March 11
Sixth Sense: wearable tech
The Future of Capitalism
"For me, capitalism has never been an abstract concept. It is a real, concrete part of everyday life." President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on the future of capitalism.
I like tuttles
Mindless SLYT Post! A turtle celebrates Hump Day!
Marketing Gone Bad?
The videogames industry's not known for its subtlety when promoting its wares. Controversy has often been a successful part of their marketing campaigns. But is this a step too far? They'll have to go some way to cause more chaos than these guys
Reforming the Lorton Reformatory
“There is nothing like this in the United States," said Leone. "We’ve looked." The Workhouse Arts Center near Occoquan, VA opened in September 2008 on the grounds of a former prison that was founded by President Theodore Roosevelt as a rehabilitation facility for Washington, DC criminals. Its extensive agrarian projects were intended to put them in touch with nature, but by 1917 security tightened and suffragettes protesting before the White House endured harsh treatment there. The city continued sending inmates to the overcrowded facility until Congress ordered the prison to be shuttered. For years it stood empty, but now the historic buildings are being transformed into studios for local artists (previously).
That's a lot of parallel universes.
Movie posters that are just one letter off.
Sociological Images
Sociological Images. A branch of the journal Contexts from the American Sociological Association. What does "organic" look like? What happens after the oil boom dries up in a town? There are many discussions about the way bodies are shown. Privilege and Poverty in Vogue India. They also go behind your back and add content to previous posts. [more inside]
The interest-free bank
The Swedish JAK bank (site in Swedish) is, in effect, a strongly ethics-driven co-operative bank which has declined to have any external commercial interests. It lends money to its approx 30,000 members free of charge, and has managed to stay in business doing so since 1965. Wikipedia has more.
Also; Documentary about JAK on YouTube (part 2, part 3, part 4)
March 10
You're soaking in it
Where does your water come from? Global water supply chart. Global freshwater resources from the UN.
Roberto Kusterle
Open Platform
Somewhat quietly within the past couple weeks, two major newspapers, on each side of the Atlantic, have opened up their data and content APIs. Last month, on their Open blog, the New York Times introduced their Developer Network. Then just yesterday, on their DataBlog and OpenPlatformBlog, the Guardian launched Open Platform. [more inside]
Breaking Lincoln News
Breaking Lincoln news: possible last photo of the 16th President surfaces on same day a hidden message is discovered secreted in his pocket watch.
I needed the red ascot to add some color!
Drawings of Kings, and their Palaces.
Zines!
The Zine Library has hundreds of zines in pdf format for your perusal. They are organized into categories ranging from the common political (anarchism, political prisoners & animal liberation) and identity based zines (indigenous, race & gender) to the more esoteric (anarchist history, primitivism & theory) as well as the useful (cooking, DIY & organizing manuals) and arty (art, comics & music). Now, zines are by their very nature hit and miss but there are some real treasures to be found. I recommend these three: [all links pdf] The Rebel's Dark Laughter - The Writings of Bruno Filippi, Barefoot in the Kitchen and Delivery from Below, Resistance from Above - Electricity and the Politics of Struggle in Tembisa, South Africa. Note: Many if not most zines are set up to be printed out and bound together in chapbooks. That requires a bit of going back and forth when reading in pdf-format, but they wouldn't be real zines if they were straightforward to read ;) Don't know what a zine is? A pretty good overview is provided by zine librarian Jenna Freedman in Zines Are Not Blogs: A Not Unbiased Analysis. [This site has been posted previously but was buried deep in the weeds of more inside]
Abbey Road Forever
A Day in the Life of Abbey Road; (sorry for the prosaic lead-in link - at least I didn't use the word "iconic!") Enjoy watching Beatles' fans and locals negotiate London's famous Abbey Road crosswalk. I miss album covers; I'm of the generation of high school kids who spent a zillion hours flipping through them in record stores. The best of them - like Abbey Road - could be high-impact and sometimes accompanied their records like a kind of graphic mini-novel. What were some of your favorites and why?
