March 6, 2012
Invisible Children
Kony 2012... The "Invisible Children" movement, a primarily university student effort in opposition to Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army's kidnapping of children, has produced this video to make 2012 the year that marks the end of his utilization of children to maintain his power. This is a moving 27 minute film.
Welcome to my nightmare / I hope you like it
The YouTube channel of user zjchgf contains many videos of a person wearing eerily realistic human masks. Whether marriage is on your mind, or you'd rather simply have a snack, it is important to know how to make masks that affix to your face.
Bright lights, big galaxy.
Holder Explains Some Of It For You
... it was notable for the nation’s top law enforcement official to declare that it is constitutional for the government to kill citizens without any judicial review under certain circumstances. ... “Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces,” Mr. Holder said. “This is simply not accurate. ‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process’ are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.” [more inside]
Pay taxes. Kill Nazis. Keep Democracy on the March.
Donald Duck wants you to pay your taxes to fight Nazism, when he's not dreaming he's a Nazi. Of course, Disney didn't need Donald Duck in every propaganda film.
Background Check for the Digital Age
Employers and colleges are now asking applicants for their Facebook logins and passwords in an attempt to get around privacy settings.
Wagga-wagga-wide-web
Help, I've Cut Myself & I Want to Save a Life
What would happen if you significantly dropped barriers to entry for bone marrow registration? Graham Douglas, a copy writer whose twin brother's life was saved by a bone marrow donation, had a brilliant idea that will do just that. [more inside]
San Diego Penguin Cam
Featuring nearly 300 penguins, San Diego's PenguinCam provides hours of entertainment during March and April.
Rub a greased palm along the bottom
For Super Tuesday, sardonic food writer Michael Procopio presents an excellent Rick-Santorum-themed cake recipe. [more inside]
Dogs sing and play piano in a manner somewhat reminiscent of people
Have you melancholia? Watch therefore, as: Dogs sing and play piano in a manner somewhat reminiscent of people
Error -41: sit by a lake
The most immediately apparent characteristic of James Benning’s film is surely its form: thirteen ten-minute static takes, which (save the leader between shots) comprise the entire visual track of the picture. Far from cursory, this detail accounts for the totality of Benning’s æsthetic. Everything that Benning says in 13 Lakes, he says using this formal language – along with a soundtrack recorded on-site, thought not necessarily concurrently with the image. Moreover, Benning, as has been noted, repeats the same basic framing in each of the thirteen segments, presenting the horizon-line in centre of the frame, dividing lake and sky into approximately equivalent fields. James Benning’s Art of Landscape: Ontological, Pedagogical, Sacrilegious, by Michael J. Anderson for Senses of Cinema (via; see also: 13 Lakes Q&A at LA Film Forum) [more inside]
Iron Pyrite Ears
Articles last month revealed that musician Neil Young and Apple's Steve Jobs discussed offering digital music downloads of 'uncompromised studio quality'. Much of the press and user commentary was particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of uncompressed 24 bit 192kHz downloads. 24/192 featured prominently in my own conversations with Mr. Young's group several months ago.
Unfortunately, there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space.
if I can do it, so can you!
When the aliens attacked, the hyphen was the first casualty.
X-Com: UFO Defense, one of the most beloved strategy games of the 90s, was being remade as a first person shooter. That project has been pushed back to 2013. Instead, a 3D turn-based "reimagining" is in the works from Sid Meier's Firaxis Games - XCOM: Enemy Unknown. [more inside]
Did the Little Ice Age start with a big bang?
Did the Little Ice Age start with a big bang? According to the new study, the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century was triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self- perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean
Strong Female Characters
‘Tough, Cold, Terse, Taciturn and Prone to Not Saying Goodbye When They Hang Up the Phone’ - Is the fabled "Strong Female Characters" a bad thing? Counterpoints from Mur Lafferty and Charlie Jane Anders. Obligatory Kate Beaton link.
on the flexibility of ideals
In October 2010, William Niskanen, the 78-year-old economist and minority shareholder in the Cato Institute, died. The Koch Brothers, the liberal boogeymen who also finance most of the Cato Institute's operations, are now seeking control over Niskanen's shares and have sued the remaining shareholder and founder of the institute, Ed Crane III, in order to cement their control over the institute's future. [more inside]
Unpublished photos of Johnny Cash
Smoking and Health 1962
Fifty years ago, the Royal College of Physicians released a report titled "Smoking and health (1962)", showing the relation between smoking and lung cancer. In 1962, about 70% of men and 40% of women in the UK smoked, and the BBC spoke to a number of them as seen in this archive footage.
LulzSec
Law enforcement agents on two continents swooped in on top members of the infamous computer hacking group LulzSec early this morning [more inside]
The trouble with value-added-modeling
Value-added model scores for teachers: some disturbing scatterplots. Gary Rubinstein finds a lot of noise and very little signal in the VAM scores of 18,000 New York teachers, recently released by the Bloomberg administration under a Freedom of Information Act Request. (VAM previously on MetaFilter.)
There is just one moon and one golden sun
Robert Sherman passed away yesterday at the age of 86. Robert, along with his brother Richard Sherman, was a Disney legend. Together, they wrote the songs of "Mary Poppins", "The Parent Trap", "Bedknobs and Broomsticks", "The Jungle Book", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and of cousre, "It's A Small World." [more inside]
The funeral of Hiram Cronk, the last veteran from the war of 1812
Hiram Cronk was born in 1800, at 14 he enlisted to fight the British, and in 1905, he passed away as the last veteran of the war of 1812. This amazing video shows the funeral procession, featuring veterans from the Civil War and the Spanish-American war as they marched through Brooklyn. [more inside]
Personality crisis, you got it while it was hot
Analyzing the Artwork of Thomas Kinkade
Drew Dernavich at The Awl has taken it upon himself to analyze the artwork in the 2012 Thomas Kinkade wall calendar. He has analyzed January, February and March. [more inside]
Dogs (1976)
Dogs (1976) is a film about academics being attacked by a pack of angry dogs. I know you don't have time for the whole film, but could you at least watch the trailer? [more inside]
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