Favorites from Foci for Analysis
Subscribe:
Displaying post 251 to 300 of 753
it has only a vague personal sense of connection to me
Pharmaduke: bot combining Marmaduke comics + Erowid trip reports at random. (Previously, Previously)
Yes, it's true. This collab has no DiC.
90's dub by moonlight, Bartkira trailer by daylight, 300+ animators (you heard right), a new collab of Sailor Moon! (Japanese with English subtitles. Previously, Akireviously.)
Could It Be Used For Dating?
Behold The Frinkiac, a search engine that matches Simpsons quotes to exact screen grabs. Sure, it looks impressive, but I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them.
You've got your Firefox in my Fat Agnus!
The Internet Archive's Amiga Software Collection -- runs emulated in the browser, so you don't even have to load Workbench!
The Evolution of an Accidental Meme
"I was trying to clarify why, to me (and, I generalized, to liberals), “equal opportunity” alone wasn’t a satisfactory goal and that we should somehow take into consideration equality of outcomes (i.e., fairness or equity). I thought the easiest example of this concept is kids of different heights trying to see over a fence. So, I grabbed a public photo of Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, a stock photo of a crate, clip art of a fence, and then spent a half-hour or so in Powerpoint concocting an image that I then posted on Google+... [Afterwards], my original graphic was being adapted, modified, and repurposed in a mind-blowing variety of ways, and then shared and redistributed all over the place."
Bagpipe Blues
Rufus Harley debut jazz recording in 1965 was unexpected, mostly because one featured instrument was bagpipes. In seven tracks: Bagpipe Blues, Kerry Dancers, Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me), More, Chim Chim Cher-ee, Sportin', Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child.
Telefone, the vision and voice of Noname that is singularly her own
A few months back, Chance the Rapper released Coloring Book mixtape (Soundcloud), "one of the strongest rap albums released this year, an uplifting mix of spiritual and grounded that even an atheist can catch the Spirit to." (Pitchfork) That mixtape features a ton of guests, including Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Future, Justin Bieber ... and Noname. Who? She's a Chicago rapper, formerly known as Noname Gypsy, and with her own mixtape, Telefone (Soundcloud), she "has only further solidified her reputation as a deft and hyper-intelligent young rapper, at first a one woman Digable Planets for the melodic Chicago contemporary, but quickly something wholly unique." (Noisey/Vice)
Singing in the Masjid-e Shah in Isfahan
An Iranian student visiting Isfahan's Masjid-e Shah, or Shah Mosque, also known as the Imam Mosque, takes advantage of the mosque's excellent acoustics to sing a brief and lovely song.
Pandemonium: Underworld, And I Will kiss.
And I Will Kiss is the music to the Industrial Revolution (Pandemonium) sequence of the 2012 London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony [shorter version]. With the input of Dame Evelyn Glennie, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, the London Symphony Orchestra and 1,000 volunteer drummers, Underworld produced a 17 minute piece to the brief of frightening people.
"Her hands are soaked in blood and history will write her that way."
In 2006, Emma Sky was a 36-year-old working for the British Council in the Middle East when she hired on as Political Advisor to US General Odierno, Corps Commander for Iraq. According to this writer, she is the "Mother of Daesh". A former colleague compares her to le Carre's Little Drummer Girl. Emma Sky speaks for herself in Slate (she blames Obama) and The Atlantic ("Iraq is Finished"). (NB: the first link goes to a very long article, which includes the entire testimony of Emma Sky before the UK Irag Inquiry. At the very end of the linked piece are a number of other links to more info.)
Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison
This candid 2011 talk about the history of OpenSolaris fork Illumos doubles as a history of the late Silicon Valley giant Sun, its engineering and corporate culture, its disastrous acquisition by Oracle, and the rise of open source in the 2000's.
Safe for Democracy Podcast
Safe for Democracy is a site and a podcast dedicated to shining a little light on the darker spots in the history of US foreign policy. It's got a blog here, a show page here, and an RSS feed here. You can also follow on iTunes. The first episode is about the coup in Guatemala.
Metrocosm: The History of Cities Visualized
The History of Cities Visualized: Metrocosm
You know what grinds my gears?
Maybe you're bothered by three-gear logos.
You know, the ones where the three gears all intermesh and wouldn't actually be able to turn, thus ruining the metaphor? Well, it turns out you can create three intermeshed gears that all move together.
The River Of Unearthly Delights
Every June, since 2010, the waters of ’s-Hertogenbosch (the Netherlands) provide the venue for the Bosch Parade, a wondrous armada of vessels and objects inspired by the work and ideas of Medieval painter Jheronimus Bosch.
