September 2014 Archives
September 30
Two farts, both alike in dignity/In fair Hoboken, where we lay our scene
Mad:)Takes - 188 Free Online Mad Libs™
Dream detected. Dream detected.
Kichwateli (Kenya, 2011; 07:46), The Day They Came (Nigeria, 2013; 03:59), The Tale of How (South Africa, 2006; 04:28; previously), Alive in Joburg (South Africa, 2006; 06:22; previously), Umkhungo (South Africa, 2010; 30:34; trailer alt. link), Evolve (Egypt, 2014; 24:17), Mwansa the Great (Zambia, 2011; 23:11; two trailers as alt. links), and Pumzi (Kenya, 2009; 21:51): eight short works of SF/fantasy via The Skiffy and Fanty Show.
Identity of Accuser, Shrouded by City, Is Sought
For five years, Kenneth Creighton was held in jail , suspected of involvement in the killing of a bystander outside a bodega in the Bronx. In 2012, the charges were dropped. Mr. Creighton was released from Rikers Island. He has since filed a lawsuit against New York City for false arrest and malicious prosecution, and has sought the name of his accuser — a man who told the police that he had seen Mr. Creighton hand a gun to his brother, Dior, who was charged in the shooting.
Sweet Mother of Preston Tucker!
The Middleman might have only lasted 12 episodes (and one follow up comic) in 2008, but it has not been forgotten. The cast reunion and live reading of the new comic, Pan-Universal Parental Reconciliation, is now online. [more inside]
In Over 50 Sex Tips, My Vagina is Not Mentioned Once
Desireé Dallagiacomo & Kaycee Filson - "Real Sex Tips" SLYT (NSFW) Two women give their take on magazine sex tips in a tandem button poetry piece.
The name Kristian Matsson is in fact an anagram for Taekwondo Steve.
Swedish fly fisherman and filmmaker Rolf Nylinder takes a trip to Slovenia with Kristian Matsson (Tallest Man on Earth) and friends. [more inside]
how the rich fly
what it's like to fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class (includes lots of photos) [more inside]
In Another Thousand Years the Dogs Will Actually Speak
A "revolution in a cornfield", or a "failed experiment"?
This Is What's the Matter With Kansas: Sam Brownback tried to create a conservative utopia. He created a conservative hell instead. [more inside]
The Future of China's Confucius Institutes
As Western universities drag their feet, the future of China’s soft power push might be in the developing world. Confucius Institutes have been under close scrutiny recently, as many academics argue the Chinese government-funded institutes wind up restricting academic freedom at their host universities. In July, the American Association of University Professors published a report blasting the Confucius Institute model as a partnership “that sacrificed the integrity of the [host] university and its academic staff.” The AAUP recommended shutting down U.S. Confucius Institutes unless they could meet certain standards of academic freedom and transparency.
I can't deal with jam hands.
293 Thoughts I Had While Watching “Gilmore Girls” For The First Time. Gilmore Girls begins streaming on Netflix tomorrow.
Everybody say, "Is he all right?" And everybody say, "What's he like?"
"Scandals of Classic Hollywood: The Long Suicide of Montgomery Clift" by Anne Helen Petersen for Vanity Fair. (Warning: graphic description of car accident in the link.) [more inside]
OMG WATER
The Happiest Dog EVAR (SLHUFFPO)
Retweet or share if you believe in heroes
"The marine is already back in his seat when the professor comes to. His indignation cuts immediately through the fog of having been knocked unconscious, and he is pissed. Why, the quite-probably-concussed professor sputters, would the marine do such a thing?" The Ballad of Marine Todd
DIY Ramen
The Food Lab: Make Your Own Just-Add-Hot-Water Instant Noodles. "Wouldn't it be great if you could get all of the convenience and pleasure of instant noodles—the portability, the just-add-water cooking, the lunch-sized portions—but pack it full of fresh vegetables and real, honest-to-goodness flavor? Here's a secret: you can, and it's easier than you think."
Ambridge: the MMORPG
But consider how much of videogaming is controlled by corporations like Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Apple. Their influence is far-reaching, and their decisions often show little regard for their audience. That’s dangerous. The PC is a fine and flourishing alternative, but it’s an anarchic ecosystem. There ought to be a third way, an organisation with the influence of a corporation but the interests of the people at heart. That’s what the BBC can represent. That’s what I feel we need in games.In an impassionate editorial at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Graham Smith draws on the Corporation's pioneering role in television as he sets out his reasons for wanting the BBC to enter videogaming.
Cooking is really stupid.
Of course long before my boyfriend cheated on me or I made awful carrot/goldfish cum pasta sauce, cooking shame and sexual shame have gone together. For each, you put the very core of yourself out there in a very pointed attempt to give someone a one-of-a-kind sensual experience, and to differentiate yourself, to declare, "Please notice and appreciate my singular talent" and when at your urging they sample and reject, well, it is not good.An Argument for Never Cooking Again
The story of America’s most pliable, pernicious, irrepressible myth.
Slate's Jonathan Swansburg has an interesting piece on the mythos and myth of the Self Made Man.
The 50 Weirdest Movies Ever Made
Inspired by the recent Criterion re-release of Eraserhead on Blu-ray, Flavorwire offers up The 50 Weirdest Movies Ever Made — "many that rival Lynch’s strange aesthetic."
We are continuous with everything here on Earth.
The Illusion of "Natural": In an excerpt from her new book On Immunity, Eula Biss deconstructs desires to flee from "toxins" and embrace what is "natural". Where the word filth once suggested, with its moralist air, the evils of the flesh, the word toxic now condemns the chemical evils of our industrial world. This is not to say that concerns over environmental pollution are not justified—like filth theory, toxicity theory is anchored in legitimate dangers—but that the way we think about toxicity bears some resemblance to the way we once thought about filth. [more inside]
◕︵◕
The Eyes of Hitchcock (SLVimeo)
Mine tastes like a doctor's office.
The "electronic tongue," which tastes food.
I hear he made it to France, eventually.
A squirrel goes swimming (SLYT). A mesmerizing video of a squirrel at the beach. It's hard not to wonder exactly what is going on in that fuzzy little creature's head. Also, what's up with the birds?
September 29
The next big thing is privacy
The way you beat an incumbent is by coming up with a thing that people want, that you do, and that your competitors can’t do.
Ind.ie is the same. They have, rather excellently, found a way of describing the underlying message of open source software without bringing along the existing open source community. [more inside]
Ind.ie is the same. They have, rather excellently, found a way of describing the underlying message of open source software without bringing along the existing open source community. [more inside]
"something like a sense of despair often took hold of me"
In Defense of Ms. Hill
Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music “for” their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that’s the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.Hip hop artist Talib Kweli pens a response to an article criticizing R&B legend Lauryn Hill for being tardy to shows, arguably treating fans with contempt, and a lack of meaningful artistic output since 2002. Others have argued that Lauryn Hill's ouevre should be viewed with a critical eye and raised concerns about potentially homophobic and transphobic lyrics in her recent work.
Ms. Hill previously.
Ultimate mountaineering photography
Photographer Robert Bösch works with Swiss mountaineering brand Mammut and teams of climbers to produce elaborate and visually stunning Alpine works. His most recent endeavor is the 150 year commemoration of the Matterhorn's first ascent. Peta Pixel features a gallery of his works and a variety of "making of" videos. Robert Bösch
Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't ya you bastard!?
Monster Legacy, a blog "trying to delve into the secrets of the making of Movie Monsters," presents Subterranean Terror, an in depth look at the creature effects of the greatest Precambrian sandworm horror-comedy franchise of all time. [more inside]
"Maybe you should just look the other way."
Inherent Vice trailer: [SLYT] “Inherent Vice” is the seventh feature from Paul Thomas Anderson and the first film adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel.
When P.I. Doc Sportello’s ex-old lady shows up with a story about her current billionaire land developer boyfriend and a plot by his wife and her boyfriend to kidnap that billionaire and throw him in a looney bin… well, easy for her to say. It’s the tail end of the `60s, paranoia is running the day and Doc knows that “love” is one of those words going around, like “trip” or “groovy,” that’s way too overused–except this one usually leads to trouble. With a cast of characters that includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, LAPD Detectives, a tenor sax player working undercover and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists... Part surf noir, part psychedelic romp–all Thomas Pynchon.
What Happened To Mitrice Richardson?
Five years ago this month, African-American lesbian Mitrice Richardson disappeared after being released from Los Angeles County Sheriff custody in Malibu in the middle of the night. A year later, her body was discovered; the initial investigation, was later found to be flawed. In 2011, her parents settled a lawsuit against the LA County Sheriff's Department.
Her family maintains a website, Bring Mitrice Justice. A documentary, Lost Compassion, is in progress.
No Such Thing As A Dull Fact
A new(ish) podcast from the QI elves, No Such Thing As A Fish serves up a delicious selection of facts, including that someone in Japan has patented curry, that certain octopuses eat their own arms when stressed and that a blow-up doll once saved a man's life. Binge-listen on SoundCloud.
BOOM
The Sound So Loud That It Circled the Earth Four Times. "It was 10:02 AM local time when the sound emerged from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. It was heard 1,300 miles away in the Andaman and Nicobar islands ('extraordinary sounds were heard, as of guns firing'); 2,000 miles away in New Guinea and Western Australia ('a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery in a north-westerly direction'); and even 3,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, near Maldives ('coming from the eastward, like the distant roar of heavy guns.'1) In all, it was heard by people in over 50 different geographical locations, together spanning an area covering a thirteenth of the globe."
Chicken or egg? There was no moment when a dinosaur became a bird.
A team of researchers, including University of Edinburgh paleontologist Stephen Brusatte and Swarthmore College Associate Professor of Statistics Steve C. Wang, cataloging 853 skeletal characteristics in 150 dinosaurs and analyzing the rate at which these characters change, and they found that "there was no grand jump between nonbirds and birds in morphospace." In other words, birds didn't suddenly come into existence, but evolved, bit by bit, or characteristic by characteristic. But when birds were finally a thing, they went crazy. "Once it came together fully, it unlocked great evolutionary potential that allowed birds to evolve at a super-charged rate."
Why "F* You, Pay Me" Is A Necessary Mantra
In order to promote her new book, Lena Dunham has elected to engage in some AFPesque labor exploitation:
Last month, the writer, actor and producer Lena Dunham started an ambitious project. Nearly 600 people responded to an open call for video auditions on her website, including a sand artist, a ukulele player, a cappella singers, gymnasts, performance artists and stand-up comics, even some exceptionally charismatic babies.
The seven who made the final cut won’t be making cameos in “Girls,” Ms. Dunham’s HBO show about Brooklyn 20-somethings. Instead, they’ll be the warm-up acts — performing free of charge — on an elaborately produced, 11-city tour to promote Ms. Dunham’s new book, “Not That Kind of Girl.” [more inside]
The Tylenol Murders of 1982
The perpetrators of the crime have never been found, and that's due in part to the ease in which they were able to kill seven random people. All that was involved was taking a bottle off the shelf, opening it, inserting a number of cyanide laced capsules, then screwing the cap back on and putting it back on the shelf for the next person who came along to purchase it. In the wake of those seven deaths, an unprecedented recall was undertaken, a groundbreaking PR campaign was launched, and measures were taken that would forever change the way we consume medication.
Poor man's bitcoin mining
So you wanna join this bitcoin thing but can't afford the processing cycles to actually mine stuff? Now you can earn bitcoins using pencil and paper!
ATCSCC ADVZY 020 DCC/ZAU 09/26/2014 ZAU GROUND STOP
On Friday, ATCSCC Advisory 20 of 26-Sep-2014 went out. When operators, controllers and airport managers saw the title, a gasp of disbelief was heard. The problem was simple enough to state in three words, and complex enough to cancel thousand of flights and cost hundred of millions of dollars: ZAU ATC ZERO. [more inside]
Thinking about disease
Ebola and the Construction of Fear by Karen Sternheimer (Everyday Sociology)
"Sociologist Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things, explains how misguided panics are not just benign opportunities to prevent something horrible, but can divert attention and public funds away from more likely threats. He notes:[more inside]Panic-driven public spending generates over the long term a pathology akin to one found in drug addicts. The money and attention we fritter away on our compulsions, the less we have available for our real needs, which consequently grow larger (p. xvii).
WE ARE HAPPY FAMILY I AM SIMPSON
To kick-off its 26th season, The Simpsons handed the couch opening gag to cult animator Don Hertzfeldt (previously) who transformed Our Favorite Family into a surreal nightmare vision of the far future.
Violence Against Women Along Route 29
UVA Hospital employee and former Charlottesville cab driver Jesse Matthew has just been linked to the September 2014 disappearance of UVA student Hannah Graham, the unsolved rape and murder of Morgan Harrington, whose body was discovered on a farm outside of Charlottesville in 2010, and a 2005 sexual assault in Fairfax, VA. Graham and Harrison are two of a number of women who have gone missing near Charlottesville in recent years. [more inside]
People of Times Square
Meet the people hanging out in Times Square late at night. Over 330,000 people pass through Times Square every day. Here you can see the Times Square eccentrics in the 90s before the corporations took over.
confessions of a former troll
How The Simpsons Co-Creator Sam Simon Is Facing His Own Tragedy
Diagnosed with terminal cancer two years ago, and given only months to live, Sam Simon is still alive and still racing to spend the fortune he made as co-creator of The Simpsons on causes he loves, whether he is rescuing grizzly bears (and chinchillas and elephants) or funding vegan food banks. Sam Simon and philanthropy previously on Metafilter
Happy birthday to no one.
Deathsplaining
Alison Atkin is a Ph.D. student in osteoarchaeology at the University of Sheffield, studying plague cemeteries. Her research is presented in this quirky, hand-drawn poster. Don't miss GIFs of the interactive panels at her blog, Deathsplanation.
7 Little Words
Daily Puzzle online. Free apps. Student aids.
How come he don't want me, man?
The true story behind the saddest scene in "The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air" history
A handy 10-step guide to defending yourself, your country, or your boss.
"None of this is a competition."
Beyonce feminism vs. Emma Watson feminism. "The Internet’s overwhelmingly positive reactions to Watson’s feminism were exciting, but also troubling when I remembered the way Beyoncé’s feminism was dissected, critiqued, and doubted last year when she dropped her self-titled album that included a recording of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaking about feminism."
The Good, the Bad, and the Nights Watch
The theme from GoT covered as a western, à la Ennio Morricone.
Life in the North Dakota oil patch
An eight-year oil boom in North Dakota has drawn thousands of investors, laborers, and fortune-seekers. But from behind the counter of a local truck stop, it’s unclear just how much anyone is winning.
"he succeeded at shifting the immigration debate"
The Method To Steve King's Madness
"Sahil Kapur takes a look at how rank and file congressman Steve King (R-IA) came to call the shots on one of the most important issues of the modern era [immigration]."
"Sahil Kapur takes a look at how rank and file congressman Steve King (R-IA) came to call the shots on one of the most important issues of the modern era [immigration]."
Silent but Readly
"Midway through the Confessions, St. Augustine recalls how he used to marvel at the way Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, read his manuscripts: 'His eyes traveled across the pages and his heart searched out the meaning, but his voice and tongue stayed still.' Scholars have sparred for decades over whether Augustine's offhand observation reveals something momentous: namely, that silent reading—that seemingly mundane act you're engaged in right now—was, in the Dark Ages, a genuine novelty...Could the earliest readers literally not shut up?"
Harry Potter DIY - optical cloaking on a budget
John Howell and Joseph Choi at Rochester's Institute of Optics have built an optical cloaking device which uses just 4 readily available lenses. Eat your heart out Harry Potter.
Do you even know who the Notorious B.I.G. is?
30 years of Coens
"In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Coen brothers' debut, Blood Simple, I’m re-watching their 16 feature films and attempting to jot down observations on one per day, in order of their release. For a fuller explanation of what I’m doing and why, see my first entry, on Blood Simple. (Here, too, are my entries on Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, No Country For Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, True Grit and Inside Llewyn Davis." -- Christopher Orr, writing in The Atlantic.
Privacy matters even with Tory ministers
Last Saturday, Tory cabinet minister for civil society Brooks Newmark resigned on the eve of the publication about his sexting habits. Allegedly he had sent unsolicited dirty pictures to a woman he thought was a Conservative Party activist, but was in fact an undercover reporter for the Sunday Mirror. Good, you may think, another scumbag who doesn't know the meaning of consent uncovered, but was this really the case, or was this actually a borderline criminal sting operation on the Mirror's part? [more inside]
Paper birds
Diana Beltran Herrera sculpts beautiful birds out of paper. She's currently working on a series based on postage stamps; you can see some of the new birds on her Facebook page. [via]
How to eat: chips
September 28
'the way you remember it...'
How Not To Fuck Up Tools Like A Goddamned Ape
"We haven’t found the right planet."
“Alien 3 was flawed from its inception and it was certainly flawed—actually, pretty fucked up—well before we started shooting. So there you go. Take all of the responsibility, because you’re going to get all of the blame.” — David Fincher [previously]
They have grown so big they no longer simply suck blood
This absolutely horrifying clip from forthcoming BBC documentary Wonders of the Monsoon shows a giant red leech sucking down a giant blue earthworm like spaghetti, deep in the forests of Borneo. [more inside]
The Mysterious Crimes of Valdice
Some of the worst brutality of Communist Czechoslovakia happened in a place most people have never heard of.
By the 1970s and 1980s torture and murder were not routine tools of the Czechoslovak regime. Except in one place, about which even to this day not much is known. No one knows its victims, and the perpetrators live quietly among us. We decided to revive the forgotten story and to bring back to the map of Czech history a place that shows what great power does to people and how difficult it is to find earthly justice: the Third Department in Valdice.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
To create an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Matrix
Spacedrum and Hang, evolution of the steelpan drum
This solo performance of "New Moon" on a Spacedrum by Yuki Koshimoto is mesmerizing, but without much context. Who is she, and what is her instrument? This blog post has a bit more on Yuki, and here is some information on Metalsounds' Spacedrum and other similar metal instruments. If you want more background on the instrument, here's a documentary on the PANArt Hang, something of the predecessor to the Spacedrum, both of which have evolved from the steelpan or steel drum. Going back further, here's Toshi and Pete Seeger, documenting the making of a steel drum, in 1956.
Remodeling consent
Two prominent kink bloggers propose that we change how we think about consent to combat rape culture and to create positive, meaningfully consensual experiences for all. [more inside]
Massive Pro-Democracy Protests in Hong Kong
"Hong Kong police have used tear gas to disperse thousands of pro-democracy protesters near the government complex, after a week of escalating tensions." Hong Kong: Tear gas and clashes at democracy protest. Hong Kong's unprecedented protests and police crackdown, explained. South China Morning Post Topics: Occupy Central [Paywall after a few free articles]. Occupy Central with Love and Peace is on Twitter, and there is a live thread on Reddit.
Six Uncollected Stories by Saki
Six short stories by Edwardian humorist and short-form master H. H Munro (Saki) that do not appear in any yet-published collection of Saki’s “complete” short stories, taken from an appendix in A.J. Langguth’s A Life of H.H. Munro (1982).
Big Shoulders, Big Hair, Big Perfume: 1980s Through Fragrance
"The beginning of my interest in fragrance coincided more or less with a momentous year in perfumery: 1981. It was in that first year of what would later be called the Big Eighties that a Beverly Hills boutique released an eponymous scent housed in a box with yellow stripes that evoked the store’s awning. Giorgio was an immediate and a ubiquitous smash, a powerhouse floral so outsized that restaurants were said to refuse seating to Giorgio-wearing patrons." The '80s ushered in a new era in perfumery. [more inside]
10 things you should never say to someone with bipolar disorder
Are you bipolar? This is a small thing, but there’s a little linguistic point to be made here. Referring to somebody as “bipolar” sort of insinuates that the only thing this person is is an illness. Their entire entity is just a disease. My surname is Parkinson so, can we not add to this, please?
Rather, I think it is more polite to say someone “has bipolar” than “is bipolar”. You wouldn’t say that somebody “was cancer”. You wouldn’t say: “This is Maya. She is diabetes.” But people will talk of someone “being bipolar”.
Assuming a Body
University of South Carolina Upstate based the Critical Lede interviews Gayle Salamon about her groundbreaking transgender study, first published in 2010 titled Assuming a Body.
In the interview, Gayle and the academic panel discuss her book and evenly explore the nuanced tensions that exist between performativity, gender construction and trans identity. [more inside]
In the interview, Gayle and the academic panel discuss her book and evenly explore the nuanced tensions that exist between performativity, gender construction and trans identity. [more inside]
There is a Starbucks inside the CIA
Welcome to the “Stealthy Starbucks,” as a few officers affectionately call it.
Or "Store Number 1," as the receipts cryptically say.
The human being is very often not profitable from the system’s POV
According to the philosopher Anselm Jappe, who has come to Lisbon to give a talk at the Teatro Maria Matos, in capitalism we are defined by our relation to labor. But the system is a “house of cards that is beginning to collapse”. It is time to rethink the concept of labor.
Bloody difficult actually
Want a new timesink but clicker games are not your thing? Let Rock, Paper, Shotgun introduce you to Compact Conflict, a Riskesque strategy game programmed in only 13 kilobytes.
"No negativity—we just want to be admired."
Generation Wuss » by Bret Easton Ellis [Vanity Fair]
"In his books, he used to shoot at the materialistic excesses of his generation. But today, youth has become Bret Easton Ellis' favorite target. According to him, young people are just too sensitive, too narcissistic ,too stupid. But ultimately, as he explains in this exclusive text, he kind of feel sorry for them ( and they love it !)."
I ♥ TO
September 27
On My Butchness
And so here I am. One of those fat, hairy, angry butch lesbians whom everyone seems to hate. Too “radical” for men and straight people, too “normative” for some queer people. [more inside]
Not just ba'dow-da-da-da-DOW-boo-ba-bee-da-dee-dop
If you like electric bass or musicians who can do more than one thing, you might like this video of Tom "Squarepusher" Jenkinson giving a solo electric bass recital in 2007. (From his album Solo Electric Bass 1.)
Beam Him Up
James 'Jimbo' Traficant, colorful convicted ex-congressman, has passed away. No stranger to the blue, Traficant will be remembered for many things, but likely chief among them will be his Star Trek-inspired catchphrase, "Beam me up, Mr. Speaker." His death was the result of a tractor accident.
Have You Ever Been (to Selectric Personland)
IBM's Selectric typewriter "paved the way for computer printers because the Selectric had an early version of a digital to analogue converter..." called the whiffletree, the application of which here is totally sweet.
Calling all the crouton petters.
So when asked if I had any weird habits or quirks, I said “I don’t like cooking a single jacket potato as I think it looks lonely.” Dean Burnett explains what he calls Lonely Potato Syndrome, which Metafilter is quite familiar with.
"So I took up knife and fork and bade the waiter do his duty."
Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis was engaged in 1897 as the restaurant reviewer of the Pall Mall Gazette, and his reviews of London restaurants are collected in Dinners and Diners: Where and How to Dine in London, available online from The Dictionary of Victorian London. Newnham-Davis was a bon vivant, amateur of the theatrical world, and man of parts, and his reviews were equal parts reminiscence of the conversation with his pseudonymous companions and recollections and reviews of his opulent and lengthy Victorian dinners. [more inside]
How to identify (or misidentify) the hobo spider
How to identify (or misidentify) the hobo spider (pdf). Did you find a hobo spider? Here's an easy, step-by-step guide to determining whether or not you really have one.
I'm the Avatar and You Gotta Deal with It!
Two and a half years ago, we returned to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender with the premier of Avatar: Legend of Korra. On Friday, October 3rd, the final planned season, Book Four: Balance, will air and conclude the story of Korra, a young woman tested by the most brutal enemies and faced with a world that may or may not need or want an avatar anymore. This is its trailer. On Youtube.
Spoilerish break down of previous seasons with trailers beyond the fold! [more inside]
Transparent
Yesterday, the first season of "Transparent" went live on Amazon Prime, starring Jeffrey Tambor as a 70 year old transgender woman who is coming out to her family, and the world, for the first time. [more inside]
The view from the California dustbowl
Zero Percent Water. Alan Heathcock visits the Central Valley in California to talk to farmers about the drought, hear their perspective, and see first-hand what the land looks like.
Profile of a support house in Tijuana for deported U.S. servicemen
"Barajas and the veterans staying with him are establishing a new life in Tijuana — a life after deportation. Their stories are similar: Each was honorably discharged from the military, but was later charged with a deportable offense — for example, drug possession, discharge of a firearm or perjury...Most have spent the vast majority of their lives in the United States and are now starting over in a country they barely know." (Aj Jazeera)
The Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles
It purports to be a fan fiction written by a mother who wanted to make a "family friendly" version of the Harry Potter books ... That is to say, one that will not lead to your children "turning into witches". There is currently a lively debate as to whether it is an intentional joke or exactly what it claims to be. Whether it's real or satire, iThe Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles is certainly an entertaining read: "Voldemort doesn't care," Hermione remarked sadly; and she shook her head. "And he is gaining power. The freedom of Christians to practice our faith is disappearing by the day. Soon, it will be like it was in Rome." Lovely, ladylike tears began to roll down her delicate, terrified face. "And I don't like lions!"
Looking back on Bird Up, Charlie Parker filtered through hip-hop, etc.
About a decade ago, in the mid 1990s jazz remix era, as heard in the Verve Remixed series, one particular compilation of re-visionings stands out: Bird Up. The compilation featured a range of remixers and producers, including the RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, Dan the Automator, Hal Willner, Me’Shell NdegéOcello, and Serj Tankian of System of a Down, extended "now-familiar bebop soundscapes into new places that are sometimes strange, occasionally brilliant and always invigorating." [more inside]
“You don’t understand, women are holier than men.”
"I'm not sure whether it mattered. One young man very kindly said to me, 'You don’t understand, women are holier than men.' I said, 'That’s rubbish and it doesn't excuse the insult,' and then I added that I spent 13 years in yeshiva and there's nothing he could tell me that I haven't already heard. Then the original man, the one who refused to sit next to me, muttered to another man as he was walking away, 'She doesn't understand.' I said, 'I understand everything, and don't talk to me as if I'm not here.' He ignored me, and all the other men turned their backs and did not respond or even look at me." [Similar version at JewFem blog.]
Goys React!
"This is like the gateway drug of the Jewish foods" - Non-Jews try traditional Jewish food for the first time
R.I.P. Hot Dougs
Doug wants to do other things so you had better go while you still can... Previously
Hot Doug's is a Chicago, Illinois-based restaurant specializing in a variety of hot dogs and sausages. The self-proclaimed "Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium" is in its second location at 3324 North California Avenue in the city's Avondale neighborhood. Its first location, on Roscoe Street, closed after a 2004 fire. Hot Doug's is frequently featured in local and national media for its unique menu, and its purveyor and head chef, Doug Sohn, has been noted for his work to create affordable gourmet food.[1] The restaurant is an extremely popular dining destination among both locals and tourists, and at lunch time and throughout much of the weekend customers can expect to wait in lines sometimes exceeding an hour just to get in the door. On May 6, 2014, Doug announced that he will be permanently closing Hot Doug's on Friday, October 3, 2014 (WiKi)
Anthony Bourdain(slyt) [more inside]
Hot Doug's is a Chicago, Illinois-based restaurant specializing in a variety of hot dogs and sausages. The self-proclaimed "Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium" is in its second location at 3324 North California Avenue in the city's Avondale neighborhood. Its first location, on Roscoe Street, closed after a 2004 fire. Hot Doug's is frequently featured in local and national media for its unique menu, and its purveyor and head chef, Doug Sohn, has been noted for his work to create affordable gourmet food.[1] The restaurant is an extremely popular dining destination among both locals and tourists, and at lunch time and throughout much of the weekend customers can expect to wait in lines sometimes exceeding an hour just to get in the door. On May 6, 2014, Doug announced that he will be permanently closing Hot Doug's on Friday, October 3, 2014 (WiKi)
Anthony Bourdain(slyt) [more inside]
Because collect-and-cage is boring
Portland, Portlandia, and Whiteness
Portlandia is a white show for a white audience, and Portland is a very white place, by design. Kiran Herbert writes about the history of race in Portland and its depiction on Portlandia. Via
"These people need homes. These homes need people."
