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Labour's Shadow Culture Minister Chris Bryant has said the art world must address lack of diversity “I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk,” James Blunt has replied. Bryant has replied in turn. The dog from Downtown barks up.
comment posted at 10:01 AM on Jan-19-15

UK supermarket Sainsbury's is pulling heartstrings with its 2014 Christmas ad "Christmas is for Sharing," which draws from the true story of the 1914 Christmas truce and football match between British and German troops in World War I. Sales of chocolate bars featured in the ad will benefit the Royal British Legion. The ad has garnered some glowing feedback, including positive comparisons to another popular 2014 Christmas ad with a charity tie-in, John Lewis' "Monty the Penguin." But others are less impressed.
comment posted at 10:57 AM on Nov-14-14

Psychiatric magazine ads from the seventies.
comment posted at 11:59 AM on Jul-28-14

ZEPPELIN TOOK MY BLUES AWAY Trading Cards – An Illustrated History Of Copyright Indiscretions!
comment posted at 9:39 AM on Jun-25-14

The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1%, says an ex CIA spy: The man who trained more than 66 countries in open source methods calls for re-invention of intelligence to re-engineer Earth
comment posted at 8:30 AM on Jun-25-14

Recently, the song "Bitchin' Camaro" by the band The Dead Milkmen was featured during the closing credits of an episode of the Netflix series "Orange is the New Black". Because the Universe is entirely devoid of pity, this somehow led to a mildly profound and deeply disturbing discussion between lead singer Rodney "Anonymous" Linderman's mother and himself on the nature of "selling out".
comment posted at 9:31 PM on Jun-19-14

A motley group of role-players adventure in a strange, forbidding world...(via io9.com)
comment posted at 11:48 AM on Jun-19-14
comment posted at 11:51 AM on Jun-19-14

Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide drafts to be published Writing that Douglas Adams cut from his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels is to be published for the first time after being found in his archive.
comment posted at 10:37 AM on May-30-14

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become increasingly crowded with branded accounts seeking their attention. Every few seconds, your favorite brands are tweeting at you. But what most people don't know is how much time and effort goes into curating these accounts, writing tweets, and filling your news feed with content people actually want to see. For instance, it can take a team of 13 social media and advertising specialists up to 45 days to plan, create, approve, and publish a corporate social media post. The story of Huge Inc. and President Cheese.
comment posted at 8:50 AM on May-27-14

For those who don't quite "get it" when someone makes a tulip joke in any given Bitcoin thread. This is a short documentary on the phenomenon of Tulip Mania, a period in Dutch economic history when Tulips became such a hot commodity that empires were born and lives ruined all over the value of tulip bulbs. [slyt]
comment posted at 9:44 PM on Mar-22-14

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is without a doubt the most boring, soulless, stacked revolution I’ve ever read. The people of the Moon – that is, actually THREE people on the moon (the Prof, Wyoh, and a reluctant Mannie) – decide one day to revolt when supercomputer Mike informs them that cannibalism will ensue in nine years should things progress down the same path. This is especially troubling in the context of modern reading, considering the many revolutions around the world that have and continue to happen today – these are powerful movements with drastic, often violent but always life-changing consequences. In contrast, Heinlein’s contained, sanitized revolution – planned and powered by the smartest AI computer everrrrr! – is so theoretical, so calculated, so utterly artificial that it loses any meaning. Is revolution the simplistic, quick, predictable thing that Heinlein creates in this frankly soulless book?" -- To prove their real fan status, Ana Grilo and Thea James (aka the Booksmugglers) review arguably Heinlein's greatest novel and find it wanting.
comment posted at 7:45 AM on Mar-21-14

Remember Goldieblox who fought for their right to infringe? Beastie Boys have agreed to settle the lawsuit, for a percentage of the revenues to be donated to one or more charities selected by Beastie Boys that support science, technology, engineering and mathematics education for girls. Class.
comment posted at 6:14 PM on Mar-18-14

Italian models in high end clothing BASE jump from spectacular Monte Brento!
comment posted at 11:14 PM on Mar-17-14

If you dare, here is a live feed of William Corgan's 8 hour long synthesizer improvisation about Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.

