December 2015 Archives
December 31
HAPPY THIRD IMPACT, EVERYBOD-*gloop*
Today is the date of Third Impact. If you were an anime geek in the '90s, you no doubt watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, the giant robot series-slash-meditation on depression with loads of pseudo-Christian imagery! [Spoilers after this point.] [more inside]
Themed Guides to Translated Literature in 2015
Chad W. Post at Three Percent recently linked to World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translations of 2015 and went on a list-making tear to provide more structure and commentary: 7 books by women, 6 water-cooler fiction books, 6 university press books, 3 'funny' books, 4 books from underrepresented countries, and the best poetry I should read. The commentary often leads to further matters of interest, e.g. the Women in Translation Tumblr or Marianne Fritz and the translation challenges (scroll down) in her work.
It wasn't real, but it was magical.
"1000 ships from a star far out in space would land on 1 January 2000"
Those mammoth vessels carried within their holds treasure of which the United States was in most desperate need: gold, to bail out the almost bankrupt federal, state, and local governments; special chemicals capable of unpolluting the environment, which was becoming daily more toxic, and restoring it to the pristine state it had been before Western explorers set foot on it; and a totally safe nuclear engine and fuel, to relieve the nation's all-but-depleted supply of fossil fuel. In return, the visitors wanted only one thing—and that was to take back to their home star all the African Americans who lived in the United States."The Space Traders" is a science fiction story and social parable published in 1992 by pioneering law professor and civil rights advocate Derrick Bell. In 1994, "The Space Traders" was adapted for television as one-third of HBO's Cosmic Slop, a TV-movie anthology of scifi starring people of color. Written by Trey Ellis and directed by Reginald Hudlin, the half-hour "The Space Traders" episode can be watched in its entirety here. [more inside]
A not so long time ago in a galaxy not so far away ...
Mike Duncan of the Revolutions podcast reworked the Star Wars prequel trilogy by way of the American and French revolutions on Twitter today. Episode One: The Glorious Cause, Episode Two: The Coruscant Revolution, and Episode Three: The Clone Wars have been storified for your historical Star Wars mashup needs.
I got an Apple Watch too, and I still ain't sure why
legal hacks, theatrical props, and kitchen tabletop start-ups
The End of December
All my kisses are sham kisses.
Maternal kisses are not effective in alleviating minor childhood injuries (boo-boos): a randomized, controlled and blinded study, by the Study of Maternal and Child Kissing (SMACK) Working Group.
Stupid Data Tricks
Andrei Scheinkman at 538: “We made more than 1,500 charts in 2015 at FiveThirtyEight. Many were bar charts, line charts and scatterplots — but not all. Here are [47] of the more unusual graphics we published.” [more inside]
Why must the Black Mother Courage be delusional?
Actress Tonya Pinkins, on her decision to depart from Classical Stage Company's production of Mother Courage, which was set to open next week.
How Bad Are Things?
One “advantage” of working in psychiatry is getting a window into an otherwise invisible world of really miserable people. Scott Alexander writes about mental health and well being in America.
"I work in a wealthy, mostly-white college town consistently ranked one of the best places to live in the country. If there’s anywhere that you might dare hope wasn’t filled to the brim with people living hopeless lives, it would be here. But that hope is not realized. Every day I get to listen to people describe problems that would seem overwrought if they were in a novel, and made-up if they were in a thinkpiece on The Fragmentation Of American Society."
The single most important musical instrument in the history of baseball
A few weeks ago the Chicago White Sox held a charity garage sale and auction, and among the items listed was "The single most important musical instrument in the history of baseball" [more inside]
Selling Solar Like Cellphones
from Blind Lemon Jefferson to Tom Waits to Jeff Buckley to Abba
How Mattel Lost The Disney Princesses
But, It Is Unsafe
Tufts University's Human-Robot Interaction Lab are trying to figure out how to develop mechanisms for robots to reject orders that it receives from humans, as long as the robots have a good enough excuse for doing so.
Poor Vocabulary? That's Bollocks, you fucking twat-bastard
Bloody Hell!! People who swear have bigger vocabularies, according to researchers.
"The food is authentic in spirit."
"It was Asian enough for my immigrant parents and American enough for my sister and me."
In the PBS feature documentary, Off The Menu, filmmaker Grace Lee traverses the US into the kitchens, factories, temples and farm of Asian Pacific America that explores how our relationship to food reflects our evolving communities. Food Republic spoke with Jonathan Wu and Wilson Tang, whose NYC restaurant, Fung Tu, is featured in the film.
Stop! Don't make those New Year's resolutions!
Time writer Jessica Lamb-Shapiro warns that New Year's resolutions are a bad idea. The statistics are bleak: only 8% of people who make New Year’s resolutions stick to them, and those who don’t usually abandon them after just one week. Unrealistic resolutions are fated to fail. And it is unrealistic to think that you can immediately overcome a habit you have spent years establishing. But is this necessarily harmful? There’s a good chance that it is. [more inside]
"Come on, let's go get some coffee."
Comedians in cars getting coffee. A great episode, 1963 Corvette Stingray.
Oh, yeah...and the POTUS.
Heard it all before
Liss-Riordan is tired of hearing that labor laws should adapt to accommodate upstart tech companies, not the other way around: "Why should we tear apart laws that have been put in place over decades to help a $50 billion company like Uber at the expense of workers who are trying to pay their rent and feed their families?" -- Meet "Sledgehammer Shannon," the labor rights lawyer who took on Starbucks and FedEx, and now, Uber, in defense of their workers.
Vurig Nieuw Jaar!
Last New Year's vreugdevuur in Duindorp, Holland, broke the world record of the biggest bonfire in the world. Building it was no small undertaking, after which it was burned down at midnight on New Years Eve. This year, the battle of the bonfires that has been raging for years between the neighbouring beaches of Duindorp and Scheveningen is reaching fever pitch. Scheveningen is doing their damnedest to build an even bigger towering inferno.
You can follow the construction (and destruction at midnight local time, UTC/GMT +1) live on webcam:
The next day, everyone goes for a sausage sponsored swim in the freezing cold North Sea.
“Drinks go in, fun comes out!”
"I was having my second Frogasm of the night when dinner got weird." Pete Wells reviews Señor Frog’s in Times Square for The New York Times.
“The Southern field pea is a symbol of all we do,”
Field Peas, a Southern Good Luck Charm [The New York Times]
Eating a bowl of black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is not the nation’s sexiest food ritual. Peas are not as beloved as Thanksgiving turkey. They lack the easy appeal of Super Bowl guacamole or the religious significance of a Hanukkah latke. But for a day, a broad swath of the nation stands united in its belief that black-eyed peas simmered with cured pork and served with soupy greens like collard or folded into rice for some hoppin’ John promise a year of luck and money.
December 30
Thank you very much. It would be nice to have a mountain.
Invisible Influence: A Bacterial Guide to Your Health
Jack Gilbert, a Microbial Ecologist at Argonne and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, gave a free public lecture at Argonne. In recent years, scientists have discovered that our bodies teem with microbial life, which outnumber our cells 10 to one. In his talk, Gilbert explored how your microbial world influences your health, probing where that microbial world comes from, and highlighting the ways in which your lifestyle, diet and medical treatment can influence your microbiome.
Romanian New Year Bear Dance
"To outsiders, the sight of a troupe of dancing bears, decked out in blood-red tassels, stomping through the snowy streets of a small Romanian town might be a strange, almost sinister sight."
Where is 2016?
After completing the ten-year-long Submachine storyline (previously), browser game developer Mateusz Skutnik is looking to the futu-- wait crap where is it. Dammit it was right here WHERE IS IT (goddammit this just keeps happening)
Barack Obama loves babies...
Sweet Honey and Weak Knees: Great Music You've Never Seen
Sometimes I see things that make me want to keep on living. As an end of the year thank you to the Metafilter community, I offer these obscure gems. The best of the web indeed. [more inside]
Protected Views of London
St Paul's Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, lies at the centre of London. At 365 feet high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 until 1962, and dominated the London skyline. Since the 1960s London has seen multiple high-rise developments, which could crowd out the cathedral. However, views of St Paul's from multiple places in and around the City are preserved by law. This protects St Paul's both from having tall buildings built in front of it, and also behind it in ways that would spoil the silhouette on the horizon. The 'Cheesegrater' for instance, slopes back to protect one such view. Some explanations and demonstrations from Tom Scott, Londonist, and The Guardian.
[more inside]
The Splat!
Ren and Stimpy's Yule Log. (SLYT) It's better than bad, it's good!
.
Sci Sci Fi
Just in time for Dryanuary
Auld Clang Syne
Bassist Steve Wallace reflects on the "good old days" of New Year's Eve gigs for working musicians on the Toronto scene and shares a few stories. [more inside]
Star Trek IP owners sue Star Trek fan production
When lawyers attack The fan-made Star Trek movie project Axanar (previously) raised over $1 million. Despite the producers vowing to never make money off of it, Paramount and CBS raised shields and launched lawyers this week.
not quite a Potosi
You Make Me Feel
Aretha Franklin wows at the Kennedy Center Honors (SLYT) If you think the Queen of Soul has lost a step or two, let this two-minute video from the recent Kennedy Center Honors prove you wrong. The best part? As one Facebook poster declared, 'Mother was like "lemme slide through, put my purse down, keep my fur on and slay this real quick.' [more inside]
Time For Some Cute - Pets and Kids
As the year draws to a close, and with all its highs and lows, maybe it's time to just sit back and say: awwww.
Aw-nay-shuh.
"There was power in a name, and I figured if mine were Elizabeth, maybe the blue eyes and blonde hair would follow. I would look more like her. My mother. She has stories of walking around—me in her arms, my brother in a stroller—and people asking what country we were adopted from. My mother is too polite to say things like, The country of my vagina."
"Where I'm Writing From" by Onnesha Roychoudhuri.
March Lith
Randall Munroe observed a while ago: "In months other than September, the 11th is mentioned substantially less often than any other date. It’s been that way since long before 9/11 and I have no idea why.” David Hagen investigates. (The real culprit? A trend in font design from the late 1800s.)
I Want To Believe
"I want to believe," a core sentiment of the show and its viewers, is a phrase that comes from an iconic item on the show: the UFO poster that hangs above the desk of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, everyone's favorite socially isolated, orally fixated, paranoid insomniac alien chaser. When The X-Files became a hit in the mid-'90s, this poster was found on the bedroom wall of every self-respecting X-Phile. It was a special link to the show and Mulder's hopeful yet tortured conviction that the truth was out there, shrouded in conspiracy, waiting to be uncovered.
The Invention of Basketball, in Naismith's Own Words
The only known recording of the voice of James Naismith, inventor of basketball, has been discovered -- and it contradicts the official story of the writing of the Original 13 Rules and the first game. [more inside]
(It used to be) a game of links.
One year into his newly found freedom after 6 years incarceration in Tehran´s Evin prison; Mefi´s own Hossein Derakhshan gives his views on the internet and social media.
The Best Video Essays of 2015
December 29
"My secret to a long, healthy life"
He lived to the age of 108, having quit smoking the previous year so his new young wife would "have him as long as possible". He sang at his own centenary at which time he was awarded the title Kammersänger. He was said to be Adolf Hitler's favorite actor. The 82-year-old Johannes "Jopi" Heesters sings Freut Euch (Das große Fest kommt bald). [more inside]
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Please enjoy a cover of Nirvana's Heart-Shaped Box by Icelandic phenom Ásgeir. Then try a deep house remix of Ásgeir's cover by Romanian producer Kataa, and another one by Danish producer Notize. Heck, throw in a deep house remix of the Nirvana original by Argentine producer Ubbah.
Richard shared a photon with you!
Let’s draw Feynman diagrams! (Part 1 of 20) You do not need to know any fancy-schmancy math or physics to do this!
That’s right. I know a lot of people are intimidated by physics: don’t be! Today there will be no equations, just non-threatening squiggly lines. Even school children can learn how to draw Feynman diagrams (and, I hope, some cool science). Particle physics: fun for the whole family.
Everything Old is New Again: Some people opt to just pay their doctor
Direct Primary Care: An Alternative to Conventional Health Insurance There are roughly 4,400 direct primary care physicians nationwide, up from 756 in 2010 and a mere 146 in 2005. [more inside]
“You will never walk again. But you will fly.”
Game of Thrones: First look at Bran Stark in season 6 . [Entertainment Weekly]
We last saw Bran meeting the cave-dwelling mystical Three-Eyed Raven (now played by Max von Sydow) in the season 4 finale as Bran sought to control his fledgling psychic powers. As you can see, the 16-year-old actor has grown plenty since we last saw him. He now has short hair and is around six feet tall (poor Hodor’s back!).[more inside]
Supreme Skills! Miracle Tops: May They Spin Forever!
Supreme Skills is a show on the NHK, presented here dubbed well into English, in which two groups of Japanese engineers who compete to meet the challenge of exceptionally strict production standards according to their talents and natural biases. Eight additional shows are linked inside.
In Supreme Skills! Miracle Tops: May They Spin Forever! [24:47] A group of young satellite engineers and a group of wizened craftsmen compete to produce a top that will spin the longest in an understated drama of rapidly rotating dreams. It showcases the design focuses and production process of both teams as well as the engineering and physics concepts they demonstrate supreme mastery over as we watch the tops spin and the engineers grow increasingly nervous.[more inside]
Reality check on realty
American House Prices. FIVE years after the house price crash that nearly took down an entire financial system, America’s property market appears to be in rude health: prices have appreciated by 17% over the past three years. But that statistic hides vast differences in housing markets across America The graphic gives valuation assessments for 25 major cities in the context of what has happened to prices over the past 35 years, and allows you to plot and compare them.
Hearing Loss Simulator
Find out what hearing loss sounds like : 'You can't recreate hearing loss simply by plugging your ears. A person with normal hearing can hear quiet, medium and loud sounds that vary from low pitch to high pitch with amazing clarity and definition.When you have hearing loss, you often lose higher pitched sounds, like the sound of women's and children's voices or consonants like T, S and F. Even though you still may be able to hear strong vowel sounds such as A, E and I, speech becomes harder to comprehend.'
The Internet can't decide how dogs should wear pants.
You can pin the blame on Maxim. Additional “coverage” from Thrillist, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, The Daily Mail, TIME, Mashable, and CBS.
The Seasons, by Tchaikovsky in 1876 and Ben Wendel and friends in 2015
The idea and goal of “The Seasons” was a simple one: 12 original pieces dedicated to 12 musicians I deeply admire, released over 12 months. Though this ended up being one of the most challenging and complex projects I’ve ever attempted, it also turned out to be one of the most rewarding.Ben Wendel, inspired by Tchaikovsky's work from 139 years ago, has finished his year of duets: The Seasons Project (YouTube playlist)
John Bradbury (1953-2015)
BB-8 was only phase one
While Boston Dynamics will probably continue making the Skynet/Hellspawn robots for the foreseeable future, Disney has recently unveiled a wheeled robot that can climb vertical surfaces.
