August 22, 2015
Everybody celebrates the human body
Conceived by Australian avant-garde theatre group Snuff Puppets, Everybody is a giant 26.5m human puppet with articulated, detachable and interactive body parts and organs. Everybody is all genders and multi-racial; it is also the largest human puppet on the planet. An immersive experience, audiences can walk around, sit on, lie against, get inside, and cuddle up to Everybody. [NSFW and yet...meant for kids. But really, NSFW.] [more inside]
Guitars? We don't need no steely Guitars.
Watch this completely a capella cover of "Hotel California".
Crazy like a (Fire)Fox
While it used to be the leading alternative to Internet Explorer (and others), Firefox has seen its market share erode steadily since the 2008 debut of Google Chrome. The Mozilla Foundation has made several oft-controversial bids at relevancy, including native video chat, Pocket integration, a mobile browser (and OS), a UI overhaul, and a rapid release schedule that's reached version 40 (and counting). But the latest proposal -- part of a reboot of the stalled Electrolysis multiprocessing project -- will prove the most daunting. Although it will modernize the browser's architecture, it also deprecates the longtime XUL framework in favor of more limited and Chrome-like "web extensions" -- requiring Firefox's vast catalog of powerful add-ons to be rewritten from scratch or cease functioning. While developers will have until 2017 to fully adapt, opinion is divided -- NoScript's Giorgio Maone reassures doubters, while the DownThemAll! team says "it feels like I just learned my dear old friend Firefox is going to die." [more inside]
The quiet death of the Human Terrain System
The Quiet Demise of the Army’s Plan to Understand Afghanistan and Iraq. "In the heyday of counterinsurgency, the United States military’s Human Terrain Teams were a bold idea. In the drone-war era, they became an anachronism." [Previously 1, 2] [more inside]
Karma
"If I could write this shit in fire, I would write this shit in fire." Dominique Christina delivers the fiercest poem you'll ever hear.
‘‘excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed."
The Bail Trap
Every year, thousands of innocent people are sent to jail only because they can’t afford to post bail, putting them at risk of losing their jobs, custody of their children — even their lives.
Previously: Memorize a landline number RIGHT NOW
Every year, thousands of innocent people are sent to jail only because they can’t afford to post bail, putting them at risk of losing their jobs, custody of their children — even their lives.
Previously: Memorize a landline number RIGHT NOW
World Jollof Rice Day, you say?
Today is World Jollof Rice Day. Jollof rice is a traditional West African dish, but not a humble one. Subject of #JollofGate, the outraged social media response to chef Jamie Oliver's patently inauthentic recipe, aficionados debate the merits of special ingredients. Others prefer joining the loud brangling online over Ghanaian vs Nigerian Jollof. Regardless of your beliefs, join the world today in celebrating the tasty goodness of this much loved dish.
Skip Lievsay is one of the most talented men in Hollywood.
"It is a central principle of sound editing that people hear what they are conditioned to hear, not what they are actually hearing. The sound of rain in movies? Frying bacon. Car engines revving in a chase scene? It’s partly engines, but what gives it that visceral, gut-level grist is lion roars mixed in. To be excellent, a sound editor needs not just a sharp, trained ear, but also a gift for imagining what a sound could do, what someone else might hear." [via The Week, print edition]
You coulda been getting down to this sick beat
A fan created video combining the far superior and punk-as-fuck Screaming Females cover of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off with the original video. The cover was part of the sometimes amusing, often surprising AV Undercover series.
From the Persian for "eyebrow"
Ebru (paper marbling) has a long tradition in Turkey with more than just the feathery peacock pattern on your kleenex boxes. In the gallery at Ebru Atölyesi, some look geologic, some combed, some swirls, even leaves and flowers. Modern patterns exploit turbulence in the bath. [more inside]
Video(clip) Nasties
UK music videos forced to adopt age ratings. Following frequent controversy surrounding the content of freely available videoclips on the digital era, artists working for the three major labels (a "six month plan" is now on course for indies) are now required to submit videoclips to the BBFC for classification. [more inside]
moving from light brown to dark green suckas
"Every County in America Ranked by Natural Beauty" -- Christopher Ingram of the Washington Post presents an interactive map comparing the "natural amenities" of every county in the continental US, from a USDA study of "six measures of climate, topography, and water area that reflect environmental qualities most people prefer." [more inside]
Cancel awards season. We have a winner.
“Coal-black is better than another hue,”
Vengeance, Death, Blood, and Revenge by Dan Piepenbring [The Paris Review] Leonard Baskin’s grotesque etchings of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. Below are some of the highlights to his Andronicus etchings—he made twenty-four in all. You can see more at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, which has a number of Baskin’s works in their collection. [more inside]
The World’s Biggest Pet Store Has 250,000 Animals
Zoo Zajac is a 130,000 sq ft (120,77.4 sq m) pet store in a small town in Germany. The owner, Norbert Zajac, got his first pet, a golden hamster, when he was 4 years old. He started breeding and selling animals at 8 years old. Today his pet store is officially recognized as the largest in the world and has a selection of animals better than many zoos. They stock 250,000 individual animals of 3,000 different species.
Anti-GMO thinking
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