August 3
A Blanket Policy on Open Access
A new open-access policy adopted by the University of California, effective November 1, provides a license to the university system which allows it to publish articles in eScholarship, the system's free online paper repository. Criticism hinges on the policy's seemingly flexible opt-out provision. Ars Technica. Chronicle of Higher Education.
Songs For A Friend
Around 1970, in the back of Nielsen's Music Store, 17-year-old Linda Bruner recorded one original and five cover songs to a portable half-track borrowed from ALS Studios while accompanied by Jim Krein: Song Linda Wrote Herself, Wichita Lineman, Thorn Tree In The Garden, Georgia On My Mind, Don't Let Me Down, and Rainy Night in Georgia. [more inside]
No, what does exacerbate mean?
Interactive Shaun of the Dead screenplay. Shaun of the Dead is the first in the Edgar Wright, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg trilogy Three Flavours: Cornetto. The final instalment, The World's End was released in the UK on 19 July 2013 and comes out in the US on 23 August.
It's Behind You
Pantomime (or panto) is a British theater tradition usually performed at Christmas which dates from the eighteenth century. Along with new stories, there are several traditional ones. Whatever the story, there are several stock characters: a principal boy (usually a girl), a principal girl (actually a girl), and an older woman, usually a widow (played by a man). The character of the pantomime dame is one of the best-beloved traditions of British pantomime. All of that is introduction to this fascinating documentary - The History of the Pantomime Dame. [more inside]
Female Experience Simulator
Your resistance is most entertaining, meatbag.
Carpentry for Boys
CARPENTRY FOR BOYS WITH 250 ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS
By J. S. ZERBE, M.E.
Copyright, 1914.
Trying to understand Glenn Gould
Of the many available documentaries about the pianist Glenn Gould, "Genius within - The inner life of Glenn Gould" is one of the more thoughtful ones. [more inside]
Rapper delight
The 2013 Dancing England Rapper Tournament was held last March in Burton upon Trent, but rather than featuring quick flows and clever rhymes, were all about five people keeping hold of flexible swords while doing intricate dance figures, often in a pub. [more inside]
Aki Inomata's 3D printed tiny cities on shells for hermit crabs
"I overheard that the land of the former French Embassy in Japan had been French until October 2009; that it was to become Japanese for the following fifty years, and then be returned to France. This concept made me think of hermit crabs, which change their shells.... The hermit crabs wearing the shelters I built for them, which imitate the architecture of various countries, appeared to be crossing various national borders. Though the body of the hermit crab is the same, according to the shell it is wearing, its appearance changes completely. It’s as if they were asking, “Who are you?” " More about Aki Inomata's 3D printed shells on The Guardian's Architecture and Design Blog
Sweden is running out of garbage
Sweden is putting only four percent of its household waste in landfills (the US puts about half of its garbage in landfills) and much of the remainder is used for heating through an innovative waste-to-energy program.
The problem? They are now running out of garbage, and have to import from neighbouring countries.
Are mermaids the new vampires?
Articles at ABC, Huffpost, Vulture, The Atlantic Wire, The New Inquiry all claim that mermaids are the next big thing in popular culture. Among other signs, some authors point to the fact that Netflix's has acquired first-run rights to show the Australian show Mako Mermaids in several markets. At Slate, however, Forrest Wickman disagrees stating, "I can give you one simple reason that mermaids aren’t the new vampires, and never will be: genitals. If you want people to fantasize about you, or about being you, genitals are pretty much a requirement."
Funny, he doesn't look like a Cardinal.
A famously chatty parakeet named Disco recently added another human trick to his repertoire: Quoting Monty Python. [more inside]
Flash Bang Wallop
Pictures from the past - From definitive moments in history to milestones in photography: outstanding images selected by the picture editors of the Guardian and Observer (some nsfw) [more inside]
"What we’re doing is preventing them from being able to get signatures"
Payday lenders target the working poor with quick loans at exorbitant interest rates. When a ballot initiative drive in Missouri threatened this lucrative business, the payday lenders fought back with everything they had--their money. A ProPublica report, published yesterday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch documents the web of secret donations and intimidation that smothered the reform movement.
