March 20, 2009
What the FEC couldn't figure out
Matt Taibbifilter: Among other things, the GAO report noted that the entire OTS had only one insurance specialist on staff — and this despite the fact that it was the primary regulator for the world's largest insurer! This week's MeFi stories have generally failed to explain the reasoning that caused the recession, even though Jon Stewart was basically on the mark. Now, Rolling Stone's only reporter lays it all out The Big Takeover, a typical combination of zealous snark and the overlooked, damning facts needed to clear up a ridiculously complicated story.
sex strikes
rethinking the lipstick index - a nice find: there's an old Greek play called
Lysistrata, in which the women of Greece go on a sex strike to stop the Peloponnesian War. Did it work? The play maybe was just a play, but in the last decade there have been (successful?!) sex strikes in
Liberia,
Colombia,
Naples, Sudan... this site gets into some research about ancient women's ceremonies being a coordinated sex strike to get the men to hunt, and that they painted their faces red to suggest menstrual blood... and now i can't help but think of lipstick, and blush, and then there's the
lipstick index, the idea that lipstick sales go up during hard times, (supposedly) because its the cheapest female self-indulgence product; but now i wonder... some primal impulse...
Universal Newsreels
More than 600 Universal Newsreels at Internet Archive, both whole and partial reels (the same collection, with a few more newsreels is also on YouTube but it's in lower quality). Newsreels were short collections of current events that ran before feature films. They ran from the start of the film era up into the 1960s. This collection goes from the early 30s through the mid 60s. Here are a few interesting ones: Eleanor Roosevelt tells a joke, 1935 car industry workers strike, Australian who was orphaned in China and raised by Chinese parents returns to Australia, FDR inaugurated, Enos the chimpanzee goes into space and returns to Earth, Vietnam War protest marches in New York, San Francisco and Rome, Busby Babes plane crash, Gagarin hugged by Kruschev, Truman brings the funny, Seattle be-in and Nuremberg trials.
It aint where you're from, it's where you're at
In Portland, Oregon sits the Wilkinson residence, designed by Robert Oshatz. It is kind of neat. [via]
Naked People
Sound as clear as light
Well, I'll tell you, Yanni would sound great on this system at The Great Theater in Ephesus, Turkey. A log cabin in the Bluegrass mountains would be another perfect setting for this system. Wow - the possibilities are endless.
Video Games, One Moment At A Time
Salt Sculptures
Following the death of his sister to brain cancer, Motoi Yamamoto adopted salt as his primary artistic medium. In Japanese culture salt is not only a necessary element to sustain human life, but it is also a symbol of purification. He uses salt in loose form to create intricate labyrinth patterns on the gallery floor or in baked brick form to construct large interior structures. As with the labyrinths and unnavigable passageways, Motoi Yamamoto views his installations as exercises which are at once futile yet necessary to his healing.
Now if only we could do this in modern games...
Thanks to the LUA scripting support in NES emulator FCEUX, you can do things like drag and drop enemies and powerups, alter gravity, give mario a jetpack, or make him shoot magic missiles. Super Mario Brothers not your thing? Perhaps you'd rather just have it play Pinball for you.
I Wish I Was Special
Has CREEP become this era's Free Bird to be played by every band at the end of every concert and covered by everybody?
They spit at almighty God and persevere
Beyond Real and Fake
I both loved and resented that wealth of warmth which Elisabeth brought to me in those unexpected hours of the night. I was usually in the midst of a sound sleep when she got into my bed, and thrilling as I found the ministrations of her fat little fingers, it also meant my being kept awake for hours and hours. Besides, though in my conscious nature I knew nothing about what was going on, I must have had a feeling that my sister was bringing to my life as accomplished facts sensations whose real value to a boy was in their being discovered as part of the experience of growing up. She was presenting me with triumphs I should by right attain only by my own efforts in a much more restricted world… [more inside]
Leave It to Beaver
It's Friday, what better time to relish in the carefree world that was Leave It to Beaver. Even though it was "just" a TV show, how many of us, back in our youth, could relate to anxiety of being given the dreaded note from a teacher? Of course, as with any syndicated sitcom, there are stories behind the various actors. And other stories as well... [more inside]
The sins of man are my condiments. Criminals are my napkin. She forgot pickles. Justice is dead.
Politics of the plate
If you have eaten a tomato this winter, chances are very good that it was picked by a person who lives in virtual slavery.
Mountain Blew Your Own Adventure
Do Your Own Adventure with Sue Teller: Customizing Your Kicks & Making Mash-Ups. [Warning: Extremely Obvious Product Placement.] [more inside]
RIP Richard Aoki
Former Black Panther and civil rights activist Richard Aoki passed away Sunday from medical complications. [more inside]
AIG Corporate Security's Tips for Surviving an Angry Mob
AIG corporate memo, leaked to Gawker, advises employees on how not to fall victim to the populist horde calling for their heads.
