January 18, 2011
CAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!
Brisbane Flood!
Before and After the Flood. Startling pictures of recent events in Brisbane.
No civilisation by 2100?
The world is well on track to achieve 4 degrees of warming by 2100. In September 2009, a conference organised by the Tyndall Centre looked at this scenario, with the papers recently published in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Pr. Anderson of the Tyndall Centre suggests that only 10 percent of humanity may survive this conflagration.
Bore Surfing
5 miles, on a surf board - Tidal bore surfing is limited to about 100 rivers. This short video from the Cook Inlet, Alaska may cause you to buy a board. (previously)
A Red Tail's Tale
"Feathered Hussy Moves in on Pale Male." Famous Central Park raptor Pale Male has taken a new mate, which most likely means that Lola, his companion of the last eight years, has died. Though some birders hold out hope for her return, one expert says, "This is not the season that experienced [female hawks] cavalierly absent themselves from their established territories." Pale Male is known to have sired at least 26 chicks, and inspired both controversy and counter-protests when fancy Upper East Siders tried to evict his nest from their fancy building. The birds won that conflict. Next argument on tap: what to name his new mate.
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep: Lally Stott (original version) ll Middle of the Road (Top of the Pops) ll The Strollers (Malaysia) ll Koivisto Sisters (Finland) ll Snaps (Italo) ll The Jay Boys (Reggae) ll Chai Mimi and 鳳飛飛 - 愛情多甜蜜 (Mandarin) ll Tyyne Lipasti and Aki, Turo & Hepamamas (Finland?) ll Børre & Gibb (Norway) ll Paul Mauriat (France) ll Los Continuados (Spanish) ll Mac & Katie Kissoon and Lush (Britain) ll The X Factor
Scary Smart
Chaser, a female border collie, knows the name for 1,022 items. She can handle some verb/noun combinations too.
Pale kid raps fast
Like that "Check...and Doublecheck" game in Highlights Magazine, but for grown-ups.
The Daily Diff is a timed spot-the-differences puzzle based on public photo submissions. There's a new photo every day. For those of you who remember Highlights for Children magazine, it's basically Check...And Doublecheck for grownups.
Playing with Dark Magic
What the Heck is Shadow DOM? Browser developers realized that coding the appearance and behavior of HTML elements completely by hand is a) hard and b) silly. So they sort of cheated. They created a boundary between what you, the Web developer can reach and what’s considered implementation details, thus inaccessible to you. The browser however, can traipse across this boundary at will.
Your Mom Hates This Post
Visceral Games launches a very innovative ad campaign for their upcoming game, "Dead Space 2". The second installment of the Dead Space series is set to come out January 25th of this year. In what seems to be a final ditch effort to build some last minute hype, the producers have started an interesting ad campaign. [more inside]
Where Is Stonewall Now?
Since November 29th., 2010 Boston's PBS station WGBH has had an open call for video submissions that "best tell the story of gay rights in America today." "WGBH...which produces American Experience, is inviting 'citizen reporters, journalists, video-bloggers, documentary story tellers, animators or new media-makers' to create three-minute shorts on the Stonewall Riots and their 'legacy of courage.'"* One winning submission "may air along with the television debut of Stonewall Uprising on American Experience this spring." [more inside]
You come at the king, you best not miss.
“You know what Miami gets in their crime show? They get detectives that look like models, and they drive around in sports cars. And you know what New York gets, they get these incredibly tough prosecutors, competent cops that solve the most crazy, complicated cases. —What Baltimore gets is this reinforced notion that it's a city full of hopelessness, despair and dysfunction. There was very little effort—beyond self-serving—to highlight the great and wonderful things happening here, and to indict the whole population, the criminal justice system, the school system.” —Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, on the effect of The Wire on Baltimore’s reputation. [more inside]
Jared Lee Loughner's Nietzsche
Josef von Sternberg's "The Shanghai Gesture"
The other places are like kindergartens compared with this. It smells so incredibly evil! I didn't think such a place existed except in my own imagination. It has a ghastly familiarity like a half-remembered dream. *Anything* could happen here... any moment... Pauline Kael called it "hilariously, awesomely terrible". Others consider it "a forgotten gem of a film that set the gold standard for noir films to come".
It was Josef von Sternberg's last major film - The Shanghai Gesture (1941). (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
A bit of new media history and historiography
Who Rocked the War That Rocked So Many Bodies?
Know that feeling of disappointment when you realize this is yet another Civil War Re-enactment that's just not down enough? Good news.
An official HTML5 logo?
The official W3C sanctioned HTML5 logo So, what do you think of the new, official W3C HTML5 logo? Or the official HTML5 t-shirt?
FCC and DoJ Approve Comcast/NBC Merger
The FCC and Department of Justice have approved Comcast’s purchase of NBC Universal. The acquisition marks the first time a major television network will be owned by a cable provider. Opponents like Al Franken decry the deal as giving “unprecedented control over the flow of information in America” to a single media conglomerate. FCC news release about conditions imposed on the merger. (Scribd link)
These jeans aren't going to double-cuff themselves.
"The Baby-Sitters Club: Where are they now?" by The Hairpin. Bonus materials: "Incredulous Kristy" internet meme, "What Claudia Wore" fashion blog.
"I dug ditches for a living, there are no parties that I want to go to, and I didn't go to Columbia journalism school."
Why Does Roger Ailes Hate America? He tarred NPR higher ups as "left wing Nazis" over the Juan Williams firing, and more recently asked his commentators to "shut up, tone it down" after the Giffords shooting. Esquire profiles the president of Fox News Channel.
