October 27, 2012
25 Years Of Keeping The Faith
October 30, 1987 is the anniversary of the release of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou's first solo album. It would go on to sell over 8 million copies in the first year of its release in the US alone, spawn six Top 5 singles (including four which hit #1, another reaching #2), would reach the top of the album charts in countries around the world, and to date has sold over 25 million copies across the planet. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, George Michael's Faith is 25 years old. [more inside]
Camoflage and Cognitive Dissonance.
It's numbers all the way down...OR IS IT
Benjamin Grosser's latest project is Facebook Demetricator, a browser application that aims to confront our "collective obsession with metrics" by hiding all of the numbers embedded in Facebook's interface— friends, likes, shares, comments, and even timestamps. [more inside]
Yesterday's News
US Presidential race got you stressed? Escape into the past with Retro Campaigns.
Mikko Lagerstedt
50 second Dumb and Dumber fan video homage
One critic found it "an abominable, abdominal comedy." Others see it as one of the best comedy films ever made. But clearly, these two fans successfully channeled the spirit of the original scene when they made this 50 second homage to one of the film's slapstick sequences . (youtube link)
"Look 'round thee now on Samarcand, is she not queen of earth?"
In the first years of the Fifteenth Century Henry III of Castile sent Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo as his ambassador to Samarkand. His journey introduced him to giraffes and many other sights unknown to Europeans of the time. Samarkand was then the center of the largest empire in the world, that of Tamerlane the Great (a.k.a Timur), the last of the nomad conquerors. His capital began as a city of the Sogdians, which became an important center of culture and trade, as is recorded in these 7th Century wall paintings. Samarkand was refashioned by Timur and his descendants, the most famous being the astronomer Ulugh Beg, and the Timurid legacy is still visible in Samarkand. After Timur's death, his empire disintegrated, and soon fell into decline, but left enough of a mark to inspire both Christopher Marlowe and Edgar Allan Poe. The Russian Empire conquered Samarkand in 1868, and the city was documented in the early 20th Century in color photograhs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii (this one's a favorite) and remained an out of the way place in the Soviet era.
OLE
A lack of a substantial federal question
On May 18, 1970, two Minneapolis men made a shocking request. They applied for a marriage license. Minnesota Public Radio explains how we got from 1970 to now, when a week from Tuesday, Minnesota will vote on Amendment 1. [more inside]
The progressive case against Obama
"A few days ago, I participated in a debate with the legendary Daniel Ellsberg on the merits of the Obama administration, and what progressives should do on Election Day. Ellsberg had written a blog post arguing that, though Obama deserves tremendous criticism, voters in swing states ought to vote for him, lest they operate as dupes for a far more malevolent Republican Party. This attitude is relatively pervasive among Democrats, and it deserves a genuine response."Matt Stoller lays out a progressive case for why one should not vote for Barack Obama for reelection, even if you are in a swing state.
There is Nothing New Under the Sun
She sat zazen, concentrating on not concentrating, until it was time to prepare for the appointment. Sitting seemed to produce the usual serenity, put everything in perspective. Her hand did not tremble as she applied her make-up; tranquil features looked back at her from the mirror. She was mildly surprised, in fact, at just how calm she was, until she got out of the hotel elevator at the garage level and the mugger made his play. She killed him instead of disabling him. Which was obviously not a measured, balanced action--the official fuss and paperwork could make her late. Annoyed at herself, she stuffed the corpse under a shiny new Westinghouse roadable whose owner she knew to be in Luna, and continued on to her own car. This would have to be squared later, and it would cost. No help for it--she fought to regain at least the semblance of tranquillity as her car emerged from the garage and turned north. Nothing must interfere with this meeting, or with her role in it. "Melancholy Elephants," an enthralling, Hugo Award-winning short story by Spider Robinson about a disciplined operative, a powerful senator, and a crucial mission to preserve humanity's most precious resource. (some spoilers inside) [more inside]
What's wrong and how to fix it.
It’s not as though as a society we have become that much stupider than our forbears; it’s because we have become that much more corrupt.
Adam Garfinkle discusses American political dysfunction in one, two, three parts.
Adam Garfinkle discusses American political dysfunction in one, two, three parts.
Oh to live in Florida now that fall is here.
Can the company fire you for the way you vote? When workers are forced to go to rallies in communist countries, we call that Stalinism. Here, we call it the free market.
Featuring David Siegel, CEO of Florida's Westgate Resorts; and Florida-based ASG Software CEO Arthur Allen.
