March 2008 Archives
March 31
Penguins can fly!
Go south, young polar bear
A new campaign plans to relocate polar bears to Antarctica to protect them from the effects of climate change. Based on the rates of ice melt in the North, scientists say most polar bears will be gone by 2050. The first bears will be moved on Earth Day, April 22. The relocation will be the initial step in a planned five-year program to migrate 3,000 polar bears from the Northern Arctic to the southern continent of Antarctica. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to rule soon on whether to list polar bears as endangered species; however, it has indicated that relocating polar bears would be much less expensive to taxpayers than listing them under the 1973 act.
"The highest award for valor in action"
The Congressional Medal of Honor Society offers a wealth of information on recipients of the United States' highest military honor. To read some amazing tales, check out this full list, or maybe just this list of recently deceased recipients. [more inside]
gethuman on steroids
In the same vein as gethuman [previously.previously.], Bringo! is a nice free little service that helps bypass the (decreasingly) minor annoyance of automated phone answering systems (aka IVRs). Only it does all the work for you. [more inside]
SCOTUS tells the ICJ to go hang
On March 25, the Supreme Court held (pdf) that rulings by the International Court of Justice are essentially not binding upon state courts. This paves the way for Texas to execute one Jose Ernesto Medellin for the rape and murder of two teenage girls. [more inside]
Those who appear to be a little too happy will be asked to leave.
How I Want To Be Remembered by Jack Handey. He was fabulously wealthy, but he would pretend to be broke, and often tried to borrow cigarettes and money from people. Little did they know that those who gave him stuff would later be rewarded in his will, with jewels and antigravity helmets. You may know Jack Handey from his Deep Thoughts which first gained fame on as filler between sketches on Saturday Night Live. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker (scroll down this page for his other essays).
Famous photographs re-shot with Legos
The People's Park
CPR without the P
New research has found that chest compressions without mouth to mouth resuscitation can be equally or more effective than with them. The American Heart Association is recommending that everyone learn this two step"Hands-Only CPR." (video) [more inside]
What is the meaning of this post?
Ask a Philosopher. Is the sentence of death really a punishment? How can we discern the difference of how we authentically "feel" as opposed to how we "think" we feel? If humans didn't exist, would animals still have rights?
This was Jeopardy!
about:mozilla
Welcome to Mosaic Communications Corporation! It was 1994, and the World Wide Web as we know it today was about to be born. [more inside]
April Fools 2008
AprilFoolsDayOnTheWeb brings you the most complete listing of April Fools' Day Jokes that Web Sites have run each year from 2004 all the way up to today. Also, the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time. Meanwhile, Google seems to be up to its old tricks...
The Unmaking of the President
Spinoza and Biology
Public concern over ecological damage inflicted by human activity has led to growing recognition of the general importance of issues relating to biological science. Unfortunately, the dispute between creationists and upholders of the theory of evolution tends to overshadow public discussion of other more pertinent matters. Specifically, there are significant but relatively unpublicized initiatives underway to promote holistic approaches to biology. The Nature Institute in New York is one such initiative... [more inside]
Damn Rippies
The Ripster phenomenon was identified back in 2006, and apparently, the movement has started to build momentum. I, for one, welcome our new rock-hard nerd overlords.
Oh last I heard she's sleeping rough/back on the Heathrow Beat
All those passengers delayed amid the chaotic opening of Heathrow Airport's new Terminal 5? Some are actually homeless locals wearing "floral shirts, fanny packs and other travel accessories to blend in."
Superhero Lonely
Spock (nsfw) -- titled "Planet New Hampshire," part of Superhero Lonely, a 2005 exhibition of paintings by John Jacobsmeyer. [more inside]
Best Story Ever
Best Story Ever is a series of clips featuring various celebrities -- Henry Rollins, Lewis Black, Dee Snider, Chuck D, Ron Jeremy, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, and many more -- telling their best stories. Some are lame, some are funny. But hey, what's your best story ever? (It can't be lamer than Alan Thicke's, can it?)
You like money, I like money, let's hang out
Webcomics Weekly #29 features a 2 hour (at times raucous) round table between Scott Kurtz, Ted Rall, Brad Guigar, Matt Bors and others on how to make money from webcomics.
How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries
Measure for Measure - How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries. Blog from The New York Times: "In the coming weeks, the contributors to this blog - all accomplished songwriters - will pull back the curtain on the creative process as they write about their work on a song in the making." Contributors: Andrew Bird, Darrell Brown, Rosanne Cash and Suzanne Vega (only the Andrew Bird one is up right now).
Twisty megapost
Walter Randelshofer's Pretty Patterns collection (for Rubik's cubes up to 5x5x5) is one of the nicest twisty puzzle sites going. It's based on his CubeTwister software, which you can download (including a lovely OS X standalone). If you really want a treasure trove of twisty polyhedra, check out gelatinBrain's enormous collection of java applets (which unfortunately don't do so well on macs). Are those things even physically possible? Really? Mini bonus: Randelshofer also hosts an archive of fondly-remembered Amiga animations.
The Greatest Show on Earth
Under the Big Top: Shhhhhh! The Show's about to start*... quick, take your seat, sit down, and don't make a move. It's been going on for centuries, and now--lucky you will be able to be a part of it, if you haven't already as a child (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Honestly, who hasn't thought of running away from home and joining the Circus (but I'd suggest you wait a couple of years, until you're a little
older, and a little wiser, to make these decisions). It is tempting though, when they roll into town with their fancy wagons, and their loud music. Although, the circus may not be as prevalent as it once was, there are new acts being created to entice crowds around the world. [previously]
Exiled from his Eden
[He] kept his one copy of this book safe,... under his sleeping area so that no one could destroy it. He would just look at pictures of his New York City family, and himself, over and over again.Elizabeth Hess discusses Nim, the subject of her book Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human. Also: the Great Ape Project's Declaration on Great Apes; Richard Dawkins's "Gaps in the Mind."
March 30
Best of the Cool
Joe Jenett has been on the web for a long time. His sites have been referred to on MeFi, but jenett webthings has never been featured. [more inside]
Fan fiction for a show that doesn't exist.
It's the best show not on TV. Complete with a soundtrack, DVD extras (and hidden Easter eggs), supplemental sites, and a growing fanbase (which, in turn, has been creating it's own fan art and fan fic.)
The fourth episode just "aired". [more inside]
Rachel Zoe Ain't Got Shit on Claudia Kishi
What Claudia Wore A blog devoted to the outrageous outfits of Claudia Kishi from The Babysitters Club. [more inside]
Lennon and McCartney Reunite
Lennon and McCartney's Studio Reunion. On March 28, 1974, John Lennon was in a Burbank studio producing Harry Nilsson's "Pussy Cats" album when Paul McCartney dropped in. The room froze and remained silent until John said, "Valiant Paul McCartney, I presume?" Paul responded: "Sir Jasper Lennon, I presume?" The tension broken, a jam session [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] ensued featuring Lennon on guitar and vocals, McCartney on drums and vocals, Stevie Wonder on electric piano and vocals, Harry Nilsson on vocals, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar and Bobby Keys on saxophone. A bootleg of the session has circulated under the title "A Toot and a Snore in '74".
The Winning Numbers are 14, 46, 23, 49, and 22.
The state of Oregon is holding a health insurance lottery where 91,000 hopeful enrollees will be competing for a couple thousand spots under the Oregon Health Plan, the state's Medicaid program. OHP was created to cover those who made too much to enroll in traditional Medicaid but too little to afford market healthcare, and this development comes as a result of budget cuts and a subsequent enrollment closure in July of 2004. It's a far cry from the universal health care coverage that the plan was suppose to lead to, and marks a dramatic turn for the state's once-ambitious health care reforms.
(Previously in dystopic health care developments)
(Previously in dystopic health care developments)
Genocide Olympics
The Genocide Olympics. The human rights group Dream for Darfur is trying to use the Olympics to pressure China to change its policies on Sudan and the genocide in Darfur. [more inside]
Tron's light cycle scene "Sweded"
Horton Does Some Pretty Cool Art
Elephant Paints Self Portrait. I'm not sure what to say about this except that its pretty cool.
The Myth of the Media Myth: Games and Non-Gamers
"Inevitably, after I finish speaking, the strong opinions come. It happens the same way every time: People listen and then they say what they've been feeling. Videogames are not good for you. Videogames are a waste of time. They isolate children. Kids never go outside to play. They just sit there and stare at the TV all day."
The Myth of the Media Myth: Games and Non-Gamers.
The Myth of the Media Myth: Games and Non-Gamers.
Is that a laser pointer in your pocket?
Laser pointer import ban in Oz Seems there's been a rash of people aiming laser pointers at planes in Oz. With an incident of a pilot being "temporarily blinded", this action may be a little less...well, as Oz politicians put it, "amusing". Previously. [more inside]
Tumbling Dice
He laughs and leaves. I sit alone in the room, staring at the walls, just about every inch of which is covered with more memorabilia: a photo of him with Lennon, a photo of the Beatles circa 1965, a photo of Muddy Waters.... After maybe five minutes, Richards wanders back into the room, laughing. “Sorry, mate,” he says. “I got lost. I don’t come here often!”]...
Why do you think some people live and some die..? ...there’s that line between recklessness and stupidity, and you—
"No, you bring up a good point...."
Crop price anomalies baffle economists
Odd Crop Prices Defy Economics. For finance and economics geeks:
Could a drugstore sell two identical tubes of toothpaste, and charge 50 cents more for one of them? Of course not. But, in effect, exactly that has been happening, repeatedly and mysteriously, in trading that sets prices for corn, soybeans and wheat — three of America’s biggest crops and, lately, popular targets for investors pouring into the volatile commodities market.
The curious thing is that these price anomalies should be ripe for arbitrage. There should be no gap between the price of say, wheat in the cash market and the wheat futures contract on the day the contract expires.
Tamahagane steel is bliss
Samurai-Sword Maker's Reactor Monopoly May Cool Nuclear Revival There stands the only plant in the world...capable of producing the central part of a nuclear reactor's containment vessel in a single piece, reducing the risk of a radiation leak.
From a windswept corner of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, Japan Steel Works Ltd. controls the fate of the global nuclear-energy renaissance.
Each year the Tokyo-based company can turn out just four of the steel forgings that contain the radioactivity in a nuclear reactor. Even after it doubles capacity in the next two years, there won't be enough production to meet building plans. [more inside]
MAD: History of the Al Jaffee fold-in
Longtime MAD magazine artist Al Jaffee (now 87 years old!) created the fold-in as a unique contribution to the MAD-style of satirical humor. Now the NYT has the comprehensive history online in interactive form.
Monkey on a Bike
Sprites ahoy!
Like sprites? The People's Sprites has the most extensive repository of old game pixel art I've ever seen.
Some good examples from:
Battletoads, Excitebike, Final Fantasy GBA, Mega Man, Metal Slug, Mortal Kombat, Punch-Out, River City Ransom, Shinobi, Samurai Shodown, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, and my favorite, Super Metroid.
Hundreds more at the site, plus original and public domain ones.
Some good examples from:
Battletoads, Excitebike, Final Fantasy GBA, Mega Man, Metal Slug, Mortal Kombat, Punch-Out, River City Ransom, Shinobi, Samurai Shodown, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, and my favorite, Super Metroid.
Hundreds more at the site, plus original and public domain ones.
To Erebus
ObitFilter: Robert Fagles. One of the few men to tackle translating The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid, Robert Fagles has died. All of his translations were fast-paced, vibrant renderings that turned the classics once again into best-sellers.
Bringing Down the House
21, a highly fictionalized movie based on Ben Mezrich's somewhat fictionalized book Bringing Down the House based on the real-life story of the MIT Blackjack Team, released over the weekend. What's fact and what's fiction? The real-life "Mickey Rosa" (played by Kevin Spacey in the film) starts a blog. And Jane Willis, who claims to be the inspiration behind Kate Bosworth's character, steps briefly into the limelight. Also: Behind the scenes at casino security.
Dith Pran, RIP
The Patriarchy: like the Hotel California
The Michigan Womyn’s Festival (“Michfest”) is an annual “womon-built” and run music festival. “Forty performances, a film festival, an artisan/craft show and a full roster of workshops, parties and dances are all slated for one glorious week in August on 650 lush green acres in Michigan.” The festival is open to WBW (women born women) only. [more inside]
The Empire Strikes Back
So brothers Barney and Daniel Jones, aka Jonba Hehol and Morda Hehol, Jedi Masters, started their own church, and began planning their moon base, but they had underestimated the power of the Dark Side...
Turning writing into a conversation
Reporter Caps
"My Normal Pajamas"
The Pajamas Letter. I recently came upon a mysterious, unsigned letter in the deposit-envelope receptacle of a downtown ATM machine requesting that I draw a picture of my "normal pajamas" and send it back in an included self-addressed stamped envelope. Part Two. Slideshow.
March 29
Spike Jones, master of the ... uhhh ... what is that he's playing, anyway?
40's-50's-Fun-Filter: glglglgl-prt-HIC! What soothing melodies do I hear? honk!honk!honk! Is it geese mating? Ibidi? Ibiduh. Ibidih? eauugh! No, it's Spike Jones and his City Slickers! [more inside]
Please Hammer, don't hurt 'em
Chinese MC Hammer. Move for move nearly perfect redo of the original Hammer video. In someone's living room. While mom knits on the couch. It's a thousand kinds of awesome. via blort
The Misery Circle
The Misery Circle An article about the remaining 13 also-rans in past US presidential elections.
The Sadder But Wiser Librarian
Is there any other way to Woo a Librarian? I mean, you don't want to cause Trouble, but it's tough to find that girl to be your Shipoopi, but when you meet her, it's like hearing bells.
"Everyone who logged on, it affected to some extent, whether by causing headaches or seizures"
Possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims:
"I don't fall over and convulse, but it hurts,"... "I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn't move and couldn't speak."
Told You So
Speed, Style and Beauty: The Ralph Lauren Car Collection
Speed, Style and Beauty: The Ralph Lauren Car Collection photo gallery. More photos here (although some are duplicates). Details of the automobiles at Motor Trend. The cars were the subject of a Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibition in 2005, and an excellent Discovery Channel documentary last October. If you missed the broadcast, you can buy the book. (There's no DVD that I can find, but watch for a repeat broadcast. Or maybe you can catch it some other way.)
America the Resilient
Notstalgia vs Hindsight?
With revolutionary graphics, a classic score, and creative platforming gameplay, the Donkey Kong Country series was one of the most popular games for the SNES, outsold only by the packaged Super Mario World. After another decade, however, the games are considered among the most overrated of all time.
Nelly Furtado insists
Earth Hour For one hour tonight, turn off the lights and help conserve energy. Supporters of the plan say it is the equivalent of taking nearly 50,000 cars off the road for an hour. Critics say it's equivalent to taking 6 cars off the road for a year, and claim that media coverage of the effects is greatly exaggerated.
Oleo Lord
To the congregation of the Solid RockChurch, he's known as the King of Kings. But others who have witnessed his glory have other names for him: MC 62ft Jesus, Touchdown Jesus, and perhaps most famously, as immortalized by Heywood Banks, Big Butter Jesus. And he's been a very busy boy. [more inside]
A Moveable Feast
A glass bong filled with a corked '82 Petrus. Most exclusive restaurant in Chicago, or best April Fool's prank ever? I have reservations!
Tears are a stupid trick of god
A clip from the film Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus featuring Harry Crews (at 1:14) the film was shot for the bbc, narrated by the singer song writer Jim White, Andrew Douglas directed. More about Crews inside. [more inside]
Bovine terrorism is a bomb in a bull.
Vintage Anime
A single link to Ceiling Cat video, because I know how busy you are
FREE CEILIING CAT!!! And when I say, "Free ceiling cat," I don't mean this. Warning: CNN video, and previously.
End-of-the-world Filter
Larry Niven warned everyone about it. MetaFilter, too: Try to escape. Quantum black holes is dangerous.
Look at the shelves on that!
Bookshelf. "The home of interesting bookshelves, bookcases and things that look like them"
Naive beach campers often fall victim while sleeping
This a fast offensive predator. First described by Reinthal, 1993, as voracious and a threat to shipping. Diurnal, collecting in dense aggregations along reef walls at night to sleep. Oweni is an insatiable consumer of almost everything of animal origin. Suspect in many human "shark" fatalities, although remains of victims have never been recovered - Field Notes and Drawings of Marine Creatures Captured or Observed by Xisle Expedition Biologist & Artist William Russell Curtsinger, PhD. [more inside]
March 28
Biff! Pow! Copyrights Aren't Just For Conglomerates Anymore!
"In a possibly historic ruling, a federal judge Wednesday determined that the heirs of Superman co-creator, Jerry Siegel, are now the rightful owners of one-half of the copyright of Superman, and have been since 1999."
That Crouton Looks Like Aunt Marge!
Things That Look Like Other Things. Also known as pareidolia, it's the phenomenon in which our brains perceive familiar things (especially faces and human forms) in random places. See also The Pareidolia Museum and the Flickr pareidolia pool. [Previous pareidolia-related threads here]
tertiary ed around the world.
Here's an interesting chart showing tertiary education attainment by age group, for OECD countries. Compare and contrast what Japan and Korea have been doing with education to the USA and Germany. (And my aren't those Canadians smart?) Here's the (.pdf) report it's drawn from (Kirkegaard 2007). C/- Clive Crook's blog.
Try Spelling These
Momma Mia!
Kaos vs Control
Rush Limbaugh may be facing indictment for a fifth-degree felony after encouraging Republican voters to cross party lines and vote for Hillary Clinton ("Operation Chaos"), but if you hurry you can still buy the shirt. Previously.
Impracticality is the new practicality
Get your creative juices flowing and challenge your thinking with a visit to trucdesign.com, a showcase of innovative, incredible, and often impractical products and concepts. Just a few direct links: Cardboard furniture for kids, CoffeeTime seating, Paper Airplane coffee table, Double-O cooking system, Carpet-lounge.
Udder Silliness
Milk Gone Wild! From the fine folks at PETA. Be sure to watch the video (it's possibly NSFW, definitely weird).
Jim Copp's Children's Albums
Jim Copp and Ed Brown "conjured a lunatic land" for children in the late 50s and early 60s using three Ampex mono recorders, a large group of instruments (music and singing by Copp), their own voices, and hundreds of pieces of recording tape spliced together. The albums were released through their own label, Playhouse Records, which is still selling them today. [more inside]
Duck-dragons, dancing raccoons, and robots
Inspired by this earlier post, I thought it was time to formally introduce people to Rocky's Boots. [more inside]
Just Squirrels
Kamikase Squirrels /
Mission Impossible Squirrel /
Pope Squirrel /
Twirl a Squirrel /
Drunk Squirrel /
Dead Squirrel
A slice of true Americana
The Diner: A true American hallmark, that first appeared on the horizon in the early 70's (the 1870's that is), and has remained a fixture on the American psyche since. If you've never been to one, why not go ahead and have your next meal there? There maybe one right around the corner from where you live. If not, well, like me, you can sit back and look at the glorious images that are available and hope that one day your dream comes true. But until then: remember to adhere to the Ten Commandments, and yeah--if you can--get a copy of Diner (youtube) and watch it. It might not be "strictly" about Diners, but it's fun all the same. [previously]
Toilet Signs around the world
Toilet Signs from around the world... 59 of them. Number 22 struck me as particularly funny
He turned ALL of his cheeks, repeatedly
"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."
This story's making the rounds today, for a very, very good reason: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
This story's making the rounds today, for a very, very good reason: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
I <3 shotguns.
Boomstick Flash Friday Fun
Before the rattlesnakes wake up.
I would't kill them if I didn't have grandchildren and dogs.
A walk along a river with dogs, and a poem, with Jim Harrison.
A walk along a river with dogs, and a poem, with Jim Harrison.
Rocks 'n' Diamonds
Rocks 'n' Diamonds for some Friday puzzle-game fun. Described as "in the tradition of" Boulderdash and Sokoban, it's actually a superset of both, and you can waste tons of time playing all the old familiar levels or tons of others. (It's a quick download, for linux/os x/the other thing.)
wooo realestate implosion buddy! ^5
The Most Important Article You Did Not Read This Week Now, it is true that the most important article you probably didn’t read contains all the usual hair-raising things you’d expect to see about the real estate market, including “developers under siege,” “signs of weakness in key markets,” developers “slashing prices,” and the head of a major builder advising “that people wait three to four years before purchasing a new home.” But the most important article you probably didn’t read is not about real estate markets in Naples, Florida, or Sacramento, California. It is about China. [ full WSJ article here]
Reuters: Bearing Witness
Through half a decade of war, a team of 100 Reuters correspondents, photographers, cameramen and support staff have strived to bring the world news from the most dangerous country for the press.
This is their testimony - bearing witness to ensure the story of Iraq is not lost.
Giving a sour surprise to your trusting dependent
Your daily recommended allowance of YouTube:
Trusting baby tries a lemon /
Wary baby given a lime /
Two dogs try a lemon /
Lime makes dog crazy / [more inside]
You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt.
Blooming is booming. Whether you prefer DIY or professionals, knowing what to plant and when can be daunting...unless you've got some really excellent websites on your side. And you do! Plantwire will help you find plants through conventional search, tags, or even by colour. Fine Gardening Magazine's site has much to offer: how-to section with videos, design ideas, and a fabulous plant guide. Garden Simply can help you achieve sustainable, organic gardening. Garden and Flower has several convenient guides on how to achieve gardening nirvana - including butterfly garden essentials! [more inside]
Blinking lights!
Choir Geeks Rejoice!
Since these posts seemed to bring back happy memories/warm fuzzies for so many former/current choir kids, here is Hear the Choirs Sing, a massive collection of contemporary and sacred choral works from all around the world.
And, if while singing along, you realize you've forgotten your part, check Choral Wiki for links to sheet music.
March 27
They carried the joys and sorrows of those living with the sea
Iwase Yoshiyuki "In the late 1920s, young Yoshiyuki received an early Kodak camera as a gift. Since the main livelihood of the town came from the sea, he gravitated there, and soon found a passion for "the simple, even primitive beauty" of ama – girls and women who harvested seaweed, turban shells and abalone from beneath the coastal waters." "By the late 1960s, they had disappeared. This body of work stands as the final, most comprehensive visual document of the life and work of these divers." [NSFW] [more inside]
The Truth Is Still Out There
The Truth Is Still Out There [link includes embedded video, scroll down for article]. Members of The X-Files' cast and crew (minus Anderson/Scully and Duchovny/Mulder) discuss the myths and legends surrounding the show, as well as the upcoming new movie, at the 2008 Paley Festival, sponsored by The Paley Center for Media (named for broadcaster William S. Paley, and formerly known as The Museum of Television & Radio). [Previous X-Files-related posts here.]
The Way To The Top
enough to kill a small horse
"I found these in a red photo album marked "Darlene" at a swap meet in Huntington Beach, California."
The Cocaine Photos. Images from a more innocent time.
The Wakefield twins are back... and thinner?
If you're a girl and you grew up in the 80's, chances are you read Sweet Valley High books. Guess what? They're being re-released. Don't worry, they're being updated to reflect the times- Jessica and Liz will be a size 4 now, and Liz's gossip column will be a gossip blog instead. Those wishing to relive the glory days can read reviews of the old series at The Dairi Burger, a blog devoted to all things Sweet Valley. [more inside]
Super-targeted spear phishing attacks
The recent cyber attacks on pro-Tibet groups in the U.S. (attack details, technical data) and on the Save Darfur Coalition, among others, have managed to catch the attention of some in the mainstream media.