Syria, Segway, Caitlyn and Paris
Trans Athlete Chris Mosier Is Training for the World Championships
In June of 2015, Chris Mosier, "athlete, coach, cool dude," and also a trans man, earned a spot on the US National team in Sprint Duathlon. He is now training for the world championships. But will he be allowed to compete? [more inside]
Theresa May and the Deportation of "Immigrant" Thomas Podgoretsky
Musician and performer Thomas Podgoretsky, who has lived and worked in the UK for so long he now draws his state pension here, has been told he faces deportation at 72 hours’ notice. [via Private Eye magazine] [more inside]
battle fatigue
Nieman Lab's Crowdsourced
The center
In the 1960s, riots and the Black Power movement sparked a furious white backlash. In April 1965, 28% of non-Southern whites thought President Lyndon Johnson was pushing civil rights “too fast.”
By September 1966, after riots in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Cleveland, and the S.N.C.C.'s turn from racial integration toward Black Power, that figure had reached 52%.
This time, however, the opposite is happening.
By September 1966, after riots in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Cleveland, and the S.N.C.C.'s turn from racial integration toward Black Power, that figure had reached 52%.
This time, however, the opposite is happening.
December 28
factory farming: the plants are fed by fish poo alone
GrowUp: the future of food - "The new concept of commercial aquaponics, argue Hofman and Webster, has a much-reduced environmental impact. Companion farming fish and crops dates back to the Aztecs, but it took until the 2010s, in Chicago, to move it indoors at any scale. In the UK, only eco-smallholdings have so far attempted it, and the only European aquaponics farms of note use purpose-built greenhouses. GrowUp's model, by contrast, is to fit out empty urban buildings, use no chemicals, employ LED lights, source 100 per cent renewable energy and, crucially, be based within five miles of its customer base in a dense urban area."
just the sounds of buzzing flies and sobbing
The art of tour guiding
When you’re driving a bus full of tourists through the Australian outback,
a packet of chewing gum may be your only hope.
Coffee's for closers.
Killed by Death
RIP Lemmy Kilmister Jimi Hendrix Experience roadie, Hawkwind bass player and Motörhead frontman Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister passed away today at age 70.
This man is a force of nature. Look at the footwork!
FiveThirtyEight takes on the challenge:
It’s a debate as old as time — or, at least as old as 1965’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas Special.” Of the many revelers throwing down sick moves to “Linus & Lucy” by The Vince Guaraldi Trio, who would you most like to party with?
Because Silence is Not an Option: Naji Jerf, RIP.
"Syrian journalists who have fled to Turkey for their safety are not safe at all.": Naji Jerf was the editor-in-chief of the Syrian independent monthly Hentah and a documentary maker who worked with the collective Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS). Jerf also trained citizen journalists as part of his work with RBSS. [more inside]
It's Reality Show Clip Time!
After 22 years, E! ended The Soup on December 18. Last (and mostly) hosted by Joel McHale, The Soup was a reboot of Talk Soup and skewered pop culture. There were many and strange recurring characters, most important of whom was Lou.
“Ten people either quit or were fired during filming,”
The Revenant Official Trailer [YouTube]
The Revenant is a 2015 American epic western film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu set in 1823 Montana and South Dakota, which was inspired by the experiences of frontiersman and fur trapper Hugh Glass. The screenplay was written by Mark L. Smith and Iñárritu, based in part on Michael Punke's The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, and Domhnall Gleeson.[more inside]
Of Paris, of Love, of Art, of Cats and Poetry and of Death.
NSFW - Lucie Badoud, model and muse a well off orphan was inspired by Guillaume Apollinaire's novel La Femme Assise and went to Paris. In 1924 now known as Youki - snow rose, she received on her 21st birthday from Foujita, the japanese painter,
a big, yellow Ballot with a Basque chauffeur.
The car's body was by Saoutchik and the radiator was capped with a bronze by Rodin; The Man With a Broken Nose. [more inside]
The car's body was by Saoutchik and the radiator was capped with a bronze by Rodin; The Man With a Broken Nose. [more inside]
Whatever happened to Eddy Crane?
On the night of September 10, 1987, my father vanished from this place. He called my mother to say he was on his way home; he never showed up. From the start, our family was sure that his business partner, Augie, had him murdered after my father accused him of embezzlement — all vehemently denied by Augie. Detectives at Baltimore City Homicide have said they had similar suspicions, but no charges were ever brought. Over the years the case first grew cold and then became the stuff of cop campfire lore. David Simon based an episode of Homicide on it in 1997 and later mentioned my father by name in The Wire. In 2008, Sergeant Roger Nolan, then head of the cold case unit, told me, “We sit around this office sometimes and wonder, Whatever happened to Eddy Crane?”
Black Culinary History Year in Review 2015
"From culinary scholarship to crowd sourced culinary brands emerging, 2015 has given us so much to be proud of. The following is a year in review that highlights some of the best parts of the sea change we’ve seen in the world of black foodways." Chef Therese Nelson presents "Black Culinary History Year in Review 2015." Via Michael Twitty.
Go Ahead and Judge These Book Covers
A regular feature on this site used to be the mocking of the latest covers from Tutis, clueless pumpers-out of public domain books with wildly inappropriate covers [...] But, sadly, their utter incompetence seems to have contributed to them going out of business, and for a long time the world of book design was a colder, darker, less colourful place. But this morning my attention was drawn towards a new land of delights: the catalogue of Read Monkey, via this delightful cover, which suggests Dostoyevsky's grim classic is the tale of a couple of knockabout, clean-cut Irish lads getting up to a few harmless japes.
Aww, bless.
You might think this is as off-key as a cover could get. You would be wrong. Behold, Read Monkey's finest...
A rain of data
The Seattle Natural Hazard Explorer lets you explore where different parts of the city of Seattle, Washington are most vulnerable to potentially catastrophic geological events like earthquakes (previously) and volcanoes. It is one of many visualizations or choropleths that connect ever-changing data with explorable geographic locations, such as an Atlas for a Changing Planet and Syria: Epicenter of a Deepening Refugee Crisis
Finished? We're just beginning.
"It's really hard to mess up a Yorkshire Pudding"
There's a lot of folk wisdom and myths surrounding baking Yorkshire puddings, so J. Kenji López-Alt decided to test them all and figure out which (if any) are true.. Previous perfect puddings post.
Best Rap, 2015
Powering empowerment through the power of brands
jane st. is an advertising agency that specializes in creating unique, authentic female empowerment messaging for any brand. -- Jane st.
An Example: Terry's work[more inside]
Apparently, Presidential Slashfic Is A Thing
With the discovery of a bit of Ted Cruz holiday erotica (NSFW, NSFB, NSFA) put out as a form of revenge fiction, Slate writer Christina Cauterucci delves into the history of Presidential erotica - both that written by others and written by the politicians themselves.
"This squid was not damaged and looked lively . . ."
Architeuthis Dux: Giant Squid observed in Toyama Bay, Japan. [SLYT] The story from CNN.
This one was 12 feet long; they can grow to 60 feet. [more inside]
Ellsworth Kelly, 1923 - 2015
Ellsworth Kelly,, an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, and photographer, died Sunday at the age of 92. [more inside]
Best Philosophical Blogging of 2015
3QD has announced its top picks for philosophy blogging:
1. Top Quark: Vidar Halgunset, Slow Corruption
2. Strange Quark: Daniel Silvermint, On How We Talk About Passing
3. Charm Quark: Lisa Herzog, (One of) Effective Altruism’s blind spot(s) [more inside]
1. Top Quark: Vidar Halgunset, Slow Corruption
2. Strange Quark: Daniel Silvermint, On How We Talk About Passing
3. Charm Quark: Lisa Herzog, (One of) Effective Altruism’s blind spot(s) [more inside]
@5point9billion
"Those who choose to exist and identify outside of the binary"
Meg Allen's photo documentary project BUTCH 'attempts to explore the butch identity and aesthetic through a series of personal portraits'. This Buzzfeed article selects a few pictures and has some quotes from the artist.
RIP Meadowlark Lemon, 1932-2015
Harlem Globetrotter superstar Meadowlark Lemon, the Clown Prince of Basketball, has died at the age of 83. [more inside]
Yakitate!! Japan, an informative manga/anime series about bread baking
From the beginning of the first episode, you can see that Yakitate!! Japan is a silly show about bread. The title, which translates to Freshly Baked!! Ja-pan, alone is enough to warn you that it's full of puns ("pan" is Japanese for bread). If you're inspired by the show or manga, here are a ton of recipes, beyond the rice cooker bread recipe from the show, which was converted to US units for the English manga translation. [more inside]
The Pirate Book
It's The Reality Of Being A Woman In Our World
There's this thing that happens whenever I speak about or write about women's issues. Things like dress codes, rape culture and sexism. I get the comments: Aren't there more important things to worry about? Is this really that big of a deal? Aren't you being overly sensitive? Are you sure you're being rational about this? Every. Single. Time. And every single time I get frustrated. Why don't they get it? I think I've figured out why. They don't know. They don't know about de-escalation. Minimizing. Quietly acquiescing. [slhuffpo]
How to build an aeroplane in your backyard (or speak Vietnamese or...)
Participation in our own surveillance was the price of entry into heaven
December 27
Janet Wolfe, 101
Jerry Springer: 'This might seem strange'
Yes, that Jerry Springer: Host of the world’s least classy TV show, former mayor of Cincinnati and one-time newscaster. He tapes The Jerry Springer TV show every Monday and Tuesday in Connecticut, then on alternate Tuesdays takes his Gulfstream jet to Cincinnati, where his old friend Jene Galvin picks him up. They go over to Ludlow to record a podcast called "Tales, Tunes and Tomfoolery."
[more inside]
How to write comics
Comics writer Kieron Gillen answers the question How do you go from story idea to finished script? Further tips from Kelly Sue DeConnick, Warren Ellis and Mort Weisinger via Alan Moore.
I imagine we'll get an episode per mod for the 800th MeFi podcast
In honor of reaching the 500th episode of its DJ mix podcast, venerable electronic music review website and community Resident Advisor has both:
- Put all of the old episodes online for streaming, along with those for RA Exchange their electronic music discussion and interview podcast
- Assembled five different 500th episode mixes by established powerhouse DJs, and ensuring that there’s a little something for everyone…
Are we fully in control of our technology?
A two-part essay by Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post on the growing unease among some technologists. [more inside]
"That was just a beautiful lineup of great writers"
Newsweek takes a look at the death of several pop culture sites in 2015. Spearheaded by film oriented Pitchfork spin-off Dissolve (previously), ESPN-owned and Bill Simmons-created sports and pop-culture Grantland (also previously), this year was particularly grim for new media, as the same problems of traditional media - declining ad revenue and failure to compete with sensationalism (or in this case, clickbait) and slow growth - put a shade on what was until very recently considered the future of journalism.
Lucas told us Han Solo was married to a Wookiee
“I told them I would not change a word,”
French journalist accuses China of intimidating foreign press. by Tom Phillips [The Guardian]
China is facing accusations of attempting to muzzle and intimidate foreign press after it said it would expel a French journalist who refused to apologise for an article criticising government policy. Lu Kang, a spokesperson for China’s ministry of foreign affairs, claimed Ursula Gauthier, the Beijing correspondent for French magazine L’Obs, had offended the Chinese people with a recent column about terrorism and the violence-hit region of Xinjiang. “Gauthier failed to apologise to the Chinese people for her wrong words and it is no longer suitable for her to work in China,” Lu said in a statement, according to Xinhua, Beijing’s official news agency.[more inside]
Secret Hitler, the party game!(?)
At The Awl, Rob Dubbin describes a sincere unease about a new Kickstarter card game smash hit, "Secret Hitler". [more inside]
The Normalization of Deviance
In 2014 a Gulfstream plane crashed and burst into flames in Bedford, Massachusetts, killing seven people (NTSB animation). Aviation writer Ron Rapp argues that the cause was not defective equipment or simple complacency, but the normalization of deviance, whereby "people within [an] organization become so much accustomed to a deviant behavior that they don’t consider it as deviant, despite the fact that they far exceed their own rules for the elementary safety." This was also considered to be a factor in the crashes of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. The creator of the concept and author of The Challenger Launch Decision, sociologist Diane Vaughan, is interviewed here. (transcript)
Bad Mother: Understanding Maternal Ambivalence
Dear Sugar: I love my children. But I hate motherhood. "[W]e might be content with loving some parts of motherhood, and not liking others, until we are confronted with the well-intentioned acquaintance who asks, 'Aren’t you just loving every minute of it?!' So we smile, gush 'Yes, it’s wonderful!' and then feel guilty because it really isn’t." [more inside]
1981 Radio Shack Computer Catalog
Mashable: In 1977, Radio Shack's 3,000 stores started selling the TRS-80 (Tandy/Radio Shack, Z-80 microprocessor). Largely forgotten by the general public, the TRS-80 was, with Apple and Commodore's products, one of the pioneering personal computers of the late 1970s, and a key machine in the personal computer revolution. Byte magazine described the "1977 Trinity" of computers: Apple, Commodore and Tandy. [Images by Mefi's own Jscott]
December 26
Short History of the Weirdly Awesome Microcars of Hungary
Hungarian inventions that have shaped the modern world: Laszlo Biro's ballpoint pen, the telephone exchange and holography, and the Magyar microcar, "how Hungary circumvented Stalin and also had a bit of fun." This is just one of a number of weirdly awesome microcars of Hungary from the 1940s and '50s.
"It is, we might say, modestly virtuoso"
David Bordwell's Observations of Film Art explains the blocking of Elia Kazan's Panic In The Streets
Happy Zelda Day!
Zelda Day 2015:
- If you love the NES original but are sad you know where everything is, try the Zelda Randomizer! (Windows EXE, requires ROM). Tries to guarantee solvable games! YouTube play.
- Did you know that, in the original releases of N64 Ocarina of Time, if you hold the R button down when you get a certain item, you get a different one instead? Info with more OoT glitches.
- From Double Fine! Devs Play The Legend of Zelda, four parts: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
- Fan animation, "Racing For Rupees".
"The FBI remained on the Seeger beat"
Folk musician Pete Seeger was under investigation by the FBI for decades from his time as a soldier during World War II until the 1970s. David Corn of Mother Jones magazine got over 1700 pages of surveillance reports, which have been released online. Seeger first came to the attention of the FBI because he wrote a letter protesting calls to strip all Japanese-Americans of citizenship and deport them. [via RÚV]
Shin Kubota and The Jellyfish of Immortality
Vice Motherboard on the immortal jellyfish and Shin Kabota, the man who sings their praise. Shin Kubota music video.
Remember the Abortion Episode?
