February 28, 2014
The Box
Twilight in the Box. "The suicide statistics, the squalor and the recidivism haven’t ended solitary confinement. Maybe the brain studies will." [Via]
What it is like to grow up in Hezbollah culture
A tale of a young woman in Lebanon, related in a manner that should resonate with many Americans. "This story is an analogy to what the Shia, most of whom belong to Hezbollah culture, are like in Lebanon. I tell it because it presents things in familiar terms to many Western readers. When people ask me what it was like, to grow up in the lands where Hezbollah structured the predominant culture, I hesitate to answer, because I want them to understand."
there's no reason to have a boat on a basketball court
Inspired by video games such as NBA 2K14, SBNation's sports blogger Jon Bois decided to create a sports video game of his very own. It went terribly.
"Sex workers have the same human rights as other workers"
A sex worker has been awarded $25,000 as compensation for sexual harassment from her manager. [more inside]
"I worked VERY hard on it." - steve brule
After two long years, season three of Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule returns to Adult Swim with a look at Planes. A spin-off of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, it stars John C. Reilly as Dr. Steve Brule. Every week, Dr. Steve Brule "checks stuff out" like Relationships ("If your body's lonely it's gonna get sick, probably!"), Food ("Try going a day without it. You'll miss it, Charlie!"), Space ("One small mankind, I'm gonna leap the hell out of this rocket!"), and Animals ("Just turn around and look, you dingus. Your best friends are animal.") All 13 episodes and two special presentations are available online. [more inside]
"Arguably the Coolest High School Chorus in the World!"
Chapel Hill's The Chorus Project sings songs by artists as diverse as R.E.M, The Kinks, Adele, David Byrne, St. Vincent, and Justin Timberlake. Loosely inspired by the 70’s Langley Schools Music Project, Glee and Polyphonic Spree, the chorus is made up of singers from different schools and diverse backgrounds.
Subscribe to their YouTube channel to get their latest releases, and to enjoy the songs they've already done. [more inside]
You are a little high..and bored with the same old munchies (slyt)
you will so want to make some up...like about a dozen..or two! Chili Relleno simply means ‘stuffed chilies’ that form a part of the Mexican cuisine. This dish traces its origins to the city of Puebla and consists of roasted poblano pepper, a mild pepper variety named after the city it comes from. Sometimes instead of poblano pepper, hatch green chile, Anaheim, pasilla or even jalapeño chili peppers are used. Commonly, queso Chihuahua or queso Oaxaca cheese is used for the stuffing. Generally, masa flour or egg whites with a pinch of salt is used as the batter for the chili relleno dish.
[more inside]
The Cold War Revives, Heats-Up
Dozens of armed men in Russian-marked military uniforms occupied an airport in the capital of Ukraine's strategic Crimea region early Friday, Obama warns Russia against any military intervention in Ukraine.
But what is so dangerous about Crimea, and what is 'The Budapest Memorandum?'
“Cost-wise, it’s expensive.”
Indeed, heated sidewalks are an uncommon luxury.
“So many things have been done — the playrooms, the gyms, the sky lounges, the media rooms. But very few developers have looked at the experience entering the property.”
Tea and Sympathy
If you dare, here is a live feed of William Corgan's 8 hour long synthesizer improvisation about Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.
He already threw out a reporter trying to cover it.
He already threw out a reporter trying to cover it.
¶¶˄↗][#
It's nice to have an old friend for dinner.
Tonight at 10/9c! The critically-acclaimed, criminally-underviewed NBC thriller Hannibal returns for a second season. There will no doubt be copious live-tweeting (not least from the showrunner himself) and much flailing from the intelligent, dedicated, and hilarious fanbase. [more inside]
Off Brand Portlandia
World of Tomorrow
Live, from Washington, D.C., out of 2500 submissions, it's the 16 official selections of the first ever 2014 White House Student Film Festival [more inside]
Russian ice mountains, the original roller coasters
The first roller coaster was patented in the US almost 130 years ago, but what came before the patent? Russian ice slides from the late 1600s. As discussed in The Incredible Scream Machine: A History of the Roller Coaster (Google books preview), the ice slides, or Flying Mountains, started as basic frozen ramps one would ride on a block of ice, but as soon as royalty became interested, the designs improved, as discussed and depicted in this PDF. Royalty moved some of these tracks indoors, replacing ice with waxed or soaped planks. Though some sources credit an unnamed French traveler for furthering this general design towards something more akin to the modern roller coaster, but The Incredible Scream Machine gives that credit to Katalnaya Gorka (Sliding Hill) at Oranienbaum. If nothing else, the Russian origin of ice mountains lives on through the term for "roller coaster" in a number of languages translating to Russian mountain (though in Russian, it's American mountain).