AAAH-HAHAHA HEYYY-AAAYY-OH GOOBA GOOBA GOOBA GOOOBA AAAH-HAHAHA
Let's just kick back and have a hella lotta fun with some good old fashioned New Orleans R&B and proto-rock from Huey 'Piano' Smith, what'cha say? His Don't You Just Know It can't help but put a smile on your face, and he'll give you that Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu so strong you'll hardly notice your High Blood Pressure, or that your baby is Psycho!
"He has also forced our second coming out, this time as gay parents."
Yotam Ottolenghi, chef, author, and food columnist for The Guardian, talks about coming out as a gay father.
Everquest Next
At several moments during the presentation, I wrote in block capitals, circling and underlining. This is the headline feature. This is something nobody has tried or managed to do before. Then, toward the mid-point, while I was still processing what had already come, lead designer Dave Georgeson demonstrated a feature that changed everything.
Everquest Next’s world is made of voxels and everything in it is destructible.
August 2
How complex are corporate structures?
Visualisations of corporate ownership for six banks: Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo.
Lip Gallagher meets Garage Rock
52 photos of Obama, 52
The President turns 52 on Sunday, and the White House has compiled 52 photos to celebrate (slideshow). There's a good combination of serious, familial, and funny. My favourite: Obama and gymnast McKayla Maroney not being impressed.
Hardcore make-a-wish
On the opening date of their tour Pantera frontman Philip Anselmo and his band The Illegals had a special guest guitarist shred on Pantera classic "Walk". A 13 year old battling cancer. Loudwire has more. via
Dramatic Lactose Intolerant Sobbing
"During the most recent ice age, milk was essentially a toxin to adults because — unlike children — they could not produce the lactase enzyme required to break down lactose, the main sugar in milk. But as farming started to replace hunting and gathering in the Middle East around 11,000 years ago, cattle herders learned how to reduce lactose in dairy products to tolerable levels by fermenting milk to make cheese or yogurt. Several thousand years later, a genetic mutation spread through Europe that gave people the ability to produce lactase — and drink milk — throughout their lives. That adaptation opened up a rich new source of nutrition that could have sustained communities when harvests failed." - The Milk Revolution - how a single mutation expanded (some) of humanity's diet. (Nature.com)
Emoji Tracker.
Real-time tracking of emoji use across twitter. Click on each emoji to see who is using it.
I'll take that to go
Driven
How German car industry beat British motors - and kept going. 'The UK car industry was once one of Germany's biggest competitors' 'by contrast, Britain's car industry is a shadow of its former self.' 'Half a century ago' 'this would have seemed unimaginable. But the sad truth is that Britain's car firms only have themselves to blame. Seventy years ago, at the end of World War II, Germany was on its knees. After the fall of Hitler's empire, its car industry lay in ruins.' [more inside]
The Daily .WAV -- drowning officemates with soundclips since 1999
The Daily .WAV has been online for at least fifteen years, bringing you fresh soundclips every day! Search the vast library to your heart's content.
Who says a funk band can't play rock music
“Stylistically, Demon Fuzz’s single album, 1970’s Afreaka!, is hard to pin down. But then, I guess that’s the point. Demon Fuzz went out of their way to keep people guessing; at gigs, they’d let people assume they were a reggae band, only to launch into some African-influenced jazz/rock number. Jaws hit the floor and feet started tapping. “We were different, totally different,” says Demon Fuzz trombonist Clarance Crosdale.” -- Demon Fuzz was a shortlived British, African-Carribean prog rock group that had started life as a soul cover band. [more inside]
Love, Greed, Revenge and Social Good.
The first telenovela broadcast in an indigenous language is about to be broadcast in Mexico. [more inside]
A Man, A Plan, a Pan: Pan man
Travel the world flipping flapjacks in Pan Man
To Capture the World
Bellydancer
Shlomo uses his voice and a loop pedal to build an immersive childhood memory of his Iraqi-Jewish family.
Something silly, juvenile, unnecessary and probably dangerous.
Happy Friday (SLYT) I guess this is the "grown-up" version of sticking playing cards in the spokes of your bike.
