January 22, 2010

Music Is the Weapon of the Future.

Acoustic Levitation. (wiki) [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:35 PM PST - 9 comments

"Get out of Farmville!"

At long last, Dr. Phil takes on FarmVille (previously). [more inside]
posted by joedan at 8:17 PM PST - 65 comments

2009 Hungarian Press Photography Awards

The 2009 Hungarian Press Photography Awards have been announced. The overall winner is a stunning series of Roma (Gypsy) grieving by the Hungarian photographer Béla Szandelszky. My favorite is the one of three woman grieving. The site is in Hungarian but Google translate does a reasonable job (to English anyway). And of course there is the inevitable Flash navigation to come to grips with. All the photos demonstrate that the rich tradition of Hungarian photography that includes André Kertész, Robert Capa, László Moholy Nagy and Marton Munkascsi to name but a few of the greatest photographers of last century, is very much alive and well.
posted by vac2003 at 7:51 PM PST - 11 comments

The Crispian Crisp and the Hurtian Crisp

Mr. Quentin Crisp and Mr. John Hurt. Mark Simpson conducts a kind of comparative iconography of John Hurt as Quentin Crisp in the intertitle-replete Naked Civil Servant and, 33 years later, as Crisp again in An Englishman in New York. “[A]s an effeminate homosexual, he was imprisoned inside an exquisite paradox, like some kind of ancient insect trapped in amber: Attracted to masculine males – the famous Great Dark Man – he cannot himself be attracted to a man who finds him, another male, attractive because then they cannot be the Great Dark Man any more.”
posted by joeclark at 6:07 PM PST - 28 comments

From over here on this side of the wall, you all have made many of us feel human once again. Thank you so much for that.

"There are general feelings of hostility and hopelessness in prisons today and it is getting worse with overcrowding. . . Art workshops and similar programs help take us out of this atmosphere and we become like any other free person expressing our talents. Being in prison is the final ride downhill unless one can resist the things around him and learn to function in a society which he no longer has any contact with. Arts programs for many of us may be the final salvation of our minds from prison insanity. It's contact with the best of the human race. It is something that says that we, too, are still valuable." [more inside]
posted by Dojie at 5:54 PM PST - 23 comments

Digital Revolution

This is the introduction to The Virtual Revolution, an open source documentary, due for transmission on BBC Two next week, that will take stock of 20 years of change brought about by the World Wide Web. Only about 25% of the world population uses the Web today, however more than 70% of people have access to mobile or fixed communication devices capable of displaying Web content. The World Wide Web Foundation [prev] exists to bridge the 'digital divide' in Internet usage.
posted by netbros at 4:11 PM PST - 7 comments

Some Still Think He's A Rat

Frank Serpico testified before the Knapp Commission in October 1971, becoming the first police officer in the United States to voluntarily give evidence against a fellow policeman. You probably have seen the movie. Frank Serpico returns. “I still have nightmares,” he said. “I open a door a little bit and it just explodes in my face. Or I’m in a jam and I call the police, and guess who shows up? My old cop buddies who hated me.”
posted by Xurando at 3:04 PM PST - 42 comments

Got literacy?

As of last week, Barnes and Noble closed the B.Dalton outlet in Laredo's Mall del Norte. This leaves the city of 250,000 the largest city in the USA without a bookstore. [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:55 PM PST - 117 comments

Every boy band has a creepy older guy with weird facial hair

Joe Mande of Look At This Fucking Hipster (previously) made an audition tape for Perez Hilton's new boy band.
posted by minifigs at 2:48 PM PST - 45 comments

Morals Authority

"What I want to do now is help both sides understand the other, so that policies can be made based on something more than misguided fear of what the other side is up to." Jonathan Haidt proposes a more civil form of politics based on his work in moral psychology. [more inside]
posted by jquinby at 2:43 PM PST - 35 comments

Shock and $$$

US Mercenaries Set Sights on Haiti. The Shock Doctrine [previously] at work: Jeremy Scahill writes about disaster-profiteering in Haiti. [more inside]
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:23 PM PST - 38 comments

The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures

"In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong."
posted by Groovytimes at 2:11 PM PST - 51 comments

(Tommy reference goes here)

11 things you didn't know about pinball. Worth it for the picture on #3 alone.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:11 PM PST - 83 comments

Jurors have a power so secret even they may not know about it.

