March 3, 2013
The gun of the fearful
The AR-15 is more than a gun. It's a gadget. It's an addiction and the future of firearms manufactures. It's the most wanted gun in America and more than anything it is a symbol of the cycle of fear that drives assault weapon sales.
“The tea was really bitter”
He picked up mad rhymes at the Penington School
If you're a fan of Star Trek, you likely already know of The AV Club's reviews, currently focusing on Deep Space Nine. But perhaps you have missed, throughout the comment threads for each review, the poetic stylings of Rappin_Jake_Sisko. (Last link is an anthology, with annotations.) [more inside]
Hanging Ourselves By Our Bootstraps
A well-executed and terrifying visual representation of exactly how stratified wealth is in America. It's far worse than you could have imagined. [SLYT]
Detailed Floor Plan Drawings of Popular TV and Film Homes
For your enjoyment: detailed floor plan drawings of popular TV and film homes.
Pepto Bismuth
We'll put in on the tin in post
Nothing but Microsoft Paint (no tablets, no touch ups).
Want to see the Stay Puft marshmallow man losing a game of mousetrap with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (who happens to be on fire) while Face from The A Team arrives on a pigeon dressed in leopard print Y-fronts and wedding veil, all this is taking place on the moon? Jim'll Paint It.
Kitchen Junkets and Contra Dance
Kitchen Junkets in New England homes were a wintertime venue for live music and contra dance - a social dance form that's never really faded from the region's popular culture. Often credited with keeping the form alive, scholar/musician Ralph Page celebrated the kitchen junket and other contra traditions from 1949-1984 in his hand-printed magazine Northern Junket, available indexed and fully digitized via the University of New Hampshire. [more inside]
Make someone's day with your own pony mashup
Easily the best pony related music video making site this year!
More dancing ponies! This one is my favorite[more inside]
Please don't panic...OK, panic.
Nothing to see here, but could you _all_ change your passwords? Yup, if you're using Evernote you should really reset your password. Says who? Why, Evernote itself. It looks like they've had a tiny security issue...They say that there is "no evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost and [...] no evidence that any payment information [..] was accessed". But just to be on the safe side...50 millions users should reset their passwords.
Gay Mormon Records Reactions To His Coming Out
This Gay Mormon Spent 1 Year Recording His Friends Reacting To Him Coming Out. (SLYT). He's rather chipper, considering his church says he can't get married or have sex...
What if Skynet just wanted to piss us off?
Keep Calm and Understand the Process. The advent of algorithm-driven sales and product-on-demand delivery systems (think Cafepress, for one) can have some unexpected results when the output is not checked carefully enough. [more inside]
Gold plating the cuckoo clock
BBC: Some 70% of Swiss voters appear to have supported plans to give shareholders a veto on compensation and ban big payouts for new and departing managers, projected referendum results suggest. One of the organisers of the referendum, Brigitte Moser Harder, told the BBC she thought the Swiss people agreed with the proposals because the gap between rich and poor had become wider. "From the beginning, 2006, we had the support of the people of Switzerland because you know not everybody in Switzerland is rich." [more inside]
Email transparency at Stripe
The credit card processor Stripe has an interesting policy of email transparency within the company (previously).
The new normal in Baghdad
"What is more worrying is that politicians themselves are adapting to the situation rather than trying to change it. The new regime seems to have slipped in to the shoes of the former. Officials squat in the opulent residences of their predecessors, whose era they claimed they were ending. Almost no infrastructure has been built in Baghdad over the past 10 years, except the local government headquarters, the road to the airport and a few flyovers. Traffic police shelters at crossroads are stamped “gift from the town hall”, recalling the “donations” (makarim) of Saddam: a personalised substitute for what should be provided anonymously by the state. Public service salaries remain insufficient, driving employees to find supplementary sources of income, legal or not. High-level corruption is tolerated, documented and used as leverage when necessary. Pervasive social climbing, nepotism and incompetence are poisoning institutions." -- Almost ten years after the start of the War on Iraq, Le Monde Diplomatique looks at what has really changed.
We are stardust...lightly toasted in a heavy bottomed pan
You got your cuisine in my astrophysics; no, you got your astrophysics in my cuisine: Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews Anthony Bourdain. (SYTL)
No one will feed you as well as somebody who loves you
Alton Brown talks to Google about bow ties, trying to find recipes on Google vs. on the Food Network website, and trying to impress his daughter by blowing things up. (SLYT)
Rise of the Afropolitan
The stereotypes about Africa/Africans are too many to list here. They’re mostly negative, myopic depictions that focus on war, famine, abject poverty, disease, and corruption. In other oversimplifications, Africans are written up as model immigrants, overachieving geniuses, or displaced chiefs moonlighting as gas station attendants.
Outside of these caricatures, many Africans are going to work and school, voting in their local elections, and spending way too much time on Facebook. And they’re over the ignorance that has collectively miscast them. In response, a swelling movement of young Africans are launching concerted efforts to wrest the image of Africa from entities and interests that don’t promote a balanced understanding of the continent.
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