March 17, 2012
And now he's dead.
John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian immigrant to the United States and later accused and convicted of serving in the Nazi SS as a concentration camp guard, has died.
That's no Lunar Transporter!
Spaceships that became other spaceships: The Millennium Falcon, The Colonial Viper, The Eagle Transporter - from the blog of Gavin Rothery, visual effects designer on Moon. Previously.
YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!!
Space is where the screaming starts.
Hot, hot, hot new PROMETHEUS trailer! It looks to me that Ridley Scott has returned Paul W.S. Anderson's favors and gotten Event Horizon right, this time.
Enjoy!
Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy
Mass Effect 3, a blockbuster video game (previously: 1, 2), and no stranger to controversy, is encountering controversy of a different sort over the series ending. Some fans feel it is incomplete and lacks closure, over 90% by some polls. It opens up interesting questions, such as: how are video games different than other media? Do consumers of video games have a reasonable right to ask for another ending, or is it akin to asking for modifications to the Mona Lisa? Many spoilers inside. [more inside]
St Paddy's Day 2012 remembers 1916 and 1917
O'Brien is tryin' to learn to talk Hawai'ian / To his Honolulu Lou / He's sighin' and cryin' / And all the time he's tryin' / Just to say "I love you true" / He's sighin' and lyin' in Irish and Hawai'ian / To his wife and Lulu, too . . Meanwhile, another gent from the Emerald Isle was indulging in blissful fantasy: Sure the shamrocks were growing on Broadway / Every girl was an Irish colleen / And the town of New York was the county of Cork / All the buildings were painted green / 'twas only an Irishman's dream. Happy St. Patrick's Day! [more inside]
anti-gravity loopkicks by LiL B
Lil B Loopkicks Camp 2011 Sampler | Brandon "Lil B" McCuien (born April 4, 1990) is a Street Tumbler from Little Rock, Arkansas. He started cheering when he was 7 and is now currently a cheerleader in Garland, Texas. In July 2010, he showed that he had taken an interest to freerunning by releasing an outdoor freerunning sampler. | Team Loopkicks is a martial arts demonstration team that promote the art of sport karate and tricking which is a combination of kicks, flips, and twists
San Patricios: the Irish Mexican connection
Hailed as heroes in Mexico for fighting with and defending the country against American invasion and reviled as traitors in the US for desertion, about 50 Irish immigrants were hung en masse after defeat in the Mexican-American War. A musical collaboration by The Chieftains, Ry Cooder and Latino musicians tell the history of the 'San Patricios'. (Related NPR story) For more background on the San Patricios, the fascinating documentary Saol John Riley, part 1 and part 2 follows Kerry singer songwriter Charlie O'Brien as he revisits sites associated with Patricio leader John Riley to discover the revolutionary hero's fate. [more inside]
Diminutive Hippopotamus Amphibius
What is wrong with you? Does god hate you or something? Has he not taught you how to love?
"It was hot as blazes as we tore through the south side, pulling up at lights all the people laughing at the white kids doing their little dance in the car." John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats performs 'The Sign,' by Ace of Base, interspersed with a story about the song and hand-signal dancing.
Pie In the Sky
Tom Monaghan had a dream: To create a law school and surrounding community that would adhere strictly to Catholic values. Things have not gone according to plan. [more inside]
Brooke Shaden's Surreal Photography
Brooke Shaden is an LA-based fine-art photographer. (Note: none of the directly linked images are NSFW but there is some fine-art nudity in the photostream.) [more inside]
Get a load of these cuties
Design Decoded, a new blog on Smithsonian.com, kicks off with a seven part series on the century-long process behind creating and marketing the perfect citrus. [more inside]
When you’re lost, ask someone who knows the way.
Parahawking in Nepal: beautiful footage of paragliders working with raptors to find thermals. [more inside]
Dark Slender Boy, performed by Liam O'Flynn on the Uileann Pipes
Frozen Planet
Fans of BBC series Planet Earth will once again be thrilled by the power of nature in HD as Discovery Channel airs the new series Frozen Planet, made by the BBC Natural History Unit, which created the original series. Entertainment Weekly has a lengthy interview with the series producer and director about Frozen Planet and the making of the series. The series premieres on Discovery Channel on March 18 at 8pm.
Hey, what are all these kids doing in here?
So that's why they call 'em fractals!
You got a lot of money but you can't afford the freeway.
"The Detroit metropolitan area is covered with freeways. Ever freeway you could possible imagine has been built. And they have solved the problem that they identified, which was congestion. The city of Detroit doesn’t really have a problem with congestion anymore. That’s the least of their problems". How demolishing freeways is reviving American cities. [via][bonus]
His first memory is an execution.
Extracts from Escape From Camp 14 - How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp. There was torture, starvation, betrayals and executions, but to Shin In Geun, Camp 14 – a prison for the political enemies of North Korea – was home. Then one day came the chance to flee…
Of course devil horns had to be involved
Earth From Above / Pale Blue Dot
Earth in perspective:
- Stratocam takes the most beautiful landscape satellite photographs from Google Maps, as voted on by visitors, and switches them every few seconds, with a fullscreen mode.
- ChronoZoom is an interactive, zoomable HTML5 timeline of the entire history of the universe, from the Big Bang to Homo Sapiens, with embedded video and lectures.
A story about the art of aging.
The Chase Another day out on the town for the girls (Animated Short)
« Previous day | Next day »