February 6, 2013
Paola-4
A brilliant comic about choices and regret. And time travel, and love, and sushi: Paola-4 (via) [more inside]
Top 30 music videos per year, in 15 minutes or less
Canal de willtopsmusictv provides a valuable service, summarizing the top 30 songs* for a year, from 1980 to 2012, in 8 to 15 minutes. 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993**, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. [more inside]
Presidential Monsters
Presidential Monsters -- And now you know the truth about our government!
Slavery was 'an utter violation of capitalism'
The inefficiency of it all ... Here's a great infographic: slavery and cotton in the South in 1860. But if the map is interesting, the article is astonishing. It says only 2 percent of Deep South land produced cotton in 1860 -- and only 13 percent grew any crop at all. You better read that last sentence again.
"He's as hard-core as a baby"
Free the Cannibal Cop: His fantasies are sick. His prosecution is even sicker.
[No pictures, text has graphic content around sex and violence.]
[No pictures, text has graphic content around sex and violence.]
What-If Numbers
XKCD/What If's Randall Munroe brings meaning to numbers. As a by-product. Of his day-to-day research. For your day-to-day entertainment.
From the Mississippi Delta to Dumfries and Galloway, and back again
Third Man Records, the US label owned by Jack White, is collaborating with Document Records to release vinyl-only remastered versions of blues artists. Document Records, run by Gary and Gillian Atkinson in Scotland, holds the largest known pre-1945 blues, jazz and country archive in the world, with 900 titles and around 25,000 tracks. [more inside]
It's about a scientist who makes a deal with the devil.
Utopia is a new British TV show about members of an online comic book forum who are in search of a cult graphic novel that can predict the future. It draws from 90s underground culture and the conspiracy theories around Grant Morrison's Invisibles. Den Of Geek spoiler-free review and links to the rest of their reviews. Spoileriffic Guardian review. Guardian reviews blog. [more inside]
‘Wonderful how one loses track of the days up here in the mountains.’
Titus Gets Buckets
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers..
The United States Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays starting in August.
The move is expected to save $2 billion annually, which will no doubt help fix their imaginary pension problem. [more inside]
Don't you know that there's a law against what you're doing?
Dreams of Space
Dreams of Space. A blog featuring art from non-fiction children's space flight books 1945-1975. Lots of great graphics, from the realistic to the now fanciful. I must also point out the wonderful Czech pop-up book and A Trip to Outer Space With Santa.
Trekken the Canyon
As a follow-up to this post, Google has now launched its Grand Canyon street view imagery. (gallery) (promo video)
The Photo Album of Babel
"Using custom-written software (and a very long period of time), every possible photograph is generated, one at a time and in numerical order."
"I want to show that you can still be beautiful or sexy with cancer."
A day before her 32nd birthday, Jill Brzezinski-Conley was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. She's now 35, and her cancer has metastasized to terminal, stage-4. Sue Bryce won Australian Portrait Photographer of the Year in both 2011 and 2012, and last year's prize was a one-person trip to Paris. After hearing her story, Bryce took Brzezinski-Conley with her to the City of Light for a photo shoot and brought along a videographer. The resulting short film: "The Light That Shines." (Also on Vimeo.) Photos. (click the open magazine at the top of the page). The video and photos both show a topless Ms. Brzezinski-Conley, and may be nsfw. [more inside]
Is Twilight empowering to young women?
"I think Twilight is one of the best things to happen to young female sexuality in the same way that I think that Fifty Shades of Grey is one of the best things to happen to adult female sexuality. We live in a culture that is overwhelmingly sex negative, particularly for women. If the only porn that women will consume is “abstinence porn” and its fan fiction, that is okay with me." -- Emma Vossen argues that Twilight allows young women to fullfill "fantasies of sexual and supernatural empowerment" and that's why so many people hate it. [more inside]
She might've called it Getyouracttogether.org, but she changed one word.
Get Your Shit Together helps you do what it says on the tin. After her husband died in a 2009 bike accident, Chanel Reynolds created the site as a step-by-step toolkit to help keep track of important life documents and tasks. Four days after its launch, the New York Times got in on the action. [more inside]
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm
How exactly did England get that name, anyway?
casualties of the info-war
The man who got rid of corsets.
Paul Poiret was known as the King of Fashion who broke the rules.
The cult of celebrity around the couturiers was more or less his invention.
“It was my inspiration of artists, in my dressing of theatrical pieces, that I served the public of my day.”
His fashion at the Metropolitan Museum. He died penniless and nearly forgotten.
Elsa Schiaparelli (prev) paid for his funeral. Paul Poiret A Critical approach.
The cult of celebrity around the couturiers was more or less his invention.
“It was my inspiration of artists, in my dressing of theatrical pieces, that I served the public of my day.”
His fashion at the Metropolitan Museum. He died penniless and nearly forgotten.
Elsa Schiaparelli (prev) paid for his funeral. Paul Poiret A Critical approach.
hot sauce + drum stick
Things fit into other things perfectly on thingsfittingperfectlyintothings.tumblr.com.
The Scared is scared
I asked a six year old what my movie should be about, and this is what he told me.
