June 17, 2011

AOHell

One night, I awoke out of a dead sleep, and jumped to my computer, and instantly began typing up an article about David Letterman. I kept going for ten minutes, until I realized I had dreamed it all. There was no article to write; I was simply typing up the same meaningless phrases that we all always used: “LADY GAGA PANTLESS ON LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN,” or some such.

AOL Hell: An AOL Content Slave Speaks Out.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:30 PM PST - 127 comments

Neuroprosthetics and the Future of Cinderella's Slipper.

Memory Implants Have Now Been Successfully Applied to Rats: Is an artificial enhancement arms race among humans visible on the horizon? Culturally-favored appearance and intelligence have often been associated with social mobility; a future in which the rich can readily purchase dramatic enhancements to both sex appeal and cognitive ability at least raises the possibility of deeper and more permanent social stratification.
posted by darth_tedious at 6:30 PM PST - 86 comments

Terrorists on wheelchairs

Stuck. On their way home from photographing Formula Drift Palm Beach, Joe Ayala & Larry Chen found themselves stranded over night in Dallas Fort Worth as their flights home were canceled
posted by growabrain at 5:53 PM PST - 34 comments

China in the World

Be it resolved: The 21st Century Will Belong to China. At tonight's Munk Debates, Niall Ferguson and David Daokui Li debate Henry Kissinger and Fareed Zakaria [more inside]
posted by HLD at 5:47 PM PST - 60 comments

"In The End We Don't Kill Any Of Those People"

Enrique Metinides artfully captured five decades of mayhem in Mexico City. His successors keep his tradition alive. "David Alvarado is a quiet guy who does one of the ugliest jobs in this world but he will win your sympathy with his famous saying "se logró el objetivo" (the objective was accomplished). previously (graphic images and content Very NSFW and NSFC not safe for children) [more inside]
posted by Xurando at 5:38 PM PST - 31 comments

Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.

In a non-binding resolution narrowly passed by 23 to 19 (with 3 abstentions), the United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned violence and discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgender people for the first time. [more inside]
posted by thebestsophist at 5:02 PM PST - 52 comments

So, Cricket, Maybe?

With the NFL and NBA potentially going dark in the fall, Michael Schur and Nate DiMeo of Grantland.com decide to watch the India-Pakistan cricket match to see if it can be a suitable replacement.
posted by reenum at 4:45 PM PST - 75 comments

When you need the LULZ.

Animals Being Dicks. What is says on the tin.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 4:19 PM PST - 66 comments

heavy weather

Rudolf Hess and the Scottish Weather (slyt)
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:00 PM PST - 12 comments

Of Frogs and Hammers

The Muppets in Thor is NOT another fake trailer for the upcoming movie. It's a 24-page mostly-24-hour comic by the guy who does Max Overacts. Note: contains discrete male nudity, pig-on-Norse-God violence, obscure references (Junior Woodchucks!), sentimental time travel and IMO very good use of a lot of familiar characters, including Rowlf (MY favorite Muppet) putting it all in perspective.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:53 PM PST - 23 comments

Spoilers, the web and writing movies

"What I'm asking is this: Are screenwriters now affected by "spoiler culture" before they even begin the writing process? If you know a twist will be unavoidably revealed before the majority of people see the work itself, and if you concede that selling and marketing a film with a major secret will be more complicated for everyone involved … would you even try? Would you essentially stop yourself from trying to write a movie that's structured like The Sixth Sense?" Are Spoilers Flipping the Script?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:48 PM PST - 128 comments

"Teenage Devil Dolls!"

The Film Archive is an eclectic collection of full-length television and films, focusing mostly on the 30’s to the 60’s, that include teenage self-help films, the first televised Nixon / Kennedy debate, nuclear preparation films, exploitation/propaganda movies of every era, and much more.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:41 PM PST - 8 comments

75 Pictures of Abandoned Six Flags New Orleans

Welcome to the Circus of Value Despair A collection of photos from Six Flags New Orleans, an amusement park that closed at the approach of Hurricane Katrina and never reopened. Six years later it remains, slouching slowly into rust and rubble. (previously)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:40 AM PST - 100 comments

Spongiforma squarepantsii, a sponge-like fungi

What lives in the rainforest, under a tree? Spongiforma squarepantsii! Who resembles a sponge but is really a fungee*? Spongiforma squarepantsii! First discovered in a tropical forest in Borneo in 2010, S. squarepantsii resembles a sea sponge not only in outward appearance, but "[w]hen it's wet and moist and fresh, you can wring water out of it and it will spring back to its original size. Most mushrooms don't do that," as told by Dennis Desjardin, a mycology professor involved with the discovery. * I claim artistic license. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:18 AM PST - 32 comments

'Lad' and 'lady' are more than just a letter apart

Only 13% of articles in the New Republic, 22% of articles in The Atlantic and 30% of articles in the New Yorker are by women. ThinkProgress' Alyssa Rosenberg wonders why men's magazines underserve women and women's magazines underserve journalism. Anne Hays is boycotting the New Yorker for publishing too few women. Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks it's about old-fashioned class norms. Are the "female stars of long-form journalism" the solution to the problem or a red herring?
posted by Apropos of Something at 11:14 AM PST - 70 comments

kickingscreamingguccilittlepiggy

35 cover videos of Radiohead's Paranoid Android mixed together. Reminiscent of Kutiman's ThruYOU which you should really, really watch if you haven't. Via reddit.com/r/music.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 11:08 AM PST - 43 comments

