January 29, 2014

The World's 13-th Best Donkey Kong Player has Something to Prove

Shaun Boyd enters the Kong Off. Check out the 16min video embedded in the article.
posted by MoonOrb at 10:11 PM PST - 9 comments

Sapeurs Star in the Best-Dressed Guinness Commercial

A recent Guiness ad featured Congolese sapeurs, and it's joyful to watch. (Sapeurs previous, & previously.)
posted by of strange foe at 8:34 PM PST - 23 comments

Cats Taking Selfies

Cats Taking Selfies
posted by hippybear at 7:58 PM PST - 33 comments

Attention Artists: Don't Throw Anything Away. Ever.

As with other human beings, the chances of an artist becoming deceased increase with age. In the unlikely event of your demise, have you thought about what would happen to your art? ArtBusiness.com has thought about this unlikely event in Artist Tips: Checklist for Planning Your Art Estate. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 7:46 PM PST - 14 comments

Keep it short and descriptive

The Shortest Science Paper Ever Published Had No Words
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:36 PM PST - 44 comments

We employ the ultrasonic speakers and you hear nothing around our device

Three-Dimensional Mid-Air Acoustic Manipulation
posted by griphus at 6:49 PM PST - 27 comments

You're never too old to play with Legos.

Reminisce with a virtual Lego set. Make that house you always wanted to build but never had enough pieces for. Or just make another spaceship. [more inside]
posted by Defenestrator at 4:03 PM PST - 27 comments

Cinemax

Soft In The Middle: The Contemporary Softcore Feature in Its Contexts (110 page PDF excerpt) is an academic study of the Softcore Pornography industry by David Andrews, published by Ohio State University Press in 2006. A genre that for all mainstream intents and purposes peaked with Basic Instinct and then died in the early 90's with Body Of Evidence and Color Of Night, the Erotic Thriller has since been relegated to the notoriously erotic Cinemax late night lineup of new series productions like Forbidden Science, Life On Top, and The Girls Guide To Depravity which if nothing else prove that even in todays pornscape of instantly available, free hardcore available anywhere and anytime there remains a place for Softcore.
posted by mediocre at 3:22 PM PST - 59 comments

How to disperse a crowd of kittens

How to disperse a crowd of kittens (SLYT).
posted by mudpuppie at 3:21 PM PST - 42 comments

Vera Scroggins; Vera who?

Googling Vera Scroggins on News doesn't return much except a Guardian story and and a brief Wilkes Barre Times-Leader leader.
It turns out she has been barred from her local hospital and supermarkets for upsetting Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation.
A spokesman appointed by Cabot states "I believe she is a public menace because what she does is she essentially trespasses not so much on property – though she does do that – but she trespasses on the soul of the community."
None of that activity by Scroggins or other activists was illegal, or presented a public danger, according to Jason Legg, the district attorney for Susquehana County.
posted by adamvasco at 2:31 PM PST - 36 comments

How good is your English vocabulary, really?

In a move sure to delight MeFites everywhere, Ghent University in Belgium has created an online, almost arcade-game-like test of word knowledge which is almost BS-proof. Know the word? Press J. Don't? Press F. But don't lie! You will be punished.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:04 PM PST - 332 comments

There's more to paleontology than dinosaurs!

Palaeocast: "An open broadcast of paleontological information, a place where the beauty, diversity and complexity of the field can be conveyed and discussed in a digital format." Every interview-centric episode is associated with a blog post, organized by era and period. [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 1:11 PM PST - 5 comments

I supply whole packets of red tablets

Juice Media, with a little help from Sage Francis, drop the first episode of a new season of Rap News!
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 1:09 PM PST - 6 comments

Waiting for the Ellison phone call

Then Ellison himself left some notes. They were bombastic, and far more articulate than the comments from the fans. One read, in part, “Goodbye Bradbury. Goodbye Lieber. Goodbye Aeschylus. Goodbye Pliny the Elder…” and continued at length. By the time he got describing me as a “manque, a poetaster, a no-price for whom the internet is a last chance slave market where, for free, he can bleat to his shrunken little heart's delight” my wife Olivia, who had been reading along over my shoulder, said to me, “Wow, I see what you mean. He really is a great writer! No wonder you like him so much.” -- Nick Mamatas on the importance of Harlan Ellison and why he still likes him. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:32 PM PST - 34 comments

