November 17, 2008
Furry crack
The miracle that is public access television
In 1984, the Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act (along with legislation dating back to the 70s) forced cable companies to create public access television. Thanks to this foresighted policy, we can all now enjoy programming that might never have existed otherwise. Case in point: Los Angeles's Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Show. Many more examples inside (some videos NSFW). [more inside]
Love in the Time of Darwinism
Kay S. Hymowitz strikes again. Previously, she wrote an article positing that "that too many single young males (SYMs) were lingering in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood, shunning marriage and children, and whiling away their leisure hours with South Park reruns, marathon sessions of World of Warcraft, and Maxim lists of the ten best movie fart scenes."
Now she has a new thesis: That angry, disenfranchised single young men use "Darwinist" philosophy to justify "resistance to settling down" and "unsentimental promiscuity". [via]
Now she has a new thesis: That angry, disenfranchised single young men use "Darwinist" philosophy to justify "resistance to settling down" and "unsentimental promiscuity". [via]
“Intestines of what?”
"Man is Only 90% Water, but On The Hour is 100% News"
On The Hour - available for download now The radio precursor to TV's The Day Today - both brainchildren of Comedy's 11th funniest man (ahead of Peter Sellers and Bill Hicks), Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci - is now available for download via iTunes and Warp Records (via DRM-free Bleep). On The Hour also saw the first appearance of Steve Coogan as the hapless sports reporter, Alan Partridge who made regular appearances in "On the Hour" and "The Day Today" before being spun off into the TV shows: "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "I'm Alan Partridge" [more inside]
Hillary Clinton to accept Obama's offer of secretary of state job
Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.
This is why we have the Large Hadron Collider!
Monday Evening Flash Fun: Fold. Run. Jump. Bend gravity at your will. Looks easier than it really is.
Vegetable musical instruments
Ever wanted to play a white radish like a flute? Or maybe a carrot clarinet? Or perhaps a cucumber trumpet?
reality jockey
RjDj "is a music application for the iPhone. It uses sensory input to generate and control the music you are listening to. RjDj is mainly listened to with headphones. Think of it as the next generation of walkman or mp3 player." l Michael Breidenbruecker initiated the project, now joined by a team of musical and technological thinkers and coders l "What it’s really about is a new approach to how to listen to music, how to develop musical tools, and how communities own and share that work." [more inside]
Cue Mister Rogers - then follow steps 2, 3, 4, and 5...
Want to be a good neighbor but don't know how? Now there are checklists! (Chicago and SF focus) [more inside]
I love the 80's! En español!
But don't break anything. The furnishings are fra-gee-lay.
Make this Christmas special. Spend it in Ralphie's house! Bunny suit and Lifebuoy soap included. For an extra fee, the owner will convince you to lick a metal pole and then shoot your eye out. [more inside]
Meh
Super Obama World
Stories are about people
John Wyndham: The Invisible Man of Science Fiction (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) - documentary about the British science fiction writer best known for The Day Of The Triffids
No hair on the palms?
Yo-ho-ho
Petition to recommend Michael Pollan for Agriculture Secretary under Obama
Pollan for Agriculture Secretary? It has been suggested (and previously) that Michael Pollan, author of Second Nature, The Omnivore's Dilemma, might make a good Secretary of Agriculture. This would be a dramatic departure for an office that has a decades-long history of steering US agriculture policy to the advantage of the largest agribusiness corporations.
Especially given Obama's potential connections to Big Corn, how silly would we be to anticipate real change in US ag policy, relevant as it may be to the economic, energy, climate, and national security issues he campaigned on?
Via the Brian Lehrer Show.
Matinee with Bob and Ray
"Wally Ballou here, reporting for the Matinob with Ray and Bob from the World Wide Internets..." Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding are better known as Bob and Ray. Spending over four decades on the radio, television, print, and Broadway, beginning in Boston in 1946, they pioneered absurdist, satirical, dry, improvisational sketch comedy, influencing a legion of future comics (and others). The duo was inducted into the NAB Hall of Fame in 1984. They last appeared on the radio in NPR's "The Bob and Ray Public Radio Show" from 1982-1987. [more inside]
Trolling the head of the TSA
Trolling the Head of the TSA: Bruce Schneier [previously], consummate voice of sanity on all issues of security, co-authors an article in The Atlantic [previously] demonstrating how weak and ultimately pointless most of the new security practices put in place at airports since 9/11 are by, among other things, boarding airplanes with large amounts of liquid, using fake boarding passes he printed off his computer, and wearing an "I <3 Hezbollah" t-shirt. TSA head Kip Hawley then responds on the TSA's blog. Schneier then responds to the response on his blog. Hawley then leaves a comment to that post. Schneier fires back again in his monthly newsletter. Quite an interesting and intelligent debate, despite both men humorously falling victim to the idioms of the medium and getting increasingly snarky with each passing post. [via this month's crypto-gram, a good read all the way around.]
