February 27, 2012

Transference of Power

The human form in chains. Bicycle chains.
posted by rtha at 8:59 PM PST - 25 comments

Don't take it personally

"I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine"
posted by vidur at 8:47 PM PST - 242 comments

What you see is real, but you can't see it this way with the naked eye.

Temporal Distortion "What you see is real, but you can't see it this way with the naked eye. It is the result of thousands of 20-30 second exposures, edited together to produce the time lapse. This allows you to see the Milky Way, Aurora and other Phenomena, in a way you wouldn't normally see them." More info here.
posted by HuronBob at 7:31 PM PST - 19 comments

RIP, RWA

Academic publisher Elsevier backs down. Reed Elsevier withdraws its support for the controversial Research Works Act. Not without some whining, of course. Reps. Issa and Maloney have apparently said they won't be moving the bill forward.
posted by pantarei70 at 7:23 PM PST - 45 comments

The Chinese Typewriter

As you can see, the [Chinese] typewriter is extremely complicated and cumbersome. The main tray — which is like a typesetter's font of lead type — has about two thousand of the most frequent characters. Two thousand characters are not nearly enough for literary and scholarly purposes, so there are also a number of supplementary trays from which less frequent characters may be retrieved when necessary. What is even more intimidating about a Chinese typewriter is that the characters as seen by the typist are backwards and upside down! [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 6:12 PM PST - 45 comments

Will you put an end for criminals? And do you like computers?

Youtube comments are famously bad, and nearly universally maligned. All the same,Youtube Reacts is giving them a voice (NSFW due to a great deal of cursing). [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 5:56 PM PST - 22 comments

A Treasure House of Photographs

An archival photo from The New York Times shows news pictures being sorted in the newspaper’s photo “morgue,” which houses millions of images. Here they are — several each week — for you to see. Welcome to The Lively Morgue. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 5:24 PM PST - 7 comments

what has happened to us, my songbird?

An animated short film by Chris Landreth.
posted by soft and hardcore taters at 4:58 PM PST - 8 comments

Big Red Ball

The Red Ball in Abu Dhabi. The Red Ball in Chicago. The Giant Red Ball at a concert hall in Portland. The Red Ball blocked a tunnel in Barcelona. It's a big Red Ball. [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:56 PM PST - 19 comments

Fluids in your browser

2D fluid simulation in your browser using WebGL
posted by indubitable at 3:43 PM PST - 25 comments

Stepping Out

obsessedwithshoes is just that, including a brief history of designer shoes. Shoerazzi is another.
If these are too modern you can always check out Footwear of the Middle Ages.
posted by adamvasco at 3:27 PM PST - 6 comments

MS subsidiary promoting pirated ebooks.

Daily deals sites have sprung up all over, with even Microsoft and Australia's Channel 9 TV operating one called CUDO. Last Thursday's bargain (still on sale) is an ebook reader complete with 4000 books. The listing originally included a link to the 4000 titles, which has since been removed. The title list includes many best seller books from authors such as J.K. Rowling, Douglas Adams, Stephen King, Bill Bryson and Jack Kerouac amongst others. The list originally had the heading: 4001_ibooks_for_iphone_and_ipad_epub. 5832264.TPB.torrent Which corresponds to files on the Pirate Bay, and other torrent sites. [more inside]
posted by bystander at 3:05 PM PST - 32 comments

Please don't hurt 'em Hammer

The making of Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em, and Part II. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 2:40 PM PST - 22 comments

.

Jan Berenstain, Co-Creator Of Berenstain Bears, Dies [NPR.ORG] Jan Berenstain, who with her husband, Stan, wrote and illustrated the Berenstain Bears books that have charmed preschoolers and their parents for 50 years, has died. She was 88.
posted by Fizz at 1:48 PM PST - 85 comments

Breathalyzers set to become fixtures of French parties

France has passed a law that all cars must carry a road safety kit that includes a breathalyzer, .. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 12:36 PM PST - 78 comments

I attack, follow me

The Battle of the Java Sea happened exactly seventy years ago today. Austrialian, British, Dutch and American ships set sail to stop the Japanese invasion fleet steaming towards Java. It didn't end well. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:34 PM PST - 24 comments

Make Your Thing

Make Your Thing: Metafilter's own Jesse Thorn's "12 Point Program for Absolutely, Positively 1000% No-Fail Guaranteed Success" [google cache]
posted by drezdn at 12:06 PM PST - 246 comments

The Case of the Zombie Mohammed

Pennsylvania judge Mark W. Martin dismissed assault charges against a man who attacked an atheist dressed as a zombie Mohammed in a Halloween parade, calling the victim a 'doofus.'
posted by Laminda at 11:26 AM PST - 305 comments

“History is being made, and we’re capturing it.”

