October 18, 2013
On the Perfect Size for a Pizza
Eugenia Cheng of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheffield has investigated the mathematical relationship between the size of a pizza and its ratio of topping to base (slpdf). We show that for a given recipe, it is not only the overall thickness of the pizza that is is affected by its size, but also this topping-to-base ratio.
The Gods Must Be Crazy, and the four sequels you might not know about
Roger Ebert thought highly of the first two films, the first he summarized as "a movie that begins with a Coke bottle falling from the heavens, and ends with a Jeep up in a tree," and called the South African slapstick film "a nice little treasure." He said the second was for people who like "happy movies better than grim and violent ones." After The Gods Must Be Crazy (YT, Crackle) and its sequel (YT), three unofficial sequels were produced in the early 1990s in Hong Kong and filmed in Cantonese, still featuring Nǃxau ǂToma throughout the continued series, and Coke bottles also feature prominently. As could be expected, these knock-off sequels integrate parts of Chinese culture into the films for the predictable humorous cultural conflicts, from hopping vampires to nefarious panda-nabbers. [more inside]
Chow Muh-muh-muh-muh-mein
Alison Gold's Chinese Food is the latest "pop" "hit" out of ARK Music to be making the rounds, following the footsteps of Nicole Westbrook's It's Thanksgiving and, of course, Rebecca Black's Friday. Beyond its hilariously forced lyrics and meter, which are par for the course, Chinese Food is being roundly criticized for being more than a little bit racist—and its racism is hardly culturally accurate, either: subtitles are shown throughout the song which shift to a number of different non-Chinese languages, including Hebrew and Arabic, and the song's climax includes a number of women dressed as geishas. But ARK Music's Patrice Wilson, aka Fat Usher, is more self-aware than he's sometimes given credit for, and his music comes close to Tim and Eric territory at times (Eric Wareheim's music videos have also been called out for dealing with race in highly problematic ways). In a little-seen but very funny response to Friday, his song Happy, Wilson lampoons both his own approach to songwriting, and the response Friday received afterwards. Another Alison Gold song produced by Wilson and ARK, Skip Rope by "Tweenchronic", that might be the proof that ARK is cleverer and more deliberate in its approach than its millions of anti-fans recognize. (Wilson was interviewed by Gawker and the LA Times in the wake of Friday; his recent defense of Chinese Food was either disingenuous or really dumb, depending on how much credit you're willing to give him.)
"The shock value of what might be called death humor"
Laughing Past The Grave
We realize we aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but we adore it, often to a perfectly scandalous degree, when others do, and especially when it’s funny.
1932 was a very dry year.
The finder of this note if the 18 Amendment has bin [sic] changed have a good Drink on us.
- E. Daniher
New News is Good News
Pierre Omidyar announces his Next Adventure in Journalism and plans to ‘free’ independent journalism.
Jay Rosen interviewed him.
High frequency networking
In New York, there are at least six data centers you need to collocate in to be competitive in equities. An in-depth look at the insanity behind modern high-frequency trading, where the speed of light is the only limit.
The Women and the Thrones
When we were little, Jaime and I were so much alike that even our lord father could not tell us apart. Sometimes as a lark we would dress in each other’s clothes and spend a whole day each as the other. Yet even so, when Jaime was given his first sword, there was none for me. “What do I get?” I remember asking. We were so much alike, I could never understand why they treated us so differently. Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime’s lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood.Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Review of Books on the Song of Ice and Fire as feminist epic. Previously.
This is how they deal with horse thievery in Denmark. (SLYT)
Card Hunter
Take some old school D&D nerdery, mix in some Magic: The Gathering and Final Fantasy Tactics, and you have Card Hunter.
Married on Monday
New Jersey court to allow same-sex marriages. A stay was not granted to an earlier ruling allowing gay people to marry in New Jersey. Asbury Park and Newark are already issuing marriage licenses for couples to marry at the first possible time on Monday. This defeats a long-term move by governor Christie and conservatives to push a statewide referendum rather than go ahead with the court's ruling. New Jersey is now the fourteenth state to allow gay marriage.
BitTorrent site Isohunt shutting down after MPAA lawsuit defeat
isoHunt shuts down, Vancouver operator ordered to pay $110 million US fine A Vancouver resident has agreed to shut down his popular downloading website and pay a $110-million fine after settling a long legal fight with the Motion Picture Association of America.
Gary Fung ran isohunt.com, a search engine for BitTorrent files, which helped users find virtually every type of copyrighted material, including music, movies, computer software, ebooks and pornography.
As of Friday, the site stated it linked to 13.7 million active BitTorrent files with 51 million users either uploading or download them.
