June 25, 2009
The Future! Brought to you by generous geeks of the world.
Loose Tweets, Sink Fleets
World War III Propoganda Posters. Someone tweeted!
America's only "Native Martial Art"?
"For a long time it has been a kind of martial arts Loch Ness monster: an American fighting form with supposedly sinister origins that many have heard of but few have seen or experienced. No one, it seemed, had any concrete proof that it existed, or at least none they were willing to share.
Until (2:36) recently." Longer (5:19) ver here [more inside]
Internet Anonymity: A Right of the Past?
Internet Anonymity: A Right of the Past? | North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology
A newly designed Internet Protocol, restricting communication source autonomy, is being quietly drafted with detailed technical standards that “define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous” by a United Nations agency. The “IP Traceback” drafting group, which has declined to release key documents or allow their meetings to be open to the public, includes, among others, the United States National Security Agency.[more inside]
How to Raise a Dragon
Preemptive Friday Flash Fun: How to Raise a Dragon, a game by Gregory Weir, where you make decisions about a dragon's development. Nice pixel art style. [more inside]
"Men are born for games."
At the recent Games for Change conference, Brenda Brathwaite debuted her game Train. The WSJ blog Speakeasy interviews her: Players load boxcars with tiny yellow figurines and are asked to move the trains from one end of the course to the other. They pull cards that either impede their progress or free some of the characters. Once a train reaches the "finish line," the game is completed and it is revealed [more inside]
Michael Jackson, Dead at 50
Michael Jackson, the undisputed King of Pop, has died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, California. He was 50 years old. [more inside]
Why do we rape, kill, and sleep around?
Back in the late Pleistocene epoch 100,000 years ago, the 2000 book contended, men who carried rape genes had a reproductive and evolutionary edge over men who did not: they sired children not only with willing mates, but also with unwilling ones, allowing them to leave more offspring (also carrying rape genes) who were similarly more likely to survive and reproduce, unto the nth generation. That would be us. And that is why we carry rape genes today. The family trees of prehistoric men lacking rape genes petered out.
Newsweek's Sharon Begley examines evolutionary psychology and some of its most controversial theories (and how they are being rethought) in Don't Blame The Caveman.
Dead people having sex
Dead people having sex Immoral? Illegal? Shocking? Gunther von Hagens latest exhibit in London is again not without controversy. His website is here
Movie Body Counts
"Movie Body Counts tallies the actual, visible 'on screen kills/deaths/bodies' of your favorite action, sci/fi, and war films." [more inside]
But where are the wretched hives of scum and villainy?
The Architects' Journal (home of British architecture) has recently listed their top 10 architectural features of Star Wars. The article cites the Sandcrawler of Tatooine (possibly inspired by the Hôtel du lac in Tunisia, and in turn may have influenced Casa da Música [virtual tour, requires Quicktime] ), gave Bright Tree Village an honorary rating of BREEAM Excellent (top marks for environment-friendliness and sustainability), then embrace the Ecumenopolis that is Coruscant. This is not the first discussion of the architectural styles of the Star Wars universe. George Lucas once said "I'm basically a Victorian person," referring to his love of "all kinds of old things," including sort of Art Deco or Art Moderne-type. The retro-futuristic styles of Star Wars has gone on to inspire others.
One Gentleman's Quest to Find His Goddess
Mark is looking for his Goddess. From Mark's site: My Global Vision addresses and integrates a large number of disciplines. Its ultimate goal is to greatly reduce human suffering on planet Earth. It is deep, complex, and mind-boggling. [more inside]
Privacy trumps idiocy...finally
In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that school officials violated an Arizona teenager's rights by strip-searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen, declaring that U.S. educators cannot force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk. Clarence Thomas demurred, suggesting that panties would become the new drug underground.
What kind of a machine bends a stalk of corn without breaking it?
Stoned Wallabees make crop circles: Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.
The Success of Development
Innovation, Ideas and the Global Standard of Living by Charles Kenny: "The Success of Development acts like a sword through many of the Gordian knots plaguing the development community, especially those surrounding the rate of economic growth in many developing countries. Put that question to one side, says Kenny, and suddenly a lot of much more interesting questions, about issues like education and healthcare and clean water and human rights, come into a lot more focus. And if you use those metrics, rather than GDP growth, to judge the success or failure of developing countries, then things look rather more optimistic than you might think." (pdf) Glenn Hubbard's review, cf. Technological Creativity and Economic Progress [more inside]
“What's with these people?” he asked. “They've even sued my cancer research company.”
Hank Asher, billionaire eccentric philanthropist/data miner, is being sued by publishing giant Elsevier. “What's with these people? They've even sued my cancer research company.” On the one hand, Asher used to smuggle cocaine. On the other hand, Elsevier has their own problems.
