June 20, 2013
(cover version)
Belgian designer Kristof Luyckx recently made six short videos as interstitials between lectures at the Beyonderground graphic festival. They are covers of famous songs, as sung by a cast of bizarre, colorful and very calm monsters. You can see all six at his site, or on Vimeo: [more inside]
Screaming Females
A Reference Of Female-Fronted Punk Rock: 1977-89 is a set of 12 downloadable mix CDs collecting more than 360 punk songs sung by women.
It has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world
The Bicycle Craze of the 1890s had a significant impact upon women's lives. Leaders of the women's movement saw bike riding as a path to freedom. Many women cyclists enjoyed the freedoms and experiences bikes gave them. Although many health experts recommended biking to women for its health effects, other health experts and some moralists saw dangers in letting women venture off into the wild blue yonder with and without men, danger in potential physical damage to women's bodies, disaster in letting them adopt "unfeminine garb" - and of course, they might enjoy it TOO much. [more inside]
Time keeps on slipping slipping slipping
selection and preservation that bind humans and apples together
Of Sisters And Clones: An Interview with Jessica Rath
Every apple for sale at your local supermarket is a clone. Every single Golden Delicious, for example, contains the exact same genetic material; though the original Golden Delicious tree (discovered in 1905, on a hillside in Clay County, West Virginia) is now gone, its DNA has become all but immortal, grafted onto an orchard of clones growing on five continents and producing more than two hundred billion pounds of fruit each year in the United States alone.via Edible Geography [more inside]
Here’s how to fit 1,000 terabytes on a DVD
"We live in a world where digital information is exploding. Some 90% of the world’s data was generated in the past two years. The obvious question is: how can we store it all? In Nature Communications today, we, along with Richard Evans from CSIRO, show how we developed a new technique to enable the data capacity of a single DVD to increase from 4.7 gigabytes up to one petabyte (1,000 terabytes). This is equivalent of 10.6 years of compressed high-definition video or 50,000 full high-definition movies."
Say Cheese!
"It’s not inconceivable that if you are on the right part of the Earth, and you stand outside and wave, that one or two of the photons of sunlight that reflect from you are going to make it out to Saturn and into Cassini’s telescope." NASA is taking a new version of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot image, and they've invited everyone to Wave at Saturn!
"How about you just decide how not to *repel* the women?"
David Gaider, senior writer at Bioware, delivers a talk on sex, sexuality, and sexism in video games and the gaming industry at the 2013 Game Developers Conference. (single-link 49-minute video)
Google Reaver
With the deeply unpopular shutdown of Google Reader less than two weeks away (previously), plenty of would-be replacements have jumped into the mix, including the newly web-based Feedly, Newsblur, Digg, and possibly even Facebook (a particularly bitter irony, as obsession with defeating Facebook has been the alleged impetus behind CEO Larry Page's abandonment of beloved Google hallmarks like 20% Time, Google Labs, and open platforms like Reader).
But while there's no shortage of attempts to replicate Reader's look and feel, there's one little-known aspect that none can match, and that will be lost forever come July 1st: the vast cache archive of every article from every website, living and dead, that has ever been subscribed to in Reader.
[more inside]
Italian Saint or Nazi Collaborator?
Honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1990. Giovanni Palatucci was considered the Italian Schindler. Giovanni's name has recently been removed from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum after the Centro Primo Levi at the Center for Jewish History sent a letter to the Museum with evidence that Giovanni was really a Nazi Collaborator.
The only movie with a "Punishment Poll"
Mr. Sardonicus is a horror film produced and directed by William Castle. It tells the story of Sardonicus, a man whose face becomes frozen in a horrifying grin while robbing his father's grave to obtain a winning lottery ticket. Castle cited the film in his memoir as one of his favorites to produce, and, with his reputation as the "king of gimmicks" to market his films, built the marketing for the film around the idea of the two possible endings.
The Pepe LePew Manual on Getting Pussy?
Above The Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome with Women has raised $16,369 out of its $2,000 goal on Kickstarter. Casey Malone has called it out as "a book about how to sexually assault women" and "a rape manual", including quotes from seddit, the seduction subReddit (Google cache). A petition asking Kickstarter to withdraw funding has gathered close to 50,000 signatures, but while Kickstarter agrees that the material is "abhorrent and inconsistent with our values", it has declined to cancel the project.
Author Ken Hoinsky is "devastated and troubled" by allegations that his book promotes rape, because the quotes were taken out of context. However, Jezebel reports that Hoinsky e-mailed them, "Wanna let your readers know [about the Kickstarter]? I'm sure they'll have a field day with this" which indicates he may be banking on the outrage and the backlash for added publicity.
[via /r/feminism and /r/nottheonion]
THIS IS WHAT I WANT: PLATTER OF CHICKEN SALAD
Every Thursday, the Seamless (a delivery service that serves as a takeout service for over 12,000 restaurants) posts the Best of Seamless Special Instructions of the Week.
