February 8, 2013
Thankfully unrelated to the NIN song.
Head Like An Orange is a tumblr dedicated to posting beautiful gifs from various nature documentaries.
Herd Immunity Demo
A series of simulations demonstrating disease spreading through a population and the benefits of herd immunity
New York Biotopes, abstract plants and creatures growing in NYC
New York Biotopes deals with abstract plants and creatures, which change their forms because of insufficient living space and adapt themselves to the surroundings of the metropolis New York City. Set to the music of Man Mantis. More videos from Lena Steinkühler on her Vimeo channel.
"Print and digital can co-exist; we’re trying to level the playing field"
What happens when you’re a crimefighter and your sidekick grows up to be an arrogant, ungrateful douchebag? What on Earth could draw the two of you back together again?.
Insufferable is a new web comic from Mark Waid (writer of Captain America, 52 Kingdom Come and Daredevil among others), creator of Irredeemable, and ex-chief creative officer of Boom Studios) being offered via Thrillbent, a platform he he and others hope will revolutionise digtial comics.
Waid's goal in the long run: to create a collective of new creators and industry veterans who want to aggregate their content and use the digital medium in new and different ways. [more inside]
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
An updated gallery of National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry's last roll of Kodachrome film. [more inside]
Defeats Cabin Fever
8 GIFs of Bill Cosby Dancing. What it says on the tin. Move the furniture and get down!
I WANT TO LIVE! God, sometimes I wish I'd never been born
The Dark Side of the Sun (Wiki) was Brad Pitt's first starring role in a movie. Made in Yugoslavia in 1988, the film was apparently lost until after the Croatian War of Indepedence. When Brad Pitt became famous the film was somehow rediscovered and released, straight to video, in 1997. The story concerns a man who has a rare skin disease that could kill him if he is exposed to light. For much of the movie, Pitt appears in full leather, covering his whole body, including his face. Here's Part 1 of 12, but if you just want to see a very young Brad Pitt, start at Part 6.
OMG SCIENCE!
Henry Reich of Minute Physics shares his favorite science blogs, video channels, and other resources on the web. (Minute Physics previously) [more inside]
The sunsets were purple and red and yellow...
Not little fluffy clouds in Arizona, but little squishy, um...orbs. In the desert near Tuscon, thousands of tiny purple spheres have appeared, isolated from the rest of the terrain. The mysterious objects, described as being like "gooey marbles that ooze out a water substance when squished," have yet to be identified.
Slinky Skull
Li Hongbo's flexible paper sculptures are incredible. Li Hongbo makes the sculptures by manually gluing sheet upon sheet of paper together to make 3D objects which bend and flex in mindbending ways. Portfolio and bio (slightly NSFW), and more pictures and videos of the sculptures in action.
"Scholars, however, have long known a very different story"
The Real Cuban Missile Crisis: Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong.
The Moose Cleanse
You are getting very sleepy
Drift into the weekend with Henry Flynt, Zomes, and Spacemen 3. Hell, play all three at the same time.
The Unsettling Beauty of Lethal Viruses
“Viruses have no color as they are smaller than the wavelength of light,” says Jerram, in an email. “So the artworks are created as alternative representations of viruses to the artificially colored imagery we receive through the media.” Jerram and Davidson create sketches, which they then take to the glassblowers, to see whether the intricate structures of the diseases can be replicated in glass, at approximately one million times their original size. RECENTLY
You Will Select A Decision
"In 1987, an anonymous team of computer scientists from the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic wrote a series of children's books based on the popular Choose Your Own Adventure series. The books were hastily translated into English and a small number were exported to America, but the CIA, fearing a possible Soviet mind control scheme, confiscated them all before they could be sold. Now declassified, the books have been lovingly converted to a digital hypertext format and put online for the English-speaking world to enjoy."
Northern Lights
An internal investigation is ongoing
"John, can you explain to me why the sprinkles are empty?"
[SLYT. Trigger warning: cuteness, small child.]
[SLYT. Trigger warning: cuteness, small child.]
Their heart aches for what the eye does not see
"This is what cultured people are like. In order to be cultured and not to stand below the level of your surroundings it is not enough to have read “The Pickwick Papers” and learnt a monologue from “Faust.” …
What is needed is constant work, day and night, constant reading, study, will…. Every hour is precious for it…. Come to us, smash the vodka bottle, lie down and read…. Turgenev, if you like, whom you have not read.