Baloney Detection Kit
The Baloney Detection Kit. "With a sea of information coming at us from all directions, how do we sift out the misinformation and bogus claims, and get to the truth? Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine, lays out a 'Baloney Detection Kit' — ten questions we should ask when encountering a claim."
I'll do it as long as someone will publish it for me
Greil Marcus writes Real Life Top Ten for the Believer Magazine, in which he lists "anything that remotely has to do with music, a dress Bette Midler wore at an awards show or a great guitar solo in the middle of a song that otherwise wasn't very interesting." But he's been writing this column online for just about 10 years. [more inside]
Michelangelo Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point"
Pauline Kael called it "a huge, jerry-built, crumbling ruin of a movie". Roger Ebert called it "such a silly and stupid movie... our immediate reaction is pity". Few directors of Michelangelo Antonioni's stature have followed a film as acclaimed as Blowup (1966) with one as reviled as Zabriskie Point (1970). [more inside]
The things they returned
In 1970, while burning captured enemy documents with no military intelligence value, Fred Whitehurst came across a tiny diary. Advised not to burn it by his translator, he kept it and took it with him to America when his tour was over. Thirty five years later, the diary came back home. [more inside]
Farrah Fawcett dies at age 62.
Farrah Fawcett died today of cancer at the age of 62. She was perhaps best known for her role in Charlie's Angels, and also for inspiring the lust of a whole generation of men with one photo.
A School for Torture
An amendment to the Defense Authorization Act currently under consideration in congress would force the notorious School of the Americas (currently known as "WHINSEC") to "release to the public the names, ranks, countries of origin, courses taken and dates of attendance of all the students and instructors at the institute." [more inside]
Digital Paint, Classical Skills
William Low children's author and illustrator of a variety of books, describes his process and his methods (YouTube videos 1, 2 ...more from his publisher), and talks about his beautiful new book, Machines Go To Work. [more inside]
languages and thought
How does our language shape our thinking? :"What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world."
"I rob banks for a living, what do you do?"
John Dillinger was paroled from Indiana State Prison in May 1933 after serving eight years for assault and battery and attempted robbery and launched a Midwest Crime Wave from June 1933 to June 1934. [more inside]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Where is the paddle? We need the paddle!
I suppose this is what you’d have to call "small-audience" humour
The evolution of a Programmer, a classic of the early Internet, has been brought up to
date with the latest trends in purely functional, statically typed, lazily evaluated programming languages.
Make a toaster from scratch
Toast always reminds me of the global division of labor. A British artist inspired by Douglas Adams is attempting to make a toaster from scratch. Apparently this concept was also addressed before in an essay, "I, Pencil," by Leonard Read, a founder of a Libertarian think tank. Bottom line: Pencils and toasters are difficult for one person to make and using a microwave to smelt stuff for the toaster is apparently cheating.
kinetic sketch drawing tool
Why Bother?
Why Bother? was a Talkback production for BBC Radio 3, consisting of five radio interviews between Chris Morris and Peter Cook's character Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, recorded in late 1993 and originally broadcast in 1994. The majority of the dialogue was ad libbed between the pair, which Morris then edited. Eels, Love & Guns | Bears | Christ | Prisoner Of War | Drugs etc 1 | Drugs etc 2
Woargh noise
Steven Wells, the ranting music journalist known as Swells during his time excoriating indie bands on the NME, has died of cancer. [more inside]
National Prison Rape Commission releases its final report
A Prison Nightmare. On June 23, 2009, the National Prison Rape Commission released its final Report and proposed Standards to prevent, detect, respond to and monitor sexual abuse of incarcerated or detained individuals throughout the United States. More prisoners reported abuse by staff than abuse by other prisoners.
Keep Libel Laws Out Of Science campaign
Simon Singh is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association (previously on metafilter). A pre-trail ruling by the judge caused much concern in the scientific community and elsewhere. On the 4th of June Singh announced that he was applying to appeal against the pre-trial ruling, and Sense About Science launched a Keep Libel Laws Out Of Science campaign (T-shirts, badges and mugs available). The Streisand effect really started to kick in when Simon Perry screen-scraped 400 uk chiropractic web sites, searched for claims about the treatment of colic, and mail-merged letters to various Trading Standards officers. Over 240 letters were sent. This led to an interesting response. [more inside]
Oranges and lemons
London Sound Survey collects the everyday sounds of the capital, including the bells of St Clement's, the call to prayer at the Whitechapel mosque, football fans outside Millwall stadium, a demo in Piccadilly, dubstep at the Notting Hill Carnival and a street preacher at Speaker's Corner.. not forgetting, of course, those ubiquitous sounds of London life, 'Big Issue! Big Issue!' and announcements of planned engineering works on the Tube. (Via.)
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