March 31, 2014
FIAWOL
"Generally speaking, media fandom operates on a labor theory of value—not necessarily in the Marxist sense of the phrase, but in the sense that value derives from work. Fandom's gift economy assigns special worth to "gifts of time and skill" (Hellekson 2009, 115), gifts made by fans for fans. The worth of these gifts lies not simply in the content of the gift, nor in the social gesture of giving, but in the labor that went into their creation." -- Fan work: Labor, worth, and participation in fandom's gift economy by Tisha Turk.
Piip-show
Piip-show is a live webcam focused on a coffee shop for birds. No birds around? You can rewind the video to look for them, or check out the highlight videos and snapshots below.
Se habla tlhIngan Hol
At last! The language-learning minds at Rosetta Stone have teamed up with ThinkGeek to bring you: Rosetta Stone Klingon, the first comprehensive full-immersion audio course of its kind. Whether you need to swear a blood oath before the High Council, or just want to be able to confidently order fresh gagh at that important business lunch, today is a good day to die learn Klingon! [more inside]
RIP Frankie Knuckles.
Ever wonder where the "House" in "House Music" comes from? In 1977, a young DJ named Frankie Knuckles started DJing at a club called the Warehouse in Chicago, bringing the new style of continuously mixing dance records with him, and perfecting it, just as cheap electronic drum machines enabled anyone to put together a dance record in their basement. All the people whose minds were being blown by the new music went to the local record stores to demand "Warehouse Music", and the world of music was changed forever.
Frankie Knuckles died today, leaving a legacy that started in the '70s and carries on to the Grammy-winning success of acts like Daft Punk today.
Bernstein's "Mass"
Written for the dedication of The John F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts in 1971, Leonard Bernstein created MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers as a memoriam for John F Kennedy and as a thoroughly modern theater musical piece to reflect both its current times and universal questions of faith and existence. A recasting of the Tridentine Mass (in Latin), featuring additional lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a brilliant lyric quatrain from Paul Simon, the full staging requires multiple choruses, a full stage performance company (including ballet cast), a marching band, a rock band, and many others. The 2012 BBC Proms featured a concert performance [1h56m, including introduction sequences]. MASS has had very few full theatrical stagings since its premiere, although now, over 50 years after its creation, it is beginning to find new acclaim and appreciation. [more inside]
Note: pineapple is an abomination against the Pizza Gods
A Complete Guide to New York City Pizza Styles
Although New York City has long had a clearly defined and ubiquitous style of pizza, the city's appetite for the dish knows no bounds. While New Yorkers can certainly be parochial and protective of their home slice, they can also be open and accepting of different pizza points of view. Here is a look at the predominant forms of pizza found in New York City with information about how they developed over the years, and a glimpse at some of the more eclectic and disparate variations on the theme.
The NYPL's Open Maps Project adds 20,000 High Res Maps
The New York Public Library has released more than 20,000 high resolution cartographic works (maps!) for free, to view and download. "We believe these maps have no known US copyright restrictions." All can be viewed through the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections page and downloaded through their Map Warper. (Via) [more inside]
Everything You Know Is Wrong.
Research on DNA extracted from the skulls of Black Death victims has revealed that the plague was not spread by rat fleas after all, and instead must have been airborne. [more inside]
Consuming Hannibal
"Hannibal exists in a world where all metaphors move from abstract to concrete and literal—they become embodied. Metaphorical vision and 'seeing' become a giant eye stitched from human flesh." The mind and the body in Hannibal. Spoiler heavy up to the most recent episode. [more inside]
Blast Off!
Part 1 and Part 2 of a 35MM promo reel for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The reel features some alternate takes and cut scenes, and is possibly narrated by Kubrick himself. via Cinephilia, who also have a bunch of great photos of Kubrick at work on the set.
Why Bowie Why?
A video review of David Bowie's 'The Next Day' Collectors Edition packaging by Pixie Hulme (some swearing)
Give Life Back to Fhqwhgads
Al Gore invented the Internet, so that one day we could have the glory that is the mashup of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories and Strongbad's Fhqwhgads. via A.V. Club (SLYT)
Paintings and Google Street View mashups
London to Amsterdam, Saint Petersburg and Tokyo to New York, well known historical paintings of city scenes around the world superimposed on to Google Street View by Halley Docherty (whose username is shystone on Reddit) | Google Street View Paintings by
Raul Moyado Sandoval that he calls Metapanoramas | Also Paintings as Google Street View Maps via Lileks' wonderful Lint. [more inside]
“Without Mercy” –U.S. Strategic Intelligence and Finland in the Cold War
Lemmings not included.
Six games that really get suicide. A very interesting look and insight into six video games with a pronounced realistic theme of depression and suicide.
Microsecond mercenaries
It used to be that when his trading screens showed 10,000 shares of Intel offered at $22 a share, it meant that he could buy 10,000 shares of Intel for $22 a share. He had only to push a button. By the spring of 2007, however, when he pushed the button to complete a trade, the offers would vanish. In his seven years as a trader, he had always been able to look at the screens on his desk and see the stock market. Now the market as it appeared on his screens was an illusion.In an excerpt/adaption of his new book Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, Michael Lewis follows Brad Katsuyama from uncovering evidence of high-speed electronic front-running to the founding of the IEX exchange intended to discourage it. The Wolf Hunters of Wall Street (SLNYT).
