December 2, 2014
Mole Day: Deeper'N'Ever Pie, Deeper'N'Ever Squats
On the heels of President Obama’s recent purchase of the first three Redwall books, the Toast brings you the Redwall diet. [more inside]
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the basket ...
"Today, both families hope to do what’s best for Karen."
The Limits of Jurisdiction: in Guernica, Erin Siegal McIntyre writes about her six-year investigation into corruption and crime in international adoptions from Guatemala, as exposed through the story of one little girl. "For the past six years, the child known as Karen has lived in Missouri with her adoptive parents, Timothy and Jennifer Monahan. But Loyda Rodríguez and Dayner Hernández, a young Guatemalan couple, are convinced the child is their daughter, Anyelí, who was kidnapped in November 2006. Although a Guatemalan judge ruled that Karen should be returned to Guatemala in 2011, the Monahans have kept her." [more inside]
In which the EU unintentionally declares war on knitting designers
Starting on January 1st, 2015, the European Union will require sellers of digital content to collect VAT taxes based on the location of the buyer, not the seller. The new policy, known as VAT MOSS, requires sellers to register for VAT in an EU country, sign up for a "mini one-stop shop" (MOSS) account, collect three pieces of non-contradictory evidence proving the location of buyers, store that evidence for ten years and follow onerous EU privacy rules dictating how the data is stored, and then calculate and pay VAT to every EU member state. These rules apply to anyone selling digital content to the EU, regardless of where the seller is located. EU officials claim that these requirements will not harm small businesses, because they assume most small businesses sell through platforms like Amazon and iTunes which will be responsible for complying with the regulations. Knitting designers, independent e-publishers, and handbag-pattern publishers disagree, claiming that the new regulations will put independent sellers out of business or force them to sell their products through the very huge multinational corporations whose tax-dodging practices the law was apparently meant to target. [more inside]
Urban coyotes in Chicago.
Crittercams have given researchers an unprecedented window into an urban coyote's lifestyle, with 91 video clips of the animals hunting, eating, and avoiding people. Among other behavioral adaptations, urban coyotes in Chicago are nocturnal, have learned how to cross busy roads, are rarely hit by cars, maintain larger (if more fragmented) territories, and even successfully raise pups in secret dens. [more inside]
OBSIDIOTS: Live From District 11
The sheer brilliance that was Medieval Land Fun-Time World (previously) is hard to top, but the guys at Bad Lip Reading have soldiered on. They recently released a treatment of “Catching Fire”, and if you skip past to near the end, you’ll hear Katniss and Peeta contemplate forming a pop group and then… well, the inevitable.
Y2GangnamStyle
Video: The Sun in space
Over two weeks in October, James Tyrwhitt-Drake of the Solar Dynamics Observatory took 17,000 images of the Sun as a sunspot known as Active Region 2192 crossed its face. This is the outcome: an extraordinary timelapse video.
R.I.P. Bobby Keys 1943-2014
Legendary saxophone player Bobby Keys has passed away at the age of 70. Best known for his work with the Rolling Stones, with whom he played and toured for over 45 years, his resume is a who's who of classic rock royalty. Keys has appeared on albums by George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, BB King, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marvin Gaye, Warren Zevon, and many many more. [more inside]
Face the face
"Facebook actually makes masks out of everyone’s faces." Artist Sterling Crispin creates DATA-MASKS as a way to physically present the abstract data structures that Facebook and biometric surveillance systems use to pull a face from a crowd.
ISIS: What the US Doesn’t Understand
Over the last few days, as the United States has stepped up its bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria, it has been hard to escape another reality: the US is still looking for a coherent strategy against the Islamic State. [more inside]
Dave's Killer Bread
"We see the good in everyone, and we believe in offering jobs to felons who have shown a commitment to turning their lives around. Our goal is to serve as an example to other employers that being a convicted felon should not be a deterrent to finding gainful employment. Our success with this practice shows that there is a largely untapped pool of loyal and hardworking people who simply have made bad decisions in their past. Currently about one-third of our workforce are felons. "
Only in Hebocon would the champion feel ashamed.
"Hebocon is a robot contest for the technically ungifted. Entrants will need compromise and surrender, instead of ideas and technical skill. Robots are penalized for having high-tech features."
Mashed Holiday Redux
ARISE, SIR NEWS.
Anarchic comedy provocateur Chris Morris (The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam and Four Lions) was recently the subject of a retrospective on BBC's Raw meat Radio [more inside]
Animagraffs
We’re continually surrounded by masterful works of art that we hardly notice – objects created with fine craftsmanship on par with the work of any famous dead artist. No need to battle tourist crowds at the Louvre. Just crack open your dead cell phone and geek out! [more inside]
Meet incredible engineers and learn about their achievements
#TechTuesday – 5 Amazing Female Engineers That Time Forgot - "There have always been extraordinary women in STEM… it just wasn’t called that in the 1800s." [more inside]
Half of all marriages - oh, wait
"It is no longer true that the divorce rate is rising, or that half of all marriages end in divorce. It has not been for some time. Despite hand-wringing about the institution of marriage, marriages in this country are stronger today than they have been in a long time. The divorce rate peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s and has been declining for the three decades since." [more inside]
Unicorn Blood
sweating metaphorical bullets daily in front of my Hermes 2000
I want to strangle each and every one of you with my hair ribbon.
