June 27, 2011
Best. Party. Ever.
"I remember going to a totally boring party for the magazine one night and thinking nobody is dancing because their heels are too high. Nobody is eating because in order to look like the women in the magazine, you have to eat next to nothing. And no one is actually drinking the cocktail in their hand because those are fattening, too. Nobody was really even talking to each other because they were too self conscious and painfully busy standing in the corner trying to look beautiful and important. It was not long after that party that I decided to try and resurrect my soul and work for a magazine that focused on something other than beauty and fashion. " [Linda Wells Would Be Horrified] (via)
In and Out
"Zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way!" [more inside]
What a Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire
Lee Tandy Schwartzman's "Crippled Detectives"
As much as any book I know, Crippled Detectives transcribes the dream state, not just in its flights of fancy and logic-jumping juxtapositions, but in the mutating narrative tactics, the topsy-turvy focus (the climax is over in a flash, whereas digressions distend to marvelous effect), and especially the inconsistent point of view... I forgot to mention that Lee Tandy Schwartzman was all of seven years old when she wrote it.
“The mapmaking took two years and over 3,000 hours to complete."
Self-actuation
PossessedHand is ostensibly a training system for students of stringed musical instruments. It teaches fingering positions by means of electrodes that stimulate muscles in the forearm, forcing the hand into the correct configuration.
One foot in front of the other, one page after another.
Walking Home From Walden is a 5 part series by Wen Stephenson describing how a middle-aged resident of Wayland, MA got advice from Henry David Thoreau about responding to global warming while living in suburbia, by taking a 12 mile hike.
Dear Projectionist...
A letter by director Michael Bay helpfully advising projectionists the proper way to show his new film Transformers 3 in movie theaters and a very grateful response from the Projectors' Guild.
We named the magazine Vag because we want people to know we have vaginas...
Vag magazine is going to be a home for really important journalism. Rest of the series here. Sociological Images writeup here.
Dancing Chihuahua
Dancing Chihuahua (SLYT). That is all.
Sometimes we need to see things through a screen.
Algae: The scum solution
When you imagine the crops that will provide biofuels, what is the first image that enters your mind? A field of corn or sugar cane? Maybe you should be picturing pond scum instead. [more inside]
"Let's stop harvesting brains."
The Spam Factory's Dirty Secret. Undocumented workers, an autoimmune mystery traced to aerosolized pork brains from increased line production speed, and what sounds like one of the worst jobs in America.
Bono pay up!
U2 lead singer Bono is well-known for his charitable works. The band however seems a bit more mercenary in their business affairs, moving from low tax Ireland to lower-tax Netherlands in 2006. Some accuse the band of hypocrisy, and have attempted a protest at the Glastonbury festival.[prev.]
A Happy Life Depicted in Diagrams
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest prospective study of mental and physical well-being ever conducted. For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been following 824 individuals through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Designer Laura Javier took ten of those cases and visualized them in the Elements of Happiness. [via flowingdata]
Does the chart mean no one actually likes PBR unironically?
Middlebrow: The Taste That Dare Not Speak Its Name. GQ comes to terms with liking things that are popular.
Butter cow sculptor, Norma Lyon, passes away at 81
"That son of a bitch WILL fly!"
The Rocketeer: [SLVimeo] Homage To Dave Stevens - "The Rocketeer 20th Anniversary" fan-film by John Banana.
Funk Junction: the sounds of Aaron Funk as Venetian Snares
Come on down to Funk Junction, we've got it all! Songs about cats, songs about orange things, songs about dolls, and songs about Canada! We have IDM, jungle, breakcore, and harsh noise! Do you like jazz and modern classical music? Great! We've got that, too, chopped up and re-arranged for easy digestion! A whole world of sound, created by Aaron Funk! A veritable city of Venetian Snares! And we have a biography, too, after the break (or you can skip the background, and go directly to the streaming music). Please note that kids should probably stay outside the Funk Junction, as it'll get loud, angry and obscene at times. [more inside]
Letters Are Symbols Which Turn Matter Into Spirit
Letterology — an open classroom in book design, experimental typography, and professional practices. Popular posts include : The Olivetti Typewriter, in 1911 Olivetti produced Italy's first typewriter. One hundred years later we continue to celebrate the smart promotion. Early 20th Century Trademarks, pages of trademarked names from the Trade Mark Title Company, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1910-1913. Czechoslovakian Stamp Designs, the variety and styles of the hand lettered text on these stamps is stunning. [more inside]
New Mexico Burning
The town of Los Alamos, NM (home of LANL and the atomic bomb) is under a mandatory evacuation due to the Las Conchas wildfire. [more inside]
A brief history of the corporation
Blagojavitch Guilty on 17 counts
Former Illinois governor Rod "Blogo" Blagojavich has been convicted of 17 counts, including trying sell to sell President Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. This links to the Chicago Sun-Times. Former Illinois governor Rod "Blogo" Blagojavich has been convicted on 17 counts, including trying sell to sell President Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. A "not guilty" verdict was returned on one count.
Richard Roeper's column and the Editorial reaction links are good reads. And the home page has photos up currently.
Time Cube, 1893
MAP OF THE SQUARE AND STATIONARY EARTH. Send 25 Cents to the Author, Prof. Orlando Ferguson, for a book explaining this Square and Stationary Earth. It Knocks the Globe Theory Clean Out. It will Teach You How to Foretell Eclipses. It is Worth Its Weight in Gold.
kulturkampf putsch?
