June 18
Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe: understand the
rules then
play it online.
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posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:01 PM - 0 comments Steve Reich's 3-movement (Fast, Slow, Fast) somewhat jazzy, somewhat rock-ish
2x5 was composed for 5 musicians and prerecorded tape, or two groups of five musicians. Here is
Bang On A Can All-Stars (6 of them, no idea why) performing the piece. [20m] Here is
a large group of BOACA-S performing it as a 10-piece ensemble. [21m]
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posted by hippybear at 7:40 PM - 1 comment Form and Landscape - Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940-1990 - is a series of
themed exhibitions that tell the story of how Los Angeles 'became modern' by using photos from the comprehensive archives of Southern California Edison. The photos portray the many roles that electricity has played in the development and modernization of Californian life and culture (
domestic life,
signage,
streetscapes, etc.). Part of the Getty's
Pacific Standard Time Presents initiative.
posted by carter at 7:04 PM - 2 comments
Our Inconsistent Ethical Instincts We like to believe that the principled side of the equation is rooted in deep, reasoned conviction. But a growing wealth of research shows that those values often prove to be finicky, inconsistent intuitions, swayed by ethically irrelevant factors. What you say now you might disagree with in five minutes. And such wavering has implications for both public policy and our personal lives.
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posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:08 PM - 10 comments
"I’ve also been written about, in ways I could find no fault with but that were nonetheless excruciating for me to read. It is simply not pleasant to be objectively observed — it’s like seeing a candid photo of yourself online, not smiling or posing, but simply looking the way you apparently always do, oblivious and mush-faced with your mouth open. It’s proof that we are visible to others, that we are seen, in all our naked silliness and stupidity." -
Tim Kreider writes about finding out what people really say about you, and how it's all okay.
posted by smock smock smock at 5:16 PM - 33 comments Strip Search is a reality web show from PATV that's now 30 episodes deep.
The twelve indie webcomic artists who arrived at the Strip Search house in February have now been whittled down to three. The
final three artists (spoilers) were sent home for two months to each create six strips of a brand new comic, on which they would then be judged. The final episode (Finale, Part 2) goes live tonight at 7:30 PM PST.
Better hurry if you're going to catch up. [more inside]
posted by 256 at 5:13 PM - 19 comments
Scarlett Johansson is suing the author of a best-selling French novel that features her “doppelgänger.” "The American star is challenging writer Gregoire Delacourt, and his publisher JC Lattes, after he described a character in his novel as being her "doppelgänger", or exact double. The case — if it comes to court — could make legal and literary history."
posted by Fizz at 5:01 PM - 55 comments
Alternate Reality Game puzzle design - Adam Foster of Valve talks about the design of the Portal 2 ARG, (
previously) and do's and don'ts for future ARGs.
posted by Artw at 4:39 PM - 5 comments
Cosmography of the Local Universe. From the comments: "Best video display of our Universe and our exact position in it to date....
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posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 4:25 PM - 18 comments
My dentist was made to believe I was dead "Having no idea how or why I got there, I found myself in the embrace of a near-stranger who was overwhelmed with joy just because inconsequential, strange, and silly little me had lived to see another day"
posted by Bluecoat93 at 3:23 PM - 43 comments
The New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery offers over 870,000 historical images related to the 'city that never sleeps,' including
maps as well as
video and
audio recordings. A selection of 53 images from the collection can be seen at
In Focus.
[more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:08 PM - 10 comments
Back in the early nineties Harvey Comics published a series of licensed
New Kids on the Block comics. Sadly for Justin Bieber, Harvey Comics no longer exists, so instead he has to make do with the very unlicensed and very nsfw Sean T. Collins/Michael Hawkins created
Biebercomic.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:56 PM - 8 comments "Bicycle helmets do an outstanding job of keeping our skulls intact in a major crash. But they do almost nothing to prevent concussions and other significant brain injuries—and the very government agency created to protect us is part of the problem.
The time has come to demand something safer."
posted by killdevil at 1:17 PM - 101 comments Last Action Hero was released twenty years ago today. Directed by John McTiernan (
Die Hard --
previously), written by Shane Black (
Lethal Weapon,
Iron Man 3 --
previously), and starring
The Terminator Himself (um,
previously), the movie was a send-up of action movie tropes and conceits.
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posted by gauche at 9:53 AM - 128 comments
More nightmarishly dystopian horror comedy with
Dr. Good
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:23 AM - 25 comments The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air jumped dramatically in 2012, making it very unlikely that global warming can be limited to another 2 degrees as many global leaders have hoped.
