August 19, 2012
Tony Scott, 1944-2012
Tony Scott, younger brother of Ridley Scott, is perhaps best known for directing True Romance, but he had a long career making action films that had verve and a pulse, including an ongoing collaboration with Denzel Washington. His last film, Unstoppable, was one of his biggest critical and commercial hits, earning him widespread praise as the consummate mainstream Hollywood stylist. He committed suicide today at age 68.
"Gypsy" is a racial slur.
The Romani people would like you to please stop using the word 'gypsy' now (or even wear 'gypsy' tattoos) as it is a racial slur connected to past and present persecution. This is not 'gypsy'; this is Romani. [more inside]
Science; we should ban that too.
When a single politician says something insane, we tend to write it off as the mutterings of a feeble mind. But when there is a long history of anti-abortion politicians saying that women can't be impregnated when raped, then perhaps it's not just a new tactic in the War on Women, but a renewed attack on science-based reality.
banana slicer
"Forget the actual product. What you want to read is the comments." As said by a friend who pointed this out. Boy howdy was she right.
The Cause of the Formation of Meanders in the Courses of Rivers and of the So-Called Baer’s Law
Youngest person to swim across Lake Ontario
Ms. Attribution
It's like Jean-Paul Sartre said: "I swear to God I'm going to pistol-whip the next guy who says 'Shenanigans'." Images which misattribute pop-culture quotes and song lyrics to famous historical figures. [via mefi projects]
W.D. Richter's "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension"
... Buckaroo Banzai is paradoxically decades ahead of its time and yet completely of its time; it’s profoundly a movie by, for, and of geeks and nerds at a time before geek/nerd culture was mainstreamed, and a movie whose pre-CG special effects and pre-Computer Age production design were an essential part of its good-natured enthusiasm. What at the time was a hip, modern take on classic SF is now, almost thirty years later, almost indistinguishable from the SF cinema that inspired it in terms of the appeal to modern viewers: the charmingly old-fashioned special effects, and the comparatively innocent earnestness of its tone. - Danny Bowes [more inside]
The End of Sex?
Science is Rewriting the Rules of Reproduction Aarathi Prasad's new book investigates taking sex out of the reproduction equation. [more inside]
There is a house in New Orleans
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one.
[more inside]
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one.
[more inside]
Silenced All His Life
Crikey: "Like most egomaniacs who style themselves as prophets in the wilderness, Smith asserts that there’s been a media conspiracy to suppress his views." While the advertisement insert was rejected by News Ltd. it was carried by the Fairfax media is available online (PDF) - Dick Smith's Magazine of Forbidden Ideas That You Won't Read About in the Mainstream Media.
Isn't this the library?
Yomiko Readman is a librarian with amazing paper-manipulating abilities who works for a secret division of the British library, when she isn't a substitute schoolteacher. The division, run by the ancient Mr. Gentleman, is in charge of collecting and monitoring rare books throughout the world. And that's where the trouble starts. The R.O.D. world started with the first of 12 novels in 2000, followed by a manga series and then a three episode OVA (original video animation, usually short direct-to-video series). Each format covers different stories, with the OVA being the most dramatic, opening with a seemingly magical samurai attacking the White House. The samurai is an artificial human clone (or I-Jin in R.O.D.) of Hiraga Gennai, Edo-era samurai, pharmacologist, writer and inventor, showing off a greatly improved electrostatic generator. There are two more episodes in the OVA, then two further spin-offs: Read or Dream manga, which follows the three unrelated young ladies who can manipulate paper and work together in the Paper Sisters Detective Company; and the 26 episodes of R.O.D the TV, a series about three actual sisters with the power to control paper. [more inside]
You think you can keep up with me, world? Well you can't. Because I'm too damn FANTASTIC.
From Ryan Armand, author of the beautiful watercolor comic Minus, comes the story of a man who decides one day to be GREAT. Involves ramen, romance, gang warfare. Highly recommended.
Hearty Baby Stew
"It must be something we haven't seen yet..."
“When Jim first came to me with this idea of putting two guys inside a giant alien queen suit,” Winston admitted, “I thought, ‘This man is out of his mind.’ Nothing like that had been done before. But in the next moment, I realized that if he had imagined it, we could probably do it.” - How Stan Winston and Jim Cameron built the Alien Queen. Original creature creature H.R. Giger was disapointed not to be involved, leading to this letter from Cameron.
Melky Cabrera Phony Website
"Facing a 50-game suspension for doping, San Francisco Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera created a phony website and a fake product in an attempt to dodge the ban by proving he inadvertently ingested a banned substance, according to a report."
You Gotta Admit She's Persistent
Diana Nyad is in the water again, trying to swim from Cuba to Florida. The "badass endurance swimmer," now 62 years old, is making her third recent attempt (after one try years ago), chalking it up to a persistent, competitive ego, despite her age. Among the biggest challenges she'll face: jellyfish and sharks. Twitter feed here.
(previously, and previouslyer)
"Very good, sir. Should I lay out your crazy adventure garb?"
What If Other Authors Had Written The Lord Of The Rings?...Wilde, Wodehouse, and more.
Lost Psychedalia
New York based AutoSalvage put out one album in 1968, and then disappeared. The instrumentation on the brilliant self titled album included krummhorn, recorder, banjo and dulcimer.
The band, which first formed in 1966, was "discovered" by Frank Zappa when the Mothers of Invention toured the East Coast in 1967. He liked their song "AutoSalvage" and encouraged them to use the title as their band name. They were signed by RCA Victor and put out one single followed by their album. The record was recorded at the RCA studio on the new 1' 8 Track machine.They disbanded after a mere year and a half, a great psychedelic band on the wrong coast,
Members included RickTurner, now a well-known luthier. Other cuts from the album include Land of Their Dreams and the psychjangle Medley: The Great Brain Robbery, Glimpses Of The Next World's World
Out of all the rocks on Mars
The Curiosity rover is preparing to use its rock vaporizing laser for the first time, on a rock labelled as N165. Rock N165 has a twitter account. People are chatting to it.
cognates from Lithuanian to Sanskrit and Greek
A day of disaster
The Day Britain Stopped - Back in 2003 a train strike was the first in a chain of events that lead to a complete meltdown of the UK's transport system. [more inside]
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