July 10, 2017

If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Commit Massive Securities Fraud

Can Anyone Repair the National Lampoon? Vanity Fair dives deep into the sordid (and ongoing) fate of the National Lampoon brand – a story that begins with Kenney, O'Donoghue, and the vanguard of 1970s comedy, and ends with multiple FBI raids, the 'Madoff of the Midwest', and a long, desultory history of tasteless movies and tie-ins.
posted by workingdankoch at 11:45 PM PST - 38 comments

zunzuncito

Unlocking the Secrets Behind the Hummingbird's Frenzy "With their rocketing movements and jewel-like plumage, hummingbirds seem like a hybrid of flesh, feather, and fireworks. The wings of some species flap up to a hundred times per second. Their heart rate can exceed a thousand beats per minute, and they gulp nectar with a near-invisible flick of the tongue. In gardens or at backyard feeders, they’re the definition of fleeting beauty. So who could resist the temptation to slow their motion, to dissect their movements—to inhabit, even briefly, the hummingbird’s world?" [more inside]
posted by dhruva at 9:54 PM PST - 28 comments

Gun Squids

Good Business - a science fiction short film based on the work of Simon Roy.
posted by Artw at 9:07 PM PST - 8 comments

May the power of the cosmos be with you! Yes! Yes! Yes!!

Long before Ghost Hunters, Dr. Franklin Ruehl (RIP 2015) was the host of the cable access, and then Sci-Fi Channel original program, Mysteries From Beyond The Other Dominion, among the first of the paranormal-focused shows on basic cable, and still the most fun. He lived long enough to reach SyFy's 20th anniversary, and described what it was like hosting one of their early productions. Not much survives, but here's an entire episode. There's more after the fold, so click here to extricate this post from its electronic prison: [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 9:04 PM PST - 15 comments

Modernist Architecture (not Art Deco!) in Eritrea

Asmara Eritrea has one benefit from that Italian occupation: a collection of beautiful Modernist buildings. If all goes well, it'll be named a Unesco World Heritage Site very soon.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:28 PM PST - 16 comments

Sharp

You can sharpen your wood chisel. You can make it Scary Sharp. You can look at your straight razor under an electron microscope as you hone it. You can pass the hanging hair test. Or you can just buff it a bit on the bench grinder.
posted by clawsoon at 7:48 PM PST - 27 comments

What would you do to gave you? [rooster photo] DOCTOR STRUGGLE

Check out AI Generated Movie Posters, a site featuring movie posters generated by AI. Built by our own OrangeGloves, via mefi projects.
posted by cortex at 3:22 PM PST - 63 comments

“...please don't assume I'm actually in favor of burning Christians,”

How Do I Vike by Django Wexler In How Do I Vike, I play as Norse pagans in Crusader Kings II, attempting to unite Scandinavia under my banner and spread the worship of Odin and Thor!
“Last game, my goals were to establish the Empire of Israel and rebuild the Temple, and thereafter to generally grab as much territory as possible. This time, the objectives are similar but not identical — I want to reform Germanic paganism into an “organized” religion and fight off the Christians, establish the Empire of Scandinavia, and ultimately reform the tribal Norse into a feudal society. Assuming I get that far, which is by no means guaranteed, then we’ll see what’s next — becoming King of England sounds attractive, and there are Germanic holy sites in Germany that need taking. Let’s get started!”
[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:59 PM PST - 14 comments

THE 100 GREATEST PROPS IN MOVIE HISTORY, AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM

They're found on dusty warehouse shelves; buried under flea market knick-knacks; Googled, Ebayed, begged for; commissioned from blacksmiths, painters, and model makers for one-time use; and constructed out of whatever $5 can buy at the local craft store. They are sketched out, improvised, or placed in scenes by the fate of logic, existing to serve the performances or action around them. But while iconic movie props make us laugh, gasp, scream, and/or sit in absolute silence, they rarely start iconic; as a property master will tell you, the best on-screen objects go unnoticed, silently winning you over with truth.
posted by DynamiteToast at 12:38 PM PST - 79 comments

5 Self-Care Strategies That Aren't Mani-Pedis

When we create systems of self-care for ourselves, we are dismantling the facets of patriarchy that dictate that emotions are weak and tenderness is inferior. But these systems aren’t built solely on the popular media’s portrayal of self-care: manicures, pedicures, and massage. In order to be sustainable, self-care systems need to be more than just a quick-release valve. They require scaffolding our lives so that when things get truly awful, we have the fortification to weather the shitstorm. So how can we practice sustainable self-care? Here’s what I’ve learned that works for me. Kate McCombs provides practical tips for reflective feminist self-care at Continuum Collective. (Note: Title in link may be NSFW.)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:10 AM PST - 60 comments

What happened when Walmart left

In West Virginia, the people of McDowell County can’t get jobs, and recently lost their biggest employer – the local Walmart store. They describe the devastating loss of jobs, community and access to fresh food
posted by Etrigan at 11:03 AM PST - 84 comments

Storm in an egg cup.

