September 18, 2009
girl group mania
Korean girl groups dominated the Korean music charts this summer - Brown Eyed Girls cast a spell with Abracadabra, Girls' Generation is your Genie, 2NE1 is on Fire, 4Minute turn up the Muzik, T-ara Lies. [more inside]
Beelzebub has some music set aside for you
The Kleptones put together a version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody stitched together from 33 different cover versions. Synthesizers, computer-generated voices, acoustic guitar, accordion, Weird Al, Star Trek.... (Direct MP3 link) [more inside]
You see this marshmallow? You don’t have to eat it. You can wait. Here’s how.
In the late 1960s, Walter Mischel conducted a series of experiments on delayed gratification in preschoolers that became known as the Marshmallow Test. A recent New Yorker article talks about the eventual path that his research took and its wider implications. New research points to specific differences in brain activity between people with good self control and people with poor self control.
Promising scientific findings aside, it's the (adorable) movie re-enactment of the marshmallow tests that is making news recently.
Some "bloody design consistency" on the Underground
Eiichi’s self-confessed shock is now hopefully more understandable – he was not simply being asked to rework an old typeface, he was being asked to touch up an acknowledged “Old Master.” Johnstone Sans -
A Typeface for the Underground. [more inside]
It’s on and on and on on and on like the hot butter on the what? Popcorn!
Mark Skillz, hip hop historian of a sort and an occasional writer for Wax Poetics, represents the old school of hip hop and lets others tell their stories on Hip Hop 101A. From Eddie Cheba recalling his time as a top DJ in the small world of hip hop in 1977, to the life of Sparky D, who took up the good fight for UTFO and started the Roxanne Wars, one of hip hop's first rap battles. Read up on the fall of funk and the rise of Planet Rock, and reminisce with Reggie Wells about the birth of hip hop from black club deejays in Manhattan who were refining a slick style of talk over disco records to open hip hop jams in the park. As a bonus, Wells throws out a playlist straight from Club 371 (videos after the break). [more inside]
Sponsored by Buzz and Tater's Laser Aura Piercing
Kern's Holler Journal of Science is peer reviewed, which means that Tater takes a good look at what was wrote to make sure the language is proper, the approach professional, and there ain't no godlessness. Don't mean the articles have to be godly, just don't want to offend no one. We hope you find it readable, close enough to right, and free from crude language. [more inside]
An Iwo Jima Relic Binds Generations
An Iwo Jima Relic Binds Generations. (SLNYTTJ - single-link new york times tear-jerker.)
Slugburgers
Slugburgers, hamburgers in which the meat has been supplemented with bread, meal, or crackers for filler, come from a triangular region that cuts across northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, and southern Tennessee and roughly corresponds with the Tennessee Valley. They're called slugburgers in Moulton, Alabama; Decatur, Alabama; and Corinth, Mississippi; doughburgers in Tupelo, Mississippi; and breadburgers in Cullman, Alabama. This regional take on the hamburger became popular during the Great Depression, when the price of meat made it necessary to use fillers to extend supply. Though the exact origin of the term is disputed, it is most commonly held that Slugburgers got their name from the coin used to pay for them: when each burger cost 5¢, you could pay for one with a nickel which was then also called a slug. Corinth, Mississippi, has held an annual Slugburger Festival since 1988. Take a photographic tour of the Slugburger Trail. [more inside]
Vintage Cycling Board Games
A huge collection of vintage cycling board games. The main site also has resources for rolling your own cycling game.
There Goes Swifty
Massachusetts witnesses the end of Greyhound Racing. Today is the last day of Greyhound racing at The Revere, Massachusetts Wonderland Greyhound track. After a 2008 referendum vote put on the ballot by Grey2K and others the 74 year tradition of Greyhound racing at the former Victorian era Wonderland amusment park will end with a slate of 12 races tonight. Some say this is a great day to be at the dogs, some say this is a great day for the dogs. Still others say that the majority of dogs will be moved to other states and lose out on the hoped for opportunity to be adopted. In the end hundreds will lose their jobs in a state with 9.7% unemployment. The fate of the dogs is uncertain, and Boston's famed Revere Beach loses its final attraction.