We are flowers. We just grow.
Mr. B Talks about Ballet:
Only with these people now, on stage, does it exist. It is not sad at all. It is wonderful, it is now. It is alive. It is like a butterfly. I always say butterflies of yesterday don't exist.[1965 Time magazine Google Books warning. You can zoom in to read using the buttons, and note that the pictures start 4 pages earlier.]
Nintendo is shutting down the Nintendo Wii and NDS Wifi Connections
On May 20, Nintendo is shutting down Nintendo Wifi Connection that was used for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii [Nintendo WiiU/3DS will be unaffected]. Perhaps the most upset groups are the devoted players of a hacked Super Smash Brothers Brawl, called Project M. This community has devoted time and effort into the 6 year old game, and will have no replacement until the sequel arrives this fall. [more inside]
For Egypt's Startups, Unstable Government Is the Least of Their Worries
Egyptian startup culture vs. Silicon Valley: how to lock down bugfixes & VC funding in midst of military takeover? Via
You once tried to make a hot air balloon out of bedsheets.
St. Vincent Has Crafted a Magnificent Mythology on Her Own Terms: The Village Voice interviews Annie Clark, who's touring for her latest album. Videos from the album thus far: Digital Witness and Birth in Reverse.
Pizzanomics
You Should Always Get the Bigger Pizza (SL NPR blog post w/interactive graph)
Democracy, Kleptocracy or Oligarchy?
What’s gone wrong with Democracy? It was the most successful political idea of the 20th century. Why has it run into trouble, and what can be done to revive it? Excellent Essay of the Economist.
Dementiavillage
De Hogeweyk is a self-contained dementia-focused living centre, complete with restaurants, cafes, a supermarket, gardens, a pedestrian boulevard, and much more.
Pop has eaten itself and has a sugar high
Give me Choco! (SLYT) is the new single/video from Babymetal. Babymetal is what you get when a J-Pop Idol group goes full Death Metal. As the wikipedia article drily remarks, "none of the three members knew what metal music was before the inception of the band." Ear-meltingly metal and eye-meltingly kawaii, in a disturbingly perkygoth way, you can find more here, here, and here. [more inside]
I WANT YOU, NA NA
Ali Graham's Beyonce VS Zombies
Keys to the Domain
Meet the people who hold the master keys to the internet. Hear all about their quirky sci-fi get together.
The Anatomy of the Deep State
"My analysis . . . is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day." Former longtime Republican Congressional aide Mike Lofgren on the illusion of US political "paralysis", the limits of the visible government, and the anatomy of the deep state. [more inside]
The Cannibal and the Badger
The Amazing True Story Of Victor, The Wrestling Bear
"I mean, my God," Chet Coppock said. "We're 35 years removed from this, and I still have people who when I go to Indianapolis will see me and go, 'You know, I still remember the night you wrestled Victor the Bear.'"
The average lifespan of a Saul Bass logo is 35 years
"The fals fox came vpon a day, And with our gese he made affray."
“The Fox” tells the simple story of a fox who attacks a farmer’s birds. In most versions, he is spotted by the farmer’s wife and chased away by the farmer himself, but gets away with a duck or a goose. Although it often sounds thoroughly modern, it is in fact one of the oldest folksongs we have in English. The earliest texts are in Middle English and come from the 15th century.Folklife Today, a blog from the Library of Congress, provides a short history of this well-loved song. [more inside]
Sing, kitty, sing.
"I want to go back to the bookshop"
Sophia McDougall: "I don’t want to be a rare successful female writer; I just want to be a successful writer."
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