April 22, 2014
Also, you will get your period soon.
Forrest Park Middle Schooler Melissa Bell reads her Ashton Kutcher fanfic for the Spring Talent Show. (SLYT) [more inside]
the sky's the limit
Disney Dconstructed (EDM)
Blue sky above, black death below, instrumental music between
Blue Sky Black Death are a duo of hip-hop/electronic producers from Seattle who took their group name from an old skydiving term for the yin/yang balance of a beautiful blue sky above and the possibility of death below. They have worked with a number of rappers (Cam'ron and P.A.P.I. (Nore), Hell Razah, Jean Grae, and Nacho Picasso [NSFW lyrics]), but they show that their music can stand on its own, "wringing strangely affecting emotional grandeur from the rudiments of sound ... [relying] less on glitch or drone and more on starry-eyed orchestral vastness," as heard in (the extended version of) Noir, and so much more of their discography that is on Bandcamp and their YouTube account.
A penny for your thoughts? OK, make it a nickle...
Across Canada a beloved and familiar face is silently disappearing. Everyday transactions in shopping centers and banks are slowly feeding a systematized extinction unnoticed by most. The object of destruction: the Canadian penny. -- via PBS NewsHour
Hurt Locker: The Musical
Neil Patrick Harris is getting glowing reviews for his turn in the title role in Hedwig And The Angry Inch, now playing on Broadway. But wait, why is "internationally ignored song stylist" Hedwig even playing Broadway in the first place? Because the Belasco Theater was suddenly available because Hurt Locker: The Musical opened and closed on the same night. In fact, the floor of the theater is found to be littered with discarded Playbill magazines for the failed production. [more inside]
sudo mknod /dev/netcat c 245 0; cat /dev/netcat | ogg123 -
netcat are a Seattle based free improvisation group that have released their album, Cycles Per Instruction as a Linux kernel module. [more inside]
former plantations that have been turned into bed-and-breakfast resorts
Why Aren't Stories Like '12 Years a Slave' Told at Southern Plantation Museums?
Evil is not a word you hear, though, when you visit one of the hundreds of plantation-house museums dotting the South. Instead, these historic sites usually lure tourists with their stunning architecture and wealth of antiques, as the privileged members of the planter-class denied themselves nothing. They had the finest china and silver of the 18th and 19th centuries; European-made furniture like settees and tea caddies; the most expensive rugs, drapes, linens, and clothing that money could buy. Even the toys and kitchen utensils offer a glimpse into the privileged life in the antebellum period, and tours play this aspect up, connecting these objects emotionally to the stories of the white planters. Many of these museums let visitors walk away without considering that all of these exquisite things were accumulated through the violence and forced labor of slavery.[more inside]
Flying RC Aircraft Carrier
Flying RC Aircraft Carrier, Last year we saw the first launch of an RC Aircraft from an RC Carrier. Now we have the first launch AND landing of an RC Aircraft on a Flying RC Carrier.
A Dog Who Has a Second Head Where His Butt Should Be
The behavior of a tethered helium balloon in a forward-moving van
The van goes forward, the balloon goes--wait a second. But truly, the cool balloon physics is the least terrific thing about this video. From Smarter Every Day. [slyt | via] Previously and previouslier
Flappy48
So you can get 4096 in 2048, and you're an old hand at Flappy Bird, but can you beat... Flappy48? (requires unity)
Racial and gender biases in faculty mentoring
"Faculty at private schools were significantly more likely to discriminate against women and minorities than faculty at public schools. And faculty in fields that were very lucrative were also more likely to discriminate. So there was very little discrimination in the humanities. There was more discrimination among faculty at the natural sciences. And there was a lot of discrimination among the faculty at business schools." (link to NPR story).
Katherine Milkman and colleagues conducted a field experiment in which professors were contacted by fictional prospective doctoral students and found that "faculty ignored requests from women and minorities at a higher rate than requests from White males, particularly in higher-paying disciplines and private institutions."