Such super-targeted spear phishing attacks have been on the rise for several years, and have become an important tool for corporate espionage and military infiltration attempts. Teaching users to recognize such attack emails is probably the most effective deterrence, as technology solutions have shown to not be particularly effective. Some companies and government agencies even conduct sting operations to ferret out which internal users fail the test, targeting them for additional training. [more inside]
Dennis Potter
WithoutWalls
"This video, filmed in April 1994, records the final public words of the genius behind such films as Brimstone and Treacle, Pennies from Heaven, and Dreamchild. It's the last record of a man facing--with dignity, intelligence, and surprisingly good humor--death from cancer. Recorded as a television special by Britain's Channel Four, the documentary can be unsettling. Potter's inflamed hands can barely hold his ever-present cigarette (which he refers to as a "little tube of delight"), and he alternately sips champagne and swigs liquid morphine from an antique hip flask. But for those who have enjoyed Potter's wildly creative work--or those simply interested in the creative process itself--it's a fascinatingly funny glimpse into the mind of a master." (amazon)
Damn his science is too tight!
The SEO Rapper (a.k.a. The Poetic Prophet) spits rhymes on such topics as Design Coding, Link Building, Paid Search, and Conversion Closing for all your marketing campaign and web design needs.
North Korea's Soccer Hero
70 year old Pak Doo-Ik will lead North Korea's prestigious Olympic torch bearers to Beijing this summer. In the 1966 World Cup at Middlesborough, Pak scored the goal that lead his team to a stunning 1-0 upset win over Italy (video). Pak Doo-Ik and the team returned home as heroes, but ultimately fell under the suspicion of North Korean leadership. The team underwent "mental re-education" and were exiled, Pak Doo-Ik spending ten years as a forest laborer. Dear Leader Kim Jong-il later allowed Pak to coach North Korea's national soccer team, and a fascinating 2002 BBC documentary brought Pak Doo Ik back to the international stage.
My fight for you is like a truck - Berserker
Want to fight like a Viking , hahaha?
When was the last time you were attacked by someone dressed in hot pants, wearing leather gloves, hahaha?
Berzerker Viking Fighting Arts, for all your frozen carrot fighting needs (hail Thor) [more inside]
The Documentary Blog
Do you love documentaries? The Documentary Blog offers reviews and news about documentary films. Check out their list of the Top 25 Documentaries.
Fitna
Fitna , a Koranic term translated as 'strife', shows footage of the attacks on the US in September 2001, and images of the bomb attacks on London and Madrid.
Geert Wilders, Dutch politician and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), has called his just-released Fitna a ‘respectable film’. He admitted that Muslims may not be happy with it, but emphasised that he had always stuck to the facts. He said he believes that the film is also ‘one thousand kilometres within the framework of the law’. [more inside]
Still no similar offers for actual democracy in China
Perhaps inspired by Taco Bell's World Series Stolen Base promotion, Dr. Pepper has promised to give every American a free soda if Guns N' Roses' long-awaited "Chinese Democracy" is released in 2008. Well, every American except for Buckethead and Slash, of course.
Influenza in the Amazon
A British TV crew have been accused of spreading flu to a remote Peruvian tribe of 250 members, leading to 4 deaths. [more inside]
Mapping the election conditions in Zimbabwe
Mapping the election conditions in Zimbabwe - A project of Sokwanele , the Zimbabwe Civic Action Support Group. Zimbabweans vote in presidential and parliamentary elections on March 29th.
How Not to Run a Bookstore
The Demise of Borders Books. Once calling itself a collection of individual stores and denying it was a chain, Borders, begun in 1971 by brothers Tom and Louis, is in deep financial trouble. [more inside]
There are no Escalators in Wyoming.
Bald Eagle Cam
Mounted 70 feet up in a white pine tree on the coast of Maine, the BioDiversity Research Institute's live eagle webcam provides, "live video of a nesting pair of bald eagles, 24 hours a day. These eagles are the most successful pair in the state. They have nested at this site for 13 years, and raised 20 offspring."
Warning: the live stream can be habit forming (especially when waiting for the eggs to hatch).
Emos Hunted
Don't copy that floppy (or workbook)
An associate professor and former librarian is collecting education copyright infringement cases in a database. [more inside]
Horns: how big do you like them?
Pretty much everywhere, it's gonna be hot.
Then I don't need a jacket! (Videosift link) From start to finish, the most inexplicably joy-inducing 9 seconds the internet has to offer.
three squares greetings
Three Squares Greetings is a new greeting card line designed to keep you in touch with your family members or friends who are in custody. NPR interview with the founder.
Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison See also Phonoautograph
Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison
The Phonoautograph
The history of the Phonoautograph. A technology in which you can still buy stock.
The Phonoautograph
The history of the Phonoautograph. A technology in which you can still buy stock.
Get to da chopper
neutral games
The Invisible Life of Poet
The Invisible Life of Poet is a webcomic by Christopher Stetson Wilson that's been published weekly for three and a half years. It features the adventures of nerdy high school student Poet and his retinue (mostly his friend Ben). There are many ways to navigate the archive. For a quality skim, check out the author's favorites. If you want a more indepth look you can check out the tag categories, characters (e.g. Seph the Corruptor, Coach Fathead), contemporary issues (e.g. class warfare, gender issues), culture and society (e.g. mass media, religion), hyperreality (e.g. board games, hallucinations), miscellaneous (e.g. great art, lowbrow humor) and psycho-social constructs (e.g. bullying, love and seduction).
outsourcing the country
The Governmental Printing Office prints all United States passports but they decided that it was time to outsource part of the work. They claim it is secure [pdf].
Fnarr Fnarr Fnarr
Viz Comics have some wonderfully puerile games for you to enjoy- and needless to say, probably NSFW. Try your hand at Roger's Profanisaurus Hangman [Previously] Or play a round of Lesbian Tennis (PC only download, Mac users, you're not missing much). Perhaps you would like to keep a virtual pet, perhaps a Sim City style holiday resort game is more your cup of tea (Download). Full collection here.
Photoshop Express - beta version
Photoshop Express Adobe has launched a beta version of its Photoshop Express image hosting and editing site.
Two gigs of storage and some basic editing tools. A neat feature is being able to connect to your Picassa page and edit those photos as well.
bank shot
Little by little, millions of Americans surrendered equity in their homes in recent years. Lulled by good times, they borrowed — sometimes heavily — against the roofs over their heads.
Now the bill is coming due.
Now the bill is coming due.
Magnificent Views and Vistas, Mountaineer's Climbs 1912 to 1916
"The object of this organization shall be to explore the mountains, forests and water courses of the Pacific Northwest, and to gather into permanent form the history and traditions of this region; to preserve, by protective legislation or otherwise, the natural beauty of the Northwest coast of America; to make frequent or periodical expeditions into these regions in fulfillment of the above purposes. Finally, and above all, to encourage and promote the spirit of good fellowship and camaraderie among the lovers of out-door life in the West." Thus reads the charter of the Mountaineers. Explore the Tacoma Public Library's online exhibit of the Mountaineer's early history, Magnificent Views and Vistas, Mountaineer's Climbs 1912 to 1916.
Give me convenient bacon or give me death
Hi-fi spheres, bacon toasters, translated Pravda on demand, and other changes to come in 1975 A.D. [ via Bostworld ]
"The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause."
Y dutew ofwetiapwotf wt peqgwtmeyvd.
Y peqgwtmeyv od y peqgwtmeyguop ptfafieav of luopu owd yawute lokk dlowpu y dqvntk of y dweofm tx lteid xte yf yfyktmtad dqvntk, yfi qta vadw lter taw owd teomofyk dyqofm. Uodwteopykkq, Dgyewyf vokowyeq ptvvafopywotfd ioi kyq metafilter, te yw vofovav ypw yd yf ofowoyk dutlofm tx peqgwtmeyvd, yfi gtkowopyk yggkopywotfd nq Etvyfd ioi xtkktl. Ftl, y peqgwtmeyv od, xte vyfq, y gtgakye utnnq. Yf yggetypu wt y dtkawotf pyf waef taw nydop, dapu yd kttrofm xte dutew lteid, te ioxxopakw--peqgwyfykqdod, adofm cayfwowq tx ofiojoiayk dqvntkd te iomeygud. Getmeyvd pyf ykdt yddodw, ox y peqgwtmeyv weakq ptfxtafid qta. Y ltei tx lyefofm, wutamu--peqgwtmeyvd pyf eaf ag ymyofdw domfoxopyfw ptvgkopywotfd ox netamuw ag ymyofdw y kogtmeyv, luopu od y xtev tx lteigkyq of luopu y gyewopakye dqvntk od ktdw xetv y gyeymeygu tx leowofm. Te, ox y gyeymeygu od wtt voki, y nttr tx xoxwq wutadyfi lteid. (Y jykoyfw iodgkyq tx vydtpuodv.) Y dyvgkofm tx geote yew.
March 26
Talking to the Taliban
Nightmare Playgrounds
Nightmare Playgrounds! A small gallery of terrifically upsetting playground sculptures (largely from former Soviet states). via Graham Linehan's blog Why, That's Delightful!
Babble babble bitch bitch
"The great man's brain may need some downtime."
Dinner With Darwin. Scientists from various disciplines weigh in on what kind of dinner conversation they envision themselves having with Charles Darwin. Via.
WebKit build scores 100/100 on Acid3
WebKit, the rendering engine of Apple's increasingly popular Safari web browser becomes the first "publicly available rendering engine to achieve 100/100" on the Acid3 web standards test. The Opera browser is expected to have an experimental build that passes soon, as well.
MindHabits
Cliffhangers! Serials of the 1930s and 40s
Cliffhangers "In Focus" is an entertaining, well-written overview of the rise and decline of action serial movies of the 1930s and 40s. It also includes rundowns of many major serial films of the time. Several of these serials are now available online. Links to them are inside. [more inside]
It's what it says on the tin.
Insignia of Armed Forces in WW2
The Armed Forces of World War II, a flash presentation of rank insignia. The creator implies that it's a work in progress, but what I've clicked through seems pretty complete to me. Bonus Babylon 5 link on the left.
You know what I do to squealers
Richard Widmark, who created a villain in his first movie role who was so repellent and frightening that the actor became a star overnight, died Monday at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 93. Rest in peace, Richard. Fans of his work, here is the entirety of one of the many terrific thrillers he starred in, Panic in the Streets.
Just sing out a Te Deum when you see that ICBM
Expanding on a previous post about Tom Lehrer, and in what is becoming a grand tradition of single link YouTube posts about him, 6funswede and YouTube present the entirety of An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer.
Library of Congress Historic Baseball Resources
The Library of Congress has unveiled a baseball history section on their website. You can see old baesball cards, panoramic shots, a section for teachers and, coolest of all, a video of a baseball game shot by Thomas Edison in 1898.
"Confronting the worst things the '80s ever did to us"
Smoking Gun scoops the L.A. Times
Then again, maybe Puff Daddy wasn't involved in the shooting of Tupac.
It looks like the L.A. Times' March 17th story drew upon forged FBI reports created with a prison typewriter by James Sabatino. The Times is now conducting an internal review. [more inside]
It looks like the L.A. Times' March 17th story drew upon forged FBI reports created with a prison typewriter by James Sabatino. The Times is now conducting an internal review. [more inside]
The Door to Hell
Emilio
Emilio Navaira is a Grammy-winning Tejano and country singer. Navaira's tour bus was traveling north along west 610 Loop near the Southwest Freeway when it crashed into a set of freeway barrels shortly before 4 a.m. He is clinging to life in a Houston hospital. His fans are praying for him. Doctors say he is now stable, but he faces a difficult recovery at best, and may never perform again. [more inside]
BristleBot
Lost and Found Art goes from Random to Contrived?
Jeremiah Wright in context.
Rank Not Lest Ye Be Ranked
Vault.com has created its own ranking of the top US law schools. Vault's blog post about it is here.
Above the Law, a popular legal blog, commented here. It leaked the 2009 US News rankings here. [more inside]
Another 5th Beatle passes
Former Beatles roadie Neil Aspinall has died of lung cancer. He was the head of the Beatles’ Apple Corporation until about a year ago, when he resigned after the settlement of a long running dispute with Apple Computer. [more inside]
the refrigerator convulses and dies with a great shudder, causing several pheasants to take flight
A World Without Me. Not Us. "Wolves roam freely, scavenging for food and drinking out of the toilet. An antelope buries its snout in a half-empty box of Cheerios. A mountain lion knocks over the milk, rendering the entire kitchen and part of the connecting hall uninhabitable for several months."
I got rhythm, I got music...
Yellow Drum Machine (google video), one of the robots that you can learn to build via Let's Make Robots (.com). This little guy finds a surface to tap a beat onto, then taps a beat on it. The fun starts at about 35 seconds in (via b3ta).
Bush's War
In honor of the 5-year anniversary of the Iraq War, PBS' Frontline presented a fantastic 2- part special on the issue this past Monday and Tuesday. It is now available in it's entirety online along with interview transcripts from senior officials, a video timeline of the war, and battlefield stories from soldiers. Bush's War
Paper Pussy
DIY Ceiling Cat. That is all.
Turn Turn Turn!
The art of spin. No, not that spin silly. This one. Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about. Don't worry--it's really simple. All you've got to do is follow these instructions, practice, practice, practice, and then you'll be as good as these guys someday. But try not to act like a dick. [more inside]
Boys with bigger toys make more noise.
Two Weeks Till Takeoff. The oldest, and only civilian owned Sea Harrier jump jet gets drafted for the air show circuit, after minor problems. [more inside]
March 25
ROM CHECK FAIL
ROM CHECK FAIL is a goofy little PC game, in the classic 1980's arcade/home console genre of ... err ...
Use the space bar to fire your blaster. Or sword. (Or jump.) Use the arrow keys to control your ... guy as if you were playing ... that ... classic game. Eliminate all the enemy, well, things in the expected way, and go on to the next maze/planet/cave/highway. Look, just play it, OK? It's fun!
Automata are mechanical objects endowed with life.
Not in China
NYPD in action. There is really not much anywhere written about this, but here is the youtube link of some policemen threatening and beating people in front of the UN building in New York. Some pics (stills from the video) here.
Blood Bitters 'n' Swamp Root
Time, Tide, and Tonics: The Patent Medicine Almanac in America. "Almanacs have been a part of American life since its very beginning. One of the first books printed in English America was an almanac [pdf]. By the mid-18th century the almanac had become, after the Bible, the book most likely to be found in ordinary homes. Produced annually, almanacs provided practical information and entertainment."
Poland's Cultural Heritage in nifty flash site
"Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures: Poland's Heritage is an international educational exhibition which presents the history of tolerance and cohabitation of various ethnic groups in the territory of Polish-Lithuanian Commowealth and is addressed primarily to foreigners all around the world". This is achieved via a very beautiful flash site.
Is this Progress?
First it was hostess bars, then host bars, then maid/anime cafes, and now this. Where will the madness end? [more inside]
Yeah!
organizing without organizations
Clay Shirky, professor at ITP - NYU, often linked to at MeFi, presents at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society on the ideas in his new book on organizing without organizations. [more inside]
The Legend Will Live On
Hal Riney, a legendary ad man, has died at age 75. Hal Riney has died of cancer. You may have heard his voiceovers for First Union's PBS sponsorship ads, chuckled at his ingenious fictional 'every person' wine producers Bartles and Jaymes or been blown away or utterly disgusted by his Reagan presidential campaign ad series Morning In America (rumor has it that Riney was a Democrat), worked with him or for him at Hal Riney & Partners or Publicis & Hal Riney in San Francisco, or marveled at how his agency made Saturn a major player in the auto industry (while obscuring it was just another GM product!). So long, Hal! [more inside]
This is a sexual harassment suit.
Everyone's favorite pro se plaintiff, Jonathan Lee Riches, whose complaints have previously graced Metafilter's front page, has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit [pdf] against Eliot Spitzer. [more inside]
Chris Crocker, "internationally-recognized icon."
"It’s been six months since a sobbing plea on YouTube rocketed the then-19-year-old from Internet cult status to internationally-recognized icon. Yes kids, I said “icon.”" Previous pre-"leave britney alone" mefi post. [more inside]
It doesn’t have any kind of weight behind it, as such. But maybe that’s the irony of it.
ALLDEAD
ALLDEAD by Christopher Keeley. Photos of and commentary about the many friends he has made and lost during his years in the intervention business. (Some NSFW artsy nudity.) [more inside]
Freedom's just another word for never getting paid
Idle nostalgia led me to check on the mp3 page for Bulb Records (early home of Quintron and Andrew WK).
That all reminded me of space/noise rockers Gravitar, whose drummer Ben Cook has put up a fair amount their music (and other music he's made) for free. Oh, and he has a (rarely updated) music blog, which mentioned the Weird Sound Generator and Noizehole. [more inside]
That all reminded me of space/noise rockers Gravitar, whose drummer Ben Cook has put up a fair amount their music (and other music he's made) for free. Oh, and he has a (rarely updated) music blog, which mentioned the Weird Sound Generator and Noizehole. [more inside]
Grapes to Wine
Spring is the perfect time to start planting your grape crop - First choose your grape and then your training system. Don't get too excited though, it will take about three years before you start getting any usable fruit to make your own homemade wine (pdf). So you might pass the time with some alternative wine making recipes. -Previously
Online Mixtapes For Friends & Awkward Crushes
Have a crush on someone you only know online? Want to make them a mixtape but you don't have their physical address? Not a problem, thanks to Muxtape, an online mixtape manager. Just upload up to 12 tracks, and a custom URL is provided.Via.
They'll eat lilies?
Dogs , are they gettingenough doggie ice cream?
Some brands and flavors are better reviewed than others, but it seems to work well as an aid to training and as a distraction for new puppies. Just lay off the real ice cream (and grapes, raisins, Easter lillies , cat poop, chocolate , etc.)
The King of Kings
The youngest of the three kings of blues guitar, Freddie King (The Texas Cannonball) is probably best known for his instrumental Hideaway, but what stands out in retrospect is his amazing intensity. Having grown up in Texas and then Chicago, during the 1970s he found a niche playing to mostly white audiences in supper clubs and at festivals -- what he called the Fillmore Circuit -- although he also played other more challenging venues. His music, always funky and sweaty, just got funkier and sweatier. His death in 1976, at the age of 42, took him at his prime.
Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old
Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old, a film by Alan Lomax, takes a loving look at the talents and wisdom of elderly musicians, singers, and story-tellers from southern American folk traditions. All the musicians featured in the film have soul and musical energy to spare: great, great performances and engaging reminiscences make this film a real treat. Please see the [more inside] for a collection of links to several of the outstanding performers featured in the film. [more inside]
No External DJ Required!!!
The International Dance Party is a complete plug 'n' play party in a box (video). "The machine comes as a large, non-suspicious looking flightcase. Internally, it is equipped with cutting edge radar sensing technology, an ear blasting state of the art 600W sound system, tons of psychedelic light and laser effects, and even a professional grade fog machine." [via, via]
A Shiny New Generation
Miss Bimbo invites users to become the "coolest, richest most famous bimbo in the whole world". Unsurprisingly, the site, which encourages girls as young as seven to give virtual dolls breast implants and put them on crash diets, has been widely condemned by parents and children's activists. [more inside]
Thrill 'em.
Y'all think whatever you want about Michael Jackson now, knaamean? But on this day back in 1983, Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever was being taped before a live audience. Since he was no longer contractually tied to Motown, MJ planned to attend but not perform at the function; he was finally able to negotiate a solo spot singing a non-Motown song. Thriller had been released more than a year prior; Billie Jean had been the Number One single on Billboard's Top 100 for two weeks. It was time for a Pop Culture "Do you remember where you were when...?" moment.
And then came the moonwalk.
WSJ - New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears
Spread of Prosperity Brings Supply Woes: Slaking China's Thirst Malthusian catastrophe does appear to be at hand, as foreseen by the Club of Rome in 1972 publication of "The Limits of Growth"
Veganizing Anthony Bourdain
Hezbollah-Tofu Renegades systematically vegetarianize recipes from antiveganist chef Anthony Bourdain, who wrote (in Kitchen Confidential): “Vegetarians, and their Hezobollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.” [more inside]
Where are my fucking mushrooms?!
You've seen Fast Food vs. Reality. Now witness the power of German ingenuity in the science of Photographing Food.. [more inside]
Pedal Pub
Wild Wolverines in Tahoe National Forest
Ferocious-looking mystery creature in Tahoe National Forest confirmed to be a California wolverine, thought to be extinct since 1922. A motion-detecting camera snapped a compelling photo behind the beast last month, and the California Department of Fish and Game just confirmed the discovery with a clear profile shot. Notably, both photos appear to show the same animal.
"Hello my Geeklings!"
GeeksOn "A show created by Geeks for Geeks, covering topics that Geeks like to talk about." This is one of my favorite podcasts out there, most topics they cover are talked about in a very smart manner with lots of philosophy and moral quandaries thrown in, and they have gone on to get some great interviews with various people in Geek culture including Christina Hendricks, who plays Saffron from Firefly, and its Producer, Lisa Lassek(Christina is the sister of one of the geeks), Orson Scott Card, George R.R. Martin, Forrest J Ackerman, Garrett Wang, and the man himself Joss Whedon! [more inside]
We shot an Arrow into the air
50 years ago today (March 25), the first flight of the AVRO Arrow took place. At the time, the aircraft was considered to be one of the most advanced aircraft then flying, with a flexible airfame design that allowed for a wide variety of missions. To this day, rumours persist that the abrupt cancellation of the AVRO Arrow was due to pressure from US military aircraft contractors who feared losing several of their own lucrative contracts to the new jet. Rumours also recur from time to time that a “missing Arrow” was squirrelled away somewhere, a future treasure find for Canadian Arrow buffs. One thing almost everyone agrees on: cancelling the Arrow in favour of a ballistic missile was the worst disaster ever to befall aviation in Canada. But it probably helped put men on the moon a lot sooner than would otherwise have been the case.
Voyageur: Canada's Guitar
Imagine a guitar constructed from a country’s history. Recently named Voyageur, the Six String Nation guitar is just that: Canada’s Guitar. [more inside]
Old Folks' Homes
Bert Teunissen - Domestic Landscapes. Photographs of (mostly) senior citizens in their living rooms and kitchens. [more inside]
What is green and goes burp in the night?
The Hanford Site in SoutheastWashington (located on the Columbia River) is considered the dirtiest place on earth. 177 Underground storage tanks hold over 50 million gallons of radioactive and toxic waste. And they are leaking. [more inside]
Rethinking aid donations
40% of Afghan aid returns to donor countries. In today's guardian, it has been reported that 40% of the money promised/delivered to aid Afghan has been spent on "corporate profits and consultancy fees" and that "Much of the money earmarked for aid is diverted to political or military purposes." [more inside]
Duke Bluebeard's Castle
You'll rarely see it staged, so might as well enjoy Bartók's lone opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle in a beautifully filmed version on YouTube. Libretto in Hungarian, English. And a little introduction and analysis, with a particular eye toward the cryptic prologue.
Early Electronic Instruments
Elisha Gray could have been known to us as the inventor of the telephone. Instead, he goes down in history as the accidental creator of one of the first electronic musical instruments, the "Musical Telegraph." There are many other examples of early electronic instruments, including: the Teleharmonium, the Audion Piano, the Optophonic Piano, the Trautonium, the Ondes Martenot, the Rhythmicon, the Theremin Cello and the better-known Aetherphone (aka Theremin) to name a few. MetaFilter discussed odd music previously.
March 24
Moopsball and its Children
Lasting 3 days and involving up to three hundred and twenty four participants, the game of Moopsball debuted in Damon Knight's Orbit 18. Once part of the geek canon (not to mention the favored game of Illuminati University), Moopsball is slowly being forgotten. Still, there are those who are following in its footsteps. [more inside]
Oh My God! You Killed Low-Quality Spam-Infested Attempts at doing this! You (aren't) bastards!
Do you love South Park but you wish you could watch all the episodes on your own time? Uncensored? Without waiting for (or paying for) the DVDs? If so, South Park Studios just answered your prayers.
Since the Daily Show recently did the same thing - is Comedy Central making big waves, or big mistakes? [more inside]
'Star Wars' Turns 25
25 years ago, Ronald Reagan announced the birth of the missile defense system. A quarter-century and $120 billion later, was it worth it?
"I gotta sleep under some Chinaman named after a duck's dork."
Long Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes? Related: Whatever Happened to John Hughes? which has an accompanying photo gallery: Where are Hughes' teen stars now? [A previous post about John Hughes here.]
