July 21, 2009
Heroes
This is a firsthand and frantic video of a group of people coming together to rescue a mother and two children who were trapped in an overturned and burning SUV.
HDRi Images of Tokyo
High Dynamic Range 'photosketches' of Tokyo from Toshiro, and a site in Japanese containing hundreds more photographs that seem more real than real. [more inside]
All that glitters ain't shit
Why we need Law & Order, SVU, Criminal Intent and CSI: New York
Murder: New York City. A map pinpointing murders in the five boroughs of NYC from 2003-09. Broken down by time of day, weapon used, age, sex and ethnicity of both victim and perpetrator. Not surprisingly, in the heat of summer the body count rises. [more inside]
Alice Austen, American photographer
Alice Austen (1866-1952) was a pioneering American female photographer
who documented life in turn of the (last) century Staten Island.
Her home, Clear Comfort, is a National Historic Landmark where she lived for many years with Gertrude Tate. [more inside]
Salad Days
Mark Bittman strikes again, with 101 Simple Salads for the Season to go with his three previous lists of 101 recipes.
You fail me yet again, Starscream
Congress has decided to stop shelling out $137.5 million apiece on the Boeing/Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor. The F-22 shall be superseded (or "supplemented") by the F-35, at a much more reasonable $83 million a pop. [more inside]
Fancy some endangered fetus soup?
Endangered pangolins (scaly anteaters) have been heavily hunted in China to supply a large demand for food, particularly fetus soup (warning: graphic photos), and Chinese medicine. "Proceedings of the workshop on trade and conservation of pangolins native to South and Southeast Asia" [PDF] a report from TRAFFIC (Wildlife Trade Network) was released yesterday. More on pangolins previously on MetaFilter
Harmonizing Covers
YouTube user ChrisDodgen posts videos of covers he's done. What separates him from the rest is how he mixes multiple videos of himself to harmonize on covers (Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal and Ragged Wood, and The Get Up Kids' Holiday).
Club de Chefs des Chefs
"What it feels like to be at the stove creating dishes for some of the most powerful people on earth." Club
de Chefs des Chefs is the elite fraternity of chefs to world leaders - including those who head the private kitchens
of the United States President, Prince of Monaco, Queen of England, European Commission, the Kremlin, President of France, Chancellor of Germany and Great Hall of Beijing. Barely 30 members strong, the club meets this week in Italy, for the Club's annual gala dinner and food tour. Lisa Mullins of NPR's The World
interviewed a few of them by phone from Rome today (Mark Flanagan of Buckingham Palace refused to reveal the Queen's favorite dish... a kitchen policy, lest she be served it at every public event ever after). Past gatherings have happened in France, Greece, Monaco; and the 2010 meeting takes place in Hong Kong. They wouldn't have you as a member... but don't let that stop your culinary envy.
Rising the Black Sun (SLP)
Tomorrow, July 22 2009, we will witness the longest solar eclipse of our century. Instead of the sunrise, people will see a black hole rising in the sky and birds will be unsure if the day is beginning or not. It might become the most viewed eclipse ever. [more inside]
The Kinquering Congs This Title Makes
An albino with a pinkish face and an appearance described as "rabbit-like," Reverend Dr. William Archibald Spooner was an Oxford don and priest of the Church of England. For decades he was a respected member of the faculty at Oxford, lecturing on Christianity, philosophy, and ancient history, but he is mostly remembered for unintentionally transposing letters or syllables as he spoke (e.g., "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride" or "You have hissed all my mystery lectures"). Almost 165 years after his birth (on 22 July 1844), the details of his life are no longer common knowledge, but the nature of his mis-spoken words is remembered. A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched. Such wordplay, intentional or otherwise, has a history beyond the good Reverend Doctor, but he is alone in his fame. Having trouble creating bitty wanter of your own? Fablebish to the rescue.
