August 21, 2013
I believe in you.
Collect feathers. Observe quiet beauty. Act with bravery. [PDF] Brave Sparrow is either a roleplaying game, a cult, or a life philosophy. Or maybe all of those, or none. [more inside]
Uh-oh!
"I will take the ADD and you can keep the bipolar"
Extreme Kendama
In this video, you'll see people doing tricks on skateboards, rollerblades, and kendamas, for which the crowd goes wild. Yes, kendamas, the traditional Japanese wooden toy consisting of a handle, three cups and a spike (the "ken"), and a wooden ball (the "dama") on a string, with a hole opposite of the string. This toy has a long history, and is similar to a number of games found elsewhere in the world. But it wasn't until 1975 that it was formally organized as a competitive sport in Japan by the Japan Kendama Association, which has patented the design of the kendama and designated the tricks required to reach specific rankings. [more inside]
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
A “very special” Diff’rent Strokes that’s terrifying for all the wrong reasons. The AV Club looks at a "very special" episode of Diff'rent Strokes as part of their TV Roundtable, which lately has been focused on controversial episodes: Ellen, Amos & Andy, South Park, I Love Lucy [more inside]
Cuthbert Ottaway - Englands First Captain (Foot-Ball, Association Rules)
"Cuthbert Ottaway lifted the FA Cup as skipper of Oxford University, represented them at five different sports ranging from athletics to real tennis, and once shared a 150-run partnership with WG Grace in the highest level of cricket.
His most notable achievement was captaining England in the first ever international football match though. About 4,000 spectators, including a "large number of ladies", gathered to watch the historic game against Scotland at the West of Scotland Cricket Club in Partick on 30 November 1872."
Standardized testing through the ages
What's So Offal About "Unmentionable Cuisine"?
On December 18, 1980, the New York Review of Books published M.F.K. Fisher's review of "Unmentionable Cuisine," by Calvin W. Schwabe. "Yuk!" begins with these words: "In spite of my firm belief that I can eat anything my hosts choose to serve me, there are a few high-protein tidbits that I hope never to have to cope with, and almost all of them are discussed cheerfully in this extraordinary book." [more inside]
"Topics galore."
Avez-vous déjà vu?
Avez-vous déjà vu... ...une girafe avec un collier? (...a giraffe with a necklace?); ...des moutons qui organisent un pique-nique? (...sheep who're organising a picnic?); ...une poule très très riche? (...a very, very rich chicken?); ...la fée fagot qui a oublié ses lunettes? (...the wood fairy who forgot her glasses?) [more inside]
Just another day at the office...
A few weeks ago, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano (@astro_luca) almost drowned during a spacewalk when his helmet started uncontrollably filling with water, possibly from a leaky spacesuit cooling system. (See previous MeFi discussion on the incident.) A week later, his fellow ISS astronaut Chris Cassidy posted two videos online showing the actual spacesuit and using it to illustrate the problem. All future US and European spacewalks have been halted while the incident is being investigated, although the Russian ones are continuing, as they use different suits. Yesterday, Luca published a scary new entry on his in-orbit blog, where he not only gave all the horror-movie details, but also revealed that he nearly chose to depressurize his suit outside the ISS in order to survive.
Simulation of Auroras
The Planeterrella "The planeterrella is inspired by experiments carried out at the turn of the last century by the Norwegian physicist, Kristian Birkeland, who first described how the Northern Lights were caused by the solar wind’s interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field. In a series of experiments, Birkeland aimed a beam of electrons at a magnetized sphere (terrella) inside a glass vacuum chamber and succeeded in recreating the ethereal glow of the aurora(video in french) at the sphere’s poles." [more inside]
YouTube Hall of Drunk
Grantland writers put in their two cents on the all-time great drinking scenes in TV and movies (Available on Youtube Edition). [more inside]
hey baby, listen to this!
Marian McPartland, 'Piano Jazz' host, has died
Obit page on NPR "Marian McPartland, who gave the world an intimate, insider's perspective on one of the most elusive topics in music — jazz improvisation — died of natural causes Tuesday night at her home in Long Island, N.Y. She was 95." - from the lead of the article
putting the "dude" in updo
From a distance it looks a bit like...
