February 23, 2015
Understanding Kim Jong Un
"Nothing better defines Kim than how little we actually know about him. When asked, even the most respected outside experts on North Korea in the United States and in South Korea—not to mention inside the White House—invariably provide details that turn out to be traceable to Dennis Rodman or to a Japanese sushi chef named Kenji Fujimoto, who was employed by the ruling family from 1988 to 2001, and who now peddles trivial details about them (such as how Kim II once sent him to Beijing to pick up some food at McDonald’s)."
All the Jittery Horses
Racing the Mongol Derby
The ponies that carried Genghis Khan’s warriors are small, tough, and skittish as hell, making the prospect of riding them for 1,000 kilometers seem downright insane. American cowboy Will Grant couldn’t resist, so he entered the Mongol Derby—the longest, hardest horse race in the world—determined not just to finish but to win.[more inside]
small zeppelin
Kashmir + The Ocean performed by 50-plus percussive pre-teens. Straight outa Louisville. Note the seriousness of purpose.
I know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is
How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is? *Kinda crazy. (But also maybe right?)
In the year since the vanishing of MH370, I appeared on CNN more than 50 times, watched my spouse’s eyes glaze over at dinner, and fell in with a group of borderline-obsessive amateur aviation sleuths. A million theories bloomed, including my own.[more inside]
Leisuretown: The Lost Episodes
Leisuretown (probably NSFW) (previouslies), the webcomic created by Tristan A. Farnon (aka Spigot of Jerkcity), includes several 'flipbooks' that have been broken and unviewable on the site for some time. Working direct links to these lost stories have been discovered, including one that was slightly losterer than the others. (link to dickmissles's tumblr is also NSFW, due to large amounts of Jerkcity comics and fanart)
Zombie Bone-Eating Harem-Keeping Worms
Practicing Islam in short shorts
Still a brand new record for 1990
Flood Live in Australia. They Might Be Giants has released a live cover of their album, Flood. Songs are recorded in reverse order because, you know, Australia.
"I'm James, and this is Winston Churchquill"
Comedians who died in 2014
The Comic's Comic site provides a list of comedians who died in 2014, along with some photos and video links. Some you likely know, like Robin Williams and Joan Rivers. Some perhaps not, like the great John Pinette. And some goddamn tragedies, like Jan Hooks.
Another look at Trinity Syndrome.
Battle over the truth of Muslim Ring of Peace around Oslo synagogue
Emailing Breitbart is a retort by journalist Martin Grüner Larsen to Breitbart's Jordan Schachtel calling the Muslim-initiated Ring of Peace a media hoax .
After the horrific shootings in Copenhagen and Paris, young muslims in Oslo wanted to show their solidarity with the Jewish community, saying that if anyone wanted to hurt the Jews they would have to go through the Muslims. [more inside]
Octunado?
Octopi have proven themselves to be intelligent creatures time and time again. However, one Australian octopus made his or her cephalopod brothers and sisters proud by taking a traditionally water-based activity (hunting) and applying a unique twist.
The second flag was so much more photogenic
The Story Behind the Most Famous Picture from World War II A story told with lots of photos and a little writing.
“There’s pretty much no law on what you can do to a crime scene sample,”
Using DNA to Build a Face, and a Case by Andrew Pollack [New York Times]
The growing capability to determine physical characteristics from genetics can help the police, but it also raises questions of rights and profiling.
cybermapping
love and marriage in myanmar 👬
love and marriage in myanmar: celebrating same-sex relationships in a nation that deems them illegal [more inside]
But Blue she said women not just white women
Last night at the Oscars, Patricia Arquette, after making an impassioned statement about wage equity for women during her speech, said, backstage, "The truth is: even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are applied that really do affect women," she mused. "And it's time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we've all fought for to fight for us now." [more inside]
Andrew B. Myers' Missives from the Wallpaper Dimension
Photographer Andrew B. Myers makes photographs that don't look like photographs so much as like clean-edged graphic design illustrations. Much of his work combines vibrant colors, flat, non-gradated lighting with crisp shadows, and a long-lens isometric composition to create tableaux that resemble old-school screensavers or wallpaper prints.
inevitable cliches about heat and kitchens... thick skin, etc.
Feminist writers are so besieged by online abuse that some have begun to retire, an opinion piece by Michelle Goldberg at The Washington Post. Geek Feminism Wiki has a page on mitigating internet trollstorms, snippet: "This document intends to provide actionable guidance for people who are being attacked or who are concerned about being attacked in the future, and includes both information security, physical security, and self-care advice drawn from the experiences of the Geek Feminism community."
I Watched Every Episode
Two and Half Men hit a new low every season and then continued to sink even further underground. During this last season, the show went off the rails in terms of absurdity and offensiveness. After a death scare, Walden decides that he wants to adopt a child and, since he’d have more luck if he were married, he and Alan decide to wed and adopt the child together. What follows are a plethora of obvious jokes, mostly at Alan’s expense — no one is surprised that he married a man; they all assumed he was gay already — as he girlishly demands a fancy wedding, fawns over his new husband, and brags about Walden’s attractiveness to everyone he can. Isn’t that funny, these two straight men playing gay for a roaring laugh track? It’s as low as the show can go but then, again, it goes lower. (SL Grantland)
Divorcing the Nest thermostat
The Nest thermostat, as described by usability expert Kara Pernice: "When I turned the dial to increase the heat to 66 degrees, rather than responding by making the house warmer . . . the next day the house temperature plummeted to a punishing 50 degrees. So I pull on another sweater and mittens and a hat. Indoors. And I wait until my thermostat decides that I am worthy of radiant warmth." [more inside]
Yippee Kay Yay... Mother Falcon?
Mother Falcon is an orchestral rock act with a flexible crew of a dozen-plus multi-instrumentalists. Mother Falcon got its name when its founder misheard a sanitized version of Bruce Willis' famous battle cry from Die Hard. Mother Falcon plays tiny desks at NPR, SXSW, and is getting some prominent press for its photography as well. Their lush, bouyant sound, alternately serene (Marfa, Sanctuary) and feisty (Marigold, Dirty Summer) might justify the kind of hubris they must have needed to reimagine Radiohead. [more inside]
ALIGNMENT: Beyond good and evil
Monster Pamphlets. Monsters for all your tabletop RPG needs. [slTumblr]
A thoroughgoing rejection of science, technology, and reason itself.
The Man Who Made Monet
Quotas can work if you set them yourself
I wanted to do the same for people of colour. I feel as if my decision brought home just how white my reading world was. For whatever the reason and context, it took me until I was 30 years old to learn that Octavia E. Butler existed – how embarrassing! I’m not blaming anyone or anything for this travesty, and we all know late is better than never … but I think we can do better. I shouldn’t have needed to undertake a 12-month project to discover world class authors.In 2014 Sunili Govinnage set herself the challenge to read only authors of colour for a year.
The most powerful youth movement since Punk and Hip-Hop
Twee, then, is a symptom of profound cultural exhaustion, a pop-cultural response to the death of grand narratives and radical politics: too weary to fight the corporate capitalist machine, the twee instead create hyper-stylized alternative worlds in which kittens play, ukuleles sound and childhood is eternal. Their basic disposition is melancholy rather than angry, and they will always opt for owl-print wallpaper over kicking against the pricks.In this week's TLS, Anna Katharina Schaffner discusses Twee. [more inside]
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