Happy 70th Birthday Holger Czukay!
He was born on March 24, 1938 in Danzig, "the true nephew of William Tell". He studied under Stockhausen from 1963-1966, then threw it all over to help create Can, whose fans included a bemused David Niven. (I Want More. Hunters and Collectors. Moonshake.) You may know him best as a pioneer of the found/stolen/ethno mashup later popularized by Brian Eno and David Byrne. (Cool in the Pool. Persian Love.) But sometimes he just gives us a sweet little pop song. He's the bloody Energizer Bunny of Krautrock. So Happy 70th Birthday, Holger Czukay, you daft and awesome German uncle I never had. (Hey, why not go over to his MySpace page and give him your regards?)
Ele-vision
Film-maker John Downer fitted four elephants with cameras and set them loose. Many of the resulting photos are cute, and some seem made for photoshopping.
O-oh, Ice Cream Man!
Sometimes, the ice cream man sounds menacing. Sometimes, the ice cream man is more psychedelic than any ice cream man has a right to be.[MP3] Sometimes, he's a public menace who must be stopped.
Some people really want to understand the ice cream man.[PDF] And some love the ice cream man just the way he is.
Scientific Progress Goes "Wonk"
I was watching Back to the Future Part II today, and realized that their idea of the world in 2015 doesn't really seem all that feasible now.
While I was watching, I happened to come across this interesting piece in the now-free Sports Illustrated archives: a feature, written in 1979, on how the NFL would look in the year 2000. The full article is pretty long, but if you want the highlights, they're right here.
"Quick Ginger, we haven't a moment to lose!"
Sir Digby Chicken Caesar - The Complete Adventures Sung to the tune of the Devil's Gallop. [more inside]
Hairbeast from the watery deeps
The partially decomposed sea monster has 4 paws, a tail, and long fur. Is that you, Dagon?
Other famous sea-monster bodies (known as "globsters") include
The St. Augustine Monster ^
The New Zealand globster
Several more recent blobs
And here's how to tell a blob from a sea monster
Other famous sea-monster bodies (known as "globsters") include
The St. Augustine Monster ^
The New Zealand globster
Several more recent blobs
And here's how to tell a blob from a sea monster
Books of art
ABC3D is an elegant pop-up book featuring the letters of the alphabet. Plus: a flip book that generates a rainbow.
Go ahead, hurt me, I won't press charges.
Ever have a job working for a record label on a street crew. And yer puttin up publicity posters on lightpoles for an artist like Rocko and some asshole won't stop takin yer picture.
Whadda you do then? Break his friggin camera.
William. Wegman. Weimaraner. Watch. Wag. Word.
Dressing a dog up as a person is I think not a very good thing. But when I do it, it's fine. William Wegman's Early Videos. Short Films. Trio/Metropolis/Guitar. Clips from his feature, The Hardly Boys.
David Hart's David Hockney meets William Wegman
David Hart's David Hockney meets William Wegman
GNARBUCKET
VBS.TV presents "Epicly Latered"[~80 min, 16 parts, gnarly skateboarding], the story of John Cardiel.
Got a dream to take them there
Emilio Gonzalez, Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, will be resigning next month. To mark the occasion, the New York Times prints an editorial exposing the magnitude of the case backlog that USCIS currently faces, and their decided lack of speed in handling said backlog. Gonzalez doesn't like the editorial, so he blogs about it. And that's when the comments start rolling in.
Ten and two ... whoo-hoo!
Live from her minivan, it’s The Jeannie Tate Show! Everyone’s favorite soccer mom runs errands around town with the help of special guests like Bill Hader (SNL), Rashida Jones (The Office), Lonny Ross (30 Rock), and Rob Riggle (The Daily Show). Of course, she’s willing to leave the van behind to visit her heroines, Hillary and Oprah. [more inside]
Three new online magazines
Three new online magazines - Triple Canopy, Issue Magazine and Rosa B - tackle the problem of text presentation on the screen in innovative ways. via
How to do stuff
Quamut — learn how to write cover letters, crochet baby booties, make a home, how to self-medicate, and do other stuff.
Life in the Future
40 Years in the Future - Another "what will life look like in the future" article. This one from Mechanix Illustrated, 1968. (via Boing Boing)
Cat's in the Cradle
Vice visits the DPRK
ViceTV takes a relaxing North Korean vacation (video, in 14 parts).
Great moments in entrepeneurial inspiration
The gun dealer who sold the ammunition used in both the Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech campus shootings obviously feels remorse over his role, and wishes to atone. His solution? A (concealed) gun for every student.
help?
"To say that I am a patient man would be an understatement."
Seventeen years Steve Feltham sold up everything, bought an old mobile library van and parked up alongside Loch Ness to look for Nessie... He's still there.
March 23
"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"
Every One That Hates Billy....” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”
Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness. [His mother] remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved.[more inside]
Rapid Offensive Unit Xenophobe will no doubt be pleased
Edinburgh author Iain M. Banks, creator of the post capitalist space faring society The Culture and it's oddly named ships, has long been the UKs top science fiction writer, but has never had more than a toehold in the US (in part through lack of availability, in part due to lack of promotion and in part due to some pretty awful covers. That could change: Matter, his latest, has been heavily promoted in the US and sports a cover nearly identical to the UK edition. This week Orbit are releasing US editions of the two earliest Culture novels, with the third following in July, which could mean a complete release of all the novels in the US in order. [more inside]
NECs new biometric security cam will guess your age, gender, (and it would be nice if it could size you up according to how you dress).
NEC plans to market a system later this year that can derive someone's gender and age from images captured with a camera "The system compares the photo against a database of several thousand faces to figure gender and age based on such factors as facial shape and wrinkles. " According to Nikkei Weekly 01/28/2008 Edition. Link goes to Ubergizmo.
"It's called FieldAnalyst and it's from NEC. The system homes in on faces of people who pass by the video camera. It then rapidly compares the image against samples in a database. It then spits out what it believes is your approximate age is and your gender." .."NEC scientists may next try to add clothing as a characteristic and classify people by whether they wear a suit or a T-shirt." more here
Tibetan Refugee
"Tibetan Refugee" is a documentary by Richard Martini consisting of interviews with Tibetan refugees who have recently fled to Dharamsala, India. It's on YouTube in 5 parts: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
Kings of Power 4 Billion%
Kings of Power 4 Billion% [12 min AVI] - A new release from pixel artist Paul Robertson, known for such previous works as the video for "Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006" and Architecture in Helinski's "Do The Whirlwind."
materialicious
Lust after some stair porn (don't miss the details of the hanging box stairs), visit some glass igloos, and get comfy in some iconic furniture. That and much more is at materialicious, a blog about "architecture + design + materials + products."
Gamma Ray Bursts - they're neat
How far can the naked eye see? About 7.5 billion light-years. On March 19th, a Gamma Ray Burst was noticed by NASA's Swift satellite and given the name GRB 080319B. It left an optical afterglow estimated at +5 apparent magnitude for 30 seconds, about that of an average star. (Sadly, no one was looking at the area with an optical telescope at that exact time.) Read the original Burst Alert, including the email address of the Burst Advocate, here. [more inside]
Almost statistics
realscoop.com "utilizes proven voice analysis technology to analyze statements made by public figures." The statements being on videos. They're all over Bill Clinton and Reagan. Bush and current candidates - not so much. [more inside]
Jesus Shaves
"He nice, the Jesus. He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today." Enjoy a little short story about cultural differences and Easter from David Sedaris.
Impossible piano piece visualized and (mostly) performed
John Mark Harris provides
a interactive
graphical score synchronized to his realization of the
architect-composer Iannis
Xenakis's Evryali, a piano piece that
is intentionally
impossible to play as written. Harris's notes on the piece are behind the non-obvious "on Evryali" button on the score page. Things start getting really interesting around page 22.
I'm mellltiiiiing!
Even on Easter, chocolate bunnies just can't
catch
a
break. source and inspiration via everlasting blort
"Each day, every man must decide either to shave or not to shave. The act can be one of conformity, rebellion, laziness, or transition."
This year's International Deutsche Beard Championship is just a few short weeks away, which means now is the time to start grooming and perfecting your entry. Here, then, are some potential sources of inspiration. Previously. [more inside]
On this day of resurrection...
Speaking of speeches, David Eggers delivers one at TED on grassroots community tutoring for kids who need help with their English homework: "There's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one on one, getting all this attention. They finish their homework, they go home -- they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play and that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world, right? So, the key to it all is homework." Love him or hate him (mefi consensus) it's a great example of nervous energy microphilanthropy, social entrepreneurship and, if I may make the connection, machines of loving grace. [previously]
Coming Home
Homeless people are just too lazy to work, aren't they? Besides, they panhandle to get by, so what's the big deal? What does it mean to be homeless [previously] anyway? How do people find themselves in these sorts of situations, and why can't they get out of them? How do they feel about it? And are there any alternatives that we can supply them with?
Israel 'Cachao' Lopez, R.I.P.
Keep your telescreens on comrades
With Comcast, your TV watches you. Comcast is developing cable boxes with cameras to watch the room. They will know who is there to provide shows in your profile, engage parental controls, and of course, deliver targeted advertising. Ceiling Cat Comcast is watching you....
The myth of food miles?
The locavore movement arose in recognition of the high environmental costs associated with imported food, particularly with respect to global warming (previously). This article from The Guardian (London) suggests that the carbon cost-benefit equation may be very hard to calculate, and that local (at least, without organic) may not always be better. As a planet we seem to be boxing ourselves into a very tight little environmental corner.
March 22
Come Aboard, We're Expecting You...
If you were a North American kid (well, a kid stuck at home, younger than driving age) in the late 70s/early 80s, your Saturday nights were likely spent in front of the television watching The Love Boat. The show subsequently gained worldwide popularity. Did you know that the Pacific Princess is still ferrying the lovelorn across the blue abyss, and that she has a bridgecam? Did you know there were Love Boat action figures? For your nostalgic pleasure: complete episode guide, complete guest star list, theme song video (variations 1, 2, 3), lyrics and chords, and song facts.
Keepnews and the jazz giants on Riverside
Legendary jazz producer and writer Orrin Keepnews was recently interviewed for a series of podcasts for the Concord Group (formerly Riverside, and Fantasy-Prestige-Milestone Records) . They usually deal with specific recordings and run about 6-9 minutes each, many now on YouTube. Fascinating accounts of his early work for Riverside with Thelonious Monk , (and the "Town Hall" album), to Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, McCoy Tyner, and the latest one on the classic Bill Evans "Portrait in Jazz" album. Great stuff for jazz fans of the late 50s- early 60s era.
Shall we say one million... AH-HA!
Echoes of Latin America in José González's music
Guitarist and singer José González's myspace page mentions [lots of youtube ahead] Low and Elliot Smith. And no review of the Swede whose parents left Argentina in the 1970s is complete without a reference to Nick Drake. But what about the influence of styles from the hemisphere his parents left behind? [more inside]
You Are the New Day
You are the New Day, recorded by the Kings Singers, the Searchers, and ten thousand school choirs around the world, was written by hard-rocking bass player John David, long of Dave Edmunds’ band. You Are the New Day is that rarest of things... [more inside]
Why the US is collapsing
The leader of the Swedish Pirate Party explaining how the US went bankrupt in 1971, and has been covering it up through an accelerating whack-a-mole borrowing frenzy that is bursting right now. [more inside]
The Graveyard
The Graveyard: Walk through the graveyard. Sit for a spell. Walk back out again. [via Jay Is Games] [more inside]
The Last Temptation of Visual Parodists
50 "Last Suppers" including 3 'last breakfasts' and 6 fast-food meals.
Hitler Speaks
Hitler Speaks
Using advanced speech recognition technology, researchers and voice-over actors have been able to put a soundtrack to long-silent video relics of Adolf Hitler: Eva Braun's infamous home movies filmed at the Berghof, private filmed meetings between Hitler and various Reich cronies, as well as the last known footage of him taped before an awkward bunch of Hitler Youth at the Reichstag in the final days of the war made famous in Downfall. Chilling stuff.
Via.
Using advanced speech recognition technology, researchers and voice-over actors have been able to put a soundtrack to long-silent video relics of Adolf Hitler: Eva Braun's infamous home movies filmed at the Berghof, private filmed meetings between Hitler and various Reich cronies, as well as the last known footage of him taped before an awkward bunch of Hitler Youth at the Reichstag in the final days of the war made famous in Downfall. Chilling stuff.
Via.
She blinded me with science!
Gorgeous images, selected solely for their artistic appeal, from the pages of Physical Review B.
Map Quizzes from Ilike2learn.com
Ilike2learn.com has a series of simply-wrought yet wonderfully mind-bending Map quizzes: check out North America if you're looking for a confidence booster, relive forth-grade geography by going through state capitals or impress friends with your knowledge of the European Peninsula. Find out how little you know about Africa and Asia, then peruse the mind-fuck that is Oceania. Heck, they even have capitals, oceans, lakes, rivers and mountains for the truly adventurous. The world's a big place!
The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam
"The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history." Henry Siegman, the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress and more recently the director of the CFR's US/Middle East Project, argues in this essay from the London Review of Books that:
...all previous peace initiatives have got nowhere for a reason that neither Bush nor the EU has had the political courage to acknowledge. That reason is the consensus reached long ago by Israel’s decision-making elites that Israel will never allow the emergence of a Palestinian state which denies it effective military and economic control of the West Bank. To be sure, Israel would allow – indeed, it would insist on – the creation of a number of isolated enclaves that Palestinians could call a state, but only in order to prevent the creation of a binational state in which Palestinians would be the majority.
Aurland Lookout
Vidal Strikes Back
Gore Vidal Speaks Seriously Ill of the Dead Annoyed with the rose-tinted view of William F. Buckley displayed by some of his obituarists, Vidal slams Buckley, Newsweek, and the media in general. (MeFi Buckley obit thread here).
Nanocannons
The Pioneer Effect
NASA is baffled by unexplained discrepancies in the velocities of some of its spacecraft. Dubbed the Pioneer Effect, it has been observed before but has now been discovered in more probes. Many theories have been put forward, many disproved, and some are wondering if our understanding of gravity is correct. [more inside]
Some papers
Some interesting papers by Shamsiddin Kamoliddin:
To the Question of Origin of the Name Hashimgird
To the Question of the Origin of the Samanids
NEW DATA ON THE BAZRS OF MEDIEVAL SAMARQAND
On the Origin of the place-Name Buxārā I found these mostly on Transoxiana.org
To the Question of Origin of the Name Hashimgird
To the Question of the Origin of the Samanids
NEW DATA ON THE BAZRS OF MEDIEVAL SAMARQAND
On the Origin of the place-Name Buxārā I found these mostly on Transoxiana.org
March 21
Anybody remember the Huret Jubilee?
Beautiful anaglyphs of 70's derailleurs show the art and engineering at the forefront 3 decades back. BYO3DG
Custom Spirits
Craft distillers just got a boost in Washington State. It's now legal* to sell "up to 2 liters of their goods per customer and serve 2 ounce tastings – the same rights as craft brew or winemakers." [more inside]
No, it's *literally* raining McCain.
You've probably seen Hillary4U&Me or Hillary In The House, but you should know that Senator Clinton's supporters don't have a monopoly on awesome/hilarious propaganda. Witness Barack OBollywood and The McCain Girls in "It's Rainin' McCain!"
Blue Stockings
Brilliant Women: The Blue Stocking Circle was a group of intellectuals with a strong desire to discuss, analyze, and examine the social, political, and educational problems of the day Mostly female intellectuals, but they included many prominent men as well. They assembled in the London homes of literary hostesses such as Elizabeth Montagu, Frances Boscawen and Elizabeth Vesey in the 1750s form the nucleus of the exhibition. .... At first, all the party-goers were nicknamed blues, but from the 1770s, the "bluestocking" tag was applied to the women members in particular. By the time of Montagu's death in 1800, any female intellectual might be labelled a bluestocking, whether or not she could claim a link to the original circle.
Do You Believe?
Throw "Thrown Under a Bus" Under a Freakin Bus
Rent Vs. Buy Myths That Ruined the Housing Market
Laika Star
The history of the Russian space program in three short videos. The past, the present, and the future.
Suicide by robot.
Who would win in a fight, a minotaur with a trident or a centaur with a crossbow?
Who would win in a fight: A minotaur with a trident or a centaur with a crossbow? Surely one of the great questions of of our time. Luckily the cast of Battlestar Galactica is on hand to answer. Basic cable scifi show not credible? Ask the cast of The Wire instead. [more inside]
Find the Star, Again
Dorothy Gambrell is very fond of data
Year Zero throughout history. Waffle Houses per capita. The 20th Century on Google Image. Dorothy Gambrell is very fond of data. [more inside]
Water water everywhere, now with more drops to drink
Not content to rest on his laurels after creations like the portable kidney dialysis machine, the IBOT robotic wheelchair, the Segway, and the innovative cyborg replacement limbs, DEKA Research President Dean Kamen demonstrates his new vapor compression distiller on The Colbert Report. [more inside]
He didn’t pay attention to man’s law or God’s law
From the diamond to the street (literally) to your mailbox, one thing is absolutely certain:
Nails never fails.
"Yeah I watched the shit out of it."
Bob Odenkirk and David Cross are back on HBO with a new comedy, with Cross playing himself and Odenkirk directing. The pilot's being filmed in May in Los Angeles, and apparently they'll be needing "150 audiencers" (and here's Cracked's Five of the Funniest Mr. Show sketches to masterfully pad out the post).
Archangel, the CIA's Supersonic A-12 Reconnaissance Aircraft
Lions and buffalo and crocs, oh my!
Lions and buffalo and crocs, oh my! Last night YouTube announced the 2007 Video Awards winners, as voted by online viewers. [more inside]
The head of a small company may still choose to be a tyrant; a large organization is compelled by its structure to be one
In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally. Or: You weren't meant to have a boss. On the other hand, maybe you are.
We are all pathetic geeks at one time or another.
Pathetic Geek Stories is back! After a hiatus of almost three years we can once again revel in new comic strips detailing people's most humiliating youthful (and inevitably cringe-worthy) moments.
Happy Everything!
In a coincidence that happens less than once in a millennium, over half the world is celebrating a holiday. It is Good Friday; the Jewish festival of Purim, where getting drunk is often an obligation; the Persian new year of Narouz; Eid Milad an Nabi which the birth of the Prophet celebrated by some Sunnis; and Small Holi for Hindus, among many others. [more inside]
Fire and Ice underground
Weird scenes inside the gold mica mines Russians photograph and play in an abandoned mine.
When Men Wear Nail Polish, the Terrorists Win
"I'm not a politician, I'm an artist. Depravity is part of the job description," says self-styled dandy, former drug addict, and controversial British author Sebastian Horsely, who was denied entrance to the US by customs officials at Newark Airport on the grounds of "moral turpitude," a wide net that encompasses everything from fornication to being a "nuisance." Shades of Oscar Wilde.
No Intelligence Admitted Without Proper Authorization
Cephalopod enthusiast P.Z. Meyers is barred from entering public screening of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" P.Z. … unknowingly appeared in the movie and has been a vocal critic since it was announced.
Last night he attempted to see the film at a private screening, which was advertised as open to folks who registered in advance with no ticket purchase. Meyers was recognized by the producer, Mark Mathis, who had him thrown out by security.
Security (and presumably Mark Mathis) did allow Meyers' family and guests to attend the screening. Who was his guest? Richard Dawkins.
Previously…
A road is a road is a road
Did you know that you can create a simple set of directions to your house that works no matter where the recipient starts from? After 38 years this remarkable conjecture has now been proved by a 63-year old former security guard.
Stranger Photos Have Happened
"Good afternoon, I attached this camera to the bench so you could take pictures. Seriously. So have fun. I'll be back later this evening to pick it up. Love, Jay / The Plug". Stranger Photos Have Happened.
Barings redux?
Credit Suisse will take a $2.65 billion hit to earnings and post it's first quarterly loss since 2003 due, to no small part, to deliberate mispricing of asset backed securities by several traders operating at all levels of seniority across the 143 year old institution. [more inside]
Starbucks renewed
The Starbucks reinvention. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Howard Schultz announces thorough overhaul, unveils new espresso maker as replacement for oft-criticized Verismo machines. Yet some observers insist that the Mastrena solution, which puts a premium on consistency, will come up with low marks in quality and taste.
The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904
"To suppose that the spirit of our people will not rise to the occasion is to suppose that our people are not genuine Americans. We shall make the fire of 1904 a landmark not of decline but of progress."
March 20
Storytelling with Google Maps
Charlie Rose, Black Eye, Saves "Air"
Charlie Rose Suffers Black Eye to save Mac Book Air Charlie Rose fell while walking on a NYC street the other day. He tripped in a pot hole. Rose happened to be holding his new Mac Book Air. On the way to the ground he chose to protect the laptop, rather than his million dollar face. Picture on Salon link. {via salon.com}
With apologies to Mrs. B.J. Smegma of 13, The Cresent, Belmont.
I'll be Bill Murray... and you be everyone else!
Top Ten Fan-Made "Sweded" Films Featuring: Predator, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Die Hard, Back to the Future, Goldfinger, Total Recall, Jurassic Park, Armageddon, Lord of the Rings and Terminator 2.
A BBQ in every pot...
Ashes to Ashes, Dogs to Diamonds
If burying Old Blue or Fluffy in the backyard just doesn't seem good enough, don't worry, for anywhere between $6,000 and $128,000, you can have them mummified old school style. Or if having to leave them on display in the living room while you leave the house seems just too hard, you could always wear them. Or of course you could always just have them turned into diamonds.
"I know it looks bad."
The Woman Behind the Camera. Film maker Errol Morris, and the New Yorker's Philip Gourevitch look at Sabrina Harman, photographer, and Army MP in Iraq. [more inside]
Neanderthal-Human Babies
Any admixture would have to be driven by male Neanderthals. Two years ago we discussed morphological evidence of nontrivial interbreeding. Since then Neanderthal DNA has been examined for genetic support for this model of human evolution, largely contradicting the belief in Neanderthal contribution to modern humanity. Indeed any contribution from the Neanderthal gene pool to the evolution of modern humans might be very rare and indeed it appears that the best candidate gene thus (MC1R) far likely was a result of convergent evolution. [more inside]
America's Captains of Industry!
As is the custom these days, GMAC Bank is suing mortgage broker HTFC for selling them improperly secured loans. The deposition of HTFC's CEO Aron Wider reads like a Joe Pesci role with 73 creative uses of the f-word over twelve hours of testimony. A federal judge fined Mr. Wider and his attorney $29K for Mr. Wider's constant use of bad language, insults, refusals to answer questions, and his lawyer's failure to control his client.
Typography + Motion = Kinematic Typography
60 Brilliant Typefaces (and 40 free ones)
60 Brilliant Typefaces (for corporate design) plus 40 free ones. From Smashing Magazine (prev), which last year presented 80 Beautiful Typefaces for Professional Design [more inside]
Your Favorite [Cassette] DJ Savior
Dual cassette deck DJ. DJ Ramsey of Scottsdale, Arizona does with cassettes what DJ's have done for decades with vinyl records, CDs and mp3s.
Three screw-ups
"Now when I screw up, people from all over Charlotte mindlessly come to Belk looking for Magic Johnson." Thee entertaining screw-ups from author and sports columnist Joe Posnanski. [more inside]
The 400 Million
The 400 Million 四萬萬人民 - China, 1938 (53 minutes / sound / black&white / 35mm) Directed: Joris Ivens. Camera: ROBERT CAPA. Parts:
1
2
3
4
5
6
"The Japanese aggression against China in 1937 forced the Chinese communists and Chiang Kai-shek's Kwomintang to take up the joint battle against their common enemy. With modern weapons the Chinese are pursuing their struggle behind enemy lines. This film shows all aspects of a war: the battle, the preparations, refugees, casualties and victims, the fear and distress, the human misery and the courage, and the land under fire."
But don't talk back to Darth Vader! He'll get ya!
Elf-inflicted marketing plan for generating elf-esteem.