I Love Photography. A rant by Allen Murabayashi. [more inside]
posted by quin at 11:06 AM PST - 27 comments

Australian dubtechno and dubstep from Westernsynthetics and friends

"Rhyece O’Neill is an intense young man. A polemical folk singer, a producer of bass-heavy dance music, a protester, and a digital media worker for a major record label. He’s unlike anyone else in Australia’s dubstep landscape." Cyclic Defrost interviews O'Neill, aka electronic/dub/dubstep producer Westernsynthetics, and head of the Sub Continental Dub label. You can skip the rest and hear two streaming mixes from Westernsynthetics, 19 tracks from the Sub Continental Dub label, plus the label's first three singles, or continue inside for background, context, and even more music. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:58 AM PST - 9 comments

Made By Hand

Craftsmen and women, some of them the last of their breed, making their art by hand and profiled in beautiful short-form videos: Knifemaker. Ornamental glass artist (previously). Master printer . Swordguard maker (previously). Beekeeper and honey maker. Stone lettercarvers. Carmaker. More, and related, at This Is Made By Hand, FolkStreams.net and (less related, but still wonderful) eGarage.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 10:45 AM PST - 19 comments

"It's not a race where you need good luck. It's a race where you've got to make sure you don't have any bad luck."

With Saturday's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (results), the Belgian professional bicycle racing season has begun. Races are contested in the capricious spring weather, on devastatingly steep hills called hellingen, winding roads, and the cobbles known as pavé. Only cycling's true hardmen win these Spring Classics. [more inside]
posted by entropone at 10:43 AM PST - 9 comments

Seth Rogen kills

Bored by the ho-hum nostalgic Oscars last night? Enjoy Seth Rogen's edgy/funny 15 minute opener to the previous night's Film Independent Spirit Awards.
posted by mathowie at 10:30 AM PST - 87 comments

Keeping it indie

This week Image Comics celebrated 20 years of producing independent comics with the Image Comics Expo, taking a look back at the past whilst announcing a raft of new titles for the future, including some Grant Morrison projects and the long awaited return of Kieron Gillen and James McKelvie's Phonogram. One strange Image comic that embraces both the past and the future is Prophet - which picks up at issue #21 of an forgotten Liefeld story and turns it into "future space Conan".
posted by Artw at 10:24 AM PST - 38 comments

Movie, the Movie, ad infinitum

Stephen Leacock once wrote a story about a single pill that could replace a full Christmas dinner. Jimmy Kimmel offers you a similar pill to replace your upcoming year of movie-going. Movie: The Movie. Warning: Contains multiple movie stars. Do not take with water.
posted by maudlin at 9:07 AM PST - 24 comments

Yunus Bakhsh

Yunus Bakhsh a Trade-Unionist Whistleblower at Northumbria Tyne and Wear NHS Trust was fired after a letter was circulated to the management stating that he "had bullied and intimidated other workers. " [Warning: most links are to the Socialist Worker website] [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 9:01 AM PST - 29 comments

Eat It, in Japan

Weird Al performs Eat It in Japan. Stay for the giant lobster man. [more inside]
posted by Think_Long at 8:23 AM PST - 11 comments

Bruce Lee vs. Ironman in stop motion animation

Bruce Lee vs. Ironman
posted by Jesse Hughson at 8:04 AM PST - 14 comments

"You don't remember anyone named Dick?" "No." "Garth? Dustin? Vic?" "I can't recall." "Lilith? Gar?" "You are boring me."

The 5 Most Ridiculously Sexist Superhero Costumes. The 8 Stupidest Defenses Against Accusations of Sexism stemming from The 5 Most Ridiculously Sexist Superhero Costumes. What If Male Superheroes’ Costumes Were Designed Like Female Superheroes’ Costumes? The Avengers Poster Gets Gender Swapped. "American superhero comics, and the sexual objectification of their heroines, reflect the conditions of their production and consumption: they are made almost exclusively by and for men." On average, women account for less than 10 percent of the production staff credited in the production of the new DC and Marvel superhero comics, and are concentrated in less prestigious roles.
posted by kyrademon at 7:16 AM PST - 123 comments

I am Winnie the Pooh

Je suis Winnie l'Ourson (I am Winnie the Pooh). Pictures of superheroes and icons living their other lives.
posted by OmieWise at 5:56 AM PST - 27 comments

Heaven and Hell On Earth

The Face of Gujarat 2002 "And when I saw the military van pass by, I thought, 'This is our last chance'. I began shouting Sahib! Sahib! to the soldiers and folded my hands, and when I did that they looked back and returned. [...] My life went into a tailspin. The picture followed me wherever I went. It haunted me, and drove me out of my job, and my state". Twelve years after the defining image of the Gujarat carnage. Previously. (Explanation of the title)
posted by the cydonian at 4:19 AM PST - 13 comments

Why the Obesity Issue Might Be More Complex Than We Think

The Link Between Adult Obesity and Childhood Trauma (Time magazine article) Felitti wondered if there was something similar barring weight loss in other patients — or causing obesity itself. In the late '80s, he began a systematic study of 286 obese people, and discovered that 50% had been sexually abused as children. That rate is more than 50% higher than the rate normally reported by women, and more than triple the average rate in men....
posted by The ____ of Justice at 3:13 AM PST - 117 comments

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