October 1, 2012
Copyright Criminals
Copyright Criminals, the 2009 PBS Documentary, discusses the complex artistic and legal history of sampling in music, featuring interviews with both the samplers (Chuck D, De La Soul, Shock G, El-P, DJ Qbert) and the sampled (George Clinton and Clyde Stubblefield). via egotrip
Free Market Makes Asp of Itself?
If you're thinking about being bitten by a coral snake in the United States, you may want to do so before the end of the month. October 31, 2012 is the extended-extended-extended-expiration date for batch 4030026 of the only FDA-approved antivenin for coral snake bites. (Antivenin shortages are not uncommon, surprisingly enough.) [more inside]
Insanity, Death, or Abandonment
"A blue cloud of smoke wafted over the Famous Five statue that sits just east of the Senate doors. No one seemed to be going insane or looking like they were about to personally invade the United States. There were people of all colours in the crowd, but if any of them were members of The Ring, they hid it well. The peaceful demonstrators were, however, breaking the law, smoking a banned substance that could in theory have landed any one of them in prison." Emily Murphy’s legacy lives on in more ways than most care to remember.
Tigers shift to nights - no word on weekends.
Tigers in Nepal's Chitwan National Park have taken the 'night shift,' apparently to coexist with people.(Youtube)
Exploding bombs frequently caused so much vibration of photo enlargers that prints blurred and had to be remade
The Pacific War Photographs of Pfc Glenn W. Eve — "In the summer of 1942, the U.S. Army called up a skinny California boy barely out of his teens. But at 5’9’’ and 125 pounds, Private Glenn W. Eve was deemed unfit for combat.
He might have spent the duration of World War II at a desk, except that he had field skills the Army needed – he was a gifted artist, draftsman and photographer who'd spent the previous four years working for the Walt Disney Co.
In July 1944, they promoted him to private first class (Pfc) and assigned him to the Signal Photo Corps, bound for the Pacific to document the war. This is his collection, never before published. All comments in quotes are Pfc Eve's, written on the back of the photo."
"That combination of brilliance and generosity, mischief and courage"
It has been a bad week for contemporary Marxist scholarship [earlier this morning]. This past Saturday, the geography world lost Neil Smith, versatile theorist, advocate for social justice, LA Times Book Award winner, and founder of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at CUNY. Best known for his theory of the uneven spatial development of capitalism and for changing the way we think about gentrification, his numerous contributions to the field of critical human geography include a sustained critique of neoliberalism, a history of American empire, and the declaration that there's no such thing as a natural disaster. Here's Neil on Occupy Wall Street, urban securitization, deconstructing USA Today in 1984, and singing the Socialist ABCs.
31 for 21
31 for 21 in honor of National Down Syndrome Awareness Month, bloggers will be writing a blog article a day concerning the issues of Down syndrome. In addition, there is a blog hop of "best of" weekly posts. [more inside]
everything must go somewhere
Barry Commoner has died at age 95. Commoner was a scientist, an environmentalist, an author, and 1980 presidential candidate. He was one of the founders of the Committee for Nuclear Information and of the Citizens Party.
Photographs of Mirrors on Easels that Look Like Paintings in the Desert
The Edge Effect. Daniel Kukla spent March of 2012 as an artist in residence at Joshua Tree National Park.
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.
aggregating an aggregator: Peggy Wang (all killer no filler!)
Peggy Wang, a senior editor at Buzzfeed, has recently displayed a pronounced knack for aggregating what feels like some of the best of Pinterest in tips/lifehacks, home decor ideas, and DIY projects shared around the web. Exhibit A: 52 Totally Feasible Ways To Organize Your Entire Home; Exhibit B: 22 Things You're Doing Wrong; Exhibit C: 33 Meticulous Cleaning Tricks [more inside]
Up, up and away in my beautiful [Red Bull] balloon
Next Monday, "Fearless" Felix Baumgartner will attempt to break the sound barrier. Skydiving. Over Roswell, New Mexico. Having jumped from his balloon and an altitude of 23 miles.
From the AP: "Then there’s the risk of a flat spin, in which Baumgartner loses control of his body during the free fall and starts spinning. A long, fast spin, if left unchecked, could turn his eyeballs into blood-soaked, reddish-purple orbs, and he could be left temporarily blind. Also, a massive blood clot could form in his brain. 'All the things that can happen are varying degrees of bad,' offers Baumgartner’s top medical man, Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon."
Octo-nom
Thieving octopus (SLVimeo, warning: banjo)
A Musical Train Ride.