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posted by j03 at 8:23 AM - 94 comments
Four Mile Run is an urban stream that runs through the middle of
Arlington County Virginia, inside the
Washington Capital Beltway. It is nine miles long, having been accidentally renamed by a typo from its original designation as "Flour Mill Run"
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posted by humanfont at 7:57 AM - 26 comments
In a 5-4 ruling on Salinas vs. Texas, the SCOTUS ruled that silence can be used in court. (PDF) Without being placed in custody or receiving Miranda warnings, Genovevo Salinas voluntarily answered some of a police officer’s questions about a murder, but fell silent when asked whether ballistics testing would match his shotgun to shell casings found at the scene of the crime. During his trial in Texas state court, and over his objection, the prosecution used his failure to answer the question as evidence of guilt. He was convicted, and both the State Court of Appeals andCourt of Criminal Appeals affirmed, rejecting his claim that the prosecution’s use of his silence in its case in chief violated the Fifth Amendment.
Analysis on SCOTUSblog
posted by dukes909 at 6:49 AM - 134 comments
Because New Leaf’s tanning doesn’t seem to happen in real time, and because it seems to take days instead of hours now, trying to get a particular mid-level skin tone is more precarious than maintaining a pale complexion. Not only is the outcome hard to predict, but someone who wants the default skin to stay only has to bring a parasol around with them in the summer sun. They literally have access to tools and methods I don’t. It is very hard not to just write “DO YOU GET IT?” over and over again. I don’t have a tanning booth, or tanning lotion. I certainly don’t have a way to lock in my current tan level.
The other implication is that it might be the case that tanning is a disincentive to overplaying. I hadn’t realized it until my friend with the cobblestone roads pointed it out. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you’ve kept your game running for five straight hours for some odd reason. You might notice that your town’s other villagers will greet you with an admonishment. You look tired they say, you should take a rest. You should stop playing. There is a strange, formal parallel between this directive and tanning. Both come only after hours of uninterrupted play. The same activity results in both outcomes. Coupled with the fact that players are outfitted with ways to prevent, but not cause tanning, it’s hard not to draw some connections.
My argument isn’t that Nintendo has gone out of its way to be racist, it’s that the question of race seems to have never been brought up to begin with, and that has its own problems.
Me, On The Screen: Race in Animal Crossing: New Leaf
posted by timshel at 5:52 AM - 48 comments
"I’m not saying the Left embraces or even excuses away these clerics, but this strange reticence across the Left not only allows them to fester, but has other consequences."
posted by marienbad at 5:22 AM - 31 comments
The US government has finally released the names of 46 men being held in Guantánamo under the classification of "
indefinite detainees" – terror suspects deemed too dangerous to release or move yet impossible to try in a civilian or even military court for reasons of inadequate or tainted evidence.
For more than three months, the US military has faced off with defiant prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, strapping down as many as 44 each day to feed them a liquid nutrient mix through a nasal tube.
The prison camp has now been labelled a
'a medical ethics free zone' by Senior Professors at Boston University.
The hunger strikers are now reportedly being fed
Reglan a medicine that increases the movements or contractions of the stomach and intestines with worrying side effects. See Huff Post Live
video.
See previous
''Gitmo is killing me''.
posted by adamvasco at 1:48 AM - 154 comments
Lately, I've had some doubts about the level of discourse here on Metafilter. To remedy the situation, here is that great American essayist and thinker, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe,
on diddling.
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posted by Nomyte at 12:16 AM - 28 comments June 17
"
Great war novels inevitably follow great wars, and in literary circles following World War II, everyone was wondering what would be the successors to
A Farewell to Arms and
All Quiet on the Western Front — and who would write them. But when John Horne Burns, age 29, in his small dormitory suite at the Loomis School in Windsor, Conn., on the night of April 23, 1946 (Shakespeare’s birthday, at that), finished
The Gallery — 'I fell across my Underwood and wept my heart out,' he later recalled — he was convinced he had done just that, and more. ‘
The Gallery, I fear, is one of the masterpieces of the 20th century,' he wrote a friend." (SLNYT) (
via)
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posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:32 PM - 47 comments Amazingly detailed replica of the Friends Apartment made of paper. By artist Bruna Salvador Conforto.
She also did a replica of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore's
house in Stars Hollow.
Made of paper.
posted by sweetkid at 7:09 PM - 34 comments
"Bored of being in a dark room, she flips on the light, opens the door and bails. This particular episode takes place at 1am. This is why we keep doors locked with her around. We don't need her harassing the neighbors..."
