April 4, 2011
"I am 100 percent Palestinian and 100 percent Jewish."
Israeli actor and political activist Juliano Mer-Khamis, born to a Jewish mother and an Arab Christian father, was killed on Monday outside the theater which he founded in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin.
At 7AM It Rocks Out!
24 hours of L.A. traffic set to music. (SLunder2minuteYT) (May be considered a rebuttal to "You are listening to Los Angeles". Or maybe "Monster Commute".)
Eco-friendly Wilderness Evacuation
Ah wilderness! What better place to escape the stifling trappings of urban existence - overflowing inboxes, two-hour commutes, social-media addiction. And, of course, indoor plumbing. "Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth," the great Western author and curmudgeon Edward Abbey once exhorted car-bound city slickers. Contemplating the reasons for taking a trek down the Appalachian Trail (and aping Abbey-ish machismo), travel writer Bill Bryson mused, "I wanted a little of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at a far horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say with a slow, manly sniff, 'Yeah, I've shit in the woods.'"
TETSUOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Join the hunt for the prototype Akira games on the SNES and Sega Genesis. Hardcore Gaming 101 is searching for Larry Siegel, a developer they are convinced holds more information on the legendary unreleased games. Though the legendary anime and manga has spawned a 1988 graphic adventure and PS2 pinball game none do the movie proper justice. [more inside]
Dear NASA, Your Mom thought I was big enough. Love, Pluto
Following in the footsteps of prestigious publications like the Annals of Improbable Research, NCBI ROFL, Rejecta Mathematica, the Journal of Universal Rejection, and the Journal of Unpublished Results, comes the Journal of Are You Fucking Kidding. Previous, previously, and previouslier.
h/t to Retraction Watch
A beautiful and powerful solar system viewing tool.
Haiti's new prez
One of his groovingest tracks was called I Don't Care, but apparently Michel Martelly, aka Sweet Micky, decided he did care enough about Haiti to run for president of the country. And now he's president of the country. Unlike Bill Clinton, however, Sweet Micky definitely inhaled, and, hey... he's on a horse. [more inside]
A band of sisters and brothers in a circle of trust
Images of a People's Movement - more than 18 pages of photos and dozens of first-hand narratives, interviews & recollections of the 1951-1968 Southern Freedom Movement by the Civil Rights Movement Veterans. (These are just samplings - it's a deep and rich site.) [more inside]
Something something Terminator something Predator
Zdenek Kalal, a PhD student at the University of Surrey in England, has developed the coolest object tracking software you'll see this week.
The Big Map Blog
The Big Map Blog – Five-hundred enormous historical maps; all downloadable in their highest resolution. With a new map every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 1,700 to go! [via mefi projects]
What do you mean, 'We hired a dog'?
Network Awesome has compiled a short history of some of Jim Henson's early muppet work, including his infamously dark Wilson's Coffee commercials: (on YouTube) 1, 2, 3 and the IBM Muppet Show. (Who among us hasn't woken up in the morning and wanted to eat their coffee machine? (Previously) (Via) [more inside]
Slightly funnier than placebo
Those bearing XY chromosomes and those who love them will be thrilled to watch Manhood In The Mirror, a cautionary, educational parody about the importance of self-examination in the treatment of testicular cancer. Both text and video instructions for TSEs are available, as well as some background on the video itself. Brought to you by ZDoggMD, a medical satirist with other videos, such as Immunize!.
Picture Postcard
Exit Through the Tasmanian, Professional Gambler-Funded Museum's Gift Shop
"It was always about the intersection of creativity and chaos." So said Kirsha Kaechele, described at Wikipedia as an "American contemporary art curator, artist, and practitioner of sustainable architecture," of the avant-garde Life is Art Foundation/KKProjects art happening that she carried out via Katrina flooding-devastated homes in the St. Roch area of New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward. These homes now lie in ruins, as they did before. She owes back taxes on the homes, and city has placed tax liens worth $28,000 on two of them. While she can afford the back taxes, she says, the liens are beyond her means. A medicinal marijuana farm created to fund Life is Art failed to make enough money to fund the projects. In any case, she has spent the past five months in Tasmania with her boyfriend, professional gambler and art curator David Walsh, where he has established something called the Museum of New and Old Art. (Pause.) I believe that connects all the most relevant dots as succinctly as possible. [more inside]
4 dudes. At the same time.
Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3, and Famicon Super Mario Bros. being beaten at the same time, using one controller for all four games simultaneously. Mega Man 3, 4, 5, and 6 being beaten at the same time, using one controller. Mega Man X and X2 at the same time. Final Fantasy V and VI (warning: 4 hours long). [more inside]
If you see a hundred jellies, keep going. If you see a thousand jellies, keep going. If you see a million jellies, stop - you're there.
Head some 500 miles (800 km) east of the Philippines or 2,000 miles (3,200 km) south of Tokyo, and you'll find Palau, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean. Amongst the Rock Islands of Palau is a vaguely Y-shaped uninhabited island, called Mecherchar or Eil Malk, which includes a number of marine lakes. One of the more astounding lakes is Ongeim'l Tketau or Jellyfish Lake, home to millions of jellyfish that make daily migrations, tracking the sun. [more inside]
Osada
Civil war in Cote d'Ivoire
"War has returned to the Ivory Coast in the guise of massacres, mercenaries, a besieged capital, and a humanitarian nightmare." Several months after incumbent Laurent Gbagbo stole the presidential election, the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire has escalated as the forces of rightful president Alassane Ouattara have reached Abidjan to force Gbagbo's surrender. [more inside]
Something is happening in our world: Memphis, Cairo, Madison
Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."Forty-three years ago today, a man was killed while protecting workers' rights to bargain collectively.
More like "Motels with Elaine"
Steinbeck's American-road-trip classic Travels With Charley: In Search of America? Yeah, mostly b.s. [more inside]
Watch out, Gaga -- there's a new Lady in town.
With the assertion that her "Pussy Be Yankin'," 21-year-old Lady arrives on a scene set years ago by the likes of Lil Kim, in which female MC's tug back against the male dominance of a sub-genre by explicitly asserting their own sexual prowess -- a tradition some find liberating and others consider degrading.
It's raining bytes
As Amazon and the RIAA go head to head over the Amazon Cloud Player (esentially Dropbox with streaming) it seems like a good time to recap the turbulent history of the humble MP3, upender of the music industry business model.
don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story
Seven students, three endings, one eavesdropping teacher. don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story is a full length digital novel by the writer of Digital: A Love Story. Luscious high-school drama with a delicious sprinkle of social network navel-gazing.
Venice, how does it work?
How does Venice work? Short Vimeo documentary on the practicalities of Venice's architecture and civil engineering. More at Venice Backstage.
This is how to do policy consultation responses
Rap attack: six hundred clause Health and Social Care Bill 2011 eviscerated in three minutes by amateur rapper [more inside]
State Governance For Fun and Profit
Rick Scott is taking aim at public hospitals in Florida. Former private hospital executive and current Florida governor Rick Scott recently established a commission to conduct a study into the possibility of privatizing all public hospitals in the State of Florida. Scott, a multi-millionaire who made his fortune as chief executive of Columbia/HCA, a large private hospital chain with a significant market presence in Florida, was previously implicated in the US's largest medicare fraud settlement involving Columbia/HCA under his leadership. Although the terms of the settlement did not charge Scott specifically with any wrongdoing, both whistleblowers and federal officials party to the investigation have reported that Scott was closely involved in determining the illegal business practices that led to the fraud allegations. [more inside]
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Hi-Res Photos
The long running "eyeball" series from noted cryptography and information freedom site Cryptome [many previously] hosts hi-res photos of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear site taken from a UAV and inside the stricken plant. Also eyeball shots of other Japanese nuclear reactors.
"It is hovering and it's not an aircraft."
On October 21, 1978, 20-year-old Frederick Valentich climbed into his Cessna 182L airplane and took off from Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne. He was never seen again. [more inside]
"Genetic engineers don't make new genes, they rearrange existing ones."
The Xenotext Experiment is Christian Bök's [Previously],"nine-year long attempt to create an example of “living poetry.” I have been striving to write a short verse about language and genetics, whereupon I use a “chemical alphabet” to translate this poem into a sequence of DNA for subsequent implantation into the genome of a bacterium (in this case, a microbe called Deinococcus radiodurans—an extremophile, capable of surviving, without mutation, in even the most hostile milieus, including the vacuum of outer space)." [Via] [more inside]
Decluttering with IKEA
"It is no mean achievement that IKEA has continued to embody in the public mind the modernist ideals of simplicity and minimalism yet all the while its total product range has been growing – to the point where, by 2010, it comprised some 12,000 items." Decluttering with IKEA asks: What are we looking for as we wander through IKEA? [more inside]
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