"We were homeless; that’s why we were in the hostel in the first place. We didn’t have anywhere else to go. There were 210 other young women living there. Now it’s luxury flats."A group of young, homeless mothers have taken over an empty council house in Newham, East London, in protest over the council's plans to rehome them to other parts of the country while selling off social housing and closing the specialist hostel where they were living. The Guardian reports: "For real politics, don't look to Parliament but to an empty London housing estate." [more inside]
"Conceptual fiction plays with our conception of reality"
"I loathe science fiction," Vladimir Nabokov declared to a BBC interviewer in 1968. A few months later Nabokov published an elaborate sci-fi novel.Nabokov's Ada or Ardor is one of the works in the Science Fiction in Transition (1958-1975): New Wave & New Directions reading list put together by Ted Gioia, in his day job a jazz critic and music historian. [more inside]
Serve the interests of the reader
Australian journalists must ask what agenda they serve At the end of a week of much media hysteria about terrorism, the Senate passed arguably the most significant restraints on press freedom in Australia outside of wartime.
The best "unlikely allies" story you've probably never heard.
"Pride" , a critically-acclaimed new film given a limited release in the US today, tells the true story of how a small group of LGBT activists became the biggest fundraiser for the year-long British coal miner's strike of 1984-85. The miners faced a pre-meditated, organized, thuggish, dishonest, deceptive, and illegal surveillance and smear campaign by the Thatcher government, which froze all mining union funds, cancelled their unemployment, and denied food and housing welfare to their wives and children, in an attempt to starve them out. For the first time, the British government trained Britain's police into a paramilitary force, bused in at great expense and in great numbers to overwhelm the protesters, using violent, repressive, and corrupt tactics against non-violent protesters, with prolonged police detentions and the indiscriminate arrest of over 11,000 British citizens. The government was supported by the rightwing tabloid media, who used sensationalist, crude headlines to shape public opinion. LGBT activists reclaimed one such headline as the name of their most successful benefit.
Although the miner's strike was broken by the Thatcher government, the miners kept their promise to support the LGBT community, by marching alongside them at the front of London's 1985's Pride parade.. Later that year at the Labour Party conference, a motion was tabled that supported adding equal rights for gays and lesbians as part of the Party's platform. This motion was opposed by Labour's executive committee, but the motion went to a vote – and passed, thanks to the votes of the National Union of Mineworkers and their allies.
September 26
Sparked
Sparked is a short film by Cirque Du Soleil about a solitary inventor. And his lampshades.
Dling!
After eight main instalments and two collaborative instalments (including July's Minnano Hoshi Saga 2), Nekogames' classic Hoshi Saga series returns with a new instalment that changes the formula a little: Hoshi Saga Reishiki. The goal, as always, is to find the star in each level, but this time, you can only use the arrow and Enter keys. Also, there is now a gift hidden in each level. (Previously - see also Nekogames' Ouka, Kikka and Touka, also previously.)
This is where we turned it up to 11
Where is the Drama takes any song input recognized by Spotify and analyses it to find the 30 seconds or so of highest drama, defined as the portion of the song with the largest increase in loudness. [more inside]
Dust. Wind. Dude.
"Dave Beeth-Oven. Maxine of Arc. Herman the Kid. Bob Genghis Khan. So-Crates Johnson. Dennis Frood. And, uh... Abraham Lincoln." Hadley Freeman revisits Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure with Alex Winter, and Ben Child reports on the long-awaited follow-up to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.
Madonna as serious Classical Hollywood cinephile
The exhaustively researched Hollywood history podcast You Must Remember This (Previously) presents a two part episode focusing on Madonna's use of classic Hollywood imagery and references as a form of conceptual art and her early attempts to trade pop idol success for movie stardom within the context of two high-profile relationships with Sean Penn and Warren Beatty. Episode One. Episode Two.
Meanwhile, Todd In The Shadows creates video reviews for every movie Madonna was ever in. So far he's done Desperately Seeking Susan, Shanghai Surprise, A Certain Sacrifice, and Who's That Girl.
Free Museum Day!
Nothing to do tomorrow (Sept. 27th, 2014)? Well, it's Museum Day Live, and you can score free admission for two at over 1,500 museums in the United States by registering at Smithsonian.com.
(Search here to determine if there are any participating museums in your area.)
Nello. The marvellous Neil Baldwin, a real-life Forrest Gump?
"Marvellous" - the amazing story of Neil Baldwin on BBC IPlayer (UK only) When I was at Keele University back in the early 90s, Nello was already a legend. A campus fixture, I had no real idea what he did there, or what he was doing there. But the stories were legion. A circus clown turned kit man for Stoke City FC, and a "very good friend" to bishops, politicians, footballers, and, well, just about everyone.
A confession from mimi smartypants
Online diarist mimi smartypants has been typing about her life for just over fifteen years, and now she's considering quitting the gig. "Next week marks fifteen years of this online diary thing, and I have been toying with the idea that maybe that is quite enough, thank you. In fact, I had not updated in so long that I sat down to type a mic-drop “thanks for the memories”-style entry, but then this crap came out instead. So maybe I’m not quite done yet? I don’t know." [more inside]
PROJECT OMOTE
GUTS Canadian Feminist Magazine
GUTS is a new online feminist magazine. Topics from the first two issues include Canadian feminist documentary filmmaking; feminist strategies for commemorating gender-based violence; "postfeminist" parliamentary political discourse; Canadian novelist Sheila Heti's genre-bender on women's relationships, How Should A Person Be?; women's paid and unpaid labour; institutionalized gender inequality in organized sport; Indigenous women, decolonization, and institutionalized racism. There's also a blog.
Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers.
Radiohead's Thom Yorke just released a surprise album, Beyoncé-style [vox.com]
Tomorrow's Modern Boxes is only available on BitTorrent, where listeners can download the track "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" for free, and watch the video. The full album can be downloaded for $6, and will also be available on vinyl and in a box set.[more inside]
Hope Solo - Does Domestic Violence Have A Double Standard?
Female football star Hope Solo was recently arrested and charged with two counts of domestic abuse in connection with an assault on her sister and 17-year-old nephew. Although domestic abuse has rightly ended the careers of male athletes like Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy, Solo continues to play for two teams (including the US National team) and maintains her sponsorship with Nike. The BBC asks; does domestic violence have a double standard?
Addicting Clicker Game Friday
The new hottest clicking game is Clicker Heroes. For more advanced discussion there's a subreddit with a helpful strategy FAQ section.
Christopher Hogwood CBE, September 10, 1941 – September 24, 2014
Christopher Hogwood, conductor, scholar, musician and champion of historically informed performance, died on September 24 at the age of 73.
[more inside]
"Good light costs so little."
In 1924 a consortium of lightbulb manufacturers formed the Phoebus cartel. Its goal: planned obsolescence. The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy. [more inside]
Not as simple as dumping a can of dog food, it turns out.
Doggie Drawings!
Dogs of the World: adorable illustrations of dog breeds, grouped by the regions where they originated.
By Lili Chin, whose Doggie Drawings include numerous infographics on dog training and behavior. Some examples: Greeting a Dog, Space Etiquette for Dogs, Positive Reinforcement Training, How to Create a Dangerous Dog.
Wondering about the Boston Terrier who keeps popping up in these infographics? Meet Boogie.
By Lili Chin, whose Doggie Drawings include numerous infographics on dog training and behavior. Some examples: Greeting a Dog, Space Etiquette for Dogs, Positive Reinforcement Training, How to Create a Dangerous Dog.
Wondering about the Boston Terrier who keeps popping up in these infographics? Meet Boogie.
Mark Saltveit profiles Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly
Metafilter's own Mark Saltveit profiles eclectic Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly for Philly.com. Saltveit already wrote the book on Kelly, and the profile is part of a follow-up effort called "Controlled Chaos: Chip Kelly's Football Revolution." [more inside]
You're not real, I'm real.
"You poked my heart." SLYT. A group of tow headed toddlers get in a row about the weather, adorableness ensues.
The Rapping, Galloping, and Kicking Dead
Season five of The Walking Dead starts in two weeks, and the Internet is getting excited [NSFW]:
- Bad Lip Reading presents "MORE WALKING (AND TALKING) DEAD: PART 1" - A Bad Lip Reading of The Walking Dead Season 4, featuring KORL! rapping.
- A supercut of the best Walker kills, set to "Infernal Gallop", aka the "can-can".
- The official AMC trailer for season five of The Walking Dead. Clocking in at 3:28, it was first released at Comic-Con this summer.
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer x3. And then one other thing, too.
Washington Post's Wonkblog, leveraging data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) and economics and public policy professor Philip J. Cook's "Paying the Tab" looks at how much Americans drink. 30% of Americans don't drink at all. Another 30% consume fewer than one drink per week. To be in the top 10% of American, you'd need to drink the equivalent of 74 drinks per week, every week, or a little over 10 drinks per day.
Who Is Su
She was 22 when her memory was obliterated. Twenty-six years later, Su Meck is still learning about the family she raised and the husband she has no recollection of marrying.
Su has no earliest single memory and resents the question (it is the one she’s asked most frequently). She begins remembering around 1992, when she was roughly three months pregnant with Kassidy and a friend who was aware of her condition explained why her period had likely ceased, and went with her to a drugstore to buy a test. [more inside]
Arrr, thanks Obama, ye scurvy sea lover!
US Creates Largest Protected Area in the World. Over 3x larger than California, the Obama administration has enlarged the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Fishing, dumping, and removal of coral are now prohibited.
Now that we have met with paradox we have some hope of progress.
Somaly Mam [previously] responds to the Newsweek article last spring that raised questions regarding the legitimacy of her work as a Cambodian anti-trafficking activist, tainting the nearly two-decades-long work on behalf of victims that catapulted her into the global spotlight. "I didn't lie."
The best care that money can buy?
She was determined to fulfill her father’s dearest wish, the wish so common among frail, elderly people: to die at home. But it seemed as if all the forces of the health care system were against her — hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, insurance companies, and the shifting crosscurrents of public health care spending. The NYT reports in depth on a single case, a snapshot of the typical end-of-life care situation in the United States. A worthwhile but disturbing long read, potentially very upsetting if you've lost a loved one in a similar managed care setting. [more inside]
"It feels like I'm breathing through a straw"
OneRepublic just released their latest music video, I Lived, which tells the story of Bryan Warnecke. He's a fifteen year old boy who cycled over a thousand miles in 43 days over 8 mountain passes, raising $260,000 for Cystic Fibrosis research. He also suffers from Cystic Fibrosis. [more inside]
"YOU EXIST ONLY TO REDUCE OVERTIME"
Missing vessel, Foveaux Strait area
He does not believe himself to be an exceptional person but now understands that if you push yourself exceptional things can be done.Eight men and one young boy left Bluff, near the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island, on a fishing and mutton-birding trip on the evening of 14 March 2012. Only one man made it back. This is the story of how he survived and his colleagues didn't. [more inside]
Sachs Tapes
The NY Federal Reserve is supposed to monitor big banks and prevent another financial crisis. But when Carmen Segarra was hired, what she witnessed inside the Fed was so alarming that she bought a tiny recorder, and started secretly taping. This American Life reports. [more inside]
Cookies, caches and cows
Translating technological terms throws up some peculiar challenges
Ibrahima Sarr, a Senegalese coder, led the translation of Firefox into Fulah, which is spoken by 20m people from Senegal to Nigeria. “Crash” became hookii (a cow falling over but not dying); “timeout” became a honaama (your fish has got away). “Aspect ratio” became jeendondiral, a rebuke from elders when a fishing net is wrongly woven. In Malawi’s Chichewa language, which has 10m speakers, “cached pages” became mfutso wa tsamba, or bits of leftover food. The windowless houses of the 440,000 speakers of Zapotec, a family of indigenous languages in Mexico, meant that computer “windows” became “eyes”.
September 25
Never talk about politics on the first date
We Made Young Liberals And Young Labor Date Each Other Vice Australia: "Who are those students who join political clubs at university? They wear suits, push flyers, and disagree by default, but what makes them tick? To find out we paired them up with the people they disagree with most—students from opposing parties—and made them go on dates with each other."
a ba ba ba ba, bababa ba bababa
Getting tattoos wrong
TedEd gets it wrong when they talk about the history of tattooing. Good thing the Tattoo Historian is here to set the record straight with a concise list of errors. [more inside]
Stuff in Old Books
"the fluid mechanics that make a tattoo gun work are pretty spectacular"
"Watching a tattoo needle in slow motion reveals the physics of getting inked"
Previously: Ink Punching
Previously: Ink Punching
He draws 'em like he sees 'em.
Remarkable time-lapse video of artist Marcello Barenghi creating a hyperrealistic drawing of a vodka bottle.
(N.B. All videos contain highly annoying music tracks. Mute button recommended.) [more inside]
(N.B. All videos contain highly annoying music tracks. Mute button recommended.) [more inside]
The zeal these young men have for killing surprises me.
"Many Marines I talk to are skeptical of the aims used to justify the war - fighting terrorism, getting weapons of mass destruction (which they never see). Quite a few accept that this war was probably fought for oil." 'The Killer Elite', Evan Wright's coverage of a US Marine Corps Battalion in the 2003 Iraq War (later developed into the book and TV series Generation Kill). [more inside]
Hello, Hello, Hello
Stressed out? Does the fast-paced world of today have your head spinning? Sit back and relax with the Finnish educational TV show "Hello, Hello, Hello," and the terrifyingly slow adventures of Stan and Dud.
Clip most likely to cause childhood trauma
"I've read more dirty books than any man in New England"
An interview with the man who banned in Boston, circa 1930. The New Republic is republishing a haul of classics from its archives in celebration of its 100th anniversary. In honor of banned books week, today's selection is a brief interview/profile of one of the U.S. Customs officials in charge of clearing books for circulation circa 1930. [more inside]
Who deers to steal the kings drachmare?
Life in Timbuktu
Life in Timbuktu: how the ancient city of gold is slowly turning to dust
(a long-form article from the Guardian with an accompanying photo gallery)
(a long-form article from the Guardian with an accompanying photo gallery)
Unviral
Underviewed brings low-viewcount YouTube videos to the surface by searching for default filenames (such as IMG_003.MOV) in the title.
Freshman Disorientation
A Collection Of Disorientation Guides From Colleges Across North America. Unsanctioned student guides offer advice on the real college experience [more inside]
"that balance between charm and terror"
Meet the "suitsy"
S.F. inventor hopes to dress for success with 1-piece suit
Local developer Jesse Herzog has solved a problem most of us didn’t know we had. It’s kind of a trend with him. Simply put, Herzog has created an alternative to the tired old hoodie-and-jeans look that permeates the lofts and startups of San Francisco techie culture. It is — wait for it — the "suitsy." The suitsy is a pair of dress pants, a nice white shirt and jacket ... all sewn together. You step into it like a pair of mechanic’s coveralls, zip up the hidden zipper, and voila — you’re dressed for success.
You know how people say it’s a fine line between genius and crazy?
bypass doom...
Phil Hartman: too talented to be pigeonholed
"One day I was hanging out with some SNL writers and cast members in the 17th-floor conference room. It was shortly after the writers had won an Emmy Award for the 1988-89 season. Phil Hartman, who had been a writer as well as a cast member for the winning season, marched in with an 8-by-10 photo of himself. It showed him cradling his Emmy Award in one arm and his newborn child in the other. He tossed the photo down in front of his good friend Jon Lovitz and said, "Check it out, Lovitz—two things you’ll never have." (SLSlate)
Larry Ellison Bought an Island in Hawaii. Now What?
All of Lanai's owners have sought, in one way or another, to refashion the island into a paradise on earth. Former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison hopes to transform it into the "first economically viable, 100% green community."
A Rant Against The Quantification Of Aesthetics
"That's my 'favourite' thing about music: encountering in the moment each artwork, however humble, already dignified by the sheer distinction of being incomparably human and thus, irreducibly, itself." 13 Reasons Why I Can't Pick My 13 Favourite Records, By Drew Daniel.
Infringers really bug Alex Wild
Insect photographer Alex Wild explains the effect of copyright infringement on his business; he has decided to give up commercial photography, partly due to the time he spends going after infringers. Alex Wild previously on MetaFilter.
Homage Warehouse
KillBillreference is a YouTube account (apparently defunct) that curates clips of a handful of the movies that Quentin Tarantino has drawn reference from. Primarily these are references from Kill Bill, but other movies like Pulp Fiction sneak in as well. For example, Elle Driver's whistle song as it first appeared in Twisted Nerve, the music from O-Ren Ishii's origin story as it first appeared in I Lunghi Giorni Della Vendetta, an eye plucking scene from Five Fingers of Death, and Mia's square gesture from Pulp Fiction as originally performed by Betty Rubble. [more inside]
Born Suspect.
This afternoon, the NAACP released "Born Suspect: Stop and Frisk Abuses & the Continued Fight to End Racial Profiling in America." (pdf) The report comes on the same day that Ferguson, MO Police Chief Thomas Jackson released this video, apologizing to the family of Michael Brown for the death of their son, and the day after South Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper Sean Groubert was arrested for opening fire on an unarmed Black man, Levar Jones, whom he had pulled over for a seat belt violation. [more inside]
Say Ello...
Ello is a new social network, currently in beta, that's quickly gotten a buzz in LBGTQ, activist and POC circles because of its privacy policy. In contrast to Facebook, real names are not required, and the site promises not to sell ads, or sell data about you to third parties. But to some activists, Ello, in its current state of development, is actually worse than what it aims to replace.
Your crease color is #27, which is Ray Rice's Jersey Number.
Ray Rice Makeup Tutorial Learn all about how to cover up domestic violence just like the NFL and get a fresh face for fall. (DV trigger warnings).
Exhibit B
Exhibit B is a performance art piece by white South African Brett Bailey. The piece features black actors in still images depicting scenes of slavery and as asylum seekers in living installations that recall the human zoos (previously) of the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
The piece has been highly controversial, it has attracted significant critical acclaim, being described by art critics as unbearable and essential and "hugely powerful, deeply unsettling, but vital viewing". [more inside]
ಠ_ಠ
“Aspirational,” by Michael Frost for Vs. Magazine
"Vs. Magazine cover girl Kirsten Dunst stars in what is NOT your typical fashion film. Between late Ubers and selfie-obsessed fangirls, Kiki gives us a tongue-in-cheek look at celebrity culture and social media... Next time you take a selfie with your favorite star, think twice - unlike the girls in this film.vsmagazinelive.com
What's in the sack?
Flotsam General Store: A Post-Structural Online Shopping Experience. A new thing by H. Jon Benjamin (previously) and Eugene Mirman (previously). Here's how it works: You send them money. They send you a sack with things in it. What things? Things they've made. No really what things? You'll have to order a sack to find out. [more inside]
Dipdap
Dipdap is a children's BBC show for pre-schoolers. Completely wordless, it's a fairly delightful and surprisingly funny mixture of shape recognition, music and discovery (and lots of visual comedy), where "the line" draws a series of challenges and problems for Dipdap to solve. Here's every single episode of it.
"Once upon a time there was no not a king." - Carlo Collodi, basically.
KC Green, the cartoonist currently writing and drawing Gunshow and writing the pre-apocalyptic fantasy-western Back (with art from Nedroid's Anthony Clark) has embarked upon a third project: a chapter-by-chapter adaptation of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, currently up to the end of the book's first chapter. [more inside]
September 24
The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace
"On a May night in 2011, a man was murdered — shot — in a basement just outside Newark, N.J. Cash and marijuana were found at the scene...Robert Peace, a 30-year-old African-American, was a Yale University graduate and an almost straight-A student in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He also dealt marijuana." (slNPR)
Don't Follow Me (I'm Lost)
Born to Nashville music royalty. Grew up next to George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Had a #2 record on the country charts at age eight. Had a minor alt-rock hit for the same major label as Korn and Incubus in his 30's. His mentor was Shel Silverstein. One of his bands, The Young Criminals Starvation League has featured members of My Morning Jacket, Lambchop, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Clem Snide, and myriad others. His other band Is She Weird? Is She White? plays Pixies and Breeders covers on weekends in Nashville. Unless he's opening for Guided by Voices or playing someone's living room. Or delivering lost luggage to pay the bills.
It's a hell of a life singer-songwriter Bobby Bare, Jr. has had. It's only makes sense that someone went and made a movie about him: Don't Follow Me (I'm Lost). Sample the trailer. [more inside]
It's a hell of a life singer-songwriter Bobby Bare, Jr. has had. It's only makes sense that someone went and made a movie about him: Don't Follow Me (I'm Lost). Sample the trailer. [more inside]
I love how your torso has an arm on either side
Comedian Bo Burnham has released a video of his song "Repeat Stuff," from his What album. (The complete What live performance is also available, with the hilite for me being "From God's Perspective.")
No children are born hating
"No matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what God you pray to, or who you love, there is something fundamental that we all share."
Obama delivers one of the most humanist, powerful, and intellectual speeches to the United Nations.
Obama delivers one of the most humanist, powerful, and intellectual speeches to the United Nations.
Running a server? Drop everything and update it now!
But wait...your medallion begins to glow!
Nethack's Dev Team have confirmed that code circulating under various next-version numbers (3.4.4, 3.5, 3.5.0) was a leaked development build. [more inside]
Totally Freaking Out About Peg + Cat
Peg + Cat is an Emmy award-winning cartoon from PBS, featuring the adventures of a young girl and her feline friend, using the power of math to solve Really Big Problems. The show, created by kid TV and Broadway veterans Jen Oxley & Billy Aronson, not only gives preschoolers an introduction to practical mathematics, it's also surprisingly entertaining for adults.
Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz
Bargeloads of art and exhibit materials have been going out to the former prison island of Alcatraz recently, all for an imprisonment- and human rights- and freedom of expression-themed exhibit by Chinese activist dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who designed and directed the installation while remaining under detention in Beijing. The barged materials include over a million Lego blocks, assembled in San Francisco.
The 50 Year Argument
The New York Review of Books recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding (previously), growing out of an alliance between Harpers editor Robert Silvers and writer Elizabeth Hardwick to find a place for what she called "the unusual, the difficult, the lengthy, the intransigent, and above all, the interesting." Known as the New York Review or the NYRB, it is also known to fans as the best magazine in the world. Next Monday, HBO will air The 50-Year Argument, a documentary by Martin Scorsese about the history of the magazine and what makes it special. [more inside]
like something out of the Aeneid!
"A new electricity distribution system being described as the "'Hoover Dam' of the 21st century" will bring wind energy from Wyoming to customers in California—and it will get there by way of a $1.5 billion artificial cave built specifically for storing air inside a salt dome in Utah. " [more inside]
Farm fantasy camp
Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry
Terry looked at me. He said: “Do not underestimate this anger. This anger was the engine that powered Good Omens.” I thought of the driven way that Terry wrote, and of the way that he drove the rest of us with him, and I knew that he was right. Neil Gaiman on Terry Pratchett.
No mention of the cats of Queen Berúthiel
The long and tangled history of video game adaptations of the worlds of JRR Tolkien.
Gentrification, Inc.
How one developer is attracting the 'right kind of people' to new locales with, among others things, dance parties.
MacWHAAAAAAT?????
"What a bizarre day. I'm sitting here watching my email fill up with message after message from people from so many different times and places of my life, all congratulating me for the astonishing good fortune of receiving a MacArthur Fellowship. Not to mention a flurry of texts and tweets, and I haven't had the energy to even look at Facebook." Cartoonist and Graphic Memoirist Alison Bechdel (previously on MetaFilter: 1, 2, 3, 4) has won the prestigious MacArthur Genuis grant, giving her the opportunity to dig into her archives for a previous comic she drew in 2004 to conclude her reaction blog post. [more inside]
the core family dynamic, to show that this is a real family
Where men are men and the plumbing is outside
Have a swell chuckle 1940s-style at Jolly Lindgren's "hysterical" tourist maps of the Grand Canyon, Grand Coulee Dam, Lake Tahoe, Yellowstone Park, Palm Springs, and Death Valley. And it's lookin' mighty low..
Wait for Me!
Deborah Cavendish née Mitford has died at the age of 94. She is famously the youngest of the Mitford Sisters, the Dowager Dutchess of Devonshire and author of 12 books. [more inside]
Fantasy Families
FastCo explores the invasive practice of taking someone else's baby's pictures off Instagram and pretending that the baby is yours, or even, you. It's called Fake Adoption or Baby Role-Playing. In response to the FC article, Instagram has declared, "This type of content violates our terms. Once a parent or guardian reports it to us, we work quickly to remove it."
betcha Brian Eno's gonna snap this baby up...
If you've got 20,000 to 30,000 bucks burning a hole in your pocket, you might consider purchasing the world's first electronic music synthesizer: the Helmholtz, which is up for auction.
Lost & Found Beagle
In this KLM promotional video, we are introduced to their newest lost & found team member who returns lost items to their owners--adorably.
All aboard.
The Art of Repair
When the painting of an Old Master starts cracking and flaking off, what is the best way to make it good? Should we reverently pick up the flakes of paint and surreptitiously glue them back on again? Is it honest to display a Raphael held together with PVA glue? When Renaissance paint fades or discolours, should we touch it up to retain at least a semblance of what the artist intended, or surrender to wabi-sabi?
I, for one, welcome our new ‘handwriting’ spambot overlords
The Holy Grail of Guitars?
John Lennon's second Rickenbacker 325 has been put on display (complete with 1964 set list taped to it!) at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. [more inside]
The real problem with Big Data and ubiquitous surveillance
The question is not so much “do you trust the CIA/NSA/MI6/etc?”. It’s “Do you trust every single sysadmin working for these organisations? Every single analyst? Every single middle manager?”
You are either a God or a Fool. You can’t be both.
September 23
"David Bowie Is" Opens at MCA in Chicago
Joseph Erbentraut and Kim Bellware preview the Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition of "David Bowie Is," for The Huffington Post [more inside]
On second thought, no dessert for me. CHECK PLEASE!!!
The art world's food fetish is nothing new, triggering equal parts salivation and repulsion we gorge on so-called 'food porn' every day, saturating our screens with sugar. But beneath that candy-cane filter there's a darker side to our fetishisation of all-things sweet. With their Twix noses, salami decolletage and strawberry laces spewing from donut-shaped carverns, James Ostrer's saccharine-warped creations are delectably disturbing. Born out of a textbook childhood junk addiction, his new series Wotsit All About takes sugar worship to the extreme, sculpting mutated, larger-than-life candy characters from truck-loads of pick 'n' mix favourites. Pushing his sitters to the extreme he smothers them in cream cheese, frazzles and ice-cream cones, the food masks leaving a claustrophic, bitter-sweet taste on the tongue. Interview with the photographer. [NSFW]
I Am More Than OK With Not "Having It All"
Once I checked financial stability, a good partner, and sufficiently sown wild oats off the list of Reasons Why I Am Not Ready, I was left with my own brain, which rarely goes well for me. Kate Harding writes about her ambivalence about having children, and her ultimate decision.
