicking DJs off the stage, having done it to DJ Dennis Ferrer.

So what did Shadow get booted for? Well, why not give it a listen for yourself?
posted by TheNewWazoo at 5:49 PM PST - 108 comments

Stan the Man

A day after Earl Weaver, Cardinal great Stan Musial has passed away. Stan spent 22 seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, racking up a lifetime batting average of .331 and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.
posted by holmesian at 5:15 PM PST - 45 comments

Totenberg on Sotomayor on NPR

In conjunction with the publication of her autobiography, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor sat down with NPR's Nina Totenberg for an extended interview. 1: Sotomayor reflects on her upbringing, her family, and the formative years of her life. 2: Exploring her educational background and her motivations toward excellence. 3: Her post-education career and the path toward her being appointed to the Supreme Court. Audio links and transcripts available for all links. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:05 PM PST - 9 comments

A brief history of saturation diving

Today it is an economic and even geopolitical necessity for oil companies, in order to maintain pipelines and offshore rigs, to send divers routinely to depths of a thousand feet, and keep them at that level of compression for as long as a month at a time. The divers who do this work are almost entirely male, and tend to be between the ages of twenty-five and forty. Were they any younger, they would not have enough experience or seniority to perform such demanding tasks. Any older, and their bodies could not be trusted to withstand the trauma. The term for these extended-length descents is “saturation diving,” which refers to the fact that the diver’s tissues have absorbed the maximum amount of inert gas possible.
posted by jason's_planet at 1:54 PM PST - 19 comments

The Secret Life of Super Heroes

The everyday life of comic book legends: grabbing a bite, scratching an itch and getting it on (NSFW). See also: Paper Heroes. Artist: Greg Guillemin.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:20 PM PST - 33 comments

Joey Baron / Live Beeroth x 2 in 1999 / Two solo performances

The Masada track Beeroth with gusto live at Tonic 1999 and with duende at Warsaw Summer Jazz Days 1999 features Mr. Joey Baron. Perhaps Masada's Beeroth is not your thing but you are curious about how Mr. Baron might sound all on his own? Here is a solo at Mózg and on Roulette TV.
posted by safetyfork at 1:06 PM PST - 7 comments

CIL-CCDB

A curated repository of cellular microscopy data [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:05 PM PST - 2 comments

it was not a f***ing Phil Collins song

on the night I laid you down
posted by philip-random at 12:03 PM PST - 24 comments

Earl Weaver, former Balitimore Oriole manager, R.I.P

A scourge to umpires, goad to his players and a delight to fans, Earl Weaver was among the winningest managers in the history of major-league baseball.
posted by goalyeehah at 12:01 PM PST - 25 comments

Cascada

Cascada (single link vimeo) Tangled vines. Endless rain. Dodgy hotel rooms. Mud. Biting flies. Aggressive viruses...Perfection. Is this a vacation? Erik Boomer, Tyler Bradt, Galen Volckhausen, Tim Kemple, Anson Fogel, Blake Hendrix and Skip Armstrong hunt the remote Mexican jungle for the perfect waterfall...and the perfect shot. Paddler and cinematographer alike explore a world beyond the expected. (Music by HECQ and Anson Fogel)
posted by DreamerFi at 11:58 AM PST - 4 comments

No one was actually doing anything

Sophie Schmidt's (Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt's daughter) photo and text impressions of their recent visit to North Korea. As part of the American Delegation that visited North Korea a few days ago (headed by former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson) Eric Schmidt invited his daughter Sophie, who took some snapshots and posted them with her impressions of the trip. [via HN]
posted by KMB at 11:28 AM PST - 35 comments

INADVERTENTLY AWESOME!!!

One year ago, everyone's favourite extreme sports geezer Tony Hawk launched a youtube channel called RIDEChannel. They're still going strong and one of their most fun features is the Shred-It Card, where viewers submit videos of their own tricks and Tony Hawk & friends score them video game style, paying out high scores in skate shop credit.
posted by 256 at 11:09 AM PST - 13 comments

Deflector Shields are Down To 35%!

