June 12, 2013
SPOILER
Freebasing
Freebase, formerly Metaweb, is a Google-run open, community-curated database of everything: 40 million topics and over a billion facts, all free to use. If you need to wrangle the resulting data into another format, Mr Data Converter (previously) has you covered.
"I've worn the same outfit as my husband for 35 years."
Donald Featherstone and his wife Nancy have been wearing matching outfits for the past 35 years. Each matching pair of outfits is handmade by Nancy, who began the practice early in the couple’s marriage. As Nancy’s tailoring skills improved over the years, the outfits became more elaborate and the couple’s coordinated clothes now fill four wardrobes. A special closet contains 40 outfits made of flamingo fabric—an appropriate pattern as Donald Featherstone is the inventor of the pink lawn flamingo. [more inside]
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet...
Is There Snowboarding on Mars?
1.21 Gigawatts of Music
The evolution of Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is an excellent interpretation of their latest single through different decades.
Missing Husband
early Star Wars advertising campaign concept art
"When it comes to Star Wars (and Star Trek) items, I've resolved myself to the fact that I'm not likely to dig up anything that's new to the die hard fans. But every once in a while, I do come across stuff that's new to me - like this early Star Wars advertising campaign concept art."
"First you get me turned into a virgin. And then you cockblock me."
TV REWIND! You're watching Supernatural, late season 3. (Welcome back! Spoiler alert!) Demon hunter Dean Winchester has sold his soul to a demon to resurrect his brother Sam, a deal that Sam is determined to break before Dean's payment is due.
"A hunt for a dragon in New York City ends with some unexpected changes for Sam and Dean. With the clock ticking down on Dean's deal, can the brothers pull together to save the city?"You're now watching The Other Side, a 25-minute Supernatural fan film created as a volunteer labor of fan love. Written by novelist Naomi Novik, The Other Side is the first episode in a series exploring how fannish tropes, a tricksy dragon, gender issues, and a teeny tiny film budget could have sent Sam and Dean's story in a very different direction. [more inside]
Alive, alone, in the abyss
"I could perceive the dead bodies of my crew were nearby. I could smell them. The fish came in and began eating the bodies. I could hear the sound. It was horror." -- Harrison Okene [more inside]
Fort Carroll - Forgotten Guardian
Fort Carroll is an abandoned Army fort on an artificial island in Baltimore's harbor. Robert E. Lee designed its hexagonal structure and supervised its construction, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commenced in 1848. The fort was declared defunct in 1921, having never seen combat. Sitting in the middle of the Patapsco River, it can be seen clearly from the Key Bridge (named after a witness to an event at Baltimore's more famous fort), but rarely is it seen up close. Certainly, it helps if you have a boat. [more inside]
Seriously, What's The Matter With Kansas?
Breaking: NSA conducts espionage on foreign targets
In an interview with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, NSA leaker, Edward Snowden, claims that the US is "trying to bully the Hong Kong government" into extraditing him, and provides new documents which describe the NSA's routine hacking of targets in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009, including regular access of large backbone networks. [more inside]
May be SFW if you can convince your boss it's a fat guy's nipple
Nipple.es
Just a single-serving site reminding us of that questionably-attributed quote “The only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.”
Just a single-serving site reminding us of that questionably-attributed quote “The only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.”
Blood for the Blood God!
Realm of Chaos 80s - an 80s Games Workshop blog.
Whose Camera Will I Buy in 2018?
Sturgeon! Dick! Asimov! Heinlein! DeCamp! Bradbury! Sheckley! Pohl!
The very first major science fiction series for adults on radio was Mutual Broadcasting System's 2000 Plus (1950-1952). An anthology program, 2000 Plus used all new material rather than adapting published stories. Just one month after its premiere, NBC Radio began airing Dimension X (1950-1951), which dramatized the written work of such young writers as Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Kurt Vonnegut. In 1955, NBC relaunched Dimension X as X Minus One (1955-1958), drawing from stories that had been published in the two most popular science fiction magazines at the time: Astounding and Galaxy. 17 of 30 episodes of 2000 Plus, all 50 episodes of Dimension X, and all 125 episodes of X Minus One are available for free download as individual mp3s from the Internet Archive. [more inside]
It's never crowded along the extra mile.
The last mile of logistics in getting food from the warehouse into the consumer's house is getting exciting. Schwan's has a very large delivery area for quite awhile, but only with frozen food. Amazon Fresh has expanded to L.A. Safeway is expanding quickly too. Peapod has been in this space for awhile but hasn't expanded very far. But sometimes, you just need a Whopper delivered. Daily milk delivery doesn't seem to be on the radar.
Mass murderers aren't the threat - spouses are.
Domestic violence becomes news - only when it turns into a mass murder As the report points out, there's a glaring flaw in Washington State's protection-order system: "With very few, recent exceptions, law-enforcement agencies did not have protocols in place to remove firearms from protective-order respondents or convicted domestic-violence offenders." [more inside]
Time to rethink keyless entry?
Police are stumped as to how thieves are breaking into cars holding small unknown devices, even when they are caught on video doing it.
