November 7, 2011
Worldwide Feast
Saveur Magazine picks 55 great global food blogs.
One of his Minor Works
The original recordings of Ray Ellis' background music for Filmation Studios were recently destroyed, but enthusiasts carefully isolate and preserve the scores from broadcast cartoons. These archetypal cues were originally composed for Star Trek: The Animated Series, and used in subsequent series for over a decade: "Tension Mounts", "Danger Approaching (Variation)", "Action Cue 03".
Detecting alien life by looking for cities at night
Poe Raven Bowie Mashed
If Edgar Allan Poe's, 'The Raven', was interpreted by David Bowie, as imagined sounding by Ralph Garman. [more inside]
From the Fandango Ballroom
The Rhythm of Life is one of those songs that sort of embeds itself in your brain. Originally from Sweet Charity, it's a powerful beat that is able to transcend meaning, transformed by the medium... The original intent was a bit of a bohemian/hippie chant.
The song sometimes was voiced by a congregation that appeared somewhat more innocent.
Yin and yang, backwards.... it's meaning became something different altogether.
Or, there's this...
It's All Games Now
It's All Games Now: The Convergence of Games and Social Media (video, 61 minutes), is a talk given by Raph Koster, one of the lead designers of the MMO Ultima Online, at the 2011 Game Developers Conference Online in Austin Texas. In it he looks at how digital games have changed as a social experience from MUDs to World of Warcraft, where they are going in the future, and the bleed between games and the real world. Koster has posted a summary here on his site. [more inside]
Gay helpline pioneer Rose Robertson has passed.
Before the Second World War, Rose Robertson did secretarial work. During the war, as part of her work for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the UK, Robertson parachuted into occupied France to spy on German troop deployments and act as a courier. Her acquaintance there with a gay couple in the French Resistance, and, after the war, friendship with gay lodgers, led her to found Parents Enquiry, Britain's first helpline to support parents and their lesbian, gay and bisexual children, an organization which she operated for many years. [more inside]
Beyond "Total Noise"
Technology is the name we give to things that don’t work yet
Six New Libraries Opened Daily
After visiting Nepal in 1998, John Wood left Microsoft to try something different. His organization Room to Read now has created 12,000+ libraries around the world, and given away 10 million books.
Yelping with Cormac
How would Cormac McCarthy review products and services for Yelp? Yelping with Cormac, a Tumblr blog, rises to the challenge and shows us how. [more inside]
Yom HaShoah, in history and current day Israel
Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, is Israel's day of memorial for those killed during the Holocaust and those who were part of the resistance.
At 10:00 am on Yom HaShoah, sirens are sounded throughout Israel for two minutes. During this time, people cease from action and stand at attention; cars stop, even on the highways; and the whole country comes to a standstill as people pay silent tribute to the dead.
At 10:00 am on Yom HaShoah, sirens are sounded throughout Israel for two minutes. During this time, people cease from action and stand at attention; cars stop, even on the highways; and the whole country comes to a standstill as people pay silent tribute to the dead.
On The Set
Hervé Attia has made dozens of videos showing movie locations as they look in the present day juxtaposed with clips of the actual film. He also puts himself into the film sometimes. [more inside]
Forbidden Love
You probably know what Snoop Dogg gets you
What should you drink? Take your cues from the tunes. That's the premise behind Drinkify, a scrappy little webapp that recommends drinks based on what you're listening to. Their motto? "Never listen to music alone again." [more inside]
Visiting Deep Space...in Queens
Visiting Deep Space...in Queens This incredible room at the Hall of Science in Queens was originally built for the 1964 World's Fair to give visitors the feeling of being in deep space. Really beautiful, unearthly design.
[via mefi projects] [more inside]
Bring Me The Head Of Franz Joseph Haydn
When I'm gone, my mind remains a planet
Hip hop’s last enigma. 90 minutes of music and interviewing one of the best lyricists there is, via the Red Bull Academy Lecture series. [more inside]
Google keyword: Pepsi
Two weeks ago, Google disabled the + operator for searches, requiring quotation marks to force inclusion of a word.
Today, Google Plus rolled out a new feature - Pages for companies and brands, so you can "build relationships with all the things you care about". Included is Direct Connect - go straight to Pepsi's Google+ page by searching for +Pepsi.
