July 3
It's Seurat by me. Iconic album covers by the Beatles and the Clash. Mixed media (a metric buttload of Rubik's cubes shown in Dailymotion video). (
via)
posted by maudlin at 2:54 PM -
8 comments
Russia's
Gazprom and Nigeria's oil company
NNPC are forming a joint venture. Hmmmm...what do you call such a thing? GazGeria? Nah, Nigeria should come first. How 'bout
NIGAZ? Perhaps unsurprisingly, some people have
a problem with this.
posted by codswallop at 2:26 PM -
36 comments
Ten years ago today,
Mark Sandman died on stage during a Morphine concert at the Giardini del Principe in Palestrina, Italy. His music and its impact has not always received the type of attention normally given to rock stars tragically struck down in their prime, let alone one this brilliant.
[more inside]
posted by allen.spaulding at 6:35 AM -
43 comments
July 2
When Money Buys Happiness.
List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists. [more inside]
posted by zinfandel at 3:32 PM -
81 comments
The Death of Macho -
"The axis of global conflict in this century will not be warring ideologies, or competing geopolitics, or clashing civilizations. It won’t be race or ethnicity. It will be gender. We have no precedent for a world after the death of macho. But we can expect the transition to be wrenching, uneven, and possibly very violent."
posted by waitangi at 3:20 PM -
59 comments
The sequel to Warfare 1917 (
previously) has been released:
Warfare 1944. I was going to save this for tomorrow, but it seems that we've had a Flash Thursday today.
posted by Hactar at 2:12 PM -
17 comments
Sptnk.org : The Observatory for the Study of Contemporary Culture. Sputnik is an NY organization that seeks to document, promote, and foster discussion around current trends in culture (I think Sptnk is more a "loose confederation" than an organization, but I can't seem to find much more about them. Here's one of the founder's tongue-in-cheek Linked In page). They just launched a new website which ties together sets of interviews from thinkers and doers in lots of fields. They are organized nicely into
"paths",
"conversations", and transmissions (presentations).
Jonathan Harris (he blogs at
number27.org) did the design of the site, which is top notch. The production values are not up to
ted.com levels, but the weaving of stories and conversations that is emerging may prove useful. Happy culture hunting!
posted by zpousman at 11:16 AM -
18 comments
Upgrade Complete is an engrossing Flash game that marries classic shoot-em-up gameplay to unprecedented flexibility in ship design and an innovative UI re-skinning system. Drawing from the same well as
previously discussed game
Achievement Unlocked, this arcade shooter maximizes familiar game design tropes to keep the player occupied for literally minutes. Do you have what it takes to get through 100% progress and unlock the (spoiler alert!)
secret best ending?
[more inside]
posted by Nelson at 10:19 AM -
46 comments
Just released:
Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI.
FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least 5 "casual conversations" with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to secret FBI reports released as the result of Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Security Archive. Via
this Washington Post article.
posted by amyms at 8:38 AM -
23 comments
(Still) Declassified. "In January 2009, I had an idea; photograph people in their homes that have placed a wide variety of personal advertisements. Although I imagined most people wouldn’t want to give up their anonymity, I rightly imagined some would be willing to. "
[more inside]
posted by availablelight at 8:02 AM -
45 comments
Thomas Jefferson's cipher message from Robert Patterson For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.... To Mr. Patterson's view, a perfect code had four properties: It should be adaptable to all languages; it should be simple to learn and memorize; it should be easy to write and to read; and most important of all, "it should be absolutely inscrutable to all unacquainted with the particular key or secret for decyphering." [more inside]
posted by caddis at 7:43 AM -
22 comments
It's nearly state fair time and you know what that means -
Butter Sculptures! Yes, year after year several fairs contract with artists to sculpt meltable works of art. Perhaps the most famous is the
Iowa State Butter Cow, carved year after year since the early 1900s. Of course, with butter art comes rivalry. Not to be outdone, state fairs in
Minnesota,
Texas, New York...oh, the list is long...each display these chilled masterpieces. However, this year Iowa has taken the rivalry to a new level and not without controversy -
The Iowa State Fair has decided that this year they will do a
Butter Michael Jackson.
posted by Muddler at 7:06 AM -
21 comments
Julia Solis, who brought us
Dark Passage (
previously), is still exploring derelict sites, both
subterranean and in urban decay. Her most recent project is
Abandoned Theaters, a look at grand old movie palaces, school auditoriums, and theaters that have become, shall we say, retired. Julia still keeps a photoblog that she calls
Dark Passage Travelogue, and partnering with
Suzy Poling, she chronicles the decrepitude of hospitals long abandoned in
Fantastic Degradation.
posted by netbros at 4:43 AM -
10 comments
July 1
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