Time Cfuk is a game about stasis
Time Fcuk is a new game by Edmund McMillen and friends, its a "puzzle platformer" about perspective, its a community experience about communication with people who you dont like. [more inside]
Swords are sharp
John Pontolillo, a student at Johns Hopkins University, had just had laptops and a game console stolen from his house. Hours later, he heard a noise from the garage. Before he went to investigate, he grabbed his katana... [more inside]
The cash register has a deceptively strong right hook.
Registered Weapon is a buddy cop webcomic about a hard-boiled detective and his partner the talking cash register.
Technology for helicopter parents
Your mother has eyes in the back of her head. Chicago Public Schools sends parents a text message when their child is not in class or the kid's grades slip. Mayor Daley attends a demonstration.
Chicago is not the only school district to use this technology. It's used in Calloway County, Kentucky. Memphis, Tennessee, and Saratoga Springs, New York, to name a few.
It's not just used for monitoring your kids' grades. In San Antonio, you can also monitor the presidential propaganda that's fed to your kids!
But what if you want to monitor the text messages your kids receive? Radar alerts you when a "suspicious" person texts, calls, or emails your kid.
Are you looking for me? I'm looking for someone!
Missed the era of video dating? Fear not, here's a taste.
Google Book Downloader
Big things have small beginnings
Charlotte and Branwell Brontë wrote many of their stories of Angria on tiny sheets of paper in nearly microscopic handwriting. This particular example consists of four sheets of notepaper folded into sixteen pages. The individual sheets are approximately 4 ½ inches long and 3 5/8 inches wide, and the entire text contains about nineteen thousand words.
Google Street View
Google Street View is currently taking pictures in and around my home village. Google Japan has released a rather cute animated video explaining how the whole process works. Its main aim seems to be to respond to all the criticism regarding privacy issues. It's still cute, though.
Happy 300th Birthday!
Samuel Johnson was born 300 years ago today in Lichfield. Best known for his dictionary, he also edited a landmark edition of Shakespeare, wrote Lives of the Poets, and composed his Rambler and Idler essays. Among other things. Perhaps most of all, he’s remembered for being very quotable(previously). See a portrait here; or visit the house where he put together his dictionary. Want to learn more? Here's a good place to start.
Autographs of famous Indians
An avid collector of autographs, Praful Thakkar has created an online archive of his collection of autographs of famous Indians. There are politicians, authors, Nobel Laureates, actors ...
Whoops
JNES
JNES is a Javascript Nintendo Emulator. It works shockingly well.
The Journey of a Thousand Miles (or The Long March)
Doing Business in China - "the first step toward sanity in dealing with 'China' is to recognize that there are dozens, hundreds, perhaps tens of thousands of separate realities all lumped together under that one label." [more inside]
Iranian Funk in the 70s
"Not to get all 'We Are the World,' but Kalakat shows how little difference there is between Iranians and people of any other country."
70s Funk and Soul in Iran
A Topographico-Spagyrical description of the Oyly-Well
Here lies a local culture
It was one of the biggest riots in the nation's history. An estimated four thousand sailors and locals -- an unlikely alliance of the young and unemployed, the gay community, the rockers -- fought with police, threw rocks and burned cars. [more inside]
Doom smash!
Dr. Victor von Doom, ruler of Latveria, master of magic and science, demonstrates his new Doom-O-Matic (SLYT)
"Lies and betrayals, fruit covered nails, electricity. . ."
U.K. science fiction Golden Age?
The stories of now. An essay by Kim Stanley Robinson on the remarkable pool of SF talent currently working in the U.K.
Somalia's refugee camps
Inside Somalia. Mike Thomson of the BBC makes a rare visit to the refugee camps in one of the most dangerous places on earth.
Live steam
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