May 20, 2011
Learn about a fantastic rock weathering pattern
The man in the middle, Or, The Truth About the Muslim Plot Against Pea Soup
A bridge builder, a student of how societies hold together; an advocate of dialogue. Standing against polarized and simplistic styles of thought. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor is Canada's best known and most widely read contemporary thinker. In books like Sources of the Self and A Secular Age, he has attempted to define the unique character of the modern age. He maps the fault-lines in our modern identity, and points to both the pitfalls and the promise of our condition. Learn about his life, history, upbringing, and... ideas.
Now available, CBC IDEAS in five one-hour parts: the malaise of modernity (this special program has the same title as the 1991 Massey Lecture of the same name, but is not the same [MP3's, get them now, they will go away, and then you can only stream them]).
One, Two, Three, Four, Five. [more inside]
Scientific Illustration
Scientific Illustration is a Tumblr blog devoted to... well... scientific illustration.
Final Films
Second Life for Studio 60
The cast and writers and crew of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip recently all joined twitter and began tweeting about their lives and the live comedy sketch show they all create each week. The catch is, Studio 60 is the fictional creation of Aaron Sorkin and was the subject of a failed weekly drama from five years ago, and nobody knows who is performing this remarkable charade.
OPD2011
It's that time of year again... The 2011 One-Page Dungeon Contest has announced winners[15mb pdf] in 15 categories ranging from the more traditional "Best Investigation"[pdf] to "Best Use of Teleporters."[pdf] (previously.) [more inside]
Animated fun from Fearnet.com
Mari-Kari Fun and somewhat gorey 8 (short) part animated tale of twins, one living, the other.... not so much. Starring the voice of Shannen Doherty [more inside]
Hey Mick, who was that duck you were talking to?
An unfinished Donald Duck comic story, designed and roughed out with story complete, by Don Rosa! Written to promote the grand opening of Disney's MGM theme park, for one reason or another they dropped it before it could be completed. It's interesting because, in the comic book universe, Donald Duck isn't a movie star, but Mickey Mouse is -- so the duck seeks out his autograph. It even makes an explicit reference to a certain other duck....
Mike Runnels
Time for some Texas twang and honky tonk blues from Austin's own, Mike Runnels: Dream Girl :: Last Date
Rock This Way
Rock and Rap has had a sometimes fun, sometimes interesting, sometimes possibly regrettable relationship over the years. Artists like Kid Cudi and Lupe Fiasco continue to blur the line by releasing post-punk/electroclash/whatever style music (complete with fake British accent), learning to play the guitar, and announcing that rap is boring. [more inside]
tennis greatest entertainer
Mansour Bahrami - Tennis Greatest Entertainer
Repeat ad infinitum.
Infinity Blade is an iOS game available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It is typically seen as a send-up of the classic game Punch-Out!! mashed up with roleplaying game conventions such as experience points and character-modifying equipment. Its defining trait is that it relies upon new game+ to advance your character (actually your character's family/bloodline) and the story.
J. Nicholas Geist over at Kill Screen has written a review to match the game.
This recipe is rated 'Easy'
Make it so...
Following on from an epic Star Trek: The Original Series rewatch (previously) and their Star Trek movie marathon, tor.com are now watching each episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in turn. So far they have reached The Last Outpost, in which a terrifying new adversary was introduced as a replacement for Klingons as Star Trek universe bad guys: The Ferengi.
smaller companies are using robots
Made in America: small businesses buck the offshoring trend - "For US manufacturing to make sense, factories must make extensive use of automation. That's getting easier, given that the cost of robots with comparable capabilities has decreased precipitously in the past two decades." [more inside]
Recquisat in pace, noble warrior.
"Macho Man" Randy Savage passed away today at the age of 58, when he was struck with a heart attack while driving. [more inside]
Circling the wagons
No central organization; social media networking; multi-city protests against the status quo. Protests now banned.
Not North Africa or the Middle East but Spain which has banned Protests ahead of Sunday's local elections.
For the first time, Spain's civil society bypassed the established channels to mount its own public protest against the country's political class.
El Pais calls it Spain's Icelandic Revolt. Blogger South of Watford was in Puerta del Sol.
Not North Africa or the Middle East but Spain which has banned Protests ahead of Sunday's local elections.
For the first time, Spain's civil society bypassed the established channels to mount its own public protest against the country's political class.
El Pais calls it Spain's Icelandic Revolt. Blogger South of Watford was in Puerta del Sol.
Hotcakes, no. Hotkeys, yes!
Hotkeys! Hotkeys! Get yer hotkeys! Steaming hot and ready for your Windows, Macs and Linuxeses! Even more for Macs! We've got some for your Microsofts and Open Offices! For yer Adobes and Gimps! Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera! And for the baker's dozen, DOS Shortcuts and a lot more shortcuts that also work for modern Windows systems.
The Comic Book Greats... And Some Other Dudes!
In 1992, comic book titan Stan Lee produced and hosted an interview/chalk talk-type video series featuring some of the biggest names of the day and all-time greats: Todd McFarlane! Rob Liefeld! Sergio Aragones! Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis! John Romita and John Romita! Will Eisner! Bob Kane! Whilce Portacio! Jim Lee! Be amazed as Todd, Rob, Whilce, and Jim create a comic book! Be astounded as Rob and Todd, ably assisted by Smilin' Stan, create a comic book character right before your eyes!
