August 2012 Archives
August 31
Mixest
Discover new indie music with Mixest.
John Barnes hates snark
Snark is the universal solvent of cultural conversation. Someone mentions Hemingway; you mention cross-dressing, drinking, and short choppy sentences. Not only did you not have to read Hemingway, you have one-upped the other person by not having read it; you know more about it than they do because you know the important thing, that Hemingway doesn't need to be read. Star Wars has a plot straight out of a comic book, the indescribable beauty of an athlete's best moment is just ritualized combat, any given religion is a collection of three or fewer especially silly-sounding superstitions, all academic subjects are useless hazing intended to keep the wrong people from being hired, all peace protestors are just trying to get on television and soldiers are all unemployed hillbillies whose masculinity feels threatened so they've enlisted for a chance to commit war crimes. Occupy Wall Street is rebels without a clue (itself a plagiarized phrase), the Tea Party is scared old people, and nothing in the wide world matters compared to the general wonderfulness of the observer. [Some 3700 words from a science fiction writer deriding and analyzing the emptiness of snark as a rhetorical mode. Might need to click through Blogger's NSFW warning, though it's just text.]
"Iwerks is Screwy spelled backwards" -- Chuck Jones
"Over the years in animation, there have been a lot of great animators. Ub Iwerks was one of those people. We know his work, but we don't necessarily know the man." The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story (in 5 parts on DailyMotion: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) tells of the life of Ubbe Eert Iwerks, from the formation of the friendship with Walt Disney when they met at advertisement studio in Kansas City, their artistic collaborations and Ub's 20 years of animation, to Iwerk's technical creations that kept Disney animated pictures ahead of other studios. [more inside]
Following Vavilov's footsteps in the ice of the Pamir mountains-- and other Saudi Aramco-iana.
Seed collectors themselves are a bit like foraging animals, wandering far and wide in search of the same plants, and [Sergey] Shuvalov, the expedition's chief logistics planner, translator and route finder, often has to whistle them back to the vehicles. He is aware of the honor of following Vavilov's footsteps, but doubts that he will have time this trip to collect anything near the 200 species and varieties that his compatriot did here 100 years ago. [more inside]
Developing Community
DEVELOP Photo provides resources for the enrichment of the photojournalism, fine art and documentary photography community.SLYT.
And if you prefer, Vimeo
Also in Time Magazine
Privately Owned Public Spaces
When is a private space a public space? When it's a Privately Owned Public Space (POPS). In accordance with the planning codes of some cities, owners or builders of buildings are mandated to provide members of the general public access to spaces which include rooftop gardens, courtyards, and plazas. [more inside]
...Mitchells do fly I.M.C.
B-25 "...Mitchells do fly I.M.C." a Channel 4 UK documentary by Anthony Howarth and Carolyn Hicks detailing the effort of John “Jeff” Hawke to transport five WW II North American B-25 Mitchell bombers from the United States to England for use in the filming of “Hanover Street” in 1978. [more inside]
Music and remixing by me
Breaking Bad Remix (Seasons 1 and 2) from the indefatigable placeboing. [potential spoilers if you haven't seen it, but then if you haven't seen it, you probably won't get it anyway]
Lucy got some 'splaining to do
Ever had one of those nights that made you think about giving up drinking? Lucy Spraggan says it leads her to Beer Fear. (DLYT) [more inside]
Build your own Gossamer Condor
The first human-powered aircraft to achieve sustained and controlled flight, the Gossamer Condor (6.3 MB PDF), now belongs to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (2.2 MB JPG). So you'll need to build your own. (previously)
Shulamith Firestone, sprung from her own head
Shulamith Firestone, RIP. The founding radical feminist was found dead in her apartment, a quiet end to a revolutionary life. [more inside]
Incandescent lightbulbs banned
Incandescent lightbulbs are now banned across the entire European Union as of September 1. "Concerns about poor performance of replacement bulbs have been proved wrong." It is predicted to save 39 terawatt-hours of electricity across the EU annually by 2020. "The phase-out has been very smooth." BanTheBulb said "..the vast majority of the public have adjusted to using the next generation of lighting technologies with the absolute minimum of fuss and drama." [more inside]
Would it spoil some vast eternal plan?
Full-contact pioneer dead at 68.
Karateka Joe Lewis passed away this morning. In the '60s, he broke with convention at a time when martial arts tradition was rarely questioned, getting outside perspectives and training from the likes of Sugar Ray Robinson and Bruce Lee. In 1969, Lewis pushed for and fought in the United States Karate Championships' first ever full-contact karate match. Full-contact martial arts have exploded in the years since then.
Vanishing point
Commentary and thoughts on Honey Boo Boo
Don't judge Honey Boo Boo, because the tv show doesn't care what it's saying about American culture.
I'm Going To Hate This One, Frequently And Loudly
Diamanda Hagan is an obsessive Dr. Who fan in scary makeup. She posts extensive, entertaining, and exhaustively nerdy rants on some of the worst episodes of Nu Who. Behold! The Beast Below, Voyage Of The Damned, Victory Of The Daleks, Fear Her, The Next Doctor, Planet Of The Dead, The Doctor's Daughter, and The End Of Time (The Whole Damn Thing) (NSFW language)
Troma Entertainment
Will Gaymercon Help or Hurt Gaming's Gay Community?
Will next year's convention create a safe atmosphere for gay gamers, or will it simply push them further outside the medium's mainstream? Announced earlier this year, "Gaymercon is the first gaming and tech convention with a focus on LGBT geek culture." [more inside]
Von Daniken of the Puranas
Master Builder Uncovers Striking Similarities In Indian and Incan / Mayan Sacred Structures:- It is Sthapati's theory that Mayan, the creator of Indian architecture, originated from the Mayan people of Central America. In Indian history, Mayan appears several times, most significantly as the author of Mayamatam, "Concept of Mayan" which is a Vastu Shastra, a text on art, architecture and town planning. The traditional date for this work is 8,000bce. Mayan appears in the Ramayana (2000bce) and again in the Mahabharata (1400bce) - in the latter he designs a magnificent palace for the Pandava brothers. Mayan is also mentioned in Silappathikaram, an ancient Tamil scripture, and is author of Surya Siddhanta, one of the most ancient Hindu treatises on astronomy.
(Original ca. 1995) [more inside]
Le Radeau de la Méduse (The Raft of the Medusa)
On July 5, 1816, the passengers and crew of the shipwrecked French frigate Méduse abandoned 147 people on a makeshift raft in a gale off the coast of Africa. When the raft was found 13 days later only 15 people were still alive. The incident inspired Théodore Géricault's painting Le Radeau de la Méduse (The Raft of the Medusa). [more inside]
Marimba...
Guys who do not watch porn do not exist
The Great Porn Experiment. A Tedx Talk (in response to Phil Zimbrado's The Demise of Guys), in which Gary Wilson, creator of YourBrainOnPorn.com and founder of The Good Men project, asks whether our brains evolved to handle the hyperstimulation of today's Internet enticements, or whether it is priming human males for addiction and dysfunction.
Sproing!
A kangaroo and a lemur playing tag (or at the very least, chasing each other adorably). [slyt]
Phone phreaking audio archive
Phone Trips - an audio archive of the Phone Phreaking community. Phone phreaking was the practice of hacking into phone systems and networks in order to explore these networks and their connections [1 2]. Many people first heard about the phenomenon in a 1971 Esquire article, Secrets of the Little Blue Box, which included input from Captain Crunch. Crunch discovered that you could access telephone networks by blowing a 2600 Hz tone, from a whistle given away free in cereal boxes, into telephone handsets. "Have you ever heard eight tandems stacked up?" asked Crunch in the interview. Well, now we can, thanks to a large audio archive of phone phreaking. [more inside]
"We asked for nothing. They offered us less" - Ontario's teachers
Years of labour peace between the government of Ontario and teachers came to an end this year. Like their colleagues in British Columbia, Ontario teachers and support staff are complaining of unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional legislation -- the Putting Students First Act, 2012 -- that gives the Education Minister, Laura Broten, unchallenged power to ban strikes, job actions, set compensation and benefits, and to take over local school boards who are non-compliant. Ontario school boards are unanimously opposed to the Act, which reduces their power, and so are teachers and support staff, who feel the government is manufacturing a crisis. Most see this as a cynical ploy to capture public support for two by-elections this week that could nudge the Liberal government into majority status. ETFO and OSSTF, two of the teacher unions involved, have repeatedly pointed out that "the school year is not in jeopardy", that they had already accepted a wage freeze, and that local bargaining is proceeding well.
As legislation looms aheads, teachers, support staff, and labour activists are wondering: is this the end of collective bargaining for the public sector? [more inside]
You too can be a professional princess
"Little girls are AWED by a princess. A woman in a big, sparkly, puffy dress is a thing of power and glory to them. They will stand and stare, or scream themselves hoarse in excitement, or become paralyzed in wonder by A Princess. Some little girls start hyperventilating. Some just sit down on the floor, their knees giving out from under them. They run up to touch your dress with the same crazed look of a Twilight fan trying to touch that Edward Cullen guy at a movie premiere. It's so different from seeing a face character at Disney World because to them, Disney World is a far-off fantasy place full of strangeness and unreal scenes. But this is A Princess, in the real world, in their own home." [more inside]
“I paint pictures which do not exist and which I would like to see.”
Argentine born sometime Surrealist artist Leonor Fini was a Cat lover, extraordinaire.
She depicted women exploring their own identity at a time when female identity both physically and mentally was being defined by men, once declaring:
A woman should live with two men; one more a lover and the other more a friend.
Photographed by many; showing her dressed in Cat costume or sitting with one of her numerous cats; and her art frequently figured them somewhere or other.
More photographs of her and a video. Like the rest of her work some are NSFW and some feature cats. A brief biography.
She depicted women exploring their own identity at a time when female identity both physically and mentally was being defined by men, once declaring:
A woman should live with two men; one more a lover and the other more a friend.
Photographed by many; showing her dressed in Cat costume or sitting with one of her numerous cats; and her art frequently figured them somewhere or other.
More photographs of her and a video. Like the rest of her work some are NSFW and some feature cats. A brief biography.
Pepsi Buh?
Pier 1 hasn't come to my country yet, but with fine and funky service like this, let's hope it does soon!
Excess heat without light
Martin Fleischmann, who with Stanley Pons claimed in a press conference to have observed sustained nuclear fusion in a room-temperature experiment, died on August third at age 85. [more inside]
August 30
Eastwood-Chair 2016
Perhaps you missed Mitt Romney's speech tonight, where he accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Maybe you were too busy trying to understand the special appearance of Clint Eastwood, who spent most of the time talking to a chair.
Or maybe you just couldn't listen to Mitt because you were too busy making memes about his scolding of "Invisible Obama." If this last statement describes you, you might just be The Internet.
B is for Bézier Curve
U is for USB Drive: A collection of flash cards for “design geek-hipster-interwebbers” to teach their children the A-B-Cs in their own style. It is currently only a concept.
The Association of Religion Data Archives: Churchgoers give far less than they think
"Parting with treasure easier said than done: Churchgoers give far less than they think" is the latest feature article from the Association of Religion Data Archives, which "strives to democratize access to the best data on religion." The site includes a browsable archive of religious survey data, a quick statistical roundup, international religious profiles, feature articles on topics like the rise of Mormons, Muslims and nondenominational churches in the USA ("nondenominational and independent churches may now be considered the third largest religious group in the country...Only the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention are larger"), links to sources like the 2010 U.S. Religious Census, a Religion Research Hub (with tutorials and helpful advice on best practices when theorizing, conceptualizing and measuring religious behavior) and lots more.
It's Time For This American Life To Grow Up
TF5-4523: The Mapmaking Process
Attention all GIS afficionados and fans of old-school maps! Report for duty and watch the U.S. Army's 1973 half-hour training film TF5-4523 in order to educate yourself in the process of cartography: part 1, part 2, part 3. The videos cover everything from surveying to printing, and all the steps in-between.
The Preserved Silent Animation project, part of the UCLA Digital Library Program
"Although best-known for its restoration of feature films, UCLA Film & Television Archive has been preserving animated films for more than three decades, with over one hundred titles to its credit. The short subjects, trailers, and promotional films presented here provide a representative sampling of that work. They have been preserved from best-surviving and sole-surviving 35mm nitrate and 16mm prints, showcasing many forms of animation spanning the entire silent film era." The UCLA Preserved Silent Animation project, one of over 80 collections made available through the UCLA Digital Library Program.
well that just goes to show you what a moon can do
Tomorrow, Friday, August 31, 2012, you'll have that rare chance to do something "once in a blue moon". Perhaps a little moon music will be in order? Like, say... Blue Moon? DUH! Or, getting a bit more regional, Blue Moon of Kentucky? Then there's the other colors: Kiko and the Lavender Moon, Yellow Moon, Pink Moon, Silver Moon and... [more inside]
Human filters for the sewage pits of the Internet
Who scrubs the Internet of its awfulness? Buzzfeed interviews a former employee of the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children tasked with processing reports of child porn. [Buzzfeed url and title is nsfw, trigger warning for sexual assault & exploitation]
“I used to take them at their word. I can’t do that anymore.”
824,273 disabled veterans are currently awaiting a response on claims from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. On average, it takes the government 257 days to respond, and there has been a 7.2% growth in claims over the last 1.3 years -- so the delays are growing. While they wait, veterans often cannot access health care from the agency or receive disability compensation. Plus, the backlog on claim appeals is at least 3.5 years. So how can veterans avoid the backlog? A special investigation by the Bay Area Citizen shows that processing speed is a matter of geographic location: veterans in sparsely populated areas have their claims filled faster than those living in urban centers. Interactive Map: Where is Worst Backlog? Related video and transcript.
Ignore the long-term brain damage of fantasy football
You've been harangued by an office mate to join his fantasy football league, but you never played before. Here's a quick guide for dummies. You don't know the history of fantasy football? Not sure you should play? It's not just about football, it's also about the fun in delivering smack talk. Fantasy football isn't just for guys. [more inside]
Sylvia Robinson: from rhythm and blues singer to hip-hop legend
She was born Sylvia Vanderpool, but Little Sylvia grew up to be the Mother of Hip-Hop, Queen of Sugar Hill. Sylvia Robinson's rise from rhythm and blues singer to the woman who formed The Sugar Hill Gang and ran the first label to release hip-hop. [more inside]
Kung Pao Chicken
Ding Baozhen (1820-1886) was a governor of Sichuan province during the Qing dynasty. The emperor bestowed upon him the title Gōng Bǎo - "palatial guardian". He supervised the reconstruction of the Dujiangyan Irrigation System. But he achieved immortality through the dish named for him: Kung Pao Chicken. [more inside]
RIP Bill Brent
Bill Brent was the publisher of the zine Black Sheets and the alternative sexuality directory The Black Book and the author of the book How To Make a Zine (recently republished in a revised edition) as well as a lot of erotica writing. He was very active in the San Francisco Bay Area sexuality, kink, and zine scenes from the early 90s onward. Unfortunately, he committed suicide in August 2012; Liz Highleyman penned an in-depth obituary of Bill.
What Color is this? in 9 languages
Four years ago, we showed English language speakers random colors and asked for the color names. Four years later, with CrowdFlower contributors now in every country of the world, the experiment becomes much richer.
Who do you side with?
Marikana Miners' Strike
Two weeks ago 34 striking miners were shot dead by police at the Marikana platinum mine in South Africa. Now, using laws once used by the apartheid regime to prosecute black activists fighting for democracy, the remaining 270 miners from the protest have been charged with their fellow workers' murders.
Rock and roll / Rock et roll
While Quebec’s status as the only primarily French-speaking province in Canada has resulted in a distinct cultural industry—particularly with regard to film and music—the province still enjoys many cultural products from English Canada. While movies and TV shows are often subtitled or dubbed into French, it is rare that the same is true of music. A notable exception is the music of Toronto-based Big Sugar. [more inside]
Divine Lorraine
One of the city's first high rises, Philadelphia's Lorraine Apartments were designed by flamboyant architect Willis G. Hale in 1892. In 1948, the building was sold to Father Divine, leader of the International Peace Mission Movement and became The Divine Lorraine Hotel. [more inside]
Dad in a dirndl
Hey! Gotta gotta pay back!!
Some ebook buyers are getting refunds. Pending approval by the court, a group of publishers (Simon & Schuster, the Hachette Book Group, and HarperCollins) have settled and agreed to pay back close to $70 million to consumers. They've also agreed to end Agency Model agreements with publishers. The lawsuit against the others continues and one company finds this settlement unfair.
The Daddy
Alan Clarke was a British television and film director who produced some of those most hard hitting and controversial work of the 70s and 80s including Scum, Made In Britain and Elephant. [more inside]
An Empire of Stars
A cold autumn day was dawning as the German soldiers of the Altenwalde Versuchskommando prepared their V2 rocket for launch. They'd done this a hundred times before, but when the V2 finally roared up into the sky over the North Sea, the men of the AVKO couldn't help but smile and cheer. Soon the rest of the soldiers and officers around the launchpad were cheering as well. British officers and soldiers. Because this was Operation Backfire, the beginning of something that most people don't even know existed - the British Space Programme. [more inside]
They later attached strings.
Gamemaster Howard Philips (previously) found a ca. 1984 brochure for the Nintendo Advanced Video System, a pre-NES marketing prototype, and shared it on Facebook: The cover. Pages 2-3. Pages 3-4. Medium-res photo of the whole brochure. And a bit of oddity from the past. (Non-FB link)
After the immigrants, you're next
Actual fascists in actual black shirts are actually marching around Athens waving swastikas and burning torches, and maiming and murdering ethnic minorities, and world governments appear frighteningly relaxed about it as long as the Greek people continue to pay off the debts of the European elite. When the lessons of history are taught by rote, they can be easy to miss when most needed. This time, Europe must remember that the price of fostering fascism is crueller and costlier by far than any national debt. - Laurie Penney: It's not rhetoric to draw parallels with Nazism
Loophole antennas
Suppose I could offer you a choice of two technologies for watching TV online. Behind Door Number One sits a free-to-watch service that uses off-the-shelf technology and that buffers just enough of each show to put the live stream on the Internet. Behind Door Number Two lies a subscription service that requires custom-designed hardware and makes dozens of copies of each show. Which sounds easier to build—and to use? More importantly, which is more likely to be legal?
If you went with Door Number One, then you are a sane person, untainted by the depravity of modern copyright law. But you are also wrong. The company behind Door Number One, iCraveTV, was enjoined out of existence a decade ago. The company behind Door Number Two, Aereo, just survived its first round in court and is still going strong.
Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane by MeFi's own James Grimmelmann.
Chore list of Champions
From a January 26, 1947, contract between Kurt Vonnegut and his pregnant wife, Jane, to whom he had been married for sixteen months: "I, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., that is, do hereby swear that I will be faithful to the commitments hereunder listed..."
"A client sent me a cheque for £6,000. I lost it. I always intended to ask them to issue another but never got round to it."
BBC readers procrastinate.
Forever Football?
CorgiCam
Unlivable cities
China's megalopolises are "awful places to live" claims an article in Foreign Policy by Isaac Stone Fish. [more inside]
I'MMMMMMMMMM SPASTICUS!
In 1981, in response to the UN International Year of Disabled Persons, Ian Dury released the single Spasticus Autisticus. Despite Dury himself being disabled, the song provoked a negative response from the National Spastics Society (now Scope). The BBC denied the song airplay, effectively killing it as a single. Last night, as part of the Paralympic opening ceremony, John Kelly, Orbital and the Graeae Theatre Company performed a version of the song to an audience of millions, bringing the revolutionary classic back to the prominence it surely deserves. [more inside]
IAmA President
Starting around 1:30 p.m. Pacific time yesterday— and announced less than 30 minutes before — Barack Obama answered redditors’ questions about war, taxes, basketball, and beer. In Reddit jargon, the chat was an “AMA” (“Ask Me Anything”) in the “IAmA” subreddit (as in “I am a chef,” “I am a plumber,” “I am a President of the United States”). (SLWired) [more inside]
SUPERFRIENDS
Faking It, Old School.
Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop is a new display coming to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It features some fantastic historical photoshops composites, multiple exposures, forced perspectives, and other clever camera trickery, and they've released a preview of some of the images they'll be hosting. [more inside]
Art is a drag
San Francisco Drag Artists recreate iconic Cindy Sherman portraits. A retrospective of Sherman's photographs is now at SF MOMA.
Stanford researchers' cooling glove 'better than steroids'
New "cooling glove" discovered by accident at Stanford seems to hugely increase the efficiency of muscle training. The temperature-regulation research of Stanford biologists H. Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn has led to a device that rapidly cools body temperature, greatly improves exercise recovery, and could help explain why muscles get tired.
Illustrated Aesop's Fables through history
Historical versions of Aesop's fables - text and pictures - collected by Laura Gibbs. She gives thousands of historic texts in English, Latin, and Greek, but even better, has Flickr sets of the historic illustrations (that page is sorted by artist) from editions by Rackham, Caldecott, and other artists going back to the 1400s. [more inside]
August 29
China in Revolt?
"Today, the Chinese working class is fighting. More than thirty years into the Communist Party’s project of market reform, China is undeniably the epicenter of global labor unrest." — Eli Friedman from Jacobin
While almost unknown to Americans, many Europeans have treasured these portraits
Cliff Stoll makes glass Klein bottles. He also sells imported portraits of Gauss.
Dictionaries are mazes
oh my gosh the end of this video :3
So when can we start printing them in newspapers?
This week, tumblr has become the birthplace of a new format of gif that offers a sense of 3-dimensionality. And the gifcrafters have really taken off... (MLTP - multi-link tumblr post) [more inside]
The Detroit Industry Murals
In the early 1930s, William Valentiner thought the Roman Baroque courtyard at the Detroit Institute of Arts needed to be spruced up. With a commission from Edsel Ford, he hired Diego Rivera to paint two large murals of "some motif suggesting the development of industry."
The end result was the Detroit Industry Murals. [more inside]
"Great Shades of Elvis!" - Perry White, Ordained Minister, Church of Elvis
Bionic Eye
I can see the future - with a bionic eye Early days yet but "spots of light" is a great start for somebody that's blind.
Ttio the Boston Terrier loves his ball.
Sound on Sound's "Classic Tracks"
Sound on Sound magazine's "Classic Tracks" series provides technical and personal details behind the recording of, uh, classic tracks. [Not to be confused with Mix magazine's own "Classic Tracks" series, which was featured previously.] [more inside]
(A)pproach, (P)robe, (P)resent, (L)isten, (E)nd
The alternative to admitting that it simply sucks when an Apple TV is bricked or phone shatters, Geniuses are taught to employ the "Three Fs: Feel, Felt, and Found. This works especially well when the customer is mistaken or has bad information…"Apple's secret employee training manual for its "Geniuses" as revealed by Gizmodo.Customer: This Mac is just too expensive. Genius: I can see how you'd feel this way. I felt the price was a little high, but I found it's a real value because of all the built-in software and capabilities…The maneuver is brilliant. The Genius has switched places with the customer. He is she and she is he, and maybe that laptop isn't too expensive after all. He Found it wasn't, at least.
Java 7 Vulnerability
A working, cross-platform Java 7 exploit is now in the wild. It's apparently a pair of bugs, working in tandem; neither, alone, would be enough to escape the Java sandbox, but together, any machine, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux, can be instantly and silently compromised, simply by viewing a malicious web page. Only Java 7 is vulnerable, but because of the way Oracle schedules patches, it may be unfixed until October.
You can test your machine for the flaw; if vulnerable, you'll want to at least disable Java in your Web browser, if not remove it altogether. On Firefox, NoScript will provide a little protection, by not running Java code unless you click it, but the vulnerability remains.
And now for something completely different....
Perez Hamilton reports on American history from the 1400's through the 1700's, in the style of gossip blog Perez Hilton. Contents may be offensive. Archive view.
“Sweater weather. Fall is my favourite. #dlws.”
David Leonard Weather Service: "These real-weather descriptions are, of course, tweets, and part of the David Leonard Weather Service, which its eponymous proprietor explains—and he finds himself explaining often—as “a network of correspondents posting the weather they see right now. Real-time, crowd-sourced [Toronto, Ontario Canada] weather." #DLWS @davidpleonard
Of ants and packets
The Anternet is always up. On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that Internet protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for the transfer of data. [more inside]
craigslist casual encounters
"I replied to ads people had posted to the casual encounters section of craigslist. I asked if I could photograph them in visual representations of their ads. Some said yes." [NSFW: naked people.]
A kit for the pen-sucked flap-dragons in your life
Are the verbal pignuts nipping at thine clay-brained heels yet again? Does your dankish, knotty-ated mind quiver at scouring the bard's odiferous works for suitable defense? Then attend thee to the Shakespeare Insult Kit, where all manner of creations await your dullish wit.
The secret allure of the spoiler. Think you don’t want to know the ending? Think again
The secret allure of the spoiler. Think you don’t want to know the ending? Think again "Is there a greater cultural sin than a good story spoiled? The accepted modern posture is that knowing too much beforehand about the plot of a novel, a play, a movie, even a TV series, ruins the magic of experiencing it for the first time — renders it damaged goods, not worth one’s time or money.[..]
It’s a given: Everyone hates spoilers. Except when they don’t. Two researchers in the psychology department of the University of California at San Diego recently decided to test whether we really hate spoilers, or just like to say we do. What they found surprised them: The majority of people apparently like having a story spoiled for them. In fact, we may enjoy spoiled stories even more than the unspoiled versions. Is it true? Do we secretly crave predigested plots the way some foodies sneak Big Macs when no one’s looking?" Pdf link to study. [more inside]
It’s a given: Everyone hates spoilers. Except when they don’t. Two researchers in the psychology department of the University of California at San Diego recently decided to test whether we really hate spoilers, or just like to say we do. What they found surprised them: The majority of people apparently like having a story spoiled for them. In fact, we may enjoy spoiled stories even more than the unspoiled versions. Is it true? Do we secretly crave predigested plots the way some foodies sneak Big Macs when no one’s looking?" Pdf link to study. [more inside]
moof
Working on a shareware game in Hypercard but just can't find the right image for your About box? Give your photographs the System 6 treatment with Gáspár Körtesi's in-browser drag-and-drop dither tool.
The New American Industry
If you haven't heard much about how takeover deals like Dunkin' and KB Toys work, that's because Mitt Romney and his private equity brethren don't want you to. The new owners of American industry are the polar opposites of the Milton Hersheys and Andrew Carnegies who built this country, commercial titans who longed to leave visible legacies of their accomplishments, erecting hospitals and schools and libraries, sometimes leaving behind thriving towns that bore their names. The men of the private equity generation want no such thing.Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
Snappy dressing
Irony? That's like goldy or silvery, right?
Atos Healthcare is a French company that's a contractor to the UK department for Work and Pensions, hired to test disabled benefits claimants on whether they're fit to work. If they are, they'll lose their disability benefits and are back on normal unemployment benefits. It is a controversial company, as its standards for declaring people fit to work are very low, as The Daily Mirror has been showing. By design or through incompetence, quite a few people who are clearly incapable of work are declared fit for work anyway, lose their benefits and some of them even die because of it, either through suicide or through the stress and healthcare problems caused by losing their benefits. (previously.) [more inside]
Pinterested King County
King County Archives, which has a "vast collection" of historic photos from Seattle's home county, has posted more than 100 to Pinterest. Images released thus far include art, historic photos, and maps.
The world is a hologram, Albert.
The mystery that's been set up for us in the first act is collapsing; at this point the movie shifts focus, prefiguring the bifurcated structure of later Lynch films like Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr., both neo-noirs that rupture and reconstitute themselves halfway through.Anatomy of a Fascinating Disaster: Fire Walk With Me [Replete with Twin Peaks/FWWM spoilers and a fake Breaking Bad spoiler.]
Get off your arse!
The Way They Were (SLYT... 1:07:45 'The tape fails there!')... an old Granada / Channel 4 program that was a compilation of Tony Wilson's So It Goes a show that featured performances from some of the best British Punk and New Wave bands of the time.
An Operating System for Songs from God.
The effects of modern mapping
How Google and Apple's digital mapping is mapping us "Digital maps on smartphones are brilliantly useful tools, but what sort of information do they gather about us – and how do they shape the way we look at the world?"
We have to fail – there is no return in time.
Growth is a project in which I reconstructed and re-photographed pictures that my dad took of me and my three little sisters when we were children. I tried to make the new photograph look as similar as possible to the old one: the place and the composition are the same, and so are our positions and facial expressions. - Wilma Hurskainen [more inside]
New Dylan
August 28
Punks-Back in the USSR
“The music and lyrics of punk rock provoke among the young fits of aimless rage, vandalism, and the urge to destroy everything they get their hands on. No matter how carefully they try to clean it up, it will remain the most reactionary offspring of the bourgeoisie mass culture.” Pravda
Photographs and video of pre-Perestroika/Glasnost punks in the Soviet Union. [Some site images possibly NSFW]
When it comes to hateful words, I got skin like a rhinoceros!
Orion's Belt is a rap duet between the insouciant twentysomething Kitty Pryde and the cartoonishly vivid RiFF RaFF. The two styles contrast each other hilariously.
Shortest Airline Flight
The worlds shortest scheduled airline flight is from Westray Island in the Orkney Islands to the nearby Papa Westray Island. You can watch all two minutes of the flight.
The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'check enclosed'.
Dorothy Parker left her entire estate to Martin Luther King, Jr. Her close friend Lillian Hellman, who was the executor of Parker's estate, bitterly contested this decision but lost. [more inside]
Gangnam style: 30,000 horse riders
Though the 'Gangnam Style' music video and the reactions it creates have been mentioned before on MetaFilter, with the video analysed for the deeper socio-economic meanings and context within, to the bafflement of some Koreans and Australian journalists Psy's comeback track continues to climb various music video and song charts while 30,000 fans enthusiastically, and soakingly, sing and do that dance.
Finally, an alternative to Big Pedal.
Presenting the FLIZ velocipede, for anyone who's wondering what you get when you cross a German hipster and a wheeled banana.
The Reconstitution of the Dead
After meeting a grisly end in "It All Means Nothing," Screaming Females guitarist Marissa Paternoster is back for revenge in "Leave It All Up to Me". [more inside]
*note: I'm not sure what this asterisk is for
When we started Diaspora two years ago, the project kicked off with amazing reception and support from people that believed in our ultimate goal: giving users ownership over their data. ... Today, the network has grown into thousands of people using our software in hundreds of installations across the web. There are hundreds of pods that have been created by community members, and it has become one of the biggest Github projects to date. ... Today, we are giving control of Diaspora to the community.Diaspora*, the open social network, is now owned by its user base. [more inside]
Revolt of the Rich
The American Conservative and the Revolt of the Rich
Hannibal and Subutai on saddle chaffing.
Painters of Fantastic Films
Matte World Digital, the visual effects studio founded in 1988 (as Matte World) by Craig Barron, Mike Pangrazio, and Krys Demkowicz, created fantastic movie environments through matte painting. A victim of the contracting visual effects industry, Matte World Digital announced their demise with a thoughtful post on their web site.
Paradise by the console lights
OnLive Lost: As founder and CEO Steve Perlman departs, The Verge looks at how OnLive failed and what remains of the revolutionary, restructured cloud-based gaming company. [more inside]
>WASTE AFTERNOON
The Museum of Computer Adventure Game History in Toronto, Canada is one of the largest collections of adventure and role-playing games and supplements in existence. [more inside]
Spoiler alert: there is a red shirt.
Jeff Altman has posted several stunning examples of his grandfather's Kodachrome 40 8mm home movies.
Previously with less, but now with more!! [more inside]
Previously with less, but now with more!! [more inside]
beautiful photos of fireworks, using long exposure
While attending the International Fireworks Show in Ottawa, Canada earlier this month photographer David Johnson had his camera in hand to document the night. When Spain’s entry into the competition begin he decided to try something a little different resulting in the photos you see here which are unlike any long exposure firework shots I’ve ever seen.
