May 10, 2011

Pre-fractal art

Fractals may have become a cliche in modern computer graphics, but they have a long and rich history in art.

Before anybody even knew Mandelbrot, artists were seeing fractals in nature and transferred the patterns in painting, design and sculpture. Fractals, as you may know, are geometric patterns that are repeated on smaller and smaller scales to produce intricate designs, through self-similarity, described by the Mandelbrot Equation.
posted by Leisure_Muffin at 10:53 PM PST - 22 comments

Troll Food

WOODEN COCK
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:51 PM PST - 87 comments

Roger Moore's Carnival of Animals

Sir Roger Moore (recently on MeFi) performs recitations to introduce each segment of Saint-Saëns' 1886 suite Le carnaval des animaux ("The Carnival of Animals") [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 10:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Goodbye Screen on the Green

Screen on the Green, an Atlanta tradition, to be cancelled. [more inside]
posted by frwagon at 8:54 PM PST - 27 comments

Escher's Relativity in paper

Paper artist Bryan Peele has made M.C. Escher's Relativity out of card stock. [more inside]
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Koch exerts deep influence with endowed positions

A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university. [more inside]
posted by foggy out there now at 7:19 PM PST - 97 comments

"You are missing one ingredient... the HEAT of SATAAAAN!!"

Vegan Black Metal Chef makes pad thai.
posted by flex at 6:26 PM PST - 86 comments

$100 Million Finally to Be Split Between Descendants, 92 Years later

Cantankerous curmudgeony robber baron Wellington R. Burt was among the 8 wealthiest Americans, worth around $90 million when he died in 1919. He feuded with his 7 children, and left them very little. In an act of supreme cruelty, or foxy genius, his will stipulated that 21 years after the death of his last grandchild, any remaining heirs would receive the fortune. 92 years later and the money is being distributed, to three great-grandchildren; seven great-great grandchildren; and two great-great-great grandchildren.
posted by stbalbach at 6:10 PM PST - 54 comments

The Problem with Tamiflu, Relenza, Swine Flu, GSK, and the FDA.

Flu Warning: Beware the Drug Companies! (snyrbl)
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:37 PM PST - 42 comments

Small Saltbox

Running Chrome? NaCL Box is a port of DosBox, running in your browser. Game demos include The Secret of Monkey Island and SimCity 2000, among others. [more inside]
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:11 PM PST - 31 comments

MeFi Civil War, Part 2

Lady Gaga will debut songs from her new album 'Born This Way' on Farmville. The promotion will include a rebranding of Farmville to 'Gagaville', which will feature magical unicorns, sheep on motorcycles and other Gaga-inspired items. The promotion runs until May 26th.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:05 PM PST - 172 comments

Wait for it...

The Slow Mo Guys mix beautiful captures of life in slow motion with the sensibilities of Jackass and Beavis and Butthead. Best viewed fullscreen at high resolution. [ Intro/Interview Smashing Disposable Cigarette Lighters Hammer thrown through a television the Coin Challenge "Eggy-weggs? I wanna smash em!" Skeet shooting at clay discuses, apples, and oranges Air Pistol vs. Soda Can The Front Flip, the Back Flip, and the Double Superman Red Kites Swoop for Bacon in a Parking Lot [previously] 0.6 seconds of colored droplets in two minutes Shoot out the lights! ]
posted by not_on_display at 4:55 PM PST - 9 comments

All things come to those who wait

From the pop of "Nursey, Nursey" to the pomp of "Epitaph: Angel", the ambitious double album White-Faced Lady by seminal British psych/prog band Fairfield Parlour (formerly Kaleidoscope) had all the makings of a 1971 hit record. By the time of its actual release, in 1991, the moment had long since passed. The cause of the twenty-year delay is explained in this interview with ex-frontman Peter Daltrey (spoiler: it was the labels). [more inside]
posted by Modlizki at 4:01 PM PST - 12 comments

Osama bin Laden Death Raid Game

Kill Osama First-Person Shooter programmers at Kuma Games have been working long hours to crank out this timely, yet controversial game. "The virtual bin Laden, created over a rush of all-nighters by a team of game developers who specialize in turning current world events and military battles into playable video games, had somehow disappeared from the faithful recreation of his Pakistan compound." But the Kansas City Star asks, is this "cathartic, educational or just ghoulish?"
posted by shawnwasson at 3:32 PM PST - 63 comments

Off The Charts

Off The Charts: "In his wildest satirical dreams, not even Christopher Guest could top Off the Charts for sheer folk-art eccentricity. And yet, the creator of A Mighty Wind would find comedic inspiration in Jamie Meltzer's hilarious and sincerely affectionate tribute to the subcultural phenomenon known as the song poem. For over 50 years, a small, strictly amateur music industry has thrived on the fine-print ads that appear in alternative newspapers and music-industry magazines, inviting would-be songsmiths to send in their lyrics (and perhaps even "earn royalties") when their songs--and we use that term loosely--are set to music, recorded by seasoned musicians, and returned to their creators as a kind of one-shot fantasy fulfillment of dreams that will never come true. What drives Meltzer's film is a uniquely American combination of pathos, fringe-dwelling ambition, and free expression by assorted misfits and "regular folk" who seek elusive immortality by turning their lyrical musings into trash-art that's simultaneously fascinating and pathetic. But despite the end-credit claim that not a single hit has resulted from the estimated 200,000 song poems that have been recorded over the decades, Meltzer's not out to ridicule these wonderfully ungifted artists. Instead, Off the Charts gives a memorable spin to the flipside of the American dream. --Jeff Shannon" (PBS, 54mins.)
posted by puny human at 2:56 PM PST - 15 comments