How Obama can save USPS and ding check-cashing joints

...yesterday a new government report detailed an innovation that would preserve one of the largest job creators in the country, save billions of dollars specifically for the poor, and develop the very ladders of opportunity that Obama has championed as of late. What’s more, this could apparently be accomplished without Congressional action, but merely through existing executive prerogatives. What’s the policy? Letting the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) offer basic banking services to customers, like savings accounts, debit cards and even simple loans... a way to deliver needed amenities to the nearly 68 million Americans—over one-quarter of U.S. households—who have limited or no access to financial services. Instead of banks, these mostly low-income individuals use check-cashing stores, pawnshops, payday lenders, and other unscrupulous financial services providers who gouged their customers to the tune of $89 billion in interest and fees in 2012. - The Post Office Should Just Become a Bank
posted by beisny at 12:22 PM PST - 114 comments

Cattle Are Booming

Those wacky but socially responsible burrito pushers at Chipotle (previously, perviouser) are sponsoring a 'satirical' miniseries on Hulu, debuting February 17th: "Farmed and Dangerous" (official trailer) about a plan to make cattle feed from petroleum (fake website) and its unfortunate byproduct: exploding cows. Ray "Twin Peaks" Wise plays the obviously-evil PR guy in charge of damage control in this show "that explores the outrageously twisted and utterly unsustainable world of industrial agriculture." Opinionated much?

Not that "exploding cows" are a totally absurd concept. At a reportedly normal dairy farm in Germany, a herd of 90 cows were crowded into a farm shed when their cumulative flatulence was accidentally ignited by static electricity, damaging the roof and causing burns on ONE of the cows.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:16 PM PST - 19 comments

Flying Solo

Robina Asti was born in 1921. She used to take the subway to the airport when she started flying in 1936.She fought in World War II, and at the age of 92 is now fighting the government she served to obtain Social Security benefits following the death of her husband, Norwood. The Social Security Administration states that she is ineligible because her legal 2004 marriage was not legal.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:54 AM PST - 21 comments

Jubilee Tube line ticket barrier sings Blur's 'Song 2'

Does exactly what it says in the title. Enjoy.
posted by Faintdreams at 11:04 AM PST - 16 comments

#RHCP2014

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are performing at the Super Bowl this year, and they've released a new single to mark the occasion: Abracadabralifornia. [more inside]
posted by naju at 10:50 AM PST - 106 comments

"The neighborhood has all gone t' hell"

Visiting the Big Apple? "Don't ask a pedestrian where a certain street is. He is usually too busy to stop, and if polite enough to stop, won't know. No New Yorker knows anything about New York." And another kind reminder: "Don't gape at women smoking cigarettes in restaurants. They are harmless and respectable, notwithstanding and nevertheless. They are also smart." Advice from Valentine’s City of New York: A Guide Book, published in 1920. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:23 AM PST - 51 comments

"Tell me a story about yourself that isn't true"

Supposed Histories: meet a genetic terrorist, someone with equitrichosis, and a professional suicide-note writer. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:10 AM PST - 2 comments

Embedded with London

Embedded with London Cara Ellison writes about some of the game developers (like George Buckenham, Alice O'Connor, Ed Key) involved with the Wild Rumpus, an indie game nightime event. This is a part of her ongoing independent embedded videogame reporting.
posted by zabuni at 9:59 AM PST - 2 comments

Click here to seize the means of production

Now you can make your own clicky-idle-incremental-game-thingy with a text file, some simple commands and syntax, and Pastebin. Brought you to by Orteil, of Cookie Clicker and Nested fame. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 9:55 AM PST - 20 comments

"Exceedingly sharp and as bright as a gentleman’s sword."

A captain ready to drive himself and all around him to ruin in the hunt for a white whale. It’s a well-known story, and over the years, mad Ahab in Herman Melville’s most famous novel, Moby-Dick, has been used as an exemplar of unhinged American power, most recently of George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq. But what’s really frightening isn’t our Ahabs, the hawks who periodically want to bomb some poor country, be it Vietnam or Afghanistan, back to the Stone Age. The respectable types are the true “terror of our age,” as Noam Chomsky called them collectively nearly 50 years ago. The really scary characters are our soberest politicians, scholars, journalists, professionals and managers, men and women (though mostly men) who imagine themselves as morally serious...
An essay by Greg Grandin on Melville's novella Benito Cereno (based on the sailing memoirs of Amasa Delano Chapter XVIII) the differences in the political economy and whaling vs. sealing, and the origins of the American empire.
posted by ennui.bz at 9:28 AM PST - 11 comments

Why did he buy the Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks?