Nobody puts baby in a corner
Oh now, this really is ridiculously cute. slyt
Marinexplore
Have you ever wondered what the water temperature off the Kamchatka Peninsula is? What about the wind speed in the Andaman Sea? Or maybe you’re losing sleep over the chlorophyll levels in the South Pacific. Fortunately, all of that information –- and 450 million other data points collected from oceanographic instruments around the world –- is freely and easily accessible thanks to the Marinexplore project. [more inside]
I'm your toy, I'm your old boy
Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel - An excellent 90 minute BBC documentary, the story of the legendary country rock pioneer as told by contemporary musicians, family, and friends. It includes rare performance footage. (Via Dangerous Minds) [more inside]
The South Pole Foucault Pendulum
PALEO: the comic that is harder to kill than the actual dinosaurs themselves
Paleo by Jim Lawson was a comic book series set during the Late Cretaceous and featuring dinosaurs as protagonists. It was in print between 2001 and 2004, but is now being "reprinted" as a webcomic. [more inside]
On nude modeling
Pawns in the War on Drugs
Sarah Stillman for the New Yorker on confidential informants and the ends they meet -- "Gaither was tortured, beaten with a bat, shot with a pistol and a shotgun, run over by a car, and dragged by a chain through the woods." [more inside]
Shooting Morocco
Alfonso Calza created this video from photographs he took of the streets, desert, ocean, mountains, and ruins of Morocco.
"...the key is sympathy and empathy"
My Boss Has Body Odour and I Have Sex with My Twin. Four advice columnists — Cheryl Strayed, Cary Tennis, Emily Yoffe and Lynn Coady — talk shop. [more inside]
Sheep's clothing
The Westeros Football League
Winter is coming. Are you ready for some football? In Westeros, they put the "fantasy" in fantasy football. [more inside]
Hot dog!
Hawk Krall loves hot dogs, sampling and illustrating the nation's finest encased and embunned meats from Tijuana to Maine, and everywhere in between. Hold the ketchup, please.
There are fewer microbes out there than you think
There are fewer microbes out there than you think. New estimate reduces the number of microbes on Earth by around half. [more inside]
The Iron Gall Ink Website
Malcolm Browne, 1931-2012
Malcolm Browne, the war correspondent who took one of the most iconic and disturbing photographs of the Vietnam conflict, has died. He was 81. [more inside]
To Infinity and Somewhat Past That!
Are there as many odd numbers as there are all numbers? Can one infinity be bigger than another? TED Ed and Minute Physics both take a look at some of the mind boggling realities of Infinity.
"And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:"
'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets 'finally revealed to be London prostitute called Lucy Negro' [dailymail.co.uk] "New research claims The 'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets was a notorious London prostitute named Lucy Negro or Black Luce - a dark-skinned madam who ran a licentious house in Clerkenwell."
Water buffalos in Yunnan
"Our bull is very strong, so let's call him Optimus Prime." A look at the sport of water buffalo fighting in southwest China. (Don't miss the video on the article page.)
Infrastructure Costs
Tunneling in any dense urban environment is an expensive proposition, but the $5 billion price tag for just the first two miles of the Second Avenue subway cannot be explained by engineering difficulties. The segment runs mainly beneath a single broad avenue, unimpeded by rivers, super-tall skyscraper foundations or other subway lines.
American taxpayers will shell out many times what their counterparts in developed cities in Europe and Asia would pay. In the case of the Second Avenue line and other new rail infrastructure in New York City, they may have to pay five times as much.
Amtrak is just as bad. Its $151 billion master plan for basic high-speed rail service in the Northeast corridor is more expensive than Japan’s planned magnetic levitating train line between Tokyo and Osaka, most of which is to be buried deep underground, with tunnels through the Japan Alps and beneath its densest cities. - U.S. Taxpayers Are Gouged on Mass Transit Costs
All exotic white girls look the same to me
"I think exotic white people are beautiful and their culture is fascinating. But it upsets me when they tell me, “Wow, you look so white, are you sure you’re not?” I know they think it’s a compliment." -- It's not quite p.c., but exotic white girls is a genuine celebration of white culture by somebody who has long been fascinated by this proud people and their strange ways.
August 27
Square Word Calligraphy: English that Looks Like Chinese
English that looks like Chinese. "At first glance, Square Word Calligraphy appears to be nothing more unusual than Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering English words in the format of a square so they resemble Chinese characters. Chinese viewers expect to be able to read Square Word Calligraphy but cannot. Western viewers, however are surprised to find they can read it. Delight erupts when meaning is unexpectedly revealed." (Britta Erickson, The Art of Xu Bing.) [more inside]
Sher Valenzuela, First State Manufacturing, received millions in government business loans
Small business owner and candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Delaware Sher Valenzuela is slated to speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday as part of a platform meant to suggest business owners build businesses on their own with no assistance from government. The problem is that Valenzuela received millions of dollars in taxpayer funds as business loans from the US government, along with other government assistance. One Reddit user noticed the url for the full name of Valenzuela's First State Manufacturing business was unregistered, and remedied that with full details. [more inside]
Noble Silence
"I chose the meditation style known as Vipassana for several reasons. It's wholly nondenominational. No gods are prayed to, no mantras chanted, all religious iconography is prohibited. If you typically wear, say, a crucifix, you must remove it for the duration of the course. Also, there is no need for prior meditation experience – in fact, I was told, a neophyte is the ideal student because you won't have any bad habits to avoid – which suited me perfectly, as I'd never meditated before." [The Quiet Hell of Extreme Meditation]
Why a calorie is not a calorie
The known knowns, known unknowns, and perhaps even the unknown unknowns of why a calorie is not a calorie.
REMINGTONELECTRICRAZORREMINGTONELECTRICRAZOR
Peter Brook's "King Lear"
[Peter] Brook's stripped-back adaptation [of King Lear]... draws from Jan Kott's insight that Lear, like Beckett's Endgame, reveals a world devoid of consolation, morality or universal justice. ... Brook's is a devastating realisation of the play: a pitiless examination of the cruelty and emptiness that lies at the heart of the lust for power. - Alison Croggon [more inside]
Magic realism: not fantasy. Sorry.
Get ready for adventure, in the exciting stories of Colonel Bleep!
The first color cartoon came out in 1957, from the Miami, Florida studio Soundac, beating out LA-based Hanna-Barbera's The Ruff & Reddy Show by a few months. Soundac's Colonel Bleep was styled after space-age design ideas of the era, featured in three to six-minute long segments with limited animation, designed for syndication into local kids shows with live hosts. Of the 104 episodes, less than half survive, as most of that and other Soundac material was stolen from a studio van in the ’70s, when the studio was closing. Luckily, episodes have been found in the collections and archives of various TV studios, so Col. Bleep and his side-kicks Squeek and Scratch are available online (YT), some clips on Archive.org, and more on YouTube (playlist with 43 clips).
High Weirdness By Mail
"I guess it started for me when, as a young sci-fi movie fan, I did a fanzine at age 12 to 15... that’s when I learned how relatively cheap and easy it was to self-publish, at least for a small circle of weirdos. Later, after comics went up to 50¢, I started collecting stuff equally weird but much cheaper than comic books: kook literature." - Rev. Ivan Stang
You may know of the Church of the SubGenius, that parody religion that worships the almighty "Bob" and was a fixture of MTV and Night Flights back in the day. But do you know of its SECRET ORIGINS? Co-founder Ivan Stang corresponded with hundreds of "mad prophets, crackpots, kooks & true visionaries," from sincere cults to winking charlatans to utter nutjobs to hate groups to independent artists and musicians, with some respected names thrown in, and synthesized them into a half-joking, half-serious celebration of the kook spirit. These days of course the forward-thinking crackpot looking for sheep goes directly to the internet. But while it lasted Stang and co-authors Mike Gunderloy, Waver Forest and Mark Johnston collaborated to document this vanished scene in the legendary book HIGH WEIRDNESS BY MAIL. (All links within may quickly lead someplace NSFW by the nature of the beast.) [more inside]
You may know of the Church of the SubGenius, that parody religion that worships the almighty "Bob" and was a fixture of MTV and Night Flights back in the day. But do you know of its SECRET ORIGINS? Co-founder Ivan Stang corresponded with hundreds of "mad prophets, crackpots, kooks & true visionaries," from sincere cults to winking charlatans to utter nutjobs to hate groups to independent artists and musicians, with some respected names thrown in, and synthesized them into a half-joking, half-serious celebration of the kook spirit. These days of course the forward-thinking crackpot looking for sheep goes directly to the internet. But while it lasted Stang and co-authors Mike Gunderloy, Waver Forest and Mark Johnston collaborated to document this vanished scene in the legendary book HIGH WEIRDNESS BY MAIL. (All links within may quickly lead someplace NSFW by the nature of the beast.) [more inside]
Made By Hand II
Masters of handcrafts, showing how they work in beautiful short-form videos. Flamenco guitar luthier. Carpenter. Potter. Letterpress printer. Furniture maker.
Much more at Those Who Make and whycraft.com. Post intended as something of a sequel to this, previously.
Much more at Those Who Make and whycraft.com. Post intended as something of a sequel to this, previously.
Too good to be true?
NewScientist is reporting new way of processing wood pulp making new wonder construction material. [snip]
To ramp up production, the US opened its first NCC factory in Madison, Wisconsin, on 26 July, marking the rise of what the US National Science Foundation predicts will become a $600 billion industry by 2020.
So why all the fuss? Well, not only is NCC transparent but it is made from a tightly packed array of needle-like crystals which have a strength-to-weight ratio that is eight times better than stainless steel. Even better, it's incredibly cheap.
RIP Nina Bawden, 1925 to 2012
Nina Bawden, writer of novels for adults and children, born in 1925, died on 22nd August 2012. “As a child, Nina said, she had felt wicked because the children in the books she read were all so good, and she was one of the first writers for children to create characters who could be jealous, selfish and bad-tempered” (Guardian obituary). [more inside]
"I don’t believe in decorative titles — neato for the sake of being neato."
"David Fincher: A Film Title Retrospective" — Art of the Title follows up on their interview with Fincher for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. [more inside]
Sock 'n' Roll
"For each inch a player grows above 5'6", announcers are 2 percent less likely to praise him with intangibles."
The product of a successful Kickstarter project, a study has been released focusing on subconscious racism in baseball announcing. [more inside]
Not the Happy Squirrel!
Tarot decks used for occult purposes usually have 78 cards: the Major Arcana of twenty-two plus the Minor Arcana, four suits of fourteen cards each. In the last few years, though, some otherwise traditional decks have been printed with 79 cards. The new inclusion is to the Major Arcana: number XXIII, the Happy Squirrel. [more inside]
Dred Reckoning
I’m about to tell you a story about videogames, kitchens, and internet forums that has a happy ending. Stop laughing, I’m serious. - A woman gamer declares Gaslamp Games's Dungeons of Dredmor forums awesome.
"I went from God loves everybody to God saves everybody to God is in everybody."
From Bible-Belt Pastor to Atheist Leader. Jerry DeWitt is a former Pentecostal pastor in the evangelical parish of DeRidder, Louisiana who slowly lost his religious faith. Last Fall, he went public with his atheism, committing what he calls "identity suicide," and instantly becoming "the most disliked person in town." Since then, Mr. DeWitt's lost his job, his wife, his community and may be losing his house, but is still persevering and working to help others who find themselves in similar circumstances. [more inside]
Pazhitnov Home for Wayward Cubs
When baby bears are orphaned in Russia, it's up to the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Dr. Valentin Pazhitnov to raise them to maturity while realizing they must not become too comfortable with humans. Observe as the cubs discover their natural instincts and dine al fresco and, well, eat some more. Have fun, little guys!
Shunsuke, the Cutest Dog of All the Dogs
Shunsuke is a Japanese Pomeranian guaranteed to brighten your day. He's amassed a considerable fanbase; his owner's Twitter feed is followed by more than a hundred thousand people, and he's got a calendar and photo book. Here he is riding a snow shovel. Here he is dressed as a bee.
Robots and skateboards
Lupe Fiasco's new single Bitch Bad offers a powerful commentary on the roles of men, women and children in popular hip-hop culture. [more inside]
Clean hair is the new catnip.
Summer ice in the Arctic to disappear
Several measures of Arctic ice cover have hit record lows. Melting usually continues into September, so this year’s minimum should be below the 2007 record.
The rate of melting far exceeds that predicted by most models. Predictions of when the Arctic might be entirely ice-free at the summer minimum are being brought sharply forwards.
smart bird
"Tool use in animals is rare, and bespeaks a level of intelligence that most of us are unaccustomed to associating with non-humans. That's what makes this video of a Green Heron using bread to lure fish to their doom so remarkable. One would be hard pressed to argue that this bird is not thinking critically about the technique it is employing to catch its prey. Not only is it demonstrating logic and reason in its capacity to understand that a piece of bread can be used as bait, it's also passing up the chance to eat the bread in favor of a better meal, actively weighing cost and benefit, pitting immediate gratification against delayed satisfaction. It's a stunning display of animal intelligence."
Could our evolutionary novel environment be disrupting the human superorganism?
Is autism an autoimmune disorder? "The prevalence of inflammatory diseases in general has increased significantly in the past 60 years. As a group, they include asthma, now estimated to affect 1 in 10 children — at least double the prevalence of 1980 — and autoimmune disorders, which afflict 1 in 20.
Both are linked to autism, especially in the mother. One large Danish study, which included nearly 700,000 births over a decade, found that a mother’s rheumatoid arthritis, a degenerative disease of the joints, elevated a child’s risk of autism by 80 percent. Her celiac disease, an inflammatory disease prompted by proteins in wheat and other grains, increased it 350 percent. Genetic studies tell a similar tale. Gene variants associated with autoimmune disease — genes of the immune system — also increase the risk of autism, especially when they occur in the mother." [more inside]
LETS
Start Your Own Currency - "In the Catalonia region of Spain, a restaurant and a community garden are part of an experiment in alternative cash--they are accepting a home-grown currency called the Eco as well as the Euro." [viz. gated article (Google link), cf. The Wörgl Experiment]
August 26
I'm certainly not going to work on the 500th floor
How tall can buildings get, anyway?
Plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools.
In the year 1612 John Webster began what would be his greatest work, The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy. A shocking work of madness, brutally corrupt power struggle and incest, it continues to challenge audiences.
YouTube has the 1972 BBC production in full. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
School of Hard Knocks
"... [T]he character hypothesis: the notion that noncognitive skills, like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brainpower to achieving success .... Character is created by encountering and overcoming failure .... The offspring of affluent parents are insulated from adversity ... while poor children face no end of challenges ... there is often little support to help them turn these omnipresent obstacles into character-enhancing triumphs." A review of 'How Children Succeed,' by Paul Tough.
A Wanker Whipping Up Fear
In May of 2010, Michael D. Higgins (now President of Ireland) had an exchange on an Irish radio station with Tea Party supporter Michael Graham, about the state of politics in the United States. [more inside]
Straight outta Chapel Hill, N.C.!!!!11!!!
These kids from Chapel Hill, N.C. rap against bullying. They give and want RESPECT in return. They advise kids to BREATHE and take a break before resorting to violence.
Steve Jobs in St. Petersburg
It is proposed that a memorial to Steve Jobs be erected in St. Petersburg, Russia. The entries are in and you can vote for your favourite online. [more inside]
Helpa helpa helpa the kids!
Bret and Jemaine of Flight of the Conchords interview some New Zealand schoolchildren to find inspiration for their new charity single, Feel Inside.
What I have to offer
In 2011, in front of a sell-out theatre at the BFI in London, Charlie Kaufman delivered the final lecture in BAFTA's Screenwriters' Lecture Series. Eliot Rausch took snippets of the lecture and set them to apposite visual clips and produced this video: What I Have to Offer (single link vimeo). [via]
"Etta James Rocks The House"
On September 27, 1963, at the New Era Club in Nashville, Tennessee, Etta James rocked the house. The result was "simply one of the greatest live blues albums ever captured on tape". [more inside]
Exit wound in a foreign nation.
Ramamba Haru Mamburu! Inhabiting a world somewhere between the desperate raunchy excesses of early Devo (NSFW), the playfully morbid obsessions of TMBG, and the puerile falsettos of Sparks, the Russian novelty/comedy/geek rockers Nogu Svelo! (English site) have been contributing earworms to Russian pop culture for, oh, some twenty years now. [more inside]
Mercury is an experimental roguelike.
Mercury is an experimental roguelike. How is it experimental? Let's have the creator, Jason Lantz, explain :
" all the game’s content is winner-generated. That means that the game starts out barren. One class for players to play, one monster to fight, and one item to use. But every round, the top two scoring players use a tool built into the game to make a monster, item or class and then that object is automatically inserted into everyone’s game, and players fight for new high scores in an entirely different game every round."
Bird Brains
Staying_On-Topic in r/intelligentanimals posts a huge number of links explaining why Corvids (crows, ravens, magpies, etc) are amazing.
Flipping cat physics
The physics of how cats flip their bodies to land feet first also allows spacecraft to turn. Flipping cats [previously] is interesting. It's even more interesting if your dad works at NASA and you have access to people who use flipping-cat physics to make spacecraft turn in space.
My Heart Keeps Singing Sweet Songs To You And It Won't Shut Up
Inspired by The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, 14 year old Californian Gal Musette has decided she can do them one better with her 70 Love Songs project. [more inside]
This is just to say...
"Floss was OK with it?" An answer to the eternal question concerning the aftermath of the plums eaten that were being saved for breakfast. An entry in the Allen Ginsberg Project blog relates a conversation between Ginsberg and a student about William Carlos Williams' poem, Ginsberg's metaphysical critique and Floss's (the owner of the plums) feelings about the matter, at least as related from Williams to Ginsberg.
"So you have their sexual relationship, actually, set up in that little thing."
A Woman's Place
Flat lens gives perfect image
Flat lens gives perfect image by causing instantaneous phase shift at surface rather than relying on phase shift of regular lens happening by traveling through different thickness of material (like glass) causing different phase shifts to focus light.
Frankie Say But Have You Heard These?
Along with the endless myriad of remixes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood was known for their b-sides. Beginning with Ferry 'Cross The Mersey, a b-side to the single Relax (snippets of which are included on the Welcome To The Pleasuredome album), they consistently showed their humor and talent through non-album tracks. [more inside]
Brilliant A+++++ would read again
Parched is the Land, Thirsty is the Desire, Thirsty is the Sky
The Saawan So Far: In Hindi, as it is in other Indian languages, they are simply the Nairutya Marut, the Winds from the South West. "Bursting" every year at about June for the last sixty million years, the Monsoons are the pre-eminent weather formation for the lands south of the Himalayas; over a period of three months, they travel all over the sub-continent in a north-easterly direction. They are India's meteorological tryst with destiny; as a past Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor once said, "If it rains everything is well on earth and cordial in heaven[...] I am once again hostage to monsoon;[...i]f it rains, the monetary policy works. [...] I want you to realise that all of us are 'Chasing the Monsoon'": [more inside]
Comics writing craft extravaganza, true believers!
Decompressed is a podcast in which comics writer and former Rock Paper Shotgun journalist Kieron Gillen (X-Men, Thor, Phonogram) talks to artists and writers about the process involved in writing a single issue of a comic. Decompressed 6 broke format and is instead a discussion with Mark Waid and Matt Fraction about scripting comics using the "Marvel Method", or "plot first" - in which the artist draws the comic from a story outline and dialogue is added later, rather than the writer supplying a panel by panel script. For a while out of favour even at Marvel, the method is seeing a resurgance. The podcast page contains visual aids, and embedded version of the podcast, the script of DEFENDERS #9 complete with B&W art and additional links, including links to Warren Ellis’ 3-part tutorial on writing comics (1, 2, 3). Jamie McKelvie and a vultue put in guest appearances. Further example comicbook scripts are available at the Comic Book Script Archive (previously).
Some of the things you wanted to know about the historical shapes of continents but were afraid to ask...
Earth Birth between 13 billion years ago and 250 million years after the current year [aka The Future]. [more inside]
True Love's Kiss?
Sleeping Beauty performance art exhibit in Ukraine. Young women are taking turns "sleeping" at the National Art Museum in Kiev and will not "wake" until a (male) museum patron kisses one of them. There's a catch, though: If he kisses one of them, they have to get married. There's video. And here's the artist's page.
Mechanical Music Press, for all your large mechanical music machine information needs
Mechanical Music Press is a resource for those interested in large mechanical music machines, and they're not just player pianos. The really interesting machines are generically called orchestrions, contraptions that are automated to play multiple instruments from some format of audio script, disc, pinned-barrel or music rolls. The three primary makers of multi-instrument playing machines as profiled on MMP are Hupfeld, Welte, and Wurlitzer / Philipps. Where MMP has detailed histories of the makers and the models, there are numerous videos of mechanical music machines in action on YouTube: Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina Model B | Welte style 4 orchestrion at Disneyland | Wurlitzer Pianorchestra 33-A | Ramey Banjo Orchestra, a new orchestrion styled after the original Banjorchestra. Bonus YT link: "Ghost Parade" performed by Joe Rinaudo at the American Photoplayer (prev.)
August 25
The Redemption of Michael K. Williams
"Now go outside -- It's sunny and you're beautiful."
Always look on the bright side of death... even as you take your (formerly) terminal breath!
Sudden death suddenly becomes a lot less pressing. A team of scientists at the Boston Children’s Hospital have designed a microparticle that can be injected into the bloodstream which rapidly oxygenates blood, capable of keeping a person alive for up to 30 minutes after respiratory failure. This will even work if the ability to breathe has been restricted, or cut off entirely. Here's how it works, in greater detail.
This finding has the potential to save millions of lives every year, and can buy emergency medical personnel a significant amount of time to address what would otherwise be fatal emergencies. It also has numerous potential applications for the Defense Department, which is funding part of the research.
The Wire
Kissing your sister in a $1-million race
For the first time since 1874, the Travers Stakes ended in a dead heat (tie) when Golden Ticket and Alpha finished together. Unlike 138 years ago, however, there was no run-off following the races, and both horses got a turn in the winner's circle this year. Video of the race (SLYT) [more inside]
aqueous surface design
Ebru, turkish for "marbeling", and is hypnotizing to watch. It is a process that puts colored paint on the surface of water, and then transferring it to paper. It is probably most common for us now in its use in bookbinding, showing as early as the 17th century in Europe, and it's still being done routinely today in the US Government Printing Office. The art is much older, dating back to 10th century Turkey. It had a resurgence in the 60's as a psychedelic hippie art form. It's easy to learn but can take years to master. [more inside]
And in his way, Mr. K will challenge the world!
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite PABLO FANQUE'S CIRCUS ROYAL
TOWN-MEADOWS, ROCHDALE
Grandest Night of the Season!
AND POSITIVELY THE LAST NIGHT BUT THREE!
BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR.KITE,
(LATE OF WELLS'S CIRCUS) AND
MR. J. HENDERSON,
THE CELEBRATED SOMERSET THROWER!
WIRE DANCER, VAULTER, RIDER, etc.
On TUESDAY Evening, February 14, 1843. [more inside]
"Our names were made for us in another century."
Towns with number names: Six, Eight, Twenty, Fifty-six, Seventy-six, Eighty-four, Eighty-eight, Ninety-six, Hundred and 1770. Honorable mention for Wonowon.
Portland and Brooklyn,read and weep:
LA Weekly decides the Twenty Worst Hipster Bands, to go along with their past Twenty Worst Bands of All Time.
Mad Science and Heavy Metal
The Beauty of Engraving is the name of a site that Neenah Paper has devoted to the ancient practice of engraved printing, with a focus on its CRANE Papers line. Check out the video to see modern engraving in action. While the site's history of engraving and also of CRANE are interesting, the highlight is a gallery of user-submitted engraved work.
The (real) Dude
From director Jeff Feuerzeig, The Dude is a documentary short that follows Jeff Dowd to a Tampa Lebowski Fest. Dowd was a friend of the Coen Brothers and the real-life inspiration for the iconic film character in the Big Lebowski. (Previously: Jeff Dowd of the Seattle Seven is the model for The Dude in The Big Lebowski)
Perry Anderson's essays about modern states in The London Review of Books
Perry Anderson's book length three part series on the history of India from the beginnings of its independence movement, through independence and partition into its recent history as a nation-state is the latest in a series of erudite, opinionated and wordy articles in The London Review of Books by the UCLA professor of history and sociology on the modern history of various countries, so far taking in Brazil, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, the EU, Russia, Taiwan and France. [more inside]
Sergio Leone's "Once Upon A Time In America"
Once Upon A Time In America [auto-play audio] is the last of a string of films about the past and future of a country [Sergio Leone] knew first and best from the B-movies and yellowing paperbacks America sent abroad. For this 1984 swan song, Leone broke a directing hiatus that stretched back a decade, and turned away from Westerns toward another quintessentially American genre. His fantasia of gangland themes and images barely works by the standards of a gangster film, but succeeds brilliantly by those of epic poetry. - Keith Phipps [all links may contain spoilers] [more inside]
BEOWULF: A new translation [free download]
BEOWULF: A new translation Many modern Beowulf translations, while excellent in their own ways, suffer from what Kathleen Biddick might call “melancholy” for an oral and aural way of poetic making… The sense of loss or nostalgia for the old form seems a necessary and ever-present shadow over modern Beowulfs. What happens, however, when a contemporary poet, quite simply, doesn’t bother with any such nostalgia? Michael Davidson: "Tom Meyer’s Beowulf reenacts the dark grandeur of a poem that is as much a story of vengeance as it is of courage and loyalty. Meyer brings the poem’s alliterative, inflected line in concert with post-Poundian lineation to give the reader a vivid sense of our oldest poem’s modernity." Free download from independent publisher Punctum Books. [more inside]
"I like to entertain people, and apparently I have, so I'm very happy :)"
Some of the stuff I say in Leaf’s Beefs offends me sometimes, but I can fuck right off, my opinion doesn't matter.
We come in peace for all mankind.
Google brings its Street View cameras into the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is their largest special Street View collection to date: 6000 panoramic images, including the Apollo 14 module, the Vehicle Assembly Building, Launch Firing Room #4 and Space Shuttle Orbiters Atlantis and Endeavour. Intro Video. (Via) [more inside]
Hidden Canadiana
Man on the moon
"AHA...this is a ploy...no this is a ruse....no...."
STAR WARS DETOURS™ Trailer [SLYT] "Star Wars Detours™ is an animated comedy that explores what daily life is like in a galaxy far, far away. There are no Empires striking back or attacking clones here. Instead, Star Wars Detours focuses on the universe's regular folks and their everyday problems... which, to be fair, do frequently involve famous bounty hunters, crazed Ewoks, and even a Dark Lord of the Sith."
I Am Science…and a Nerd
"I fear my story of a bullied nerd is not unique. This is the reason why I felt compelled to contribute my personal I Am Science. In the vein of an initiative I very much admire, It Gets Better, I hope this post lends itself to a struggling youth grappling with their own nerdom."
Marine biologist Dr.Craig McClain, Assistant Director of Science for the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and Chief Editor of Deep Sea News, opens up about growing up as an isolated science nerd in rural America.
A photograph isn’t necessarily a lie, but nor is it the truth. It’s more of a fleeting, subjective impression.
Goodbye Martine Franck.
My grandfather killed himself falling off the dike in Ostend while photographing my two cousins.
This can happen so easily when looking through a lens: for a split second nothing else exists outside the frame…
Here she explains her choice of an iconic photograph.
She followed the Theatre du Soleil from it's conception and sought out the Tibetan Tulkus.
Here is a Magnum slideshow and her Magnum Albums.
My grandfather killed himself falling off the dike in Ostend while photographing my two cousins.
This can happen so easily when looking through a lens: for a split second nothing else exists outside the frame…
Here she explains her choice of an iconic photograph.
She followed the Theatre du Soleil from it's conception and sought out the Tibetan Tulkus.
Here is a Magnum slideshow and her Magnum Albums.
Why work when you have flashlights and a camera?
It's 4:30AM on writing night, and SNL's Taran Killam really, really doesn't feel like hammering out another sketch. Time for some top-notch procrastination. [more inside]
Tangerine Dream in the Grand Canyon, and other Jan Nickman videos
"With Jan Nickman's skilled direction and exceptional cinematography by Gray Warriner of Camera One Productions, this 40-minute video album transforms the Grand Canyon into something magical." Canyon Dreams was recorded as an album by Tangerine Dream, though it was first released with the videos of the Grand Canyon that were recorded over 3 years. Audio and video inside. [more inside]
A Blurred Line
RPG Maker 2000 did exactly what its name suggested: it allowed non-programmers to design turn-based RPGs. Translated to English by Don Miguel, who included his tutorial game Don's Adventures with the program, it and its subsequent versions are still available for download. While in recent years the engine has been used for a number of noteworthy titles, back in the day it resulted in a number of charmingly amateur titles — one of which was the legendary A Blurred Line, by Lysander86. Part of what made ABL special was its story, which was crude but compelling; partly it was the gameplay, which was impressively varied and offered a number of branching story paths based on player choice. A Blurred Line was never finished; there's a Windows download that includes the first chapters, A Blurred Line and The Line Narrows, but the finale, The Line's End, was never released. Lys86 has claimed he is still working on the game, most recently in 2010, but it's been over a decade since its original release, and hope for that final release is slim-to-nonexistent.
What can change the nature of a man?
This is an hour long podcast about Planescape: Torment by creators Chris Avellone (lead designer), Colin McComb (second designer), Adam Heine (scripter), and Scott Warner (junior designer, lead designer of Halo 4). P:T was a groundbreaking, story-focused rpg with a loyal cult following. Previously. More previously. [more inside]
You know, by the kids.
"Wanna buy a Penguin?" Very simple: kids tell a story, adults act out story (film it and upload to YouTube). Kids voices dubbed on top.
Hysterical Literature
Clayton Cubitt's Hysterical Literature is a video project where women seem to reach orgasm simply by reading a favorite passage from a book. Session 1 features alt-porn star Stoya reading Supervert's "Necrophilia Variations", while session 2 features Alicia reading Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". Stoya's thoughts on the project, and Supervert's thoughts. (all NSFW)
August 24
'Silence seems to keep me from idealizing myself.'
How Silence Works: Emailed Conversations With Four Trappist Monks
Freitag! Freitag! Goth musst unten am Freitag!
The Godfathers of German Gothic and the Ghostriders of German Gothic gave voice to lesser known acts of the punk-punk era. Collated initially by Schwarze szene notable band musician Jay Kay it was an attempt to collect the mainland European 'gothic' experience. [more inside]
Old ships and nautical memorabilia
Old Ships is a website packed full of evocative, interesting and historical pictures of old ships from A to Zambesi. It's a feast of all kinds of other vintage maritime images, including ports, docks, ferries, harbors, paintings, canals, rivers, maritime scenes, onboard pictures, shipboard menus, lots of great postcards and other old historical nautical memorabilia (even the ship's cat). [more inside]
My voyage of curiosity has turned to courage.
Christianity for Atheists
The Human Bible is a podcast by Robert M. Price, professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and author of a number of books on theology. Though an atheist -- and skeptical of the very existence of the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels -- Price's great knowledge of (and love for) the Scriptures is evident throughout. No matter what you believe, you won't regret listening to these podcasts.
A jury has ruled for Apple in its huge smartphone patent infringement case involving Samsung and ordered Samsung to pay $1.5 billion.
After a year of scorched-earth litigation, a jury decided Friday that Samsung ripped off the innovative technology used by Apple to create its revolutionary iPhone and iPad. The jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 billion. An appeal is expected. [more inside]
Francis Ford Coppola's "Captain EO"
RAWR
The Writing on the Wall
The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is a massive, 17-volume catalog of 180,000 inscriptions and graffiti found across the Roman Empire in classical times. It's available for free online now, starting with the parts published before 1940. I'm fond of volume 4, which covers Pompeii and Herculaneum. (Pompeii graffiti prev) [more inside]
Foul Bachelor Goons
Mexican Archaeological Sites On Google Street View
Google Street View has sent people on bicycles around 30 major archaeological sites in Mexico, including Chichen Itza, Palenque, Monte Alban, Teotihuacan, Tulum, Cobá, and more.
You can go right up to (but not up) the pyramids. For me, seeing the tourists and the souvenir vendors is part of the fun.
Daniel Hernandez at the LA Times has some more good links.
