March 9, 2015

The Three Casino Royales, spanning the history of James Bond

The first James Bond on film is a forgettable character, from a time when the US wasn't so sure about Ian Fleming's first story, Casino Royale, and US publishers went to so far as to re-title the story to try and increase sales. In fact, the 1954 hour-long live teleplay was largely forgotten, lost until the 1970s when it was re-discovered at a flea market. "Card Sense" Jimmy Bond was portrayed as an American, played by Barry Nelson, who didn't know much about the character. The rights for the story was picked up inexpensively, produced as one of many stories in the Climax! anthology program. You can watch it online, and compare this 1954 production against the two other film versions of Casino Royale, the 1967 spy-spoof that came out just before the fifth serious Bond spy film, and the 2006 "canonical" version from EON Productions, the makers of the Official Bond movies.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:12 PM PST - 55 comments

Forgetting Fear

Repairing Bad Memories
[Daniela Schiller] explained how recent research, including her own, has shown that memories are not unchanging physical traces in the brain. Instead, they are malleable constructs that may be rebuilt every time they are recalled. The research suggests, she said, that doctors (and psychotherapists) might be able to use this knowledge to help patients block the fearful emotions they experience when recalling a traumatic event, converting chronic sources of debilitating anxiety into benign trips down memory lane. And then Schiller went back to what she had been doing, which was providing a slamming, rhythmic beat on drums and backup vocals for the Amygdaloids(previously), a rock band composed of New York City neuroscientists.
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:59 PM PST - 4 comments

The Lauren Bacall Collection

When the late Lauren Bacall's long time apartment at the Dakota was listed for $26 million in November, the photos accompanying the listing were drab, showing the apartment after it had been stripped of nearly all of the actress's possessions - new photos from the upcoming Bonham's auction show how the three bedroom apartment looked during the 50-odd years Bacall lived there.
posted by The Whelk at 9:36 PM PST - 32 comments

Like Serial? You'll love The Jinx.

As HBO's "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst" airs, the LA district attorney reopens the inquiry into the death of Robert Durst friend Susan Berman [more inside]
posted by triggerfinger at 8:33 PM PST - 38 comments

Dandy Jim And The Bodysnatchers--And Many Other Bodysnatcher Stories

Here's the story of "Dandy Jim" and the bodysnatchers . This is from a blog dedicated to telling the stories of these less than savoury characters .
posted by purplesludge at 8:03 PM PST - 4 comments

A New Hope For Radio

The extended NPR produced adaptation of 'A New Hope' for your listening pleasure. [more inside]
posted by bq at 7:05 PM PST - 13 comments

let it go?

Who Farts? And Who Cares? "Sociologists Martin Weinberg and Colin Williams wanted to know. They and their team interviewed 172 college students about their habits and concerns about farting and pooping. They published their results in an article called Fecal Matters. They discovered that everybody farts and everybody cares, but not everyone cares all the time or equally." [more inside]
posted by flex at 6:36 PM PST - 80 comments

Walmart.horse: Postmodern Dadaism meets Corporate Takedown Notice

Why Is Walmart Upset with a Guy for Photoshopping This Picture of a Horse in Front of One of Its Stores? He was hanging out with some friends in July when they came across .horse and thought it was pretty much the funniest top-level domain one could own. So Jacques started checking periodically to see what big companies hadn't purchased their .horse domain yet and came across Walmart. "I thought, 'Alright I'm gonna buy this and do something stupid with it and see what happens," he told me. And readers, he did just that. [more inside]
posted by Michele in California at 3:37 PM PST - 174 comments

more weight than so much of what is printed on paper

Founded by celebrated poet and White House guest Kenneth Goldsmith, Ubuweb for years has been housing massive gigabites of work that exists outside the lines—from audio archives of rare performances by avant-garde musicians and video artists, known and unknown, to whole lifetimes of textual and interpretative work dug up and given new life online. -- Vice on how Ubu Publishes the Unpublishable. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:18 PM PST - 12 comments

