October 15, 2012

Tyrion Lannister vs. Lucille Bluth

Vulture's Top 25 Most Devoted Fan Bases: "Vulture has scanned the great plains of pop culture, weighing passion versus mere popularity to decide the 25 Most Devoted Fans of entertainment, which kicks off our weeklong exploration of all things Fandom. It's important to underscore that this list is not about mere numbers — it’s about fervency." [more inside]
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:29 PM PST - 81 comments

Out there is a different world

"I Loved it...I Loved it All" An eight minute film essay that Ned Judge co-produced and directed with Edward Abbey in 1985. At the time Judge was working for a network magazine show. The executive producer took him to lunch one day. He told him that he was having trouble with his son who was 18. The son thought his dad was a corporate whore. He had told his father if he had any balls at all he’d put Edward Abbey on his show. That’s why the EP was talking to him. Would Judge see if it was possible? Judge had an acquaintance who knew Ed and he passed the request along. Ed responded that he’d give it a try. He signed the contract and wrote a script. Judge and Abbey met in Moab and went out to Arches National Park to shoot some practice sessions with a home video camera. They would review them at the motel in the evening. After a day or two, Ed was feeling pretty comfortable on camera so they scheduled the shoot. They were all happy with the way it went. But then they ran head-on into network reality. Roger Mudd, the show’s host, was extremely negative about putting an “eco-terrorist” on the show. The executive producer caved (his son was right about him apparently). So this Abbey essay was put on the shelf and never aired. Abbey died 3 years later in March 1989. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 8:40 PM PST - 17 comments

Boss Rail

"The Wenzhou crash killed forty people and injured a hundred and ninety-two. For reasons both practical and symbolic, the [Chinese] government was desperate to get trains running again, and within twenty-four hours it declared the line back in business. The Department of Propaganda ordered editors to give the crash as little attention as possible. “Do not question, do not elaborate,” it warned, on an internal notice. When newspapers came out the next morning, China’s first high-speed train wreck was not on the front page." [How a high-speed rail disaster exposed China's corruption]
posted by vidur at 7:48 PM PST - 22 comments

Broken Ballots

Computer scientist and past president of the ACM Barbara Simons recently spent 15 minutes chatting with Charlie Rose [no transcript available yet] about the insecurity of electronic voting machines, ranging from Direct-recording Electronic systems (such as the Diebold systems which were shown to be insecure in the excellent Hacking Democracy [1h21m, also on Google Video and Hulu]) to optical scanning machines. Add into her expressed uncertainty and frustrations Virginia's wireless vote-tally reporting, Florida's problems with demonstrated voting machine hacking (and again) (not to mention a case in FL with outright wrong machine-tallied results), questions being raised in Chicago about the accuracy of electronic voting, a Utah election recount being halted after being found to be incorrect, possible appearance of impropriety about e-voting machines in Ohio, and a picture starts to be painted wherein the veracity of election outcomes is cast into doubt. Verified Voting gives information about which state uses what kind of voting, and provides a lot of numbers.
posted by hippybear at 6:33 PM PST - 72 comments

The Swinging States of America

Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted
posted by shoesfullofdust at 5:56 PM PST - 45 comments

Dalton McGuinty has resigned

In a surprise move, Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty has resigned. CBC National Post Globe and Mail Toronto Star. [more inside]
posted by Lemurrhea at 4:24 PM PST - 95 comments

if the shoe fits

You can accurately judge a person just by looking at their shoes, psychologists say. "Researchers at the University of Kansas found that people were able to correctly judge a stranger's age, gender, income, political affiliation, emotional and other important personality traits just by looking at the person's shoes." Virginia Postrel responded: "The study made a solid contribution to research on first impressions, but it was hardly earthshaking. By getting so much attention, however, it demonstrated a sociological truth: People love to talk about shoes. Even those who dismissed the research as silly often felt compelled to call radio stations or comment on websites, providing details about their own choices. Why this fascination with footwear? " [more inside]
posted by flex at 3:36 PM PST - 159 comments

Man Machine Music

A brief history of cyborgs, superhumans and robots in pop music
posted by Artw at 3:12 PM PST - 45 comments

We're all like, worms, man! Everything that's ever existed on earth, just one big connected worm!