MOM
India's Mars Orbiter Mission In 45 mins from now (watch a webcast), India's Mars Orbiter Mission's satellite will insert itself into orbit around Mars. This is the final hurdle for MOM to overcome to achieve a big milestone for the Indian Space Research Organization.
People should wear and eat seal as much as possible
Tanya Tagaq, an Inuk throat singer, has won the 2014 Polaris Prize for her album Animism. The Polaris goes to the best Canadian album of the year based on "artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation". Her acceptance speech was a little more controversial than usual for the Polaris, with Tagaq saying "People should wear and eat seal as much as possible" and "Fuck PETA." Her performance. Her acceptance speech.
AUDIO FEED: SUBJECT 006
From the ever-fertile brain of Ben Cooper (aka Radical Face, half of Electric President) and pals comes Clone, a musical-visual story in six acts, posted weekly starting today. Act I: The Laboratory.
Chikungunya Style
The other epidemic. From 2006 to 2013, the United States had an average of 28 cases per annum of chikungunya, a viral disease. So far, this year, there have been 1052. Once confined to Africa and Southeast Asia, localized outbreaks have appeared in Italy, other parts of Europe, and the Americas. Although the first known locally acquired case appeared in the Caribbean in 2013, it has achieved epidemic levels with an estimated 738000 cases. [more inside]
Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away
Screens generate distraction - biologically impossible to resist - in a manner akin to second-hand smoke. Allowing laptop use in class is like allowing boombox use in class - it lets each person choose whether to degrade the experience of those around them. [CITATION PROVIDED] I've stopped thinking of students as people who simply make choices about whether to pay attention, and started thinking of them as people trying to pay attention but having to compete with various influences, the largest of which is their own propensity towards involuntary and emotional reaction.
Dodging Healthcare Cost Controls For Fun And (Mostly) Profit
The New York Times reports on a new way medical professionals are gaming the system (to the tune of $2.8T a year) - by making end runs around cost controls through out of network consultation calls.
The Ninth Feltron Report
Nicholas Felton datafied all his conversations in 2013. ALL of them. You may remember Felton, a performance artist, from previous datafication projects. In 2013, he kept detailed records of every conversation he had - with anyone, in any medium. Last month, he released the Report.
Intelligence X 100 =
being FactMag's months-in-the-making rundown of the 100 greatest Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) tracks of all time. [more inside]
Non-ebola care
As hospitals struggle to cope with the ebola epidemic, where are patients with other emergencies finding care? In Monrovia, Liberia, it's Cooper Adventist Hospital. Without proper isolation facilities to handle ebola, they are instead tackling everything else. This August 17, 2014 San Bernardino Sun article discusses the challenges the doctors are facing. Dr. James Appel's blog (Dr. Gillian Seton's article appears in the side bar), and his recent remarks on international aid efforts.
Age eclipsing gender as Canada's major income gap
"The decisions you make in the game should be agonizing," he replied.
Cordial Minuet is a video game being developed by Jason Rohrer (Previously, previously, previously). It is played for money, and is designed with the intent to remove chance from the outcome.
Have a Guinness (Latte) when you're tired
Starbucks Is Testing a Drink That Tastes Like Guinness (Without the Alcohol) by Samantha Grossman (@sam_grossman), Time magazine:
The new drink, called the Dark Barrel Latte, is being tested at select locations across Ohio and Florida, Grubstreet reports. It doesn't contain any alcohol, but it supposedly contains the dark, toasty, malty flavors of Guinness. A BuzzFeed writer who got his hands on one in Columbus confirmed that it really does taste like stout. Several customers who've tweeted about the drink agree that it tastes like Guinness — but the jury's still out on whether or not that’s actually a good thing.[more inside]
When I asked a colleague who was born and raised in Dublin (Guinness's birthplace) how he felt about all this, he responded first with this GIF. Then, as he mulled it over a bit more, he added, "Holy hell. Worst." Then he posed a question: "American Guinness already doesn't taste like Guinness. So what will this taste like?" Then he barfed all over me and my stupid American ignorance.
Where have all the good movies gone?
Between the limited amount of titles on streaming services and the fact that Netflix seems to be shifting away from DVDs altogether, are you just out of luck if you want to watch a non-blockbuster like "Sweet Sweetbacks' Baadasssss Song" or "Raising Arizona"? KQED investigates.
A titanic defeat!
Blizzard cancels Titan. After 7 years of work on the MMO, the successor to World of Warcraft has been cancelled.
We didn't find the fun," Morhaime continued. "We didn't find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that's the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no."[more inside]
I live in a constant state of unrest while I am here
Scandal!
There are 47 episodes of Scandal (so far). In advance of the start of season 4 on Thursday, Vulture runs down the 50 most shocking moments. [Spoilers within, naturally] [more inside]
Raiders
Alone on the Hill
Angry Letters to the One Member of Congress Who Voted Against the War on Terror
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Lee's story is how little credit she or her constituents receive for what they got right. Even though a majority now considers the war most understood the AUMF to authorize to be a mistake; even though it has been used to justify military interventions that no one conceived of on September 14, 2001; even though there's no proof that any war-making of the last 13 years has have made us safer; even though many more Americans have died in wars of choice than have been killed in terrorist attacks; even though Lee and many of her constituents were amenable to capturing or killing the 9/11 perpetrators, not pacifists intent on ruling out any use of force; despite all of that, Representative Lee is still thought of as a fringe peacenik representing naive East Bay hippies who could never be trusted to guide U.S. foreign policy. And the people who utterly failed to anticipate the trajectory of the War on Terrorism? Even those who later voted for a war in Iraq that turned out to be among the most catastrophic in U.S. history are considered sober, trustworthy experts.[more inside]
The hospital didn’t have a leg to stand on
How a Squad of Ex-Cops Fights Police Abuses
In 1997, Smith retired from the police force. He needed a job to help cover his two daughters' college expenses, so he signed up as an investigator in the Broward County Public Defender's Office. He had little idea that he'd end up a key player in a bold experiment in criminal justice, one that aims to give tens of thousands of people who can't afford lawyers a fighting chance in a system stacked against them. It's an effort that suggests new ways for court-appointed attorneys to get at the truth, despite their insane caseloads. And a big part of it is getting former cops to police the police.
September 22
One small step for a man, one giant leap for amanimator
Bye For Now
Noting the passing Saturday of Eric S. Lynch, a.k.a. Eric the Actor, a.k.a. Eric the Midget, a regular caller to The Howard Stern Show. [more inside]
They're making a list checking it twice...
For the cat and free speech lover in your life are these fabulous Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un scratching posts.
Also a variety of more affordable litter trays.
The Great Authorial Hookup Chart, version 1
The Great Authorial Hookup Chart (larger image), or how to connect Bram Stoker to Arthur Miller in 12 connections, and from Oscar Wilde to Roald Dahl in 12 romances (or how to make distracted students pay attention to English and History), from Black Balloon Publishing's Airship Daily blog. [more inside]
Is this Joey?
Grantland writer Rembert Browne journeys into the "dark heart" of 90s nostalgia via Central Perk, the museum / tourist trap / coffee dispensary dedicated to the popular television show Friends. The modestly popular show premiered 20 years ago today, and had a number of memorable moments which are fondly remembered by its small, but dedicated group of fans. Friends previously and previously on Metafilter.
Photogenic Pudding
A Land of Contrasts
It's a simple game, really. You just click the box that's a different color than the others.
Ayahuasca Will Make You Cry, Vomit, and Feel Amazing
They say that one night of ayahuasca is like ten years seeing a psychiatrist.
GLENGARRY, BOB ROSS
a broken economic model; an educated and technologically empowered young
Spoiler Alert
Spoiler Alert You were warned.
Backed By The CDC
The Atlantic pulls back the partition on Hollywood, Health, and Society, a CDC-funded clearinghouse for popular media to better understand modern medicine - and modern medical legislation like the Affordable Care Act.
No worms were harmed in the making of this video
Ouvre moi la porte, toi qui a la clé!
"I just dance my dance, I can't dance anyone else's."
The Big Spliff, Re-lit
After two decades of very little activity (with one notable exception), Pink Floyd has announced that a new album, titled The Endless River, will be released in November. Arriving in a variety of formats with the now-obligatory bonus tracks and multimedia content, The Endless River is based on material developed during writing and recording sessions for the group's last album, The Division Bell, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. [more inside]
When I first came across the article, I thought, I'd like to read these.
The Homecoming Queen
When I won, as a high school junior, a state-wide essay writing competition, I was invited with sundry other academic winners to a celebration at the capitol. Rick Perry was to preside. All of us — champions in debate, calculus, physics, music, literary criticism, and more — gathered on the floor of the Texas state senate to accept Governor Perry’s congratulations. Perry took the podium as he does, with all folksy gravitas, gripping its edges in each hand. But when he addressed us he didn’t talk about academic achievement. He talked about football.The Homecoming Queen: Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig writes about Texas, football dreams, and homecoming mums. [more inside]
See ya in another life, brotha.
Ten years ago today, LOST premiered on ABC. EOnline posts an interview with Damon Lindelof, about the show's legacy. [more inside]
"Nothing fades away anymore."
The Solace of Oblivion by Jeffrey Toobin [The New Yorker] "In Europe, the right to be forgotten trumps the Internet."
RIYL DJ /rupture (Eclectic DJ Mix Monday #2)
Hieroglyphic Being (Jamal Moss), head of Mathematics Records, is an old school Chicago House DJ who jams together a messy clump of styles to try to keep things "giddy, impatient and unpredictable." Sun Ra, Peter Gabriel, Native American chants, Brian Eno, and Mr. Fingers all bump up comfortably next to each other. To get you through your Monday afternoon...
- start with his 40-minute First True Language of The Universe mix, recorded at Soul Jazz Records's Sounds of the Universe store
- Follow that up with his his 2-hour 45-minute long Mix for FACT ("We couldn’t bring ourselves to edit it down.") recorded at The Music Box in Lisbon.
- Round out the day with an 80-minute mix and interview for the Keep It Deep Blog, and it'll be time to drive home.
Syria's First Responders
Whoever saves a life - In a war with many villains, these are the good guys. Earlier this month Khaled Hajjo and the majority of the Hanano team were briefly arrested by a rebel brigade in the city, and then forced to flee to Turkey.
True Hollywood Story: The Shawshank Redemption
Who is really listening?
An international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) is a unique number, usually fifteen digits, associated with Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network mobile phone users. An IMSI catcher is a device, used by the NSA drone program, the police, criminals, Chinese spammers and spies all around Washington DC and the world to spoof the identity of a GSM cell tower and intercept cellular voice and data communication. They come in all sizes and flavors, from tiny or body-worn professional surveillance devices, to easy to order off the shelf solutions, to Chinese DIY (links in Chinese) and have spawned efforts to retaliate with an IMSI-catcher-catcher. IMSI-catcher technology has become increasingly widespread, with far-reaching constitutional and technical implications.
The Fake Abortion Clinics of America
[Vice News Video] Women across America who are seeking abortions are accidentally booking appointments at crisis pregnancy centers—pro-life, government-funded religious centers that don't provide abortions, but instead try to talk women out of terminating their pregnancies. [more inside]
From Camera As Torture Device To Camera As Restorer Of Humanity
"There is not one person in prison in Iraq who has not been subjected to some kind of abuse." "I want people to consider, what if that happened to your family member?" [more inside]
it was the year my life was saved
I had a stroke at 33—On New Year’s Eve 2007, a clot blocked one half of my brain from the other. My reality would never be the same again. [more inside]
Best mic drop moment I've seen in a while
Alaskan television reporter quits on-air in spectacular fashion Charlo Greene (apparently her real name) quit her job on-air, after outing herself as the owner of the marijuana exchange on which she was reporting.
Skype for Jail
Dallas County, TX, considers banning live visits for jail inmates and switching to for-pay videoconferencing service. However, other communities have already installed the system by jail-telecom-for-profit experts, Securus. [more inside]
The Movies' 50 Greatest Pop Music Moments
What's that you say? You like to read movie and music related lists on the Internet? Well here you go: The Movies' 50 Greatest Pop Music Moments from the folks at The Dissolve.
"I decided that I was a feminist. This seemed uncomplicated to me."
Emma Watson, in her position as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, has delivered an excellent speech on feminism to the United Nations. Part 1. Part 2.
“They still think Sci-Fi is an adolescent fad”
This might explain why I have a special weakness for Cuban Sci-Fi in particular. Cuba is the only country in the Spanish-speaking word that has built itself—for better or worse—following a scientific model. My weakness, for the most part, has been nothing but a desire to find out if Cubans, during Fidel Castro’s half-century of control, have dreamed Sci-Fi dreams.At BoingBoing, Ilan Stavans talks about his discovery of Cuban science fiction. In the comments, some pushback and links on the same subject as well as Spanish language science fiction in general.
September 21
Hole in the Border
Moving the Mexican Border
The whole point of setting the border between Mexico and the United States at the deepest channel of the Rio Grande was that the river was not supposed to move. That was the thinking in 1848 [...][more inside]
"I was the bravest in battle - I never lost my wits"
In 2008, Outside the Wire, a theater company, began productions of Sophocles' Ajax and Philoctetes to audiences of soldiers and marines returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.
And whither must I go? What end, what purpose Could urge thee to it? I am nothing, lost And dead already. Wherefore- tell me, wherefore?- Am I not still the same detested burthen, Loathsome and lame? Again must Philoctetes Disturb your holy rites? If I am with you How can you make libations? That was once Your vile pretence for inhumanity. Oh! may you perish for the deed! The gods Will grant it sure, if justice be their care And that it is I know. You had not left Your native soil to seek a wretch like me Had not some impulse from the powers above, Spite of yourselves, ordained it. O my country! And you, O gods! who look upon this deed, Punish, in pity to me, punish all The guilty band! Could I behold them perish, My wounds were nothing; that would heal them all.[more inside]
Become Ocean
John Luther Adams is a classical composer living in Alaska. His piece Become Ocean won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music. It was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony and premiered there in mid-2013. Carnegie Hall hosted that same orchestra for a performance that Alex Ross from The New Yorker called "the loveliest apocalypse in musical history". WXQR has a full recording of that performance available. And now the official recording is being released and NPR has a limited-time preview online for listening. [more inside]
"Poor people don't plan long-term. We'll just get our hearts broken."
"Why do so many poor people eat junk food, fail to budget properly, show no ambition? Linda Tirado knew exactly why… because she was one of them. [more inside]
Never overbook a limo on prom night.
Fans of nonsense will be sad to learn that there are only three episodes in the web series Drunk Judge Judy. But what episodes they are! 1, 2 and 3.
It all comes back to fun
When the champion of adult culture is portrayed, even by himself, as an old curmudgeon yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, it suggests that this adult culture is one of the unfortunate but necessary costs of coming into adulthood. We give up the pleasures of entertainment for the seriousness of art. I just don’t think that this is true. Christopher Beha on Henry James and the Great Young Adult Debate.
Why do migrating birds fly in a V formation?
"It was always assumed that V-formation flight was learned from the adult birds. But these guys are all the same age and they learned to fly from a human in a microlight. They learned V-formation flying from each other. National Geographic reports on some of the fascinating intricacies of the V formation observed in migrating birds.
honoring the men and women whose photographs helped shape his career
Text Neck
Texting can be a real pain in the neck (and what to do about it)
Death of a podcaster
R.I.P., the Vincent Price of podcasts Lawrence Santoro (old but useful site), writer, director, and actor, passed this July. But he might be best known for his work as a podcaster, most notably through his Tales to Terrify. [more inside]
The Classical Cloud
clearly a lab computer!
Sentenced in a Swedish court, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg gets extradited to Denmark to stand trial for another case of system intrusion.
Mefi's Own, Jacob Applebaum has some choice words after his testimony in the Danish court. [more inside]
Mefi's Own, Jacob Applebaum has some choice words after his testimony in the Danish court. [more inside]
SIMILO
SIMILO. "2065. The entire planet is hit by the effects of climate change. One of the few places that remain habitable is Antarctica, where corporations have built private cities. Hebe and Ciro get back together again. She is looking for love. He is searching for his own identity." [NSFW, Via]
A political relationship based on declining historical sentiment
"This country, when it was ever known on the global stage under the union, was associated with tragedy, in terrible events like Lockerbie and Dunblane; it's now synonymous with real people power. Forget Bannockburn or the Scottish Enlightenment, the Scots have just reinvented and re-established the idea of true democracy. This—one more—glorious failure might also, paradoxically, be their finest hour." Novelist Irvine Welsh on Scottish independence (SLGuardian) [more inside]
Speak With Monsters: The Incomplete Series
"Okay, the old man in the tavern tells you, 'Many years ago the powerful sage known as Mefi's own Lore collected much wisdom about the sundry monsters of which the elders taught of us in the Monster Manual. Lore's annotations to the work came in the form of the comic series Speak With Monsters. They were once thought lost forever with the fall of Bad Gods and following the trail the mighty JHarris blazed previously four winters past will lead only to woe. But Lore has shared them again in the distant library of Google Plus for seekers after wisdom and gold.' He then falls over with a knife in his back. What do you do?" [more inside]
What Do Homeless Veterans Look Like?
"Friday night massacre"
On Friday, 32 guards who were employees of the Florida Department of Corrections were fired; all were accused of being associated with the deaths of inmates at four state prisons. [more inside]
A little Clump of Soul
Ten years ago today saw the English launch of a quirky Japanese puzzler, a sleeper hit that would go down as one of the most endearing, original, and gleefully weird gaming stories of the 2000s: Katamari Damacy.
Its fever-dream plot has the record-scratching, Freddie Mercury-esque King of All Cosmos destroy the stars in a drunken fugue, and you, the diminutive Prince, must restore them with the Katamari -- a magical sticky ball that snowballs through cluttered environments, rolling up paperclips, flowerpots, cows, buses, houses, skyscrapers, and continents into new constellations.
It also boasts one of the most infectiously joyous soundtracks of all time -- an eccentric, richly produced, and incredibly catchy blend of funk, salsa, bossa nova, experimental electronica, J-Pop, swing, lounge, bamboo flute, hair metal, buoyant parade music, soaring children's choirs, Macintalk fanfares, and the finest theme song this side of Super Mario Bros.
Called a consumerist critique by sculptor-turned-developer Keita Takahashi (who after one sequel moved on to Glitch, the supremely odd Noby Noby Boy, and playground design), the series has inspired much celebration and thought [2, 3] on its way from budget bin to MoMA exhibit. Look inside for essays, artwork, comics, lyrics, more music, hopes, dreams... my, the internet really is full of things. [more inside]
Grandmaster Clash
One of the most amazing feats in chess history just happened, and no one noticed.
Caruana started the tournament with a win, then another. Then another. And another. And another. At the halfway mark, when each player had faced all five of his opponents exactly once, Caruana was 5–0–0. To you and me, going unbeaten and undrawn in five straight tournament games sounds impressive. But to chess aficionados, Caruana’s performance is nigh on miraculous.
buckling their knickerbockers BELOW the knee
A lot of folks are familiar with the "trouble right here in River City" refrain of the song, but when you look at this double echo of cultural fretting — 50 years plus 50 years on — it serves as an impressive reminder that nothing, nothing, is new about the raising of alarms about the decline and fall of culture.Kids, Pants, Booze, Music: Trouble In River City And Always.
THERE IS ONLY ONE MAGIC HEXAGON
The Zhivago Affair
The story of Dr Zhivago’s publication is, like the novel itself, a cat’s cradle, an eternal zigzag of plotlines, coincidences, inconsistencies and maddening disappearances. The book was always destined to become a ‘succès de scandale’, in Berlin’s words, but the machinations and competing energies that went into seeing it into print, on the one hand, and trying to stop it going to print, on the other, make it the perfect synecdoche for that feint, counterfeint round of pugilism we call the Cold War.—The Writer and the Valet by Frances Stonor Saunders tells the story of Isaiah Berlin's part in publishing Boris Pasternak's novel Dr. Zhivago while Michael Scammell details the CIA's role.
September 20
ATARI JAGUAR INFOMERCIAL
Havana Bikes
Bicycling took off in Cuba in the 1990s during a period of oil scarcity, and became an important means of business and daily travel. Since then motor vehicles have returned to prominence, and new bicycle parts are in short supply. A small network of mechanics trades used parts and applies their ingenuity to maintain Cuba's aging fleet.
it's alright cause I'm
Go Bayside is a podcast wherein comedian April Richardson and a weekly guest watch every Saved By the Bell episode and discuss/critique them. She's almost done with the over 80 episodes (not including the larval form Good Morning, Miss Bliss or the College Years sequel), but you should probably start from the beginning. [more inside]
Lost But Not That Lost
The Ultra Heavy Beat
Legendary industrial music pioneers, KMFDM's 30th anniversary this year, saw the release of a live album and tour called "WE ARE". Sascha Konietzko took some time to provide insights about his friendship with Ministry's Al Jourgensen as well as the last thirty years, and his philosophy on making music. [more inside]
“Oh, this is where the science I like is.”
How Long Does It Take to Get to Tatooine? [The New Yorker] "We use much more brainpower on subjects that interest us."
"distinctly queer and contemporary, as if retrofitting a classic car"
"Longings and Desires", a Slate.com book review by Amanda Katz:
[Sarah] Waters, who was born in Wales in 1966, has carved out an unusual spot in fiction. Her six novels, beginning with Tipping the Velvet in 1998, could be called historical fiction, but that doesn’t begin to capture their appeal. It is closer to say that she is creating pitch-perfect popular fiction of an earlier time, but swapping out its original moral engine for a sensibility that is distinctly queer and contemporary, as if retrofitting a classic car.[more inside]
Her books offer something like an alternate reality—a literary one, if not a historical one. There may have been lesbian male impersonators working the London music halls in the 1890s, as in Tipping the Velvet, but there were certainly not mainstream novels devoted to their inner lives and sexual exploits. Waters gives such characters their say in books that imitate earlier crowd-pleasers in their structure, slang, and atmosphere, but that are powered by queer longing, defiant identity politics, and lusty, occasionally downright kinky sex. (An exception is her last novel, The Little Stranger.) The most masterful of these books so far is Fingersmith, a Wilkie Collins-esque tale full of genuinely shocking twists (thieves, double-crossing, asylums, mistaken identity, just go read it). The saddest is The Night Watch, a tale told in reverse of a group of entwined characters during and after World War II. But among many readers she is still most beloved for Tipping the Velvet, a deliriously paced coming-of-age story that is impossible to read in public without blushing.
The Discreet Charms of LA's Discount Wonderland
My father was introduced to the Fashion District by his gay cousin, Napoleon Garcia, who would drag him to get yards of fabric at wholesale stores downtown. "Tito Nap," as I used to call him, was a fabulous man who was as fun as his colorful fashions.
Rhymes with Curmudgeons and Cragons
Toward a Unified Theory of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood Kim Kardashian—and maybe Kim Kardashian alone—has figured out how to make a fortune on the countless hours of emotional labor most women are expected to perform for free: smiling, looking pretty, being accommodating, being charming, being a good hostess.
Mandolin Srinivas (1969-2014)
Indian classical music mourns the untimely death of a child prodigy who grew into a graceful maestro. Srinivas -- who introduced the mandolin to Indian classical music -- was one of the giants. Shockingly dead at 45, gone just far too young.
The tributes are pouring in. [more inside]
First!
"At best, the lines for iPhones are undignified. This film by @CaseyNeistat shows they can be sad & creepy, too." SLYT via @ihnatko.
the inspiration for this version of Robin Hood isn’t actually Robin Hood
Then he went back into the world
The Machete Project
Photographer Vanessa Ahlsborn's Machete Project "is an ongoing portrait and object archive that showcases the diversity of this blade style and the beauty of its users. Despite their fearsome reputation in western news media and popular culture, the machete is an extremely versatile and commonplace asset for many people across the world. By documenting the everyday user for whom the machete is an invaluable tool, the project seeks to question the viewer's assumptions about the machete, and by extension, the people who use it." [more inside]
All play and no work makes Stanley a dull boy.
Why doth ambition so the mind distress to make us scorn what we possess?
Direct your eye-sight inward, and you'le find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscover'd. Travell them, and be / Expert in home Cosmographie. / This you may doe safe both from rocke and shelfe : / Man's a whole world within himselfe. - Habington, 1635
Monsieur, the pilot is never wrong.
Should Airplanes Be Flying Themselves? William Langewiesche examines the ways in which airplane automation, entrenched cockpit culture, and difficult flying conditions led to the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, resulting in 228 deaths. [more inside]
Fruit Cake - the secret ingredient
The secret ingredient in Geoff Beattie’s rich dark fruit cake. Need a heartwarming story? "Geoff Beattie had arrived. Show after show, city after city, state after state, word began to spread about the mysterious widowed dairy farmer who was toppling the greats of Australian show cooking." Might you or someone you know have had a similar experience?
September 19
Spider-Gwen, Spider-Gwen, does whatever a rock drummer does!
"Face It, Tiger" (the debut single!): your new favorite comicbook band is the Mary Janes. Vocals by Mary Jane Watson, drums by the amazing Gwen Stacy: Spider-Woman!
After building fan buzz for months with her striking costume, Spider-Gwen debuted this week in the comic Edge of Spider-Verse #2, which you can preview here. In this alternate universe, Gwen Stacy was the hero who gained superpowers from that fateful spider-bite. Spider-Gwen has drawn critical praise, while her debut comic has already sold to a second printing. Meanwhile, Edge of Spider-Verse is a miniseries prelude to Spider-Verse, Marvel's forthcoming Spider-Family Crossover comicbook-selling-event that vows to feature (almost) "every Spider-Man ever!" For more deeply nerdy spider-geekery, read on. [more inside]
After building fan buzz for months with her striking costume, Spider-Gwen debuted this week in the comic Edge of Spider-Verse #2, which you can preview here. In this alternate universe, Gwen Stacy was the hero who gained superpowers from that fateful spider-bite. Spider-Gwen has drawn critical praise, while her debut comic has already sold to a second printing. Meanwhile, Edge of Spider-Verse is a miniseries prelude to Spider-Verse, Marvel's forthcoming Spider-Family Crossover comicbook-selling-event that vows to feature (almost) "every Spider-Man ever!" For more deeply nerdy spider-geekery, read on. [more inside]
RUSH HOUR
♫ Ad hominem! ♫ ♫ False equivalence! ♫
♫ Are Video Games Sexist? ♫ Auto-Tune Rebuttal. Jonathan Mann responds to a recent video by Christina Hoff Sommers on sexism in video games. [Via]
We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
Al Jazeera has just finished running its series Rebel Architecture.
The six 25 min. films are now available online:
Guerrilla architect.
A traditional future.
The architecture of violence.
Working on water.
Greening the City
The pedreiro and the master planner.
The six 25 min. films are now available online:
Guerrilla architect.
A traditional future.
The architecture of violence.
Working on water.
Greening the City
The pedreiro and the master planner.
The Trilogy is Complete.
