April 29, 2013
Robot sold separately
Robots can now assemble IKEA furniture better than you can.
Soderbergh on Cinema
The problem is that cinema, as I define it and as something that inspired me, is under assault by the studios and, from what I can tell, with the full support of the audience. The reasons for this, in my opinion, are more economic than philosophical, but when you add an ample amount of fear and lack of vision and a lack of leadership you’ve got a trajectory that is pretty difficult to reverse. - "Retired" director Steven Soderbergh speaks to the San Francisco International Film Festival about the state of cinema - (summary, full audio at bottom of page 2)
Women of Punk
Women of Punk 30 shows containing almost 400 video clips exploring the role women have played in Punk music from the 70's to today, with rare interviews and concerts, videos, documentaries and feature films.
America's mental health care crisis
Schizophrenic. Killer. My Cousin. "It's insanity to kill your father with a kitchen knife. It's also insanity to close hospitals, fire therapists, and leave families to face mental illness on their own." [Via]
“Meow meow, meow MEOW meow meow MEOOOOOW purrrrrrr”
One more integrated prom
Wilcox County High School is a small, rural school, located three hours south of Atlanta. Recently, in a school district that serves some 1,300 students in total. The high school has been in the news for it's continued tradition of holding segregated proms, and for the efforts of some of the local students to raise funds to hold the first officially integrated prom in the community's history. Though, most students were welcome to the "black prom," the first officially integrated prom happened this past Saturday. So many donors came forward, from around the world, that the students say they have money left over to help local families in need. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean an end to the community's history of segregated proms, as the "white prom" was still held, but a week earlier in Fitzgerald, Georgia, less than 10 miles south of the Wilcox County border. [more inside]
Spinning down the alliance
On April 26, AOL shut down a series of its subsidiary sites: A broad swath of its AOL Music network, including Spinner - whose staff live-tweeted their own termination - and the feature-focused, oft-linked-on-the-blue comics blog ComicsAlliance. [more inside]
Ah am NOT no savage
Celebrating The Very Best That Tony Danza Never Did.
DANZA DID IT! Free Propadanza for Tony Danza. Call the hotline! "Fanza" fan art galleries. Spread Danza. Tony Danza.
Andy Cohen is the Andy Warhol of the 21st Century.
How the Real Housewives Have Made America Better, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. "Watching these housewives scramble to suture up their tattered personas is both anger-inducing and heart-wrenching. That's what literature is supposed to do: make us angry at certain behavior; then when we recognize ourselves in the characters we so harshly judge, to change our behavior."
A generous barrage of narcissism
Do you want to buy one 30 attack items for $0.99?
Introducing Super Monster Bros by Adventure Time Pocket Free Games! Where the characters are Pokemon (kinda), the gameplay is Mario (kinda), and the content will cost you up to $99.99 to unlock!
Likely named for merchant William Fell
How the streets of San Francisco got their names: a fun little history lesson, nicely formatted as a giant clickable map (with search if you just want to look up a specific street).
304 WAYS TO SUBVERT THE BOURGEOISIE (and still feel sexy!)
Cosmarxpolitan! Karl in the bedroom: "From each according to his ability, to each according to her needs."
rewardeternalbeautyfractalinsightwarmdeconstruct
Drop : Yesterday, Minecraft creator Markus Persson, aka Notch (previously), released a new (Unity-based) Web game in lieu of a contribution to Ludum Dare. Drop takes its inspiratation from Terry Cavanaugh's Hexagon (previously), the ending of Fez (previously), and Notch's own apartment ceiling.
A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral
Ownership of your digital works is no longer automatic in the UK
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act changes UK copyright law so that only a "diligent search" for ownership is required before a work is considered "orphaned", and put into extended collective licensing. This is one part of a larger act that is supposed to "modernise the UK’s copyright regime to promote innovation in the design industry, encouraging investment in new products while strengthening copyright protections. "
Pundits are comparing this to Instagram's assertion of ownership over its users' works last year.
Mysterious weather at the second largest planet in our solar system
Act of Terror: arrested for filming police officers - video
When police carried out a routine stop-and-search of her boyfriend on the London Underground, Gemma Atkinson filmed the incident. She was detained, handcuffed and threatened with arrest. She launched a legal battle, which ended with the police settling the case in 2010. With the money from the settlement she funded the production of this animated film, which she says shows how her story and highlights police misuse of counterterrorism powers to restrict photography. [more inside]
There wasn't much talk.
On April 29, 1945, the Dachau concentration camp was liberated. Today, on Reddit, with the help of his grandson, one of the men who liberated the camp did an IAmA.
