December 4, 2013
Bill Murray on Gilda Radner
I’ll always remember it. It was the last time I saw her "The whole Monty Python group was there, most of us from the show, a lot of other funny people, and Gilda."
Emu Tango
Cloud City: Grand Canyon
In a rare occurrence that only affects the area about once a decade, the Grand Canyon was recently filled with a dense, white fog due to heat inversion (Flickr gallery with a few short video clips; Flickr search for "grand canyon fog").
Hostis Humani Generis
The legal framework of terrorism has been ... complex. Under the Bush Administration, terrorists were deemd to be "unlawful enemy combatants," and not afforded the protections of the III Geneva Convention. The policy, thought not the name, has continued under the Obama Adminstration, and this indeterminate legal status has significantly complicated efforts to try or release them.
However, there is an older legal model that may suffice: piracy. (previously [more inside]
Under the skin
"X-ray images usually show the finite nature of our bodies composed only of matter. But these couples' portraits reveal a pulse that isn’t normally seen." —Ayako Kanda and Mayuka Hayashi.
They should have sent a poet
The World Outside My Window - Time Lapse of Earth from the ISS (SLYT, make sure to play it in the highest resolution you can)
"Wait... You're trans *and* gay? Come on, no one is *that* weird."
Suckerpunch
Wonder Woman will be finally be appearing on the big screen, though not in her own film. Instead she'll appear in the untitled Batman vs Superman movie set to open in 2015 that will be directed by Zack Snyder. The character will be played by actress Gal Gadot.
Free Energy...we''ll tax that.
ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners in assault on clean energy. The American Legislative Exchange Council commonly know as ALEC which raises over 90% of its funds from corporate backing is associated with the Dominionists web.
Wisconsin State Rep. Chris Taylor caught a glimpse of the ALEC Nation a Climate Denial Machine. A little more.
במבי
"Doing the 'hezza', which is believed to be slang for heroine"
In case you were starting to miss the daily insanity that is Rob Ford, Toronto's admitted crack-smoking, tax-cutting, drunken stupor of a Mayor, your wait is over. Newly-unredacted wiretaps from the police investigation into attempts to retrieve the infamous video of Rob Ford smocking crack, calling his football team "a bunch of fucking minorities", and Justin Trudeau a "fa**ot", have re-ignited the inquiry into the Mayor's actions. [more inside]
Warren Publishing's Creepy and other non-Comics Code comics online!
In the introduction [of Batman: Black & White] the editor mentions that the premise of the book came about because he had a discussion with other members of the comic world and they were debating which one comic run you'd want with you if you were stuck on a desert island. The consensus was Creepy the classic Warren Magazine because of all the incredible artists who contributed to it.The Warren Publishing Archive is online, courtesy of the Internet Archive. [more inside]
"This is a military base! A military base needs explosive barrels!"
Fire Point is a free downloadable puzzle-platformer (Windows only, sorry) with retro graphics and a cheerful chiptune soundtrack. Use your fire hose and ladder, along with portable fire extinguishers, to fight fires and rescue people from the blazing infernos! A trailer is available here.
Cell Phones: Tracking Devices That Make Phone Calls
The NSA is gathering nearly 5 billion cell phone location records a day, allowing the agency to track the movement of individuals and map their relationships in ways that would have been previously unimaginable. The bulk collection feeds CO-TRAVELER, an analytic tool that lets analysts identify relationships by tracking people whose movements intersect, and look back in time to see where people have been. TL:DR? The WaPo has a quick video explaining CO-TRAVELER here. [more inside]
"All they are doing here is shelving people."
Slide show of Michigan prisoners sentenced to life for crimes committed while they were minors. [more inside]
Stage of Mind
Within the confines of her tiny studio and without the help of digital embellishment, Korean artist JeeYoung Lee created elaborate landscapes for her series of self-portraits. [more inside]
"It's the lousy drink," he said, summing things up.
On September 20, 1956, just before the bars closed at 3 a.m., a single-engine plane landed on St. Nicholas Avenue near 191st Street in northern Manhattan. Behind the stick was 26-year-old Tommy Fiztpatrick, who pulled off the no-lights, no-radio "feat of aeronautics" while (allegedly) drunk to (allegedly) win a bar bet. Two years later, when a fellow patron called his story into question, Fitzpatrick did it again.
