January 17, 2014
Be Quick or Be Dead
"In fairness to my fellow writers, I was part of the hype machine. I retweeted the story before I had the chance to fully read it." How a fabricated story about Iron Maiden's love of music pirates became internet truth.
Made by Brad
Don’t let them call you by anything else.
The Names They Gave Me. From the essay:
" 'Your name is Tasbeeh. Don’t let them call you by anything else.'
My mother speaks to me in Arabic; the command sounds more forceful in her mother tongue, a Libyan dialect that is all sharp edges and hard, guttural sounds. I am seven years old and it has never occurred to me to disobey my mother. Until twelve years old, I would believe God gave her the supernatural ability to tell when I’m lying.
'Don’t let them give you an English nickname,' my mother insists once again, 'I didn’t raise amreekan .'
My mother spits out this last word with venom. Amreekan. Americans. It sounds like a curse coming out of her mouth."
By Tasbeeh Herwees in The Toast.
Yellow Peril
10 Examples of Asian American and Pacific Islander's Rich History of Resistance counters the notion that "there is a prevailing notion out there that, in contrast to other minorities, Asian Americans “lack a history of resistance” (or that we think we do), and that this invisibility and dearth of civil rights history actually confers upon the Asian American community a form of racial privilege."
Plus ca change?
President Obama unveils new policy directives for the NSA. Full text of the speech.
And for lols, here are some photos also from Slate.
Honorable Death
Flash Friday Fun: Dojo of Death
AUMF
60 Words And A War Without End: The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History. "Written in the frenzied, emotional days after 9/11, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force was intended to give President Bush the ability to retaliate against whoever orchestrated the attacks. But more than 12 years later, this sentence remains the primary legal justification for nearly every covert operation around the world. Here’s how it came to be, and what it’s since come to mean." [Via]
The Institute of Official Cheer
World’s Best Paper Plane Maker
Creative sentencing
A serial house flipper would rather stay in prison. The judge said no, and put the city councilman whose ward he destroyed in charge of the flipper's parole. In addition to electronic monitoring, being forced to live in one of his own derelict properties and financial restitution, the flipper will give the city the equivalent of 18 months' full time work creating gardens and other features for the community at his own expense.
Most Favorited Post of Metafilter
The Chen Guangbiao Business-Card Generator.
Now you can have a card fit for a Chinese billionaire.
Terminator The Second
Nashville's Husky Jackal Theater presents: Terminator The Second. A stage adaptation of Terminator 2, re-written entirely using the works of William Shakespear. Only proper nouns, verbs, and verb tenses were changed to suit. Live soundtrack performed by Metafilter favorites The Protomen.
Beat This: producers making a beat, from nothing to done, in 10 minutes
Don't Watch That TV is a rabbit hole of fun and weird videos, mostly focused on urban/ dance/ electronic music, sorted into 20 different "channels" or programs. To make this timesink more manageable, I'd like to bring your attention to their Beat This channel, wherein producers are challenged to create a new beat, from scratch, in 10 minutes. The first mix is from a young producer who goes by Swindle, and he pulls off a pretty nice track in the time allotted, joking he should do all his tracks in ten minutes. But if that doesn't catch your fancy, and all those producers names don't mean anything to you, may I present Kieren Hebden, aka Four Tet, making a beat with nothing but MJ's Thriller album as the source material, sampling and distorting it into something weird and new. [more inside]
Mystery rock on Mars
....wait...this wasn't here a second ago! A mysterious Martian rock that appeared in front of the Opportunity rover within days has left scientists scratching their heads.
Hygienic and Scientific Cooking
"....many a tragic episode in family life is superinduced by the baleful influence of a tortured stomach. Mighty is the hand that holds the ballot-box, but mightier is the hand that wields to advantage the pepper-box, the salt-spoon, and the sugar-shaker." read the entirely of Maud C. Cooke's, Breakfast, Dinner and Supper; or, What To Eat and How To Prepare It (1897) online and enter a world of home remedies, large scale recipes, sound advice, leftover wizardry, squirrel stews, scientific digestion, and horrible things done to vegetables.
"Counsel, you are not reading this, are you?"
During oral arguments this week on the Marvin Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States case, Justice Antonin Scalia chastised attorney Steven Lechner for reading from his script. Justice Stephen Breyer broke the tension with these words: "It's all right." [more inside]
Is that a banana candle in your pocket...
Liver sausage pineapple? Igloo meat loaf? Tuna Jell-o pie? “21 Truly Upsetting Vintage Recipes” [via Buzzfeed]
If you like the Eurovision Song Contest, You'll LOVE Melodifestivalen!
