July 26, 2012
City of London
As you turn eyes to London to watch this year's Olympics, you might be surprised to find out that the City of London has a population of about 11,000 and is only one square mile. [more inside]
A place where reality can intrude in fantastic, unwelcome ways.
Ben Stiller, aliens, and the intersection of onscreen comedy and real-life tragedy. Zach Baron, for Grantland, on The Watch. [more inside]
The Official Music Of The XXIIIrd Olympiad
28 years ago this summer, Leo Arnaud's "Bugler's Dream" suddenly found it had competition for the title of The Olympic Theme. Composer John Williams was commissioned to create a new fanfare, and "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" was the result, with the Fanfare portion being played at every medal ceremony in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. But that wasn't the only music created for those Olympic Games... [more inside]
The Ju-Ju Magic of the Miners of Afosu
3D printed gun
"To the best of my knowledge, this is the first 3D printed firearm in the world to actually be tested." Gentleman describes how he used an old 3D printer and CAD files to print his own working gun.(*)
'he watched bodies floating outside the city walls ... much as the deforested trees floated down from Lebanon.'
Ross Andersen interviews Robert Pogue Harrison in the LA Review of Books: Deforestation in a Civilized World: ' In my reading of it, the epic stands for the angst or dread we have within the walls of civilization, and the hero Gilgamesh embodies that angst in many ways. In fact, Gilgamesh's first antagonist is the forest; he sets out to slay the forest demon Humbaba, the poetic stand-in for the cedar forests of faraway lands.' [more inside]
"Why the f--- did I even buy this?"
In 2009, Sports Illustrated investigated the strange and perilous financial lives of professional athletes. [more inside]
In French, 'Sloth' is 'Paresse'. You know, like Paris?
The Seven Deadly Sins in Animated GIFs (via Cartoon Brew) Also in French. From usually-not-animated cartoonist Boulet (French site) (English site) who has recently translated some funny comics about 'insect-brain' influences (ponies & DIY), aging and dying (and 'The Mortal Tango'), human memory defragging, the 'movie of your life', imagination (childhood vs. grown-up), how geeks will save/take over the world and things that threaten New York
How Microsoft blew it
Microsoft’s low-octane swan song was nothing if not symbolic of more than a decade littered with errors, missed opportunities, and the devolution of one of the industry’s innovators into a “me too” purveyor of other companies’ consumer products. ... How did this jaw-dropping role reversal happen? How could a company that stands among the most cash-rich in the world, the onetime icon of cool that broke IBM’s iron grip on the computer industry, have stumbled so badly in a race it was winning? [more inside]
The King Biscuit Flower Hour archive
Come over here, Pink Shirt Boy!
Probably should have been called "Project Icarus"
Curt Schilling set out to build the greatest video-game company the world had ever seen, and to get rich — Bill Gates rich — doing it. Instead, the whole thing exploded in his face. Plus, a brief follow up. (Previously)
Get a Job
Just how many applications does a company recruiting on Craigslist have to wade through? It turns out that in 24 hours, for a basic full time job with benefits, the answer can be as high as 653.
Geek He-Man Womun Haters Club
Joe Peacock of CNN's Geek Out! decides to tell which "pretty girls" deserve or don't deserve to have the coveted label of geek. A follow-up on Forbes takes offense at some of Peacock's stereotypes.
Picture This
Five guys take same photo for 30 years. 'When five teenagers sat down and posed for a picture at Copco Lake in 1982, they didn't plan on making it a tradition. But that's what it became. Every five years for the past three decades, John Wardlaw, John Dickson, Mark Rumer, Dallas Burney and John Molony have been meeting at the California lake and taking the same photo.' [more inside]
The AIDS Quilt Online
Microsoft has posted the entire AIDS quilt online in a zoomable format. [AIDS quilt previously: 1,2]
Who wants to move to KC?
Today Google announced the details of its Google Fiber program (previously), rolling out in Kansas City (both Missouri and Kansas versions) within the next few months. [more inside]
they’re willing to do it for the money: there’s no shortage of them
I fantasize about academic sharecroppers organizing with contingent workers across industries, a category (taxi drivers, seasonal workers in agriculture and tourism, truckers, office temps, construction temps...) that has exploded over the last twenty years. Together their power would overturn cities. But for that to happen, academic sharecroppers will have to tear their allegiance from the people who love what they love, that is, they will need to understand that my job is funded by their oppression, that there are more of them than there are of me, that they are the shaky foundation on which people like me totteringly stand. There are more and more of them and fewer and fewer of me. Adjuncts as sharecroppers. There's a reason it's #14. [more inside]
Win with mathb.in!
