November 5, 2013
From the Annex of Ideas
Starlogged is a "celebration" of all things British and geeky, with a focus on 1972 - 1995 and Marvel UK, especially their early nineties attempt at creating their own superhero line. A true nostalgiafest for people raised on dodgy black and white reprints of American comics and hardcover annuals.
DD @ MoMA
Last night, following the Museum of Modern Art's screen of Duran Duran: Unstaged, Simon Le Bon, John Taylor, Nick Rhodes, and Roger Taylor took the stage for a 30 minute long conversation and Q&A session with the audience. The session was streamed live online, and continues to be available for viewing via LiveStream and MoMA. The conversation ranges from appreciation for David Lynch to art directors and designers they have worked with to Peter Gabriel's recent So anniversary tour, to mention a few topics. [The sound for the video starts after the credits for the film stop. Do not panic.] [more inside]
For about 30 percent of my pictures, I'm actually on the toilet.
What worked well 224 years ago is no longer the best we can do.
According to researchers who analyzed all 729 constitutions adopted between 1946 and 2006, the U.S. Constitution is rarely used as a model. What's more, "the American example is being rejected to an even greater extent by America's allies than by the global community at large"...The Atlantic's Alex Seitz-Wald makes a case against the U.S. Constitution: The U.S. Needs a New Constitution—Here's How to Write It.
"There are about 30 countries, mostly in Latin America, that have adopted American-style systems. All of them, without exception, have succumbed to...constitutional crisis[es]—your full range of political violence, revolution, coup, and worse. But well short of war, you can end up in a state of "crisis governance," he writes. "President and house may merely indulge a taste for endless backbiting, mutual recrimination, and partisan deadlock. Worse yet, the contending powers may use the constitutional tools at their disposal to make life miserable for each other: The house will harass the executive, and the president will engage in unilateral action whenever he can get away with it." [Juan Linz] wrote that almost a decade and a half ago, long before anyone had heard of Barack Obama, let alone the Tea Party.
How to get a faculty job
"Many times you will be marched through laboratories, presumably to ogle shiny machines. Ogle them. Ogle them like it is the last glimpse of human civilization you will ever get." How to get a faculty job (PDF) in the life sciences. (Via Hope Jahren Sure Can Write.)
Kanye West appropriates Confederate flag design
"In making the Confederate flag the icon behind his new tour, Kanye West is changing the meaning of a racist icon." He'll be using the flag on Yeezus tour merchandise, and he wore a bomber jacket with a large Confederate flag patch on the arm during a recent trip to Barney's, ostensibly as a statement about the Barney's profiling scandal.
Find out your 'fitness age' and get fit
Using the results of a study of 4,260 adults, the Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has developed an online fitness calculator which outputs your 'fitness age'. If the results alarm you, they've also provided a 7-week fitness program.
Apartheid's odd role in the vibrancy of the social and human sciences
JM Coetzee's foreword to John Higgins's new book Academic Freedom in a Democratic South Africa, which among other topics, includes an extended interview with Nelson Mandela ally and academic Jakes Gerwel on the importance of the humanities in both the anti-apartheid struggle. In an excerpt from the interview, Gerwel stated that Apartheid was to a large degree also “a battle of and over ideas, a battle of the priority of one set of ideas over another, and in this struggle the human and social sciences played a great and liberating role.” A (pdf) history of South African education under apartheid.
Fifteen
With the bill approved by the Illinois House of Representatives, Illinois will become the 15th marriage equality state. [more inside]
No, Thomas; I am your father.
Adding to the widely reported speculation that Chiwetel Ejiofor is joining the cast, the BBC is reporting that open auditions for two of the lead roles in the next Star Wars film are being held across Britain and Ireland in the next few weeks. Shooting is still slated to start in January. The audition call tweet gives details of the roles... [more inside]
Remote Niger Desert DIY Memorial for DC-10 Plane Crash Victims
In 1989, Libyan terrorists blew up UTA 772, killing 170. 18 years later, Les Familles de l’Attentat du DC-10 d’UTA created the memorial, visible via Google Earth, with the help of local inhabitants. As these photos and their captions reveal, it's a touching story and a fitting memorial. Google Maps image is here. Information about the crash of UTA Flight 772 from Wikipedia is here.
