October 10, 2011
Driving a car can be pretty bad for your financial health
Synesthesia With A Hex Code
ColorJack is a color designer sandbox that takes Color Scheme Designer (previously) several steps beyond. It has the standard color wheel, and outputs to web, PhotoShop, and Illustrator, with the ability to "see" those same hues under various conditions of color blindness... and then you get truly creative areas, like the Color Piano and Color Galaxy. Also related: Colrd.
Science publishing: The trouble with retractions
A half-century ago, in New Rochelle...
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the debut of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (chosen "All Time Favorite Sitcom" by the readers of a blogger who used to Write and Produce M*A*S*H and Cheers, fergunisakes), there was a salute/reunion staged by American Cinematheque at which series creator Carl Reiner (aka Mel Brooks' straightman) told of the genesis of the show (if you have problems with the video, here's someone else's written account of the same thing) and Dick Van Dyke sang (with backup) the never-broadcast words to the show's iconic theme song. [more inside]
"...coppers are easy to write for; they tend to run on rails."
Snuff, Sir Terry Pratchett's 50th book (and 37th Discworld book) will be released in the U.S. tomorrow, and Neil Gaiman has interviewed him for Boing Boing. [more inside]
Mikey can't go left. Clearly he is at the edge of the screen.
From 1992 to 1993 Nickelodeon aired a gameshow called "Nick Arcade" which was all about videogames. Upon reflection, it's much stranger than I remember it being. [more inside]
MegaMash, retro videogame mashup
MegaMash: someone got some R-Type in my Mario! And then got some Bomerman in my R-Type/Mario! And then they got some Tetris... you see where I'm going with this. Review at Play This Thing.
Italian American Sikh Female Taxi Driver
Life as an Italian American Sikh Female Taxi Driver Maria Provenzano Singh is an ordinary Italian American woman who married a Sikh man and became a taxi driver.
Verb: Look
Hundreds of backgrounds from classic LucasArts adventure games including Maniac Mansion, The Dig, Full Throttle, and Monkey Island. They are displayed in their original resolution.
A Different Path
Jon Ronson posts a response he received regarding his recent book The Psychopath Test. (previously, via)
The Aarne-Thompson Classification System
Originally published by Finnish forkloristAntti Aarne and expanded by American Stith Thompson and German Hans-Jörg Uther, the Aarne-Thompson Classification System is a system for classifying folktales based on motifs. [more inside]
Straight, No Chaser
One of America's most idiosyncratic musical geniuses was, of course, the great Thelonious Monk (Wiki), and what better way to celebrate his birthday today than viewing (in its entirety!) an excellent documentary on the man and his music? Straight, No Chaser
Ain't too proud to beg
The sign-holders are a minority among the [Detroit's] vagrants and homeless. They're the handful with enough drive and dedication to spend hours standing in one place, making a sales pitch. They could probably succeed at a real job somewhere with such determination. But who's going to hire a depressed guy with three teeth, a felony record and a drinking problem?
So sign-holding becomes their career. And it's a demanding one. They have to be sellers of something that's not a product, isn't a service, and has little benefit for the customer other than perhaps inner satisfaction. They have to sell their misery. And though almost none of them have actual jobs, make no mistake — this is hard work. Here are the stories they tell.
Memoires of a Heroin-head
"On the 28th October 1975 my mother gave birth to a heroinhead - that was/is me.
My father was a young Glaswegian junkie nicknamed Puggy. I was born with heroin in my veins. 7 years after my birth, my father was brutally murdered by infamous British serial-killer Dennis Nilsen.
[more inside]
There's nothing to see here I'm only a husky...
Rushing the Halloween season
Time for ridiculous animated Halloween music again? Why, yes, yes it is. But this time -- thanks to Youtube -- in MULTILANGUAGE. это Хэллоуин -- ! [Many MLYT] [Previous Disney multilanguage dubs thread] [more inside]
What People Eat
The golden parking pass!
An esteemed UC Berkeley tradition is to award Nobel prize winners free parking. Every Nobel prize winner who works at the UC Berkeley campus is awarded the "Nobel Laureate Parking Permit," that allows the holder free parking on campus; a precious and scarce thing, not unlike the Nobel Prize. [more inside]
'Perhaps their complacency is justified.'
Special report: China's debt pileup raises risk of hard landing. 'When China announced a nearly $600 billion package to ward off the 2008 global financial crisis, city planners across the country happily embarked on a frenzy of infrastructure projects, some of them of arguable need.' 'Barclays Capital has predicted a global recession would trigger a "hard landing" in China, with gross domestic product sinking well below the 8 percent mark seen as the minimum for assuring enough job creation to keep up with urban migration. A severe economic slump would depress land sales, a vital source of funding for local governments, and make their debt load even more precarious.' [more inside]
David Tannenberg, U.S. organ builder
"Oldest surviving organ built in the colonies." Built by David Tannenberg. Its restoration was just completed a few weeks ago. [more inside]
Anonymous is up to something again.
Anonymous (or parts of Anonymous) want to hack the NYSE today. Anonymous is recruiting for an action against the New York Stock Exchange. ABC news reported that the threats started last week and other sources are indicating that Anonymous itself has been hacked. Investors don't seem to be worried.
Stories Behind Deliciously Bad Album Covers
The Museum of Bad Album Covers has been featured on the blue before, but did you ever wonder who those people on the covers were and what the heck they were thinking? Mental Floss has the stories behind 10 of the best of the worst.
