Favorites from Foci for Analysis
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what is this NSA symbol?
What is this NSA logo called/what does it mean/what does it represent?
Nothing to see here. Move along
A week later she got back to me and said do you really want all of these deaths? I said I do. She told me I would be charged for each record. Then she asked me did I realize the enormity of the numbers of deaths there?”It had long been known children had died in the Mother and Baby home for "fallen women" in Tuan Galway, but it was not until local historian Catherine Corless started investigating that it became clear that between 1925 and 1961, 800 children were buried in a mass grave on the site, possibly inside a septic tank.
The registrar came back with a list of 796 children. “I could not believe it. I was dumbfounded and deeply upset,” says Corless. “There and then I said this isn’t right. There’s nothing on the ground there to mark the grave, there’s nothing to say it’s a massive children’s graveyard. It’s laid abandoned like that since it was closed in 1961.”
``Wherever you are, you are equally within of the power of conqueror´´.
At the end of 2013 Eben Moglen
(Metafilter Previously) gave a lecture in four parts ``Snowden and the Future´´ presented here in Audio, Video and Text:
Part I: Westward the Course of Empire.
Part II: Oh, Freedom.
Part III: The Union, May it Be Preserved.
Part IV: Freedom's Future.
From Al-Jazeera - A Timeline of the leaks.
From The Tow Centre - Journalism after Snowden. (scroll down for further links ).
From Foreign Affairs - How to Spy after Snowden.
Part I: Westward the Course of Empire.
Part II: Oh, Freedom.
Part III: The Union, May it Be Preserved.
Part IV: Freedom's Future.
From Al-Jazeera - A Timeline of the leaks.
From The Tow Centre - Journalism after Snowden. (scroll down for further links ).
From Foreign Affairs - How to Spy after Snowden.
He eats spiders so that you don't have to.
"'average person eats 3 spiders a year' factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted". Spiders Georg provides statistical explanation for one of the most commonly mis-represented scientific 'facts' promulgated for years. Although the math may be a little off and Georg may in fact be consuming many more spiders. You can read more from the man himself if you want to know more about the spider eating life.
GooBing Detroit
GooBing Detroit: chronological photosets of houses and streets in Detroit from 2009 to 2013, made with the aid of Google Street View and Bing StreetSide.
Grime Int'l: a few of the current grime musicians from around the world
Grime is an electronic music style that is largely regional, associated most strongly with the Bow/E3 district of London (prime example: Wiley - "Bow E3"), but in recent years, grime has grown in style and station, moving out from London and expanding to Canada, Australia, Japan and beyond. (NOTE: audio is likely to be NSFW to some degree)
One plus one is equal to two - calculus in text is left as an excercise
I was surprised to learn that few people knew that almost all maths was written rhetorically before the 16th century, often in metered poetry.
Even our wonderful symbol for equality – you know, those two parallel lines – was not used in print before 1575.
Anthropology, Archaeology and SETI
Archaeology, Anthropology and Interstellar Communication is a free book (PDF) from NASA. The premise is that communication with alien lifeforms will have some (cautious) analogues to interpreting past cultures, and to the work that anthropologists and linguists do cross-culturally. Among the 16 chapters are: Beyond Linear B - The Metasemiotic Challenge of Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence; Learning To Read - Interstellar Message Decipherment from Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives; and, Mirrors of Our Assumptions: Lessons from an Arthritic Neanderthal.
Where I'm off to
Wanted to let people know that while I'll continue to be hanging around here like I've always been, I'll be taking a (small) job at the Internet Archive being the support person and the user/tech liaison for Open Library.
Internet Directory
According to ICANN, .COM domains were intended for business, .ORG for nonprofit, and .NET for internet providers and "Web Portals." Internet Directory is a listing of every domain using these TLDs -- beginning with the 115 million .COMs -- as they stand in early 2014. On a fast browser, it takes 599 days to watch every domain scroll by.
Hey Google, My Town's in the Lake
For the last two months, people trying to look up Randolph Vermont on Google Maps have been directed to a dot in the middle of Lake Champlain, 100 miles from the town's actual location. I've tried pretty much everything to get them to fix it [sad details]. Now I'm trying this.
THE SOUL IS BONE
Educationally bizarre: Current events, medicine, animals, forensics, oddities, teeth, eyes, deformities, funerals, cemeteries, blood, albinism and such ........
It's The Soul is Bone. Not necessarily disturbing, but not necessarily not disturbing. Not necessarily NSFW, but not necessarily not NSFW.
Wesley was Always the Wurst Kind of Brat
It appears that the one thing Star Trek: The Next Generation was missing was sausages.
Finally A Place Worse Than The Bodybuilding.com Forums
Lifting weights in an American prison means joining a culture unlike any seen in a free-world gym, full of crudely welded pig iron and rust. Men forsake masturbation to improve their bench-press stats and consume cans of Jack Mack, the cheapest tinned fish in the world, along with the filthy broth it's packed in for every one of the 72.5 grams of protein promised on the label. It's a manly, aggressive universe with rules and customs of its own. I lived it for 10 years. An Ex-Con's Guide to Prison Weightlifting.
