May 28, 2016

Two Great Things That Go Great Together!

What's better than Squirrel Girl? Squirrel Girl Talking About Tree Lobsters! [more inside]
posted by bq at 9:12 PM PST - 30 comments

We'll have funn funn funn 'til your daddy takes the Funn Pack™ away

Artist Dan Das Mann* has created a wearable Full Party System (and instant Performance Art device) called the Funn Pack™ with loudspeakers, smoke machines, a bubble machine, mirror balls AND FREAKING LAZERS, all battery-powered, self contained and wearable. (yep, this Halloween, I'm dressing up as HIM)
*of L.A.'s BIG ART LABS, LLC so you know he's a professional. Also, absolutely NOT related to Dat Boi
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:08 PM PST - 19 comments

“...they’re really into capitalism.”

Don’t Know What To Read? Let Goldman Sachs Tell You. [Melville House] "Goldman Sachs: financial giant, hotbed of enthusiasm for subprime mortgages, and hapless recipient of your hard-earned money. Who better to tell you what to read? Well, now they are telling you what to read, in the form of a recently-published recommended book list [PDF]. We’re talking about people who incurred $550 million in fines for schemes to turn a profit on the civilization-threatening financial crisis they themselves had helped create, and the line between genius and chutzpah is notoriously hard to draw, so, yeah, I’d like to know what’s on these folks’ bedside tables."
posted by Fizz at 6:10 PM PST - 50 comments

Chlorine probably saved your life today

We don't know for certain if the Gas! GAS! in Wilfred Owen's devastating poem was chlorine, but we do know that it can kill and maim in the way he described. But when his poem was written, chlorine had already begun to play a completely different, quietly heroic role, going on to save hundreds of millions of lives over the course of the 20th century. The battle to get chlorine accepted for water treatment was understandably dramatic given its known killing power. In 1908, John Leal, in almost complete secrecy, without any permission from government authorities (and no notice to the general public)... decided to add chlorine to the Jersey City reservoirs. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 5:51 PM PST - 42 comments

Nothing but net.

Chef Quah Swee Then shows us how to catch a rabbit. More videos at his Facebook page.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:39 PM PST - 40 comments

I'd rather crank than switch

De-dimension, the graduation project of Design Academy Eindhoven student Jongha Choi, is a different take on flat-pack furniture. It's a bit more practical than his Cigarette Chair.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:18 PM PST - 11 comments

Sanctuary

"Sanctuary is the world I imagine when I play the piano–a fantasy forest that grows around me and my music. In this virtual world, I can create an intimate and secluded stage where I can overcome my anxiety by minimizing my awareness of the audience." Yurika Mulase is a pianist and an Interactive Telecommunications student at NYU.
posted by there's no crying in espionage at 1:14 PM PST - 2 comments

The cars drive in, the cars drive out. Over and over and over.

Using data compiled from the U.S. Census American Community Survey, Mark Evans has compiled hypnotic visualizations of commutes around the U.S. There are more in-depth details at his blog, I Like Big Bytes. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 10:14 AM PST - 25 comments

Reagan tells Soviet jokes

Everything makes him think of a story.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:12 AM PST - 37 comments

The kind of music that makes you say, "Holy Fuck!"

After a six-year absence, Toronto DIY-electro-rockers Holy Fuck return with a new album, Congrats. The video for the lead single, "Tom Tom," directed by Michael Leblanc, was filmed and cast on location in the Romanian village of Zarnesti. Congrats (released yesterday) can be streamed in its entirety on the band's Bandcamp page. [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:29 AM PST - 4 comments

Space X nails it again

The latest video of a Falcon 9 rocket returning from the upper atmosphere. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:27 AM PST - 25 comments

What happened to Google Maps?

Justin O'Beirne compares the 2010 and 2016 editions of Google Maps and finds a lack of balance — especially after looking at a map printed in the 1960s. [more inside]
posted by metaquarry at 7:59 AM PST - 130 comments

Det skal godt gjøres å spise bare en

Veggen ("The Wall") is the first in a series of eight Norwegian advertisements that show us the tragic consequences of a miraculous discovery. [more inside]
posted by knapah at 7:19 AM PST - 27 comments

Mapping Decline in Regional Diversity of English Dialects

Professor David Britain from the University of Bern added: “People in Bristol speak much more similarly to those in Colchester now than they did fifty years ago. Regional differences are disappearing, some quite quickly. However, while many pockets of resistance to this levelling are shrinking, there is still a stark north-south divide in the pronunciation of certain key words.”
posted by veedubya at 2:46 AM PST - 26 comments

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