January 18, 2018
Hans Moleman Productions presents, "Bear Getting Hit by Pipe".
“I shall compose some verses on the inconstancy of happiness”
Apply Chainsaw Gently
"Heathers" Official Red Band Trailer (YT), for the new Paramount TV show based on the 1988 black comedy. Reactions to the trailer veer between it being "sublimely vicious" and "baffling" and "a conservative fantasy".
Favrd's down
Dean Allen made Textism and Textile and Textpattern and Favrd and other things and posted daily photos of his dogs and they made the web better. RIP.
The occult roots of higher-dimensional research in physics
First Baby
Less stockpiling, more listening? Sure. Let's try that.
James Jackson Toth (of Wooden Wand) has a confession: he's a music addict, and he realized he had gone too far when he figured out that he couldn't listen to all his music in 40 years. But he had a plan - listen to one album only per week, starting on the first week of 2017. Only 52 albums for an entire year, to get back to really listening to and appreciating music, instead of amassing more and more. Album #1: Autechre's Oversteps from 2010. Things began to fall apart almost immediately.
A perfect encapsulation of Daryl Gates' worldview.
How Sierra and a Disgraced Cop Made the Most Reactionary Game of the 90s. A look at the 1993 point-and-click adventure game Police Quest 4 as a mirror for the career and politics of its star writer, former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates. (CW: This article discusses incidents of police violence as well as depictions of queerphobia, violence, and murder.)
"My journey from boy to Boy George began in the 70s"
In the 1970s, nobody knew what to do about Britain. The economy was in tatters. Industry was in decline. Governments changed like traffic lights. There were fears about terrorism, immigration, and fascism. We joined Europe, then we wanted out. This is a film about how the '70s shaped me. It's my story, but it's also Britain's. - Boy George's 1970s: Save Me From Suburbia
When cows fly
Two people were killed during the second storm this year in the Netherlands. There was extensive damage. Roofs were torn off of buildings, cargo containers were blown off a dock, buildings collapsed and trees fell on houses and cars. The storm started in the morning and blasted the country for several hours. NRC posted this (non-gruesome) report in pictures. And if you're eager to see footage made and shared by Twitter users, don't miss out on #storm and #westerstorm.
Pity the musk ox.
"The energy here was so heavy and disruptive.... But it's changing."
How Do You Rebuild Your Life After Leaving a Polygamous Sect? Buzzfeed writer Anne Helen Petersen reports on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) community of Short Creek, and how it is changing now that its former leader Warren Jeffs is in prison for life, there are a growing number of ex-FLDS members in town, and formerly powerless female ex-members have formed the Girlfriend Club to support each other as they recreate themselves and their lives. (TW: Some mentions of sexual and physical assault, forced marriage.)
...and we will be making a donation to CryptoQueens...
As Tom Phillips, the UK editorial director, leaves Buzzfeed, his parting piece describes the 29 stages of a twitterstorm in 2018. Related: the 29 stages five years ago (MetaFilter thread). Unrelated: MetaFilter content previously amplified by Buzzfeed.
“this is evidence that some very strange things will happen”
It's The (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age Of Free Speech
Zeynep Tufekci discusses in new longform piece for Wired about how technology and the rise of social media is forcing us to rethink how we conceptualize free speech and censorship. (SLWired)
Train barks like a dog, snorts like a deer...
A new system is being developed by the Railway Technical Research Institute in Japan to equip trains with sound effects to scare deer away from the tracks and prevent collisions. Researchers have seen the number of deer sightings go down by 45%.
The Encyclopedia of the Missing
Vikings Give to the Who Dat Nation
Since Sunday Minnesota Vikings fans have raised more than $150,000 for the New-Orleans based charity What You Give Will Grow founded by Saints punter Thomas Morstead. Morstead said 100% of donations will go directly to Children's Minnesota to support their Child Life department. [more inside]
Oh boy
...hoping each time, that his next leap will be the leap home. The complete Quantum Leap journey A visual representation of Dr Sam Beckett's entire Quantum Leap journey.
For the Television issue of Special Request.
“This is not going to go the way you think!”
MRAs Make 46-Minute Cut Of ‘The Last Jedi’ That Edits Out All The Women [Pedestrian] “Uploaded to The Pirate Bay yesterday by an anonymous user, the “The Last Jedi: De-Feminized Fanedit” is, according to their own description “basically The Last Jedi minus Girlz Powah and other silly stuff“. You might be wondering how this is possible, seeing as the film is still a ways off from its DVD release date, but the intrepid nerdlinger(s) who decided to make this possible were so impatient for a version of TLJ where boys don’t get old off that they used a dodgy camrip with hardcoded subtitles.” [more inside]
Dieting, death and neo-reaction
Michelle Allison on the links between diet, death & neo-reactionary thought:
“Why do the people who have it all, who live on the bleeding edge of technological advancement, contribute in massively influential ways to our culture, who are massively financially rewarded, NEED EVEN MORE? To the point of doing away w/ enlightenment ideals and democracy itself? It seemed impossible to understand, and then my index card reminded me: because when you can't navigate your fear of death, can't even SEE it, nothing is ever enough. You can reach the top of the existing hierarchy and at the end of it, you're still human, still going to die.”[more inside]
Doing away with academic gatekeeper language.
Yeah, but that TruCoat
"Ok, I’ll try and keep this brief, but lets talk PT Cruiser and the 2007 recession. FYI, I’m not *blaming* the crash on the PT Cruiser, just generally laying out how the story of the PT Cruiser and the people who bought them provides an early window into the lending meltdown..."
Amazon HQ2: The Winnowing
I'm Gon Make U Sick O'Me
Parliament has released their first song in 38 years: I'm Gon Make U Sick O'Me. George Clinton in da house, baby!
Dumb contracts
"In the real world, contracts have social utility, and people use them in complex, strategic ways that often don’t align with their legal rights and obligations. These social functions require flexibility—often, the very flexibility that is intentionally short-circuited by smart contracts." Karen E. C. Levy discusses the limitations of smart contracts in her paper Book-Smart, Not Street-Smart: Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts and The Social Workings of Law (PDF).
Ahoy - deploy Toy-Cons and Joy-Cons!
Nintendo Labo is a series of DIY kits for their Switch console, each consisting of cardboard sheets, stickers, string, and rubber bands that can be constructed into RC cars, fishing rods, motorbikes, a piano, and even a giant robot backpack, all accompanied by games and (possibly) some kind of simple programming system. Labo follows in a long tradition of cardboard crafting and toys, from the glorious Polypops cardboard toys and furniture from 1966, to the Amsco Playsets of the 1970s, and of course Kenner's Star Wars Playsets (via @tealtan) – not to mention Nintendo's own Paper Model series dating back to the early 70s. [more inside]
« Previous day | Next day »