January 30, 2014
The Frozen Methane Bubbles of Lake Abraham
【電音道-ＤEN ＯN DO-】 is A Japanese woman's bride practice
You freeze my cortex!
March 1955 Popular Electronics Article
Who you calling commensal?
Once thought to be a commensal relationship between Crytoses choloepia, a sloth shit loving moth that lives exclusively in the hair of the sloth and the sloth, scientists now believe that the sloth moth, the sloth, and an green algae that also exclusively lives in the sloth's main, form a complex ecosystem that allows all of them to survive.
Previous metafilter sloth love.
Spoiler: Basically Lucas, Jackson, Spielberg, Cameron all the way down
Clips from each of the visual effects winners at the Oscars since 1979. Worth comparing to this great feature from Empire where 15 leading special effects artists were each asked to pick a favorite effect (also with clips). It is probably not worth comparing to the 6 best special effects from Turkish knock-offs of American films.
Ghosts of the Tsunami
Ghosts of the Tsunami has Richard Lloyd Parry interviewing survivors, priests, people who have seen ghosts, and the possessed in this article about events following the 3.11.11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. From the London Review of Books.
Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny
This documentary pokes fun at the ways in which Inuit people have been treated as “exotic” documentary subjects by turning the lens onto the strange behaviours of Qallunaat (the Inuit word for white people). The term refers less to skin colour than to a certain state of mind: Qallunaat greet each other with inane salutations, repress natural bodily functions, complain about being cold, and want to dominate the world. Their odd dating habits, unsuccessful attempts at Arctic exploration, overbearing bureaucrats and police, and obsession with owning property are curious indeed. A collaboration between filmmaker Mark Sandiford and Inuit writer and satirist Zebedee Nungak, Qallunaat! brings the documentary form to an unexpected place in which oppression, history, and comedy collide.Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny
Sorry, Doctor, No Custard
So, you have a Creative Agency with the whimsical (or just silly) name "Fishfinger", and you've done work for notable clients like Nike, RedBull, Penguin Books and Hasbro, but you want your agency and your name to go viral. What do you do? You photoshop a bunch of classic movie posters to make 62 Amazing Fishy Films. Yes, The Codfather, Forrest Guppy and the James Bond movie with its namesake are there. [more inside]
Suffer A Witch To Live!
Witchsona Week is a week for artists, doodlers, webcomicers, and more to draw themselves as witches.
Year of the Wood Horse and other trojan's tales
Chinese New Year's eve and its the Year of the Wood Horse according to the annual rotation of 12 animals and 5 elements followed by Chinese geomancers. Horse babies are always welcome, especially boys. Less known however is the stigma attached to the girl child born in the year of the Fire Horse. [more inside]
And this is my column this week.
Our year in weather, 2013 edition.
Potterverse Worldbuilding
The extended setting of the Harry Potter series is fertile soil for fans interested in worldbuilding, especially since the release of Pottermore (previously), a companion site to the books that includes back-story and adjunt information direct from J.K. Rowling. Some of these worldbuilding projects include explorations on wizarding fashion, magical education (including other magical schools), fantastic beasts (and perhaps where to find them), Muslims at Hogwarts, and the next generation of Hogwarts students. [more inside]
DUANE!!!
Barbie Dance Club! (1989) Barbie and her friends dance their way through this 30-minute video of cheesy '80s goodness. Featuring Duane!
Restaging classic films with black models
In 2013, the Onomo International hotel group asked photographers Omar Victor Diop and Antoine Tempé (nsfw) to create a series of photographs set in the group’s hotels as part of an advertising campaign.
Fans of Hollywood, the pair created ONOMOllywood, an exhibition images from iconic films featuring African models in previously white roles. [more inside]
Propagation of wave forms
The Royal Thai Navy demonstrates how waves propagate along a line of men.
Breaking Madden
This NFL season, Jon Bois has been on a weekly mission to turn Madden 25 from a reasonably accurate video game simulation of football into strange and wonderful things using only the character editor and rules options already present in the game. He's created BEEFTANK, an unstoppable 400 pound quarterback/bowling ball. He turned off the offsides rule in a quest for 60 fumbles. He demonstrated to us all that Pat McAfee is the Destroyer of Worlds. He's proven that you can NEVER count out Touchdown Tom. Today, he ended the season with a Super Bowl for the ages. In short, he has Broken Madden. (previously) [more inside]
"Swift's legs beat arctic melt - de Botton's challenge to Daily Mail, &c
The Philosopher's Mail "The world's most popular English language news website is the Daily Mail. People can't stop reading it, but often complain of how it leaves you feeling. So some fellow philosophers and I have joined together with the ex editor of Britain's Daily Express to start the world's only news outlet staffed only by philosophers. We cover a lot of the same material as the Mail, but handle it very very differently."
How They Got There
Oddly enough Dhalgren wasn't mentioned.
Want to introduce your genre shunning friends or family to the wonders of science fiction? A baker's dozen of sf writers and editors, including a certain John Scalzi of this parish, have listed their favourite books to entice new readers to science fiction with.
Sugar Cane Workers and Chronic Kidney Failure
In El Salvador and Nicaragua, Chronic Kidney Failure accounts for more deaths than HIV, diabetes, and leukemia combined. In affected communities, 69% of sugar cane workers are affected. "CKDu" is the second leading cause of death in El Salvador among men, and between 20 and 25 thousand men have died in the last 8 years of the disease. NYT Photos.
