April 29, 2016
What gravity?
Tareq Alsaadi performs gravity-defying aerobatics with the SAB Goblin Nitro radio-controlled helicopter — in one case, with some interesting LED patterns on the blades
A recipe for fried mayonnaise.
A Ghost in the Machine
Someone turned a YouTube comment into something good. Prepare to shed a tear or two. (SLV)
Bike Batman
This Just In
One man's trash is another man's treasure
In 2014, Provo, Utah-based rock band Neon Trees' lead singer Tyler Glenn's came out as gay and Mormon. At the time, he seemed optimistic in his ability to navigate both identities, reporting that he received positive messages from Mormon church leaders shortly after coming out. In 2015, he commented that the LDS church seemed to be changing for the better. But with the release of the single "Trash" from Tyler's new solo endeavor and Rolling Stone's related article, it appears that all has not been well in Zion. [more inside]
The third year, we built a ship in the desert
Wasteland Weekend is a Mad Max-inspired festival in California City, California. (SLVimeo)
All Prior Art
All Prior Art is a project attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art, thereby making the published concepts not patent-able. The concept is to democratize ideas, provide an impetus for change in the patent system, and to preempt patent trolls. The system works by pulling text from the entire database of US issued and published (un-approved) patents and creating prior art from the patent language. While most inventions generated will be nonsensical, the cost to computationally create and publish millions of ideas is nearly zero – which allows for a higher probability of possible valid prior art. [more inside]
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
Elisabeth Moss will star in a 10-episode Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood is a consulting producer; The 100's Bruce Miller wrote the script and is an executive producer along with Daniel Wilson (The Handmaid's Tale feature film), Fran Sears (The Sophisticated Gents) and Warren Littlefield (Fargo). [more inside]
Holes, as adapted by Richard Kelly
You want to adapt a lighthearted whimsical YA novel for the big screen; who do you hire for the screenplay? The original author? Nah. Just get the guy who wrote Donnie Darko.
Holes, by Richard Kelly [pdf]. Featuring nuclear holocaust, prostitutes, and mercy killings. [more inside]
Physicists and their love-hate relationship with animals
On the one hand, physicists sure do love cute baby animals and clever puns.
On the other hand, animals can really mess things up sometimes.
Moving On: the story of a life passing, told in yellow yarn
The stop-motion animation video for James' "Moving On" is the story of a life passing, told in yellow yarn. BAFTA award winning Scottish animator Ainslie Henderson explains what inspired him: It’s 2014, and I’m on the phone to Tim [Booth, lead singer of James]. He is describing how the band came to write MOVING ON, and what the words mean to him. The story he tells me is deeply moving; one thing that stayed with me is his describing death as a birth. Days later this conversation echoes around my mind while I’m listening to the song as I walk past a typical Scottish woollen knitwear shop. My eyes flit over a ball of wool in the window while the word “unwinding” is sung....
Manly Health
The most famous trade for a backup catcher in baseball history
What do you do when your team is aiming for the World Series, but nobody on your team can catch your knuckleballer? It's a tale of panic, mistaken identity, emergency flights over cleared airspace, and missing jock cups... It's an oral history of the Doug Mirabelli trade. (SLSports)
I, personally, do not care for apples. But I like you just fine.
It's cold, eh
Atlantic Canada is still getting some winter this "spring". Here's what a guy from Saskatchewan thinks about winter, just in general; some Manitobans' responses, previously.
How Sweden's Roads Became the Safest in the World
When Vision Zero first launched, Sweden recorded seven traffic fatalities per 100,000 people; today, despite a significant increase in traffic volume, that number is fewer than three. "The largest resistance we got to the idea about Vision Zero was from those political economists that have built their whole career on cost-benefit analysis. ... although they might not say it explicitly, the idea is that there is an optimum number of fatalities." [more inside]
You Ask Me for A Hamburger.
What is Cuil Theory? One Cuil ( ‽ ) is one level of abstraction away from the reality of a situation. A pictorial guide. [more inside]
Is This A Bubble?
i am making this post so someone can explain it to me
Menace 2 is an artificial intelligence which learns how to beat a human player at Tic-Tac-Toe and also it is made entirely of wooden drawers and colored beads
"Dad, I'm almost there..."
Hau`oli la Hanau, Aloha!
In the spring of 2015, a billboard for the film Aloha was erected overlooking Logan Square in Chicago. It's still there today. While its fate and that of two others (mercifully blank) is fought over in court, fans of the billboard are planning a tiki party in honor of its first birthday.
Even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again
We all "enjoyed" watching Winter Dragon, a pilot for a TV adaptation of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Our suffering appears to have been worthwhile however, as Robert Jordan's widow, Harriet McDougal, has announced that the legal issues have been resolved and a new series is on the way. [more inside]
Can't we all just get along?
No Labels is an American political organization based in the United States, composed of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, whose mission is to "usher in a new era of focused problem solving in American politics." As the election draws nearer they have begun promoting their National Strategic Agenda; based on a nationwide survey conducted in the fall of 2013, it's billed as "A Policy Playbook For America's Next President."
(Wikipedia)
My son is also named Borte
Wait for it.
Riding in Cars with Beers
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
Inspired by a column in Nature by Melanie Stefan, Princeton professor Johannes Haushofer keeps a CV of failures (PDF); he was interviewed by NPR about it this morning. Other examples of the form include: Bradley Voytek (PDF, skip to the end), Sam Lord (PDF), Alexandra Roshchina, and Sara Rywe (PDF). For non-academic examples, look at Srinivas Rao and Monica Byrne. Ironically, Melanie Stefan's CV page does not list failures.
To hijab or not to hijab
What it means to be a ‘free hair’ in a predominantly Muslim society This is an edited version of a conference and seminar paper presented at the National University of Singapore in March 2016 and Australian National University in April 2016
Ken does it again
Ken Livingstone suspended (again) by the British Labour Party Never a stranger to controversy, Ken Livingstone - former scourge of Margaret Thatcher, erstwhile London Mayor and close friend of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - was yesterday suspended by the Party. In a continuation of an ongoing issue over alleged Anti-Semitism in the Party (and the British Left in general) he defended MP Naz Shah for remarks she had made (on Facebook in 2014) suggesting: 'Relocate Israel into United States'. [more inside]
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