Alexander II was known as the liberator of serfs, because under his rule, in 1861, serfs were granted the freedom to marry without having to gain consent, to own property, and to own businesses. In 1862, Alexander II signed off on the ethnic cleansing of Circassians that began as a simple resettlement, and led to (by official Tsarist documents, more by other accounts) over 400,000 deaths. Circassians in fact protest the 2014 Olympics in Sochi being that it was the supposed site of their final expulsion. [more inside]
posted by oceanjesse at 8:48 AM PST - 11 comments

Beautiful Eight-Legged Terrors

Macro Photos Of Cute And Cuddly Jumping Spiders by Thomas Shahan. Plus tips on how to shoot macro pictures of insects!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:45 AM PST - 37 comments

Behind scenes look at Daily Show minimum wage segment

Barry Ritholtz has a finance blog (Big Picture) and writes a column for Bloomberg. He was on the Daily Show with Samantha Bee and Peter Schiff discussing minimum wage in the American economy. He claims Wal-Mart and McDonald's are the two largest beneficiaries of welfare because a large percentage of their workers couldn't afford to work there without it. [more inside]
posted by bukvich at 8:07 AM PST - 148 comments

RIP Axolotl

It looks like axolotls are gone forever. This may not mean much to you if you aren't into amphibians, but if you read Mad Magazine back in the day the word might conjure up some memories, or even a poem. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet at 7:45 AM PST - 77 comments

Delicious ham water and other delights.

"A man is sobbing fat salty tears into his hot ham water, knowing that tonight just like any other night he’ll been dining alone in front of repeats of Doctor Who." I give you...Dimly Lit Meals for One. (SLTumblr)
posted by Kitteh at 7:44 AM PST - 90 comments

Best Medley, in 25 Languages!

Disney's Frozen: Let It Go I have always enjoyed a Cantonese version of Disney cartoons, this was edited together so well!
posted by Yellow at 5:46 AM PST - 80 comments

"It's black, like me.": Black dolls and politics

Every so often, ethnic dolls make the news, like this recent piece on Nigeria's Taofick Okoya who started his own line of Nigerian dolls after giving up his search in frustration. Okoya sells between 6,000 and 9,000 of his "Queens of Africa" and "Naija Princesses" a month, and reckons he has 10-15 percent of a small but fast-growing market. But the history of dolls outside of 'mainstream culture' exemplified by blonde blue eyed Barbie has been rife with prejudice and stereotypes. As the African middle classes emerge, is this an opportunity that gives rise to domestic toy industries?
posted by infini at 5:30 AM PST - 19 comments

"I cannot comment on an article I have not read or doesn't exist."

Despite years of unabashed support, Canada's most conservative newspaper The Toronto Sun has published a 7-part recap of the Rob Ford scandal(s): Part 1: From penny-pinching councillor to crack mayor - Part 2: Rob Ford crack video hits the fan - Part 3: Mad scramble for the Rob Ford crack video - Part 4: Cops seize the Rob Ford crack video - Part 5: Walls close in on scandal-plagued Mayor Rob Ford - Part 6: The meltdown of a mayor - Part 7: Scandal-plagued Rob Ford unsinkable? (warning: only 20 free articles/month) [more inside]
posted by Theta States at 5:19 AM PST - 168 comments

The Stardwellers project was a dream given form...

Sculptor Grant Louden took Colin Hay's beautiful illustration, which appeared on the cover of a reprint of James Blish's The Star Dwellers (or in the Terran Trade Authority's Spacewreck book) and recreated it in a detailed sculpture. He also posted making of shots during the process. He talks about his work here. Louden's work is fully licenced, unlike some previously discussed derivative works.
posted by Mezentian at 1:47 AM PST - 21 comments

The Pacific Crest Trail

On May 17, 2013 I was dropped off in Campo, California at the US/Mexico Border. Four and a half months later I was in Manning Park, British Columbia having walked the 2,600 mile Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) across California, Oregon, and Washington to get there.

This is what I saw.
posted by cthuljew at 1:33 AM PST - 32 comments

« Previous day | Next day »