A mass-casualty exercise EVERY SINGLE DAY
Join Devin Friedman at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a city of broken men. During the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany has blossomed into the hub of one of the most amazing and miraculous wartime medical systems in modern history. Each week sees 14 flights into and out of the medical center, delivering dozens of war wounded from the battlefield and back out to the more specialized care centers back stateside; the rapidity of care and transit from the war fronts to stable medical care has decreased the mortality of serious wartime military injuries to just ten percent, from the high-20s/low-30s of previous wars. This is an incredibly nice look at the Landstuhl system from the perspective of a single planeload of injured soldiers.
Obama win spurs white racial backlash
Obama's win is a racial milestone in world history, but beneath the surface a white backlash is festering in the US, spurring hate crimes around the country and an uptick in recruitment among white supremacists, according to the The Southern Poverty Law Center.
Your worst favorite band sucks
"Beautiful Sunrises" is a pretty good litmus test for whether or not you like music for reasons I can get behind. If you don't appreciate "Beautiful Sunrises" as a unique and untempered piece of genuine expression, then you probably like a lot of bullshit music.
If I could spend five minutes of my life as completely into something as the vocalist of Complete is about being the vocalist of Complete, well then I'd think I had reached some sort of life accomplishment pinnacle.
- Steve Albini (quote via this electrical audio thread) [more inside]
Finally, an end to the last battle of the Gulf War?
A report presented today to the US Secretary of Veteran's Affairs concludes that Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) is "a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans." While depleted uranium had long been suspected as a cause of the physical and neurological symptoms associated with GWS, the report fingers pesticides and the pyridostigmine bromide pills given to troops to counter the effects of nerve agents. [more inside]
I Am Not a Whiner
Phil Gramm is unrepentent. "Mr. Gramm said the problem of predatory loans was not of the banks’ making. Instead, he faulted “predatory borrowers".
"Mr. Gramm, ever the economics professor, disputes his critics’ analysis of the causes of the upheaval. He asserts that swaps, by enabling companies to insure themselves against defaults, have diminished, not increased, the effects of the declining housing markets."
“This is part of this myth of deregulation,” he said in the interview. “By and large, credit-default swaps have distributed the risks. They didn’t create it. The only reason people have focused on them is that some politicians don’t know a credit-default swap from a turnip.”
"It seems like a money-saving exercise," she said. "If a patient dies, tough."
£35,000-a-year kidney cancer drugs too costly for NHS: Sutent offers to extend a kidney or GIST cancer patient's life by about 26 months, but the British NHS refuses to fund it, citing "marginal benefit at quite often an extreme cost."
Phiring Up Phillies Phans.
Faen!
Faen! (SLYT) Will teach you a useful Norwegian swear word. Warning: will offend Finns, who will find their own favorite curse mocked, and annoy Danes, who will find that the dapper hat-wearing, glasses-doffing Norwegian mispronounces their favorite curse word. (NSFW: Much cursing in English and various Scandinavian languages; brief image of copulating turtles.)
Real people... MADE OF PLASTIC!
50 Beautiful Examples Of Tilt-Shift Photography - "Tilt-shift photography is a creative and unique type of photography in which the camera is manipulated so that a life-sized location or subject looks like a miniature-scale model."
Critics justify their existence.
A Look Inside Two Central Banks: The European Central Bank And The Federal Reserve
A Look Inside Two Central Banks: The European Central Bank And The Federal Reserve [PDF], 2003 article comparing and contrasting their basic structure and management from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's magazine Review (blue ribbon for Most Generic Magazine Title). Author Patricia S. Pollard is now with the IMF. [more inside]
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