Tolkien infographics

The inmost circle is a geographically accurate map of Middle Earth according to Tolkien's design, and the journey of the Fellowship is plotted according to major destinations and places of action. - JT Fridsma [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 2:11 PM PST - 27 comments

Unspoken Truths

"For me, to remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off: the ones that made the sacrifice of the following day a trivial one." -Christopher Hitchens tries to come to terms with the loss of his voice. [more inside]
posted by beisny at 2:09 PM PST - 28 comments

Elmatic: Detroit State of Mind

Seventeen years ago, Queensbridge prodigy Nas put out arguably the greatest hip hop album of all time. Today, Detroit lyricist Elzhi releases a loving and skillful tribute to the album with re-recorded live beats: Elmatic. [more inside]
posted by the mad poster! at 1:14 PM PST - 41 comments

You May Now Continue Waiting For The Future

Hearts raced briefly today as reports circulated of a Ralf+Florian sighting. Despite what was reported, it wasn't Ralf going into the (original) King Klang studio with Florian. It was Uwe Schmidt aka Señor Coconut. Should we be waiting for a Schneider/Schmidt record?
posted by smcdow at 12:54 PM PST - 34 comments

You will not need to circumvent the Times' paywall for this.

The New York Times, World's Newspaper of Record, Closes Its Doors Forever. "In this edition of the New York Times, our usual 14 verticals (known for 141 years as 'sections') have been collapsed to 3. The reason is a marked lack of reporters and hence reportage." Former National Lampoon editor Tony Hendra launches a biting satire of the NYTimes, where the owners may have 'torched' the building for insurance money, Maureen Dowd has been on vacation since 1997, and William Shortz melts down.
posted by quadrilaterals at 12:46 PM PST - 79 comments

Music to my ears.

New from the Library of Congress, National Jukebox, where you can listen to 10,000 rare historic sound recordings. (Streaming only, requires flash and javascript.)
posted by fings at 12:31 PM PST - 22 comments

Months to make, a minute and a half to watch

Where The Mountain Meets the Moon in 92 Seconds The kids of Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty and Bookie Wookie (prev) have created a video version of Grace Lin's Where The Mountain Meets the Moon using paper puppets for the 90 Second Newbery contest. Can your kids do better? Entries are open until September.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:56 AM PST - 1 comments

To The Finland Station

Portugal, in the throes of an IMF / EU bailout that Finland could block, sends a video letter to convince Finland to support the rescue effort. Finland responds. Bonus: crisis the focus of Portugal's Eurovision entry this year.
posted by chavenet at 10:51 AM PST - 59 comments

Acidee!

Charanjit Singh on how he invented acid house ... by mistake. The Guardian interviews an unlikely pioneer of Acid House. With the aid of a TR-303 and a TR-808 this track was born somewhat earlier than traditionally appreciated for the genesis of the genre. "So far ahead, in fact, that it appears to pre-date the first Acid House records to come out of Chicago by about five years." Its enough to make you smile.
posted by SueDenim at 9:36 AM PST - 95 comments

Eurovision 2011

The Eurovision Song Contest 2011's first semi-final begins at 2 PM CST. Watch it online.
posted by LSK at 9:30 AM PST - 1086 comments

Give them someplace to go

Once a year, prom mania grips the entire population of Racine, Wisconsin. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:27 AM PST - 56 comments

'Do Not Cry'

JKTS: A Japanese medical aid worker's diary An anonymous blog written by a Japanese nurse as she cared for victims of the tsunami has given strength to survivors and fellow relief workers.
posted by PepperMax at 8:49 AM PST - 3 comments

We Have Cameras

Eyes of a Generation is a "virtual museum of television cameras, and the broadcast history they captured," curated by actor and radio DJ Bobby F. Ellerbee. The site has hundreds of photos of cameras and of television sets backstage. It also includes vintage articles and a neat look at how the moon backdrop on the Conan set works. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:50 AM PST - 5 comments

Old Moscow Photos Reappear

"Howe snapped more than 400 photographs in Moscow and St. Petersburg with his hand held Graflex camera, a state-of-the-art device that allowed its user to shoot without a tripod. His photographs of pedestrians, street vendors and aristocrats are rare glimpses of everyday life before the upheavals of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution — and sparked huge interest in Russia among history buffs and local museums."
posted by gman at 6:33 AM PST - 20 comments

Roger Ebert writes what many of us are thinking.

One percent of Americans now "earn" 25% of the income. Many of them have grown their wealth through criminal exploitation. Roger Ebert asks the burning question: why aren't more people outraged?
posted by rhombus at 6:30 AM PST - 407 comments

You will need one bolt of lightening...

Sci-fi IKEA manuals (via Design Milk).
posted by londonmark at 6:27 AM PST - 17 comments

Microsoft Agrees to Purchase Skype for $8.5 billion US.

Microsoft Agrees to Purchase Skype for $8.5 billion US.
posted by Tenacious.Me.Tokyo at 5:04 AM PST - 176 comments

Worse things happen at sea

Here Be Monsters. "Three friends, on a drunken dare, set out in a dinghy for a nearby island. But when the gas ran out and they drifted into barren waters, their biggest threat wasn't the water or the ocean—it was each other." [more inside]
posted by joannemullen at 3:39 AM PST - 49 comments

Wheels! Threads! Atoms!

War is Boring's Steve Weintz has a two-part article up on mobile nuclear reactors, called Atoms In Motion: Portable Reactors (part two here). The links referenced cover planes, trains, and automobiles (though calling the last one an "automobile" might be stretching the definition a little.)
posted by Harald74 at 12:49 AM PST - 8 comments

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