August 21, 2015
Why Do Activists Do What They Do?
How can climbing a flagpole or hanging from a bridge reform society or improve our political system? How can marching down the street with a cardboard sign that reads “Black Lives Matter” do anything other than disrupt traffic? Why do activists do what they do?
Travel the way your luggage does
Have you ever wanted to follow your suitcase down the conveyor belt into the bowels of the airport? Well thanks to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, now you can. There's a cool 360 degree view, too. (Flash required for 360 view.) [via]
It's puppies all the way down
Openpuppies is a web toy created by Olivia Cheng. Press the space bar to load a new puppy. (It may not work correctly on mobile devices.)
"Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."
Hearts and Minds is a documentary about the Vietnam War. It was directed by Peter Davis. It came out in 1974 to considerable controversy. The war finally ended in 1975. [more inside]
Rebel Alliance Vs Empire United
Sexe & ye Syngle Gyrle
Thus Man’s most noble Parts describ’d we see;
(For such the Parts of Generation be;)
And they that carefully survey’t, will find,
Each Part is fitted for the Use design’d:
The Purest Blood we find, if well we heed,
Is in the Testicles turn’d into Seed;
Aristotle's Complete Masterpiece isn't by Aristotle, is no masterpiece, and is far from complete, but from its publication in 1684 well into the 1930s, it served as by far the most popular sex manual in the English language.
(For such the Parts of Generation be;)
And they that carefully survey’t, will find,
Each Part is fitted for the Use design’d:
The Purest Blood we find, if well we heed,
Is in the Testicles turn’d into Seed;
Aristotle's Complete Masterpiece isn't by Aristotle, is no masterpiece, and is far from complete, but from its publication in 1684 well into the 1930s, it served as by far the most popular sex manual in the English language.
The Indigo Girls - The Making Of One Lost Day
30+ year veteran folk-rock duo Indigo Girls release their first ever behind the scenes making of documentary film about the recording of One Lost Day, their first album in four years.(Vimeo) [1h5m] (YouTube) [more inside]
Could it be that the smog's playing tricks on my eyes?
Flash may be dying, but that party animal won't slow down! Los Angeles Shark is much more mixed-up memetic Mausland mischief.
Hey! I'm walkin' here!
In Orwellian fashion, Americans have been stripped of the right to walk, challenging their humanity, freedom and health. Car culture, NIMBY-ism, class struggles, and fear of outsiders are making it harder for people to get around on foot, whether that's to get to work or just go out for a stroll.
Lesbian movies that don't suck
Top Ten Best Lesbian Movies: 10 Queer Movies That Don’t Suck. | Top Ten Queer Girl Movies That Don’t Suck: Best Lesbian Movies Part #2 (Autostraddle). Previously: "I bind you, Hollywood, from doing harm", Maybe not the warmest color.
"massive chords of intemperate savagery"
Jón Leifs' Organ Concerto (jump to 21:30) was played tonight as part of the BBC Proms classical music program by organist Stephen Farr and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo. Farr recounts the work's strange story, first performed by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1941 to walk-outs and booing. Jón Leifs' own story is strange enough. After gaining prominence in post-WWI Germany, he was popular in Nazi circles for a few years, but became a persona non grata. Nonetheless, he, his Jewish wife and their two daughters received permission to leave for Sweden in 1944. After his death in 1968, he seemed headed for obscurity but some pieces became popular, such as the Requiem for his daughter. In recent years he's gained some ardent fans, such as Alex Ross of The New Yorker. For more, read this collection of reviews of recordings Leifs' work.
Next time NASA lands on Mars, they want your name on the lander.
Your name could be on Mars in the next several months. You've already paid for it, so you might as well go. In March 2016, NASA is launching its Insight lander, which will be the first Mars mission to probe beneath the surface of the Red Planet and explore its interior in-depth. (In-depth, get it? Nevermind) They're offering to micro-etch the name of any Earthling who wishes on the lander. Here's where to sign up. [more inside]
10 Years Later....
Can Raging White Guys Succeed in Hijacking Sci-Fi’s Biggest Awards?
The Hugo Award process has always been hackable, There was just never anyone narcissistic enough to hack it. [more inside]
Youtube video game stars may be breaking FTC regulations
According to Gamastura, Youtube stars like Seananners may be breaking FTC disclosure guidelines. Adam "SeaNanners" Montoya has heavily promoted a new video game called Dead Realm on his Youtube channel. He does not mention that he has a financial stake in the game's publisher, 3BlackDot, in every video about the game. The FTC has specific guidelines for Youtubers and product endorsement, which Adam (and others) have ignored. [more inside]
The Bears Go Swimming!
A family of bears descends upon a human family's pool in New Jersey. Ok, long time listener...first time poster. Please be kind.
This is an eleven minute video of a bear family swimming in an above-ground pool. While the video is great...it is really the audio of the human family, filming from a second floor bedroom,that really makes this special.
I’ll look up love in the dictionary: ‘A titanic tower of garbage’.
