August 22, 2014

BOING!

A subreddit full of cats being ( amusingly) startled. ( hat tip feckless fecal fear mongering)
posted by The Whelk at 11:05 PM PST - 30 comments

" They were paying for an experience. "

Behind Claude’s Doors
In 1960s Paris she became known as the world’s most exclusive madam, whose client list was said to include John Kennedy, de Gaulle, Onassis, and multiple Rothschilds, and whose beautiful and cultivated girls often went on to marry wealth, power, and prestige. But among the many secrets Madame Claude kept, perhaps the greatest were her own. William Stadiem, who knew the elusive Claude in the 1980s, follows her trail to the South of France.
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:54 PM PST - 16 comments

Getting to Know Whale Vaginas in 7 Steps

...the big baleen whales can be over 100 feet in length, so their reproductive tracts likely wind for several feet. That’s a vagina you could walk through. (SFW)
posted by viggorlijah at 8:27 PM PST - 30 comments

This Post Demands a Knee-Jerk Reaction

Human infants are born with a series of reflexes that help them survive -- or that helped their primate or mammalian ancestors survive, whose persistence marks their importance to primate survival. Reflexes are typically not sent to the brain; they occur along a much shorter pathway called a "reflex arc" (your doctor triggers a simple reflex arc by hitting your kneecap with a hammer; you can't control your leg kicking because the signal doesn't go to your brain but rather hits a reflex arc that is much shorter and only goes to your spinal cord) and "primitive" reflexes in infants are those that disappear and are "integrated" and overwritten by the growing nervous system. You can keep your adult knee-jerk reactions -- infants have much cooler reflexes. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:19 PM PST - 31 comments

Hey you, up in the sky, learning to fly, tell me how high.

Why We're Not Driving the Friendly Skies A number of us can thank a cartoon character from the future, George Jetson, for instilling our longing. Students of aviation history might look for inspiration to the Autoplane prototype built in 1917 by the flight pioneer Glenn Curtiss. And tens of millions of motorists who have been stuck in traffic jams stretching toward the horizon must also feel a need to know: Where are the flying cars?
posted by modernnomad at 8:14 PM PST - 25 comments

I've witnessed strange things ...

Jeff VanderMeer reflects on connections between personal experience and written SF/fantasy, including those in his own work as well as that of Angela Carter, Lev Grossman, Ann Leckie, Lauren Beukes, and Nnedi Okorafor. [more inside]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:21 PM PST - 7 comments

Three little letters, and it was time to fight.

The Loudest Word in Rock and Roll: "In a lot of ways it's really perfect and very cool, almost gang-like: 'We are The Stooges or The Kinks or The Sisters of Mercy.' The mind-set is, 'There is only one of us and we are it and we are gonna do it our way, no mercy.'" [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:36 PM PST - 36 comments

The Bro Whisperer

Bryan Goldberg's site for women was doomed from the start. One year later (previously), [bustle.com is] hugely successful. What’s his secret?" (Amanda Hess for Slate)
posted by box at 5:47 PM PST - 20 comments

Please, mom, when can I use the iPad?

Adult females replace teenage boys as the largest gaming demographic.
posted by jfuller at 5:14 PM PST - 149 comments

Haiku Decisis

Below you’ll find a haiku extracted from a random Supreme Court opinion.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 5:06 PM PST - 52 comments

"You can fit the cat in. If you want. If the cat wants to go in anyway."

Watch a very good YouTube video review of a Cambridge Satchel bag by Nix T., and enjoy the cat's appearance about 2 minutes in (you can hear the cat's jingle-bell collar just prior). (Cat makes valiant effort to keep appearing in that review.) A jingle-bell can be heard, once again, at the start of the follow-up video review of another Cambridge Satchel bag. Timing is everything; the cat waits until the four minute mark to video bomb its owner. Nix T. then proceeds to make use the cat by comparing its body size to his bag.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:57 PM PST - 25 comments

“They paid the ultimate price for standing up for the working class”

One Generation’s Time: The Legacy of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes (YouTube, 1 hour). The story of two activists who fought to improve the lives of Filipino workers in Alaskan canneries, their murders by members of a street gang, and the eight-year investigation that ultimately found Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos responsible for their deaths. [more inside]
posted by Banknote of the year at 3:46 PM PST - 5 comments

Victor Gama: exploring musical terra incognita with unique instruments

Victor Gama is a self-taught composer and musician who has expanded his process of composing music for himself and others to perform into creating new or modified instruments, and is also involved with traveling to hard to access regions of Angola and recording local music, as documented on his website Tsikaya: Músicos do Interior. You can read an outstanding interview of Victor with Ned Sublette for Afropop, or read more on his creation of instruments as part of his creative process, or you can experience his performances on YouTube and his music on Soundcloud. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:47 PM PST - 3 comments

One lawyer's look at his job

Why are lawyers so unhappy? One attorney by way of explanation demonstrates exactly what his days are like in an answer pulled out and published from a larger Quora thread.
posted by shivohum at 2:47 PM PST - 50 comments

It could be very dangerous. Or it could be a lot of fun.

Last night's season finale of Mythbusters marked the end of an era, with the departure of Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci after a 10-year run. [more inside]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:30 PM PST - 72 comments

shhh, it's sleeping.

