November 20, 2015
'The only lesbian novel with a happy ending.'
(206) 885-PLAY
What was it like to be a Nintendo game play counselor? The A.V. Club interviews three former Nintento Hotline gameplay experts.
It's kind of a love song--all the monsters enjoying each other's company
You've tuned back into Radio FLTR, where we're digging up more hits from the past and doin' a monster song with ya on this beautiful November night. Here's that young dreamboat with the wacky expressions, Bobby Pickett doing the Monster Mash back in 1964 on American Bandstand, two years after his hit was first released, when he first cashed in on two hits at once - songs about dancing and monster mania. Bobby "Boris" Pickett didn't rest on those laurels in '62, but swiftly came back with a whole album of monster songs that same year .... [more inside]
Can we get some of these remade in full size for Jennifer Lawrence?
Le Petit Théâtre Dior: An exhibit of miniature Dior creations was mounted in China earlier this year. [more inside]
... I wasn’t really an option, but we got on terribly well.
Mark Zuckerberg Plans 2-Month Paternity Leave From Facebook
"Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said he planned to take two months of paternity leave after his daughter is born this year, amid a debate about work-life balance at technology companies." (NYT)
Inside the Clinton Donor Network
2 Clintons * 42 years * $3 Billion: A Washington Post investigation reveals how Bill and Hillary Clinton have methodically cultivated donors over 40 years, from Little Rock to Washington and then across the globe. Their fundraising methods have created a new blueprint for politicians and their donors.
TEDxCUNY
Today at TEDxCUNY, protestors took the stage in honor of Sonia Guinansaca, a migrant queer poet whose speech was pulled this week. (protest begins before the 7 minute mark of the video)
South African Safari time lapse
Transgender Day of Remembrance
November 20, 2015 is the seventeenth annual International Transgender Day of Rememberance and ends Transgender Awareness Week. [more inside]
How to Show Your Mammoth
For fourteen years, Snuffleupagus was the urban legend of Sesame Street -- Big Bird's even bigger friend only ever interacted with him, and their attempts to convince the adults of the Street always ended in humorous failure. But then the writers realized that Snuffleupagus needed to be seen. [more inside]
Does it dry up like a raisin the sun? Or fester like a sore and then run
The Slow Demise of a Unicorn Everybody knows how the first tech boom went bust. But this time around, something's different. More than 100 tech start-ups are currently valued at more than $1 billion dollars, if you go by what VCs and other early investors have paid to buy ownership stakes. Unlike in the early 2000s, very few of today's unicorns have gone public, so there's no way to know what the market really thinks they're worth. Lately though, it seems like the hype train may be coming of the rails. So what happens to those companies now? The New York Times profiles Living Social to find out.
Soundtrack to a really hype nap
R3 Music Box is a YouTube channel that delivers peaceful music box versions of anime, movie, and video game themes, plus tons of J-pop, K-pop, and more.
The Altruisti Feeling Wouldn't Have Been the Same Had She Gotten the Win
“Cheetle” is the official term for the cheese seasoning.
Adrienne Rose Johnson at Buzzfeed: I Tried To Make Cheetos And Discovered That It’s Actually Impossible.
Birds "looking directly down the lens with pride."
Captivating bird portraits by Australian wildlife photographer Leila Jeffreys. Extensive interviews and more photos here and here.
We are a part of the rhythm nation
Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes lip syncing seriously. Joseph Gordon-Levitt arrived on Lip Sync Battle with a mission. It's been over two years since his epic battle on The Tonight Show where he set the gold standard for celebrities mouthing words, and a lot has changed since then. The bit grew into a full-fledged show on Spike, and became grander, more spectacular, and the network's biggest hit. [more inside]
"Let my people go"
1971: Fifth grader David Simon offers up a prayer: "Dear God, if you let Mike Epstein hit a home run right now, I will never, ever skip Hebrew school again." And lo, Mike "SuperJew" Epstein did indeed smack one deep into the upper deck. But less than a month later Simon was once again skipping Hebrew School.
It is now nearly half a century since a small boy asked his god to hang a Vida Blue pitch for his hero, and neither team with which he has allied himself has to this moment returned to a World Series. His foregone conclusion: "I gotta get right with God."
It is now nearly half a century since a small boy asked his god to hang a Vida Blue pitch for his hero, and neither team with which he has allied himself has to this moment returned to a World Series. His foregone conclusion: "I gotta get right with God."