ElfQuest for free...gradually. The complete ElfQuest comic oeuvre (about 6000 pages) is being released online in batches every friday. The first five issues (a complete 150 page arc in itself), along with some other EQ series's first issues, are already up.
On to the show...
Leroy Shield was a composer from the Hal Roach era of comedies who composed soundtracks for Laurel and Hardy and the Little Rascals, he has one cover, er, orchestra, the Beau Hunks and no less of a fan than Robert Crumb. Check the main website for more sounds and movies.
via WFMU, bonus YouTubery inside [more inside]
via WFMU, bonus YouTubery inside [more inside]
The heart condition is spelled differently
What do we call the period of cleaning that we carry out in the spring? That's right, Discardia! This five-year-old holiday started yesterday and lasts till April 5th. Via Lifehacker, who open the festivities with 10 ways to declutter your digital life.
The Michel Thomas Language Method
Polyglot Michel Thomas came to prominence through his work for the French resistance and the successful interrogation of Nazis (who had formerly imprisoned him). After the war he started to develop (and eventually patent) a method for teaching languages that eschewed notes, books, writing, memorisation and homework. Instead, words and phrases would be built up in lego-like constructions to provide “confidence in hours not years”. He gave private lessons to a long list of A-list celebrities including Woody Allen, Natasha Kinsky, Tony Curtis and Grace Kelly. A BBC documentary from 1997 told his story and tested him out with the less exalted audience of 16 year old London school kids pre-selected to be “incapable of learning a foreign language” by their teachers [YT pt 1, 2, 3, 4]. He was secretive about how his methods worked until the end of his life when he finally made his courses available as audiobooks. [more inside]
Adventures in Rechargeable Batteries
Ice ice baby
I didn't know until this morning that icebergs could be striped. However, apparently that's just one of many variations. Here's where to find some and learn more. [More beneath the surface.]
So, you thought Cricket was for sissies, aye?
First, a bit of an introduction to the game of Cricket (youtube) for those of us who may not be familiar with the sport. Next, a few clips (1, 2, 3, 4) on how awesome the Gentleman's Game can be (and you thought we didn't do anything but roam around in our white pants and cotton shirts...). But, if that wasn't enough for you, then here's a taste of Twenty20 Cricket (the fast, fast paced version of the game), and the new DLF Indian (pdf) Premier League. (This is in addition to the One Day Matches, which were instituted to bring in a bit more excitement into the game during the 1970's, prior to which the match only consisted of Tests. However, some purists still maintain that the game would've been better served had it not been commercalized to the extent that it has, and still prefer the leisurely pace of the original format to its current incarnation.) [more inside]
Mr. Mom
Labor of Love : when a married couple wanted to start a family and the wife was unable to conceive or carry because of previous surgeries, her husband, who is transgendered and legally male, stopped taking his testosterone and was inseminated.
Scenes From Latcho Drom
First, and foremost, here is La Caíta - El Pájaro
Negro. Could there be singing anymore heartfelt than this ? I
wonder. And here she is, in an ancillary role, with the Amaya family. Also, from Spain, here is Tchavolo Schmitt, Dorado Schmitt & Hono Winterstein - Kali Sara & Tchavolo swing. From Romania, here are Taraf de
Haïdouks and, from them, here is Taraf de Haïdouks and of them, here is Balada Conducatorolui - Nicolae Neacsu. From the Thar of Rajasthan, here is the very charismatic Talab Khan
Barna, and here, from Egypt, is Bambi
Saidi. And let the etymological connection between Egypt
and gypsy be noted here and now, by the way.
All of these are. of course, excerpts from Latcho Drom. [more inside]
All of these are. of course, excerpts from Latcho Drom. [more inside]
Habla Ingles or You Ain't Getting No Cheesesteak
"Speak English" sign at cheesesteak shop not discriminatory. A split three-member panel of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations ruled that a sign in Genos Steaks the South Philadelphia cheesesteak shop did not convey a message that service would be refused to non-English speakers. [more inside]
Great free album
One of my favorite albums of recent years is now available for the first time. And, it's free. You Are Not Dead: A Guide to Modern Living by MeFi's own Fake. {embedded Flash player and link to zipped mp3s} {torrent of better quality mp3s} {via mefi projects}
The Best DOMAIN NAMES of the Web
What'll you find at rum.com, van.com, war.com or cat.com? A more-fun-than-most web quiz from the Mental Flossers about some of the best domain names and who owns them. [more inside]
Tweet
March 19
At least I got the number right
They say it doesn't constitute an extraordinary circumstance
Jayci is ten years old. She's about to die of an incurable brain cancer. Her dying wish is to see her daddy one last time. But daddy in prison on a drug charge, and won't be released until August. By which time Jayci will be dead. Federal prison rules allow for furloughs in "a family crisis." But only at the warden's discretion. "They say it doesn't constitute an extraordinary circumstance".
Kleine Dampfblöcke
First there was the Dardenbahst
now comes:Kriegerhund, Sentinel of the Deutsches Reich. Plenty more lego steampunk goodness at the Brothers Brick. Via
Charley
So Bad They're Good (At Being Bad)
Bad Gift Emporium. Can't stand to look at that glittery unicorn statue from Aunt Ethel any longer? Can't bear to wear the hand-knitted sweater from Grandma Agnes (made from her own cat's hair)? Want to offer your horrific gift items to people who can truly appreciate them, or just share the misery? The Bad Gift Emporium is for you.
And you thought discrimination was a thing of the past...
Say you do a job and retire in or before 1996. Your coworker retires after 1997. Coworker gets six times more pension and you're asked to leave the country. Sounds unfair? Not to the British Government. [more inside]
Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip
If Metafilter did time travel, it might end up like Desmond Warzel's Wikihistory. It's a short piece in the latest issue of Abyss and Apex and features snippets from the WWII subforum of the International Association of Time Travelers. Takes only moments to read but might amuse for hours. [more inside]
Nugget Shooter
Looking for a new outdoor hobby? There's always recreational gold prospecting. If you live in Washington State, check out Bedrock Prospectors. If not, no worries, there's gold all over the United States and Australia. Probably elsewhere too, it's widely distributed. You can really get into it, but some practitioners say you probably won't make money at it. [more inside]
Wear a Sweater on Fred Rogers' birthday
As part of Won't You Be My Neighbor? Days in Pittsburgh, and in honor of what would've been Fred Rogers' 80th birthday, Mr. McFeely is requesting that you wear your favorite sweater on March 20. "It doesn't have to be like the one Mr. Rogers wore, it just has to be special to you." [more inside]
what did we tell you
Without Posing and Artifice
"Using information provided earlier about their weekly routine, the photographer will arrive on the scene, and unseen, take shots of the subject." This is what Izaz Rony of Methodizaz says he can do for you for several hundred bucks. Or, perhaps use this self-hired paparazzi service as a present for friends and family?
"Without posing and artifice, the camera captures only the natural beauty of the person." Flash website [via]. [more inside]
Bassically, it's a series of tubas
The Travelers Club International Restaurant and Tuba Museum, Okemos, Michigan. Sixty-plus tubas, euphonia, helicons, sousaphones, ophicleide, and other brass monstronsities, accompany a menu of international cuisine -- uh an' cookin'. [more inside]
For Arthur
Unofficial Wiretap Podcast
CBC's Wiretap has an unoffical podcast. In the latest episode, Gregor Samsa gets help from Dr. Seuss.
Somewhere in the crowd... sometimes you find someone very special. Someone who sees light in the dark.
Between 1981 and 1984, the first network for kids broadcast an unusual show called THE THIRD EYE [more inside]
Trouble on the Roof....... of the World
China ready to hold talks with the Dalai Lama. With nearly 1,000 jailed in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama has offered to resign.
China has blocked the media, and reporters have been taken in for questioning.
China is opposed to the US speaker's Dharamsala visit.
Meanwhile France raises the idea of boycotting the Olympics opening ceremony.
Existing thread arising from Björk's protest.
Sex in public park legal in Amsterdam
Amsterdam plan to legalize public sex in park from this year September onwards. The police's National Diversity Expertise Centre (LECD) wants this to expand this plan to all public parks of the Netherlands.
Everyone hates Ben Bernanke
Columbia Business School doesn't like Ben Bernanke. The Previous Link is a
Music Video from Columbia Business School. No Billy Joel, but it is a music parody. You might not like music parodies which is A-Okay, but this is a financial focused music parody from a business school improv group. It made me smile wanely a few times, but I still enjoyed it. You might not. I am sorry if you do not. If you don't, maybe you would like a video about munchkin kittens. [more inside]
The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar
Bobby Dunbar was a four year-old boy that vanished in 1912, while on a fishing trip with his family in a Louisiana swamp. For weeks, searchers combed the area looking for him. The lake where he went missing was dynamited. Alligators were captured and had their bellies slit open to see if the body was inside. Nothing was found except a set of child's footprints leading to an old railroad trestle. Eight months later, the police found Bobby in the company of a drifter with a horse-drawn cart. He protested his innocence but was arrested and charged with kidnapping. Another woman came forward and claimed Bobby was, in fact, her son. But she was an unmarried fieldworker, and her claims were dismissed. The crime became a nationwide media event and the boy was returned to his parents, and their hometown held a parade in his honor. Bobby returned to his life. Ninety-one years later, Bobby Dunbar's granddaughter uncovered the truth.
Food For The Soul
Great Poets Of The 20th Century. From The Guardian so Brit bias... Introduction, William Boyd on Siegfried Sassoon, John Banville on Seamus Heaney, Jeanette Winterson on Ted Hughes, Andrew Motion on Philip Larkin, Margaret Drabble on Sylvia Plath, Rowan Williams on WH Auden, Craig Raine on T.S. Eliot.
Art of TekkonKinkreet
Elementary School Nostalgia-Filter
Blogger Beware! Troy Steele reads through all the Goosebumps books and snarkily recaps them. So you don't have to.
March 18
a and buying heaven she's stairway to
Rock 'n' Roll lyrics rewritten in alphabetical order and then you're sposed to guess the song from whence they came. Courtesy of the delightful Matthew Baldwin at The Morning News.
We're in ur magazeen, puttin werds on ur moddles.
When Lolcats meets Go Fug Yourself, hilarity ensues. From the highly entertaining Jezebel.
Oh, hai Anna!
One for the History Books
Obama's Gettysburg Address. Today we saw and heard a preview of our brightest possible American future in Senator Barack Obama's glorious speech. This, then, is what it means to be presidential. To be moral. To have a real center. To speak honestly, from the heart, for the benefit of all. If there was any doubt about what we have missed in the anti-intellectual, ruthlessly incurious Bush years, and even the slippery Clinton ones (the years of "what is is"), those doubts were laid to rest by Barack Obama's magisterial speech today. A speech in which he distanced himself from a flawed father figure, Reverend Wright, and did so with almost Shakespearian dignity and honor. One of the most important speeches on race in decades if not longer. (text) [more inside]
Old logos
Match it for Pratchett
Match It For Pratchett is a campaign to match Terry Pratchett's donation of $1 million (half a million pounds) to the UK charity, the Alzheimer’s Research Trust. Since they started on March 15, they've raised over $34k. [more inside]
Winter Soldier... A shape with lion body and the head of a man
"Not only are the misuse of rules of engagement in Iraq indicative of supreme strategic incompetence, they are also a moral disgrace." Former Marine Sergeant Jason Lemieux... three tours in Iraq from 2003 to 2006.
Spear and Magic Helmet?!?
Oh, mighty warrior 'twill be quite a task...Greg Allen reminds us what the mid-century phrase "kill the rabbit" is really all about.
The Hillsong Church
The Hillsong Church has been a controversial church in Australia for quite some time (13mb mp3 link). From questions over its political influence to claims that they were stacking the votes in Australian Idol to concerns about the way it uses its donations, Hillsong continues to inspire much debate over whether it is a force for good or whether it is corrupt. In the latest controversy to surround the church, they are now claiming that they can cure homosexuality. Hardly a first for a Christian church except that Hillsong, which has a strict doctrine that teaches homosexuality is an affliction that can be cured, is so obsessed with ensuring that there are no homosexuals under their roof that it is running the program for its own disciples... even those who aren't gay. Allegedly, they are going so far as to issue "separation contracts" to young women who simply make friends with each other and which prevents any form of physical contact between residents. [more inside]
Top button
Hey, get outta bed, you! What? Say you had one too many on Paddy's Day? Well, friend, just down a little hair of the dog and we'll dance it off! That's right! Some jigs, a couple of reels and a hornpipe or two, from Irish button accordion maestros John Whelan, Michael O'Connel, Damien Mullane, and Keith Gildea. And for good measure, Edel Fox on the concertina, and Bobby Gardiner on the melodeon. Just the thing to chase that nasty ol' hangover away! [more inside]
Regrowing Limbs
Can People Regenerate Body Parts? "Progress on the road to regenerating major body parts, salamander-style, could transform the treatment of amputations and major wounds."
Neither technology nor magic was sufficiently advanced.
Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, inventor of the telecommunications satellite and the only reason most geeks can find Sri Lanka on a map, has died shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday.
Keep eating the mushrooms.
Hands.
Twin Tesla coils.
Ruler.
Ocarina.
Ukelele.
7 String bass.
Two guitars played at once.
Tuba.
Trombone quartet.
Bassoon quartet. Previously
here and
here
Shepard Fairey, Plagiarist?
Most well known for his "Obey Giant" street posters, Shepard Fairey has carefully nurtured a reputation as a heroic guerilla street artist waging a one man campaign against the corporate powers-that-be. Infantile posturing aside, Fairey’s art is problematic for another, more troubling reason - that of plagiarism.
SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments On Case Determining Whether American Citizens Have the Right to Carry Hanguns under the Second Amendment
Oral arguments were heard today in District of Columbia v. Heller, the first occasion in almost 70 years for the Supreme Court to decide the question, "Just what does the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mean?"
ravening wolves vs. spooky shaman
The oloid
Gloria in electronica
The University of South Carolina recently completed an ambitious survey of all medieval texts in the state for an exhibit at the university library. All the works were scanned and archived electronically. However, not only can you view the texts online, you can hear the university's chorus sing (MP3) the musical manuscripts. [more inside]
Portugal. Portugal. Portugal. Portugal. (Malkovich.)
Craig Bierko interviews John Malkovich and touches on his youth and living in foreign countries before improvising a bit around the idea of the thespian working in a fast food restaurant.(May not be SFW. One-link Superdeluxe Video.)
Contemporary Hooverville
Tent cities spring up in L.A. With foreclosures rates still rising, shantytowns have started springing up in Los Angeles.
If you can breathe, you can PlaRola
If you were around between the 1870s and the early 1900s, you were rocking out to the sweet tunes of the organette. Some were ornate wooden boxes played by turning a crank. Cool kids had tiny organette/harmonica hybrids called Rolmonicas that were played by mouth. Other variations included the Celestina, the Musical Casket, the Playasax, the PlaRola, and the Triola mechanical zither among others. Happen to have one? Pull it out of that yard sale! You can still find music for it.
The agony of the feet
Robot Dog
Amazing video of BigDog. Described by its developer, Boston Dynamics, as "The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth."
Help the police.
Help the police (youtube).
UK Film Director Anthony Mingella has died.
She loves me yeah, yeah, er, no!
Sooooo... Macca finds himself £24m ($50m) worse off after his acrimonious divorce from strong woman / mentalist* Heather Mills. Mills also loses her appeal against keeping the text of the ruling private (read it here - PDF), maybe because of her 10 minute diatribe on the steps of the court yesterday, or because of her numerous TV appearances, but probably not because she threw a glass of water over Macca's lawyer, er, alledgedly. But the main point, of course (and thank you Dallas), was - what the heck was she wearing?
(*delete as approporiate depending upon your POV)
(*delete as approporiate depending upon your POV)
Once More the Engine of Her Thoughts Began...
For over the past year, John Seavey has been reading through Marvel's Essentials and DC's Showcase Presents reprints in order to examine the title comic's storytelling engine. From classic characters to barely-footnotes, much of the bedrock of Silver Age heroes are represented in the column's archives. [more inside]
Modern Warfare in Kenya...
Very recently the Kalenjin and Kisii peoples of Kenya's Olmelil valley began skirmishing over land disputes. Over 20 people have died so far. This type of inter-tribal unrest is nothing new in Eastern Africa. What makes this particular conflict most jarring to western eyes is that it's being fought with bows and arrows (Time Magazine Slideshow, a forum post with many large images inline, [coral cache of same]). You get the feeling that somewhere in Fresno, California Gary Brechter might be pretty wound-up at the moment...
The Platonic Blow
"A day to blow or get blown." The W. H. Auden poem that was too dirty for the New York Times Book Review. (Not safe for work or good taste)
March 17
Data security breach
If you've bought anything at a Hannaford or a Sweetbay store in the last three months and paid with your credit or debit card, you could be in trouble. Between December 7 and March 10, someone tapped into their credit card authorization datastream. The blackhat stole 4.2 million credit card numbers. Some of those have already seen illicit activity. The Hannaford corporation apologizes for the inconvenience.
Amnesty International, International Committee of the Red Cross Reports on Iraq
Two new reports on our progress in Iraq were released today:
"Five years after the war started, the humanitarian situation in Iraq is among the most critical in the world..." - International Committee of the Red Cross.
"Five years of carnage and despair in Iraq" - Amnesty International. [more inside]
"Five years after the war started, the humanitarian situation in Iraq is among the most critical in the world..." - International Committee of the Red Cross.
"Five years of carnage and despair in Iraq" - Amnesty International. [more inside]
Taking aim at ESPN
Sports Business Journal has a detailed look behind the buzz over "The Emperor’s New Clothes: How ESPN’s Multi-Platform Strategy Hasn’t Improved Ratings," a sharply critical PowerPoint presentation making the rounds of sports league offices and advertising buyers in recent months. A good read for folks interested in the business of sports, decreasing TV ratings for many leagues, the blurriness of the ad/news line and the difficulty of measuring eyeballs across media. [via Romenesko]
Little Minx' Exquisite Corpse
the eyes of every man riveted upon her
she turns back and faces forward, at peace
she walked calmly disappearing into the darkness
without missing a beat, she asks, "Waffles for breakfast?"
she stares longingly at what she has lost
five short films from little minx.
she turns back and faces forward, at peace
she walked calmly disappearing into the darkness
without missing a beat, she asks, "Waffles for breakfast?"
she stares longingly at what she has lost
five short films from little minx.
"Camels are just like humans."
"It's just like judging a beautiful girl," said Fowzan al-Madr. "You look for big eyes, long lashes and a long neck." The art and science of Saudi Arabian camel beauty pageants. More Riyadh market photos here. Lots of information about Dromedary (Arabian) camels here and here. Listen to Dromedary camel sounds and read about Saudi camel history at this site.
New prestigious Arabic award for fiction
IPAF (International Prize for Arabic Fiction) is a new prestigious $50,000 literary prize managed the Man Booker Prize in London and sponsored by Abu Dhabi's1 crown prince of the United Arabs Emirates. The inaugural winner was announced on March 10: Baha Taher's Sunset Oasis (shortlist). English translations appear to be unavailable although some are in the works. This is the first international prize for Arabic literature, and it has stirred up some passions. [more inside]
He looks great for a 70-year-old.
Danny Boy by the Muppets
Scaring the Vote out of America
3 A.M. calls to the President aren't so dire afterall. A brief history of recent middle-of-the-night phone calls to the President.
"A case of unusual autobiographical remembering."
51-year-old Brad Williams, a radio anchor in La Crosse, Wisconsin, can “recall the most trifling dates and details about his life….[n]ame a date from the last 40 years and, after a few moments, he can typically tell you what he did that day and what was in the news.” Brad has Hyperthymesia, a condition where the affected person has incredible recall of the most trivial events in his/her life. Neuroscientist James McGaugh and others at the University of California, Irvine, are studying Williams for clues as to his remarkable abilities [video]. Williams (aka 'Google Man' | video) vs. The Internet [video]. His brother, Eric, is working on a documentary about Brad – Unforgettable [trailer].
It's a me, out-of-context Mario!
Something "special" in the air?
Woman sues American Airlines for not preventing in-flight masturbation. Oh sure, they can tell breastfeeding mothers to cover up, but when it comes to American Airlines and a fellow passenger ejaculating into a sleeping female passenger's hair? No problem!
Michael Bierut on typography
Michael Bierut Talks Typography with ‘The Atlantic’ "In a video interview with The Atlantic, Michael Beirut talks about typography, including Stanley Kubrick’s favorite font, the cover design of The Catcher in the Rye, and the link between phototypesetting and Free Love." (8 min) via
Your obligatory drunken-them St. Paddy's day post
50 Animals with Drinking Problems Also, 50 Animals with Day Jobs, 50 Animals Driving, and the apparently related 50 Animals in Casts [Previously] Via
Death From Above
The U.S. Military's Assassination Problem: "Software like 'Bugsplat' is supposed to keep decapitation attacks precise. So why do we keep blowing up Iraqi wedding parties?" [more inside]
Songs to Drink By
While your enjoying your beer why not watch some Irish Drinking Songs such as: Drink the Night Away, Old Dun Cow, Johnny Jump-Up, and Another Irish Drinking Song.
And for any inebriated geeks out there tonight, A Jedi Drinking Song, and the Prequel
Linguistics Humor in The Simpsons
For Sale: One Life, Used
Ian Usher's divorce prompted a decision to sell his entire life to the highest bidder. You can buy his life for A$230,000: clothes, home, vehicles - even his job & friends.
Son of God, King of the Mosh Pit
I shot Saint-Exupéry down
I shot his plane down. First his fighter plane was just lost under unknown circumstances during WWII. People speculated on a possible suicide of the writer. Then his golden armband was found by a fisherman in the sea. Then the plane of well known french writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was found in the mediteranean.
Now 88 year old journalist Horst Rippert, who was a fighter pilot during WWII, admits that he shot down Saint-Exupéry and that he regretted this his whole life.
Prolonging the Battle
The hidden factor in Hillary Clinton's rebound: committed Republicans voting in open primaries who want to prolong the messy battle for the Democratic nomination, encouraged by right-wing radio hosts like Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh. Or is Hillary just suddenly more palatable to conservatives than multi-culti Obama?
If your company has more VPs than it does bathrooms, you’re in trouble.
Dadhacker started his game programming career, like many people, by making a freeware knockoff of a popular arcade game. This got the attention of Atari, who hired him to do the official conversion of Donkey Kong, then Super Pac-Man. After the crash of 1983, he survived a round of layoffs, and was pushed into the development of the Atari ST along with a group of programmers and executives from Commodore.
Thirsty For Creativity
Playing with Dictators
Playing with Dictators - an editorial on the New York Philharmonic's decision to play a concert in North Korea. One musician's account of the performance.
Ola Brunkert, ABBA drummer, dead at 61
Ola Brunkert, drummer for Swedish pop superstars ABBA, dead in tragic accident.
Attend Gym to Enhance, not Escape, other Subjects
Circuit relays, fulcrums and pulleys support not just exercise, but concepts in science and social studies, thanks to an innovative gym teacher. [more inside]
March 16
An ironic infestation of Japanese beetles
Young Americans are leaving the city to return to the land, and the New York Times is on it, well the Style section is covering the trend. Is this just some fashion trend or are these the young Americans Emerson was looking for? [more inside]
Where's my parachute?
Fasten your seatbelts. Late Sunday Evening, JPMorgan announced it would be buying Bear Stearns for $2 per share, less than 1/10th the traded value on Friday. The move was backed by the Fed, which assumed most of the risk, and simultaneously cut the rate for borrowing by a quarter percent. According to Alan Greenspan, the US now faces the worst financial crisis since WWII. Monday looks like a wild ride.
Learnding
Questionaut is a charming flash application from the very talented Amanita. Kotaku jokingly calls it a 'Juvenile Timewaster', but how juvenile is it?
Crash Flash Quick Metal Bubble Heat Wood Air Crash
Crash Man beats Flash Man beats Quick Man beats Metal Man beats Bubble Man beats Heat Man beats Wood Man beats Air Man beats CRASHMAN!!!