Jay Mark Johnson takes two dimensional photographs, like just about everyone else. But he's chosen an unusual pair of dimensions: One in space, and one in time. Slate article, artist's webpage.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:58 PM PST - 18 comments

Menace(s) to Society

During the Golden Age of Hollywood and until 1967, mainstream movie studios were banned by the Production Code from depicting taboo topics like drug addiction, explicit murder and venereal disease, or even showing explicit nudity. But in the 1930's and 1940's, films marketed as "educational" could and did fly under the radar, and three of the best known 'educational' propaganda exploitation films are: Sex Madness (1935), Reefer Madness (1936) and The Cocaine Fiends (1938). [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:27 PM PST - 30 comments

Underwater Baroque

Christy Lee Rogers creates Baroque painting-like photographs in camera by shooting brightly clothed people underwater. [more inside]
posted by xingcat at 11:43 AM PST - 33 comments

Life Lessons in Charts & Graphs

Although the heading is a little bucket-listy, I found many of the thoughts in 40 Things To Say Before You Die to be represented with insight in the form of charts and graphs. [more inside]
posted by achrise at 10:40 AM PST - 79 comments

Life drawing

One Man, 1200 Hours, and Over 100 Pencils: City Band, A Monumental Drawing by Chris LaPorte
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:24 AM PST - 9 comments

HBO's "In Treatment"

In Treatment was an HBO series that ran three seasons from 2008 through 2010. Adapated - often word-for-word - from the Israeli drama BeTipul, it depicted the weekly sessions of a psychologist (Emmy-nominated Gabriel Byrne) with his patients (including Debra Winger, Emmy-nominated Hope Davis, and, in her first American role, Mia Wasikowska) and with his own therapist (Emmy-winning Dianne Wiest). The filming of the series placed extraordinary demands on Byrne - which are well described in this interview with showrunner Warren Leight. (h/t: MCMikeNamara) You can watch its entire first episode here. (possible spoilers throughout)
posted by Egg Shen at 10:16 AM PST - 24 comments

I think I see a rip in the social fabric. Brother, could you spare some ammo?

Corb Lund is a classically trained jazz musician who was a founding member of Canadian metal legends The Smalls. For the past seventeen years, though, as the centrepiece of Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans, he has been cranking out alt-country records that have garnered praise from well outside usual country music circles. His biggest hit is almost certainly the comedic Truck Got Stuck. His most recent single however is the sombre peak-oil apocalypse tune Gettin' Down on the Mountain. Corb also maintains maintains an excellent songwriting blog that he describes as 30% guitar lesson: "What That Song Means Now."
posted by 256 at 9:43 AM PST - 22 comments

"Please state where and when this card was found and then put it in the nearest Post Office."

Oldest message in a bottle found. The bottle was released as part of a research project tracking deep ocean currents. (Via socimages, via boingboing.)
posted by NoraReed at 9:20 AM PST - 25 comments

I drank a lot of yerba mate, played Words with Friends for a while, then made all this stuff up.

"The History of Food & Drink in Portland, Oregon" presented by the Portland Mercury and written by Chris Onstad.
posted by griphus at 8:48 AM PST - 24 comments

"We're going to go out there, and we're going to violate some rights."

The NYC Stop-and-Frisk Program (wiki). Previously. Previously. Previously. And previously. Now there is new audio of how the stop-and-frisk program is being carried out by the NYPD, revealing the discriminatory and unprofessional way in which this controversial policy is being implemented. Includes some discussion on the culture of being a cop and how these orders are being handed down from the top.
posted by phaedon at 8:41 AM PST - 85 comments

Athens photos and history.