Corgi puppy attempts to eat treat. [slyt]
posted by quin at 9:48 AM PST - 43 comments

Lynn Willis

Chaosium has announced the death of Lynn Willis. Willis was creator or co-creator of many boardgames and RPGs, including probably the most influential horror RPG, Call of Cthulhu, and my personal favorite, Ghostbusters. Obituary by Ken Hite.
posted by jiawen at 8:50 AM PST - 53 comments

This is day-to-day, everyday life.

There are four states in this country where there is only one abortion clinic in the whole state, including Mississippi, which is facing the prospect of becoming the first state where abortion access is, effectively, gone. via
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:43 AM PST - 57 comments

30 Screenplays for 2012 Flicks

Links to 30 Screenplays from films released in 2012, including Django Unchained, The Master, Looper, Lincoln, Amour...
posted by dobbs at 7:34 AM PST - 21 comments

Football in Afghanistan

"We're just trying to lead normal lives, doing what we want to do. Why shouldn't we?" The members [of Afghanistan women's national team], who range in age from 16 to 24, are up against widespread resentment from their relatives* and neighbors, and threats from men who disapprove of women playing sports. They managed to participate in an inclusive tournament in Berlin and they registered their first official win as they defeated Pakistan national women's team 4-0 and reached the semi-finals of the 2nd SAFF women's championship in 2012 improving on their past performance (rough 2010 SAFF footage). They're able to practice just three times a week for 90 minutes, occasionally at the stadium (2) or in its gym, but more often at a helicopter landing pad on a base for NATO troops, where practices are interrupted by takeoffs and landings. Players have some outside support from hummel, the sponsor of the women's and the men's team, and have had football clinics in Stuttgart and with Olympic U.S. player Lorrie Fair in Kabul. [more inside]
posted by ersatz at 4:38 AM PST - 8 comments

The Ocean: world's biggest filter.

How can we get CO2 out of the atmosphere? Get it out of the sea first. Making jet fuel from seawater is a pretty cool -- albeit energy intensive -- trick. But applying the same science to scrub CO2 out of seawater, where it is more densely concentrated than in the atmosphere -- and, by doing so, to reduce atmospheric levels of CO2 back to acceptable levels -- that's a game saver. "what would it take to draw atmospheric carbon down to 350 ppm with just this technology? . . . we would require the power of about 700 AP-1000 nuclear reactors. At the Chinese cost of $1.3b apiece and an 80 year lifetime this would cost a bit over $1 trillion dollars. That sounds like a lot of money. But its only about the cost of America’s 2003 Iraq War spread over the century, so I guess it’s a question of priorities."
posted by markkraft at 4:03 AM PST - 72 comments

Episciences Project

Tim Gowers has announced a series of arXiv overlay journals called the Episciences Project that aim to exclude existing publishers from research publication in mathematics. As arXiv overlays, the Episciences Project avoids the editing and typesetting costs that existing open-access journals pay for using article processing charges. The French Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe (CCSD) is backing the remaining expenses, such as developing the platform. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 3:15 AM PST - 11 comments

Google Ring?

If special hardware can crack all your passwords, if people have a hard time remembering them anyway, if people don't implement them in the first place, it is no wonder Google (with Yubico) is "declar[ing] war on the password." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:25 AM PST - 76 comments

Viruses That Make Zombies and Vaccines

This week the FDA announced that they were approving a new kind of flu vaccine. Nestled in the articles was an odd fact: unlike traditional flu vaccines, the new kind, called Flublok, is produced by the cells of insects. This is the kind of detail that you might skim over without giving it a thought. If you did pause to ponder, you might be puzzled: how could insects possibly make a vaccine against viruses that infect humans? The answer may surprise you. To make vaccines, scientists are tapping into a battle between viruses and insects that’s raging in forests and fields and backyards all around us. It’s an important lesson in how to find new ideas in biotechnology: first, leave biologists free to explore the weirdest corners of nature they can find. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 1:46 AM PST - 7 comments

Where were the Viking brew houses?

The possibility that a lot of the alleged "saunas" found in Viking settlements may actually have been brew houses, is just one of the topic discussed at the 7th expermental archaeology conference just held in Cardiff. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:40 AM PST - 11 comments

« Previous day | Next day »