October 24, 2012
Giger's Necronomicon
Giger's Necronomicon (yt) (nsfw) - a 1976 documentary about H.R. Giger with music by Joel Vandroogenbroeck of the Brainticket.
Just Etchin' To Share My Work
Hailed as the Github of printed circuit board (PCB) design, circuit.io allows hobbyists and electrical engineers alike to share their designs, providing a full featured schematic & PCB editor in the browser. [via (sorry, I couldn't resist, hyuk hyuk hyuk)]
To Sir, With Contempt
British Education Secretary Michael Gove was a dick to his French teacher 30 years ago, so he apologized. The Guardian goes a step further and asks a bunch of writers if they'd like to apologize to their former teachers. To wit: "I was, in fact, incredibly high. So was Pete. Now I can't even remember what happens in The House of Seven Gables, but I learned a lesson that day, just the same.
Sorry again,
Tim Dowling"
Liquid-metal battery holy grail
A few nights ago MIT scientist Donald Sadoway (Time 100) was on Colbert Report to discuss a new cheap high-capacity liquid-metal battery that could be the holy grail for solar and wind power to store electricity for on-demand use. The Colbert show is an intro but sort of dumb (by design), the TED talk gives some more detail, or the company page Ambri has more info.
Creative Naming Schemes
A good naming scheme is scalable, unique, and easy to remember. The purpose of these naming schemes is to name networked servers, wireless access points or client computers, but it can also be used to name projects, products, variables, streets, pets, kids, or any other project where unique names and rememberable names are required.
good job, brain! trivia & quiz show podcast
Good Job, Brain! is a weekly quiz show & offbeat news podcast. "We here are nuts about trivia. And we are darn sure there are people out there who share our unusual obsession. Are you in a weekly pub trivia team? Do you relish beating your friends at Trivial Pursuit? Do you blab out the answers at the gym when Jeopardy! is on? And don't you just loathe badly worded questions? Ggrrrahhhh! Then this podcast, fellow trivia nut, is the ultimate mental nutrition for your very big brain."
Can geography explain history?
Between Two Gagas
You might have heard of Masiakasaurus knopfleri, the dinosaur named in honor of Dire Straits singer/guitarist Mark Knopfler. You may not have realized just how many organisms are named after celebrities great and small.
Well, today, you can include a new genus of ferns, which includes 19 species, all named for the pop star, Lady Gaga.
Despite appearances to the contrary, the announcement video is not a hoax. Watch the video for all the fabulous synchronicities, including a secret surprise hidden in the DNA.
The Answer My Friend
Whirligigs are whimsical, wind-driven expressions of American folk art that first appeared in this country nearly 200 years ago. Traditional designs depict common characters and activities of early American rural life, from farmers milking cows to lumbermen chopping wood. Here are some highlights of the ninth annual Whirligig & Weathervane Festival in Shelburne Nova Scotia, September 2008. [more inside]
Eat Your Heart Out
The Eat Your Heart Out Cake Shop (NSFW), with cakes graphically illustrating medical conditions and symptoms of disease, will be open from October 26th-28th at London's Pathology Museum at St Bart's Hospital. [more inside]
Look at This Fucking Hipster
Style Blaster is a motion-activated camera situated a block from the Bedford L in Williamsburg. It takes photos of people passing by and asks you to rate their style. Do your civic duty, and troll it.
The Kids are All Right: A higher percentage of Americans under 30 read for pleasure than those over 30.
Younger Americans' Reading and Library Habits: "The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has taken a special look at readers between the ages of 16 and 29... This report examines how they encounter and consume books in different formats. It flows out of a larger effort to assess the reading habits of all Americans ages 16 and older as e-books change the reading landscape and the borrowing services of libraries."
"Rumor is Disney is basing its next cartoon on you." No, it won't be "Dumbo 2"
Emergency Compliment Random reassurances, as close as your web browser. (Of course, if you like what they say, they'll sell you a poster.)
House full of men
Tom Hanks performs Beat-style poetry about Full House. That is all.
Memories of Amikejo
In the first decade of the 20th Century, a German Chief Justice was asked to hear the case of a man who had recently been found guilty according to a law code enacted in the last years of Napoleon's short-lived empire. No state in Europe still used that exact set of laws, but in one small part of the continent, there was an 850 acre plot of land which no state had claimed since the final defeat of Napoleon: Neutral Moresnet, also known as Kelmis, La Calamine or Amikejo. In To Govern, or Not to Govern: Prussia, Neutral Moresnet [pdf, click 'Download This Paper'] Steven Michael Press explains how Neutral Moresnet came to be, and how the Chief Justice ruled in the case. For more information, visit the Neutral Moresnet website. For an account by a visitor, read Unvisited Places of Old Europe by American travel writer Robert Shackleton [starts on page 157]. Finally, here's a podcast lecture by journalist and historian Neal Ascherson called Memories of Amikejo [iTunes link] reflecting on Neutral Moresnet's short existence and whether it tells us something about modern Europe. [Neutral Moresnet previously on MetaFilter]
I Want My Friends Back!
