June 19
Did you hear the one about the KKK-member in NY who made a death ray? In a weird twist, he targeted Jewish Groups--for sales. "An industrial mechanic with General Electric Co., who is also allegedly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, designed a deadly, mobile radiation device that he tried to sell to Jewish groups and then to a southern branch of the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday in Albany" (found via
TPM)
posted by saulgoodman at 11:20 AM - 2 comments
Graham Hastings, Alloysious Massaquoi and Kayus Bankole are a musical trio from Scotland.
They first met at a local hip-hop night for under-16 youth in Edinburgh, where the music scene is more focused on indie rock than beats and rapping. They started collaborating a few years ago, and now go by the name
Young Fathers. They mix rap, grime, modern R&B, afro-beat, noisy samples and more, though
they write music from a pop-perspective, and consider themselves "pop boys." They have two short releases that are something between EPs and albums, plus a handful of singles. Their primary releases,
Tape One and
Tape Two, have been
(re)released on the US label Anticon, and they have a handful of official videos:
Deadline,
Sister,
Rumbling and
Romance are the first four tracks from Tape One;
I Heard is the first video from Tape Two;
The Guide is separate
single to stream and/or download, for free on Soundcloud.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:12 AM - 1 comment The last mystery of the financial crisis. It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it.
by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone.
posted by lalochezia at 11:10 AM - 1 comment
Having Daughters Rather Than Sons Makes You More Liberal In remarkable research, the sociologist Rebecca Warner and the economist Ebonya Washington have shown that the gender of a person's children seems to influence the attitudes and actions of the parent.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:04 AM - 10 comments
World's Smallest Museum Finds the Wonder in Everyday Objects "Tucked away in a lower Manhattan back alley, the freight-elevator-sized, generically named
Museum is one of New York City’s newest curiosities. While it’s only open 16 hours a week, during the day on Saturdays and Sundays, the museum’s contents are viewable 24/7, lit and sealed by glass doors."
[more inside]
posted by xingcat at 10:51 AM - 0 comments
The Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB), on behalf of The National Academies,
is seeking input papers on human spaceflight until July 9th, 2013. You can also
read the current submissions.
[more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:15 AM - 2 comments My Imaginary Well-Dressed Toddler Daughter. Pinterest collection featuring the high style exploits of "Quinoa," an imaginary stylish toddler with her imaginary stylish friends.
posted by sweetkid at 10:05 AM - 33 comments
Digital mapping startup
MapBox teams up with social data warehouse
Gnip to create some
stunning visualizations of
every geotagged tweet since September 2011.
[more inside]
posted by Nelson at 10:01 AM - 3 comments Well, all you lazy butt people who couldn't manage 7 minutes, here's hope. Norwegian researchers have discovered an even shorter and effective
workout. Straight off the heels of the
7-minute workout (which really was more of a 21 minute workout), the 4-minute program (but designed to be done 4 times, so 16 minutes of HIIT total) is said to contain the minimum amount of exercise required to develop appreciable endurance and health gains.
posted by kinetic at 9:56 AM - 42 comments
On blogginheads.tv Mark talks to Glenn Loury about helping the state of Washington to legalize marijuana. Licensing, costs, restrictions, methods of sale etc. One of the best conversations on the topic I've heard.
posted by xjudson at 9:52 AM - 1 comment
Today saw the release of the first trailer for
The LEGO Movie, and there are some interesting things to note about it.
[more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 9:34 AM - 36 comments Andy Warhol bridge to be "yarn bombed" Maybe some of you saw the post about the
Rubber Ducky coming to Pittsburgh. Well, apparently, now Pittsburgh is getting one of their bridges covered in yarn. This is so bizarre. I hope it all happens at the same time. Bath time fun for everyone!
posted by kbennett289 at 9:18 AM - 14 comments
Vice's Women in Fiction issue contained “
Last Words”, "a fashion spread featuring models reenacting the suicides of female authors who tragically ended their own lives." Jezebel called it "almost breathtakingly tasteless" and
republished the photographs here after Vice removed them from their website.
[more inside]
posted by andoatnp at 8:45 AM - 76 comments
Margaret Doughty is a 65 year old UK citizen, and founder of
Literacy Powerline, recently applied for US citizenship after living in the United States for more than 30 years. When she noted in her application that she has a moral objection to taking up arms for her new country, the USCIS
asked for a letter on official church stationery.
But Ms. Doughty is an atheist. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:23 AM - 90 comments "I started the World SF Blog in February of 2009 – a century in Internet time! – partly as an excuse to promote my then-forthcoming anthology of international speculative fiction, The Apex Book of World SF – but mostly out of what can only be described as an ideological drive, a desire to highlight and promote voices seldom heard in genre fiction... The change I have seen in the four years of the blog is heartening. In a way, I have decided to stop now because the blog has fulfilled everything I ever wanted it to, and so much more." - Lavie Tidhar. The World SF Blog leaves behind
61 short stories and a serialized novella by authors from 33 countries, plus exclusive
interviews,
articles, guest posts and round tables (on WP.com where it's likely to stay up for a while)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:52 AM - 2 comments
June 18
NGUYỄN Hùng Cường creates some truly
amazing works of origami.
[more inside]
posted by Athanassiel at 11:03 PM - 14 comments The Time I Went Roller-Skating With Prince, as told by Questlove "I got a text from Prince’s assistant." And so the story begins, in an excerpt from "Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove" by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Ben Greenman. What's not to love?
posted by raysmj at 9:27 PM - 26 comments
Inseminoid Academic criticism of Inseminoid has concentrated on the film's treatment of the female sex and female sexualities in the context of corruption by an alien source. In addition to its depiction of the abject Sandy, who is rendered a distorted Other in the aftermath of her unnatural impregnation, the film has been seen to incorporate a clash between the patriarchal and the maternal towards its climax, as the would-be-mother eliminates her former friends one by one. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:02 PM - 15 comments
Amaranth Borsuk,
Jesper Juul, and
Nick Montfort present
The Deletionist, a bookmarklet
for automatically producing an erasure poem from any Web page
posted by juv3nal at 8:58 PM - 5 comments
Old school Hip Hop photographer,
Joe Conzo,
captured the emerging art and culture of Hip Hop in the South Bronx during the late 70's and early 80's.
Conzo's photo archive has made its
home at the
Cornell Hip Hop Collection, whose mission is "to collect and make accessible the historical artifacts of Hip Hop culture and to ensure their preservation for future generations."
Now Scream! is the Collection's first comprehensive exhibition. It runs from April 4, 2013 to February 4, 2014. Conzo's work is part of the exhibition as well.
[more inside]
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 8:19 PM - 5 comments
Russell Brand ends up surrounded by idiots on Morning Joe. Destroys them and they hardly know it. Pictures at 11.
posted by anothermug at 8:15 PM - 117 comments
Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe: understand the
rules then
play it online.
[more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:01 PM - 14 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]
[more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:40 PM - 4 comments 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 - 7 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.
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:08 PM - 18 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 - 45 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 - 39 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 - 74 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 - 10 comments
Cosmography of the Local Universe. From the comments: "Best video display of our Universe and our exact position in it to date....
[more inside]
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 4:25 PM - 21 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 - 54 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 - 9 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 - 117 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.
[more inside]
posted by gauche at 9:53 AM - 147 comments
More nightmarishly dystopian horror comedy with
Dr. Good
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:23 AM - 27 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.
[more inside]
posted by j03 at 8:23 AM - 100 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"
[more inside]
posted by humanfont at 7:57 AM - 26 comments
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