March 9, 2014
“But it’s real,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be understood to be real.”
Adam Lanza's father, Peter Lanza, speaks with the New Yorker, his first interview since the Sandy Hook shootings.
Ill communication
Charlene deGuzman and Miles Crawford settle that age-old question, "What should we eat?" With drums.
"Also - too many moustaches to count."
UTBAPH
A catalog of places that used to be a Pizza Hut. The iconic "Red Roof" design was the subject of a recent episode of 99% Invisible (previously).
And ... handbrake down.
So, your boat - the MS Pride of Calais or Ostend Spirit - is off to be scrapped. How do you park it at the scrap yard; delicately and gently? Maybe not.
60th Birthday Surprise
OSINT
Inside The One-Man Intelligence Unit That Exposed The Secrets And Atrocities Of Syria's War
He had no formal intelligence training or security clearance that gave him access to classified documents. He could not speak or read Arabic. He had never set foot in the Middle East, unless you count the time he changed planes in Dubai en route to Manila, or his trip to visit his in-laws in Turkey. Yet in the 18 months since Higgins had begun blogging about Syria, his barebones site, Brown Moses [previously], had become the foremost source of information on the weapons used in Syria's deadly war. Using nothing more sophisticated than an Asus laptop, he had uncovered evidence of weapons imported into Syria from Iran. He had been the first person to identify widely-banned cluster bombs deployed by Syrian forces. By The New York Times' own admission, his findings had offered a key tip that helped the newspaper prove that Saudi Arabia had funneled arms to opposition fighters in Syria.[more inside]
MLS: Point and Counterpoint
POINT: Getting Ready For MLS? Allow Us To Convince You Otherwise
COUNTERPOINT:Reading Deadspin? Allow A Former MLS Player To Convince You Otherwise
Udderly complex
Milk products and production relationships. An elaborate, color-coded Wikipedia diagram showing both common pathways such as raw milk to cream to butter, and more esoteric pathways to products such as quark, pasta filata, and schmand.
The empty version of self-esteem proved infectious
"In 1986, Californian legislators created the State Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility... [Its] final report became a the foundational works of the self-esteem movement. It concluded that:
"Self-esteem is the likeliest candidate for a social vaccine, something that empowers us to live responsibly and that inoculates us against the lures of crime, violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, child abuse, chronic welfare dependency and educational failure. The lack of self-esteem is central to most personal and social ills plaguing our state and nation as we approach the end of the 20th century."Is the relentless pursuit of self-esteem really all cracked up to be? The man who destroyed America's ego tells the story of social psychologist Roy Baumeister, and how his efforts have shed light on some of the core tenets of the self-esteem movement. (via) [more inside]
Monocles: Not Just for the New Yorker's Mascot
In its constant endeavor to identify emerging trends, the New York Times has uncovered a boom in monocle wearing... again. But they're not the only ones ever to be manipulated by the Monacle Lobby. [more inside]
A HUNDRED SEASONS AND A MOVIE, WW FOREVER RICK AND MORTY DOT COM
Are you a fan of inventive, black-humored sci-fi/fantasy animation? Desperate to fill the Futurama-shaped hole in your heart? Look no further than Rick and Morty, the superb new Adult Swim series from animator Justin "Lemongrab" Roiland and Community darling Dan Harmon. Inspired by a (terrible and very NSFW) Back To The Future knock-off, the show pairs a naïve young teen (Morty) with his cynical, alcoholic, mad scientist grandfather (Rick), each episode exploring a trope -- dreams, aliens, innerspace, parallel universes, virtual reality -- and turning it inside-out with intricate plotting, eye-catching art, and dark, whipsmart humor (with plenty of improvisation along the way). A ratings hit already secured for a second season, the show returns from an Olympics-induced hiatus tomorrow -- in the meantime, why not sample the six episodes aired so far: Pilot - Lawnmower Dog - Anatomy Park - M. Night Shaym-Aliens! - Meeseeks and Destroy - Rick Potion #9. Want more? Promo/highlight reel - AV Club reviews - TVTropes - Reddit - Rick & Morty ComicCon panel - Storyboard Test - Soundtrack samples - Play the "Rushed Licensed Adventure" point-and-click game
there is no soundtrack