Jury nullification, a situation in which jurors acquit in a criminal trial even if the facts favor conviction (often because the jurors disagree with the law), is of ancient provenance in the Anglo-American legal tradition. Courts are ambivalent towards it, regarding it both as quasi-illegal (they'll remove jurors if they catch them during the attempt) and as something that they cannot overturn once it happens. Nullification has furthered many causes, from anti-death-penalty to pro-southern-lynchings. Lawyers can't mention it in court on pain of contempt, but some hope to educate people in other ways.
posted by shivohum at 2:00 PM PST - 80 comments

Your facebook is an open book.

Think your Facebook profile's private? A complaint brought to the Federal Trade Commission urges you to think again. While you think on it, here's a concise primer on how to make sure your Facebook profile (should you have one) is as private as you think it is.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:43 PM PST - 45 comments

A Russian army recruit's scrap book

Selections from a handmade military discharge scrap book and comic made by a USSR army recruit, 1984-1986.
posted by Rumple at 1:08 PM PST - 5 comments

Voice of America on Fear

Doug Stanhope talks about fear. [YT]
posted by bobbyelliott at 12:35 PM PST - 21 comments

Lost: 24 Edition

The Lost Crash in Real Time (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by azarbayejani at 12:32 PM PST - 85 comments

Skycraper Index

V, Double dip (W) or L recession? Things look bad for the EURO is the skyscraper index is right. We have heard recently about problems in the Eurozone. Is the worst over or is the worst still to come? The skyscraper index indicates: Trouble ahead. [more inside]
posted by yoyo_nyc at 11:48 AM PST - 45 comments

Volcker Wins over Geithner (and Why This Might Be a Very Good Thing)

Obama Breaks with Geithner to support "Volcker Rule" in sweeping new financial sector reform proposal. Following the counsel of highly-respected former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker in a move that would significantly weaken the role of current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Obama's tough new proposals are being received by recent administration critic Robert Reich as a welcome, if overdue, policy correction. Among other things, the new proposals would effectively restore previous restrictions separating deposit and investment banks (as originally imposed by the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act), as well as imposing stiff new capital requirements, and restrictions designed to prevent banks from becoming too big to fail.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:59 AM PST - 287 comments

"He’d gone down into the well of infinite sadness, beyond the reach of story, and he didn’t make it out."

Tributes to David Foster Wallace [pdf]. With contributions from his sister Amy, his agent Bonnie Nadell, authors Don DeLillo, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen and others, Five Dials magazine celebrates the life of a fine author and MetaFilter favourite (previously). [more inside]
posted by him at 6:33 AM PST - 27 comments

I cast Magic Missile at the darkness!

"I guess it's the stereotype of playing it - [the players] are usually fat, sweaty, hairy dorky men who are socially inept who happen to live in their mom's basement."

Dungeons & Dragons, the 1974 published fantasy role-playing game that once delivered your child to Satan, is still associated with self-deprecating nerds, played in secret (along with embarrassed "comings out") and scorned by jocks/Salon writers and their cheerleader girlfriends everywhere.

But what better way to break, or affirm, the stereotypes, than by listening to a 4th Edition D&D game being played, featuring not just by some scrubs off the street, oh no, but the creators of Penny Arcade, Tycho and Gabe? Still not tempted? How about if we throw loved/hated Star Trek actor, prodigious blogger and all round nice guy Wil Wheaton into the mix?

All files available as Podcasts and/or embedded in page. Warning: audio links feature some strong language. [more inside]
posted by Rei Toei at 6:12 AM PST - 240 comments

Heaven Holds a Place For Those Who Pray

Iris Robinson [wiki] is, at the time of writing, under acute psychiatric care in a Belfast hospital, after a BBC Northern Ireland documentary revealed that she had, at the age of 59, solicited £50,000 from two property developers to help fund a business run by her 19-year-old lover, Kirk McCambley.
posted by billysumday at 4:56 AM PST - 55 comments

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