September 21, 2009
a BRANDO in the life
"We close at 5"
Charles Hood, sentenced to death for a double murder committed in 1989, is currently fighting for his conviction to be overturned and subsequent death sentenced to be stayed. Why? Because the lead prosecutor and judge were having an alleged affair at the time of the trial. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, no strangers to controversy regarding the possible misuse of the death penalty, declined to hear the petition lodged by Hood's lawyers regarding the fairness of the trial saying the defense should have brought the issue up at trial despite the lack of evidence towards the allegations until recently. [more inside]
Tajik Jimmy is the new Susan Boyle
Tajik Jimmy is the new Susan Boyle. Baimurat Allaberiyev, a diminutive native of Tajikistan, can perform Bollywood show-stoppers as a one-man band, equipped with nothing but an uncanny falsetto and a metal bucket. More of his story here. Here is the original song from the 1983 Bollywood musical Disco Dancer. Previously.
The XKCD Puzzle
XKCD author Randall Munroe appears to have left a neat little cryptographic puzzle for Reddit users in his new book. They're trying to decipher it.
That's just normal oxidation.
Removing 600 kilos of enriched U-235: the story of how, in 1994, the United States secretly removed from Kazakhstan enough purified uranium to make 24 nuclear weapons. (Full article with one photo.) Russian bomb-grade uranium is now being used in U.S. power plants.
Oh, No, Eddie Spaghetti: Old School Stanley Cup Reenactors
The NHL, the way it was meant to be seen: "Relive the Pittsburgh Penguins 1991 Stanley Cup Finals clinching game 6 victory in a dramatic reenactment through a pixelated prism. All the goals, the calls by Mike Lange, and the Stanley Cup celebration are replicated in this 18 minute video of game play action. The broadcast audio is of the actual game, synchronized to the heroics of sprite based hall of famers like Mario Lemieux, Joe Mullen, Paul Coffey, Bryan Trottier, and the rest of the full team rosters." (Takes a minute or so for the action to really get started.)
Architecture through the cinematographic lens. The visual fusion between the third and the seventh arts.
The "Third&Seventh" project is "A full-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects
are already-built spaces." In other words, Alex Roman has created a series of CG images and short films, based on real places (like this short film that depicts Louis Kahn's library at Phillips Exeter Academy), with a remarkable level of realism and beauty. (via)
Saturn Equinox
Cassini Reveals New Ring Quirks, Shadows During Saturn Equinox. "It's like putting on 3-D glasses and seeing the third dimension for the first time," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This is among the most important events Cassini has shown us." Latest press images.
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End
A complete Album/CD on Youtube... but without any actual video.
...Mercifully, Henry hit him with the soft end of the pistol. Scrotum sprawled on the parquet flooring, and Henry strode back to the window and took aim at the hang glider, now several hundred yards past the lime trees and fast diminishing...
Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (link to Transcript) By Vivian Stanshall
...Mercifully, Henry hit him with the soft end of the pistol. Scrotum sprawled on the parquet flooring, and Henry strode back to the window and took aim at the hang glider, now several hundred yards past the lime trees and fast diminishing...
Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (link to Transcript) By Vivian Stanshall
Wouldn't Ableton be easier to use?
Gates of Heaven
Clips from the Errol Morris documentary Gates of Heaven which Roger Ebert named one of the ten best films of all time. Lady in the Doorway ll
Music Man ll
Gates of Heaven ll
Couples Scene ll
Humans cannot be this way ll
Say it out loud
Even more Kitty Wigs?
Glamourpuss? In case you didn't get enough the first time around (previously on MeFi), now there's a whole book of cats in wigs with "snappy captions". Spotted on the cover of this week's Publisher's Weekly. I think my cat is hiding.
Perry Bible Fellowship does Wes Anderson
The Cloud Photographers : "an artificial Wes Anderson soundtrack" by Nicholas Gurewitch, of Perry Bible Fellowship fame (previously).
Also has an interview with Gurewitch about the soundtrack and the story of
The Cloud Photgraphers. More recently, Gurewitch is featured in
Marvel
Strange Tales. Two
scans (scans about as NSFW as the median PBF comic) on the Truth and Beauty Bombs comics
forum (via Dinosaur
Comics).
Scientists Catch Giant Squid Off Louisiana Coast
Scientists have captured a 19.5-foot, 103-pound giant squid off the coast of Louisiana, only the second known giant squid caught in the Gulf of Mexico since 1954. Previously & previously.
This Much I Know
In The Guardian's This Much I Know, celebrities share the lessons they have learned in life. [more inside]
"Meet the Afghan Army: Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination?"
Immigration or Robots?
Japan is facing a demographic crisis that will shrink the population dramatically. The Japanese aren't having babies, and the country won't accept immigrants to help bolster the population. Japan: Robot Nation looks at a uniquely Japanese solution. [more inside]
It's like that one summer in the garage
"This is a little different of a rebellion."
Max Blumenthal writes about Matthew Murray in the Nation article 'The Nightmare of Christianity'. [more inside]
I've got a box full of letters, think you might like to read
Letters of Note reproduces and transcribes letters from the famous, the infamous, and the not-so-famous.