The final film in the Atlas Shrugged trilogy (previously) is now in theaters and the reaction has been a stupendous... meh. [more inside]
Your Mind Just Exploded Like a Blood Sausage
Wasteland 2 (previously), brought to life by the love of gamers everywhere, officially released today. A direct sequel to Wasteland from 1988 and a spiritual sibling to Fallout 1, 2, 3, and Vegas, it was developed through a Kickstarter project started by Brian Fargo. With an initial Kickstarter goal of $900,000, it quickly raised $2.9 million instead. Reviews have been pretty good.
How Gangs Took Over Prisons - And Why It May Be A Good Thing
Prison gangs are becoming the custodians of order behind bars and on the streets Books such as Christian Parenti's, Lockdown America, and David Skarbek's,The Social Order of the Underworld posit the idea that prison gangs such as the Aryan Nation, The Mexican Mafia, The Black Guerrilla Family, and others serve a useful function. Prison gangs in an effort to keep their business interests going want order. Multiple gangs keep the other gangs in check. With the US having one of, if not the highest rate of incarceration it may be impossible to maintain any semblance of order without the gangs.
The Social Construction of Money (Wealth/Capital in the 21st Century)*
The political economy of a universal basic income: "your view of what is feasible should not be backwards looking. The normalization of gay marriage and legalization of marijuana seemed utopian and politically impossible until very recently. Yet in fact those developments are happening, and their expansion is almost inevitable given the demographics of ideology... UBI — defined precisely as periodic transfers of identical fixed dollar amounts to all citizens of the polity — is by far the most probable and politically achievable among policies that might effectively address problems of inequality, socioeconomic fragmentation, and economic stagnation." [more inside]
Spooks Commuting by Canoe
On the (Anti-) Matter of Planet Destruction
So you want to make a Death Star? You want to destroy a planet like Alderan? There are several theories. But the latest hinges on a simple matter of "neutral antimatter."
Mona Lisa in a weekend
Mark Landis is an art forger who seems to be driven not by money, but by the desire to be a philanthropist. [more inside]
"I thought, if I wasn't me, if I was someone else, she'd be dead."
After an aborted exclusive deal with the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian has published the new short story from Hilary Mantel. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th 1983
What if Dean Martin got shrunken down and put inside Jerry Lewis?
@petenowa did u know u were "an angry black woman"?
This morning, the New York Times published "Wrought in Their Creator’s Image", an article talking about the new network series “How to Get Away With Murder", produced by Shonda Rimes and starring Viola Davis. The articles claims about the beauty and character of Black women have created a discussion, from Rimes herself and others about the stereotype of the "angry Black woman" and whether Ms. Davis is, as the Times suggests #lessclassicallybeautiful than other women because of the age and color of her skin.
"The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon."
"The du Maurier sisters had, from their volatile, crowded childhood onward, formed this private country they could slip in and out of, where "menaces" and "Venetian tendencies" could be freely discussed. In other words, they found a way to use games of pretend to tell the absolute truth." - Carrie Frye on author Daphne du Maurier and her seminal gothic novel, Rebecca.
I GIVE THIS MOVIE NEGATIVE STARS
Parks and Recreation's Aubrey Plaza has just been named as the voice of Grumpy Cat in the upcoming movie Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever. This is not the first time Plaza's acted in an Internet meme turned movie: she was in Safety Not Guaranteed (based on a personal ad hiring a time-travelling assistant) (prev) as well as CollegeHumour's fake Daria trailer (prev). Will it do better than The Slender Man or Snakes on a Plane?
She has personally lowered the world record in the 1,500 by 14 seconds
"This is a column about Katie Ledecky. It has a simple thesis. The thesis is that Katie Ledecky kicks ass."
ѧѦѧ
Circular Confabulation: [Vimeo]
"A collection of diverse artifacts gathered in the forest, each one is representing a person who participated in the 2008 Bilderberg meeting at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia, United States. The topic at that specific meeting was cyber terrorism. It was recorded by an anonymous security guard and then encrypted."
A Gary Shteyngart novel come to life.
Former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili is now living in Williamsburg. When he's not plotting a return to power (charges of corruption and human rights violations in his home country notwithstanding), he is trying to live a "normal life" in the neighborhood synonymous with hipsters and Hasids. [more inside]
Here's an 80s hardcore mixed tape for your listening pleasure:
Raw Power - Fuck Authority, DOA - Fucked Up Ronnie, MDC- John Wayne was a Nazi, Red Kross- Annette's Got the Hits, Black Flag- Police Story, [more inside]
Orwell + Seth Goodin + Ashton Kutcher=Satan/Zuckerberg?
Long live the fighters.
Tricia Sullivan writes for Charles Stross's blog on fighting and depictions thereof: Martial Arts and the Cycle of Bullshit, Wag that Puppy, Who let the dogs out, Going to the source.
Sisters of Transistors: a contemporary take on 1930s occult parlor music
What do you do with a vintage synth keyboard collection but not enough ways to make use of them all? Well, if you're Graham Massey, and you stumbled across the forgotten history of Women's Organ Quartets who might have overwhelmed the senses of audiences with their weird electronic music, you put together a four-woman keyboard band, and you take up the drums. Read on, for the story of the Sisters of Transistors, "a tale which wanders between truth, history and myth, and involves panic in America, army issue organs, a Derbyshire pub and a member of 808 State!" [more inside]
Not that kind of cat house
Synthetic biology is not easy
The assumption that synthetic biology makes it easy for anybody to “engineer biology” is not true. The underlying vision holds that well-characterized biological parts can be easily obtained from open-source online registries and then assembled, by people with no specialist training outside professional scientific institutions, into genetic circuits, devices and systems that will reliably perform desired functions in live organisms.
This vision, however, does not even reflect current realities in academic or commercial science laboratories
Talk silly, get free donuts and learn something
Avast ye maties, it be Talk Like A Pirate Day! When ye be finished dressin up to get free donuts, take a look at this beauty of a link, where a man wonders 'bout the existence of black pirates!
Three centuries of destroying science fiction
The most feminist moments in sci-fi history -- from 1905 Indian feminist proto-sf to the rescue of Star Trek by female fans and beyond.
"He grew into electronic music's...misanthropic version of Paul Bunyan."
The McDonald's Cocaine Spoon Fiasco
September 18
Shake your silk-maker
The dance of the peacock spider "With their ornately-colored bodies, rhythmic pulsations, and booty-shaking dance moves, male peacock spiders attract the attention of spectating females as well as researchers. One such animal behavior specialist, Madeline Girard, collected more than 30 different peacock spider species from the wilds of Australia and brought them back to her lab at UC Berkeley. Under controlled conditions, she recorded their unique dances in the hopes of deciphering what these displays actual say to a female spider and how standards differ between species.'
Global population likely to hit 11 bn +
New global population predictions published in Science today says that world population stabilisation is unlikely this century, with an 80% probability that world population, now 7.2 billion, will increase to between 9.6 and 12.3 billion in 2100, greatly exceeding previous consensus figures that settled around 9 billion, and is expected to keep growing next century. More in the Guardian.
BoJack Horseman's radically funny sadness
BoJack Horseman Is the Funniest Show About Depression Ever
BoJack Horseman is a weird cartoon about a washed-up sitcom star (who's a horse), a snappy social criticism of the entertainment industry, and the kind of in-jokey cartoon designed to tickle the internet. It's also one of the most aggressive portraits of depression I think I've ever seen. Look past the anthropomorphic animal characters and the satire of toxic celebrity culture: This show is radically sad. I love it.Netflix Original's animated series BoJack Horseman stars Will Arnett, Amy Sedaris, and Alison Brie. It co-stars Aaron Paul and Paul F. Tompkins and has a long and impressive list of guest stars. [more inside]
Following the light of the sun, we left for the Oldhammer World
From humble beginnings as a tabletop game shop in London in the late 1970s with an exclusive contract to distribute Dungeons & Dragons in the United Kingdom, Games Workshop soon moved into producing its own games, most notably the wildly successful Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000. Over the years, the company has transformed itself into a slick marketing machine, dedicated to selling its own (expensive) products to an ever-younger demographic, while managing to live up to its reputation as the big bad corporation of tabletop gaming. For fans of the spirit and style of the Games Workshop of their youth that aren't interested in the company's products today, there’s Oldhammer: an Internet community dedicated to playing Warhammer as it existed in the 1980s. [more inside]
Ah dubba wevwa, aaah ... ACH!
Baby sings the baby blues. In baby. "Flipo" is accompanied by his father, Flavio Rigatozzo, on guitar.
The Wasabi Challenge!
Wasabi is the most difficult plant to grow commercially. "The first thing to know about wasabi - or Wasabia japonica, as it's officially known - is that you have probably never tried the real thing.
That light green paste nestled next to the pink ginger in your box of sushi? It is most likely a mix of mustard, European horseradish, and food colouring.
In fact, by some estimates, only 5% of the wasabi served in Japanese restaurants around the world comes from the rhizome, or root, of a wasabi plant."
"For nearly 30 years, Brian Oates has, in his words, "pig-headedly" devoted himself to a single pursuit: setting up the first commercial wasabi farm in North America." [more inside]
The Word Will Out.
Building the future in the present in Rio de Janeiro favelas, which are getting active online.
Thanks to young community reporters people in Rio and all over the world are getting a more accurate, clearer picture of what's happening in the city's favelas.
In 2011 Augusto Paim & MauMau published a two part comic Inside the Favelas (see previously).
A couple of interviews with 19 year old Michel Silva of the online magazine Viva Rocinha ( and FB).
Thanks to young community reporters people in Rio and all over the world are getting a more accurate, clearer picture of what's happening in the city's favelas.
In 2011 Augusto Paim & MauMau published a two part comic Inside the Favelas (see previously).
A couple of interviews with 19 year old Michel Silva of the online magazine Viva Rocinha ( and FB).
Oranges are not going to be able see my tweets.
I let Apple's QuickType keyboard take over my iPhone , Josh Lowensohn, the Verge, via Predictive poetry, Mark Liberman, Language Log.
#WomenTweetScienceToo
This is Science Magazine; this is one of their featured front-page stories (date stamped 17 September 2014 8:00 am): "The top 50 science stars of Twitter", by Jia You. The list has 46 men and 4 women. [more inside]
that’s like adding three more Floridas, inhabited entirely by seniors.
Big Dog, Small Person
The twisted world of sexual organs
"...it’s a world so full of carnal conflicts of interest and deception that only now are biologists getting to grips with all of its ins and outs, including an understanding of why human sex may be about pleasure rather than pain."[via BBC] [more inside]
Apple's canary is missing
Needs a bottle feeder.
Yoga ball chair was too bouncy? Standing desk left you yearning for motion? Treadmill desk got you scrambling to keep up? Behold the latest in office fitness and productivity! The Hamster Wheel Standing Desk!
"Let me tell you something, Elvin."
Thirty years ago this month, NBC premiered "The Cosby Show" and changed the television landscape. And though people will rightly remember it as a groundbreaking show for African Americans (and sweaters), Slate's Jason Bailey argues that it was just as important in its feminism.
The Jack Kirby Of Porn: Celebrating The Happy Hunks Of Tom Of Finland
ComicsAlliance explores the work and legacy of Tom of Finland (mostly SFW), the legendary homoerotic artist whose work is now available in a limited edition stamp set
“Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.”
International Read an E-Book Day:
The new holday -- "holiday"? -- is the brainchild of OverDrive, a major e-book distributor. OverDrive is the country's largest provider of e-books to libraries; it handles e-books from 5,000 publishers, including major Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Perseus, Wiley, and Harlequin. If you've ever checked an e-book out from the L.A. Public Library, it was provided by OverDrive. To celebrate International Read an E-book Day, Overdrive will be giving away tablets and e-reading devices at the readanebookday.com website and through social media. Readers are asked to "tell their story of what eBooks mean to them" and use the hashtag #eBookDay to be eligible.via: L.A. Times
Chef Stories
Amy Glaze writes How To Talk Like A French Chef:
I’m not learning the kind of French I intended to. The other night on one of my days off, I ordered a cocktail at an upscale restaurant that I had never heard of before. It was a mixture of rum and spirits with fruit juice. It sounded interesting but a little too sweet for my taste. I asked the server if it was dégueulasse (deh-guh-lass), which I thought meant ‘gross’.and The Chocolate Chip Caper:
My hands are permanently blood stained (out out damn spot!) and no matter how much bleach or hydrogen pyroxide I use it won’t go away. They are swollen from gutting hunted animals by hand and getting pricked by tiny bullet shattered bones – so much so, that I can’t even get my engagement ring over my knuckle let alone make a tight fist. The scars on my hands, wrists and arms from cooking and accidents (like the time I tripped on a box left on the floor and landed hands first onto our massive hot plate stove burning the entire side of my hand and wrist) are obscene.[more inside]
um… is that "blood" or "lipstick"?
Writer Creates “Color Thesaurus” To Help You Correctly Name Any Color Imaginable
"Y bien zapateao!" - Happy 18th of September!
Los Picantes sing a cueca about being an expatriate - La Cueca del Patiperro, including one paya dedicated to those flying the flag abroad, wherever you are! [more inside]
We Are The Robots
The Vocoder, a short New Yorker video (11:30) about the military origins of the vocoder. The vocoder—the musical instrument that gave Kraftwerk its robotic sound—began as an early telecommunications device and a top-secret military encoding machine.
Cold calling
The Grandparent Scam
Every day, phones are ringing in homes across the country. Maybe yours. On the line: organized teams of con artists trying to bilk you out of thousands of dollars by impersonating your loved ones.
I was so tall. You were older then.
Can we talk about how much the gossipy young girls who cluster in the schoolyard must feel like children to her? And Susan has forgotten about being a child. She is the blessed, the chosen, the promised. Susan has decades on them, wars, loss and betrayal, victory and growing fields, the trust of her subjects. It was a visceral thing, to have all those lives under her protection and to know that her subjects slept safe, peacefully, on dark nights. Here, on this drab concrete, her people are untouchable, indefensible; her self is vanished, her kingdom gone; she can feel the loss like a wound. She has lost her power, but that trust, that responsibility remains. It circles her ankles, trips her in the school hallways.Can we talk about Susan Pevensie for a moment? (A followup to this.)
Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.
Trifles is a powerful, brief, one-act play written by Susan Glaspell and published in 1916. It is for this play (and a short story version of it entitled "A Jury of Her Peers") that Glaspell is best known today, but she deserves to be better appreciated: "Her plays received better reviews than those of Eugene O’Neill, and in 1931 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her play Alison’s House [pdf summary]. . . . Glaspell was the co-founder with her husband George Cram Cook of the Provincetown Players (1916-1922), the Little Theatre that did most to promote American dramatists, and her diplomacy and energy held the group together for seven years. It was largely thanks to Glaspell’s intervention that O’Neill’s first plays were performed, and she played a major role in stimulating and encouraging his writing in the following years."
September 17
It's now or never.
God bless Mike Brown and his family. This young man's murder has exposed corruption and evil and incompetence at every level in Missouri. Shaun King lays it all out on Ferguson. Previously, originally.
I.P. Freely
What happened to pay toilets in the USA? In the early 1900s, when railroads connected America’s biggest cities with rural outposts, train stations were sometimes the only place in town with modern plumbing. To keep locals from freely using the bathrooms, railroad companies installed locks on the stall doors—only to be unlocked by railroad employees for ticketed passengers. Eventually, coin-operated locks were introduced, making the practice both more convenient and more profitable. Pay toilets then sprung up in the nation’s airports, bus stations, and highway rest stops. By 1970, America had over 50,000 pay toilets.
By 1980, there were almost none.
The anime of Makoto Shinkai: beautiful, somber, with moments of humor
"If I had been born 10 years earlier, I don’t think I would be an animator," wrote Makoto Shinkai. Despite the fact that even his earliest animations were completed with a Mac and a tablet, his style is influenced by the works of prior Japanese animators, even earning him the title "the next Miyazaki," which he says is an honor, but overstating his skills. From his earliest short, Other Worlds, he set some of the tone and pacing featured in his subsequent works, which are discussed in the lead up to an interview Shinkai did with Tested. [more inside]
"remove line breaks? where have you been all my life!"
Welcome to TextMechanic.com! A suite of simple, single task, browser based, text manipulation tools. [more inside]
Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas
For those of you that haven't discovered her yet, I present Jessica Hernandez (and the Deltas).
Demons,
Sorry I Stole Your Man,
Tired Oak,
No Place Left to Hide,
and Cry, Cry, Cry.
(here's a handy Spotify playlist.)
C-H-A
This is not the stirring tale of macho crew cuts and heroic deeds from The Right Stuff that is now a fat chapter in every U.S. high school history book. This is a tale replete with fumbling, bumbling, bickering and at least one insane-sounding notion. To nuke the moon.
25 Of The Most Creative Sculptures And Statues From Around The World
Our cities are full of majestic monuments, stunning sculptures and artistic statues, each having a story to tell. Thousands of them have been made but only a few of them are really extraordinary and picture-worthy. That’s why our readers set out to find the world’s most creative statues and sculptures, which add color and emotion to the most boring areas of the cities. Brought to you by Bored Panda 25 Of The Most Creative Sculptures And Statues From Around The World
BRING ME MY MUTE COMPANIONS
A movie star names things. The Toast tells us what movie stars really think as they film the films.
You won't believe the data on this Star Trek: TNG character!
Search for word usage in movies and television over time.
Movies and television shows often reflect cultural trends of the time they are made in. Even movies that take place during the past or future can say something about the present through metadata or production style. Using the Bookworm platform, Benjamin Schmidt, an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University, provides a tool that lets you see trends in movie and television dialogue.
Calculus without limits
Hyperreal numbers: infinities and infinitesimals - "In 1976, Jerome Keisler, a student of the famous logician Tarski, published this elementary textbook that teaches calculus using hyperreal numbers. Now it's free, with a Creative Commons copyright!" (pdf—25mb :) [more inside]
It's-a me, Mercutio, gimme all your money or I'll cut you!
Walk, Don't Walk, Dance!
The Smart car folks have come up with an idea to make crosswalks a little safer (SLYT, Smart Blue), the Dancing Traffic Light.
Chipmunks!
Falling from grace... and walking on your own
Kumari in Kathmandu, Nepal: Living pre-pubescent girls are believed to be the earthly manifestations of divine female energy, incarnations of the goddess known as Taleju. There can be as many as 13 Kumari at any one time, and the practice can be dated as far back as the 17th century. At the onset of menses, the Kumari are retired and begin life as mere mortals, experiencing the world for the very first time. [more inside]
For fifteen hours, we hold sovereignty in our hands
Polls will open in less than twelve hours for a referendum to end the 307-year Union between England and Scotland. With an unprecedented 97% voter registration, including hundreds of thousands of 16 and 17 year olds, there are predictions of turnout well over 80% across the country. [more inside]
The Chew-nited Nations
Looking at Russian Valery Nosal's collection of 25,500 chewing gum wrappers may seem like a mere curiosity, but you gotta wonder about the ethnography of chewing gum around the world. Perusing the catalog you can find the some expected regional flavors, fascination with far away places, functional over taste chews, odd promotions, and, for a Scandinavian country, a surprising disregard for sustainability. Oprah and other chiclephobes should not click.
Future Politics
Future Politics (PDF link) is a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign class by Jake Bowers on the political theory of science fiction and a great recommended reading and discussion list for the rest of us.
How can imagining the future help us understand the present? How does considering the future help us think critically about politics today?...The future hopes and imaginings of past political thinkers do not include either enough detail or enough information about our rapidly changing technological, social, political, and economic landscape to provide us with enough practice to confidently confront the future as citizens as it happens to us. Science fiction allows us a much more detailed view of life in alternative futures, and the writers that we choose to read here tend to think seriously and logically about how current cutting edge technology might have social and political ramifications — however, science fiction authors are also mostly working on a narrative and thus may skim over core concepts that ought to organize our thinking about politics and society. Thus, we read both together in order to practice a kind of theoretically informed futurism (which is not the same as prediction or forecasting, but is more like the practice of confronting the unexpected).
How can imagining the future help us understand the present? How does considering the future help us think critically about politics today?...The future hopes and imaginings of past political thinkers do not include either enough detail or enough information about our rapidly changing technological, social, political, and economic landscape to provide us with enough practice to confidently confront the future as citizens as it happens to us. Science fiction allows us a much more detailed view of life in alternative futures, and the writers that we choose to read here tend to think seriously and logically about how current cutting edge technology might have social and political ramifications — however, science fiction authors are also mostly working on a narrative and thus may skim over core concepts that ought to organize our thinking about politics and society. Thus, we read both together in order to practice a kind of theoretically informed futurism (which is not the same as prediction or forecasting, but is more like the practice of confronting the unexpected).
Twitter Detective FanSince09
FanSince09 is a Twitter celebrity. He’s known for retweeting some of the worst people on Twitter. Recently, he played detective and was able to use social media to track down some alleged Philadelphia gay bashers.
How to become your own Brewmaster, even in a smallish kitchen
How To Home Brew Beer in Your Kitchen, from Drink [Craft] Beer:
Brewing beer in your home can be as simple, or as complicated, as you want to make it. Here, we’re going to present the simple way. There is a lot of science you can get into, but we’re going to skip a lot of that as there are a lot of people who can tell you about it a lot better than we can. And they have books out (John Palmer’s How to Brew (online), and Charlie Papazian’s The Complete Joy of Homebrewing). We’d recommend reading these books at some point. You’ll learn a lot about why everything happens, how brewing really works and just a lot more in-depth information. If you want to make this a serious hobby, those are two can’t miss books.[more inside]
In this article, though, we’re going to run through step-by-step how to brew in a small kitchen setting. We know many of you live in apartments (we do), and we’ve heard too many people say they can’t brew because of this. You can! We know this, because we do it. We’ll show you how to go about brewing your first batch. Plus, we’re including pictures to really show you how it’s done. So, let’s get brewing!
He also fights crime
Since 2009, a statue of Buddha has been quietly reducing criminal activity and increasing community in one Oakland neighborhood.
Too insignificant to matter
Rebuild the Universe an incremental game that starts with the smallest unit possible to end with the universe itself. Bonuses, special effects and more await you in this incremental game.
In his basement, not the Alamo's.
Have you ever wondered who owns the largest private collection of artifacts related to the Alamo? Well, wonder no more. The answer is vocal mega-creep and platinum-selling recording artist Phil Collins.
worst thing about being asexual? others trying to fix me all the time
You’re about as sexually attractive to me as a turtle: Coming out as asexual in a hypersexual culture
plus, more from the author: the author's tumblr, essays (on the inside, your reason, "playing devil’s advocate" with someone else’s identity, missing out, coming out as asexual, asexuality pre-and-post-transition), other writings and articles ("Enjoy Your Houseful of Cats": On Being an Asexual Woman), videos (introduction to asexuality, a talk @ UVA about asexual relationships, shit people say to asexuals), and a list of arguments she's had with other people on the internet (but, why be asexual?)
plus, more from the author: the author's tumblr, essays (on the inside, your reason, "playing devil’s advocate" with someone else’s identity, missing out, coming out as asexual, asexuality pre-and-post-transition), other writings and articles ("Enjoy Your Houseful of Cats": On Being an Asexual Woman), videos (introduction to asexuality, a talk @ UVA about asexual relationships, shit people say to asexuals), and a list of arguments she's had with other people on the internet (but, why be asexual?)
some saying it's proof of a failing justice and health system
The art of Zhong Fengua
What will time be like in 100 years?
A beacon, shining in the darkness of a world left behind...
The Online Legacy of a Suicide Cult and the Webmasters Who Stayed Behind. A short history of the Heaven's Gate Millenarian Cult and the (ex?) members who still keep the page running seventeen years after their last contact with the leader and members.
Fan Fiction and Midrash
Fan stories, like midrash, give voice to characters who aren't front and center in narratives as we've received them. Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who blogs at Velveteen Rabbi, has published an essay in Transformative Works and Cultures on the parallels between fan works that fill gaps in pop culture stories and midrash used to fill gaps in the Torah.
I AM GROOT.
We believe objectivity to be antithetical to good games coverage...
Yes, we could more easily aim toward something considered more “objective” at this point, simply listing the facts as presented by the developer/publisher. But oh my goodness, what now? See – see where this notion of objectivity has so quickly taken us? Objectivity is now demanding that we parrot information given to us by the creator/publisher of the game, and not apply our own critical faculties – our own subjective expertise – to this.-Some Subjective Thoughts On Objectivity [in Games Criticism]
Geopolitical duct tape and costly disasters.
...the reality of ISIS and what this group seeks is opaque to the public, and to policymakers not clued into the private salons where the details of secrets can be discussed. Even among those policymakers, the compartmentalized national security establishment means that no one really grasps the whole picture. The attempt to get the US into a war in Syria a year ago was similarly opaque. The public cannot make well-informed decisions about national security choices because information critical to such choices is withheld from them. It is withheld from them at the source, through the classification-censorship process, then by obfuscations in the salons and think tanks of DC and New York, and then finally through the bottleneck of the mass media itself.The Solution to ISIS Is the First Amendment by Matt Stoler [more inside]
this world is an illusion
Nairobi Noir - a street photography project
Nairobi Noir is a beautiful collection of photographs taken at night on the streets of Nairobi. Sometimes chilling, sometimes grim, always evocative
"That Saturday was really a normal Saturday, like any other Saturday,"
In This Horror Film, Blood Is All Too Real [New York Times] ‘Terror at the Mall’ on HBO documents an Attack in Kenya.
One year ago, gunmen from the Shabab militant group in Somalia laid siege to the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Armed with AK-47s and grenades, they stalked their victims from a gourmet burger restaurant at the entrance to the vegetable aisle of a grocery store at the back. The British filmmaker Dan Reed assembled thousands of hours of footage gleaned from more than 100 security cameras inside the mall, video from television crews and modest cellphones, as well as still photographs. Then he and his team tracked down more than 200 people and interviewed 82 of them on camera, many survivors or their rescuers.[more inside]
Dead swathes of zombie town
In superheated London, where stratospheric land values beget accordingly bloated developments – authorities are allowing planning policies to be continually flouted, affordable housing quotas to be waived, height limits breached, the interests of residents endlessly trampled. Places are becoming ever meaner and more divided, as public assets are relentlessly sold off, entire council estates flattened to make room for silos of luxury safe-deposit boxes in the sky. We are replacing homes with investment units, to be sold overseas and never inhabited, substituting community for vacancy. The more we build, the more our cities are emptied, producing dead swathes of zombie town where the lights might never even be switched on.The Guardian's architecture and design critic Oliver Wainright discusses housing development policy in London and the new city it is ushering in. [more inside]
The culture of poverty does not exist
The importance of the culture-of-poverty approach is that it allows for recognition of the accumulated history of racism and inequality, but posits the ongoing effects of these as mediated through black cultural pathologies. It therefore permits American liberals to identify with opposition to racism while pushing them towards policy solutions geared towards the transformation of black people, and not American society.With every crisis in Black America the same pathologies the Black community supposedly suffers from -- veneration of the criminal lifestyle, lack of proper family structures, abhorrence of education as acting white -- are trotted out as an explanation, by conservative commentators as that's just how those people are, by supposed liberals as the unfortunate end product of Black history in America. There's just one problem: they're lies. The culture of poverty does not exist.
