March 23, 2011
Get your Ph.D. in EDMCs
Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Music Dance Culture is the first peer-reviewed scholarly journal for promulgating interdisciplinary research concerning all aspects of electronic dance music culture. [more inside]
Not just SOME things. Nuh-uh. EVERYthing.
Vitamin Records: String Quartet Covers
Looking for something familiar with a twist? Best told from their About Us Page: Vitamin Records was formed in Los Angeles in 1999 to provide music lovers with high quality string quartet, lounge and electronic tributes to major pop and rock artists. Vitamin's mission is to offer fans exciting versions of their favorite songs performed in new musical contexts. [more inside]
That whole vomit thing was an isolated incident
Indicating by this succinct phrasing his understanding as to the work that would be required in order to make sense of the sketches and the heinous nature of the crime.
There are few works of greater scope or structural genius than the series of fiction pieces by Horatio Bucklesby Ogden, collectively known as The Wire; yet for the most part, this Victorian masterpiece has been forgotten and ignored by scholars and popular culture alike. [more inside]
twenty years of schoolin’ and
In over 35 years of friendship and conversation, Walter Michaels and I have disagreed on only two things, and one of them was faculty and graduate student unionization. He has always been for and I had always been against. I say “had” because I recently flipped and what flipped me, pure and simple, was Wisconsin.
When I think about the reasons (too honorific a word) for my previous posture I become embarrassed. ... The big reason was the feeling — hardly thought through sufficiently to be called a conviction — that someone with an advanced degree and scholarly publications should not be in the same category as factory workers with lunch boxes and hard hats. Wisconsin has taught Stanley Fish that academics are workers too. Marc Bousquet (author of How the University Works) responds at the Chronicle of Higher Education with five lessons for academics from Wisconsin.
Punk rock and comic books! My two favorite things!
Mitch Clem, author of the late, lamented punk comic Nothing Nice To Say, is back with Turnstile Comics. The first issue is a collaboration with Jesse "Swan" Thorson from Minneapolis punks The Slow Death and includes a 4 song EP from them. It's printed in a 7 by 7-inch square to help fit with your record collection.
Oh God, not another meme post...!
Full-on metaphysics. In meme form I know I probably shouldn't. It's too trite. Memes. Just shoot me now. One of probably many previouslies
A Rommel Christmas: every day
Gary Brecher-ne-Dolan, better known as The War Nerd, has switched from bimonthly articles to a daily blog. First stop? Why Lybia! Where else? [more inside]
Talking to the Enemy
Scott Atran, has appeared previously on Metafilter. He released a book a few months ago called, Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists. Atran has spent many years studying terrorists, particularly suicide bombers. His research disputes the assertion that terrorists are primarily driven by religious belief, but instead youth culture and group dynamics. [more inside]
Christchurch, New Zealand, post-quake
Eerily calm - Civil Defence New Zealand has released footage of post-earthquake Christchurch.
Lapdog healthcare
Coalition health reforms will spell the end for the NHS and lead to U.S. style system, claim researchers. 'Prof Allyson Pollock, from the Barts and The London School of Medicine, and David Price, senior research fellow at its Centre for Health Sciences, write in a paper published on BMJ.com that the legislation “amounts to the abolition of the English NHS as a universal, comprehensive, publicly accountable, tax funded service, free at the point of delivery”. They say the Government “has repealed the health secretary’s duty to provide or secure the provision of comprehensive care” in order to create a commercial market in care. Instead, under the new system the state "finances but does not provide healthcare", in “equivalent to Medicare and Medicaid schemes in the US”'. Meanwhile, Dr Kim Price, claims 'the UK coalition government's planned NHS and welfare reforms, and their use of 'nudge' theory, hark back to ideas on welfare and recession from the end of the nineteenth century, according to studies by a University of Leicester historian whose research paper has recently been published in the Lancet'. [more inside]
Segaga... ga?
The video game SEGAGAGA, a Japan-only release for the Dreamcast, is an incredibly odd bit of gaming history. A business sim (of sorts) it tasks the player to lead Sega to victory over its rival the evil DOGMA Corporation (a thinly veiled analog for Sony). Loaded with in-jokes obvious and obscure, it is a love letter to Sega fans, and it was one of the last Dreamcast games made before Sega went third party. After a four-year hiatus, the Segagaga fan translation project has resumed work on localizing this most unusual game. Intro video. Edge Magazine interviews the director. [more inside]
3D DOA?
