January 21, 2009
I'm President Barack Obama, and today is the longest day of my life.
Untitled
Accompanied by Aphex Twin's classic Selected Ambient Works II, we have the rarely-seen experimental video Stakker (Westworld) in nine parts: Z Twig / Radiator | Rhubarb | Hankie | Grass | White Blur | Parallel Stripes | Z Twig / Lichen | Blur | Match Sticks [more inside]
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises. PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on their Obameter.
1500
Parallel Coordinates ... Serious and Humor : Homepage Alfred Inselberg
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday.
Pakistan's Jihadi Problem Worsens
Pakistan in Peril. "The relative calm in Iraq in recent months, combined with the drama of the US elections, has managed to distract attention from the catastrophe that is rapidly overwhelming Western interests in the part of the world that always should have been the focus of America's response to September 11: the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartlands on either side of the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan." [Via]
Interviews with Ayn Rand
RaDaK
The manuscripts of David Kaufmann, Jewish scholar extraordinaire. Wonderful illuminations, inventive typography and even a little bit of naughtiness.
Structures Sonores
In 1952, Bernard and François BASCHET
reveal a new acoustic principle.
They manage to amplify the internal
vibration of metal, thus founding
a new acoustic instrumental family :
The Sound Structures [more inside]
there's simply not enough cyanide
Easy access to the internet and simplified technology for recording songs and videos might do great things for the future of pop music. Or it might be like this. [more inside]
Obamas crack problem
Obama may just be able to keep that precious Blackberry after all for personal use. Although anything business related will be housed by this potential giant brick phone.
The question is how secure and private will his emails be? How private should they be? Has Dick set a precedent that personal records stay personal?
Life's for Sharing.
Black and White Indie Filth
“It is going to be rough for us Top 20 publishers. It will be epic for anyone smaller. Lots of folks will vanish due to this, even some bigger guys.” - Hard times ahead for indie comics: Diamond Distribution, which has an effective monopoly on American comics distribution, will be raising it’s wholesale benchmark, meaning many of the comiocs currently available in comics stores will soon be dropped. In a further blow to the adult comics market Diamond will be dropping that section from the print version of Previews, in favour of a PDF only available to retailers. Comics are about to get a whole lot blander.
Blandings: The Wonderful World of Wodehouse
Blandings is "a guide and companion to the books, stories, plays and musicals of P. G. Wodehouse, probably the finest craftsman of the English language in the 20th Century." It has lists of his works (and advice on collecting them), a miscellany (old English counties, money and words, JPs, younger sons, sport, public schools and much more), a gazetteer (with notes on real places and maps), and other amenities, but what really put a jaunty spring in my step was the detailed notes for the works. If you go, say, to the Something Fresh page and click on the Notes & Quotes tab, you will find, well, Notes and Quotes. The first thing your bright, expectant orb will encounter: "Arundell Street - no longer exists but it was close to Leicester Square and held both the Hotels Mathis and Previtali (also gone). See West End for a sketch map showing its location." It's a blooming marvel! (Via Wordorigins.org; Wodehouse previously on MetaFilter.)
Ghostbusters, what do you want?
Protoncharging.com is here to meet all of your Ghostbusters-related needs.
Queens of InfoVis
Ever see an awesome graphic or visualization in the New York Times and wonder who did it? Chances are it's either Amanda Cox or Megan Jaegerman. [more inside]
School of Hard Knocks.
"This is the safest place these kids have," Mr. McMonigle explains. "No matter how crazy it gets here, no matter how bad the school is, it’s still better than what’s waiting for them out there when they leave. The irony is that after all the bitching and the moaning about how they don’t want to be here, at the end of the day you can’t get them to go home!" School of Hard Knocks is a heartbreaking 7-part series of articles about kids with behavioral problems in a Philadelpha high school. [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
[via mefi projects]
Shoot Different
Professor Layton and the DS Adventure Game Revival
Despite the oft-declared death of the Adventure Game, Nintendo's success has raised the genre's mainstream profile and quality to a level unseen since the 90s. The DS in particular has been an ideal platform for AGs, leading to the release of a number of popular Japanese titles in the American market. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is only the most recent to receive praise from western game rags - but it is the most consistently well-reviewed - making many short-lists of the best DS games of 2008. Featuring beautiful illustration, engrossing puzzles, and a charming story, Professor Layton topped Japanese software charts on its release (as did its sequel, Professor Layton and the Devil's Box, still unreleased in the US), though all indications are that its American sales have been underwhelming.