Susi Steinitz - cartoonist
A family friend, Susi, just turned 90. Since I’m home in Oregon, I attended the B-Day party. Her Jewish family got out of Germany in ’39 and she found herself a teenager in the US. Got an education, got married, raised a family. She was — is — an artist, and she ended up teaching. But she worked as a gag strip cartoonist in New York, from ’46 to ’50. I’m interested in the history of comics, so she loaned me a rather large file box (which I am being very careful with!) Lots of old clippings, old battered bristol board with typed captions taped on. Neat!
MIT Gangnam Style feat. Sadoway and Chomsky
3:33
In honor of the release of their new album, the experimental instrumental hip-hop group 3:33 (a side project of Parallel Thought) have released the free album 7 Sets of 7, an amazing series of surreal/atmospheric/old-school remixes of various hip-hop artists including
Del The Funky Homosapien, Bone Thugs N Harmony, and MF DOOM. They're also offering for free their horror-influenced album The First Thousand Days. [more inside]
Scroll Down for Shivers!
Corpora delicti
CSI: Parthenon: A questioner asks historians how a murder case would be solved and prosecuted in the era of their expertise. Answers for : Colonial Boston, Norman Ireland, 19th Century Imperial China, Ancient Athens, 14th-Century England, 13th century England, Victorian England, Rome. (Via Reddit's AskHistorians; whole thread.)
Crime's Grand Tour
Crime fiction is a magnifying glass that reveals the fingerprints of history. From Holmes and Poirot to Montalbano and the rise of Scandi-noir, Mark Lawson investigates the long tradition of European super-sleuths and their role in turbulent times. [more inside]
between the lighter-skinned and darker-skinned members of the same community
A glance at shade-ism [video], skin 'lightening', and personal impact [video] for those who vary from cultural preference across the world.
Gabby Douglas is the Prez.
Pick your celebrity president - "We have gathered runners and riders from across the celebrity spectrum - from sports stars to celebrity chefs - for a more glittering election in 2012.
Answer the questions and find out who you would likely vote for in a showbiz showdown for the keys to the White House."
via BBC. [more inside]
Research In Progress
Want to Make Historic Recipes?
Want to make historic recipes? You can help transcribe the University of Iowa Libraries age old assortment of handwritten cookbooks, ca. 1600s-1960s, documenting culinary history in America and Europe and how tastes have changed over the years. Copy the text as is, including misspellings and abbreviations. [more inside]
The Library of Babel in 140 characters (or fewer)
The universe (which others call The Twitter) is composed of every word in the English language; Shakespeare's folios, line-by-line-by-line; the Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, exploded; Constantine XI, in 140 character chunks; Sun Tzu's Art of War, in its entirety; the chapter headings of JG Ballard, in abundance; and definitive discographies of Every. Artist. Ever...
All this, I repeat, is true, but one hundred forty characters of inalterable wwwtext cannot correspond to any language, no matter how dialectical or rudimentary it may be. [more inside]
. .. and now, it's time to scare you half to death.
Nightfall was a popular and controversial horror and sci-fi series that aired on CBC Radio between 1980 and 1983. [more inside]
"This never happens during MY matches."
Some folks in CHIKARA Pro were having a wrestling match, and a baseball game broke out.
Time Warp Master Class!
Released in 1999, The Rocky Interactive Horror Show was a point and click video game featuring clunky gameplay and graphics that looked dated even by the standards of the time. Reviews were middling, and the title soon fell into obscurity. But while nobody would ever call the game a classic, it did feature a few wonderfully weird treats guaranteed to drive any Rocky Horror fan in-say-yay-yay-yane... [more inside]
“politics is full of deceit, treachery, and betrayal.”
Sunt tibi necessaria consilio pro electione?
Q. Ciceronem, frater M., habet quaedam verba pro vobis in Commentariolum Petitionis [more inside]
THe Forbidden Planet Soundtrack by Luis and Bebe Barron
Forbidden Planet - Whole Soundtrack Album
Bebe Barron - Mixed emotions
Elementary Electronics: Louis and Bebe Barron, Forbidden Planet and the Dawn of Electronic Music
Luis and Bebe Barron were pioneer composers of electronic music who collaborated with the likes of Henry Miller and Anais Nin before scoring the soundtrack of the classic science fiction film Forbidden Planet. [more inside]
Bebe Barron - Mixed emotions
Elementary Electronics: Louis and Bebe Barron, Forbidden Planet and the Dawn of Electronic Music
Luis and Bebe Barron were pioneer composers of electronic music who collaborated with the likes of Henry Miller and Anais Nin before scoring the soundtrack of the classic science fiction film Forbidden Planet. [more inside]
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