Americans don't have egg cups. Brits are outraged!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:58 AM PST - 298 comments

I try to remember not to sleep in full armor

After a few self-observations on gameplay, writer and presenter Jordan/Erica Webber started a twitter thread on real-life behaviours people replicate in games even though they serve no gameplay function (such as the post title by molly carroll)... [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 10:09 AM PST - 108 comments

Personal threat models and hardening your information to doxing

Sean Gallagher delves into demystifying threat modelling, building from Adam Shostack's Privacy Threat Model for The People of Seattle and Electronic Frontier Foundation's five-question structure. For Sean, it comes down to answering four questions: Who am I, and what am I doing here? What could possibly go wrong? And how? Then, how much can I stand to do about it? Related: if online harassment crossing into your personal life is a concern, Nathan Mattise offers simple strategies that can minimize the physical toll of doxing. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:55 AM PST - 6 comments

Surviving the Great Filter

The Uninhabitable Earth David Wallace-Wells looks beyond rising sea levels to catalog some of the most disastrous potential effects of the changing global climate. He warns that under our best current predictions, "absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century."
posted by informavore at 9:13 AM PST - 69 comments

Maybe why you never have heard of that band on Spotify before

In August, Tim Ingham of Music Business Worldwide reported that Spotify is paying musicians to record music using fake aliases on terms financially advantageous for Spotify and placing these songs on featured playlists. These featured playlists are curated by Spotify employees and have become an increasingly influential source for listening to music (previously) [more inside]
posted by fizzix at 9:13 AM PST - 65 comments

History Meets Technology in Shipwreck Alley

The 448-square-mile Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary protects one of America's best-preserved and nationally-significant collections of shipwrecks. Ninety three wrecks have been located within the sanctuary, but historical records indicate more than a hundred shipwrecks have yet to be discovered. Through the spring and summer of 2017, researchers will conduct a four-part expedition to test new tools for finding wrecks. One technique is the use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) equipped with advanced sonar, with which a team from the Great Lakes Research Center has been able to provide ultra-high resolution acoustic images of historic shipwrecks located in the sanctuary. Map: Shipwrecks of the Thunder Bay region. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:01 AM PST - 8 comments

Meat, not too fresh.

YouTuber UpIsNotJump is modding video game Fallout 4, switching between original videos like Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen, Planet Earth II, and the Bob Ross Video Game*, and remakes like Futurama, Rick and Morty, and Iron Man, [NSFW, *cw: flashing lights at start of video]
posted by Room 641-A at 7:41 AM PST - 7 comments

Hello retrocausality!

Many people have heard of entanglement, an idea from quantum physics where two particles are connected in such a way that affecting one affects the other instantly, no matter where in the universe it is located. (Entanglement probably deserves to be called more than an idea since it has been tested over and over again to plug loopholes that might show the particles are actually interacting on a local level in some way, in spite of what seem to be vast distances.) But what if causality could be shown to work retrospectively somehow? Imagine if a particle could carry the effect backwards in time to when it was in very close proximity to its partner. No faster-than-light messages across the universe would be needed. Just backwards in time is all. Say hello to retrocausality! Previously.
posted by toycamera at 6:22 AM PST - 82 comments

To save enough for a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga

“Hard times, hard times,” he’d mutter to himself, attempting the doorway. “You get through ‘em. You get through ‘em.” A long and curious tale of working in a used game shop.
posted by mippy at 2:25 AM PST - 30 comments

Lawrence says that objects have no meaning, but simply exist.

Boiled to remove its toxins, Amanita muscaria can usually be eaten with impunity. Usually. [more inside]
posted by automatic cabinet at 2:09 AM PST - 21 comments

We Know the Way: The Art of Polynesian Wayfinding

How did the Polynesians sail the Pacific 3,000 years ago, without GPS or even sextants or compasses? The Polynesian Voyaging Society and its ship, the Hōkūleʻa, have set out to answer that question through research, oral history, and practical experimentation. Learn the star compass; know your winds and currents; read the swells; look for clouds and birds; forecast the weather; and estimate your position. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:16 AM PST - 23 comments

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