The Wheels of (the Department of) Justice Turn Slowly

The Department of Justice has postponed its NPRM on the accessibility requirements of websites for places of public accommodations under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, from March 2015 to June 2015. The NPRM for accessibility requirements of government websites was due in December 2014. [more inside]
posted by johnofjack at 3:15 PM PST - 11 comments

A collection of short pieces on Russia's female creatives

International Women's Day was yesterday, but every day is a good day for reading about women cinematographers, photographers, fashion designers and chefs! The Calvert Journal presents here a number of past articles on contemporary Russian women in various creative professions, noting that, "someday, in an equal world, we wouldn’t need a special day to celebrate their achievements".
posted by averysmallcat at 3:13 PM PST - 2 comments

If they don't allow this to happen, the players, it doesn't happen.

An oral history of the 2009-10 Kentucky basketball season. Before those guys, the narrative on "one-and-done" basketball players was almost always the same. The kids were selfish and egotistical, using college only as a place to pad their stats before inevitably departing for the NBA. They didn't care about their team or their school, or class at all; heck, the commonly held belief was that most kids stopped attending classes after the first semester (if they went at all). As it turned out, one-and-done players could come to a school, play hard, work as a team, go to class and win big.
posted by T.D. Strange at 2:46 PM PST - 25 comments

Women of the Supreme Court in Lego

The women justices of the Supreme Court, represented in Lego. More pictures here. Not a commercially available set, unfortunately, but a custom design by Maia Weinstock. Maia's other Lego projects include scientists, album covers, and this infographic on gender representation in minifigs.
posted by Metroid Baby at 2:27 PM PST - 13 comments

R.I.P Sam Simon

Sam Simon, writer, producer, philanthropist and co-creator of The Simpsons has passed away of colorectal cancer at the age of 59. Previously.
posted by brundlefly at 2:13 PM PST - 47 comments

Women working with music technology

There's somehow a notion out there that women don't make their own electronic music. In a recent interview with Bjork in Pitchfork, she brought up an instance of sexism she's dealt with for decades: journalists hardly ever credit her with composing and producing her own music. Since she's not being photographed in the studio working at her computer, the men she collaborates with end up getting all the credit. She cites MIA and Missy Elliott as other examples of this phenomenon. The tumblr female:pressure attempts to counteract this. "Here we offer a visual catalogue of female producers, DJ’s, media artists and electronic music Performers at work. These are not our press photos. This is a collective effort to demonstrate women and their use of technology in music and media production." It's also just a fantastic collection of electronic musicians, many of whom have been overlooked. Further discussion from Create Digital Music.
posted by naju at 1:28 PM PST - 42 comments

H&R Block: Working Hard to Gouge the Lower Class

H & R Block's lobbyists shaped the Affordable Care Act behind closed doors. Now they're advertising heavily on the premise that "no one can understand" the ACA (aka Obamacare) tax filing requirements. [more inside]
posted by small_ruminant at 1:27 PM PST - 47 comments

Engineering the Perfect Baby

Scientists are developing ways to edit the DNA of tomorrow’s children. Should they stop before it’s too late?
posted by infini at 1:20 PM PST - 89 comments

The Infinity Library

The Infinity Library. A short story about libraries, inspired by Discworld.
posted by kmz at 12:43 PM PST - 13 comments

0h n0, another time waster

0h n0 is a game of logical deduction where each dot in a grid can only exist in the same row or column as a certain number of like-colored dots. The game will give you specific pieces of information about how many like-colored dots a single dot can "see", and you must deduce the remaining grid of dots. It's from the same people who brought us the zen-like logic game 0h h1 (previously). [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 12:43 PM PST - 34 comments

I Really Really Really Like You

Cheer up your Monday with Tom Hanks lip syncing Carly Rae Jepsen's new release. [slyt]
posted by ellieBOA at 10:53 AM PST - 33 comments

