August 5, 2012

Godly Locks: Inside L.A.'s Bizarre Human Hair Business

Wig-making may be the only industry that relies on religious devotion, Hollywood glamor, and raw materials harvested from human heads.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:00 PM PST - 17 comments

Curiouser and curiouser

NASA commentary on Curiosity landing has just started, landing itself is expected two hours later, at 5:31 am UTC/10:31 pm PDT. [more inside]
posted by egor83 at 8:34 PM PST - 1206 comments

Scientology headquarters

Scientology's international headquarters - known as Gold Base - is located on a 500-acre parcel of land south of San Jacinto, California. It "has a number of unusually strong security measures, including razor-tipped fences, motion sensors, snipers nests and a large number of regular and infrared CCTV cameras." It also houses a detention center for executives referred to as "The Hole". (previously) [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 7:22 PM PST - 128 comments

"The off-label intervention ... aims only at sex normalization".

From the Northwestern University press release: A new paper just published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry uses extensive Freedom of Information Act findings to detail an extremely troubling off-label medical intervention employed in the U.S. on pregnant women to intentionally engineer the development of their fetuses for sex normalization purposes. [more inside]
posted by mhoye at 7:04 PM PST - 74 comments

Careful in the morning.

Public Service Announcement About Spiders. Just so you know.
posted by sweetkid at 6:44 PM PST - 63 comments

I do not advise you to do as I have done. Any modifications will most likely void any warranty.

Like coffee? Maybe even looking to buy a home-roaster? Not enough, you say? Check out the Hot Rod Home Coffee Roasters of those that have gone beyond. [more inside]
posted by brappi at 6:13 PM PST - 14 comments

two Erics summarize SCIENCE! for life improvement & greater understanding

Barking Up The Wrong Tree distils scientific research, focused on its motto: "I want to understand why we do what we do and use the answers to be awesome at life." With a gradual shift to more digest posts packed with links to summaries & sources, a sampling of the past couple weeks includes: What are 10 things you should do every day to improve your life? - What are 10 things you should do every week to improve your life? - 25 research-based ways to increase your intelligence - What are 7 things that can make you happier in 7 seconds? - 7 steps to never procrastinating again. Another blog along the same lines but less glib & immediate is Peer-Reviewed By My Neurons; recently: How confusion facilitates learning - The science of coming on too strong - Want to be creative? Play Dungeons & Dragons [more inside]
posted by flex at 5:32 PM PST - 39 comments

Drink the coconut water I cannot get in America

A little known gem of americana, Calypso is Like so....., was recorded by actor Robert Mitchum in 1957. The record was inspired by Mitchum's meeting Mighty Sparrow and Lord Invader while filming in Tobago. Wonderfully catchy, and amusingly anachronistic, the album contains such gems as Jean and Dinah, I Learn A Merengue, Mama Look at Boo boo, and From a Logical Point of View".
posted by sp160n at 4:44 PM PST - 11 comments

Sikh Temple Shooting in Wisconsin

Early Sunday morning a man entered a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six and wounding three, and was killed in a shootout with police SWAT personnel. [more inside]
posted by Evilspork at 3:43 PM PST - 552 comments

Free as in free to laugh at you, not with you

MooGNU is a copyleft alternative to nyancat Created by GNU/linux fans who are unable to enjoy the original because of "legal issues" MooGNU is a copyleft version of Nyancat, except obviously it is a GNU and has a slightly less catchy song.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 1:35 PM PST - 56 comments

Watch with one eye, hear with one ear, hand-made celluloid films!

A tale from Van Phuc village is a short film by Tibetan filmmaker Tsering Tashi Gyalthang. Half-fiction/half-documentary, this short shows the singular craft of Nguyen Van Long, who spent several decades entertaining children in the Thu Le park in Hanoi, Vietnam by playing his hand-made flipbook cartoons or 5-min celluloid movies on a Soviet projector.
posted by elgilito at 9:35 AM PST - 3 comments

Municipal Bankruptcy in the United States

Over the last few months, a few cities around the United States have experienced their own, unique, fiscal crisis: bankruptcy. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:28 AM PST - 76 comments

Double jump.

