July 13, 2012

Live From New York's All Right if You Like Saxophones

Thanks to lobbying from John Belushi, on Halloween night, 1981, LA punk band Fear played a set on Saturday Night Live. The New York Post headline the next day read "FEAR Riot Leaves Saturday Night Glad To Be Alive.” [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse at 11:44 PM PST - 65 comments

Obscure Records at Ubuweb

Obscure Records was a U.K. record label which existed from 1975 to 1978. It was created and run by Brian Eno, who also produced the albums (credited as executive producer in one instance). Ten albums were issued in the series. All ten are available for your listening pleasure at Ubuweb.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:51 PM PST - 30 comments

their empire of rubber

'Los Angeles is home to the nation’s adult novelty business, which is dominated by the Big Four: Topco, California Exotics, Pipedream, and Doc Johnson. Successful niches—leather, men’s masturbators that resemble flashlights—are mined by smaller companies, but as with any industry, owning the market is everything, and Doc Johnson is the Procter & Gamble of sex toys. ' - LA Magazine profiles Doc Johnson(NSFW) [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:51 PM PST - 48 comments

Choose the Harlequine King to be tricked or the Moth-er Moth to be consumed...

"My friends. I offer you a gift. The true music of my muse - intimate, esoteric, thoughtful. Lyrical and instrumental, possessed of spirit... thee, Harlequine!" [more inside]
posted by Catblack at 8:52 PM PST - 1 comments

a Disney princess besides Mulan whose mother is alive, let alone named

Just Another Princess Movie. Lili Loofbourow on Brave. [more inside]
posted by gerryblog at 8:18 PM PST - 106 comments

For SCIENCE!

Science for the people: take a renowned scientist (Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman (Physics), Stephen Benkovik (Chemisty)) and sit them down on a street corner to answer questions.
Also: The No Excuse List (resources to learn just about anything), Minute Physics, Udacity (free, University-level courses online) and PetriDish, a Kickstarter for science projects.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:15 PM PST - 7 comments

A Natural Order of Relationships

Lucas Foglia's new book, A Natural Order, is a collection of photographs he took in off the grid communities in Appalachia. Foglia is the son of "back to the earth" parents who farmed, and continue to farm,on Long Island. But the communities he pictures are a step beyond that. You can view some of the beautiful, yet occasionally disturbing, photographs here. Note-a few show nudity. It is also worth looking at his other collection,Front Country, which shows communities where change is occurring in the ranching and mining areas of the American West.
posted by Isadorady at 8:06 PM PST - 30 comments

Love those California rolls, bro

Anthony Bourdain has co-written a graphic novel. (oh, and he has a Tumblr?) Jiro and sushi and Bourdain previously
posted by device55 at 7:55 PM PST - 7 comments

What advice would you give a Deaf/Hard of Hearing person who is looking for a job, career, or calling like yours?

This website aims to show the wide variety of jobs, careers and callings that deaf and hard of hearing adults are pursuing each day. Interviews with and biographies of deaf and hard of hearing people at work, some of them in careers you might not expect, like a firefighter, a veterinarian, and a comedian.
posted by desjardins at 6:15 PM PST - 10 comments

Bill Burr Drives Around L.A., Boston, and NYC

Comedian Bill Burr drives the streets of three major cities and yaps away. From his bio: "I love my dog. I hate bankers. I have issues with women. In my head, I’m a great guy."
posted by The ____ of Justice at 5:51 PM PST - 8 comments

Virtual and Analog Art

Bryn Oh is staging an art exhibition called Virginia Alone simultaneously at the Santa Fe New Media Festival and in Second Life (free account required). [more inside]
posted by Deoridhe at 5:43 PM PST - 2 comments

The death of non-specialist retail or Kozmo 2.0?

How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:27 PM PST - 187 comments

I heard the iPhone 5 is going to be made out of lasers.

Secrets at Apple's Core A talk by Adam Lashinsky (Fortune's editor at large) about how Apple has become the most admired (and secretive) company in the world.
posted by azarbayejani at 4:31 PM PST - 10 comments

Notes From The Only Man To Die Of Trench Foot In The Media War

Notes From The Only Man To Die Of Trench Foot In The Media War by Douglas Haddow "If you want to be a freelance writer and maintain a marginally civilized lifestyle, it’s best to keep cozy with anyone who can facilitate the transfer of funds into your wallet. Part-time prostitution is a good gig if you can pick your clients and fetch a decent rate, otherwise, it pays dividends to maintain copywriting credentials and occasionally dip your pen in the company ink."
posted by hoodrich at 4:26 PM PST - 15 comments

Backpacking with your iPhone

How to use your iPhone GPS for backpacking including reviews on most of the relevant GPS, topo, and navigation related apps available for the iPhone.
posted by stp123 at 4:00 PM PST - 31 comments

Man in a Cat.

