May 26, 2010
An eye the size of a grapefruit, keeping an eye on me...
...and there was just rope everywhere--it went around the whales mouth, around the whale's head, across her eye, over her back wrapped around the pectoral fins, all the way down to its tail. I thought there was no hope, there was no chance, we're looking at a dead whale, the whale just doesn't know it yet--but I knew that I had to try. ...It was a very surreal moment looking down and seeing the 20 crab traps and buoys just disappear into the abyss... And just like that, the whale was gone. ...I'm spinning around, where'd she go, where'd she go ? ...Now here's where the story takes a pretty startling turn. ...Next thing I know there's this fifty ton whale coming right at me...From about 4:00 to 14:30 in nearly 23 minutes of the segment, Animal Blessings--in mp3 here, all 20 megs of it. Or you can try the podcast at RadioLab: Animal Minds. Either way, you are in for a most truly awesome anecdote. And listen to the whole program to have some back and forth science dropped on you in regards to what we think we know about what and how animals think. [more inside]
You May See Them At Pixar Some Day
Vancouver Film School students create a portfolio project or demo reel for graduation designed to demonstrate their creative and technical abilities to potential employers and collaborators. Among the many great samples, I dig Rain Crowds in the 3D animation category, Dance! in classic animation, and Border in digital character animation. But there are literally hundreds to choose from, so please enjoy.
In the Land of The Not so Free
Robert King spent decades battling for his release from the 'hell-hole' of America's notorious Angola Prison. Now free, he's still crusading for its inmates.
The late Anita Roddick was the powerhouse behind the making of the Documentary In Land of the Free.
Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and encarcerated in solitary confinement, for nearly 37 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
Angola not only has solitary confinement it has the prison within solitary confinement – The Hole [more inside]
The late Anita Roddick was the powerhouse behind the making of the Documentary In Land of the Free.
Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and encarcerated in solitary confinement, for nearly 37 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
Angola not only has solitary confinement it has the prison within solitary confinement – The Hole [more inside]
Azawad
Borne in the succession of rebellions, Tichumaren has redefined the image of the Tuareg. Popularized on the international stage in 2001 via the success of Tinariwen, the "desert blues" has changed the conception – from the exotic blue men of the desert to the Kashniklov/guitar strumming desert rebels. [more inside]
Hey, dude, can I trade my wampum for some PBR?
The latest trend in hipster culture is the appropriation of Native American culture, here seen at San Francisco's recent Bay-to-Breakers race. The participants might ask, but why can't I wear a hipster headdress? Threadbared has a round-up of bloggers' concerns about the appropriation of Native American culture.
"...and Wakefield was contracted to conduct scientific research for him."
The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield. A fifteen page comic about the MMR vaccination controversy. Previously.
Kids told him the darndest things
He was abandoned on a door step in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1912. He hosted House Party and People are Funny on radio and TV. A segment became the hugely popular Kids Say the Darndest Things. He co-hosted the opening of Disneyland (with Ronald Reagan). His daughter Diane killed herself by jumping from a window; he blamed LSD and became an outspoken anti-drug crusader. Art Linkletter has died at the age of 97.
Intellectual Ventures
Intellectual Ventures is an invention factory founded by Nathan Myhrvold, who previously founded Microsoft Research and was MS's CTO. Bill Gates raves about IV, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article about the IV invention process in The New Yorker, Newsweek profiled Nathan’s company in April 2010, and this week there was an hour-long TV interview with Myhrvold on Charlie Rose. Take a 6-min video tour of the laboratory.
Wie tanzt man denn eigentlich in einer Mediathek?
Es gibt viele Quellen überall im Internet, wo man Deutsch hören und sehen kann. There are countless German TV channels, great podcasts, and news outlets online. Here are some of the best. Not fluent? Es geht weiter! [more inside]
You're Wrong! No, You're Wrong!
free parking
The last Hummer has rolled off the line in Shreveport, Louisiana. Although the H3 shared the same chassis as the Chevy Colorado, and the H2 was basically a Chevy Tahoe with a different body, the antipathy toward the gas Goliaths was immense.
"It is 146 minutes long...This is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls."
I Watched 146 Minutes of Sex and the City 2 and All I Got Was This Religious Fundamentalism - The legacy of the TV show destroyed forever.
