July 26, 2013
there's like - a bunch of mermaids here - and they definitely hate me
D - O - N - K - E - Y - K - O - N - G
Locals and Tourists
Some people interpreted the Geotaggers' World Atlas maps to be maps of tourism. This set is an attempt to figure out if that is really true. Some cities (for example Las Vegas and Venice) do seem to be photographed almost entirely by tourists. Others seem to have many pictures taken in places that tourists don't visit. Blue points on the map are pictures taken by locals (people who have taken pictures in this city dated over a range of a month or more). Map of photosets (scroll through photo thumbnails to discover new cities in the photoset [more inside]
Why Don't You Google It?
Maria Bamford* has a new Web series called Ask My Mom!, wherein questions asked by the viewers are answered by Maria, playing her mother.
Episodes thus far:
#1 - SAD SACK
#2 - SEX
#3 - RAISING KIDS
#4 - ABSTRACT
#5 - RELIGION
#6 - SHOW BUSINESS
#7 - FAVORITE
#8 - CHEERFUL
#9 - A PRIVATE MOMENT
[more inside]
I'm not ready for this!
Has anyone else put forth this theory before?
What’s Killing Minnesota’s Moose?
The iconic monarch of the North Woods is dying at an alarming rate. Is it climate change, a brain-piercing parasite, or is something else to blame?
Pico Horror: terror in two sentences
From Reddit: What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences. When /r/shortscarystories are too long, and you've already read through MicroHorror (previously) and Flashes in the Dark.
Walter De Maria, R.I.P.
Walter De Maria, R.I.P. (LAT) The famed but reclusive sculptor and composer was 77. In a loving tribute, Jerry Saltz writes of De Maria's Earth Room (previously), and of the effect it had on him personally.
Darryl Kelly was hired to clean out Harry Shunk's NYC apartment.
Darryl Kelly was hired to clean out Harry Shunk's New York City apartment. Things worked out well for Kelly.
'让我介绍一个哥们儿'
Xiaoou is a Norwegian artist who raps in Mandarin Chinese about income inequality in China, his love for Beijing, and going through a breakup.
"We have 10 different babies from which you can select."
Would you like to choose your baby? We definitely want to be able to avoid genetic mutations that could cause diseases or problems later on. But what if you could make your babies more intelligent? Or more Athletic? or More beautiful? Or affect their political orientation? (A 2011 study looked at differences between conservative and liberal leanings—and found, surprisingly, three areas that might be linked to political predisposition.)
Should you be able to choose what characteristics you want your babies to have?
[more inside]
Dream of the '90s
Full course meal
It goes back to honoring Thomas Harris and imagery we have in the books, in the Hannibal Lecter books. So we knew that we had to have fantastic imagery that you wouldn’t see on another crime-procedural show. Being competitive and wanting to be completely different from what you see on other shows, which is usually, on a crime procedural you see a body in a room splayed out and blood, but you rarely get to see people covered with mushrooms or impaled on severed stag heads or blood eagled and the totem pole. We would sit in the room and say, “What is the image? What is the death tableau? What are we going to see that’s going to be so striking and cinematic and beautiful at the same time, but will actually be a horrible crime scene?” So every crime scene that we have has to have this element of beauty and art to it.Bryan Fuller, showrunner for NBC's Hannibal (previously), discusses each episode of the first season with the AV Club. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.
"We All Lament the Difficulty We Have Persuading Americans"
"Believing they are losing the messaging war with progressives, a group of prominent conservatives in Washington—including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and journalists from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner — has been meeting privately since early this year to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation," according to documents obtained by [David Corn and] Mother Jones." Photo Gallery: Meet Groundswell's Major Players. Also: Groundswell's Secret Crusade to Crush Karl Rove // (Via) [more inside]
Boomtown
Wildcatting: A Stripper’s Guide to the Modern American Boomtown. Susan Shepard details her time stripping in Williston, North Dakota (previously).
They are called RANDOM patrols for a reason!
That's not a plot hole. Allow me to explain. Scott Nye discusses a movie trend that, once seen, cannot be unseen.
There's treasure in there
Books with borax crystals growing on them. Artist Alexis Arnold grows crystals on the pages of books.
"We are British. We are Liverpudlians. "
""He just went out to the shop, and my mum was waiting for him to come home, and he never came," Linda Davis said of her father." -- During World War II tens of thousands of Chinese seamen served in the UK's merchant navy, many of whom had settled in Liverpool and some of which developed relationships with local women. Yet in 1945, as soon as the war was won, Liverpool police forces, on orders of the Home Office mounted razzias and deported the majority of the 20,000 Chinese men living in the city, leaving behind their wifes and children. [more inside]
"By nature, I'm an optimistic person. No one believes it, but I am."
Tony Award winner Larry Kramer, author of The Normal Heart, Reports from the Holocaust, screenwriter of Women in Love, and founder of ACT UP and Gay Men's Health Crisis, has gotten married. [more inside]
Experiment Twelve
Experiment Twelve is an ambitious game (Windows download, 218 MB), a chapter by chapter collaboration between (in order of appearance) Terry Cavanagh, Ian Snyder, Jack King-Spooner, Zaratustra, Richard Perrin, Michael Brough, Robert Yang, Alan Hazelden, Benn Powell, Jake Clover, TheBlackMask, and Jasper Byrne.
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