March 27, 2015
DDWIWDD (sent from a friend ;)
Dan Deacon "When I Was Done Dying" for Off The Air on Adult Swim - "Tapping nine unique and talented animators (whose work had all appeared previously on the show) to create a beautiful and seamless journey through the afterlife..." [previously!]
pay for review
Editor quits journal over pay-for-expedited peer-review offer "With a tweet yesterday, an editor of Scientific Reports, one of Nature Publishing Group’s open-access journals, has resigned in a very public protest of NPG’s recent decision to allow authors to pay money to expedite peer review of their submitted papers. "
Good evening, and welcome to SBS World News Australia. I'm...
Lee Lin Chin is an Australian television presenter best known for anchoring SBS World News for over a decade. She is also utterly hilarious, most recently attracting attention for her own take on a 'mean tweets' video. [more inside]
Leftist Concepts: Trust (x) vs. Agency (y)
Je ne suis pas liberal: Entering the quagmire of online leftism "Classifying leftist ideology in a framework of agency and trust, I find a buried contradiction at the heart of anti-oppressive activism, one in which practitioners pathologically self-position themselves in a space of chronic moral jeopardy."
Pics or it didn't happen
Bitcoin Brawl
The Race to Replace Bitcoin
An epic battle between two bitcoin 2.0 contenders grips the crypto world
An epic battle between two bitcoin 2.0 contenders grips the crypto world
Sparkly Vampires!
I want to give you a brief window into my life in this little corner of journalistic endeavor. Ready? Here goes. Today, the Verge newsroom got into a heated debate about whether or not vampires can poop. I'm not kidding.This is the greatest Yahoo! Answer on whether vampires can poop
Try not to get stuck!
Deep Cave in Edwards, Texas, has a regular entrance, and a ...rather more claustrophobic one.
Can't Keep From Crying
John Renbourn, the highly influential English guitar player, and one of the co-founders of Pentangle, has died. There's a nice appreciation from The Guardian here. Farewell, Mr. Renbourn.
H₂WHOA!
Toshio Shibata’s Mesmerizing Photographs of Water [New York Times]
The Japanese photographer Toshio Shibata is fascinated by water — in particular, the way it interacts with man-made structures. For the later half of his almost-40-year career in photography, he has explored this relationship in novel ways, hiding horizon lines and taking the perspective of the water itself with his camera, visually evoking its rushing sound.
Anyone have a Pop-up blocker? For houses?
Washington DC is going through a real estate boom. Except there isn’t a lot of real estate to build on. The unique combination of population density, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods and lax zoning and code regulations means developers eager to cash in on the District’s real estate boom have been taking hundred year old rowhouses bought for a song, throwing on a third floor “pop-up” and converting them into condo units. More often than not, the designs of the pop-ups look nothing like the rest of the neighborhood, prompting neighbor ire about the character of the neighborhood architecture being changed. [more inside]
On Swedish dads, paternity leave and adorable, tow-headed kids
This sweet set of photographs by photographer Johan Bävman depicts Swedish men caring for their children during paternity leave. Many of these men indicate that they are still considered rather unusual despite Sweden's notably progressive stance on paternity leave. The UK is changing, too: from this coming month, paternity leave will be more generous for men thanks to the efforts of the Lib Dems.
Why not a whole fryer?
We initially started with 12 or 13 ingredients in the Bloody Mary. But one day, about two and a half years ago, I stuck a cheeseburger on a toothpick on a Bloody Mary and wrote on a Facebook post: “Am I going too far?” The next thing I knew, I had 100 comments. Everyone loved it. It seemed to me to be so ridiculous, but I got home and I sat down at the table and said to my wife, “Wow, I think we’re on to something.”--I Started Milwaukee’s Epic Bloody Mary Garnish Wars
Making More Time For Work
The Shut-In Economy The dream of on-demand, delivery everything is splitting tech-centered cities into two new classes: shut-ins and servants.
It started with Dinosaurs
I Raised Henry. A brief photo essay.
Outlook favorable
Obamacare turned 5 years old this week and the overall negative popular opinion on the legislation is starting to be replaced by positive experiences. GOP Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA) found this out to her chagrin when she posted an image on her official Facebook page, slamming the Affordable Care Act and asking constituents to share their Obamacare nightmare stories. The response probably wasn't what she expected.
In Sweden, you don’t do anything until you do it right.
...he co-wrote four songs on the Backstreet Boys’ self-titled 1996 debut album, one of which, “Quit Playing Games With My Heart,” went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. And with that, his career took off. You probably know most of what comes next. For instance, you probably know that, to date, Martin has co-written 19 songs that went to #1 on the Hot 100, and another 36 that charted in the top 10 but didn't manage to hit #1. You probably know that many of those songs were recorded by Katy Perry (who has recorded 10 top-10 songs with Martin), Taylor Swift (six top-10 songs with Martin), Britney Spears (also six), P!nk (five), and the Backstreet Boys (five). You might also know that Martin’s 19 chart-toppers put him at third place on the all-time list behind Paul McCartney (32) and John Lennon (26).
Stereogum's Michael Nelson on superproducer/songwriter Max Martin, complete with a list of 30 Essential Max Martin Songs.
“It’s always the husband. Just watch Dateline,”
Who the Hell Is Stromae?