Wiener Dog On A Minimoog
Tropicos -- the Missouri Botanical Garden's online database
"All of the nomenclatural, bibliographic, and specimen data accumulated in MBG’s electronic databases during the past 25 years are publicly available here. This system has over one million scientific names and 3.5 million specimen records." (Description from website.) Searchable by scientific or common name, the database includes brief descriptions, images and references (with some links to full text in Botanicus), and specimen and distribution lists that are available in Google Maps and Earth. Quite a nice resource for anyone interested in botany. [more inside]
Equine achondroplastic dwarfism vs. The Hampshire Fire Service
Bowman quits Google
I’m thankful for the opportunity I had to work at Google. I learned more than I thought I would.... But I won’t miss a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data.And with that Douglas Bowman, the great web designer and CSS guru whose hiring was considered a big coup three years ago, quits Google for Twitter. [more inside]
Bats Flying in Slow Motion
How To Be A Bat [Life in Motion] Carl Zimmer has a lengthy post about Bats over at Discover magazine's website. Several slow motion videos of bat flight including a cool matlabish model of a bat flight vortex. As with all flying takoffs are optional and landings are mandatory so they also have slow motion video of two point and four point landings as well as well as some more pedestrian videos.
One is such a lonely number...
What do the following cars have in common? The Chrysler Neon. The Daihatsu Charade. The Dodge Viper SRT-10. The Ferrari SuperAmerica. The Fiat Croma. The Hummer H2. The Hyundai Terracan. The Hyundai Trajet. The Rover 75. The CityRover. The Smart Cabrio. The Tata Safari.
Give up? Each one of the cars listed above sold exactly one new (as in, not previously registered) unit last year in the UK, according to the Daily Telegraph. This makes them the most exclusive cars of 2008.
It was gladiator-style entertainment for the staff
Thunderdome Filter: In two separate incidents Texas schools have gotten a jump on any sort of dystopic future scenarios by staging illegal forced fights between those in their care. Corpus Christi State School night-staff made disabled residents get out of bed and then taped them fighting each other in over 20 incidents during 2008. South Oak Cliff High School had a policy between 2003 and 2005 of settling disputes between troubled students by having them fight it out in a steel cage in the boy's locker room while students and faculty looked on. Several arrests have been made in the Corpus Christi case and the South Oak Cliff one is just coming to public attention.
The Ewens Brothers sing your requests
Need to woo that special someone? The Ewens Brothers will sing your requests live on the air every friday. They sing together. They sing solo. But they always sing with passion! (And sometimes an open shirt. Frankie Valli must be so proud!)
Make it work, geeks!
Diana Eng (from Season 2 of Project Runway) has come out with a new book for the DIY fashion geek called: Fashion Geek! (Via Project Rungay.) Gives me something to do while I save up for one of these.
wysiwyg: Ed Piskor
Ed Piskor became interested in alternative comics at the tender age of nine [according to Wikipedia] after watching Harvey Pekar reading one of his stories in a documentary [most likely this one]. Fast-forward a decade or so, and Ed's getting the call from Pekar himself, asking Ed to draw some comics for him. [more inside]
Feel-Good Fail
Ken Mink became a national feel-good story late last year when, at age 73, he joined the basketball team of Roane State Community College in Tennessee. At the end of an early season game, with his team up big, Ken was subbed in and managed to draw a foul and make two free throws. Fame followed. But is this feel-good story really all its cracked up to be?
I can hear the purple!
Friday Flash Fun: Music Catch 2, move your cursor around to collect objects. Yellow are good, Red are bad, and purple are special. [more inside]
Every day is holy and special
Looking for a reason to celebrate today, or just a reason to skip out on your obligations? You could look through Religious seasonal days of celebration and holy days , check if today is covered by Holiday for Every Day yet, or keep things simple and rely on a Calendar of the Saints like the Catholic feast days or Greek Saints Days from the Orthodox Ministry Access Calendar. If you like to be more traditional, you could go with the Medievalist's On-line Calendar of Saints, which only lists people recognized as saints in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Or, if you feel lucky, check for special Google logos (designed by Dennis Hwang). For instance, today is the first day of Spring, and the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
What'choo talkin' 'bout Hendrik?
Tampa Red
Hey kids, let's go way back, and spend a little quality time with Tampa Red, shall we? Cause, you know, you can't get that stuff no more, and if you missed him, you missed a good man.
Friday Flash-ish Spaß!
Friday Flash JavaScript Fun! Balldroppings (ha.) is a gravity-based game where balls drop at regular intervals from a particular point in the screen and you draw lines to make them bounce. The excellent part: every time the balls bounce off a line, they sing. [more inside]
Where did all the money go?
Where did all the money go? is just one of the enties to GOOD's financial crisis infographic competition. [more inside]
This is indeed the time to panic
Product Panic - Bruce Sterling on industrial design in the slump.
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