March 29, 2013
Keep shouting at the devil, kid.
Eagle-Hawk Death Match in New Jersey
Stanford Team creates biological "transistor" inside a living cell.
Have created "logic gates" they call “Boolean Integrase Logic,” or “BIL gates” for short. Original article in Science.
This is same team that created DNA storage and what they are calling a "biological Internet" before.
Pay phone time machine
Recalling 1993 lets you "Step back twenty years into New York City's past. Call from any NYC pay phone to hear what was happening on that block in 1993." Other notable public history projects include the History Pin app and Shimon Attie's installations in Berlin and Rome.
Aesthetics and Neuroscience
Rational reductionist approaches to the neural basis for beauty run a similar risk of pushing the round block of beauty into the square hole of science and may well distill out the very thing one wants to understand.An essay by Bevil Conway and Alexander Rehding in PLoS Biology. (via)
Scenes from Renaldo and Somebody or Other
Nearly one hundred and ten out of at least two hundred and ninety two minutes of Renaldo and Somebody or Other... [more inside]
This is about Reflection
Walmart news of the week
Wal-Mart doesn’t have enough bodies to restock the shelves, and in not-unrelated news, is considering a radical plan to have store customers deliver packages to online buyers.
I Took That Punch as a Man
23-year-old Garrett Holeve is an aspiring MMA fighter from Cooper City, Florida, just north of Miami. He trains six days a week, and has fought in amateur exhibition matches. He also has Down syndrome. This is his story [more inside]
Meiecundimeesükskorsakovläkseilelätti
The most insane Eurovision contest performance you'll ever see, courtesy of Winny Puhh with their song Meiecundimees üks Korsakov läks eile Lätti. [more inside]
NAPALM DEATH THREATEN DESTRUCTION OF FAMED BRITISH MUSEUM; GIG CANCELED
Seminal UK grind outfit Napalm Death were scheduled to play a special one-off performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum in collaboration with an experimental ceramics resident. This performance was to "...be amplified 'through an experimental sculptural sound system' made by ceramic artist Keith Harrison. In a lingering, two-fingered salute to safety concerns, the press release explains that ceramic tile sculpture 'will potentially disintegrate as the performance progresses'." [more inside]
GM accidentally leaks cat powered SUV prototype
Operation Kitty Rescue. That is all.
Why Austin?
So this is what it's like to be eaten by a plant
How would you like to go on a mindbending 3D journey into the devouring maws of four different carnivorous plants? [more inside]
Central Station
The Smell of Orange Groves. This short story by Lavie Tidhar (author of Osama: A Novel) is part of his Central Station story cycle, taking place in or around Tel Aviv’s Central Station neighborhood sometime in the future. [more inside]
Dodgson, Dodgson, we've got Dodgson here!
In anticipation of next week's 20th anniversary release of Jurassic Park 3D, Vulture rates the Jurassic Park dinosaurs, from worst to first.
Swiper no swiping?
The Story of Christoph Niemann's Petting Zoo App, an illustrated article from The New Yorker. "I had this idea of making a simple line drawing that one could naturally manipulate by touching and swiping. How hard could that be?"
This is some chill and low-key music that you might enjoy!
Circlesquare is a band that I like. They have kind of a post-punk meets dance music feel to them, and if you like those things you might like them too. I like their songs Hey You Guys, Dancers, and Timely. The man behind the music, Jeremy Shaw, does some interesting art projects, like "DMT", "7 Minutes", and "Representative Measurements", which his site won't let me link. He did an interview with Interview Magazine.
A Fantasy Fantasy Baseball Draft
A collection of baseball writers have gotten together for a different kind of fantasy draft. All the players are fictional, although some players are more fictional than others. [more inside]
More bad news from the Government.
You know, Stingrays killed the Crocodile Hunter... During the case of United States v. Rigmaiden it was revealed that the DOJ had been using Stingray cell phone trackers concealed in other warrants/without explicit warrants. [more inside]
"Kiss me, my fool!"
The Most Wicked Face Of Theda Bara
Bara’s extravagant image was the source of her fame, but it likewise shackled her to a very specific set of behaviors — and ways of appearing in public and on the screen. And like all star images, its potency, and its particular social resonance, faded with time. By 1920, Bara’s career was effectively over, and today, only one of her major films remains intact. But for a brief moment in cinematic history, her image functioned as a volatile conduit for displaced female desire. Bara’s image was the immaculate conflation of sex and evil, and in an era still governed by rigid codes of moral, spiritual, and social behavior, it was absolutely irresistible.[more inside]
Shake it off
It’s Good Friday, so you know what that means: Better take to the Food Lion parking lot to practice your sweet nunchuck skills so you can whoop the devil on Easter Sunday when the Lord Jesus rises again.
Socrates (In the Form of a Nine Year Old)
When he rang the doorbell, Zia hadn't planned to step inside. He was there to pick up his fiancee who was babysitting, but she couldn't leave (the parents were running late) so Zia agreed to hang out for a bit. His fiancee said, "Let me introduce you to the kids" — the 2-year-old girl, the 7-year-old boy and, most important, squatting, with no shoes on, surrounded by ants on the back patio, the oldest — the 9-year-old — the one he would make world-famous on YouTube.
