March 14, 2012
CGI becomes reality
Pipe Dream [2001, CGI (previously)]
Pipe Dream [2011, physical (another video) (yet another)] [MLYT]
Pipe Dream [2011, physical (another video) (yet another)] [MLYT]
The Forrest Gump of Opera
Whilst searching for more images of La Milo (mentioned in this post), I stumbled across the David Elliot theatrical postcard collection. In it were some pictures of Blanche Arral. [more inside]
Lucky Act 13
Pennsylvania has adopted what may be the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the country, giving gas companies the right to drill anywhere, overturn local zoning laws, seize private property and muzzle physicians from disclosing specific health impacts from drilling fluids on patients. This American Life on fracking in Pennsylvania. Fracking: Anatomy of a Free Market Failure. Previously in Pennsylvania. [more inside]
The House Doesn't Always Win, I Guess
The Man Who Broke Atlantic City Don Johnson (no, not that one) won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Not long before that, he’d taken the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. Here’s how he did it.
Your wife's pregnant!
Official Spoiler Etiquette. The stars of your favorite TV shows (assuming your favorite TV shows include The Wire, Heroes, Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, or True Blood) teach you how not to ruin them for your friends.
Hunker down
The current generation has gone through the fads of planking (previously 1 and 2), cone-ing (previously), owling, leisure diving (both previously), and even Tebowing (previously). Posing-for-pictures fads are not a new thing, though. In 1959, near the end of the relatively well-known phone booth stuffing craze, there was hunkering.
Snake Whacking Days.
Last weekend, the annual Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup took place in Sweetwater Texas, as it has since 1958. Previously 1, Previously 2, plus on the Simpsons. Sponsored by the Jaycess, it attracts a huge crowd and lots of press, but when Danny Mendez, a zoologist and host of Urban Jungles Radio showed up to see for himself what it was like, he was refused entry and given a citation for Criminal Trespassing. What sort of issues would a zoologist be concerned about and why the Sweetwater Jaycees not want Danny (as well as Sky Stevens, a Texas biology student, Wildlife enthusiast and contributor to the show) not to even enter to see a beauty pageant? [more inside]
The magic wand of French health care
An intrepid American reporter tests out perineal re-education, a state-sponsored wonder of the French health care system. She plays a game she nicknames Pole Position (and a friend gets to play Cooter Pac-Man). Bonus: many gentle euphemisms for vagina (Earlier test here from the NYT).
The Dictator's Secret Emails
The British newspaper The Guardian has obtained a cache of 3,000 emails purported to have been exchanged between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, his wife, and a close circle of advisers and friends. The personal emails allegedly show Assad dismissing his government's proposed reforms, mocking the efforts of Arab League monitors to spot military tanks besieging cities, as well as Assad's wife placing extravagant shopping orders, sometimes through intermediaries. [more inside]
You Betcha!
A comparison of Sarah Palin's media appearances versus Julianne Moore's reenactment of them in the movie Game Change.
DUELING BANJOS. TESLA COILS. OH MY GOD.
This is the coolest thing in the world. For reals. It's "Dueling Banjos"... played on two giant Tesla Coils. That's... pretty dang amazing. As if that's not enough, perhaps you'll like the Nyan Cat theme? Or perhaps Sweet Home Alabama, for jonmc? Or In The Hall of the Mountain King, for the most awesome remake of M ever? [more inside]
hundreds upon hundreds of tales to tell, all on a 40 × 24 character grid.
Entries for the International Teletext Art Festival are currently being broadcast on teletext pages 525-545 of Finnish broadcaster YLE. [more inside]
The Black Vernacular
"Much of the history of Black people, particularly our intimate history, is still unseen and unexplored." Beautifully understated, The Black Vernacular is a communal memorial to this history. [more inside]
The Greatest Character on "The Wire"
Grantland held a March Madness-type bracket this past week to determine the greatest character from HBO's 2002-2008 series "The Wire". The idea came from a conversation between Grantland's Editor-in-Chief, Bill Simmons, and President Obama. Voting took place via Grantland's Facebook page. Spoilers from the results and TV show are within. [more inside]
The Anatomy of an Annoying Song
The most remarkable play staged on Planet Earth
Blocked on Weibo: Censored Searches of China's Largest Microblogging Service
The fact that Chinese internet access is censored and monitored is not new, but Sina Weibo (新浪微博, literally "Sina Microblog,"), handles the task differently. Commonly referred to by the generic name Weibo, the social service that is likened to Twitter and Facebook is more open in what you can post, but searches for certain words are blocked. Without context, a list of blocked searches is fairly abstract. Blocked on Weibo adds translations and context to the blocked words. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
Ghost town of Bald Mountain
Doodletown, NY, from the Dutch "dood dal" meaning "dead valley" a ghost town since the 1960s, lies just an hour north of New York City in Bear Mountain State Park [more inside]
Tomorrowland
Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, is brash and grandiose—and wildly attractive to young strivers seeking success. [more inside]
Who wants a pet beetle?
Apparently big in Japan but gaining interest in other countries, raising and keeping giant beetles is a lucrative pet industry. If keeping the strongest creature on Earth for its size isn't your cup of tea, you could instead keep a tank of predatory diving beetles. Just make sure there aren't any escape routes.
