July 7, 2017
15 Years Later, Here's Why A Gamer Was Duct-Taped To A Ceiling
In which Eric Van Allen from Kotaku tracks down the people behind a 15 year old photo of a LAN party with someone duct-taped to a ceiling beam. You know, like usual.
Joy delights in Joy
Find something to do that makes you as happy as Bunk [laughter]. Or as this guy on the gymnastic rings [laughter]. Or as Chago on a trampoline [dog and human noises]. But maybe not quite as happy as Casey [squealing, whining and helpless laughter].
Blues, the Beginning, and Rock & Roll, the End
How the blues evolved and is still going strong. Followed by an essay on rock & roll and its beginnings, using the blues, and predicting its end: Like Iggy Pop? Thank Your Grandparents.
PIU FORTE
The Toscanini Wars
For many years, Arturo Toscanini was the pinnacle of musical excitement for classical-music lovers in this country—and also for many casual listeners, who enjoyed the sensation of having their pulse rate raised. He was at the center of an American experiment in art and commerce that now scarcely seems credible: late in the Depression, in 1937, RCA, which owned two NBC radio networks, created a virtuoso orchestra especially for him, and kept it going until 1954. The NBC Symphony gave concerts in New York that were broadcast on national radio, and then, starting in 1948, on national television.Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the William Tell Overture, 1952 [more inside]
Caught red-pawed!
Bored Panda has amassed 234+ pets who were caught red-handed.
A storm is coming...
...a Geostorm! - the incredibly stupid looking disaster movie from Gerard Butler and Dean Devlin which just got a a new trailer.
Letters and Liquor
"Because my love for the culture of cocktails is so strong, it was only a matter of time before it became part of my professional work. As a graphic designer, my specialty is lettering, and the spirits world is replete with lettering styles. This blog is an attempt to merge my knowledge of cocktail history with the developments in lettering that accompanied it."
Being smugly witty is probably not that helpful
Being right is not really enough. One might be able to bring down the house by quoting Jon Stewart or even Mencken ("In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican"), but what will that do, really?
Emmet Penney at Paste descries the way liberals wistfully think their sharp wit knives will be sufficient at a gunfight.
existing on the border between living and still life
Israeli ceramicist Ronit Baranga‘s “body of work” is unsettling, to say the least. Sculpted from clay, realistic fingers emerge from plates while mouths lurk inside cups. The gnarled fingers and lips seem poised for action. We would most certainly hesitate before using any of these for fear of being bitten. [SFW; may be disturbing to some.] [more inside]
Was tun... wenn's jefeiert, wa? #partypolizei #sexorgy
After a particularly raucous night of partying, Berliner police assigned to the G-20 summit in Hamburg were recalled last week. [more inside]
What a Glorious Feeling
"Apparently there is not enough fake news for the US government"
"The Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs wants to start a fake Twitter feud." A Stanford law professor received an unusual request. A representative of a United States State Department office invited him to help stage a pretend spat via Twitter. [more inside]
“Exclamation points of the landscape.”
A giant coffee pot that doubles as a restaurant, drive-in movie theaters, old gas pumps and vintage hotels: these are but a few of the examples included in the John Margolies Roadside America Photograph Archive. This summer, the Library of Congress made its Margolies holdings—one of the most comprehensive documentary studies of 20th-century U.S. vernacular architecture—available digitally on the website. [more inside]
Chalking Day
From the start the horse would have required regular upkeep to stay visible. It might seem strange that the horse’s creators chose such an unstable form for their monument, but archaeologists believe this could have been intentional. A chalk hill figure requires a social group to maintain it, and it could be that today’s cleaning is an echo of an early ritual gathering that was part of the horse’s original function.
Cimorelli
Cimorelli are six sisters who first became popular on YouTube singing (mostly) acapella covers of pop songs. In the last year, the group, whose target audience is young girls, has released two albums of their own original songs and a book with empowering life lessons. To their young fans, they offer a simple message: "You are already unique, precious and valuable. You don’t have to change who you are to be lovable." You're Worth It. [more inside]
Pitch Drop Experiment
Behold, the world's longest-running lab experiment. Any day now, a drop of pitch will detach itself and plop to the bottom of the beaker. It will be just the 9th time that the pitch has dropped since the experiment began in 1927.
Live link here, if you can handle the suspense.
Previously, previouslier, previousliest.
“...because Final Fantasy is what you make of it. It's not predefined.”
The Making of Final Fantasy 12 [Polygon] “Controversy trails behind the Final Fantasy series with each new release. From cries of betrayal when Final Fantasy 7 jumped ship to PlayStation to frustration over the story changes Final Fantasy 15 underwent during its tortuous 10-year development process, there's simply no such thing as an easy birth when it comes to Square Enix's biggest franchise. Final Fantasy 12, the 2006 PlayStation release whose overhauled high-definition remake The Zodiac Age launches July 11, may well have been the most tortuous release of all. Arriving years late and abandoning numerous established series traditions in favor of a radically overhauled play style, FF12 immediately inspired ardent enthusiasm and passionate hatred among the series' faithful, with seemingly little room in between.” [more inside]
it's simple and easy cuz you know what to do
hi, I'm Steve, a short animation about someone who isn't named Steve. By Bill Wurtz of whom previously and thus and so forth.
My grandfather was a death row doctor
For three years at the end of his life, Dr. Lee Hartman worked as a resident physician and psychiatrist at Huntsville’s Wynne Unit. From 1960 to 1963, he witnessed at least 14 executions as presiding physician, his signature scrawled on the death certificates of the condemned men. All of them died in the electric chair – “Ol’ Sparky” – a grisly method that left flesh burned and bodies smoking in the death chamber as my grandfather read their vital signs.
"I will never forget my old truck"
Eight months after the Berlin wall fell, Albania's isolationist communist regime was still in power. On July 2, 1990, Ylli Bodinaku took his “Liaz” truck and, with his wife and children in the passenger cab, smashed it through the back wall of the German embassy in Tirana. Three thousand people flooded into the embassy through the hole Bodinaku created. Muri (The Wall): Path of Remembrance is a public art project that examines the "barriers of the past" and commemorates Bodinaku's fateful decision with an installation located exactly where he broke through the wall 27 years ago this month. [more inside]
Mechanics of Choice
In Atlas Obscura, author Jay Leibold explains how he mapped the plots of his Choose Your Own Adventure Books.
"The masses have erred, but my Dao is TRUE! PERENNIAL WILL!"
When people think of Wuxia novels, we might think of titans like Louis Cha, but serialised wuxia and fantasy novels are really big business in China.
Fantastic genres are, in fact, some of the most popular of all electronically published Chinese fiction (genre categories here), earning authors rabid fanbases and millions of readers. Of course it's not all fun and games (thanks CCP!). Don't read putonghua? Not a problem, heaps of english translations are popping up. [more inside]
Making Homes
A photo essay by Shahria Sharmin about the dual lives of hijras in Bangladesh.
One Belt, One Road (OBOR) to gird the world
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (also known variously as The New Silk Road, OBOR, and One Belt, One Road) is a multi-faceted strategy aimed at boosting the flow of trade, capital and services between China and the rest of the world, involving over 65 countries which together account for 29% of global GDP and 63% of the world's population. OBOR is an ambitious plan to build and upgrade highways, railways, ports, and other infrastructure throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe designed to enrich the economies of China and its trading partners. Since 2014, the initiative has generated enthusiasm and high hopes but also skepticism and wariness.
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