January 21, 2016
"The first and only time I had sex it did not go well."
Mariya Karimjee writes powerfully about her experience with female genital mutilation. [more inside]
Venture? Capital!!!
With Season 6 of The Venture Brothers finally hitting at Midnight January 31st (or 12:01AM February 1st, whatever), an "Extended Trailer" has been released (which is actually shorter than the first trailer for Season 6, even if you don't count the frustratingly long intro, but you may have missed that first trailer entirely - as I shamefully did - but anyway, the new trailer better shows off the season's New York setting and its Marvel-inspired 'new neighbors', including The Fallen Archer and The Think Tank; besides, why can't you just watch both?).
Fōsu to tomo ni are! [ﾌｫｰｽと共に在れ]
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Anime Opening, courtesy of Tumblr user and Star Wars fan KyloRenIsAPunkBitch.
I Want To Believe
The truth is out there.
The Death of a Very Tired Man
(non)Marriage Equality
Couple to begin court fight against ban on heterosexual civil partnerships Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who describe themselves as feminists and reject marriage as a “patriarchal” institution, will pursue their claim against the government’s equalities office on Tuesday. The case is being brought on the grounds that the refusal to allow them to participate in a civil partnership amounts to discrimination, breaching their right to family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights. [more inside]
the party decides?
BANKY WAS HERE
Tory MP: Don't Ban Poppers, I Use Them
As the government debates the Psychoactive Substances Bill... A Conservative former minister has "outed" himself as a poppers user, amid warnings that a Government ban on the substance will harm the gay community and others.
Crispin Blunt warned he and many gay men are "astonished" by the Government's proposals, adding respect for the law would "fly out the window" if a ban is implemented. Grauniad Article. Politics.co.uk. Legalcheek.
"HUFFLE-PUFFLE / Dracula Breathing While Running"
A complete alphabetical list of all of cartoonist Don Martin's soundwords in Mad Magazine.
(from Doug Gilford's Mad Cover Site)
Need a banjo? Want some provenence?
When Australian blues singer and composer CW Stoneking left his vintage New Windsor banjo in a Yellow Cab near 3rd St in New York in 2008, he was bereft. He searched and called and searched some more but it was never to be seen again until a day ago when a listing on ebay caught Stoneking's eye. [more inside]
Big Supernova
Target acquired.
The Last Days of Target: The untold tale of Target Canada’s difficult birth, tough life and brutal death. [more inside]
“When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.”
No trolls allowed: Seattle advertises a writing residency … in a bridge. by Marta Bausells [The Guardian] The US city’s transport department offers $10,000 for a ‘unique’ residency in a bridge tower – in return for ‘an in-depth exploration’ of the space.
“The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), in partnership with Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) seeks a practicing, published poet, fiction, or creative non-fiction writer for a unique project-based artist residency in the northwest tower of the Fremont Bridge. The selected writer will undertake an in-depth exploration of the bridge and write a piece in response to the experience.”[more inside]
263 years, 263 years. She got you in prison, got you for 263 years
The Grief Police
The rise of grief policing. The notion that there is but one way to grieve, and that deviation from that way is wrong. Grief policing was on display recently, during the aftermath of David Bowie’s death. Camilla Long, the film critic for The Sunday Times, witnessed the outpouring of emotion posted online as people learned, and tried to make sense, of Bowie’s passing. She did not like the way they mourned. Their grieving, she suggested—or, well, “grieving”—was self-indulgent, and, like so much else on social media, purely performative. “Bowie Blubberers,” she called the grievers. [more inside]
We knew that they knew that we knew that they knew....
Ex NSA Analyst Bill Scannel talks about Teufelsberg, in Berlin. His talk describes the inner workings of an NSA field station in an interesting manner. The talk is 42 minutes, with a Q&A at the end. [more inside]
Uncanny Valley of the dolls
American Panorama
"American Panorama is an historical atlas of the United States for the twenty-first century. It combines cutting-edge research with innovative interactive mapping techniques, designed to appeal to anyone with an interest in American history or a love of maps." [more inside]
Wacky DC Superteams, GO!
FILM! The new Suicide Squad trailer has the grimy cheer of a ball of cotton candy set on fire. Trailer breakdown. Roll call: Deadshot shoots people, Killer Croc's the crocodile who eats people, El Diablo burns people, Enchantress is possessed by a witch, and Harley Quinn is just crazy. Plus friends Boomerang, THE WALL, Slipknot, Rick Flag, the Joker, and Katana.
TV! Tonight is the series premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, the Arrowverse's time-traveling crossover crew. Roll call: White Canary, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Hawkgirl & Hawkman, Firestorm, Atom, andTIME LORD RORY WILLIAMS Rip Hunter. Saving the world by punching the timestream and getting in bar fights!
TV! Tonight is the series premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, the Arrowverse's time-traveling crossover crew. Roll call: White Canary, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Hawkgirl & Hawkman, Firestorm, Atom, and
You'll never expect what happened to Ross and Rachel's daughter!