[more inside]
Klezmer and selling out
David Goo and the Variety Band have been gigging in London for a few years, but a recent appearance as a soundtrack to an advert could be what propels them to the big time. Merging ska, punk, indie and klezmer influences, read an interview with them here as they speculate on the concept of 'selling out'
Top 10 Star Wars Sports Crossovers
Top 10 Star Wars Sports Crossovers. Chewbacca throwing out the first pitch at Fenway is priceless.
Urban Legends In War
Now that the fighting in Gaza is over for the time being, it's time for urban legends to arise out of the morass. One story now making the rounds on the Israeli side involves soldiers claiming the Biblical matriarch Rachel warned them of Hamas ambushes and guided them away from booby-trapped homes. Strangely, Rachel supposedly appeared as an Arabic-speaking older woman. Meanwhile, American soldiers during the second Iraq war spawned their own urban legends. But these stories are just the latest entries in a long tradition. [more inside]
The Brotherhood of the Very Expensive Pants
"It's like I used to enjoy firecrackers, but now it takes dynamite to get me high." Brit Eaton takes Outside magazine on a safari for vintage clothing in the wild west. (via)
Movies from India:
Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Naa (You don't know, and neither do I) = A guy who's in love with a girl falls in love with someone who he thinks is right for him, but he realizes his mistake, only after the girl has decided to marry her perfect match [or so she thinks]. Taree Zameen Par (Stars On The Ground) = A boy who has difficulty with school work gets put into a Hostel for boys where he discovers a teacher who understands him and is willing to fight for him. And Jab We Met (When we met) = A story about a guy and a girl, who meet on a train and get hitched to each other; the guy finds himself by the end of their travel but has to leave the girl because she's run away from home to marry a guy, only to find out that he doesn't want to marry her... three Hindi movies which I would suggest that everyone watch!
Selling snake oil
An unexpected corollary of the modern marketing-and-distribution model is that films no longer have time to find their audience; that audience has to be identified and solicited well in advance. The Cobra - The New Yorker on the art and science of movie marketing.
Now What?
Right before the trials at Guantanamo were ordered to be halted, a military court was told that Maher Arar was in North America during the time he was supposedly in Afghanistan.
Illegal Download =/= Lost Sale
"[A]lthough it is true that someone who copies a digital version of a sound recording has little incentive to purchase the recording through legitimate means, it does not necessarily follow that the downloader would have made a legitimate purchase if the recording had not been available for free," said US District court Judge James P. Jones, in response to the RIAA's request for restitution against the former admin of Elite Torrents, Daniel Dove, who has already been found guilty of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement. [more inside]
A little piece of Middle England
More than 20 years ago, Matt Pritchett, the son of a newspaper columnist, began his daily cartoon in the Daily Telegraph. Generally accepted as the best daily cartoonist working today on these shores, he actually wanted to become a cameraman originally but failed to find the work. Always wry, understated and pithy, Matt's cartoons typically summarise the absurd and the humdrum in modern day Britain, often at the same time. Here's his effort for today. Some of his classics here, here and here.
What would Simpsons characters look like in Real Life? Something like this.
A filmmaker, [SPOILER], records his young son, [SPOILER], telling an imaginative story to his two younger sisters, [SPOILER] and [SPOILER].
from the A/V Geeks of Archive.org, whose diverse menu of nostalgia include Psychedelic Schoolhouse Rock, a delightful VD PSA and a whole lotta falling down.
from the A/V Geeks of Archive.org, whose diverse menu of nostalgia include Psychedelic Schoolhouse Rock, a delightful VD PSA and a whole lotta falling down.
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