"All over SXSW, kiosks were plastered with posters that posed a provocative question: "Who the hell is Stromae?" It's a question you wouldn't ask in many places outside North America. " NPR's SXSW showcase at Stubb's BBQ attempted to answer the question for an American audience who aren't necessarily too familiar with the superstar Belgian musician/rapper/fashion designer. [more inside]
Tacos in Los Angeles
Tacos 101: Part I: History and Etiquette. Part II: Condiments, Meat, and Tortillas. Part III: The LA Taco Scene. A Beginner’s Guide to Offal Tacos. The Rise of the Compton Taco. Tacopedia: A Complete Guide to the Taco Styles of LA.
When two fonts love each other very much...
Move over Brangelina. And Bennifer. And Kimye, TomKat*, and Desilu. And sporks. And ligers. EVERYONE MOVE OVER! We're making room for the world's first genetically engineered superfont.Comic Papyrus is finally here. [more inside]
Making cats look silly, for a good cause
Saving birds' lives at the risk of making cats die of embarrassment
Domestic cats and tweety birds the world over have had a long-standing and rather one-sided feud: cats kill as many as 3.7 billion birds, mostly songbirds, every year in the US alone. One Vermont-based company, Birdsbesafe, is seeking to protect our feathery friends while imposing a little whimsical shame on our murdery, furry friends. How? With terrible, early-90s-esque scrunchies.
What is up with bra sizing, anyway?
In recent years, many women will have noticed new articles insisting that most of us wear bras that don't fit and that women should measure themselves in a new way. But the sizes that are easily and cheaply available to women are nowhere near the sizes that these experts insist women should be wearing. How did this state of affairs come to be? It turns out the answer lies in the history of bra manufacture. [more inside]
When the invaders came, they went underground. No, not metaphorically.
Massive Underground City Found in Cappadocia Region of Turkey When the invaders came, Cappadocians knew where to hide: underground, in one of the 250 subterranean safe havens they had carved from pliable volcanic ash rock called tuff. [more inside]
Obama gets to know Omar
Rated SC for self control
Time for a Sesame Street parody: Star S'Mores (Star Wars), with Cookie Monster and Grover as guest stars. [more inside]
Billy Zane is Alive and Well - Also it's Z-A-N-E
Actor Billy Zane responds to a... somewhat confusing outpouring of grief from his fans - particularly the tween girl segment of his fandom, which is apparently far greater than he realized - who seem to believe something bad has happened to him. Billy would like to reassure his... very devoted fans he is alive and well, while wishing they'd pay a little more attention to how he spells his name.... [more inside]
"Hobsbawm was a marked man, and he knew it"
The two sides in the Cold War, finding each other irresistible, ended up in a contrapuntal relationship where, as George Urban put it, ‘they marched in negative step, but in step all the same.’ They had their spies, we had ours. They had their files, we had ours. True, we didn’t have gulags. But what kind of democracy is it that congratulates itself on not having gulags? Never mind the dragnet surveillance, the burglaries, the smearing of reputations, the bugging of public telephone boxes, cafés, hotels, banks, trade unions, private homes, all this legitimised by the thesis that everyone is a potential subversive until proven otherwise – the problem is that the defenders of the realm took on the symptoms of the disease they were meant to cure.– In the essay Stuck on the Flypaper historian and journalist Frances Stonor Saunders goes through the recently released MI5 file on Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm [previously] to explain how the British secret service surveilled and interfered with the lives of British citizens during World War II and the early part of the Cold War.
Forget poison ivy
The Gympie Gympie is an Australian plant with spindly stems and heart-shaped light green leaves. Brushing your hand against it can make you throw up from the pain. Using it as toilet paper has made people shoot themselves. (SLio9)
The TSA checklist
A 92-point checklist, obtained and published by The Intercept, reveals what kind of passenger behavior can merit a red flag for TSA agents responsible for pulling out possible terrorists and criminals out of airport security lines. [more inside]
Towards a 21st century orchestral canon
In December, grad student and occasional NYT music writer Will Robin asked on Twitter, "What are the best large-scale orchestral works of this century?" He Storified the responses, with links for listening, and then on Tuesday, streamed the result: Symphomania, a 24-hour marathon of sixty 21st-century orchestral works by sixty different composers, on Q2 Music at WQXR in New York. Starting tonight at midnight, WQXR is repeating the stream. [more inside]
The Foundling Wheel's return.
The recent Christian documentary "The Drop Box" (trailer) tells the story of a South Korean pastor who, after finding an abandoned baby on this doorstep, decides to create a drop box in his own home for people to leave their unwanted infants. The use of Baby Hatches (or Foundling Wheels) goes back centuries in Europe and parts of Asia, and there has been a recent reemergence of them. China's own baby hatch program was started a year ago and has been very successful. Various European countries have similar programs that have been going on for more than a decade. On the other side of the ocean, Canada successfully implemented their own Angel's Cradle program five years ago, and there has even been a recent effort to create Baby Boxes in the United States.
The Last LA Freeway
Although competing theories about urban planning were part of the long battle, it was about more than just the best way to move people through a sprawling megalopolis. The freeway became a focal point for resistance to paternalistic urban renewal, but then, ultimately, an example of socially responsible civil engineering. When the rubber finally hit the road on the 105, Judge Pregerson’s ruling ensured that central planners could no longer impose public-works projects on communities without residents having their say.
Going flat
"You’ll be standing in front of a classroom, and you’ll want to look pretty." Mary-Anne Mohanraj writes about a conversation with her breast surgeon, who was shocked when Mohanraj suggested she might not want breast reconstruction after surgery. [more inside]
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