September 22, 2008
Metallica Friday
Metallica released a new album, Death Magnetic, but people are still celebrating their first four albums. Grindcore bands Psyopus and Fuck the Facts team up every Friday on their current tour to play a Metallica cover. Their fans, most of which were probably born after the first four were released, go apeshit over it. [more inside]
Thomas Doerflein, dead at 44.
Fo Shizzle My Nizzle
teh free markets, ur doin it wrong
LOLFed. Doan cry, emo banker! If you hate the latest financial crisis news, but love image macros, then this is the site for you. It's like I Can Has Cheezburger meets the Wall Street Journal.
National Anthems of the World
Have you ever wondered what the national anthem of Bolivia, Nepal or The Republic of Seychelles sounded like? Well wonder no more because NationalAnthems.info has got you covered! It claims to have the national anthem for every country in the world in MIDI format, along with downloadable lyrics and sheet music so you can sing and play along. But if the MIDI format isn't doing it for you, there's also other sites that you can visit that have downloadable MP3s of pretty much every national anthem this planet and its inhabitants have to offer, such as this one or this one, which is notable in that the anthems featured there were performed by the US Navy Band. And finally, for your further reading and listening pleasure, check out this forum which contains background information on and even more links to downloadable national anthems.
The Umbrella Killer
Scotland Yard thinks it knows who killed Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov with a ricin-tipped umbrella on the streets of London 30 years ago this month. Police are hoping to press charges against the man known as Agent Picadilly, who received a secret medal for his services. Interest in the case was sparked by "Kill the Wanderer", a book by journalist Hristo Hristov, who gained access to the archives of the former Bulgarian security service. Bulgaria has extended its own investigation, just as the statute of limitations on the Markov murder was set to expire.
High Times Hard Times
Last month, a wonderful documentary entitled simply Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer debuted in NYC and LA and was very warmly received. It tells the story of a singer regarded by many jazz fans to be among the greatest who ever lived (her strikingly modern small-group recordings from the 1950s attest to a singer whose talent grew far beyond her Big Band days), and who, despite living an incredibly self-destructive life, lived and performed well into her 80's. Here's Anita from her famous 1958 Newport performance, and here are some other notable clips: Honeysuckle Rose, Let Me Off Uptown (w/Gene Krupa and feat. Roy Eldridge; a huge hit in 1941), Love for Sale, and more from the film here.
“A big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst’s couch.”
Though their cameras have produced some of the defining photographs of the twentieth century, Leica have struggled in the new digital age. However there are still some aficionados for the Leica's 'kiss'.
Ogre, anyone?
The New Shock
Obama: The Price of Being Black
Photographs of Abandoned Places
24 Stunning HDR Photographs of Abandoned Places. 42 Essential Flickr Abandonments Groups Dedicated to Abandoned Places, Properties and Buildings.
File under 'futility'
Having seen their profits eroded to filesharing networks and Itunes, the major labels have a new plan: Go back to physical media.
Dragon's Lair Uncut
Uncut footage from Dragon's Lair (1983) [recently on MetaFilter], one of the first full-animation laser-disc arcade videogames [and animated by Don Bluth]... if you didn't have an endless supply of quarters, see what would have happened had you directed Dirk the Daring left instead of up in these scenarios: (QT .mpeg files) Three Caverns | Green Thumb | Crumbling Roof | Bats! | Giddy Goons | Bottles and Pot. [via classicsreunited]
Fred, Barney and Betty Pending
Meet Wilma, the first model of a Neanderthal based in part on ancient DNA evidence. The findings indicate that at least some Neanderthals had red hair, pale skin, and even freckles, adding to the relatively recent evidence that Neanderthals did not interbreed with humans (previously), might have been outbred into extinction by Homo sapiens, and were probably not as stupid as we thought.
It's weird being a ball
"MIDDLEBURY, Vt. -- Rainey Johnson, sporting a yellow shirt, yellow socks and yellow paint smeared on his face, darted across the freshman quad.
Other students, in capes, ran after him clutching brooms between their legs and grasping in vain for a tennis ball stuffed in a sock hanging out of his yellow shorts." [more inside]
Obligatory accreditation system for IT security products
Give us your secrets. The Chinese government plans order foreign manufacturers to reveal information about their digital products, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday. It will introduce rules requiring foreign firms to disclose secret information about digital household appliances and other products from May next year, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing unnamed sources. If a company refuses to disclose information, China would ban it from exporting the product to the Chinese market or producing or selling it in China, the paper said. [more inside]
Classic cars in barns
We put together Bringatrailer.com because finding great vintage cars online has become too much of a hassle. There is no need to keep sifting through hundreds of hopeless projects or overpriced dealer inventories to find that one car you’ve been looking for. We pick the winners and save you the trouble… the best bargains, the best dream cars, and the best rarities.
Your Favorite Obscure Word Sucks
The Times Online: Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be exuviated abstergently to make room for modern additions that will act as a roborant for the book. [more inside]
macrovision
The AirTraffic Team at zhaw has posted a video depicting global flight activity over a single day to their site: windows media link / quicktime link. that's all.
Welcome to my Study
How do you do! I am the little book that you have made.
Book of Short Stories :: Short stories written by New York State 5th graders in 1931. (Be sure to read the About page to get a sense of the setting of the times.) (via Thingamababy)
Start your week with a bit of Bollywood, why don'tcha'?
Live performances at AOL Sessions
AOL Sessions has live videos from more than 150 different artists specially recorded for the series. Here are just a few of the artists on offer: Paul McCartney, Mary J. Blige, Modest Mouse, Tori Amos, Robyn, Tom Petty, Rhymefest, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Natasha Bedingfield, Cat Power, Toby Keith, Lil' Wayne, Robert Plant, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kelly Rowland, Weezer and Brian Wilson. To the left of the videos there's a Q&A link that has short interview videos with the artists as well as behind the scenes footage and longer interviews.
Saturday night poker night is about to get a lot more interesting ...
Hedge Funds employ many different strategies to make money. There are long/short funds, event driven funds, emerging markets funds [.pdf], funds looking to profit from global macroeconomic trends and a large number of funds employing a wide range of arbitrage techniques to make money.
But these techniques are the tried and the true. As both assets under management and market turmoil have grown significantly, hedge funds are rapidly branching out into domains far, far detached from finance: art, litigation funding and now even poker.
But these techniques are the tried and the true. As both assets under management and market turmoil have grown significantly, hedge funds are rapidly branching out into domains far, far detached from finance: art, litigation funding and now even poker.
Best pals in the NYT break-room
The Wall Street bailout proposal has prompted Bill Kristol and Paul Krugman to write identically-minded columns opposing the plan.
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