He already threw out a reporter trying to cover it.
comment posted at 3:06 PM on Feb-28-14

"The IPython Notebook is a web-based interactive computational environment where you can combine code execution, text, mathematics, plots and rich media into a single document". It can be installed faily easily with anaconda or on Amazon EC2. Various interesting notebooks are to be found at the official Notebook Viewer site Another collection of interesting notebooks on many topics.
comment posted at 10:28 PM on Jan-5-14

On January 21, The Days of Anna Madrigal, the last in the Tales of the City series, will be released.
comment posted at 12:21 AM on Jan-6-14

"It was as if, while Mark Zuckerberg was still in high school, Bowie was bracing for the 21st Century, the demand for everyone to “share” accessible versions of themselves. The self as a business card, to be distributed to anyone who asked for it. He also saw opportunity: on 1 September 1998, he launched BowieNet." Pushing Ahead Of The Dame (previously, previously) takes a look at David Bowie's late-90s, technophile projects and the future they foreshadowed - Omikron: The Nomad Soul (& BowieBanc & BowieNet)
comment posted at 12:33 PM on Nov-11-13

"In the 1960s and 1970s London Transport had a flourishing international consultancy arm which made money by advising other cities on on how to go about setting up and running a metro service with a particular emphasis on advising far eastern countries how to plan their fledging metros. Rumour has it their first bit of advice was always: Never, ever run your trains in a circle!" -- So why did it take almost a century and a half for the London Underground to get rid of the Circle Line? Let Pedantic of Purley at London Reconnections explain the history of the Circle Line and why having a circle route is bad news as well as how the Circle Line was uncircled and recreated as a teacup.
comment posted at 2:03 PM on Oct-21-13

A Culinary Giant Perhaps like no other food writer, Marcella Hazan, helped intergrate a foreign cuisine into American culture with her no-nonsense and easy to understand approach. Mrs. Hazan passed way yesterday a the ripe old age of 89. Her simple tomato sauce is legendary - she made all of us better cooks and eaters.
comment posted at 10:32 AM on Sep-30-13

Louis C.K. explains to Conan O'Brien why he hates smartphones. "You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That's being a person." (via)
comment posted at 11:31 AM on Sep-20-13

Samuel R. Delany's 1971 film The Orchid is on YouTube. According to K. Leslie Steiner (aka Samuel R. Delany), when it "Primiered [sic] at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago that September (Delany himself was not present), it caused a riot. Outraged fans tried to shout the film off and even pulled down the screen." Sci-fi writer Scott Edelman explains why: "Imagine that you're 16 and collapsed in the film room of an early '70s Phil Seuling Comic-Con, dazed from a day storming the dealers room and attending panels. You're with your friends enjoying Star Trek bloopers and installments of old Captain Marvel serials and maybe even Bambi Meets Godzilla ... when all of a sudden you're staring up at Bernie Wrightson's junk!" And he explains how you can get a much better copy of the film, along with a doc about Delany.
comment posted at 2:04 PM on Sep-19-13

The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle lists his favorite every metal song for every conceivable occasion.
comment posted at 2:47 PM on Aug-19-13

Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, formerly part of News Corp., has bought a 5% stake in Vice Media for $70m. The move is said to give Vice access to Fox's satellite broadcasting networks, whilst preserving the founders' editorial control.
comment posted at 5:56 PM on Aug-17-13

Some people interpreted the Geotaggers' World Atlas maps to be maps of tourism. This set is an attempt to figure out if that is really true. Some cities (for example Las Vegas and Venice) do seem to be photographed almost entirely by tourists. Others seem to have many pictures taken in places that tourists don't visit. Blue points on the map are pictures taken by locals (people who have taken pictures in this city dated over a range of a month or more). Map of photosets (scroll through photo thumbnails to discover new cities in the photoset
comment posted at 11:36 PM on Jul-26-13

The cover of the Rolling Stone has been a cultural touchstone for a long time. Now, the dreamy, tape-it-to-the-bedroom-wall worthy image of terrorist eye-candy, Jahar Tsarnaev, rocks the magazine's legendary cover real estate. Teenage girls swoon, others fret.
comment posted at 12:40 PM on Jul-17-13

"Against all probability, a device that purports to use cold fusion to generate vast amounts of power has been verified by a panel of independent scientists . . . The cold fusion device being tested has roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline. Even allowing for a massively conservative margin of error, the scientists say that the cold fusion device they tested is 10 times more powerful than gasoline — which is currently the best fuel readily available to mankind."
comment posted at 12:58 PM on May-23-13

Like 1930s Germany': Greek Far Right Gains Ground
Golden Dawn, with it's growing presence in public high schools is now targeting pupils at primary schools. Its official website recently hosted pictures of neatly-dressed 6 to ten-year-olds, accompanied by parents, at a “national awakening” session held at a branch office outside Athens.
Recently 28 migrant workers working at a strawberry production farm in Manolada, Greece were shot because they demanded to get paid.
From one tweet about the incident: Modern Greece has many things in common with Ancient Greece. For example slaves.
An anti-foreign nurse swoop on a Peloponnese hospital exploded in violence as Roma patient's friends confronted the neo-nazis.
The Greek government needs to take action against the extreme right, including the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, says the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Nils Muiznieks. This could even involve outlawing the party.
comment posted at 2:03 PM on Apr-21-13

DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee oversaw radical reforms to Washington, DC's failing public schools. Amongst the results were widespread irregularities on standardized tests that suggest they were tampered with by adults.
comment posted at 4:29 PM on Apr-14-13

Women are better off without bras. Professor Jean-Denis Rouillon has spent 15 years measuring 130 women's breasts with a slide rule and calipers, and concludes “Medically, physiologically, anatomically – breasts gain no benefit from being denied gravity".
comment posted at 5:57 PM on Apr-10-13

Got 15 seconds? Then you can watch an animation of Serj Tankian ordering coffee at a Starbucks.
comment posted at 6:22 PM on Apr-10-13

"Professional wrestling fans, we who are "smart marks" especially, are in many ways more sophisticated than the political junkies who populate political blogs and web sites (what are really fan boy and fan girl mark hangouts) like the Free Republic or The Daily Kos.
They know that professional wrestling is a work and a game.
Do the Obamabots, Tea Party zealots, and true believers on either the Right or the Left realize that politics is much the same thing?"
comment posted at 8:24 AM on Mar-20-13

The Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) is a unique research facility in northern Ontario comprised of 58 lakes set aside by the Government of Canada in which entire lakes are used for experimental manipulation. ELA has effectively solved the problems of nutrient loading and acid rain in freshwater ecosystems. As well, it has produced top research on the effects of estrogen, climate change and methylmercury in freshwater. Current research includes the impacts of nanosilver, climate change, transgenic fish and flame retardants on aquatic ecosystems aquatic ecosystems. On March 31, 2013, The Harper Government will close the Experimental Lakes Area.
comment posted at 12:24 AM on Mar-17-13

Inspired by the sound of an alarm clock going off, Hiromi, Anthony Jackson and Simon Phillips perform Hiromi's composition Move.
comment posted at 11:19 AM on Mar-11-13

With sincere regret we must inform you that due to circumstances recently discovered we must immediately cease trading activity on www.intrade.com. InTrade is apparently shutting down completely, at least for a while. Previously.
comment posted at 11:43 PM on Mar-10-13

Beach House, Ray Wise, fireworks, and horses: [SLYT] "Beach House have shared a very surreal video for their Bloom single "Wishes", directed by Eric Wareheim (of "Tim and Eric") and starring Ray Wise ("Twin Peaks", "Mad Men"). Wise peforms at what looks like a very, very strange half-time event during a football game." [via: pitchfork]
comment posted at 8:21 AM on Mar-8-13

The credit card processor Stripe has an interesting policy of email transparency within the company (previously).
comment posted at 9:41 PM on Mar-3-13

Actor and producer Jesse Williams has written an article about the issues he has with Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained, including the ahistorical portrayal of slavery and the lack of agency shown by the movie's black characters. He expands the argument on his blog (image NSFW).
comment posted at 9:47 PM on Feb-27-13
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comment posted at 9:58 PM on Feb-27-13

"A "mystery shopper" visits every Pret outlet once a week. If the employee who rings up the sale is appropriately ebullient, then everyone in the shop gets a bonus. If not, nobody does." The doubtful ethics of the new emotional labor.
comment posted at 2:21 PM on Feb-1-13

A boat blazes on a remote summer-scorched lake shoreline. Onlookers are helpless to save the boat or prevent the imminent explosion of full gas tanks starting a grass fire. Or not. (SLYT - *Warning Bad Kiwi Language*)
comment posted at 9:55 PM on Jan-1-13

Once a Dallas restaurateur, Clyde Biggins has recently been released after 17 years in prison for drug offences. Unable to obtain a food licence, he has taken to giving away his legendary barbecued ribs, brisket and sausage from a truck on his front lawn, in return for donations. "No gauges, thermometers or gimmicks" and seasoned with just salt, pepper and chili powder. Texas BBQ Posse Approved. Find him if you can.
comment posted at 1:05 PM on Dec-30-12
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comment posted at 1:54 PM on Dec-30-12

This is probably one of the most unusual and creative dub records you're ever likely to hear. Imagine typical bottom-heavy, bass-filled Jamaican dub reggae -- complete with horns, percussion, the whole nine yards -- mixed with traditional Native American vocal music (don't ask how it works, just believe that somehow it does). Now add spoken word samples from Native American, black, Russian, women's lib, and other sociopolitical leaders discussing the effects of colonial imperialism and totalitarian governments on the common man (and, of course, woman), and what you get is this radically inventive album.
comment posted at 5:11 PM on Dec-29-12

Michael Caine is frank about his experiences on the set of The Muppet Christmas Carol.
comment posted at 12:07 PM on Dec-29-12

"It's like watching 'Manhattan breaking apart in front of your eyes', says filmmaker James Balog. He's describing the largest iceberg calving ever filmed, as featured in his movie, Chasing Ice."
comment posted at 10:55 AM on Dec-12-12