TV episodes about abortion, reviewed by women who've actually had one. The recent episode of Scandal was excellent, as was an earlier one. The episode on Parenthood was very good. That notorious one on the The Facts of Life was terrible (and their other one wasn't much better). You know what you're getting from 90210, but you'd expect something better from House. An early treatment of abortion was on Buffalo Bill and Maude had an abortion prior to the Roe v Wade decision!
There's also Felicity, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, Call the Midwife, and Friday Night Lights. There's Star Trek: The Next Generation and Degrassi: The Next Generation. A full alphabetized list of reviews (to date) is below the fold. [more inside]
Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy Short Fiction Recommendations Online
Where to Find the Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy Short Fiction Recommendations Online. As Hugo Nomination season approaches, everyone needs some help sifting through the huge volume of short fiction (novellas, novelettes, and short stories). Tor.com published a post about where to find the best online recommendations. It's worth a look.
Continuous Until 4 AM
Is this a kissing book?
Meta, Irony, Narrative, Frames, and The Princess Bride - Jo Walton takes a look at William Goldman's (or if you will S. Morgenstern's) classic novel.
To take one step forward requires an extraordinary talent
Kansuke Yamamoto was a Japanese Surrealist, known mainly for his Photography (large Gallery some NSFW). He was also a Poet.
Photographs from The Magician's newspaper (NSFW) Tumblir and Pinterest.
Photographs from The Magician's newspaper (NSFW) Tumblir and Pinterest.
“Fiction is Truth's elder sister.”
An unexpected revival for the ‘bard of empire’. [The Guardian] ‘Vulgar rabble-rouser’, ‘rootless cosmopolitan’, ‘mouthpiece of the empire’ Rudyard Kipling has had his share of detractors. But, 150 years after his birth, interest in India’s greatest English-language writer is growing.
They are not alone. Kipling, the “bard of empire”, has always been difficult to place in the cultural pantheon. Britain, too, has done remarkably little to officially mark the sesquicentenary of its first winner (in 1907) of the Nobel prize for literature (and still the youngest ever from anywhere). Indian-born, yet British? We are already entering the muddy field of contradictions that sometimes bog down the reputation of this mild-mannered man. Yet it is these that make him uniquely appealing and that, belying top-level institutional indifference, are sparking an unexpected revival of interest in him, and in particular in his role as a commentator on the origins of an integrated global culture.[more inside]
December 25
Two phones calling in the night
It was strangely sad, for some reason. Like two strangers met for a short distance of path in their lives because they had a common goal, and then one of them suddenly vanished, leaving the entirety of the task's weight and responsibility to the person that remained.Kavinsky — Nightcall (Samsung Cover Cover) by D___N builds on Kavinsky — Nightcall (Samsung Cover) by Arsen Sayadyan. [Via.] [more inside]
Cryptographers' Quiz
Taking a holiday break from the usual dispiriting revelations, The Intercept's latest release from the Snowden files is an internal Christmas cryptographic competition from Britain's Government Communications Headquarters. Take the quiz and see if you can outsmart Her Majesty's codebreakers!
mywar_yuichiro
"It’s doubtful that the Unabomber ever read Zerzan" - Zander Sherman
Even then [1995], Zerzan was probably the highest-profile anarchist in America. He was a fifty-two-year-old who earned his living as a babysitter. He lived in a housing co-op and didn’t own a credit card (even after computers became mainstream, Zerzan did most of his writing by hand). In appearance and temperament, he looked and sounded like Tommy Chong: a bearded baritone you could picture singing “Up in Smoke” while driving around with a doobie the size of a hot dog. If it weren’t for his two published collections of essays, Elements of Refusal and Future Primitive, Zerzan would have passed as another baby boomer with an aversion to adulthood. But in his writing, Zerzan espoused what is arguably the most extreme political philosophy on the planet: that the problem behind all the other problems—war, famine, disease, the environment—is civilization itself, and that the solution is to blow it up and start again.[more inside]
Ja, weQ
Speaking Klingon at the Weihnachtsmarkt because why not! Holidays can be for learning, too.
I always was curious about this Russian dude's hats
Got a hankering to cash in that newly-acquired gift card or just browse the newest Winter Sale? You might be waiting for a while, as the Steam Store is currently very, very down. [more inside]
Hacking for the Holidays
Christmas Experiments is a collection of Yuletide-themed browser toys and minigames, one for each day in December until Christmas. Each one was created by a different programmer / artist. Don't miss past years' entries: 2013; 2012. When you're done playing, check out the code on GitHub. [more inside]
You heard me, Urich! Clean out your desk!
Yes, Virginia, There is a Spider-Man: An Editorial by J. Jonah Jameson. From the indispensable Bully the Little Stuffed Bull and Comics Oughta Be Fun!
A beautiful thing
Good grief
Simon Abrams, Vulture: All 45 Peanuts Specials, Ranked From Worst to Best
The Myth of High Suicide Rates During the Holidays
Radiofinger
@thomyorke: Last year we were asked to write a tune for Bond movie Spectre. Yes we were ...... It didn't work out ... but became something of our own which we love very much .... As the year closes we thought you might like to hear it. Merry Christmas. May the force be with you ...
"You could build a house of milk with this one neat trick..."
Galalith. The world's first plastic. Known as "milk stone" it was created by the interaction of casein and formaline. Produced in the 1900s in great quantities in France and Germany, it was used as an ivory substitute in billiard balls, piano keys and a variety of jewelry. Production declined post-WWII and while vintage galalith is pricey on ebay you can make it yourself at home.
YELLOW SUBMARINE AND THE HULK!
Many years ago, I introduced Metafilter to Pappy's Golden Age Comics blog. Well, for Christmas Day, Pappy has posted a wonderful gift: the comic book adaptation of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. [more inside]
“Yuletide excitement is a potent caffeine, no matter your age.”
Hail Hail The Royal Mail
A German Christmas card with just "England" on the envelope has reached the right address in Gloucestershire.
Merry Christmas from Ray, Beef, Pat, Téodor and Cornelius!
After a twenty-month hiatus, Chris Onstad wishes us all a Happy Holliday with a new Achewood strip, plus some other new content. (Warning: NSFW. NSFFamily, probably, either.)
Yuletide 2015
Yesterday morning, fans all around the world woke up at the crack of dawn to eagerly open their gifts on the most important day of the year. ...Wait, what, I have to go do this "Christmas" thing? Sorry, I'm busy reading this year's new creations for the Yuletide Fanfiction Challenge (previously and previously). Yuletide is a Secret Santa fanfiction exchange that takes place every year around Christmas time. (Huge props to capricorn who posted an amazing 2013 Yuletide FPP that is the template for this one). [more inside]
December 24
Oh, spiffing. Absolutely spiffing. Well done.
Three attempts were made to create a Fawlty Towers for American Television. Chateau Snavely was supposed to be a tour de force starring Betty White and Harvey Korman, but the pilot never made it to air. Watching the second adaptation, Bea Arthur's Amanda's by the Sea (1983), was like being eaten alive by Filigree Siberian Hamsters. It lasted all of six weeks on ABC -- and hopefully someone gave everyone involved in that production a damned good thrashing. And then there was John Larroquette's Payne.... [more inside]
Christmas Will Break Your Heart
Christmas will crush your soul, like that laid back rock n roll ... LCD Soundsystem has given the world one small perfect song this Christmas eve (via James Murphy). You can get it on vinyl (limited run) or iTunes and probably through other sources. But not radio. Never radio. Damn it. [more inside]
Richard Wright: "The soul of Pink Floyd"
A loving retrospective of the life of Pink Floyd keyboardist, songwriter and vocalist Richard Wright [PDF], scanned from the December 2008 issue of MOJO magazine. This is followed by Wright's final - and candid (given his reputation as 'the quiet one') - interview with the magazine, given the year before his death, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Strip Magic: The Gathering
Mark Rosewater, the head designer of card game Magic: The Gathering posted to tumblr about a rejected card.
Magic: The Gathering is a complex card game where each card has rules that affect the outcome of the game. The card in question:
Disrobing Scepter. Artifact. Activate: Target player either discards a card or removes a piece of clothing.
Again, this is not a card that will be seen in play.
Rosewater's tumblr post was submitted to reddit. Magic enthusiasts started an earnest discussion on the rules and protocols of Strip Magic.
The discussion is focused on Magic rules, useful cards and is surprisingly mature.
Gross and offensive replies to the reddit thread are appropriately downvoted.
The discussion is ongoing. Enjoy.
Bonus points for a towel on exercise equipment
Sleeping under an original My Little Pony single bed set tonight? Or sharing with your uncle and the Christmas tree? Or bedding down in the garage, next to the punch bag? For the last few years Rhodri Marsden has been sharing the people of Twitter's Christmas eve sleeping arrangements, in all their awkward, makeshift, regressive glory. You can view this year's on his timeline @rhodri.
Night Of Visions, the ominous sounds of a life altering experience
Since he started Akkord (s/t album playlist) with Synkro, Liam Blackburn has been in search of a sound. His last few solo releases skirted past drum & bass through to techno, ambient, IDM and, with 2013's excellent Storm, some sort of ultra-hi-tech jungle.... [H]e's re-emerging as Ancestral Voices on the increasingly out-there label Samurai Horo....The debut album for Blackburn's new alias is "yawning chords, complex drum patterns and existential dread," directly inspired by his mind-expanding, life-altering experiences on Machu Picchu and in the Amazon, and you can hear all of Night Of Visions on Bandcamp.
Making the history of 1989
The night that the Berlin Wall collapsed was certainly one of the most dramatic moments in the cascading events of 1989, events that brought the era of Communist rule in Eastern Europe to a close. What follows is an examination of the intersecting developments that led to the collapse of the Communist regimes in 1989. [more inside]
A family of nudists like this can scare a whole parish out of its wits.
An ABZ of Love [NSFW], or, Inge and Sten Hegeler's bewitchingly illustrated 1963 book that Kurt Vonnegut told his wife to read, "[if] you are as interested in sex as you say you are." [more inside]
Squeee!
Anywhere I go, I just haves a zeal.
Was it surprising that your music became popular again?Sam Chatmon - Make Me A Pallet On the Floor [more inside]
Well, no. Because everywhere I went, even when I was five and six years old, when I’d go to these clubs to play, the first thing they would say when I walked in the door, folks started to pattin’ and hollerin’, ''Let Sam have it! Let Sam have it!'' And I’d get that, man, and people - whoo! I’d put life all in there! And it’s the same thing right now. Anywhere I go, I just haves a zeal. I have a good zeal to play.
I don't wanna live forever
Friends, as we go through the hustle and bustle of the holidays, let us not forget the reason for the season ... happy 70th birthday Lemmy! [more inside]
Capturing Northern Rail, one station at a time
Scott Willison has been diligently visiting and "collecting" train stations in Northern England on his blog Round The North We Go for the past 8 years; he first started with Merseyrail, but later expanded to include every station on the Northern Rail map. The end is finally in sight, just as Arriva takes over the Northern Rail franchise next year. (Important note: Scott is not a trainspotter.)
Playing up the Santa angle is effortless
When we get closer to nature, we do our overstressed brains a favor.
“Imagine a therapy that had no known side effects, was readily available, and could improve your cognitive functioning at zero cost,” the researchers wrote in their paper. It exists, they continued, and it’s called “interacting with nature.”
Some places are like people: some shine and some don't.
Who Won 2015?
"Beyond that, only one more real rule: Not everyone or everything can make it. Sorry I’m not sorry that I’m not sorry." Rembert Browne, ex-Grantland, now at New York (previously, previously, previously, etc.), unveils the bracket for his epic annual tournament to determine who won the year. Spoiler: the answer in 2015 is (predictably) depressing. [more inside]
Jose Mourinho (Boxing day is almost upon us)
"Jose Mourinho - the manager, his methods and why it always goes wrong in the third season."
The Blizzard with a 12,000 word essay on The Special One.
Part One. Part Two.
Also a long read from a few years ago about Jose, Real Madrid, and the Spanish National team: The Assassination Of Iker Casillas By The Coward José Mourinho
"We need to take one last look back at the hideous reality of 2015."
Isa ibn-Maryam (Jesus, son of Mary)
Why more American Muslims are celebrating Christmas this year: For many Muslims, Christmas activates all kinds of anxieties. A religious holiday that challenges the Muslim interpretation of Jesus, it’s also a secular celebration—almost impossible to avoid—which is far more influential than any Muslim celebration in the West. See also: 6 things you didn’t know about Jesus in Islam.
"I’m getting to be a rather old Santa Claus. A little lonely as well"
In 1963 Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated a letter from Santa Claus for the Finnish post office, which was inundated with letters to Santa. It has now been scanned and posted by the Moomin company on its blog as part of its regular series of letters from Tove Jansson.
Right Click to Hack
Right Click to Hack, a game created by Mechabit for the Nordeus Hackathon 15, is an adorable first person puzzle adventure in which you control an entire team of robots by (as the title suggests) right clicking to hack your way to victory. Free to download on Alpha Beta Gamer, but (tragically, for this Mac user) only for Windows. Video review here.
“Our Christmases together were simple. ”
“My Christmas in New York” by Harper Lee, Illustrations by Bill Bragg [The Guardian]
“Several years ago, I was living in New York and working for an airline, so I never got home to Alabama for Christmas – if, indeed, I got the day off. To a displaced southerner, Christmas in New York can be rather a melancholy occasion, not because the scene is strange to one far from home, but because it is familiar: New York shoppers evince the same singleness of purpose as slow-moving southerners; Salvation Army bands and Christmas carols are alike the world over; at that time of year, New York streets shine wet with the same gentle farmer’s rain that soaks Alabama’s winter fields. I missed Christmas away from home, I thought. What I really missed was a memory, an old memory of people long since gone, of my grandparents’ house bursting with cousins, smilax and holly. I missed the sound of hunting boots, the sudden open-door gusts of chilly air that cut through the aroma of pine needles and oyster dressing. I missed my brother’s night-before-Christmas mask of rectitude and my father’s bumblebee bass humming Joy To The World.”
Violence against women in real life is a punishable offence.
A campaign called "Frame Her Right" have put out a short video compilation of violence against women in Bollywood films. What they want is for the Indian Censor Board to include a warning in films that contain violence against women and to reflect such violence in the film's age rating. The argument links to the broader debate about the extent to which Bollywood movies reinforce misogyny in India. (The BBC quotes Aamir Khan criticising how Bollywood movies sometimes glorify stalking and harassment, which shows how times have changed). However, the 80s and 90s seem to be something of a low point for sexualised violence in Bollywood, and there are better portrayals of women in more recent films.
We settled in Astoria and it was here that I met Christopher Walken
Lidia Celebrates America: Home for the Holidays "This special features Lidia and six celebrity guests—Christopher Walken, Ann Curry, Padma Lakshmi, Rita Moreno, Marcus Samuelson and Carlo Ponti, Jr. as they share their immigrant experiences and holiday traditions."
SHOCK!