Fuck Yeah 1692's Version Of Pantone!
"In over 700 pages of handwritten Dutch, the author, who identifies himself as A. Boogert, describes how to make watercolour paints. He explains how to mix the colours and how to change their tone by adding “one, two or three portions of water”. To illustrate his point he fills each facing page with various shades of the colour in question. To top it he made an index of all the colours he described, which in itself is a feast to look at. In the 17th century, an age known as the Golden Age of Dutch Painting, this manual would have hit the right spot. It makes sense, then, that the author explains in the introduction that he wrote the book for educational purposes. Remarkably, because the manual is written by hand and therefore literally one of a kind, it did not get the “reach” among painters - or attention among modern art historians - it deserves." Erik Kwakkel, a medieval book historian in the Netherlands, spotted scans of the book in a French scholarly database and posted it to his blog a few days ago.
Anthem of Dystopian America
Following in the footsteps of other songs switching up minor keys and major keys, Chase Holfelder's Star-Spangled Banner in minor key is particularly haunting.
Moisture Is The Essence Of Wetness
Architecture And Vision has used warka trees and towers made of bamboo and fabric to harvest 100+ litres of potable water from the air (video) per day.
Rose Rose I Love You
In 1952 Malaya, cabaret dancer Rose Chan's bra snapped on stage. Noticing the enthusiastic response from the audience, she decided to capitalise on this, and transformed herself into Malaysia's first (and so far only) Queen of Striptease. (Many of these links have NSFW pictures)
Before it was the Moonwalk, it was Backsliding, or The Buzz
Moonwalking is often attributed to Michael Jackson, but as summarized in this low resolution clip from Soccer AM, it was performed under various names in decades before MJ's live television performance in 1983. Let's backslide through the years, from Cab Calloway's 1932 version that he called "The Buzz" to Jeffrey Daniel performing the backslide as a member of Shalamar in 1982 on Top of the Pops in the UK.
I Actually Thought Something in the PA System Had Blown Up
There are two main options when a sneeze is coming - let it happen, or try to ride it out. The decision often depends on your situation. For one unlucky trombonist, it was while playing in an orchestra at a church in Tiptree, Essex. He tried to ride the sneeze. He failed (SLYT). (via)
"Scams don't work if the victim knows what the hustler is trying to do."
Dark Patterns is a term used to describe web design that intentionally exploits specific aspects of the users psychology to drive them into making certain kinds of decisions. [an update to this fantastic previously]
Practical information for wannabe Glenn Greenwalds
"The first journalist to attempt reporting on the Wikileaks cables was David Leigh of The Guardian. The material arrived as a single 1.7GB CSV file containing 251,287 U.S. diplomatic cables from 1966 to 2010. If you’ve ever tried to open a 1.7GB file, you know you probably can’t. Microsoft Word and Excel will plain refuse. Windows Notepad and Mac TextEdit will try, but slow to a crawl." At Opennews Source, Jonathan Stray has written a helpful beginners' guide to dealing with large amounts of documents for journalists and interested lay people.
A HUNDRED SEASONS AND A MOVIE, WW FOREVER RICK AND MORTY DOT COM
Are you a fan of inventive, black-humored sci-fi/fantasy animation? Desperate to fill the Futurama-shaped hole in your heart? Look no further than Rick and Morty, the superb new Adult Swim series from animator Justin "Lemongrab" Roiland and Community darling Dan Harmon. Inspired by a (terrible and very NSFW) Back To The Future knock-off, the show pairs a naïve young teen (Morty) with his cynical, alcoholic, mad scientist grandfather (Rick), each episode exploring a trope -- dreams, aliens, innerspace, parallel universes, virtual reality -- and turning it inside-out with intricate plotting, eye-catching art, and dark, whipsmart humor (with plenty of improvisation along the way). A ratings hit already secured for a second season, the show returns from an Olympics-induced hiatus tomorrow -- in the meantime, why not sample the six episodes aired so far: Pilot - Lawnmower Dog - Anatomy Park - M. Night Shaym-Aliens! - Meeseeks and Destroy - Rick Potion #9. Want more? Promo/highlight reel - AV Club reviews - TVTropes - Reddit - Rick & Morty ComicCon panel - Storyboard Test - Soundtrack samples - Play the "Rushed Licensed Adventure" point-and-click game
Udderly complex
Milk products and production relationships. An elaborate, color-coded Wikipedia diagram showing both common pathways such as raw milk to cream to butter, and more esoteric pathways to products such as quark, pasta filata, and schmand.
"We look at our employees as adults."
