March 14, 2013
el molé de caderas
The Goat Slaughter
When the first goat was killed, it took me by surprise. My husband Jorge and I had been invited by one of Jorge’s photojournalist friends to this nondescript compound in La Mixteca, the most impoverished region of Oaxaca, Mexico’s most impoverished state, to watch the annual slaughter of thousands of goats.[more inside]
The Inscrutable Brilliance of Anne Carson
Famous writer Anne Carson on ice bats: "I made up ice bats, there is no such thing." (SLNYT) [more inside]
It's. My. Beak.
Have you ever wanted to see cartoon ducks raving in a 3D psychedelic wonderland? You're in luck. It's My Beak, by Libythth. Via.
Love and Fear in the Lab
Uri Alon, professor of molecular cell biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, gives a lecture on the subjective and emotional sides of doing science at CalTech, complete with guitar.
Got a Match? No, but I've got 2 arms, 2 necks, 2 sticks and 88 keys
Not so happily-ever-after?
I can't let you do that, Dave.
Web standards body W3C is considering a proposal to add Digital Rights Management to the next version of the HTML5 standard. Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee is fine with this. Others, like Cory Doctorow, have a different point of view, claiming it will have far-reaching effects that are "incompatible with the W3C's most important policies". Others have called it "impractical and unethical".
There's something about paper
Fashion Illustrator, Furniture Designer and Political Satirist
Paul Iribe who d.in 1935 is best known as a fashion illustrator.
However he was also a furniture designer and a prolific political satirist. (wiki)
However he was also a furniture designer and a prolific political satirist. (wiki)
“Don't be …”
Google has removed Ad Blocking apps from their Play Store. AdAway is available on the open source Android repository F-Droid. AdBlock+ remains available from their own site.
He has come, our Ultraman!
Ultraman Hit Song History Legend Hero Hen and Ultraman Hit Song History New Hero Hen are two 45 minute commemoration compilations of theme songs and clips of the Japanese tokusatsu hero Ultraman that were put together for the show's 45th anniversary. If you're pressed for time, you can just watch the original theme song with English subtitles.
He said he would welcome a million American soldiers to come in
On July 17, 1945, the OSS Deer Team, led by Major A. K. Thomas, was parachuted in the jungle 200 km north of Hanoi, to make contact with a mysterious group of resistance fighters willing to help the US against the Japanese. They were greeted cordially by the group leader, "Mr C. M. Hoo", a sick-looking older man, and his acolyte "Mr Van", a dapper man wearing a white linen suit and a black fedora (and he did like his fedora). From mid-July to the Japanese capitulation, the Deer Team trained Hoo's ragtag band, provided them with explosives and small arms and followed them during skirmishes. They also allegedly saved Ho(o)'s life. Major Thomas' full report on the Deer Mission (including the FPP title and the line Forget the Communist Bogy) is buried in the 1972 Hearings on the causes of the Vietnam war (see also the same events according to Henri Prunier, last surviving member of the Deer Team). [more inside]
He loves you yeah yeah yeah
Cox Models and Drag Queens
That Makes It Invertible! (by The Three Directions)
Three professors at Harvey Mudd College wanted to do something special to mark the final lecture of Math 40: Linear Algebra that their students could relate to. The result: they transformed themselves into The Three Directions and performed "That Makes It Invertible!" for their class, complete with choreography and bad math puns. (SLYT)
Made-for-TV moment
On Wednesday, dozens of armed Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) agents raided several construction sites in Vancouver, Canada looking for undocumented workers. The raids struck many foreman as excessive, especially when, in one case, they were looking for two specific workers who were quickly located. And then they discovered the CBSA was accompanied by reality-television filming crews.
Biketown, USA
LACMA Collection
The Collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Of the 80,000 or so pieces of art on display online, around 20,000 will now have high resolution versions available for download. [more inside]
RIP: Boston Phoenix and WFNX Radio
The Boston Phoenix will be closing immediately, only six months after reinventing itself as a glossy weekly. The Portland and Providence versions will remain open. [Previously]
Tasty Pastry or Edible Obscenity?
