June 20, 2016

Brad Pitt, diversity champion

How Pitt's production company, Plan B, gives a platform for storytellers outside the Hollywood machine.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:10 PM PST - 5 comments

"I don't wanna talk about this. I'm gonna talk about this."

Vi Hart on shootings, stalkings, and Internetting While Female
posted by eviemath at 7:47 PM PST - 34 comments

What you are is suspect. What you feel is embarrassing.

Shame: An Explainer
posted by supermassive at 7:43 PM PST - 32 comments

Ham4Algorithm

We Wrote an Algorithm to Unravel the Rhymes of Hit Musical ‘Hamilton’ (WSJ) Let's start with the first verse of the musical's opening number. Our algorithm breaks words into their component sounds and then groups similar-sounding syllables into rhyme families, which are color-coded. [more inside]
posted by CrystalDave at 7:01 PM PST - 30 comments

WE’RE NOT LOOKING FOR BITCOIN THIS TIME.

New York Magazine details a hypothetical cyber-attack on New York in an uncomfortably close future. [more inside]
posted by quinndexter at 6:52 PM PST - 23 comments

Keep England British Shorthair

#CatsAgainstBrexit. But there's another side to the story. Some are on the fence about it[more inside]
posted by Pinback at 5:58 PM PST - 13 comments

"I have wasted my life."

How are we to understand the last line of James Wright's famous "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota?" [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 4:49 PM PST - 46 comments

Driving in a big circle around Iceland

Route One is a 24 hour live broadcast by Icelandic state television RÚV of a drive on the Ring Road, which goes all the way around Iceland. Underneath a procedurally generated 24 hour remix of a new Sigur Rós song called Óveður will be playing. It starts now.
posted by Kattullus at 2:01 PM PST - 238 comments

Utah v. Strieff

The Supreme Court has issued its opinion in Utah v. Strieff (pdf actual opinion), holding essentially that an active warrant remedies an unconstitutional stop. [more inside]
posted by likeatoaster at 2:01 PM PST - 82 comments

The War On Terror meets The Final Frontier

"What does God need with a starship?" What started out as an exploration of televangelism mutated into something else via the notoriously troubled production, and some of the allegory was lost. But now, in the modern world, Star Trek V finally makes sense. This is not the film you were warned about. This is not a film where the Enterprise literally goes looking for God. This is one worth seeing for what it is, what it was meant to be, or at least what it has become. [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 1:40 PM PST - 81 comments

No one sings like you anymore

Black Hole Sun covered by Postmodern Jukebox and Haley Reinhart. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:41 PM PST - 32 comments

"they do a damn fine job of describing every buddy cop movie ever made."

Overthinking It! tackles The One-Eyed Spike and the One-Handed Jet of Cowboy Bebop - "Who knew that Cowboy Bebop was basing its characters on Proto-Indo-European mythology? French philologist Georges Dumezil, that’s who!" [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:53 AM PST - 19 comments

In the industry, this is known as a "hatchet job"

Daniel Voshart (Twitter) has an axe to grind with VICE, everyone's favorite new-media-gonzo-journalism-lifestyle-possibly-advertising group. His rather adversarial Not VICE series discusses the other side of the company's narrative, from the purported thin line between content and advertising to the murky past of figurehead Shane Smith and the loose journalistic guidelines in their documentaries.

If this is a bit too off-balance for you, check out Wired's 2007 profile of VICE and The Onion's pitch perfect parody, Edge (my favorite: Kisha Nai: Inside The Japanese Subculture Of Ignoring American Reporters Even If They're Rad As Hell).
posted by redct at 11:36 AM PST - 27 comments

This.

“Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting.”
If you won't click AND READ that link, how about this one? (WaPo) Yes, it was satire, but there is a real study, which is just as depressing (via Neatorama.com's 'Miss Cellania', the most reliable source on the Internet. Really.)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:18 AM PST - 34 comments

How we live now: inside the revolution in urban living.

The Guardian presents a 5-part video series about people redefining how to live in busy urban centres. Listed: Toyko, New York City, London, Constitucion (Chile), Los Angeles.
posted by Kitteh at 7:41 AM PST - 34 comments

The IF European Intergenerational Fairness Index 2016

"Has Europe let down its young? That is the question the Intergenerational Foundation (IF) strives to answer with the IF European Fairness Index 2016. The IF EU Index 2016 is an attempt to measure how the position of young people changed across Europe over the ten years between 2005 and 2014 by analysing movements in a set of 13 social and economic indicators." [Warning: report is a pdf but is downloadable]
posted by marienbad at 7:15 AM PST - 27 comments

Nine Months in the Bronx

In this six part video series, the BBC follows "22 year old Felicia during her pregnancy as she navigates a welfare system which critics claim puts unfair demands on poor and minority women."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:08 AM PST - 14 comments

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