Did I say "Recession? What Recession?" Oh right, this recession
Recession prompted 'unprecedented' fall in wages - Wages have fallen more in real terms in the current economic downturn than ever before, according to a report.
On top of the rising cost of living, a third of workers who stayed in the same job saw a wage cut or freeze between 2010 and 2011, said the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
"The falls in nominal wages... during this recession are unprecedented," said Claire Crawford from the IFS.
Labour said the figures showed there was a "living-standards crisis".
the best little boy in the world
Legendary Mad Men blog "Mad Style" sets out to explain Bob Benson to a twenty-first century that is apparently ill-prepared to understand him. [more inside]
The races of Star Trek.
A fanfic explanation for a certain continuity issue in the new Star Trek movie. It's amusing, and it checks out.
A Thunderstorm Dies, Then Suddenly, a Hot Wind
On June 11th, 2013, in the wee hours of an early summer night in Nebraska, the temperature shot from 73°F to 99°F in the space of minutes, accompanied by 50MPH winds. The cause of this weather oddity was the poorly understood Heat Burst, a phenomenon that sometimes occurs as thunderstorms die out, usually late at night. The temprature rise can be so extreme that it has been imaged from space, and there are unconfirmed stories of heat so extreme that crops were cooked in the fields where they grew, and paint blistered on houses and vehicles. Once believed to be a very rare event, with the advent of personal weather stations, science may find they are more frequent than was previously believed.
If actors are cattle, then child actors are veal.
7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider's Perspective). Mara Wilson (previously) explains, and is interviewed by NPR on the subject.
Sadly, there is no information on "A Fish Called Wanda".
No Animals Were Harmed is the Film and Television unit of the American Humane Association. Their website provides details on the different kinds of certifications films and television shows earn and how they go about earning it. You can browse recent films (such as Life of Pi and Django Unchained) or page through their archive (which includes everything from Fellowship of the Ring to Rushmore to… (cough)… Apocalypse Now).
Before there was a [US] national museum, we had a nation of savers
"In the early 1800s, a hammer was kept near Plymouth Rock for the pilgrim who had forgotten to bring one. By the end of the 19th century, what was left of the rock was fenced off within a memorial." "The United States, it turns out, was a nation of casual plunderers from the start. Visitors to Mount Vernon snapped splinters from the moldings; beachgoers in Massachusetts chiseled off chunks of Plymouth Rock; tourists snipped fabric from the White House curtains. By the early 19th century, newspapers were referring to illicit souvenir hunting as a “national mania.” " [more inside]
ShareFest
ShareFest is a "One-To-Many sharing application. Serverless. [It] Eliminates the need to fully upload your file to services such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Put your file and start sharing immediately with anyone that enters the page. Pure javascript-based. No plugins needed thanks to HTML5 WebRTC Data Channel API."
"aboriginal landscapes of fabulous hybrid creatures"
Marguerite Humeau is an artist who has made reconstructions of extinct creatures' vocal tracts, extrapolating from extant species and fossil remains. The Extinction Orchestra. [more inside]
With an owl
"We don't have any explanation of what 'gay lobby' means"
This past Sunday, while privately meeting with a delegation of clerics from Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious, Pope Francis reportedly confirmed the existence of a "gay lobby" within the Curia. The delegation's notes of the meeting were published by Reflection and Liberation, a Chilean website focusing on liberation theology. While the Pope's statements were not public remarks, the question puzzling most Vatican watchers is not whether he made the remarks, but rather what does gay lobby in the Vatican mean? Rocco Palmo from the blog Whispers in the Loggia. Columnist Jimmy Akin from the conservative National Catholic Register. [more inside]
Indistinguishable from Magic
Random Weekend Project shows how to seemingly make magic by creating instant ice from flowing water. [slyt]
Nordamerikanische Bundesländer the Beautiful
What would a balkanized United States look like if it was divided along ethnic lines? (original map) Alternate divisions here and here.
A vision of post-apocalypse Britain?
Eerie computer-generated images reveal how UK landmarks could crumble and decay if humanity was wiped out. Gallery
Robert - Portrait of an Art-er
Robert is a little known artist and long time resident of Franklin New York. In the late nineties, Robert began constructing fantastic stone castles and keeps from native stone, in his small backyard. He has since created amazingly unique works at the homes of several Franklin residents. But, Robert's artistic interests and instincts go way beyond his stonework in ways that are surprising and very enlightening.
Runnymede? Paris? Kipling? The possibilities are endless.
"On an average weekday the TTC collects 1,582,000 fares. 180 are collected at Bessarian Station": Finding Bessarion, a short film about exploring the unknown (subway station).thanks to AM for the link
Totally modular, dude
Every now and then it's just good for the soul to hear a nice, filtery, fat and squelchy analog modular synthesizer, don'tcha think? Let's drop in on David Baron, then, who's been kind enough to offer us a taste of several of the finest modular machines ever made, in his Tour Of The Universe - Analog Modular Synthesizer Journey. [more inside]
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