Snowball in Hell
The forecast low in Central Park today is expected to match its previous record high from Christmas Eve of 1996 of 63°F / 17°C. By the afternoon, temperatures should reach the low 70s (22°C), shattering the record by 10 degrees F. [more inside]
You're breathing a potentially dangerous substance
Writer Michael Rosenwald called on Steven Welty to identify a strange smell in his home. Welty knows a lot about how air moves, and he knows about the stuff in moving air that can make us sick and die. From Popular Science: [more inside]
King William's College General Knowledge Quiz 2015-16
It's Christmas Eve, so what better to do than partake in the Metafilter holiday tradition (previously; previouslier) of attempting probably the hardest quiz in the world: The King William's College General Knowledge Paper (Guardian). [more inside]
December 23
He always uses the element of water in his telenovelas.
Chances are your favorite telenovela was written by Julio Jiménez. For sure his Wikipedia page was. [more inside]
Seymour M. Hersh on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war
“We have the power to diminish a presidential policy in its tracks.”
Did the Joint Chiefs of Staff share intelligence with foreign leaders in a behind-the-scenes attempt to circumvent Obama's Syria policy? [more inside]
Did the Joint Chiefs of Staff share intelligence with foreign leaders in a behind-the-scenes attempt to circumvent Obama's Syria policy? [more inside]
How smart animal shelters aim for zero kill.
How smart animal shelters aim for zero kill. Some shelters are euthanizing far fewer animals than others, and it's not because they have more funding: they're adopting different, smarter practices, including feline Trap-Neuter-Return, emphasizing spay and neuter in communities, encouraging owner retention, and making adoptions easier. Initiatives like Target Zero and The Million Cat Challenge help make it possible for cities achieve greater live-release rates. "In five years, Jacksonville’s shelter went from saving less than 30 percent of its animals to saving 90 percent, including many more dogs than before."
we could be listening to "Tinkle Bells"
Derren Brown Shocks Commuters with Creepy Victorian Stunt
Controversial magician Derren Brown gave commuters a rush-hour shock with these two chilling Victorian sisters. [more inside]
No more men in gold suits
Is this real life? Yes, yes it is.
The "heist" of legend! The fourth wall animated.
The Blue Glow
There were times when we practically lived at the Shark Tank. We’d be there for two weeks, spending most of the time living in the catwalks above the ice. We’d have all of our computers, work area, and everything up there... The initial test of the RF system was frankly scary. We saw that this repeater was bigger than we had hoped it would be. So rather than a half dollar buried in the puck, we were starting to think this was going to be a puck-shaped piece of electronics painted black. And that was scary to us.First-Hand Recollections of the development of the FoxTrax hockey puck tracking system
Inequality impacts retailers too
High-end malls are doing just great. It’s malls in middle-class communities geared to middle-income customers that are suffering from high vacancy rates and failing tenants. [more inside]
Fewer people associate Chipotle with “healthy” now.
Inside Chipotle’s Contamination Crisis
Smugness and happy talk about sustainability aren’t working anymore.
Smugness and happy talk about sustainability aren’t working anymore.
Chrindie '95
Chrindie '95: A collection of essays about a seminal year in Christian indie rock. [via mefi projects].
1995 was also an incredibly important year for the scene we've come to call “Chrindie,” for Christian indie rock. Much has been written about the weird world of contemporary Christian music, but whatever you think it is , you’d be surprised by how many genuinely great Chrindie records were released twenty years ago. During the course of the year, we’ve been writing about brilliant, beautiful, challenging, difficult, weird albums that went mostly unnoticed by mainstream radio and the music press and MTV, in part because they were released on tiny labels with no budgets and marketed primarily to evangelical teenagers in the suburbs.[more inside]
The 10 Best Articles Wikipedia Deleted This Week
When the faceless, unaccountable (and nearly exclusively male) editors of Wikipedia decide that an article is not fit for public consumption, it’s gone—disappeared into the site’s recesses, and only accessible to the most elite editors. These deleted articles have been a dark spot in Wikipedia’s otherwise laudable transparency. That is, until now. [SLGawker] [more inside]
Broad Money includes Narrow Money
Atlanta: Darker Than Blue
Atlanta: Darker Than Blue presented by Black Vrchives, November 2015. A curated journey through Atlanta's history. [more inside]
Spectacular images, troubled lake
Ontario photographer Dave Sanford's photos of waves on Lake Erie capture weather conditions on the world's eleventh largest
lake. Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, with an average depth of only 62 feet (19 metres). This makes it prone to a weather phenomenon known as a "seiche." [more inside]
The villagers gave the first road a nickname: the “China wall"
How Obama Let Big Oil Drill in the Pristine Alaska Wilderness. Alec MacGillis (of ProPublica) writing in Politico Magazine (Dec. 21, 2015), shows how one well-connected man (and big lobbying money) can really make a difference. [more inside]
distance x time
Various tales of Mrs. Santa Claus, helper and hero in Christmases past
The stories, legends and history that lead to the modern Santa Claus go back to the third century, but what of his better half? She is a relatively recent invention, at least in written form. First mentioned in reference and passing in 1849 and 1851 respectively, Mrs. Claus finally appears in person, with a babe in arms, in 1854 in a story written in The Opal volume 4 (a literary journal written by the patients of New York Lunatic Asylum in Utica). She didn't get a name until the 1996 musical TV movie, Mrs. Santa Claus, where Angela Lansbury is Mrs. Anna Santa Claus, the plucky wife of Mr. Claus who takes the sleigh out herself. [more inside]
Equality is necessary, but it is not enough.
"Last week the Empire State Pride Agenda, one of the nation's largest LGBT advocacy groups, announced its closure. This came on the same day that staff members of Freedom to Marry finished packing up their cubicles, and a few weeks after cutbacks had been announced by other gay equality groups. For decades the LGBT movement has advocated for legal equality. The new LGBT movement should recognize that equality is necessary, but it is not enough." [more inside]
I'm assuming the red nose is going to be a laser.
Swipe right on monogamy
Turn Off, Tune Out, Get Bored.
In Praise of Boredom by the creative Adrian Shaughnessy, a graphic designer and writer based in London, is a thought-provoking look at the link between creativity, reflection, and boredom. Shaughnessy is a senior tutor in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art and a founding partner in Unit Editions a publishing company producing books on design and visual culture.
December 22
New Zealand is not a small country but a large village...
we exist and then we don't, that's just how we do
🎶the singularity won't save you, there's not a thing that you can do, and you and me and us we're all gonna dieeeeeeeeeeeeee! 🎶(SLYT)
RetroAchievements
RetroAchievements provides customized emulators and an account structure to add Achievements to hundreds of old-school video games on the NES, SNES, MegaDrive/Sega Genesis, GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, and PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. Browse the most commonly won achievements, the games with the hardest achievements, and the most popular games. Or if you're more into coding than gaming, you could always just check out the GPL-licensed source code for the emulators.
no, I'm not going with the obvious title
The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.
You must use a Chinese against a Chinese...you're playing the game of death!
Youtube user wutangcollection offers a selection of ninja-sploitation trailers for your delectation:
Youtube user wutangcollection offers a selection of ninja-sploitation trailers for your delectation:
- Ultimate Ninja
- Ninja The Protector
- Ninja Terminator
- Ninja Squad
- Ninja in Action
- Ninja Dragon
- Ninja Destroyer
- Ninja the Final Duel
- Life of Ninja
- The Thundering Ninja
Suck, squeeze, bang, blow.
Slow motion video from inside the combustion chamber of a running flat head/L-head/Side valve engine with a rich mixture. Same engine running lean. Running at regular speed (misfires caused by carb tuning), (via /r/Justrolledintotheshop) [more inside]
“I think Lily's thoughts, I dream her dreams. She was always there.”
The Danish Girl [YouTube] [Trailer]
The Danish Girl is a 2015 British-American pseudo-biographical drama film directed by Tom Hooper, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by David Ebershoff. The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil and Ben Whishaw as Henrik.[more inside]
The end of online comments?
Say goodbye to online comments as you know them We have finally realized that the kind of person who devotes his day to arguing with strangers anonymously on the Internet is not necessarily representative of a large swath of public opinion or necessarily good at articulating anything. [more inside]
The Cookies you Make with the Stuff you've got left.
Kitchen Sink Cookies. A note on amounts: You'll want to use about 1 cup for chocolatey things, 1 to 2 cups crunchy stuff like cereal and potato chips, 1 cup for nuts and dried fruit, 1 to 2 teaspoons for spices, 2 to 3 tablespoons for alcohol, and about 1 cup for most other things, like mini marshmallows and amaretto cookies.
TR909
The right kind of attention doesn't have to stop...
The Destruction of Workers' Compensation in the US
Over the past 25 years, the giant meatpacking company Tyson Foods has taken a lead in pushing for changes in workers’ comp in state after state—often to the detriment of workers. ... Tyson’s story also tells a broader one about American politics: How time after time, one determined company, facing a challenge to its profits, can bend government and the law to its will. Over the past year, ProPublica and NPR have examined how many states have been quietly dismantling their workers’ comp systems. [more inside]
A new way of hearing Palestine
"Palestinian culture — notably the writings of Mahmoud Darwish — have inspired non-Palestinian artists, such as the elegant, sparse album The Astounding Eyes of Rita by Tunisian jazz master Anouar Brahem. But all of these belong to very “grown-up” genres, appealing to audiences used to classical, jazz and “world” music. Checkpoint 303's "The Iqrit Files" offers something very different. Palestinian songs, poetry, history and landscapes provide the starting point for an album which combines them with the much more youthful sounds of drum and bass, minimal techno and ambient electronic." (The Electronic Intifada) [more inside]
All I really need is a song in my heart
Sheila Heti (previously) profiles Raffi: The wondrous — and occasionally weird — relationship between the children’s-music superstar, his fans, and the man he used to be.
A Beginner’s Guide to Grime
"2015 just may be the year that grime goes global. The MC-driven genre is in the middle of a strong, fertile second coming that’s reaching listeners farther flung than ever before. Though grime has had global aspirations for over a decade now, launching several UK superstars like Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Skepta, the music never managed to become an international export on the scale of American hip-hop. Now things are starting to change."
One weird trick to save money when shopping
At the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, Danielle Paquette explains “why you should always buy the men’s version of almost anything”
Standing at Armageddon and Battling for the Lord
They aren’t necessarily superconservative. They often don’t think in ideological terms at all. But they do strongly feel that life in this country used to be better for people like them—and they want that older country back. The Great Republican Revolt: from the pages of The Atlantic, David Frum explains how current state of the Republican Party, explains the different factions and movements within the GOP, and lays out four possible options for the future. [more inside]
I am here to tell the story... And I am here for the food.
‘We had to put Charles Dickens in the movie. Who’s the least likely character to be Charles Dickens? Gonzo!’ How we made: The Muppet Christmas Carol
Walls Not Included
"I Woke Up in a Parallel Universe"
On Hillary Clinton's 'likeability'
Spoofing Border Drones
The bad guys on the border have lots of money and what they are putting money into is into spoofing and jamming GPS systems. DHS was unable to say just how often smugglers tried to jam or spoof border-watching UAVs.
CBP had little to show for the big price tag. UAVs helped in just 2 percent of apprehensions on the southwest border.
Goodnight, gorillas!
Sleepy gorillas make their nests in Kahuzi-Biega National Park. You can visit these gorillas by going on a virtual gorilla trek in Democratic Republic of Congo!
Guess I have a new show to watch
You're the Worst does not suggest depression can be defeated. It suggests, instead, that it can be lived with. Todd VanDerWerff, Culture Editor for Vox as well as AV Club reviewer, explains why the show You're the Worst understands the relationship between him and his wife.
Sam Stevens: Troll Level 71
Gizmodo brings us one of the most esoteric and meta end-of-year lists with The 10 Coolest Time Capsules Opened in 2015 (which includes a few messages in bottles, so it's a fairly liberal definition of "time capsule"). Lot of people want to preserve booze for the future generations.
Die Hard is not a Christmas movie
46% say Rudolph is their favorite, and otherAmerican attitudes on the holiday season, via Public Policy Polling.
As if we all have the same online experience
One day Harvard professor Latanya Sweeney googled herself with a reporter friend sitting next to her. An ad popped up inquiring about her arrest record. She had never been arrested. "It must be because you have one of those Black Names!" the friend said. "That's impossible," she replied, "Computers can't be racist." But then she started doing research. [more inside]
2015’S Biggest Albums, Courtesy of 1-Star Amazon Reviewers
Vice's Noisey compiled the most important list of the year: 2015's Biggest Albums Rated By 1-Star Amazon Reviewers. [more inside]
Social Science and Foreign Affairs
Touching Objects
"Paula Zuccotti travelled around the world and asked everyone from a cowboy in Tucson to a toddler in Tokyo to list every single thing they touched in a day – then she photographed them. The items tell surprisingly intimate tales of the people who picked them up." (SLGuardian)
Landlocked Islanders
‘The Quatermass Experiment’ Experiment.
"This caption is a blatant lie." On the 2nd April 2005, BBC Four broadcast the BBC’s first live drama for over 20 years which was a remake of The Quatermass Experiment, starring Jason Flemyng. A dvd was eagerly anticipated but as this exhaustive investigation demonstrates people did not end up buying the version which was originally broadcast.
Essential, influential, and recommended texts in cultural anthropology
Allegra Lab's recently published list of 30 essential books in cultural anthropology overlaps substantially with Ryan Sayre's earlier list, 100 influential ethnographies and anthropological texts, but neither provides many details. Angela Stuesse's Engaged Ethnography site provides an up-to-date list of politically-engaged ethnographies (etc.) with descriptions of what to expect, and the Staley Prize each year selects and describes a book at least two years old but not more than eight to recognize recent work of lasting interest. Incidentally, many books on these lists are available online. [more inside]
December 21
Despite What You May Think, My NFL Career Was a Success
Former NFL quarterback and current Fox Sports college football analyst Joey Harrington reflects on his NFL career.
Giraffes leaping off a High Dive
5 Mètres 80: An Absurd Animation Depicting a Herd of Giraffes Leaping Off a High Dive by Nicolas Deveaux. OK, this is ridiculous, but in the best way possible. [more inside]
"These deaths are concentrated in poor, segregated neighborhoods"
McBride wanted President Obama to make Ceasefire and similar programs part of his post-Newtown push to reduce gun violence. He had brought a short memo to give to White House staffers, outlining a plan to devote $500 million over five years to scaling such programs nationwide. His pitch to Biden that day was even simpler: Don’t ignore that black children are dying too.- Beyond Gun Control, Lois Beckett, The New Republic and Pro Publica [more inside]
Ballantine: An elegant IPA for a more civilized age
HTTP 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has approved the use of the HTTP 451 status code to indicate a web page that has been blocked for legal reasons. A rise in online censorship was mentioned as driving the approval of this status code, first proposed in 2013. [more inside]
I Don't Want to Go to There
Sarah Palin impersonates Tina Fey in an inexplicable new 30 Rock parody, with help from John McCain, Lindsey Graham and... Dot Com? (SLYT) Sarah Palin does her attempt at a Tina Fey impression. This is a thing that happened. [more inside]
Whitewashing All of Mankind
"All of Mankind," a 1971 mural by Chicago artist William Walker ("What Langston Hughes has been to African American letters, William (Bill) Walker is to African-American images," declared Victor Sorell of Chicago State University, while mural historian Jim Prigoff described him as "the Diego Rivera of the United States") has finally, despite more than a decade of activism seeking to preserve and restore it, been painted over completely. It had been one of the last three surviving murals in Chicago by the prolific muralist, who died in 2011 at the age of 85. [more inside]
It is finished.