Hotter Weather Actually Makes Us Want to Kill Each Other
Making It There: Dvorak, the Rich Lady, and the Big Score
Droning around New York's Cooper Union (a free-tuition school since 1859 - until this year) on OpenStreetMap, I discovered that it really ties the room together. Nearby are the offices of Village Voice news, Kristal's CBGB site, the Anthology Film Archives, Washington Square, Union Square and ... Antonin Dvorak?? Why's a Czech composer a site in Lower Manhattan? Lets do the James Burke ... [more inside]
Keep Spinning
My name is Roman, last name is Zolanski
I played this song to my Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll class in Caboolture, and it sure attracted some extreme (negative) reactions. “This is shit,” was the common consensus… all except me and this one girl sitting at the back who the previous week had revealed herself to be a Royal Headache fan and was sitting there with her jaw dropping, like me. It was the first time she’d heard it too. “I’m going to be buying the album tomorrow,” she said. More hardcore than Throbbing Gristle, more extreme than most ‘extreme’ punk hardcore and metal hardcore I’ve heard, and… wait. The video to ‘Stupid Hoe’ has been watched by 71 million people? What the fuck is going on? The alternative and underground is getting seriously left behind by this wanton and determined deconstruction of sound happening within the ‘mainstream’. — Everett True [more inside]
Thatcher was Wrong
Selfish traits not favoured by evolution, study shows "Evolution does not favour selfish people, according to new research.
This challenges a previous theory which suggested it was preferable to put yourself first.
Instead, it pays to be co-operative, shown in a model of "the prisoner's dilemma", a scenario of game theory - the study of strategic decision-making.
Published in Nature Communications, the team says their work shows that exhibiting only selfish traits would have made us become extinct. "
150 Seconds of Headbutts
Yes It's True
The Polyphonic Spree's forthcoming album Yes It's True is previewing right now on Pitchfork, complete with virtual CD book including lyrics. This is their first album of original material since 2007's The Fragile Army.
Lucy Kellaway's 'History of Office Life'
A series of BBC News Magazine articles on the office as workplace: (i) How the office was invented; (ii) The ancient Chinese exam that inspired modern job recruitment (previously); (iii) The invention of the career ladder; (iv) The arrival of women in the office; (v) Do we still need the telephone?; (vi) Are there too many managers?; (vii) The era of the sexually charged office; (viii) The decline of privacy in open-plan offices; (ix) How the computer changed the office forever and (x) Why did offices become like the home?—by columnist Lucy Kellaway. [more inside]
It's Not Time to Worry Yet
To Steal A Mockingbird The notoriously private author Harper Lee is now waging a public courtroom battle. Her lawsuit charges that in 2007 her agent, Samuel Pinkus, duped the frail 80-year-old Lee into assigning him the copyright to her only book, To Kill a Mockingbird—then diverted royalties from the beloved 1960 classic. (SLVF)
Bringing water back to light
A hundred years ago streams got in the way of urban planning so people covered them up. Today towns and cities are looking to bring these streams back into light thus reducing flood risks, improving water quality, and revitalising neighbourhoods.
What Kind Of A Noise Annoys An Oyster?
Whether vocalizing on the gyrations of the
stock market, the frustrations of golf or the personalities of prunes, the friendly tenor of Frank Crumit once was one of the more familiar voices on phonographs and radios in the United States. [more inside]
Self sufficiency, food, energy, natural building, permaculture
Huge collection of books related to permaculture, natural building, food, energy etc. at United Diversity.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of fuck-you money
The Quality of Life: As Macaulay once noted: “If men are to wait for liberty till they become good and wise in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.”
August 1
Queen Elizabeth's nuclear war speech, and other undelivered speeches
"It would have been the Queen’s Speech to end them all. At midday on Friday 4 March 1983, the monarch was due to address the nation to announce that Britain was at war and – due to the “deadly power of abused technology” – a nuclear conflict was at hand." But it was only part of Wintex-Cimex 83, a large-scale annual NATO war game. This is just one example of speeches that were written in case of the worst, but never given. [more inside]
You are the machine; the machine is you
Pyrosome and Salps
Snowden walks free in Russia
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