InBloom wilts under privacy heat
Controversial education tech company InBloom has shut down over student data privacy concerns. Backed with $100 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, InBloom quickly announced nine states (CO, DE, GA, IL, KY, LA, MA, NC, NY) as partners, with more than 2.7 million students enrolled, with the goal of using big data to direct education emphasis and other decisions. With a recent decision by New York state to halt participation in any project involving storing student data in the way InBloom had planned (and the deletion of any such data already stored), all nine states had either put data sharing plans with InBloom on hold, made them voluntary, or pulled out completely. [more inside]
America’s Everyday Black-Market Economy
Your Friendly Neighborhood Drug Dealer (SLThe Atlantic)
What would Gregory XII have done?
Orson Wells' 1955 Podcast
The BBC put together a series of television commentaries from Orson Welles, "Orson Wells' Sketchbook" none of which need more than his then slightly unfamiliar face (without, he underscores, the usual false nose he wears for roles), his unmistakable voice, and his illustrations — taken, literally, from his sketchbook. In these six fifteen-minute broadcasts, which originally aired in 1955, Welles talks about not just the inauspicious beginnings of his illustrious working life but his experiences with the critics, the police, John Barrymore and Harry Houdini, the infamous radio production of War of the Worlds , and bullfighting Playlist here.
Vinum et musica laetificant cor
YouTube user Frank Huang posts full live sets of metal/grindcore, many from Brooklyn's St. Vitus bar, including: Pig Destroyer, Kylesa (@ Santos), Whores., KEN MODE, Sleep (@ Hellfest), Pelican, Deafheaven, Cobalt, and naturally Saint Vitus.
"We are resilient; we never gave up."
How 38 year old Meb Keflezighi became the first American man in more than 30 years to win the Boston Marathon. [more inside]
In the not-too-distant future?
"I've talked to a bunch of fans about their lives and what MST3K means to them. I'm overwhelmed by how people took to that show. It really affected them. I thought, if enough people still love it, maybe we can bring it back."
In today's WIRED article "The Definitive Oral History of a TV Masterpiece," Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson announced his intention to reboot the series online with a new host...this spring. (The lede is buried all the way at the end of the article.) [more inside]
"lasting friendship is the source of the deepest happiness"
"I often think about my long-ago friend, and I wonder what happened to her," wrote children's author Eric Carle in his book "Friends", published last year, inspired by his friendship, as a 3-year-old, with a young girl growing up in Syracuse, New York. He did not know her name, just that that she was the daughter of Italian immigrants. Last Sunday, over 80 years after he last saw her, he and his long-lost friend, Florence Ciani Trovato, reconnected.
Dorkiness fits the narrative
The NBA season has ended, and the playoffs have begun, causing a figurative ton of internet ink to be spilled on predictions and power rankings. But one word in particular seems to keep popping up in articles to describe white players like Steve Novak, Cody Zeller, Mason Plumlee, Andrew Bogut, and Josh McRoberts: "Dorky." And the writers that use it are inevitably white. Triangle Offense's Khalid Saalam (previously) thinks they should probably cut that out.
In the end, all one ever experiences is one's self.
Cobalt reunited and will be recording a new album. Who is Cobalt? Cobalt is a American black metal band consisting of Phil McSorley and Erik Wunder. They have only played live a dozen or so times, largely because McSorley is often abroad, where he serves as a Sergeant in the US Army. Not coincidentally, they refer to their form of metal as 'War Metal'. [more inside]
“Pawnee is literally the best town in the country.”
A Browser Extension That Replaces "Literally" With "Figuratively". Built by a programmer named Mike Walker, it’s an extension for Google’s Chrome browser that replaces the word “literally” with “figuratively” on sites and articles across the Web, with deeply gratifying results. Previously.
"Everybody dies someday - At least I saw Provence first"
"For most of my life my everyday choices were based on the assumption that I could not trust other people. I thought it was my job to foresee and prevent all harms from befalling me. [...] My life has been better since I've accepted two simple facts. ONE: everybody dies (sorry). TWO: I would like to live a little first." -- Don't let fear stop you from traveling, a cautionary comic by Natalie Nourigat, part of her webcomic/travel blog about living in France for a year. You may know Nourigat from her Oregon Book Award nominated autobio college comic Between Gears.
How did the clothes you're wearing get to you?
The Shirt on Your Back. Guardian writers trace the human cost of the Bangladeshi garments industry in video, pictures and words. (SL Guardian interactive documentary)
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