July 12, 2012
"Maybe Monk Time is here at last."
You're a Monk, I'm a Monk, We're All Monks is a short video introduction to The Monks, a band founded in 1964 by five American soldiers in Germany. They put out only one album, the abrasive, noisy, minimalistic Black Monk Time in 1965, that sounded like nothing else at the time. They also dressed in all-black, shaved monkish tonsures in their hair and wore bits of rope as neckties. In 1966 they appeared on German TV shows Beat-Club and Beat, Beat, Beat, and played three songs on each, Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice, Monk Chant, Oh, How to Do Now, Complication, I Can't Get Over You and Cuckoo. Aaron Poehler interviewed The Monks and wrote about their history back in 1999. That same year they got back together to play at the Cavestomp festival. And here The Monks are being interviewed by a hand-puppet on public access television in Chicago. [The Monks previously on MetaFilter]
Digg Dug
"Digg Inc., a social-media pioneer once valued at more than $160 million, is selling for the deeply discounted price of about $500,000." [more inside]
'I was prepared to make people a little uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to do anything illegal. '
"When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: ‘People Staring at Computers’ ": A year ago (previously on MetaFilter), Kyle McDonald created an art project that landed him in some trouble with Apple and the attention of the US Secret Service. He writes about it for WIRED. [more inside]
Boxer vs. Tortoise
Not another innocuous Internet quiz
Grape of wrath
What’s eating Appalachia? 'Democrats in the region seem to hate their president. Keith Judd, a convict serving a 17-year sentence for extortion in a Texan jail' 'won 58% of the vote in Hardy County to Barack Obama’s 42%. Mr Judd’s victory was not a freak result: Democrats in a further nine counties in West Virginia judged a resident of the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana a better standard-bearer for their party than the current occupant of the White House.' [more inside]
Canada Supremes rule on IP
Canada's Supreme Court has ruled on 5 copyright-related issues.
Internet providers do not have to pay copyright fees when their consumers download or preview music, and teachers don't have to pay fees when they photocopy copyrighted materials for their students. [more inside]
Internet providers do not have to pay copyright fees when their consumers download or preview music, and teachers don't have to pay fees when they photocopy copyrighted materials for their students. [more inside]
“Americans don’t look at us as human beings. They look at us as tools for work.”
Journalist Chris Hedges and Illustrator Joe Sacco have co-authored
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt about life in the ‘sacrifice zones’ in the American Dream.
Camden, New Jersey where:
The poor have to help the poor, because the ones who make the money are helping the people with money.
And from West Virginia: The Story of Rudy the Miner, with text.
An interview with Hedges.
(Mountain coal rape previously 1; 2).
Camden, New Jersey where:
The poor have to help the poor, because the ones who make the money are helping the people with money.
And from West Virginia: The Story of Rudy the Miner, with text.
An interview with Hedges.
(Mountain coal rape previously 1; 2).
Legend of the Golden Motorcycle
Five Seconds and Patient are two new videos from Twin Shadow that tell the story of a motorcycle gang called The Teds. [more inside]
You couldn't just Tweet the Declaration of Independence
They're not booing. They're saying... no, wait, they're booing.
Single-serving website to see if your credentials were compromised in the recent posting online of "usernames and passwords for what appeared to be 453,492 accounts belonging to Yahoo, but also Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, Comcast, MSN, SBC Global, Verizon, BellSouth and Live.com users." [via mefi projects]
"...it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague."
"Truman told Jack that he was frankly surprised that anyone who knew him well did not immediately recognize the inspiration behind Holly Golightly. And yet, everyone seems to agree that the true identity of Holly Golightly, nee Lula Mae Barnes, is a great mystery, and that her true inspiration can never be known. Well, that was yesterday, this is today. I’m here to clear that up. Spoiler: it was Truman’s mom. Mystery solved. Let’s break this down and find all the parallels between the two, if their virtually identical birth names were not enough." Lillie Mae Faulk – The Real Holly Golightly, from The Gloss's Shelved Dolls series. [more inside]
Vampiric pterosaurs that bit dinosaurs
Report finds Penn State president, Paterno concealed facts about Sandusky sex abuse
Report finds Penn State president, Paterno concealed facts about Sandusky sex abuse: "Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and other university leaders 'repeatedly concealed critical facts' relating to assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse from authorities, according to Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who conducted an investigation [PDF] for the university in the Sandusky scandal." [more inside]
"There's none so blind as they that won't see."
Atlas for the Blind, 1837: "From the spectacular David Rumsey Map Collection, the 1837 “Atlas of the United States Printed for the Use of the Blind“, embossed heavy paper featuring lines, letters and geographical symbols, destined to help blind children to visualise geography. Here’s the whole book with zoomable pages." [Via: Socks-Studio]
You spin me right round, baby Right round like a record, baby Right round, round, round You spin me right round, baby Right round like a record, baby Right round, round, round
What if they ended a war and nobody left?
Is legalization or at least ending the war on drugs a solution to gang violence? Drug Business is not the Key to Gangs And Organized Crime: With a Prognosis for the Mexican Cartel Wars explores the idea of gangs and other crime organizations as mainly political actors. (previous mention of sociologist Randall Collins)
"I work in NYC, and was dragged into a very curious situation today."
Yesterday, a New York Redditor was approached by a shaggy man and handed a $50 bill and a cryptic note. [more inside]
Letter from the Pulitzer Fiction Jury
Letter from the Pulitzer Fiction Jury: What Really Happened This Year. Michael Cunningham on what it was like to serve on the fiction jury for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, when no prize was awarded. Part 2. (Previously.)
I hesitated / before untying the bow
In 1992, renowned sci-fi author and futurist William Gibson (Neuromancer, Virtual Light) released Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), a self-playing poem contained on a floppy disk for old Macintosh computers that, once its text had scrolled up the screen one time, would be rendered unreadable on purpose. Now, 20 years later, a PhD student at the University of Toronto is enlisting the aid of cryptographers in hopes of figuring out how the program works. [more inside]
Advertising “really turns our stomachs”.
I have never seen you use an unnecessary word.
Yesterday would have been the 113th birthday of EB White.
He is probably best known for one of two enduring classics:
Charlotte's Web, or (as the reviser and co-author of the widely-used English language style guide, Strunk & White's) The Elements of Style. [more inside]
Inge Druckrey Teaching to See
"You really learn to look..and suddenly you begin to see wonderful things in your daily life... its one of the most wonderful presents you get in an art education: to enjoy seeing." -Inge Druckrey: Teaching to See. Brought to you by Edward Tufte. (single link vimeo)
The last broadcast from Bush House
Today marks the end of an era as the BBC World Service broadcasts for the last time from its longtime home at Bush House. [more inside]
« Previous day | Next day »