Man in a Cat. A tiny man living inside a cat gets into a sticky love-triangle.
posted by adrober at 3:53 PM PST - 13 comments

You are on a highway. You are likely to hear music.

Enter a starting point and an ending point, and get a road trip mix tape created for you featuring music from artists from whatever area you may be driving through. How it works. [more inside]
posted by PapaLobo at 3:19 PM PST - 25 comments

THIS IS MY ABORTION

Guardian "I took secret photos of my abortion to empower and educate women: Thisismyabortion.com shows that the reality of abortion is far from the vile and grotesque images used by the pro-life lobby"

Interviews with Vice, Business Insider, Jessica Gottlieb, and Jane Dough. Criticism from Catholic Online, Jill Stanek, the Catholic View for Women, and The Blaze.
posted by andoatnp at 3:03 PM PST - 122 comments

I'll See Your Hand, and Raise You the Future: Computer Learning of Games via Video Input

I See What You Did There: Software Uses Video to Infer Game Rules and Achieve Victory Conditions. A French computer scientist has constructed a system that successfully divines the rules to simple games just by using video input of human players at work.
posted by darth_tedious at 2:10 PM PST - 15 comments

"It turns out that Chinese are not the only ones that are fond of wild fantasies."

French photographer Benoit Cezard, who has lived in Wuhan, Hubei province for six years, suddenly rose to fame on the Internet, after he orchestrated a series of photos in which Caucasians pose as migrant workers in China. Benoit Cezard is convinced that by 2050, China will overtake the United States as the world’s No.1 economy, and as the result, foreigners will come to China for manual and low-paid jobs, such as street vendors and sanitation workers, most of which are currently held by low-cost workers from rural China. text Via Ministry of Tofu shares photos along with Chinese netizen's reactions to the series.
posted by infini at 1:37 PM PST - 17 comments

"Got an image enhancer that can bitmap?"

Super-Resolution From a Single Image presents interactive examples from a 2009 study of methods for increasing the resolution of digital images. [more inside]
posted by oulipian at 1:28 PM PST - 19 comments

The Bain of his existence

Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. The Obama campaign has been running ads attacking him for outsourcing while at Bain. Mr. Romney claims this unfair, he says "he left the firm in February 1999, but a review of public records shows that his authority lingered for three more years as Bain repeatedly listed him on government filings as the man in charge". [more inside]
posted by dig_duggler at 1:16 PM PST - 1612 comments

Lee Child on writing rules

Break common writing rules, Lee Child says. The author of the Jack Reacher thrillers tells us to ignore that advice about "Show, don't tell." [more inside]
posted by BibiRose at 12:39 PM PST - 98 comments

Sex In the Olympic Village

Sex In The Olympic Village. Breaking -- world's buffest bodies in biannual bacchanal.
posted by zipadee at 12:17 PM PST - 94 comments

Bush to the bay, Pine to the sea

Reddit user and actual wizard bananimator takes us on a quick spin through the city by the bay.
posted by theodolite at 12:09 PM PST - 19 comments

"We’ve been asking people with same-sex attractions to overcome something in a way that we don’t ask of anyone else."

Alan Chambers, president of the "ex-gay" organization Exodus International, has renounced the idea of reparative therapy. [more inside]
posted by Rangeboy at 11:39 AM PST - 42 comments

Rule 34 works as both a photography suggestion as well as, well... Rule 34.

50 quick, slightly irreverent, photography tips in less than 15 minutes. [slyt] [via]
posted by quin at 11:25 AM PST - 20 comments

"Ridicule is an occupational hazard of the job"

Smithsonian magazine visits the Vice President museum in Huntington, Indiana. [more inside]
posted by gaspode at 11:22 AM PST - 11 comments

Is that your phone?

Was that your phone? Phantom vibrations are something that over two thirds of people experience - the sense that your phone may be vibrating, even when it isn't in your pocket. A few studies have looked into the phenomenon, which might be caused by the conditioning of phone users. And the same sensitivity that allows parents to hear their baby's cry, also makes it easy to think you hear a cell phone ring during a song or commercial.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:45 AM PST - 38 comments

You know, "let them eat cake" would actually have been nicer...

During the presentation of tough new austerity measures at the Spanish parliament, and more specifically of a cut in unemployment benefits (with unemployment currently standing at 24%), and as her fellow conservative MPs clapped, Andrea Fabra yelled "Fuck 'em all!". Hilarity has predictably ensued... [more inside]
posted by Skeptic at 10:31 AM PST - 50 comments

Medieval Batman

What would Lord Wayne's armor have looked like in the middle ages? Like this. (More pictures here.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:15 AM PST - 45 comments

"Sometimes I cry because I feel like I'm losing him."