Sean Blanda asks, "Do We Really Need Managers?" He interviews one of the founders of Treehouse, a startup company which has transitioned to a structure with no one in a traditional management role. To show that such an approach can work in the long term, Blanda refers to Gore - managerless since 1958.
Warfarin Phased Out by Next Generation Agents?
Warfarin, for decades the standard of care for stroke prevention in patient with atrial fibrillation, has met its match! Novel oral anticoagulants are the new standard of care, with a favorable efficacy:safety profile compared with warfarin. And what’s more, they don’t require regular monitoring like warfarin.
Perfect Lives
"And let it be set down, Bob was one of the most amazing composers of the 20th century, and the greatest genius of 20th-century opera. I don’t know how long it’s going to take the world to recognize that. And it hardly matters. He knew it. That the world was too stupid to keep up was not his problem." Robert Ashley dies at 83.
"I am Worf, Son of Mogh."
Just some old school ST:TNG for your Tuesday night: "The Worf of Starfleet"
charisma.com
Charisma.com is a Japanese electro-rap duo. (They don't control the domain charisma.com.) The lead singles from their debut album are HATE (tw: cartoon violence/suicide imagery, alternate video) and GEORGE.
Die Kuh ist über die Fence gejumpt.
Sure, it's unfortunate that the Philadelphia accent is fading away a bit, but on the other hand, have you ever even heard of the Texas German accent?
there's no reason to have a boat on a basketball court
Inspired by video games such as NBA 2K14, SBNation's sports blogger Jon Bois decided to create a sports video game of his very own. It went terribly.
Vampire Squid
The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet.
"Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever." This is the latest and last article for Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi, who is moving on to join First Look Media.
What fire dies when you feed it?
Game of the Year. Some words and a comic on success, depression, insecurities and validations by the writer of The Stanley Parable
Da-da-dah-da-da-DAH!
The Super Mario theme played on a sheng.
Li Li-chen performs the Super Mario theme on a sheng, an ancient Chinese musical instrument that is at least as old as 1100 BC.
He said that in the end it is beauty that is going to save the world now
La bella vita: True beauty pleases the eye and the mind – but can it help us to become better people?
"In 1795, the German dramatist and poet Friedrich Schiller published a book with a fearsome title – On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters. It has never become well-known, which is a pity, because it contains some of our most useful insights into the nature and value of beauty. Schiller’s starting point is an analysis of the human condition. He wants to understand our delight in what we find beautiful. Instead of asking which things are beautiful, Schiller is curious about what is going on in us when we respond with this distinctive, intimate thrill and enthusiasm that leads us to say ‘that’s beautiful’. Different things might provoke this response in different people. But why do we have it at all?" [Via]
You're in big trouble, mister!
Did Danny Tanner deal with the grief of losing his pregnant wife in a fatal car crash by creating an imaginary daughter named "Michelle"? (SLYT)
carefully cut up a straight stretch to the tip of the nose
Sandra Holmborn
does bloody makeup, nails and lips and also offers tutorials like this one, making lips into an eye.
How can we make ThereIsHelp even better?
The ThereIsHelp page on the MeFi wiki is a helpful compilation of resources for people who are struggling with depression, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, domestic violence, and sexual assault. It's also a living document, originally created through the collaboration of MeFites over three years ago in memory of Bill Zeller, and I'd like to continue the conversation about how we as a community can make it even better.
Eye of the beholder
Nigerian photographer J.D Okhai Ojeikere passed away last weekend, but at the age of 83 he left behind a truly incredible body of work celebrating Nigerian culture. These photos from his Hairstyles series are part of an archive of nearly 1000 pictures showing the intricate hair-dos of African women taken at work, social engagements and in the streets of Lagos. The beautifully composed black and white images draw attention to the sculptural quality of the hair, almost elevating it to an art form in itself. It goes without saying that his work is a unique treasure of historical and anthropological importance.Via
Oppressed Majority
On what seems to be just another ordinary day, a man is exposed to sexism and sexual violence in a society ruled by women.
[SLYT; NSFW; Nudity; Sexual violence]
Scotland is an unwon cause.
It is beginning to be appreciated, even in London, that Alex Salmond might just win his independence referendum in September. The break-up of Britain will have begun, David Cameron will have to contemplate being Prime Minister of a rump country — and HMS Britannia will be sunk, not with a bang but a whimper.
DevArt
DevArt: An exhibition of art created with code - skywriting quadcopter drones programmed with c++, room dividers reimagined as 3D screens for psychedelic projections, using raspberry pi to rename WiFi networks as lines of poetry. They are collaborating with the Barbican in London for the Digital Revolution exhibition and are currently seeking an emerging creative coder to be funded to present at the exhibition alongside world-class interactive artists Zach Lieberman, Karsten Schmidt, and the duo of Varvara Guljajeva & Mar Canet.
La-La Land
Vintage Los Angeles is Alison Martino's YouTube channel featuring a look back at Los Angeles during the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. There's an accompanying blog and a facebook page, too.