Neurosciencey stuff→Loss of critical faculties
Oxford University neuroscience professor Dorothy Bishop delivers a scathing lecture (text version) about the overselling of weak neuroscience, both in the news and within the scientific literature. [more inside]
The Top 25 NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL Sports Uniforms
From Paul Lukas of Uni Watch, a list of the 25 best uniforms in the four major North American professional sports. [more inside]
Fear and Loathing in Amundsen-Scott Station
splash splash splash
LA BESTIA SCARLATTA CON SETTE TESTE
GET WELL SOON - Roland I Feel You (Vimeo, NSFW) is a music video that pays homage to Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ray Harryhausen, and Italian horror. Contains nudity and gore and zaniness.
This Will End in Tears
Overshooting faster
This month we've gone too far, we humans on Earth. "[H]umanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. We are now operating in overdraft." [more inside]
Another Shooting
The Onion reacts in real time to news undercutting a bitterly satiric headline.
The Man in Humpty Hump's Nose
Back in 1993, the hip hop group Digital Underground needed to release a single to promote their 4th album, the Body-Hat Syndrome, in the hopes they could recapture the magic of their two biggest hits, Humpty Dance and Doowutchyalike. Frontman Greg "Shock G" Davis (aka Humpty Hump) needed a gimmick to promote the new single, Return of the Crazy One, so he hired FM Productions in San Francisco (who had also designed flying pigs for Pink Floyd concerts) to create a 12-foot high sculpture of his own head, which would allow him to emerge from a trap door in the nostrils. Fast forward almost twenty years later, until a guy with the web handle johnny payphone finds the giant head abandoned and covered in dust in an Oakland warehouse after a homeless man attempted to live in it for several weeks. No museums have yet expressed interest in the head, but if you have the money, and you can take good care of it, the giant Humpty Hump head could be yours.
Nicholson Baker Sings!
A real animal
Uh oh! Everyone's favorite Internet cat, Lil Bub, took over BuzzFeed. Let's get ready to BUBFeed! (Bubstep sold separately) [more inside]
MENTOS BITCH!
65-year-old Bill Lee wins game
Bill "Spaceman" Lee wins a professional baseball game at 65. The former Red Sox pitcher and co-author of "The Wrong Stuff" went all nine innings for the San Rafael Pacifics of the North American League, beating the Maui Na Koa Ikaika by a score of 9-4. He also batted for himself and singled in a run. Take that, Roger Clemens!
Rolling in the Higgs
"I'm a harmony addict working on a master's in theoretical physics; what ELSE was I going to make a YouTube channel about?"
And so was born A Capella Science, brainchild of lifelong harmonics junkie and physics master's student Tim Blais. His first track, "Rolling in the Higgs (Adele parody)", takes on the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs boson.
A Compendium of Public-Domain Essays
The Soldier Who Vanished
Until that point, she had been questioned in English and German. But this time a different man spoke — in what she identified as perfect Hebrew. He was dark-skinned and had a thin face. “This interrogation was different from the ones that came before,” Keunecke said. “There was a sense of expectation. It was like a show, as if they wanted to see how we reacted to each other.” - The soldier who vanished: Guy Hever, a 20-year-old artilleryman, walked out of his base on the Golan Heights 15 years ago this week. Despite searches, half-sightings, clues and theories that stretch the imagination, he has not been heard from since
The bosses with the antennas on tap.
The Northern Cities Vowel Shift is radically changing the sound of English: Despite fears that the growth of TV and radio would homogenize English dialects in the US, the Great Lakes region (from Syracuse to Milwaukee) has been in fact diverging with respect to how people there pronounce English words. Rob Mifsud writes: Consider the three-letter words that begin with b and end in t: bat, bet, bit, bot, and but. All five of those words contain short vowel sounds. Their long-vowel equivalents—bate, beet, bite, boat, boot, and bout—arrived at their modern pronunciations as a result of the Great Vowel Shift that began around 1400 and established the basic contours of today’s English. But those short vowels have remained pretty much constant since the eighth century—in other words, for more than a thousand years. Until now. [more inside]
"Your password cannot be a personal statement."
The Count Is Down
Jerry Nelson, one of the major talents 'underneath' the Muppets, has passed away at the age of 78. [more inside]
Today: a one hundred year old package will be opened in Otta, Norway
Today: a one hundred year old package will be opened in Otta, Norway. (Scroll down for video with English subtitles). With obligatory live stream!
August 23
Colorful Cephalopod Musical Reactions
"No one but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money"
Tim Parks has two interesting articles at the NYRB: Does Money Make Us Write Better? and Does Copyright Matter?
Байконур
"... with the break-up of the Soviet Union, Baikonour, now part of Kazakhstan, had to be leased by Russia from the Kazakh government, and suddenly looks less and less like a long term solution to the future of space exploration."
One Direction Tumblerites vs the world
[Some links may contain images and language NSFW] An article on The Daily Dot (previously) about tinhatting, or the belief amongst certain fans that two celebrities are meant to be together but are being kept apart by nefarious forces, has sparked vitriol from the fans of the One Direction pairing known as Larry Stylinson. [more inside]
One Term More
Les Mis + political parody = One term more Soon Election Day will dawn,
We were meant to hold this seat!
At the ballot box of freedom,
Unemployment's in retreat!
Now the battle lines are drawn,
And Detroit's back on its feet!
Will you take your place with me!
The time is NOW the vote is NEAR!
One Term More!
Lance Armstrong ends his fight against the USADA
"There comes a point in every man's life when he has to say, "Enough is enough." For me, that time is now." Lance Armstrong ends his fight against the US Anti-Doping Agency. This will most likely lead to a lifetime ban from competitive sports and possibly the loss of his 7 Tour de France victories.
I love the T-Rex bit
Engineers at Rose Hulman design a pretty cool prosthetic arm for a kid according to his specs (4min, video). Looks like it's part of a program to connect students with kids in need that has produced similar projects in the past.
How to have a career: advice to young writers
"Be relentless. All over the world, people are working harder than you." Unsentimental advice from poet and memorist Sarah Manguso about building a career as a writer. (via FSG Work in Progress.)
Hubble's hidden treasures
Hubble's hidden treasures "Hubble has made over a million observations since launch, but only a small proportion are attractive images ... but the vast amount of data in the archive means that there are still many hundreds of beautiful images scattered among the valuable, but visually unattractive, scientific data that have never been enjoyed by the public. We call these pictures Hubble’s hidden treasures, and a few months ago, we invited the public to look through Hubble’s science archive to help us find them."
Manufacturing Company Becomes a Design Firm, Rips Off Designers?
Boingboing has the short version of a sad story in which some young independent designers have an unexpectedly successful Kickstarter for a novel idea for a pen. Young designers turn to Joiga, an American-Chinese manufacturing firm that "minimizes the risk of turning an idea into a market-ready product." Joiga underdelivers, causing massive delays for the designers. One year later, a new "men's gift" company offers a bad copy of the designers' pen made with the same plans at the same factories. The sad and sorry punchline? The manufacturing company and the men's gift company are run by the same guy, Allen Arseneau. Long version at Notcot.
"May you be reunited in the world to come with your ancestors, who were all socialist garment workers."
Yiddish Curses for Republican Jews (Single-link Jewish Humor)
We don't need your braaaaaaains
Fans of flora versus undead violence rejoice! Plants versus Zombies 2 has been announced for Spring 2013. However all is not well at PopCap games, with a recent layoff of 50 employees, or 10% of its staff, citing the increased popularity of Free-to-play, social and mobile games. Somewhat stickily amongst those reported laid off was Plants vs. Zombies creator George Fan.
I could stay awaaaake just to HEEEEEAR YOU BREEEEATHIIIN
Michael Guy Bowman covers Tricia Yearwood's How Do I Live and Aerosmith's I Don't Want To Miss A Thing. The music videos will be mostly incomprehensible if you haven't read Homestuck (previously 2 3). [more inside]
The Saga of Tim & Freya
The Saga of Tim & Freya : Comedian Janey Godley's real-time reportage of a breakup on a train. [more inside]
Camel Corps of the US Army: bringing a bit of the Middle East to the Southwest
The U.S. Camel Corps was a short-lived experiment run by the U.S. Army before the Civil War, the result of two decades of support for importing and utilizing the foreign pack animal by George H. Crosman and some of his friends and colleagues. More than 70 camels were brought from the Middle East and southern Europe, along with 5 camel drovers from Greece and Turkey, arriving in Texas in 1856. A select few of that bunch made the trek across "unexplored territory" from El Paso to the Colorado River, with camels faring the best among the group of men, horses, and mules. When James Buchanan became president in 1857, there were numerous changes in command, including the commander of the Army in Texas, who "was outraged when he discovered a herd of camels under his command." By the time the Civil War started, the Camel Corps was dissolved and forgotten, but both the animals and the drovers would leave their mark in the West. [more inside]
Is it curtains for Windows 8?
Some early reviews of Windows 8: "The worst computing experience I've ever had." "A technological, ideological and functional failure." "I’ve felt almost totally at sea — confused, paralyzed, angry, and ultimately resigned to the pain of having to alter the way I do most of my work." (previously) [more inside]
"...and breast cancer pink!"
Pizzapartment. (SLYT)
I know it can happen in the real world, because it sounds just like a video game
I had chosen a team to save that couldn't possibly be saved in real life. And here they were, in real life, being saved.
Brian Phillips of Run of Play, looks at the surreal fate of the real Pro Vercelli, the team he steered to footballing glory in Football Manager 3 years ago.
Brian Phillips of Run of Play, looks at the surreal fate of the real Pro Vercelli, the team he steered to footballing glory in Football Manager 3 years ago.
You down with DDT?
Ten vintage advertisements that definitely wouldn't fly today.
"Baruch, what's it like to be the first Jewish president?"
"It's true that my background is a bit convoluted, but let me try my luck at clarifying these matters once and for all. I was born in Oslo, Norway, the son of a Volvo factory worker and part-time ice-fisherman."
—Between Barack and a Hard Place: My First Hundred Days by Baroque Yo' Mama
A parody written by a young Barack Obama for the satirical Harvard Law Revue.
—Between Barack and a Hard Place: My First Hundred Days by Baroque Yo' Mama
A parody written by a young Barack Obama for the satirical Harvard Law Revue.
Wigs of Water
Fear of a Black President
Fear of a Black President. 'As a candidate, Barack Obama said we needed to reckon with race and with America’s original sin, slavery. But as our first black president, he has avoided mention of race almost entirely. In having to be “twice as good” and “half as black,” Obama reveals the false promise and double standard of integration.' An article by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
the mixtape recession
Who is the unknown Amsterdam sculptor?
The violin player in the Stopera. The man trying to catch the tram near the Marnixstraat. The little lumberjack. The fondled breast on the Oudekerksplein. The small, disappearing, reappearing bronze statue of a man lying on his back, in the same pose as Theo van Gogh was found after his murder. All bronze or iron statues found in Amsterdam which have one thing in common: nobody knows who made them. [more inside]
The ascending and descending trajectory of grunge typography
The Definitive Guide to the Medicare Debate
Ancient Siberian Tattoos
In Siberia, several frozen human burials dating to 2,500 years ago have intact skin with elaborate tattoos. Warning: link contains graphic pictures of dead people.
Magical Girls for Grownups
Six years ago, Hold Me Now -- an AMV for the anime Princess Tutu -- won best of show at Anime Boston. Edited to the song Håll Om Mig by Nanne Grönvall, it was enthusiastically passed around among anime fans, many of whom had never seen the show before and knew little or nothing about it. Princess Tutu has since gained moderate popularity, and many of its fans cite Hold Me Now as their motivation to seek it out. [more inside]
The Bain Files
"Gawker has obtained a large cache of confidential internal financial documents from more than 20 secretive hedge funds and other investment vehicles in which Mitt Romney has stashed his considerable wealth."
Ongoing attempts to digest and analyze the dense contents are here.
Rap It Up!
Ars Technica broke the news and Nintendo confirmed it. The 24-year run of propaganda rag and childhood staple Nintendo Power will end in December 2012. Kotaku has a eulogy from published Super Mario Bros. high-score holder Cliff Bleszinski. Here's another high scorer you may have heard of. And remember when a 15-year-old J. Scott Cambpell was featured in its pages? Meanwhile, the Penny Arcade Report credits Nintendo Power with introducing the JRPG to the West, Slate picks their favorite letters, and Tiny Cartridge reprints a bittersweet note from a 76-year-old gamer. Over on YouTube, Patrick Scott Patterson compiled a tribute video featuring an interview with beloved Nintendo employee, Game Master and president of the Nintendo Fun Club, Howard Philips. You might remember him from his starring role in Nintendo Power's comic Howard & Nester. Are you getting all nostalgic but your parents threw out your back issues ten years ago? Community scanning project Retromags has the hookup.
Since I Left You
12 Years ago, The Avalanches released the album Since I Left You. The Album, a dreamy mix of samples, turntablism, and live instrumentation was largely considered a masterpiece, appearing numerous "best of" lists. Anticipation of their follow up album has been going strong for over a decade, but in spite of teases, live dates, and mix tapes, nothing has materialized.
Until now. Last night, The Avalanches released a new demo called "Cowboy Overflow of the Heart," featuring a spoken word performance by The Silver Jews' David Berman.
Until now. Last night, The Avalanches released a new demo called "Cowboy Overflow of the Heart," featuring a spoken word performance by The Silver Jews' David Berman.
"What could possibly be wrong with this perfectly adorable X!"
In 1972, an early version of best-selling novelist Lois Gould's X: A Fabulous Children's Story was published in Ms. Magazine as part of its monthly "Stories for Free Children" feature. In 1978 it was expanded and turned into a wildly delightful children's book with a distinctive illustration style, critiquing gender expectations in infancy and childhood. The New York Times, for which she wrote, has more about her in her obituary, while Google Preview has some history on the publication of X, now in print only as part of the 2008 anthology Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children's Literature.
G B S
A girl upon the shore did ask a favour of the sea;For nearly 20 years, Newfoundland group Great Big Sea have been creating acoustic Celtic folk-rock covers and interpretations of traditional Newfoundland and Labrador sea shanties, folk, fishing and party songs, which draw from the island's rich 500-year-old multicultural (Irish, English, Scottish and French) heritage. [more inside]
"Return my blue eyed sailor boy safely back to me.
Forgive me if I ask too much, I will not ask for more,
but I shall weep until he sleeps safe upon the shore."
Also Mulvar approve message
A Macaque on the Loose in Tampa
What’s a Monkey to Do in Tampa? [SLNYT]
Annoyed Grunt
VianaArts on DA
SLDA Art, with a ballpoint pen.
The dolphins seem to like their slow, clumsy, furry buddy.
‘… So why were you doing it?’ I don’t even remember what I answered.
The S.H.A.M.E. Project
The S.H.A.M.E. Project. Featuring Adam Davidson (picked up by the New York Observer and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), Malcolm Gladwell (previously on Metafilter), Jeffrey Goldberg, Arianna Huffington, and Steven S. Levitt (of Freakonomics fame).
Noose Bouquet
Paul Mason of Newsnight writes in praise of bokeh.
August 22
Brick-and-mortar restaurants vs. food trucks.
There is growing discontent within the food service industry between brick-and-mortar restaurants and mobile food trucks. Many restaurants feel that the food trucks' mobility advantages take away their business and support cities enacting time-and-location restrictions on food trucks in order to "level the playing field." The food trucks argue that these time-and-location restrictions are unfair because they prohibit the food trucks from competing fairly.
In the Boston area, this discontent has been playing out in an ongoing feud between the Phantom Gourmet restaurant-reviewing brothers and the Staff Meal food trucks. [more inside]
In heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here
Even in the grips of the Great Recession, one industry's profits are bubbling up, pouring forth, and experiencing growth in market share, dollars spent, and profit: craft beer! [more inside]
Rappin' Ukes
Local businesses repair car following antigay vandalism.
Local businesses repair car following antigay vandalism. Quality Auto Paint and Body in Roanoke decided to help by getting together with several other local businesses and restored the car to better than it was from the start. [more inside]
William Thurston
"The real satisfaction from mathematics is in learning from others and sharing with others." William Thurston, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, has died. He revolutionized topology and geometry, insisting always that geometric intuition and understanding played just as important a role in mathematical discovery as did the austere formalism championed by the school of Grothendieck. Thurston's views on the relation between mathematical understanding and formal proof are summed up in his essay "On Proof and Progress in Mathematics." [more inside]
Bring on the roasted potatoes! Bring on the beaujolais!
The Annotated "Crisis On Infinite Earths"
Crisis on Infinite Earths was a 12-issue comic book maxi-series published in 1985 and 1986 in which DC Comics condensed their multiverse into a single universe, thus "simplifying" and "improving" it. Whether they succeeded in that goal is a good question, and one I shan't address. Crisis is, however, incredibly important to understanding DC continuity, as well as being possibly the most significant crossover series of all time.
"The world turns softly / Not to spill its lakes and rivers. / The water is held in its arms / And the sky is held in the water."
Three Nightsongs is a lovely choral work by Joshua Shank that puts three writings by the child-poet Hilda Conkling to music: Evening, Moon Song, and Water.
The 555 Timer IC
The simple but powerful 555 timer IC can be rigged to produce a timed pulse or a square-waveform oscillation up to 68kHz. It later came in dual-timer (556), quad-timer (558), military-grade (SE555), and low-power (7555) configurations. Although it's largely obsolete in commercial electronics, it became beloved of amateurs wanting an easy and cheap way to make things buzz or blink. In memory of the recent passing of its inventor, Hans Camenzind, Make Magazine offers a retrospective of 555 contest winners. Here's a tutorial on chip function from instructables. How to build a toy piano. The morse code practice circuit. Miniature beeping circuit prank to baffle your friends and co-workers and a screaming altoids tin.
(Previously on metafilter, the 555 footstool.)
The Internet's Gift to Cooking: Recipe Aggregators
Ice Cubes - A Recipe. The comments offer many helpful tips.
The Further Adventures Of Cube-Head
From BLENDO Games: Thirty Flights of Loving, the very strange sequel to the equally strange Gravity Bone. [more inside]
Don't try this at home
Art restoration is probably best left to the professionals, as vividly demonstrated by an elderly Spanish woman's unauthorized attempt to repair a damaged fresco, “Ecce Homo,” by painter Elias Garcia Martinez. The results speak for themselves.
Oliver Sacks on Drugs
Dragons, huh?
From The Nerdist - COPS: Skyrim
You Can NEVER Hold Back Spring
32,000 years ago, a squirrel buried some fruits from a flower related to the narrow-leafed campion in a riverbank in Russia. Either the squirrel forgot, or got eaten itself, and the buried cache of fruits stayed, preserved by the permafrost. This year, Russian scientists discovered the cache, recovered the fruit, and thawed it out to see if they could recover the seeds. Some of the seeds did indeed germinate - and this winter, millennia after first growing on their parent plant, those seeds bloomed.
"I don't know why the BBC won't release this stuff."
Doctor Who Online podcast interviews Ian Levine. In parallel with his career as a DJ and record producer who worked with Bananarama and the Pet Shop Boys, Levine was also a consultant on Doctor Who in the 80s and was instrumental in finding many missing episodes of the series. His latest projects include private reconstructions of unproduced or incomplete stories like Douglas Adams's Shada. The interview is three entertaining, if controversial hours [direct download link to episode one and to episode two].
Does Professor Wankerton have tenure?
Shadow of the Bust
Sony is closing its Liverpool Studio, previously known as Psygnosis, developer of the WipeEout and Lemmings games (DHTML version, previously). The studio created games for 28 years, first gaining attention in the Amiga era for it's high production values and stunning box art (more, more ).
Super VCS Bros.
Over at the AtariAge forums, user Sprybug has been coding an Atari 2600 Super Mario Bros. clone to run on the Harmony Cartridge. Some screenshots. The game running on the cartridge. The game running in an emulator. And some previous discussion on the difficulty of programming for the Atari 2600.
Lunch Box.
LunchBook won the 1st prize in the competition “Expopack” for the design of a paper lunch box for Expo Milan 2015, which is dedicated to food and sustainability. LunchBook is a recipe book made of paper dishes showing recipes from all over the world. The user can taste the food while walking among the Expo 2015 stands. Once a dish gets dirty, he can remove it and use the following dish. (via book patrol) [more inside]
You Always Wanted More Than I Could Give
A tale of science gone mad, global conspiracies, and the dangers of hubris. Drake, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye, Weezy, Birdman, Noah Shebib, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj in: Hottest Chick in the Game, a comic by Sean T. Collins, and Andrew White.
Stockholm Syndrome
Please visit Stockholm. We need more iPads. (SLYTHDTDT*)
*Single Link YouTube "How do they DO that?!" post.
Amazon Election Heat Map 2012
dinner time
maadth-saemie
maadth-saemie reprasentin! In Scandinavia, there's been a recent upswing of Saami culture, from Designers[2] to Art & Musicians. Once upon a time the land of the Saami, Sapmi existed in the north of scandinavia, stretching between Norway, Sweden & Finland, now it's reffered to as the heartland. The new consciousness relating to the Saami struggles[2][3][4] is much Thanks to artists such as Inga Juuso and Sofia Jannok who exist in the greyarea between politics and melody.
The poetry of life in motion
What does the world need? A spider. With claws.
It's a brand new nightmare fuel -- meet Mr. Clawed Cave Spider "When something touches their feet [their claws] may snap shut and seize their prey." Just look at this big guy who would love to drop in your hair as you spelunk in the caves of Southern Oregon! Oh hey those claws are BARBED too. So, totally will get caught in your hair.
Busta Rhymes: the James Brown of hip-hop, there's no use coming on stage after him
Busta Rhymes is back with his 9th studio album, Year of the Dragon. It's free* for a limited time from Google Play, and also available to stream and download from DatPiff**. If that wasn't enough, Google Play put together a 21 minute biographical documentary on Busta Rhymes, with Busta and some close collaborators talking about his last 20 years. [more inside]
a blend of sulfur and marshmallows
Researchers in the Earth Sciences and Art departments at Syracuse University melt basalt and make their own lava flows for science and art! Here's the project's homepage, including videos. via make blog
DON'T PANIC. (AGAIN.)
"America may well be in a fateful decline. But given that the country has survived a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, 9/11, and the quagmires of Vietnam and Iraq, is our current crisis proportionate to the doomsday hysteria—or have we lost perspective?"
Frank Rich, columnist for New York Magazine, explores the recurring phenomenon of declinist panic and our national tendency to burnish the past in "Mayberry R.I.P."
Life on board a British nuclear submarine
"One evening, I wander into the control room at about midnight. The watch officer and sonar operators are discussing an important philosophical question: would it be more painful to be struck by a whole tuna or a tin of tuna? This is never resolved. These epistemological issues can be sustained over weeks."
Guardian journalist Stephen Moss spends a week aboard HMS Triumph, a nuclear-powered Royal Navy fast-attack submarine, and picks up some slang while he's there. Photographer Gary Calton was also there to document life aboard the boat.
"It is a fragile and embarrassing moment before they disappear back into the woods."
Photographer Todd R. Forsgren works with ornithologists to safely capture striking images of birds in nets. [more inside]
Articulate it ain't thusly, Joseph
The Case of the Stolen Blanks — The real story behind the cheating scandal at the National Scrabble Championship.
The main African American character in the novel is referred to as a "beast-man."
It's about a year since the storied Weird Tales magazine (previously) got a new editor and sacked its staff (previously), so WT elected to celebrate that milestone by publishing some text from actress, film director, sometime blogger and new author Victoria Foyt's debut Revealing Eden: Save the Pearls. Some people have a problem with its content and its video. [more inside]
August 21
"There's a lot of other singers out there who don't sound anything like they talk ..."
Death Vessel is a modern folk band from Rhode Island. But mostly, it's Joel Thibodeau's astonishing soprano singing voice . [more inside]
Chicago's Murder Problem
With six homicides, Saturday August 18th tied with an unseasonably warm February day for the dubious honor of Chicago's deadliest day, bringing the year's death total to over 340. Chicago is now one of the world's deadliest cities, much worse than the more populous NYC, even earning comparisons to Kabul. Possible culprits include failed urban policies, guns, concentrated poverty, and gangs (and counterintuitively, the fact that some are fractured and poorly run).
"I don't know why I made the raccoons Irish, but it works."
Robin Williams in Concert:
An Evening with Robin Williams (1982)
A Night at The Met: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (1986)
Live on Broadway (2002)
Weapons of Self Destruction (2010) (Alternate link) [more inside]
An Evening with Robin Williams (1982)
A Night at The Met: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (1986)
Live on Broadway (2002)
Weapons of Self Destruction (2010) (Alternate link) [more inside]
If you lived here, you'd be unheimlich now
Computer modeling, along with new materials, has done wonders for contemporary architecture, allowing practitioners to render seemingly organic shapes from inert materials. Mimicking biological shapes could soon cross a threshold: behold Shahira Hammad's proposal for the Westbahnhof train station. Again, before and after.
But if the same tendency is maintained ...
With Rio hosting the 2016 Olympics, a series of ads for a little-known sport have appeared: Rugby: It Will Be Big In Brazil (Youtube) [more inside]
Moe Howard
Moe Howard on the Mike Douglas show:
Niagra
With Ted Knight
With Ted Knight, part 2
Maharaja of Poon
Moe talking about Curly
The hair
College Bound
Over the past few weeks, I, along with ten of my closest friends, have taken turns saying our goodbyes to our college bound kids. For some of us, this was a virgin voyage; for others, it was the beginning of an empty nest. [more inside]
This Warrior's Dream
The drawings of Ron Franciere circa 1962-1988 — "Ron Franciere was something of a mystery to me. Ran into many dead ends trying to find information on him. I posted some images on my website Bighappyfunhouse. I received emails that held a few stories of Ron and his life - but nothing ever lead me to contacting Ron Franciere. Then, I received an anonymous comment on my website."
28 seconds. Living to write about it.
Ex Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant (previously previously previously) reveals struggle with alcoholism, and his thoughts on cyclist's death in new memoir, 28 Seconds. CBC radio "The Current" interview, and CTV tv interview. Allan Sheppard, the deceased's father, asks people to scrutinize Bryant's story.
Agent Scully needs a few good Gentlepersons
Mefi's own Mightygodking takes the April Fool's joke from Comics Alliance ( previously ) to the logical next step with The League Of Extraordinary Gentlepersons: 1996.
They had a Carl Sagan, too
Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa (1928-2012) , scientist, television personality, pacifist. The son of a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, Kapitsa's research drifted from physics into demography and mathematical population modeling, having spoken alongside Sagan in the Club of Rome. Kapitsa is better known, however, as the host of Evident, but incredible, which catapulted him into the figure of a public ambassador of science and eventually the longest-running television host in the history of Russia. Kapitsa also left a minor mark as a filmmaker, with his "Sea of Japan" arriving second to Jacques Cousteau in Cannes.
Pretty Numbers
The Information Is Beautiful 2012 Awards shortlist has been announced. Featuring lists categorized by
- Infographic infodesign
- Data visualisation
- Interactive visualisation
- Data journalism
- Motion infographic
- Tool or website
Welcome to the National Hobo Convention
Every year since 1900, Britt, Iowa, has played host to the National Hobo Convention. In 2008, CBS sent a camera crew. The main event at the four day convention is selecting the Hobo King and Queen. Meanwhile, no one knows where the word 'hobo' originally came from.
The Breaking Bad Art Project
The Breaking Bad Art Project is on exhibit at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles through August 26. [more inside]
A Tweet by Tweet Account of Madness and Pathos in the Air
How To Deal With An “Unruly Passenger” On A Cross Country Flight An independent film producer on a flight from New York to L.A. shares his conversation with a man who was so unstable that the plane had to land early in Denver.
From Reddit subreddit to Amazon bestseller.
"Penpal" - from Reddit subreddit to Amazon bestseller. When Dathan Auerbach, aka 1000vultures, posted the first in a series of beautifully told tales making sense of his unsettling childhood memories on the Reddit subreddit NoSleep ["a place where people post horror stories; there, 'everything is true, even if it isn’t'"], he could have had no idea that by May of this year he would have a Kickstarter project completed and be on the Amazon bestseller lists with Penpal and a range of beautifully produced artwork. [more inside]
Put down the stretcher. You have twelve seconds to comply.
Guardian/Greenwald: US drones are coming back after initial attacks to target first-responder rescuers.
Class of 2016: Mindset
Beloit College examines the cultural backdrop and assumptions of those new college freshpeople headed for, or currently wandering their new college home: Class of 2016 Mindset List
Why climbing should be in the Olympics
An oral history of White Men Can't Jump
You know who really gives kids a bad name?
The award for the best jokes at this year's Edinburgh Fringe has been given to Canadian comic Stewart Francis for this joke:
"You know who really gives kids a bad name?.. [more inside]
Illustrated Covers of British Vogue from 1909 Through 1940
The Art of Vogue Covers details the illustrated covers of British Vogue from 1909 through 1940, including the entire collection of covers between 1920-1930. Most of the work showcased is by seasoned Vogue illustrators Helen Dryden, Georges Lepap, Harriett Maserol, George Plank and Eduardo Benito amongst others. Look for continuing additions at the Flickr set. This is literally just the tip of the iceberg.
"A Polish Village's Secret"
"A farming town hid a Jewish-born teacher during the Holocaust. I went to dig up what it had buried."
Though I grew up in America, I have been visiting my family in Poland since I was a child. But it is only recently, since the great debate began two years ago between [Jan] Gross and [Timothy] Snyder over the causes and extent of Polish co-operation with the Nazis during the Holocaust, that I thought to ask the old people of my family village about what happened during the war. My grandparents mentioned bits and pieces of our family’s World War II history over the years, but it often seemed too painful for them to recall, or as though they wanted the memories to simply be forgotten. When I finally decided to broach the topic with them, my grandmother repeated that she didn’t understand why I cared to dig so deep into the past, why I cared so much about Wladyslaw and his story.[more inside]
Facts Didn't Get In Their Way
Leave It to DEVO
Yarmulke Tan Line
I want to plural, to discuss not the novel but novels, not the future, but futures.
Cynthia Ozick on Henry James: The Lesson of the Master
Cynthia Ozick on Henry James: The Lesson of the Master: ...in earlier days I felt I had been betrayed by Henry James. I was like the youthful writer in “The Lesson of the Master” who believed in the Master’s call to live immaculately, unspoiled by what we mean when we say “life”—relationship, family mess, distraction, exhaustion, anxiety, above all disappointment.
Nasty, Brutish, and Blocky
Minecraft by itself may represent a post-scarcity world, but one poster at the official Minecraft forums conducted a test of what would happen if you took 30 players and constrained their available resources. The Closed Map Experiment. [more inside]
Zombee Watch!!!
Quantum Graphity
The start of the Universe should be modeled not as a Big Bang but more like water freezing into ice, according to a team of theoretical physicists at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. Results published this month in Physical Review D (abstract) (via ABC Science). [more inside]
"...and some feature the Troopers just fooling around."
David Eger's Cloned Photos recreate famous pictures with Star Wars action figures and imagery. [via]
My Money's on Nolan
Christopher Nolan (mentioned previously) has been a divisive maker of movies. Some have lauded him as "the only working auteur" while others, like David Cronenberg ,and those that agree with him, tend to think he is a mere maker of entertaining genre flicks. Film scholar, David Bordwell, explains why both arguments have merit.
Your Passwords Are Much Weaker Than You Think
Why passwords have never been weaker—and crackers have never been stronger. Ars weighs in on the amazing advances the bad guys have made in password cracking over the last few years. Think you know how to choose something that's safe? The probability is quite high that you don't, even if you're technically ept. [more inside]
Just in case puberty wasn't horrifying enough
The scarily honest animated facts of life for teens A disturbingly blunt and beautifully animated short film about the horrifying changes brought about by puberty. Part of the "Teen Facts" exhibit at the NEMO Science Center in Amsterdam. (via everlasting blort)
I'm thinking we might need a new law of robotics.
The EOL Robot band (previously), consisting chiefly of repurposed obsolete computer equipment, has learned some new songs. Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger". The House of the Rising Sun. Little Drummer Boy.