Video games are for boys
Despite a customer base that crosses many demographics, a large part of the video game industry has remained resolutely focused on appealing and marketing to male players in the 18-24 age group. It wasn't always this way. Although early coin-op and console game development was male-dominated, titles in the 1970s were either marketed for entire families or for adults in bars and later arcades. What changed? Polygon investigates.
"Most of America's Silent Films Are Lost Forever"
Most of America's silent films are lost forever, according to the newly released Library of Congress report The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929. (You can look up the ones that survive in this handy database). [more inside]
Prohibition ends!
80 years ago the "Noble Experiment" was repealed by ratification of the 21st Amendment. And everyone kept right on drinking...
The Readings of Elizabeth Klett
Librivox, the grand repository for free recordings of public domain literature, hosts quite a few fine readers. I'm partial to the Dickens interpretations of Czechchris and Mil Nicholson, and I've warmed to Chiquito Crasto's judicious renditions of classic ghost stories. But for my money, the best reader on Librivox is Elizabeth Klett, a trained actor and English professor whose many recordings unite range and insight. [more inside]
La bôite á donuts
Le French Food Note: Not all food speaks French. Extra note: some of the food is NSFW!
Stressful day? How about some nice, relaxing hydrographic printing.
Here's a mesmerizing 14 minute long video of a dude doing some water transfer printing on some boring car part things. Despite that glorious undersell, it's actually quite interesting. [more inside]
"His crime: having sex without first disclosing he had HIV."
BuzzFeed and ProPublica report: How An HIV-Positive Man Was Sent To Prison For Having Sex — With A Condom [more inside]
This is the hand, the hand that saves
"The divers had already pulled up four bodies. So when a hand appeared on the TV screen Walker was monitoring in the rescue boat, showing what the diver in the Jascon saw, everybody assumed it was another corpse." Harrison Odjegba Okene survived three days of darkness and isolation when he was trapped in a sunken tugboat, breathing from an air bubble and listening to the sounds of his shipmates being eaten by fish. His amazing rescue hit the news this spring. (Previously.) The actual video of his rescue has now been widely distributed. Short version. Long version, with an appropriate but inappropriate piece of jaunty music at the end.
Bring on the Dancing Crocodiles
Jeff Clark's review of the newest Echo And The Bunnymen release, "Crimes Of Passion" for Stomp And Stammer Magazine.
I wish you would stop looking for beauty in things that want to kill us.
"The long night has come. The Systems Commonwealth, the greatest civilization in history, has fallen. Now, one ship, one crew have vowed to drive back the night and rekindle the light of civilization. On the starship Andromeda hope lives again" [more inside]
Old Finnish People with Things On Their Heads
Disco pants and haircuts
A melted listicle
NPR is sick of the list. For their year end book round up this year, they have instead compiled an interactive web app which categorizes books by type (allowing you to apply these types as filters) and connects similar books by hyper-linked keywords.
I regret that I only have so much wall space to fill.
There's a pretty good chance you've seen Ork Posters' city map posters celebrating the neighborhoods of San Francisco, Washington, DC, or Seattle, among others. But have you seen Archie Archambault's more conceptual letterpress circle maps? Or These Are Things' floating-text versions?
How about Parts + Labour's batty view of Austin? Bored by uniform fonts? Check out some festive breakdowns of New York (by I Lost My Dog) and Madrid (by Helena Ecija).
Not epic enough? Maybe you'll like Rodger Binyone's rock-tour style posters, like Baltimore or Chicago. Perhaps you'd rather check out neighborhoods in isolation? Not to worry, Meredith Miotke has Detroit covered.
semi-previously
No Relation to Ren & Stimpy's Log
"Yule Log 2.0 re-imagines the traditional Video Yule Log* through a collection of short videos by illustrators, animators, directors, and creative coders (66 collaborators making 55 segments). With the controls in the upper-right corner, you can fit a continuous loop of one or all of the videos in a browser window or full-screen.
*First televised in 1966 by New York's WPIX-TV to provide its audience with some pleasant, noncommercial viewing on the holiday (and most of the broadcast crew some time off)
*First televised in 1966 by New York's WPIX-TV to provide its audience with some pleasant, noncommercial viewing on the holiday (and most of the broadcast crew some time off)
Math with Bad Drawings
Play and playability
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a MMO to play Mr Darcy in. Ever Jane, the massive multiplayer Jane Austen game has been funded and the prototype game can now be downloaded from the Kickstarter page.
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