Finite time blowup for an averaged three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation - "[Terence Tao] has shown that in an alternative abstract universe closely related to the one described by the Navier-Stokes equations, it is possible for a body of fluid to form a sort of computer, which can build a self-replicating fluid robot that, like the Cat in the Hat, keeps transferring its energy to smaller and smaller copies of itself until the fluid 'blows up.' " [1,2,3] (previously)
Trappy - 1 : FAA - 0
Previously on the blue. Raphael Pirker, a.k.a. "Trappy" was the first person ever to to fined by the FAA for the commercial operation of a drone. However, instead of paying up, Pirker decided to contest the ruling with a little pro bono legal help. Last Thursday evening, the judge issued his ruling. The judge dismissed the FAA's case, agreeing with the defense that since the FAA never created any legally binding rules for small drones to begin with, they cannot now apply rules that would be used for a pilot flying a full size manned aircraft to drone operators.
For now, the ruling means that commercial operation of SUAS in the United States is, basically, legal. Within 24 hours of the ruling, the FAA appealed the case to entire board of the NTSB.
SUAS experimenters who have been waiting in the wings are pleased with the ruling.
7 Visionary Women Who Paved The Way For Electronic Music
Ignorance and Bliss
Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study. 'Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford, is one of the world's leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance. It's a rich field, especially today when whole industries devote themselves to sowing public misinformation and doubt about their products and activities.' [LATimes link, use privacy setting in browser for access] [more inside]
What Kind of Pen Do You Use? Also, What Cartoon Character Would You Be?
David Wasting Paper queries 200+ illustrators, comic book, strip, gag, and editorial cartoonists on their trade, tools, favorite things, and more in his compulsively readable Cartoonist Survey(s) [more inside]
The business of internet cat videos
What am I, Who am I, What will I be?
After the success of releasing the television pilot for Battlestar Galactica in movie theaters (in Sensurround) in 1978, Universal Pictures decided on a theatrical release for it's other science fiction TV series: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The film version of the pilot was essentially the same as what later appeared on NBC... except with a very different style of opening credits and theme song.
"Page 3 v breast cancer"
The Sun's page 3 has been featuring nude women since the 1970s. Last week the British newspaper teamed up with CoppaFeel, a young charity for breast cancer awareness, to inspire women to touch their own breasts. The headline reads "Page 3 v breast cancer", next to a model in a pair of underpants who barely covers her breasts. Readers are encouraged to ‘Check ‘Em Tuesday’ and post pics on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with the hashtag #checkemtuesday.
While some applaud the newspaper for putting an important women’s health issue on the front page, others are against the sexist representation of women and concerned it could trivialize breast cancer.
Not only due to the titillating images on page 3, The Sun's readership is still mostly male. So does this campaign exist for women?
While some applaud the newspaper for putting an important women’s health issue on the front page, others are against the sexist representation of women and concerned it could trivialize breast cancer.
Not only due to the titillating images on page 3, The Sun's readership is still mostly male. So does this campaign exist for women?
Kickin' it Old School
Each week for a year, the folks in the special collections library at the University of St. Andrews are taking a how-to book from the collection and following its instructions for a project, in order to get a clearer sense of what life was like a century or two ago. Thus far in 52 Weeks of Historical How-Tos, they've learned how to make shoe polish like an 1825 footman, bake mince pie from 10 different recipes dating from 1710-1862, perform parlour tricks to amaze your friends, and take photographs via the wet collodion process.
What a fucking opening! What a fucking opening!
Behind the scenes of Cuba Gooding's 1996 Oscar acceptance speech As the director calls the shots from inside the TV truck, Cuba corpses. Cue music. And then...
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