March 23, 2015

Dealing with the digital afterlife of a hacker

Dealing with the digital afterlife of a hacker It’s been three months since Michael died, and Beth has only been able to access and understand a sliver of what he left behind in the digital world. Kalat, who has been working closely with Beth to access Michael’s data, says this ought to be a wake up call to everyone who spends a significant amount of their life online—not just hackers.
posted by CrystalDave at 9:38 PM PST - 27 comments

Pones and Bones: A Trip to Anti-Narnia.

Peter Watts (previously) tours the FX house responsible for Hannibal's bodies. Meanwhile Neil Marshall and Vincenzo Natali are to direct episodes of the show.
posted by Artw at 8:15 PM PST - 29 comments

Might As Well Open Your Eyes

Why I Run Netrunner (fantastic Previous post) is a great card game with a small problem--the initial difficulty curve is basically a cliff, with seemingly a thousand different things for newcomers to keep in mind. So developer Martin Brochu, aka Nagnazul, has created a neat little flavorific text-based tutorial for you all. Now you have no more excuse. Enjoy! (Some NSFW language.)
posted by Navelgazer at 7:45 PM PST - 16 comments

What to do with a cart and no horse?

Hitch the cart to a dog, of course. Dogs (and sometimes goats) were used to pull small carts in much of Europe, usually by people who could not afford to keep horses. The heyday of these small dog-drawn carts was in the 19th century, when dog carts were commonly used in places like England, the Netherlands, and Belgium to deliver milk and sometimes other groceries. In fact, the Belgian Army even experimented with dog-drawn carts toting machine guns during WWI. Previously. [more inside]
posted by sciatrix at 7:17 PM PST - 30 comments

"Nothing is forbidden anymore." —Enrique Iglesias, "Bailamos"

The boys ... are back. [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:35 PM PST - 62 comments

Yuzen

Process of Yuzen - the creation of a kimono.
posted by a manly man person who is male and masculine at 6:24 PM PST - 5 comments

The deal of the century

“IT WILL WORK LIKE THIS,” he continued. “I GIVE YOU A FOOKLOAD OF LOGS AND YOU GIVE US YOUR CAT.”
posted by jason's_planet at 6:17 PM PST - 31 comments

"There is no cure for our addiction to medical hype"

Every day, news sources report on medical studies that describe promising new treatments. Most of them don't pan out in the end. Julia Belluz reports on "why you shouldn’t believe that exciting new medical study." Her article includes a figure showing which foods are reported to cause cancer and which ones are reported to prevent it. (Spoiler: they're the same foods.)
posted by grouse at 5:17 PM PST - 25 comments

fuzzy

What Makes an Electric Guitar Sound Like an Electric Guitar.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 4:13 PM PST - 58 comments

Dorf poetry, music and dance

Dwarf Fortress will now include poetry, music and dance in procedurally generated forms. Making individual poems is beyond the capabilities of Dwarf Fortress (for now) but that hasn't stopped fans from making their own poems based on the publicly posted examples of poetic forms. Besides poetry, music and dance forms will also be generated and spread throughout the game as non-player characters teach each other. Dwarf Fortress developer Tarn Adams has been posting about these new additions to the game on his changelog (starting at 01/24/2015) and answering questions about it in his two latest monthly Future of the Fortress forum posts. On Rock Paper Shotgun Adam and Graham Smith delve into this topic to explore why it matters.
posted by Kattullus at 3:47 PM PST - 55 comments

Welcome to the future; enjoy your waterblob!

"When we drink bottled water we throw away plastic, [and] 80% of the bottles are not recycled..... Ooho! uses the culinary technique of sphereification, the water is encapsulated in a double gelatinous membrane. The technique consist into apply sodium alginate (E-401) from the brown algae and calcium chloride (E-509) in a concrete proportions in order to generate a gelification on the exterior of the liquid. The final package is simple, cheap (2ct/unit), resistant, hygienic, biodegradable and even eatable."
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 3:11 PM PST - 73 comments

I try to be good hard-worker-man, but refrigemater so messy, so so messy

Todd VanDerWerff on why NewsRadio was the best sitcom of the 1990s.
posted by rewil at 2:06 PM PST - 92 comments

TedCruz.com

Ted Cruz dot com: A domain name cautionary tale "On March 23rd, Texas Republican senator and Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz announced that he was going to run for president. If you [go] running to his website, tedcruz.com, to see what he had to say you [will be] shocked to see the message, "SUPPORT PRESIDENT OBAMA. IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW!"" [more inside]
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:31 PM PST - 157 comments

Dead Moon

The Ballad of Fred and Toody
posted by josher71 at 1:22 PM PST - 9 comments

"She often condescends to drive by in her little phaeton and ponies."

