November 23, 2011
Earl Campbell Thighs in HD!
Just in time for Turkey Day.
Recently something unique came into my possession: the original 16mm work-print of Manos: The Hands of Fate. (made famous by these guys).
Recently something unique came into my possession: the original 16mm work-print of Manos: The Hands of Fate. (made famous by these guys).
A modest proposal
#fail #whale #tale
Australia's Qantas Airlines has been left red-faced after an ill-timed public relations campaign and Twitter competition backfired, drawing thousands of angry responses. The contest ran a day after talks with unions broke down, and after Qantas grounded its entire fleet in October.
Thousands of passengers were stranded worldwide after the firm halted flights in an attempt to end months of strike action by workers angered by the firm's restructuring plans.
The "Qantas Luxury" promotion, launched on 22 November, quickly tapped into customers' ire. ~ BBC
Cellophane shrink-wrapped, so correct.
"Just put it in the oven and go for a walk!"
"Somebody's turkey might come out better and somebody's turkey comes out worse but just remember: it's just a f*cking turkey." Tante Marie offers last-minute, no nonsense advice on how to make a Thanksgiving turkey. [more inside]
The multi-talented Hans Reichel, 1949-2011
Hans Reichel, of Wuppertal, Germany, maker of exquisitely beautiful guitars, on which he made exquisitely beautiful and idiosyncratic music, inventor of the delightfully expressive daxophone, on which he made delightfully expressive and often humorous music, creator of elegant fonts and architect of one of the most endearingly creative flash websites you'll ever see, has died at the age of 62. [more inside]
Panama Priti Bikes
Why this murderous love, world?
Yo boys. I am sing song. Soup song. Flop song. "It's not meant to be anti-anything. Director [Aishwarya Dhanush] said the situation demanded a light-hearted fun song about love failure. I came up with a tune in ten minutes. I don't know what kind of mood Dhanush was in… he started singing in broken English and came up with this in 20 minutes. It just happened".
Presenting India's newest music phenomenon, a Tamil-English dada-ist patische eulogizing unrequited love through Madras street-slang, and hypnotic earthy drums. [more inside]
Ulysses 31 Redux
Ulysses 31 Redux (YT) is a shot-for-shot remake of the opening credits of Ulysses 31, the Franco-Japanese sci-fi retelling of The Odyssey (and perhaps high water mark of 80s children's television). The remake was directed by Dermot Canterbury.
To create is to resist, to resist is to create
In Time for outrage! (Indignez-vous in French, ¡Indignaos! in Spanish), a short pamphlet published at the end of 2010, 93-year old Stéphane Hessel, a former French Resistance fighter and diplomat, called for young people to fight injustice. He struck a nerve, and his little book not only became a surprise best-seller (3.5 million copies worldwide, translated into 10 languages) but gave its name (Indignados) to the Spanish protest movement that started in May 2011 and later inspired other protests in many countries, including France, Greece, Israel, and the USA with Occupy Wall Street. Interview with Hessel about the Occupy movements. First page of the official translation. Unofficial translation (of lesser quality). Bonus: Stéphane Hessel's mother, played by Jeanne Moreau in Truffaut's classic Jules and Jim.
Firewater
There's a fairly old urban legend [Snopes; pop-ups galore] regarding the feasibility and/or incidence of young people getting drunk via the insertion of tampons that had been soaked in vodka into body cavities. Snopes was skeptical of the claim, but apparently no one had gone on record as having tested the method... until Danielle Crittenden stepped into the breach. (HuffPo) [more inside]
Mahna Mahna
Mahna Mahna -- the signature Muppets tune you all know and love? It came from the soundtrack of an Italian soft porn film about Swedish lesbians.
Putting a style in your crimp
Le Crimp (mostly en français) is a French collective that explores organic and abstract geometric [ I | II | III ] (PDFs) approaches to the art of origami. Read the white papers, browse the gallery or watch videos of artworks being made or being used in still-motion animations
The Beauty of an Ugly Addiction
Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens snapped controversial (and artistic) portraits of children between the ages of four and nine smoking fake cigarettes. The photo shoot in action was recorded and her portfolio can be seen here. (Previously) [more inside]
The Sword Maker
The Open Notebook
The Open Notebook looks at how science writers, and some general nonfiction writers, practice their craft. Their Story-Behind-the-Story interviews are especially interesting, showing how projects like Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and David Dobbs Atavist story "My Mother's Lover" developed from start to finish. For writers, there's also a database of successful story pitches.
Is a Law Degree a Good Investment Today?
Professor Herwig Schlunk of Vanderbilt University explores whether a law degree is a good investment today. (SSRN link) [more inside]
Opposition MP lets off tear gas in parliament
South Korean MP Kim Sun-dong sets off a tear gas canister in parliament to try to block passage of a free trade agreement with the US. Another video here.
