April 16, 2011

Your teacup is infringing on mine. Nu-uh, I remixed it.

Cheap 3D printing has the potential to change the way we produce and consume objects in the same way the cheap PCs and the internet changed the way we produce and consume information. Once again it is hobbyists and university labs who are democratizing the technology. They are looking forward to the day when anyone can make designer bath fixtures, functional appliances, custom surgical implants, or even business opportunities at the click of a button.

However some are warning that overly broad patents could derail the whole revolution. Even more worrisome is the prospect that existing IP law is completely unprepared for a future where the cost boundary between ideas and physical objects has crumbled. Will commercial interests demand a crack down on "pirated" printouts? Will Open Source manufacturing bring about a Star Trekian utopia? It's hard to predict what will happen when everything is commodified.
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:14 PM PST - 99 comments

Google "killed the video star"

Google has announced that "on April 29, 2011, videos that have been uploaded to Google Video will no longer be available for playback". If you happen to have uploaded video on Google Video, you have until May 13, 2011 to download uploaded videos.
posted by Mike Mongo at 9:04 PM PST - 148 comments

Top US orchestra faces bankruptcy

One of the US's world-class orchestras ... has decided it must re-organize to survive. 'A big orchestra has never done this before.' Led by Stokowski, the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded the music for Disney's groundbreaking 1940 animated feature Fantasia.

The 111-year-old ensemble acquired a top-notch reputation while under the baton of Eugene Ormandy between 1936-1980. There's been "a 'tremendous decline' in audiences over the past five years." And $33M in revenue won't cover $46M in expenses.
posted by Twang at 9:02 PM PST - 49 comments

royally silly

Not the Royal Wedding [slyt] [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 8:06 PM PST - 32 comments

AND you tightroped!!!!

Lil Buck & Yo-Yo Ma collaboration. More about the event. Charles "Lil Buck" Riley is better known for his Memphis Jookin - here are a few samples: Choppin Like That - Cartoon V; Soulja Boy - Birdwalk and Paper Planes. He also once made an appearance on Ellen's Incredible Audience Talents segment (at about 1:40)
posted by madamjujujive at 7:55 PM PST - 8 comments

"It was my skirt and my husband and your glass floor."

Last month, the BBC's Comic Relief Night (Red Nose Day, previously) featured the premiere of a two-part mini-sketch from "Doctor Who" penned by current showrunner Steven Moffat: Time and Space. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:30 PM PST - 23 comments

Cover Your Nose - or - Love Is In The Air

Bad (and some so bad they're good) excerpts from bad romance novels. Includes things like: "And as he ground sinuously against her tender flesh, she began to quake and contract, whimpering with tortured delight. Her senses exploded; her very body seemed to dissolve into a fierce, white-hot blast of elemental heat. And in that boundless, exploding star of pleasure she felt his essence mingle with hers as he buried his face in her hair and erupted, pouring his passion into her soft, responsive frame."
posted by fantodstic at 6:41 PM PST - 95 comments

Democracy revoked.

Benton Harbor's elected officials have been unelected by the Governor of Michigan. [more inside]
posted by tomswift at 6:28 PM PST - 73 comments

ba-ba-baba wak-wakka-wakka: Into The Music Library

Ubiquitous yet mysterious, timeless yet tied to a golden age, mainstream yet frequently experimental: the BBC steps Into The Music Library. While music libraries like DeWolfe and KPM are best known as the source of many classic TV themes and film soundtracks, they're also responsible for incidental compilations are now both influential and appreciated in their own right, such as Basil Kirchin's Abstractions of the Industrial North and Barbara Moore's Vocal Shades and Tones.
posted by holgate at 5:36 PM PST - 4 comments

Notes From Chris

Todd Lamb has put together a gallery of notes he's posted around New York City which request people to meet "Chris" to do tedious things. (Previous Todd Lamb) [more inside]
posted by gman at 4:59 PM PST - 25 comments

The Clean Sheets Revival Show

I ain't gonna pee-pee my bed tonight. YouTUbe; 2.10. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 4:49 PM PST - 52 comments