Race the Tube
Dumpster thriving
A heavily-illiustrated article on Jeff Wilson ("Professor Dumpster") and the evolution of his thirty-six square feet of open-air accommodation: Living Simply in a Dumpster
(previously)
(previously)
September 16
Not Just For Tourists
With successful tramways in Portland, London, Caracas, Constantine, Algeria, and many more, and with systems proposed for Seattle, New York City, The Golden Age Of Gondolas Might Just Be Around The Corner as Transit Planners Look to the Sky with Cable Cars, Gondolas. [more inside]
A Mighty Roar (of purrs)
Having a rough day? Need something to make you feel better? May I present you with A DEN OF KITTENS, a video where the roar of their purring is punctuated by the occasional "Meep" as one after another pops up to discover the camera.
Perhaps it's time use the Oblique Strategies Cards
Watch The Previously Untold True Story Of David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Tony Visconti Recording “Warszawa” A humorous cartoon documenting the recording of David Bowie's 1977 song Warszawa.
FIA Formula E: the world's first fully-electric racing series
A few days ago, the first race of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)'s new Formula E Championship ran with the Bejing ePrix . The race is not quite a simple variant of Formula 1 with electric cars, as the heavy battery packs don't provide enough energy for a complete 50 mile race, so a second car is used to finish the race, and each Formula E car receives 10 specially designed tires per race weekend, which are designed to last the full race, compared to the 52 tires that Formula One cars receive. Though this is a serious race with serious vehicles, as veteran open-wheel and sports car driver Katherine Legge explains in a first-hand account of what it's like to drive the all-electric Formula E car, it's also an effort to promote the potential of electric cars via social media. Saturday's race was the first of 10 races, which will wrap up in June 2015. The Wire has a wrap-up of various news stories, and that article includes a full video of the race in Beijing. More information from Wired, and on the official FIA Formula E website.
Weapons Grade Elvis
In “The Strange Tale of Graceland Too,” Richard Murff writes for The Bitter Southerner, “Among the King’s acolytes, it’s hard to seem crazier than the average Presleyhead. But Paul MacLeod went plumb overboard.”
The Teacher Wars
A new book by journalist Dana Goldstein profiles the deeply controversial history of the teaching profession in the US. A write up in the New York Times and the New Inquiry.
NASA orders up a couple of space taxis
It's official, Boeing's CST-100 and Space X's Dragon have been chosen to launch astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017, ending Russia's dominance as the sole provider of rides to the ISS, which they haven't been shy about using for leverage.
Meanwhile, develop of the Space Launch System, designed for travel beyond low earth orbit, continues for its maiden launch in 2018. [more inside]
"If you think Apple is polarizing today, you haven’t seen anything yet."
When the prices of the steel and (especially) gold Apple Watches are announced, I expect the tech press to have the biggest collective shit fit in the history of Apple-versus-the-standard-tech-industry shit fits. The utilitarian mindset that asks “Why would anyone waste money on a gold watch?” isn’t going to be able to come to grips with what Apple is doing here. Apple watcher and polarizing writer John Gruber offers a long meditation on Apple's philosophy, the (as yet unannounced) pricing tiers of the Apple watch, the "smartwatch" market versus the "watch" market, and the new frontiers of wearable technology.
The TZO: Light and fluffy outside, dense and crunchy inside
Binary stars are common in our galaxy. In fact, singleton star systems like ours make up only 15% of the systems in the Milky Way.
In the 1970s, astronomers Kip Thorne and Anna Żytkow, imagined what might happen if a neutron star in a binary system merged with its partner, a red supergiant. Recently, a real example of this strange star-within-a-star, known as a Thorne–Żytkow object (TZO), appears to have been spotted. (Preprint.)
A typical Russian winter
The recovery of Salyut 7 In 1985, the Soviet Union's space station Salyut 7 was crippled by an total electrical failure. Reactivating it would require a manual docking and working in bitter cold, 130 miles above the planet.
Will Portland Always Be A Retirement Community for the Young?(SLNYT)
Pretty in ink
Women Who Conquered the Comics World
Robbins knows something about the glass ceiling for women cartoonists because she first hit it herself in the early 1970s, when she tried to join the male-dominated “underground comix” movement based in San Francisco. After the men cartoonists shut her out, Robbins joined forces with other women cartoonists to create their own women’s-lib comic books. She went on to become a well-respected mainstream comic artist and writer, as well as a feminist comics critic who’s written myriad nonfiction books on the subject of great women cartoonists and the powerful female characters they created. Naturally, Robbins has spent some time hunting down the original cartoons from the women who paved the way for her career, and as luck would have it, she found the very first comic strip ever drawn by a woman, “The Old Subscriber Calls” by Rose O’Neill, practically in her backyard.
What separates this from an academic pursuit, is the fighting.
"We have all these 600 year old books on how to fight, so we thought wouldn't it be cool if we did this?" The New York Times video team visits the world of German longsword fighting, a variety of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA).
At Home With Sir Ken Robinson.
For the first time ever Sir Ken Robinson (of Do schools kill creativity? fame) attended a TEDx and it was in his home town of Liverpool. As well as presenting the second half, he was interviewed (part one, part two) and gave the epilogue.
lol butts
Is it good?
Artificial Intelligence as an existential threat
If there is one thing we've learned from movies like Terminator and the Matrix, it's that an artificial robotic intelligence will one day force mankind into a seemingly hopeless battle for its survival. Now a new book by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom provides detailed arguments in support of your fears of Skynet, and ideas about we might protect ourselves from an A.I. Apocalypse: Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. An excerpt at Slate discusses how intelligence could be related to goals: You Should Be Terrified of Superintelligent Machines. Ron Bailey reviews Bostrom at Reason Magazine. The Chronicle of Higher Education also has a new article that discusses more than Bostrom's book: Is Artificial Intelligence a Threat? [more inside]
It would be my greatest acting challenge.
‘A National Admissions Office’ for Low-Income Strivers
College admissions officers attribute the organization’s success to the simplicity of its approach to students. It avoids mind-numbingly complex talk of financial-aid forms and formulas that scare away so many low-income families (and frustrate so many middle-income families, like my own when I was applying to college). QuestBridge instead gives students a simple message: If you get in, you can go.
Yet the broader lessons of QuestBridge aren’t only about how to communicate with students. They’re also how our society spends the limited resource that is financial aid.
The group’s founders, Michael and Ana Rowena McCullough, are now turning their attention to the estimated $3 billion in outside scholarships, from local Rotary Clubs, corporations and other groups, that are awarded every year to high school seniors. The McCulloughs see this money as a wasted opportunity, saying it comes too late to affect whether and where students go to college. It doesn’t help the many high-achieving, low-income strivers who don’t apply to top colleges — and often don’t graduate from any college.
Continue reading the main story
“Any private scholarship given at the end of senior year is intrinsically disconnected from the college application process,” Dr. McCullough said, “and it doesn’t have to be.” - The New York Times takes a look at Questbridge, "which has quietly become one of the biggest players in elite-college admissions." (SL NYTIMES)
The clipboard lets me know it’s science.
Relax on your pristine white couch and enjoy these realistic depictions of motherhood.
You will never be able to please everyone; please yourself.
Meet Weesha, a fashion blogger who lives in Dubai. She likes Wednesday Addams dresses, coordinating pink clothes and accessories, and bold flats. She's also quite open about her insecurities and personal history. [more inside]
"the first service layer on the shared economy"
Silicon Valley Has Officially Run Out of Ideas : The winner of this year's TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Award is Alfred Club, basically "Uber for servants"
Inuit facial tattoos
Between the Lines: tracing the controversial history and recent revival of Inuit facial tattoos.
The Power Behind The Power Broker
The Power Broker is 40 years old today. To commemorate the occasion, the Daily Beast conducted a rare interview with Robert Caro, author of The Power Broker, master prose stylist, researcher, and typewriter enthusiast.
Just one more picture ... just one more ...
PixelThis is the first incremental game (previously, more) to use the movement of the mouse as its gameplay input rather than clicking. But if you don't want to play it as a game, you can make one simple tweak to it and transform it into an oddly relaxing web toy. [more inside]
Japanese Maple
Australian television raconteur and polymath critic (and tango enthusiast) Clive James, part of a small wave of intellectual exiles in the 1960s, and now lingeringly dying of leukemia and emphysema, has published a poem titled "Japanese Maple" by way of leave-taking.
Kerning is next, little one.
The conversation is getting broader, deeper, and more diverse every year
"Feminism Has Conquered the Culture. Now Comes the Hard Part: A debate on this unprecedented opportunity"
By Rebecca Traister and Judith Shulevitz
By Rebecca Traister and Judith Shulevitz
"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
Ken Burns’ new film The Roosevelts is 14 hours long. Which hours should you watch? [vox.com]
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns's latest PBS opus, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. If you'd rather stream, the entirety of the miniseries will be available on PBS.com, PBS member sites, and various PBS digital platforms. (It leaves streaming Friday, Sept. 26, so hurry.) It will also be rerun frequently on PBS and comes out on DVD/BLURAY Tuesday. So that's a whole host of ways to watch. But should you? This sucker, like many of Burns's most famous films, including The Civil War, Baseball, and The War, is really, really long. It's seven installments, of roughly two hours each, so you'll be devoting around 14 hours of your life to this thing. If you really, really like the Roosevelts, that's great, because this is a terrific screen biography of the famous family. But what if you're more Roosevelt-curious?
"A Pyramid Scheme"
"Imagine a job where about half of all the work is being done by people who are in training. That is, in fact, what happens in the world of biological and medical research." --- NPR reports [audio] on postdocs & the scientific workforce as part of a series on the funding crisis in biomedical research. The series also includes When Scientists Give Up [audio], and U.S. Science Suffering From Booms And Busts In Funding [audio].
An Indian Woman Engineer from Bangalore post
When mistreating users becomes competitive advantage
This week, of course, provided a glorious example of how technology companies have normalized being indifferent to consent: Apple ‘gifting’ each user with a U2 album downloaded into iTunes. At least one of my friends reported that he had wireless synching of his phone disabled; Apple overrode his express preferences in order to add the album to his music collection. The expected 'surprise and delight' was really more like 'surprise and delete'. I suspect that the strong negative response (in some quarters, at least) had less to do with a dislike of U2 and everything to do with the album as a metonym for this widespread culture of nonconsensual behaviour in technology.Deb Chachra talks about the age of non-consensual technology. [more inside]
The Knowledge
The point is that I am in here, somewhere: cogito ergo sum.
"Let’s note that I write this while experiencing psychosis, and that much of this has been written during a strain of psychosis known as Cotard’s delusion , in which the patient believes that she is dead. What the writer’s confused state means to either of us is not beside the point, because it is the point. The point is that I am in here, somewhere: cogito ergo sum." (via)
Diane Ravitch on reining in school reform
September 15
Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area
If you live in the Boston area and would like to attend science, technology, math, or engineering lectures, you'll find Fred Hapgood's exhaustive and continually-updated list of Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area very useful. (Here's his list of sources.) Perhaps you know of a list like this for lectures in your locality or field of preference?
(watch very closely for removal of this title)
Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses, bolstered with math and graphs
The 2014 Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses, or BAHFest, is a month away. If you're not sure what is in store, you can watch the entire festival (1 hr 32 min), or jump to the winning presentation: Tomer Ullman: The Crying Game (Q&A), or why babies are so annoying and the competitive advantage crying babies likely gave to warriors from times past. "I don't want to get too much into the technical details, so let's not." [more inside]
The Last Amazon
Bruce Dern, runner
Bruce Dern is a life-long runner. Three interviews with Runner's World discuss his obsession with running and how it interplays with his acting. From 1978, Running Is a Hard Act to Follow:
In the case of certain roles such as The King of Marvin Gardens, where the character stays with me for months after the movie is over, it is hard to get rid of him. It’s a frustration of the character. I think the same thing is true of running. All of my acting is on the theory of working from the inside out. Everything happens inside and then it comes out and the person grows out of that. Well, the running is the same thing for me. It happens from the inside out. It's the need and the desire that then makes the body go out and do it. And the desire to improve.[more inside]
"A Complicated Grief"
#5½: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... YEEEAAH..."
"10 Lessons From Real-Life Revolutions That Fictional Dystopias Ignore" ...because sometimes the biggest problems with Science Fiction is less 'getting the Science wrong' and more 'getting the Social Science wrong'.
I ain't sure it's puddin'.
Unfortunately it has only just finished, but a a live first-ever autopsy was performed on the second colossal squid ever to be found intact, by the Te Papa and Auckland University of Technology. The first colossal squid to be found is on display at the same university (site down at the moment, possibly due to traffic; archive.org cached site). Direct link to 86 minute Youtube video. Currently there is no word on the disposition of the squid remains.
Everyday is Sunday
Everyday is Sunday (Tous les jours dimanche) is a series of surreal pictures taken by photographer Manolo Mylonas in the poor and tumultuous Department of Seine-Saint-Denis, where he lives (interview in French). For those who wonder about the sheep herd on a concrete ramp, they are part of an experiment in urban agriculture (in French, other pictures). There's no explanation for the horse on the balcony, but this is probably how it got there.
"even if you pass all their tests, you're probably just a gimmick"
Women are called upon every day to prove our right to participate in music on the basis of our authenticity—or perceived lack thereof. Our credentials are constantly being checked—you say you like a band you've only heard a couple of times? Prepare to answer which guitarist played on a specific record and what year he left the band. But don't admit you haven't heard them, either, because they'll accuse you of only saying you like that genre to look cool. Then they'll ask you if you've ever heard of about five more bands, just to prove that you really know nothing. This happens so often that it feels like dudes meet in secret to work on a regimented series of tests they can use to determine whether or not we deserve to be here. The "fake geek girl" test is one, door guys stopping female musicians carrying gear to make sure they're actually in the band and not just somebody's girlfriend is another. Big rock magazines that interview male musicians about gear and female musicians about sexual harassment—that's up there too.—Meredith Graves talks about musical authenticity and gender, taking Andrew WK and Lana Del Rey as her examples. Graves is in the noise rock band Perfect Pussy. Here's a video for their song "I", a live performance and a short segment where Graves and bandmate Ray McAndrew buy books.
food IS a theme park
The Disney Food Blog offers in-depth news, reviews, and information about food and restaurants in Disney’s parks, resorts, and cruise ships, along with reviews and photographs of and about anything food-related in Disney parks, resorts, movies, and events. Disney food FAQs. Disney food news.
Knee-deep in the Print Head
To highlight the vulnerabilities of an unsecured web interface in Canon Pixma printers that allows the uploading of arbitrary binaries as firmware, information security consultant Michael Jordan has made a printer run Doom (video) as part of a presentation at 44Con 2014. [via]
A sliding tile puzzle and music theory all in one!
GLOOMCAMPING
The SummHarry, all the Harry Potter books summarized in cartoon form by Lucy "Stop Paying Attention" Knisley. Full size; previously on the blue.
Chef good, cook bad
Every competitive cooking show in America, ranked by the A.V. Club
Cinderhella Lives!
In 2004 Joseph Kahn directed the hyper-kinetic, poorly reviewed motorcycle action movie Torque. It was Kahn's directorial debut, and though he was tapped for (one of many) failed Neuromancer adaptations, he devoted the next six years to a largely self financed project: the horror-comedy farce Detention. Noted cultural critic Steven Shaviro discusses in this essay why Detention, despite also being reviewed negatively, is one of his favorite movies of the decade. Shaviro's review contains major spoilers for the plot, and it's probably best to go into the movie blind. A brief non-spoiler synopsis is available below the jump. [more inside]
The awful cult of the talentless hipster has taken over
"massive quantities of barely edible fried items" (p. 200)
Investment firm Starboard Value is unhappy with Olive Garden— unhappy enough to issue a scathing 294-page PDF enumerating all of the restaurant's sins. [more inside]
Living the GoPro Life
The Old Woman With No Teeth
PodCastle 328: The Old Woman With No Teeth
When The Old Woman With No Teeth decided to have children, she didn’t go about it in the usual way. Well, really, what else could you expect from The Old Woman With No Teeth? If she ever did anything the usual way, even boiling a pot of water, the world might start spinning widdershins on its axis.[more inside]
"Now you just stop that. I can read perfectly well, you impudent ragger. Set down what I told you, and don’t believe all the stories you’ve heard about me."
There are many stories about The Old Woman With No Teeth, but people should not believe all of them. The most popular one is that she wore away her teeth by chewing a tunnel to the six-sided world. Nobody knows if this story is true. Many people have looked for the passageway she is supposed to have gnawed through reality, but none of the venturers have managed to pinpoint it.
"None of the ones who’ve come back, you mean. Silly bastards."
So sweet and scarlet and free
Artists "on the town"
The Nuart Festival underway in Stavanger, Norway offers "a new breed of art exhibition that is neither institutionalised nor commercial, giving the artists free reign to express themselves to the full." And to back that talk up, they offer the entire town of Stavanger, Norway as the artists' canvas. Those of us who can't get to Norway can check out the growing gallery of works being populated through October 12th.
"How can I make the person eating this lose his goddamn mind?"
"The server comes over to your table after you've finished your cheesecake, carrying a deck of cards. He or she asks you to cut it and pick any card. Each of the cards has a different chocolate flavor on it, such as lime or raspberry. The waiter then asks you to flip over your cheesecake plate – and there, right in front of you, is a chocolate that corresponds to your card.
They do this mind-blowing trick to every single customer who eats there." The 6 Most Pretentious Dishes Rich People Pay Money For from Cracked.
They do this mind-blowing trick to every single customer who eats there." The 6 Most Pretentious Dishes Rich People Pay Money For from Cracked.
“Son, Men Don’t Get Raped”
"Sexual assault is alarmingly common in the U.S. military, and more than half of the victims are men. According to the Pentagon, thirty-eight military men are sexually assaulted every single day. These are the stories you never hear—because the culprits almost always go free, the survivors rarely speak, and no one in the military or Congress has done enough to stop it." A tough read from GQ. Could be triggering.
Look Around You
We can take advantage of the dense and real-time nature of our system to perform novel Augmented Virtuality (a.k.a Mixed Reality) interactions... A user can choose a set of planes to alter the original input with an application display, allowing for instance to read a Facebook Wall on a real wall. The user can still safely navigate an environment without fear of collisions and perform tasks like zooming in/out as natural as walking closer/further from surfaces.-Dense Planar SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping)
"Anyway, my price is two billion dollars."
Two years ago, Notch of Minecraft fame, posted a tweet that mockingly said "Anyway, my price is two billion dollars. Give me two billion dollars, and I'll endorse your crap. Earlier last week, rumors started going around that Microsoft was interested in buying Minecraft and its developers, Mojang. And today, it is official. Microsoft has bought Minecraft and Mojang for 2.5 billion dollars.
"He was quite helpful, but then I trusted him too much."
Lydia Davis on Madame Bovary, Nabokov's Marginalia, and Translation: [YouTube] In this video from the Center for the Art of Translation, author and translator Lydia Davis discusses how she used Nabokov's margin notes from his edition of Madame Bovary to aid her own translation. She also discusses in-depth translation choices that she made. A full audio recording of this event can be hard on the Center's website.
the foreign players who lit up English football in the 1970s and 80s
There are many foreign players in English football today, but back in the 70s and 80s there were only a few. Some became club legends, others had disappointing spells with their club. This Daily Mail article has lots of lovely 70s and 80s style pictures of many of these players, including Ardilles, Grobelaar, and, of course, a young Alex Sabella.
I’m not broken and neither are you.
The thing about ableism is that it’s everywhere, and it’s incredibly common, and we don’t even realize it. It’s in the books we read, and in our daily lives. Ableism is that belief that everyone who is able-bodied is “normal” and everyone else is abnormal. Abelism is probably one of the most common kinds of –ism’s, and it rarely gets talked about.The language of disability and why it matters.
Command line music streaming
Cmd.fm is no frills, command line music streaming. For the geek music lover in all of us. [more inside]
September 14
I'm only into Jean-Georges's early stuff.
There once was a time when your working knowledge of, say, Junot Diaz or Radiohead was all you needed to show some conversational with-it-ness. Now, though? Restaurants - the currency of the young and cash-strapped - are the key to the cultural kingdom.
15 years after we lost the moon...
With Saturday being the 15th anniversary of the tragic departure of the Moon from Earth orbit, it's a good time to visit The Boneyard, home to all the disassembled remains of the Eagles used in the Space 1999 series. [more inside]
This individual moves in synch with the music (SLYT)
Nica
Those of you here who are jazz fans may have heard a little about Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild. Her nickname "Nica" is enshrined in many a jazz composition's title, for example Nica's Tempo, Nica's Dream, Blues for Nica and, simpy, Nica. She was, as you'd imagine, a devoted lover of jazz, and an inestimably important benefactor, patron and enabler of many of the jazz legends of her time, especially the great Thelonius Monk. Learn more about her in this Guardian article: The jazz baroness and the bebop king.
RIP Douglas E. Smith
Douglas E. Smith, creator of the classic 8-bit computer game Lode Runner, which got a second life as one of HudsonSoft's most iconic Famicom titles in Japan, has died at the age of 57. [more inside]
"more a screen of profound injury"
A week of Ctrl-Alt-Del posts on Raymond Chen's blog The Old New Thing begins with a simple blog post: Who wrote the text for the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog in Windows 3.1?. What followed was a mixture of confused tech journalism and Chen's patient Windows archaeology. [more inside]
"I've worked on a building site all day, and it's nothing to this job."
How pointe shoes get made, at Freed's of London (official shoe makers of the Royal Ballet). Has that whet your appetite? You can try your hand at the Royal Ballet's company class (or the Bolshoi's, if that is more your speed). If you never got a chance to take ballet as a kid, be inspired by the adult beginner ballet students of Kathy Mata. [more inside]
Discogs, one of the biggest online vinyl shops, holds an in-person sale
In the late 1990s, Portland-based programmer Kevin Lewandowski shifted his musical discography efforts from a manually maintained drum'n'bass website to a community-built effort, and named the effort Discogs. The site grew, slowly at first, focusing on documenting any and all details of electronic records, then hip hop, rock and jazz, and eventually any sort of recorded audio, more or less. Other key changes include the 2005 addition of the Discogs Marketplace, and the contentious Version Four update, which changed the way submissions are moderated, making all pending submissions publicly visible. The latter change resulted in "the oggercide," but it was the former that brought about a vinyl revolution, uniting a world of record sellers small and large in one well-visited vinyl (and CD, cassette, DVD, etc.) record store. Last month, Discogs held its first in-person record sale, in Portland, Oregon.
Open and Operating
Al-Qaeda deliberately targeted the 9/11 attacks at the backbone of the world's financial system in lower Manhattan, to cripple US and world banking. That totally didn't happen and, national emergency aside, the US's (and world's) financial systems kept operating as normal, with no runs on banks and the NYSE trading at normal volumes just a week later. With the destruction of the physical infrastructure of banking and telecommunications in lower Manhattan, Alan Greenspan stranded in Zurich, and no one having any idea what was going on, how did that happen? Within 41 minutes, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson issued a short statement on Fedwire that the Fed fund transfer system was fully operational and the Fed would remain open until "an orderly closing could be achieved." Within 3 hours, the Fed issued a short statement that "The Federal Reserve System is open and operating. The discount window is available to meet liquidity needs." The financial system, the Fed declared, would not fail. [more inside]
Twenty Styles
Ten Second Songs covers pop songs in twenty different styles: Linkin Park - In The End, Ariana Grande - Problem, Jason Derulo - Talk Dirty To Me [more inside]
Sex slavery in America
It's not always obvious, but Cracked does some amazing true life interviewing and reporting buried in a (very) thin veneer of black humour. From John Cheese's writings on growing out of alcoholism to Robert Evans' personal experience articles, they do a surprisingly good job at telling intense, hard-to-read stories.
This is their take on sex slavery.
Holy shit trigger warnings.
Entangled
Entangled. "Forced to care for her catatonic lover Malcolm after a secret quantum experiment goes awry, Erin is determined to uncover the cause of his condition — even at the risk of her own life. This riveting contemporary science-fiction story, from one of the writers of Orphan Black, bridges alternate dimensions as it explores how far a person will go for someone they love." From the TIFF 2014 festival.
“There are eight million stories in the naked city.”
No, the above quote is not the answer to “How many total episodes are there of the various “Law & Order” franchises?”. In actuality, those nine words conclude one of the most exciting films of the 1940’s (and the direct ancestor of Dick Wolf’s prolific franchise). Welcome to “The Naked City”. [more inside]
Sweet Treats for the Kids (SLYT)
The Gordon Gekko of Hip-Hop
Nazis had more legal right to the Ark than Indy: Real jobs vs the media
“True, the Nazis were trying to find the Ark of the Covenant so they could destroy the world,” Canuto says. “But methodologically and legally they were in the right.” Why archeologists hate Indiana Jones. Also, why doctors don't like medical dramas; what is inaccurate about TV portrayals of lawyers and the legal process (PDF); and, finally, the terrific analysis of the portrayal of academics in children's books. When your profession is portrayed on TV, what do they get wrong?
"My real-life shagging has not been self-conscious."
"It irritates me because it seems such a self-conscious way to live. But, to be fair, it’s almost always completely unselfconsciously done. It’s people like me, carping at the camcordsters, who are overthinking how life should be experienced. We’re the ones who are trying to impose our opinion of how things should be enjoyed. 'Why can’t you just look at a view!?' we fume, but we never ask ourselves: 'Why can’t you just let people enjoy the view in the way they want!?' Exasperated by people staring at their phones instead of the world around them, we end up staring at people staring at their phones, miss the sunset, fireworks display or penguin feeding time, and don’t even walk away with a video to watch later." (SLGuardian)
"Cursed since birth, blessed till death."
Oyl int Ruwad
In the 1960s, the city of Sheffield redeveloped their neglected market square into a Hole in the Road. "A small early forerunner to Meadowhall-type malls; but with more drunks and dodgy smells," the Hole was filled in and paved over in the 90s. [more inside]
.../\ /.\.. ../.\ ./.\. ..???
Your weekly dose of nostalgia
'I place the blame for gaming history at the feet of the medium itself, or rather the industry that runs it. You can turn on the radio and hear the entire post-Beatles spectrum of popular music history represented as you run down the dial; flip through cable channels on a Sunday afternoon and you're as likely to see yet another repeat airing of an '80s release like Die Hard or Back to the Future as you are something that hit theaters in the past five years. For games, though, you practically have to go digging to find the classics. And chances are you won't even find them.' Jeremy Parish on the preservation and availability of classic video games. [more inside]
Binders full of women
They have a very sexy cow in Murky Waters, the tiny, rural village you find yourself in for the duration of Chapter 4. The peasants are devoted to their cow, and dedicate themselves to her every need, guarding her jealously and evangelising about her voluptuous udder. They seem to take less care of their daughters, who keep wandering off and getting killed. Quick, better screw some of them first!Kate Simpson is collecting all the ladycards in The Witcher: part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. (The Witcher, for those who don't know, gave the player collectable trading cards for each character they ahem "romanced".)
September 13
Kutiman Returns
Hear "Give It Up" , a beautiful new track from Kutiman's followup to "Thru You". Five years after the original Thru You project, Israeli producer Kutiman is teasing the release of a new collection of original tracks, painstakingly stitched together from unrelated YouTube videos. [more inside]
Standing around, chewing mouthfuls of cud, gazing at nothing.
Stable pluripotent stem cell production
"Scientists reset human stem cells to earliest developmental state" The paper, published in Cell, is available under a CC-3.0 license. [See: earlier Mefi post] [more inside]
Poor Dan.
"'The family division is rooted in the same ground as fiction..."