Not so nurturing
Mamá. The sphincter-tightening short film by Andres Muschietti that inspired the movie of the same name, with an introduction by producer Guillermo del Toro.
"No. NO! This way! Come ON!"
Dog [Attempts] to Walk Horse. [slyt]
Wild Bill Cooper
In the early 1970's Bill Cooper headed up an expedition to snowmobile 5000 miles from Minnesota to Moscow. After not completing the trip and returning home Wild Bill turned his talents towards “The Marijuana Air Force”, an endeavor, amongst others, placing him on America’s 10 Most Wanted list of the U.S. Marshals. They never caught him.
Using footage from the '72 expedition that has been stuck away in attics and basements filmmaker Mike Scholtz made Wild Bill's Run. The strange but true story of a snowmobiling outlaw.
And you can watch it for free tomorrow, 7pm EST, on Outside magazine's website.
Twelve Mintue Chunks Of White Hot Knowledge!
John And Hank Green (previously), amusing youtube teachers of world history and biology have finished the first cycle of their educational series Crash Course (previously) and have wrapped up mini lessons on Literature and Ecology. Now they've just started two brand new series on U.S History and Chemistry (to come). Outtakes.
Famous foods of Japan by prefecture
So, I’ve been doing my research. Because there are so many prefectures and so many famous foods, I’m going to be breaking this article up into two parts. One for North, East, and Central prefectures of Japan, and one for West and South prefectures of Japan. At the end of the second part, we’ll also include a printout that has a map with numbers on all the prefectures corresponding to a list down below it. That way you can print this out, take it with you, and go on a rompy food excursion in Japan.
When Walt Met Peter Met Abe Met Andy Met Philip: "The Perfect American"
"Disney goes to Anaheim late at night to help repair the animatronic Disneyland Lincoln, which has been malfunctioning and attacking members of the audience. Disney gets in an argument with the robot about blacks, and Lincoln goes crazy again and whacks Walt...." (source). Starting today at 2 PM Eastern time (just under 3 hours from now) and for the next 90 days, medici.tv will stream, free of charge, Teatro Real's January 22 premiere performance of the new Philip Glass opera The Perfect American. It's based on the novel of the same name by Peter Stephan Jungk, which the NY Times called "a surreal, meditative, episodic account of the last days of Walt Disney." Four minute preview video. ENO rehearsal trailer. (Happy belated 76th, Mr. Glass.) [more inside]
Making time safe for historians
Who needs machine readable dates? As far as I can see there are two target audiences for this operation. The first is obviously social applications that have to work with dates, and where it can be useful to compare dates of two different events. An app must be able to see if two events fall on the same day and warn you if they do. However, as a target audience social applications are immediately followed by historians (or historical, chronological applications). After all, historians are (dare I say it?) historically the most prolific users of dates, until they were upstaged by social applications. [more inside]
"Our preferred policy solution is to abolish patents entirely"
"The historical and international evidence suggests that while weak patent systems may mildly increase innovation with limited side effects, strong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side effects." "innovations leading to the creation of a new industry .. is seldom, if ever, born out of patent protection and is instead the fruit of a competitive environment." — Boldrin and Levine. The Case Against Patents. J. Economic Perspectives. (huffpo)
The Animation of Mikey Please
The Eagleman Stag is an award-winning stop motion animation film directed by Mikey Please with a striking visual aesthetic. The website for the film offers a "How It Was Made" video that is, in itself, highly engaging, but comes with a warning: "BEFORE WATCHING THIS, WATCH THIS. THEN ASK YOURSELF IF YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW." If that link puts you off "making of" media, then perhaps you can watch more of Please's work: Spectacular View, Zombiegotchi, Seven Legs, Animation Tag Attack EP-10, title sequence for The Rabbit Lover, Picasso Pictures Christmas Card, etc.
Tunisia in Revolt
Shokri Belaid, leader of the Popular Front coalition, has been shot dead outside of his home in Tunis sending thousands of protesters in the streets. [more inside]
Don't Be Shellfish, Share the music!
Shrimp Glockenspiel - Prawn Xylophone SLYT. That is all.
Nairobi's mod scene radically corrects Rock Star's lack of creativity
A contributor to the Gameological Society visits his local video game store in Nairobi to demonstrate the sort of games he found there, finding gems like "Guitar Hero: Beatles and Friends" (actually, mostly Bahasa pop music), "Robocop" (with extra rainbow), and what might just be the ne plus ultra of video game mods: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: Kirk Douglas.
Is Everything About Italy Felliniesque?
There Is No Princess, Only Zuul!
Super Mario Busters. It's an animated mashup bringing the worlds of Super Mario Bros. and Ghostbusters together in a clever, delightful way. [SLYT] [more inside]
The Bookstore Strikes Back
Ann Patchett opened a new independent bookstore in Nashville, despite being told that books are dead.
Wikipedia page view analysis 2012
"The best way to reach the highest levels of Wikipedia popularity are to be a celebrity who (a) dies, or (b) plays the Super Bowl halftime show". Examining the popularity of Wikipedia articles: catalysts, trends, and applications. See also the annotated Top 25 Report. Previously: Wikipedia in 2012.
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