A Brief History of Spam
For a six-ingredient food product, it's taken on a life of its own. Spam — the square-shaped mash-up of pork, water, salt, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrate — recently celebrated its 77th anniversary of being alternately maligned, celebrated, musicalized, or the subject of urban legend (one particularly pervasive myth insists that its name is actually an acronym for "Scientifically Processed Animal Matter"). And despite today's more locavore approach to food and some unkind memories from soldiers who were served Spam during WWII, Spam has entered its third quarter-century on the rise.
It's a real insult to people who try
Comedian H. Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob's Burgers) has released his first experimental jazz album. He can't play the piano.
"You sound like John Ritter. ALL THE TIME."
Key and Peele may have said their goodbyes to television, but they will soon return to the big screen in their first feature film "Keanu", whose red band NSFW trailer dropped today.
Outrageous statements are those folks' careers
Warming to an Idea: "The obvious problem was that you weren't asking this guy to change his mind. You were asking him to give up the somewhat lucrative profession on which he had based the last 20+ years of his life and you were asking him to admit he'd been a fool." [more inside]
The farther west you go in Manhattan, the weirder it gets.
You’re either on team chicken bake or you're not.
Lucky Peach presents the Official Costco Food Court Power Rankings.
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
The evolution of first lines of novels.
It's like Chatroulette with less dicks and more casual roleplaying
Feel like collaboratively lying to and with random strangers on the internet? Get your pretending-to-be-something-you-aren't on with Shamchat.
"I suppose Old Man Trump knows just how much Racial Hate he stirred up"
"Guthrie’s two-year tenancy in one of Fred Trump’s buildings and his relationship with the real estate mogul of New York’s outer boroughs produced some of Guthrie’s most bitter writings, which I discovered on a recent trip to the Woody Guthrie Archives in Tulsa." Woody Guthrie, ‘Old Man Trump’ and a real estate empire’s racist foundations
GOMI
Planet Corduroy
Investigating Policies Defining When And How Police Use Force
The Police Use of Force Project investigates the ways in which police use of force policies help to enable police violence in our communities. (Proposed policy solutions from Campaign Zero) [more inside]
Compares textbook prices on new, used, ebooks and rentals
Sick Woman Theory
Sick Woman Theory: Johanna Hedva on chronic pain, endometriosis, mental illness, and caring for yourself and others as an anti-capitalist act.
I hope we can still be cousins
You may have seen the work of cartoonist Matthew Diffee in The New Yorker. The guy has a twisted sense of humor. But not all of his work makes in into the august magazine. So he collected some of his rejected ideas, and others from fellow cartoonists like Roz Chast and Gahan Wilson into The Best of the Rejection Collection: 293 Cartoons That Were Too Dumb, Too Dark, or Too Naughty for The New Yorker. Here's a selection.
Whiteness History Month
Portland Community College to launch a "Whiteness History Month." (April to be specific) The American Conservative disapproves: "... plainly designed to convince white students to despise themselves and their culture." The Washington Post hits the ground running with a listicle: Whiteness History Month is a great idea. Here are 7 ways to observe it.
beard science
"Everyone puts them inside their ears, but no one should."
"Plenty of consumer products are widely used in ways other than their core function — books for leveling tables, newspapers for keeping fires aflame, seltzer for removing stains, coffee tables for resting legs — but these cotton swabs are distinct. Q-tips are one of the only, if not the only, major consumer products whose main purpose is precisely the one the manufacturer explicitly warns against." Roberto A. Ferdman of the Washington Post takes a detailed look at what he calls "one of the most perplexing things for sale in America," including a look at the bureaucratic tangle which makes it difficult to quantify annual Q-tip related injuries. (previously)
The McKnelly Megalith
Megalithic Robotics is a recent class at MIT that resulted in a very interesting object: a 2000-pound megalith that can be moved with a fingertip.
The incredible tale of irresponsible choco milk research at U Maryland
Academic press offices are known to overhype their own research. But the University of Maryland recently took this to appalling new heights — trumpeting an incredibly shoddy study on chocolate milk and concussions that happened to benefit a corporate partner. It's a cautionary tale of just how badly science can go awry as universities increasingly partner with corporations to conduct research. [more inside]
The Columbus Zoo should have asked The Green for naming advice.
The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium has a polar bear cub (previously.) Now she's three months old and you can vote on her name (or just squee at the pictures.) Be an informed voter with these bonus videos of the cub: 1, 2, 3.
Science fiction editor David Hartwell (1941-2016)
Influential science fiction editor David Hartwell died yesterday of complications resulting from head injuries suffered during a fall at his home. [more inside]
Projected Animations Of A Tiny Chef Cooking Meals At The Table
Skullmapping have created the first two in a series of animation projections that portray a miniature chef making dinner on a real dining table: Bouillabaisse and another where he whips together a grilled steak. [via Colossal]
He is not an All-Star, but he is a folk hero.
[John]Scott is not a gifted offensive player. He's an enforcer. He's a 6-foot-8 fighter who can't skate all that fast, has only scored five goals in his career, and is averaging just over six minutes on the ice in the 11 games he's played this year. He is, by no means, an All-Star in any traditional sense of the term.Yet, John Scott was selected as one of the four Captains in this year's NHL All-Star game. (Note: Sidney Crosby didn't even make the team!) What happened? The Internet! [more inside]
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