Mars Wiggles
Mars Wiggles Enhancing Curiosity's imagery from Mars using the wiggle stereoscopy effect. [via mefi projects]
August 20
The Yummy Fur
If you only have three minutes to spend on this post, listen to this song.
The Yummy Fur was an unfairly obscure Scottish art-rock group active from 1992-1999. The group is best known for having two band members who currently comprise half of Franz Ferdinand, but that says little about the Yummy Fur proper. The group has a low-fi, angular, sound with mostly-spoken lyrics - the most familiar analogue might be the verses from Pavement's "Stereo" [more inside]
SwissAir 111
Radio contact ceased. Temperatures in the cockpit were rising precipitously; aluminum fixtures began to melt. It's possible that one of the pilots, or both, simply caught fire. At air-traffic control in Moncton, the green hexagon flickered off the screen. There was silence. They knew what was coming: the huge fuck, the something terrible. God save them. One controller began trembling, another wept.
It was falling.
Six minutes later, SR111 plunged into the dark sea.
Could advances in AI make up for a lack of advances in generating and manipulating energy?
In the Game of Thrones You Meow or You Cry
Fan versions of the Game Of Thrones theme are not unknown to YouTube, but here is
a cat singing the Game of Thrones opening theme thanks to modern wizardry. [more inside]
Victorian values
Duet for saw and coyote
Anna Akhmatova
Akhmatova's work ranges from short lyric poems to intricately structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935–40), her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her style, characterised by its economy and emotional restraint, was strikingly original and distinctive to her contemporaries. The strong and clear leading female voice struck a new chord in Russian poetry. Her writing can be said to fall into two periods – the early work (1912–25) and her later work (from around 1936 until her death), divided by a decade of reduced literary output. Her work was condemned and censored by Stalinist authorities and she is notable for choosing not to emigrate, and remaining in Russia, acting as witness to the atrocities around her. [more inside]
The World Will Know!
There's kids farmed through juvenile detention centers for profit, oppressive corporate barons, and young people striking and occupying New York City to protest social injustice. The corporate overlords try to use the NYPD and private goons to break up the movement, but they can't stop the Tony-winning choreography. Wait, what? Newsies is a record breaking Disney musical based on the flop-turned-cult favorite 1992 film starring a young Christian Bale. [more inside]
My guy rode an excitebike
The Games We Play. [SLYT] And you thought you were the only one.
Guess St. Peter needed a good laugh
Phyllis Diller, dead at 95 I encountered her first on Scooby Doo and I discovered how funny she really was as an adult. She was on the Ed Sullivan show in 1969 and she sounded just as fresh and full of sass in an interview I heard taped last year.
Let There Be Light
"A post-World War II documentary, banned by the military in 1946 but lately released online, is one of the earliest depictions of psychotherapy." Let There Be Light, a film by John Huston. [more inside]
It was totes planned. Fer realz.
"Waking up married after a drunken Vegas weekend used to be an adventure reserved for one man and one woman. But thanks to a new law, athlete Brady Kelly and actor Cheeks find themselves unexpectedly and legally wed. Unwilling to undermine the hard-fought battle with a public quicky divorce, these two decide to make a go of it. They were doing okay when they were dating. But how will it work out, now that they are HUSBANDS?"
The hilarious web-series by Jane Espenson and Brad Bell enters its second season, with cameos by pretty much everyone you love.
Spectrum: New American Music 1968-1974
Spectrum: New American Music was a series of five LPs released by Nonesuch between 1968 and 1974, featuring works by composers like Stefan Wolpe, George Rochberg, and Milton Babbitt, performed by Arthur Weisberg's Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Nonesuch released a Spectrum compilation on CD in the 1990s; everything that's not on the CD is available at Internet Archive (Part 2), courtesy of the Avant Garde Project. [more inside]
Jumbo Fingerprints Made From Random Stuff
And miles to go before I sleep.
Leading a struggling Kickstarter campaign is not a fate I would wish upon my worst enemy. The project consumes your every waking moment (and dreams) with a constant whine of stress. [...] There's nothing worse than when your Kickstarter dries up like that. People avoid making eye contact with you. [...] It's a time of quiet reflection and common questions: "Are you guys going to be okay?" "Think you'll try again?" and "I hear Zynga is hiring."How Camouflaj saved République's Kickstarter
The journey from Sputnik to Mir (and all the dead ends in between)
Red Star in Orbit is a three-part BBC documentary about the history of the Soviet space program, originally broadcast in 1990 as part of the ongoing series Horizon. Based on a book by American space historian and NASA vetran James Oberg, who features prominently in the program, Red Star in Orbit was filmed and assembled while the slow collapse of the USSR was already underway. The filmmakers were given an unprecedented amount of access to active Cosmonauts, veterans of the program and to Star City itself. [more inside]
"And if you look inside a mirror, it becomes you-colored."
The science behind intermittent fasting
The benefits of fasting have been covered before on Metafilter, but a new BBC documentary (discussed by the presenter Dr Michael Mosley in the Telegraph here) looking at the science behind fasting seems to show that the evidence supporting fasting’s general health benefits beyond weight loss are growing.
How to Eat a Watermelon
How to Eat a Watermelon Tutorial (SLYT) was made by Tom Willett, a 74 year old semi-retired comedian, musician, and actor. Willett's personal website, Comedy Parade, includes style and character-building tips for budding comedians, interspersed with tributes to comedians he admires. This recent interview with Willett comes off the heels of the watermelon eating tutorial video's viral success.
When asked why he continues to film videos of his skits, comedic news broadcasts and songs instead of “retiring,” he said it‘s because he hasn’t changed from the 14 year old who decided to throw all of his ambition into being an entertainer. “I’m basically the same person I was when I was 14 — inside. I haven‘t changed what I like and I never do what you’re supposed to do. I do what feels right.”
click-click whirrr, click-bang whirr
"For NOLA-shot 'Looper' soundtrack, composer [Nathan Johnson] relies on the music of munitions." (last two links contain embedded video)
Reality has a well-known liberal bias
Can the Government Require Doctors to Provide Misleading Information to Patients Seeking Abortions? A Federal Appeals Court Says No, but Means Yes. [more inside]
Terra Nova, formerly Incognito
In a twist worthy of a bestseller or blockbuster, the remains of the shipwrecked Terra Nova have been identified just off the coast of Greenland, just in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Scott's ill-fated attempt to become the first man to reach the south pole.
On 6 June 1911 Robert Falcon Scott, who was born in Plymouth, celebrated his 43rd birthday at the south pole expedition base camp at Cape Evans. On 29 March 1912 he and his companions finally starved and froze to death in their tent, 11 miles from a supply cache, on the march back from discovering that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them to the pole.
August 19
Tony Scott, 1944-2012
Tony Scott, younger brother of Ridley Scott, is perhaps best known for directing True Romance, but he had a long career making action films that had verve and a pulse, including an ongoing collaboration with Denzel Washington. His last film, Unstoppable, was one of his biggest critical and commercial hits, earning him widespread praise as the consummate mainstream Hollywood stylist. He committed suicide today at age 68.
"Gypsy" is a racial slur.
The Romani people would like you to please stop using the word 'gypsy' now (or even wear 'gypsy' tattoos) as it is a racial slur connected to past and present persecution. This is not 'gypsy'; this is Romani. [more inside]
Science; we should ban that too.
When a single politician says something insane, we tend to write it off as the mutterings of a feeble mind. But when there is a long history of anti-abortion politicians saying that women can't be impregnated when raped, then perhaps it's not just a new tactic in the War on Women, but a renewed attack on science-based reality.
banana slicer
"Forget the actual product. What you want to read is the comments." As said by a friend who pointed this out. Boy howdy was she right.
The Cause of the Formation of Meanders in the Courses of Rivers and of the So-Called Baer’s Law
Youngest person to swim across Lake Ontario
Ms. Attribution
It's like Jean-Paul Sartre said: "I swear to God I'm going to pistol-whip the next guy who says 'Shenanigans'." Images which misattribute pop-culture quotes and song lyrics to famous historical figures. [via mefi projects]
W.D. Richter's "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension"
... Buckaroo Banzai is paradoxically decades ahead of its time and yet completely of its time; it’s profoundly a movie by, for, and of geeks and nerds at a time before geek/nerd culture was mainstreamed, and a movie whose pre-CG special effects and pre-Computer Age production design were an essential part of its good-natured enthusiasm. What at the time was a hip, modern take on classic SF is now, almost thirty years later, almost indistinguishable from the SF cinema that inspired it in terms of the appeal to modern viewers: the charmingly old-fashioned special effects, and the comparatively innocent earnestness of its tone. - Danny Bowes [more inside]
The End of Sex?
Science is Rewriting the Rules of Reproduction Aarathi Prasad's new book investigates taking sex out of the reproduction equation. [more inside]
There is a house in New Orleans
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one.
[more inside]
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one.
[more inside]
Silenced All His Life
Crikey: "Like most egomaniacs who style themselves as prophets in the wilderness, Smith asserts that there’s been a media conspiracy to suppress his views." While the advertisement insert was rejected by News Ltd. it was carried by the Fairfax media is available online (PDF) - Dick Smith's Magazine of Forbidden Ideas That You Won't Read About in the Mainstream Media.
Isn't this the library?
Yomiko Readman is a librarian with amazing paper-manipulating abilities who works for a secret division of the British library, when she isn't a substitute schoolteacher. The division, run by the ancient Mr. Gentleman, is in charge of collecting and monitoring rare books throughout the world. And that's where the trouble starts. The R.O.D. world started with the first of 12 novels in 2000, followed by a manga series and then a three episode OVA (original video animation, usually short direct-to-video series). Each format covers different stories, with the OVA being the most dramatic, opening with a seemingly magical samurai attacking the White House. The samurai is an artificial human clone (or I-Jin in R.O.D.) of Hiraga Gennai, Edo-era samurai, pharmacologist, writer and inventor, showing off a greatly improved electrostatic generator. There are two more episodes in the OVA, then two further spin-offs: Read or Dream manga, which follows the three unrelated young ladies who can manipulate paper and work together in the Paper Sisters Detective Company; and the 26 episodes of R.O.D the TV, a series about three actual sisters with the power to control paper. [more inside]
You think you can keep up with me, world? Well you can't. Because I'm too damn FANTASTIC.
From Ryan Armand, author of the beautiful watercolor comic Minus, comes the story of a man who decides one day to be GREAT. Involves ramen, romance, gang warfare. Highly recommended.
Hearty Baby Stew
"It must be something we haven't seen yet..."
“When Jim first came to me with this idea of putting two guys inside a giant alien queen suit,” Winston admitted, “I thought, ‘This man is out of his mind.’ Nothing like that had been done before. But in the next moment, I realized that if he had imagined it, we could probably do it.” - How Stan Winston and Jim Cameron built the Alien Queen. Original creature creature H.R. Giger was disapointed not to be involved, leading to this letter from Cameron.
Melky Cabrera Phony Website
"Facing a 50-game suspension for doping, San Francisco Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera created a phony website and a fake product in an attempt to dodge the ban by proving he inadvertently ingested a banned substance, according to a report."
You Gotta Admit She's Persistent
Diana Nyad is in the water again, trying to swim from Cuba to Florida. The "badass endurance swimmer," now 62 years old, is making her third recent attempt (after one try years ago), chalking it up to a persistent, competitive ego, despite her age. Among the biggest challenges she'll face: jellyfish and sharks. Twitter feed here.
(previously, and previouslyer)
"Very good, sir. Should I lay out your crazy adventure garb?"
What If Other Authors Had Written The Lord Of The Rings? ...Wilde, Wodehouse, and more.
Lost Psychedalia
New York based AutoSalvage put out one album in 1968, and then disappeared. The instrumentation on the brilliant self titled album included krummhorn, recorder, banjo and dulcimer.
The band, which first formed in 1966, was "discovered" by Frank Zappa when the Mothers of Invention toured the East Coast in 1967. He liked their song "AutoSalvage" and encouraged them to use the title as their band name. They were signed by RCA Victor and put out one single followed by their album. The record was recorded at the RCA studio on the new 1' 8 Track machine.They disbanded after a mere year and a half, a great psychedelic band on the wrong coast,
Members included RickTurner, now a well-known luthier. Other cuts from the album include Land of Their Dreams and the psychjangle Medley: The Great Brain Robbery, Glimpses Of The Next World's World
Out of all the rocks on Mars
The Curiosity rover is preparing to use its rock vaporizing laser for the first time, on a rock labelled as N165. Rock N165 has a twitter account. People are chatting to it.
cognates from Lithuanian to Sanskrit and Greek
A day of disaster
The Day Britain Stopped - Back in 2003 a train strike was the first in a chain of events that lead to a complete meltdown of the UK's transport system. [more inside]
August 18
US windpower milestone, 50GW powers 13M homes
While you'd never know from the US media, the US wind energy industry has breezed past a 50GW milestone. That's enough to power 13 million homes, according to the American Wind Energy Association. [more inside]
Look to the skies. The flying saucers will always be there.
In the mid-1950s, Dickie Goodman was a struggling song writer working with song publisher Bill Buchanan, when the two men came up with the idea of a fake radio program interrupted by a UFO attack (similar to the hoax Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds), except in this case, the aliens spoke the language of rock 'n' roll. The result was Flying Saucer, Parts 1 and 2 on Luniverse Records, the first novelty break-in record and a forerunner to the modern mashup. [more inside]
Capturing a scene at trillion frames per second
Top 10 Hardest Adventure Games
Until We Win's LordKat, who sounds like Anthony Bourdain, looks back in anger (and fondness) on the Top 10 Hardest Adventure Games. [more inside]
Otzi was More Neanderthal than You
Ötzi the Iceman died around 3,300 B.C., yet his body was preserved frozen in the Alps until 1991. DNA sequencing of Neandertals (who died out about 35,000 years ago) suggests modern humans with ancestry outside of Africa carry a few percent of Neandertal genes due to interbreeding. Now (in a blog post knocking down a re-interpretation of the Neandertal DNA evidence) paleontologist John Hawks previews an upcoming publication of his examining Ötzi's DNA::
If we took as a baseline that Europeans have an average of 3.5 percent Neandertal, Ötzi would have around 5.5 percent (again, the actual percentage would be highly model-dependent). He has substantially greater sharing with Neandertals than any other recent person we have ever examined.Previously (Ötzi), Previously (Neandertals)
a ball of fire
Mars: Adrift on the Hourglass Sea
Mars: Adrift on the Hourglass Sea. Desolation and the Sublime on a Distant Planet. Mars-inspired artwork, commisioned by NASA, by Kahn & Selesnick (previously). [Via]
WE’RE YOUR BEST GIRLFRIEND AND YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE
Right now Baltimore, MD plays host to FemmeCon, a biannual gathering for those who "seek to explore, discuss, dissect, and support Queer Femme as a transgressive, gender-queer, stand-alone, and empowered identity and provide a space for organizing and activism within Queer communities". Some of the issues faced by queer femme culture include femme invisibility in larger queer culture, the lack of non-stereotypical role models, being classed 'femme' by default, dismissal as "too much", as well as intersectional issues of femme with race, gender, and disability. In the meantime, femme subcultures such as tomboy femme, hard femme, and FEMME SHARKS as well as femmes in specific regions come together for inspiration, expression, power, creativity and support from each other - as well as from appreciative butches.
Reverse Cameo Effect
Dispruting the Squishy
Got the homepage blues? Rebel Mouse is here to save the day. Former Huffington Post CTO, Paul Berry, has launched what looks like a digital newspaper of your on-line social life. While the website only allows for Facebook and Twitter integration at launch, Instagram and Tumblr will be integrated.
Personalized aggregation of your content presented in way that makes it easy for others to subconsciously consume multi-dimensional social networking.
How about that youngster?
New Star Soccer lets you create a football player, choose his nationality and lead him to glory from the age of 16 until he retires. You can play it on your computer (Kongregate), on Android or on iOS. Critics love it and half a million downloads have drawn further attention to the game and the reasons for its success. (Eurogamer, Edge) [more inside]
No longer in the game?
Electronic Arts allegedly in talks to sell to private equity; would "do a deal for $20 a share". [NYP] [Int. Business Times]. The markets appear to think there's at least some substance to the rumour, as EA shares jumped more than 7% to $14 in early trades on Thursday morning and have remained at around $13.75. [Google Finance chart]
RT if you're the big kahuna
Twiplomacy is the first-ever global study of world leaders on Twitter. The governments of almost two-thirds of the 193 UN member countries have a presence on Twitter: 45% of the 264 accounts analysed are personal accounts of heads of state and government, but just 30 world leaders tweet themselves and very few on a regular basis.
This study shows that while the social network invites direct interaction between users, few world leaders take advantage of this opportunity to develop connections.
Bank of Canada bans image of Asian-looking woman from new $100 bills over ethnicity criticism
The Bank of Canada has changed the design of its new $100 bill after receiving numerous comments from focus groups that the woman pictured looked like she was of Asian descent. [more inside]
"Nature means necessity."
First Evidence Found for Photosynthesis in Insects: [nature.com] "The biology of aphids is bizarre: they can be born pregnant and males sometimes lack mouths, causing them to die not long after mating. In an addition to their list of anomalies, work published this week indicates that they may also capture sunlight and use the energy for metabolic purposes."
hulk go hole
"Now that the Hulk has closed his eyes, shoved wax down his ears and is holding his nose, he is immune to the attacks of the space-ants. No, really. Just picture that scene for a moment and be glad that it didn't find its way into any of the Hulk movies." VGJunk takes a look at the baffling Incredible Hulk text adventure game. [more inside]
Just For The Fun Of It
Collector's Weekly offers us a history of the condom in the United States.
(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang
"Reagan's president elect...." 30+ years ago Heaven 17 released their first single, (WE DON'T NEED THIS) FASCIST GROOVE THANG. Stop your good time dancing, 'cause here they are three decades later (still) performing it at Abbey Road studio and sounding pretty fine. Turn volume up before playing.
Look At How Many Fake Followers The Most Popular People On Twitter Have
We decided to have a little fun with the app and see how many fake followers vocal celebrities on Twitter have. "Earlier this week we discovered Status Group's new app that allows users to find out how many fake Twitter followers you and your friends have.
We decided to have a little fun with the app and see how many fake followers vocal celebrities on Twitter have."
This gun's bullets will only pierce the flesh of your TRUE LOVE!
The webcomic A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible published a total of 41 strips over the course of two years – but each strip was a masterpiece, visually stunning and weirdly hilarious. It hasn't been updated since 2006 (author Dale Beran writes a new comic with similarly methodical updates), but recently its creators confirmed a new strip is on the way. Artist David Hellman (also known for his work on gorgeous video game Braid) has been sharing sketches of the new strip, and last week shared a video on Facebook showing the process of developing the new strip's layout. [more inside]
'Catch Me If You Can'
"When Robert Wood Jr. disappeared in a densely forested Virginia park, searchers faced the challenge of a lifetime. The eight-year-old boy was autistic and nonverbal, and from his perspective the largest manhunt in state history probably looked like something else: the ultimate game of hide-and-seek." [more inside]
August 17
Hungarian majesty
Georges Cziffra warms up for the BBC, mixing improvisation with a bit of the first Chopin étude. [more inside]
Le Caméléon
On June 13, 1994, blond-haired, blue-eyed Nicholas Barclay was reported missing from his home near San Antonio, Texas. He was 13 years old. In October 1997, the family received a call from a man in Spain informing them their son had been found after having escaped from a child prostitution ring.
Nicholas' half-sister immediately boarded a flight to Spain, where she was reunited with her brother and brought him back with her to Texas. There were a few things though, that seemed a bit off... [more inside]
The beginning of tyranny.
Last year, The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's Law School released a report (pdf) detailing new, more restrictive state laws that affect voting rights and are likely to impact the outcome of the 2012 elections. The restrictions "fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities." On August 3rd, 2012, they updated their analysis with a pdf of passed and pending State government legislation. Their conclusion: after a century in which the United States "expanded the franchise and knocked down myriad barriers to full electoral participation... that momentum [has] abruptly shifted." [more inside]
the Thai jakae
I just stumbled upon some Thai music performed on an instrument I hadn't heard of until just now. But the curious machine-gun rhythm patterns are kinda rocking my world. It was uploaded to YT yesterday, and at the moment has a big FIVE views. And I think two of those are mine. Anyway, here it is: เดี่ยวจะเข้ [ Jakae solo ] : ครูทองดี สุจริตกุล [ Khru Thong-dee Sucharitkul ]. Now, here's another, apparently by the same lady. She's got a seriously percussive, take-no-prisoners approach to the instrument. But in neither of those clips do we see the instrument being played. So I looked around some more, and found this one, and though this guy's style is not quite as, um, *punk*, it's still pretty badass, and you get the visual idea of what the instrument is all about, not to mention the all-important twin-percussion backing. Hope you enjoy this little glimpse into the world of the Thai jakae.
I think peeing on the broom is fun :(
Excuse me, what time is it? I want to be able to remember the exact moment I posted this.
Shoguns at the Sphinx, 1864
Ten years after Commodore Matthew Perry first visited Japan with four war ships and a letter from President Fillmore, Japan sent out a third Embassy to Western Nations (following the first Japanese Embassy to the United States in 1860, and the first Japanese Embassy to Europe in 1862). The third tour had the same goal as the first two: learn about Western cultures, and try to postpone the opening of Japanese ports to foreign trade. During that third tour, the group were on their way to France when they stopped in Egypt. On this stop, the members of the mission were photographed posing before the Sphinx, dressed in winged kamishimo costume and jingasa hats, carrying their feared long (katana) and short (wakizashi) swords. [more inside]
Who asked you, you turkeys?
Man Gobbles at Turkeys, Turkeys Gobble Back. A heartwarming SLYT of interspecies communication for Friday afternoon.
Get a Little Bit of Colour
"Bronzer was offered up to me in make-up stores when I started painting my face for fun, as consultants tutted over my unfortunate foundation match: invariably ’00’, ‘porcelain’, or some other snide euphemism for melaninically challenged." Memoirs of a Ghost; or, being pale in a world where only tanned is beautiful. [more inside]
The Love That Won't Shut Up
On Halloween night 1992, a skinny, gravel-voiced man in a blue dress and horn-rim glasses took the stage at a tiny Atlanta dive bar/strip club along with his band, The Opal Foxx Quartet (which was not a four-piece; around a dozen people crowded the dark, low-ceilinged space). This would be their final show, and it's a barn-burner. [more inside]
Johannes Vermeer's "Woman Holding A Balance"
Assemble the Statue
Note the erupting volcano at the bottom of the glass.
Totnes: the town that declared war on Costa Coffee
"Like a lot of locals, he says that one of his big fears is Costa serving notice that Totnes is ready to be colonised, and sparking the arrival of Caffe Nero, Subway and all the rest." A town declares war on Costa Coffee.
Electric! Copen! International orange!
Evocative definitions of colors in Webster's Third New International Dictionary and how they got there. [more inside]
August 2012 shooting at Family Research Council
Two days ago in Washington, D.C. a gunman walked into the offices of the Family Research Council and fired a shot. He was carrying over a dozen Chick-Fil-A sandwiches and allegedly complained about the FRC's conservative politics before shooting a security guard. [more inside]
You know, I think I'm too lazy to change all this back to normal, that's the real issue.
Little brother hacked your Facebook profile? Redecorate his room for a teenage girl. In Dutch, with subtitles. [SLYT]
Ballet Zoom into your consciousness
There is very little English-language information on the dance troupe Ballet Zoom aside from this post on GoRetro. But more information is not needed to enjoy their performances involving psychedelic cats, psychedelic see-saws, psychedelic vampires, psychedelic "tribal" dances, and psychedelic psychedelic. [more inside]
You wouldn't steal a policeman's helmet
SurfTheChannel.com: A Very British Miscarriage Of Justice is a [long - here's an Ars Technica summary] account of the MPAA's investigation of SurfTheChannel's owner Anton Vickerman and the ensuing court case. It was published on http://surfthechannel.com/, but that's now down and given English libel law it probably isn't coming back up. It is, frankly, a harrowing read, although FACT argue to the Guardian that much of what was stated is biased.
Erik Davis' Expanding Mind on the Progressive Radio Network is three years old
Erik and his co-host Maja D'Aoust have a weekly internet radio interview show which might be described as psychedelically eclectic covering a variety of fringe subculture topics including drugs, mysticism, music, literature, Burning Man, comic books. Amongst their more recognizable guests have been: Alan Moore (on his ties to America's founding fathers), Christof Koch (on consciousness, neuroscience, and paramecium sex), Elliot Wolfson (on dreams and Kabbalah), Lee Gilmore (on his Burning Man book Theater in a Crowded Fire), and Gary Lachman (on mystic Jung, playing in Blondie, and getting thrown out of David Bowie's apartment). [more inside]
Judging a book by the cover
Hurry Hurry
Hurry Hurry (YouTube) is the single on Boston band Air Traffic Controller's (Official Site) new album NORDO (SoundCloud). It's an insistent, catchy, exuberant anthem to all those who feel like no matter how fast they run, life runs faster. It absolutely nails the sensation of pushing oneself to the point of destruction while simultaneously feeling as though one is falling farther and farther behind. It will also lodge itself deep inside your brain and refuse to stop playing, so be warned. [more inside]
"I think she’s just a miracle.”
On August 5th, 2012 in London's North Greenwich Arena, 37-year-old Oksana Chusovitina placed 5th in Women's Vault. Thus ended her sixth Summer Olympics as a competitor, more than any other female gymnast in the history of the games. “Am I old? I don’t feel old,” Chusovitina said in Russian, through a translator, as if answering a ridiculous question. “I’m not doing anything amazing. I’m just like everybody else here.” [more inside]
Cul de Sac reaches a dead end.
Cul de Sac, (previously) generally considered the best newspaper comic strip of recent years (and which may be the last great newspaper comic strip) will end next month, due to the worsening Parkinson's of creator Richard Thompson. His illness had previously motivated an impressive artistic show of support from all kinds of comics artists (newspaper strips, editorial cartoons, magazine illustrations, webcomics and one guy who hadn't done much lately) (previously) I, for one, hope he gets to spend some time hanging out with Bill W.
bUD uGGLY Wab Design
The self-made man
Nearly a decade ago, Sun Jifa lost his hands in a fishing-related explosion (he was building a bomb for blast-fishing). He soon realized that he couldn't afford the prosthetic hands recommended by the hospital. Undeterred, he decided to build his own bionic hands. Eight years later...
Cripes!
The Economist on the decline of British boy's comics as The Dandy ceases print publication. As it circles oblivion it risks joining the ranks of Whizzer and Chips, Buster, The Beezer and subversive late entry to the genre Oink. The days of the Great British girl's comic are sadly long passed.
Hands Stained Red Like Elmo
Snack! Snack! Snack! Munch! Music from the Minneapolis Y.M.C.A. related North Community Beats and Rhymes Program just released the video of the summer: kids rapping about Hot Cheetos & Takis, their favorite snack. If you can't get enough, their website has eight whole albums to listen to and download for free (the North Community link).
How to Read a Poem
Curious about poetry, but don't know where or how to begin? We've reprinted the first chapter from the book "How to Read a Poem" by Edward Hirsch. Its 16 sections provide strategies for reading poems, and each section has plenty of links to examples of poems in our archive to illustrate the points.
Skin feels hot to touch... The light is bouncing off my face. The rush!
Musopen releases high-quality, free classical music.
Musopen, "a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials", have released upwards of 30 professionally performed and recorded classical works into the public domain. The new recordings are on their site listed under Goldberg Variations, Musopen Symphony Orchestra and Musopen String Quartet. [more inside]
#13 - business in the front, party in the back
Nikolaij Lund is a cellist and a photographer who takes whimsical portraits of classical musicians. [more inside]
He sighs, then shows me an ordinary handsaw in blue surgical paper marked "amputation saw"
"This conference is about, by and for people who think life is a pretty good thing and that more life is better." David Rakoff goes inside the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.
“Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, drive out Putin!”
Pussy Riot found guilty of anti-religious ‘hooliganism’ for church protest. [NYTimes.com] Previously Previously.
'Giant Size'
'By most accounts, Bill Walton stands well over seven feet tall. But during his NBA career, Walton always insisted that he was 6'11" because he didn't want to be considered a freak. When I read that fun fact in David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game, it hit a chord. I've been doing the exact same thing as Walton for my entire adult life. I'm not as tall as Walton. I'm not even one of the less-than-70 seven-footers in my age bracket in the U.S. But I'm close. Another quarter-inch, and I'd pass the seven-foot barrier. But anytime anyone asks my height, I say that I'm 6'11". I don't mention the extra three quarters of an inch. People don't need to know about that.
In any case, I'm still pretty fucking tall. And being pretty fucking tall is a weird thing to wrap your head around.' [more inside]
August 16
"Before I gave up shopping, I bought a beautiful, pricey dress. I imagine it's made by a cute girl in Montreal who has to charge a certain price to keep herself in coffee, cigarettes & organic cotton.
Illustrator Sarah Lazarovic replaces clothes shopping with paintings and commentary on the dresses she did not buy.
Chicken of the trees
"I stood staring at the enemy's trophy, the familiar impotent rage rising. But the impulse to fall to my knees, gnash my teeth, and howl at the gods was stayed this time by a resolution I'd made earlier that spring. The squirrels may take my tomatoes and spit them back, but they would not go unanswered. The time had come to close the circle of life." (via)
Needs More Surly Duff
bons mots, poems, math, knitting and logic
Entertaining, collected bon mots and surprisingly interesting, collected poems by various authors. From a likable math brainiac's site, Dr T.E. Forster, a Cambridge University lecturer. He also knits and writes about Buddhist logic [pdf]. Bonus, there's a fun gif.
The butterflies of Fukushima
"This study is important and overwhelming in its implications for both the human and biological communities living in Fukushima." . . . "These observations of mutations and morphological abnormalities can only be explained as having resulted from exposure to radioactive contaminants."
Severe abnormalities found in Fukushima butterflies. Full report here.
Classic Video Game Ads
This great Flickr album of classic video game advertisements is a nostalgia overdose for those of us who read video-game magazines in the 80s and 90s. From classic ads like the "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" ad to ads for Pac Man, The Simpsons, Super Mario Brothers 2 and ye olde Atari Lynx, this helps you relive the glory days of the medium, when even the ads were entertaining. And for those of you who never got to experience gaming magazines in their heyday, check out this entire copy of the first issue on Nintendo Power (PDF) from way back in 1988. And then get off my lawn.
The Juris Doctor is 'Versatile' Thanks Mainly to Numerous Logical Fallacies
Many people say that a law degree enables the holder to do virtually anything. Am Law Daily explores the logical fallacies behind this statement.
Welcome to the limit
What can I say? Sexy Batman. Dot Com.
sexybatman.com Delivers as labeled.
Craig's Lift
A dude found his stolen bicycle on Craigslist days after it had been lifted and then drives 160 miles to find the thief and confront him.
Charles de Thierry: man of many lands, king of none
Charles Philippe Hippolyte de Thierry lead a storied life, and many of those stories are ones he made up. His family was associated with the French court, though there is doubt to his claims of noble lineage. In England, he met two Maori chiefs and an English missionary from New Zealand, and attempted to purchase a northern portion of New Zealand in 1820. He then sought to turn this land into a colony first for Britain in 1822, then the Dutch government in 1824 when the English offer fell through. The Dutch, too, turned him down, so in 1825 de Thierry made the same offer to the French government, and was similarly refused. Fleeing creditors, he left for America. In 1834, he traveled south, where he was granted concession for cutting the Panama Canal. That, too, fell through, and he sailed west, reaching Tahiti in June 1835, where he elected himself king of Nuka Hiva. The kingdom was never his, and so he continued west and south, arriving at his plot in New Zealand in 1837, where again he offered land up to France for a colony. His efforts to claim a colony and a kingdom came to an end in 1840, with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, sealing a deal between the British Crown and the Māori. [more inside]
as if he just fell asleep watching the game
Team Spirit is a short documentary by Errol Morris about the funerals of passionate sports fans. (SLYT)
Stan Brakhage on birth and death
Stan Brakhage on birth and death* . [graphic childbirth and autopsy footage] (* previously - dead links) [more inside]
Slow motion mammals shaking themselves dry
"Mammals can generate centrifugal forces 10-70 times gravity" & "animals 'tune' the frequency of their shaking" What happens when mammals shake themselves dry. In slow motion. Also in cute-vision.