@ Risk
"I had a rare Twitter username, @N. Yep, just one letter. I’ve been offered as much as $50,000 for it. People have tried to steal it. Password reset instructions are a regular sight in my email inbox. As of today, I no longer control @N. I was extorted into giving it up."—Naoki Heroshima explains how his accounts were hacked in order to force him to give up his single-letter Twitter handle. [more inside]
Arrange to introduce a great fire
The 100 Greatest Painters in Western History (according to the editors of This Recording). [more inside]
There once was a man from Sverdlovsk...
Russian 'kills friend in argument over whether poetry or prose is better' Investigators say drunken literary dispute led to 53-year-old former teacher, who preferred poetry, killing friend This is the one time that you won't be enraged while reading the comments to a news story.
Searching Spotify's least-loved songs
4 million songs on Spotify have never been played. Even once. Let's change that. According to the Bay Area-based founders of Forgotify, 20% of the songs listed on Spotify have never been played. Their website randomly selects unplayed songs and plays them through Spotify's interface. [more inside]
I believe the first draft was done in about four days.
Was there ever a point in the writing where you said, “I just don’t see how I’m going to make this shark destroy the Sphinx?” -- The AV Club interviews Jose Prendes, screenwriter for Mega Shark Vs. Mecha Shark (and other terrible movies).
Dynetzzle
A standard 6 sided die is a cube. It has eleven nets. The sum of the numbers on opposite faces of a die is 7. [more inside]
Bigger than the Tunguska blast of 1909!
LEGO's Cuuso system (previously) has chosen their next fan-submitted set release. The previous one was the "Back to the Future" Delorean, and it appears they are sticking with the "Beloved Sci-Fi/Comedy vehicles of the 1980's" theme. Get ready to build Ecto 1 (official video announcement with pictures of the winner and runners up)!
Thoughts from strippers
A former stripper asks imgur if they have any questions about her previous profession.
A four-part FAQ ensued. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
[NSFW images & text] [IMGur links] [more inside]
A four-part FAQ ensued. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
[NSFW images & text] [IMGur links] [more inside]
Western Digs: Dispatches from the Ancient American West
Western Digs is a source for "dispatches from the American ancient West." Posts are sorted into three main categories: Dinosaurs & Ancient Life (Paleontology, split into Dinosars, The Ice Age, Birds and All Fossils), Prehistoric Americans (Archaeology, split into Ancient Southwest and The Mississippians [Cahokia]), and Modern Artifacts (Historic Archaeology, including the subset The 20th Century). If you're not sure where to start reading, here are Western Digs’ Top 5 Paleontology Stories of 2013 and Western Digs’ Top 5 Archaeology Stories of 2013.
It's disturbing to look at it directly.
The Doberhuahua. SLYT Pepsi Blue. Likely you'll forget the product inside of two minutes.
I suppose it's debatable
Grow your own stem cells
In this month's issue of Nature, Haruko Obokata and colleagues have made a breakthrough in the field of stem cell research, where they describe a unique cellular reprogramming phenomenon in which skin and blood cells could be converted into stem cells without the need to physically manipulate the nucleus or over-express reprogramming genes. Rather, the researchers subjected them to stress "almost to the point of death", by exposing them to various events including trauma, low oxygen levels and acidic environments. One of these "stressful" situations was simply to bathe the cells in a weak acid solution for about 30 minutes. Within days, the scientists found the cells had not only survived but had also recovered by naturally reverting into a state similar to that of an embryonic stem cell.
The research suggests human cells could in future be reprogrammed by the same technique, offering a simpler way to replace damaged cells or grow new organs for sick and injured people. [more inside]
The not so permanent art of Andres Amador
Andres Amador takes his rake to the beach. Amador: "When you know something is not going to last, you stop and pay attention to it, you appreciate it. Why do I do it? The unanswerable question! Its fun. I get to be at the beach."
Videos.
Designer Drugs Done Dirt Cheap
The drug revolution that no one can stop
Designing your own narcotics online isn’t just easy—it can be legal too. How do we know? We did it.
Data Love. Porn Data
Sexualitics tries to contribute to human sexuality understanding through a Big Data approach. Studies (PDF), Datasets and Porngrams (maps the evolution of words frequencies in the titles of porn videos).
Do Not Over Inflate
Ceramic artist Brett Kern creates puffy inflatable dinosaurs (studio views in his anaglyphic 3D Gallery).
Feeling sad about the Axolotl? This beaver may make you happier.
A beaver is alive and well in England, about 800 years after the last one was seen alive.
Of course the big question remains: Where the heck did the beaver come from?
Shearer/Nixon
"Harry Shearer is best known for providing the voice of Mr Burns in The Simpsons and as Derek Smalls in spoof rock band Spinal Tap. His next role sees him take on former US president Richard Nixon in a series based on the disgraced politician behind closed doors... To borrow from Sir David's opening line - the following conversation was recorded by the BBC and these are the words actually spoken by Shearer and edited only for time." - The Beeb interviews Harry Shearer on his new role as Nixon.
Directional dyspraxia, otherwise known as...
When trying to find my way around in relatively new places all I seem to have in my head is a vast expanse of nothing [more inside]
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