This is the boy he now calls "The Philosopher."
This is the boy he now calls "The Philosopher."
“He’s just like a noble lion that does not bite.”
The last King of Rwanda, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, lives on public assistance in low-income housing, at a dead end between US Route 66 and State Route 655 in Oakton, Virginia. 'He ruled Rwanda for just nine months in the 1960's before fleeing a revolt and has spent the last half century in exile, powerless to stop the violence that ripped through his country. He is 76 years old now, his tottering seven-foot-two-inch frame stooped by age and the vagaries of fate.'
Obviously, Your Lord is the Fire Breathing Kraken.
Aspiring Evil Overlord? Looking for a throne that suitably demonstrates your particular brand of madness? Or how about some weapons for your minions that instantly evoke fear and can't possibly go terribly wrong? I'm here to help. [via]
Eye candy, if you insist on calling it that
=^..^=
Inky paw prints have been discovered in a 15th century manuscript. [National Geographic] [Picture#1] [Picture #2] [Interactive] [more inside]
Joe versus the wilderness
“I never attacked anyone weak."
Cult writer Renata Adler, whose novel Speedboat has been reissued by NYRB Classics, sits down for an interview with The Believer. [more inside]
"I'm 31 and I can't go to haunted houses."
"'It Sucked': Legends of the Hidden Temple, as remembered by a former contestant." A follow-up to an article we talked about previously.
The card that proves frogs and bees are total bullies
Coming Back from a 1-5-3 Put Out
On April 3rd, MLB pitcher Brandon McCarthy (wikipedia, twitter) will take the mound for his first regular season start as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. It will also be the first regular season game he plays in since taking a line drive off the head last September. Buzzfeed contributor Michael J. Mooney profiles McCarthy.
Blade Runner - The Film Noir cut
Blade Runner redone as a sixty seconds long 1940ties film noir, created by Philip Askins. Winner of the "Done in sixty seconds" 2013 Empire Film Awards.
A possible souce for the "fairy circles" in Africa
In temperate climates, "fairy rings" appear in grassy meadows and lawns, and these are caused by fungi, with some rings expanding for hundreds of years. But in the western part of Southern Africa, there are a different sort of "fairy circles," barren circles that are surrounded by long-lived perennial grasses. The Himba people, an ethnic group in northern Namibia, attribute them to original ancestor, Mukuru, or consider them "footprints of the gods," and scientists have been stumped for decades. Professor Norbert Jürgens, from the University of Hamburg, might have finally solved the riddle: a species of termites that are most active at night and don't build big, noticeable nests, have engineered the ecosystem by eating the roots of grasses that grow within the circle, keeping the soil moist for long periods of time. The discussion continues, as some scientists who have studied the phenomena aren't so sure about the theory.
The Guardian's global page.
The Guardian's global page. Everything published on the newspaper's website each day in one long unfiltered list. Also useful, The New York Times Wire.
From NPR News, it was the talk of the nation.
Talk of the Nation, NPR's beloved afternoon call-in show, is going off the air at the end of July, replaced by Here and Now, which is jointly produced by NPR and WBUR. NPR is running a $7 million deficit, but the organization says it is responding to demand for "a stronger news presence in the middle of the day". Host Neal Conan will leave the organization after 30 years. Science Friday will continue.
Vernon Dursley, RIP
Richard Griffiths, star of stage and screen, perhaps globally best known for his role as Harry Potter's ill-willed uncle, has died at the age of 65 due to complications from heart surgery. [more inside]
Reflecting on coming out
Last month, Robbie Rogers came out and announced he'd left football. In an interview with the Guardian, he reflects on coming out in professional football. [more inside]
The best of the web - that'll be $30, please
It was a very exciting time when the Chalk River plant melted down.
They let us get probably a thousand times more radiation than they would now. On December 12, 1952 some 200 km upstream from Ottawa, Canada the NRX research reactor at Chalk River Laboratories suffered a partial meltdown. The reactor underwent a violent power excursion that destroyed the core of the reactor, causing some fuel melting. Unaccountably, the shut-off rods failed to fully descend into the core. A series of hydrogen gas explosions (or steam explosions) hurled the four-ton gasholder dome four feet through the air where it jammed in the superstructure. Millions of liters of highly radioactive water flooded the building.
A young U.S. Navy lieutenant by the name of James Earle Carter, Jr. was sent to assist in the damage control. As chief engineering office for the nuclear propulsion system being designed for the USS Seawolf (SSN 575) Carter, located in Schenectady, New York was the most qualified and closest member of the U.S. military at the time. "And one of the few people in the world with clearance to go into a nuclear power plant," as he remarked later. [more inside]
Paul Williams, RIP
You bring me ukeleles
For early Man, life itself was a gamble
« Previous day | Next day »