What Am I Fighting For???
Do you enjoy the work of independent musicians? Do you like Capcom's Mega Man X series of video games? Then you'll love OverClocked Remix's latest album, Maverick Rising. The free five-disc album features 62 tracks by 49 artists in a collection totaling over 4 1/2 hours of Mega Man X music remixes spanning 8 of the primary games in the series and a few extra goodies.
Stop being meta!!
As fans of Community get ready for the show's return from hiatus tomorrow night, AV Club writer Todd VanDerWerff, who writes the weekly episode reviews of the show, drew attention to something odd that happened while the show was off the air. The discussion in his review of the last episode before the break Regional Holiday Music, didn't die down after people had put in their two cents about the episode and his review. People kept talking, and not just about the show. The show's fans developed their own self-contained piece of the web. Last week, the post passed 30,000 comments (now at 35,000): [more inside]
Focus on the potential.
Lytro, the 6-year-old[1] consumer plenoptic camera start-up started shipping their first light field camera to end users last week. Reviews have been mostly positive with regards to the technology and industrial design, but also warn users of specialized hardware and software that is difficult to use, the "poor quality"[2] display, and low resulting image quality. However everyone seems to agree that light field technology is the way of the future and is here to stay. Previously. [more inside]
Guessing the health effects of Obamacare
A new working paper by economists Charles Courtemanche (University of Louisville) and Daniela Zapata (UNC-Greensboro) shows that Massachusetts 2006 uniform healthcare coverage caused improvements for numerous health outcomes. To the degree that the Massachusetts experiment is a guide for the federal Affordable Care Act, this study provides some guidance for guessing which individuals and approximately how much the benefits of the program will be. [more inside]
Spring Awakening
Mother Jones: The 10 'Occupy' candidates vying for seats in the US House Of Representatives and Senate and their prospects.
No checkmate for you!
Only two buttons from the top: The European Women's Championship in Gaziantep, Turkey is the first where the brand new European Chess Union Dress Code regulations [pdf] apply. The men’s championship, which will take place this month in Plovdiv, Bulgaria will follow. ECU General Secretary Sava Stoisavljevic answers some questions. Players respond. [more inside]
Pin-Ups of the Past
In our continuing series on pin-up girls of the past (previously and previously previously), this lady's costume was a source of some puzzlement. Welcome to the wonderful world of Poses Plastiques. [more inside]
"His work," writes Gallagher, measuredly, "is characterised by its directness as well as its ambition; it is both deadpan and affecting, and it provokes awe and outrage in equal measure."
Damien Hirst: 'I still believe art is more powerful than money' Damien Hirst has gone from mouthy YBA to global brand over the past 25 years – and become the world's richest living artist on the way. Here he talks about money, mortality and his first retrospective in Britain [more inside]
One down, many to go.
History is made: the ICC has made their first ruling; Lubanga is guilty, and the use of child soldiers is now clearly against international law. [NYT] [BBC] [Guardian] [actual judgement] [judgement summary] [more inside]
You Complete Me
What is the minimal number of clues necessary to create a uniquely solvable Sudoku puzzle? It turns out to be 17, though it took fancy symmetry arguments and nearly a year of computer time to prove it. But no need to read the paper when you can watch the video.
If only it were this quick.
A short and sweet pregnancy [slyt] The impending arrival of a baby inspired this happy couple to track their pregnancy in a short time-lapse video.
Finally! A fast and inexpensive way to remove a cork from a wine bottle!
Wine De-Corking Machine: designed by mechanical sculptor Rob Higgs, this amazingly elaborate Rube Goldberg styled device weighs over 770 pounds and took about three years to build. [more inside]
"Why should anyone steal a watch when he could steal a bicycle?" ~Flann O'Brien
'Bike Thief' [NYTimes] The filmmaker Casey Neistat conducts an experiment in New York City, where he locks up his own bike and brazenly tries to steal it, to determine whether onlookers or the police would intervene. [More]
Tighten your seat belts, it´s likely to be a rough ride.
A Tough Oil World Why High Gas Prices Are Here to Stay by Michael Klare (via)
It was the easy oil—that’s what fueled our prosperity. Back in the fall The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health highlighted The five key areas that illustrate the potential health fallout of petroleum scarcity.
It was the easy oil—that’s what fueled our prosperity. Back in the fall The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health highlighted The five key areas that illustrate the potential health fallout of petroleum scarcity.
I shall take my fun and my pleasure however it comes.
Transcript of a recent 90-minute interview with Alan Moore:
page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7
A Vampire Squid with Muppets
Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs. New York Time Op-Ed. March 14th 2012:
TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.[more inside]
"When a man is tired of Liberty City he is tired of life."
Cities in dissolution. "It’s a game for anyone who has ever wondered what happens in the grandest house in town once the lights go out at night. It’s for anyone who has ever seen two men slumped at a hotel bar and wondered what other secrets are contained in such temporary lives. Thief is a game for anyone who has ever walked through a city at night and thought, which parts are still breathing and what does each seclusion contain."
Rockpapershotgun's Adam Smith thinks about cities.
Dad and Windows 8
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