November 14, 2013
Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?
At the core of good science and engineering is the careful and respectful treatment of data. We calibrate our instruments, scrutinize the algorithms we use to process the data, and study the behavior of the models we use to interpret the data or simulate the phenomena we may be observing. Surprisingly, this careful treatment of data often breaks down when we visualize our data.
Print out the Wright Flyer
On Wednesday, The Smithsonian launched a new 3D viewer on its website featuring a selection of its digitised collection, some of which are also available for 3D printing.
Robot does 12 human-years of trial testing in one week.
Robot scientists! A Pretty cool video about research automation from the Wall Street Journal. [slyt]
Outside of all corporate taxation zones
Economist warns of the coming robot apocalypse
The robots are here. George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen predicts that the trend towards automation will squeeze the middle class further still, and compares its effects on American politics to a too-overlooked 1955 short story by Isaac Asimov.
Love's Secret Ascension
Love's Secret Ascension: Coil, Coltrane & The 70th Birthday Of LSD. "Author and new Quietus writer Peter Bebergal celebrates the original synthesis of LSD with a thoughtful look at acid and transcendent, magickal music." [Via Technoccult] [more inside]
A rainy commercial by Google India
The India-Pakistan partition in 1947 separated many friends and families overnight. A granddaughter in India decides to surprise her grandfather on his birthday by reuniting him with his childhood friend (who is now in Pakistan) after over 6 decades of separation, with a little help from Google Search. SLYT
"Society's order and the orders of society are steamed away..."
A Generation of Intellectuals Shaped by 2008 Crash Rescues Marx From History’s Dustbin [more inside]
Londyńczycy
"Somebody's gotta stand up to these experts!"
How do I news?
The News IQ Quiz by the Pew Research Center. Test your knowledge of prominent people and major events in the news by taking our short 13-question quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with 1,052 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national survey conducted online August 7-14 by the Pew Research Center. [more inside]
A Drop So Insane You'll Suddenly Only Like Movies With Tim Allen In Them
Pshhhkkkkkkrrrrkakingkakingkakingtshchchchchchchchcch
Tree pretty, fire bad
Buzzfeed ranks every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from worst to best. Let the arguments begin.
The Last Starfighter
A year ago a mysterious young man going by the name of Starcadian posted a surprisingly masterfully composed music video shot for $200 with half of a discarded movie prop cockpit. Other than a few songs on soundcloud, notably Girls Of Midnight which got some moderate blog attention a couple years ago, he hadn't really been on anyone's radar... [more inside]
I got a bomb in my temple that is gonna explode
Songs from Pearl Jam's 1991 debut album Ten, stripped of all but Eddie Vedder's vocals: Once. Even Flow. Alive. Black. Jeremy. Oceans. Release. Apart from highlighting Vedder's unique voice, phrasing and harmonzing, these vocal mixes expose some interesting studio effects applied to his voice (on 'Even Flow', for example).
We infiltrate, we duplicate like cells, we multiply!
"Puerto Rican rappers/rockers Calle 13 continue their fierce criticism of government systems and oppression in their latest track Multi_Viral... [more inside]
Übermensch
All of this is Nebraska.
Still, highly illegal
Every wondered where your favorite brown liquid came from? Find its starting position on the Bourbon Family Tree. [more inside]
oublio: most popular stuff on the internet
oublio: most popular stuff on the internet "I made a site and I thought MeFi might find it interesting: It shows the most popular image on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Flickr in real time, as well as the most popular videos on YouTube each day: www.oublio.com. Now you can waste time on social media more efficiently!"
[via mefi projects]
Buzzfeed's 7 Fantasic Ways To Distinguish Between Sense And Nonsense
7 Fantastic Ways To Distinguish Between Sense And Nonsense from the listicle kings at Buzzfeed.
Death Grips: Government Plates, third aggro/weirdo rap album for free
May 2011: Death Grips appears out of nowhere, releases Ex Military, a free mixtape of noisy, distorted aggro-rap (full album stream on YouTube).
April 2012: Death Grips signs with Epic, releases The Money Store, their first proper album of art-rap/ tech-beat/ psycho-rap/ whatever (YT album stream).
October 2012: Death Grips leak their second album, No Love Deep Web, defying Epic, and sever ties to the label.
July 2013: Death Grips signs to Capitol/Harvest under their own Thirdworlds imprint.
November 2013: Death Grips suddenly drops their 3rd album, Government Plates, for free to download and stream from various sources.
(It's best to consider all audio NSFW) [more inside]
April 2012: Death Grips signs with Epic, releases The Money Store, their first proper album of art-rap/ tech-beat/ psycho-rap/ whatever (YT album stream).
October 2012: Death Grips leak their second album, No Love Deep Web, defying Epic, and sever ties to the label.
July 2013: Death Grips signs to Capitol/Harvest under their own Thirdworlds imprint.