Bittersweet

Since the late 19th century, the amount of her writing we have access to has more than doubled and our views of sexuality have changed, leading to constant modern reexamination of one of the greatest poets the world has ever seen: Who was Sappho? And just how much does her sexuality and her personal life matter to a discussion of her work?
Some ancient writers assumed that there had to have been two Sapphos: one the great poet, the other the notorious slut. There is an entry for each in the Suda. The uncertainties plaguing the biography of literature’s most famous Lesbian explain why classicists who study Sappho like to cite the entry for her in Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig’s “Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary” (1979). To honor Sappho’s central position in the history of female homosexuality, the two editors devoted an entire page to her. The page is blank. . . . Even as we strain to hear this remarkable woman’s sweet speech, the thrumming in our ears grows louder.
Previously: Metafilter (awesomely) tackles the newly discovered "Brothers Poem" in real time.
posted by sallybrown at 10:18 AM PST - 41 comments

Videos of Pre-Industrial Crafts

In case you haven't had your fill of pre-industrial craftsmanship in a while, watch some videos of folks at Colonial Williamsburg & Jamestown doing their things: A gunsmith, a silversmith, a cabinet maker, and a glass blower. [more inside]
posted by cmchap at 9:44 AM PST - 9 comments

Star Trek V: Kirk manoeuvres his way into the director's chair

In response to a perhaps unsurprising takedown of Spock in the wake of Leonard Nimoy's death from the Washington Free Beacon, Daniel Drezner at the Washington Post takes a hard look at the career of Captain Kirk (with a particular focus on the films), the neo-conservative's more obvious spirit animial. Kirk doesn't come out looking very good. [more inside]
posted by dry white toast at 9:15 AM PST - 189 comments

the beauty of the visual arts for those unable to see them

“It’s an unbelievable sensation,” Mr. González said. “I’m feeling this painting down to the detail of each fingernail.” (SLNewYorker)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:55 AM PST - 4 comments

Men make their own brackets, but they do not make them as they please.

Marx Madness: The ultimate war of all against all. We start with 64 Marxists competing one-on-one in 32 match-ups. These elimination rounds continue every week throughout March until only one thinker is left.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:48 AM PST - 27 comments

WHAT HAPPENED ARE YOUR LITTLE BOOBIES LEAKING?

Tales of Whoa: My attempt to document a lifetime of embarrassments and missteps. [via mefi projects]
posted by Anonymous at 8:45 AM PST - 48 comments

New scrutiny on re-homing of adopted kids

"Re-homing" is the largely unregulated practice by which parents of adopted children in the U.S. hand over those children to new families, with little or no government oversight. While some states started cracking down last year, the issue has gained new attention with the story of Arkansas Representative Justin Harris and his wife. They adopted a pair of girls, 3 and 6, who proved more troublesome than they seemed. Harris and his wife gave the girls to a worker in the religious school he owned, who subsequently raped the 6-year-old. The girls' previous foster family has now raised questions about Harris' story. [Previously, a 2013 Reuters investigation: The Child Exchange - Inside America's underground market for adopted children] [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 8:41 AM PST - 62 comments

This wall pees back!

In Hamburg, some walls are now treated with a special hydrophobic paint that discourages public urination. [more inside]
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:35 AM PST - 66 comments

Speed skating on Lake Michigan

It was a "brief window of opportunity," the Lake Michigan ice smooth as a rink and the red lighthouse of Grand Haven, Mich. beckoning under a blue sky. April Chernoby, a member of the West Michigan Speedskating Club, donned her skates and camera and took a spin along the shoreline last week, reaching speeds up to 20 mph.
posted by readery at 7:55 AM PST - 12 comments

“I mean, would you hire a chef who never fried an egg?”

