The day in posts: 11/22/2010

[Warning: some links NSFW] Callgirl and blogger Alexa DiCarlo had some questions raised about her authenticity dating back to 2008 and 2009, but her website RealPrincessDiaries.com (archive.org cache) still attracted huge traffic and she was even named the #1 sex blogger of 2010. A student at SFSU's master's degree program in sexuality studies, she also volunteered her time providing sex education advice to teenagers online under the name Caitlain or Cathy. And she mentored newbie sex workers via e-mail, giving them pro tips and even sharing with them one of her top clients, Matt, whose identity and safety she vouched for. But in true Kaycee Nicole / JT LeRoy style, it now turns out there wasn't any "Alexa", "Caitlain", or "Cathy". Outed by the anonymous blog Expose A Bro, combined with the anonymous twitter account @ExposingAlexa, the real story has emerged. Alexa was apparently a married middle-aged guy named Pat, not a student at SFSU, had no formal training from which to be sharing "advice" (or naked photos!) with those teenagers online, and he was the "client" that "Alexa" had sent to her protégées to sleep with... [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl at 9:03 PM PST - 197 comments

Didn't Know What Love Was is video by Andreas Nilsson, for a collaboration by Bernard Sumner (lead singer of New Order), Hot Chip (previously), and Hot City. A little about the video here. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 8:59 PM PST - 13 comments

I’ve spent the better part of the week serving as the foreman for a jury in a criminal case. As they tell you, you’re not allowed to talk about it with anyone, not even your fellow jurors, during the trial. As they also tell you, once the trial is over you can talk about anything you want. So, here goes.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:22 PM PST - 80 comments

What Good is Wall Street? Think of all the profits produced by businesses operating in the U.S. as a cake. Twenty-five years ago, the slice taken by financial firms was about a seventh of the whole. Last year, it was more than a quarter. (In 2006, at the peak of the boom, it was about a third.) In other words, during a period in which American companies have created iPhones, Home Depot, and Lipitor, the best place to work has been in an industry that doesn’t design, build, or sell a single tangible thing.
posted by shivohum at 7:11 PM PST - 102 comments

Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit. [more inside]
posted by Baby_Balrog at 6:08 PM PST - 118 comments

"When we started Windy City, it was a means to an end, because there wasn't a distributor in Chicago that wanted to touch craft beer," Mr. Ebel says. "We went around to bars and they said, 'Great beer. How many free cases can you give me?' We just had to walk out of those accounts, set a price, and stick to it. And nobody asks us that anymore." Pay-to-play contreversy in the Chicago beer scene, with appearances from a who's who of Midwest beermeisters: Tracy Hurst of Metropolitan Brewing Co., Deb Carey of New Glarus Brewing Co., the Ebel Brothers of Two Brothers Brewing Co., and Josh Hall of Goose Island Brewing Company
posted by d1rge at 4:19 PM PST - 30 comments

Bar Portraits — Dignified gentlemen sit for their portraits in bars and cafes across Italy. Contrast that with The Waste Land, a series of intimate portraits of young intoxicated people, photographed during or after parties, festivals, and raves. Both are portrait projects of Piero Martinello. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 4:04 PM PST - 25 comments

BIRD CALLS and SONGS: A blog about the bird sounds of eastern North America and beyond. Featuring Nightjars, the Blackbird and Tits. (~v~)
posted by puny human at 3:46 PM PST - 5 comments

Kackel Dackel. Schweine Schwarte. Dino Meal. Fiese Fliegen. German game maker Goliath does not flinch from making sport of all aspects of the consumption-excretion cycle. [more inside]
posted by emjaybee at 2:39 PM PST - 20 comments

All The Bold and the Beautiful in 6 minutes.
posted by - at 2:06 PM PST - 14 comments

If you thought fanbase reaction to The Last Airbender was negative, you ain't seen nothing yet. Warner Bros has announced a Buffy reboot with no involvement from Joss Whedon. There's an interview with the screenwriter here. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 1:38 PM PST - 227 comments

Filmaker, comics writer and Journalist Ann Nocenti, known for her run on Daredevil and being the creator of Longshot, now teaches film in Haiti. (More Ann Nocenti posts on posts on Hilobrow)
posted by Artw at 1:38 PM PST - 8 comments

Kelli went to Northeastern University and got loans to pay for her sociology degree. Her repayment schedule is featured in the article and it is not pretty. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 1:04 PM PST - 270 comments

Want to get your graphic novel made into a movie? As a last resort, try creating an actual graphic novel. Then, pay comic book stores to both carry it and sell it cheap (or give it away while still counting it as a sale). Once you've artificially climbed the sales charts, Hollywood will come-a-callin'. The story of how Cowboys & Aliens (has just about) made it to the silver screen. [Via gammasquad.]
posted by notmydesk at 12:36 PM PST - 61 comments

Did you know that there's an art museum on the moon? A tiny, tiny one. The Moon Museum features works by Forrest "Frosty" Myers (the instigator), Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, David Novros, and John Chamberlain, inscribed on a little chip of silicon and surreptitiously transported to the moon's surface on the Apollo 12 mission. But of course there's a mystery, in this big of a secret: who is John F., the engineer at least partially responsible for smuggling the chip onboard the lunar lander? Related: other stuff people have left on the Moon (!)
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:45 AM PST - 19 comments

Mashup Breakdown interactively breaks down every sample used in Girl Talk's latest album "All Day"
posted by livejamie at 11:20 AM PST - 42 comments

Peter Chung, the animator who gave us Aeon Flux, The Maxx, The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, The Animatrix: Matriculated and Reign: The Conquerer, has a new comic-to-film adaptation aimed at more mainstream audiences premiering Wednesday on Cartoon Network (US): Firebreather. Official Site. Trailer. (Caution: Some links in this post autoplay video) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:56 AM PST - 29 comments

Wasdale is a remote valley in the English Lake District. It boasts England's deepest lake, highest mountain, smallest church...and biggest liar. [more inside]
posted by reynir at 10:48 AM PST - 24 comments

Sometimes us cubicle monkeys don't have time to get out into the concrete jungle to check out street art for ourselves. If you prefer moving pictures, check out the great 2007 documentary on graffiti art, Bomb It. It's online. When you're done there, you can check out more great images at Art Crimes and find images from your own corner of the urban sprawl at CityNoise.
posted by Stagger Lee at 10:29 AM PST - 2 comments

Yehuda Moon and the kickstand Cyclery is a three year old daily webcomic about Bicycles, advocacy, and beards. You'd probably want to start at The beginning.
posted by djduckie at 9:29 AM PST - 27 comments

"Isarithmic maps are essentially topographic or contour maps, wherein a third variable is represented in two dimensions by color, or by contour lines, indicating gradations. I had never seen such a map depicting political data — certainly not election returns, and thus sought to create them".
posted by nomadicink at 9:26 AM PST - 20 comments

We need to talk about your cat because your cat is pissing me off.
posted by Cobalt at 9:16 AM PST - 63 comments

Will Canada be the first developed nation to decriminalise Polygamy? After Charter challenges legalised orgies, prostitution (most recently "living off the avails"), same-sex marriages, non-sexual adult interdependent relationships, common-law marraiges and multiple legally recognised spouses in Saskatchewan, the West Coast is now hosting a unique reference case in B.C.'s superior court considering whether section 293 of the Canadian Criminal Code is legal under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. [more inside]
posted by saucysault at 6:27 AM PST - 119 comments