Lucie DeBelkova
Lucie DeBelkova is a photographer. She has traveled to at least 76 countries, including Mongolia, Scotland and Iran. Here is one of her favorite photos. Here is another. And here is her flickr stream. Enjoy!
"Instead of speaking proper Dutch..."
Chris Chameleon is an Afrikaans musician who talks a bit about his native language's origins in this intro to his song Klein Klein Jakkalsies. [more inside]
(I'm her husband)
John J Marley (Gloria's husband) is Northern Ireland's answer to Lazlo Toth -- writing actual posted mail from his home at Comfydown Cottage, Carryduff, Belfast, to correspond with a variety of corporations and heads-of-state. Whether it's asking Irwin's Bakery to employ his wife Gloria (he's her husband), asking Virgin Atlantic if Gloria could take one of their 747's for a spin, or petitioning Kellogg's for adult-themed cereals, he always (well, almost always) receives an appreciative reply to his polite yet bizarre correspondence. [via cjorgensen; previously]
Body of Unknown Vagrant Found in Greenwich Village -- New York -- March 30, 1968
This month marks both the birth and the death of Bobby Driscoll, child star, Peter Pan, "Walt Disney's golden boy." He was penniless, drug-addled and buried in an unmarked grave by the age of 31. [more inside]
Dinga dinga dee!
Missiles! and girls! [SLYT]
Walker, Texas Rearranger
Unhappy with the way the election turned out, but unwilling to move? Don't worry, Presidential Candidate Chuck Norris has your back.
Traitors
"Traitors" - Martin McGuinness' description of those who carried out attacks on a PSNI member in Craigavon and British solidiers in Antrim: "These people - they are traitors to the island of Ireland. They have betrayed the political desires, hopes and aspirations of all of the people who live on this island. And they don't deserve to be supported by anyone." [more inside]
"Because the math is really complicated people assume it must be right."
They are known as “quants” because they do quantitative finance. Seduced by a vision of mathematical elegance underlying some of the messiest of human activities, they apply skills they once hoped to use to untangle string theory or the nervous system to making money. "They Tried to Outsmart Wall Street." [spoiler inside] [more inside]
32 Songs in 8 Minutes
The sky is falling
In the wake of a rather large meteor narrowly missing earth, loud booms have been heard from coast to coast. Here's hoping that's the end of it and there isn't something, larger on the way...
The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences
Ever wondered what comes next, and why? The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences has the answers. (Previously.)
Vampire Lincoln meets Zombie Platypus
Behind the scenes at Airport Security Theater
"Serious problems" found at nation's airport security checkpoints. Local TV station KSTP found that airport employees, including cleaning staff, are often allowed to enter secured areas of airports at night without anyone checking their identification badge or the bags and other belongings they bring into the so-called sterile areas. [more inside]
La Revolution Des Crabes
true scientific realism on every page
Encounter Critical is the awesomest Fantasy/Sci-Fi RPG to come out of an alternate 1979. Full list of game-related resources here (Yahoo group, reg req'd).
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" story conference
The "Raiders" Story Conference In 1978 George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan spent five consecutive nine-hour days hashing out the characters and plot for Raiders of the Lost Ark. The 125-page transcript of their meetings, unreleased before now, details their insane talent and techniques for populist storytelling. (It also makes one wonder what happened to George Lucas, a man who once had a math formula for exciting cinema.) via Ain't It Cool News, unfortunately
That skinny motherfucker with the high voice
"Prince announces a triple album set available from Target. Unless he’s going to write a hit song and play in each and every store in the chain, this is a bad deal. We’ve got enough Prince music. We want two CDs and a third of a protege? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a life. And Prince hasn’t put out a good album in this century. ... How many people are going to tell their friends about Prince’s new album? None. No one has hipped me to a new Prince track in fifteen years. The release of his album is a dead end. He’s abused our trust. When you e-mail me an unsolicited track you abuse my trust. When you add me to your mailing list without asking first, you abuse my trust. When you focus on marketing as opposed to music, you’ve got your head up your ass." - Bob Lefsetz (previously)
To Help? or To Hinder?
