October 7, 2011
KernType, a kerning game
KernType is a game where you put your kerning skills to the test.
City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program manages information about hundreds of murals that have made Philadelphia famous. Muralfarm.org is the site where information about the growing body of public art created by the Mural Arts Program has been planted. Pictures and detailed information about murals can be searched by artist, theme, date, location, neighborhood, and other key terms. [more inside]
Octopi Wall Street
Mitch Feels Lucky, Makes Harry's Day
Last night, the Unites States Senate voted successfully to invoke cloture (end debate) on S.1619, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) filed a series of motions to suspend the rules in an effort to force a vote on President Obama's American Jobs Act [PDF]. That's when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) nuked the Senate. [more inside]
Eventually, you'll have to pull it together.
make yourself cry. listen to that song, the one you used to listen to when you lay between someone’s sticky arms.
Well, sure, it's all downhill that way
"Storytelling is inherently dangerous. Consider a traumatic event in your life. Think about how you experienced it. Now think about how you told it to someone a year later. Now think about how you told it for the hundredth time. It's not the same thing. Most people think perspective is a good thing: you can figure out characters arcs, you can apply a moral, you can tell it with understanding and context. But this perspective is a misrepresentation: it's a reconstruction with meaning, and as such bears little resemblance to the event." Charlie Kaufman: Why I Wrote Being John Malkovich. [more inside]
Arkansas Town VS. Classic Sitcom - Who's Correct?
Starfire as portrayed here is porn for kids. You know what I mean. Feh.
Jim Shooter, the comics writer and former Marvel Editor-in-Chief has weighed in on DC's comic relaunch, The New 52.
Shooter is no stranger to controversy regarding his tenure at Marvel and has received his share of criticism over his handling of female characters. He also claims his analysis is more about the writing and artwork but nevertheless, he has added this comment to the chorus of complaints about the handling of DCs female characters and female fans:
"But, let it be known, personally, I didn’t like the way the female characters were portrayed. It’s not that I think that there is anything, any situation or any type of character, male or female, that cannot be done if it is done with rare excellence and surpassing skill. The problem is that, too often, comic book writers and artists who belong in creator kindergarten think they’re already Ph.D’s."
[more inside]
"But, let it be known, personally, I didn’t like the way the female characters were portrayed. It’s not that I think that there is anything, any situation or any type of character, male or female, that cannot be done if it is done with rare excellence and surpassing skill. The problem is that, too often, comic book writers and artists who belong in creator kindergarten think they’re already Ph.D’s."
[more inside]
My Stillborn Child's Life After Death
"Before I let go of my little boy, I needed to spend time with him. So I brought him home, and our journey began."
Hovering over a cut in the earth.
Levitated Mass. A 340-ton granite boulder will be transported 60 miles by freeway and set on a 456-foot cement ditch at the L.A. County Museum of Art.
Many rights groups withdraw from the Pickton inquiry
An inquiry has been set up in BC in response to the poor response by the police to missing women from the Robert Pickton case. (Previously 1, 2, 3, 4.) Many smaller groups, such a drop-in centre for sex workers in East Vancouver and First Nations groups have withdrawn amidst allegations that the inquiry is fundamentally biased towards protecting the police, and larger groups such as Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association have also withdrawn in support. [more inside]
Occupy Portland protest clashes with marathon
Organizers for the 40 year-old Portland Marathon arrived at the start/finish area this morning to find the area held by the Occupy Portland protest. [more inside]
Like what you see?
Friday silliness: Brilliantly Sarcastic Responses to Completely Well-Meaning Signs.
ROCKS FALL EVERYONE DIES
How to hatch a dinosaur
How to hatch a dinosaur: 'So making a chicken egg hatch a baby dinosaur should really just be an issue of erasing what evolution has done to make a chicken. Every cell of a turkey carries the blueprints for making a tyrannosaurus, but the way the plans get read changes over time as the species evolves.' [via]
America's evolving alterntive educational system
Celebrating pornographers who go the extra mile when set dressing classroom porn and actually write something on the blackboard. What do they write, and is it correct? (NSFW? No screenshots contain nudity, but Justice Stewart would know it if he saw it)
If Einstein might be wrong about relativity, how can we really trust any scientist?