All About The Bass (No Treble Hooks)
In the spring of 1984, Davis caught an 8.7-pound bass in the KYKX Big Bass Classic. It wasn’t big enough to stuff and mount on the wall, but it was big enough to qualify for the $105,000 first prize. Winning two major bass fishing tournaments in less than a year? He was lucky. He was ecstatic. He was in deep shit. The Weight of Guilt.
You know who else disliked cyclists?
Roads Were Not Built for Cars - an Atlantic Citylab interview with Carlton Reid, author of the ebook and blog titled Roads Were Not Built for Cars, on institutionalized classism and historical revisionism that drove the design of car-centric infrastructure. [more inside]
The only certain fact is that he "disappeared" in or around 1958.
His family – met in Dresden in 1989 and since deceased – described him as “crazy”.
Full Biography: Karl Waldmann was born in Germany.
The only certain fact about his life is that he "disappeared in or around 1958 in a Russian labour camp.
Exhibitions until 1958: unknown.
It was not until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that his work became known.
Some will speak about an ENIGMA in connection with Karl Waldmann. We will speak rather about a NOVEL structured like an essay on the madness of the 20th century.
1,200 images. (Some images NSFW)
Full Biography: Karl Waldmann was born in Germany.
The only certain fact about his life is that he "disappeared in or around 1958 in a Russian labour camp.
Exhibitions until 1958: unknown.
It was not until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that his work became known.
Some will speak about an ENIGMA in connection with Karl Waldmann. We will speak rather about a NOVEL structured like an essay on the madness of the 20th century.
1,200 images. (Some images NSFW)
"I fast-forward through the cockroach episode & I don't like 'Humbug'."
Metafilter's favourite The X-Files writer, Darin Morgan, is interviewed on the most recent episode of Kumail Nanjiani's The X-Files Files podcast. [more inside]
"Would you want your town policed by these men?"
How Police Unions and Arbitrators Keep Abusive Cops on the Street
Officers fired for misconduct often appeal the decision and get reinstated by obscure judges in secretive proceedings.
Officers fired for misconduct often appeal the decision and get reinstated by obscure judges in secretive proceedings.
Behind the music
20 years ago, Paul Oakenfold created the goa mix, which was perhaps the first dj mix that gained wide recognition for dj mixing as an artform on its own and introduced the UK to trance music. For the 20th anniversery of theEssential Mix, BBC asked him to record a dvd-style commentary track on the thought process behind its creation.
Stranded in Space
Time Trap: a short comedy about time travel.
Bazongle
What if instead of just being the catchphrase that Sheldon says several times a week on the Big Bang Theory, Bazinga was everything? [more inside]
1970S, CITY, FUTURA, HELVETICA
Typography in Alien. (Also, Moon and 2001: A Space Odyssey.)
Generation Gaps
It's no longer just teenagers and students who seem to be running away from real life, it's people in their twenties and thirties, too. People who should really know better, but don't seem to know how to do much else. Fully grown, semi-functioning adults who are unwilling to surrender those endless nights spent staring at their own harrowed reflections in club toilet cisterns, and can't find much reason to give them up, either. People like me.
This is my generation; the generation who have no real incentive to grow up. No kids to feel guilty about, no mortgages to pay off, decent enough healthcare to keep them alive, jobs that let them scrape the money they need to feed, house and wash themselves, and only the screams of their bosses and the worried phone calls of their families to tear them away from the noble pursuit of getting on one. An army of first-world wasters trapped in an Escher maze of immaturity.
Kanye West + Sam Smith = Golden Mashup
There are many mashups out there, but there is something quite special about this blend of Sam Smith's "I'm Not The Only One" and Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing" by Carlos Serrano: “Tell Me I’m the Only One”. [more inside]
Kosciuszko, Van Wyck, and Spuyten Duyvil
“If you can read you can cook. You can always feed yourselves..."
Kent Haruf, ‘a great writer and a great man’, dies aged 71 [The Guardian]
"Pan Macmillan, Haruf’s UK publisher, said that the novelist died on Sunday 30 November, praising his “beautifully restrained, profoundly felt novels” which it said “reflected a man of integrity, honesty and deep thoughtfulness”."
The Top 10 of the 1%
Here's a list of 10 of the "most offensively decadent homes in the world", ranging from "The World's First Billion-Dollar Home", in Mumbai, India, to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. A collection of wretched excess at its most excessive. (Interestingly, the list is hosted at the website for Chadwicks Building Materials in Ireland, pretty much ensuring they won't get any business building the biggest mansions in the Emerald Isle.)
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