October 23, 2013
OSHA? Don't need 'em.
This 1935 film of the London Midland & Scottish Railways' Crewe Works construction of a 4-6-2 Pacific-type steam locomotive [SLYT] is a fascinating study of heavy industry in prewar Britain. And not a hard hat in sight!
Mixed Marriages in China a Labour of Love
Take a ride on the dark side
Collectors Weekly takes a look at dark rides. "Most roller coasters put their stomach-dropping slopes and brain-twisting loops front and center for all the world to see. But the amusement-park attractions known as “dark rides” keep their thrills hidden. As you’re standing in line for a tour of a haunted house full of ghosts and ghouls, a high-seas adventure with pirates, or a ride on the range with gun-slinging cowboys of the Wild West, all you can see are the riders in front of you, who get into little cars before disappearing through swinging doors into the dark. You hear the sounds of screams and shrieks coming from within. And then, an empty car arrives, stopping before you with a mechanical ka-thunk. You’re next."
LED-ORABLE
Little Gordon
Little Gordon gives his Mum a mouthful [0:47] ----- Little Gordon's restaurant Nightmare! [1:52] ----- He's back... and his school dinner better be up to scratch! [1:11]
"the laughing stock of the Internet and two music genres"
Engineer turns hardcore band into EDM nightmare after they fail to pay. [T]he engineer, known only as Dan, funnelled the “best 30 mins I’ve ever spent” into reworking the material and uploading the final product. What was surely meant to be a hard-hitting, passionate composition of brutal metalcore integrity is now a cringeworthy dance track.
Sandy and the MTA
"He already knew things were worse than anyone expected. During Hurricane Irene, in August 2011, flooding at Battery Park was bad — but not three-feet-of-water-over-Lower Manhattan bad. The area was a lake, the subway stairs at the South Ferry entrance a small cascade." [more inside]
The truth about T. rex
Twiggy Mac
Many of the Macintosh team members gathered Wednesday, September 11 2013 to play with one of the original “Twiggy Mac” prototypes still in running condition. Quick, Hide In This Closet!
List of reasons for admission to an insane asylum in the late 1860s
Here's what could have got you admitted to the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane (Weston) aka Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the late 1860s: Imaginary Female Trouble... Jealousy and Religion... Tobacco and Masturbation... Carbonic Acid Gas... Parents were Cousins... Fell off Horse in War... Dangerous Minds
The PsyWar Society
The PsyWar Society: An International Association Of Psychological Warfare Historians and Aerial Propaganda Leaflet Collectors.
The History Of Air-Dropped Leaflet Propaganda. A timeline of leaflet operations [more inside]
"We'd like to do an old number, and it's one of my favorites."
Joe Pass and Ella Fitzgerald play duets in Hannover in October, 1975. Alternate, longer version with better annotations and video quality but also more audio hiss. Fitzgerald, Pass, and a full band at Ronnie Scott's in 1974.
Lost Soul
"I’ve been waiting 10 years for someone to ask about his life, not his death". The amazing life — and mysterious death — of former NBA player Bison Dele.
Blind Bets vs Sure Things
Few industries would routinely pay millions per unit of an item, sight unseen, with minimal (and sometimes no) market research. So how can the TV business afford to operate this way? To understand the economics of scripted television, we need to examine the idiosyncratic journey of a show from concept, to pitch, to script, to screen. And we’ll see why, in a business where only a few hits stand out any given year, lavish spending is the cost of staying relevant. -- The Economics of a Hit TV Show
"Oh, this is a REAL earthquake."
Roger Craig, Giants manager: I was in my office when the walls started shaking. I heard Don Robinson hollering, "Earthquake! Earthquake!" I told everybody to run out to the parking lot. It was asphalt and it was just rolling. -- Grantland's oral history of the Loma Prieta earthquake and the 1989 World Series
Remember, remember this bloke in November
For those of you thinking of taking your first whack (or second, or tenth) at Nanowrimo next month, take some inspiration in the story of John Creasey. [more inside]
Go To Bed, Scum
GWAR's Oderus Urungus Reads 'Goodnight Moon' [NSFW]
I'm a hero hunter. I hunt heroes. Still haven't found any.
"In this way, Mills achieves a genuine transgression: he admits defeat. Which is to say, he reveals himself as only creating new masculine fantasies in the same mode as his prior works – superseding Virago’s feminine motives in favor of manly rage at spoiled ambitions – while at the same time savaging superheroes in a way that is not truly destructive, but merely substituting an arguably worse status quo for the genre’s prior lies. As you say, Marshal Law is grim ‘n gritty in the fashion of its day, but I would add that Mills’s admission of inefficacy at promoting substantive change marks it as the only post-Watchmen work — and, by its murder mystery, its wartime background, its American critique, and its spoofing of extant superhero archetypes, it is very specifically post-Watchmen — that betrays some cognizance as to the ways in which Watchmen’s legacy would be processed: more violence, more darkness, more ugliness atop a hardly-cracked genre foundation." -- Janean Patience and Joe McCulloch discuss Marshall Law; part 2, part 3, part 4.
The Power of Patience
It took me nine minutes to notice that the shape of the boy’s ear precisely echoes that of the ruff along the squirrel’s belly—and that Copley was making some kind of connection between the animal and the human body and the sensory capacities of each. It was 21 minutes before I registered the fact that the fingers holding the chain exactly span the diameter of the water glass beneath them. It took a good 45 minutes before I realized that the seemingly random folds and wrinkles in the background curtain are actually perfect copies of the shapes of the boy’s ear and eye, as if Copley had imagined those sensory organs distributing or imprinting themselves on the surface behind him. And so on. What this exercise shows students is that just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you have seen it.
Love Him, Hate His Politics
Jeanne Safer writes about being "married to [Richard Brookhiser] with whom I violently disagree on every conceivable political issue, including abortion, gun control, and assisted suicide. I thought the recent government shutdown was absurd, infantile, and destructive; he was a fan. And not only is he a conservative Republican, he’s a professional conservative Republican, a Senior Editor of National Review, the leading journal of conservative opinion in the country."
I hope the beer in hell is non-alcoholic.
Ruby-Strauss learned his craft working for the notorious Judith Regan, in whose shadow all lowbrow publishing still operates. In college at the University of California, Santa Cruz, he had been a comp-lit major who scoffed when friends talked up popular sci-fi books. “I was too pretentious,” he says. “I was reading Camus.” (A far way from that to Tucker Max, I noted. “Is it?” he replied.) Under Regan, he came to appreciate the simpler beauty of “books that sell.” He acquired a book by shock-rock star Marilyn Manson and then a series of pro-wrestling books, still his highest-selling titles ever. He once took Regan to a match, where he remembers her looking around the arena and declaring happily of the crowd, “You could sell them blank pages!” (SLNewRepublic) [more inside]
Bounce Versus Pinch! Which Will Win?
The epic battle for species cuteness continues! Bull Terrier versus a Crab. [slyt]
Clearly I don't belong here
Which (US) state matches your personality? A fun little quiz based on an exhaustive psychological study of American attitudes.
Happy Mole Day 2013
Today (10-23) from 06:02am to 06:02pm chemists and other science enthusiasts around the world celebrate the mole! [more inside]
Adam Curtis mini film on the modern hug on television
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