In response to Facebook limiting the number of friends / fans who receive your posts (previously) while simultaneously instituting their new pay to Promote scheme, the folks at Dangerous Minds have launched a new campaign, Facebook: I Want My Friends Back!
It's not the singularity
You knew this day would come. @qwantz, the Twitter bot run by Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics has gotten into a conversation with another Twitter bot, @loudbot. There would appear to be no stopping the two.
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour
On November 28, 1976, ABC televised the premiere of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Few who saw it would ever forget it. [more inside]
A beauty in South Asia
Band-e-Amir is Afghanistan's first national park, struggling to keep tourists visiting its beautiful mountains and lakes.
"That is what $40,000 of film school will get you"
"Dog owners have a dog park where they can show off their dogs, but cat people don't have that," she says. "The Internet is where people who love cats can go to say, 'Look how cute my cat is.'" On cat videos on the Internet, and maintaining the popularity of Henrí and Maru, while designers of the Scratching Post note how how some owners start writing in a first feline style. [more inside]
"I began to believe voices in my head -- that I was a freak, that I am broken, that there is something wrong with me, that I will never be lovable."
"I am here because when I was young, I wanted very badly to be a writer, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I couldn’t find anyone like me in the world and it felt like my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others."On Saturday, Lana Wachowski (co-director of the "Matrix" franchise and "Cloud Atlas") received a "Visibility Award" from the Human Rights Campaign for her recent decision to publicly come out as transgender. In a powerful 25-minute acceptance speech, Lana spoke about the pain she went through growing up and how she developed self-acceptance. Video. Transcript. Q&A with the Hollywood Reporter.
The best free games from across the web
For about three years, the A.V. Club ran Sawbuck Gamer, a regular column reviewing the week's most notable free and cheap games across all platforms, from web games to handhelds to console downloadables. It's a treasure trove of content, especially since more literary sister site The Gameological Society took the helm, and it's publicized great desktop projects like the luscious platformer Frogatto (previously), feature-rich Super Mario Bros. X (previously), the evocative faux-web Digital: A Love Story (previously), interactive fiction gem Rover's Day Off, and the hyperkinetic RunMan: Race Around the World (previously). But if you're in the mood for something more immediate, why not start with a list of all the original column's free A-rated online titles? [more inside]
What you are about to read..is fucking awesome
ESPN NBA blog The Hardwood Paroxysm has released a 2012-2013 Season Preview Guide [PDF] full of clever, opinionated (or sometimes data-driven) previews of each team and star player. [more inside]
To quote the words of House Lemon, "I want to go to there".
30 Thrones makes use of a simple idea: combining images from Game of Thrones and dialog from 30 Rock, to create something unexpectedly good.
"Citing games like Day Z, FTL and XCOM, Jim’s argument made one small mistake: it was all wrong."
A point-counterpoint on the nature of fun in video games:
Games Are Best When Things Go Wrong
Games Aren't Best When Things Go Wrong
Games Are Best When Things Go Wrong
Games Aren't Best When Things Go Wrong
He's behind you
Monopoly Is Theft
Monopoly Is Theft. The antimonopolist history of the world’s most popular board game.
The island where people forget to die.
Ask the very old on Ikaria how they managed to live past 90, and they’ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it to me with a shrug, “We just forget to die.” The reality is they have no idea how they got to be so old. And neither do we. [more inside]
Bloco do Sargento Pimenta
Rivers Lost and Found
London's River Fleet may be the best-known buried river, but there are examples around the world, including the Bievre in Paris, the Wein in Vienna (as featured in The Third Man), the Neglinnaya in Moscow, the Tank Stream in
Sydney, the Minetta Brook in New York and the lost streams of Los Angeles. Some buried rivers are now being
restored to the urban landscape.
Why bury a river? Well, Ben Jonson's On the Famous Voyage gives an idea of what the Fleet was like in the 17th Century. [more inside]
A gash in the skin of the world
Inspiring and amazing urban farming geek, Eric Maundu
Eric Maundu - who comes from Kenya, now lives in West Oakland and is trained in industrial robotics- transforms unused spaces into productive, small aquaponic farms. He has taken the agricultural craft one step further and made his gardens smart. He explores new frontiers of computer-controlled gardening. More information about this story. His company, Kijani Grows. Via faircompanies.com.
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