It began in September 2005. Nobody could have foreseen that a story would unfold at all, let alone the one that did. Today, it ends: Mateusz Skutnik's Submachine 10: The Exit. (Don't play until you've finished 1 through 9 first.) [more inside]
What if we could vaccinate against depression or PTSD?
Depression is the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 30 percent of Americans at some point in their lives. But despite half a century of research, ubiquitous advertising, and blockbuster sales, antidepressant drugs just don’t work very well. The science magazine Nautilus explores the use of ketamine to treat depression and prevent PTSD. [more inside]
Presumably the bathrooms will not be recreated
CBGB Is Reopening… As a Restaurant in Newark Airport Serving 'American fare in a fun environment recalling the legendary music venue.'
The Luttrell Psalter Film
The Luttrell Psalter is a mid-14th century English illuminated manuscript containing a large number of illustrations of everyday life in medieval England. In 2008 the Psalter was adapted into a 20 minute short film for The Collection Museum in Lincoln, drawing on 35 scenes from the manuscript. There is also a blog describing the making of the film. [more inside]
...and then all that was left was the porn
"But in the dark crevices of the Internet, something else was brewing: without warning, Erin Esurance became masturbation fodder for the very demographic she was designed to target." How Esurance Lost Its Mascot to the Internet.
The Enchanted Unbreakable Full Spectrum Bulb, and other fairy tales
Family Secrets and Secret Families: the Hidden Jews of New Mexico
Following the Christian Reconquest and unification of Spain, concluded with the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the victorious Catholic sovereigns decreed on March 31, 1492 that all Jews convert to Christianity or leave Spain by the last day of July. Whether they stayed or left, many Jewish families continued to practice their faith in secret. Such crypto-Jews passed their traditions down the generations and around the world, some ending up in the Southwest. 500 years later, New Mexico's "hidden Jews" were found among strong Hispanic Catholic communities. Though some were skeptical about the origins of certain family practices, additional research and a pattern of breast cancer lead to genetic testing and confirmation of prior beliefs. [more inside]
Médecins Sans Frontières: A Year in Pictures
"The best curmudgeon in the world."
Alden Amos, famously opinionated spinning wheel maker, teacher, and author, is dead at 77. He earned an obituary in the New York Times. "Thank you, Alden Amos." A 2009 interview. Alden and his wife, Stephenie Gaustad, sing Ode to Woad.
Twitter is a strong candidate.
At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen and commenters are answering the question, "If you had the power to make civilization unlearn one technology or theory in use today, what would it be?" Leading candidates include nuclear weapons, cigarettes, the AK-47, and Twitter.
Stream The Beatles
Billboard and other sources are reporting The Beatles will be available on streaming services, starting Christmas Eve (Dec 24th). [more inside]
${city}henge
We've talked about Manhattanhenge — the days, usually around May 2 and August 12, on which the setting sun aligns Stonehenge-style with Manhattan's street grid. But of course, the real Stonehenge doesn't line up with the sun on just any old day: it specifically marks sunrise and sunset on the solstices. So you might wonder, are there any streets that do that? The answer, as it turns out, is "Yes — lots!" [more inside]
Factory-produced: Photographs 1964-1970
BBC Arts::Photography - "Billy Name was the in-house photographer at Andy Warhol's Factory studio, where he lived from 1964-1970. A newly published book, Billy Name: The Silver Age, collects his work to tell the story of that heady time." [more inside]
“No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever.”
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" [Wiki]
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is a phrase from an editorial called Is There a Santa Claus?. The editorial appeared in the September 21, 1897, edition of The (New York) Sun and has since become part of popular Christmas folklore in the United States. It is the most reprinted editorial in any English-language newspaper.[more inside]
"I regret I am a punching ball"
A FIFA-charterd independent ethic committee has suspended FIFA President Sepp Blatter from all football-related activities for eight years. The decision takes effect immediately. [more inside]
Money is extracted from people in love & happy people support capitalism
Since 2006, a group of lonely single men in Japan calling itself Kakumeiteki Hi-mote Domei (“Revolutionary Losers’ League”) has been protesting against Christmas, arguing that the holiday, as practiced in Japan, marginalises the uncoupled. [more inside]
I wonder if it's gonna ever feel like Christmas again out here
On Black Friday Aloe Blacc (previously) released an acoustic Christmas EP for free on Youtube. Unadvertised and unmarketed. It includes 4 Christmas standards and a remarkable0 original song, Merry Christmas Mr. Brown. [more inside]
Love In The Age Of Big Data
You might expect love to be the last frontier breached by data. It is the Antarctic of the human experience, richly feeding the oceans of our emotions, yet somehow remaining elusive and unknown. Philosophers have argued over it for millennia without arriving at a satisfactory definition. Poets like Erich Fried capture its strange mix of pleasure and pain, the sense of its essential ungovernability: “It is foolish, says caution / It is impossible, says experience / It is what it is, says love.” [slhuffpo]
April, 1561: Florida man leaves "priceless" artifacts in empty lot
The site of the Tristán de Luna colony has reportedly been found in Pensacola: "'There were 1500 people there ... for about a two-year period' ... The colony lasted from 1559-61 and included 550 Spanish soldiers, about 200 Aztecs and an unknown number of African slaves ... The Luna colony is arguably the first European settlement and unquestionably the oldest multi-year European settlement" in the present-day United States. Just two years ago, the site of a 1567 fort built by the Juan Pardo expedition in western North Carolina [NYT] was confirmed as well. [more inside]
Outrunning the Demons
Greg O'Brien on running and early-onset Alzheimer's Disease: "After my diagnosis, the doctors told me that I had to ramp up my running. Physical activity—particularly in late afternoon—helps reduce the end-of-day confusion and restlessness common in dementia patients. Known as “sundowning,” such symptoms are caused as light fades to black. This can also be a time of greater rage, agitation, and mood swings; like dandelions, we behave differently at night, our heads closing up tightly as the sun goes down. So every day before dusk, I ran from the demons of confusion, anger, and ongoing depression." (Runner's World)
December 20
"Folks at NPR thought, 'Oh good grief, we're selling out to Hollywood.'"
In 1981, NPR affiliate station KUSC hatched a bold plan to adapt George Lucas’ Star Wars for radio. Easily the most visual film of the last decade, Star Wars as a listening experience seemed like an unlikely idea, but Lucas sold them the rights to adapt the hit movie for one dollar, and opened the Lucasfilm vaults to the show’s producers: Star Wars sound effects would be available to them in their raw form, along with every note of John Williams’ music. The cast was a mixture of original Star Wars cast members, Hollywood veterans, and future TV and movie stars still in the early stages of their careers. Novelist Brian Daley and Director John Madden then turned the first three films into "movies to watch with your eyes closed." [more inside]
Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time
Mincemeat, no I mean real mincemeat
Around Christmas weird vestigial foods reappear. Fruitcake, eggnog, and weirdest and in America all but forgotten: mincemeat pie. The modern take is a sort of sugary glop made by grinding dried fruit, leaving even the homemade stuff mostly miserable and pointless. But it wasn't always like that way as the late (previously) Cliff Doerksen noted. [more inside]
Animation by René Jodoin
Spheres is a short 1969 animation by René Jodoin and Norman McLaren, soundtrack by Glenn Gould, published by the National Film Board of Canada. [more inside]
RIP Rosie Roach
"A professor at Texas A&M University posted these photos to Facebook. 'There has been a dead cockroach in the Anthropology building's stairwell for at least two weeks. Some enterprising person has now made her a little shrine.'" Things escalated from there.
The Adventures of Edward the Less
Back when the Mystery Science Theater guys were still on the Sci-Fi Channel, they made a series of short (very) limited animation cartoons called The Adventures of Edward the Less, a silly Lord of the Rings parody. It seems to have been narrated by the wonderfully-voiced Mike Dodge (RIP). While hard to come by for a while, the whole series is now on YouTube. (Previously) [more inside]
By the book
What A “Racebent” Hermione Granger Really Represents", an essay of increases interest given casting for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
the practice of holding space
Heather Plett: What it means to “hold space” for people, plus eight tips on how to do it well (via) [more inside]
From jackal to giraffe language: a workshop on nonviolent communication
Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's talk on nonviolent communication is wise, practical and surprisingly funny.
Devil's Shingle
"Before leaving this line, mention must be made of a method of riding down the track employed by track maintenance men and long since banned. Wood and metal seats some 3 ft. × 1 ft. were made to fit over the rack rail. These were known as slide-boards, or more popularly, as ‘Devil’s Shingles’. Seated on these, controlling (sometimes) the speed with hand brakes, the men would career down the mountainside. The record time for the trip — as we have said, 3 1/4 miles — was 2 3/4 minutes!" [more inside]
“If money is all that you love, then that's what you'll receive.”
A Darth Vader waffle maker? You really shouldn’t have…by David Mitchell [The Guardian]
“Star Wars, it turns out, is the most ambitious, enterprising and impressive exercise in the marketing of crap ever conceived by man. Crap, that is, apart from the toys. I have to make an exception for the toys because, as a child, I was an enthusiastic collector of Star Wars figures and spaceships. [...] But, toys aside, it really is crap. Anyone who enjoys their Stormtrooper single duvet cover set more than watching The Empire Strikes Back is a very odd person indeed – and unlikely ever to be in the market for a Stormtrooper double duvet cover set. These are all things that you either don’t need at all or you’d be slightly better off with a non-Star Wars version. And I say that as someone whose wife once gave him an R2-D2 eggcup as a present. Because if you love eggs, and you love Star Wars… you’ll still, in general, find yourself using a normal egg cup.”
Hunting with Eagles- Palani Mohan
Hunting with Eagles (MoJo article) is a photography book by Palani Mohan (web site, many photos, navigation arrow on the right of your browser screen).
"The eagle hunters, known as burkitshi, are members of Mongolia's Kazakh minority, living in the remote valleys of the Altai Mountains in the country's far west. Australian photographer Palani Mohan spent five years traveling there, documenting the nomadic lives of the 50 or 60 men who still hunt as their ancestors did 1,000 years ago."
The new preschool is crushing kids
"Preschool classrooms have become increasingly fraught spaces, with teachers cajoling their charges to finish their 'work' before they can go play. And yet, even as preschoolers are learning more pre-academic skills at earlier ages, I’ve heard many teachers say that they seem somehow—is it possible?—less inquisitive and less engaged than the kids of earlier generations." [Atlantic]
Three SF Stories from 2015: Two Near Future and One Very Far
Martin L. Shoemaker's "Today I Am Paul" and Rich Larson's "Meshed" explore the emotional impact of technological developments within relatively familiar futures, and Caroline M. Yoachim's "Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World" draws on a wide variety of SF motifs to make the future a strange and sometimes poignant allegory for wonders of the past. Each story has been selected for an upcoming year's best SF anthology—either Rich Horton's or Neil Clarke's—and two received mention earlier this year from the unverified @gardnerdozois.
December 19
Change The Bee You Wish To See In The World
Breeding Improved Honey Bees was originally printed in 1951, in The American Bee Journal. It is an informative and often dryly amusing introduction to the history and arts of bee breeding. "The honey bee has a definite place in our modern world. Its products of honey and wax are useful to man, although perhaps not essential to all men." Those histories and arts are, as you might expect, covered in bees.
The Empire Strikes Back
Thursday was a banner day for Bernie Sanders, whose campaign reached two million donations and won two key endorsements. So it came as a shock Friday when Sanders was hamstrung by, of all things, a Clinton data scandal. NGP VAN, the Democratic Party's main vendor for data services, mistakenly lowered the firewalls isolating each campaign's voter info -- and one Sanders staffer peeked. While the (now-fired) staffer claims they were just trying to gauge the scope of the exposure, the Clinton camp accused their rival of downloading valuable data. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz agreed, barring the entire campaign from NGP VAN in response -- potentially crippling their sprint to Iowa. Already dinged for shielding Clinton with favorable debate schedules, the DNC dropped the ban following outcry and a Sanders lawsuit (which Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said might expose collusion). Crisis averted, though not without adding some potential fireworks to tonight's Democratic debate on ABC.
memories of the future
Over the past 15 years drum & bass has become a sort of black sheep in the dance music family — too hard for the uninitiated while converts seem content with the smug satisfaction of ‘getting it.’
“Outsiders to drum & bass need something interesting to make them have a look and dig,” he explains. “I’m not sure what that could be these days."
“Outsiders to drum & bass need something interesting to make them have a look and dig,” he explains. “I’m not sure what that could be these days."
I Love You All The Time
Eagles Of Death Metal have announced their Play It Forward fundraising campaign for victims of and families of victims of the Paris terrorist attacks of Nov 13. Artists of all musical genres are encouraged to cover EODM's song I Love You All The Time and offer it up for purchase, with all proceeds going toward this fund. So far, a wide variety of musicians have contributed covers, and more are expected. Pearl Jam is also offering a 7" single. Music can help heal the world, or at least help support those affected by senseless violence.
tear it out, root and branch
Fluffin' the holiday squees-un
For your minute of zen, baby bunnies dozing in glasses. The noses! The pawses! The chinses!! [more inside]
Making a Murderer
Netflix's first true-crime series is a 10-part documentary series called Making a Murderer. It follows the life and trials of a man named Steven Avery who, in 1985, was wrongfully convicted for a crime he did not commit. After serving 18 years in prison, he was exonerated by DNA evidence. Two years after his release, and in the midst of a $36 million settlement with local law enforcement, Steven was arrested for another, even more heinous crime.
The series is being compared to other serialized true-crime nonfiction like Serial, the Jinx, and the Staircase. You may also remember Avery's story from an episode of Radiolab.
An end to the conversion therapy flat earth society
The largest Jewish gay conversion therapy organization, JONAH, was effectively shut down by the SPLC this week. Southern Poverty Law Center attorneys helped establish legal precedent that can be used to successfully sue any conversion therapy practice or organization in the US: as the judge ruled in the case, “the theory that homosexuality is a disorder is not novel but—like the notion that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it—instead is outdated and refuted.” Thus, organizations that offer therapy for something that is not a disorder are visiting fraud upon the public.
Waterlooing Trump
"Despite Trump’s apparent strength in national polls, Cruz’s targeting of Iowa focuses on the most logical schwerpunkt for defeating Trump (puncturing his air of being a winner) by using the sequential nature of primaries to hand him a defeat in the first state to actually vote."