In the movie business, sometimes a flop is just a flop. Then there are misses so disastrous that they send signals to broad swaths of Hollywood. “Mars Needs Moms” is shaping up as the second type. Is the fact that the Robert Zemeckis animation tanked so badly (A $7m opening weekned against a $150m budget) part of a back-lash against 3D or was Mars Needs Moms just a particularly bad film?
Play Me
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Maine governor Paul LePage has ordered the state's Labor Department to remove a mural he says is too pro-labor. He has also declared several of the building's conference room names to have "one-sided decor." This was reportedly at the behest of anonymous businesses who complained of a pro-labor bias. [more inside]
What went right and what went wrong
For the 25th Game Developers Conference, organizers hosted several postmortems for classic games such as Out Of This World, Doom, and Maniac Mansion. They are now free to view online. [more inside]
You Got Stale! (AOL Reboots Itself)
In February, AOL acquired the Huffington Post for $315 million. (Previously) The formation of The Huffington Post Media Group was announced, to integrate content for a new combined, claimed audience of "117 Million Americans and 270 Million Globally." Then, AOL fired 200 US employees (leaving many sites without editorial staff) and began restructuring. Today, they announced that 30 brands, including popular site Slashfood, will be closed or folded into existing Huffington Post sections. [more inside]
Big Machines Dancing!
"Pretty Big Dig": Small advertisement will play before video. A dance film by Anne Troake that gently illustrates the assimilation of technology. Also, a shorter clip with commentary by Anne Troake.
aurora borealis
Time lapse video of an aurora borealis, by Terje Sorgjerd.
Defeating the NYT paywall
From Flax to Fiber to Fashion
Be Linen (vimeo) a video commissioned by the European Linen and Hemp Community beautifully shows how flax plants become linen fabric. [more inside]
Extreme Pterodactyl! (It's about carrots.)
Serotonin, mice and a good time
L'Ami Louis
We order foie gras and snails to start. Foie gras is a L’Ami Louis specialty. After 30 minutes what come are a pair of intimidatingly gross flabs of chilly pâté, with a slight coating of pustular yellow fat. They are dense and stringy, with a web of veins. I doubt they were made on the premises. The liver crumbles under the knife like plumber’s putty and tastes faintly of gut-scented butter or pressed liposuction. The fat clings to the roof of my mouth with the oleaginous insistence of dentist’s wax.
Restaurant critic A.A.Gill visits L'Ami Louis. A.A.Gill is not impressed.
Restaurant critic A.A.Gill visits L'Ami Louis. A.A.Gill is not impressed.
Brewing Barefoot Brouhaha?
A few years back MeFi'er freshwater_pr0n covered the burgeoning trend of barefoot & minimalist footwear running. The trend has continued with Fila now producing a look-alike to the popular Vibram Five Fingers shoes, but the jury is still out, scientifically speaking, regarding the impact of running in little to no footwear. One study points to low loading rate as the potential key to injuries, while longtime running researcher Benno M. Nigg's new text says just the opposite and a third (excerpted) study seems to point out that a change in footfall/strike correlates to footwear but may not reduce injuries. Given the shifting scientific analysis, runners are left with impassioned testimonials and heated debates. Nigg's advice might ring truest: shoe comfort is "probably the most important variable". [more inside]
Sydromachos had a backside “as big as a cistern.”
Dancing Android
If Someone Whistles "Woooo"
Written by Walter Doyle and arguably made popular by Harry Reser, Mysterious Mose became a cartoon starring an early Betty Boop and then Screen Novelties made this awesome puppet version!
He's Luke's Father!
A Massage from President Director
Tri-M.G. Intra Asia Airlines (Warning: Sound, Flash, airplanes) has taken regional airline website design to new heights (Warning: Airline banned in the EU for being unsafe). via
It's All Gone Pete Tong
The top 50 dance records of the past 20 years. -- as selected by BBC radio DJs and 'industry leaders' and mixed by Jaguar Skills.
RIP Elizabeth Taylor
Film legend Elizabeth Taylor died today at the age of 79. The two-time Oscar winner, who was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in February for symptoms of heart failure, was reported to be feeling stronger as recently as late February. She celebrated her 79th birthday on February 27th. [more inside]
Deadbeats and Turnips
Even if you can't afford child support, a lawyer will not be provided for you. The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that parents who are behind on child support can be jailed for up to year without ever having had legal representation, on the basis that violating court orders is a civil offense rather than a criminal one.
Revolution
Rap News 7: #Revolution - What if it's the first world that needs to be liberated? (SLYT - The subtitles help.)
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