(ad infinitum)
Paz sin fronteras
Peace Without Borders. Colombian singer Juanes put together a concert calling for peace, as a result of the recent crisis between Colombia and Ecuador (and tangentially, Venezuela). Remarkably, it was held from the bridge between Venezuela and Colombia, in what is normally a very problematic border, and it featured the great Carlos Vives, the Dominican Juan Luis Guerra, and others. [more inside]
One of the most depressing videos you will ever see
Bulgaria's abandoned children. This heartrending BBC documentary visits a home for abandoned children in Bulgaria; they are left there by parents who can't - or won't - take care of "defective" children. But poor nutrition and uncaring workers have turned it into a hell on earth for the poor kids as they waste away; some are never taken off their toilets, some are left in bed until their limbs atrophy. Many cannot speak. Only one can write. Most just sit and rock for hours because of the lack of stimulus.
Very hard to watch.
SHRED AFRICA!
HMAS Sydney and Kormeran found
Sailing from Sumatra back to Fremantle in November 1941, the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney encountered a Dutch freighter off the West Australian coast.
The freighter turned out to be the disguised German mercantile raider Kormoran.
After an ensuing fight, the Sydney went down with all hands, the reasons for which have been debated ever since.
First the Kormoran, then over night the Sydney have been found by research organisation, Finding Sydney Foundation.
Essays on writing by various tv and movie writers
An essay by Bill Lawrence, creator of "Scrubs," on why he writes. It's part of a series: "Why We Write." [more inside]
On Skid Row
On Skid Row is a five part video series about Skid Row in Los Angeles from GOOD Magazine.
Introduction, Kids, Drugs, God, Afterword
via y2karl's earlier via
The Jefferson Bible
Thomas Jefferson so wanted to fix what he thought was wrong with religion that he rewrote the Bible. He went through and cut out the parts that he liked most and pasted it to a fifth volume. He cut out Miracles. He cut out the Christmas story. He cut out most of the Easter story. Resurrection is gone. Wikipedia. previously
The Geometry of Music
The connection between mathematics and music is often touted in awed, mysterious tones, but it is grounded in hard-headed science. For example, mathematical principles underlie the organization of Western music into 12-note scales. And even a beginning piano student encounters geometry in the "circle of fifths" when learning the fundamentals of music theory. ...according to Dmitri Tymoczko, a composer and music theorist at Princeton University, these well-known connections reveal only a few threads of the hefty rope that binds music and math.The Geometry of Music
See also The Geometry of Musical Chords - Dmitri Tymoczko, Science 7 July 2006: Abstract
See also Dmitri Tymoczko, Composer and Music Theoristvia [more inside]
The Wonderful World of Snus
This Is 'Snus'. Snus is a form of smokeless tobacco with a very long history in Sweden. Snus is gaining a bit of popularity in America; both Camel and Marlboro are launching their own brand. It is touted as a more discreet way to use tobacco in the wake of increasing bans on smoking, especially bacause it does not require spitting. A few Swedish compaines, such as Northerner and BuySnus.com ship it worldwide affordably. The Anti-Tobacco crowd is already manning the trenches and claiming that Snus is as dangerous as any other tobacco. However, the science that has been done to date appears to reach a very different conclusion.
Dean Potter walks the line (and then jumps off)
"He had learned this extreme form of tightrope walking from a homeless man who wrote books on quantum physics." Iconoclastic rockclimber Dean Potter combines highlining, a form of tightrope walking, with BASE-jumping. This jaw-dropping video of Potter "baselining" 900' above a canyon in Utah provides a taste of what to expect from The Aerialist, a recent documentary profiling this insane lunatic innovative athlete. [more inside]
Vintage photography from China and Australia
Two historic photography collections from Sydney's Powerhouse Museum:
The Tyrell Collection - glass plate negatives from the Sydney studios of Charles Kerry and Henry King from 1884-1917 depicting a local record of the times; and the Hedda Morrison Collection - photographs from China, 1933-1946. The collection also includes personal papers and objects, such as Chinese papercuts, belt toggles, and photos from a 1930s-era folk festival in Germany.
KITTY!!!!!!
Nyanko The Movie 2. I've been thinking about ordering this, but I'm afraid it'd be my own personal Infinite Jest. It's a movie about cats. [more inside]
Moko Saves the Day!
Lifemeter
Do you like video games? Art about video games? Comics about video games? If yes, Lifemeter may be for YOU! [more inside]
Christvertising
We believe that nothing is possible without the Lord's blessing and consent. Your product is no exception.
March 15
Arabian Nights
Ladies, have you ever dreamt of being whisked away kidnapped by a dashing young Prince? Or being swept off your feet and losing your virginity to a dark and mysterious stranger, who happens to be a Sheikh? Or how about being sold to an Arab aristocracy and living off the rest of your days in married bliss. No? Then how about considering a Royal who is so down-to-earth you won't meet anyone else quite like him? Much better than the alternative of marrying his polar opposite, don't you think? Of course, you can always try and keep it platonic if you wanted to. Welcome to the wonderful world of Sheikhs and Desert Love, where all of your fantasies can come true! (via)
epilogue
20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time from Blender Magazine. "They include MCA Records’ decision in 1989 to pass on a Seattle upstart band called Nirvana while also betting big on “Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz,” the debut album of a hair-metal band called Pretty Boy Floyd."
“An Efficient Representation for Sparse Sets”
An Efficient Representation for Sparse Sets. Or, Using Uninitialized Memory for Fun and Profit [more inside]
Digital telepathy?
Nerve-tapping neckband used in 'telepathic' chat A neckband that translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals has been used to demonstrate a "voiceless" phone call for the first time. Video. The technology has previously been demonstrated for guiding a wheelchair with thoughts. Company website.
Notch tubing without a notcher.
Cope pipe without a jig. Enter a few parameters and get a pdf that will give you a printable pattern that will allow you to notch tubing for welding or brazing to another pipe.
"Just go to Gooniizu. I love Gooniizu."
English As A Second Language: "In which our heroine helps a Japanese friend find where the Goonies lived. Sort of." A recent essay from Emily's World, a biweekly column written by Emily Maloney, at The Smart Set.
Plagiarize a Presidential Candidate
Cleanup in aisle... ummm... oh, pretty much all of them.
Finnish supermarket dominoes. (6 1/2 minute SLYT post)
Our Feature Presentation
If you had HBO in the 80's, you saw this every night at 8pm. HBO put together a brief behind-the-scenes featurette showing everything from the construction of the models to the composition of the music.
Denny's Saved by Googie
A recent decision by the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board has saved an abandoned Denny's restaurant from the wrecking ball. On closer inspection the restaurant represents Googie-style architecture which was considered futuristic in the 60's.
Granted it's not on par with the future of today. But there are some appealing offshoots in North West modernist designs. (Googie previously here).
Human Rights
No, FIRST come the murders. THEN comes the film.
Usually, movies based on serial killers are made long after the crimes are committed. This could be the first film inspired by someone who didn't begin killing serially until more than a decade after the movie was made.
Angry in pink
It started in 2006 as a small group of women angry at corrupt officials in the Banda district, Uttar Pradesh (the Indian state that brought you Phoolan Devi). Led by a former tea vendor, Sampat Devi Pal (badass, Magnificent 7-like picture here), the Gulabi gang counts now hundreds of women, dressed in fluorescent pink and ready to use their lathi to fight corruption, domestic violence, child marriage and the many other ills that affect their society.
McClellan Street.
"These photographs of McClellan Street by David and Peter Turnley, taken in 1972-73, help us understand how America came to be the country that it is today." — John G. Morris
The intoxicatingly beautiful vocal music of south India
Queens of Carnatic singing: Nithyasree Mahadevan: 1, 2 and 3. Sudha Ragunathan: 1, 2, 3 and 4. And the legend of the legends, M.S. Subbulakshmi, in her film appearances from decades past: 1, 2 and 3, and as an elder stateswoman of Carnatic vocal artistry: 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Massacre at Pinkville
40 years ago tomorrow, more than 500 villagers were raped, tortured, and slaughtered (disturbing images) by American soldiers in a hamlet nicknamed Pinkville. Four Hours in My Lai tells the story. Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. [more inside]
Artists in Action
Drawing Superheros... Youtube videos of comics artists sketching and inking. Direct links: John Romita and Joe Kubert, John Buscema and Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Gibbons and Travis Charest.
Don't Look Now!
Meooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow
Cat + Airplane + Parachute [video]
March 14
Overthinking a platter of Beethoven
An analysis of 376 recorded performances of Beethoven's Eroica (Symphony #3), broken down by such variables as the age of the conductor, length of the recording, and tempo variations. [more inside]
Oratory, Politics, and Video
If one can look past the Obama/Political filter, here is a fascinating series of debates between two masters of the ancient art of oratory. The setting: The 2004 Illinois senate race. The participants: Barak Obama and Alan Keyes, (who are about as different as politicians get in the US). The arguments: various subjects of national interest such as the war in Iraq, the 'axis of evil' and world diplomacy', gun control, legislative experience, and abortion, trade, poverty and globalism. [more inside]
The Cowboy Junkies revist their most popular album
Back in 1987, the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies recorded The Trinity Session (which featured their one big hit, Sweet Jane), ). To celebrate the album's 20th anniversary they brought a few fellow musicians to the church where the album was originally recorded to see what 20 years experience would do to the same set of songs. Here's a video from the session, with Natalie Merchant on backing vocals. [more inside]
Somewhere, Richard Feynman is smiling.
Swinging from pendulums and facing down wrecking balls, MIT professor Walter Lewin shows students the zany beauty of science.
Just what it says...Map My Run
This is very beautiful, and yet very untrue.
Dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do
Was today's Champion's League draw a set-up?
A-one and a-two and a-chicka booma chick!
Bert and Ernie perform "A Divine Proclamation for Finishing the Present Existence" by Last Days of Humanity. Turn your speakers down if you're at the office. [Single link, YouTube.]
So raise your glass high for tomorrow we die
For the fourth single off their second album, My Chemical Romance shot a World War II mini-movie^ that was turned into the video for The Ghost of You. Fast-forward to MCR's third album and a fan-made animated storybook video that continues the story from The Ghost of You video, incorporating the plot from the concept album Welcome to the Black Parade^, and set to the song Mama. Fans are sometimes pretty awesome.
asleep at light speed
I See Dead People's Books
I See Dead People's Books (wiki) is an impromptu project by LibraryThing members to catalog the libraries of famous dead people, from Tupac Shakur to Ernest Hemingway to John Adams. Many more in the works, anyone is able to create a dead library with all the attendant features of LT.
Visualize this...
Dozens of the web's best visualization tools. Neat choices include TuneGlue's music map using data from Amazon and last.fm, Packetgarden's weird world grown from your websurfing habits, Akamai's real-time network visualization, the many widgets of last.fm, the hypnotic maps of the mood of blogs from We Feel Fine, the beautiful galleries of Visual Complexity, and a neat list of tools for drawing diagrams. [some prev]
They're judging your hardbone.
Lost! On an island!
While watching LOST, did you ever think, "Boy, what this show needs is an 80's-style theme song?" If so, you're in luck.
pee in this!
Federal Court rules Drug-Free Workplace Laws are unconstitutional. A federal appeals court ruled Thursday a city can't require all job applicants to be tested for narcotics and must instead show why drug use in a particular job would be dangerous. Decision here (warning PDF)
Brok en Pip e l ine
An unprecedented five consecutive years of stagnant funding for the National Institutes of Health is putting America at risk - a few prominent research institutions get together to voice their concern over flat funding of the National Institutes of Health over the past 5 years, in their report The Broken Pipeline (pdf). Bloggers comment [1, 2, 3].
"An execution is an execution."
Mecca's Executioner. A 2006 interview with Abdullah Bin Said al-Bishi, a man who wields his sword as one of Saudi Arabia's official executioners. (11:30 minute .wvx Windows Media file or written transcripts.)
March 13
7 new mortal sins, per Vatican
He’s really excited about that girl.
Are you an ArcheTYPE or a StereoTYPE?
Typematching: Can Mistral find love with Papyrus? Who cares? Scroll down to find out which of these 6 stereotypical fonts is your type...
"But...but... I can't be Comic Sans!!!"
"But...but... I can't be Comic Sans!!!"
The Next Bubble
The Next Bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow's big crash. A layman's primer on the genesis and future of today's economic troubles, at Harper's Magazine.
Tell the Truth nigga'
- Bin Laden by Immortal Technique
- Cowboy (Ode to Dubya) by Peggy Watson
- Good Ol' Jesus by Thom Paine, Woody Guthrie and Kevin Kane
- Georgie Porgie by Linda Finkle
- American Two Step by William Shatner and The Everly Brothers
- Holdin' Out by Strangegirl
- Girly-Man Rag by Steve Zimmerman
- I Don't Like Bush by Brett Eidman
- Great Big Lies by Dumb Presidents
I Am The Eye In The Sky
Discoveries made using satellite imagery,
particularly via Google Earth, have made headlines in the blue and green before. Increasingly high-resolution photos, combined with obsessive
interest, have lead inevitably to the next step: interpretation
and analysis of spots on the Earth's surface for which information is
restricted, censored, or classified, such as the preparedness of military defenses in
North Korea and Iran, or the viability of Saudi Arabia's next big oil play. Of course, not all mapping is benevolent.
Time Banking
Enjoy volunteering? Time banking allows you to get something back for your efforts. It's even the official currency of the micronation Lovely.
Via
Indigenous Australian Dance Ceremonies
Aboriginal dance (also known as a corroboree) helps indigenous Australians to interact with the Dreamtime through dance, music and costume. Many ceremonies act out events from the Dreamtime. Many of the ceremonies are sacred and people from outside a community are not permitted to participate or watch. However, there are many ceremonies we've been allowed to witness (here's one of my favourites). And there's plenty of related pictures available at the National Museum's website. Naturally, any indigenous Australians reading should note that these links may include images or names of people who may now be deceased.
Big Deke
He is a sports character for the ages. At 41, he is the NBA's oldest active player. Number two all time in blocked shots, he is probably best known for his trademark finger wag and unimitable deep gravelly voice. His current team's 20 game win streak has led him to gleefully suggest that their critics pucker up. [more inside]
If it really works, it's the coolest audio production tool ever.
Celemony are a bunch of crazy German software engineers known best for making Melodyne, a family of top of the line pitch correction tools. Apparently they've recently figured out how to do what they do with polyphonic audio.
I can't begin to explain how cool this is. Just watch the video.
Phoenix, a robotic spider
Phoenix is sort of a robotic spider, except for the minor detail of only having six legs. It's self-contained, and remotely controlled using Bluetooth. The movements are calculated using an Excel spreadsheet, and it moves beautifully. (via)
Sushi Mommy Ray?
(Yayoi) Tsushima, a bassist; Ma(ri), a guitarist; Mi(zue), a drummer. Mix 'em up (mamire) and you get Tshusimamire or Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re or TSMMR or つしまみれ, infamous and rocking female Japanese combo. The real deal -- good singing and playing in tight arrangements that turn on a dime, mixing surf, psychobilly, funk, grunge, traditional Japanese melodies, and more. [more inside]
Japanese pets do it XTR33M.
Lady Pirates and Fruit Machines
Widely Ranging Interests is a weekly podcast where two guys discuss their favorite obscure and arcane topics, from sea kayak marlin fishing to the history of the balaclava. Addicting.
Merry Christmas.
Bacon lollipops. That is all.
Winter Soldier
Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan. "Like Vietnam vets did decades ago, a group of soldiers are poised to speak out about atrocities they say the U.S. committed in Iraq and Afghanistan."
1,000 Albums to Hear Before You Die
1,000 Albums to hear before you die compiled from The Guardian's assorted music reviewers (assisted by readers who then told them which ones they missed). You won't want to be planning to expire any time too soon with these to get through.
Things you never thought you could do with your camera
One of the most amazing user-led projects out there, CHDK firmware turns cheap Canon cameras into photography powerhouses. You can take take time-lapse movies as in this stunning sunset example; automatically photograph lightening; easily make pretty HDR images and stereograms; have unlimited depth-of-field; and, perhaps most impressively, take photographs with shutter speeds of 1/60,000 of a second!
Time-Lapse Digital Cartooning
Ever want to watch a comics page get drawn at ridiculous speed? I've been reading Mer's comics since day one, but seeing an entire strip drawn and inked as a movie is almost better than watching an animated cartoon. [more inside]
Commie Kids Telly
One rather strange minor cultural phenomena you experienced as a kid growing up in 60s and 70s Britain was a number of television programs that originated from beyond the Iron Curtain. Most infamous was the downright scary The Singing Ringing Tree from East Germany (Radio4 doc), later spoofed by the Fast Show but there were several others... [more inside]
LOLa-Sperma-palooza-toza
"We need sperm donations... you need festival tickets... wanna strike a deal?" Ireland wants your sperm.
March 12
Sandals, socks, and dudes
Can you save Polaroid?
Save Polaroid The Polaroid company announced last month that it will stop making instant film next year. Save Polaroid is lobbing Fuji Film and Illford to license the instant film technology and save the product. For a good link about the history and current state of Polarod watch this video by Michael Blanchard.
Brain Stem! Brain Stem!
"How many brain scientists have the chance to study a stroke from the inside?" In 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor did (previously), and she recently gave a moving TED talk on her experience. If that merely whetted your appetite for more brainy videos, check out the complete archive of UCSD TV's Grey Matters, a series of lectures on the brain. And for dessert, The Parts of the Brain, as performed by Pinky and The Brain. [via Neurophilosophy]
The Biggest Threat to Our Nation
An anti-gay rant for the ages. By an American state rep. In 2008. Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern told fellow republicans at a private audience that the homosexual agenda is destroying the nation and that gay people are a bigger threat to our national than terrorism. And that no society that has embraced gay culture has survived. And much more. Well, doggone if these things don't get leaked and find themselves online. Have a few links to the videos and coverage. There are some rumors that Kern has a gay son, but who knows? For her part, Kern says that her remarks were misconstrued and that she is "not going to apologize for standing up for God's word."
Move over please
Here Come the Fleas by White Noise (myspace), a.k.a. David Vorhaus, from Electric Storm. From same, My Game of Loving and The Visitations (spooky).
How else are we supposed to grade all these papers?
"By their drugs shall ye know them." I always thought that nootropics would change the face of the academy, but it turns out scholars are getting high on Adderall. Is that so bad? Well, it's an addictive amphetamine, and it's supposedly cheating when students to take advantage of chemical assistance. Plus, boredom is good for you. [more inside]
golden ratio in the amen break
The Amen Break and the Golden Ratio by mathematics educator and author, Michael S. Schneider. Schneider, having already researched and written about the golden ratio extensively, noticed it right away when hearing the the amen break for the first time (amen break previously on the blue). While some composers have been known to intentionally incorporate fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio into their works, perhaps this is just another one of the many instances of the ratio showing up in nature.
standing too soon, shoulders high in the room
Live right now NPR is broadcasting REM from SXSW along with sets from Summerbirds in the Cellar, Johnathan Rice, Papercranes and Dead Confederate.
A Day in the Death of...
CSI Baarle
Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau has been previously mentioned in MeFi. A historical quirk and geographical jigsaw, these days the complicated border criscrossing this Belgo-Dutch town had become little more than a tourist attraction.
What happens, however, when a dead body is found, and nobody knows in which country it lies?
Meet your new weblog overlords
Sweet not-so-Baby James
The press want something that'll sell copy. They pick up on the mental hospital, family stuff, try to invent some category of rock that I belong to, or perhaps they pick up on my drug problem. But it gets to the point sooner or later when you start to think about your kids: "What does your daddy do for a living?" "He plays the guitar and he talks about his drug problems." It's embarrassing to read the drivel that comes out of your mouth sometimes. So I guess maybe the question is, why am I doing this in the first place? And honestly, I suppose I'm doing it because I'd like to promote my record. -1979 .
James Taylor is sixty today.
A Galaxy of Would-Be Toys
Bantha slippers. Han Solo in Carbonite Mini-Fridge. And the Death Star Grill. ("Use the awesome power of the galaxy's most fearsome battlestation to send burning fear into rebel scum burgers and franks!") Just a few rejected designs for Star Wars merchandise. [Via].
When keepin' it real goes wrong
You stay classy, San Diego. A television reporter and an anchorman engage in an embarrassing on-air pissing contest in the middle of a newscast.
The Great Blizzard of 1888
According to the breathless headline in the New York Times, it was "THE WORST STORM THE CITY HAS EVER KNOWN. BUSINESS AND TRAVEL COMPLETELY SUSPENDED. NEW-YORK HELPLESS IN A TORNADO OF WIND AND SNOW WHICH PARALYZED ALL INDUSTRY, ISOLATED THE CITY FROM THE REST OF THE COUNTRY, CAUSED MANY ACCIDENTS AND GREAT DISCOMFORT, AND EXPOSED IT TO MANY DANGERS." It became known as The Great Blizzard of 1888, and it occurred on this date, March 12, 1888. [more inside]
The Sound Of Clothes
The Sound Of Clothes features the precise sound of fashion materials such as feathers, sequins, glass crystals and beads, nylon, taffeta, leather, velvet, jacquard, zips and metallic chains, recorded in an anechoic chamber. Videos linked from the page might be NSFW.
4 a.m. Jump
It's 3 a.m., on some date in 1975, the white line is wavering in front of your amphetamine bleached eyes, your rig is barreling through the high plains north of nowhere and you won't see your woman for three more days, what 8-track do you need to get you through the night? Why, Country Porn, of course.
Linked page is mostly safe for work, but NSFW audio files, and some text [more inside]
Linked page is mostly safe for work, but NSFW audio files, and some text [more inside]
R.I.P. Gus Giordano
The Red Detachment of Women
I'm not the world's biggest ballet fan, but there's just something about seeing Chinese ladies doing their plié and their relevé and their pirouettes while pointing rifles that speaks to something deep and primal within me. It's The Red Detachment of Women, of course. And comrades, you are urged to view it in its entirety. [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
Database of 30 years of Adverts/Graphic Design
The Gallery of Graphic Design has a huge collection of magazine print adverts from the 30s to the late 60s. The images are fairly large and organised/searchable by year, product, magazine and advertiser. [via]
Sabar Toubab
Ashley Maher is a Canadian singer living in Santa Monica, but her music comes straight from Senegal. She also dances a mean sabar (YouTube link).
A Video Movie Could Improve Your Life
My favourite singer is actually really, really good
Israeli-French singer Yael Naim, recently featured in this Macbook Air commercial, might just be the Next Big Thing. A little bit of soul and a little bit of folk have snagged her Album of the Year in World Music at the annual Les Victoires de la Musique French music awards this year. She currently only has two English songs released - one of them an absolutely lovely song entitled New Soul with an equally charming music video, and the other a slow and jazzy rendition of Britney Spears' Toxic, finally somewhat redeeming that song. Official Site.
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-T-A-C-H-E
What that advert needs is a good moustaching. And what this site offers is inexpensive stick-on 'staches to do it with. Sadly, only for use on ads, not real faces.
Pulp Fiction Cover Art With Girls.
Good Girl Art is defined as "A cover illustration depicting an attractive young woman, usually in skimpy or form-fitting clothing, and designed for (mild erotic interest)[sic]. There have been several prior posts on pulp fiction cover art (1, 2, 3); this site focuses on the "good girls" usefully organized into categories such as "Swamp Babes", Ringside Jezebels, Crazy!, Vietnam Vixens, and Peeping Toms. via
"When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
David Mamet: Why I am no longer a 'Brain Dead Liberal'. "The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side—but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler. Happy election season."