Ian McEwan: the law versus religious belief. [The Guardian]
The conjoined twins who would die without medical intervention, a boy who refused blood transfusions on religious grounds…Ian McEwan on the stories from the family courts that inspired his latest novel.[more inside]
Flying through an aurora, like going through a giant neon sign
European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst captured this photograph from the International Space Station and tweeted "Words can't describe how it feels flying through an #aurora. I wouldn't even know where to begin..." Not many can share his experience, but photographer Paul Williams captured an aurora while on a flight from London to New York (stills on Flickr). NASA's Science News has an article on Flying Through a Geomagnetic Storm, with information on how auroras are formed, and a bit more on what it's like to fly through them, with an accompanying video (previously).
"How to Keep Your Cat, c. 1470"
If you have a good cat and you don't want to lose it, you must rub its nose and four legs with butter for three days, and it will never leave the house. [more inside]
"You realize that's illegal to say in a business meeting?"
According to Kathy Griffin, when she expressed interest in hosting The Late Late Show, she was told they were "not considering females at this time." This is especially ironic considering that the current Late Late Show host, Craig Ferguson, stated that he thought the next host should "unquestionably be a female." Even worse, there was some talk about David Letterman's Late Show hosting spot going to a woman after he stepped down, but no dice. [more inside]
"This reduces the likelihood for irreparable injury...."
An appeals panel of the Seventh Circuit ruled yesterday (pdf) that Wisconsin may immediately implement a photo ID law, for the November 4th election. [more inside]
It's more than burning coal.
1944 Locomotive firing course. Traffic demands during World War II taxed American railroads to their capacity. Orders for new steam locomotives kept the builders busy. Along with the need for more locomotives came the need for men trained to operate them.
Responding to this situation, the Education Department of the State of New York, through its State University system and the Bureau of Industrial and Technical Education, published a Suggested Unit Course in Locomotive Firing. The course was prepared by curriculum writers at Seneca Vocational High School in Buffalo, and was issued from Albany in 1944.
Grease me up, woman!
In the somewhat tumultuous debate over the Scottish independence (previously), and with less than a week before the historic vote, a new voice has risen out of the fray.
Michael Winslow is Led Zeppelin
Michael Winslow does Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." The original here for comparison. Bonus behind the scenes footage. [more inside]
Of certain people, by certain people, for certain people
If I were king for a day, I would ban open-plan offices
"There is nowhere to have a quiet chat – if a channel controller wants to discuss a commission, they must first book time in a glass-walled meeting room named after some long-gone BBC character – the Del Boy or Wilfred Pickles suite or something. The Mr Pastry Suite or the Basil Fawlty Snack Bar would have been no more likely to produce creative ideas, but at least it might have been fun getting the summons." (SLGuardian)
Radical Linguistics in an Age of Extinction
Modern linguistics is founded on a radical premise: the equality of all languages. “All languages have equal expressive power as communication systems,” writes Steven Pinker. “Every grammar is equally complex and logical and capable of producing an infinite set of sentences to express any thought one might wish to express,” says a recent textbook. … Where native speakers are concerned, no language, dialect, or accent can meaningfully be described as primitive, broken, or inferior.
Ghostbusting Lovecraft
Ghostbusters is the best comedy ever made about the limits of the Lovecraftian worldview. By Max Gladstone.
If you can dream it, you can do it. But you have to be able to dream it.
September 12
Did the money do any good?
From Horizon To Innocence
U2's thirteenth studio album Songs Of Innocence was released for free download via iTunes this week (with surprisingly good reviews and some naysayers). And of course, some controversy about how it was distributed... But it's been 5 1/2 years since the release of their last album. What on earth have they been up in the meantime? [more inside]
Imagine she's all about that bass and you're going to hear her roar.
Kate Davis performs 3 covers:
feat. Postmodern Jukebox - Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass
at New York Humane Society - Katy Perry's Roar
and three years ago on the Lennon Bus - Imagine
[more inside]
feat. Postmodern Jukebox - Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass
at New York Humane Society - Katy Perry's Roar
and three years ago on the Lennon Bus - Imagine
[more inside]
Reaffirming My Faith in the Young
The Most Punk Rock Diary Entry Ever. Discovered by Jason Isbel, as reported by Badass Digest.
Potential Hydrogen Production Breakthrough
100 Bass Riffs ... but no Big Bottom
100 Bass Riffs: A Brief of Groove on Bass and Drums. From the folks at Chicago Music Exchange who previously brought you 100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock N' Roll).
Giving "Four Eyes" A Whole New Meaning
Misogyny and the Atheist Movement
Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement? "The continuing debate over a murky sexual encounter at a 2008 convention for cheekily anti-establishment skeptics underscores a broader dilemma: How can a progressive, important intellectual community behave so poorly towards its female peers?"
Police Within Reach
Reddit: Somalia Of The Internet
In response to criticism over the banning of infamous subreddit TheFappening, where private photographs of women (both celebrities and not) were being circulated, Reddit chief Yishan Wong released a controversial op-ed stating that Reddit considers itself "not just a company running a website where one can post links and discuss them, but the government of a new type of community." T.C. Sottek, writing for The Verge, asserts that if this is the case, then Reddit is assuredly a failed state. [more inside]
S is for Stand, Still, Stay, Silent and especially Sundberg
"Stand Still, Stay Silent" is the follow-up to Minna Sundberg's successful webcomic "A Redtail's Dream" (previously), but instead of a 550 page Finnish fantasy tale, it's a post-apocalyptic but still very Scandinavian story intended to run for years. After 10 months of almost-every-weekday pages, she has taken a short break for the end of 'Book One' and it's a good time to catch up. (SPOILERS INSIDE, but reading from the beginning is still strongly recommended) [more inside]
"In terms of beer, cutting 1 metre of the board cost 54.3 litres of it."
"I’m unable to continue my campaign for re-election as your Mayor."
When last we checked in with Toronto mayor Rob Ford, he had just come back from a stint in rehab. The ensuing summer found him apparently clean and sober, although still with an aura of scandal (last weekend he was subpoenaed in an extortion case) and despite great efforts, polls had Ford trailing by more than ten points in the race in August. Earlier this week, things took another shocking turn when he was admitted to hospital with an abdominal tumour. With 2:00 PM today as the deadline for candidates to add or remove their names to or from the ballot, many speculated on how Ford's health concerns would affect the race (the two candidates polling in fourth and fifth bowed out of the race in the last two weeks). This morning, hours before the deadline, Ford announced he was withdrawing his name from the mayoral ballot, but he would be running for city council. He has asked his brother and erstwhile campaign manager, rookie councillor Doug Ford, to run for mayor in his place. [more inside]
Let’s talk about margins
Seven hours they had talked and they could have gone on until dawn.
We were each other’s firsts. I was 16, a stressed-out immigrant kid, she was the daughter of Colombian Catholics who were quite fond of the church’s policy on pre-marital sex. So it took us quite a while to awkwardly, semi-defeatedly concede to each other that we had run out of excuses to avoid sex. “This weekend?” I said grimly. A very sweet Guardian piece called "My parents helped me to lose my virginity" by novelist Boris Fishman.
The (Silk) Road to Hell is paved with noob mistakes
The FBI has recently released details on how the Silk Road black market was taken down. [more inside]
Where have you gone John Williams? A nation turns its lonely ears to you
Even the theme to Gilligan's Island? Yes.
Adon Olam is a 12th century Jewish hymn traditionally sung at the end of Sabbath services in both Ashkenazic and Sephardic congregations. Maybe you’ve heard Uzi Hitman’s disco version, which electrified the 1970’s. But what may be most inspiring about the prayer is that it can fit to pretty much any melody. Here it is to Pharrell’s Happy. Here it is to Gilbert and Sullivan's Modern Major General. Here’s the Cups song. Even Amazing Grace. [more inside]
The Bezier Game
The President has nothing but free time, Toby
Is rape the price to pay for migrant women chasing the American Dream?
"Little by little, the time passes, and then... well, it's not that you enjoy working here. It's that the situation meets a need." (TW: sexual assault, rape) [more inside]
Donald Winnicott at the BBC
Donald Winnicott, the British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, was notable in the mid-20th century for his empathy and recognition of the complexity and resilience of the mother-child bond. In the late 40s he recorded extensively for the BBC, and the resulting broadcasts made his term "good enough mother," and his advice about parenting, influential throughout England. There is a short (2 min) snippet of him talking at BBC 4, but the full show about Winnicott's broadcasts and influence is on YouTube. [more inside]
Psst, Venus. What's up with those holes in your atmosphere?
Venus Express, ESA's first spacecraft to the planet, has been having a good ol' time skimming the surface at an altitude of 81 miles , finding rainbows and investigating those holes in the planet's atmosphere.
These manuscripts ain't gonna illuminate themselves
Model books, examples for medieval scribes to copy from and adapt in their work, are like illuminated manuscripts in concentrated form. A post from medieval historian Erik Kwakkel's excellent new blog, a longform complement to his excellent Tumblr (previously).
A Post About Buzzfeed and Tinder? Just, Ew, No. Moving On
A Buzzfeed writer exercises her semiotics and gathers a bunch of stock photos to recreate Tinder, the quick glance social dating app, to find out why we swipe. [more inside]
DEA private contractors?
The fight to cleanup the environmental damage to forest land by illegal grows, has evidently spilled over to legal grows on private land, when armed private contractors dropped in by helicopter cut down a medical marijuana plot.
In pleasanter anniversary news...
Hey, remember when Oprah gave everyone in her audience a new car (previously)? It was ten years ago tomorrow.
Rise Up Singing Project by Matthew Vaughan
Here are many videos of songs from the Rise Up Singing songbook, a song reference book described as a large collection of chords and lyrics to folk songs, topical songs, children's songs and rounds as well as some showtunes and country, rock and blues songs all meant to be sung aloud in groups. It's a pretty invaluable resource to songleaders, and useful for anyone who likes to sing with friends or strangers. Rise Up Singing is most useful when you already know the tune, which is where ALL THESE VIDEOS come in:
[more inside]
September 11
The Islamic roots of science fiction
Charlie Jane Anders investigates the Islamic roots of science fiction, including one of the earliest feminist science fiction novels. You may actually want to read the comments this once.
Vaccination map of Los Angeles schools
The Hollywood Reporter gathered vaccination rates from Los Angeles preschools and elementary schools, for the 2013-2014 academic year. They created an interactive map that allows you to click on schools and see what percentage of preschoolers and kindergarteners got the DTaP and MMR vaccinations, and what percentage of families opted out using a Personal Belief Exemption form. Los Angeles is currently in the middle of a Pertussis (Whooping Cough) outbreak, and officials are concerned that it will spread further as herd immunity is threatened by low rates of vaccination.
The happiest place on earth: TIJUANA!
I am on the western edge of the United States-Mexico border to understand more about the most publicised and most crossed border in the world. Ben Stubbs visits one of the most notorious borders in the world and reflects on Australia's frontier issues.
"Ignore him. It's the price of play."
Perils of The Lady Gamer. – a New Graphical Diversion by webcomic artist and writer Shaenon K. Garrity (previously). [more inside]
Time erases everything
The pumpkinification of a nation
Vox digs into America's fall food obsession: The greatest trick capitalism ever pulled was making you want a pumpkin spice latte.
Fire sale?
With the war in Iraq winding down, colleges are are stocking up on surplus military equipment of all kinds at bargain prices from the Department of Defense. As two schools in Louisiana each receive a dozen M-16 weapons, the newspaper asks, "Is this a good idea?"
Insert Coin
Arcades in the Movies, a supercut.
I don't know what I am doing with Face Book!! Love, Grandmaster Flash
Love, Grampa and GrandmaSTER FLASH: Grandmothers accidentally tagging Grandmaster Flash on Facebook.
The 9/11 notes of Ari Fleischer
(Lawrence) Ari Fleischer is the former White House Press Secretary for U.S. President George W. Bush, from January 2001 to July 2003. 13 years on from 9/11, Ari is tweeting the events of that day from his notes (start). [more inside]
You're gonna need a bigger boat.
A gigantic fish-eater (Bigger than a T. rex!) with a crocodile snout and a large sail on its back, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus has always been a strange and enigmatic creature. It may have just become something stranger: a semiaquatic, quadrupedal theropod dinosaur. [more inside]
Do you really think yours was that much better?
An Upstate New York student wants his senior photo to stand out. Schenectady High School senior Draven Rodriguez has a very special senior portrait, and has a petition just in case his school balks at its inclusion.
Blake Judd and Neill Jameson
You may know Neill Jameson as the frontman/honcho for black metal favorites Krieg, who have a new LP Transient for Candlelight Records, or via his involvement in Twilight, the supergroup headed up by Blake Judd of Nachtmystium and featuring members like Thurston Moore, Aaron Turner, Jef Whitehead (Leviathan), Stavros Giannopoulos (The Atlas Moth), and more. But Neill's involvement with Blake Judd goes much deeper than that: Theirs is a friendship that was initally forged based on a mutually shared interest in music many years ago. In the following firsthand account, Neill recalls the history of some of the darker moments of his friendship with Blake Judd, ones that eventually lead to him severing his ties with the celebrated black metal musician, and the stark reality of drug addiction.
the sea is a cup of death and the land is a stained altar stone
I don't know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives. Every glistening egg is a memento mori.Annie Dillard ponders the disquieting thrall of the circle of life in her November 1973 essay for The Atlantic: The Force That Drives the Flower. [more inside]
The ancient art of baijiu
"China's traditional grain spirit, baijiu, has evolved—mostly in obscurity—along a trajectory that has no Western equivalent." "Whereas Western grain alcohols are fermented and distilled in liquid form, the Chinese perform both processes in a solid state ..."
MetaFilter Clickbait?
Could season 2 of True Detective be based on The Crying of Lot 49? Elisabeth Moss or Rachel McAdams as Oedipa Maas?
A-moo-ha
“If they spot you first, they’ll definitely come for you,” says Orion Enocencio, manager and hunting guide at Ahiu Hawaii, an adventure company on the Big Island in Hawaii. Some of the most dangerous hunting in the entire United States is to be found on a single island in the most isolated island chain in the world. It’s not grizzly bears or mountain lions or even bison: it’s the wild Hawaiian cow.
RIP, Jaws
Killing the people you're pretending to be
Jacob Brogan of Georgetown University writes in the Washington Post about the ethics of wearing pre-distressed jeans. [more inside]
The slow unwinding
The Death of Adulthood in American Culture (SLNYTimes Magazine), by A.O. Scott: Comic-book movies, family-friendly animated adventures, tales of adolescent heroism and comedies of arrested development do not only make up the commercial center of 21st-century Hollywood. They are its artistic heart.
The respected General continues to enact humble miracles
HEAVEN'S COUNTRYLAND: your 8-bit animated guide to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. (MLYT) [more inside]
Reconciling the Second Amendment with Public Safety Concerns
Gun Wars: the struggle over gun rights and regulation in America, in the aftermath of the Newtown school shootings and the ongoing congressional stalemate over federal gun legislation. An investigative report from "29 students from 16 journalism schools, as well as an experienced staff of editors" for Carnegie-Knight News21. [more inside]
September 10
WE ARE IN NO DANGER, EVER, FROM BETELGEUSE.
Worried about when Betelgeuse will go supernova? Worry no more.
Windows on the World That Was
In June 2001, Estonian immigrant Konstantin Petrov got a job as an electrician for Windows on the World, the famous restaurant in the World Trade Center. The New Yorker has an article about the recent discovery of a trove of photographs he took during lulls in his shifts, an incredible record of the complex before the events of thirteen years ago. [more inside]
Bowling ball pendulum wave
A mesmerizing pendulum wave demonstration with 16 bowling balls in a North Carolina forest. [Previously]
What in the name of Bezos is going on here?
Amazon's formula for literary success is, as far as I can deduce: Write as many books as you can, and then sell them cheaply and in bulk. Even though none of my books has sold more than 15,000-ish copies, Amazon continues to pay me to write them. The idea is that eventually one of my efforts will hit, and then the backlist will rise. I'm a writer, and my experience with this supposedly evil corporate behemoth has been fantastic.
Just do it already
"And yes, I get that sexuality is fluid and all of that, but honestly, can't they just do it and get it over with? Either that, or shut up about it." Are Sherlock and Watson Gonna Bone, or What? [more inside]
Oh yeah, I was into them WAY after they were cool...
the birth of the idea to make himself a character writing a fake memoir
The Pale King drafts: The David Foster Wallace archive at the Harry Ransom Center UT has made some documents from The Pale King accessible online, including a few pages of his workbook, handwritten drafts, and typed edits. [more inside]
I want to be a nice skeleton when they excavate me
I lay my fingertip there, just inside the socket, where some of the bone is chipped away: it was pecked out, by the beaks of vultures. These are the markings the huge black birds made when they consumed her eyes, with the permission of her family.The Oxford American on the people who work at, and the people who choose to donate their bodies to, the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility in San Marcos, Texas, the largest of America’s five “body farms.”
"No... No... No... N-wait... No..."
Weird Things About Couples (a cute series of videos):
• Weird Things All Couples Do
• Weird Things Couples do in Public [outtakes]
• Weird Things All Couples Fight About.
Animated Shorts
It's September, which means the irritatingly talented young animators at the prestigious Gobelins Animation School in Paris have their graduation films out. As usual, they rival anything produced by professional studios, all in less than 3:45 minutes. Some highlights: [more inside]
More like Freezer Burned out
Freezer Burns is a youtube show where Gregory Ng reviews frozen food items you can buy in US Supermarkets. Amazingly, the Freezer Burns YouTube channel was nearly at 700 shows when he tried out a Kid Cuisine How To Train Your Dragon meal and you'll have to watch it all the way to the end to see his Come To Jesus moment (previously).
The Millionaire's Magician
Most people have probably never seen the magic of Steve Cohen, who for 14 years has held court in a private suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, to sold-out crowds of "celebrities, royalty, government officials, and other VIPs." But bits of his "Chamber Magic" show are available online to marvel at. [more inside]
5 million gmail accounts compromised
Last night, a hacker posted a text file on a cryptocurrency forum in Russia which contained 5 million Gmail accounts and associated passwords. It's probably time to change yours again.
Redder and redder, and prettier and prettier.
The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious: How the worst apple took over the United States, and continues to spread.
Birthday of the World
There are previouslys enough to fill an FPP but this deserves mention and honour in its own right.
In recognition of her transformative impact on American literature, Ursula K. Le Guin is the 2014 recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She is the Foundation’s twenty-seventh award recipient.Long live the Ekumen.
The Sexual Outlaw At 83
83 year old Chicano author John Rechy (City Of Night, The Sexual Outlaw, Rushes) talks to Lambda Literary about gay assimilation, being mistaken for white, melding truth and fiction, the post-Stonewall peroid, and hating the word 'queer.'
Sept 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day
Today is the day to make a difference in someone's life. Suicide is one of the top 15 leading causes of death across all age groups worldwide, and the third leading cause of death among young adults in the U.S. Every person reading this probably knows someone who's thought about or attempted suicide. We've lost too many good people to this problem. It's time to take a stand and take 5 minutes to help save someone's life you know. [more inside]
Innocent Critters Squashed on the Highway of Life!
In 1980, Kevin Reynolds was attending USC film school; his 30-minute short Proof was an affectionate nod to his undergrad years at Baylor University back in Texas. It caught the eye of Steven Spielberg, who offered to produce a full-length version. That film, Fandango, has had an impressive impact – it introduced Reynolds to longtime collaborator Kevin Costner, it spawned one Hollywood marriage, and it has drawn an impassioned fanbase. [more inside]
A Lovely Night
Tonight, 21 year-old actress Keke Palmer will make her Broadway debut in the title role inRodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella, the first African American actress to play the role in any stage production of the show, first mounted as a television production on CBS in 1957, with Julie Andrews. [more inside]
ScratchJr
ScratchJr is an introductory visual programming language for young children. It is inspired by Scratch (previously), and is available as a free iPad app. Future plans include an Android version and a web-based version.
"Spy" cameras for wildlife photography
The Click Clique
September 9
"brilliant, sardonic, and contemptuous of most of mankind"
Fay started with gimmicks like everyone else, wearing baggy pants, squirting seltzer, delivering straight lines for a comedian that circled him on roller skates - and he hated it. After humiliating himself onstage for two years, Fay decided to use the same persona he had offstage. No props, no costumes, no partner, he took to the stage wearing a well-tailored tuxedo and told jokes alone. It was so unconventional that The New York Times frowned: "“Fay needs a good straight man, as before, to feed his eccentric comedy." There was initial resistance to a man just standing and talking, but Fay's success would transform stand-up as an artform. Fellow comedians saw Fay succeed and they abandoned their props and emulated his style. Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Bob Hope and Jack Paar all cited him as an influence. Fay became one of the most influential stand-up comics of all time.Frank Fay: The Fascist Stand-Up Comic by Kliph Nesteroff (for WFMU's Beware of the Blog) [more inside]
He was also comedy's most notorious racist. In January 1946, several months after Germany had been defeated, a rally of ten thousand white supremacists gathered at Madison Square Garden. They delivered speeches in support of Franco, Mussolini and their fallen hero Adolf Hitler. They promised that the defeat of Germany would not go unpunished. The podium was beneath a banner that saluted their guest of honor. The event was called "The Friends of Frank Fay."
Missouri abortion waiting period bill: a veto override is imminent
Republican legislators in Missouri are pushing to expand abortion restrictions in the state. A bill mandating a 72-hour waiting period, vetoed by Governor Jay Nixon in July, is likely to become law on Wednesday in a special legislative session. [more inside]
Statistics say driving while black is real
The Justice Department statistics, based on the Police-Public Contact Survey, show that "relatively more black drivers (12.8%) than white (9.8%) and Hispanic (10.4%) drivers were pulled over in a traffic stop during their most recent contact with police." Or, to frame it another way: A black driver is about 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than a white driver, or about 23 percent more likely than a Hispanic driver. "Driving while black" is, indeed, a measurable phenomenon.The Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham looks at the recently released statistics about traffic stops and whether people are pulled over for driving while black.
Measure of the Sierra Madre
China's Island Factory
New islands are being made in the disputed South China Sea by the might of the Chinese state. But a group of marooned Filipinos on a rusting wreck is trying to stand in the way.
New islands are being made in the disputed South China Sea by the might of the Chinese state. But a group of marooned Filipinos on a rusting wreck is trying to stand in the way.
The Cost of Becoming White
"The cost of becoming white is hard to measure. It is ethical rather than material. By passively accepting the privileges of whiteness, Asian-Americans become complicit in America’s present system of hierarchy, a system in which the nation’s institutions inflict ongoing injustices on a racial underclass. Highly paid Asian-American Google employees do not bear more responsibility to combat racial injustice than similarly positioned white people, but they don’t bear less either. Silence and inaction on the part of those receiving privilege only makes it harder for those who are not so lucky to change the status quo." The Complicity Cost of Racial Inclusion.
Memorable cars of Hollywood
You may not agree with this list of memorable cars of Hollywood, but it sure is fun scrolling through it.
Get Ready for Net Neutrality Day 2014
The skills gap is a myth
The "skills gap" is a myth. So why does it persist?
"...by blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate. Of course, that may be another reason corporate executives like the myth so much.
So we need to kill this zombie, if we can, and stop making excuses for an economy that punishes workers." [more inside]
Star Trek in Widescreen
"I was able to create these shots by waiting for the camera to pan and then I stitched the separate shots together. The result is pretty epic. It reminds me of the classic science fiction movies of the 50’s and 60’s. Suddenly the show has a 'Forbidden Planet' vibe." [via]
Very, very, very low graphical settings
Skyrim optimized for a netbook changes the look of the game to something completely strange and different. [more inside]
It seems this genet is making a habit of riding large herbivores.
A genet in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa has been photographed by camera traps for several weeks running, riding around on the backs of cape buffalo and rhinoceros . Researchers agree: this is weird! (via.) [more inside]
Invisible gorillas in the mist.
A different kind of standardized testing. Why the debate over ISO 29119, the proposed international standard for software testing, might matter to you. [more inside]
A Modern Pandora's Box
With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce I found out I don't have any genetic predisposition to any kind of cancer, which was a great relief to me. But I also discovered through the 23andMe close relative finder program that I have a half brother, Thomas.
The End Of An Era
Today Apple announced the latest iteration(s) of the iPhone - an embiggened iPhone 6 and the positively titanic iPhone 6 Plus, as well as the long-rumored Apple Watch. But perhaps the biggest news went under the radar - the company's iconic iPod (lately rebranded the iPod Classic), which famously reversed the company's years of decline and launched the era of digital music, has finally been put out to pasture.
Giving is a Crime in San Antonio
In 2011 the City of San Antonio passed an ordinance outlawing panhandling at "ATMs, banks, parking garages, charitable contribution meters, parking meters/pay stations, bus stops, outdoor dining areas, and marked crosswalks". Police Chief William McManus now wants to ticket those who give to panhandlers. Nate Schlueter of Austin's Mobile Loaves and Fishes said that "if San Antonio does this ordinance they'll essentially become the cruelest city in America".
“Some people feed you with love.”
We've Lost One Of The Great Fantasy Writers: R.I.P. Graham Joyce
"Graham Joyce was a monumental writer in the fantasy genre. His humane, intense writing was like a masterclass in how to put story first, and he knew how to write people, with all our blind spots and our hopeful mistakes. He died today of lymphatic cancer, and it's a huge loss to fantasy literature."[more inside]
Squeak squeak squeak squeak...
Stop Train 349
On the evening of Wednesday, November 22, 1961, a US Army "Duty Train" left Berlin for West Germany, traveling through Soviet-occupied East Germany, when a young East German, in a bid to escape, jumped aboard the train when it slowed for a curve, and was let aboard. The incident was eventually dramatized as a film called Stop Train 349, or Incident at Marienborn.
Lock up your wives!
To Find the Hand of Franklin Reaching For the Beaufort Sea
One of the Franklin Expedition ships has been found. The Franklin Expedition set off to find the fabled Northwest Passage in 1845. [more inside]
Cut square and stamped with a proper stamp of the happy union and baked
"Nowadays, we tend to eat biscuits with beverages like tea and coffee. But in the past they were an important element of the dessert course and were dipped into sweet wine." - Food History Jottings (previously) on the strange world of Regency biscuits. (Cookies to you US types.)
Because you aren't being you
A lot of women out there are afraid of being something. The template for us is pretty clear: We are meant to have clean skin, a pleasant demeanor, and a nice rack. I'm not speaking up against nice racks, Lord knows. But there are lots of ladies around me, everywhere I go, who hesitate to say what they're thinking and feeling. They go with the flow, they never make waves. And eventually, they don't even seem to know what makes them who they are. They live to serve. They read the books that other people are reading. They say the pleasant things that other people are saying. They never put their needs first, unless it indirectly serves someone else — a manicure, some highlights. They make sure everyone around them is 100 percent satisfied. Like grocery-store managers. Like customer service reps. Like masseuses who also give free happy endings. Ask Polly on "Why Don’t the Men I Date Ever Truly Love Me?"
"Huh. I'll be danged."
"I didn't know that that's what they ate." Heron vs gopher. With commentary.