War Artist
Ever wonder what an artist and journalist takes to war? It starts with a few pencils… (PDF) Richard Johnson, war artist for the National Post shows what he's taking to Afghanistan. via Nag On The Lake
"The animals were in hell”
Marineland is one of the biggest tourist destinations in Niagara Falls. It features the world's largest habitat for viewing orcas, houses a world record 41 beluga whales in their exhibits, and offers a variety of daily shows featuring bottlenose dolphins, harbor seals, sea lions and walruses. On Tuesday, the Toronto Star published the results of an extensive investigation, alleging "a pattern of neglect that has repeatedly resulted in animal suffering." Video. Slideshow. Demonstration protests are scheduled for Saturday. Marineland denies mistreatment.
NO SALE
The following items are also being added to the prohibited items list: advice; spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic; prayers; blessing services; magic potions; healing sessions; work from home businesses & information; wholesale lists, and drop shop lists.With their new 2012 Fall Seller Update, ebay has banned the sale of magic services. A discussion has commenced on the impact of these new rules on the magic-practicing community.
Monday Wednesday Friday
Dog House Diaries — we know that web-comics are where all the money and fame is at and we want a piece. It was obvious that in order to be successful in this biz, you need to be good with humor, drawing, math and computers. Well we kick some serious butt at drawing and math so we figured 2 out of 3 wasn’t bad.
Mann Gulch
August 5th marked the sixty-third anniversary of the Mann Gulch fire.
PDF heavy, significant use of title text. Mobile users, and folks who just want the links, check the comments. [more inside]
"Watch closely. This is how gay men have sex now. That is where semen belongs. Fuck AIDS."
"The Most Important Gay Porn Film Ever Made?" [NSFW Warning: Pictures of a naked guy, no sex or penis shown.]
"Dawson's 20 Load Weekend redefined bareback porn and the men who appear in such porn. It influenced subsequent videos and expanded the availability of bareback films. It depicted a prevailing truth about gay sexual behavior "post-AIDS" and arguably encouraged risky sexual adventure-seeking. It led to the saturation of bareback porn online, making unprotected sex normative to whomever might be watching. To dismiss this film, to minimize its social and cultural impact, would be to demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of gay sexuality today."
"Dawson's 20 Load Weekend redefined bareback porn and the men who appear in such porn. It influenced subsequent videos and expanded the availability of bareback films. It depicted a prevailing truth about gay sexual behavior "post-AIDS" and arguably encouraged risky sexual adventure-seeking. It led to the saturation of bareback porn online, making unprotected sex normative to whomever might be watching. To dismiss this film, to minimize its social and cultural impact, would be to demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of gay sexuality today."
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away
"Manos" Revisited: Live in theaters tonight, the Rifftrax crew re-visit one of most treasured MST3K experiments of all time. Why not get ready by watching the "making of" documentary "Hotel Torgo." Or, for the truly brave, the entire film.
Gorilla Joy
Two brothers' joyful reunion: The nine-year-old Alf and 13-year-old Kesho were recently rejoined at a new Gorilla Colony at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, after having been separated for almost three years (alternative BBC gallery). Born in the Dublin Zoo's lowland gorilla troop, they were split up when Kesho was transferred to London Zoo for their breeding program, where he matured into a silverback. "The keepers from Dublin weren't entirely sure the brothers would even know each other," said their new keeper. "But the moment they met you could just see the recognition in their eyes." Related, previously
A mixture of awe and disappointment.
"What does it mean to feel empathy for a twitter feed?" Many were asking themselves that yesterday as popular account @SelfAwareROOMBA went on a journey of Self-Discovery. [Start Here] [more inside]
GoBama
Obama’s stimulus has been an astonishing, and unrecognized, success, details Michael Grunwald in Slate. [more inside]
Digitizing 100 miles of old 16mm educational films
Crow Won't Go
Something About Mary
"The convent would have been seen as a way for women to gain status. Nuns had a particular mystique and attraction about them. There was one in particular, and I would in hindsight say I definitely had a crush on her." Former nun Mary Skelley on coming out. [Vimeo]
Just in time for Football Manager 2013
As you know, Bob, Bill James revolutionised baseball with sabermetrics, statistical analyisis of how the game is actually played. In football (soccer that is) this revolution is long overdue, as it has largely lagged behind American sports in its use of data analysis. Now however there's a chance for somebody clever to become football's Bill James, as Manchester City is going to release all player data and analysises from the 2011-12 season.
Thick as a Brick
As foretold by the prophets of Atlantis, before its destruction, a mortal (Dave Weigel of Slate) has come to reveal the true story of Prog Rock. [more inside]
"Captains Courageous"
'While they never met, they had some things in common. Both were Army captains, engaged in important work for the nation, their costly educations paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Ian Morrison, 26, returned to Fort Hood, Texas, last December after nine months flying 70 combat missions over Iraq. Dr. Michael McCaddon, 37, was an ob-gyn resident at Hawaii’s Tripler Army Medical Center. The pilot and the doctor shared one other thing: they found themselves in a darkening, soul-sucking funnel that has trapped some 2,500 military personnel since 9/11. Like them, each died, at his own hand, on March 21, nearly 4,000 miles apart.' [more inside]
August 15
Red & Dead
"I, Polina Marinova, have resigned as the editor-in-chief from The Red & Black, the student newspaper covering the University of Georgia. The Red & Black’s top editors, design staff, photo staff and reporters walked out of the newspaper building this afternoon."
The mass departure follows a memo of staff expectations issued by the board of directors of the newspaper, which is independent of the university. Among the "expectations" issued by the board to which Marinova objected was that the newspaper's coverage find a balance of "GOOD" (human interest pieces directly relating to the UGA student audience) and "BAD" (explained in the board's memo as "Content that catches people or organizations doing bad things. I guess this is 'journalism'."). This was followed by a final note to "[i]f in question, have more GOOD than BAD." Marinova also alleged that students no longer have final approval in the content of the newspaper, writing that "[r]ecently, editors have felt pressure to assign stories they didn't agree with, take 'grip and grin' photos and compromise the design of the paper." [more inside]
The mass departure follows a memo of staff expectations issued by the board of directors of the newspaper, which is independent of the university. Among the "expectations" issued by the board to which Marinova objected was that the newspaper's coverage find a balance of "GOOD" (human interest pieces directly relating to the UGA student audience) and "BAD" (explained in the board's memo as "Content that catches people or organizations doing bad things. I guess this is 'journalism'."). This was followed by a final note to "[i]f in question, have more GOOD than BAD." Marinova also alleged that students no longer have final approval in the content of the newspaper, writing that "[r]ecently, editors have felt pressure to assign stories they didn't agree with, take 'grip and grin' photos and compromise the design of the paper." [more inside]
The War on Whistleblowers
The year 2009 began a disturbing new trend: the criminalization of whistleblowing. The Obama administration has pursued a quiet but relentless campaign against the news media and their sources. This Article focuses on the sources who, more often than not, are whistleblowers. A spate of “leak” prosecutions brought under the Espionage Act has shaken the world of whistleblower attorneys, goodgovernment groups, transparency organizations, and civil liberties advocates. The Obama administration has prosecuted five criminal cases under the Espionage Act, which is more than all other presidential administrations combined. [more inside]
The stuff that Dreams are made of
The Man Box
They avoid the treacherous edges, they navigate the contradictions as best they can, they do everything they’re supposed to to stay inside the box. And what’s the prize? Noah Brand and Ozy Frantz on the "man box".
Terror has a new game...
There seems to be a recent golden age of genuinely terrifying indie horror games that experiment with new ways to upset you. Slender [PC/Mac, free], is based on the creepy Slender Man mythos and has been garnering rave reviews and videos of terrified reactions as you try to escape the being that draws ever closer. The 4th Wall [free or $1 on Xbox/PC] is a even more abstract take on existential dread. SCP Containment Breach [PC, free] features the very disturbing Sculpture (even the picture in that link will creep you out) from the SCP series, it follows another SCP game - The Staircase. And there is more - Which [PC, free] has you stumble in the dark; Ib [PC, free] places you in the shoes of a girl in an abandoned art gallery, and Candles [free, Win/Mac] is all about atmospherics. On top of that, there are some cheap independent commercial games that generate great scares, such as Lone Survivor [online demo] and the now-famous Amnesia: The Dark Descent [PC/Mac/Linux, $20], whose upcoming sequel A Machine for Pigs, may have the best title of any game.
Honestly, you guys, these are *supposed* to be pretty rare...
Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners has pitched the Major League's 24th 23rd perfect game, in a 12-strikeout, 1-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. You can watch an abbreviated video showing all 27 outs in succession at mlb.com here (6:08). [more inside]
Clapton/Layla - 41 years
Layla, written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon has survived over 40 years (wiki), and matured nicely.
For your listening pleasure "Layla" - 1970 Derek and the Dominoes, 1992 MTV Unplugged, 2011 Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis.
A masing grace
Using spare chemicals, a laser bought on eBay and angst from a late-night argument, physicists have got the world's first room-temperature microwave laser working. [more inside]
Seed a large prone turkey
"a clear and written threat that they could storm our embassy."
Following claims that Ecuador would accept Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's asylum application, Britain has threatened to raid the Ecuadorian embassy if Assange is not handed over.
Vans are gathered outside the London embassy, reports suggest British police have been seen entering the building. Live stream here.
Vans are gathered outside the London embassy, reports suggest British police have been seen entering the building. Live stream here.
Cheesy music video about NASA
"Very interesting and attractive young women without hats"
"The people in these photos park like they're fleeing the zombie apocalypse"
Microsoft announces support for its open document format
... Microsoft made an unobtrusive announcement that brings a degree of closure to a seven year long epic battle between some of the largest technology companies in the world. The same saga pitted open source advocates against proprietary vendors, and for the first time brought the importance of technical standards to the attention of millions of people around the world... [more inside]
A photographic essay on modern day Slavery
Lisa Kristine, a photographer, gives a thoughtful and very moving talk on the extent of modern day slavery in this TEDx talk. The photos she shows are absolutely beautiful and the bare-bones stories behind them are exceptionally hard to hear at times. The group she is working with, Free the Slaves, seems to be doing a lot of good work and working on real solutions for the people involved (such as the one example she gives where the slaves that were freed carried on doing the same work, the only work they had ever known, but rent the quarry themselves and are now the recipients of the profits etc). She has published a book with these photos as well and it's available on her website.
"H. R. Gigerstuff was by far the creepiest Sid & Marty Krofft show ever."
The life and times of Empress Wu
Her name was Wu Zetian, and in the seventh century A.D. she became the only woman in more than 3,000 years of Chinese history to rule in her own right.
[more inside]
"The world would not be a darker or poorer place without me."
"I make even my most ardent pro-choice friends and colleagues very uncomfortable when I explain why my mother should have aborted me."
There are still so many mistakes to be made!
Who is the world's greatest athlete? Is it Kelly Slater? Is it Jesse Owens? Maybe. If you ask Josh Wilker, proprietor of Cardboard Gods, one thing is certain, it will be a player from his childhood baseball card collection [more inside]
Australian High Court backs plain packaging for cigarettes
Australian High Court backs plain packaging for cigarettes Government and health groups yesterday hailed as a victory for global health the High Court's rejection of the tobacco industry's challenge to the unprecedented legislation. The measure will ban brand logos and trademarks on cigarette packets from December 1
Hello my little Metafilter Malt lovers...
Well, nobody's perfect. But at least we have cameras.
What makes a memorable movie quote memorable?
A news summary of how they went about it.
A short audio version (via NPR) of the story and research summary.
A Wikipedia list: AFI's 100 years, 100 quotes.
A short list of advertising slogans that fit the research model for movie quote memorability.
The research paper (automatic PDF download). [more inside]
A news summary of how they went about it.
A short audio version (via NPR) of the story and research summary.
A Wikipedia list: AFI's 100 years, 100 quotes.
A short list of advertising slogans that fit the research model for movie quote memorability.
The research paper (automatic PDF download). [more inside]
Photographs will always depict connections, a mirrored image of life through his/her lens.
Christina Garcia Rodero was the first female Spanish photographer to join Magnum.
She mainly specializes in projects involving Ritual.
Whether Maria Lionza in Venezuela.
Catholic Spain - The Sacred and the Profane.
Ritual in Haiti. or Burning Man (slideshow).
Here is a short video of stills of her project Espana Oculta and another (9mins) and a further project Between Heaven and Earth with Video.
Interviews in Spanish and English 1; 2
( Some NSFW some repeats).
Whether Maria Lionza in Venezuela.
Catholic Spain - The Sacred and the Profane.
Ritual in Haiti. or Burning Man (slideshow).
Here is a short video of stills of her project Espana Oculta and another (9mins) and a further project Between Heaven and Earth with Video.
Interviews in Spanish and English 1; 2
( Some NSFW some repeats).
Note: pure nepetalactone will not enable you to create a cat army.
Do you like cats? Do you enjoy chemistry? Do you appreciate having contraptions sitting around that look a lot like you are working with dangerous and/or illegal substances? If so, here's a detailed DIY guide to steam-distilling concentrated catnip. [more inside]
Stand by Your Mann
Aimee Mann's [previously, previously] highly anticipated eighth studio album CHARMERS is due out in September, and the songstress is about to go on tour to support it. But she's worried about the toll that touring will take on her. The solution (courtesy of sporadic mefite John Hodgman and a dead-panning Laura Linney)? A robot double. [more inside]
Soylent Green is sad people
Science Fiction writer Harry Harrison, best known as the creater of The Stainless Steel Rat but also Make Room! Make Room! which became Soylent Green and Bill, the Galactic Hero, has died.
Books, book bindings, and the death of the book
Ever since something was invented to replace it, people have been predicting the end of the book:
The Death Of The Book Through The Ages [more inside]
Passacaglias...
The Longest Transplant Train
30 Donors, 30 recipients in the world's longest kidney transplant train. The National Kidney Registry facilitated the chain. At any time 90,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant, each year 4,700 of those will die. [more inside]
August 14
Online cat food cupcake recipes predicted in 1995
Fifth graders in 1995 predict that we will all be on the internet in the future in this PSA from a Montana elementary school.
"The latest victim of the tumor has been my facial nerve."
Kathi Goertzen, a TV news anchor on KOMO in Seattle, has died after battling brain tumors for 14 years. In 2011, she candidly discussed how it felt to be in the public eye after a tumor caused one side of her face to become paralyzed. [more inside]
If it was good enough for Ted Roosevelt, it's good enough for me
Classicly is a curated collection of pre-1923 books in Kindle format, ranging from haughty epics to intellectual fiction, without taking away from the no-brow everyman's novel and even some timeless non-fiction. A great way to sort your way through their impressive inventory is their annotated collections, but there's enough serendipity going around in the main page that you get around to books you even forgot you wanted to read.
Throw shit at the fan
"Last week, I graduated from the 2012 Clarion Writer’s Workshop. And everything people tell you about it is true—it’s incredible, it’s transformative, it will make you into the writer you were meant to be, it builds unbreakable bonds with a ton of other brilliant writers. AND you’ll be devastated when it’s over. As I attempt to process my grief at Clarion’s end, I thought I would transcribe the copious notes that I took during the course of those six weeks." Clarion 2012: Every Brilliant Piece of Writing Advice (via jscalzi)
No Place For Your Kind
No Place for Your Kind Photojournalist Tim Greyhavens documents sites of anti-Chinese violence in the American West around the turn of the last century. NYT blog post on the project.
It poked its tiny head and looked out from the den.
Zoo workers at the Ramat Gan Safari Park in Tel Aviv said they were surprised by the number of kittens born. [more inside]
Tabor Robak's EXO
EXO, a 35 minute game from Tabor Robak takes the music of electronic group Gatekeeper and sets it to an interactive, 35-minute psychedelic journey. [more inside]
I'm sorry "A Heart of Pure Darkness" is not correct.
What did Michael Milken, Enron, and Goldman Sachs have in common? Not only were they at the centers of three of the biggest financial scandals of the last 30 years, but it turns out they all used the same financial instrument to help pull off their plans.
A Transactional Genealogy of Scandal: from Michael Milken to Enron to Goldman Sachs [more inside]
Play With Your Food
Happy Birthday, Julia
Tomorrow would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday. To celebrate, PBS Digital Studios offers: Julia Child Remixed. They also have created a celebration page, complete with an infographic, recipes, quotes, videos and more. [more inside]
Special Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. Special occupies a strange place in Mario history. It's one of the few Mario games produced for a system other than Nintendo's own, licensed by Hudson Soft for the Japanese PC-8801 computer system. The system was fairly weak compared to an NES, so it didn't scroll; when Mario gets to the edge of the screen, it flips to the next. The game wasn't always designed with that in mind however, leading to a lot of blind jumps. You can play a hacked version of the original Super Mario Bros. designed to recreate this game using the patch found here. And here's a video playthrough of the whole game: World 1, World 2, World 3, World 4, World 5, World 6, World 7, World 8, Last level & ending. And here's a trap room in World 4.
FAST food
Kansas City rapper and budding internet sensation Mac Lethal raps a recipe for homemade Chick-Fil-A.Quickly. (NSFW audio, SLYT)
The Reproducibility Initiative
The Reproducibility Initiative "Here’s how it is supposed to work. Let’s say you have found a drug that shrinks tumors. You write up your results, which are sexy enough to get into Nature or some other big-name journal. You also send the Reproducibility Initiative the details of your experiment and request that someone reproduce it. A board of advisers matches you up with a company with the experience and technology to do the job. You pay them to do the job...and they report back whether they got the same results."
I am the Hammer, they are the nails!
Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley looks like your garden-variety local personal injury lawyer famous for some kooky commercials. Someone remixed them and the result is nothing short of amazing.
Bully Pulpit Games' Fiasco
TableTop’s Fiasco episodes may be the greatest roleplaying documentary made to date. ... Not only are the two episodes it takes to show their session a joy to watch (and they are a pleasure) but they succeed in something that is really difficult to do: capture the essence of a game session. (previously) [more inside]
Buying a Kick in the Face
My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court: After a Baltimore car accident between an insured and an underinsured driver left the insured driver dead, Progressive Insurance took up the defense of the underinsured driver against their own policy-holder. [more inside]
Cats Who Code
Khan Academy unveils its new interactive Computer Science learning platform.
More coder resources: Free Tech Books, WiBit.net, Google Code University, the W3C's Web Standards Curriculum, a Beginner's Guide to HTML & CSS, and codepen.io, a social sandbox for web design.
“When someone hands me a beer I don’t ask how it was made, I just drink it.”
Revealed: The president [or someone affiliated with him] brews his own beer, and brings it with him on the road. [more inside]
We should be nurturing corporate spectacle.
Let's put a stop to the love. You've perhaps heard of comic Mike Birbiglia's forthcoming film, "Sleepwalk With Me," in theaters starting August 24th. (Written and directed by Mike Birbiglia. Co-written and produced by Ira Glass.) [more inside]
Drugs 2.0
Drugs have changed a lot in the past ten years. You have, mainly, these two men to blame/thank for most of the fervor. Laws are flexing accordingly. [Shulgin previously: 1,2]
Wolfgang Amadeus Horshack
Ron Palillo, known for his role on Welcome Back, Kotter, has died at the age of 63. In addition to later guest appearances on television, he performed in a number of theater productions as Mozart, the burglar in PS Your Cat is Dead, and other stereotype-breaking roles. In his later years, he tried his hand at fashion design and worked in Palm Beach county in Florida, teaching at a local acting school.
Would you like to come to a party?
What the fuck has NASA done to make your life awesome?
The Lego Story
Ole was a toymaker. My 8-year-old Lego fan found this charming short movie (SLLegoTube) about the company's history. Happy near-80th, Lego!
Plugging Into Cool Sounds
Computer-based musicians have a wealth of free VST (Windows) and Audio Units (Mac) plugins to use in their favorite DAW software. Here are some of my favorites (primarily Mac, though most are available for Windows as well). If you share my passion for this stuff, you are likely already a fan of the excellent website KVR Audio, the ultimate resource for plugins of all stripes. [more inside]
How The American University was Killed
“'Funding for public universities comes from, as the term suggests, the state and federal government. Yet starting in the early 1980s, shifting state priorities forced public universities to increasingly rely on other sources of revenue. For example, in the University of Washington school system, state funding for schools decreased as a percentage of total public education budgets from 82% in 1989 to 51% in 2011.' That’s a loss of more than 1/3 of its public funding. But why this shift in priorities?" How The American University was Killed, in 5 Easy Steps.
Manic Pixie Dream Dudes
Dave and Duncan off the inspirational (and cancelled) MTV reality show 'The Buried Life' star in a parody of Rihanna's We Found Love video along side a bunch of spray paint and candy.
Future Shock. Indeed.
'textbook definition of surrealism' In his epic new bio of James Brown, "The One"--an account of not just the man's life and music, but a panoramic view of African-American, southern and American political and cultural history of the 20th Century--author R.J. Smith briefly discusses "Future Shock," a dance show that Brown hosted in the mid-1970s. It aired on a pioneering Atlanta station, WTCG, a Ted Turner-owned UHF station that would become a satellite channel by the end of 1976. Along with the pay-only HBO (started in '75 in select markets), WTCG paved the way for a cable TV revolution. Its name would be changed to WTBS (otherwise known as Superstation WTBS) in 1979. [more inside]
Bill Shatner speaks
Jeff Greenwald, author of Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth, conducted an interview with William Shatner. Comes in both coherent and full Shatner mode versions.
Village, village, village, village, village... buy a village. Done.
"You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion!" Dominion is an award winning game that combines the staples of Eurogaming with the addictive nature of collectable card games. [more inside]
You Can Do Science Too
Citizen science refers to science conducted by average persons, e.g., people who are not full- or part-time professional scientists but nevertheless have a keen interest in scientific inquiry. Citizen Science Center is a resource for books, papers, discussions, and project listings related to citizen science that aims to convince you to get your hands dirty and do science now.
My God, it's full of galaxies
A flight through the universe using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. [single-link APOD]
Now I’m home and I’m blind and I’m broke/What is next?
"Hell Broke Luce" -- a surreal anti-war video from Tom Waits for his powerful song based on the harrowing story of Lance Corporal Jeff Lucey, a 23-year old Iraq war Marine veteran who committed suicide in 2004. From Waits' 22d album Bad As Me (2011, AntiRecords) [more inside]
Of course, bitmaps produced by PaperBack are also human-readable (with the small help of any decent microscope).
Using Broad Strokes to Draw Attention to the Fine Details.
The World in 2 Minutes is a series of videos showing the eccentricities, both good and bad, of different countries as told by their youtube videos. [more inside]
Living With Voices
A new way to deal with disturbing voices offers hope for those with other forms of psychosis.
Hans used to be overwhelmed by the voices. He heard them for hours, yelling at him, cursing him, telling him he should be dragged off into the forest and tortured and left to die. The most difficult things to grasp about the voices people with psychotic illness hear are how loud and insistent they are, and how hard it is to function in a world where no one else can hear them. It’s not like wearing an iPod. It’s like being surrounded by a gang of bullies. You feel horrible, crazy, because the voices are real to no one else, yet also strangely special, and they wrap you like a cocoon. Hans found it impossible to concentrate on everyday things. He sat in his room and hid. But then the voices went away for good.
Mapping the Mapper
THE FULLER MAP This document is a study of the comprehensive designer Buckminster Fuller, an outstanding character of the 20th century, and a kind of practical visionary. [...] This presentation of his ideas is not intended as a slavish devotional exercise, nor a piece of cynical criticism. Part of the plan here is to investigate the logic of synergetics. At this stage the account is verbal, not visual, but what is important in geometry is the logic rather than the pictures. The text is a work-in-progress, begun in August 1991, and originally written to meet the structural requirements of John Wood's IDEAbase system. It was compiled and edited as an experimental, dynamic, interactive, screen-based document. It was not, therefore, intended as a completed linear text to be printed onto paper or other static medium.
Spockanalia sounds dirty
Fan fiction has, arguably,
existed in some form since 1614, and it has certainly been in existence since the Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia was published in 1967, while derivative works and unofficial adaptations have long existed (such as Edison's Frankenstein) in the mass market, most obviously Nosferatu (unofficial trailer, whole film) and the infamous Tijuana bibles, but in the modern world of extended copyright and Internet commerce are fan fiction and fan art legal?
Happiness Happens
Disney Researchers Develop New Physical Face Cloning Method
August 13
Things change....
Then and Now Photography...
Pick your side. Pick your history.
"Some date the crisis to August 9 2007, the day it became clear that Europe’s banks were up to their necks in US housing debt. The ECB flooded markets with €95bn of liquidity. It seemed a lot of money then. The term “trillion” was still banned by the Telegraph style book in those innocent days. We have since learned to swing with the modern dance music from central banks." [Five years on, the Great Recession is turning into a life sentence]
"Baby Got Back" Sung By the Movies
Clips from 295 movies [and TV shows] used to recreate Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" (SLYT) [more inside]
Life is a book that we study; some of its leaves bring a sigh
In my unending search for just the right vintage images for our articles, I have looked through thousands of photographs of men from the last century or so. One of the things that I have found most fascinating about many of these images, is the ease, familiarity, and intimacy, which men used to exhibit in photographs with their friends and compadres. Male Affection: A Photographic History Tour
Brent Grulke, creative director at SXSW, has passed away at age 52
Brent Grulke, creative director at SXSW, has passed away at age 52 . A friend of Grulke writes this memory, indicating the cause of death was cardiac arrest while having oral surgery.
shrim++p
Shrinp.com is a site that does very little and does it well. Stick anything after the domain name (shrinp.com/shrimp! shrinp.com/puggle! shrinp.com/metafilter!) and you'll get a helpfully labeled image of maybe that thing, or maybe not so much that thing, who can tell? The internet, it's very mysterious. Built by our very own 31d1. Approximately as NSFW as you try to make it.
The Oldest Living Cosmo Girl Has Left Us
Author and longtime Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown has died at the age of 90. [more inside]
Current state of evidence on whether climate change is causing recent extreme weather events
Is climate change causing our recent extreme weather events? (pdf). A panel of eminent climate scientists lays out the current state of what we know, and what we don't know yet, in this forthcoming paper. Jason Samenow (of the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang blog) nicely summarizes the key points. [more inside]
You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you. Isadora
The USPS issued new stamps commemorating four American dancers, including Isadora Duncan, for Dance Day last week. A group of Duncan dancers gave an impromptu performance at Dupont Circle In DC in honor of the event. The 135 anniversary of Duncan's birth and the 85th anniversary of her death are both being commemorated this year. Although Isadora has been called the Mother of Modern Dance, she is often remembered for her unconventional life and death as much as her art. [more inside]
Johnny Pesky has left the park.
Johhny Pesky, longtime member of the Boston Red Sox has passed away at the young age of 92. More famous for the right field foul pole named after he hit one of his only 6 Fenway Park home runs as it swung around the pole, the erstwhile manager spent nearly his entire 73 year baseball career with the Boston Red Sox. Much like teammate Ted Williams Johhny left baseball during his prime to fight in World War Two
George Dennehy, Armless Guitarist, Performs 'Iris' With The Goo Goo Dolls
You Could Chop Down Some Trees Or Build A Cabin Or Something
Yesteryear's Tools is an Internet Magazine that concentrates on hand tools, the toolmakers and the tool distributors that operated mostly between the mid-1800s and mid to late-1900s. Particular attention centers upon the markings and labels of such makers and distributors, specifically those that can be classified as manufacturers and/or major distributors. [more inside]
Olympic Yarnbombing!
A Yarn of Olympic Proportions "Residents of Saltburn, in North Yorkshire, are scratching their heads today after a mysterious 'yarnbomber' wrapped the town's pier with a 50-yard scarf stretching out along the railings.
The impressive garment features woollen athletes competing in various Olympic events, from synchronised swimmers to rowers and cyclists, and has delighted young and old alike as the town discusses the good yarn." [more inside]
"Grief bacon."
The Oval Office apple bowl
In Barack Obama's Oval Office, there is a bowl of apples. Undemanding, it silently witnesses history in ways large and small.
Really, really hi-res printing
The highest possible resolution images — about 100,000 dots per inch — have been achieved, and in full-colour, with a printing method that uses tiny pillars a few tens of nanometres tall. The method, described today in Nature Nanotechnology, could be used to print tiny watermarks or secret messages for security purposes, and to make high-density data-storage discs. [more inside]
The Bully Pulpit
Late last month, after vocally anti-gay evangelical author and blogger Jonathan Merritt's essay defending Chick-Fil-A appeared in The Atlantic, Azariah Southworth outed Merritt on his blog. An interview with Merritt about his sexual orientation. Follow-up column from Southworth: Why I outed a Christian star. [more inside]
Taxes and inequality
The comparative experience thus suggests that for inequality reduction, it is the quantity of taxes rather than the progressivity of the tax system that matters most. Affluent countries that achieve substantial inequality reduction do so with tax systems that are large but no more progressive than ours [America's]. [more inside]
Beizhing or Bei Jing?
James Fallows, in a series of interesting blog posts, questions the typical English pronunciation of China's capital city arguing that "the "jing" in Beijing is pronounced basically like the "jing" in Jingle Bells. It's essentially the normal English j- sound. What it's not like is the Frenchified zh- sound you hear in "azure" or "leisure," or at the end of "sabotage."" One reader suggests, "My working theory about "Beijing/bay-zhing" is that at some deep, unconscious level, English speakers secretly believe that all foreign languages are French and should be pronounced as such in the absence of instructions to the contrary." Another reader argues, "Major cities and countries have historically had different names in different languages, and these names serve a good purpose by being easy to pronounce and identify in the languages where they are used. There is really no more reason to say "Beijing" in English than "München" or "Moskva."" [more inside]
How to walk your dog
Puppy Parkour [SLVideo]
Yo, I’m going to deconstruct the hell out of this.”
Released in 2004, Obsidian's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords ("KOTOR 2") was said to be a good game, crippled by the push to get it out in time for the 2004 holiday season. Beside the frequent bugs, a huge amount of story content was cut from the game, but remained on the discs. Now, three years after its inception, The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod has been completed. The goal? To get "the best possible chance to get the full experience Obsidian tried for when making the game." Rock Paper Shotgun has high hopes: "If you missed it the first time, you really should check it out. It’s ... Chris Avellone (who?) and co really going to town on Star Wars." [more inside]
NYTimes Anxiety series
"We worry. Nearly one in five Americans suffer from anxiety. For many, it is not a disorder, but a part of the human condition. This series explores how we navigate the worried mind, through essay, art and memoir."
The New York Times is running a series of short memoirs written by sufferers of anxiety disorder. From the ways anxiety affects daily life to what happens when it's part of a marriage, many different angles are explored.
(Previously)
Better Off Without Each Other?
Would the Northern and Southern United States be better off making it official (again)? Chuck Thompson thinks so [1][2].
Juggalos vs. The FBI
At the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos , the Insane Clown Posse announced their intention of suing the Federal Bureau of Investigation over their recent designation of the ICP fan base as a hybrid gang. The band established Juggalos fight back to gather information regarding government harassment of the Juggalo population.
The Narco Tunnels of Nogales
If everyone had kept quiet, it could have been the most valuable parking spot on earth. Convenient only to the careworn clothing stores clustered in the southern end of downtown Nogales, Ariz., it offered little to shoppers, and mile-long Union Pacific trains sometimes cut it off from much of the city for 20 minutes at a time. But the location was perfect: In the middle of the short stretch of East International Street, overshadowed by the blank walls of quiet commercial property, the space was less than 50 feet from the international border with Mexico.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Martini* (*and we're glad you asked)
Q: OK, I'm ready for the long answer now.
A: A highly vocal minority of Martini drinkers, the Prescriptivists, insists that the short answer is in fact the only answer...
19th Century Prostitution
A Guide to Houses No Gentleman Would Frequent , and more artifacts of history and archaeology that shed some light on the largely-unwritten world of nineteenth-century prostitution in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, and Paris, among other locales. Lest it appear too amusingly salacious, the miserable side.
