June 23, 2013
So long, Bobby 'Blue' Bland
It's time to say farewell to one of the great and legendary voices of American music. Mr Bobby 'Blue' Bland has died. With the perfect combination of muscle and tenderness, grit and sweetness, he gave us so many stellar performances over his long career. Here are but a few: Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City, The Way You Treated Me, Stormy Monday, Further Up the Road, St. James Infirmary, I'll Take Care of You, I Stand Accused, That's the Way Love Is, Ain't Nothing You Can Do... and the list goes on. Thanks for the music, Bobby Bland.
The Far Side of the World Wide Web
• Is Doctor Fun the oldest comic on the Internet?
No. That would be "Where the Buffalo Roam" by Hans Bjordahl. "Where the Buffalo Roam" started in 1991, and had its own Usenet group long before Doctor Fun came along,and is still running on the web.
• Was Doctor Fun the first cartoon on the World Wide Web?
There you go! You've got it - Doctor Fun was the first cartoon on the World Wide Web.
[via]
No. That would be "Where the Buffalo Roam" by Hans Bjordahl. "Where the Buffalo Roam" started in 1991, and had its own Usenet group long before Doctor Fun came along,
• Was Doctor Fun the first cartoon on the World Wide Web?
There you go! You've got it - Doctor Fun was the first cartoon on the World Wide Web.
[via]
Bang Bang
AMMO - oddly beautiful cross section photos of ammunition by Sabine Pearlman, taken in a WWII bunker. The io9 write-up has Redditor identification of the cartridges.
The Time Will Be 2:13 Precisely…
John Bisset & Ivor Kallin celebrate something or other, are happy, but occasionally do I'm not sure what. [more inside]
Hiding Public Land
For years in Malibu, CA, homeowners have tried to hide public access points to local beaches in order to prevent people from using them. A recently released app has tipped off the public as to exactly where these access points are, causing an outcry from the homeowners.
"#1: I don't dress like anyone but myself. #2..."
In which Hart, a vlogger, responds to a question she is commonly asked: "If you love women so much, how come you don't dress like one?"
At least you know it's recording...
The end of Summer 2013 should see the release of Memoto, a wearable camera that takes a picture of what's in front of you every thirty seconds 24/7. Billed as an unobtrusive observer for lifebloggers, it is also being touted as a legal witness and an alibi provider. An interview that asks Memoto's CEO about privacy. (warning: interview filmed in shaky-cam)
Trans Student Must Be Allowed to Use Girls' Restroom
In December 2012, school district officials informed the family of Coy Mathis, a girl who was assigned male at birth, that she would no longer be allowed to use the girls' bathrooms at school. The Mathis family filed suit. Today, they won. [more inside]
"Let's go shopping"
The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola's fifth feature film, went into wide release this week. Adapted from Nancy Jo Sales's article "The Subject Wore Loboutins" (excerpt) and the reality TV series Pretty Wild, has attracted some controversy on its release. [more inside]
The Great Unconformity
The results of the Cambrian explosion are well documented in the fossil record, but its cause -- why and when it happened, and perhaps why nothing similar has happened since -- has been a mystery. Now a recent paper in Nature (abstract) suggests that the answer may lie in a second geological curiosity -- a dramatic boundary, known as the Great Unconformity, between ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks and younger sediments.
The Cosmology of Serialized Television
Perhaps the most dangerous effect of the Big Crunch mentality has been to make television creators think of themselves as auteurs, to convince them that in spite of the massive interference with their work, they can somehow create a work of aesthetic integrity and sociological insight even if they don’t know where it’s going. Well, sometimes you get lucky, but more often, the result is disaster, and the effort spent toward that failure is redirected from where it would be better put: creating great trash. An essay on the challenges and pitfalls of writing serialized TV plots from The American Reader. [more inside]
Facebook fixed a "shadow profile" leak, but don't quite say what leaked
Going back to at least 2011, it was believed that Facebook kept "shadow profiles" of users and non-users, accumulating information when users synchronize mobile phones, import personal data from e-mail providers, import personal information from instant messaging services, send invitations to friends or make search queries for other people on Facebook. In early 2012, four members of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations demanded answers from Facebook (PDF) and were told that non-users didn't have "shadow profiles", but the contents of the reply were not made public. Just this past Friday, Facebook released an "Important Message" on a data leak they closed, in which information from members' "shadow profiles" could be obtained. [more inside]
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis. A short film retelling of Titian's Diana and Actaeon for The National Gallery, London, by Tell No One. [Possibly NSFW, Via]
Making a New Home in St. Louis
The Bosnian Resettlement, 20 years later. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) Twenty years after St. Louis became the center of one of the largest refugee relocation efforts in the nation’s history, Bosnian refugees have remade this neighborhood at Gravois Avenue and Morganford Road into a thriving business district, with restaurants, bars, markets and a newspaper.
Messing around in boats
"For nearly two centuries, biologists have been struck by a mystery of geography and biodiversity peculiar to Europe. As Edward Forbes pointed out as far back as 1846, there are a number of life forms (including the Kerry slug, a particular species of strawberry tree and the Pyrenean glass snail) that are found in two specific distant places—Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula—but few areas in between." -- How did a specific snail species from the Pyrenees end up in Ireland but nowhere else?
"Did you have fun?" "I got a lot of books"
What does it feel like to be someone else?
"We’re giving just enough to prevent them from dying."
Because of nationwide shortages, Washington hospitals are rationing, hoarding, and bartering critical nutrients premature babies and other patients need to survive. Doctors are reporting conditions normally seen only in developing countries, and there have been deaths. How could this be allowed to happen?[more inside]
Hitchcock assembled
Hitchcock assembled. At the time, Hitchcock had many restrictions placed upon when creating this film. This is a perfect example of restriction breeding creativity.
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