Look Closer
A lot of the world’s most powerful people look like Lester Burnham: white, male, middle-aged, well off, and bored to death. There are Lester Burnhams in public office, in the Supreme Court, at billion dollar corporations, at record labels and movie studios. These people in power aren’t happy, and this movie gives them what must be a very comforting message: let go of your responsibility, but not your power. Don’t worry about what the world will look like after you die. You’ll be happy if you help yourself — not the people who need you.Fifteen Years Later, 'American Beauty' is Just a Bad, Pretty Movie
the difference between men and women in just one word: freedom
Malka Moma
Malka Moma or Young Maiden is a Bulgarian folk song, here sung by Neli Andreeva with the Philip Koutev choir. (SLYT) [more inside]
Down The Rabbit-Hole
For the very first time, the sales of one million sex toys and 45,000 of their reviews have been analysed to reveal what we do in our most intimate and uninhibited moments. Research by Jon Millward, who also brought us Deep Inside. (Previously) [All links NSFW]
High-quality role playing, guys.
Out of Context D&D Quotes (Not all quotes guaranteed to be out of context or from D&D)
Young people 'feel they have nothing to live for'
As many as three quarters of a million young people in the UK may feel that they have nothing to live for, a study for the Prince's Trust charity claims.
The trust says almost a third of long-term unemployed young people have contemplated taking their own lives.
Urgent action must be taken to prevent the young jobless becoming the young hopeless, it says.
The government commented that it was doing "everything possible" to help young people find work. [via BBC]
It's a duck-blur
A long litany of small misdemeanours
Drunk online shopping regrets. Guardian writers share their stories of accidental bulk buys and bargains that didn’t seem so wise the morning after. [more inside]
One of the most important fights in the history of boxing
On December 10, 1810, in a muddy field around 25 miles from London, a fight took place that was so dramatic, controversial, and ferocious that it continues to haunt the imagination of boxing more than 200 years later.A long-form article in Grantland tells the story of freed American slave and boxer Tom Molineaux in England of the early 19th century.
Dem■n
160 pages into his webcomic "Demon", Jason Shiga (previously on MetaFilter*)
declares its intent - to "subvert the superhero genre", with a protagonist who is apparently quite immortal... which he doesn't realize until after a few suicide attempts (trigger warning: repetitive suicide including one later on that's rather obscene). But it's really much more complicated than that. And "superhero"? More like "supervillain". Just don't expect crazy costumes and other such tropes, we are doing some serious subverting. The story starts here. (Updated every weekday) [more inside]
September 8
Giving up on Doctor Who
I gave up mainly because I’d got tired of watching talented actors reduced to eye candy and acting out the fantasies of overgrown adolescents who had somehow finagled their way into writing scripts. Where they were writing scripts that looked like old-time Doctor Who, without necssarily understanding why old-time Doctor Who worked and more importantly why it didn’t.Maureen K. Speller: I’m giving up on Doctor Who again. This time it may be final.
Raise this barn, raise this barn, one, two, three, four
A time lapse video of ten hours of an Ohio Amish barn raising.
In shadow of oil boom, North Dakota farmers fight contamination
“In shadow of oil boom, North Dakota farmers fight contamination” by Laura Gottesdiener for Al Jazeera reports on the conditions faced by farmers in Bottineau County when their fields become polluted with the waste-water from oil drilling operations. [more inside]
Growing Number of Canadians Unprepared For Financial Emergency
According to the Annual BMO Rainy Day Survey released today, "the percentage of Canadians that have enough savings to only cover one month or fewer has climbed to 27% - up 8 percentage points [since 2012]. For those who have one month or fewer in savings, the average fund is only $2,051. …. Three-in-ten Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque or spending more than they earn". The Huffington Post Canada reports that "[t]his comes at a time when Canada's support structures for the unemployed are growing thinner. Recent estimates show that little more than a third of Canadians who lose their jobs now qualify for Employment Insurance."
Bradbury 13
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13" [YTPL], a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine," "Night Call, Collect," "The Veldt", "There Was an Old Woman," "Kaleidoscope," "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed", "The Screaming Woman," "A Sound of Thunder," "The Man," "The Wind," "The Fox and the Forest," "Here There Be Tygers" and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor Paul Frees [previously] provided narration, while Bradbury himself was responsible for the opening voiceover...
"How could I pass by a beer advertised with a fossil?"
"Tasting notes: As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, I'm accustomed to IPAs so hoppy that they attempt to kick your teeth out on the first sip, and keep on fighting for the rest of the drink. In contrast, the Icky IPA is refreshingly crisp with a sly nudge of hops underlain with a tongue-twist of citrus. This is a pale ale to sip and savour, not a masochistic endurance contest with barely-concealed whimpering winces. Apparently I'm not the only one who appreciates the relative gentleness of this IPA: the Icky is their best-selling beer." [more inside]
"Make Me Beautiful"
After seeing the results of Esther Honig's Before and After project [previously], journalist Priscilla Yuki Willson wanted to expose the standards of beauty for women of diverse backgrounds. [more inside]
Louisiana Loses Its Boot
"The boot-shaped state isn’t shaped like a boot anymore. That’s why we revised its iconic outline to reflect the truth about a sinking, disappearing place." Previously.
Development of the Trajan Typeface
"Although they have had remarkable longevity, the Trajan letterforms have not always been as hot as they are now. In fact, the last time they enjoyed such popularity was in the... first century." Includes Carol Twombly's recollection of designing the iconic modern typeface. (You've totally seen it.) [more inside]
The effects of untreated PTSD in inner-city communities
Over the past 20 years, medical researchers have found new ways to quantify the effects of the relentless violence on America’s inner cities, [and are] only now beginning to trace the effects of untreated PTSD on neighborhoods that are already struggling with unemployment, poverty and the devastating impact of the war on drugs. [...] Despite the growing evidence of PTSD in civilians, little is being done to address the problem. Hospital trauma centers often provide adequate care for physical wounds, but do almost nothing to help patients cope with the mental and emotional aftermath of trauma.
All the colors of the Pixar galaxy
ROYGBIV (Single Link Vimeo, 1:28)
Largest climate march in history
Disruption is a 52-minute film by 350.0rg as a promotion for the upcoming People's Climate March billed as the largest climate protest march in history, on September 21. Major cities include New York, Paris, Berlin, and Rio de Janeiro though there are over 1000 others. The march is calling for immediate action on the climate and is directed at the U.N. Climate Summit in New York City on September 23.(via)
In an Orderly Fashion
Reading Pathways: suggestions for where to start in on the works of Austen, Murakami, Asimov, Munro, Bray, Bradbury, Morrison, Forster, Atwood, and others. [more inside]
"our healthy but preposterous need to make lists"
The Perfect Beat is an article by The New Yorker's music critic Sasha Frere Jones where he lays out the reasoning behind his "Perfect Recordings" project, essentially a list of 200 songs that fit his personal criteria for perfection. The lists are available as Twitter timelines (volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5), Spotify playlists (volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5) or as one 200 song Rdio playlist. Frere-Jones answered some questions about the project and spoke about a few individual songs in The Guardian.
In other football news
Two years after former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was sentenced to prison for child sexual abuse (previously), the NCAA has lifted all remaining sanctions against Penn State and reinstated postseason eligilibity effective immediately, and a full roster of football scholarships starting in the 2015-2016 year. [more inside]
Ray Rice cut by the Ravens, suspended indefinitely
Earlier today, TMZ released a new video (warning: graphic/disturbing) of a February 12 incident involving NFL running back Ray Rice and his then-fiancée. A few hours after the video's release, the team terminated Rice's contract; shortly thereafter, the NFL reportedly suspended Rice indefinitely. [more inside]
Americanah's Ifemelu returns to life on her blog
Last year, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie created Ifemelu, the protagonist and blogger in her novel “Americanah,” one of the smartest and sharpest chronicles of contemporary life on three continents.
Now, readers can catch up with Ifemelu through “The Small Redemptions of Lagos,” at AmericanahBlog.com. This new blog focuses on Ifemelu’s life in Nigeria, a kind of younger sibling to the novel’s incendiary and anonymous blog, “Raceteenth or Various Observations about American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negros) by a Non-American Black.”
The new installment is no less expressive. Ifemelu’s observations are piercing, even on such subjects as a leaky roof at a Lagos airport or a friend who needs to take better care of herself: “Don’t expect water to taste like Coke. It is not Coke. It is water. And it is better for you.” VIA
All of Minecraft: Pre 0.0.9a to 1.8
A history of Minecraft. (slyt)
I just freed an innocent man from death row. And I’m still furious.
I just freed an innocent man from death row. And I’m still furious. "Some people expect me to feel satisfied, or even happy. The truth is: I am angry. I am angry that we live in a world where two disabled boys can have their lives stolen from them, where cops can lie and intimidate with impunity, where innocent people can be condemned to die and where injustice is so difficult to bring to light. As I lie awake at night, mulling over the maddening details of this case, I wonder: How many more Henry McCollums are still imprisoned, waiting for help that will never come?" [more inside]
The Stars Are Not For Man
Kubrick wanted to film it, but couldn't get the option - so chose second-best for 2001. It is an epic novel of hope and wonder that ends with the destruction of humanity and the Earth. It could only have been written by a Brit living in the heady mix of progress and failing Empire that suffused the post-war UK. It has cardboard characters and meandering intermissions, mysticism and hard SF: in short, it's one of the best things Arthur Clarke ever wrote and a true classic of the genre.
Now, sixty years after it first appeared, Childhood's End is finally set for our screens. [more inside]
What she prefers to be called is “Martine.”
The Trans-Everything CEO (SL New York Magazine, trigger warning: some weird pronoun stuff and misogyny.)
Fish is adopted.
Started years ago as a joke puppetry project (previously), Fish in a Sweater has developed into a quality series of comedy shorts featuring roommates Chestnut, Tumble, and Fish as they navigate their mostly ordinary lives. The first episode is "Joyride" (YT link), in which Chestnut deals with a police encounter.
"You just never know what fate will deal you."
John Mann, lead vocalist and principal songwriter of Canadian band Spirit of the West (known by two generations of university froshes for "Home For A Rest") has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.
United Sweets of America
Saturation 70
The Gram Parsons UFO film that never flew is the subject of a new exhibition in London. [more inside]
September 7
"Europa Universalis IV is The Best Genocide Simulator of The Year"
When you finally get a ship over to North America, you’ll notice that things look a little different. Europe is crammed cheek to jowl with minor duchies and single-province powers, at least in the early game. There is no square inch of territory unaccounted for. But when you get to the Americas, you’ll see a lot of “empty” territory. The provinces and territories that are not claimed by any power or nation can be colonized.April Daniels was thoroughly enjoying the ruthless imperialistic stylings of Europa Universalis IV, until the game took her out of Europe and into a somewhat problematic implementation of colonialism.
Why can't our education system be more like theirs?
In China, there are now more than 200 Waldorf elementary schools, filled with the children whose parents are looking for a more child-centered alternative to the test-driven state education system. Why can't Chinese schools be more like American schools? Meanwhile, in America, Stephen Pinker argues that Harvard and other elite universities are wasting their resources on athletes and musicians, and should select students by standardized test scores, the way Chinese colleges do. Why can't American schools be more like Chinese schools?
The World According to Garp, the film and the novel
"Heralded in its day for its audacious envisioning of an American social landscape ravaged by dysfunctional sexuality – featuring an aspiring single mother who impregnates herself upon a dying soldier’s genitalia; a transsexual [gasp!]; and a feminist society who protest violent rape by cutting their own tongues off – John Irving’s 1978 picaresque now reads like a hysterical (in both senses of the word) male vision of the burgeoning feminist movement. Not much is different in George Roy Hill’s 1982 movie version, except that the absurdist imagery no longer drifts along the cooing flow of Irving’s prose, but rattles and jerks from one set piece to another. What’s missing is a strong characterization of the title character, played by Robin Williams, who scrambles from scene to scene like a quarterback shaken out of his pocket, never finding a consistent behavioral core from which to regard the shenanigans. Glenn Close and John Lithgow deserved their Oscar nominations for breathing dimension and empathy to a couple of kooky types the film otherwise regards with mocking abjection. For its reactionary middle-of-the-road advocacy of American normalcy under the threatening spectre of liberal progress, it’s a worthy precursor to Forrest Gump [TSPDT #577]. Of the films I’ve seen in the past two years for this project, this is the film for whose placement on the 1000 Greatest Films I have the most reservations." [more inside]
Poor Comedians in a Car Getting Coffee
Sure, Seinfeld has expensive cars to shepherd the successful comedians around in. But Kristen Bartlett and Jason Gore get it done in a 2003 Toyota Echo.
This Fish Spits Light
"Holy smoking toledos!"
A Feast for the Eyes
Pratchett's Women
Pratchett's Women: nine essays (by Australian fantasy author Tansy Rayner Roberts) on the portrayal of women in the Discworld books [more inside]
WAKE ME UP
Dirty dancing to their own drummers: another music video without music
Start with the well-known final dance scene from Dirty Dancing, remove the original score and add in new foley as if the couple was closely mic'd, and you have something the sounds like a one-on-one basketball game with giggling and popping balloons, and then Castle (Swayze) leaps from the stage and really gets his thing going. This is just one of a great number of musicless music videos, from Mario Wienerroither and others. [more inside]
Stop and Seize: An Investigation into Asset Forfeiture
Stop and Seize: Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes. A multimedia investigation by the Washington Post.
"It's not necessary to touch the keyboard."
In And Out Of Love
Holly Johnson returns with a new album (his first in 15 years) later this month. In And Out Of Love is the second single from the album. [more inside]
I am Jack
Mullahs were at mosques, teachers were in shcools...
Many of you Americans will be familiar with that certain kind of pop/country song that looks back on the good old days of yesteryear, those carefree, reckless days of mythical youth: driving Camaros, drinking Boone's Farm wine, singing the hit songs of the day, and, yeah, all that. Well, here's a song that springs from that same place in the heart, but in an Afghani version, and a wee bit more political in its message, here and there, than the American versions: it's Farhad Darya's Oo Ghaitaa, translated as "Those Were the Days".
The Colors of Motion
Neocons are alive and well and playing with Ukraine.
Whats and whys of the of the Ukraine crisis. Some of what the MSM is ignoring.
What do Neocons want from the Ukraine Crisis?
Juan Cole - The Neocon comeback.
Did you know about America's Dirty Little Ukraine Secret which has Republican overtones?
Putin, for all his authoritarianism, is not the cause of the Ukrainian conundrum (though he is certainly exploiting it).
There is a genuine divide in Ukraine between a nationalist-dominated west and a Russian-speaking east.
What do Neocons want from the Ukraine Crisis?
Juan Cole - The Neocon comeback.
Did you know about America's Dirty Little Ukraine Secret which has Republican overtones?
Putin, for all his authoritarianism, is not the cause of the Ukrainian conundrum (though he is certainly exploiting it).
There is a genuine divide in Ukraine between a nationalist-dominated west and a Russian-speaking east.
Speaker of the House
Speaker of the House: Ballpoint pen drawings of John Boehner. Daily and sublime. [via mefi projects]
Synergy: A Word Without An Anagram
Synergy is the name of the project that composer/engineer Larry Fast gave to his series of space rock albums, based on his groundbreaking synthesizer work, and beginning with 1975's Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra. [more inside]
Secret Shit
In-N-Out’s Secret Menu isn't so secret, but Hack The Menu has put together a list of off-book items on a bunch of fast food menus.
Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Especially on the Radio.
The BBC has announced that it will be producing a radio dramatization of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's book, Good Omens. The radio drama will be broadcast as six episodes in December on BBC Radio 4, and will feature Mark Heap and Peter Serafinowicz in the lead roles.
September 6
Apple, caramel, and brie.
29 life-changing quesadillas you need to know about. Buzzfeed, gloriously cheesy list on one page.
Six beers you should always have in your fridge for killer pairings
"With a well-picked sixer by your side, there's hardly a dish out there that can't be made better." Serious Eats gives you six beers you should always have in your fridge for killer pairings. [more inside]
Women politicians break the abortion taboo.
"I emerged a different person. Changed. Forever changed.” Davis describes the circumstances of her two abortions in her new memoir, Forgetting to Be Afraid. [more inside]
Growing Up Kinky
"Those moments were my own playtime. Secrecy and solitude were my companions. Alone, I kept a secret I could not share with anyone: my own deviation from the norm." [more inside]
Balearic compilations: summer sounds from EMI's archives
Here's a look back at sounds of summers past, with a review of EMI's series of Balearic compilations, and for a bit more mystery and diversity, mixes that focus and include Balearic styles from Test Pressing. If the whole "Balearic" thing is confusing, Boiler Room TV has a nice write-up with photos from the period to set the mood, where the music was a mix of mixture of soul, reggae, rock, pop, and Latin, mixed with chill out, lounge and dance music. [more inside]
How was Bill Murray Day for Bill Murray?
After Bill Murray showed up unannounced (as is his wont) for a Ghostbusters screening in Toronto yesterday, he hung around to answer the audience's questions about everything from how he spent Bill Murray Day and his friend director Harold Ramis to his advice on life and his personal philosophy. (previously)
The most potent political sedative in women’s history
We can’t close gender gaps when we spend endless hours counting calories instead of cracking glass ceilings. We can’t gain self-assurance when body dysmorphia is so abundant.11 years on, Vanessa Garcia tells her 24-year-old eating-disordered self “Your time is precious. Get help. Do it now. You have too many important things to do.” [more inside]
Where did you all meet? Juilliard?
Bleep Bloop
Diggin' in the Carts: A documentary series about Japanese video game music, and it's effect on global music.
Paying a parking ticket in China's Far West
I’m not here to gripe about a ticket that I admittedly earned. What I couldn’t believe was just how difficult it was to pay the fine. [more inside]
Kingdoms Lost
Birth Culture
Since 2006, Alice Proujansky has photographed childbirths around the world for a project entitled 'Birth Culture.' Her intent is to highlight 'the universal aspects of childbirth, elements that are culturally-specific and the struggle to provide women with safe, respectful maternity care.' Images: Photographer's site. NYTimes Gallery. Agnostica. Slate. Some photos may be NSFW.
...in English, when someone is crazy, it's always in a food way?
Grub Street Diet asks various notable people to keep a food dairy for a week and then share it with the world. However, when they ask the "poet laureate of Twitter" (previously) author Patricia Lockwood to contribute, things so a little differently.
You miss that train all because of that nickel.
Just some shitty nerds in an IRC channel.
Last night, Zoe Quinn posted a large amount of chat log screenshots (and video) from several weeks spent in IRC channels coordinating and reporting on, among other things, use of the #gamergate and #notyourshield Twitter tags and ongoing harassment campaigns.
"...that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow."
Why Walking Helps Us Think: [The New Yorker] In a variety of ways, going for a stroll keeps our brains on their toes.
"punk rock changed our lives"
Minutemen jam econo on a public access TV show called Acoustic Blowout in 1985. You can find more Minutemen videos and concert recordings on corndogs.org.
Writing with Colour
Writing with Color, a blog dedicated to writing and resources centered on cultural and ethnic diversity. The FAQ.
Of Kant and many other things
The Enlightenment’s ‘Race’ Problem, and Ours. Why have we chosen to go with Hume and Kant, rather than with the pre-racial conception of humanity?
September 5
What it's like when the Family Business is Porn
Sticks! Amazing!
"People thought I was a freak. I kind of liked that"
"Just when it must have felt as if everything was going wrong, not least the relationship with [David] Bailey, which was in freefall, and her career, which had been derailed by severe late-onset acne that left her face swollen, it got worse. She was arrested during a drugs bust for possession of cocaine. Scarred and looking rough, she bore no resemblance to the kind of woman who might find herself on the front cover of Vogue. The police, holding her in custody for the night, refused to believe that she was either a famous model or the daughter of wealthy parents who could easily afford bail. 'In a way, I was stripped of my identity completely,' she says." A rare interview with Penelope Tree from The Observer in 2008. [more inside]
Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids
"Since 2007, Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids has invited brave Canadians to read their childhood and teenage writing… out loud in front of an audience." This summer, CBC recorded and broadcast a 10-date tour. Episodes. Podcast.
[Writing] fiction is much closer to a sort of dreaming
Marilynne Robinson discusses her novels, fiction, and religion at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University in 2009.
Dr. Robinson talks about writing and the Middle West at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Dr. Robinson talks about writing and the Middle West at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Spiderdog, Spiderdog, does whatever Spiderdog does!
Giant spider prank [SLYT]
True Music Facts Wednesday
"I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me."
You're not as busy as you say you are. "According to sociologist John Robinson, or better known as “Father Time” to his colleagues, most people have around 40 hours of free time per week." [more inside]
Cheap Thrills and free music from Klint, Hervé and friends
Looking for some instrumental, funky, downtempo and slightly sinister soundtrack music? Klint, who as worked on soundtracks before, including Snatch, has released his own soundtrack album, Nothing Left Of Us (stream and download for a limited time from Soundcloud). News of this new album comes from Cheap Thrills Music, a label run by Joshua 'Hervé' Harvey. Both Cheap Thrills and Hervé have more tracks and mixes up on Soundcloud, including plenty of streaming sounds a few free downloads from each, though that's more of deep and dirty house, as heard in Hervé's Hate On Me mixtape (stream/dl), and from the "Tear The House Up" from Hervé x Zebra Katz (Official Music Video, NSFW lyrics).
Showdown at Cremation Creek
Via Open Culture, three songs by David Bowie with Klaus Nomi on Saturday Night Live in 1979. [more inside]
NFL Fandom Map
A county-by-county breakdown of NFL fandom across the United States, or: nowhere is home for a Jets fan.
Why Amazon Has No Profits (And Why It Works)
Twenty miles and a world apart
A Duke University summer intern attempts to provide empowerment to migrant farmworkers and their children through the federal Migrant Education Program, and discovers firsthand the many obstacles to that mission.
At the beginning of summer Eric promised his girlfriend Sara he’d come back to Charleston on weekends. He enjoys the first few trips back, hanging out with Sara and enjoying burritos and tequila shots at Juanita Greenberg’s Nacho Royale, a popular hangout near campus. But it doesn’t take long for Eric to notice a surreal disconnect between affluent Charleston and the much larger part of Lowcountry where farmworkers live. “It’s only twenty miles from the center of Charleston to a tomato pickers' camp on Jones Island,” says Eric. “And it’s like nobody in Charleston knows. Or cares.”
He should live and sleep in front of a mirror.
"...To Make Streets Safe, You Must First Make Them Dangerous."
"If you need a sign to tell people to slow down, you designed your street wrong." Going from "Forgiving Highways" to "Self-Explaining Roads": A longitudinal look at the Dutch and American responses to motor vehicle traffic safety. [more inside]
Spaceman, I always wanted you to know...
How do you say controversial in your Terran language?
The top 40 space movies, as decreed by the Telegraph. (Deslided)
"So help me God."
An airman at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada has allegedly been denied the ability to re-enlist after he refused to use the words "so help me God" in his oath. On September 2, the Appignani Humanist Legal Center sent a letter (pdf) on his behalf. Up until last fall, Air Force Instruction 36-2606, which spells out the active duty oath, had a provision where an airman could omit the words, but that was dropped last October.
I might as well call this “Don’t Read This Article”
How to Know When it’s Time to Euthanize Your Dog
The most important thing to be alert for is The Look. It’s capitalized because it is a Real Thing. At some point near the end of its life, your dog will make eye contact with you. There will be something about that particular eye contact that you will recognize when you see it. Your dog will tell you, as clearly as if they had it notarized, that they are ready to go.At Dear Prudence, Pet Euthanasia and Can I Lie About It?
...the subject of euthanizing her has come up at home and briefly in the vet’s office. Is this wrong? And if we decide to go down this path, am I obligated to be honest about why she was put down when relatives and friends ask?
S.C. DMV being sued by gender non-conforming teen
When 16-year-old Chase Culpepper went to a South Carolina DMV to get his driver’s license in March, he was told to remove his makeup before officials would take his photo. (Buzzfeed) [more inside]
Help scientists categorise whale song... also, why do whales sing?
Whale.fm is a project (which you can contribute to!) to help "marine researchers understand what whales are saying." - really it's a project looking at the effects that manmade sound has on marine life, but what whales are communicating with their songs is still a really interesting question, so I've listed some relevant links in extended description. [more inside]
Joseph Scott Morgan
(1)I still remember the first time I smelled brain. It was my grandfather, cracking open the skulls of squirrels he’d killed. They’d scamper down the sides of pecans and live oaks among the Louisiana timbers where I grew up, enter his sights—then, oblivion. (2) At 21, he started sweeping the floors in a morgue in New Orleans’ Jefferson Parish. When he assisted with his first autopsy, his stomach proved as unflinching as his curiosity. In the late 1980s, he became one of the country’s youngest medicolegal death investigators, logging 7,000 autopsies and 3,000 next-of-kin notifications around New Orleans, then Atlanta. (3) Morgan relates gruesome tales of true crime scene experiences while weaving in parallels from his own (often dark) adolescence in Louisiana. After so many years of performing autopsies and doing one of the most horrific and traumatic—and generally unrecognized—jobs, Morgan was diagnosed with severe PTSD and forced into retirement from fieldwork. (Warning: Very disturbing photos in the first and third links. Very detailed talk of murder, suicide, and prostitution)
Gotta get backing, Time
...while [Time Inc.] claims that none of its titles lose money, it has seen earnings fall by nearly 65 percent since 2006. The number of advertising pages in the flagship Time has dwindled by 50 percent over the past five years. Even People is sputtering: Newsstand sales slid 12 percent last year, and the news budget has been cut in half. Layoffs have become an annual rite. In the past four years, Time Inc. has churned through three CEOs and endured nine months during which there was no single executive running the company.New York Magazine on Time Inc., the split from Time Warner, native advertising and the company's attempts at digital media. [more inside]
Here's one Atwood novel you'll never get to read
Atwood has just been named as the first contributor to an astonishing new public artwork. The Future Library project, conceived by the award-winning young Scottish artist Katie Paterson, began, quietly, this summer, with the planting of a forest of 1,000 trees in Nordmarka, just outside Oslo. It will slowly unfold over the next century. Every year until 2114, one writer will be invited to contribute a new text to the collection, and in 2114, the trees will be cut down to provide the paper for the texts to be printed – and, finally, read.Margaret Atwood's next novel won't be published until 2114. (Katie Paterson, the Future Library, Katie Paterson previously))
September 4
What is pedophilia?
Is it a condition or an orientation? Can it be corrected? CBC Ideas explores these questions through two real cases.
Childhood Amnesia
The Great Forgetting. Our first three years are usually a blur and we don’t remember much before age seven. What are we hiding from ourselves? [more inside]
2 1/2 Blocks in 2 1/2 Years
"Since the middle of Kindergarden, I have been taking pictures of my daughter on her short walk to school in NYC. 1,380 photos later, we finally made it." [more inside]
Spicing traditional realism with enchantments of popular page-turners
"The weakness underlines the biggest trap of time machine fiction: with its emphasis on patterns and symbols, it's always in danger of devolving into a kind of interpretative game, a lit-crit mystery whose meanings must be decrypted rather than naturally perceived. Authors unbounded by time are susceptible to the allures of omniscience, which can turn their characters into puppets and snuff out the lifelike vitality of the realist tradition." Sam Sacks at Prospect Magazine writes about the rise of time machine fiction.
i want the regina dress now
Geeky women's clothing company Her Universe teamed up with Hot Topic and Nerdist to present a fandom couture competition and fashion show. Here are some highlights. [more inside]
Download vs. store-bought games. Which is hotter?
Downloading video games from the Internet creates a larger carbon footprint than driving to the store to purchase the same game on a Blu-ray disc, according to findings published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. [more inside]
My Little Tulpa: Friendship is Magic
"Tulpas are sentient beings imagined into existence using meditation-style exercises. Their creators, known as 'tulpamancers', form the internet’s newest subculture, meeting online at tulpa.info and the subreddit r/tulpas." [more inside]
Best. Name. Ever.