Do you feel lucky, punk?
Polygonal Portraiture
If I could turn back the boats I'd give them all to you
A Government-convened expert group has suggested that Australia return to the so-called Pacific Solution to deal with its asylum-seeker conundrum, and break a political impasse. [more inside]
The Physics of physicality
WIRED has been running a fascinating series: Olympic Physics: Can Runners Benefit From Drafting?, Scoring the Decathlon, New [Swimming] Platform Is No Chip Off The Old Block [more inside]
The boat with two captains sinks.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy sacks the head of the Army. Hussein Tantawi (head of the Egyptian Army and SCAF) has been dismissed as the Egyptian president asserts his power over the traditionally dominant military. Morsy has also cancelled the SCAF memorandum keeping legislative powers with the military council, and it's widely thought that the fight over that will end up at the constitutional court again. If the cancellation stands, Morsi will also have almost complete control of the constitutional drafting process.
August 12
RIP Joe Kubert
Comic book artist Joe Kubert has died. Kubert, who started a New Jersey school of cartooning that cemented his legacy as an industry great, has died after a hospital stay. He was 85.
arts & crafts blogging, subset: geek
Geek Art Gallery features many different kinds of geek-related art in round-ups and posts: art installations, animation, comics, film shorts, paintings, photography, sculpture - even desserts. Specifically craft-focused geek blogs: Geek Crafts and Sprite Stitch (previously)
Mugshot Yourself
Mugshot Yourself: Meet 1864's greatest rogues, then become one yourself. Try your face on different mugshots, and add the best of them to Copper's growing collection of New York's most notorious. Con men, petty thieves, prostitutes...Oh, and you.(via BBCAmerica)
Don't just stand there, fall asleep
Researchers sneak up on sleeping sperm whales (.mpg video, hosted by Current Biology.)
Matt Kaplan, writing in Nature, summarizes a 2008 article in Current Biology:
"An accidental encounter with a pod of sleeping sperm whales has opened researchers’ eyes to some unknown sleep behaviours of these giant sea creatures . . . A team led by Luke Rendell at the University of St Andrew’s, UK, were monitoring calls and behaviour in sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) off the northern Chile coast when they accidentally drifted into the middle of a pod of whales hanging vertically in the water, their noses poking out of the surface. At least two of the whales were facing the boat, but not a single animal responded." [more inside]
Can an activist be a good scientist?
NASA's James Hansen has been called the "godfather" of climate warming, largely because of his long record of major publications on the topic. He is also a determined climate activist, protesting, blockading, and demanding (PDF) that immediate action be taken to deal effectively with the issue, while using his science to advance his case. Recently, he and 2 colleagues effectively contradicted the widespread view that individual extreme weather events cannot be directly linked with observed climate warming, using extreme high temperatures as an example. [additional earlier and new (PDF) information]. (See previous (PDF) related work by others.) Several climate experts have attacked Hansen's activism and his science (PDF). Does his activism make James Hansen a bad scientist? (Related previous posts here and here, now peer-reviewed and published.)
No Wonder Clowns Are Scary
100 Maniacal Movie Laughs in 6 Minutes assembled by the maniacal James Chapman who previously collected Movie Titles in Movies (plus one)
Tired of this?
Nodogdo.com is here for you [in Britian] to post your video clips of those dog owners (and let’s be fair, there is only a small minority of them) that don’t pick up after their dogs. [more inside]
Two Poems By Rumi
Two poems by Rumi recorded by Duncan Mackintosh
Somebodies
Gotye makes a mashup/remix of youtube covers of his hit single - "Reluctant as I am to add to the mountain of interpretations of Somebody That I Used To Know seemingly taking over their own area of the internet, I couldn't resist the massive remixability that such a large, varied yet connected bundle of source material offered.
" [SLYT]
Once an Eagle
Eagle Scouts Returning Our Badges, a tumblr of pictures and letters from US Scouts renouncing their Eagle award.
Farewell, Pushcart Queen
Farewell Pushcart Queen: Jean Merrill has passed away from cancer. Many of her 30 books were young adult stories which followed underdogs in conflict with powerful interests. Her most well-known books were The Pushcart War, about a confrontation between New York pushcarts and the trucking industry, and The Toothpaste Millionaire, about a young African American entrepreneur who challenges big business. (previously) [more inside]
Orbital, 23 years after Chime
They were a couple of blokes from a small city in in England who started out messing around with instruments. Paul played the guitar and drums, and Phil the saxophone, but both were interested in electronic music by the likes of Kraftwerk. Phil also liked hip-hop, and Paul got into acid house in the late 1980s. One afternoon, Paul slapped together a happy little song based on a sample from a now-forgotten instrumental cover version of some pop hit, and called the little ditty Chime. Even before it was pressed on vinyl, DJs were asking for it, and Orbital was born. [more inside]
Mike and George Kuchar
It Came From Kuchar [trailer] is a 90 minute long documentary about the underground filmmaker brothers Mike and George Kuchar. It is also available to view on hulu and via Amazon. It could also possibly be available on Netflix. [more inside]
(Part of) The World according to Aaslestad
"Peter Aaslestad is both a free-lance photographer and an internationally recognized historic preservation consultant specializing in the use of architectural photogrammetry to document existing buildings." [more inside]
When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer - Bristow is only 27!
We will decide who comes to fish here, and the circumstances under which they fish
A new, controversial super-trawler, the Dutch-owned FV Margiris, has set sail for Tasmania, off the south-east coast of Australia, to take a haul of jack mackerel and redbait, prompting concerns it is going to decimate several Australian fish stocks as factory fishing has done elsewhere in the world.
Greenpeace claims the industrial super-trawler is part of the European Association of pelagic freezer trawlers (PFA), responsible for "some of the worst fishing excesses on the planet.''
It is scheduled to be roaming between the Tasman Sea and Western Australia this spring. [more inside]
August 11
'We didn't know what 90 percent of the switches did'
In 2006, the United States Air Force declassified part of one of its secret programs: Constant Peg, the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, which flew MiGs. [more inside]
John Thorne
Food writing’s shameful secret, wrote John Thorne his seminal essay, “Cuisine Mécanique”, is its intellectual poverty. John himself is a notable exception. He is one of those rare authors who have the gift of transporting us into a world of their own creation which we are happy to occupy for a while in preference to any other. They are Virgils to our Dante, showing us around the territory and introducing us to the natives. In these magic realms, strangers speak to us immediately as old friends; arriving unexpectedly at dinner time, we find a place already set for us. [more inside]
Legends of Localization: The Legend of Zelda
Legends of Localization: The Legend of Zelda is a comparison of the Japanese and American versions of The Legend of Zelda. It highlights differences in music and SFX, why the intro story is in English in both versions and why Pols Voice supposedly hated loud noises, what some of those cryptic hints originally said and how Testitart became Manhandla. [more inside]
Heaven Knows, Anything Goes
The world has gone mad today 1 And good's bad today 2 And black's white today 3 And day's night today 4 When most guys today 5 That women prize today 6 Are just silly gigolos 7
And though I'm not a great romancer, I know that I'm bound to answer when you propose, Anything Goes 8 [more inside]
And though I'm not a great romancer, I know that I'm bound to answer when you propose, Anything Goes 8 [more inside]
"Because I'm in space, and I can, I get to name these yo-yo tricks."
The Future of PRE-air travel
Kind of, sort of, "holograms" have been popping up on election night and (previously) have resurrected famous musicians. The next step may be the pre-boarding kiosk. The only questions that really remains is how close are we to having a time-traveling, Victorian era Guy Pearce in our midst?
Batteries not included
nom nom fart
Pioneer or Profiteer? Daniel Amen and the use of SPECT imaging in clinical psychiatry
Daniel Amen and the use of SPECT imaging in clinical psychiatry. Daniel Amen's clinics grossed $20 million last year, using SPECT imaging to tailor psychiatric treatments to individuals. The psychiatric establishment is skeptical: "'In my opinion, what he's doing is the modern equivalent of phrenology,' says Jeffrey Lieberman, APA president-elect, author of the textbook “Psychiatry” and chairman of Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons."
Fun with kinematics!
Racetrack is a game with very simple rules which nonetheless does a surprisingly good job of simulating the acceleration, braking, and handling of a race car. It can teach not only about inertia and kinematics, but also about optimal racing lines. Racetrack can be played with nothing more than a piece of graph paper and a pen, but there is also an online implementation called Vector Racer.
WARNING: This project should not be attempted without adult supervision... and adequate training?
Hugh MacDiarmid & A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle
Hugh MacDiarmid was born 120 years ago today. Best known for his long, comic, dark, epic, complex poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, he was a central figure in the Scottish Renaissance. He was the type of guy who would get kicked out of the Scottish National Party for being a communist and get kicked out of the Communist Party of Great Britain for being a Scottish nationalist. [more inside]
Kenyan record-winning distance runners trained by Irish missionary
Team Ireland is celebrating its first gold medal at London 2012, thanks to boxer Katie Taylor, but the Irish also had an unlikely part to play in another, very special Olympic victory on Thursday. Kenyan middle-distance runner David Rudisha joins notable alumni from Saint Patrick's High School, a 500-student boy's school started by Irish missionaries in 1963, in Iten, a town in Kenya. Brother Colm O'Connell, though no longer teaching at the school, is still a highly regarded coach in one of the world’s great running capitals. The school plants a tree in honor of record-making alumni, though some of the more recent alumni are getting shrubs, to save space. [more inside]
Javascript amazeballs
One for the javascript geeks: Transform any javascript program to use only the ()[]{}! and + characters.
To the Moon! (almost)
NASA’s lunar lander crashes, ignites massive explosion (+video). The spider-like spacecraft called Morpheus was on a test flight at Cape Canaveral when it tilted, crashed to the ground and erupted in flames.
Der Totentanz
Ein Totentanz (1922), by Walter Draesner, is a book of astonishing papercut silhouettes showing death's visits to different kinds of victims. Some of the more spectacular ones are Death and the aviator, Death on the railway, and Death and the soldier.
(A previous Totentanz FPP, and another with a link to an English language description of the phenomenon) [more inside]
Paul Ryan as Romney's running-mate
Paul Ryan.
Seven-term congressman for Wisconsin's 1st District.
Chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee.
Architect of the controversial Ryan Budget -- a "Path to Prosperity" [PDF - video - CBO] that would slash trillions from the federal budget, sharply curtail taxes on the wealthy, and transform Medicare into a private voucher system.
Proponent (vid) -- and renouncer -- of Ayn Rand 's Objectivism. Social Security beneficiary. Hunter. Weinermobile driver.
And as of this morning, the 2012 Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States of America. [more inside]
JOIN THE CLUB.
Time, CNN Suspend Zakaria After He Admits "Terrible Mistake" [slate.com] "The columnist was caught passing off large chunks of a New Yorker essay as his own."
If “Erotic” is in the title of any kind of convention, it will actually be the opposite.
Is Kim Dotcom Ayn Rand's love child?
Kim Dotcom: suddenly a portly, shady, German entrepreneur becomes a New Zealand folk hero. Or does he? As it becomes clear that there was something dodgy(pdf) about those search warrants, and the charm offensive bears fruit, questions arise. [more inside]
August 10
The Troubling Message of Beasts of the Southern Wild
How the individualist, rights-based message in Beasts of the Southern Wild reflects the society America is today "While the film centers on Hushpuppy’s struggle to survive the degradation that surrounds her — primarily through imagination and her incipient art — this "You’ve got to fight for your right to party" ethos is also a central theme. Viewers are asked to interpret a lack of work discipline, schooling, or steady institution building of any kind — the primary building blocks of any civilization — as the height of liberation. “Choice,” even the choice to live in squalor, is raised to the level of a categorical imperative. There is no inkling of the economic and social history of the region that had limited these “choices.” We are left with a libertarian sandbox, with a rights-based life philosophy gone rancid... In his new book The Age of Fracture, Princeton historian Daniel Rodgers suggests that post-World War II American history has seen a “disaggregation of the social,” where the broad social contract that had brought more and more Americans into the domain of full economic and political citizenship has dramatically shrunk. We are left with smaller and smaller visions of “community,” often being reduced to the level of a single "rights-holding self." In a sad way, the characters in the Bathtub are an artistic reflection of this fragmented world."
Heavy Air
Last year, the Heavy Air Laser Slalom regatta was run out of St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. Organizers pick what they think will be a consistently windy day, and competitors race on the fastest points of sail. Here is some incredible footage. [more inside]
Where wolf?
There Will Be No Racial Vilification Laws Under A Government I Lead
The man likely to be Australia's next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has used a lunchtime speech to the conservative think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs to call for Australia's racial vilification laws to be wound back.
Section 18C makes race hate speech unlawful, but not illegal.
Abbott's calls come in the same week that Facebook has been in the firing-line over hosting the controversial "Aboriginal Memes" page. [more inside]
Where do you go when the record is over...
For those ready to get their Caturday Night Fever on a little early: Nobody Beats the Drum by Natural Thing (SLYTelectronica)
Buy Design: Meet Paco Underhill, retail anthropologist
"Nothing is in a grocery store is where it is by accident. Every item on a shelf has been planned." Theatrically lit fruits and veggies? Limbic system-triggering flowers up front? Subtle manipulation of the shopping path? Meet Paco Underhill, master of the science of shopping, author, and founder of a consulting firm that specializes in advising companies on how small changes in retail environments can add up to increased sales. Think of him as a tour guide (YT, from his firm) who explains how these spaces are designed and why we fall for it. [more inside]
Love and Rockets
In September, Los Bros Hernandez will tour the Northeast to observe the 30th anniversary of their epochal indie comic book series Love and Rockets. [more inside]
Oh hi! Nice camera!
Mark Peters was Albacore hunting off Santa Cruz, with a torpedo-shaped case enclosing a videocamera, and a pod of dolphins showed up. The footage is simply incredible.
Two More Cats Needed
High Speed Video of Flipping Cats A video in which a man claims watching him attempt to flip a cat (without pissing people off) will make you smarter. Bonus intro video.
Gratuitous Father Guido Sarducci
it's hard to look right at you, baby, but here's my number, so call me maybe
"Call Me Maybe" (Chatroulette version) is Steve Kardynal's latest costumed lip-sync cover video - and as usual it comes complete with hilarious & happy audience reaction shots.
If you like this, you'll probably also enjoy his Chatroulette versions of Katy Perry's "Peacock" (previously) and Lady GaGa's "Telephone" (previously). All videos may be considered NSFWish. [more inside]
RIP Jason Noble
Diagnosed in 2009 with synovial sarcoma, Jason Noble of Rodan, Rachel's, and Shipping News passed away August 4th. Video: Rodan, Rachel's, Shipping News.
Smile, you're in the land of the free
TrapWire is a national surveillance network run by veterans of America's intelligence community and is installed in most American cities. It's "more accurate than modern facial recognition technology", and was revealed as part of WikiLeaks's Stratfor releases (previously). Meanwhile, WikiLeaks is currently the victim of a massive DDOS attack.
No Turntables or Microphones
In the wake of Modern Guilt and The Information, Beck’s latest album comes in an almost-forgotten form—twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music, never before released or recorded [more inside]
As the Oxford American Turns
Could use an editor ... Oh wait. The Oxford American magazine often described as a literary publication but something more along the lines of a New Yorker-style, general interest glossy with a literary bent (albeit a stranger beast), has been in a wee bit of turmoil lately. The founding and longtime editor of the multiple-National Magazine Award-winning publication, Marc Smirnoff, was ousted in mid-July by the magazine's board in connection with charges of sexual harassment and serving alcohol to traditional college-age students, under 21. [more inside]
Zeppelin Vs Pterodactyl
Paranoid Paradox?
Being Paranoid About Office Politics: Is it a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? "A third experiment measured study participants' comfort level with a co-worker who is worried about unfair treatment as compared to other types of employees. Rather than be saddled with a worrywart, participants were 3.5 times more likely to choose individuals who demanded feedback on work quality...."
Male Couples Face Pressure to Fill Cradles
"When the jubilant couple were wed in June, they exchanged personalized vows and titanium rings, cheered the heartfelt toasts and danced themselves breathless. Then, as the evening was winding down, unexpected questions started popping up. One after another, their guests began asking: Are you going to have kids? When are you going to have kids?" [more inside]
And Shopping. Always Shopping.
Howdy neighbor, howdy!
It's the Porter Wagoner Show! Starring Porter Wagoner and the Wagonmasters with Speck Rhodes and Norma Jean [more inside]
Sara Lando - On Photographing People
Picture a tiny Italian woman gesturing continuously as she uncorks a full brain dump (from a very, very creative mind) on all of the little things that many people never think of when photographing others.
"... the first time I had to photograph someone that wasn’t myself, I spent the night before puking, and it was half a disaster. Ten years later, these are the things I wish someone had told me back then."Sara Lando's On Photographing People: Pt. 1, the first in her three-part series on photographing people on Strobist. [more inside]
"Carlo Rambaldi was E.T.'s Geppetto"
Special effects legend Carlo Rambaldi, most famous as the creator of E.T. and the titular creature in Alien, has died at the age of 86. Here is a montage of his work.
Eight left...
Trespasser, a hugely ambitious 1998 first-person shooter based on the Jurassic Park franchise, is widely regarded as a disappointing failure, remembered mainly for its pioneering physics system and innovative boob-tattoo-based health bar. With his bourbon-smooth voice and an encyclopedic knowledge of the game's history, bugs, and quirks, "Research Indicates" leads us on a fascinating tour through one of the buggiest games ever commercially released. [more inside]
The Spy Who Loved
Christine Granville was, at least apocryphally, Winston Churchill's favourite spy. Born Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, daughter of a charming but dissolute Polish aristocrat and a Jewish banking heiress, she was described in 1939 as "a flaming Polish patriot … expert skier and great adventuress". So she was.
Rollin' rollin' rollin'...
"This is unprecedented footage of a small airplane crash from inside the cockpit from two different views. Miraculously, everyone survived. The pilot will make a full recovery and the rest of us escaped with superficial injuries and feel very lucky to be alive." (Graphic accident footage, injuries are shown) [more inside]
Gu Kailai's trial ends
Gu Kailai's trial has concluded but no verdict has been delivered. Many things about the political background of the murder trial, and Gu Kailai's personal motives, remain unclear, although it is said that Gu has not disputed the charge that she killed Neil Heywood. [more inside]
You’ll never be Chinese
UK expatriate in China, Mark Kitto, who previously ran a publishing business in China that the state took over and wrote a book about that experience, is leaving China where he has lived for 16 years.
Modern day mainland Chinese society is focused on one object: money and the acquisition thereof. The politically correct term in China is “economic benefit.” The country and its people, on average, are far wealthier than they were 25 years ago. Traditional family culture, thanks to 60 years of self-serving socialism followed by another 30 of the “one child policy,” has become a “me” culture. Except where there is economic benefit to be had, communities do not act together, and when they do it is only to ensure equal financial compensation for the pollution, or the government-sponsored illegal land grab, or the poisoned children. Social status, so important in Chinese culture and more so thanks to those 60 years of communism, is defined by the display of wealth.
"Don’t worry, there’s only a couple hundred thousand lines of code to fix."
Baldur's Gate has a pretty good reputation among the gaming community. So what happens when you try to enhance a decade-old game to PC, Mac, iOS, and Android for the current generation? (previously) “Does the word horror mean anything to you?” Oster asked? [more inside]
Ohio voting turmoil. Again.
As a consequence of the 2008 election, Ohio Republicans cut early voting back for the upcoming election from 35 days to 11 days, with the three days right before the election eliminated. Now, they've gone even further. [more inside]
Look Ma I Can't Ride
The transportation reporter for the New York Times, Scott Flegenheimer, outs himself. “Hey, one boss said to another after my ill-advised confession. Did you know our transportation reporter can’t ride a bike? He knew then, of course, and now you do, too. I cannot ride a bike." He is not alone. Adult bicycling lessons are offered everywhere.
Goldman Sachs gets away with it
In April 2011, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PDF) release a report that Goldman Sachs knowingly sold mortgage-backed securities that they believed would fall in value, and then shorted them for billions in profit. The Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to press charges today.
New hand-held CNC from MIT
You supply the muscle to move the tool and the computer supplies the accurracy. The tool shown here is a router but it seems like a more general technique. You move a hand held power tool around sloppily and a computer makes small movements of the tool as you do that keeps it to a corrected path.
Some Shoppers Are More Equal Than Others
Supermarkets are attempting to customize prices for different shoppers. At a Safeway in Denver, a 24-pack of Refreshe bottled water costs $2.71 for Jennie Sanford, a project manager. For Emily Vanek, a blogger, the price is $3.69. [more inside]
Mel Stuart goes to the great chocolate shop in the sky.
RIP Mel Stuart, 1928-2012. Best known for directing Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory — essentially an elaborate product-placement for Quaker Oats, which funded the whole thing to promote a new chocolate bar — the versatile Stuart was also a committed documentarian whose films for producer David L. Wolper included 1964's Four Days in November and 1973's Wattstax.
Oh if they have only gone to heaven, they had time, they must have prayed.
On the evening of October 8, 1871 an apocalyptic firestorm raged through Northeastern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. The experience was so horrific people thought the world had come to an end. [more inside]
Are you a slave?
Asking young people: It’s Just Business: How Corporate America Made Slaves of the Young
And for discussion is this the only time in our history that it has occurred?
Dwight Howard to the Lakers
After months of rumors and frustration, it appears that Dwight Howard has been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in a four-team trade. Here is Bill Simmons rapid reaction.
Off Grid Post Mortem
A Post-Mortem on India's Blackout: IEEE Spectrum's energy, power, and green tech blog gives an excellent overview of what led to the devastating blackouts that occurred in India on July 30th and 31st leaving more than 600 million people (approx 10% of the world's population) without electricity. Bonus: BBC's Soutik Biswas gives us 10 interesting factoids on India's power situation to chew on.
"Like POOF: diamond. All day long."
The PBS Idea Channel takes a look at how Minecraft can be a useful simulation for what life could be like in a post-scarcity economy where technology like Makerbots has become common. [slyt]
Spiders, a post about them
The fear of spiders is hardwired into most of humanity, despite the creatures often being beneficial to people. For some reason, it's the odd and scary stories about spiders that stick in our heads.
Rage Against the Quad
Full concert footage of Rage Against the Machine's first ever public performance at The Quad, Cal State Northridge, Northridge, CA on Oct. 23, 1991.
Lets go to the tape
Curious about the colored tape athletes[1, 2, 3] are wearing in the Olympics? Its Kinesio tape, developed by a Japanese chiropractor and acupuncturist. Practice seems to be running ahead of science: 1 2.
Michal Ajvaz
“The beast sets me riddles every evening, and when I fail to guess them, it kicks and bites me. It is like a small leopard and in other circumstances I should say it looked quite charming. So far I haven't solved a single one of these riddles…”—Michal Ajvaz. [more inside]
Never a frown with golden brown
For the love of a good hound
Hannah Stonehouse Hudson's picture of her friend John Unger soothing his aging, arthritic dog Schoep in Lake Superior, and the story behind the picture, have touched the hearts of dog lovers across America and beyond.
August 9
Those Dam Beavers!
In December of 1997, a Michigan man received a letter from the Department of Environmental Quality informing him that he was prohibited from the 'Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department's files show that no permits have been issued. .... The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris dams and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all unauthorized activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the strewn channel.'
He replied: 'Regarding Your Dam Complaint.' [more inside]
“You’re maybe going to take this journey with me for a spell, People aren’t stones.”
"... That’s the way with epiphanies: You can’t know in advance what they’ll be. Even me. I can see them coming, but I can’t understand something until I understand it.”T he man who can see the future has a date with the woman who can see many possible futures.
Welcome to Sex House!
[NSFW, TW] Sex House is an Onion webseries about six sexy Americans locked in a house for a reality show about getting nasty, but by the end of the first night things start to get terrible. Think No Exit meets Black Mirror (previously), it's a scathing satire of American sexual attitudes that's also amazingly suspenseful.
All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain...
Corn and Drought
July 2012 was the hottest month ever recorded in the continental United States. 70% of Iowa - the nation's largest corn producer - is experiencing extreme or exceptional drought. The U.S. Department of Agriculture rates 50% of the nation's corn crop as poor or very poor. Today U.S. corn prices reached an all-time high. The impact will be global. Wired looks at "Why King Corn Wasn't Ready For The Drought".
China Mieville's Railsea - an interview
We are so steeped in the tradition of railways as a single line cutting through the wilderness. But [...] there is a tradition you can tap into that completely inverts what has become the cliché, and focuses instead on branching lines, on sidings, on reversibility and on the breaching of timetables—and you end up with a notion of rails that can be an ineffable symbol of potentiality. I liked the idea of trying to honour that alternative tradition.
But that's all post-facto to the basic gag—and it is a gag—of someone shouting "there she blows!" and it's a mole, not a whale.BoingBoing interviews China Mieville on his new book, Railsea. [more inside]
sowing seeds of love
Arno Michaels used to be the worst kind of asshole. Now he's working to help others not be that kind of asshole. [more inside]
indecision + vulgarity + location-aware browsing = om nom nom nom
Best Cat Fort EVAAAARR
How do you cheer up a cat-loving teenage cancer patient who misses her kitty? With the Cat Immersion Project for Maga. Brought to you by Seattle Children's Hospital and 3000+ people who sent in photos of their cats. [via ZeFrank]
"The marketers have triumphed. Movies are franchises, politics are relentlessly market-tested, and everyone talks like an idiot."
Yesterday, I went to the American Idol for startups. It made me want to die. "But, oh, my God, the terrible things these people do to words. It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way."
World Citizen
The Groundbreaking Japanese Electronic band, Yellow Magic Orchestra, has been mentioned on the Blue before, and, not too long ago, the band’s most famous album, Solid State Survivor, was noticed as something every science fiction fan should listen to(#98 on list).
But if one really wants forward looking and innovative it is worth taking a closer look at the career of YMO’s most prolific member, Ryuichi Sakamoto. [more inside]
Ignore The Misleading Title
Sikhs in Service
There are 22 Sikhs currently serving in the U.S. Army. Since 2010 they have been allowed to leave their hair and beards uncut and wear turbans. [more inside]
"Abused people go one or two ways: They either self-destruct or make a difference, you feel me? I’m gonna make a difference."
'In 2002, five years before journalist Chauncey Bailey was murdered by members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, (Previously) a woman identified only as Jane Doe No. 1 stepped forward to report decades of sexual abuse, welfare fraud and violence by the bakery's leader, Yusuf Bey Sr. She was prepared to hand over to Oakland police DNA from her three children -- evidence that Bey had impregnated her, the first time when she was 12. This was a risky move, but the woman had powerful motivation: her daughter, then 18, had alerted her that Bey was trying to abuse her -- his own child. Now, Jane Doe No. 1 has decided she no longer wants to be nameless. Her name is Kowana Banks and she is the first of Bey's victims to speak publicly.' Video interview. Transcript. (Via) This post recounts experiences of rape and sexual abuse. Topics may be disturbing to some readers. [more inside]
If there's a ticky, take your picky
Need to get tickets for Olympic events? You're out of luck going through the normal venues, but Ticket-Tooth Philip, the world's best scalper, has what you need. [SL Funny or Die]
The conscious awareness of Comic Sans promotes — at least among some people — contempt and summary dismissal.
Early abolitionist David Ruggles
In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass wrote of his early days in New York City after his escape from slavery:
Thank Heaven, I remained but a short time in this distressed situation. I was relieved from it by the humane hand of Mr. DAVID RUGGLES. [...] Mr. Ruggles was then very deeply engaged in the memorable Darg case, as well as attending to a number of other fugitive slaves, devising ways and means for their successful escape; and, though watched and hemmed in on almost every side, he seemed to be more than a match for his enemies.[more inside]
Declassified Photos Reveal CIA’s Deep Sea Rescue of a Spy Satellite
"Only July 10, 1971, America's newest photo reconnaissance satellite, the KH-9 Hexagon, dropped a capsule loaded with film towards the Earth. The reentry vehicle was supposed to open its parachute; an American aircraft would snatch it out of the sky in mid-descent. But the chute was never unfurled. The reentry vehicle hit the Pacific Ocean with a force of approximately 2600 Gs. And then it sunk down into the deep, before settling at 16,000 feet."
Financial Markets, Politics and the New Reality
Financial Markets, Politics and the New Reality: "Louis M. Bacon is the head of Moore Capital Management, one of the largest and most influential hedge funds in the world. Last week, he announced that he was returning one quarter of his largest fund, about $2 billion, to his investors, [saying] it is impossible to make money when there is heavy political involvement, because political involvement introduces unpredictability in the market… Adam Smith and David Ricardo, who modern investors so admire, [never] used the term "economics" by itself, but only in conjunction with politics; they called it political economy… The investors' problem is that they mistake the period between 1991 and 2008 as the norm and keep waiting for it to return."
closing statement
"I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we now expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. Now the whole world sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial. Once again, Russia looks different in the eyes of the world from the way Putin tries to present it at daily international meetings. All the steps toward a state governed by the rule of law that he promised have obviously not been made. And his statement that the court in our case will be objective and make a fair decision is another deception of the entire country and the international community. That is all. Thank you." - Yekaterina Samutsevich: Closing Statement at the Pussy Riot Trial
Flashes of Quincy
Proof of Arrested Development Season 4 is surfacing rapidly. A bit from Ron Howard. A bit from Jason Bateman (featuring some surprise guest stars.) A bit from reddit. And here's some more.
Gay Byrne says hello to his fanclub
In Which The Irish Invent Twitter, 1984 (via Broadsheet.ie)
Back in 1984 on the Late Late Show Gay Byrne shows off a new invention, a machine that allows you to send text over the phonelines. Among the uses to which this invention was put was securely communicating with Nelson Mandela in prison. Although, unfortunately, it didn't work reliably with South African phone lines. [more inside]
Coors Light Blue?
He had been married, had two children and was divorced by then. She called him and he invited her to come see the house. It was in its first stage — a house in the shape of an octagon — but still, the woman was impressed. Roberto Sanchez Rivera of Ponce, Puerto Rico, has constructed an elaborate blue spaceshipesque house using discount-store knickknacks and discarded auto parts...that makes a five-tone sound like the greeting of the mother ship in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind." [NYT] [Slideshow] [more inside]
The Secret History of Deodorant
The secret history of deodorant: How Advertisers Convinced Americans They Smelled Bad
Set phasers to "Hulk Smash!"
"The Creepicus Complainicus, of the genus “Saddest Panda.” His cry is 'Why won’t someone just touch my wiener?'" Captain Awkward addresses the perrenial case of the creepy dude and the development of the proto-rapist. [more inside]
Fault Lines: Controlling the Web
In Fault Lines: Controlling the Web, the Al Jazeera English documentary series Fault Lines, "looks at the fight for control of the web, life in the digital age and the threat to cyber freedom, asking if US authorities are increasingly trying to regulate user freedoms in the name of national and economic security."
The Shape of Things To Come
desperate deranged talking in my sleep again eyes twitch retain a sentimental something looked lorn and we burned and burned
Envisioned as an experimental side project by cEvin Key while he was in the new wave band Images In Vogue, Canada's Skinny Puppy has since become one of the biggest industrial bands of the age. As we close in on their 30th anniversary why not settle back for two hours and enjoy the entire of Skinny Puppy's Greater Wrong of the Right concert on YouTube while you download the free fan-made DVD Eurosolvent? [more inside]
"Cats are a part of our life, they amuse people, and make a nice atmosphere for us."
The Hermitage Museum sits on the Neva River in St. Petersburg, it houses millions of works of art by the great masters, and since the 18th century, it has been protected by cats. [more inside]
A BIG Idea
Why I support the Basic Income Guarantee: "I write a lot about the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)—about its labor-market effects, its use as cushion against instability, and so on. In this essay I want to explain in simple terms why I believe it is so worth talking about." (via USBIG) [more inside]
The Magazine of the Future
Readymag is a new interactive publishing platform which allows you to create, publish and discover truly amazing webzines. Be sure to play with the demo for a look at the bleeding edge of web interactivity. It's not quite a sci-fi future yet, but it's getting closer.
