June 22, 2013

And now for something completely animated

All of Terry Gilliam's animation bits from Monty Python's Flying Circus: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 (SLYT, NSFW)
posted by Room 641-A at 10:17 PM PST - 31 comments

The Internet's Bad 90's-Era Design Embracing Shadow Government

Since at least November 4th, 2004, the Internet has secretly been under the rule of a shadowy, unelected government led by a secretive "Office of the President of the Internet." Media accounts claim that Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian may have been a recent candidate for the office. Other sources suggest The Tech Guy, Leo Laporte, may have been elected in July 2009. [more inside]
posted by saulgoodman at 10:13 PM PST - 26 comments

A framerate draws near!

Dragon Quest X is on its way to Windows later this year, and they've released perhaps the most charming benchmark ever (download is the green button about halfway down for those who can't read Japanese) so you can see if your computer can run it. [more inside]
posted by luvcraft at 9:49 PM PST - 20 comments

Sign me up

Meet Holly Maniatty, the sign language interpreter who has brought the words of Wu-Tang Clan, Marilyn Manson, Killer Mike, Bruce Springsteen and the Beastie Boys to the deaf.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:26 PM PST - 13 comments

Aquaria by Bit Blot (PC/Mac/Linux/Android, 2007-2011).

"The Verse flows throughout Aquaria, through each ripple and wave, through every living being. The Verse binds us, narrator and explorer: my story will become your own, and yours will become mine. You will live my life through my eyes, and you will learn the truth… In time, I would discover far more than I'd wish to learn." [more inside]
posted by Nomyte at 8:03 PM PST - 7 comments

Everything thing he does, he does it for... Vogue, etc., also you

Bryan Adams, the photographer. Most people know Bryan Adams as the Heartland Rocker from Canada who scored hit after ubiquitous hit in the meat-and-potatoes rock and pop-rock mold in the 1980s and early '90s, a la "Summer of '69" and "Everything I Do (I Do It For You." Comparatively few, however, know about his second career, as a successful editorial and advertising photographer who has work published in Vogue, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar and many other glossy magazines, and shown in exhibits in worldwide. [more inside]
posted by raysmj at 7:30 PM PST - 95 comments

Burgess Meredith sold separately

Building conversions can be a tricky business, but it's especially so when there is a fifty ton steel vault built into the structure. So what can you do with that old bank? Well, restaurants are popular. So are nightclubs and bars. Really big banks seem to be a natural for a hotel conversion (here's one in progress). And if all that sounds too fancy, well, how about a Walgreens? [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:34 PM PST - 52 comments

The eye follows the paths that have been laid down for it in the work

From this, one can make a deduction which is quite certainly the ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle-maker has made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 4:34 PM PST - 6 comments

There’s strictly nothing morbid in my work.

Jim's skullgallery; be sure to click sculpture and then the little numbers and you will see more like these with their inspiration in Amerindian and Oceanian cult objects .
A short interview with Jim Skull.
posted by adamvasco at 4:15 PM PST - 5 comments

a long tradition of black artists for whom self-love is a political act

In Defense Of Kanye’s Vanity: The Politics Of Black Self-Love
"Kanye West has become a pop-culture punch line, but those who have dismissed him as aimlessly arrogant have missed the point. He is part of a long tradition of black artists who have fashioned a deeply political articulation of what it means to love yourself."

Previously on Metafilter: Complete awesomeness at all times
posted by andoatnp at 2:59 PM PST - 284 comments

The Gay Internment Camp on San Domino, a Product of Fascist Italy

Though homosexual activities weren't a crime under Italy's fascist regime, there was persecution and blackmail of men of "dubious virility." The hidden threat of homosexual men was so strong that the attempt to criminalize homosexuality failed because to pass such a law would only "publicize" homosexuality (Google books preview). It was in that context that Benito Mussolini declared Italy too masculine for homosexuals to exist, rounded up around 45 men believed to be homosexuals, and sent them into "internal exile" on San Domino, in the Isole Tremiti archepeligo. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:16 PM PST - 16 comments

They Wrote About Marcel Proust Wrote About

Between 1994 and 1998, P. Segal edited a zine about Marcel Proust called Proust Said That. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:36 PM PST - 9 comments

Peter Molyneux picks his favourite iPhone fart app

"Peter Molyneux has had a long and storied career. As the creator of Populous, Black & White, Fable, and the recent iPhone experiment Curiosity, he's been no stranger to ambitious concepts throughout his 30-year history in the industry. I had a chance to sit down with Peter at E3 this year, and picked his brain about three of the top fart apps on the app store."
posted by rollick at 12:44 PM PST - 15 comments

As if baking wasn't complicated enough already

17 cooking projects ain't nobody got time for. [more inside]
posted by KathrynT at 11:45 AM PST - 119 comments

On Dinosaur Time...