It is a called a cherpumple.
Staying Frosty
"Transforming the second chapter of Ellen Ripley's ongoing war with the Xenomorphs into an icecapade is the kind of loony idea that that can only possibly exist after someone has exploded fireworks inside a crowded bar to simulate RoboCop's iconic gas station explosion while the titular cyborg breaks into a musical interlude describing his existential crisis. Anything else would be a step back after that."The Old Murder House Theater is a comedy troupe in Austin known for doing... shall we say... unusual movie adaptations. Last weekend's show: "Aliens On Ice!" (Scroll down for Youtube footage, or check out a two minute summary of the show, from the troupe.) [more inside]
"To say that this hypothesis was controversial was akin to saying that Napoleon had a bit of a thing about the Russians."
American biologist Lynn Margulis has died. Prolific and determined, Margulis was best known for her development of Endosymbiotic Theory, the now widely-accepted idea that complex cells began as a combination of simpler, prokaryotic ones, and the Gaia Hypothesis, which posited the Earth as a type of living organism. Some of her later ideas, including the claim that HIV is not the cause of AIDS or that caterpillers and butterflies were once separate organisms, received less support, but Endosymbiotic Theory, in the words of Richard Dawkins, remains "one of the great achievements of twentieth-century evolutionary biology."
Military Crowdsourcing
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is using a challenge program to find out whether it's possible to put shredded documents back together again.
"DARPA’s Shredder Challenge calls upon computer scientists, puzzle enthusiasts and anyone else who likes solving complex problems to compete for up to $50,000 by piecing together a series of shredded documents.
The goal is to identify and assess potential capabilities that could be used by our warfighters operating in war zones, but might also create vulnerabilities to sensitive information that is protected through our own shredding practices throughout the U.S. national security community." [more inside]
...Happy with the idea of a Democratic president—indeed, dancing-in-the-streets delirious—but not with the real thing
If we trace liberal disappointment with President Obama to its origins, to try to pinpoint the moment when his crestfallen supporters realized that this was Not Change They Could Believe In, the souring probably began on December 17, 2008, when Obama announced that conservative Evangelical pastor Rick Warren would speak at his inauguration. “Abominable,” fumed John Aravosis on AmericaBlog. “Obama’s ‘inclusiveness’ mantra always seems to head only in one direction—an excuse to scorn progressives and embrace the Right,” seethed Salon’s Glenn Greenwald. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow rode the story almost nightly: “I think the problem is getting larger for Barack Obama.” Negative 34 days into the start of the Obama presidency, the honeymoon was over.Jonathan Chait asks in New York magazine, When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable? [more inside]
Oh deer
oooo-WHEEEEEEE-oooooooo ...
Forty-eight years ago this evening, BBC viewers were introduced to a cranky old man, his granddaughter Susan, and the singular device they used to travel the universe. Happy birthday, Doctor Who! [more inside]
A stop-motion road trip, in miniature.
Address is Approximate. "A lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View."
The name Kevin is now illegal. Why not use Alan instead? It suits you.
"London Bridge is currently closed to the public and a section 60 in place due to the presence of a depressed swan." - The Metropolitan Police Twitter Feed: Giving you the lowdown on all the criminal shit that's going down in London town. [more inside]
It's not Tarkovsky, but...
For US users, today's Google Doodle is a turkey. For those outside the US, today's Google Doodle commemorates the 60th publication anniversary of Stanisław Lem's first novel, in their most ambitiously interactive doodle yet. [more inside]
Malls track shoppers' cell phones on Black Friday
Shopper Stalking: Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones. "It's just not invasive of privacy," said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. "There are no risks to privacy, so I don't see why anyone would opt out." (Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones.)
'Brinicle' ice finger of death
"In winter, the air temperature above the sea ice can be below -20C, whereas the sea water is only about -1.9C. Heat flows from the warmer sea up to the very cold air, forming new ice from the bottom. The salt in this newly formed ice is concentrated and pushed into the brine channels. And because it is very cold and salty, it is denser than the water beneath. The result is the brine sinks in a descending plume. But as this extremely cold brine leaves the sea ice, it freezes the relatively fresh seawater it comes in contact with. This forms a fragile tube of ice around the descending plume, which grows into what has been called a brinicle." A BBC film crew has recorded one of these freezing life on the sea floor.
Don't worry about that Richard, ring the newsroom
Television New Zealand have captured some extraordinary, gut wrenching footage of a helicopter getting its rotor blades tangled in cables and crashing on Auckland's waterfront. The pilot has apparently walked away without serious injury.
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