Common Types of Barflyze
And this is how his summer with the alpaca begins.
Paca Plus is a visual novel that dares to ask the question: What if your girlfriend turned into an alpaca? It even has a theme song.
The Spider Wars
"So I spent the night with a few friends ..." What do you do if you're staying in a room filled with brown recluse spiders? Well, if you're an entomologist you establish a base, erect defenses, and put together a coalition of allies.
"putting the role-play back into role playing games."
New feature for online MMO puts the player's facial expressions and movements into the game avatar in real time. The player only needs a normal webcam to make the feature work. It also allows the player to alter their voice to fit the character they're playing.
No Llora mas....Adios Chavela; mil besos a ti.
Chavela Vargas, iconic singer in the Spanish speaking world has died aged 93.
She would appear on stage dressed as a man, toting a gun or brandishing a bullwhip, and drawing on a fat cigar or swigging from a bottle of hooch.
La Llorona her tribute to Frida Kahlo, is probably one of her better known songs outside the Spanish speaking world.
Some of her other songs:
En el último trago.
Piensar en mi.
Se me olvido otra vez.
Noche de bodas with Joachin Sabina.
Flor de azalea. [more inside]
She would appear on stage dressed as a man, toting a gun or brandishing a bullwhip, and drawing on a fat cigar or swigging from a bottle of hooch.
La Llorona her tribute to Frida Kahlo, is probably one of her better known songs outside the Spanish speaking world.
Some of her other songs:
En el último trago.
Piensar en mi.
Se me olvido otra vez.
Noche de bodas with Joachin Sabina.
Flor de azalea. [more inside]
Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner
204 Nations, 204 Photographers, 204 Londoners - The World In London
Cut the World
Antony and the Johnsons - Cut the World (starring Willem Dafoe, Carice van Houten, Marina Abramović.) [Graphic Violence]
Male Superheroes See How The Other Side Lives
August 8
Nuke me, baby
Homebuilding a 474mm tall model of "Robocain" from 1990's Robocop 2, complete with a working head. Clips of Robocain and the other Robocop prototypes from the movie. All photos from the project. Bonus music link: Front Line Assembly performing the Robocop 2 sampling Mindphaser live.
an enigmatic people dedicated to the life of the mind
Everything Counts in Large Amounts
The Counting Song (SLYT), a cute, animated ditty for kids that may be too educational. From Adam Buxton (previously here)
Huge, Creaky Applications
The underlying problem here is that most software is not very good. James Kwak writes in The Atlantic about the economic risks of bad software. Angry mob comments.
The Internet Archive releases a torrent of torrents
The Internet Archive is now offering over 1,000,000 torrents including our live music concerts, the Prelinger movie collection, the librivox audio book collection, feature films, old time radio, lots and lots of books, and all new uploads from our patrons into Community collections (with more to follow). ... BitTorrent is the now fastest way to download items from the Archive, because the BitTorrent client downloads simultaneously from two different Archive servers located in two different datacenters, and from other Archive users who have downloaded these Torrents already. The distributed nature of BitTorrent swarms and their ability to retrieve Torrents from local peers may be of particular value to patrons with slower access to the Archive, for example those outside the United States or inside institutions with slow connections. (previously) [more inside]
The top ten new species 2012
The top ten new species 2012 The International Institute for Species Exploration has come up with a list of top ten new species; among them the snub nosed monkey that sneezes when it rains, a wasp that attacks ants in less than 0.05 of a second, and a psychedelic jellyfish. (previously on MeFi)
I didn't know caterpillars turned into goo...
Global trends in religiosity and atheism
Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious persons or a convinced atheist? [.pdf of survey results] The WIN-Gallup International ‘Religion and Atheism Index’ measures global self-perceptions on beliefs, based on interviews with more than 50,000 men and women selected from 57 countries across the globe in five continents. The survey also provides trend data for shifts in attitudes since 2005.
The Vulgar Metal of Which Coal-Scuttles Are Made
Your change, with thanks — Among the refinements of middle-class Victorian shopping was the giving of change not directly from hand to hand but in paper packets. The envelope, known as a ‘change packet,’ measured some 60 mm (2 ½ in) square and was printed with the legend ‘The change, with thanks’, often in a decorative roundel or other device. [more inside]
Nothing is withheld from us...
Two things about working in coffee shops. First, don't assume everyone else in there is a hipster. Second, don't assume that the elderly person who befriends you is a crazy old man telling tall tales. Else you may miss out on the meeting experience of a lifetime.
Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road. -- Stewart Brand
Steam to sell productivity software [main link]. Gabe's dislike of the Windows 8 app store [BBC] may be explained. It's particularly interesting given that Steam is about to launch on Linux [Valve] [previously on Mefi]; it's one app store across all three platforms. [more inside]
Street dentistry
Painting the first of life's molecules, circa 1961
These days, it's easy to take visualizations of biological molecules for granted, what with the easy availability of an ever-increasing supply of high-resolution X-ray and neutron crystallography data, as well as freely available software that render them into beautiful and useful images that help us understand how life works. The lack of computers and computer networks in the mid-1950s made creating these illustrations a painstaking collaboration, requiring an artist's craftsmanship and aesthetic sense, as well as, most importantly, the critical ability to visualize the concepts that scientists wish to communicate. One such scientific artist was Irving Geis, who painted the first biological macromolecule obtained through X-ray data: an iconic watercolor representation of the structure of sperm whale myoglobin, as seen in the third slide of this slideshow of selected pieces. His first effort was a revolutionary work of informatics, including coloring and shading effects that emphasized important structural and functional features of the myoglobin protein, simultaneously moving the less-important aspects into the background, all while stressing simplicity and beauty throughout. The techniques that Geis developed in this and subsequent works influenced the standards for basic 2D protein visualization that are used today.
There is no Mr. Hyde
From TOR.com: What Everybody Gets Wrong About Jekyll and Hyde: 'And when I say everybody, I mean everybody.' [more inside]
If someone calls, we're all out turning into french fries.
Three small girls play Klaus Nomi's Total Eclipse on a single piano. That is to say, it's a version of this, but six- rather than jazz-handed. Considerably more ambitious than Chopsticks. I have no idea how such a thing might have happened, but I'm very glad it did. SLYT, of course.
90 Days of election season reason
McSweeney's will list 90 reasons, a day at a time over the next 90 days, on why you should vote for Barack Obama in November. Today was the first.
"Industrial Revolution Nightmare Dream House"
.org! Those Yahoos really Binged that Googling, Siri!
Ishi, last of the Yahi: of two worlds, and in three centuries
Throughout the west, prospectors and settlers clashed with native people, diminishing the populations of tribes greatly reduced by disease. By the 1850s, it was believed that all Native Americans were "civilized," before those in the young field of anthropology were able to record first-hand accounts of native people in their own elements. In 1853, a lone native woman was found on a remote island off the coast of southern California, but she contracted dysentery and died after she had been on the mainland for only seven weeks. Then in 1911, a bedragled native man was found in a farmer's slaughter house corral in rural Northern California. He was the last of his people, and he lived to share a glimpse of an ancient way of life, in his five years spent living amongst anthropologists, doctors, and linguists. He was Ishi, the last Yahi (Snagfilm; also on Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Instant). [more inside]
High earners in France consider moving in response to 75% tax
“We’re getting a lot of calls from high earners who are asking whether they should get out of France,” said Mr. Grandil... “Even young, dynamic people pulling in 200,000 euros are wondering whether to remain in a country where making money is not considered a good thing.” French president François Hollande's plan to tax income above a million euros ($1.24 million) a year at 75% is alarming some.
All that glisters
McKayla Maroney is not impressed. (Single Link tumblr) Tiny athlete is mightily unimpressed with everything.
There Is No Effective Way To Respond
Sam Harris- 'Wrestling The Troll' "Topics like torture, recreational drug use, and wealth inequality can provoke outrage and misunderstanding in many audiences. But discussing them online sets your reputation wandering like a child across a battlefield—perpetually. Anything can and will be said at your expense—or falsely attributed to you—today, tomorrow, and years hence. Needless to say, the urge to respond to this malevolence and obfuscation can become irresistible. "
Neither snow nor rain nor heat, but...
Be wary of talk about privatizing the post office. 'A recent default by the U.S. Postal Service has revived talk about privatizing the post office, but the U.S. mail hasn't come close to outliving its usefulness.' The Constitution, Article I, Section 8, gives the federal government responsibility for postal service. 'Yet, in some quarters, talk of privatizing the post office never seems to ebb. That talk is experiencing another surge just now, because the U.S. Postal Service is in the process of defaulting on a payment of more than $5 billion owed to the Treasury.' [more inside]
All dolled up, Nigerian style
"An Engagement at the ICA"
TS;DR
Terms of Service; Didn't Read examines ToS and Privacy Policies for you, rating them from a user rights perspective.
Bob Hoskins to retire
The character actor has been diagnosed with Parkinson's. Bob Hoskins to retire. He has announced his retirement at the age of 69.
Irish Olympic Sailing Commentary & the Hardy Bucks
"Over in Ireland, mention Chris ‘The Viper’ Tordoff of the Hardy Bucks, and everyone immediately thinks comedy. But when Tordoff’s mock-commentary of Olympic sailing went viral" (video, 3 1/2 min.) "most international media failed to get the joke." Often compared to the Canadian hit TV show Trailer Park Boys (previously here & here), Hardy Bucks is an Irish mockumentary TV show "set in a small town in West Ireland, following the misadventures of five hapless men down on their luck, trying to leave their backwards rural hometown and attempt to reach Galway to sample modern civilization". As a series of largely improvised webisodes, it went on to win the 2009 Storyland competition held by Irish national broadcaster RTÉ, which then commissioned nine TV episodes (two seasons) and a Xmas special. [more inside]
Print Your Own Foetus
For US$1275, You Can Get a 3D Model of Your Foetus The result is a scale reproduction of your unborn baby, composed of an opaque white fetus encased in the mother’s clear, colorless abdomen. [via The Verge]
Mmm.. toasty!
Toasted Leg Syndrome, or erythema ab igne, is / are a pronounced skin burn, usually on the thighs, that can lead to permanent discoloration and even melanoma. And you can get it from using a laptop - on your lap. One solution: Make your own cooling pad (1, 2). But that won't help you if you toast the undersides on the warmed seat of your fancy car.
Is it still 1964? Is this a Philco?
In the spirit of Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work (previously) here are Mark Waid's 4 Panels That Never Work. [more inside]
120 Megabytes
If you fondly remember the days when MTV would play large blocks of music videos then 120 Megabytes may be for you. [more inside]
Needs Moar Uncanny Everything
The Blue has had Dark Knights Rises posts and 'Call Me Maybe' posts, but Batman Maybe combines the best of the two. (SLYT).
Spoilers, obviously).
Joss And Marvel Sitting In A Tree...
Joss Whedon signs three year deal with Marvel Studios. He will be writing and directing Avengers 2, developing a live-action Marvel TV show for ABC, and basically be the showrunner for the Marvel Cinematic Universe until 2015.
Finding Colorful Beauty in the Small and Creepy
Omid Golzar and Shikhei Goh are two photographers who share a passion for a similar subject; extreme close-up macro images of insects and arachnids. [more inside]
For the first time in Olympic history all the participating teams will have female athletes
The London Olympics has been billed as a notable step forward in gender equality. It is the first Olympics with female representation from all countries despite the many and several barriers to female sport participation that still exist in some countries (including developed ones).
These Olympics have female boxers, female athletes from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Brunei and male medal bearers
But despite Jacques Rogge's declaration in his opening ceremony speech, some are more equal than others. Australia and Japan are reviewing their athletes' travel arrangements after women were given second class tickets and there is a small, but growing campaign to see male synchronised swimming form part of the program (one of two sports, the other being rhythmic gymnastics, with no male competition). [more inside]
"...he has been fairly clear that he is simply a boy who sometimes likes to dress and play in conventionally feminine ways."
How MIT students beat the lottery
Beating the system: The Boston Globe reports how a group of MIT students beat the Massachusetts state lottery by working out that you were almost guaranteed to get a return on the game Cash Win Fall at certain times, and only buying tickets at that point. It's reckoned that they made $48m on a $40m stake over several years, that other syndicates were also involved, and the state 'bent and broke' the rules by allowing them to buy tickets in bulk. The game was closed down after the Globe started to investigate. [more inside]
Faster, Stronger, Deeper in Debt
August 7
To wake the dead
"I don't want to die doing drugs. I don't want to be that kid who was the son of the head coach of the Eagles, who was spoiled and on drugs and OD'd and just faded into oblivion."
"Garrett Reid, the oldest son of Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid, was found dead Sunday morning in his room at training camp at Lehigh University."
Garrett's legal troubles and struggle with addiction were widely publicized over the years due to his high profile father. After leaving prison he fought hard to change this legacy and was employed as a trainer with the team at the time of his death.
"Garrett’s road through life was not always an easy one. He faced tremendous personal challenges with bravery and spirit. As a family, we stood by him and were inspired as he worked to overcome those challenges. Even though he lost the battle that has been ongoing for the last eight years, we will always remember him as a fighter who had a huge, loving heart."
[more inside]
Junkie read by WSB online for free
If you're a fan of William Burroughs' work, a complete reading of Junkie, by William Burroughs himself, has recently appeared online, for free. Junkie (alternately titled Junky) is a 1953 semi-autobiographical novel by William S. Burroughs, published initially under the pseudonym "William Lee". It was his first published novel and has come to be considered a seminal text on the lifestyle of heroin addicts in the early 1950s. Also some Burroughs movies, which include The Cut-Up Films, interviews, Burroughs The Movie and Shotgun Paintings.
And a one...
Chicken Wings
Buffalo chicken wings were invented by Teressa Bellissimo at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York in 1964. Americans will eat 25 billion of them this year - not a few of them at the 10th annual National Buffalo Wing Festival. Some people eat nothing else. Alton Brown steams his. But will any of them be more delicious than these Sriracha Garlic Wings?
Recurring Character time
Draw Me In is comic fan Jeff's quest to be a background extra in various comic series - perhaps as ubiquitous as the mystery hipster cops?
Fistful of Rupees
TGS's Zelda / Western mash-up, FISTFUL OF RUPEES, is a three-part web miniseries starring TJ Smith, Lisa Foiles, and Rawn, with guest appearances by Dodger and Jesse Cox.
Herb and Dorothy
On July 22, 2012, Herb Vogel passed away. Herb worked his entire life for the US Postal Service, while his wife Dorothy worked for the Brooklyn Public Library. In spite of their humble backgrounds, the couple were renowned in art circles for amassing over the course of decades a deeply personal collection of over 2500 pieces of 20th C. contemporary American art, a collection so vast that it could not be housed in the National Gallery of Art. A traveling exhibition entitled Fifty Works in Fifty States was set up to share the Vogel's treasures with the American public in museums across the country, as well as online. The wonderful story of the deep love that the Vogels shared for each other and their passion for art, beauty and human creativity was told in the eponymous documentary Herb and Dorothy.
Reaching bottom at the top of the world
"As a climber goes up even higher in altitude, into the so-called death zone, the dangerously thin air above 26,000 feet, there is so little oxygen available that the body makes a desperate decision: it cuts off the digestive system. The body can no longer afford to direct oxygen to the stomach to help digest food because that would divert what precious little oxygen is available away from the brain. The body will retch back up anything the climber tries to eat, even if it’s as small as an M&M."
-Excerpt from To the Last Breath: A Journey of Going to Extremes
Everyone Smokes Morleys and Drinks Heisler Gold (Unless They Were Just Part of Bob Hartley's Dream)
AV Club points out 21 links between unexpectedly shared TV universes
including ubiquitous brands and crossover characters like the omnipresent Richard Belzer as Sgt. Munch (who was preceded in the 50s-'60s by Pat Harrington Jr. as Guido Panzini). Of course, it finishes with a reference to the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis (previously here). [more inside]
including ubiquitous brands and crossover characters like the omnipresent Richard Belzer as Sgt. Munch (who was preceded in the 50s-'60s by Pat Harrington Jr. as Guido Panzini). Of course, it finishes with a reference to the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis (previously here). [more inside]
Impossible Dreams
Impossible Dreams וידאו קסם "A sci-fi romance. Based on the Hugo award winning story 'Impossible Dreams' by Tim Pratt. Hebrew with English subtitles." [Via]
"the idea of viral videos, and the huge audiences they generate, have forever changed the values and potential impact of video online."
Too Busy to Ask for Cheezburgers
The Kitty Cam Project: Sponsored by the University of Georgia and National Georgraphic, The Kitty Cam Project is not what you might think. For one year, researchers followed the activities of owned, free-roaming cats in Athens, GA by equipping them with cameras. They found that cats do more killing than previously thought.
The surprising, stealth rebirth of the American arcade
"The arcade industry is dead in the United States—everyone knows it—done in by a combination of rapidly advancing home consoles and rapidly expanding suburbanization in the late '80s and early '90s. The only people not in on this bit of conventional wisdom are the ones who happen to be opening a surprising number of successful new arcades around the country." [more inside]
The Curious Case of the Missing Congressman
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., son of revered civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, Sr., has been missing from the public eye since June 10th, failing to cast votes and making no public appearances. After weeks of vague statements raising more questions than answers about his mystery illness, Jackson's office has stated that he is seeking treatment for "debilitating" depression at the Mayo Clinic. Jackson's office denies alcoholism or drug addiction. [more inside]
Metal Knee-slappin' Good Time
We're changing our image.
Panhandling in Arcata tests the city's tolerance. 'Long known as the "Berkeley of the North," Arcata traditionally has welcomed the downtrodden, embraced the leftist fringe and fostered a live-and-let-live ethos.' 'But balancing the comfort of the haves with tolerance for the have-nots has come down to a complex question of just who is worthy of help.' 'Councilwoman Susan Ornelas reflected the community's torn conscience: "While we're a progressive town and we're very open-hearted," she said, "we have limits on our tolerance."' 'A report last fall by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty found that slightly more than half of 234 cities surveyed had bans on aggressive panhandling, the same proportion had outlawed it in specific areas, and one-fourth forbade begging citywide.' [more inside]
Texts From Nancy Drew
Lightning McQueen Rebuild
Videophone
Dan and Ben filmed a scene. It was shown to the next team. They had 1 hour and 1 take to re-create it from memory. The video that team made was shown to the next team, and so on and so on.
The memo platform is burning
iPhone Caused “Crisis of Design” at Samsung (Memo) “Influential figures outside the company come across the iPhone, and they point out that ‘Samsung is dozing off.’ All this time we’ve been paying all our attention to Nokia, and concentrated our efforts on things like Folder, Bar, Slide,” Shin wrote. “Yet when our UX is compared to the unexpected competitor Apple’s iPhone, the difference is truly that of Heaven and Earth. It’s a crisis of design.” Complete text of the internal memo submitted in the Apple vs Samsung case.
Those are the more ugly points of the memo, which seems to bolster Apple’s lawsuit stating that Samsung infringed upon a number of Apple’s patents. Apple asserts that Samsung has “slavishly copied” Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices, and is seeking $2.5 billion in damages. So any more ammunition that Apple can get to make it look like Samsung attempted to actively rip off Apple’s products is only a good thing for Apple’s case.
And the memo is rife with ammunition.
Alofa mai Vailima, fa'amolemole!
Vailima, a German-style lager, has been brewed just outside the capital of Independent Samoa since 1978. There are two versions to choose from, the normal 4.9% strength and the the export-only 6.7%. But, unless you're somewhere near Samoa, you probably won't be able to find it. So, enjoy the commercials, instead! [more inside]
Grandma's New Financial Problem: College Debt
Enjoy Nature Electronically
The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore was the first in the Environments series of records, an early entry in the field of white-noise nature sound albums. One interesting aspect of the albums was that most were designed to be played on a loop at any speed; another was that selections were included on the Voyager Golden Record as "Sounds of the Earth". [more inside]
Listening in at the Philosopher's Arms
Matthew Sweet and some guest experts discuss philosophical problems with a live audience at a pub. Four episodes are available from the first series: The Experience Machine, A Robot Daughter, The Ultimatum Game, and Moral Disgust.
"Looks like the YouTube hacks are at it again..."
An anonymous source claiming to be an Acclaim employee has revealed the existence of a previously unknown prototype board of the SNES edition of NBA Jam. Never meant to see the light of day, this prototype features game announcer Tim Kitzrow replacing his well-known phrases with some more colorful commentary (NSFW). Is it real? Kitzrow says no, but then this isn't first time something like this has happened. [more inside]
Building a Lionel Richie Head
A Life Reflected
Le Miroir is the story of a life as reflected in the bathroom mirror. It's a lovely contemplation on staying in place while traveling through the experience of growing older. [via] [direct video link]
What I did for love
Composer Marvin Hamlisch is dead at 68.
Mr. Hamlisch was one of only eleven people to win all four major US performing awards: Emmy Award (he won 4), Grammy Award, the Oscar (3 awards) and the Tony Award [more inside]
Marina Akhmedova amongst the crocodile addicts of Yekaterinburg
Marina Akhmedova amongst the crocodile addicts of Yekaterinburg - published and censored in Russia, translated and mirrored on opendemocracy. "They check intently who is getting how much, and count out the eyedrops. If I ran right now into the middle of the kitchen and bellowed at the top of my voice, they would not turn round. Their world extends only a few metres and has the cooker and its hood at its centre. It is not a world within the world: it is their entire world, a world as narrow as a coffin, but all-encompassing for those who live in it, a world which follows its own laws. In it there are neither saints nor sinners, no thieves or benefactors, only the harsh laws of survival. There is no truth, no certainty about anything, not even that the sun will rise tomorrow. It is a world which arises when people are dicing with death. A supreme, inexorable law instantly appears, an axis around which their universe revolves: it is the right of those as yet still human to play a game they have chosen for themselves."
Dreams are symbolic in order that they cannot be understood.
Beautiful as the chance meeting of an umbrella and a sewing machine.
Gromyko Semper is a young Filipino artist whose influences are the Surrealists - Hommage to Cornell; The game Exquiste Corpse - Dreams that LittleZyrus Play and collaboration - Orchidoplasmic union.
Together with Hindu cosmologies - The Spectres of Kali with explanation and Kabbalistic spiritual cosmology - The Shedding of the Spectres of Qlipoth.
Here are his Galleries on Deviant Art with his woodcut series and from Surrealism Now and from Saatchi..
An interview featuring more of his work. (All images are magnifyable; there are possibly some repeats; some images possibly NSFW).
Gromyko Semper is a young Filipino artist whose influences are the Surrealists - Hommage to Cornell; The game Exquiste Corpse - Dreams that LittleZyrus Play and collaboration - Orchidoplasmic union.
Together with Hindu cosmologies - The Spectres of Kali with explanation and Kabbalistic spiritual cosmology - The Shedding of the Spectres of Qlipoth.
Here are his Galleries on Deviant Art with his woodcut series and from Surrealism Now and from Saatchi..
An interview featuring more of his work. (All images are magnifyable; there are possibly some repeats; some images possibly NSFW).
August 6
The American Military's Most-Trusted News Source
Duffel Blog is the military version of The Onion. They recently scooped the Army's decision to replace their beloved bayonet with an Inverted Multi-Purpose Ballistic Tomahawk Bayonet, a versatile but sturdy weapon mounted on rifles. It was picked up by some, who spread the news.
Just about 3 seconds
How fast are today's Olympic runners? Pretty darn fast. But maybe not as fast as you think?
Yet More Pop-Up Video
A second new season of Pop-Up Video started today on VH1. (Previously, recommended) Videos featured in today's two half-hour shows include Katy Perry "The One That Got Away", Jet - "Are You Gonna Be My Girl", and Alanis Morrisette - "Hands Clean". [more inside]
How Not to get Screwed Over
DontGetScrewedOver.com features a video called "What it Feels Like to be a Freelancer." They also provide tips on how not to get screwed over, for freelancers, clients, and subletters alike. The site and video were brainchild of Docracy- aimed at offering free, open-source legal documents that are edited and fine-tuned by the community that uses them. They range from a variety of subjects, from personal [subletting, wills] to business [freelancers, consulting].
The Cheesecake Factory as a model for the American health care system
A new model for the American health care system: The Cheesecake Factory
Robert Hughes died in New York yesterday.
Influential Australian art critic Robert Hughes, author of The Shock of the New and The Fatal Shore, has died aged 74.
Icelandic landscapes, set to Japanese post-rock
Legend: A Journey Through Iceland is a 12 min. 31 sec. long time-lapse video of Icelandic landscapes, set to the music of MONO, a Japanese post-rock band. A bit more MONO and pleasant landscapes inside. [more inside]
Vixen, Virgin, Victim
In a controversial piece for the New York Times, Jere Longman argues that US Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones garners publicity based "not on achievement but on her exotic beauty and on a sad and cynical marketing campaign. Essentially, Jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be — vixen, virgin, victim — to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses."
Save the D'ast Lance for Me
"It’s a long, long time from now, and machines have developed into sentient beings. Starting with the high-tech space stuff, a whole new set of different mechanistic species have come into existence. The machines are not only sentient; they are alive in other ways as well. They even produce offspring and evolve.
At first, it was just the super high-tech orbiting stuff that achieved self-awareness, but soon more terrestrial devices gained intelligence. Unfortunately the machines loathed each other, and war broke out between orbiting and earthly devices. Humankind had already moved out into space, but at the discovery that our original home world was in a crisis situation, we returned.
By the time we reached Earth again, all the original machines had been destroyed. The descendants of those original devices were still battling, trying to obliterate each other, an ancient blood feud where one planetary region wasn’t big enough for the two mechanical clans.
The future humans had to make a decision that would end the war. But it was clear that humankind had been in space too long as there was no sympathy for the terrestrial machines. And that’s when we found ourselves backing the satellite kin." [more inside]
At first, it was just the super high-tech orbiting stuff that achieved self-awareness, but soon more terrestrial devices gained intelligence. Unfortunately the machines loathed each other, and war broke out between orbiting and earthly devices. Humankind had already moved out into space, but at the discovery that our original home world was in a crisis situation, we returned.
By the time we reached Earth again, all the original machines had been destroyed. The descendants of those original devices were still battling, trying to obliterate each other, an ancient blood feud where one planetary region wasn’t big enough for the two mechanical clans.
The future humans had to make a decision that would end the war. But it was clear that humankind had been in space too long as there was no sympathy for the terrestrial machines. And that’s when we found ourselves backing the satellite kin." [more inside]
Many are calling him 'douchebag' of the month!
"If your $257,000 Ferrari is parked in the valet zone of The Mercer Hotel in SoHo and a cop starts writing your ass a ticket for being parked in the valet zone, you should just take the ticket, drive your car to a $75-a-day parking garage (and that's probably the cheapest parking garage in that neighborhood)" ... [more inside]
bunny-core
Danish band Sleep Party People seems like something out of a David Lynch film, composing music for those moments between consciousness and sleep.
Moebius Drawing
In preparation for his then upcoming retrospective Transe Forme, Fondation Cartier recorded Moebius doing a series of digital drawings. Recorded in late 2010, these are some of, if not, the last recordings of Moebius drawing that we are likely to see. - Moebius Drawing
'how casinos have created a new kind of crowd'
The Touch-point Collective: Crowd Contouring on the Casino Floor -
'Historically, casinos have been eager adopters of technologies that help them to gather knowledge about their customers. The knowledge-gathering repertoire of the modern casino has shifted from telephone surveys, focus groups, and rudimentary datasets to complex feats of reconnaissance and analysis enabled by player tracking systems, data visualization tools, and behavioral intelligence software suites. Many surveillance techniques first applied in casinos were only later adapted to other domains—airports, financial trading floors, shopping malls, banks, and government agencies.' There are some large, embedded .avi files in the page, be careful. [more inside]
return armada;
If Hemingway wrote JavaScript [SFW, despite the .xxx URL]
Contortionists Unite!
Contortionists Unite! is a public network for professional contortionists, where they can exchange photos, videos, and advice. Want to hire a contortionist, aerialist, or circus performer? Be prepared to offer what they're worth.
Unbaby.me, baby
Tired of looking at your friends' baby pictures on Facebook?
1. INSTALL unbaby.me
2. BROWSE Refresh Facebook. Any baby pics will now be cats.
3. REJOICE Now you don't have to look at all your friends' annoying kids.[more inside]
Chop, slice, and dice Amazon reviews
Have you ever wanted to sort a particular Amazon's reviewer's reviews by their number of stars? Amazon has never added this feature to its user profile pages, but here's a workaround. Or perhaps you need a tool that lets you see ratings, dates of reviews, helpful and unhelpful votes, and number of comments, all in a helpful sortable list. Maybe you need to download and install the Amazon Reviewer Analysis Tool.
What came before Pangea? What comes next?
A history of the world. As seen from space. Over a really long stretch of time. If the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and Pangea split up only about 200 million years ago, what happened before then? I never knew that geologists could reconstruct the continents' movements from before Pangea. Not only that, but they can give us a preview of what comes next. Here's three possible ways the continents might be joined in 250 million years. In the big picture, researchers from U.C. Lancashire have just finished a model of the way the Milky Way Galaxy formed. [more inside]
Thank you, thank you, I have cancer, thank you, I have cancer, really, thank you.
Comedian Tig Notaro has had extreme highs and extreme lows. She is moving to New York to work on Amy Schumer’s new television show, and she was recently on This American Life. But then she had a debilitating bacterial infection in her digestive tract for which she was hospitalized. Days after being released from the hospital, her young mother died suddenly and tragically, then she and her girlfriend broke up. Now she has cancer, in both breasts. Last Friday, Tig performed a stand-up set at LA's Largo at the Coronet where she talked all of this. Everyone laughed and wept. Louis CK said, "In 27 years doing this, I've seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo."
At 5:00 PM, they remote wiped my iPhone. At 5:01 PM, they remote wiped my iPad. At 5:05, they remote wiped my MacBook Air.
Yes, I was hacked. Hard. Mat Honan, a tech journalist, had his iPhone and Mac remotely wiped and his gmail account deleted within the space of 5 minutes. Password cracked? No. Security question leak? No. Social engineering Apple tech support.
Bow Ties are Cool
Sat Sri Akal, Sardarji
The history of the Sikh Diaspora in USA and Canada goes back to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897. Emerging as a casteless alternative to the ongoing Hindu Muslim wars in India, the Sikhs have always been known as a martial tribe, their prowess and courage respected by the British and others alike. Colloquially addressed respectfully as Sardarji, the men take Singh (lion) as their middle name while the women bear the name Kaur (princess). This custom further confirmed the equality of both genders as was the tradition set by the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak.
The first Sikh Organization was The Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan Society organized in the spring of 1912. [more inside]
August 5
Godly Locks: Inside L.A.'s Bizarre Human Hair Business
Curiouser and curiouser
NASA commentary on Curiosity landing has just started, landing itself is expected two hours later, at 5:31 am UTC/10:31 pm PDT. [more inside]
Scientology headquarters
Scientology's international headquarters - known as Gold Base - is located on a 500-acre parcel of land south of San Jacinto, California. It "has a number of unusually strong security measures, including razor-tipped fences, motion sensors, snipers nests and a large number of regular and infrared CCTV cameras." It also houses a detention center for executives referred to as "The Hole". (previously) [more inside]
"The off-label intervention ... aims only at sex normalization".
From the Northwestern University press release: A new paper just published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry uses extensive Freedom of Information Act findings to detail an extremely troubling off-label medical intervention employed in the U.S. on pregnant women to intentionally engineer the development of their fetuses for sex normalization purposes. [more inside]
Careful in the morning.
Public Service Announcement About Spiders. Just so you know.
I do not advise you to do as I have done. Any modifications will most likely void any warranty.