Your Quarterly Pomplamoose Mashup PLUS Ritual Beard Sacrifice!
Everyone's favorite twee cover band Pomplamoose has a pretty cool new video to go with their mashup of Royals/Loser/California Love. Soy un Perdedor Royal. Enjoy.
February 28th—I hate this month. I can’t take one more day of it.
A Chicago Legend Has Passed
World renowned Chef Charlie Trotter, was found dead in his Chicago home this morning.
He had not been having a good year.
For the nostalgic, his former restaurant is for sale. {Previously}
He had not been having a good year.
For the nostalgic, his former restaurant is for sale. {Previously}
Wait For It
Fringe History
Seven Things Not to Learn from Sleepy Hollow, a "delightful but completely unreliable source of historical information". The show, which is already writen by Fringe alumni Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman just gained John Noble as a recuring character "The Sin Eater".
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
50 Incredibly Tough Books for Extreme Readers. The Internet has provided us with yet another list. How many have you conquered?
The Devaluation Myth
Tim Quirk, former singer for Too Much Joy and now Head of Global Content Programming at Google Play, gave a speech at the 2013 Future of Music Summit: "[Y]ou can't devalue music. It's impossible. Songs are not worth 99 cents and albums are not worth precisely $9.99." [more inside]
Inspiration for Imbibation
Some genius realized two great tastes that go together are Motivational Phrases and Alcohol Posters.
Fare Thee Well
The entire soundtrack to the Coen brother's upcoming movie "Inside Llewyn Davis" can now be listened to in its entirety online, and for free. [more inside]
Public Service Announcement for Time Travellers
If you find yourself in northwestern Queensland about 5-15 million years ago, do not attempt to pet the meter-long meat-eating platypus.
the lingering, unanimous aversion
In response to Pitchfork's recent History of Alternative Music, which dubbed 1997-1999 the era of "Fauxternative" Consequence of Sounds has published a Cri Du Coeur: In Defense of Post-Grunge Music. [more inside]
Epic Conway's Game of Life
Epic Conway's Game of Life. Sure, there's been lots of Conway's Life stuff on MeFi previously [1 2 3], but this squeezes a lot of awesome stuff into a short video.
It's already extensive.
Contented rest, with sweet and heart-felt joy
The highs and lows of caring for a drug-dependent baby
In a long-running mumsnet.com thread, a UK foster mum tells the heartbreaking story of looking after a newborn baby girl suffering from drug addition. It's a long read, but worth it.
When this point is reached, the Bitcoin value-proposition collapses
Bitcoin is broken. And not just superficially so, but fundamentally, at the core protocol level. We're not talking about a simple buffer overflow here, or even a badly designed API that can be easily patched; instead, the problem is intrinsic to the entire way Bitcoin works. All other cryptocurrencies and schemes based on the same Bitcoin idea, including Litecoin, Namecoin, and any of the other few dozen Bitcoin-inspired currencies, are broken as well.
Bret Victor strikes again
Macro or Micro, minerals, glaciers, sand dunes and feathers look alike
As a joke, Stephen Young, a geography professor at Salem State University, put a landscape image on the office door of Paul Kelly, a herpetologist colleague of Young's. The biologist mistook it for an electron microscope image that his office mate had created, which got the two talking and comparing imagery. “We found that we had this similar interest in understanding scale and how people perceive it,” Young explained. They tested each-other over the past year, and now have created and collected more than 50 puzzling images—of polished minerals and glaciers, sand dunes and bird feathers—for display in “Macro or Micro?,” an exhibition currently at both Salem State University’s Winfisky Gallery and Clark University’s Traina Center for the Visual and Performing Arts. You can test yourself with images hosted on The Smithsonian Magazine blog, Yahoo News and HuffPo (via io9).
Make a Wish
MILES' WISH TO BE A SUPERHERO! Miles may only be 5 years old but he is fighting a very adult battle, one that we hope he will win. Miles has leukemia. He is a bright, positive, little boy who finds inspiration in super-heroes. When we interviewed Miles for a wish, he surprised even his parents: Miles wants to be Batkid!
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