A 280-page history of Athens (en) with a focus on architecture and planning. 1930s buildings of Athens photothread with multiple pages (selection). Athens Highrises (en). Ambelokipi. Piraeus and more Piraeus. Bits and bobs. The Athens forum.
posted by ersatz at 8:17 AM PST - 14 comments

Steve Packard "The Bad Science Guy" shares what he learned from running for Congress.

Revelations From Running For Congress Steve Packard writes a blog called "Depleted Cranium," which debunks bad science in the media. Last spring he decided to run for Congress on a "Science-based" platform. It was ultimately a heartbreaking experience for him and he had to quit, as he'd run out of money for food. He has a pretty great post up summing up his experiences now. And at this point probably wouldn't mind if you donated a couple of cans of beans.
posted by proscriptus at 7:03 AM PST - 58 comments

Georges Méliès's Robinson Crusoé film resurfaces in Pordenone

Méliès's best known film is, of course, Le Voyage Dans La Lune, but Les Aventures de Robinson Crusoé, the newly discovered film, is an even more ambitious work; a landmark in the history of narrative cinema. Georges Méliès's Robinson Crusoé film resurfaces in Pordenone.
posted by Mezentian at 6:10 AM PST - 11 comments

League of Legends Season 2 Championship

With 32 million active players per month, League of Legends, the world's most played video game, just finished it's second World Championship with teams from the US, Russia, Korea, Taiwan and Europe competing for a $2 million dollar prize pool. The tournament was filled with stadium sized crowds, nonstop action, major upsets, even controversy. [more inside]
posted by roaring beast at 5:51 AM PST - 44 comments

The work can speak for itself.

In the spirit of free speech. (SLYT in Swedish.) Artist Lars Vilks' sculpture Nimis Nimis in the Republic of Ladonia (a k a, the Kullaberg nature reserve) (previously) has been made into a minaret, broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer six times a day. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 5:10 AM PST - 9 comments

The top 10 crosswords in fiction

The Guardian's crossword blog recently completed a list of the top 10 crosswords in fiction [more inside]
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 5:09 AM PST - 16 comments

"Many of the great political crimes of recent history were committed in the name of memory."

Telling Stories About The Stories We Tell, An Interview with Philip Gourevitch [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:50 AM PST - 6 comments

Is this a bear that will never love fruit?

King Lear with a happy ending (once more popular than the original!) Audio version. The Tempest with extra characters. Parody version of the tempest with extra characters (set in London). Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet fights crime as the Red Whirlwind, Verona is built on a floating island in the sky, and Prince Escalus is a tree (anime; manga). More unusual Shakespeare adaptations.
posted by gnimmel at 4:27 AM PST - 23 comments

You can't eat scenery

The governments of the United Kingdom and Scotland agree on a framework for the latter to vote on independence. Other reporting in the Telegraph, Guardian and the Scottish Sun. The referendum, for this nation of 5.25 million people and a unicorn as its national animal, will be held before the end of 2014. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 1:26 AM PST - 109 comments

2012 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Serge Haroche (France) and David Wineland (US) for discovering ways to measure and manipulate quantum particles, a discovery which many are suggesting may soon allow us to build computers with virtually limitless capabilities. The Nobel press release provides a layman friendly PDF summary of the research and its potential applications, as well as a less layman friendly PDF with additional scientific background information. The press release cites two older Scientific American articles for further reading, and the magazine has made these articles available to read free online for the next 30 days:
Monroe, C. R. and Wineland, D. J. (2008) Quantum Computing with Ions, Scientific American, August.

Yam, P. (1997) Bringing Schrödinger’s Cat to Life, Scientific American, June.

posted by dgaicun at 12:59 AM PST - 51 comments

A Mighty Wind

Twenty-five years ago today, southern England and northern France were struck by the Great Storm of 1987. Although the storm did not go entirely unforecast, the exact track and ferocity of the storm were not as predicted, and the resulting devastation killed at least 22 people, and destroyed six of the seven oak trees that are symbolic of the eponymous town of Sevenoaks, in Kent. [more inside]
posted by kcds at 12:01 AM PST - 11 comments

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