The fish is dead, the barrel is dry but the gun is still smoking
Suck, Again: Updated every WEEKDAY, twenty years ago. A newsletter reissue of Suck.com. [more inside]
"I'm no pusher. I never have pushed."
It really hit me, an image that I was like a taxi driver, floating around in this metal coffin in the city, seemingly in the middle of people, but absolutely, totally alone. - Paul Schrader
Behind the scenes of Taxi Driver.
Behind the scenes of Taxi Driver.
Van Gogh himself wouldn't have gone through so much trouble
"Turning the concept of authenticity on its head, genuine forgeries — whether created with the intention of deceiving or not — are riding the crest of the art-scene zeitgeist, and commanding sums in excess of figures fetched by the so-called ‘original greats’ " - The Fake's Progress by Stuart Husband
How The Bronx Came Back (But Didn't Bring Everyone Along)
Science and sexism: In the eye of the Twitterstorm
When Fiona Ingleby took to Twitter last April to vent about a journal’s peer-review process, she didn’t expect much of a response. With only around 100 followers on the social-media network, Ingleby — an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Sussex near Brighton, UK — guessed that she might receive a few messages of support or commiseration from close colleagues. What she got was an overwhelming wave of reaction. Social media has enabled an increasingly public discussion about the persistent problem of sexism in science.
Why can't I direct Superman?
I want to direct good stories. I don't care whether it's a guy fighting a giant freakish eagle or he's trying to decide what to do about his divorce. I don't know why women are marginalized to talk about love and fashion.The Women of Hollywood Speak Out (NYTMag).
The Algorithm That Creates Diets That Work for You
Take a slice of cake and cut it in two. Eat one half, and let a friend scoff the other. Your blood-sugar levels will both spike, but to different degrees depending on your genes, the bacteria in your gut, what you recently ate, how recently or intensely you exercised, and more. The spikes, formally known as “postprandial glycemic responses” or PPGR, are hard to forecast since two people might react very differently to exactly the same food.
But Eran Elinav and Eran Segal from the Weizmann Institute of Science have developed a way of embracing that variability. By comprehensively monitoring the blood sugar, diets, and other traits of 800 people, they built an algorithm that can accurately predict how a person's blood-sugar levels will spike after eating any given meal.
But Eran Elinav and Eran Segal from the Weizmann Institute of Science have developed a way of embracing that variability. By comprehensively monitoring the blood sugar, diets, and other traits of 800 people, they built an algorithm that can accurately predict how a person's blood-sugar levels will spike after eating any given meal.
“how does one reconcile writing “the end” when life is still unfolding?”
Begin Again: On Endings in Nonfiction by E. V. De Cleyre [Ploughshares.org]
Talking, or writing, about endings is hard—whether it’s the end of a marriage, the end of a life, or the end of a book (lest one spoil the conclusion). Life rarely offers sudden and definitive endings or epiphanic conclusions. Rather, events leading up to the end seem to be a slow unfolding, occasionally bleeding into a new beginning. For writers of nonfiction, dealing with actual occurrences often means there is no definitive end, and even if there were (such as a death), there comes the aftermath—the grief, the coping, the rebuilding.
“The only species on Earth that haven’t attacked me are women”
Marwencol: the incredible WWII art project created by a cross-dresser who was beaten up by bigots [more inside]
"A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into."
I Would Rather Be Herod’s Pig: The History of a Taboo - "The story of how pigs became the world’s most divisive meal." [more inside]
DUNK AFTER DUNK. JAM AFTER JAM.
A day in the life of a 90s kid, set to the music of that great 90s man Aaron Carter. Pogs and Pez! Mechanical claws! It's like BOOM! Brought to you by Neil Cicierega, the trinity ghost of 90s past, present, and future.
Punk Crock
Punk, we greasy teens soon learned, was once the rightful province of a worthy few able to discern reality from simulacrum, irony from sincerity, punks from poseurs, shit from Shinola. Punk was diametrically opposed to massification; like an ailing Victorian child, it would die if exposed to the slavering crowd.
FIRE ZE MISSILES!
Watch the trains go up and down
The Berlin Transportation Authority has built a website where you can see all of the trains, trams, buses and ferries moving through the city in real-time. Real-time map of Berlin subway system. [more inside]
Analogue before analogue
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