This happens more than I even want to admit to myself
Caught my cat lapping from my glass. I sigh, grab myself another glass of water and continue about my business. But then...
ebooks_goetia
The Lesser Bot of Solomon offers you endless pages from a text in the style of Ars Goetia and the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum.
A little bit of a boy on the floor
Sunspring
is a short film written by Benjamin, a neural network trained on a corpus of film scripts.
(Sunspring previously though the link there has been made private)
A Clockwork Yellow
19-year old French film student Candice Drouet compiled all the Stanley Kubrick references in The Simpsons alongside their original counterpart and captured 25 years of visual references in two minutes. Her visual project, 1.000.000 Frames (100 videos) collects images from all the movies she seen in her life, split into different themes such as loneliness, the sounds of Wes Anderson, and addictions. Much more at Vimeo.
Michael Bay Presents: The Metamorphosis
Please enjoy this video of a cockroach firing a cannon mounted on its back.
Momma!
RIP cartoonist Mell Lazarus, who wrote Miss Peach and Momma. NY Times obit. He also wrote two books, including The Boss is Crazy, Too.
"Some rappers can't ride bikes 'cause they can't handle bars."
How some of the greatest rappers make rhymes
is an impressive video from Vox that explains how the best artists manipulate rhymes, beats, and motifs in exciting ways.
Stupid names can't hurt good companies [?]
Seemingly bored with a staid but descriptive and well-recognized name, Siemens Healthcare has rebranded to Siemens Healthineers. The cringeworthy new name is "...intended to underline its pioneering spirit, Siemens said in a statement." The name was unveiled in a cheesy public event, complete with an anodyne theme-song led by spandex-clad dancers.
You'll have an average lifespan. Don't be upset. Pray instead.
You're a fortune teller living in the Roman Empire. People keep asking you the same damn questions day after day, and it's hard to always come up with new answers. So you invest in a copy of the Oracles of Astrampsychus, a dice-based prophecy kit, containing 92 common questions and over a thousand possible answers. And here they are.
“The focus of this series though is not on the crime...”
Inside Death Row:
[New York Times] Between 2014 and 2015, the editorial cartoonist Patrick Chappatte and his wife, the journalist Anne-Frédérique Widmann, invited death-row inmates in the United States to draw their personal experiences in prison. Last year, the couple curated the drawings in an art and documentation exhibition in Los Angeles called “Windows on Death Row.” The prisoners’ stories became the basis of this five-part graphic journalism series.
The Evolution of the Petrol/Gas/Filling/Service Station
The Evolution of the Petrol/Gas/Filling/Service Station
Gas stations might be boring or even ugly places, but for the most part, you can’t avoid stopping by one on a long trip. However, they have been so many more beyond the basic design of columns, roof and shop over their history. The following 60+1 filling stations encompass almost a century of architectural progression, showcasing some of the best Art Deco, Bauhaus, futurist, brutalist, minimalist, modernist, Googie building designs of the motorist history. Enjoy the ride!
"when I was 16, no one talked like me"
No Small Parts profiles Linda Hunt
Sin Empezar: Daymé Arocena
"Meet Daymé Arocena, the Afro-Latina singer taking cues from Selena and jazz greats alike" -- "Sin Empezar" ... "Madres" ... "Don't Unplug My Body".
Take Your Child to Conference Day
UC Berkeley psychology professor Tania Lombrozo tried an unusual tactic when organizing the Misconceptions of the Mind Conference: invite the babies as well as their parents. She wrote:
Supper Mario Broth
Supper Mario Broth is a wonderfully obsessive blog devoted to all sorts of Super Mario Brothers minutia. Really, you are not prepared for this. Things like....
Here Are Your Eyes
six seconds of vaporwave bliss (feat. HOME and the Simpsons)
Velocipedia by Gianluca Gimini
I decided my job was going to be presenting the potential and the beauty inside these sketches. I selected those that I found most interesting and genuine and diverse, then rendered them as if they were real. I became the executor of these two minute projects by people who were mainly non-designers and confirmed my suspicion: everyone, regardless his age and job, can come up with extraordinary, wild, new and at times brilliant inventions.Gianluca Gimini asked strangers to draw pictures of bicycles from memory, then proceeded to render them in 3d
"It kind of works"
Following in the footsteps of a long line of Swedish inventors, Simone Giertz designs and builds helpful tools for our modern society, addressing issues like dental hygiene, preparing and serving breakfast, and looking your best in real life as well as in Internet discussions.
She recently teamed up with (Mefi's Own™) Adam Savage to optimize your movie experience, with a popcorn machine.
Physics, math and science toys
Physics Fun
is an Instagram account with short videos of physics, math and science 'toys.' An accompanying blog looks at some in more detail.