Yellow becomes intelligent
Drop the acid just before the bus leaves the station: In this January 14, 1967 broadsheet, probably distributed along the Haight on telephone polls, walls, and in windows, ComCo passes on some learned tips on good Bay Area headventure trips. ( Via digaman's twitter )
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
"She was a rock star," recalls Ira Tucker Jr., who grew up watching Tharpe with his father's gospel group in the 1940s and '50s. "You know, like Beyonce today and people like that. That's what Rosetta was to us." Sister Rosetta Tharpe wasn't the first one to bring black popular music into the church. (Here's the great Arizona Dranes playing barroom honky-tonk piano on the gospel side I Shall Wear a Crown in 1927.) But her fierce stage presence and her original blend of gospel, boogie-woogie, swing and smoking hot blues guitar was a crucial forgotten influence on what we now recognize as rock and roll. (Many more recordings inside. Enjoy!) [more inside]
The First Thru-HIker
In 1948, WWII veteran Earl Shaffer decided to "walk the Army out of his system" by hiking the full length of the Appalachian Trail, Georgia to Maine, in one season. At the time, no one had attempted it, and the Appalachian Trail Conference didn't think it could be done. Not only did he complete it, setting the standard for generations of thru-hikers to follow, but he did the walk twice more in his life, the last time at the age of 79.
Why We Say Yes to Drugs
"It takes about seven years," Grim writes, "for folks to realize what's wrong with any given drug. It slips away, only to return again as if it were new."Why We Say Yes To Drugs -- an interesting review of This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High In America. [more inside]
canada copyright zombies
Canada's Bill C-61 is being zombified as talks begin this week in Vancouver to attempt a dialogue on public opinion. But it's okay, cause they're using twitter this time. [more inside]
The other other white meat.
Eat at Doug's. An Orlando Weekly reporter investigates the existence of secret manatee eating clubs in Florida.
What could you possibly see in li'l ol' 8-bit me?
8-bit Weezer. Video game music netlabel Pterodactyl Squad has released an 8-bit album tribute to Weezer, for free.
Apollo 11 Source Code
Everyone agrees. It's about to explode.
And you can fit the entire world's population, shoulder to shoulder, on the Isle of Wight
What if we condensed the UK into a village of 100 people? The Independent experiment with demographics.
Lame and trite and read all over
Glass Ceilings in the UK
Allan Milburn MP has just published a report [pdf] on social exclusion from the professions in the UK. Polly Toynbee of The Guardian newspaper opines. The Guardian has a few problems on that score of its own however.
stand and deliever; the untold story
Interesting article about the movie Stand and Deliever In 1988, the movie stand and deliver told the story of Jaime Escalante (information about him is here) and what happened in the class of '82 at Garfield high school. Essentially it is movie about a teacher who dares to challenge and believe in students to do what they, and those around them, think is impossible to achieve. [more inside]
\squiggle
Detexify is a neat little tool that let's you draw a symbol and then finds the corresponding LaTeX notation. The explanation is an interesting read as well.
"Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read...."
Hello its me, this is gonna be hard for you to read but I write this knowing every time you thinks shits got to much for you to handle (so don't cry on it MUM!!) you can read this and hopefully it will help you all get through. For a start SHIT I got hit!! .... As Im writing this letter I can see you all crying and mornin my death but if I could have one wish in an "after life" it would be to stop your crying and continueing your dreams (as I did) because if I were watching only that would brake my heart.It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that Rifleman Cyrus Thatcher from 2nd Battalion The Rifles was killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday 2 June 2009.
The Present Sound of London
The Present Sound of London -- "I’ve been lured to London by money at the hottest, stickiest time of year. Every time I visit, I’m struck by the noises—not necessarily their volume, but their strangeness and variety in comparison to the quiet humdrum of the provincial town where I live. So this time I’m equipped with an audio recorder." By Giles Turnbull.
" . . . estimating the $700 billion effort to shore up the nation's wobbly banking system could end up costing taxpayers as much as $23.7 trillion . . ."
"Many banks were concerned about business-sensitive information and requested confidentiality of individual survey responses. Accordingly, pursuant to our legal obligations, SIGTARP is unable in this report to attribute any results or comments to a specific institution. However, SIGTARP is in the process of evaluating recipients’ claims of confidentiality and will provide copies of the individual responses that will include information provided by the banks to the maximum permitted by law. SIGTARP plans to post the responses, redacted as necessary, on its website within 30 days." TARP special inspector general Neil Barofsky
It Fish Time!
In rather unsettling news, it appears that a chinese corporation bought one of America's most reliable news sources. For now, the editorial line doesn't seem to have changed, but will it last?
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