Dutch state secretary for culture Halbe Zijlstra published a letter stating that €200 million would be cut from the arts and culture budget, starting as early as 1 January 2013. [more inside]
A Short Vision
"Just last week you read about the H-bomb being dropped. Now two great English writers, two very imaginative writers — I’m gonna tell you if you have youngsters in the living room tell them not to be alarmed at this ‘cause it’s a fantasy, the whole thing is animated — but two English writers, Joan and Peter Foldes, wrote a thing which they called ‘A Short Vision’ in which they wondered what might happen to the animal population of the world if an H-bomb were dropped. It’s produced by George K. Arthur and I’d like you to see it. It is grim, but I think we can all stand it to realize that in war there is no winner." [via]
Lets not talk about how I'm updating Facebook
Give me that old time religion - or not.
In 2002 a Mrs. Soile Tuulikki Lautsi, a Finnish/Italian woman and member of the Italian Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists objected to the crucifixes on the wall of her child’s public school. [more inside]
The Next Generation
Yummy
From steroid-spiked pork to glow-in-the-dark meat to recycled cooking oil collected from sewers: China wrestles with food safety problems. 'China's food scandals are becoming increasingly frequent and bizarre': 'In May, a Shanghai woman who had left uncooked pork on her kitchen table woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that the meat was emitting a blue light, like something out of a science fiction movie.' 'Farmers in eastern Jiangsu province complained to state media last month that their watermelons had exploded "like landmines" after they mistakenly applied too much growth hormone in hopes of increasing their size.' 'Until recently, directions were circulating on the Internet about how to make fake eggs out of a gelatinous compound comprised mostly of sodium alginate, which is then poured into a shell made out of calcium carbonate. Companies marketing the kits promised that you could make a fake egg for one-quarter the price of a real one.' [more inside]
I'm Gonna Need you to Fight me on This
How violent sex helped ease a reporter's PTSD Female reporter Mac McClelland deals with the trauma of reportage. May include triggers.
The buddy-foodie road movie
Bored by Bourdain? Zimmern make you go zzzzzzzz? Then this is the travel show you've been longing for: from the BBC, Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure. Think Felix and Oscar on a camper van road trip; with wine critic and dandy Oz Clarke teaching Top Gear's James May all about the noble grape. Season one finds them touring the vineyards of France. Season two, California. In the third series, Oz and James Drink to Britain, we follow the unlikely boon companions as they get soused from Plymouth to Aberdeen. Episodes are currently being rebroadcast on BBC America and are also available On Demand. Fortunately, some kind soul [IchiDeux] has put all three series up on YouTube. This is as entertaining and informative as anything you'll find on the telly. Not convinced? Here they are in Ireland. (And if you're in need of a good belly laugh, please do forward to the 12:15 mark.)
I don't change my style for anybody. Pussies do that.
SF To LA Using Public Transit
As a public transit geek, I really enjoyed this story. We've talked about taking public transit on unlikely routes previously, and I read the original blog post giving the directions on how to get from SF to LA using only public transit. But the article from SF Weekly's In Transit blogger, Joe Eskanazi, really brings the trip to life.
People come and go so quickly around here
some people might call that chutzpah
We have explained that the matching funds provision substantially burdens the speech of privately financed candidates and independent groups. ... We have explained that those burdens cannot be justified by a desire to “level the playing field.” In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down an Arizona law that provided public funds to candidates who have been outspent by either private funding or independent spending. Link to PDF of full decision. [more inside]
Prozac? Nope, just take a bath!
Do you feel lonely or isolated in your 21st century life? Have you considered taking a hot bath? How hot baths can help dispel feelings of loneliness... [more inside]
Everybody and their mom has set this text.
The principle is to go into everything wanting to like it. Composer Nico Muhly has a blog. See what he thinks about Angelo Badalamenti, his thoughts on musical influences, and lots of posts about food.
What to Eat?
Overfishing is a topic that's been discussed on the Blue before (recently previous, previously). Despite potential consequences, many of us will still eat fish. So, what should we eat? (Previously) From the always thought provoking Information is Beautiful. [more inside]
SCOTUS, Video Games, & Violence
US Supreme Court finds Cali. law restricting sales of violent videogames to adults violates First Amendment. [more inside]
The Metaphor Program
Daniel Soar on the militarisation of metaphor: Spies aren’t known for their cultural sensitivity. So it was a surprise when news broke last month that IARPA, a US government agency that funds ‘high-risk/high-payoff research’ into areas of interest to the ‘intelligence community’, had put out a call for contributions to its Metaphor Program, a five-year project to discover what a foreign culture’s metaphors can reveal about its beliefs.
Reveals Reality?
Camera shoots 1080p HDR video at 30 FPS.
By using multiple sensors behind a single lens, it has a 17.5 stop range and can record and process HDR video in real time.
[via]
Cities for People
Danish architect Jan Gehl on making cities safe for people, the art and science of designing good cities for walking, and how to plan good cities for bicycling.
Get off the internet
Johann Hari laments the decline of real books and advocates a 'digital diet'. Do we still "need dead trees to have fully living minds"?
Some watch the grass grow, some watch the poles melt
Every summer the arctic melt season plays out as the ice retreats in the summer sun. Are the monthly releases from NSDIC too infrequent for you? Is Cryosphere today lacking context? Neven's blog to the rescue.
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