December 9, 2014

Former Ghosts: catharsis through dark, noisy synthpop

If you enjoy dark electronic/dance-type music, and you're interested in "dry, haunted synthpop jam(s)" that "sound like what might've happened to Joy Division if Ian Curtis had bought a Casio and a four-track and fired the rest of the band," you might enjoy Former Ghosts, who consist of Freddy Ruppert (This Song Is A Mess But So Am I) with Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart, plus Nika Danilova (Zola Jesus), and Yasmine Kittles of Tearist. Former Ghosts only have two albums to their name, Fleurs (2009 - official video: Hold On; fan vid - Mother) and New Love (2010 - official videos: Taurean Nature, New Orleans). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:14 PM PST - 7 comments

Album covers with people living in hair

Album Covers Featuring Tiny People Living In The Artist's Or Cover Model's Hair.
posted by escabeche at 7:53 PM PST - 9 comments

These lights fantastic would be worth the trip!

By now, we've all seen those houses where the Christmas lights are synced to music, usually to 'Wizards In Winter' by the Trans-Siberia-Orchestra' (but not always.) Now, however, the bar has been raised considerably higher...
posted by Quasimike at 5:51 PM PST - 44 comments

Girls Fight Out

Back at the gym that first day, they were filled with the wholesome optimism with which we like to imbue athletes. This was before things fell to shit. This was before you could see how a group of women, put together in a house to be pioneers of a thing, examples, were capable of systematically destroying one another, of bringing one another to their knees, which, as it turns out, takes only six weeks. (Warning: Pictures of bloody women). Girls Fight Out.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 5:46 PM PST - 12 comments

Book-selling on Mutanabbi Street: texts from vital sidewalks

Al-Mutanabbi is an open book, bearing symbols that are deeply etched into the body of today’s Baghdad. The street has no endpoint. [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 5:41 PM PST - 4 comments

Marie Tharp's map

How One Woman's Discovery Shook the Foundations of Geology "She crunched and re-crunched the numbers for weeks on end, double- and triple-checking her data. As she did, she became more convinced that the impossible was true: She was looking at evidence of a rift valley, a place where magma emerged from inside the earth, forming new crust and thrusting the land apart. If her calculations were right, the geosciences would never be the same."
posted by dhruva at 5:12 PM PST - 27 comments

academic podcasts

The Backdoor Broadcasting Company is a 'mobile audio recording and webcasting service,' based in the UK. They focus on recording academic events, like David Webb – From Mathematics to Ethics in the Work of Michel Foucault, Journalism, Whistleblowing and the Security State, Sally Davies – The Drugs Don’t Work: A Global Threat and have previously been linked on MetaFilter with recordings of Slavoj Žižek. The archives are here.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:58 PM PST - 7 comments

The Death of Mid-Budget Cinema

"Something happened that nobody can make a movie between $500,000 and $80 million. That can’t be possible.”
In 2003, 455 films were released. 275 of those were independent, 180 were studio films. Last year 677 films were released. So you’re not imagining things, there are a lot of movies that open every weekend. 549 of those were independent, 128 were studio films. So, a 100% increase in independent films, and a 28% drop in studio films, and yet, ten years ago: Studio market share 69%, last year 76%. You’ve got fewer studio movies now taking up a bigger piece of the pie and you’ve got twice as many independent films scrambling for a smaller piece of the pie.
posted by octothorpe at 3:39 PM PST - 43 comments

Oh and the food? “It was delicious.”

I want my two four dollars!, or what happens when a professor (and lawyer) gets charged more than the prices quoted on a website.
posted by FreezBoy at 3:32 PM PST - 218 comments

It’s about ethics in video game parenting

What happens when a 21st-century kid plays through video game history in chronological order?
posted by nadawi at 3:20 PM PST - 41 comments

"We just made a bubble ring without the bubble!"

Crazy pool vortex! Dianna, a science outreach coordinator for UCSD, has a video demonstrating and explaining cool vortex behavior in a swimming pool. She has other videos linked from her website physicsgirl.org. (vortices, previously)
posted by rmd1023 at 1:54 PM PST - 12 comments

“Camels are extremely popular right now.”

Coyote Booms, Bear Attacks And How Climate Change Is Wreaking Havoc On The Animal Kingdom. "'The long-term drought impacts on vegetation that affect the prey of the animals that predators feed on is also a reason for encroachment,' said Crabtree. He said he thinks all large carnivores have this problem, especially the ones that depredate, or plunder — such as coyotes, bears, mountain lions and wolves. 'The drought decreases natural forage for herbivores like deer,' said Crabtree. 'There will be a relatively higher density of deer in urban areas where there are lawns.'" [more inside]
posted by quiet earth at 1:46 PM PST - 15 comments

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Drew Magary brings us this year's edition of The Hater's Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog. [more inside]
posted by sparklemotion at 1:21 PM PST - 89 comments

I like soft things. I like being near water.

Four Christmases. A comic by Leslie Stein.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:13 PM PST - 6 comments

The world is becoming even more suburban, and better for it.