"MathB.in is a website meant for sharing snippets of mathematical text with others on the web. This is a pastebin for mathematics… The post can be composed in a mixture of plain text, LaTeX and HTML."
How I Hacked My Brain With Adderall
Crash
CLOUD ATLAS
A six minute trailer has been released for the film adaptation of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, directed by Tom Tykwer and The Wachowskis. [previously]
Happy Little Clouds
O, Pioneers
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled for the first time that a civil union must be treated as equivalent to marriage. The full decision is here.
FAKE
Mean tw*ts
In March Jimmy Kimmel aired footage of celebrities reading tweets about themselves [Previously]. The next instalment is ready for your amusement. [more inside]
Olympics Prospectus
Finding it hard to get excited about the Olympics? Feel like the broadcasters aren't giving you enough back-story or form guides to the sports you want to watch but haven't seen for 3 years and 51 weeks? You need the Olympics Prospectus. [more inside]
A spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct
A critique of Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough by Colin Dickey.
"For all its erudition and analysis, The Golden Bough has for more than a century helped cement the idea that magic is inappropriate, wrongheaded thought. Yet what separates magic from religion or science is not its methodology—Frazer himself notes that it 'is therefore a truism, almost a tautology, to say that all magic is necessarily false and barren; for were it ever to become true and fruitful, it would no longer be magic but science'—it’s that ordinary people can do it, transforming their lives with the ambitious power of everyday thought."
Via Lapham's Quarterly's Magic Shows issue.
We're in your home and in your car
10 Rather Astonishing Corporate Theme Songs (the Fujitsu one is a particular delight). And the pharmaceutical version. [more inside]
"We were doing a show that nobody else understood"
"For Iron Man 2, there was a massive set built for the Stark Expo. It was the largest blue screen ever used in a film. It was so funny being there and having Jon explaining that to me, realizing we had done the same thing years before." A comprehensive behind the scenes interview with the creators of Nick Arcade. (Previously)
Fraud Detection
Divekick is the one true fighting game. It's got moves. It's got characters. It's got a secret character. And it's even been to EVO and UFGT. Want to be a Divekick champion? learn to play. [more inside]
Primitive Meat in Trunk
Grownup Bread, Ride The Flut Flut, Maze Of Our Lives, Clogged Tube, Have Rubber Snake, Rabbits Of Unusual Size. Cheats2000 is a Twitter account that collects bits of poetry from Game Genie, Game Shark, and Pro Action Replay codes. [more inside]
Andy Capp: The Full Story.
I want to find dogs with chill vibes
A few months back, SB Nation's Matt Ufford went to the Westminster Dog Show with a mission to pet every dog there. From the similarly awesome ideas file, Vice sent a reporter there who’d never done acid before to experience the Westminster Dog Show on acid. [more inside]
slightly less useful than a carphone
Annoyed at people biking while on their mobile? It could've been so much worse.
The Tail Never Stops Wagging
Well, slap me silly and call me Terrence Stamp
Let's Have A Kiki Videodrome Discothèque turn a Scissor Sisters song into a truly epic camp collage. (SLYT; N, as you might expect, entirely SFW) Vimeo for if you're on mobile.
RIP Mary Tamm
Mary Tamm, best known as the first Romana from Doctor Who's Key To Time series between 1978–1979,
has died.
She left the show after just one year feeling that her role had devolved into the "typical assistant" trope, and went to to have a varied career on stage and screen in the UK, including a three-year stint on Brookside.
She had been suffering from cancer for 18 months.
Canadian politely turns himself in for speeding
Randy George Scott turns himself in for riding through British Columbia at speeds in excess of 180 mph (300 km/h). [more inside]
No glove, no love
I born in factory. They put me in wrapper. They seal me in box. Three of us in box.
In early days, they move us around. From factory to warehouse. From warehouse to truck. From truck to store.
One day in store, boy human sees us on shelf. He grabs us, hides us under shirt. He rushes outside. [more inside]
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