Observing Earth

We tend to think of blogs that showcase large images as a phenomenon of the past few years. But NASA's Earth Observatory has been posting its Image of the Day since April 1999 (when its first "large" image available for download was a 214 KB jpeg of the North Pole). Now, Image of the Day has downloads of images in multiple formats, most of which measure in megabytes, not kilobytes, and these stunning images of the earth's surface give context to the human activity down below: a toxic spill in Hungary, wildfires in Mexico, the growth of a coal mine in West Virginia, agriculture in Brazil, snowmelt flooding in Fargo, North Dakota, last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, artificial islands in Dubai, the aftermath of Japan's recent tsunami.
posted by ocherdraco at 4:26 PM PST - 4 comments

Yet Another Music Sequencer

A cellular-automaton-based music sequencer. For when you're ready to upgrade from the (multiply) previously posted Matrix Watch this demo for inspiration.
posted by Obscure Reference at 4:20 PM PST - 29 comments

I Have 1 Day

I Have 1 Day is a pixel-graphic point-and-click game, very cleverly executed. [more inside]
posted by timory at 2:44 PM PST - 12 comments

"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia." - Margaret Atwood

Dear Canada: [SLYT] An Open Letter to Canada.
posted by Fizz at 2:34 PM PST - 34 comments

tickling animal roundup of cuteness

Attention Internet: This is a penguin being tickled. [more inside]
posted by flex at 2:24 PM PST - 70 comments

I'm in love. What's that song?

Color Me Obsessed is a new documentary about legendary Minneapolis rock band The Replacements. It features over 140 interviews with rockers, journalists and fans (including Colin Meloy, Craig Finn, Tommy Ramone and Robert Christgau) but not one note of the Mats music. Director Gorman Bechard has been documenting the making of the film on his blog and screening it in select cities.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:49 AM PST - 63 comments

Timelapse

El Tiede: The Mountain. A timelapse of shots taken from the El Tiede mountain, known for being an excellent site for astrological observations. Includes a timelapse of the Milky Way, as seen through a sandstorm coming off from the Sahara Desert. (SLYT)
posted by flibbertigibbet at 9:46 AM PST - 15 comments

The Other Birthers; or, Trig Trutherism

Palin, the Press, and the Fake Pregnancy Rumor: Did a Spiral of Silence Shut Down the Story? Kentucky journalism professor Brad Scharlott makes a case. Reporter (and former Palin communications director) Bill McAllister, mentioned by name in Scharlott's article, says 'If we ever meet, I'll slap you.' Scharlott writes an op-ed in response. [more inside]
posted by box at 7:50 AM PST - 233 comments

Tina Fey's A Mother’s Prayer for Its Child

"First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches." Tina Fey's The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter from her new book Bossypants. You can hear her read this piece at the beginning of her interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
posted by Kattullus at 7:26 AM PST - 95 comments

How to Disappear Completely

Mike Massé does a lot of nice covers - to a smattering of customers live at Pie Pizza in South Jordan, Utah [more inside]
posted by Arch_Stanton at 7:19 AM PST - 10 comments

Join the Adventure

The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail is America’s first water-based national historic trail. It consists of the combined routes of Smith’s historic voyages on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in 1607-1609. Designated by Congress in December 2006, the trail stretches approximately 3,000 miles up and down the Bay and along tributaries in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 6:37 AM PST - 5 comments

Look Ma, no hands!

Chinese Pole Dancing (SLYT, SFW) — More than it says on the tin.
posted by cenoxo at 6:34 AM PST - 17 comments

The Origin of All Language

In the current issue of Science, a New Zealand researcher, Quentin Atkinson has published his findings there was a single origin of human language. (abtract only: article behind paywall) Using the phoneme as the unit of analysis, Atkinson investigated whether phonemes demonstrated a serial founder effect, analogous to the genetic process. Results support an African origin of human language. [more inside]
posted by palindromic at 6:13 AM PST - 30 comments

Coffee and Torts

Hot Coffee, a documentary film by Susan Saladoff, debuted at Sundance to considerably more enthusiasm than one would expect for a film about tort reform. [more inside]
posted by steambadger at 6:07 AM PST - 32 comments

Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Amen

File-Sharers Await Official Recognition of New Religion
* All knowledge to all
* The search for knowledge is sacred
* The circulation of knowledge is sacred
* The act of copying is sacred.


Too religious for you? Then try the remix manifesto.
posted by telstar at 3:21 AM PST - 59 comments

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