And collapsible hexagons are, I suppose, cool enough to at least amuse you a little bit during your class...
32 steps to check your fluids
Today’s “luxury” car is just like today’s “luxury” watch. The value of the thing is the price, the presence, the heavy flame-surfaced tank-like offensiveness of an X6 imposing your prosperity on your neighbor’s fragile psyche like a heavy gold chain worn around one’s neck a thousand years ago.
"He come to me with money in his hands"
Apparently irritated with their record label dragging feet, Sacramento band Death Grips (previously) took to their Twitter feed last night and (after quoting a little Charles Manson) began leaking their new album NO LOVE DEEP WEB. They are now reporting that their label has shut down the group's website, but the album is still out there.
Sleep We Have Lost
Hot
Two photographers risked their lives to become the first people to capture the explosive moment fiery lava crashes into the sea. [more inside]
Breaking Calvin
Breaking Bad dialogue via the jarring yet oddly fitting medium of Calvin & Hobbes strips. Clayton Hanson takes dialogue from Breaking Bad episodes and inserts them into Calvin & Hobbes strips. He's done all the seasons to date. In a recent interview with the Washington City Paper, he talked more about his inspiration, his process, and his lawyer.
(Calvin & Hobbes & Copyright previously on the grey.)
The in-world economics of online games
“Economic theory has come to a dead end — the last real breakthroughs were in the 1960s,” says Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist recently hired by the video-game company Valve. “But that’s not because we stopped being clever. We came up against a hard barrier. The future is going to be in experimentation and simulation — and video game communities give us a chance to do all that.”
Puppet Guitar Rock
It's 1983. Put Eddie Van Halen and Brian May in a room together. The result? Of course, Star Fleet, a cover of the theme from the children's marionette tokusatsu series broadcast Saturday mornings in the U.K.
Aim your laser pointer at the moon!
If every person on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the Moon at the same time, would it change color? No? *sigh* Well, what if we tried more power? Keep asking that question and you get an astonishing result.
Cute Overload: Now with more productivity!
The Power of Kawaii: Viewing Cute Images Promotes a Careful Behavior and Narrows Attentional Focus This is interpreted as the result of a narrowed attentional focus induced by the cuteness-triggered positive emotion that is associated with approach motivation and the tendency toward systematic processing.
Dogs In Need Of Space
The Yellow Dog Project is a global movement for parents of dogs in need of space. If you see a dog with a yellow ribbon or something yellow on the leash, this is a dog who needs some space. Please do not approach this dog with your dog. Please maintain distance or give this dog and his/her person time to move out of your way. [more inside]
His parents fed him a regular diet of books about space
Now that's rocket science: An interview with Steve Collins of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Eric Hobsbawm
British Marxist historian and lover of jazz, Eric Hobsbawm is dead: Guardian obit.
His key works: Industry and Empire (1968); and the "Age of" series, which he began with The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848, first published in 1962. Followed in 1975 by The Age of Capital: 1848-1875. And in 1987, The Age of Empire: 1875-1914. A fourth volume, The Age of Extremes: 1914-91, was published in 1994.
He also found time to be castaway on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs (5 March 1995). Other than the music, his choice of book was a collection of Neruda's poems and his "luxury item" was a pair of binoculars. stream or download
Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Choose to be Tattooed
Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Choose to be Tattooed Livia Rebak was branded with the number 4559. Now her grandson, Daniel Philosof, has the same tattoo. [more inside]
One good things about photographs
David Corio has been photographing musicians since 1978. His website is a treasure trove of portraits, featuring some actors and comedians but mainly reggae, soul, hip hop, punk & rock artists, in concert, in the studio or in the street, including some you may have seen before. His work has featured in newspapers, magazines, on record sleeves and even in a judge's legal opinion. Plus megaliths!
IKEA's "clear position concerning gender equality".
IKEA "airbrushes" women from its catalogue in Saudi Arabia. Scandinavian newspapers have noticed something missing in IKEA's catalog Saudi Arabia: women.
The butler did it
It’s a good story because of the Vatican’s proverbial secrecy and intrigue and because of its ambiguity between its role as an international political and economic power and its claim to spiritual and ethical leadership. Mix that with the pedophile priest scandals (none in the Vatican itself so far but plenty of accusations of cover-ups) and not surprisingly, there is good copy for all. [more inside]
The Eggs Factor
"Like a racist or a sexist, a foodist operates under the prejudices of a governing ideology, viewing the whole world through the grease-smeared lenses of a militant eater." [more inside]
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