Dictionary Stories--Very short stories composed entirely of example sentences from the New Oxford American Dictionary. A project by Jez Burrows. [more inside]
One weird trick to stop the baby inquiries!
A photographer in London did a new-baby photo shoot with an adorable puppy named Humphry standing in for a human infant in order to send a message. (SLBuzzfeed)
"A fuckboy is a man who is lame, who sucks, who ain’t shit."
blatant library propaganda
"The transubstantiation of the turnip"
Four scathing restaurant reviews (Per Se, Eleven Madison Park, Chef's Table, and Masa) for the price of one! Or for the price of $3569.63, to be more accurate. In which Harper's intrepid restaurant critic gleefully excoriates to the dreams and excesses of New York’s most fashionable eateries.
"This guy must have done something mental and terrible"
Russell Brand is putting The Trews on hiatus. He's also taking a break from Twitter and Facebook: "I'm going to be learning, because I know that real change is coming, and I want to be part of that."
He provides a good short overview in his last posting about some of the hilites of his run. Like many people, I've particularly enjoyed the pokes in the eye he gave to Fox news, especially Hannity and O'Reilley (and they've responded in their usual dyspeptic way).
Oh, are you brushing my cheeks now? Okay, that's fine.
“She was a symbol,” he said. “And she died for others.”
Marion True, former curator at the Getty, discusses the charges of looting leveled against her in 2005. “The art is on the market. We don’t know where it comes from. And until we know where it comes from, it’s better off in a museum collection. And when we know where it comes from, we will give it back.”
Reboot, reuse, recycle
93 Movie Remakes and Reboots Currently in the Works. From the recent and the successful to the silent and obscure, Hollywood is going to remake and reboot it all.
nothing I can do except die or, I suppose, retire and never write again.
Jonathan Franzen 'considered adopting Iraqi orphan to figure out young people'. [The Guardian]
In a setup that would not look out of place in fiction, Jonathan Franzen, the bestselling American novelist, has said he once considered adopting an Iraqi war orphan to help him understand young people better, but was persuaded against it by his editor. Franzen said he was in his late 40s at the time with a thriving career and a good relationship but he felt angry with the younger generation. “Oh, it was insane, the idea that Kathy [his partner] and I were going to adopt an Iraqi war orphan. The whole idea lasted maybe six weeks.”[more inside]
Makin' Groceries in New Orleans' Ninth Ward
Ten years ago, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it was the city's Lower Ninth Ward that was hit the hardest. Nine years later, while New Orleans on the whole has returned to pre-Katrina numbers of super markets, the Ninth was with without a grocery store and many other local businesses. Burnell Cotlon put his life savings into the shell of a building and opened Makin' Groceries. Along with Cotlon's grocery store, there's also a barbershop and a sweets shop — but there's plenty of work still to be done. And Burnell isn't resting.
UGLY MYSPACE DEFILES OUR AIRSPACE
"LOOSE TWEETS DESTROY FLEETS" -- image macro-style meme created by US Air Force Central Command. [more inside]
That ain't no whistling in the dark.
You may recall that in the film To Have and Have Not, Lauren Bacall famously reminds Humphrey Bogart how to whistle: you just put your lips together and blow. And that is indeed how most of us do it. But not Hungarian whistling sensation Hacki Tamás, who, back in the 1960s, delivered some pitch-perfect Mozart by not *exactly* following Bacall's advice.
"I don't recall anybody literally throwing up in the office..."
Twenty years ago, on August 21, 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy in North America. The stilt-legged tabletop gaming console, which offered a unique red stereoscopic 3D display, attempted to ride a wave of popular interest in virtual reality. It was a risky, innovative gamble for Nintendo that didn't pay off, leaving many to wonder why it existed in the first place.Unraveling The Enigma Of Nintendo's Virtual Boy, 20 Years Later
A QA Engineer walks into a B͏̴͡͡Ą̛Ŗ̴
The Big List of Naughty Strings is a Github repository containing a long list of hypothetical user inputs that can potentially wreck havoc on a computer program, including SQL Injection, malformed and evil HTML, stupid Unicode gimmicks, or innocuous phrases that look like profanity.
Nobody knows what the hell they're doing.
CBC Radio's WireTap is saying farewell. In this special video message, people of all ages offer words of wisdom to their younger counterparts.
surviving in a hungry sea of white noise
Brooklyn's Afropunk festival has gone from a small gathering of friends celebrating an underground documentary to a massive, celebrated boutique fashion and mainstream music cornucopia. Some say they have sold out. But in Pitchfork, author Hanif Abdurraqib, (previously) makes a case that it still represents something very real and important to black youth culture.
You need both sides of your brain to speak whistled Turkish
Whistled Turkish is a non-conformist. Most obviously, it bucks the normal language trend of using consonants and vowels, opting instead for a bird-like whistle. But more importantly, it departs from other language forms in a more fundamental respect: it's processed differently by the brain.
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