"The function of aid is not to make us feel better about ourselves; it is to promote development, and if a well-informed African tells us that we are inadvertently having the opposite effect, we had better take heed".Time to stop aid for Africa? An argument against. [more inside]
That's a lot of gold.
"We are urging music stations all over the U.S. to send us photos of their gold and platinum records." Hearings are starting on the RIAA's new pet bill. They're feeling the pinch and would like a few of their gold records back. [more inside]
GODZILLA BUKKAKE
Surreal flash game
Vector Defenders [flash game, some NSFW]. Ep 1: Icons Alliance, Ep 2: The Ink Quest, Ep 3: The Return Of The Type.
March 9
Mahanthappa picks Indian music
Destination: Out, an astounding mp3 blog devoted to mostly out-of-print free jazz and improv records, has been linked a few times on Ask, but never gotten the main-page exposure it deserves. Until now. The editors' selections are always interesting and written about well, and they're ready to go to the mat for the music. (The interview with Marsalis by the Bad Plus to which that's a response is also well worth reading.) But the real impetus for this post is only tangentially related to jazz: recently they got saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa to do a guest post on Indian (mostly Carnatic) music, and it won't be long before the links expire. Fall to! [more inside]
Mmmm... Free Goo.
World of Goo was released last year on PC and Wii and, despite an 82% piracy rate (previously), still went on to become one of the best selling games of 2008 and win a swag of awards. In a recent blog post (the first of seven) the developer, 2D Boy, has been detailing the early days of development for World of Goo. But just don't read about this proto-Goo... play it! They have made this early version of the game available to download for free. And don't forget that the soundtrack to the completed game is also still free and available for download.
Guitar crack
Wasting Away in Hooverville
Quit Lying About Roosevelt! "Amity Shlaes, the GOP's Great Depression philosopher-queen, couldn't be more dangerously wrong." [Via]
One Can Make a Difference
Canstruction is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food. [more inside]
"Most every Friday, now, the FDIC seizes several banks"
The Ottoman Armenians, a Still-Unfolding History
A devastating document is met with silence in Turkey. "According to a long-hidden document that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916." [more inside]
H is for Helvetica
The Periodic Table of Typefaces (fully-readable close-up) Two great nerd-memes (Periodic Tables and Font Collecting) that look great together. After looking it over, I'm happy to say it has no room for Comic Sans or Arial or Hobo, but sad to say it's also missing my personal guilty pleasure, Bookman. What's in it (or not in it) to your liking?
Jolifanto Bambla O Falli Bambla!
In 1916, Hugo Ball would fulfill his own dadaist manifesto by reciting his own nonsense poetry at the Cabaret Voltaire (not that Cabaret Voltaire), while wearing a Cubist costume or a cylinder with the number 13 covering his face. Ball's poem, Gadji Beri Bimba, inspired the Talking Heads song, I Zimbra, but his most famous poem is Karawane, a pioneering example of sound poetry. Karawane has more conventional avant-garde versions on YouTube, but none is more surreal than the recitation from memory by Marie Osmond (yes, that Marie Osmond) from a 1980s broadcast of Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
Pareidolia 2008
FlickTubeFaceSpace.com
Web Tech Guy and Angry [Museum] Staff Person. A very funny animation for the museums workers and librarians subset of Mefites. From Michael Edson at Smithsonian 2.0.
Shake shake shake! Shake shake shake! Shake your creamer! Shake your creamer!
Whale Meet Again
A Beached Fin Whale Closes a Popular Beach. . . .It had been foundering in the surf, and just beyond the surf, for several days.
They may bury it or they may tow it out to sea to become a whale fall. [more inside]
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