May 16, 2017
NBC didn't have a live peacock, though, right?
When TV network logos were physical objects.
Automatonism: A modular synthesiser in Pure Data
Automatonism is a modular synthesiser that runs in the open source programming language Pure Data. It features a large library of 67 modules. It is the successor to Xodular, which has been mentioned here previously
WHY DO THE CARS HAVE DOOR HANDLES?
Did they eat all the humans? Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik asks the tough questions about Cars, like what's the purpose of school buses and why they have human language, directly to its Pixar overlords. [more inside]
The Weather Channel is stability. It was a time before we knew fear.
"The Weather Channel music has wedged its way into our brains, imprinted itself from an early age. So many of us now associate that particular genre of inoffensive smooth jazz with feelings of home, the 1990s variety: home where you had little soaps in the shape of sea-shells, homes where you had aggressively wood-accented kitchens with lots of white appliances and everyone had very brightly colored windbreakers in various shades of teal and purple." [more inside]
The newest in image editing software
Why waste your time learning photoshop when you can illustrate an entire novel via art created in MSPaint? [more inside]
"Which McClaren do you like to drive the most?"
"Well, the F1 is the most iconic, but if you do something, it's a house." The Leno Collection is located in Burbank in some nondescript hangars next to the airport. The buildings house a collection of more than 140 cars, 100's of motorcycles, and a menagerie of engines, spare parts and memorabilia. [more inside]
“It’s almost like you’re trying to make us incriminate ourselves.”
As the trial of Cliven Bundy and his sons over their 2014 armed standoff with federal agents draws closer, The Intercept has obtained footage and documentation from something exceptionally strange: The Bizarre Story Behind the FBI’s Fake Documentary About the Bundy Family. [more inside]
Take a Seat at the New Malt Shop
In 2014, MeFite-beloved image sharing site MLKSHK (pronounced "Milk Shake") announced it was shutting down. But have no fear! A dedicated group of volunteer users has worked hard to put together a replacement site based on the original -- and it launched today! Introducing MLTSHP (pronounced "Malt Shop")! See Popular Posts for public-facing content. [more inside]
Some Pigs!
Who can resist a piggy shayna punim? Certainly not this husky. Or this corgi. Or this teeny human.
Many more at Piggy4Me.
The "Coffin Homes" of Hong Kong
"These residents are among an estimated 200,000 people in Hong Kong living in such tiny subdivided units, some so small that a person cannot even fully stretch out their legs."
"Love your hair." "Thanks, I do too." "Don't make me like it less."
Last Friday, Feminista Jones jokingly tweeted, "Piss a man off today: Tell him you agree with his compliment of you." Her tweet kickstarted an interesting conversation among women who had done so.
The spaces between the notes
Joanna Brouk, 1949-2017. She was an early pioneer of electronic and new age music, in the geometric/ambient section of that map, active mostly via self-released cassettes during the 1970's and 80's. Last year, Numero Group released a full retrospective of her career, Hearing Voices. Previously not recognized widely, this release garnered her oeuvre attention – she was scheduled to play her first US concert outside of California in June, and she played her first European concert in France earlier this year.
What Makes a Parent?
A Tale of Three Cities
A Tale of Three Cities: The State of Racial Justice in Chicago Report. "The central finding of this report is that racial and ethnic inequities in Chicago remain pervasive, persistent, and consequential. These inequities affect the lives of Chicagoans in every neighborhood; they have not just spatial but also deep historical roots and are embedded in our social, economic, political, and cultural institutions; and they have powerful effects on the experiences and opportunities of all Chicagoans." Report from the Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Why Not Have A Look
A 6 minute long mini-animation festival from William Garratt -- Have A Look [Vimeo link].
Tracks as system
Monster Trucks! Gus Van Sant! And that's just the beginning!
Imagine you were sent back in time to the Comedy Central offices in 1994, and you had the chance to buy a series by Sofia Coppola and Zoe Cassavetes that also has the Beastie Boys, Keanu Reeves, Martin Scorsese, and other famous friends and relatives. Well, imagine no more, because that fore-thinking version of you not only bought it but made it the first TV series in history to shoot in digital video. Unfortunately, Hi Octane bears only glimpses of the filmmaking pedigrees that would eventually bring us Lost in Translation, Broken English, and A Very Murray Christmas. It aired briefly and vanished into the ether, to the point that it has no Wikipedia entry.
What Actually Helps Poor Students? Human Beings
Fredrik deBoer at the ANOVA explains a new meta-analysis on Academic Interventions for Elementary and Middle School Students With Low Socioeconomic Status.
The First Hell Daughters New Book, reviewed with mellifluous loathing
Ivanka Trump: Stepfordian Night Ghast of Neo Capitalism It’s true that anyone can be a dead-eyed Instagram husk of a human being frantically photoshopping themselves in the down-hours between soul-crushing corporate drudgery and unpaid emotional labour for some ungrateful lantern-jawed jock if they really want to, but it takes a special type of person to do all that whilst also being a decoy for a global backlash against women’s rights. - Laurie Penny pulls no punches in her review of Ivanka's latest self help manual.
The Strokes: an oral history
In 1998, five New York friends — Julian Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr., Fabrizio Moretti, Nick Valensi, and Nikolai Fraiture — formed a band called the Strokes. They released a debut album, Is This It, in 2001. In 2009, NME named it Album of the Decade; Rolling Stone ranked it No. 2, behind Radiohead’s Kid A. This is an account of what happened in between, starting in 2002.
A smile echos down through the ages
The shocking history of the best-selling product… of all time
My family's slave
My family's slave: "She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was." [more inside]
"That’s the project; celebrate all women, don’t just pick out a few."
Louise MacBean (interview) embroiders portraits of Rebel Women from history and blogs about the women: 168 women so far, with plans to do another 1652. Her Rebel Women Embroidery blog has posts up to October 2016; more recent work is on her Instagram. Women include Tapputi (chemist and perfumer in Ancient Mesopotamia), Cai Wenji (Chinese poet in the Eastern Han Dynasty), Aemilia Hilaria (Roman doctor in Gaul) and Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (eleventh century Andalusian poet). MacBean has also written themed posts, including Game of Thrones, Drag Kings and women with ties to the supernatural. Via Rex Factor podcast.
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