Virtual idol Hatsune Miku has collaborated with Family Mart to produce these NSFW snacks. Whaddya think? Feel like heading down to Family Mart for some Sakura no Ame? [more inside]
Not safe for those under the influence of hallucinogenic substances
The NEDC is supposed to represent the typical usage of a car in Europe.
Mind the Gap! Why official car fuel economy figures don’t match up to reality. This report provides new evidence and understanding on why there is a growing gap between the official fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of new passenger cars and vans and that which is achieved by the same vehicles on the road. It demonstrates that the current (NEDC) test is outdated and unrepresentative of real-world driving and current vehicles, and that lax testing procedures are allowing car-makers to manipulate the official tests to produce unrealistically low results [more inside]
Mages didn't do enough research on climate change
Tropical Skyrim is an overhaul mod that transforms the icy province of Skyrim into a tropical area. Here's a short showcase video and a longer video.
The Files Will Get Out
"The most important artefact relating to the Titanic to ever emerge"
Experts have declared that a violin found in an attic in 2006 is indeed the one on which Wallace Hartley played "Nearer My God to Thee" as the Titanic sank.
Veronica Mars Movie gets green light, with a little help from fans
Fans of Veronica Mars, the gone-too-soon TV show that's had a cult following since it's cancellation in 2007, are finally getting a movie. [more inside]
The duty of the satirist is to go one worse than reality
Five classic book reviews from the New Statesmen archive: Including V S Pritchett on Orwell's 1984, V S Naipaul on Memento Mori by Muriel Spark and Martin Amis on J G Ballard's High Rise.
"He breaks off, cackling."
Christopher Doyle, cinematographer for Wong Kar-Wai's most acclaimed works (and dozens of other movies), calls Life of Pi's Academy Award an "insult to cinematography" in a recent interview. He elaborated: "What a total fucking piece of shit." (Part 1 of the same interview, more informative but less entertaining) [NSFW film posters and language]
New York's Hidden Subway Station
Deep in the belly of New York’s subway system, a beautiful untouched station resides that has been forgotten for years with only a limited few knowing of its existence. But if you know what to do, you can see it for yourself.
Bonus: The Underbelly Project, a secret underground art exhibition. [more inside]
The Overbite, Evolution, Utensils, and The Kitchen
Jane Kramer has a fascinating review, an all-encompassing review, of Bee Wilson's, “CONSIDER THE FORK: A HISTORY OF HOW WE COOK AND EAT.” [more inside]
Mailboxes - The Fife Collection of Western U.S. Vernacular Architecture
A collection of pictures of mailboxes in the western US - part of the Fife Collection of Western U.S. Vernacular Architecture, which also includes quilts, murals, tree bark graffiti, fences, gravestones, and festivals, and other examples of folklife and material culture visually recorded by folklorists Austin and Alta Fife. [more inside]
In my belly, fools, not the landfill!
13,000+ boxes of Girl Scout cookies trashed on video. Sources at the Girl Scouts of the USA office in New York say there's no organization-wide policy for disposing of unsold cookies. Many boxes are donated, thanks in part to the 1996 Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act that shields businesses from liability for food donations. Still, an estimated 40% of food is thrown out (pdf) in the U.S.
a global trade in expensive white powder
The Netherlands has of course long been a hub in the international illegal drugs trade, but the white powder currently being exported to China on such a scale that it leads to local shortages is not quite the powder you're thinking of: infant milk formula. [more inside]
Tim Wallach: An attempt to collect them all (literally, all of them)
One man documents his neverending quest to collect all the Tim Wallach baseball cards. Not one of each card, but every single copy of every single Tim Wallach card ever made in the history of baseball cards. If you have any in your possession, he asks that you mail them to his law office's PO box. Maybe you can work out a deal. [more inside]
The Perfect Day
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