ASCIIvania, is a metroidvania game where you collect letters in order to complete words and make obstacles disappear so that you can continue exploring. The game ends when you find every letter. [more inside]
posted by ersatz at 9:12 AM PST - 30 comments

Chicks In Luxury

Petter Lippmann photographs elegant poultry.
posted by The Whelk at 8:45 AM PST - 27 comments

Bless me Father, for I have sinned

The Calendario Romano, aka "the most typical souvenir from Rome," is looking for a few good men: "single clergymen and seminaristi" who wish to be featured are welcome to contact the being followed author of the Calendar to deliveries. Inevitable video tribute! [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 8:24 AM PST - 13 comments

"the better Autocorrect gets, the more we will come to rely on it"

Auto Crrect Ths! by James Gleick [NYTimes.com]
posted by Fizz at 7:42 AM PST - 44 comments

Pareidoloop

  1. generate random polygons
  2. feed them into a face detector
  3. mutate to increase recognition confidence
[more inside]
posted by griphus at 7:36 AM PST - 33 comments

Two Sides To Every Story

Half-Drag is photographer Leland Bobbé's series capturing both the 'male and the alter-ego female side' of a person's face in a single image.
posted by gman at 6:54 AM PST - 26 comments

The story of OMG seriously?

Katrina Lumsden reads the Fifty Shades of Grey books so you don't have to:
Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades Darker
Fifty Shades Freed
(contains animated gifs)
posted by Artw at 6:51 AM PST - 189 comments

I am a lego on the wind.

Lego Serenity [more inside]
posted by Fleebnork at 6:45 AM PST - 14 comments

"Earth laughs in flowers" - Emerson

The Life of Flowers is a timelapse of blooms opening put to music. It's simple and lovely.
posted by quin at 6:21 AM PST - 5 comments

Every Radio Has Them

WHAT IS A WILD TONE? "Wild Tones" live in Radios. They're the Bad Tones that escape from the back of your speaker. They like to howl and screech and beat booming drums... they ruin good music... every chance they get. Yeoooooooo EEK! BONG! BOOM [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:26 AM PST - 4 comments

When you do not like human beings you cannot make good portraits.

Giselle Freund, was born in Germany in 1908 .
In the 1930' she photographed ( 9 pages ) the Who's Who of Paris intelligensia, esp. James Joyce.
A charming Video of some of her stills.
In January, 1933, Hitler became chancellor of the Reich and established his dictatorship in Germany. Many of those I photographed on that May Day in 1932 became members of the Nazi party; others ended up in concentration camps.
In exile in Argentina (invited by Victoria Ocampo) she explored Patagonia; and her pictures of Evita Peron together with her political stance later caused her problems with the Americans.
L’Oeil Frontière Paris 1933-1940 and some later photos.
posted by adamvasco at 5:24 AM PST - 4 comments

| Julian Carrillo and the 13th Sound : a microtonal musical system | Julián Carrillo y el Sonido

| Julian Carrillo and the 13th Sound : a microtonal musical system | Julián Carrillo y el Sonido 13 : un sistema musical microtonal |
posted by beshtya at 3:26 AM PST - 10 comments

Hierarchies of hats will still be allowed (nay, encouraged)

The current system of corporate governance is bunk. Capitalist corporations are on the way to certain extinction. Replete with hierarchies that are exceedingly wasteful of human talent and energies, intertwined with toxic finance, co-dependent with political structures that are losing democratic legitimacy fast, a form of post-capitalist, decentralised corporation will, sooner or later, emerge.
An analysis of the management and organizational style of Valve Software.
posted by barnacles at 3:24 AM PST - 31 comments

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