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December 2, 2011
Here is an artifact of the old internet: "Somewhere in the picture below we have cleverly hidden a can of spam. If you think you've found the spam, click on it to find out if you're right. You probably don't think there is any spam in the picture, but look closely. Most people only find the spam after staring intently at the picture for several hours.
"
Good luck and find that spam!"
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posted by JHarris at 9:56 PM PST - 73 comments
How do people die in motor "accidents"?
I'll tell you.
With the Christmas "Silly Season" is upon us, the Age has republished
And this is how you die by journalist Roger Aldridge.
A warning - it's pretty graphic. Scroll up for the rest of the article.
posted by mattoxic at 4:02 PM PST - 95 comments
Submarine escape: A WWII survival tale. 'Seventy years ago, off the Greek island of Kefalonia, the British submarine HMS Perseus hit an Italian mine, sparking one of the greatest and most controversial survival stories of World War II.' 'Despite being awarded a medal for his escape, John Capes's story was so extraordinary that many people, both within and outside the Navy, doubted it.' He 'died in 1985 but it was not until 1997 that his story was finally verified.'
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posted by VikingSword at 2:37 PM PST - 9 comments
Seeing so many Occupiers getting evicted made me think of
this short 1988 documentary by Nancy Kalow on homeless squatter punk teens in the Bay Area (
warning:cringe-inducing rapping in the opening scene). From their stories, it seems as if they had free reign of the abandoned Berkeley Polytech building for a while. Readers of
Cometbus who aren't from the Bay Area can see a bit of the scene he made sound so attractive. 1993 sequel,
The Losers Club.
posted by shushufindi at 2:14 PM PST - 5 comments
Beleaguered U.S. Presidential candidate Herman Cain's campaign has created a feature on their website entitled "
Women for Herman Cain" (or just "Women for Cain" in some places) where women can post their support for him in the form of text testimonials and videos. Jezebel
snarks, Palin
sympathizes, and Mediaite
observes that the first version of the site prominently featured a stock photo of four women with their thumbs up in approval.
posted by aught at 1:58 PM PST - 143 comments
This collection of street posters, mad scribblings, political screeds, religious rants, and paranoid raves was collected on the streets of New York City from 1985 to the present. Some time ago, it occurred to me that the streets are as full of art as, say, thrift shops are full of great paintings. So, inspired by Jim Shaw's collection Thrift Shop Paintings, Adolf Wölfli's visionary scrawls, and outsider music, I began carrying a portable razor with me whilst out on casual strolls. What began as a hobby has remained an obsession and this obsession is brought to you in living color here on UbuWeb.
Keep checking back as this page is constantly updated. I have hundreds of examples to share with you, as as time permits, they'll all eventually appear here.
-- Kenneth Goldsmith,
Assorted Street Posters
posted by beshtya at 1:04 PM PST - 14 comments
"...they essentially published years of comics for the sole purpose of saying 'Fine, that's how you want it? Here you go. Enjoy.' They made a character out of pure sarcasm, and he had his own ongoing series for a hundred issues."
Chris Sims on Azrael.
posted by griphus at 11:55 AM PST - 28 comments
Leka I Zogu
died November 30, 2011 at the age of 72. When he was less than 48 hours old, Mussolini's troops invaded Albania and drove out his father, King Zog I of Albania, and the rest of the royal family. He spent the rest of his life fleeing invading armies, stockpiling weaponry, trading commodities, attempting coups, returning to Albania (three times), and eventually settling into a quiet life in the very country where he refused to relenquish his claims to the throne.
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posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:12 AM PST - 39 comments
Designed as "an expeditionary force for a geologic assault
1" on the Moon’s
Hadley Rille,
Apollo 15 was a groundbreaking lunar mission. Designed to be devoted entirely to scientific exploration, it included a number of notable firsts: first to land outside of the
lunar mare;
first 3 day stay on the moon; first use of the
Lunar Rover by Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin; first use of the
Scientific Instrument Module, used by Command Module Pilot Al Worden to study the moon from lunar orbit; and first launch of a
subsatellite, used to map the plasma, particle and magnetic fields of the moon. On top of that, Scott gave
a visual proof of Galileo's theory of objects in gravity fields in a vacuum, showing gravity acts equally on all objects regardless of their mass. Scott and Irwin also discovered of the
Genesis Rock, a piece the moon's primordial crust, formed only 100 million years after the solar system itself.
The mission was a spectacular success, publicly called
"One of the most brilliant missions in space science ever flown". The crew was lauded and their future with NASA seemed assured.
Then the stamps hit the fan and Apollo 15 became the first US space crew that was ever fired.
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posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:28 AM PST - 61 comments
Where Libraries Went Wrong; a great blog post / article diving deep into some of the issues that face public libraries today. It's centred on UK libraries, but deals with issues facing public knowledge bases everywhere.
posted by ChrisR at 1:04 AM PST - 28 comments
