May 18, 2013

Wanna see my power bloc?

Sexts From Marxists (SLTumblr)
posted by SkylitDrawl at 9:11 PM PST - 30 comments

$100 Invested in 100 $1 Lottery Tickets

The thrill and rush of possibly winning started to wear off after about the twentieth losing ticket. Each card had a couple of “Life” symbols on them, and every time you got a second you just dreamed of seeing the third one under the remaining graphite. However it never appeared and never will and it just kind of turned depressing. How could people put themselves through this humiliation and teasing every day of their lives?
The classic criticism of the lottery is that the people who play are the ones who can least afford to lose; that the lottery is a sink of money, draining wealth from those who most need it. Some lottery advocates . . . have tried to defend lottery-ticket buying as a rational purchase of fantasy—paying a dollar for a day's worth of pleasant anticipation, imagining yourself as a millionaire. But consider exactly what this implies. It would mean that you're occupying your valuable brain with a fantasy whose real probability is nearly zero—a tiny line of likelihood which you, yourself, can do nothing to realize. . . . Which makes the lottery another kind of sink: a sink of emotional energy. [via]
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 8:33 PM PST - 154 comments

Burlington's Flying Monkeys

Most people visit the city of Burlington, Vermont, for the pleasant waterfront of Lake Champlain, the quirky shops and restaurants on Church Street, and the various cultural benefits that come with being a university town. Those are all the right reasons. I, on the other hand, went to Burlington for the flying monkeys... [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:40 PM PST - 12 comments

"Atta Boy Luther!"

How one episode of a TV show, became a movie.

Take Barney Fife, Otis Campbell, Clara Edwards, Homer Bedloe, Grandma Walton, Darren Stevens 2.0, and the oldest motherfucker who ever lived. You know what you got there?

[more inside]
posted by timsteil at 6:55 PM PST - 23 comments

Gay Of Thrones

Where are my dragons‽ Because if I didn't, some other munchkin would have.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:57 PM PST - 12 comments

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A recollection of hacking the N64 with Action Replay and posting about it on Codejunkies with a Dreamcast.
posted by michaelh at 4:45 PM PST - 9 comments

Money.

Door Does Impression of Miles Davis.
posted by codacorolla at 4:28 PM PST - 26 comments

Is that in the rules?

Each event has a different theme, revolving around a past era. Previously, Steam Garden did a Meiji-themed party — a fascinating time when Japan was opening its doors to the West, and fusing Victorian fashion with traditional kimonos and obis. This time, the code word was Celtic Fantasy. Luke describes it as “a blend of industry, fantasy, and epic adventure set to a soundtrack of exciting tribal and Celtic music.” - Japanese Steampunk, complete with bagpipes, medieval food, fire dancers and wood elves.
posted by Artw at 3:45 PM PST - 7 comments

The Poetics & Politics of Picturing the World

The atlas is more than a cartographic genre. It is a way of thinking, of ordering, and experiencing the world... In the age of Google Earth, this online exhibition of maps from the 16th to 20th centuries is meant to stir public interest in the history of the atlas and cartography.
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:11 PM PST - 13 comments

The Last of the Great Chained Libraries

"On a beautiful sunny day last week, the Turning Over a New Leaf project team decided to take a day off from the office to visit a spectacular chained library in the small town of Zutphen (located in the eastern part of the Netherlands). Built in 1564 as part of the church of St Walburga, it is one of only five chained libraries in the world that survive ‘intact’—that is, complete with the original books, chains, rods, and furniture."
posted by brundlefly at 3:01 PM PST - 18 comments

Frolicking Through Farmer's Markets Is Extra

Somtimes a guy just wants a curiously asexual sprite to whimsicaly break the chains of his workaday world for an hour or so - cue the Manic Pixie Prostitute!
posted by The Whelk at 2:57 PM PST - 64 comments

Nifty how to get from place to place travel site

Rome2Rio is a handy travel search engine site where you put in the place you want to start and where you want to go. It shows you the map, the cost of the ticket (air, rail, coach, ferry and mass transit routes), duration of the journey, etc.
posted by nickyskye at 1:00 PM PST - 16 comments

Andrea was tall and angry. I was a little bit shorter.

Daniel Handler, best known for A Series of Unfortunate Events and his accordion work with Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields, reads a chapter from his novel Adverbs, which made Dave Eggers describe Handler as "something like an American Nabakov". An excerpt from another chapter, Immediately, is available courtesy of the New York Times. Handler's first adult novel, the nightmarishly satirical The Basic Eight (think the movie Heathers with a less reliable a narrator), is also well worth a read (excerpt from Google Books).
posted by Rory Marinich at 12:47 PM PST - 16 comments

"Learn as much by writing as by reading."

First editions, second thoughts. [The Guardian] "Interactive: From Amsterdam to Wolf Hall, Booker winners and bestsellers – authors annotate their own first editions.
posted by Fizz at 12:44 PM PST - 3 comments

If it's consensual, can it ever be wrong?

