August 18, 2009
Show your bones
ECCEROBOT - Embodied Cognition in a creepy looking Compliantly Engineered Robot, an anthropomimetic robot whose plastic bones and joints imitate the body structures of the fleshy ones.
World Pandemic Control
The Great Flu — "Even at the lowest difficulty this game delivers a sense of just how hard it is to handle and contain the spread of a dangerous virus." (via)
"We dragged your sorry ass through the Underground Railroad."
Are the ties that bind gay men to straight women beginning to fray?
Proto-Aliens
Short Versions
It's just you, a roll of tape and the internet, so why not?
VIMBY?
Suburban farming, an idea whose time may have come. Short and sweet SLYT from the Wall Street Journal about people growing herbs and vegetables in their own yards in American suburbia.
We're all, like, cosmic children, man!
In 2004, the Stardust mission passed through the tail of comet 81P/Wild (aka Wild 2); in 2006, that captured comet dust was returned to Earth. Now, researchers have found glycine, one of the amino acids in proteins, in that cometary material. [more inside]
"No One Told Me the Price of Admission Would Be...a BROKEN HEART!"
The Woodstock Festival ended forty years ago today, on August 18, 1969* -- and roughly, um, two years later, Marvel Comics was there! Writer Gary Friedrich and (wildly overqualified) artist Gray Morrow bring you an improbably cleanly tale of romance that first appeared in issue #14 of Marvel's My Love (November 1971): "It Happened at Woodstock!" (Guest-starring Janis Joplin, among others.) [more inside]
Fat, Depressed & 35 y.o.
"The average video gamer is not the stereotypical adolescent locked to a computer screen 24/7."* According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and Andrews University: "A new study [PDF] says the average age of video-game players in the United States is 35 [PDF], and oh, by the way: They're overweight and tend to be depressed." [more inside]
Why only desert as far as the eye can see?
Make mine Laudanum!
Steampunk is OK, but I prefer Victorian Lowbrow.
Insanewiches
Reverse Engrish
Ronald McDonald is so-o-o last year. The new McDonalds mascot in Japan is "Mr. James", a nerdy white guy from Ohio who speaks broken Japanese in the new ads for their "Nippon All Stars" sandwiches. Here's his blog (copyright McDonalds), translated by Google. FRANCA (Foreign Residents And Nationalized Citizens Association) want MickeyD's to dump him. Those Wacky Japanese!
Fading towns of coastal British Columbia
Land's End: Photographer and writer Christopher Grabowski documents the fading industrial towns of the British Columbia coast. Interview, and some of his other Photo Essays at Geist Magazine.
Paper money as art
Banknotes are a fascinating look into the artistry and culture of the countries of the world. [more inside]
The GOP's Misplaced Rage
+fixie -hipster
Two girls, one bike. SLYT, SFW. One bike starts at 2'25".
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine
Do I know you?
What you don't know about your friends: The problem, [Francis Flynn, a psychology professor at Stanford] says, is that interacting with people and sharing experiences with them doesn’t necessarily translate into knowing lots of things about them. The main hurdle is the way we talk to those we’re close to: our conversations are usually meant not so much to gather information as to establish rapport and to bond - in short, to make friends.
ART/new york
Paul Tschinkel is the producer and director of the series called ART/new york. -- After showing video pieces in New York galleries, he turned to the fledgling New York cable system (Manhattan Cable downtown and Warner Cable uptown), producing a half hour weekly arts program - a gallery on television. From 1974 to 1979 Paul Tschinkel's Inner- Tube was devoted to conceptual and narrative video art pieces. [more inside]
Fiji Water.
Save vs. Obscurity
The Play-Generated Map and Document Archive: finally providing a place to put all those odd doodles, detailed maps, and character sketches that come out of your weekly gaming sessions. [more inside]
Girl Talk goes EBN.
A video playlist of the entire 'Feed the Animals' album by Girl Talk, aka mashup wunderkind Greg Gillis. [more inside]
Mad Men on Acid
The Prince is dead
Use it or lose it - run for knee health
Running is actually good for your knees, if you haven't suffered knee injuries in the past. [D]espite entrenched mythology to the contrary, runners don’t seem prone to degenerating knees. An important 2008 study, this one from Stanford University, followed middle-aged, longtime distance runners (not necessarily marathoners) for nearly 20 years, beginning in 1984, when most were in their 50s or 60s. At that time, 6.7 percent of the runners had creaky, mildly arthritic knees, while none of an age-matched control group did. After 20 years, however, the runners’ knees were healthier; only 20 percent showed arthritic changes, versus 32 percent of the control group’s knees. Barely 2 percent of the runners’ knees were severely arthritic, while almost 10 percent of the control group’s were.
A very good article on health care economics
How American Health Care Killed My Father After the needless death of his father, the author, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. And the health-care reform now being contemplated will not fix it. Here’s a radical solution to an agonizing problem. (via mr) [more inside]
Don't go in there!
The Road to Moloch. A short film.
Will the genre of rag-tag band of (battle-hardened soldiers/sex-crazy students/escaped convicts) stumbles upon (cave in the desert/cabin in the woods/house on the hill) and unearths (unspeakable zombie terror/undead apocalypse/soul stealing demons) ever get old?
Watch The Guild
Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? The Guild (previously) releases a music video prior to the start of Season 3. Direct youtube link. [more inside]
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