June 29, 2012
Keeping Detroit Beautiful
Renowned L.A. based graffiti crew The Seventh Letter and affiliates have been working on the Detroit Beautification Project (Vimeo link). [more inside]
Brown Moses Blog
Brown Moses Blog curates and analyzes news regarding the Syrian uprising, the wider Arab Spring, and the UK phone hacking scandal. It is written by Something Awful forums moderator Brown Moses. Recent entries include discussion of the increasingly well armed Free Syrian Army, senior members of the Catholic Church criticizing pro-Assad clergy, and a look at the evidence of more sophisticated IEDs being used in Syria. [more inside]
'Older isn't automatically better.'
Edward Behr is the editor and publisher of The Art of Eating, (named for MFK Fisher's book), a well-regarded food magazine. [more inside]
A Snitch’s Dilemma
"Alex White, Professional Snitch: What do you do when the cops you work for are dirtier than you are?"
Metafilter previously on Kathryn Johnston.
See Paradise for a mere $625,000 a week.
Jon Ronson (whose book The Psychopath Test was the basis of a This American Life episode ) interviews folks living in America at several varied levels of income in: GQ - Amber Waves of Green.
Project: Krautkiller
The Department of Defense staff has reviewed your application for permission to utilize your newly-developed Time Machine (US Patent #4004-BC-10100036, applied for but not processed) in order to, as you put it, "go back and kill Hitler".
Our Bright DocFuture
DocFuture (previously) is a video artist who creates bizarre and insightful (NSFW audio, also previously) Dadaist pastiches of pop-culture. His latest video (NSFW) is a confusing and relentless satire of YouTube culture that is equal parts ambitious and absurd. Yes, even more ambitious than a comprehensive playthrough of a Sonic the Hedgehog game that doesn't technically exist
The 2012 NBA draft fashion superlatives
The Grateful Dead Archive Online
UC Santa Cruz announced today the launch of the Grateful Dead Archive Online. It contains over 25,000 digitized items - posters & photographs, audio & video, t-shirts, envelope art... you can even contribute your own content.
The Strongest Woman In America Lives In Poverty
The Strongest Woman In America Lives In Poverty. Weightlifter Sarah Robles is an incredible athlete, but outside the world of squats and snatches, barely anyone knows her name.
THE GLOAMING
¡Vamonos! That means "Let's go".
Battleship taught us that everything can be made into an action film. Even Dora the Explorer.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
After a period of relative stability, another leap second will occur on 2012 June 30 at 23:59:60 UTC. (Previously.) Proposals to decouple UTC from the Earth's irregular rotation (previously, previously) have stalled and the International Telecommunication Union has recently deferred the development of a continuous time standard. So enjoy your extra second while you can! [more inside]
Trouble in River City
106-degree temperatures in Richmond, VA aren't even the worst of it. A weatherman for the local CBS affiliate delivers the last forecast Richmonders will need. (slyt)
Another Fine Mashup
Bei mir bist du scheen (or schejn or schön or schoen) by Azerbaijani pop singer Ilhama (featuring DJ OGB) is a recent remake of a 1930's Yiddish song originally translated for the Andrews Sisters. The visuals featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are as much fun as the music. (Check out L&H dancing and singing in "Way Out West".) But still, my all-time favorite interpretation of the 'Bei Mir' song was a 1976 commercial for Shasta Soft Drinks that repurposed it as "Root Beer, Mister Shane".
editable visualized data
FF Chartwell is a typeface for creating simple editable graphs and charts, designed by Travis Kochel. Driven by the frustration of creating graphs within design applications and inspired by typefaces such as FF Beowolf and FF PicLig, Travis saw an opportunity to take advantage of OpenType technology to simplify the process. Using OpenType features, simple strings of numbers are automatically transformed into charts. The visualized data remains editable, allowing for hassle-free updates and styling. Watch the demo video. Buy a license.
The significance of plot without conflict
One Cool Motherfucker
Mental Floss has put together eight of Morgan Freeman's classic clips from Electric Company.