A handy single-page explanation of horse-drawn carriage varieties, with pithy descriptions and occasional photographs of the barouche, the brougham, the cabriolet, the calash, the char-a-banc, the char-de-cote, the curricle, the dog-cart, the gig, the governess cart, the jaunting car, the landau, the Ralli car, the sociable, the sulky, the waggonette, and others. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 12:36 PM PST - 34 comments

Half is Not Enough

Ariana Miyamoto is the first biracial winner of Miss Universe Japan in the nation's history. Born to a Japanese mother and an African-American father and raised in Nagasaki, she is considered "hafu" within her native Japan. [more inside]
posted by PearlRose at 12:06 PM PST - 43 comments

Our Pluto

"On July 14, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto, offering the first close-up look at that small, distant world and its largest moon, Charon. These denizens of the outer solar system will be transformed from poorly seen, hazy bodies to tangible worlds with distinct features." Who gets to name those features? You do. Via Bad Astronomy.
posted by brundlefly at 12:02 PM PST - 36 comments

Mr. Farage and the Cabaret of Diversity.

Anti-Ukip protesters in fancy dress forced Nigel Farage to flee his local pub where he was dining with his family on Sunday afternoon. 'The Ukip leader called the demonstrators “scum”, claiming they had caused his children distress. The group, however, said they were holding a “cabaret of diversity” in support of those Ukip was seeking to marginalise.' Journalist Stuart Jeffries signs up for the 'Farage fracas.' Suzanne Moore has something to say about Ukip's progress as we near the UK general election. Al Murray's Pub Landlord joins in the fun (from last January.) Farage and the breastfeeding conundrum (from last December.) All links from The Guardian.
posted by glasseyes at 11:42 AM PST - 81 comments

"Uncertainty itself can lead to a lot of distress for humans"

So says Dan Grupe in this article about Emily 'Dear Prudence' Yoffe, anxiety and the stress of not knowing.
posted by averysmallcat at 11:41 AM PST - 5 comments

From Middle Class Anxiety To Factory Fueling Station

"Parlors, “dining chambers,” and other spaces amenable to dining began appearing in architecture plans. Each nation seemed to have its own idea as to what constituted a proper dining room. The great Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti wrote that it “should be entered off the bosom of the house,” advising further that, “[a]s use demands, there should be [a dining room] for summer, one for winter, and one for middling seasons.” Some two centuries later Englishman William Sanderson would recommend that a “Dyning-Roome” be hung with pictures of kings and queens." The Austerity Kitchen presents A Short History Of The Dining Room Part 1 / Part 2.
posted by The Whelk at 11:30 AM PST - 22 comments

Our Complicity With Excess

"[In] the face of a culture that would deny them, it becomes necessary for an artist of color in the west to defiantly announce to the world: I am a fact." In April 2014, at the first ever Yale Asian Alumni Reunion, Vijay Iyer delivered a powerful speech "on two intertwined issues: the role of Asian Americans as upwardly mobile minorities and the role of the artist as a potential transgressor within elite institutions."
posted by Errant at 11:24 AM PST - 3 comments

Hello cat, you need a coat and some sunblock.