Julius Escaping.
posted by codacorolla at 6:48 PM - 112 comments Cooking For Freedom A few days before I met Ahmed Jama in Mogadishu, three Islamist gunmen from Al Shabaab — al-Qa’eda’s Somali branch — burst into his new restaurant wearing suicide bomb jackets. They sprayed the place with bullets and then detonated themselves.
NPR:
At His Own Risk, Somali Chef Creates Gourmet Haven In War-Weary Mogadishu [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:05 PM - 11 comments
Dave Lamb and MorganEve Swain are
Brown Bird, a band from Rhode Island with a
dark, rootsy, foot-stomping sound. Although Brown Bird has been around since 2003, they have enjoyed a recent increase of popularity, culminating in the April 2013 release of
a new album,
Fits of Reason, and a national tour to promote it. Just weeks into the tour, though, Lamb was
diagnosed with leukemia, and the tour (and the band) were
put on hiatus while
Lamb undergoes chemotherapy.
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posted by quiet coyote at 5:56 PM - 6 comments The most well known of New Zealand's World War II home-built tanks was the
Bob Semple tank, designed by New Zealand Minister of Works Bob Semple. There was only one made, but it served its purpose of "showing the people that something was being done to meet the enemy.
It rumbled around, took part in parades, and inspired confidence." One problem:
the tank, built on a Caterpiller tractor and armored with corrugated steel, would momentarily pause while changing gears, unless it was already headed down hill. During parades and public shows, its driver was instructed to change gear as little as possible, to prevent people from thinking their tank was stalling. The other New Zealand-built tank was the
Schofield tank, built on the chassis of a Chevrolet heavy-duty truck, with the ability to drive quickly on wheels, then operate on treads,
the transition only taking 7 to 10 minutes. Two prototypes were made, but neither the Bob Semple nor the Schofield tank were mass produced, as New Zealand started receiving tanks from abroad by 1943.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:27 PM - 17 comments The Secret History of Privacy. "Something creepy happened when mystery became secular, secrecy became a technology, and privacy became a right..."
[Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:15 PM - 23 comments
Dead men tell some tales - a visit to the
Hellfire Caves, home of one of the most infamous
Hellfire Clubs.
posted by Artw at 4:38 PM - 8 comments
In this video, Cheryl Misak delivers a lecture mostly having to do with the relationship between the accounts of truth given by C.S. Peirce and F.P. Ramsey.
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posted by Jonathan Livengood at 3:56 PM - 7 comments
...no background checks needed. Coming to (or already in) an airport near you:
Holograms serve as "virtual assistants" giving instructions in multiple languages.
via
posted by agatha_magatha at 3:45 PM - 32 comments "Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities." -- PC Gamer's
Crap Shoot looks at (semi-)obscure pc games, featuring
big budget failures,
extinct for a reason subgenres and
godawful erotic games (
movies) but also
lost classics and
beloved eighties masterpieces.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:32 PM - 33 comments In commemoration of the
19th edition of its Colors series,
Field Notes brand notebooks offers
this video of the Night Sky.
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posted by Apropos of Something at 1:05 PM - 32 comments The Restart Project encourages community engagement in repairing broken electronic equipment. This one year old charity enables "
restart parties" which bring together consumers with broken electronic equipment and volunteer repairers, in an attempt to address our modern culture of "passive, flabby consumers of technology".
When recycling is the second best option.
posted by walrus at 12:59 PM - 22 comments
To kick off each week the staff of NPR's
"Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" posts
Sandwich Mondays on The Salt blog, to look at some of the more...
unusual sandwich offerings from America's commercial kitchens. This week, they recreate Wendy's nine patty
T-Rex burger, which recently went
extinct.
posted by zarq at 12:54 PM - 59 comments There is a joke here somewhere about Bears, Rights, Arms, the Right to Bear Arms, Bears Arms and holy crap camera work. SLYT Cats and dogs are cute, but how about a black bear? Cute bear climbs tree to see what the heck the hunter is doing on the blind in the tree.
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posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:38 PM - 70 comments
Picture this. You're one of the 3 million-ish users of Duolingo, doing online Italian lessons so you can talk to your Italian boyfriend in his own language. Halfway through one of your daily lessons, you're given the sentence "Lui ti ama" to translate. "He loves you" -- cute coincidence. But
then it starts getting stranger.
posted by pont at 12:11 PM - 53 comments The Council of the European Union recently released a proposal to amend the General Data Protection Regulation. Scaling back from becoming the most strict privacy regulation in the world,
the amendment greatly favors corporate interests while reducing the rights of data subjects.
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posted by ChipT at 11:25 AM - 8 comments « Older posts