"I'm an artist and I don't f---ing have to answer for my work."
Drag queen Sharon Needles, winner of RuPaul's Drag Race, has lately been facing a lot of criticism for their transgressive act: "Eli Kuti, a bartender at Lawrenceville's Blue Moon, where Needles often performs, recalls one performance in which Needles and another drag queen donned one-piece bathing suits emblazoned with swastikas. The two 'were hailing Hitler' and calling crowd members racial epithets, Kuti says." [more inside]
The Argument Clinic
Would you like to get an anonymous phone call from a stranger who is diametrically opposed to your own political views? Sure, we all do. Now, Political Screaming Match Dot Com is here to help, and can solve this age-old problem in 15 minutes or less.
Your hair is falling out and your teeth have gone, your legs are still together but it won't be long
Fad Gadget was the brainchild of Leeds-born
electronic music pioneer Frank Tovey
He died on April 3, 2002, just as his career was entering a new phase with his first arena tour in support of Depeche Mode's Exciter tour. He left a legacy of 10 albums, most of which are now out of print, and his name is largely forgotten, although his legacy (ever so slightly NSFW) lives on. [more inside]
David Maraniss on Barack Obama
A perceptive audio interview with biographer David Maraniss on the life of Barack Obama, including detailed research on his friends and relatives.
Pulitzer-prize winning biographer and associate editor of the Washington Post David Maraniss ...collected so much detailed information about the life of Barack Obama and his forbears that when he submitted his introduction and chapter titles to the White House to request an interview, the President himself was intrigued and surprised.
Fool me once
I, pet goat II - 'A story about the fire at the heart of suffering. Bringing together dancers, musicians, visual artists and 3d animators, the film takes a critical look at the events of the past decade that have shaped our world.' (SLVimeo, parts may be NSFW)
Musical Architecture
A wall with large buttons that trigger voices, mellotron-style; An Indonesian gamelan xylophone orchestra played with a arcade game-like control panel; A leslie speaker that amplifies whatever a stethoscope touches. These are just a few of the instruments built into a unique New Orleans musical architecture installation called Dithyrambalina, or simply, The Music Box. [more inside]
The Sideways Gaze: Roland Barthes’s Travels in China
"You are the product." ~ Don Draper
Depressed Copywriter [SLTumblr] "Every time I see an example of corporate happiness I can only see the reality of life. I can’t help myself anymore. I can’t stop rearranging their copy."
Catnip: Egress to Oblivion? [Classroom Drug Educational Film]
"There are approximately 250 species of catnip and this figure doesn't include hybrids. But all of these substances have one thing in common. The active ingredient, nepetalactone cycloalkane." (slyt)
Two and a half minutes to improve your drinking experiences
11 Months, 3000 pictures and a lot of coffee.
If you've ever wondered what it looks like to have a Triumph Spitfire engine miraculously re-build and install itself into a Classic sports car through the magic of time lapse, then your day may just get a little bit better.
"Are we all 14 years old over here?"
Nobody does this to men in the industry. Nobody says Cliff Bleszinski is wearing such a tight shirt today, and oooh I'd love to rub my hands all over him. At least not to the point where he's uncomfortable at tradeshows. Likewise nobody sexualizes male characters. Some may argue that Kratos represents an unrealistic image of a male, but there aren't massive forum threads dedicated to whether and how people would like to have sex with him. Kratos, Marcus Fenix, and their ilk, are the object of power fantasies, not sexual fantasies. There is a huge difference there. You want to be as cool and powerful as Kratos. Again, nobody wants to be Lara Croft all the time.Video games and Male Gaze - are we men or boys?
Hot Dog!
Spiral cut hot dogs. You KNOW you want to do this. (SL 49 second YT that will make your summer SO much better)
Just remember that you're still young
You're Gonna Make It Today: a reassuring message for these troubled times, delivered in the universal language of late 90's synthpop. [slyt]
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