August 9, 2013
How to: make a microscope from a webcam
Create a high-powered microscope from a cheap webcam by following Mark's simple step-by-step instructions. Because your microscope is connected to your computer, you can save and share your images easily.
"MI5 trained a specially bred group of gerbils to detect spies"
It doesn't matter whether you hate the spies and believe they are corroding democracy, or if you think they are the noble guardians of the state. In both cases the assumption is that the secret agents know more than we do. But the strange fact is that often when you look into the history of spies what you discover is something very different. It is not the story of men and women who have a better and deeper understanding of the world than we do. In fact in many cases it is the story of weirdos who have created a completely mad version of the world that they then impose on the rest of us.—Bugger: Maybe the Real State Secret Is that Spies Aren't Very Good at Their Jobs and Don't Know Very Much About the World by Adam Curtis. It's about the checkered history of the MI5.
What is Computer Literacy?
People spend more time on computers than ever before, but Marc Scott, a computer teacher and writer for Coding 2 Learn, says computer literacy is at an all time low.
"The Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator is not a toy, Alyx!"
Randolfe Wicker talks gay rights in 1972
Combat Farming
"Through my business, I worked in Afghanistan on agriculture projects designed to assist with stabilization efforts in the region. I want to share with you some of the lessons learned along with some photos. I hope these are beneficial to those of you looking into or already working on low tech, sustainable farming/gardening projects here in the states." A first-person account of working with the locals to reconnect them with the land. [more inside]
The view from here
This is my window. Or my windows—the view from my living room, where I sit and write. Might not seem very inspiring. I wish I could offer green mossy lava, roaring waves, a glacier mountain top. I do have other spaces—in an abandoned powerstation, a favorite fisherman’s cafe by the harbor, a summer house on the arctic circle—but this is my honest view, what I really see most of the days. This house was built in the 1960s when people were fed up with lava and mountains; they were migrating to the growing suburbs to create a new view for themselves. The young couple who dug the foundation with their own hands dreamed of a proper garden on this barren, rocky strip of land. They dreamed of trees, flowers, shelter from the cold northern breeze. What is special depends on where you are, and here, the trees are actually special. They were planted fifty years ago like summer flowers, not expected to live or grow more than a meter. The rhododendron was considered a miracle, not something that could survive a winter. It looks tropical, with Hawaiian-looking pink flowers; Skúli, the man who built the house and sold it to me half a century later, took special pride in it.
I am not a great gardener. We are thinking of buying an apple tree, though they don’t really thrive in this climate. I would plant it like a flower, not really expect it to grow, and hope for a miracle. —Andri Snær Magnason [more inside]
Nothing I do is a true or absolute reality: Herbert Baglione's urban art
"1000 Shadows" is a series of works by the urban/street artist Herbert Baglione, which consists of spirits escaping from urban settings. His latest creations in this series are set in the empty rooms of an old abandoned psychiatric hospital in the city of Parma in Italy, which further increases the fascinating and frightening ambiance of his creations. [more inside]
Hotter Than You. Younger Than You. Richer Than You.
"Flaunting themselves on Instagram, they are also all proudly and openly gay ... But at the same time, they all look fairly heteronormative: hunky, sporty, the kind of guy who would call himself “masc & musc” in a hook-up app and would never take a photo of himself at Drag Brunch. And all are careful to avoid appearing like they are doing this just to get laid. By showing that, they would be revealing that they are vulnerable and have needs, and an #Instastud can never look unsatisfied with his life." Meet The #Instastuds - The Cut looks at the gays on instragram who really want to you look at them and how they live. Contains a link to a discussion of “Fire Island Pines, Polaroids 1975 to 1983” at Salon. (NSFW, nudity)
It's one of a kind...literally!
You! The Musical! is a group of professional actors and musical theatre writers in New York who will literally write a musical about your loved one for their big day.
Bump.
It's the attitude.
“You know a storm is going to be bad, people in Oklahoma will tell you, when Gary England removes his jacket.” At Oklahoma City's Channel 9, Gary England is on the tail end of a legendary 40-year meteorology career featuring some of the most intense commercials ever) in the midst of Tornado Alley. Following in his Mizuno-clad footsteps (the choice of marathon standers) are the competition: Channel 4, featuring former reality star Reed Timmer of Storm Chasers, rising star Emily Sutton (just trying to get his attention... yeesh...) and, yes, The Dominator. Previously. [more inside]
Music for stuff
"Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you demand satisfaction."
Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," Twenty Years Later. Novelist Brad Leithauser muses on "the finest play written in my lifetime": One sign of "Arcadia"'s greatness is how assuredly it blends its disparate chemicals, creating a compound of most peculiar properties. The play’s ingredients include sexual jealousy and poetasters and the gothic school of landscape gardening and duelling and chaos theory and botany and the perennial war between Classical and Romantic aesthetics and the maturing of mathematical prodigies. [more inside]
Pablo Mastroeni impregnates a bench for some reason
It's amazing, isn't it? Just when you think this photo shoot has peaked — that Donovan's inert lower lip or Mathis's oddly bendy face have set an unsurpassable standard — it finds a way to top itself, in this case by dressing a hulking, be-dreadlocked defensive midfielder in Stormtrooper underleggings and a miniaturized I Love Lucy housedress and convincing him to make unhurried love to a set of stadium bleachers. If "The Boys of Soccer" were Maradona, this would be his England game. Grantland investigates the greatest sports photoshoot of all time.
"Elites preying on the weak, the gullible, the marginal, the poor."
"We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites."-- War is Betrayal. Persistent Myths of Combat, an essay by Chris Hedges of Truthdig. Responses within. [more inside]
Time is a Dimension
"This series of images are mostly landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes, and they are a single composite made from sequences that span 2-4 hours ... The basic structure of a landscape is present in every piece. But each panel or concentric layer shows a different slice of time..."
“Distinctly younger, distinctly blacker, and distinctly, well, gayer”
F*ck the cat, save the raccoon!
Dan Harmon poops out his story-breaking process, and it's beautiful.
...in theeeeese United States
Paul Scheer and friends have recreated a bunch of classic Arsenio Hall interviews with Scheer playing your host, ArScheerio Paul. [more inside]
Sharks on a Train
Who wants free ice cream
Watch the Melvins (with Jeff Pinkus) play a Butthole Surfers tune while giving kids free Ice Cream.
An actual piece of race horse is placed inside each barrel for flavor
Perhaps they could call it WOPR
To reduce the risk of future Edward Snowden style leaks, the NSA wants to reduce the number of people in the loop. Director Keith Alexander told Reuters that the NSA plans to eliminate fully 90 percent of its system administrators and replace them with machines.
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Online ‘Likes’ Herd Others to Similar Views
Researchers during the five-month study randomly altered the ratings of 101,000 comments. Those manipulated to be more positive were about one-third more likely than unaltered comments to receive a positive rating from the next viewer, and 30 percent more likely to achieve a high favorable rating.[more inside]
He is not literally a piece of excrement.
Sit, stay, yawn
We already know that yawning is highly contagious and, in humans and other primates, may be rooted in empathy. Human-dog yawning contagion is well known too, as previously shown in Metafilter, but its causes are contradictory, as yawning in dogs is also associated with psychological tension or mild stress. A new study confirms that dogs yawn more frequently when watching their owner than when watching a stranger, demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlates with the level of emotional proximity, possibly indicating rudimentary forms of empathy in dogs.
The Staples Singers - I'll Take You There
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