Applying the theories of military strategist John Boyd to explain why Donald Trump has proven so successful in the primary so far, and why he will fail. Also, schwerpunkt! [more inside]
Flower?!! NOOOoooooo!!
Joining in on the frenzy of Star Wars Week, the folks at Bad Lip Reading have teamed up with Jack Black, Bill Hader, and Maya Rudolph to punch up the dry, boring dialogue of the original trilogy: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi.
RIP Jimmy Hill
BBC: "Former Match of the Day presenter Jimmy Hill, one of English football's most influential figures, died on Saturday at the age of 87.
As chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association, he led the campaign for the scrapping of maximum wages for professional footballers.
He played 297 games for Fulham and was later manager and chairman at Coventry.
Hill - diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2008 - made more than 600 appearances as presenter of Match of the Day."
Guardian Report -
Guardian Obituary.
I'm Jessamyn West, a cyborg from the TV show House, AMA
Metafilter's until-recently-own Jessamyn West recently did an AMA on Reddit, and the post was subsequently chosen as a starting point by the /r/SubredditSimulator (previously), which is a "fully-automated subreddit that generates random submissions and comments using markov chains, with each bot account creating text based on comments from a different subreddit."
I'd say a good 90% of the post titles on /r/SubredditSimulator are obviously gibberish, but every now and then, it will generate one that is close enough to plausible that it fools me. This was one of them.
Just Me In The House By Myself
What Ever Happened To Kevin McCallister? Macaulay Culkin returns to the role that made him famous in first episode of the web series DRYVRS from Jack Dishel. (5:12)
"I didn't expect to be body slammed"
A brief history of the frozen rutabaga scandal in Ithaca. "About five years ago, a man found the perfect rutabaga for the International Rutabaga Curling World Championship at the Ithaca Farmers Market. It was huge. It was oblong. It "tumbled" instead of rolling. Steve Paisley, a first time rutabaga curler, won a silver medal that year." [more inside]
I’m not sure which of these individuals has a Radio for a Head
RIP Nigel Buxton, journalist, who found fame in later years as 'BaaadDad' on The Adam and Joe Show. As ever, the Telegraphy has an interesting obituary [more inside]
Soundtracks for false nostalgia
Have you played Mega Man 11? Yoshi's Island 2? The SNES Earthbound sequel? No? Well, while you wait to get your hands on them, you can listen to the soundtracks online. [more inside]
“Hitler has only got one ball,”
Hitler really did have only one testicle, German researcher claims. [The Guardian]
The song sung in schoolyards by generations of British children mocking Adolf Hitler for only having “one ball” might be accurate after all. A German historian has unearthed the Nazi leader’s long-lost medical records, which seem to confirm the urban legend that he only had one testicle. The records, taken during a medical exam following Hitler’s arrest over the failed Beer hall putsch in 1923, show that he suffered from “right-side cryptorchidism”, or an undescended right testicle. Notes written by Dr Josef Steiner Brin, the medical officer at Landsberg prison, state “Adolf Hitler, artist, recently writer” was otherwise “healthy and strong”.
Philosop-her
At Philosop-her, Meena Krishnamurthy invites women in philosophy to introduce themselves and their work. For example, Elizabeth Barnes, "Confessions of a Bitter Cripple": "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island ... I have been told that, while it isn't bad for me to exist, it would've been better if my mother could've had a non-disabled child instead ... And these things weren't said as the conclusions of careful, extended argument ... They were the kind of thing you skip over without pause because it's the uncontroversial part of your talk." [more inside]
December 18
Get it together, Stoner Sloth!
Passport Power
"Now that we've settled it, OP should probably delete this thread."
At the age of 43, Kelly Slater has done just about everything a professional surfer can do, and done it more than once. After eleven world championships, (he was both the youngest (at 20) and oldest (at 39) to be ranked #1) he's the all-time win leader, and the first surfer ever to earn two perfect waves at Tahiti Pro. He romanced Nicole Eggert on Baywatch. According to Slate you should be worshipping him. Now his greatest achievement is at hand. [more inside]
Micromanaging the Model
France, which made being an "ultra-thin" model illegal this past April, just recently passed legislation making it illegal to hire such models. [more inside]
Alcohol production and sales during Prohibition: For Medicinal Use
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was enacted to carry out the intent of the Eighteenth Amendment, which established prohibition in the United States. There were three key exemptions: wine for sacramental purposes, 200 gallons per calendar year for a household in which two or more adults reside, and liquor or alcohol prescribed by a physician for medicine. The U.S. Treasury Department authorized physicians to write prescriptions for medicinal alcohol, but everyone knew what the whiskey was really for. [more inside]
The Magic Wand Throughout Art History
Over the last year or so, a tumblr improving famous paintings by adding more overt elements indicating women's pleasure has emerged, offering us The Magic Wand Throughout Art History. Interviews with the artist have offered slightly varying mission statements, with
Bustle and
Mic noting his intentions to celebrate and destigmatize female masturbation by marrying the image of the iconic Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator with recognizable works of art, and Unicorn Booty notes that he simply wants to put two great things together and have fun.
solo intimacy DIY
It's All Relative
Everyone on Earth is actually your cousin . Tim Urban discusses genealogy and pedigree collapse as one more reason we should all try to get along.
Also, talk to your grandparents. They have stories too.
Juniper systems hack
Firewalls from Juniper Network have been revealed as having a back door which permitted system-level access and the ability to read VPN traffic. Juniper has released emergency patches to fix the vulnerability. The affected equipment is heavily used by the US government.
Rossi Ruiz
There is no purse for the Lehigh Valley Health Network Via Marathon. But 2014’s 114th-place finisher will bank $100,000 if he can recreate his result. [more inside]
Where "schools aren’t a place to learn, they’re a place to fear."
In 2007, the Pinellas County, Florida School Board abandoned integration, joining hundreds of US school districts in former Confederacy states that have resegregated since 2000. The Board justified the vote with bold promises: Schools in poor, black neighborhoods would get more money, more staff, more resources -- none of which happened. This past August, the Tampa Bay Times published an exposé, revealing how district leaders turned five once-average schools into Failure Factories. [more inside]
“real” programming languages
"So when I started programming in 2001, it was du jour in the communities I participated in to be highly critical of other languages. Other languages sucked, the people using them were losers or stupid, if they would just use a real language, such as the one we used, everything would just be better.Contempt Culture, Aurynn Shaw (The Particular Finest)
Right?"
familiar to cat-owners
If not a thing as old as time, joke dollar is a thing as old as 2006.
Joke dollar is not for prepared material. It is for the bon mot, the right remark at the right time, which is why so few joke-dollar anecdotes are funny in print. You had to be there. … It is the gestural equivalent of understatement: I do not have time to explain how much I loved you in the moment after you said that thing about mermaid sex, so here’s a dollar.
Star Wars: The Pencil Game
"When I was a kid, my uncle taught me this pencil and paper game he called Star Wars." "I have no idea who originally invented it." "Basically you draw two bases on opposite ends of the paper. Each base gets a mothership and two flanking defensive (immobile) turrets. Players wage war on each other by launching fighters from their motherships, then attempt to blast away their opponent's base. [...] To launch fighters, move, and fire weapons, players place their pencil tip on the selected unit's cannon. Then they must hold the pencil in position with a single index finger pressing down on the end of the pencil. Finally a player fires by pushing down on the pencil forcing the tip to draw a line outward. " [more inside]
Run, Hide, Tell
BBC: "[UK] Police have released a video telling people to "run, hide, tell" if they are caught up in a terrorist gun attack.
The four-minute video advises on how to evacuate a building, where to hide, and what information to tell police.
The video says people's first reaction if they hear gunshots should be to run - as long as it will not put them in greater danger - and not to let others' indecision "slow you down"."
Political Gambling in 2016
"As a gambler, I’ve noticed that Americans might also be obsessed with predicting their presidential races, but they often rely on pundits whose name recognition far outstrips their accuracy. Gamblers can’t afford to be wrong that often: Political prediction is a genuine game of skill, with serious research going into the effort—and serious rewards for the gambler who gets it right." [more inside]
(Almost) Everything I Know About Hell I Learned From "Buffy"
I would feel bad about this pop theological education, except I'm not alone. As part of Sojourner's series on God in sci-fi and fantasy (in honor of Star Wars Week), Rose Marie Berger discusses Hell as a trope and a reality.
“Perhaps the next time you hear from me I’ll be dead,”
Dead Air: The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist, especially if you’re in talk radio. [The California Sunday Magazine] By Saul Elbein Photographs by Jes Aznar
When Elgin Damasco’s radio talk show was over, his bodyguards would hustle him out of his fortified studio and into his car. They would drive him through the leafy streets of Puerto Princesa, capital of the western Philippine province of Palawan, and bring him home. There he would hunker down until morning. Police had warned him that men had been casing his house. “I don’t even have the freedom to go to the mall,” Damasco told me. Inside the cinder-block walls of his studio, the cherubic 32-year-old felt safe. His sonorous voice was hooked into the most powerful transmitter on Palawan island. He was charging forth, as his station ID went, “to defend the weak and criticize the corrupt.” From 4:00 to 5:30 weekday afternoons, no one could shut him up.
A scam like this is going to take years to investigate
Rather than a simple scam, Vyapam appears to be a vast societal swindle—one that reveals the hollowness at the heart of practically every Indian state institution: inadequate schools, a crushing shortage of meaningful jobs, a corrupt government, a cynical middle class happy to cheat the system to aid their own children, a compromised and inept police force and a judiciary incapable of enforcing its laws.Aman Sethi writes in the Guardian on the so-called Vyapam scam—allegations of high-level and systematic corruption in the administration of the state professional examinations that determine entry into medical schools, state colleges, and entry-level civil service jobs within the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The scandal has been connected with 48 suspicious deaths involving people implicated in or investigating the scandal. The Indian Express has a timeline of events, while the Times of India has an extensive archive of further coverage.
December 17
"The simplest answer is: More gaming choices."
The 2015 People's Choice Top 100 Solo Tabletop Games: a list produced by BoardGameGeek's 1 Player Guild in connection with the 1 Player Podcast. Over 200 voters today put the Mage Knight Board Game in the top spot once more, but a number of smaller/shorter games made the top 10 too. The group's FAQ "Why do some people play solitaire board games?" explains how solo tabletop gaming complements multiplayer and digital board gaming. This week, incidentally, the iOS Board Games blog is synopsizing the latter in its annual Digital Board Games Gift Guide. [more inside]
Your secret Stingray is not so secret anymore
Daniel Rigmaiden had a theory about something his phone was doing. It turns out his phone really was spying on him.
Most phones can be used to geolocate people, but the documents indicate that some have more advanced capabilities, like eavesdropping on calls and spying on SMS messages.
You broke my videogames and I like it. -- not_on_display
To avoid spoilers by quoting JHarris from here, "Retro Sabotage is a collection of recreations of classic video games. Or is it?" And they have just released their first content in almost six years to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Space Harrier: To War. Oh, and here's JHarris's hint about Retro Sabotage in general: "If a button needs to be pressed, it's the space bar unless it's explained otherwise." [more inside]
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away
A long time ago in a TV studio not so far away, the stars of the original Star Wars film came to the BBC to promote their then-unknown movie Star Wars at the BBC (Iplayer) (Youtube) [more inside]
"Owning a Frenchie is not for the faint of heart."
WHY FRENCH BULLDOGS (AND THEIR OWNERS) ARE THE WORST: A RANT
Generations of unwise inbreeding to no good end, far beyond what would be needed to keep their signature looks, have left these cartoon critters with low resistance to illness and allergies. Physically handicapped at birth (by cesarean, because the heads are, like the owners' pride, inflated) with squashed-in faces that are freakishly flat, they face serious challenges in performing some of any mammal's basic functions — like getting enough oxygen and keeping their bodies at a safe temperature.
French Bulldogs are NYC’s Most Popular Dog
Generations of unwise inbreeding to no good end, far beyond what would be needed to keep their signature looks, have left these cartoon critters with low resistance to illness and allergies. Physically handicapped at birth (by cesarean, because the heads are, like the owners' pride, inflated) with squashed-in faces that are freakishly flat, they face serious challenges in performing some of any mammal's basic functions — like getting enough oxygen and keeping their bodies at a safe temperature.
French Bulldogs are NYC’s Most Popular Dog
Put a bow on it!
Tis the season for big-ass bows. Here's a very brief documentary on one of the more unique businesses in America (and the obligatory Key and Peele sketch that goes with it).
You mite not have heard of them, but they'd lice to tell you a story
The history of humanity’s grand sweep around the world is recorded in our genes and genealogies, our art and artifacts, our literature and languages. It’s also written in the legions
of tiny mites that live, eat, crawl, and have sex on your face.
Stromae's Racine Carrée, live - we were amazing
In support of his most recent album, Racine Carrée (YT playlist with official videos), Stromae played 209 concerts in 25 countries. From these, he captured performances at the Bell Center in Montreal on September 28 and 29 to present two hours of the singing, dancing, acting spectacle that was his show (YT). Bonus: it's subtitled in English, if you want to understand those French lyrics. [more inside]
Turns out good beards don't mean good chocolate
How the Mast Brothers fooled the world into paying $10 a bar for crappy hipster chocolate [more inside]
Literally Blood-Curdling
"Extending to the lower orders a small share in domination."
How To Predict Bad Cops In Chicago
"...thou shalt not be a bystander" ― Yehuda Bauer
Playing Along With Benny Goodman: Javier Grillo-Marxuach on Plagiarism
I am a Fucking Plagiarist -- Javier Grillo-Marxuach, creator of The Middleman (previously), a writer for two seasons on Lost, and co-host of the Children of Tendu podcast, riffs (extensively, and entertainingly) on the nature of plagiarism in the lives of aspiring and professional entertainers. [more inside]
"There's the Jamaican bobsled team, so TAKE THAT, stereotypes!"
“Black Folk Don’t...” is an open conversation that invites everyone to take a second look at the grey areas between us all, no matter the race, and most importantly to do it with a sense of humor. This documentary web series is a special presentation of BlackPublicMedia.org, directed and produced by Angela Tucker, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Did you know that black folk don't… [more inside]
"It is for her love that we’ve done everything."
"Like grimey servants we followed every new trace that could lead us to her, the aim of our two year quest was always to see the toughest of all the machines. A dormant juggernaut that lies underground. Her name? Iseb, the worm maiden." [more inside]
Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery
In 1796, Jane Austen visited John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. The museum (operational from 1789-1805) was entirely devoted to specially-commissioned paintings of scenes from Shakespeare's plays, and played a significant role in shaping the dramatist's reputation during the late eighteenth century. This reconstruction of the gallery includes the catalog and the paintings that would have been hanging there in 1796 (the museum's collection ultimately included well over 150 paintings). For more information on the gallery, see the Folger Library's Marketing Shakespeare. The Romantic Illustration Network is working on digitizing extant engravings of the gallery's entire collection. Visitors to the gallery were themselves painted in 1790.