Now at TKTS in Times Square, It's Monsterpiece Theatre!
"On an average afternoon in the area around 44th and Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, you’ll find a motley crew of Chewbaccas, Buzz Lightyears, and Minnie Mouses — along with the usual Naked Cowboy and face-painted Statues of Liberty—posing for tourists’ pictures and demanding cash in return." Condé Nast Traveler editor Eimear Lynch spent a couple of days dressed up as Cookie Monster to see what it was like. Video. [more inside]
Behind The Mohawk
Interview with Kirk Thatcher, in which he talks about the time he played "Punk On Bus" in Star Trek IV. The song "I Hate You" wasn't included on the original soundtrack and was unavailable for purchase until the soundtrack was re-released in 2012.
China: "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012"
"The Human Rights Record of the U.S. in 2012 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rights situation of the U.S. to people across the world by simply laying down some facts." Chinadaily.com, among others, has the full text of the report published by The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China. Last year's report on MeFi.
"What If We Never Run Out of Oil?"
Charles C. Mann writes for The Atlantic:
This perspective has a corollary: natural resources cannot be used up. If one deposit gets too expensive to drill, social scientists (most of them economists) say, people will either find cheaper deposits or shift to a different energy source altogether. Because the costliest stuff is left in the ground, there will always be petroleum to mine later. “When will the world’s supply of oil be exhausted?” asked the MIT economist Morris Adelman, perhaps the most important exponent of this view. “The best one-word answer: never.” Effectively, energy supplies are infinite.[more inside]
Creative Entomophagy
With an incredible protein-to-weight ration, insects have often been promoted as a superfood that could cure world hunger. (Although eating live insects may not be advisable.) However, the "grossness" factor often stops people from trying this comestible. Enter the 3-D printer to change all this.
“Can’t You See I’m In Pain?”
Major Label vs. Indie, as told by Iggy Pop. Blatant plug for new album, but funny as hell.
The Disapproval Matrix
If you're facing criticism and are having trouble "separating haterade from productive feedback", you might Ann Friedman's Disapproval Matrix helpful, especially when it seems as though everyone's coming down on you.
Kenneth I. Appel (1932-2013)
Mathematician Kenneth Appel has died at the age of 80. He is best known for having proved, with Wolfgang Haken, the four-color theorem, which states that only four colors are needed to have a map in which no two adjacent countries have the same color. [more inside]
"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."
Jason Collins, a veteran NBA center currently playing for the Washington Wizards, is now the first active player in major league American sports to openly declare he is gay.
Lookee here woman, what's the matter now?
Let yourself be carried along, floating nice and easy down that slow, lazy river of American collective unconscious, when you hear Jack Owens singing Jack Ain't Had No Water.
Didactic DRM
Game Dev Tycoon was released yesterday; simultaneously, the makers Greenheart Games uploaded a slightly different version of the game to torrent sites.
Woo, microcontrollers.
Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive
The Finnish Defence Forces have put their archive of 170,000 WWII photographs online.
Some "night fighters".
Some American prisoners, probably from the ill-fated Convoy PQ 17 [more inside]
Some "night fighters".
Some American prisoners, probably from the ill-fated Convoy PQ 17 [more inside]
Rose-Colored Ribbons
Never fear quarrels, but seek adventures. Julie d’Aubigny or d'Artagnan?
Shortly thereafter, one of the nuns died. La Maupin disinterred the body of the deceased nun and, placing it in the bed of her beloved, set the room afire so that the two could flee in the ensuing confusion. Julie d’Aubigny a.k.a. La Maupin or Mademoiselle Maupin was a 17th century fencer and opera singer of the Paris Opera. In detail. [more inside]
The Magic Box
"It doesn’t matter how good you are"
"Meanwhile, on the LASO setup, Cody and Rob could not defeat a group of two or three grunts. I asked the students to compare each other’s experiences. “What’s the problem?” I asked Cody and Rob, “Caitlin isn’t having any trouble staying alive and she’s fighting even more grunts than you.” This moment taught us that different people approach similar obstacles with certain preexisting advantages and disadvantages that radically alter the probability of their success." -- Samantha Allen teaches intersectionality through the use of Halo's difficulty settings, as inspired by John Scalzi's essay Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.
Prom spending highest among poor northeastern families
Prom spending rising again, average of $1,139 The USA Today story is based on a recent VISA press release about prom spending that comes out every year. The VISA press release breaks down how prom spending is highest among Northeastern families, with Northeasterners averaging $1,528 compared to Midwesterners paltry $722. It also shows a breakdown by income category with families earning less than $50,000 spending an average of $1,245 while those from higher earning families spend $1,129. [more inside]
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