Today, Google Plus rolled out a new feature - Pages for companies and brands, so you can "build relationships with all the things you care about". Included is Direct Connect - go straight to Pepsi's Google+ page by searching for +Pepsi.
Stealth Bastard, a game
Stealth Bastard: Technical Espionage Asshole is a sidescrolling stealth game for Windows that is part puzzle platformer and part Super Meat Boy. It also has a level editor and is inexplicably free. Go play! [more inside]
Graphic Violence, or the Evening Redness in the West
'He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.' Artist Shawn Cheng and associates draw Cormac McCarthy's visceral masterpiece Blood Meridian page by brutal page. [more inside]
The how and why of leaking your own album, in two forms: Ben Folds Five and Wiley
In July 2008, there was a suspicious leak of new Ben Folds Five material, two months in advance of the (then) forthcoming album, Way to Normal. One month later, Ben Folds confessed that he and his touring band made the 6 fake songs in 8 hours (plus three tunes actually from the album), and he compared the fake tracks to the real album. Two years later, Wiley tweeted that he sacked his manager, and in a form of retaliation, shared 11 seemingly random collections of tracks in various forms of completion. [more inside]
Chicken Pox, Lollipops?
A Facebook post reads, "I got a Pox Package in mail just moments ago. I have two lollipops and a wet rag and spit."
Pox parties not in your town? "non-vaccinating parents who despair of finding a way to infect their children with chicken pox (intended to create natural immunity) are joining Facebook groups to acquire the virus through the mail."
The science based community reacts.
New York as you know it.
A Year of New York in 5 minutes. Cameraman Andrew Clancy lives in New York City, and was in the habit of shooting footage of what was going on around him whenever he was out. This is a compilation of life in the city, from the point of view of a New Yorker.
A sticky situation
Testing by Food Safety News has shown that more than 75% of the honey being sold in the United States does not qualify to be labeled for sale as "honey". [more inside]
"There's nothing you can't do on a prosthetic leg."
"Every day in the U.S., about 500 people lose a limb. About 1,800 amputation surgeries are performed each year in Oklahoma. More than 1,600 of those — about 90 percent — are lower body amputations. So every day in Oklahoma, four people lose part or all of a leg." (Nationally, the most common procedure is toe amputation.) "These are the stories of four people living in Oklahoma — a mother, a senior, a Marine and a student — all living life on at least one prosthetic leg": Standing Tall [more inside]
Department of Terror and Graft
"Without knowing what they ought to fear, US citizens might otherwise fail to support profitable national security initiatives." - Malcolm P. Stag III, Secretary of Fear [more inside]
The Codex Seraphinianus
The Codex Seraphinianus. This rare art book with text written in a still-unbroken code has been out of print for years. Now the whole thing is now available to read online.
Bully as Victim
A Michigander questions why an anti-bullying legislation became instead a bully protection tool. "On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled state senate passed an anti-bullying bill that manages to protect school bullies instead of those they victimize. It accomplishes this impressive feat by allowing students, teachers, and other school employees to claim that 'a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction' justifies their harassment." [more inside]
A Diamond is Forever, but stock ownership is whole different ballgame
"A momentous and difficult decision for the family which has been in the diamond industry for more than 100 years and part of De Beers for over 80 years" ~ Nicky Oppenheimer, Chairman of De Beers on the recent announcement of selling the family's interest in De Beers to Anglo American and pulling out of the diamond business. The Oppenheimers may have ruled the roost for decades, but the company began with Cecil Rhodes, the English-born politician and entrepreneur who went on to found Rhodesia, which was renamed Zimbabwe in 1979 and the Rhodes scholarship scheme to Oxford University.
Daft beat poems
An immortal soul, he was Autoluminescent.
When we first heard it, it sounded like it came from outer space… Douglas Hart
There are just, every few years, the sound from a guitar, from someone who is channeling something that is so bone chilling, so blood healing, something that twists your molecular structure… Lydia Lunch
It was extraordinary really. As soon as he played two notes you knew it was Rowland Howard… Nick Cave
Autoluminescent, a documentary about the late great guitarist, has been released (along with the bats). [more inside]
There are just, every few years, the sound from a guitar, from someone who is channeling something that is so bone chilling, so blood healing, something that twists your molecular structure… Lydia Lunch
It was extraordinary really. As soon as he played two notes you knew it was Rowland Howard… Nick Cave
Autoluminescent, a documentary about the late great guitarist, has been released (along with the bats). [more inside]
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