Montel Williams Wants to Sell You Weed

Montel Williams has announced a partnership to bring a high-end, deluxe medical marijuana dispensary to Sacramento, California. This is not the first time Williams has brought the issue of medical marijuana into the media spotlight, having put in previous public appearances to discuss his own firsthand experiences using medical marijuana to treat the symptoms of his multiple sclerosis. This latest venture puts Williams at the head of a growing list of celebrity marijuana legalization adocates, including Drew Carey, Justin Timberlake and others (this last link is possibly NSFW). But does all the Sturm und Drang around the issue of marijuana legalization really signal a changing political reality? Depending upon your perspective, the polls, at least, are starting to look pretty good.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:50 AM PST - 52 comments

Who controls "Spiral Jetty"?

Control of Robert Smithson's earthwork masterpiece Spiral Jetty (360° panorama - QuickTime required) is now in dispute. Last week, a spokesperson for the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands announced that the New York-based Dia Foundation, which was given stewardship over the work by the artist's estate, had been tardy in making its annual $250 payment on the 10 acres of land and had also failed to respond to an automatically generated notice that the 20 year lease had expired. (The Dia Foundation disagrees.) Consequently, it will now be "managed like any other sovereign land" - which may be of interest to the energy companies that have sought to explore the area. (previously)
posted by Trurl at 10:11 AM PST - 46 comments

"My lower intestine is full of Spam, Egg, Spam, Bacon, Spam, Tomatoes, Spam."

Do you want some Spam with your Kindle? Spam has hit the Kindle, clogging the online bookstore of the top-selling eReader with material that is far from being book worthy and threatening to undermine Amazon.com Inc's publishing foray.
posted by Fizz at 8:53 AM PST - 97 comments

Shockingly, Aladdin is not a wonderland of historical accuracy

Shoomlah illustrates Disney Princess in historically accurate costumes, givs explanations for her choices, and shows us her process. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 8:39 AM PST - 55 comments

Kutiman Mixes Jerusalem

"In this piece I didn't browse YouTube, I actually wandered around Jerusalem, met with musicians and filmed them." New music/video from Kutiman - Thru Jerusalem.
posted by pashdown at 8:23 AM PST - 14 comments

Colony Collapse Disorder strikes the spacebar

Bumblebee, a program that allows Nvidia's Optimus to be used in Linux, brings you an epic fail for your amusement this Friday. [via spacebar] [more inside]
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:03 AM PST - 98 comments

When Warren Ellis closes a door, he opens a window.

The three-year run of FreakAngels, Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's steampunk webcomic, will come to an end in late July. FreakAngels was (to my knowledge) the first ongoing webcomic by an established comic-book creator, and if his experiment with free online publishing is almost over, it seems to have been a successful one - Duffield's announcement of FreakAngels' impending conclusion mentions that "Warren and Avatar Press have more webcomics lined up for you." Earlier this week, Chris Sims asked why comics publishers aren't using the webcomic format to draw in new readers. Could Avatar's online expansion be the beginning of that movement? Previously.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:59 AM PST - 30 comments

The Victims

Going Straight: My Ex-Gay Friend Also: Living the Good Lie: Therapists Who Help People Stay in the Closet. (Both links NYT, via)
posted by zarq at 7:49 AM PST - 94 comments

Please "Like" this post!

Facebook users are more trusting than other people. A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project takes a broad look at the social impact of social networking sites (SNSs). [more inside]
posted by DiscourseMarker at 7:33 AM PST - 34 comments

DRHNTR

All about the spotting deer, a fictional species profile in comic form by Michael DeForge at What Things Do. [Previously]
posted by shakespeherian at 7:31 AM PST - 6 comments

Anya's Ghost

Vera Brosgol (previously) is a Russian-born artist and illustrator now based in the US. One of her early works, Return To Sender, remains unfinished. Her first graphic novel Anya’s Ghost (preview) about a girl who finds a ghost at the bottom of a well has just been published.
posted by panboi at 6:30 AM PST - 9 comments

The New Aesthetic

The New Aesthetic For a while now, I’ve been collecting images and things that seem to approach a new aesthetic of the future, which sounds more portentous than I mean. What I mean is that we’ve got frustrated with the NASA extropianism space-future, the failure of jetpacks, and we need to see the technologies we actually have with a new wonder.
posted by jack_mo at 4:05 AM PST - 57 comments

Now they know.

Aviation Week and Space Technology explains that sequence of events in the crash that killed all 228 people onboard the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris can be segmented into two distinct phases. In the first phase, the pilots were dealing with the failure of speed readings that are almost certain to be linked to iced-over pitot tubes. The second phase began when speed indications returned to normal and the aircraft was at the edge of its flight envelope but under control and not stalled. Phase two also coincided with the captain’s return to the cockpit from an agreed-upon rest. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 3:27 AM PST - 66 comments

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