Masks of Nyarlathotep
Among tabletop RPG players and in particular among Call of Cthulhu players, Masks of Nyarlathotep is often held to be the gold standard for adventures. A sprawling mystery that begins with a murder in New York City and takes the investigators on a world-spanning chase to London, Cairo, the interior of Kenya, outback Australia and Shanghai, trying to prevent the opening of the Great Gate and the return of the elder gods who will end the world, it does not lack for ambition. Created by Larry DiTillio with editorial assistance from the late Lynn Willis, Masks is rated #1 by a wide margin of the 4,254 adventures reviewed on RPG.net. The Call of Cthulhu website Yog-sothoth.com, to celebrate the site's fifteenth anniversary, is making available a pdf of the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion: 570 pages of behind-the-scenes info for running the campaign. [more inside]
The housewife who grew up with monkeys
Was Marina Chapman really brought up by monkeys? (The Guardian), Kidnapped, dumped in the jungle and raised by monkeys (Daily Mail), The Girl with No Name: Author claims she was raised by monkeys (The Star), Strange life of the housewife who grew up with monkeys (Telegraph), Marina Chapman tells her incredible story of survival (Today), Girl who lived with monkeys spins incredible tale (CBC). National Geographic is producing a documentary. [Feral children previously on MeFi - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Surrender Your Say
Imagine if you Tweeted something embarrassing, offensive, or just plain weird - and you had no control over it. This is an awareness program from the Tourettes Syndrome Foundation of Canada that uses random automated tweets to participants Twitter accounts to simulate the experience of having Tourettes and raise awareness of the Syndrome. [more inside]
Debenhams: not messing (much) with natural beauty
Debenhams, an international chain of fashion stores, has embraced more attainable body images by no longer retouching photos lingerie model, after they stopped airbrushing swimsuit models in 2010. The chain also recently featured models outside of the usual height, age and range, plus Paralympian athlete Stefanie Reid, in line with their selection of their first disabled model, Shannon Murray, in 2010. [more inside]
How long can you wait to have a baby?
Everyone knows that female fertility begins a rapid decline at thirty-five. Or does it? In the Atlantic, Jean Twenge dismantles the data and reaches a startling conclusion: many oft-cited statistics on female fertility are based on data from pre-twentieth century populations, whereas studies on contemporary populations yield very different results. Might the mid- to late-thirties be the ideal time to have a baby? Twenge suggests we consider forty as the new cut-off for pregnancy.
truths about gay relationships on the road to marriage equality
Master Bedroom, Extra Closet: The Truth About Gay Marriage
"In the fight for marriage rights, gay activists have (smartly) put forward couples who embody a familiar form of unity... But not all gay unions are built on the straight model, particularly when it comes to the issue of monogamy... The gay rights movement has made a calculated decision to highlight the similarities, not the differences, between straight and gay love on the road to marriage equality."
"In the fight for marriage rights, gay activists have (smartly) put forward couples who embody a familiar form of unity... But not all gay unions are built on the straight model, particularly when it comes to the issue of monogamy... The gay rights movement has made a calculated decision to highlight the similarities, not the differences, between straight and gay love on the road to marriage equality."
HIV vs. Cancer: Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia
"Emma Whitehead was near death from acute lymphoblastic leukemia but is now in remission after an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia."
The New York Times has a feature from December 2012 and this incredible story was the subject of a short film as part of a GE/cinelan-sponored Vimeo series of 3 minute documentaries on "big ideas"
The New York Times has a feature from December 2012 and this incredible story was the subject of a short film as part of a GE/cinelan-sponored Vimeo series of 3 minute documentaries on "big ideas"
The fiscal choices at UK Spending Review 2013 and beyond
"The government’s plans for deficit reduction have increasingly stark implications for public spending as their deadline draws nearer, according to new Resolution Foundation analysis.
While overall expenditure is set to remain relatively flat in 2015-16 (the period covered by the latest Spending Review) the pace of reduction in total government spending is due to increase significantly in the two subsequent year"
Dealing with it.
I’ve lived in this city for almost a decade. I chose my lavaball strategy early. I have big legs; thick, muscular. When I sit, I sit with legs straight and feet on the floor, using no more space than necessary. When I am lavaballed, I dig them in and hold firm.
"The series is an anti-action, existential feminist family drama"
Now, "Voyager": in praise of the Trekkiest "Trek" of all "As we mourn Abrams’ macho Star Trek obliteration, it’s a good time to revisit that most Star Trek-ian of accomplishments, Voyager, the most despised object of fanboy loathing in the franchise's history."
2013 Southeast Asian Haze
Forest fires due to slash and burn farming in Sumatra, Indonesia have led to unprecedented air pollution levels in Singapore and Malaysia.
In Singapore particularly, Facebook and Twitter are aflame as well. For a country used to very clean air, the sudden pollution has led to public outcry, with air purifiers and face masks being snatched off the shelves. So far, no stop-work-order has been issued, and there are complaints that the government is not tackling the situation rapidly enough. Indonesia is working to put out the fires and is considering cloud seeding; their response to pressure from Singapore to do more was that Singaporeans should stop behaving like children and not disturb their domestic affairs. While image macros about the 2013 haze continue to fill up Facebook feeds, some people are taking the whole affair in a more irreverent way. [more inside]
You have never been my enemy. I am very sorry that I have been yours
“I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatised parents.” The world’s oldest and largest ‘ex-gay’ organisation, Exodus International, is finally shutting down a year after deciding it was wrong.
Previously. Previousier.
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