Scientists at Drexel university have discovered and described the most complete supermassive dinosaur ever found. According to paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara, the titanosaur "weighed as much as a dozen African elephants or more than seven T. rex. Shockingly, skeletal evidence shows that when this 65-ton specimen died, it was not yet full grown. It is by far the best example we have of any of the most giant creatures to ever walk the planet." It's name? Dreadnoughtus .
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Games for tomorrow's programmers.
Blockly Games is a series of educational games that teach programming. It is designed for children who have not had prior experience with computer programming. By the end of these games, players are ready to use conventional text-based languages.
Celebrity Defector
Park Yeonmi shares the story of her treacherous escape from North Korea to South Korea. (Video - transcript available). Also interviewed is Mrs. Lee, a defector who attempted to escape North Korea 9 times before finally succeeding; she describes her brutal experience in the prison camps. [more inside]
McDonnells Convicted
Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has been found guilty of 11 counts of conspiracy, bribery, and extortion, for receiving $177,000 in gifts from dietary supplement executive Johnny Williams. The governor's wife Maureen McDonnell was convicted on eight counts of corruption and an additional count of obstructing a grand jury investigation.
Mr. McDonnell, who carried his wife over the threshold of the Executive Mansion the day of his inauguration, portrayed her in his testimony as a harridan whose yelling left him “spiritually and mentally exhausted,” and who was so cold that after he sent her an email pleading to save their marriage, she did not reply. ... The government dismissed the defense strategy of portraying the McDonnell marriage as broken, and Ms. McDonnell as a “nutbag” who was smitten with Mr. Williams. The former governor was trying to “throw his wife under the bus,” the prosecutor, Michael S. Dry, said in closing statements.McDonnell and his wife each face jail sentences of up to 20 years for each corruption offense.
RIP Joan Rivers
The staples are punk as hell.
I haven't been blogging for a while. Now I'm ready to tell you the story. Just so you're prepared, the story ends with "in two weeks I'm having brain surgery."
Or maybe that's how the story should begin.
"Bangkok is the bright city. The green lights outside the city? No idea"
While on ISS, astronaut Reid Wiseman captured and tweeted a picture that captured night time picture of the Gulf of Thailand, including a vast area of green lights, distinct from the white, yellow and orange lights of adjacent cities. Reid wrote "Bangkok is the bright city. The green lights outside the city? No idea… " but others did know: it was many fishing boats with green fishing light attractors. [more inside]
Surviving an ISIS Massacre
Ali Hussein Kadhim, the only known survivor out of hundreds of an ISIS massacre outside of Tikrit in Iraq, tells his story. Ali, a Shi'a, was saved only by the kindness of people in the Sunni neighborhood around him. TW (violence): First video in link is an interview with Ali and includes footage of soldiers being shot.
The simplest & most efficient way to text a taco to anyone in the world.
Taco Text texts tacos. iOS only... for now.
"I'm going by the word of God"
Last month, a video of a teenager coming out to his family went viral, (trigger warning), now viewed almost 6 million times. The young man who is disowned and abused in that video, Daniel Pierce, after receiving more than $90,000 in donations to live on his own, has now asked that donations be re-directed to Lost-N-Found Youth, a shelter in Georgia for LGBT Homeless Youth. Rolling Stone profiles The Forsaken: A Rising Number of Homeless Gay Teens Are Being Cast Out by Religious Families
Standard (flavored) Markdown
In 2009, StackOverflow and Discourse developer Jeff Atwood called out prominent Apple commentator and Markdown developer John Gruber for failing to produce an unambiguous Markdown specification or maintain the Markdown reference implementation. [more inside]
Whoops....
What happens when you break a sculpture in a gallery Gallery patron sits on bench in gallery, turns out bench was artwork, bench breaks. Ethical and financial panics ensue. [more inside]
Out of this world
With her most recent series, Alienation, South African photographer Anelia Loubser finds the extraterrestrial in all of us. Here are the mugshots she used as source material. More Loubser at Behance, Facebook, and Twitter.
When I found out they were black, my world just stopped.
“These are young people who refuse to be put in a box, but are still trying to make sense of themselves. Over the years, the concept of Black rock has been rejected by both Blacks and whites. Afropunk shows that there are other types of Black experiences. It’s exciting to see Blacks who are unafraid to go a different way.” Afropunk Before Afropunk [more inside]
Run Walter, RUN
is global collapse imminent?
They kicked hetero butt up and down the state of Chihuahua
The Man Without a Mask , The New Yorker on Cassandro and the role of the exótico within lucha libre.
“It was Baby Sharon who encouraged me to step out of Mister Romano,” Armendáriz said. Baby Sharon was an exótico—a luchador who wrestles in drag. Exóticos have been around since the nineteen-forties. At first, they were dandies, a subset of rudos with capes and valets. They struck glamour-boy poses and threw flowers to the audience. As exóticos got swishier and more flirtatious, and started dressing in drag, the shtick became old-school limp-wristed gay caricature. Crowds loved to hate them, screaming “Maricón!” and “Joto!” (“Faggot!”). The exóticos made a delightful contrast with the super-masculine brutes they met in the ring. Popular exóticos insisted that it was all an act—in real life, they were straight. Baby Sharon was among the first, according to Armendáriz, to publicly say that, no, he was actually gay.[more inside]
September 3
But I have nothing to read no longer an excuse
Why read an average book when you could read a great book? With so little time to read, why waste time on a so-so book? But how do you find the best books to read? Most people read whatever they stumble across at the moment. Other folks read book reviews and get recommendations from friends. Even fewer join book clubs.For those despairing of finding enough decent science fiction to read, James W. Harris sets out how to find the best science fiction books to read, including his own classics of science fiction list. [more inside]
A lot of effort goes into managing BMs at BM
What a bottomless chasm of vacuity they reveal!
If the Beatles and their like were in fact what the youth of Britain wanted, one might well despair. I refuse to believe it – and so will any other intelligent person who casts his or her mind back far enough. What were we doing at 16? I remember reading the whole of Shakespeare and Marlowe, writing poems and plays and stories. At 16, I and my friends heard our first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; I can remember the excitement even today. We would not have wasted 30 seconds of our precious time on the Beatles and their ilk. Are teenagers different today? Of course not.
"The present I was in right then didn’t make a lot of sense."
A Day of Speaking Truth to Power - Quinn Norton visits the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
The Complexity of What We Are Seeing is Overwhelming
Astronomers discover that our galaxy is a suburb of a supercluster of 100,000 large galaxies they have called Laniakea
Love pancakes, hate flipping?
Built for Living!
The Mar Vista Tract in West Los Angeles, California was designed by Gregory Ain in 1947, in collaboration with Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day. Ain was a significant "second generation" modernist architect who had worked with and was influenced by the first generation of California Modern masters - European immigrants Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler. Ain believed in bringing good design to the masses; he belonged to the school of thought that espoused architecture's potential to shape a more egalitarian world. He is credited as being the first architect to design a house that did not contemplate servants. A lot of Ain’s ideals were achieved in the "Modernique Homes" development, the name under which the Mar Vista Tract was marketed in 1948. The intent of the Mar Vista Tract was to create a housing development that provided cost efficient housing while advancing the cause of Modern architectural design. [more inside]
Yesteryear: Pacific Ocean Park on Santa Monica Pier
"The train would head back into the heart of the mountain, where more volcanic geysers lay in wait, followed by an earthquake – with a disorienting, rotating tunnel. Escaping this, the ride continued over a truly scary trestle, suspended over the ocean below, into the final scene, an indoor tropical thunderstorm, replete with lightning and strong gusts of wind. Exiting into the sunlight again, the farewell touch was the 'Goony Bird' – sitting on a clutch of cartoonish, oversized eggs – who chirped, 'Thank you for riding with us!'" [more inside]
So but people are going to hear from a whole lineup of bands, today...?
Boots Riley, (previously,) explain’s his band’s communist philosophy to a happy local Fox News host. Fox station reacts.
Three Pie Charts That Prove You Shouldn't Slack Off in College
Students who did as little as possible during college continued to drift after graduation [more inside]
A Democrat and an Independent run together against a Republican
Democrat and Independent merge campaigns in Alaska governor’s race The Democratic nominee for governor of Alaska and an independent candidate announced Tuesday that they have merged their campaigns, marking the beginning of an unprecedented political alliance in the state that could put a Republican-held seat in play this fall.
Photogrammar
Photogrammar is a web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United State’s Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI). [more inside]
Bah!
Bucket Bear is Free
Bucket Bear Rescued A bear who had had his head stuck in a bucket in the Perry Township of northwestern Pennsylvania's Clarion County was freed by a group of concerned citizens who pinned it down and cut the bucket off with a bowsaw. (Video). [more inside]
A dot of orange beneath an art-deco masterpiece.
Halfway through my three-week, 417-mile journey down the “most endangered” river in America, the water began flowing backward and the mud started talking.
It spoke in baritone gurgles, like Barry White trapped in a bong.
You know what this is, John?
No, Barry White mud.
This is QUICKSAND.
Breaking Madden 2: Break Harder
The 2014 NFL season begins tomorrow, and with it comes the return of MeFi Favorite Jon Bois' weekly quest to destroy the laws of God, man and video-game football, Breaking Madden. The first installment, in which he seeks to record 201 sacks in a single game with Houston Texans rookie Jadeveon Clowney, is already up.
Breaking Madden previously. His similar basketball series, NBA Y2K.
Nicky Da B, Dead At 24.
NOLA bounce artist and rapper Nicky Da B is dead. Nicki was best known for his colorful, aggressively infectious music and videos, including Hot Potato Style (previously), Express Yourself with Diplo (previously), and his collaboration with photographer Clayton Cubitt Go Loko (NSFW, strobe and flashes warning)
The Future Gets Closer, Part VII
Direct brain-to-brain communication in humans has been demonstrated for the first time. DARPA begins work on miniaturized implants to control and regulate the nervous system. Researchers study using brain signals to operate drones. [more inside]
One County, 90 police forces
Drive along an approximately 10-mile stretch along the east-west Route 115 (also known as the Natural Bridge Road), and you’ll cross through sixteen different municipalities. “Theoretically, you could be driving home from work on this road, and if you have expired tags or no inspection sticker, you could get pulled over 16 different times in 16 different towns, and written up for the same violations each time”. How St. Louis County, Missouri profits from poverty.
"The difference between knowing and understanding"
Matt Zoller Seitz writes about his personal experience with coming to understand his own white privilege, in particular with interactions with police. [more inside]
Idiot Ruins Game?
Ron Jeremy, a not terribly tiny pianist and a harmonica man
If you heard about the 7" record released for Record Store Day, "Understanding and Appreciating Classical Music with Ron Jeremy," you know Ron Jeremy plays piano with some level of proficiency and flair, and you could probably guess that he throws some crass humor into his act (yes, that's his favorite classical music/pianist joke, he drops it a lot). Ron f*cknig Jeremy also blows the harmonica (NSFW words and vaguely unsafe images), and shares his love of Christian worship music with a fairly rough rendition of Amazing Grace on the harmonica. [more inside]
"The decision of this Court is but one studied decision among many"
"Public attitude might be becoming more diverse, but any right to same-sex marriage is not yet so entrenched as to be fundamental."
U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman posts a ruling that Louisiana’s ban on same-sex couples’ marriages is constitutional. [more inside]
It's turtles all the way down
Carry That Weight
Emma Sulkowicz is a student at Columbia University; she was raped by a fellow student during her sophomore year, and is one of 23 Columbia and Barnard students who filed a federal Title IX complaint in April alleging that the university mishandled sexual assault cases. Now a senior, Emma plans on carrying an extra-long, twin-size mattress across the quad and through each New York City building – to every class, every day – until the man she says raped her moves off campus, as her senior art thesis, "Carry That Weight" [more inside]
Rise like a phoenix
During the late 1970s, the Warsaw Pact states had the Intervision Song Contest, an ideologically-sound Communist alternative to Eurovision, held in the Polish seaside resort of Sopot and attended by mostly Soviet-aligned and non-aligned states. The contest as such last ran in 1980; 1981's was cancelled due to the rise of Solidarność and the protests in nearby Gdańsk and it never returned as an international spectacle. But now, Russia is reviving the Intervision contest, after a 34-year gap. [more inside]
"There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality."
Black Males, Autism, and the Police
"He’s black, male and autistic," she says. "[I] never know if he’ll be accosted. You ask questions later and you shoot first. It’s happened too many times all over this nation." In the wake of Ferguson, parents of autistic young men of color discuss their fears. [more inside]
September 2
Why Do We Blindly Sign Terms Of Service Agreements?
NPR interviews Omri Ben Shahar, teacher of contract law at the University of Chicago and co-author of the book, "More Than You Wanted To Know: The Failure Of Mandated Disclosure." His advice: "You shouldn't bother reading those terms and conditions. Don't even try. You don't have enough time in the year. Don't feel guilty about it. What you should do is follow some of these watchdog and watch groups that circulate information about particularly annoying new practices."
¡SUÉNALO!
This a little story 'bout this one time, we got booked to play a show, right? It was down in the Keys, we wuz makin' our way - and we ran into the Tiki Bar
“Funk cruises through the Caribbean picking up Afro sounds from Cuba and Puerto Rico. Reggae meets rock in a head-on collision. Jazz and electro hook up for a sidewalk makeout session. Hip-hop seems to hum from the very pavement, and R&B drifts in on the night wind. Suenalo reaches to far-flung corners and retrieves all these, takes them and mashing them together, marrying them—disparate players melded into a somehow harmonious blend.[more inside]
Tu Kaha O Pango Te Kahikatia!
Whose tradition counts on the basketball courts? The Tall Blacks, New Zealand's basketball team did their new Haka before games with their Turkish opponents turning their backs and the American players looking just confused. Marc Hinton dares to suggest that the Haka, a New Zealand sports tradition for over a century, might not work internationally. The Haka is a Maori chant and dance given before battle to intimidate and challenge your opponents or as a way to mark important occasions. (Also, it's just plain awesome.)
"It seems like a dead wire leading nowhere."
How does a Dell laptop know what kind of power adapter is connected? The adapter tells it. Reverse-engineering: Hacking the Dell laptop power adapter 1, 2, 3, 4.
“Don’t open your story with a picture of an abandoned house.”
Wyoming Indian High is located in Ethete, a tiny town of about 1,500 residents, in central Wyoming. The school itself is composed of approximately 200 students, mainly from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes on the Wind River Reservation. Given the hoops mania, though, the gym is the largest in the state, capable of holding 3,000-plus rabid fans. That’s right. A bunch of Native American kids from the rez are the basketball kings of Wyoming. If you haven’t heard of this dominant team, you might know the area itself—the subject of consistently negative, reductive and often false representation(s) in the media, where life on the reservation is depicted as nothing but a sad, grim blight; and has served to reinforce all of the old prejudices about Native Americans."
a "professional interloper" among bronies
"Eating and walking is a false economy, time-wise"
How to eat: burritos
"It may be categorised as 'street food', but eating a burrito while walking is hazardous. We've all been there: you take a bite from one side of the burrito, which leaves a quivering 'lip' of rice-loaded tortilla on the other, and, like a slow-motion shot in the world's most boring action film, it falls to the ground or down your shirt, before you can whip your head down and around to snaffle it to safety. Then there is the issue of leakage from the bottom of a too-loosely-twisted foil wrap, and also the delicate procedure of prising that, by now sopping wet, last mouthful from the final cup of foil – itself now overflowing with juices – and transferring it to your mouth without any spillage. It's a task that requires focus and concentration. You walk with a burrito once, twice maybe, before you either a) get knocked-down on a busy road or b) realise – standing outside the pub trying to wipe meat juices off your trainers with an old tissue – that eating and walking is a false economy, time-wise.[more inside]
What happened to...?
Lost treasures of Baseball -The Dauvray Cup
-Shoeless Joe's Confession
-The McGreevy Collection of Baseball pictures
-Eddie Grant's plaque from the Polo Grounds
-Bill Mazeroski's home run ball from the 1960 World Series
-An eight-foot tall statue of Babe Ruth
ffish Custard
The Dying Russians
The Dying Russians In the seventeen years between 1992 and 2009, the Russian population declined by almost seven million people, or nearly 5 percent—a rate of loss unheard of in Europe since World War II. Moreover, much of this appears to be caused by rising mortality. By the mid-1990s, the average St. Petersburg man lived for seven fewer years than he did at the end of the Communist period; in Moscow, the dip was even greater, with death coming nearly eight years sooner.
If nothing else, Grover Norquist had a great time at Burning Man
In a year that saw increasing awareness of how the wealthy are coming to Burning Man in catered and chaperoned camps (costing up to $25K a head), Grover Norquist at least sounds like he had a memorable time and even got his fingernails painted in dayglow colors.
The life I love is making music with my friends
All Roads Lead to [still-living country music legend*] Willie Nelson: "In a time when America is more divided than ever, Nelson could be the one thing that everybody agrees on." [more inside]
Ruin Jam 2014
"Ruin Jam is a game jam celebrating the nonexistent demise of video games, inspired by a lot of current events and a certain blog post. It's open to anyone and everyone who has been, is being, or plans to be accused of ruining the games industry. All Ruiners are welcome to contribute to the death of video games, provided that they adhere to the spirit of the jam." [more inside]
Whatever Happened To The Metrosexual?
"In reconsidering the metrosexual, we must first distinguish between the metrosexual’s imagined and actual properties. Like hipsterism, metrosexuality is an insult more readily slung than substantiated. According to canon, David Beckham is the ur-metro. Although Beckham initially goes unmentioned in the word’s first printing (in 1994), the word’s progenitor, Mark Simpson, introduced American readers to metrosexuality through the British football star in 2002, when he called Beckham a "screaming, shrieking, flaming, freaking metrosexual…famous for wearing sarongs and pink nail polish and panties…and posing naked and oiled up on the cover of Esquire." " - Johannah King-Slutzky for The Awl on the 'Metrosexual' situation a decade later
The Original Tea Partier Was an Atheist
Politico: "Young called his creed 'the religion of nature' and 'the religion of nature’s God.' And he made abundantly clear that, in his own mind, this radical philosophical religion was the axis on which the Revolution turned. For him, the project to free the American people from the yoke of King George III was part of a grander project to liberate the world from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion." [more inside]
"Fun" was too mainstream.
Chase Holfelder covers Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun in a minor key.
(previously, previouslier, previousliest)
(previously, previouslier, previousliest)
The first country music star
Vernon Dalhart (1881-1948), born Marion Try Slaughter, was the first star of country music. He sold so many records in the early 1920s he owned two Cadillacs. Gather round and have a listen to some of Vernon Dalhart's greatest hits. [more inside]
The evolution of credit card skimmers, and how to protect yourself
Credit card skimming was something of a myth in the early 2000s, until someone was caught skimming in 2002 in San Mateo, California. The next year, a skimmer was found on an ATM in a New York deli, and skimmers have been improving every year, following additional protective measures on a range of credit card reading devices, as detailed in Gizmodo's article on the evolution of skimmers. [more inside]
This literally tastes nothing like a cookie!
W-ORD Channel 7 News With John Oliver & Cookie Monster. In support of "Sesame Street's" newest vocabulary resource, "Words are Here, There and Everywhere," Mashable has teamed up with Sesame Workshop to encourage families to explore the wonderful world of words.
Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Social Justice Educators
I have been struggling with how to do the work many of us call “Social Justice”. I understand the why - at least I believe I do. I am on a journey to understand my role in changing the world, which is no doubt a privilege. It has taken some time to get over the fear of doing the work correctly and instead operate from the heart - continuously challenging my perspective.
As I began to engage this work in a healthier manner, I noticed patterns of bad habits that educators exhibit while being change agents. These habits, in the name of justice and equity, get in the way of making authentic, strategic, and sustaining change. Below are ten counterproductive behaviors of Social Justice educators, all explored from the unique intersections of my privileged and oppressed lens.
"Your portrayal of mental illness affects stigma"
When it comes to mental illness you must absolutely pay meticulous attention to detail. Misconceptions and preconceptions are the reason funding is inadequate, why people who suffer from mental illness do not wish to come forward, why people with gender dysphoria suffer minority stress, why the mentally ill are targets of physical and verbal violence.Mental Illness: a prome for speculative fiction creators. [more inside]
The Truth We Won’t Admit: Drinking Is Healthy
The health benefits of drinking. "The U.S. public health establishment buries overwhelming evidence that abstinence is a cause of heart disease and early death. People deserve to know that alcohol gives most of us a higher life expectancy—even if consumed above recommended limits."
Running late, be there in 10 mins.
The Trouble with Amicus Facts
When the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case, they often receive dozens of amicus briefs, or "friend of the court" briefs; SCOTUS "opinions are increasingly studded with citations of facts they learned from amicus briefs." "The trouble with amicus facts... is that today anyone can claim to be a factual expert."
Woody Guthrie on film
Here are three short clips of Woody Guthrie singing. There are not many extant:
Woody from 1945, singing Ranger's Command.
Woody, Brownie McGee, & Sonny Terry singing John Henry.
Woody singing Greenback Dollar in a 1947 film from Pete Seeger. (The John Henry clip repeats here.)
Pete Seeger talking about Woody Guthrie.
Woody from 1945, singing Ranger's Command.
Woody, Brownie McGee, & Sonny Terry singing John Henry.
Woody singing Greenback Dollar in a 1947 film from Pete Seeger. (The John Henry clip repeats here.)
Pete Seeger talking about Woody Guthrie.
”Hi Jenny! I’m the doctor who did your abortion on Saturday.”
Jenny Kutner wrote an article about her upcoming abortion; after her abortion, her doctor wrote her back.
A once peaceful nation
Close Your Heart
A long-form article from Slate about the Central African Republic’s sectarian civil war.
A long-form article from Slate about the Central African Republic’s sectarian civil war.
September 1
Eventually, a giant bulldozer with a hefty winch was procured
Brazil Kite Fight
Kite fighting in Rocinha [viz. cf.] - "In the crowded favelas of Rio de Janeiro, flying kites is more than a leisurely escape: It's also a playful form of battle."
Grimm City
Super Paper Mario
keeping up with the Joneses
Damn The Man, Save The Empire
When Carol Heikkinen reached working age in her hometown of Phoenix, she got a job at the coolest possible place for a high school kid: Tower Records. When she was in college, she spent a summer working at another Tower Records, this one on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. It was through these experiences that Heikkinen wrote the script for Empire Records, then titled simply Empire. As she told me over email, she tried to write a story like the Richard Pryor classic Car Wash, which took place over one day at a car wash — only at a record store. How "Empire Records" Became The Unlikely Film Of A Generation
Publish or PERISH!!!
LEGO Academics experience the trials and tribulations of their taller, less-plasticy peers (previously 1, 2).
DuckDuckGo
Here's how one small company is slowly, surely beating its way into the most monopolized category in technology: Inside DuckDuckGo, Google's Tiniest, Fiercest Competitor.
The Insurrectionist
Patrick McLaw, under the pen name "Dr. K. S. Voltaer', wrote a novel about a school shooting in the year 2902. However, Mr. McLaw is a 23-year-old middle-school teacher in Cambridge, Maryland. Because of the content of his sf novels, he has just been placed on administrative leave, according to Dorchester County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Henry Wagner as quoted in Raw Story.
Mr. McLaw was taken for an 'emergency' medical exam, and the police were unwilling to disclose his location to local TV news. They would say he is not on the Delmarva peninsula. An article in Reason is characterizing the exam as a "mandatory psych eval".
According to Reason, Mr. McLaw has yet to be charged with any crime. He teaches eighth-grade language arts.
"People were either taken by it or felt it was the Antichrist."
Consider an arthouse, darker, noir version of Men in Black with secretive alien refugees trapped in Manhattan, tentacle sex and concept art by H. R. Giger. Clair Noto's The Tourist could have been transformed into a great movie in the right hands. Instead, it has languished in permanent development hell since the 1980's. Some call it "the greatest scifi screenplay never produced" (Article, part 1 and 2.) Decide for yourself and read Noto's original screenplay. [more inside]
“...every angel has a past and every sinner has a future.”
Staten Island’s Pill Problem: [The New Yorker] "New York City is the heroin capital of the country, and the epidemic has hit its most tranquil borough the hardest."
What could go wrong?
"'I'm not here to defend or condemn a law that I didn't make or a project that I don't know about,' Cruz tells the crowd. 'But we need to be open to investment.'" "In May, the Supreme Court of Honduras ruled in support of a constitutional amendment and attendant statute that allow for the creation of 'zones for economic development and employment'. These are "quasi-sovereign entities built on Honduran soil with backing from foreign investors". [more inside]
Junior fills the dance floor
Junior Vasquez is one of the top jungle/house/tribal DJs on the planet, and he's been working his craft for decades. While a round-up of his amazing remixes is probably due at some point, here we will look at his DJ sets, both live and direct to record. We will start with his tribute to the long defunct and much beloved Sound Factory [58m]. [more inside]
Patterns in Palaeontology
The Urban Oil Fields of Los Angeles.
The Big Country/Run
No Fruit From Labor
Jennifer Lawrence Nude Photo Leak Isn't A 'Scandal.'
It's a sex crime. "It is not on the (usually, but not always, female) victim to take 'enough' measures to protect herself but rather on the (usually, but not always, male) victimizer to choose not to commit said sex crime. That notion was lost on the Disney Channel back in 2007. They treated Vanessa Hudgens like a sinful child after personal nudes were leaked and stated that 'Vanessa has apologized for what was obviously a lapse in judgment. We hope she’s learned a valuable lesson.' "
Master of the Macabre
A self-taught special effects guru, A.S. Hamilton has crafted [simulated injuries] with chilling perfection. But his greatest big-screen challenge was bringing one of human history’s most gruesome chapters back to life.CONTENT WARNING: descriptions of violence, graphic movie set photos and stills [more inside]
Happy birthday, kid. (Slyt, short but powerful film)
I found this short film on Youtube (have also seen it on Vimeo) but am not exactly sure who the actors are. Short (< 3 minutes) movie about one year in a young girl's life. Packs a punch. Watch it twice.
We Do, but AT&T Didn't
It's been twenty years since AT&T's "You Will" ad campaign ran, let's see how their predictions did. [more inside]
Down with autocracy in Russia
In honour of Labour day, enjoy a documentary on Jewish anarchism at the turn of the 20th century, and the story of The Free Voice of Labour, their Yiddish newspaper that ran from 1890-1977. [more inside]
Once There Were Billions. And Then None
One hundred years ago today Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died in the Cincinnati Zoo. [more inside]
Has science fiction lost the plot?
It strikes me that these two branches of science fiction are actually conditioning us to accept our current situation. Dystopia readers are waiting for a Katniss – and then everything will be all right. Post-apocalypse readers know they’re currently better-off, even if they’re being oppressed, than they would be with gangs of marauding slavers, rapists and murderers roaming the countryside. Science fiction was once a literature which encouraged change, which explored ways and means to effect changes. Now it’s comfort reading, it makes us feel good about our reduced circumstances because at least we’re not suffering as much as the fictional characters we read about.Critic and science fiction writer Ian Sales is concerned about the state of the genre and what it says about our future.
Doctors and Nurses Risk Everything to Fight Ebola in West Africa
This article talks to doctors and nurses on the front line treating patients in West Africa. It touches on why they take the risk of contracting Ebola, either from patients, or from each other. [more inside]