Paging Mr. Lovecraft to the white courtsey phone...
"I give thanks for those who disagree . . . yet know that we are one in Jesus Christ.”
On Saturday, Scott Anderson became the first openly gay person to be ordained as a minister by the Presbyterian Church (USA), the nation's 10th-largest denomination. But the ceremony actually marked his second ordination, after he was forced to step down from the pulpit, under threat of blackmail, 20 years before. At the time, Anderson had donated his pastoral stole to the Shower of Stoles Project, including over 1000 items representing LGBT people of faith barred from the ministry. Saturday's ceremony also marked the first time that a donated object was returned to its owner. [more inside]
I thought we were going to see Drive Angry. In 3D.
A Detroit woman has filed suit against the makers of the Drive, because the movie's trailer led her to believe the film was a Fast and Furious-style action romp and not a Cannes-award-winning art-house meditation on violence. [more inside]
We see the Earth, now.
On September 30, 2011 at 11:08am, Derek Deville's Qu8k (pronounced "Quake") launched from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to an altitude of 121,000' before returning safely to earth. Above 99% of the atmosphere the sky turns black in the middle of the day and the curvature of the earth is clearly visible. Direct video links inside. [more inside]
The Nuremberg Chronicle
The Nuremberg Chronicle is one of the earliest printed books. The author, Hartmann Schedel, sets out a history of the world as understood at the time, relying heavily on the Bible. It is perhaps best known today for its wealth of images (some favorites: Creation of Birds, Map of the World, Half Horse, Stoning of St. Stephen and Apocalypse). The Beloit College website has a lot more information about the book and its context. They even have an English translation which is fully searchable.
As You Wish
The Princess Bride cast reunion. One unfillable hole in the reunion was the dearly departed Andre the Giant. [more inside]
Paleo Logic + Evolutionary Psychology ≠ Modesty
Predictors of Being Cheated On: For Women, Predictors of Being Cheated On: For Men, Is Tanning Even Attractive?, The Semiotics of Meat, Sexual Selection Reversal: The Rise of Male Choosiness, Three Ways to Get Academic Journal Papers and Scientific Studies for Free, Big Butts and Breasts: What Sir-Mix-A-Lot Got Wrong About Beauty and Attraction and many more interesting, opinionated, and divisive essays found at Evolvify. [more inside]
It's alive!
The beta version of the SFE (The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction) has just gone live (blog - What is a beta text? Some philosophy, Some history…)
I'm gonna find you, Crow Dickerson
MTV has posted a crapload of twenty-year-old Liquid Television shorts on their site. Watch all the Aeon Flux shorts, Joe Normal, The Running Man or Jac Mac and Rad Boy among others. Don't worry, though, your favorites will still not be available on the site.
DJ Zhao
DJ Zhao brings contemporary and classic dance music together from all five continents, with focus on Africa. While his DJ sets reach from culture centers to remote areas of the globe, and from now back through the ages, DJ Zhao’s remix and mashup work directly connects “East” and “West”, acoustic and electronic, traditional and hyper-modern. Equal parts ethno-musicologist and booty shaker, Zhao is an ambassador of boom not only talking about, but demonstrating through raw sound experience, the underlying unity of all earth cultures and peoples. [more inside]
Is there a David Foster Wallace character in Jeffrey Eugenides' new novel?
"Madeleine encounters Leonard in the lit crit seminar. He's a hulking, attractive guy who alternates between silence and bursts of intellectual virtuosity. He chews tobacco. He wears a bandanna. He's David Foster Wallace." (via Slate) [more inside]
The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
"Leer aber sexy?" The Detroit-Berlin Connection
WDET- Detroit Public Radio: "Detroit and Berlin are iconic cities; symbols of cultural and economic domination, as well as of collapse, and (potential) rebirth. Detroit and Berlin have ideological similarities that go far beyond industrial power. As beacons of culture, Detroit and Berlin have both been on the cutting edge of arts activities. Berlin is a crossroads of European film, art, music and food; Detroit is a center of African-American culture, with global credibility in jazz, techno, and emerging cultural expressions." Audio Preview. [more inside]
1953 Motorcycle Tour of Europe
In the Summer of 1953 my father Geoffrey Gander and his friends set off on their annual Motor Cycling holiday around Europe. (Warning: hi res black & white photos of vintage Brit bikes, alps and roadside tea abound.) [more inside]
"Pangloss deceived me cruelly when he said that all is for the best in the world."
One reason optimists retain a positive outlook even in the face of evidence to the contrary has been discovered, say researchers. [more inside]
Hamburger
"There was no sleight of hand; each bite was cut open, pushed back together, then dropped on a table. The goal was to see moist white meat when it bounced." Inside the world of tabletop directing - the people whose job it is to make food look delicious.
X Factor vs Charity
Is all publicity good publicity? Rhythmix is a UK music charity that works with vulnerable young people. The name is trademarked. Rhythmix is a band created last week by the X Factor in the UK. Sim Co want to trademark it. The show seems to believe all publicity is good publicity. The Charity says "it is obviously wildly inappropriate, whatever the legalities, for a group on the X Factor to share the name of a charity working with bereaved young people, young people with learning difficulties, young people in prison". The show admits it knew about the Charity, but went ahead anyway. The Internet is annoyed.
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