Cabbies’ Street Knowledge Takes Back Seat [New York Times]
New York cabbies have long had to face a rigorous set of geography questions on the test they must pass to get a license. Now those questions have disappeared.
Related: Who Needs a GPS? A New York Geography Quiz
posted by Fizz at 7:55 AM PST - 29 comments

The Curtain of Distraction

Imagine if you will: a curtain is pulled back just to the left of the basketball goal, and two unicorns are there aggressively making out. Perhaps they’re wearing tutus. Meanwhile, you are supposed to be making your free throws, or getting ready to rebound a missed free throw. You must be playing a basketball game at Arizona State, for that is the Curtain of Distraction (warning: auto-playing video). [more inside]
posted by julen at 7:36 AM PST - 12 comments

Pour Some Sugar On Me

Naked people covered in honey (yeah, NSFW) are strangely beautiful. Who knew?
posted by cross_impact at 7:18 AM PST - 54 comments

A free to play DayZ/Minecraft mashup is Steam's most popular 2014 game

What is the most popular Steam game of 2014? The answer may surprise you, as it's a free to play game made by sixteen year old Nelson Sexton. (In totally unsurprising news, the game with the most hours played per user is Football Manager 2015.)
posted by MartinWisse at 6:50 AM PST - 29 comments

Enjoy, explore, berate or dismiss

Today is the official start of the 2015 Tournament of Books, an annual event where readers get fighty about books, vote for zombies, and eventually someone takes home a live rooster. The first round pits David Mitchell’s Booker-nominated The Bone Clocks against Adam, the debut prose novel of cartoonist Ariel Schrag.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:27 AM PST - 12 comments

My dreams to form a quartet named "Fried Donut Assault" lives on

Is This Band Name Taken? From glenn mcdonald, who previously brought you dispatches from The War Against Silence, exhaustive genre sampling via Every Noise at Once, and a statistical analysis of Pazz&Jop votes since 2008.
posted by snortasprocket at 6:15 AM PST - 11 comments

I Give All My Money To Millionaires...

...And I Don't Give A F**k About You. (SLYT - contains profanity)
posted by veedubya at 5:14 AM PST - 8 comments

Hell on earth.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of what is considered the single most deadly bombing raid in history, the 1945 US napalm firebombing of Tokyo. Today, there are still victims seeking redress and recognition from the Japanese government for the ‘unparalleled massacre’ of that horrific night.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:06 AM PST - 58 comments

Noah Segan, working actor

'Looper's Noah Segan (aka Kid Blue) Explains What It's Really Like As a Working Actor
While waiting to interview Looper director Rian Johnson during Fantastic Fest, a chance encounter challenged even my notions of what it meant to be a movie star. Sitting there, in the garish luxury of the Four Seasons hotel lobby, I met a rather lost-looking young man with whom I struck up a conversation. He was passionate and sharp, and it took a good five minutes before I recognized him as Noah Segan, the actor who played Kid Blue in Looper. I assumed he too had been sent by the studio to promote the movie, but in fact he had come of his own volition, on his own dime, and was being soundly ignored by the publicists.

Talking with Noah, it became clear that, though he had appeared in several theatrical films, he was far from living the life of privilege and extreme comfort we tend to associate with movie stars. Noah’s experience echoes those of many with occupations in the creative field; the epitome of the blue-collar artist. This interview was completely unexpected, and we didn’t end up talking much about the movie, but if you’re struggling with the financial logistics of doing what you love professionally, you too will probably find a kindred spirit in Kid Blue.
[more inside]
posted by Lexica at 4:51 AM PST - 6 comments

Shades of A, Shades After

Shades of A is a webcomic about asexual Muslim Anwar, his genderqueer best friend JD, and his tentative steps towards a relationship with his boyfriend Chris. Starting as Anwar and JD graduate from uni, Shades of A is about navigating personal identity, sex and relationships as a young adult in a complex world. [more inside]
posted by daisyk at 4:38 AM PST - 11 comments

"Pure aural bliss"

"There's a song out there that could make you crash your car ... but in the most relaxing way possible." [more inside]
posted by key_of_z at 4:15 AM PST - 27 comments

Why I’m Giving Away the Game I Spent Two Years Making

Mozilla's Darrin Henein writes about his decision to release his side project, the iOS game Lastronaut, completely free - no ads, no in-app purchases. He describes the game as "a love-letter to an industry". His co-creator is Stephan Leroux.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 12:43 AM PST - 6 comments

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