March 11
Jegog - The Balinese bamboo gamelan
Jegog (Suar Agung) the first
Jegog (Suar Agung) the second
Jegog (Suar Agung) the third
Sekaa Jegog Yuskumara - Balinese gamelan music
Sekaa Jegog Yuskumara in the Tropenmuseum [more inside]
Jegog (Suar Agung) the second
Jegog (Suar Agung) the third
Sekaa Jegog Yuskumara - Balinese gamelan music
Sekaa Jegog Yuskumara in the Tropenmuseum [more inside]
The Gloria Tapes
In 1975 a young divorced mother named "Gloria" volunteers, in an attempt to find some answers to the problems in her life, to be videotaped being a client to three rather new psychotherapies: Person-Centered Therapy, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and Gestalt Therapy. Not only is she filmed participating in each therapy, she receiving the therapies from the respective founders of each therapy, Carl Rogers (Part 1, sadly it's cut short), Fritz Perls (Part 2), and Albert Ellis (Part 3). They all take the time before each therapy to explain their methods and there beliefs and how the therapy will go.
Linux radio show
LugRadio is a fortnightly British radio show that takes a relaxed, humorous look at Linux and open source.
Cirque du Swan Lake
Haiku + Movie = Haikuvie
Lumbergh and the Bobs
bring layoffs and misery
white collars, dark times
- An excerpt from the "Office Space" Haikuvie. What's a Haikuvie? A Haikuvie takes a movie and sums it up in 7 haiku. It is an attempt to capture the essence of the film and mix in bits of commentary and humor along the way. Warning: Haikuvies contain spoilers (if you haven't seen the movies).
bring layoffs and misery
white collars, dark times
- An excerpt from the "Office Space" Haikuvie. What's a Haikuvie? A Haikuvie takes a movie and sums it up in 7 haiku. It is an attempt to capture the essence of the film and mix in bits of commentary and humor along the way. Warning: Haikuvies contain spoilers (if you haven't seen the movies).
It's always funny until you're the one being made fun of
"We need to make a comic so I can eat lunch." You're in your office sitting at your desk. There's a hot mic in the room. It's 45 minutes 'till lunch, your tummy's grumbling and you still have to write a comic. Fortunately your best friend -- who is also the co-founder of your decade-old business empire -- is sitting at his desk a few feet away. You are "Gabe" or "Tycho" of Penny Arcade, and the next 45 minutes will be captured on tape and published for all the world to hear as a podcast. But only if it's good. "Downloadable Content, The Penny Arcade Podcast" is practically a documentary on collaboratively authoring webcomics. The most recent episode is a particularly good example of that. [more inside]
Pardonnez-moi, je suis fou
Mark Boyle should either take language lessons, read some Peter Jenkins, or wear a better jacket...and yet he blames it on the French!! [more inside]
Little Walter makes it to heaven
Little Walter ushered into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame As I heard about the entry of Madonna, Leonard Cohen, the Ventures and the Dave Clark 5 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yesterday, one name way at the end of the list brought music to my ears. Little Walter Jacobs was only the best blues harmonica player ever to come out of Chicago from the Delta. Ever. Period. He has influenced everyone you every thought was a good blues harmonica player. [more inside]
Zen on the 2nd floor of a Richmond BC mall (reservations required).
According to the recently published book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, the best Chinese restaurant outside China is Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine, tucked away on the second floor of a mall along a section of Richmond, BC (a Vancouver suburb) that's known by the Chinese community as Eat Street. [more inside]
Hack and slash
Remember old D&D? What, 3rd edition? Pah! Not 2nd edition AD&D either, nor 1st edition. Not even "original" Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal. I'm talking really original D&D, based off of Chainmail wargaming rules. OD&D! Read about it at Delta's D&D Hotspot, which discusses the development of a game system that is almost 35 years old. [more inside]
It's Like the 1890s All Over Again!
William Howard Taft by the The Two Man Gentlemen Band. More videos here, here, here, and here.
Their website also has a pretty funny "Dear Internet" section, offering their quasi-Victorian views on modern life.
Shane Acker's "9" Gets Big-Screen Treatment, Dialogue
In 2005, Shane Acker released his student film, the atmospheric, masterfully animated "9" [10 min video], to critical acclaim. In 2006, the film toured with The Animation Show. Now, Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov and a couple other familiar folks will be helping Acker bring a feature-length adaptation to theaters later this year. [more inside]
Dave Stevens Dies
Dave Stevens died yesterday from leukemia, a disease he had been battling for some years. Stevens is best known for his comic The Rocketeer, with its lovingart deco tribute to pre-WWII nostalgia. He also re-introduced the world to the great Bettie Page.
Second to the right, and straight on 'til morning.
Bicycles + Coffee, Together Forever
The Tipping Pot
The Tipping Pot "Created for St. Patrick's Day, a gritty British take on the Guinness Tipping Point ad"
Not Hobbits, Just Shorties?
A South African paleoanthropologist on vacation on the island of Palau in Micronesia has discovered thousands of bone fragments of very small people estimated at between 900 and 2900 years old. He and his colleagues have just published a paper on their findings, which would appear to damage the claim that the bones discovered on Flores Island, Indonesia in 2004 and attributed to homo floresiensis (or "Hobbits") were not a unique and extinct branch of the human family, but rather pygmy-like peoples. However it also knocks a hole in the claim that the Flores bones were merely all unusually small humans suffering from microcephaly due to iodine deficiency. Naturally, the scientists who originally discovered the Hobbits on Flores aren't too thrilled about either of these theories. (Previous discussions here and here)
Lawmakers consider outlawing 'next marijuana'
"On Web sites touting the mind-blowing powers of salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the hallucinogenic herb are accompanied by warnings: 'Time is running out! ... stock up while you still can.' That's because salvia is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana....Among those who believe the commotion over the drug is overblown is Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit group that does research on psychedelic drugs and whose goal is to develop psychedelics and marijuana into prescription medication."* "Salvia Divinorum is a small leafy green plant found primarily in the Mazateca region of Mexico. Sometimes called 'diviner's sage' the plant was traditionally used by indigenous peoples as a healing and divinatory aid due to its unique properties when chewed or smoked. When consumed in this manner, the active ingredient, Salvinorin-A produces psychedelic effects in the body ranging from mild to extreme."* [previously - 1, 2]
Why don't you haul off and love Bullmoose Jackson
Another King Records RnB artist covered by The Aerosmiths is Cleveland's own Bullmoose . Jackson. Here's Jackson's original recording of Big ten inch record (1952). [more inside]
View from across the pond.
British Political Cartoonists have always had a certain "edge". Also seen here,
and again here.
The UK Guardian's cartoonist Steve Bell (each cartoon has its related news story) was first noted for his cartoon "If.." starting pre Falkland's war, and starring a cast including God, Margaret Thatcher and a Penguin.
Here is some of his earlier work.
Political Cartoon history
includes A Cartoonist's response to the events of 9/11 by Martin Rowson, also from the Guardian.
New Trade Theory
Where no economist had gone before . Paul Krugman posts a type-written paper on interstellar trade which he wrote as "an oppressed assistant professor" in the '70s. I do not propose to develop a theory which is universally valid, but it may at least have some galactic relevance. [pdf link]
The Next Man On The Moon Will Be Chinese!
Inspired by the staccato brilliance of political bitch-fest The McLaughlin Group, rocker Andrew W.K. has composed a song (direct mp3) based on a particularly scattered exchange. Here he is explaining the process on the public radio show "Fair Game." The song has already sponsored a video tribute. [more inside]
Doing More With Less: In Defense of Creative Loafing
Doing More With Less: In Defense of Creative Loafing I’ve been on unemployment three times in the past six years. Each time was better than the last, and each time I stayed on until the last cent was exhausted. I didn’t even try to get a job; it was a paid vacation. This is somewhat unusual from what I can tell. There’s a deep vein of antipathy in this country toward collecting checks from the government, especially in precincts that tend to skew rightward. Politicians imply that it’s un-American for an individual to milk the government, all while jacking up corporate welfare for their campaign contributors. And your uncle who cheered at the end of Easy Rider? He insists that if he had to obliterate 40 years of his life punching a clock, why should you goddamn hippies have it any better?
Do you have what it takes to be The Guy?
I Wanna Be The Guy is an insanely addictive and sadistically difficult independently developed video game that takes you on a wacky romp through some truly brilliantly designed stages. Along the way you have to best gaming history's most perilous adversaries, like a Giant Radioactive Zangief. [more inside]
This is a baseball writing thread
John Rawls gives six reasons why baseball is the best of all games. Marianne Moore's "Baseball & Writing." John Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu." [more inside]
Streaming audio from former Soviet Georgia.
Streaming audio of traditional music from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. This is some of the strangest, most haunting and blissed-out singing you can hear on this planet. (And check out those swell outfits, fellas!) [more inside]
Who thought cancer could be so beautiful
Prussian black
One day in 1999, Alex Sabac el Cher, a retired German textile salesman opened his door to a historian who had a painting to show him and a few questions. Preußisches Liebesglück ("Prussian love bliss"), a 1890 painting of two lovebirds, an African officer of the German imperial army and his young red-headed bride, was perhaps an allegory of (color-)blind love, but also an actual moment of happiness in the Sabac el Cher family history, that started in 1836 with the gift of a young Nubian boy nicknamed August "Good morning" to an exiled princely murderer and became interwoven with German history. Bonus: First 10 minutes (in French) of a documentary about the Sabac el Cher.
Being alone and dead as an acceptable lifestyle choice
Life and death of an urban recluse Odd and beautiful newspaper story.
YouTube as Art
The paintings on Nerdkore by Jeremiah Palecek started when he asked readers "What should I paint today?" and they responded. The result (so far) is a bunch of famous YouTube videos captured in oil on canvas, showing stills from some all-time favorites (techno viking, grape stomp, etc oh and NSFW on the oldest entry at the bottom of the page). (via Josh Spear)
Tim Wise on Obama and Race
Obama and Race:
"In short, the success of Barack Obama has proven, perhaps more so than any other single thing could, just how powerful race remains in America. His success, far from disproving white power and privilege, confirms it with a vengeance." Tim Wise, an American anti-racist activist, writer, and author of White Like Me, has published two new essays about Obama, racism, and the 2008 election bid. More can be found on his official website.
Errol Morris Talks With Werner Herzog
Slavery in the North
Slavery in the North is a website covering the 200-year history of slavery in the northern colonies in what would become the United States.
Иванов Иван Иванович
John Ivan NN Janez Sultano Bērziņš "John Doe" around the world.
BP doesn't like identity "correction"
Oh dear. Robert White at BP's Legal Department doesn't like the Yes Men's immaculately executed spoof of BP's corporate site. The Yes Men pursue the tactic of "agreeing their way into the fortified compounds of commerce", and their apology is most agreeable. Is humorous exposure of "monstrous crimes" more effective than its humorless exposure, or all a bit too subtle to be effective?
Can $650 in dinner drinks buy a Neutral Point of View?
[Former Novell chief scientist] Jeff Merkey,... claims [Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy] Wales told him in 2006 that in exchange for a substantial donation from Merkey, he would edit his uncomplimentary Wikipedia entry to make it more favourable. Merkey made a $US5000 ([AU]$5455) donation in 2006... around the same time, Wales personally made changes to [Merkey's Wikipedia] entry after wiping it out completely and ordering editors to start over.But it's all in a good cause, to keep Wikipedia ad-free, right? Well, no, according to Danny Wool, Wales's former "right-hand man" at Wikipedia: Wool says Wales used the contributions to pay for, among other things, Russian massages and as much as $650 on wine for a dinner for four, while Wales traveled at Wikipedia's expense. And though Wikipedia paid his expenses, Wool claims that Wales kept the proceeds: "At one point [Wales] owed the Foundation some $30,000 in receipts, and this while we were preparing for the audit. Not a bad sum, considering that many of those trips had fat honoraria, which Jimbeau kept for himself."
Pyow-pyow
March 10
Romance tourism and the modern woman
Romance tourism, with predominantly middle-aged heterosexual white European and American women looking for younger black men, is flourishing. Short TV documentary on the phenomenon; long documentary taking issue with the hijacking of Rastafarianism by the "Rent-a-dreads"; comedy skit on rent-a-dreads, complete with offensive finale; Grenadian newspaper article blaming HIV spread on sex tourists; discussed by academics; and don't forget the classic film portrayals in How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Vers le Sud/Heading South. [more inside]
Revenge of the Experts
Revenge of the Experts. The individual user has been king on the Internet, but the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward edited information vetted by professionals. "Fueling this is advertising revenue, it is easier to woo advertisers with the promise of controlled content than with hit-and-miss blog blather. 'Nobody wants to advertise next to crap' ".
No more Anonymous AskMe questions?
Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Ban Anonymous Internet Posting. This bill is pretty much a nonstarter, but should online defamation be criminalized? [pdf]
From Abati to Zoppio: historic Italian texts
OPAL Libri Antichi from the University of Turin offers over 3,000 books as free, open PDF files. Most of these date between AD 1500 and 1850 and most are in Italian, with many in French. They tend to be plain books with few illustrations. A few English titles are present, including David Hume's 1800 Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul; several texts by William Wycherley such as Love in a wood: or St. James's-Park (1735); and Richard Lassels 1686 work The voyage of Italy: or, a compleat journey through Italy with the characters of the peaple, and the description of the chief towns ... (volume 2) - an early travel guide. The PDFs are unsearchable plain scans. via this thread in the W4RF forum which contains hundreds of links to free online historical documents
A tribute to the Corsetiere
Corsets - a very comprehensive collection of information about foundation garments. The site is generously illustrated, so it may be NSFW.
OMG what did you do to my brain?
Disturbing on many levels
"It's the first time since Japanese Internment that we've imprisoned children" -- from a post displaying a letter written by a 9 year old Canadian.
Button fly
Remember the old days of the web, where insane collectors cataloged their manias for the world to see? Where terrible design, including "portals" belied neat things kept by amateurs?
I stumbled onto these bank logos via Ffffound and thought they were neat examples of two-color design. But the primary focus of the site is buttons like these.
Also collected: Maritime flyers, Ads for button suppliers, sample cards… All sorts of stuff.
I stumbled onto these bank logos via Ffffound and thought they were neat examples of two-color design. But the primary focus of the site is buttons like these.
Also collected: Maritime flyers, Ads for button suppliers, sample cards… All sorts of stuff.
Can I Get A Napkin Here?
Can I Get a Napkin Here? A food court musical brought to us by the fine folks of Improv Everywhere . For more musicals in public places, check out "Reach! A Lecture Musical!" and "Reading on a Dream: A Library Musical" both from Prangstgrup.
The Wire's over. Sheeeeit.
One Last Long, Boozy Irish Wake for David Simon’s Accidental Masterpiece. New York magazine calls the finale of The Wire "an almost absurdly exhaustive festival of closure," has shot-by-shot commentary on the final montage, and lists ten questions left unanswered [spoilers a go-go] [more inside]
Remember Total Information Awareness?
Two years ago, then NSA-chief Gen. Michael Hayden said its domestic surveillance program was "not a driftnet over Lackawanna or Fremont or Dearborn, grabbing all communications and then sifting them out."
Today, a story in the Wall Street Journal alleges this is precisely what is happening. Total Information Awareness seems to not have died, but to have just been quietly absorbed into the NSA's already extensive surveillance apparatus, all without the hassle of any kind of transparency or oversight.
The takedowns were for free whores.
Bah doo day, oh what a girl
Someone asked "What does it take before a song becomes a pop standard? Four generations? Five?
The Train Kept A Rollin' is a garage rock classic, but the original by Tiny Bradshaw (rec. 25-jul-1951 -- sax solo: Red Prysock) was played in a very different style. So who was Tiny Bradshaw? And what about all those covers? [more inside]
The Train Kept A Rollin' is a garage rock classic, but the original by Tiny Bradshaw (rec. 25-jul-1951 -- sax solo: Red Prysock) was played in a very different style. So who was Tiny Bradshaw? And what about all those covers? [more inside]
Leoncie's Healthy Dynamite Music
I first stumbled across Leoncie in open-mouthed disbelief about two years ago. When her website disappeared I imagined that we'd lost her forever, but last month she returned with her own YouTube channel.
While our unfiltered, unmoderated internet has pushed a lot of "outsider art" into the mainstream, Leoncie has remained firmly stuck in obscurity; maybe these gobsmackingly low-rent videos will change that? Until today, I'd only been able to imagine the full glory of songs like Radio Rapist, or the beguiling Man! Let's Have Fun, or indeed the frankly exhausting Invisible Girl. But Sex Crazy Cop and Killer In The Park, with their carnivalesque spin on the grim world of law enforcement, are probably my favourites. Astonishing.
Frightening new military technology
Presented in a way that is familiar to gimmicky kitchen appliances, this frightening weapon can fire 120,000 rounds per minute without a human operator. It makes no noise or flash, and can be mounted anywhere and is operated remotely. [more inside]
Obama supporter shocked to see herself in Hillary ad
Obama supporter shocked to see herself in Hillary ad. "Especially because she's a fierce supporter of Barack Obama." "But the young girl starring in the ad will actually be voting age next month and says she's no fan of Hillary Clinton." The footage is another example of the risks of using stock film or images to convey an advertising message. The footage comes from Getty Footage Stock. FYI that footage prices out at around $ 2,500 for national advertising usage. {via}
Machine Gun Flashlight
If you're anything like me, at least one out of every three times you've had to use a flashlight, you wished you could machine gun someone to death with it. Well, friend... your prayers answered!
my grandma married an engineer, so did my mom, oh and I'm one too
Islamic terrorists are more likely to be engineers than members of any other profession--and not because engineers possess superior technological skills. That's the conclusion of a controversial Oxford University study that has the engineering community buzzing. (PDF)
The study's disturbing finding blames what it calls a universal engineering mindset, which it describes as one drawn to structure and rules plus clear, single solutions to complex problems. When coupled with the harsh realities of life in many Islamic countries, terrorism can be the result, the study says.
~ Via EETimes [more inside]
What About Bob Ostertag?
w00t is a 50-minute collage piece by Bob Ostertag, using sounds and music from 18 different videogames. It's a lot of fun to listen to, and it's freely available and downloadable, as are a bunch of other albums of his.
Vertigo comics plagiarism scandal!
Plagiarism scandal rocks DC's Vertigo line. A comics blogger has discovered shocking evidence of theft in Fables, Y: The Last Man, Sandman, and other major Vertigo titles. (Via Comics Should Be Good!)
US Presidential Greatness as a Function of Experience
That which we call a fart by any other name would smell as acrid
[NSFW, except in the can] The Barn Owl Fart - A familiarity with owl calls is helpful in identifying this fart. Almost any morning if you get up just before daybreak you can hear one of these birds talking to himself. It's a sort of a crazy laugh, particularly the way it ends. If you hear a fart that has about eight notes in it, ending on a couple of down notes, and it sounds maniacal, you have heard the rare Barn Owl Fart. [more inside]
Etch-a-Sketch Clock!
March 9
mobile homes built without nails
Chattel houses were very small houses, built by freed slaves or plantation workers, that could be dismantled quickly and moved in the event they were fired or unable to pay property tax to the plantation owner on whose land the house stood. Examples in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad l Sunday 25 March 2007 marked 200 years to the day that the British Parliament passed an Act to outlaw the slave trade in British colonies. [more inside]
Greetings, Children...
Captain Disillusion has created a series of videos that provide a skeptical analysis of sensational viral videos. One in particular, “Gas Station Ghost RECUT” addresses an unusual image caught on a gas station surveillance camera.
New York, New York - It's a hell of a town!
The Battery's Down is a new musical web series about an aspiring New York actor, Jake Wilson - ostensibly playing himself. Written and directed by Wilson, it also contains cameos by Broadway actors - and feature songs composed by up-and-coming musical theatre composers (each song is also available for download). [more inside]
Things Vital to the Honor of Human Life
The editor of the New York Times Book Review asks "do others have favorite signature passages in books they love — a sentence or two that seem to convey the essence of a complex, beautiful work?" after giving his own example from To The Finland Station. Hundreds respond, often with some wonderful passages (as well as some not so wonderful ones). Any examples from the hive mind?
Bloggers in Parliament
This year's elections in Malaysia are historic due to the major wins by the Opposition/People's Front and the National Front's loss of 5 states and the 2/3 majority in parliament (one they've held since 1969) (comparisons). Two of the newly elected Members of Parliament are bloggers Tony Pua and Jeff Ooi; another blogger, Elizabeth Wong, has won a seat in the state assembly of the now-Opposition-run Selangor. This is significant, as Malaysian bloggers had been under attack by the government. (last link YouTube video in Malay with subtitles).
A Thin Blue Line
The Whedon cultist block vote swings it
Commemorating the Holodomor
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor. The Holodomor was the starvation of millions of Ukranians at the hands of the Soviets. The Ukranian government is using this year to push for greater recognition for the genocide. Ukranian communities in Australia, Canada and all over the globe are holding events all year in the lead up to this years Holodomor day on November 25.
Everyone's angry, it seems
"AngryJournalist.com, an increasingly popular site that consists of nothing but rants from pissed-off reporters, is now the most accurate summation extant of journalism as an industry," (via Gawker). It's spawned a marvelously less popular HappyJournalist.com, and what appears to be an unrelated copycat called AngryResident.com, for "for every doctor-in-training tired of suffering in silence."
G-Archiver discloses username/password
G-Archiver is a windows shareware app that backs up your gmail account to your local harddrive. it also does something far more sinister: it emails your username and password to the creator of the program. (via)
Crap. No Snake Eyes!
Arelia Margarita Taveras “made a name for herself representing the families of victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in New York City's borough of Queens in November 2001, killing 265 people.#+ Her practice had 400 clients and earned her $500,000 a year.” She claims that she sought to relieve the pressures of her work by gambling in Atlantic City and Las Vegas over the past few years. She lost $1 million and was disbarred as a result of stealing money from clients [PDF] in order to support her gambling addiction. Taveras also lost her own home and that of her parents (who mortgaged it to support her debt). Taveras owes the IRS $58,000. In response she has filed a $20 million racketeering lawsuit in federal court against six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas, “claiming they had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off.”
Electoral Geography
Had enough election coverage this year? If not-- or if you forgot that countries besides the USA have elections too-- you can see details of elections the world over via Electoral Geography 2.0. Browse elections in chronological order or by country, or read scholarly articles on various elections. Not comprehensive (yet!); in general, the more recent, the more coverage.
Something to Watch While You're Procrastinating
Free drugs for all!
Drugs in the water A new Associated Press study finds that "A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans." Surely, though, the detected quantities are far too small to have any effect on the public. Maybe not - "scant amounts may exert powerful effects". Also: "What makes pharmaceutical pollution so worrisome is that the usual safeguards that protect us from bacteria and toxins, fail to rid sewage of these chemicals." [more inside]
Where is the Ludacris-free zone?
The ever-wonderful Strange Maps blog comes up with the goods again: Area codes in which Ludacris claims to have 'hoes'. "I’m a female and a feminist. I dislike the usage of the word ‘ho’. However, as a geography major, I find this song hilarious, and had to map it,” says Stephanie Gray, referring to Area Codes [NSFW] by the rap artist Ludacris... In this song, Ludacris brags about the area codes where he knows women, whom he refers to as ‘hoes’,” says Ms Gray, who plotted out all the area codes mentioned in this song on a map of the United States. She arrived at some interesting conclusions as to the locations of this rapper’s preferred female companionship."
Would you like a mint? They're wafer thin.
Have you ever wondered how much a hamster can store in his cheeks without exploding? Smoke will show you. (Single link YouTube post)
Drilling to start in the Falkland Islands, Argentina not impressed
The Great Falkland Islands Oil Boom The inhabitants of the Falkland Islands are preparing for a South Atlantic oil rush which they hope will make them among the richest people in the world. After 10 years of frustrating delays since oil fields containing up to 60 billion barrels of "black gold" were discovered off the islands, oil companies are planning to start drilling within the next 12 months. It may also go down as the catalyst for the "Second Falklands Island War".
The great Great WHITE
The banjo's great great grandaddy.
So, you hollow out piece of wood into an oblong bowl shape, and you attach a dowel to it. Stretch a dried animal skin over that, and put some strings on it. Instruments of this general construction and in a range of sizes can be found from Morrocco to Nigeria and everywhere in between. It goes by any number of local names: Malian masters like Bassekou Kouyaté and Cheick Hamala Diabaté call it ngoni. Senegalese Wolof griots like Samba Aliou Guissé call it xalam. And Morroccan gnawa musicians like Hassan Hakmoun and Hamid El Kasri get way funky on the larger version that they call the gimbri or sentir. [not: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
Coal and Steam
The World's Fifty Best Works of Art?