A planet of suburbs
posted by garlic at 12:40 PM PST - 36 comments

They should have sent a poet

CINEMA SPACE TRIBUTE SLVimeo - A beautiful montage of space scenes in big budget movies. Set to Hans Zimmer music (from Interstellar), with Anthony Hopkins reciting Dylan Thomas.
posted by DigDoug at 12:39 PM PST - 4 comments

Greetings from the South Pole

James O. Thach has an amazing array of life experiences, as proven through remarkable Amazon reviews. Here he is proving his conservative bona fides as he pronounces Ann Coulter's newest book "a steaming cauldron of truth"; waxing rhapsodic on cardamom, "nectar of the gods, breath of the immortals"; and researching penguins with only a Justin Bieber Singing Toothbrush for company.
posted by shivohum at 11:28 AM PST - 18 comments

Dollree Mapp, 1923-2014: "The Rosa Parks of the Fourth Amendment"

In 1961, one dogged black woman took a stand against illegal police tactics. Today the fine folks at The Marshall Project profile one very important American you probably know almost nothing about. [more inside]
posted by deludingmyself at 11:21 AM PST - 8 comments

NSFAcrophobics

Cody Townsend is ignorant of gravity or physiology. That is the only possible explanation for why he would subject his body to this insane ski run, dubbed Best Line of the year by Powder magazine. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 11:20 AM PST - 37 comments

Vaccine-Preventable Disease Outbreaks Around the World

Vaccine-Preventable Disease Outbreaks Around the World/Data Visualization. The video was based on an interactive map created by the Council on Foreign Relations. The short article linked in the video.
posted by cwest at 11:18 AM PST - 24 comments

Christmas in L.A.

Funky-ass Vulfpeck (previously, previously, previously) drops your new funky-ass Christmas jam: Christmas in L.A.
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:58 AM PST - 3 comments

There's a tear in my beer because of bad legislation in Ontario, dear

A 2000 report leaked to the Toronto Star details how the Harris government struck a sweetheart deal to ensure major brewers a stranglehold on Ontario beer retail. Long suspected but never before proven, the report details how the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) was forced to submit to a subsidiary role in beer retail in the province; the then-LCBO head has confirmed that Harris forced the deal onto the province. Martin Cohn reports in the Toronto Star.
posted by Shepherd at 10:15 AM PST - 57 comments

CIA Torture Report Released

The Senate intelligence committee's report on CIA torture has been released. [more inside]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 9:43 AM PST - 887 comments

The Australian answer to the latte: the flat white

“I was in London on business in the fall of 2013 when an Australian colleague brought me to a coffee place at Canary Wharf,” says Jason Fox, the global head of product, technology, and program management at Reuters News Agency. “She ordered something called a ‘flat white,’ and I had no idea what it was, but she raved about it, and I got one too. I was hooked.” ("Meet the Flat White, the Coffee Drink Taking the U.S. by Storm", Bon Appétit)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:24 AM PST - 145 comments

33 Million Things

Shelf Life is the first episode in a new video blog from the American Museum of Natural History, in which scientists, curators, and collection specialists take you behind-the-scenes at the Museum. Bonus interview: Atlas Obscura.
posted by carter at 8:49 AM PST - 3 comments

Ubiquitous Sandstorm

How Darude's "Sandstorm" Became the EDM Track Everyone on the Web Knows
posted by josher71 at 8:37 AM PST - 109 comments

Norway is pretty

The land of fjords, trolls and vikings is a nation of 5 million people, and snow. Photographers like it, as do jumpers and skateboarders. Norway is pretty and has a long coastline due to the lovely crinkly edges, making it nice to sail in. There are islands such as the Lofoten archipelago, long train journeys, steep train journeys, the Northern Lights, ferry journeys that last 134 hours, road tunnels, cathedrals, more Aurora Borealis, mountains, lights, some skiing, sunrises and sunsets, cosy hotels, long walks and whales. And the Aurora. Their tourist board has an unfair advantage. Camping is nice, either with other people or on your own. Svalbard is quite north. Did we mention the scenery and Aurora?
posted by Wordshore at 7:24 AM PST - 25 comments

Ralph Baer Has Passed Away

The father of video games has passed away. Console inventor Ralph Baer is dead at 92. Wikipedia. [more inside]
posted by cjorgensen at 6:25 AM PST - 36 comments

A pod of whales on the wing (SLYT)

If the Red Arrows flew 250-ton widebody airliners instead of fast jet trainers their display might look something like this. [more inside]
posted by cstross at 6:14 AM PST - 37 comments

"I don't understand the attitude of not playing your hit, or whatever"

Bose has made a three video series in which musicians talk about making one of their signature songs: posted by Going To Maine at 6:13 AM PST - 16 comments

Joy From The World

December is a month of darkness across the Northern Hemisphere, where 90 percent of the global population lives. We battle it with candles and song, and above all with parties and food.
posted by ellieBOA at 4:38 AM PST - 24 comments

Hullooooo, It's Scott Manley!

Space enthusiast, astrophysicist, programmer, and retired club DJ, Scott Manley, a Scotsman living in San Francisco, is one of a great number of "Let's Play" youtube video creators. Among the players of Kerbal Space Program, however, he's somewhere between rockstar and deity. Now, he is on the cusp of a new level of achievement: Faster Than Light. [more inside]
posted by Sunburnt at 12:30 AM PST - 37 comments

Still Combining Numbers On A Grid To Get Bigger Numbers, But Different

Get 10 is a new browser game from veewo, creators of 1024.
posted by Rinku at 12:12 AM PST - 32 comments

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