A history of CLiNT, Mark Millar’s attempt at launching a newsstand anthology comic, which ended this month despite its Lad Mag sensibility, celebrity creators such as Jonathan Ross and Frankie Boyle, and a recent reboot. The comic magazine joins the likes of Revolver, Deadline, Crisis, Toxic! and Meltdown in the great newsagents in the sky, though like many of those other short lived UK magazines it has spawned many spin off successes, not least the controversial Kick Ass II, which is now a movie minus its rape scene.
"He had me get on the intercom and tell everyone he was sorry..."
On Tuesday, 20 year old Brandon Michael Hill walked into a Georgia elementary school dressed all in black, and carrying a bag full of guns and ammunition, including an assault rifle. He exchanged gunfire with the police, and fired off several shots in the office of bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff-Michael. Here, she gives her account of what happened next. [more inside]
Its back!!!!!!
Emo has made a resurgence. With the recent Saves The Day tour, popularity of bands like Joyce Manor, The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, and Pianos Become the Teeth, its safe to say that the oft derided musical style known as emo has made a resurgence.
Studio Pet of the Month
Cool out with some photos of pets sitting on mixing boards - behold Tape Op Magazine's 'Studio Pet of the Month' gallery. [more inside]
Drummer Wanted.
Drummer Wanted: Dean Zimmer (slyt) is handicapable drummer living in Southern California that will blow you away.
Never let a good beard go to waste.
Where's Waldo fans: find Tagalog
More than a quarter of counties in the United States have at least one in 10 households where English is not the language spoken at home. A nice interactive map from the Washington Post.
Bradley Manning Sentenced
Whistleblower Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years for releasing documents to Wikileaks. Amnesty International, the ACLU, and other rights groups have decried the verdict.
Gerrymandering Jigsaw Puzzle
Can You Solve Slate’s Gerrymandering Jigsaw Puzzle? Put the ridiculously gerrymandered congressional districts back together. What is gerrymandering? What is the history of gerrymandering? (previously)
You make the rocking world go round.
America’s Forgotten Pin-Up Girl: "Meet Hilda, the creation of illustrator Duane Bryers and pin-up art’s best kept secret. Voluptuous in all the right places, a little clumsy but not at all shy about her figure, Hilda was one of the only atypical plus-sized pin-up queens to grace the pages of American calendars from the 1950s up until the early 1980s, and achieved moderate notoriety in the 1960s." [NSFW] [more inside]
STFU, Howard.
Monstergeddon is an annual, one-night tournament of monsters competing in various categories -- Best Kill, Most Unnecessary Collateral Damage, Sexiest Victim -- with the top prize being the coveted Killer Cup. The objective of the tournament is killing humans.
Listen to my Five Year Plan
Wooden Heart is a video by Listener. Listener is a spoken word rock band. Their new record is Time Is A Machine. [more inside]
This is what happens when you give your own rotten teeth out as gifts.
Letting Go
The Big Father Essay. Some readers may find sections disturbing.
The Worse Things Get the Harder I Fight
Neko Case's new album streaming in full. Due out in September, The Worse Things Get the Harder I Fight is available for preview at NPR.
Devices of delight and wonder
The farm bill
"So, that brings me to the Farm Bill. Which the fucking Republicans want to pass without Food Stamps. A lot of very intelligent commentary has been written on how the Farm Bill has always been a compromise bill, wherein Food Stamps are traded for support for agribusiness, and how this compromise is breaking down. But you know, I don't feel intelligent or reasoned or informative on the topic. What I feel is fury and betrayal. I know, first hand, real live personal, how utterly and vastly important being able to eat can be.
You can't "waste your vote"!
Australian Federal Election time is heading into high gear now that the official list of candidates has been finalised—and it is a long one! With a record number of candidates in the 2013 election, it can be awfully tempting to just vote above the line for the Senate, especially as many believe that voting below the line means wasting your vote. Thankfully, Dennis the Election Koala is here to explain why you can't waste your vote. (It also makes a good intro to preferential voting for those still mystified by it.) [more inside]
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