Less time separates us from Tyrannosaurus rex than separated T. rex from Stegosaurus.
posted by Artw at 11:08 AM PST - 66 comments

Search the memory of The Netherlands

The Memory of the Netherlands is an image library making available the online collections of museums, archives and libraries. The library provides access to images from the collections of more than one hundred institutions and includes photographs, sculptures, paintings, bronzes, pottery, modern art, drawings, stamps, posters and newspaper clippings. In addition there are also video and sound recordings to see and listen to. The Memory of the Netherlands offers an historic overview of images from exceptional collections, organized by subject to provide easy access
Search 833928 objects from 133 collections from 100 institutions.
posted by infini at 11:06 AM PST - 4 comments

"Inappropriate and hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable."

Last month, Paula Deen gave a deposition (full transcript) for a discrimination lawsuit brought against her and her brother by a former employee. In it, she stated that "of course" she had used "the n-word" in the past and responded to questions regarding a "very southern-style wedding" in which the servers would be "professional black men doing a fabulous job." This week, Deen recorded, posted, and then made private three slightly different videos of apology. The Food Network has since announced that it will not renew her contract when it expires at the end of this month. [more inside]
posted by houseofdanie at 9:49 AM PST - 374 comments

Do you have the sun in a can?

Sometimes you don't need expensive professional cameras to make spectacular photos. Instead sometimes all you need is a beer can and a sheet of photographic paper. That's how the Philippus Lansbergen Observatory in Middelburg captured the movement of the Sun over a six month period, through a socalled solargraph. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 9:39 AM PST - 9 comments

Ken Burns' World War Z

Finally, the faithful movie adaptation of Max Brooks' "World War Z" that we deserve.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:00 AM PST - 72 comments

The ZXX typeface: Zalgo meets Captcha to prevent OCR

During my service in the Korean military, I worked for two years as special intelligence personnel for the NSA, learning first-hand how to extract information from defense targets. Now, as a designer, I am influenced by these experiences and I have become dedicated to researching ways to “articulate our unfreedom” and to continue the evolution of my own thinking about censorship, surveillance, and a free society.
ZXX is a disruptive typeface designed by an ex-Korean intelligence officer to prevent automated text processing. ZXX Type Specimen Video. Project site offers a free download (.zip, 77 KB).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:50 AM PST - 43 comments

Why Do Americans Have the Worst DVRs?

Our digital recorders cut off the last minutes of sporting events and our favorite shows. That doesn’t happen in Europe.
posted by beisny at 6:52 AM PST - 61 comments

“We were for the Contras in Nicaragua; wary of affirmative action,”

Matt Welch, Reason: The Death of Contrarianism
Klein, then at The American Prospect, a progressive D.C. opinion magazine founded in 1990, wanted Peters, founder (in 1969) of The Washington Monthly, to answer for the way neoliberalism had degenerated into lefty-on-lefty contrarianism. “What has happened, at least to some younger folks like me,” Klein said, “is that at times this appears to have become not an honest critique, but a positioning device. The idea that it’s not about the quality of the argument, but the display: You show honesty by attacking Democrats, you show independence by attacking liberals. At times I think that has been a damaging impulse on our side.”
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:05 AM PST - 30 comments

A Revolution in Fiction Unfolds

Nill Kamui is an independent island caught in a power struggle between the forces of Donatia, the land of Knights and the Church, and Koran, an empire of secrets and the immortal empress Ghost Mother. When the Red Dragon, the ancient protector of the island, goes berserk and starts killing for no reason, a desperate plan is hatched: a team of representatives from each of the three powers is given a mission to find why the Red Dragon went mad and stop him by any means necessary. Red Dragon is a tabletop RPG campaign with its own trailer, and that's not all. [more inside]
posted by 23 at 1:15 AM PST - 20 comments

Forgotten 1960s 'Thunderbirds' projects brought to life

Forgotten 1960s 'Thunderbirds' projects brought to life. The "Multi-Unit Space Transport and Recovery Device" (MUSTARD), the "Jumping Jeep", and the "Intercity Vertical-Lift Aircraft". "British arms company BAE has recently been through its archives and publicised some of the projects dreamed up in the glory days of the 1960s, when designers' imaginations were allowed to run riot with little consideration of practicality or budget." From The Economist magazine, which has period sketches of the designs.
posted by alasdair at 12:06 AM PST - 10 comments

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