The Ban on Blood Donation
Are the Rules That Determine Who Can Donate Blood Discriminatory? Canadian AIDS researchers Dr. Mark Wainberg and Dr. Norbert Gilmore say that while the ban on blood donation from men who have sex with other men may have been ethically and scientifically justified in the 1980's, it no longer makes sense. (CMAJ.) Even though the US FDA reaffirmed their long-standing ban in 2007, they plan to revisit the policy in June. [more inside]
Bug-eating slugs, fanged fish, and killer sponges (oh my)
Attenborough's Pitcher, an "Udderly Weird Yam," a two-inch phallic mushroom already immortalized on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and the "Bombardier Worm" ("Chaff worm" would seem a more accurate name) are just four of the newly described species making the International Institute for Species Exploration's totally arbitrary Top 10 New Species list. [more inside]
Send Me (X) and I'll Make You (Y)
User-submitted inspiration for comics and art: Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines (prev), and more refined comics from "normal" text spam text. Cartoons drawn from titles sent to one Sam Brown (pseudonym of Adam Culbert). Artists send artwork, someone else adds the text. Submit a video game title and description and get the box art made for you, courtesy of MeFi's own cheap paper [via mefi projects].
"I wouldn't want to live in a world without atoms."
The Peter Nguyen essays of 1999-2004 -- brilliant, illuminating, one-page studies of: [ Influential Person in World War 2: Jimmy McPerson
• Biography: Christopher Columbus • The Stations of the Cross Report • Biography: Walt Whitman • U.S. Capitalism and Influence on Foreign Nations • Atoms ] • Bonus: Andrew Horowitz's "Preserving the Future: The Fight to Save Pop Rocks"
flash fun
50 mostly flash fun sites. These include Record Tripping; Sound of Hamburg; Echogenesis; Incredibox in English and French; Optus Whale Song; Blues Master; Flame. And many more. Soundtrack For A Book is one of my favorites.
The Geotaggers' World Atlas
Photographer Eric Fischer created stunning maps of the places that pictures are taken in fifty cities worldwide. New York. London. Paris. San Francisco. [more inside]
Redesigned BP logos
Oh The Sexual Pleasure
On Failing To Make Bad Porn from Sex Worker Literati - Matthew Lawrence talks about being a rent boy who never shaved or worked out and his camera-obsessed client. Audio NSFW.
Smooth Neck of the Moon
Space, an expensive frontier
High Fashion Lesbian Hipsters
Lesbian Hipster Chic "I represent a small community of high fashion dykes, and I’m not talking about femmes or lipstick lesbians, to use the terms so popularized in culture today. We are often mistaken for straight fashionistas. We are the women who popularized chic undercuts, skinny jeans with patent leather wingtips, sexy flannel, fitted motorcycle jackets, Doc Martens and James Dean vibes minus the James. We are grrls, we are bois, we are young women with a taste for rock n’ roll, a penchant for sex appeal and an undying love for Alexander McQueen, may he rest in peace... It is our duty, as (NSFW) model lesbians, lesbian models, (NSFW) hipster dykes and purveyors of lesbian chic to establish ourselves as a force within the canon of high fashion... We’re fashion fagettes and we’re taking over the runways of New York, London, Milan and Paris. So let’s wrangle the model lesbians like Freja, Cat McNeil, Milou, Myf, Nimue editors like Kate Lanphear... and show fashion that as gay ladies, we not only epitomize the high fashion street style that has taken the world by storm, but we invented it." [more inside]
Reality still eating itself.
Nokia's new ARG ad campaign seems to be co-opting activism for marketing. Written by Tim Kring of Heroes infamy. There's a good summary here. Strangely they managed to troll The Pirate Bay into a response and the bassist from Suede is doing the blog!
Who's counting? We are.
Popular Unrest is a multi-episode drama by Melanie Gilligan (of Crisis in the Credit System) set in a future much like the present. Here, however, all exchange transactions and social interactions are overseen by a system called ‘the Spirit’. A rash of unexplained killings have broken out across the globe. They often take place in public but witnesses never see an assailant. Just as mysteriously, groups of unrelated people are suddenly coming together everywhere, amassing new members rapidly. Unaccountably, they feel a deep and persistent sense of connection to one another. (via)
Pink Hitler
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