Tubecrush
A-month-behind-the-times-filter: Tubecrush is a website that lets people upload pictures of attractive men they've seen on the Tube (i.e., the London Underground, for the benefit of nonUKians), along with varying degrees of lechery. It came to wider attention the middle of last month when the Evening Standard ran a fairly lighthearted fluff piece on it, but there are some who believe that this is at least slightly unkosher not only for its instrusiveness, but also because they suggest its reception has been somewhat smoother than would be the case if it encouraged taking similar pictures of women on the tube. Others offer the thought that ogling different genders is given different contexts by societal attitudes to gender, and that, therefore, its all a bit more OK than it seems. Others still prefer to examine it through the lens of art history.
Pensioners volunteer to help clean up Fukushima
As the Japanese government and TEPCO struggle to bring the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant under control, a group of pensioners has decided to put their lives at risk to save younger people from radiation.
Look and learn?
Political shifts mustn’t threaten Canada’s unity, vision. An opinion piece by (the much loved and/or hated)Preston Manning about the recent Canadian election, and how it will affect Quebec's relationship with the rest of Canada.
Will There Be Actual Seals in the Movie?
Walt Disney Co. has filed an application to trademark the name "Seal Team 6", the Navy Seal team that killed OBL in Pakistan earlier in May. [more inside]
It's ok to be Takei.
George Takei's response to Tennessee's "Don't say gay" bill George Takei gives gay folk an out in Tennessee. Don't say gay, say Takei. A humorous look at a crazy piece of legislation to make it illegal to talk about homosexuality in school.
America reCycled: The best web content I have seen in a while
On one level America reCycled is simply the journal of two brothers riding recycled bicycles across the United States and meeting people. Lots of them. On another level it is a Homeric tale of an American adventure. It has been a long time since I have seen web content of this quality. The writing is superb, the videos so compelling you can't look away and the perspective gained is invaluable. I am positive this has been posted here before, but it certainly deserves a bump.
"My gender was my very first 'This I Know For Sure' moment"
Janet Mock is an editor at People.com, a blogger, and co-hosts the The Missing Piece podcast.
She is also a transgender woman. [more inside]
She is also a transgender woman. [more inside]
Blogmanship
According to recent studies, arguing on the internet is now the second most popular leisure activity in the world, just below shopping and just above sex. But how many of those who spend half their lives debating God versus Atheism or Climate Change on a message board or blog really know how to win those arguments? Now, for the first time, anonymous internet guru Noseybonk reveals the ploys, tactics and strategems of Blogmanship: the art of winning arguments on the internet without really knowing what you are talking about. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
Step one: find a bulldozer
Pictures of homemade flood levees, built to protect homes in areas flooding from the swelling Mississippi.
The axeman cometh for recording studios
"You want how to make a million in the studio business? Start with two million." Abbey Road is safe, but with Olympic, Townhouse, The Hit Factory and Eden all overtaken in recent years by the developments in digital recording, what's to be done with all that history?"A museum? A doctor's surgery? A Wedding venue? Flats? Or chop them into little pieces and sell them to your fans? (video in Spanish, scroll down for English text)
You Are Sleeping... You Do Not Want To Believe
The Unexplained (subtitled Mysteries of Mind, Space, & Time) was a popular partwork magazine that came out in the UK in the early 80s. It explored various Fortean phenomenal like UFOs, ghosts and spontaneous human combustion but also scientific 'mysteries' such as black holes. [more inside]
Scottish artist Robert Montgomery and his billboards and neon signs
"Robert Montgomery works in a poetic and melancholic post-situationist tradition. He makes billboard pieces, recycled sunlight pieces and drawings." This one's my favorite but I like others too. Here are a few more examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Visitation at Wisconsin Hospitals.
Gov. Scott Walker wants to stop defending hospital visitation rights for same sex couples. His rationale is a 2006 law passed banning same sex marriage or similar arrangements. The visitation law was passed in 2009.
cool paintings of birds
Cool paintings of birds by Maurizio Bongiovanni [embedded good music], an Italian-Chinese artist included in the sumptuous art blog ArtOdyssey, which is really worth exploring. [more inside]
"I just hugged the man that murdered my son."
It's all downhill from here
"I saw [EPO] in his refrigerator...I saw him inject it more than one time like we all did, like I did many, many times." Ex-professional cyclist Tyler Hamilton, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong, has accused the seven time Tour de France winner of using performance enhancing drugs such as EPO and testosterone during several of his Tour wins. Hamilton made the allegations during an interview with "60 Minutes" which will be shown this Sunday. Hamilton rode with Armstrong on the US Postal Service team from 1998 until 2001 and was himself banned for eight years in 2009 for taking testosterone. Armstrong is already the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into alleged doping conspiracies and financial irregularities. A year ago Floyd Landis, after finally coming clean about his his own drug use,
accused Armstrong of systematic drug abuse. Armstrong, who recently retired from professional cycling, has always denied these claims.
Bookstore Compulsions
Biblioklept's list of bookstore compulsions, which I am sure you understand, like suggesting books to strangers, or buying books you'll never read.
A PC building guide by an idiot
hey, beardo....
Gordan Ugarković
Croatian software developer and amateur image processor Gordan Ugarković takes images from NASA's unmanned space probes released to the Planetary Data System, splices them together and tweaks the colors, sometimes combining higher resolution black and white images with color images, sometimes recreating what the object would look like in natural color (ie, in visible wavelengths, from images taken in multiple wavelengths), sometimes heightening the contrast to bring out detail. (via) [more inside]
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