In a recent Op-Ed piece on the Wall Street Journal, author, journalist, public speaker and generally inquisitive fellow Robert Bryce offered up following analogy in his discussion of climate change science: "If serious scientists can question Einstein's theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth's atmosphere. " And the internet took it from there, in the form of comics, the Twitter hashtag #WSJscience, and plenty of science-minded blogs and sites a-plenty.
Both Kinds
"They are part of our future."
Libya's National Transitional Council has gotten used to uncovering Moumar Gadhafi's perplexing objects and bygone lifestyle-detritus (previously), though rarely have these objects been sentient and requiring immediate care. When the NTC arrived in Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, they encountered his abandoned menagerie of rare-breed animals. Accordingly, the reserve has been taken over by fighters loyal to the NTC, together with volunteers stirred by the animals' plight. One such volunteer, [w]ith a doctorate in international relations, Mohamad Al Majdoub makes an unlikely curator for Gaddafi's animals, but he feels that caring for the menagerie is all a part of forging a free Libya. "We have to protect it," said Majdoub. "They are part of Libya's patrimony. They are part of our future."
Some sadistic jerk off session
Lexi Alexander director of the so-bad-it's-legendary Punisher: War Zone gives an in-depth interview with Paul Scheer (with Patton Oswalt) for his podcast, "How Did This Get Made?" [more inside]
Dwarfstar Games
Most of Dwarfstar Games' microgame ouvre, including the solo adventure Barbarian Prince, is available for authorized free download.
Barnes and Noble Pulling DC Graphic Novels From Shelves
We've all gotten used to the idea that certains movies will be available only on certain cable channels, that certain albums will be available only via certain webstores, etc. However, it does seem a little bit stranger of an idea when applied to hard copy books. And yet...
Yes, more Simon's Cat. Yes, it's really good this time!
UNIVAC
To meet this need for high speed data processing, the scientists and technicians of the Eckert-Mauchly division of Remington Rand have created a miracle of electronic development: UNIVAC! [more inside]
China Girls / Leader Ladies
Girls on Film is a surreal short film starring a huge cast of China Girls / Leader Ladies. (previously) [via mefi projects] [more inside]
"There dwell the Sea King and his subjects."
The Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot will sink his statue of Hans Christian Andersen into Odense Harbor this Saturday, and pull it out again next year on Andersen’s birthday. The Guardian "Artist Jens Galschiot's bronze sculpture of the fairytale author has stood in Odense town square for the last five years. According to Galschiot, the city was planning to make it part of The Storyteller's Fountain, a larger sculpture intended to be placed in the centre of Odense, honouring the Danish author by recreating the stories he wrote."
Is Cooking Really Cheaper Than Fast Food?
Nobel Peace Prize for 2011.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen share the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work".
How to Make Hip Hop Hits
The Hampshire Bunny Massacre & Other Tales
Take That, Hippies
November 2007 -- Barack Obama: "[I]f the science and the doctors suggest that the best palliative care and the way to relieve pain and suffering is medical marijuana then that's something I'm open to ... But I want to do it under strict guidelines. I want it prescribed in the same way that other painkillers or palliative drugs are prescribed." [more inside]
The Creative Class is a Lie
The dream of a laptop-powered "knowledge class" is dead. The media is melting. Blame the economy -- and the Web This is something I've been thinking about for some time, and voila!, here's a really good piece to back up my assumption that the expansiveness and multiple profusions of creative freedoms made possible by the Internet has helped bring down a large swath of "creative types", just as it has enabled others. This is a worthy and provocative read, and will be part of a Salon series that looks into the "hollowing out" of the creative class. [more inside]
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