March 5, 2014
Necessary Fictophones
Since the taxonomical work of Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs* in the early twentieth century, organologists have classified musical instruments into four major categories, each distinguished by its primary sound-producing mechanism: idiophones (vibrating body), membranophones (vibrating membrane), chordophones (vibrating strings) and aerophones (vibrating air columns). Beyond these basic divisions, scholars have proposed such logically consistent additions as electrophones (for electronic instruments) and corpophones (for the human body as a source of sound). We propose a seventh category: fictophones, for imaginary musical instruments. Existing as diagrams, drawings or written descriptions, these devices never produce a sound. Yet they are no less a part of musical culture for that. Indeed, fictophones represent an essential if hitherto unrecognized domain of musical thought and activity, and it is in order to catalog these conceptual artifacts that we have established the first institution of its kind: The Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments.
Worst case Ontario it's on Netflix
The new Trailer Park Boys seasons 8 and 9 will debut be on Netflix (all round, internationally). In addition, all previous seasons, the new Trailer Parks Boys 3: Don't Legalize It film (in time), and Swearnet the Movie will be available Netflix wide. Reaction to the announcement has been mixed. Particularly from those who have paid for Swearnet.com subscriptions. Mike Smith (Bubbles) responds.
Sinking $35K into the Ultimate Kitteh Playhouse
Judgmental maps
Judgmental maps of cities/areas including Los Angeles (featuring “botoxed cougars in luxury condos”), Northern Virginia (including “closeted Hispanic husbands”), Richmond, VA (where one finds the “scary Walmart”), Memphis (where there are “people proud, yet ashamed, to be from Memphis"), Chattanooga (see “rich white people & gnomes”), Nashville (one part is “gentrified to a great level of inconvenience”), Phoenix, San Antonio, and “Canada, prolly.”
Have you ever been to earth?
This guy is annoyed with his burrito. [SLMedium]
My mental popcorn kernel of depression
Top 20 Bubble Butts Throughout Art History
Top 20 Bubble Butts From The Toast
Vizify: We've been acquired by Yahoo!
Vizify, the service which turns social data into pretty pictures, have been acquired by Yahoo. According to their announcement, "we just couldn’t say no to the opportunity to bring our vision to the hundreds of millions of people who use Yahoo every day." Vizify, operating out of Portland, was 2 years and 9 months old. [more inside]
Just when you think you have everything figured out...
"The world has a sick sense of humor and throws you for a loop." (via Permatemp Corporation.) [more inside]
Play along and laugh it up! :D
Only the third person to play the perfect 19 hole...ever!
Triple Crwn Winners-3 Perfet games pitched-23 300 games bowled-50k Rick Baird notched 18 straight hole-in-one shots to record a perfect putt-putt score. In more than 50 years of sanctioned competition, it was just the third time that anyone had achieved the feat.
Putt-putt is different from miniature golf. It’s played only on official courses; there are no pirate ships, no windmills, and no holes that cannot be conquered with one stroke — if you execute the perfect shot. On that day in 2011, Baird executed the perfect shot 18 times in a row [more inside]
Forgive me for being longwinded, but I was speaking from the heart.
As Gawker has done for a couple years now, they sent letters to all the U.S. death row inmates who have execution dates in the upcoming year. Texas inmate Ray Jasper, who is set to be executed later this month, responded with an incredible letter on his thoughts about the US justice system, race, Christianity, and society as a whole.
"Unless you've got POWER!"
A Trail of Broken Glass
Stephen Glass was a well-known journalist at The New Republic who was exposed for multiple instances of fabricating stories and lying to cover up the details (previously here and here), as well as burning a few bridges in his attempt to explain his actions. A movie was made about this, and he wrote a book. Since Glass’s fall, he has gone to law school and has been practicing as a paralegal at a Los Angeles law firm with the hopes of becoming a lawyer. He has passed the bar exams in New York and California. However, there is a required ethics review in both states before one is allowed to practice. He was already denied (informally) a license in New York, and a final decision in California was appealed to the California Supreme court, who ruled last month conclusively that Glass would not be allowed to practice law in California. Here is the 33-page ruling. [more inside]
When All of the Flashcard Manufacturers Declared Bankruptcy
The College Board announced today that the SAT will be undergoing major changes. The announced changes include the removal of the penalty for incorrect guesses, the essay section becoming optional, and a revision of the vocabulary section. [more inside]
If you plan on taking a trip to Jupiter, this is not the map to use.
If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel is a tediously accurate model of the Solar System that Josh Worth made to explain to his daughter just how difficult it is to go on holiday to Mars.
Stone Towns of the Swahili Coast
The Swahili Coast and its culture in the medieval period (roughly the tenth to fifteenth centuries) is relatively little studied, compared with other cultures of its size and influence, though it represents a key node in the development of global trade before the European Age of Discovery. Its history is known in broad strokes, but less is known about how the medieval Swahili lived and how they incorporated influences—from religion to architecture—from across the Indian Ocean world. Fleisher and his codirector, Stephanie Wynne-Jones of the University of York, looked for a site that would allow them to examine such questions in detail. “We had an inkling Songo Mnara would be that site,” he says, “but it has completely exceeded our expectations. --
"There's justice, then there's street justice."