Is that what's botherin' ya, bunky?
You say you just learned of the passing of comedian Eddie Lawrence last week at the age of 95?
He was best known for his 1956 routine "The Old Philosopher", in which he gloomily described a litany of sometimes absurdly funny mishaps then changed gears into a cheerleading chant ending in "NEVER GIVE UP (BANG! BANG!) THAT SHIP!*" It was a big hit single (and Dr. Demento staple**) and led to a series of follow-ups, including "Son of the Old Philosopher", the Christmas-themed "Merry Old Philosopher", "The Radio DJ's Old Philosopher" (filled with inside-the-biz jokes) and "The Old Philosopher On The Range", as well as radio commercials based on the bit: "Leave It To (John) Leavitt"***. [more inside]
He was best known for his 1956 routine "The Old Philosopher", in which he gloomily described a litany of sometimes absurdly funny mishaps then changed gears into a cheerleading chant ending in "NEVER GIVE UP (BANG! BANG!) THAT SHIP!*" It was a big hit single (and Dr. Demento staple**) and led to a series of follow-ups, including "Son of the Old Philosopher", the Christmas-themed "Merry Old Philosopher", "The Radio DJ's Old Philosopher" (filled with inside-the-biz jokes) and "The Old Philosopher On The Range", as well as radio commercials based on the bit: "Leave It To (John) Leavitt"***. [more inside]
Upvoting the news
Alex Leavitt at Medium.com looks at reddit's breaking news threads from the Aurora shooting to the Boston bombings. Leavitt will present "Upvoting Hurricane Sandy: Event-Based News Production Processes on a Social News Site"at the SIGCHI (society for professionals, academics and students who are interested in human-technology & human-computer interaction) conference next month.
Building hope
Shigeru Ban’s Pritzker win proves that building hope is finally in vogue
The architecture world has a new laureate, and he builds in cardboard. Japan’s Shigeru Ban was named this week as the winner of the Pritzker Prize, an annual award that is often called architecture’s Nobel – and his win sends a clear and timely message. Social change, sustainability and improving the lives of the many: This is what matters now to the world of architecture. With Ban’s Pritzker, the global design elite is marking that shift.Take a Tour of Pritzker Winner Shigeru Ban's Paper Tube Structures [more inside]
Hand Drawn Maps
Rick Grimes is back
Th 4th season The Walking Dead ended last night and reviewers are weighing in on its shocking and brutal finale. [more inside]
Bi-Mon-Spec-Fi-Hi-Co'mn: Set Phasers to Learn!
Andrew Liptak has been writing a bi-monthly column on the history of Speculative Fiction for Kirkus Review since May 2012, in which he covers authors, artists, themes and times in history. From T.H. White's 'Once and Future King', to Isaac Asimov and the Three Laws of Robotics, from Changing the (Sci-Fi Publishing) Playing Field: H.L. Gold & 'Galaxy Science Fiction' to The Elusive Margaret St. Clair, and even A Brief History of the Dystopian Novel, Liptak illuminates dusty shelves of speculative fiction. [more inside]
Comics for people who don't know they love comics.
Chad Sell is a comic artist and creator of the inept superhero Manta-Man and the no-nonsense Part-Time Ninja (among others) as well as a prolific illustrator of the queens of RuPaul's Drag Race.
Stuff White People Like
Shrinking Majority of Americans Support Death Penalty "According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 55% of U.S. adults say they favor the death penalty for persons convicted of murder. A significant minority (37%) oppose the practice.
While a majority of U.S. adults still support the death penalty, public opinion in favor of capital punishment has seen a modest decline..."
Jamelle Bouie at Slate notes that , "Nearly twice as many whites as blacks favor the death penalty. There is a simple, and disturbing, reason why" and blames racism. [more inside]
445 Portraits of a Man
The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University is exhibiting a collection of 445 photo booth photographs of the same man, taken from the Great Depression through the 1960s. When photography historian Donald Lokuta showed his collection of images of the man to Nakki Goranin, author of American Photobooth, it turned out she had seven pictures of the same man in her own collection. They are hoping this exhibit turns up someone who recognizes him and can share his story.
More of the photos included in this Star Ledger article.
The Ghost in MIT
The inside story of MIT and Aaron Swartz. The Boston Globe reviews over 7,000 pages of discovery documents in the Aaron Swartz case (previously): Most vividly, the e-mails underscore the dissonant instincts the university grappled with. There was the eagerness of some MIT employees to help investigators and prosecutors with the case, and then there was, by contrast, the glacial pace of the institution’s early reaction to the intruder’s provocation.... MIT never encouraged Swartz’s prosecution, and once told his prosecutor they had no interest in jail time. However, e-mails illustrate how MIT energetically assisted authorities in capturing him and gathering evidence — even prodding JSTOR to get answers for prosecutors more quickly — before a subpoena had been issued.... Yet if MIT eventually adopted a relatively hard line on Swartz, the university had also helped to make his misdeeds possible, the Globe review found. Numerous e-mails make it clear that the unusually easy access to the campus computer network, which Swartz took advantage of, had long been a concern to some of the university’s information technology staff.
Auto-mine for 1R/block
What is it about us that you don't like?
Conner Habib is a writer, porn actor, and lecturer. What he wants to know is why people hate porn stars. [SFW]
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