November 2013: Death Grips suddenly drops their 3rd album, Government Plates, for free to download and stream from various sources.
(It's best to consider all audio NSFW) [more inside]
You want the beat?
Tim Derbyshire, owner of London's On the Beat Records, has put his entire store up for bid on eBay. Says the NYT: "[Derbyshire] has decided to retire but would prefer not to just pack up and go. Nor is he keen on having an everything-must-go sale. His preference is to leave the shop as it is, with its stock of singles, albums, posters and 1960s through 1980s memorabilia intact, and turn over the keys to a record fanatic who will run it more or less as he has, since the late 1970s." The buy-it-now price is £300,000.
So It All Began With a Giant Lion Turtle and a Guy Named Wan.
Beginnings: Part 1 and Beginnings: Part 2, aired as episodes 19 and 20 in the second season or Book Two of the animated show Avatar: Legend of Korra, and represented a shift from the show's straight forward animation to a style that embraced the aesthetic of traditional East Asian ink drawing/painting and symbolism with a dash of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli charm to tell the background story of the Avatar figure. The result is incredible. [more inside]
A Sailor's Dying Wish
I really don't have anything to add to this.
They piped him ashore. CMDCM Grgetich leaned in and quietly told me how significant that honor was and who it’s usually reserved for as we headed towards the gangplank. Hearing “Electrician’s Mate Second Class William Bud Cloud, Pearl Harbor Survivor, departing” announced over the 1MC was surreal.
I refuse to make a single "gates" or "Flashdance" pun in this title
Bob Dylan is a welder and he makes big iron gates out of scrap metal. You can see for yourself at Castle Gallery in London for the next couple of months. Says Bob: "Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference."
"Now, only humans will play cricket."
The entire nation of India grinds to a halt for the next 5 days, as Sachin Tendulkar competes in his final Test match before retiring. ESPN's CricInfo has a hub of reflections and recollections for the Little Master. [more inside]
Suck it, Thoreau
"Kiss Me, I''m Desperate," by Blake Grigsby. But how could anyone who made the world's largest cardboard castle be desperate?
Zuì Zhōng Huàn Xiǎng 7
RetroCollect reports: "...in 2005 ShenZhen Nanjing Technology released a run-down port of Final Fantasy VII for Nintendo's 8-bit system in China. Despite lacking a lot of story elements, gameplay aspects and finesse, ROM hacker Lugia2009 saw potential within the game's code and began using it as a basis to recreate the PlayStation 1 adventure in its entirety...
Bridging design techniques
Beijing and Amsterdam-based studio NEXT architects have won first place in a bridge design competition for Meixi Lake near the Changsha capital in Hunan, China. The shape was inspired by the Mobius Strip and Chinese knotting.
If you believe...
Rumors of a faked death have been just as much a part of Andy Kaufman's legacy as watching him turn from Foreign Man to Elvis, but if what played out at this week's Andy Kaufman Awards in New York City are actually true, the comedic genius may have pulled off his biggest hoax of all: not just faking his own death, but secretly spending the last 29 years raising a family.
A Day in the Life of an Art Museum Security Guard
It Is What It Is "If you notice a guard at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis suddenly balancing on one foot or striking a yoga pose, it’s probably just Todd Balthazor limbering up. “I’m stretching all the time,” he said. “You have to do that, or else you are going to stiffen up. We have some elderly workers, and they just walk like trees.” [...] In the strip, “It Is What It Is,” Mr. Balthazor frequently aims graphic barbs at museum guests, like the “photo bomber,” who poses in front of large paintings without considering the art. “They look at it like, ‘This is going to be a great backdrop for my Facebook profile,’ ” Mr. Balthazor said." [more inside]
All hail the blue green Sun God!
13 Facts About Space That Will Make Your Head Explode. [SLCrackedVideo | Disclaimer: will not make your head explode. But is still interesting!]
The Biggest Crime in the History of Horology
An audacious museum heist, in which a timepiece made for Marie Antoinette was among a haul worth hundreds of millions of pounds, left police clutching at thin air. It was only when the watch turned up 25 years later that the pieces of the jigsaw began to fall into place. - Marie Antoinette : the queen, her watch and the master burglar
Spray Me
Spray On Fabric Spray on clothes every morning! No ironing, no matching the tops to bottom, no "I ate too much last night so now this doesn't fit…"
... but perhaps not the one you were expecting.
Doctor Who is turning 50.
There is a minisode. It goes there.
If you are a fan, watch it. [more inside]
Cool bananas
For decades, Iceland has been rumoured to be the largest producer of bananas in Europe. This factoid made the BBC quiz show Q.I. in 2006, and was cited as truth in a Christian Science Monitor article about geothermal energy in Iceland. Now the Reykjavík Grapevine digs deeper and reveals the provenance of this rumour and what truth there is in it (PDF; see page 6).
Simon Says: "Cthulhu fhtagn"
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