Like coffee? Maybe even looking to buy a home-roaster? Not enough, you say? Check out the Hot Rod Home Coffee Roasters of those that have gone beyond. [more inside]
two Erics summarize SCIENCE! for life improvement & greater understanding
Barking Up The Wrong Tree distils scientific research, focused on its motto: "I want to understand why we do what we do and use the answers to be awesome at life." With a gradual shift to more digest posts packed with links to summaries & sources, a sampling of the past couple weeks includes: What are 10 things you should do every day to improve your life? - What are 10 things you should do every week to improve your life? - 25 research-based ways to increase your intelligence - What are 7 things that can make you happier in 7 seconds? - 7 steps to never procrastinating again. Another blog along the same lines but less glib & immediate is Peer-Reviewed By My Neurons; recently: How confusion facilitates learning - The science of coming on too strong - Want to be creative? Play Dungeons & Dragons [more inside]
Drink the coconut water I cannot get in America
A little known gem of americana, Calypso is Like so....., was recorded by actor Robert Mitchum in 1957. The record was inspired by Mitchum's meeting Mighty Sparrow and Lord Invader while filming in Tobago.
Wonderfully catchy, and amusingly anachronistic, the album contains such gems as Jean and Dinah,
I Learn A Merengue,
Mama Look at Boo boo, and From a Logical Point of View".
Sikh Temple Shooting in Wisconsin
Early Sunday morning a man entered a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six and wounding three, and was killed in a shootout with police SWAT personnel. [more inside]
Free as in free to laugh at you, not with you
MooGNU is a copyleft alternative to nyancat Created by GNU/linux fans who are unable to enjoy the original because of "legal issues" MooGNU is a copyleft version of Nyancat, except obviously it is a GNU and has a slightly less catchy song.
Watch with one eye, hear with one ear, hand-made celluloid films!
A tale from Van Phuc village is a short film by Tibetan filmmaker Tsering Tashi Gyalthang. Half-fiction/half-documentary, this short shows the singular craft of Nguyen Van Long, who spent several decades entertaining children in the Thu Le park in Hanoi, Vietnam by playing his hand-made flipbook cartoons or 5-min celluloid movies on a Soviet projector.
Municipal Bankruptcy in the United States
Over the last few months, a few cities around the United States have experienced their own, unique, fiscal crisis: bankruptcy. [more inside]
Double jump.
ASCIIvania, is a metroidvania game where you collect letters in order to complete words and make obstacles disappear so that you can continue exploring. The game ends when you find every letter. [more inside]
Chicks In Luxury
Bless me Father, for I have sinned
The Calendario Romano, aka "the most typical souvenir from Rome," is looking for a few good men: "single clergymen and seminaristi" who wish to be featured are welcome to contact the being followed author of the Calendar to deliveries. Inevitable video tribute! [more inside]
"the better Autocorrect gets, the more we will come to rely on it"
Pareidoloop
Two Sides To Every Story
Half-Drag is photographer Leland Bobbé's series capturing both the 'male and the alter-ego female side' of a person's face in a single image.
The story of OMG seriously?
Katrina Lumsden reads the Fifty Shades of Grey books so you don't have to:
Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades Darker
Fifty Shades Freed
(contains animated gifs)
Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades Darker
Fifty Shades Freed
(contains animated gifs)
I am a lego on the wind.
"Earth laughs in flowers" - Emerson
The Life of Flowers is a timelapse of blooms opening put to music. It's simple and lovely.
Every Radio Has Them
WHAT IS A WILD TONE? "Wild Tones" live in Radios. They're the Bad Tones that escape from the back of your speaker. They like to howl and screech and beat booming drums... they ruin good music... every chance they get. Yeoooooooo EEK! BONG! BOOM [more inside]
When you do not like human beings you cannot make good portraits.
Giselle Freund, was born in Germany in 1908 .
In the 1930' she photographed ( 9 pages ) the Who's Who of Paris intelligensia, esp. James Joyce.
A charming Video of some of her stills.
In January, 1933, Hitler became chancellor of the Reich and established his dictatorship in Germany. Many of those I photographed on that May Day in 1932 became members of the Nazi party; others ended up in concentration camps.
In exile in Argentina (invited by Victoria Ocampo) she explored Patagonia; and her pictures of Evita Peron together with her political stance later caused her problems with the Americans.
L’Oeil Frontière Paris 1933-1940 and some later photos.
In the 1930' she photographed ( 9 pages ) the Who's Who of Paris intelligensia, esp. James Joyce.
A charming Video of some of her stills.
In January, 1933, Hitler became chancellor of the Reich and established his dictatorship in Germany. Many of those I photographed on that May Day in 1932 became members of the Nazi party; others ended up in concentration camps.
In exile in Argentina (invited by Victoria Ocampo) she explored Patagonia; and her pictures of Evita Peron together with her political stance later caused her problems with the Americans.
L’Oeil Frontière Paris 1933-1940 and some later photos.
| Julian Carrillo and the 13th Sound : a microtonal musical system | Julián Carrillo y el Sonido
Hierarchies of hats will still be allowed (nay, encouraged)
The current system of corporate governance is bunk. Capitalist corporations are on the way to certain extinction. Replete with hierarchies that are exceedingly wasteful of human talent and energies, intertwined with toxic finance, co-dependent with political structures that are losing democratic legitimacy fast, a form of post-capitalist, decentralised corporation will, sooner or later, emerge.An analysis of the management and organizational style of Valve Software.
August 4
Wozniak prints his own $2 legal tender, somehow.
Steve Wozniak produces and uses his own two dollar bills. You've seen novelty $2 bill note paper. It's often gummed for easy removal and usage. Same with these bills, but these are legal tender. Woz goes on to detail other situations where printing interesting things has led to fun and profit.
An insatiable kingpin of international meme laundering
TED Fellow Evgeny Morozov (previously, previously) calls bullshit on the "increasingly" "simplistic" "anxiety-peddling futurology" surrounding the TED conference in generally and especially the new TED book Hybrid Reality by Ayesha & Parag Khanna. [more inside]
Stained Glass Kaleidoscope Table
Oh man look at those cavemen go
Coming soon to a red planet near you, it's the Mars Science Laboratory! On
Monday, August 6 at 05:31 UTC (other times around the world), NASA's
Curiosity rover is expected to land on Mars in search of conditions suited to
past or present Martian life. Live coverage begins on NASA TV at 03:30 UTC.
But this mission has been years in the making, so if you have a little catching up to do... [more inside]
Summer Beach Reading That'll Leave You Sunburned to a Crisp
The Top 10 Most Difficult Books compiled by critic/author/editor/literati/people-who-use-their-middle-names Emily Colette Wilkinson and Garth Risk Hallberg who have been surveying Difficult Books for TheMillions.com since 2009 (and you think the last 3 years have been hard for YOU).
9 billion Euros down the tube
So what has become of the Athens Olympic venue, which cost nearly nine billion Euros? Most of it is abandoned and covered with weeds and graffiti. And the same thing is happening in Beijing.
Like a Russian nesting doll filled with rich white romen
Rosemary Watson's dead on impression of Hilary Clinton has been on the blue before. But she is back with a new series and a new impression: Ann Romney. [more inside]
Plankton Chronicles
Water, water everywhere
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Basement dwellers of the world unite (in a basement)!
The Science Museum London, in conjunction with Google, is hosting Chrome Web Lab: a live, collaborative music/data/art experiment. You can participate in person at the museum, and online of course [optimized for Chrome]. [more inside]
A Confederacy of Bachelors
A Confederacy of Bachelors [NYT] Meet the brotherhood of Fortress Astoria: Danaher Dempsey, Luke Crane, Rick Brown and Shyaporn Theerakulstit, best friends and artists.
They have no children, no linear career histories, no readily disposable savings. The four men, all heterosexual, approaching 40 and never married, have lived together for 18 years, give or take a revolving guest roommate, cohabitating in spaces like an East Village walk-up, a Chelsea loft and, now, a converted office space in Queens. [more inside]
200 Pounds of Cute
Rescued Alaskan Walrus Calf Charms Caretakers (YouTube, bad music warning)"He’s sweet, snuggly and loves a good bottle," writes Amy Sinatra Ayres, for VetStreet.com. [more inside]
A new pizza roll
Mr. Plinkett's Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope Commentary Track (stream for free or buy to download)
How “2001″ Became the Space Odyssey We Know
"James Cameron narrates this documentary on the classic film 2001. It includes archival footage of the late Arthur C. Clarke in the 1960s touring spacecraft manufacturing facilities, footage of designers putting together models, snippets of archival footage of Kubrick, interviews with various luminaries, and various other amazing stuff I’ve never seen. It also features interviews with Doug Trumbull and others who did special effects for the film. If you’re a 2001 fan, this is 43 minutes of candy.
Skip to 7:00 to find out how they did the floating-pen trick — including an interview with the actress who played the “Space Hostess” who grabbed the pen seemingly from midair. Skip to around 11:00 to meet the guys who played the apes ... . Around 13:45, Clarke explains how the monolith originally was to have a movie screen on it ... ."
Why does it hurt so much to stub your toe?
Clinical assistant professor of kinesiology Chris Geiser at Marquette University explains why it hurts so damn much when you stub your toe.
Flamenco Music: El Barrio
VISIT BEAUTIFUL FOLSOM DAM
Ladies and Gentlemen, tired of the usual vacation spot? Want to get away from crowded beaches and cluttered national forests? Why not visit new-and-improved locations like:
Permian Basin, Texas! Or Bull Shoals Dam, in Arkansas. Try a less-well-known section of Virginia Beach! Drive up to see the glaciers at Glacier National Park. [more inside]
Man, I don't know where we at
When the works of David Simon were translated to television, the job of portraying 15-year-old DeAndre McCullough from "The Corner" was given to Sean Nelson. DeAndre himself, then 23, appeared on screen in a cameo as an officer and in a non-fiction discussion at the end of the miniseries. Later, in the world of "The Wire," DeAndre returned as the bodyguard of Brother Mouzone.
David Simon: "He enjoyed acting, and showed some poise, but the jobs that offered the chance at a real career — the behind-the-camera production work, the path to union wages and benefits — those couldn’t hold him."
DeAndre McCullough was found dead on Wednesday in Baltimore. He was 35.
David Simon: "He enjoyed acting, and showed some poise, but the jobs that offered the chance at a real career — the behind-the-camera production work, the path to union wages and benefits — those couldn’t hold him."
DeAndre McCullough was found dead on Wednesday in Baltimore. He was 35.
Cat Bank is Watching You be Fiscally Responsible.
Pull on a rope
Tug of War is in decline. Once a proud Olympic event, (who can forget the Sweden vs. Great Britain match of 1912?), it may be that some of the tactics will be forgotten completely.
August 3
An introduction to cult movies
"What is a cult film? A cult film is one that has a passionate following, but does not appeal to everyone. James Bond movies are not cult films, but chainsaw movies are. Just because a film has become a cult movie does not automatically guarantee quality. Some are very bad; others are very, very good. Some make an awful lot of money at the box office; others make no money at all. Some are considered quality films; others are exploitation movies. One thing cult movies do have in common is that they are all genre films - for example gangster films or westerns. They also have a tendency to slosh over from one genre into another, so that a science fiction film might also be a detective movie, or vice versa. They share common themes as well, themes that are found in all drama: love, murder and greed." - of the British TV film slots accompanied by an introduction perhaps the most celebrated is Moviedrome, running between 1988 and 2000 and presented first by Repo Man director Alex Cox and then film critic Mark Cousins. [more inside]
Cups and Balls, hand cranked.
Cups and Balls, via crank (slyt)
But as I stand here... I remain a child.
When I Grow Up (SLYT)
The TRS-80 Personal Computer
35 years ago today, Tandy Corporation announced the most expensive product yet offered in its chain of Radio Shack stores: the TRS-80 personal computer. [more inside]
Dreamin' Wild
On an empty plot of the family farm, [the father] built a state-of-the-art $100,000 recording studio. And in that studio, the boys recorded the newly reissued "Dreamin' Wild"... [more inside]
Not to be confused with 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Hey! Do you like auto racing? Perhaps you’ve wished to see a race featuring a Ford 150 pickup body mounted backwards on a Crown Vic chassis. Or maybe a two-stroke/three-cylinder powerhouse 1967 Saab, complete with Antarctic emergency airdrop sled mounted to the roof. Or even a totally ludicrous self-powered pop-out camper. [more inside]
SimLawsuit
EA, the publisher behind The Sims and Facebook game The Sims Social, is suing Zynga over copyright infringement found in Zynga's Facebook game The Ville. [more inside]
Fat.
Comedian/podcaster Ari Shaffir interviews comedian Ralphie May on the realities of being morbidly obese, including very frank, often touching, sometimes hilarious discussions of health issues (including his near-death experience), social acceptance, fashion, personal demons, sex, comedy, and cannabis use.
"Fat" pt 1 (direct mp3) "Fat" pt 2 (direct mp3) (NSFW audio)
"Fat" pt 1 (direct mp3) "Fat" pt 2 (direct mp3) (NSFW audio)
A vintage-filtered edition of "now".
This is now uses real-time instagram updates to capture "a cities movement, in a fluid story."
Who is Fighting for the Middle Class?
Want to see how much more you'd pay if Mitt Romney becomes President? The Tax Policy Center has published a report (pdf) saying that Romney's proposed tax plan would result in lighter taxes for the rich -- and a heavier tax burden for middle class taxpayers. The Obama campaign has been quick to provide the on-line app which is the first link above, for voters to calculate the difference for themselves. They've also released an ad, vetted as quite accurate, on the issue.
Le Fox Fantastique
Xanga user Criscoh is a talented concept artist who is kind enough to share his work on recent films, including:
Fantastic Mr Fox, Coraline, Hotel for Dogs, and
City of Ember.
What if every Olympic sport was photographed like beach volleyball?
I'm changing my name to No Taxes A1 for 2014
Despite not raising any money or updating his campaign website (cache) since 2009, 35 year-old flooring installer Mark Clayton has won the Democratic Party primary in Tennessee and will be running for US Senate against Republican incumbent Bob Corker.
Clayton's policy positions are unusual for a Democratic candidate. [more inside]
He's an outlaw. He’s an inventor. He’s a detective. He’s got better gadgets than James Bond and he looks like Dracula. He's got everything.
Viral Nightmares
My Name is John Daker
John Daker is going to sing a song that's very popular nowadays, it's Christ The Lord Is Risen Today, and he's going to do Amore too, okay? There is a subtitled and animated version also.
It's Paratrooper's Day and Russia is draining all of its fountains
Anzac and Peggy!? OOOOOOHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOO!
This baby kangaroo and this baby wombat are friends. BEST FRIENDS. Warning: near-unparalleled levels of OMFGCUTE.
For the Love of Art
"If nobody cares about the art that's inside the museum, then I'll burn it," vowed Antonio Manfredi, director of the cash-starved Contemporary Art Museum of Casoria in Italy. In February, he started burning.
There is grandeur in this view of life.
The Evolution Documentary channel (autoplays video) has collected documentaries and clips about evolution available on youtube, including documentaries from BBC, Nova, and National Geographic. [more inside]
Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels
The Big Three of EU Foreign Policy: Stefan Lehne on the contrasting roles of Germany, France and the UK.
On the white savior industrial complex
Being an object of compassion is not the same thing as being the subject of a story. “I used to joke—and I want to emphasize this is a joke—that you could write that you’d wandered into some obscure backwater in Africa where people had three ears", tells a former NYT correspondent to the Boston Review. The expression white savior industrial complex, coined by Teju Cole in response to the Kony 2012 debâcle highlights the problem of reifying historical processes: it becomes something to be used and milked either as NGO "margins" or as fodder for disaster media. How many older people equate India with "endemic hunger" rather than "emerging power", and how many roads must Africa walk down before we stop calling them war-hungry savages? And is the objectifying discourse a cause or a symptom (or both) of the complex problem of even thinking about Africa?
"It has brown genes from the dad and pink genes from the mom"
How Babies Are Made SLYT
Whatever Happened to Adam Diment?
Adam Diment was once considered the heir to Ian Fleming with his wildly successful series of novels (The Dolly Dolly Spy, The Great Spy Race, The Bang Bang Birds, Think, Inc.) about the spy Philip McAlpine. Diment, writing in the swinging ‘60s and ‘70s, was known for his debonair lifestyle and casual flirtation with drugs. He had it all: success, wealth, sex. Then he disappeared. [more inside]
Three Double Lives
From Vanity Fair, The Murder Hustle: In 1988, 'When businessman Gene Hanson died in a California doctor's office, his partner, John Hawkins, a former Studio 54 bartender, got $1 million in insurance. Nine months later, Hanson was caught in Texas with a new face and a new name, Wolfgang Von Snowden. He and the doctor are awaiting trial for murder. Hawkins, a scam artist and sex addict, has disappeared with the money. Ann Louise Bardach investigates three double lives in the business community of Columbus, Ohio, the Genet underground of West Hollywood, and the luxury condos of Miami's Biscayne Bay.'
Part 1. [more inside]
LET HER IN COMING SOON
Just when you thought summer movies couldn't get any dumber... here comes HEIGLR, a series of almost plausible films starring professional Hollywood casualty Katherine Heigl.
CLOP is like QWOP but with more clopping around.
Also spelled Čerenkov
What happens when charged particles travel faster than the speed of light of the medium they're in? Cherenkov Radiation. Like this. Or this. Not this. More like this. Certainly not this. But definitely this or this or this. Not this.
Colorful Acrylic Photoreality
All creatures great and small
Olympic athletes come in all shapes and sizes. The BBC's handy new app allows you to see which athlete you are the closest body match with. [more inside]
3D-Printed "Magic Arms"
Two-year-old Emma wanted to play with blocks, but a condition called arthrogryposis meant she couldn't move her arms. So researchers at a Delaware hospital 3D printed a durable custom exoskeleton with the tiny, lightweight parts she needed.
"If a fish and lion can spawn an infant, let's not do different"
National Night: Days of post-war baby boom long gone, Singapore's fertility rate has been plummeting for years now. The government's efforts at matchmaking through the SDU have been disappointing; baby-bonuses haven't been helping.
So this National Day, if the official songs aren't doing it for you, if you're further than a heartbeat to love at first sight, Mentos encourages you to kick-back and do your patriotic duty.
August 2
1 TERABYTE MP3 HARSH NOISE 233 x DVD
AT&T Olympics ads
How AT&T integrated Olympic results into its ads so darn fast. Did you catch a clip of Ryan Lochte’s gold-winning swim in an AT&T ad this weekend? You weren’t seeing things. The brand’s new campaign places winning Team USA results into its advertising in near real-time.
These sound like a lot of fun
Japan Turns Masturbation into an Art "The days when the sex industry believed only women were in desperate need of self-pleasuring aids appear to be long gone. Nowadays, when one walks into a sex shop, aisles offering male masturbation tools are just as bountiful as those catering to women. At least in Japan. Seven years after Koichi Matsumoto left his car salesmen job to start 'something that hasn’t been done before' and launched Tenga 'New Adult Concept,' his company has sold over 15 million male masturbation units worldwide."
Jo Ann Kelly
The rock era saw a few white female singers, like Janis Joplin, show they could sing the blues. But one who could outshine them all -- Jo Ann Kelly -- seemed to slip through the cracks, mostly because she favored the acoustic, Delta style rather than rocking out with a heavy band behind her. But with a huge voice, and a strong guitar style influenced by Memphis Minnie and Charley Patton, she was the queen. - AllMusic [more inside]
jeans (mostly women's fit and such)
On the proper fitting of jeans. More: Mom jeans and the dreaded "long butt" - "Lydia and I ran a completely scientific experiment to prove that, indeed, it’s all about the pocket. But, while doing so, also made many other notes for you to help you avoid a Mom Jeans catastrophe altogether"; the follow-up post - "Hypothesis: That the condition known as “long butt” and proven as simply a wardrobe mistake in previous works can also be replaced with much more flattering looks even for more mature Moms, and that proper dressage in appropriate jeans can be potentially life changing"; & even more: Gateway mom jeans - Gap and Old Navy? Links include photos of bums in jeans. (found via youlookfab) [more inside]
Membership Has Its Privileges
David Pogue, the tech columnist for The New York Times, lost his iPhone. Thanks to his 1.4 million Twitter followers, and the Prince George's County police department, it has been found.
PG-13 is for pussies.
From the creators of Total Recall: The Musical, Rambo: The Musical, Schindler's List: The Musical, and Silence!: The Musical, featuring a star-studded ensemble cast of Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke, and Bruce Willis, comes The Expendables: The Musical.
[via mefi projects]
Best foster parent ever.
Murkin is always patient when Thomas O'Malley Flufferpants needs attention. Or when his kittens feel especially loving. Or even when he has to defend his personal space.
Train foamer videos
I DID IT! I FINALLY CAUGHT A HERITAGE UNIT! (UP 5009) is a rail enthusiast video that inspired responses
culminating in the Double Trainbow (caution: horns / screams).
Cliodynamics
Peter Turchin is a Professor of Mathematics, and of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. For the last nine years, he's been taking the mathematical techniques that once allowed him to track predator–prey cycles in forest ecosystems, and using them to model human history -- a pattern identification process he calls Cliodynamics. The goal of cliodynamics (or cliometrics) is to turn history into a predictive, analytic science. By analysing some of the broad social forces that shape transformative events in US society: historical records on economic activity, demographic trends and outbursts of violence, he has come to the conclusion that a new wave of internal strife is already on its way, and should peak around 2020. [more inside]
Not A Crime
one of those days
"I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting. It had been one of those days,'' - Jim Greer, former state party chair of the Florida G.O.P, in a deposition for his lawsuit against the party. Scott Horton at Harper's covers the NYT's pox-on-both-your-houses story on vote suppression
The Modern Prometheus
Comics artist Frazer Irving adapts Mary Shelly's Frankenstein in hauntingly beautiful black and white:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.
Appreciation
Chick-fil-A 'appreciation' day: Frenzied sales set record. 'Chick-fil-A appears to have set a company record in sales on Wednesday, a day on which Americans were encouraged to show their support for the fast-food restaurant' by former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. 'Orange County Pastor Rick Warren tweeted a snippet of a conversation he'd had with Dan Cathy, president of the popular fast-food chain', celebrating the record setting day. [more inside]
The only search results on mefi for "Ling Long" were related to "ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long"...
Columbia University's C.V. Starr East Asian Library is home to a nearly complete collection of issues of Ling Long women's magazine, a periodical published in Shanghai between 1931 and 1937. Images of the complete collection are available for browsing. [more inside]
It is the ocean that links the seas of night
You choose instead to sell out a talent that is not yours to sell.
You will never have anything else. You will never write another sentence above the level of In Cold Blood. As a writer you are finished. William Burroughs’ Curse on Truman Capote (full text of the letter)
Cutting canyons below Second Avenue
The upcoming New York Times Magazine cover story is about the excavation of the Second Avenue Subway line below the East Side of Manhattan. It features some stunning photography and a video that explains how the work is done. [more inside]
The Metafilter Post
Losing $10 Million Dollars A Minute
Think your job sucks? A "little glitch" in the trading software used by Knight Capital caused them to lose $440 million dollars in the stock market yesterday and may well tank the firm. This would be a really, really, really bad time to be the head of their IT department.
Pop music is never just pop music
The 'About' page of UK music website Popjustice also doubles as a pop fan manifesto.
Infographics, Olympics, potentially hot-button issues...what could go wrong?
Treasure House
The beautiful library of the Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland contains over 2000 manuscripts, including hundreds from the Abbey's glory days of the 9th and 10th centuries.
The library is open to the public and to scholars, and the Codices Electronici Sangallenses project is making selected codices - 436 so far - available online.
Pencil vs Camera on Film
Ben Heine [previously] has released a video of the process behind his wonderfully neat Pencil vs Camera artwork. [via]
How much is enough?
Robert and Edward Skidelsky talk about their book "How much is enough."
Mixing economics and philosophy will obviously cause a lot of debate, but they do raise some valid points.
Contains dinosaurs on a spaceship as promised
It's just past 6am in the United Kingdom, and that means the trailer for Series 7(a) of the New Doctor Who has been released to the Internet.
It follows this striking desktop image featuring many, many older model Daleks, including the Special Weapons Dalek (not seen since 1988).
August 1
Like a cargo cult to 50 Cent
A recent trend in the ultra-fashion-conscious world of Tokyo teen girls: B-Style, or "black lifestyle", that is, emulating the black women in rap videos. In the video you will see Japanese girls with weaves and incredibly dark tans to mimic black skin. Rebellious rejection of convention, or weird sideways racism (one girl says: "when we do it it looks vulgar, but not on the black women")?
Kink tour
A peal to authority
"Ryan Holiday is not an expert in barefoot running, investing, vinyl records, or insomnia. But he is a liar. With a little creative use of the internet, he’s been quoted in news sources from small blogs to the most reputable outlets in the country talking about all of those things." [more inside]
We read to know we are not alone.
American Photojournalist Steve McCurry has posted a series of photographs of people reading around the world on his blog. He also connects them with quotations on books and reading.
McCurry is the photographer of the famous photograph Afghan Girl on National Geographic's cover a few years back.
Earlier posts on Metafilter on McCurry include this and this
And here is some music to listen to while thinking about books.
Images from SF conventions of the past
SF conventions, and snapshots of SF conventions, go back a long time. Here's Midwestcon 2, put on by the Cincinnati Fantasy group in June 1951; shots include a haunting image of Henry Burwell, publisher of Atlanta zine Science Fiction Digest, and an already-old E.E. "Doc" Smith. From Retronaut, an unnamed 1980 con in LA. From the Mills photo archive, con costumes from the late 60s through the 80s. Forrest Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, in "futuristic costume" at the first WorldCon in 1939. This last from the endless compendium that is the MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive.
PSCYVOTV
Yeasayer: We have received a message that we are on the verge of embargoed information being leaked through the cracks of the digital universe. Once again an attempt to tell the story before our mouths can spit. In order to have the edge we have created PSCYVOTV standing for PREEMPTIVE SELF-COMMISSIONED YEASAYER VORSTELLUNG or TRACK VISUALIZER. [more inside]
The Business of Bond
Like James Bond movies? And box office grosses? And visualized data? Then today is your lucky day.
in Oakland, the revolutionary pilot light is always on
Requiem for an Occupation: The New York Times visits Oakland, California, "the last refuge of radical America." Previously and previouslier. [more inside]
Tell The Man to get out of your Face(book)
Illinois (joining Maryland) bans employers from requesting applicant or employee social networking passwords. [more inside]
My First Prototype Post
Prototypes are usually the missing links in the evolution of human technology, the dead-ends of ideas that give way to the refinement of the final physical product. Prototypes aren't just for Darth Vader. While the legal back and forth between Apple and Samsung continues, a treasure trove of prototype designs for Apple devices has been released to the public, showing insights into various design approaches and feature enhancements, including larger form-factor iPads with and without kickstands and landscape ports and iPhones that parody the Sony logo, show a different layout for camera elements, and look remarkably like fourth-generation models, as far back as 2005. On the other hand, some have made prototypes into the end goal itself, such as the folks at Dangerous Prototypes, a site which features a new open-source electronic hardware project each month. Some are just gratuitous fun, while others are a bit more practical, such as one project that recycles old Nokia displays and another that provides access to infrared signal, useful for hacking together remote controls for all sorts of IR-based devices. Other prototypes of tomorrow's technology are less concerned with shrinking down the guts of the invention itself, to make it disappear, but rather on how we interact with and integrate physical representations of these ideas into our daily lives. Above all else, prototypes are always forward-looking and are therefore inherently optimistic expressions of human creativity: Even children are getting into imagining the world of tomorrow.
A Bottle of the Widow
In 1799, at the age of 21, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin married Francois Clicquot, the son of a Reims wool merchant and vintner. After his untimely death in 1805, she was left, at 27, with a five year old daughter and became known as the Veuve Clicquot. [more inside]
You know decent people when you meet them. The Quinns are decent people.”
"The Quinns are decent people." At a rally in County Cavan thousands of people showed up to support local business man Seán Quinn. From local sports personalities to high profile priests to ordinary people, they came to support the man once known as Ireland's richest man. [more inside]
Syrian war in video
Watching Syria's War [Caution: war]. The New York Times is posting video coming out of the Syrian Civil War with context and background: Street Fighting in Allepo (related), Crusader Castle Becomes Rebel Redoubt (AFP report), Tank Stalking, Harrowing ride through the streets of Homs. The online video has "allowed the war to be documented like no other", according to the Times, presumably because of the ubiquity of video cameras among the fighters and access to the Internet.
I'll be back
Visionaries
Revisiting Cinefex - a nostalgia wormhole into the golden age of model work and practical effects and the odd piece of early CG via backissues of the quarterly magazine of motion picture visual effects. The latest issues covered touches on Young Sherlock Holmes's Stained glass knight - mainstream cinema’s first fully-rendered CG character created by Industrial Light & Magic's Pixar group.
“A Republic, if You Can Keep It”
"[T]he corrupting influence of money is the first problem facing this nation. That unless we solve this problem, we won’t solve anything else... The Framers, Lessig says, had just one kind of dependence in mind for members of Congress: a dependence on the people. He quotes The Federalist (the then-anonymous essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that are often used as a contemporary account of the Framers’ intentions) to make this point: number 52 describes the House of Representatives as that “branch of the federal government which ought to be dependent on the people alone” (emphasis added).
But in the last two decades, Lessig writes, members of Congress have developed a fearsome dependency: campaign cash. The total amount spent on campaigns by all candidates for Congress in 2010 was $1.8 billion. Fundraising has become a way of life..." (via 3 Quarks Daily)
The making of a swimsuit
How Speedo Created A Record-Breaking Swimsuit: After officials banned the swimsuit that caused records to fall at the 2008 Games, scientists are back with a new outfit that could break more. [more inside]
The gang spends an entire episode waiting for a Chinese restaurant’s website to load
Seinfeld 2012 Imagining the characters from the now-vintage sitcom dealing with current technology and social media. From the creator of the beloved Beartato.
The Greatest Films of All Time, 2012
Sight & Sound's prestigious Greatest Films of All Time poll is conducted only once per decade. The latest edition polled 846 film critics (up from 144 in the 2002 edition) and 358 directors. The results were revealed earlier today and, for the first time since 1962, Citizen Kane has not topped either the critics' or the directors' poll. It has been unseated as the Greatest Film of All Time by Vertigo and Tokyo Story. The magazine has also revealed the Critics' Top 50. [more inside]
"I hate myself."
The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater. All you want to do is eat a little healthier. Really. Maybe get some of that Activa probiotic yogurt or something. So you look around and start researching what “healthier” means.
What's that golden thing in the sky?
London Mayor and favourite for next Tory leader Boris Johnson has thrown himself into the Olympic spirit. This doesn't always go entirely to plan, leaving the blond mop-head hanging around for a while this afternoon. Fortunately, the Internet knows exactly what to do. From standing start to a country laughing its socks off - there's a #dangleboris hashtag - mere hours have passed.
Will it damage Boris' chances of taking over from the gaffe-prone David Cameron? Probably quite the opposite.
(((((O)))))
"Looks, feels, tastes, and acts like meat."
What do today's kids make of the Commodore 64?
What do today's kids make of the Commodore 64? BBC News invited Commodore enthusiast Mat Allen to show schoolchildren his carefully preserved computer, at a primary school and secondary school in London.
"It's strong, it's durable, it's cheap"
After reading about someone making a canoe out of cardboard, Izhar Gafni went to his shed and started cutting up old boxes. This eventually led to his absolutely amazing cardboard bike project. [more inside]
Taylor Mali poem, animated
Peter Cheyney, and the strange adventure of Lemmy Caution
Peter Cheyney was a prolific author of pulp thrillers, whose tin-eared appropriations of American hard-boiled detective fiction were nevertheless wildly popular in Britain and France in his mid-20th-century heyday. Among his creations were the cynical British detective Slim Callaghan; the debonair Belgian assassin Ernest Guelvada (one of the lead characters in the so-called ‘Dark’ series of spy novels), and the oddly-named, trenchcoat-wearing FBI tough-guy Lemmy Caution, played on-screen in a series of French movies by the American-born actor & singer Eddie Constantine, a role he would later reprise to striking effect in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 movie Alphaville.
"Our control is only to play as good as we can."
The Olympics are never without controversy and 2012 is no different. South Korea's Shin A Lam was held in the throes of perhaps the longest second ever of épée sudden death, as the clock was improperly reset with one full second remaining allowing her opponent to register a hit and knock her out of gold medal contention. Now the Badminton World Federation has accused four pairs of Olympic doubles players with "not using one's best efforts to win a match": essentially throwing their games to secure a better draw. [more inside]