Photographer Alicia Rius has a series of photos of Sphynxes. Have you ever wondered where a cat's bellybutton is? Whether a shaved cat's paw looks a lot like a frog's foot? Wonder no more. Bonus Sphynx kittens in her instagram.
posted by jeather at 11:14 AM PST - 33 comments

Programmed by N A S I R

It was common practice in the 8/16 bit era for Japanese programmers to use pseudonyms or abbreviations in the game's credits, so you might not have given too much thought to the name NASIR popping up in the credits for Rad Racer, Final Fantasy II or Secret of Mana. In fact, NASIR was just the first name of programmer Nasir Gebelli, an Iranian-American who first made his name programming ambitious games like Horizon V in the Apple II era. [more inside]
posted by selfnoise at 11:04 AM PST - 10 comments

"Spirit of my silence I can hear you / But I’m afraid to be near you"

Sufjan Stevens's new album Carrie and Lowell can be streamed in its entirety at NPR and The Guardian. Four (very) early reviews. Previously
posted by Going To Maine at 10:40 AM PST - 35 comments

I almost entirely removed the words "no" and "don't" from my vocabulary.

Criticism and Ineffective Feedback, blog post by Kate Heddleston [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:23 AM PST - 66 comments

It Rains Fishes and Dancing Shrimp

Thai Curries — Kaeng (or Gkaeng or Gaeng). Award-winning cookbook author, cooking teacher, and tour guide Kasma Loha-Unchit discusses Thai curries. More detail on making curry: making curry paste from scratch, tips on equipment and technique, tips on prepping herbs and spices, the importance of the mortar and pestle. [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 9:46 AM PST - 15 comments

"Just now. We're at now now."" Go back to then.""When?""Now."

There is No Now - Problems with simultaneity in distributed systems, Justin Sheehy
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:15 AM PST - 43 comments

We landed at Baltimore, sat on the tarmac for a little bit, said ‘I do.'

Buzzfeed profiles Jim Obergefell, the widower whose case will be heard, among others, at the Supreme Court in next month. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:09 AM PST - 32 comments

STREETWISE, a riveting 1984 doc that follows runaway kids in Seattle

Streetwise is an oscar nominated 1984 vérité doc that follows teenage vagrants and prostitutes in downtown Seattle. [more inside]
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 6:57 AM PST - 13 comments

Writing a Mandelbrot program for the IBM 1401 was an interesting project

Rarely is the question asked: can you generate a Mandelbrot fractal on a fifty year old IBM 1401 mainframe?
posted by MartinWisse at 6:43 AM PST - 36 comments

"Badgers? We don't need no stinking badgers!"

We got it all on UHF: An oral history of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s cult classic. By Sean O'Neal (SLAVClub)
posted by valkane at 6:35 AM PST - 41 comments

Dulce et Decorum est

Development without democracy? Lee Kuan Yew's lifetime legacy to the world is the living breathing heart of Asian Tigerdom. Singapore's first (and some say only) Prime Minister led this tiny island city state from third world fishing village in one of Britannia's key ports on a major global shipping line to one of the world's richest nations and recognized as "developed". Few CEOs can claim a better track record. Lee Kuan Yew breathed his last on 23rd March 2015, just months before Singapore was to celebrate 50 years as an independent nation in August. Mentor to the likes of Deng Xiao Peng of China and godfather to numerous others, he leaves a complicated future for the country he created out of very little.
posted by infini at 5:50 AM PST - 74 comments

This kind of upends the traditional high school narrative

Mathematican John Urschel has coauthored (along with colleagues at Penn State and Tufts) a paper on computing the Fiedler vector of graph Laplacians that has recently been accepted by the Journal of Computational Mathematics. He will also be playing on the Baltimore Ravens offensive line next September. [more inside]
posted by vogon_poet at 5:43 AM PST - 29 comments

IT IS CALLED A METAFILTER

What is this thing called? – a Tumblr site of odd devices with reader-submitted explanations.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:27 AM PST - 17 comments

Plugging a 1986 Mac Plus into the modern Web

Kernelmag's Jeff Keacher documents connecting his old Macintosh Plus to the World Wibe Web, courtesy of a Raspberry Pi and a bunch of software to remove all those pesky <div>s and such. [more inside]
posted by thegears at 4:21 AM PST - 23 comments

Death, Redesigned

A legendary design firm, a corporate executive, and a Buddhist-hospice director take on the end of life.
posted by ellieBOA at 4:05 AM PST - 15 comments

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