Novel Graphics
"A few months ago, I got an email from Paul Buckley, the wonderful art director at Penguin Classics, who asked if I wanted to illustrate a book cover for him..." Illustrator Michael Cho on designing a cover for Don Delillo's White Noise as part of the Penguin Graphic Classics series, in which prominent comic artists and illustrators create covers for literary classics. All the covers can be found in this flickr set, including Daniel Clowes’s Frankenstein, Candide illustrated by Chris Ware, and Frank Miller's (kind of disappointing) cover for Gravity's Rainbow.
Me & Mrs. Palin
After Tripp was born, Sarah would pay more attention to our son than she would to her own baby, Trig. Sarah has a weird sense of humor. When she came home from work, Bristol and I would be holding Trig and Tripp. Sarah would call Trig—who was born with Down syndrome—'my little Down’s baby.' But I couldn’t believe it when she would come over to us and sometimes say, playing around, 'No, I don’t want the retarded baby—I want the other one,' and pick up Tripp. That was just her—even her kids were used to it.
Artis Gilmore, best hoopster denied HOF entry
Basketball doesn't have baseball's numerous simmering controversies over Hall of Fame inductees, but the greatest basketball player denied enshrinement may be 11-time ABA and NBA All Star center Artis Gilmore. At 7-foot-2 plus 4 inches for his towering afro, they called him "The A-Train" for his powerful but unpretentious play, and today on his 60th birthday he still owns career records in the NCAA (22.7 rebounds per game) and NBA (59.9% field goal percentage). OK, I only posted this so I could link to these three photos. [more inside]
Richard and Mimi Fariña.
Richard and Mimi Fariña. I doubt I'll ever forget his song, Bold Marauder, or his cult novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me. He and Mimi, Joan Baez's sister, made three fine albums before his tragic death. Youtube has a live version of "Bold Marauder." Also, a nice cover by Kendra Smith, and a fanvid for the pirate romance, "Frenchman's Creek," using a cover by John Kay of Steppenwolf.
You name the day, the grounds could be neutral
"The key to the internet's success has been its openness. But the FCC needs your help. That is why we have created openinternet.gov [beta]. I hope you'll take advantage of this opportunity to share your ideas on (net neutrality)." FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday outlined his plan for requiring Internet service providers to keep their networks open to legal content and external devices. Some are enthused. The large telecommunications companies who could profit, are not.
The Concept of Internal Cohabitation
Each person has one mind, right? Wrong, according to the Concept of Internal Cohabitation - we are all born with two autonomous, sentient minds. One of them can think rationally and relate to other people, and one of them is fundamentally negative in outlook, and opposed to relating. Both minds watch the world through our senses, but compete for control of the body. But if this is indeed the case, why is it not common knowledge? How could such a fundamental aspect of human nature go unnoticed for so long? [more inside]
Great photographers
Great photographers: Clark Little (surf photography), Nick Brandt (mostly African wildlife), John Hyde (mostly wildlife and Alaska), Veronika Pinke (landscapes), Dale Allman (miscellaneous; particularly beautiful are his Australian cityscapes and the HDR/DRI photos), Ansel Adams (the undisputed master of nature photography who died in 1984; famous quotes: "You don't take a photograph, you make it.", "A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words. "), Michel Rajkovic (mostly marine landscape, exclusively in black and white). And again, as a tribute to a gifted artist who died far too early, the work of Bobby Model (adventure photographer). Last but not least: Onexposure, probably the biggest collection of quality photography on the net.
The fake truth
NY Post Special Global Warming Edition (courtesy of The Yes Men). Thousands of hard copies hit the streets of New York at the crack of dawn.
Portroids
"Portroids are Polaroid portraits taken of people I know (friends, family, and acquaintances) or know of (celebrities). I have them autograph in the blank white space prior to the Polaroid developing. This is a list of all* the people I have portroided. (*not all)"
Folded Paper Sculptures
Polyscene--Folded paper, and paper and wire, sculptures. There are more in the artist's Flickr stream.
One space after the period, please.
Read Between the Leading, is a podcast for those with a love of good design and typography hosted by two students from SCAD. Season two just started with an interview with brand designer, David Airey, previous episodes of RBtL include discussions on information visualization, the future of web design with Jason Santa Maria (previously), speculative work and why graphic design is serious business (previously). [more inside]
The Jet-Propelled Couch
In 1954, Harper's Magazine ran a story called the Jet-Propelled Couch (Part 2) about a government scientist who was forced to go into to treatment. His problem? He lived half his life on another planet:
“As I read about the adventures of Kirk Allen in these books the conviction began to grow on me that the stories were not only true to the very last detail but that they were about me. In some weird and inexplicable way I knew that what I was reading was my biography. Nothing in these books was unfamiliar to me: I recognized everything–the scenes, the people, the furnishings of rooms, the events, even the words that were spoken. My everyday life began to recede at this point. In fact, it became fiction–and, as it did, the books became my reality.”Ever since the story was published, sci-fi fans have attempted to discover who Kirk Allen really was. One theory is that it was cleverly disguised Cordwainer Smith, others think there may have been a government physicist named John Carter, and some think he might have been more than one patient. Either way, it's a great story. [via] [more inside]
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