Sweden's Eurovision Song Contest selection vehicle will begin broadcasting February 1. Sweden has long been a hot bed of pop music. Having won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, and having hosted in 2013, Sweden has enjoyed a renewed interest in their home-grown pop. [more inside]
The US has one of the worst payment systems in the entire world
Almost alone among developed nations, U.S. credit and debit cards have a magnetic stripe that contains all the financial information necessary to make a purchase. Once information gets stolen from a merchant, it can be encoded into a magnetic stripe and used with a new card. Smart cards in Europe and elsewhere encrypt that data and store it on a microchip, which is much tougher to replicate. More important, the cards also require a personal identification number (PIN) to work. This “chip-and-PIN” system introduces a second authentication, forcing thieves to have both pieces of information to successfully use the card. It’s a combination of advanced technology and simple common sense. - Your Credit Card Has a Dangerous Flaw That the Banks Refuse to Fix
Are you ready to RUMBLE?
What Neil deGrasse Tyson is to astrophysics, Lucy Jones is to seismology.
"The last time there was a large seismic event on the fault that can do us the most harm, the San Andreas, in 1857, Los Angeles had about 4,000 residents. “We really weren’t worried about keeping a complex social structure in place,” Jones said. But as we get bigger and more complex, we increase our vulnerability."
Jones presented her talk, “Imagine America Without Los Angeles” to the American Geophysical Union Conference in San Francisco in 2013.
While today is the 20th anniversary of the Northridge quake, we still haven't quite figured out what to do to mitigate the effects of the BIG ONE to come. [more inside]
He got 20 years for lovin' her / from some Oklahoma governor
Ever been to Johnsburg, Illinois? Have you received a Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis? Maybe you left Waukegan at the slamming of the door? Or perhaps you were simply full of wonder when you left Murfreesboro. If so, the Tom Waits map is for you.
Ohio executes inmate using untried, untested lethal injection method
On Thursday morning, Ohio executed Dennis McGuire for the 1989 rape and murder of Joy Stewart. However, due to an embargo on the common used lethal injection drug pentobarbital, the state used an untried combination of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a morphine derivative, for the execution. The procedure took 24 minutes, during which McGuirse was reported to have been "choking and snorting" and was described as "horrific". [more inside]
A day in the life of Atlanta airport
ATL24 - A day in the life of the world's busiest airport. A collaborative photo and video essay of Atlanta airport, by reporters from CNN. [more inside]
Taking America's Temperature
Pollsters Pew Research chart 13 big shifts in American's opinions which happened in 2013. Tipping points and new thresholds have been established on topics ranging from marihuana legalization to isolationism to gay marriage.
She gave us each twenty dollars and a bag of cookies.
How Much Does It Cost To Hitchhike Across America? Ever been there? Cooking in the high-plains sun? Freezing under the stars? This plain-spoken accounting will take you back. "On the Road" in the 21st century.
Drum pants
Dr. V’s Magical Putter
Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt invented a radical new golf putter. But Dr. Vanderbilt may not be exactly whom she seems to be....
In reply to your request, please find that I hereby protest
"Nude is a concept album released by English progressive rock band Camel (wiki) in 1981. It was their eighth studio album. The album (lyrics) is based on a true story of a Japanese soldier (Hiroo Onoda) marooned on an island in World War II who doesn't know that the war is over. 'Nude' derives from his family name 'Onoda.'" [more inside]
Hello, my name is David Lynch. And Burroughs. And Warhol.
David Lynch is back, and he's showing new fantastic photography at la Maison Européenne de Photographie: "Small Stories". (European House of Photography). This, in case you're in Paris, from Jan 15th to March 16th.
But if you're in London, from Jan 17th to March 30th, you can see at The Photographers Gallery: David Lynch "The Factory Photographs"; William S. Burroughs "Taking Shots" and Andy Warhol with his Photographs from 1976 to 1987.
To hell with Gatsby's green light!
Why We Should Stop Teaching Novels To High School Students (Natasha Vargas-Cooper for Bookforum)
Gods of the Godless
An interview with world-renowned Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi on Lovecraft, atheism, weird tales, and cosmicism.
“That’s it. That’s my Dad.”
Jeremy Cowart photographed John Schneider (Dukes of Hazzard/Smallville/Haves and Have Nots star), but didn't get exactly the experience he expected.
The Weather Doesn't Bother SOME "People" (SLYT)
Sportswomen Judged On Their Looks, Not Their Careers
Britain's elite sportswomen fear that the way they look is judged to be more important than what they achieve in their sporting careers. [more inside]
The Chain Fountain
A video showing a chain of beads behaving in a very peculiar way appeared on Youtube some time ago. Many people attempted to provide explanations, but most of them weren't quite satisfactory. [more inside]
Do Something Real
Atlanta rapper Killer Mike's relationship with Williams Street, producers of [adult swim], led to a series of promos for the late-night television programming in which he dispenses his wisdom: [more inside]
I just became aware ... ten minutes ago, from your link.
Pentagon papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg held a Reddit AMA this week, and found out something new about the whole affair - 43 years later.
« Previous day | Next day »