Tiny embroidered animals by Chloe Giordano. (via Kate Beaton)
posted by moonmilk at 2:29 PM PST - 7 comments

It was a rite of passage to go in there, rent a movie and get snobbed on

With the approaching end of the last Mondo Kim's Video & Music, the one on First Avenue, here's an oral history of the iconic, idiosyncratic East Village video store from its clerks and customers, including Richard Foreman, Chloe Sevigny, Andrew WK, and many more. (previously)
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:28 PM PST - 29 comments

1970s footballers at home

With the English Premier League season heading into its second week, The Guardian took the opportunity to publish a strange series of pictures from photographer Ray Wright of some of the top footballers of the 1970s posing at home with their families and a few choice possessions such as vacuum cleaners, radios, moving boxes, tricycles, wallpaper, axes and globes.
posted by salishsea at 1:15 PM PST - 24 comments

Enough is enough.

On Sunday, Tina Fontaine's body was found in the Red River in Manitoba after running away from a group home. There are more than 1100 missing or murdered indigenous women in Canada, and PM Harper has said that an inquiry into this is not needed, as it is "not a sociological phenomenon [but] crime". [more inside]
posted by jeather at 1:10 PM PST - 31 comments

Eaton Science Fiction & Fantasy Archive in trouble?

Celebrated writer Nalo Hopkinson blogs that the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy, the largest publicly-accessible collection of sf/f genre books in the world, may be in danger, in the wake of changes in the library and university administration. The archive is housed by the library system of UC Riverside and currently hosts a biennial conference, a lifetime achievement award for celebrated writers in the genre and a student short story contest. The journal Science Fiction Studies (based at DePauw) sponsors a fellowship to promote research at the Eaton archive.
posted by aught at 12:22 PM PST - 4 comments

Underwater Puppies

Puppies. Underwater.
posted by OmieWise at 11:54 AM PST - 27 comments

To Everything (Kern Kern Kern) There Is A Season

HiLoBrow (the "p(HiLo)sophical blog" dedicated to highbrow AND lowbrow culture, but NEVER middlebrow, seen previously here) every August does a series of posts with a "(something) Your Enthusiasm" theme. In 2011, it was Jack Kirby for "Kirb Your Enthusiasm", in 2012, it was Captain Kirk for "Kirk Your Enthusiasm", in 2013, it was Very Old School Hip-Hop for "Herc* Your Enthusiasm" and this year, it's a mini-essay a day about specific typefaces: "KERN YOUR ENTHUSIASM". [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:12 AM PST - 18 comments

Urbanicide

A serial killer of cities is wandering about the planet. Its name is UNESCO, and its weapon is the “World Heritage” designation
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:02 AM PST - 83 comments

Not A Tea Party, A Confederate Party

Tea Partiers say you don’t understand them because you don’t understand American history. That’s probably true, but not in the way they want you to think. The Weekly Sift examines the origins and beliefs of the Tea Party movement, tying it back to the Lost Cause movement. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:59 AM PST - 95 comments

"When you hear the chime, it'll be time to turn the page."

Feeling nostalgic for those Read Along Adventure books of your youth? Well, this site has you covered with vintage audio files paired with Flash animation of the books (so you don't even need to turn the pages). List of titles here. Of course, if you're looking for the same format but with a harder edge, the Space Monkey X Audio Workshop just recently started creating their own based on "R" Rated films of the time. Their first project? John Carpenter's The Thing.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:13 AM PST - 19 comments

Le Sacre de Tasses

The Rite of Spring + Cups = Cup song Rite of Spring

See also
posted by Thomas Tallis is my Homeboy at 9:46 AM PST - 14 comments

Words and Music with Oscar Peterson

Oscar Peterson interviews Joe Pass and Count Basie for his 1980 show "Words and Music." [more inside]
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:59 AM PST - 4 comments

Heavy Metal Be Bop Part 1

In the imagination of a young Parisian named Pablo Padovani there’s a land called Moo. It’s a fantastical place that celebrates nature, the elements, romanticism and sweets [NSFW]. “I think you may like it if you like childhood, sex, dreams and surrealism,” Padovani [says]. “It’s a pornographic episode of Teletubbies mixed with Lord of the Rings.[...]The disc (Le Monde Möö by MOODOÏD) is a walk in the world Möö. This is a soft world made of cream hills and Turkish delight mountains. There are also Camembert mattresses and waterfalls of wine. This is a great, epic adventure."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:03 AM PST - 11 comments

Knowing where the trap is - that's the first step in evading it.

Omni Presents: The Top 10 Dune Art Tumblr Like Sites.
posted by griphus at 6:55 AM PST - 15 comments

The All-Male Cast is a Revelation!

If pop culture treated men the same way it treats women. I know you're all way too cool for Cracked but I thought this was both hilarious and on point.
posted by phunniemee at 6:45 AM PST - 93 comments

Dad; one of Warhol's "13 Most Wanted Men"

George Lawler always knew his father was a criminal — his mug shot had been on New York City’s most wanted list in 1962. What he did not know was that his father had been a muse, of sorts, for Andy Warhol. 13 Most Wanted Men was installed by April 15, 1964 at The World's Fair site in Queens, NY. Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller had the work painted over before the Fair opened to the public.
posted by R. Mutt at 5:23 AM PST - 6 comments

Like taking a cold bath with someone you dislike

Reviews of classic books, culled from the internet's think tank.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:20 AM PST - 64 comments

"Liberty, tolerance, and respect are not zero-sum concepts."

A federal judge has struck down Florida's state constitutional ban against gay marriage. Four state justices have previously struck down the ban, but U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle became the first federal judge to rule the Sunshine State's ban unconstitutional. [more inside]
posted by none of these will bring disaster at 1:47 AM PST - 39 comments

I care because you do...

Aphex Twin announces new album SYRO via the deep web! Richard D James uses deep web browser Tor to announce SYRO, his first album since Drukqs in 2001. [more inside]
posted by gideonswann at 12:13 AM PST - 22 comments

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