Street kids take justice into their own hands when "Bad Elmo" returns to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. [more inside]
"'You aren't black on the inside' - childhood friends"
I, Too, Am Harvard. A photo campaign highlighting the faces and voices of black students at Harvard College. 63 students participated, sharing their experiences with ignorance and racism. "Our voices often go unheard on this campus, our experiences are devalued, our presence is questioned-- this project is our way of speaking back, of claiming this campus, of standing up to say: We are here. This place is ours. We, TOO, are Harvard." [more inside]
Awesome superpower comes with terrible price; also, vice versa
At the finish of every race, she staggers and crumples. Kayla Montgomery is a a high school track star in North Carolina. Kayla Montgomery has early-onset multiple sclerosis. The two are apparently related.
Because M.S. blocks nerve signals from Montgomery’s legs to her brain, particularly as her body temperature increases, she can move at steady speeds that cause other runners pain she cannot sense, creating the peculiar circumstance in which the symptoms of a disease might confer an athletic advantage.
Trigger warnings needed in classroom?
Literature courses often examine works with grotesque, disturbing and gruesome imagery within their narratives. For instance ... “Mrs. Dalloway” paints a disturbing narrative that examines the suicidal inclinations and post-traumatic experiences of an English war veteran.
By creating trigger warnings for their students, professors can help to create a safe space for their students
The "trigger warning" has spread from blogs to college classes. Can it be stopped?
The "trigger warning" has spread from blogs to college classes. Can it be stopped?
Sketchbooks del Toro
Late in 2013, Guillermo del Toro released a voluminous book, entitled Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions. As he explains in the video, the 256-page hardcover is a selection from his notebooks, where the director developed many of the monstrosities we’ve seen on screen. The Guardian notes that there’s something of da Vinci’s notebooks in del Toro’s records: the small, neat script, mixed in with the wonderfully detailed sketches, combine to give the impression of del Toro doing his best to record the torrent of his imagination before the thoughts disappear. In this post, we include a number of these images.Previously [more inside]
"To me, looping is a fundamental aid to creativity"
Musician Matthew Herbert presents a half hour program for BBC Radio 4 on The Art of the Loop. (Herbert's personal contract for the creation of music.) [more inside]
Outsourcing the surveillance state
'When it comes to it, news is just some things that have happened'
Newspapers: still the most important medium for understanding the world
Adam Curtis: “We don't read newspapers because the journalism is so boring” [more inside]
Adam Curtis: “We don't read newspapers because the journalism is so boring” [more inside]
Warfarin Phased Out by Next Generation Agents?
Warfarin, for decades the standard of care for stroke prevention in patient with atrial fibrillation, has met its match! Novel oral anticoagulants are the new standard of care, with a favorable efficacy:safety profile compared with warfarin. And what’s more, they don’t require regular monitoring like warfarin. [more inside]
Does love compute?
In 1966, I started one of the world’s first computer dating services. One problem: I had no computer.
Punished by Reward
Neurobiologist Stephan Guyenet provides two video introductions to his intriguing hypothesis about the cause of obesity: frequently eating highly palatable processed foods (foods with high "reward" effect in the brain) alters the hypothalamus, raising the body's homeostatic set point. [more inside]
I never got recognition in my life
Joe Bell is 95 years old, and a World War II veteran. He wears his uniform to the senior center on Veterans Day or to meet with other vets. This past weekend, he put on his uniform to cheer on runners in a race that benefits the foundation for fallen Army Ranger Pat Tillman. His neighbor, Julia Prodis Sulek, a reporter for the Mercury News, captured what happened next. [more inside]
We Can See Clearly Now: ISS Window Observational Research Facility
"Like a human who just went through laser vision correction, the International Space Station (ISS) recently got a clearer view of our world. That improved view is opening up new vistas for students in American classrooms." A gorgeous photo of British Columbia's snow-capped mountains was the first view delivered via the Window Observational Research Facility at the U.S. Laboratory Science Window on the International Space Station. This video explanation of the window (part 2) is hosted by three-time shuttle veteran Mario Runco.
Ai Wei Whoops!
Ai WeiWei, the Chinese contemporary artist and cultural critic, finds that imitation is the greatest form of flattery when Maximo Caminero smashes one of his installations (The art world is not impressed). Now, you too can follow in these illustrious footsteps with Ai Wei Whoops!
Warfare ... justified?
La Santa Cecilia's "El Hielo"
If Inuit have 100 words for snow, linguists must have many for this idea
Linguistic relativity is the idea that the language people use affects or even limits the way that they can think. This idea was developed in the early 20th century, and continues to be a matter of disagreement among linguists and cognitive scientists. The Cambridge and Oxford university presses are even publishing dueling upcoming books on the subject, The Bilingual Mind, which examines linguistic relativity in the context of people who speak more than one language, and The Language Hoax flatly denies that it exists.
If you go down to the Wharf today, you're in for a big surprise...
If you have been one of the thousands of tourists drawn in every day to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, you may have been walking down past Tarantino's restaurant, taking in the tourist-trap sights, when one of the bushes on the sidewalk -- come to think of it, the only bush on the sidewalk -- suddenly jumps at you while growling. Congratulations; you are the most recent wharf-goer to fall victim to The World Famous Bushman. [more inside]
"I am NOT a merry man!"
"I wasn't drawn to Worf at first... it was just another job." A quarter century after Star Trek Next Generation closed shop, what remains? Worf, that is what. Appearing for seven seasons in Next Gen, and another four in Deep Space Nine, Michael Dorn's Worf appeared in more Star Trek episodes than any other character. Infinitely quotable , a fine singer, and handy with romantic advice, Worf was a complete badass with a bat'leth. Except when he got his ass kicked. There are rumors of a Captain Worf Star Trek show--but those rumors all seem to be started by Michael Dorn.
Even though everyone thought he was wrong, his fame endures.
« Previous day | Next day »