The World's 50 Best Works of Art (and how to see them) in the opinion of critic Martin Gayford. [more inside]
March 8
Stanley Kubrick Revealed
The Hidden Stanley Kubrick. In the nine years following Stanley Kubrick's death on March 7, 1999, several of his collaborators have written and spoken about their experiences working with this notoriously reclusive filmmaker. Their reminiscences shed light on aspects of Kubrick’s family life, private thoughts and work habits, and make for fascinating reading and viewing. Those who've shared their reflections include Michael Herr (co-screenwriter, "Full Metal Jacket"); Leon Vitali (actor, "Barry Lyndon" and Kubrick's personal assistant for nearly 25 years);
Ian Watson (credited with the "screen story" for "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence"); and
Brian Aldiss (who helped to develop the story for "A.I."). Peter Bogdanovich gathered together the impressions of others who worked with Kubrick on various projects over the legendary director's career. [more inside]
Warning: this FPP may cause seizures.
The new video, "Run", from R&B group Gnarls Barkley (best known for their ultra-popular and painfully ubitquitous 2006 hit song "Crazy") has been banned from MTV for failing the Harding Test, a set of criteria determining the likelihood of video material triggering seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy (PSE), approximately 1 in 6000 people*. The video is now circulating online. [Watch at your own risk. May cause seizures.] [more inside]
Can scientists dance?
Can scientists dance? "No one quite knew what to expect as the lights came up on a pair of astrophysicists dressed as binary galaxies. The rowdy audience of scientists exploded with applause. The world's first Dance Your Ph.D. Contest was off to a good start."
It's me, Dave... open up, man, I got the stuff!
[Rated NSFW, depending on where you work] | I got a Basketball Jones. (original animation) | D-A-V-E!! Open up! | Earache? Earache, my eye! | class...? Class...? | HardHAT! This is Codename Hardhat! | Ralph and Herbie | Where there's smoke, there's Cheech and Chong! [more inside]
"I'm so grateful for getting shot out of the sky"
Stranded on the island of New Britain during WWII, Fred Hargesheimer was rescued by native islanders, who hid him for 8 months from occupying Japanese forces. Fred never forgot the kindness he received, and in 1960, he used his family's vacation money to return to the island to personally thank the people who saved him. Thus began a 48 year relationship between Hargesheimer and the people of New Britain. [more inside]
Interactive 3D concept mapping...does your brain work like this?
Family Tree of the Greek Gods is a site using a visual organizer (now in beta) called Spicy Nodes. They call it a "natural and inviting" way to present information in "nuggets" that move in virtual space as you view them one by one. Another example: Daylight Savings Time.
Watch Lists
ACLU Watch List Counter: U.S. Terror List Now Exceeds 900,000 Names. That's an awful lot of terrorists. More Privacy and Surveillance Filter: Bruce Schneier on The Myth of the 'Transparent Society', Glenn Greenwald on The Banality of the Surveillance State, and Stephen Colbert on AT & Treason. [more inside]
& Teller
Horselover Fat and the Big Pink Light
The Religious Experience oof Philip K. Dick, as drawn by R. Crumb for Wierdo #17.
The Muslim Jesus
The Muslim Jesus, an ITV documentary on google video. 45 minute run time.
For The Bible Tells Me So
The Embarrassment's celebrity art party
"Here's Where The Magic Happens"
"And by magic, I mean me drinking a lot of coffee and not bathing for days while sitting in my PJ's and drawing comics until the wee hours of the morning."
Gasp at comics creator Mike Allred's lovely home! Admire artist Stuart Immonen's tastfully furnished work area! And marvel at writer Mark Waid's piles and piles of comic crap! Click the [more inside] for more studio tours guided by your favorite funnybook creators! And Mark Millar, too! [more inside]
I fell in love with an assassin
They met on a train and fell in love. Then Jason P Howe discovered that his girlfriend Marylin was leading a secret double life – as an assassin for right-wing death squads in Colombia's brutal civil war.
Ouch
I honestly do not remember a time in my life when I didn't have headaches Wilco's Jeff Tweedy discusses his lifelong battle with migraines, panic attacks, depression, drug addiction, and the influences of all on his music.
Uncle Dirty (NSFW)
Uncle Dirty is a fascinating photo essay about a photographer's strange uncle who has lived 86 years obsessed with bodybuilding, penises, and thongs. Not safe for work, but not too crazy, the photos really humanize someone you'd probably cross the street to avoid in real life. (via mjj/blort)
It's not funny!!
Carbohydrate Loading
A Summit of 57 State Leaders doesn't happen every day.
Leaders and Representatives of 57 Islamic countries (one exception is Mr. M. of Pakistan) and other dignitaries (including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon are meeting in Dakar, Senegal from March 8th-14th (link to flash video)
for the 11th summit of the organization of the Islamic
Conference. The OIC "combine their efforts and
speak with one voice to safeguard the interests and secure the progress and well-being of their
peoples and of all Muslims in the world." Topics to be discussed at the summit
also include
brokering a peace deal between Chad and Sudan .
Some of Dakar's residents1 (2, both in French) are not happy about the summit. [more inside]
Gonzo Game Journalism
Gaming journalism at its silliest. What do you get when you have the designer of Grim Fandango and Psychonauts Tim Schaefer play a game that you make up on the spot? Text based adventure hilarity. More of the same feature here.
I know a bot
But what about the micronauts?
Ancient Astronauts. Pretty much says it all.
March 7
Mars Ain't The Kind Of Place To Raise Your Kids
A "no-return, solo mission" to Mars? The comments - 179 of them as of the time of this post - are even more interesting than the article.
KudzuRunner's Blow Out Harmonica Lessons Sale - 'Folks, He's Giving Away The Store!!!'
Well respected as a player, instructor and scholar, Adam Gussow teaches blues harmonica online at Modern Blues Harmonica. For a fee.
On YouTube, as KudzuRunner, he also gives lessons. For free. He's put up around 145 videos now--145 videos with like about a million hits in return...
via Tom Muck's Blog
On YouTube, as KudzuRunner, he also gives lessons. For free. He's put up around 145 videos now--145 videos with like about a million hits in return...
via Tom Muck's Blog
Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai
Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis. Psychology Professor Benny Shannon speculates that Moses may have been tripping when he saw God on Mount Sinai. [Via Mind Hacks.]
I&I Space
Each of the following MySpace Music pages features bios and/or photos and/or videos and/or miscellaneous related materials and/or up to six songs by each of the following old school Jamaican Reggae and/or dub artists: Alton Ellis, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, The Wailing Wailers, Big Youth, Dennis Brown, Mikey Dread, The Meditations, Leroy Brown, Mad Professor, Augustus Pablo, Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, King Tubby, The Abyssinians, Everton Blender, Bunny Wailer, Prince Alla, Israel Vibration, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Shinehead, Jah Ruby, Carlton Livingston, King Jammy, Duckie Simpson, I Threes, Judy Mowatt, Sly and Robbie, Barrington Levi, Yellowman, Delroy Williams, Wailing Souls, Earl "Chinna" Smith, Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace, Burning Spear, Max Romeo, Black Uhuru, Leroy Sibbles, Ijahman Levi and Earl Cunningham. [more inside]
Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival
This year's winners of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival's annual haiku contest were recently announced.
No Limb-its.
Dustin Carter persevered and became a wrestler after he contracted a rare blood disorder which took all his limbs. His training is impressive.
004
"Hendon's library's opening hours have been cut, a cafe has taken the place of part of the fiction section, and a computer learning zone has replaced the periodicals room. When I complained, a local councillor wrote back to say that he did not feel that the cut in opening hours was a great hardship for anyone."
The Guardian writes on the long slow death of libraries.
The Guardian writes on the long slow death of libraries.
I like my games with less emotions and more robots and wizards.
Settlement in case of child who developed autistic symptoms after being vaccinated
Hannah Poling is a nine year old girl with mild to moderate symptoms of autism, which developed three months after she received vaccinations. The Department of Health and Human Services announced that her family will receive a settlement from the vaccine compensation fund. Autism activists are encouraged, but the DHHS officials insist they are not admitting a link between autism and vaccines and maintain that for most, vaccines are safe. Rather, they say, the series of vaccines Hannah received exacerbated an underlying mitochondrial condition, causing the symptoms of autism. [more inside]
Hot off the presses, books printed, while you wait.
Would you like a latte while I print that up for you?
The Espresso Book Machine (previously) that was in the New York Public Library has just moved to the Northshire Bookstore in Vermont. The beta versions of this portable book-making machine are pumping out paperbacks around a book a minute at the Open Content Alliance, The Library of Alexandria, The New Orleans Public Library, and the University of Alberta. The mass produced commercial version of the machine is scheduled to roll off the assembly line within the year and will be priced between $50,000 and $20,000. Combined with one of these, publishing as we know it may never be the same. [more inside]
Still kicking
Buster Martin is an old man. This 101 year old Brit intends to run the London Marathon. He is, as you may guess, the sprightliest centenarian you've ever seen. Last year, after leaving a pub, he was jumped by some hoodlums, but managed to beat them off when he "pushed one and kung fu kicked the other." [more inside]
Genocide Chick or Genocide Chic?
Harvard Professor Samantha Power's book A Problem from Hell is on syllabi across the country, and is the bible of humanitarian hawks who decry our failure to intervene in the Rwandan or Sudanese genocides. As one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors, she's getting a lot of press for her positions: pro-intervention, obviously, critical of Israel, pro-UN, pro-internationalism, and, perhaps unsurprisingly given her husband's role in ignoring the Rwandan genocide, anti-Clinton.
Oil Tops Inflation-Adjusted Record Set in 1980
Oil Tops Inflation-Adjusted Record Set in 1980. Normally this would slow economies and thus slow demand for oil, forcing OPEC to loosen supplies, but things seem different this time: "we now have an oil world in which the impact of high oil prices is only really felt in the OECD countries" - high demand from China, India are keeping prices high, even as OECD economies slow. [more inside]
Grievous Angel
Gram Parsons fans take note - there's a recent new biography and a release of 90 minutes of vintage Flying Burrito Brothers. Some rare footage has also recently surfaced online: performing with FBB and duets with Emmylou Harris 1, 2, 3. Other items of note: Emmylou talks about Gram in 2000; British biographical sketch; Keith Richards on Gram in Rolling Stone; an interview with Manuel, the designer of the famous Nudie suit. [more inside]
We are the footnotes of footnotes
Short and sweet game
A nifty one minute "personality video game" shows the unique approach to gaming taken by Cecropia, whose first effort, the highly-praised "The Act" was an interactive sitcom of sorts that was controlled with a single knob. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, Cecropia never could find a market for an intelligent coin-op game with a single control in 2007, so The Act was canceled.
Possessed, A Short Documentary About Hoarders
POSSESSED is a short documentary film that 'enters the complicated worlds of four hoarders; people whose lives are dominated by their relationship to possessions'.
"Chicks with Shticks?" Really?*
Symphony in Beer Minor
If you who hear a symphony each time you open a beer, here's a little Friday fun.
(Check out the 'Behind the Scenes' video too.)
NB: Flash and music.
(Check out the 'Behind the Scenes' video too.)
NB: Flash and music.
iPhone SDK details
Extensible applications such as Firefox appear to be banned by Apple's iPhone SDK license agreement: No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)… An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. An Application may write data on a device only to the Application's designated container area, except as otherwise specified by Apple. Applications may only use Published APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any unpublished or private APIs.
Geek Pop 08 Science Songs
Geek Pop '08. Online science music festival at the Null Hypothesis science blog, with mp3 downloads. Featuring the immense Dark Matter by Johnny Berliner. [more inside]
March 6
Moby Grape Just Can't Catch a Break
From The Mike Douglas Show circa 1967: Moby Grape - Omaha & 8:05
From somewhere else circa whatever: Moby Grape - Hey Grandma & Sitting By A Window
And, you can hear, albeit with registration, three free songs at Wolfgang's Vault: Moby Grape Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco, CA 02/26/1967 [more inside]
From somewhere else circa whatever: Moby Grape - Hey Grandma & Sitting By A Window
And, you can hear, albeit with registration, three free songs at Wolfgang's Vault: Moby Grape Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco, CA 02/26/1967 [more inside]
Move, Shoot, and Communicate
Warrior Writers express themselves using Combat Paper made from their old military uniforms. FAQ. Videos. An associated RI art show has its opening reception tonight. Sunday night there’s a program as well at The Beat Museum in San Francisco.
Don't Panic
Fantastic Plastic Machine
Fantastic Plastic Machine wants to take you to the disco, shop at Louis Vuitton and tell you the time. Don't forget the toy trains. [more inside]
A PT Anderson Joint
Grand Canyon Blow Out.
The U.S. government flooded the Grand Canyon yesterday in the hopes of restoring the ecosystem. Some environmentalists disagree.
Dancing Queens
The Gayest Songs of All Time. To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Sydney's Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, the Australian LGBT social networking site SameSame asked its members to vote on the campest of classics. [more inside]
Victor Bout, the Merchant of Death, has been caught.
NYT Article The man who served as inspiration for the 2005 Nicolas Cage's 2005 flick "Lord of War," arms trafficer Victor Bout, has been arrested in Thailand. [more inside]
Eco-Crime of the Century?
American Airlines flies plane with 5 passengers from Chicago to London. Friends of the Earth charges Eco-Crime. The airline explains. Climate skeptics are skeptical. (previously)
Pedal digital transfer
When the wire won't carry your subversive tract, distribute your digital screed via flash drive. Last month, students at a prestigious computer science university videotaped an ugly confrontation they had with Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Assembly. Mr. Alarcón seemed flummoxed when students grilled him on why they could not travel abroad, stay at hotels, earn better wages or use search engines like Google. The video spread like wildfire ...[passed via flash drives]... and seriously damaged Mr. Alarcón’s reputation in some circles. [more inside]
Hanzo the Razor,
Hanzo the Razor (not to be confused with Hattori Hanzo) is the title character of a Jidaigeki film trilogy. Like Tom Laughlin and his Billy Jack films, Shintaro Katsu both produced and starred in the low-budget movies. Each story has Hanzo bringing down corrupt politicians with his special blend of booby traps, rape and torture.
Reviews of the trilogy can be found here and here.
UK May Shut Down Jodrell Bank Observatory
Jodrell Bank observatory may shut down according to a UK funding proposal (via Bad Astronomy). The observatory is comprised of several radio telescopes including Lovell, the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world. The proposed budget cuts would save the UK £2.5 million per year. Perhaps Lovell can be converted (again) to an outdoor movie screen.
I don't want you to feel alone.
Dad, do you ever wish you had diabetes?
3d graphics in Excel
small is beautiful!
Blosxom is an ultra-lightweight piece of blogging software that uses the existing structure of a file system to index and date your posts. The program itself weighs in at a scale-tipping 16.4 kilobytes, and does everything you need to tell the world about your navel. And for those things it doesn't do, there are plugins. At the other end of the weight scale is the >160 page annotated source code.
Ten Years in Jail for Selling Lightbulbs
Smile kids!
Kids on Aciiiiid! In order to protect her pupils from internet pervs a British headmistress has censored photos on the school's website by slapping smileys all over them. The result is like some combined fever dream of Chris Morris and Banksy.
Liam Finn and EJ Barnes on Letterman
Shiiiieeeet
The Wire's War on the Drug War
By Ed Burns, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon
On The Fence
On November 24, 1874, Joseph Glidden was granted patent number 157124. The invention decribed within is the subject of striking images, body art, and painfully bad movies. Yet, the history of barbed wire is interesting enough to warrant multiple museums.
That doesn't sound like I remember it.
If You Brought Your Partici-pants, You Better Put Them On!
God's Pottery is described on their website as "a Christian acoustic duo formed to spread the Word while addressing the issues facing today's Youth and the Spiritual Community at large." But actually, they're one of the funniest new up and coming musical comedy acts, already nominated for an ECNY award in Best Musical Comedy Act. They workshop with the audience to get to know them better and sing songs about Pre-Marital Sex (The Pants Come Off, When The Ring Goes On), Alcoholism (Jesus I Need a Drink!), and they're always playing for Team Jesus. They went to the "Eden-berg" Fringe Festival and even stayed in character when interviewed by ITV2, because they are that good.
Deliberative Dictatorship?
Paradoxically, the power of the Chinese intellectual is amplified by China's repressive political system, where there are no opposition parties, no independent trade unions, no public disagreements between politicians and a media that exists to underpin social control rather than promote political accountability. Intellectual debate in this world can become a surrogate for politics—if only because it is more personal, aggressive and emotive than anything that formal politics can muster.China's New intelligensia [more inside]
Photoshop Disasters
Photoshop Disasters - a showcase for the most egregious examples of Art Direction gone awry. [via mefi projects, some pix nsfw]
The OTHER "I Am Legend" ending
Many reviewers complained about the ending of Will Smith blockbuster I Am Legend. Turns out they shot a second ending.
Salih Korkut Peker, strings man from Turkey.
Whether on fretless electric guitar or fretless Turkish banjo, mister Salih Korkut Peker sounds mighty fine. And here he is again on banjo, getting down on some Turkish grooves with percussionist Gencer Savaş. Sweet! [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
Richard Feynman needs his orange juice
Raise your flag!
March 5
Dear Baroness Von Deletesalot
I wanted to call you tonight. Predictably enough I was in one of those confusing states of mind somewhere between desperation and liberation--too wound up to do anything about my condition. So, me being me, and me being in some city where the street corners don't mean shit to me, I set off walking trying to find God in the neighborhoods or in traffic or in the laugh of some homeless guy. Mainly though, I was trying to get lost... From Letters I Never Sent, a site "for Lovers. Liars. Crybabies. Sweetheats. Strangers. Best Friends. Old Friends. Exes. Enemies. Night Owls. Loners. Inmates. Vampires. Surfers. Soldiers. Jumpers. Writers. Widows. Ballerinas. Bastards. Gods."
Devil’s Pool and daredevils
Taking risks at really large waterfalls: Swimming at the edge of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe with video, closeups here and Niagara Falls Daredevils. [more inside]
Prewar Blues Lyrics & Dylan Lyrics Concordances 'N Stuff
The things I like best about Michael Taft's Prewar Blues Lyrics Concordance, a subsection of T. G. Lindh's Web Concordances of Pre-War Blue Lyrics and Bob Dylan Lyrics, are the listings of the lyrics by singer: A - C, D - H, J - L, M - R and S - Y. And the nice thing about the blues lyrics is you don't need to ask for a log in and password. It 's all right there. Explore and enjoy. [more inside]
Let him in!
Remember Wake Up Cat (or "Cat Man Do"), the animated short about a hungry kitty and his sleeping human by Simon Tofield of Tandem Films? Now Mr. Tofield has made Let Me In available for your viewing pleasure. Mrow.
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who don't vote
Alberta voted on March 3, 2008. Or did it? The record low turnout of 41.3% is causing questions to be asked. [more inside]
Gravityland
Gravityland. Interactive Web TV series. Watch weekly episodes, respond, contribute. Read blog. Add moves to music video. Play Where in the world is Gravityland? Read comic book. Build FAQ. Somehow, it's all related, and all possibility. [more inside]
Lisa Diamond's Place on the Web
"Many women experience a fluid sexual desire that is responsive to a person rather than a specific gender" A description of the topic for Lisa Diamond's new book,
Sexual Fluidity.
While waiting to get your copy of the book, why not read some of her papers? Here's one about young women who identify as lesbians or bisexuals and then change their minds. Was it a phase? (pdf) Here's one about the development of sexual orientation among adolescent and young adult women. (pdf) Here's one containing a new view of lesbian subtypes. (pdf) There are more.
Admiral Fallon
The Man Between War and Peace. "As head of U. S. Central Command, Admiral William 'Fox' Fallon is in charge of American military strategy for the most troubled parts of the world. Now, as the White House has been escalating the war of words with Iran, and seeming ever more determined to strike militarily before the end of this presidency, the admiral has urged restraint and diplomacy. Who will prevail, the president or the admiral?" [Via Think Progress.]
The Condiment Packet Gallery
"Gaze upon my packets, ye savory, and despair." -Saucymandias The Condiment Packet Gallery has hundreds of scanned condiment packets. You can view them by type, brand, or country of origin, or just view them all at once. (Via.)
Is that what's botherin' ya, bunky?
The Curious Cultural Journey of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"
It's all we're skilled in/ We will be shipbuilding
"I can't imagine Americans writing a song like this. It has a grim beauty. It feels pessimistic in one breath and optimistic in another." The Guardian asks musicians about the songs that define what it means to be English. The Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish each get an interview too.
Open wheel racing: IRL and CART unification
Over the past decade, as NASCAR's popularity has grown, and Formula 1 has expanded into new international markets, open wheel racing in the US has floundered along with 2 rival series: IRL and CART. With little sponsorship money, the loss of big-name drivers to retirement, F1 and NASCAR, this year's unification of IRL and CART was a long time coming, and may lead to a series that race fans may start caring about again.
DVblog: video blog for Quicktime movies
Found via these two 1985 David Fincher music videos, but browsed because of a clear tagged interface and some great content, here's DVblog.org.
Officer, arrest that man: he's odd and he's got a camera.
London's Metropolitan police have a press campaign to help us inform on each other identify terrorists. How do you spot your terrorist? Well he could be the one with the camera pdf. Or he could be the one with two mobile phones pdf. Or the one with a chemistry set and a house pdf. Flickr folk have their alternative takes on the poster campaign. Photographer's rights in the blue previously. And the met have already gone to bat against the terrorists an innocent photographer
The Internet is a Copy Machine
"When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied." Kevin Kelly (previously) describes eight "generative" values that increase in value as the price tag on making copies goes down. He also has some advice for creators who want to make money off the long tail. Via
My father, he was a donkey, and my mother was a Brazillian whore.
Skier loses leg in super-G crash
It started with some broken bones and then Austrian skier Matthias Lanzinger had his lower leg amputated yesterday.
Meta Meta Meta
Bert Stern took pictures of Marilyn Monroe over 3 sessions [nsfw] in 1962. They're called the Last Sitting as she died of an apparent overdose 6 weeks later. In February 2008, he recreates the shoot using Lindsay Lohan [nsfw]. Not willing to let a good opportunity to spoof celebrities fly by, Village Voice's Michael Musto recreates Lindsay Lohan's photo session [nsfw].
iPhones at ACU
Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas becomes the first university in the US to give out iPhones to incoming freshmen. Concept videos describing how they will be used here (social), here (academic) and here (overview).
The average person will consume 10,000 chocolate bars in a lifetime.
11 hours, 29 minutes ... That's how long you'd have to play your instrument, if you were a 180lb musician, to work off the calories in a 12-inch Pizza Hut Super Supreme Pizza, (Regular Crust). Foodsel offers a wealth of information about the foods we eat, organized by group, manufacturer or nutrient, with visuals about the exercise needed to work off the calories, and the amount of fat and energy in 7500 different foods. [more inside]
Mars in Pictures
The evolution of Mars imaging from orbit: Mariner 4 (1964), Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 (both 1969), Mariner 9 (1971) (all NASA), Mars 5 (1973) (USSR), Viking 1 (1975), Viking 2 (1976), Mars Global Surveyor (1996), Mars Odyssey (2001) (NASA), Mars Express (2003) (ESA), up to this spy-quality shot of an active avalanche taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005).
Wikipedia page hit stats
Wikipedia page hit statistics (finally).
Gang Memoir Fabricated
Fake Memoir Exposed: Margaret Seltzer, pen name Margaret Jones, wrote a critically acclaimed memoir, Love and Consequences, that was published last week. NPR's "On Point" covered the story, and she gave Penguin an interview.
After seeing a New York Times feature, though, her own sister outed her as a fraud. [more inside]
Alex Dragulescu code art
Biplanes are for sissies
How would the military really kill a giant monster? The excellent Danger Room blog considers the problem in a two part post. Of course, if you want to find out how giant your monster is first, you may want to consult this discussion comparing monster heights.