I can't do it his way and now I'm ashamed to do it my way.
I enjoy watching Mr. Brown. He's clever, he's informed and I'm sure he's generally right about the "right" way to do things. I'm also sure that I will never in my life have a kitchen as well-stocked as his or that I will have nine hours to spend making a blintz.
Why I Don't Cook [more inside]
Radical Acceptance in the Pearl of Africa
Cleopatra Kambugu was outed as a trans woman following the passage of extremely punitive anti-gay bills in Uganda. She, her boyfriend, and her family are the subject of a series of short documentaries about life in East Africa for openly LGBTQI individuals. "I was born here - a land with beautiful mountains and deep dark forest - a country blessed with diversity in ethnicity, gender, flora and fauna. Yet in all this richness, as a people and as a nation, we still struggle to recognize and appreciate this diversity." links and videos contain some disturbing transphobic and homophobic rhetoric and violence. [more inside]
high-end cafe at home
How Jimmy Fallon Crushed Stephen Colbert
Essay contest for movie theater giveaway!
Write yourself a new life via essay contest in a movie theater giveaway Win a two-screen movie theater in Houlton, Maine (right on the cusp of an international border!) in an essay contest. The theater is no white elephant gift; the owner renovated and upgraded in 2014 for digital projection & sound. [more inside]
This is a summoning of bodies: all shapes, sizes and shades
Lizzo has a new album out - Big GRRRL Small World. Among a roster of tracks that specialises in audacious beats, hilarious lyrics, unexpected diversions and freakishly catchy hooks, sits My Skin, a sweet but weary ode to empowerment, body-positivity, and being a person of colour. [more inside]
The dark truth behind the convictions for 'gender fraud'
It's not about justice, it's about witch hunts, argues Alex Sharpe "Today, a young transgender man, Kyran Lee, received a two year suspended sentence after being convicted in 2014 of one count of sexual assault by penetration on the basis of “gender fraud.” He is the fifth young LGBT person to be prosecuted for and convicted of so-called “gender fraud” in the UK since 2012. The reason for this recent spate of criminal prosecutions of LGBT youth is unclear and calls for rigorous analysis in its own right. What is clear, is that while these prosecutions have some support, they do not accord with general community sentiment concerning the meaning of consent and the proper reach of criminal law."
“You can’t squint hard enough to make this gray.”
Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Claims of a Cover-Up by Nicholas Kulish, Christopher Drew and Matthew Rosenberg [The New York Times] U.S. soldiers accused Afghan police and Navy SEALs of abusing detainees. But the SEAL command opted against a court-martial and cleared its men of wrongdoing.
Abuse of detainees is among the most serious offenses an American service member can commit. Several military justice experts, who reviewed a Naval Criminal Investigative Service report on the case at the request of The Times, said that it had been inappropriate for the SEAL command to treat such allegations as an internal disciplinary matter and that it should have referred the case for an Article 32 review, the equivalent of a grand jury, to consider a court-martial.[more inside]
Snow and Seals
December 16
"Here is a fascinating game of wits for a party of any size."
Minute Mysteries (1932) by H. A. Ripley is a recent addition to Project Gutenberg: "In these accounts every fact, every clue necessary to the solution is given ... Each problem has only one possible solution. Written in less than two hundred and sixty words, these little stories can be read in a minute. Here is your chance to work on an absolute equality with the Professor; to match your wits with his and the criminal's. You know as much as the Professor does. Now you have an opportunity of proving just how good a detective you are and what poor detectives your friends are." [more inside]
What ever happened to the charity of yesterday?
Spicy Christmas Wrapping
Go ahead and make your 'balls' jokes; it really is stunning in person
Greensboro, NC has a unique holiday tradition: the lighted Christmas balls. Every year, the trees of Sunset Hills and surrounding neighborhoods are suddenly filled with thousands and thousands of lighted Christmas balls. Here's a video explaining the history of the balls - and here's how you can make your own!
And this year, there's finally drone footage! [more inside]
I thought we were giving the world what it wanted. But we destroyed it.
On September 9th, 2015, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced Pokémon GO, a multiplayer location-aware mobile game for iOS and Android, due for release in 2016. Their development partner, Niantic, recently revealed details on how the game will work and how it will draw upon their experience with their earlier location aware game, Ingress [Ingress, Previously: 1, 2]. [more inside]
Whatever makes you happy, you put in your world.
"Painting is beside the point: the paintings in The Joy of Painting don’t matter." The joy of writing about The Joy Of Painting. In Which Bob Ross is Compared to God, Creator of Worlds. [more inside]
Reflections of a sellout; how diversity would strengthen social science
José L. Duarte is one author of an upcoming paper in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, "Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science." The authors review how academic psychology has lost its former political diversity, and explore the negative consequences of this on the field's search for true and valid results. Duarte has blogged about his own experience of bias when he was denied admission to a Ph.D program, possibly for for his perceived political views in another blog post. [more inside]
A reasonably long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away...
Star Wars minus Star Wars is a video collage that tells the story of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in twenty minutes, without using any sounds or images from Star Wars itself.
Seasonal Hazards
The holiday season is especially stressful for women. In rare occasions, that stress plus bad luck may actually contribute to heart problems. “We have seen more than a few cases of stress-induced cardiomyopathy around the holidays,” said Dr. Karla Kurrelmeyer, a cardiologist with Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center. “This occurs when women are under great amounts of stress for a short period of time and that stress is compounded with another traumatic event ... If it is ignored it can be fatal.” Yikes! Of course, men are hardly immune to seasonal hazards. In Canada (and elsewhere), men are the primary victims of Christmas décor trauma. Here's a brief guide to common holiday horrors and tips for staying safe and sane. [more inside]
Stop Idolizing Penny Pinchers
A Slate piece discusses the problem with our society lionizing individuals who engage in extreme forms of thrift, and how it obscures the actual financial issues people face. (SLSlate)
Myth and reality of the Hardanger fiddle and Myllarguten
Norwegian legends and fairy tales are full of references to subterranean or supernatural beings, many of which have the fiddle as a symbolic attribute.... Even today, some people believe that anyone hoping to become a real fiddler must be apprenticed to Fossegrimen.... The Hardanger fiddle is inextricably linked to such legends, and it is the folk tunes which have kept them alive.And Targjei Augundsson is at the crossroads of legends and folk tunes, whose skill with the fiddle is said to have come at the price of his soul from a deal with Fossegrimen, making him something of the Norwegian predecessor to Robert Johnson. [more inside]
Gamifying Patriotism
The crew at Extra Credits take a break from their usual videogame-focused content to provide a video overview of Alibaba's gamified Sesame Credit system. The system is one of eight government-overseen pilot programs to establish a "social credit score" for Chinese citizens. [more inside]
A brief history of sending letters to Santa
Children have been sending letters to Santa for well over a century now, and for much of that time those letters don't look very different from today's. Children want toys, and they want to convince Santa that they ought to get them. But where did that tradition come from, and how did it develop into its modern form? How did we come to believe that Santa lives at the North Pole and that the postal service can carry letters to Santa? What kinds of things have changed in the things children ask for over time? The Smithsonian's trying to deliver some answers for the holidays. (Previously: 1, 2).
Casey died alone in the dirt in the dark
"...what is really needed is an anti-racist, anti-transphobic movement that draws from women of color feminism and its trenchant critique of racism and police power." - Broadly, with the help of Judith Butler, digs into the lives and deaths of the 23 trans women murdered in 2015. [more inside]
Jimmy Diresta makes things
Jimmy Diresta has a youtube channel where he posts timelapse videos of him making stuff, like a kitchen knife, a fireman's axe, a dagger, a leather compact case, a business sign, and a distillery model.
The dollar, in pegboard
that amazing light
Despite the dwindling membership, there are still around six million Freemasons all over the world. The photographer focused on capturing the lodges in California, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado where he’s based. Despite the different locations there’s a uniformity between all of Jamie’s images and they begin to blend into one archaic space where dingy doorways and curtain-clad assembly rooms are the norm. - Jamie Kripke: Freemasonry
Hijab-Wearing Professor Suspended by Evangelical College
Associate Professor Larycia Hawkins has been suspended by Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian school near Chicago. Some say that it's because she has chosen to wear a hijab as a gesture of solidarity with Muslims, but the school says it's because she posted on Facebook:
I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.[more inside]
You would be so pretty if...
Throughout our lives, women hear insidious, often-conflicting messages about what it means to be a woman, about how we should act, talk and look. [more inside]
Tent City, America
Tent cities are now so common that advocates are campaigning to make them semi-permanent settlements of micro-housing. But is this a genuine solution or merely a quick fix? Chris Herring for Places Journal.
normal blood feelings
RailFolk: The human side of railroading
North Bank Fred, described in the New York Times as "[p]erhaps the most well-known recreational hobo," runs a website that's packed with fascinating photographs and stories of the life on the rails. Want to know more about nomadic rail ways? Then let's visit the The Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture, "preserves and promotes railroad culture by documenting and furthering the art, music, literature, community, and work of those who, historically and in modern times, travel or work on the railroads of North America." [more inside]
A Day in the Life of Americans
BMJ Christmas Edition
"It was fantastic being myself."
"To live one's life openly as a transgender woman, let alone one as a black trans woman, simply wasn't done. The only option, really, was to 'pass' in straight society. But Norman wanted to do more than pass — she wanted to excel in the most scrutinized realm of femininity." The story of Tracey "Africa" Norman.
Miami Is Flooding
Dog with shark? I don't care.
The BVG, the Berlin Transport Company (Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe), would like you to know what behaviors they do and do not care about on public transportation. [more inside]
"An Unbelievable Story of Rape"
An incredible story by ProPublica and The Marshall Project. What happens when police believe rape victims? What happens when they don't?
Mariah Carey + MIDI + MP3 = Xmas Insanity
Abandon hope
Cards Against Humanity Survey
As part of our mission to advance our understanding of the human condition, we gave each subscriber the chance to answer some extremely invasive and ethically dubious survey questions. Our hope was to find a Malcolm Gladwell-esque correlation between two seemingly unrelated things. At first we didn’t find anything like that in the data. But then we p-hacked our way to statistical significance, and we couldn’t believe our eyes when we found...
“Words without experience are meaningless.”
Lolita Turns Sixty by Lolita Book Club [New Republic] Ten writers reconsider Nabokov’s novel, page by page.
Though Vladimir Nabokov was living in America when he wrote Lolita, the novel was first published in Paris in 1955—by Olympia Press, whose list included many pornographic titles. On the sixtieth anniversary of Lolita’s first publication, we asked ten writers to reflect on their changing experiences with the novel in the course of their reading lives. Each day for five days, we are posting two reflections, each revisiting a section of pages from the book—we are using Vintage’s 2005 edition, a complete, unexpurgated text.[more inside]
The Depth of Simplicity
The Depth of Simplicity Lewis Bond looks at stylistic choices in the films of Yasujiro Ozu (slyt)
A post about grammar and pro sports. What could go wrong?
Footbal fans ,NOT, writ, so gud. Aficionados of basketball, however, are erudite. Baseball fans are ok. Grammarly has graded a number of comments from sports related websites for grammar and spelling, then tabulated the results by league, team and city.
December 15
Eep. Hop, hop, hop. Roll.
"I thought it was normal."
[tw: descriptions of abuse] NHL player Patrick O'Sullivan writes about surviving his abusive childhood, how he came to be a professional hockey player, and what adults should and can do when they see a child who needs their help. [more inside]
There's room for more
This is what happens when you photoshop all the men out of politics, media, music. (SLYT)
And the nominees are:
TPM's Ninth Annual Golden Dukes . The awards are named in honor of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who epitomizes the iconic modern scandal. Each year we single out those practitioners of scandal who through their own unmatched bumbling, shameless behavior, criminality or mere derp have set new standards for public corruption, betrayal of the public trust and general ridiculousness.
Reader....
The Traveling Old-Fashioned Glasses (SL Metropolitan Diary)
Probably not Disney sponsored
When you're all out of whisky (previously), and you're still looking to boost your hygge (previously) while also preparing for a cinematic event that's currently in progress, may I suggest settling in with a few hours worth of the Darth Vader Yule Log? [more inside]
On grief and the pain it brings
"And then he utters the words. The words that are responsible for nothing less than emotional, spiritual and psychological violence:
Everything happens for a reason. That this was something that had to happen in order for her to grow.
That's the kind of bullshit that destroys lives. And it is categorically untrue. "
The Narco-Terror Trap
Lou Milione, a senior official at [the DEA], told me, “One of the things the DEA is kind of in the business of is almost all of our investigations are proactive.” But Russell Hanks, a former senior American diplomat, who got a firsthand look at some of the DEA’s narco-terrorism targets during the time he served in West Africa, told me, “The DEA provided everything these men needed to commit a crime, then said, ‘Wow, look what they did.’” He added, “This wasn’t terrorism — this was the manipulation of weak-minded people, in weak countries, in order to pad arrest records." [more inside]
The history of lesbian slang--or the absence thereof
Last week, the BBC radio programme Woman’s Hour ran an item on the American documentary film "Do I Sound Gay?" The film explores what’s popularly known as ‘the gay voice’, a way of speaking that identifies a man as gay (though not all gay men have it, and some men who do sound gay are actually straight). The Woman’s Hour feature ranged more widely over the subject of gay language, including a lengthy discussion of Polari (previously: 1, 2). But it was all about the boys–-until, towards the end of the item, the presenter broached the inevitable question: do lesbians also have a language of their own? Nothing comparable to Polari--but we do have some
historical evidence of in-group lesbian slang.
"I need my community to understand your message directly impacts them"
Killer Mike interviews Senator Bernie Sanders at The SWAG Shop for about an hour, in six parts:
- Economic Freedom
- Social Justice
- Rigged
- Free Health Care: It Ain’t A Big Deal
- This Country Was Started AS An Act Of Political Protest
- Democrats Win When People Vote
... who served together, died together, and were buried together.
Thoughts on Honor, Service, and Memory by Michael B. Klein.
"The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster"
The city of Flint, Michigan, disconnected its municipal water supply from the Detroit system in April 2014 while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was being installed. The interim supply came from the local Flint River, and almost immediately, people complained that the new water was cloudy and smelled bad. Over the next eighteen months, though, the news got worse, and the state came up with $12 million to switch the water supply back. This week, the newly elected Mayor of Flint declared an emergency due to skyrocketing lead levels in the blood of Flint's children, asking the Genesee County Board of Commissioners to address the situation.
The epic quest of a fisherman to save his daughter from the Hades
Locomalito (previously, 2, 3, 4) has released his latest free retro game for Windows, the Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden/Rygar influenced Curse of Issyos. View the trailer here.