According to Alexa.com, it ranked as the 423rd top site on the web for global traffic and 167th in Canada.
On his blog, Fung said he was "sad to see my baby go." [more inside]
First they came for the Black voters, but I did nothing, because...
The GOP's new target for voter disenfranchisement: women. As of November 5, Texans must show a photo ID with their up-to-date legal name. Only 66% of voting age women have ready access to a photo ID of this nature, as many women have not updated their photo IDs with either their married names or their name after a divorce. This disenfranchises 34% of women voters, while 99% of men are home free. Similar laws now exist or are in the process of being passed in numerous other states.
“Hi Avonte, it’s mom. Come to the flashing lights, Avonte."
Two weeks ago, 14 year-old Avonte Oquendo was last seen running out the door of his school in Long Island City, New York. Because Avonte has autism and is non-verbal, he was supposed to have one-on-one supervision at all times. Now, an unprecedented citywide search for the boy that includes searching commuter trains and subways and playing his mother's voice out of emergency response vehicles remains underway. [more inside]
Million Dollar Hero (In A Five And Ten Cents Store)
Philip Chevron - "singer, writer, composer, punk rocker, poet, Radiator, Pogue" - passed away from esophageal cancer on October 8th, far too young at only 56. He was most widely known as the Pogues’ rhythm guitarist, who penned "Thousands Are Sailing", a haunting ballad about Irish immigration to the USA that quickly became a live favourite (in later shows usually sung by Phil himself). [more inside]
Never give up, never surrender
"like a panicked 14-year-old who has yet to sprout pubic hair"
"When I read Spell as a kid, I related to Bink. It never struck me as weird that he was a dozen years older than me, but wasn’t any more mature. Now the prospect of relating to Bink, at any age, seems insane. It doesn’t have anything to do with his whining. It has to do with the way he views Spells’ female characters: as obstacles, props, and objects of lust and condescension."
Revisiting the sad, misogynistic fantasy of Xanth
Revisiting the sad, misogynistic fantasy of Xanth
When Maya met Madhur
Maya Angelou and Madhur Jaffrey share a lunch and conversation in 2005. "Maya Angelou and Madhur Jaffrey were born worlds apart, but for both, cooking and sharing food were key to their identities. We invited them for lunch to talk about recipes, love and memory."
Dean Martin - Early Performances
What did he say?
Dan Lewis, writer of the blog, Now I Know reveals this little gem:
In 1963, a group named the Kingsmen covered the song “Louie Louie,” originally recorded by Richard Berry eight years prior. The Kingsmen’s version is a classic and you’ve almost certainly heard it (but if not, here you go) and likely can sing the whole thing — kind of. You probably have no idea what the actual words are because they’re a garbled mess which is impossible to understand. But that didn’t stop an angry parent from writing to then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and insisting that the lyrics were obscene. For some reason, this lead to an FBI investigation (!) which concluded, no, the lyrics are just unintelligible. The FBI was right, but they missed something. [more inside]
Buzzfeed Minus GIFs
Buzzfeed without the GIFs - for those that love Buzzfeed's writing but can't stand the pesky GIFs getting in the way.
"Death-haunted meditations on identity and memory"
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky proposes that today’s best action directors aren’t working in Hollywood, but in direct-to-video. [more inside]
King of the WWW Ring!
Hostamania! That's right, brother... You'll be the WWW World Champion in no time with Hostamania, Hulk Hogan's new web hosting service. [more inside]
Gored in the USA
The Running Of The Bulls Comes To America (Single Link BF)
The Faces of Archer
While many of the characters on Archer may appear to be based on their voice actors, in reality, the models used were often people known or met in unexpected ways by the producers. Here are the actual models and the stories behind how they got involved. [previously]
What Do Cats See?
Does your cat act weirdly? Does it bump into and occasionally wreck stuff, like your face? Well, maybe it's not just because Grisou* is a jerk, maybe it's because it has crappy eyesight. [more inside]
Fifty or so teenagers, eavesdropping
A different sort of hell
"Technically it’s not a book at all: The Great War is actually one continuous drawing, a 24ft-long panorama narrating the British forces’ experience of 1 July 1916, spatially and chronologically, from orderly morning approach to chaotic battlefield engagement to grim aftermath. There are no boxes of text or speech bubbles, no individuated characters, instead Sacco portrays a mass event in painstaking, monochrome, almost technical detail. It’s like a cross between Hergé and the Chapman brothers; the Bayeux Tapestry as a silent movie." -- Cartoonist Joe Sacco's latest project, The Great War is about one particular day in the War: 1 July, the start of the Battle of the Somme. [more inside]
"I have been taught accommodation."
College student Lily Myers performs her poem, Shrinking Women, at a poetry slam.
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