Gabriel García Márquez has dementia and can no longer write. According to his brother, Jaime, the Nobel laureate author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera is suffering side effects from treatment for lymphatic cancer that have accelerated the onset of dementia, which runs in his family. García Márquez has not written anything since his last novel, Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores, in 2007. Among the works left uncompleted will be the second half of his autobiography Living to Tell the Tale.
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:02 AM PST - 41 comments

I pointed to the husbands on the side, watching their wives and wincing

A new piece for the Awl, by writer Amy Sohn "The 40-Year-Old Reversion" satirizing the group of parents she parties with in Brooklyn, has sparked some pretty harsh criticism around the web, from scenester blogs, mainstream sources, and parenting sites alike. But others see it as a very useful lesson about contraception.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:45 AM PST - 165 comments

"In Breaking Bad the villain is not sociology, but a human being; what destroys the mortals is not a system, but a fellow mortal."

In Hell, "We Shall Be Free": On 'Breaking Bad' by Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu [Contains Spoilers]
posted by Fizz at 8:05 AM PST - 72 comments

Thank God for Taxes

...But most of all, I am emerging from this drama with a renewed appreciation for the value of my taxpayer-supported public services. The Berkeley Fire Department did right by me — not only by saving most of my house from burning to the ground, but also by demonstrating real human kindness and connection in the middle of fire and chaos. In the rubble, I found magic. And in a strange way, I feel like I deserved it. In Berkeley, we are addicted to high taxes — in the 25 years I’ve lived here, I can’t even count how many times I and my fellow citizens have said a resounding yes to yet another tax hike or bond measure. Two weeks ago, I got my money’s worth. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 7:55 AM PST - 86 comments

Where are you on the global fat scale?

Where are you on the global fat scale? The BBC investigates.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 7:36 AM PST - 136 comments

He Said, She Said, Starring Bob Dylan and a $1 Million Guitar.

Bob Dylan famously "went electric" at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. 47 years later, experts believe a woman in New Jersey has the guitar the Dylan played on stage that day. [more inside]
posted by COD at 6:28 AM PST - 47 comments

The Humble Magnificent

Edan, "The Humble Magnificent" is a rapper. He's a producer. He's a DJ. He's the complete package. He can cut, scratch, and rock the mic. Oh, did I mention he can do all of those things at once? [more inside]
posted by to sir with millipedes at 5:37 AM PST - 10 comments

Fight on. The road to Hope (dumbassery) starts here!

Ahoge is a one-day Japanese game jam that takes its name from the "stupid hair" or antenna of anime characters. Every session has a theme; previous ones include Albatross, Oranges, 285, and Travel. The fifth one started a few minutes ago; the theme is "Yoshida", a common surname. [more inside]
posted by 23 at 5:10 AM PST - 2 comments

Maximize your billables by matching up the syllables

Rhymez Meanz Beanz (via)
posted by unSane at 4:43 AM PST - 9 comments

Vitamin K2

Vitamin K2, a fat-soluble vitamin also known as menaquinone, was long thought to be a different version of the more commonly known Vitamin K1 (phylloquinone, best known for its role in clotting). But recent studies have shown that poor Vitamin K2 status is associated with a number of other health issues, including increased risk of coronary artery disease and frature. By directing calcium from soft tissues into your bones, K2 reduces soft-tissue calcificiation, including hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis), and increases bone density. [more inside]
posted by pie ninja at 4:03 AM PST - 64 comments

From the Federal Bureau of Shut Up

Shaenon K. Garrity, who has more expertise than most with the humorous depiction of the paranormal and government black-ops from her webcomics Narbonic* and Skin Horse** uses it to do a weekly twelve-panel MAD magazine-ish recap of episodes of The X-Files in "Monster of the Week". So far: Pilot or They Haven't Invented the Theme Song Yet, Deep Throat or Deep Throat Is Barely Even In This Episode and Squeeze or The First Monster Of The Week. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:40 AM PST - 18 comments

escaped police custody handcuffed to a drag queen named Blond Frankie

"Though now almost forgotten, the case of “the Chickens and the Bulls” as the NYPD called it (or “Operation Homex,” to the FBI), still stands as the most far-flung, most organized, and most brazen example of homosexual extortion in the nation’s history. And while the Stonewall riot in June 1969 is considered by many to be the pivotal moment in gay civil rights, this case represents an important crux too, marking the first time that the law enforcement establishment actually worked on behalf of victimized gay men, instead of locking them up or shrugging." [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:12 AM PST - 19 comments

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