I hope I can visit them in Belgium or France or Russia or Holland or Minneapolis or wherever they're from
Todd Bieber was skiing in New York City's Prospect Park when he found a mysterious roll of film documenting the NYC blizzard. He hopes that with $26 and your help, he can find the owners and return their negatives to them.
Mapping Kibera
Kibera is a slum in the southwest of Nairobi, often called the biggest slum in the world; some estimates of the population put it as high as 1.5m, although the 2009 Kenyan census puts the population at a rather more sober 170k(ish). Now, Kiberans are carrying out two similarly named but unaffiliated projects, Map Kibera and Map Kibera Project, to create maps of their home. MKP has a pair of rather slick-looking PDF maps showing the terrain and structures in Kibera. MK uses OpenStreetMap, which means that their cartographers can be rapidly update it to more accurately reflect how quickly things change in Kibera. They also have, inevitably, a twitter account, flickr stream and a blog to keep the world up to date with their work, including their ambition to start mapping another Nairobi slum, Mathare.
Via the Beeb, which also has a nice wee audio slideshow about MK.
Generation Why?
"You can’t help feel a little swell of pride in this 2.0 generation. They’ve spent a decade being berated for not making the right sorts of paintings or novels or music or politics. Turns out the brightest 2.0 kids have been doing something else extraordinary. They’ve been making a world." Zadie Smith on Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Network, and Facebook.
Lyndon B. Johnson Buys Pants
"In 1964, Lyndon Johnson needed pants, so he called the Haggar clothing company and asked for some. The call was recorded (like all White House calls at the time), and has since become the stuff of legend. Johnson’s anatomically specific directions to Mr. Haggar are some of the most intimate words we’ve ever heard from the mouth of a President."
From Put This On. (Via).
Man's house becomes a museum, 100 years after his death
In 1905, a rich French man named Louis Mantin died. He had no children, and had an unusual request in his will: keep his house untouched for 100 years, and then turn it into a museum (English-language link; BBC video). Welcome to the Maison Mantin of Alliers, France (French-language links). If you can't find it, it's right on the Cour des Bénédictins, right next to the surprisingly picturesque former prison (last two links are to images). You have to book ahead by phone.
On the Lack of Left Wing Discourse in the Blogosphere
Who, exactly, represents the left extreme in the establishment blogosphere? You'd likely hear names like Jane Hamsher or Glenn Greenwald. But these examples are instructive. Is Hamsher a socialist? A revolutionary anti-capitalist? In any historical or international context-- in the context of a country that once had a robust socialist left, and in a world where there are straightforwardly socialist parties in almost every other democracy-- is Hamsher particularly left-wing? Not at all. It's only because her rhetoric is rather inflamed that she is seen as particularly far to the left.Freddie De Boer on the lack of left wing discourse in the blogosphere. [more inside]
Not a typical 70s revival
Brazil won't extradite an Italian writer convicted for political murders in the 1970s, so a Venetian official wants his books out of libraries. Not only Cesare Battisti's works, but also those written by Italians who supported him through petitions.
The Wu Ming group is on the case (English translation), fearing this will worsen and spread to the rest of Italy. [more inside]
The Wu Ming group is on the case (English translation), fearing this will worsen and spread to the rest of Italy. [more inside]
Liquid Hydrocarbons on Demand?
In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company received a patent for a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium that feeds solely on carbon dioxide and excretes liquid hydrocarbons. Joule Unlimited, co-founded by George Church, appears ready to forever alter the way we produce fuel. [more inside]
Lies, damned lies, and exaggerated significance tests
Apparently They, of "They say..." fame, have been misusing the statistical significance test. So much of what "They say" might not actually be. (via)
I'd like $14,300 in small, unmarked bills
Student puts the cost of education on the table Out of state student Nic Ramos paid his $14,300 tuition cost for a semester at CU Boulder in $1 bills to bring attention to the rising cost of education in the U.S. [more inside]
We used to get 김치 on the corner....
In the 1960's, 70's and 80's, urban decay and high crime rates caused retail chain supermarkets to flee New York City. (google books link) Korean immigrants filled the gap with corner grocery stores. For nearly two decades they were ubiquitous -- symbols of the group's ongoing quest to achieve the American Dream. But 30 years later, Where Did The Korean Greengrocers Go? [more inside]
Checkmate!
GameKnot, in addition to being a generally wonderful site to play and study chess, has a page which show nothing but checkmates from recently-played games being carried out. Watch as fate is inexorably sealed.
Benjamin Franklin's Advice to a Young Tradesman
1927 Solvay Conference
The Fifth Solvay Conference, where the leading physicists of the time gathered to discuss quantum theory, produced an iconic photo of the participants. 17 of the 29 pictured either already were or would be Nobel prize winners, including Marie Curie who was badass enough to have two. But did you know there is film footage of the conference as well? [more inside]
The Hidden Victims
The Montagnard Moses
Death of General Vang Pao who led the Hmong into exile.
His exile was not uncontroversial as he was involved in Heroin trafficking and possible embezzlement.
Photos of Hmong guerilla fighters.
in 2010 the secret Hmong army was still fighting. Forty years on, Laos reaps still reaps the bitter harvest of the secret war where the US dropped more ordinance than the entirety of World war II. (previously)
Photos of Hmong guerilla fighters.
in 2010 the secret Hmong army was still fighting. Forty years on, Laos reaps still reaps the bitter harvest of the secret war where the US dropped more ordinance than the entirety of World war II. (previously)
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