February 20, 2013
Kevin Ayers 16 August 1944 – 18 February 2013
The Guardian reports the death of Kevin Ayers, founding member of Soft Machine and important figure in the Canterbury scene which included bands like Soft Machine, Gong and Caravan. [more inside]
Chilled beats
European SF classic films
Classic European science-fiction movies (1916-1961) you probably haven’t seen – but you should according to io9.
Pork Chops and Karate Chops
Numerous artists come together to animate an Shane Koyczan's fantastic performance of his anti-bullying poem, To This Day. More info at To This Day Project.
Paths of Hate
Paths of Hate is a highly stylized Polish CGI animated short movie which to an extent mimics traditional cel animation, but goes far beyond what's practically possible with traditional techniques. It also has some excellent, high-intensity aerial combat. Possibly NSFW for some light blood and gore.
This is Who They Are
"Cloud doesn't cry. CLOUD SCREAMS."
I Wanna Be The Guy is a game so hard it borders on is outright masochism – hilarious, frustrating, glitchy masochism. One brave man, known only as Cloud8745, recorded himself playing the entire game, and documented his descent from frustration into incoherent gibbering madness. To get a feel for IWBTG, you may wish to start at the notorious Ghosts & Goblins section, which is particularly difficult, or, if you'd like a taste of its depraved sense of humor, this is among the game's funniest rooms. (The punchline comes two minutes later, but you can only truly appreciate it by watching Cloud struggle through it over and over again – generally, IWBTG gets funnier the longer you watch it be played.) If you'd like to watch the whole thing, there's [more inside]
But food is so delicious :(
How do I stop eating food? Or really, how do I replace food with a single nutritionally-complete thing, a perennial AskMeFi favorite, seems to have been answered. [more inside]
Truck-surfing raven
While it's well known that dolphins will surf in the bow waves of ships, at least one wild raven has learned to 'surf' on the pressure wave in front of trucks (second video). [more inside]
OKBabyCupid
Come into my igloo: online dating as eight year old. Virtual worlds like Fantage are fun, innocent, bright-colored versions of the massively-multiplayer online games that teenagers and adults play. They also unintentionally function as online dating sites for the elementary and middle school set. [more inside]
Please wait, loading cats
Bring in the cats [autoplaying music]
A literary character with the actual power to kill
How To Write Drone Fiction: "One can easily and self-righteously claim the merits of writing non-fiction about drones by asserting a primacy of fact over “false fiction”. The problem is that one does not write non-fiction about drones." [more inside]
In fact-based films, how much fiction is OK?
With the "true story" films Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty having been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, discussion has risen about storytelling accuracy: "Does the audience deserve the truth, the whole truth and nothing but? Surely not, but just how much fiction is OK?"
Will Redshirts by (Mefi's Own) John Scalzi have to be rewritten?
Bayesian analysis shows redshirts are not most likely to die on Star Trek:TOS. Although Enterprise crew members in redshirts suffer many more casualties than crew members in other uniforms, they suffer fewer casualties than crew members in gold uniforms when the entire population size is considered. Only 10% of the entire redshirt population was lost during the three year run of Star Trek. This is less than the 13.4% of goldshirts, but more than the 5.1% of blueshirts. What is truly hazardous is not wearing a redshirt, but being a member of the security department. The red-shirted members of security were only 20.9% of the entire crew, but there is a 61.9% chance that the next casualty is in a redshirt and 64.5% chance this red-shirted victim is a member of the security department. The remaining redshirts, operations and engineering make up the largest single population, but only have an 8.6% chance of being a casualty.
"There is a build-up of some kind of tension or excitation..."
"This is the Amazon as one imagines it as a child"
"Hi, my name is Paul Rosolie. I'm a naturalist based out of southern Peru and today I'm headed into the jungle to show you a place that very few people have gotten to see. I'm in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, this is the far western Amazon and some of the deepest jungle on earth."
"Never trust a man in a caftan."
'I Was Rob Lowe's Snow White': The Untold Story of Oscar's Nightmare Opening "Once upon a time -- March 29, 1989, to be exact -- a 22-year-old aspiring actress named Eileen Bowman thought that all her dreams were about to come true. She was very wrong."
(the 61st Annual Academy Awards previously on MetaFilter)
You may now evacuate in your pants
On the morning of Saturday, February 20, 1971, Wayland S. Eberhardt, a civilian teletype operator, was going about his routine duties at the National Emergency Warning Center at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, when he made a minor error in mounting a tape. What happened next became the Great EBS Scare of 1971.
"I'm absolutely stunned that this got passed the editors at Buzzfeed."
Speak "friend" and enter.
Explaining the languages of Middle-Earth. Ever wonder how Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings writers developed lines of dialogue for the elves or dwarves when they weren't quoting directly from Tolkien? They asked David Salo, a linguist who specializes in Sindarin and the other languages of Middle Earth. [more inside]
Full Stop
"We wait for the economy to improve, DOMA to go away, the passage of UAFA, anything to finally allow us to live peacefully in the US near our family. We wait for our time to join those who are fighting for our families." The DOMA Project and why LGBT and HIV Equality Is at the Heart of Immigration Reform [more inside]
The Everyday Sexism Project
The Everyday Sexism Project collects user-submitted reports from women to document their day-to-day experiences with normalized sexism, including sexual harassment and job discrimination. Entries can be submitted at the site, in an email to founder Laura Bates or to their twitter account. [more inside]
Drop in For a Bounce
A pub can be the lifeblood of a neighborhood, a place of safety and comfort. But sometimes, you find yourself in a publess zone; sometimes you need one right here, right now.
Sometimes you need an inflatable pub. [more inside]
Atari VCS (2600) Demo 2012
Atari VCS Demo 2012 - Liquid Candy by Noice [slyt] VCS or 2600? Ah, who cares about nomenclature, just enjoy. If anyone knows how the heck this is done on a VCS, please comment.
We are GARGOYLES!
Google shows off Glass, their "augmented reality head-mounted display" with a video demonstrating several of its capabilities. And now, you can get one too, if you win their contest describing what you'd do with it. You'll also need $1500 and to pick it up in person in New York or California.
The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food
Norwegian Wood
“Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood — and the Soul of Wood-Burning” This best selling book by Lars Mytting highlights a passion for firewood and inspired a TV program in Norway about cutting, stacking and burning firewood. The TV program, on the topic of firewood, consisted mostly of people in parkas chatting and chopping in the woods and then eight hours of a fire burning in a fireplace. Yet no sooner had it begun, on prime time on Friday night, than the angry responses came pouring in. “We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking in the program,” said [Mr.] Mytting .... “Fifty percent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down."
The Weyland-Yutani Archives
From The Weyland-Yutani Archives:
During Alien's pre-production, Ridley Scott drew up a story board presentation of Alien for 20th Century Fox. These storyboards are known as 'Ridleygrams'. This story board presentation contains scenes and FX shots that were later re-written or dropped due to budgetary reasons.[more inside]
Not allowed: Let's get married, by the Proclaimers. Allowed: Death March
Susan Calman describes some of the legal restrictions of "civil partnerships", why she should never be allowed to get married, and why she loves her wife. A 30 minute podcast from BBC Radio 4.
Why have the white British left London?
"With a time-lapse camera, it would appear that London is pulsing as generations and ethnic groups move up and move out." The BBC reports that something quite remarkable happened in London in the first decade of the new millennium. The number of white British people in the capital fell by 620,000 - equivalent to the entire population of Glasgow moving out. [more inside]
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