Hear and Compare Accents of English from Around the World
Sound Comparisons is a database of different accents in English from all over the world. It provides soundfiles and IPA transcriptions of 110 words in 110 separate dialects and Germanic languages closely related to English. Most dialects and languages are current but there are also reconstructions of older stages of English, Scots and Germanic. That makes for 12100 soundfiles that load directly into your browser. The site can be navigated either by dialect or individual word and there's also a handy Google map of all the different dialects and languages. If you've ever wondered what the difference was between a Somerset and a Norwich accent, New Zealand and Australian, Canadian and American or Indian and Glaswegian, Sound Comparisons is the site to go to.
Big book of algorithms
If you could use a great big free handbook of discrete math and algorithms, Jörg Arndt's fxtbook wants to be your friend. Plain text table of contents to whet your appetite.
Swimming upstream.
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism is a book released last month by Tim Keller. Its faired reasonably well (NYT, login req'd), which is interesting, considering the wide success of books preaching the opposite message, as of late (Dawkins, et. al.). [more inside]
Watching Paint Dry
Prof Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan looks at the physics of wrinkles, creases and folds - from the small to the very large (video demos), feeds his venus flytrap, then rides on his magic carpet.
Hacker, inventor, and former Microsoft Program Manager trains crows to do his bidding.
Josh Klein is a novelist, hacker, and inventor whose Crow Vending Machine trains crows to pick coins off the ground in exchange for peanuts using Skinnerian training principles. Previously. So far, he's only succeeded with trained crows and banded crows, but he hopes to teach wild crows to use the device and collect some of the $215,000,000 in change lost in the United States each year. [more inside]
MC5 - A True Testimonial
Here it is, MC5 - A True Testimonial, the controvertial documentary about 'the loudest, the baddest, the most outrageous bunch of get-down white brothers the nation had yet seen.' by David C. Thomas, in three parts. [more inside]
March 4
No Jew will ever set foot in this hotel
Marilyn Manson did it on home. Iggy Pop landed on his feet. Ingmar Bergman was (unsurprizingly) seized with icy terror. Burt Reynolds (surprisingly) not in a car. Paul Krassner epigrammatically. Zsa Zsa Gabor was taken by a god king. And there's Kirk Douglas... Dana Cook of Nerve.com compiles celebrities first times. (Language possibly NSFW)
YouTube War
"I am a master impressionest and I will not dignify that with a response..." Continuing in the vein of posting links to UCB Performers videos. YouTube War is produced and stars Chris Gethard along with Zach Woods. Also created a whole bunch of other shorts, "The Worlds Most Akward Boy": Rides an Elevator, Goes to the Deli, Enjoys a Hot Tub, and many more.
Kaleidoscope toys
Two toys for your general amusement:
China's military budget increases.
China has announced it will increase defence spending by 18% to 417.8bn yuan (US$59bn; £30bn) this year. The US Department of Defense estimates the true figure is at least double that (huge .pdf). [more inside]
I miss underoos
Secret Skin - an essay in unitard theory A joyful essay on superhero fashion via Project Rooftop. Hi Edna!
Obama and his supporters are just pure emotion.....
Derrick Ashong A camera-wielding interviewer collars Mr Ashong in the street and starts to pepper him with questions. The interviewer assumes that his victim's casual appearance—he is wearing a baseball hat, a shell necklace and is chewing gum—betokens an equally casual approach to politics. “Do you have any specifics?” he demands aggressively. “What are their policies?” Mr Ashong delivers a series of carefully argued replies that could form the basis of an editorial in a serious newspaper. Emotional responses count too.
The Ashcan School Photo Gallery
Ashcan School. Gritty, realistic, oddly intriguing. Eighteen photographs of Ashcan School paintings. (From the Detroit Free Press, publicizing an exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts.)
Who's taking up all the space in the freezer?
This meal wasn’t so much a lunch as an act of vengeance. The brave -- or perhaps just lazy -- souls at HeatEatReview sacrifice their tastebuds and stomachs so that cubicle dwellers like me can eat only the finest processed foods at our desks every day. Actually not like me, I'm having another damn salad.
Get Your Red Pens Ready.
We take eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, and soak it in rich, creamery butter, then we top it off with bacon, ham, and a fried egg. We call it the Good Morning Burger.
stardust memories
Fade to black, holding the Democrat lever
Beat Generation Cover Scans
Book nerds everywhere will enjoy these scans of cover art from the works of Beat Generation authors William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and John Clellon Holmes. [more inside]
Jared from Subway? WE GET IT ALREADY. STFU!
People are sick of hearing Jared Fogle's rap about Subway and weight. (Warning: NSFW language) The guys in the video aren't the only ones sick of Jared: Jared Fogle Sucks. If you hate Jared too, join the Jared is Lame livejournal. [more inside]
The Hulk is on the trim side, actually
Marvel vs. the BMI (one-link, but fun.)
Gray Wolf Killed in W. Mass.
Tests reveal that an animal killed in Western Massachusetts was a gray wolf. The species has not been seen in the state for 160 years.
It's college, things happen
Eliza Skinner is well known in New York improv comedy circles for her work with Glennis McMurray in I Eat Pandas, the musical improv duo that does in an hour "what it takes Andrew Lloyd Weber YEARS to do ... crap out a musical from start to finish." The duo have had a tough time getting a TV deal (language NSFW), but Eliza's Internet fame has been growing. In videos from her one-woman show Shameless!, she "puts raw, repellent desperation front and center" as an overbearing mother of a freshman college student and a desperate, ditzy club girl.
Animated Short Movies
"Websites were a wonderful way around the famous museum swamp."
Visual Arts: No Revolution in Hyperspace "A former insider laments the dumbing down of art museum websites." Nice, short overview of art museums and the web with good links.
let's talk about pelvic exams
“Just put your feet up here and let your legs go all floppy. Just flop your knees apart. OK, just relax.” On this week’s episode of CBC Radio's “White Coat, Black Art” [mp3], Dr. Brian Goldman talks to both patients and doctors about that important, intimate, yet often alienating experience called the pelvic exam. In case you’ve ever wondered, “How DO male doctors feel when they do a pelvic exam?”, this show may provide some interesting answers. [more inside]
HP -1
Turn Your Bookshelves into Art
Brilliant bookshelves by color. What's that? You can't find The Scarlet Letter? Did you look under lipstick red? [more inside]
Eat whale and save the planet
Lady Bo and The Duchess
If you've seen clips of Bo Diddley performances from the early 60s, you'll surely have noticed the presence of one or more female guitarists on stage, churning out that chunky six-string rhythm alongside the esteemed Mr. Diddley. Might've been Lady Bo that you've seen or heard, or it might've been The Duchess. Either way, hats off to some fine guitarists: women who filled a job category generally reserved (especially at that time) for the menfolk. [more inside]
The Astrologist who Foretold Hitler's Downfall.
Recently released documents from the British National Archives have unearthed the role of an astrologist called Louis de Wohl. His claim was that, since Hitler consulted an astrologer to determine what to do, he could look at the same star signs and predict what Hitler's actions would be. The Intelligence services apparently did not believe this - but British Security Coordination, a secret propaganda organisation designed to influence Americans to join the war, did see a possibility in this and sent him on a US tour where he foretold Hitler's imminent downfall. He may also have been asked to leak some information which had previously been decrypted from Enigma messages. A BBC Radio 4 interview with historian Christopher Andrew and writer William Boyd (starting 18min 50 sec in) provides more details.
Kickin' it with savate
Born on the streets of seafaring towns like Marseille, savate has evolved into a fighting art that rivals Muay Thai in ferocity and effectiveness. The history channel's outstanding Human Weapon series of videos explores the roots of this martial art. Modern match-ups in the ring range from the sublime to the ridiculous.
"We, having been so nearly destroyed, can use what we've learnt from our destruction to start the world again"
Three award-winning photographers come together to photograph women from around the world, who have been the victims of war, and survived to tell their tale.
My home's in heaven, I'm going there.
No Depression magazine will soon leave this world of toil and trouble. NPR reports that, due to falling ad revenues, the May/June issue of the revered alt-country zine will be the last. The magazine's Web site will remain active, but to what extent remains unsettled. [more inside]
Unclassified Dubya library designs
The George W. Bush Presidential Library : visualizations
Storm Center... uh, that is, Storm Trooper
March 3
Our 8-bit friends
Pants get in the way of disaster. Playing alone because then it ends when I say it ends. No one is there to pick you up. Don't be delicate; fuck me harder. Adam Mathes on video games "I want them to love me as much as I love them and they can't, so I have to fill in the blanks myself." Nestography [more inside]
Where's The Beef?
Where does recalled beef go? Last month, the largest beef recall in U.S. history (143 million pounds) occured after the Humane Society released footage of sick cows at a meat processing plant in California. Before it was recalled, most of the beef had already been sent to school lunch programs and other public nutrition programs.
Yes, a kiss is all of these . . . and more.
"Let us say that you have raveled in a sweet, long kiss. Suddenly, you see your loved one's eyes close as though in a moment of weariness. Gently detach your lips from hers and raise them up to her closed eyelids. Drop a kisslet first on one eyelid and then on the other. Feel the rolling orb quiver under your lips. Then, when you have done this, run your lips down along the line of her nose, stopping at odd times to purse them into a tiny kiss. When you reach the wrinkle of her nostrils, bury your lips deeply into the curve and kiss little niblets into first one and then the other. If her eyes still are closed, repeat the process. But return to the lips."
-- from "The Art of Kissing" by Hugh Morris (1936).
Revised and expanded in 1991 by William Cane. [more inside]
Iceland...
About 10% of Iceland is covered by glaciers. Thanks to the ongoing catastrophy of global warming, we Icelanders have noticed drastic changes in our poor glaciers. On of the more concerned individuals regarding this is the now retired physician Leifur Jonsson, who is seen in this report by National Geographic.
The report does not contain, however, the story about when Leifur almost died on a glacier. In his younger years he got lost in a blizzard, skiied off cliffs and fell 900 feet into the crater of Grímsvötn, an active volcano underneath Icelands largest glacier Vatnajökull.
Decades later, two people, also lost in a blizzard, accidentally drove off the same cliffs, as is reported here. The interesting part is that when they were brought to the Emergency Department of Landspitali-University Hospital in Reykjavik, the physician taking care of the was Leifur...
Greensburg GreenTown
Greensburg, Kansas was destroyed by an F5 tornado in May, 2007. The city council and Governor Sebelius decided to rebuild as a "green" town while Leonardo DiCaprio produces a 13-part series for Discovery channel affiliated (this flier is showing up around Greensburg now) Planet Green in June. [more inside]
Liquid Bounce
At the University of Texas, researchers have produced some amazing videos and photos of liquid bouncing on liquid. This was one of nature.com's Images of the Year for 2007 (picture number 6, in the upper-right corner). The project report, along with pictures and videos, is found on their bouncing jet page, and it's quite extraordinary both for the counter-intuitive nature of the phenomenon and the extremely low-tech production methods. You can even do it at home with little more than a lazy Susan and some silicone oil. [more inside]
titlepage
titlepage passionate conversations about books
Honky Tonkin' on Flickr
A fantastic photoset capturing the life and times of country western artists Carl Butler and Pearl. There are a few people you may recognize as well.
Minimalist Sky Diving
Please refrain from all activity while we re-calibrate the Cojones Scale. (single link youtube post)
Hypertexopia - a sort of new type of Wiki for publishing on the net
Hypertextopia is a hypertext authoring site with some new twists on interface and design concepts. Example stories include The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, The Butterfly Boy by William Vollmann, and others from The Grand Library.
Social networks are like the eye
Blue Brain
Out of the Blue: "Can a thinking, remembering, decision-making, biologically accurate brain be built from a supercomputer?"
Dating with an edge!
Animal magnetism, or testiment to the stupidity of the male species. Rachel Marsden, the right-wing pundit better known in Canada for a series of scandals in her personal life, has apparently had a messy breakup with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Marsden is currently selling off Wales' belongings on Ebay. [more inside]
RIP The King Of Soho
Paul Raymond, billionaire porn baron and property magnate, founder of Raymond's Review bar - the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment", and publisher of such periodicals as Mayfair, Men Only and Razzle that added much to several generations of English gentlemen's education has gone to the great strip-club in the sky.
Snark Kills.
The Gaza Bombshell
Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war.
So's your mother!
History's greatest replies. Any attempt to compile history's greatest replies—or history's greatest anything, for that matter—is fraught with difficulty, so it might be more accurate to refer to the replies that follow as simply my all-time favorites.
Lovelock to planet: Enjoy it, suckers!
Enjoy life while you can. Because we're doomed. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable. James Lovelock is still at it. (Previously.)
Amar Chitra Katha
A collection of comic books,
Amar Chitra Katha is like the American Illustrated Classics, except that the stories are from Indian sacred texts, mythology, history, folktales and legends. It was conceived by Anant Pai. The series has sold over 86 million copies of about 440 titles. [more inside]
"235 clean pairs of underwear to gate 35, please."
They don't come any closer than this. This Airbus 320 came as close to grief as you probably can, striking the wing and damaging it severely on the runway during a stormy, gusty crosswind landing at the Hamburg, Germany airport. Only luck and the skill of the pilots saved the day. Watch at about 45 seconds as the aircraft leaves the runway completely, and then recovers.
This Course Brought to You By....
Lost bag! Reward if found! Returned! But it's a fake! Finally someone took the advice to GYOFB. But it's a fake! Students at CUNY's Hunter College in a class sponsored by the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition produced the blog and related guerrilla marketing activities related to counterfeiting last spring. But "while a television viewer is aware that he or she is watching advertising, those viewing the blog or her posters at Hunter thought they were learning about the experiences of a real student — not a class project crafted by an industry association (that was sufficiently proud to boast about it)." Reports Inside Higher Ed.
They actually read Omnivores Dilemma
Checkout: Where all lanes are open. NYT article article on Walmart's new blog written by their buyers with uncensored commentary on Walmart products. "After heeding the lessons of Wal-Mart’s earlier blogs and consulting with several well-known bloggers from sites like the Huffington Post, the buyers decided the site would succeed only if they wrote in their own voice, free from censorship and corporate review." [more inside]
Watch those feet!
Mocha has his first broccoli (single-link youtube post)
Jeff Healey dies, age 41
Jeff Healey, the blues and rock 'n roll singer best known for his 80s hit Angel Eyes (YT) has died of cancer at the age of 41. [more inside]
James Hewitt Jr
The 'bullet magnet' is back. I can't believe that the British press kept a secret for so long (10 weeks is a miniature eternity in journalist time). It was supposed to last six months... I also can't believe that the odious Drudge has broken yet another big story. Was it all just a PR stunt? [more inside]
March 2
$150 a barrel here we come
A high ranking FARC leader, Paul Reyes, was killed during a Columbian raid into Ecuador. Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, responded and ordered ten battalions to the Columbian border, threatening a key regional ally of the United States. Some think it is just more bluster by Chavez. Meanwhile Air Force 2 is in Aruba; which is just 18 miles off the coast. Also Exxon-Mobil was recently cut off from Venezuela's oil.
Trent Reznor keeps on his promise
Trent Reznor releases a new Nine Inch Nails album out of the fucking blue called Ghosts. The first 9 tracks are free, and it's on The Pirate Bay. The whole thing is $5 (with a slew of other order options) which you can get on their website (which is getting hammered right now), or on Amazon. The digital downloads are 320kbps MP3/FLAC/Apple Lossless. All DRM-free. [more inside]
Now it's dark.
Lost America is a purdy website featuring night photography of ghost towns, urban exploration, decommissioned military facilities, airplane graveyards, and other roadside abandonments of the American west.
How Life is different from Top Gun
After taking possession of a brand spankin' new Boeing 777-300ER airliner, the pilot decided to celebrate by buzzing the airfield, landing gear retracted, at 28 feet above the ground [YouTube]. Killjoy airline executives promptly fired his ass.
NIMH in iambic pentameter
Be off, ye hopeful mouse, but mind yourself;
Icarus were the friend of honeybees,
On borrowed wings he sought his own relieve,
And in the sun of his exub'rant flight,
His friendships' worth was counted not a mite.
A lost play of Shakespeare? No. Even better! An adaptation of "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" in five acts of blank verse. This is why I love the Internet.
Icarus were the friend of honeybees,
On borrowed wings he sought his own relieve,
And in the sun of his exub'rant flight,
His friendships' worth was counted not a mite.
A lost play of Shakespeare? No. Even better! An adaptation of "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" in five acts of blank verse. This is why I love the Internet.
Having only wisdom and talent is the lowest tier of usefulness.
The Hagakure, written by Yamamoto Tsunemoto in the early 1700s, is a guide to being a warrior and servant in a decadent world. It's probably known best to Westerners, at least indie-film folk and Forest Whitaker fans, as being the favorite text of the hero of Ghost Dog. Study it well and you could be as cool as Ghost Dog. (NSFW) [more inside]
Top ten chemistry videos.
Top ten chemistry videos. (Wired, YouTube)
Stylish Blight
Stylish Blight (slideshow of awesome live/work architecture office) The outside says pure urban squalor, while the inside is pure awesomeness. Full story in today's NYT about the project. (via beebo)
Pug.
VVork
VVork is a blog showcasing contemporary art.
AskMe question answered by Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
What do you call two (or more) songs with overlapping verses? I don't know. But here's a great example. (Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Single link youtube post. Enjoyment not guaranteed. Your mileage may vary.)
Open the toast bay doors, HAL
Probably no one really needs a toaster with a rotating lid, motorized bread carriage, and illuminating neons, but the idea of setting its operation to music was an act of pure inspiration. [more inside]
Jonathan Richman - Now Is Better Than Before
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers - I'm A Little Dinosaur
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers - New England
Jonathan Richman - Now Is Better Than Before
Spring is in the air today and here are a few slices of vintage Jonathan just because... [more inside]
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers - New England
Jonathan Richman - Now Is Better Than Before
Spring is in the air today and here are a few slices of vintage Jonathan just because... [more inside]
Pakistan vs. YouTube, BGP loses
YouTube Hijacking: A RIPE NCC RIS case study is the definitive look at how actions of Pakistan Telecom caused the global outage of YouTube Sunday the 24th of Feb. 2008. This incident has exposed weaknesses of the Border Gateway Protocol as is outlined by Danny McPherson from Arbor Networks as well as on the Renesys blog.
Looking for some dumb quotes?
Apostrophe Atrophy highlights dumb quotes appearing in print, an unforgivable graphic design gaffe.
Just toggle the checkbox in InDesign/Quark already!
Just toggle the checkbox in InDesign/Quark already!
Well, I guess it's for a good cause...
Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics... again! For the 12th straight year, this legendary group of music nerds from Hoboken, NJ encamps to the studios of local free form radio station WFMU to play, on the spot, three full hours of listener-requested covers. The request show, part of the station's annual pledge drive, happens tonight (Sunday, March 2) from 5-8 pm EST, and thanks to the wonder that is the internet you can listen (128k MP3 stream) and pledge live from anywhere in the world (or catch the real broadcast in FM at 91.1 in NYC / New Jersey and 90.1 in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, Western NJ and Eastern Penn). [more inside]
Groucho's daughter Melinda Marx and her very brief singing career.
The year is 1965: Groucho Marx takes the Hollywood Palace stage to introduce (in typically gag-laced fashion) the next number on the program, to be sung by none other than his 18-year-old daughter, Melinda Marx. What follows is, arguably, right up there with some of the worst songs ever written, performed by Melinda and her backup singers in some of the most excruciatingly bad choreography ever seen. But this is Groucho's daughter we're talking about here, so I just had to share it with you: The East Side of Town. [more inside]
It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving
"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed." A Belgian writer has admitted that she made up her best-selling memoir and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II. More at Slate. Here's an excellent portal about feral children. [more inside]
Jean Ritchie, "Mother of Folk Music"
Jean Ritchie, Mother of folk music. Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Perry County, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest... [more inside]
Evil email and intense investigation
March 1
Your Help Needed Reviewing JFK Related Documents
"Exclusive: Help us examine the lost JFK files."
The Dallas Morning News has put a chunk of documents found in a vault in Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins' office online in PDF form for the public to review for notable information.
"Given the volume, we haven't been able to review most of the files. That's why we are calling on you. Here's your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination."
Though I was able to load one of the documents at first, it will likely require registration after a few attempts. [via]. [more inside]
Hey! Fred Milton is still SO #1! Wow!
So, where are you from?
Amy Walker does a little tour of 21 accents in 2 1/2 minutes. From the UK and Ireland to Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Russia, France, Australia, New Zealand, and around North America. [more inside]
The War Magician
"You want to do WHAT?" said the British Army – or as their oh-so-polite upper crust officers probably put it: "Sorry, ol’ chap, but we don’t seem to have an urgent need for magicians right at this very moment." But Jasper Maskelyne proved to be very useful. Tales of his service are a mixture of fact and legend. First link via.
I was tipped off about speaking to you today. Press connect and I'll tell you why.
Ice Road Truckers of Canada
For about two months each year Nuna Logistics operates the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road in Canada's Northern territories. The road is nearly 600km long and is predominantly constructed over frozen lakes. At this time of year the Ice Road Truckers take on the cold and the risks inherent with carrying loads of up to 40 tons over it (home page for a History Channel series about the drivers with some interesting video). The road one of several worldwide - it has some travel news. Also previously.
Get your damn fruits and vegetables off my lawn.
I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)
If you can't stop demand, curtail production. One farmer's view on the power of commodity crops. [more inside]
Attacked by shadows
Ico did not sell very well. Though critics loved it, the simple third person puzzler failed to capture an audience on the PS2. (youtube trailer)
Fast forward a few years to Shadow of the Colossus, and desiger Fumito Ueda struck gold. Earning tons of critical praise for his story of a young boy out to bring his love back from the dead. [more inside]
Armenia declares state of emergency
On February 19, Armenia hosted a presidential election. The winner with 52% of the vote was (as expected), current Prime Minister and BFF to the current president, Serge Sargsyan. The runner-up with 21.5% of the vote was former president (taken out by the current president in 1997), Levon Ter-Petrossian. The elections were flawed, lots of people protested over the past week, the protests have gotten violent, LTP is under house arrest and the government has issued a 20 day state of emergency. At least 3 (including a police officer) have been killed. [more inside]
Brief books in style
Food Fight
Have You Got It Yet?
Syd Barrett, the iconic, ephemeral, sadly recently-deceased founder and original frontman of Pink Floyd, recorded several singles and an LP (plus at least one song on their second LP) with the band before his genius was amputated by mental illness and they became an arena rock dinosaur. He also recorded two solo albums, the making of which was almost as interesting as the gentle, crystalline, almost fractal-like music contained on them. However, as Barrett aficionados have long known, the solo sessions produced many more recordings than were eventually released. Now, though, all known Barrett material that wasn't commercially released has been assembled in a fan-made collection: Have You Got It Yet?, version 2.0 of which has just been released to the world. More download links inside. [more inside]
An Internet Potemkin village
The Great Firewall of China (previously), the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, athlete bloggers (allowed for the first time by the IOC), visitors, and freedom in Beijing, 2008. [more inside]
Barry Lyndon
10 minute documentary describing the cameras and directorial techniques Kubrick used to create his
masterpiece.
the gray train
"Google “brooklyn writer” and you’ll get, Did you mean: the future of literature as we know it? People are coming in from all over. In fact, the physical act of moving your possessions from Manhattan to Brooklyn is now the equivalent of a two-year M.F.A. program. When you get to the other side, they hand you three Moleskine notebooks and a copy of “Blogging for Dummies.” You’re good to go."
Succumb to King Game.
Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg (Street Angel, The Plain Janes) present Afrodisiac in "She Came from Venus."
Psychologist FTW
There's nothing on TV? Try channel 2 in Nicaragua.
Watch TV from around the world. Anything from Albania to Pakistan to Vietnam.
Sex and Violence
The Great Trafalgar Square Freeze
The Great Trafalgar Square Freeze of February 16, 2008. [2:37 YouTube video] Inspired by Frozen Grand Central.