You must drop your vanity, you are not a child … you will soon be thirty.
It is time!
I expect you…. We all expect you."
- Anton Chekhov on the 8 Qualities of Cultured People, in a letter to his older brother Nikolai
the inside of my Trapper Keeper except British actors instead of horses
Behold, terrible drawings of British actors. (Note: the blog was originally called Terrible Drawings of John Finnemore, but there weren't enough pictures of John Finnemore on the internet, and, so, yes.)
Also I Have Dinosaurs!
On a mountain top somewhere in the Andes mountains, a small group of very, very, very old nuns maintains a cozy orphanage. The kids have lost their families, and it may never stop snowing, but there's always a fire in the fireplace and a never-ending supply of snowballs just outside the front door. It's Snowflakes, a comics series in 5 Acts, by James Ashby, Chris Jones and Zach Weiner.
Who By Fire
Get your CanCon on! Buck 65 covers Leonard Cohen in a new video directed and choreographed by Jacob Niedzwiecki. The video for 'Who By Fire', inspired by the motion of a pendulum, just had its world premiere at New York's Lincoln Center as part of the 2013 Dance on Camera Festival.
"Now I know to keep my pants on.”
When Bill Met Shelly Bill Ott will always remember the moment he met Shelley Belgard. It was in spring 1988. He was 12 and sometimes shy. Into music, sports and, suddenly, girls.
Once upon a time ...
Don't go out and sell your U.S. Steel stock
The Land of the Free: How Virtual Fences Will Transform Rural America (originally posted on v-e-n-u-e.com)
Is this the secret US Drone Base in Saudi Arabia?
Noah Shachtman of Wired has published Bing/Nokia satellite maps that shows what appears to be a previously unknown US drone airbase deep in the desert in Saudi Arabia. [more inside]
See if glass breaks. Jump on stuff. See if bullets leave holes.
Are you crazy to follow your dreams?
It’s psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I’ll get a saw.
Calvin and Hobbes in real life.
Fleetwood Mac’s strangely savage “Tusk” was the band’s weirdest hit
AV Club discusses "Fleetwood Mac's weirdest hit" in a feature called Hear This.
“Tusk,” which is featured prominently and often in the première of FX’s The Americans... is a work of strange savagery, overlaid with jungle sounds and a thudding, endlessly repetitive drum riff that drives everything that happens in the song.[more inside]
Bush family data breach exposes GWB's artistic chops
The apparent hack of several e-mail accounts has exposed personal photos and sensitive correspondence from members of the Bush family, including both former U.S. presidents, The Smoking Gun has learned. Among this leak are some of George W.'s self-portraits.
I did not have sexual relations with that solar panel
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has refused to confirm that the reason for his resignation is a compromising photo recently published online. Posting on his personal Facebook page, he states: "I just want everyone to know that my decision not to serve a second term as Energy Secretary has absolutely nothing to do with the allegations... I’m not going to confirm or deny the charges..."
"The cryptanalyst has two cards in her hand, so there's nothing to do"
A card game to teach computer security. [d0x3d!] is the creation of some Naval Postgraduate School computer scientists, designed to help players learn digital security concepts. Playtested with middle school students.
Shattered Glass Animals
Shattered Glass: Animal Sculptures "Using carefully broken shards of colored glass, Polish artist Marta Klonowska assembles translucent animals in life-like proportion and size." Title link contains small collection of eleven images.
The gallery portfolio of the artist contains a more extensive list.
The glass sculptures were originally shown at the European Glass Content exhibition, which took place on the Baltic island of Bornholm in 2011. [more inside]
Political failure modes and the beige dictatorship
Representative democracy is what's happening. Unfortunately, democracy is broken. There's a hidden failure mode, we've landed in it, and we probably won't be able to vote ourselves out of it. (via cstross)
I got a floating M4 stickin' out of my head
Better known as Miracle of Sound, Gavin Dunne of The Escapist composes and performs songs dedicated to popular video games and movies. [more inside]
Peddling the jump-shoot-dodge cycle.
Flash Friday: Intrusion is a 2008 run'n'gun side-scrolling flash game by Russian developer Aleksey Abramenko. Try the demo of Intrusion 2, his 2012 follow-up, finally out after three years of development.
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