The panda gangbang took place deep in the basement of the Kink armory, where rivulets of the long-suffocated Mission Creek still trace a path between moisture-eaten columns, and the air hangs heavy with a stony dampness. Emily Witt explores the experiences and motivations of participants in acts of extreme pornography. Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic considers "Is some sex wrong even among consenting adults?" [Language NSFW, possible trigger warnings, as descriptions and language are graphic]
posted by MoonOrb at 11:58 AM PST - 208 comments

Even better than the real thing?

Widespread fraud has been discovered in the case of an Indian generic drug manufacturer that makes generic Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) and many other drugs. Ranbaxy has "pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts of selling adulterated drugs with intent to defraud." [more inside]
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:32 AM PST - 28 comments

How The South Kept Slaves Until WWII

The horrifying, little-known story of how hundreds of thousands of blacks worked in brutal bondage right up to the middle of the 20th century. It was a crime for for a black man to lack employment and a crime to change jobs without his previous employer's permission. It was a crime to sell the proceeds of his farm to anyone other than the man from whom he rented land. A crime for a black man to speak loudly in the company of a white woman, to walk beside a railroad line, to fail to yield a sidewalk to white people, to sit among whites on a train and, in practice, generally a crime for blacks to be accused of any crime by a white person.
posted by blankdawn at 11:27 AM PST - 60 comments

The enigmatic language of the new Windows 8 ads

"What was most perplexing of all to me was that, although I was certain that the ads contained Chinese phrases and sentences, every Chinese person to whom I showed them emphatically maintained that they could not understand a single word."
posted by roll truck roll at 10:48 AM PST - 56 comments

Cameras, Cartography and Competition

PITCHF/x and SportVU data analysis shows... [more inside]
posted by Groundhog Week at 10:27 AM PST - 7 comments

The Cartography of Bullshit

On the 15 May, Max Fisher of the Washington Post penned an article titled A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries. Fisher surmised that Anglo and Latin American countries are the most tolerant, linking racism to economic freedom based off of a study by two Swedish economists. Siddhartha Mitter responds, who, in The Cartography of Bullshit writes, "Although the results don’t pass the sniff test in the first place, I took a look at the data as well, in an effort to identify the exact problems at play..." [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 9:12 AM PST - 32 comments

we should not confuse a clear view of the future with a short distance

Bootstrapping the Industrial Age So you survived the apocalypse. Here’s what would it take to rebuild the world.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:38 AM PST - 21 comments

Rubber Ducky, you're my very best friend, it's true!

We've read about Florentijn Hofman's giant rubber duck before (previously), and it made it's way earlier this week to Hong Kong to spread joy :D

Well, unfortunately, the duck was also viciously murdered (warning: may be graphic to younger viewers), and many already blame chinese mainlanders for it. [more inside]
posted by yeoz at 8:16 AM PST - 23 comments

Why Is Science Behind A Paywall?

A large portion of scientific research is publicly funded. So why do only the richest consumers have access to it?
posted by reenum at 8:01 AM PST - 62 comments

The Myth of Nazi Efficiency

The Myth of Nazi Efficiency
posted by Miko at 7:21 AM PST - 84 comments

You've heard of animal magic, well then, what's wrong with bird magic.

Running in the The Times Educational Supplement (1), between 1971 and 1972 the comic strip Wokker featured a strange wooden bird who commentates sarcastically on the world, and who can talk to animals, inanimate objects and readers alike.
Here are some galleries and a short history by the co-creator Tony Earnshaw, also a painter and maker of boxes.
His funeral in 2001 was slightly unconventional.
posted by adamvasco at 6:36 AM PST - 4 comments

"I just want to leave enough images behind that I'll never be forgotten"

The project centers on nine women in the feminist lesbian porn industry who are recorded for a 24-hour period, with 10-second blips of their everyday lives playing out in five-minute intervals. What’s revealed is an intimate portrait of a marginalized community opening up about sex, gender politics, depression, and their daily grind in a way that’s downright real.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:20 AM PST - 4 comments

Unplugged Weddings, or Please Put Down The iPad

Guest Photographers or: Why You Should Have an Unplugged Wedding

Pro photographer Corey Ann explains, with examples, what causes her so many problems in getting the wedding photographs her clients have paid her for: their guests.

Pushing in front of her, standing in the frame of posed photos, flooding pictures with flash, and above all assuming that their invitation entitles them to take precedence over a photographer who is being expected to get a perfect record of the couple's perfect day.

Her proposal: politely, but firmly, ask your guests to enjoy the highlights of the wedding themselves, and leave taking photographs of those parts to the photographer.
posted by Major Clanger at 4:33 AM PST - 96 comments

Survivors

Street Children - Can you look them in the eye?
posted by Gyan at 1:03 AM PST - 7 comments

A Cultural History of Syphilis

How syphilis took Europe by storm during the 1490s, and the far reaching effects it's had ever since
posted by Mister Bijou at 12:46 AM PST - 25 comments

Beethoven's Hair

On March 26th, 1827 Ludwig Van Beethoven died in Vienna. The day after, a twelve year old boy took a lock of his hair as a souvenir. 167 years later the hair was sold at an auction in London. Its new owners were two Americans, Ira Brilliant and Che Guevera. Between those dates the lock of hair undertook an extraordinary historical odyssey. From hand to hand, from country to country, and from century to century. This is the story of that journey. [more inside]
posted by 23 at 12:34 AM PST - 15 comments

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