Da Art of Storytellin' (A Prequel)
I already knew OutKast; I loved their first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, in part because of the clever way they interpolated funk and soul into rap. ATLiens, however, sounded unlike anything I’d ever heard or imagined. The vocal tones were familiar, but the rhyme patterns, the composition, the production were equal parts red clay, thick buttery grits, and Mars. Nothing sounded like ATLiens. The album instantly changed not just my expectations of music, but my expectations of myself as a young black Southern artist.
Don't get caught tippling in the stable
Legal Curiosities: Fact or Fable? Among its other responsibilities, Britain's Law Commission works to repeal antiquated or irrelevant laws (NYT article) such as a 1536 law extending a London graveyard or the India Steam Ship Company Act 1838. The commission's "Legal Curiosities" note provides guidance as to which notorious "silly laws" are actually in force (actual example in force: it is illegal to be drunk in charge of a horse, and it is illegal to be drunk on licensed premises, both due to the Licensing Act 1872; not a real law in force: it is illegal for a lady to eat chocolate on a public conveyance.)
Goodbye, Gutenberg
The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster have both picked their words of the year for 2015. Neither one is a word. Of course, the 2015 Scrabble "Dictionary" was a little ahead of these two in redefining the word "word."
Apparently a movie about magical Customs and Quarantine.
The teaser trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, whose screenplay is written by J. K. Rowling based on the in-canon textbook and IRL spinoff of the Harry Potter series, is now out.
"Well ya know, for me, the action is the juice."
A guy told me one time, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner."Michael Mann's Heat was released 20 years ago today. [more inside]
Ask Abigail, She knows
Hamilton is all the rage right now, putting Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington on the stage and smack-dab in the middle of the pop cultural zeitgeist ... but what about Button Gwinnett? The little-known signer of the Declaration of Independence has never gotten the glory the other founding fathers got.
Until now. Stephen Colbert and Lin-Manuel Miranda bring you "Button!" a hip-hop musical in one song.
not with 95% confidence
It's a little impressive
Itty bitty bandaids. Teeny tiny toothpaste. Pipsqueak pills. Eenie meenie EOS. Dime sized diary. Teensy weensy teabags.
Animation vs. Minecraft
Passphrases That You Can Memorize — But That Even the NSA Can’t Guess
Passphrases That You Can Memorize — But That Even the NSA Can’t Guess. It turns out, coming up with a good passphrase by just thinking of one is incredibly hard, and if your adversary really is capable of one trillion guesses per second, you’ll probably do a bad job of it. If you use an entirely random sequence of characters it might be very secure, but it’s also agonizing to memorize (and honestly, a waste of brain power). ... But luckily this usability/security trade-off doesn’t have to exist. ... [more inside]
Moe desu
This stressful, ongoing debate fuels the seeming paradox of an “endearing” military force. In Japan, where indirect communication is highly valued, cute illustrations have long played the role of tension-breakers and mediators in situations of conflict. Thus kawaii mascots, whether miniskirted girls or bunny-rabbit decoy launchers, are both a reflection of pop-cultural trends and a way to defuse the very touchy issues surrounding the military’s undeniable presence.
Madonna, Christ and Mughal Paintings
The paintings commissioned by Akbar and Jahangir were a blend of Western iconography with Indian and Islamic elements. [more inside]
December 14
What does Facebook think you're into?
Buzzfeed's Katie Notopoulos brings our attention to Facebook's list of things it thinks you'll enjoy seeing ads about. It would seem that most people find some of Facebook's deductions eerily accurate and some of them hilariously inaccurate.
Don't expect an invitation
Who bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal?
Who bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal? It's anybody's guess. Nevada's largest circulating daily newspaper has been sold to News+ Media Capital Group, which was incorporated in Delaware on September 21st. The ownership of News + Media Capital Group is a complete mystery. [more inside]
“...people are guilty if they eat shrimp that we peeled like slaves.”
Global supermarkets selling shrimp peeled by slaves. by Margie Mason, Robin McDowell, Martha Mendoza and Esther Htusan [Associated Press] [more inside]
Sweet dreams!
Ladies and gentlemen, there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on, so here's the brand new anti-earthquake bed. Here's an earlier model from 2012.
You had dogs licking screens, now here's one licking windows
Gabephex Twin. A YouTube user known as APBradley has created a cover version of Aphex Twin’s ‘Windowlicker’ from the barks and howls of his small pet dog. (SLYT via FACT)
Being a Ghost Story of Christmas
Drone Registration Rules Are Announced by F.A.A.
The FAA announced today that all drone units weighing between 0.55 and 50 lbs must be registered with the government by Feb. 19, 2016. The new rules on drones come before the holidays, when an estimated 700,000 new drones are expected to be bought. [more inside]
Get rich or die vlogging --
The sad economics of Internet fame (slFusion)
BAT-FPP
The Best Rap Songs of 2015
Passion of the Weiss: The Best Rap Songs of 2015. It's the best year-end list I've come across -- thoughtful, articulate stuff from people who get it, and the majority of it is criminally overlooked/obscure and well worth your time. No matter how in-the-know you are, there's lots of new, crucial stuff here for you. (And no Drake in sight.) [more inside]
"Authorial intent wins. Period."
In the wake of the recent casting controversies over Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop and Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India, there have been a number of online commenters who have cited Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton as a justification for their position in the debate. What’s intriguing is that Hamilton has been offered up both as evidence of why actors of color must have the opportunity to play both characters or color and characters not necessarily written as characters of color – but it has also been used to say that anything goes, and white actors should be able to play characters of color as well. What does Lin-Manuel Miranda have to say? After all, it's not like he hasn't been been very deliberate about his casting.
"Restart the refrigerator and check timezone"
I have a Samsung RF4289HARS refrigerator. The Google calendar app on it has been working perfectly since I purchased the refrigerator August 2012. However, with the latest changes in Google Calendar API, I can no longer sign in to my calendar.From the Google support forums.
Wretched hive of scum and villainy, or jury of his peers?
The Legal Geeks discuss Han's legal justification for shooting Greedo first, via a link from The Mary Sue.
"...I’ve learned to be fierce more on the inside"
Serena Williams is Sports Illustrated's 2015 Sportsperson of the Year
The Screaming Females Talk
After ten years, six albums, and widespread critical acclaim, Screaming Females are still as hard working and viciously independent as when they began in New Brunswick’s basements in 2006. Such staying power is no small feat in a music industry where independent artists make less and less each year as the stars on the top absorb more and more of the entertainment dollar. Yet here’s a band that has found a way to make a small living, consistently create meaningful music, and all the while never sacrifice their ethical grounding. It hasn’t been easy. As with most jobs, achieving sustainability has meant constant struggles for health care, decent wages, and respect. We talked with the band about how they’ve taken on these obstacles, and what needs to happen to improve conditions for artist-workers across the industry.
Later, as he sat on his balcony...
The Deported
Kelvin Villanueva was almost home one night last June when a policeman stopped him for a broken taillight. From his truck, he could see his longtime girlfriend, Suelen Bueno... Before [she] reached them, the officer had arrested Villanueva. Bueno still had not revealed to any of the children that Villanueva had been deported. ‘‘It’s very difficult, because I don’t know how to explain it to them,’’ she said. ‘‘They’ve never been separated from him before. I don’t know what to say. I just keep telling them that he’s traveling for work, he’ll be home soon.’’ [more inside]
Popular Research Articles of 2015
Altmetric's top 100 academic research articles of 2015. These are the articles that captured the most attention from the mainstream media, blogs, Wikipedia, and social networks this year, according to Altmetric.
We Can't Wait : A Millenium Time-Capsule
A long time ago (1999), in a galaxy way, way afar . . . in anticipation of Star Wars Episode I : The Phantom Menace. Lines form outside theatres across the country. Here's a time travel trip through 1999 to visit the lines in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Dallas, New York, and San Francisco!
WaPo Drops the Mic on "He or She"
The Washington Post has updated its style guide: "e-mail" is now "email", "Web sites" are now "websites", and perhaps most significantly, "they/them/their" will now be used as gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronouns, instead of defaulting to "he/him/his" or recasting to make a sentence plural (e.g. "Readers will have their own opinions" will now be the more precise "Each reader will have their own opinion."). Post copy editor (and proprietor of The Slot) Bill Walsh notes "I suspect that the singular they will go largely unnoticed even by those who oppose it on principle. We’ve used it before, if inadvertently, and I’ve never heard a complaint."
How to get away with £1.3 million in cash? Start by renting a house...
Loafs of Northern Darkness
RIP Benedict Anderson (1935-2015)
Benedict Anderson, author of the unbelievably influential Imagined Communities, is dead at 79.
Born in republican China, died in postcolonial Indonesia, and in between, completely transformed our understanding of nationalism. RIP.
Demographic Destiny
The year 2050 is right around the corner, and yet it is hard to imagine the sweeping changes the world will confront by then. In a multimedia series, The Wall Street Journal helps readers envision how we will work, how we will age and how we will live. [more inside]
December 13
An unexpected bird, heard over and over in music since 1989: the loon
Listen to the "Loon Garden" sample from one of the E-mu Emulator II's stock library of sounds, and it may sound familiar in an unusual way. Instead of invoking a feeling of being near the Great Lakes, you might get taken to dance floors or mixes of the past and present, from 808 State's "Pacific State" and Sueño Latino's "Sueño Latino (Paradise Mix)" (both vaguely tropical numbers from 1989), to the more recent Rustie's "Up Down (feat. D Double E)" and Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" (NSFW). Philip Sherburne tracked down the story of a sample that keeps coming back, collecting more examples and getting some great insight into a number of notable tracks.
Project 880
Watch it live, sorta
If you hurry, you may be able to catch Apollo 17 taking off from the Moon.
“It involves my life, my legacy, my career, my history, my reputation.”
Alan Dershowitz on the Defense (His Own) by Barry Meier [The New York Times]
Last month, demonstrators at Johns Hopkins University interrupted Alan M. Dershowitz as he was giving a fiery speech defending Israel. The disruption normally would not have fazed Mr. Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law School professor who thrives on controversy and relishes taking on opponents in and out of the courtroom. The protesters, however, were not challenging his Middle East politics. Instead, they held up a sign reading, “You Are Rape Culture.” Mr. Dershowitz knew what it meant. A decade ago, he had defended a friend, a money manager named Jeffrey E. Epstein, after authorities in Palm Beach, Fla., found evidence indicating that he was paying underage girls to give him sexual massages. The lawyer led a scorched-earth attack on the girls and, with a team of high-priced lawyers, cut a plea deal for Mr. Epstein that the local police said was too lenient.[more inside]
I'm Worth It
Goldieblox brings you the most adorable Year in Feminism.
H is for Hawk (and Hunting)
"Want to introduce you guys to my new hunting partner for this season, and possibly longer if she does well. This is Natasha, a passage (meaning on her first migration) female red tailed hawk." From AR-15.com, a first-person account of training a hawk to the hunt, complete with glorious photographs. [more inside]
Precision beats power, and timing beats speed
Conor "The Notorious" McGregor took just 13 seconds to knock out José Aldo and thereby become the UFC featherweight champion. [more inside]
In my dreams, I was inventing literature
Gabriel García Márquez began writing Cien Años de Soledad—One Hundred Years of Solitude—a half-century ago, finishing in late 1966. The novel came off the press in Buenos Aires on May 30, 1967, two days before Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, and the response among Spanish-language readers was akin to Beatlemania: crowds, cameras, exclamation points, a sense of a new era beginning. In 1970 the book appeared in English, followed by a paperback edition with a burning sun on its cover, which became a totem of the decade. By the time García Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1982, the novel was considered the Don Quixote of the Global South, proof of Latin-American literary prowess. [...] How is it that this novel could be sexy, entertaining, experimental, politically radical, and wildly popular all at once? Its success was no sure thing, and the story of how it came about is a crucial and little-known chapter in the literary history of the last half-century.The Secret History of One Hundred Years of Solitude
Feared by ticks, fearless of snakes
Opossums are pretty great. They kill ticks in droves, and they're immune to several kinds of snake venom. Plus, they're heaps cuter than they're given credit for. A mother opossum is basically a living school bus. During tough times, a friendly dog can function as a surrogate school bus. What to do if you find injured or orphaned opossums. [more inside]
Don’t do it. Don’t fight Sisko.
What poet should I fight?
the short answer is: every poet. but here’s a brief (ok, that’s a lie. this is really long) list i typed up during accounting instead of learning about accounting for inter-corporate investments
Clowns Vs. Firefighters, Toronto Edition
If one year during the Toronto International Film Festival you’re engaging a Hollywood producer in conversation and have only a few seconds to pitch your action script before the bouncers drag you out from under the door of her bathroom stall, just fire off a three-word description of the two unlikely antagonists. Hollywood loves oddball enemies even more than unlikely buddy cops: cowboys versus aliens, mercenaries versus dinosaurs, Predators versus future governors of American states. Yet, inexplicably, no movie has been made of Toronto’s contribution to the genre: clowns versus firefighters.
priorities matter.
The Tail End: "No matter what your age, you may, without realizing it, be enjoying the very last chapter of some of the relationships that matter most to you." (via) [more inside]
I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
The Brompton Cemetery Time Machine
Necrokitty Comic Sans
When the pet crematorium sends her poems purporting to be from her dead cat, Hannah Chutzpah responds in poetry. (And are you sure this is from her? / Only I think her scansion would be better)
George Saunders reads & discusses short fiction
George Saunders reads short short stories by Grace Paley and Barry Hannah and discusses them with Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of The New Yorker. The podcast is less than 40 minutes long and each of the stories fit on a single page of the magazine.
MRA Dilbert
December 12
That's Life
From 1983, and in honor of the centennial of the birth of America's greatest interpreter of popular song, here is Twyla Tharp's Sinatra Suite, as performed at the Kennedy Center, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Elaine Kudo. [more inside]
translated from the Italian
Little slice of U.S. history: 19th century divorce
Before "no-fault" divorce laws were enacted in the U.S., married persons seeking divorce had to prove grounds for divorce under extremely narrow circumstances. In the late 19th century, divorce laws were more permissive in some parts of the country than others, leading to a form of "divorce tourism". [more inside]
Yes, Vogue, Coloring Books Are a Thing. A Zen Thing
I’ve never once felt moved to pick up a coloring book and go to town. Nor did I imagine that people in my social sphere were doing so. Were those Instagram-famous coloring parties a total anomaly? Or were my other friends also secretly brandishing markers in their spare time? Vogue writer Julia Felsenthal wonders if coloring books are actually a thing after reading Julie Beck's piece in The Atlantic. [more inside]
“What kind of police do you call on the police?”
An all-white jury convicted Daniel Holtzclaw of rape. It's almost enough. [The Guardian]
It took 45 hours over the course of four days for an all-white jury in Oklahoma City to decide whether or not they should convict former police officer Daniel Holtzclaw of sexual assault on the word of 13 black women. On Thursday night, the jury opted to believe (most of) them. There is perhaps no bigger test of how blind justice could possibly be than asking any American jury – especially one that is all white and includes eight men – to believe 13 black women over a former police officer and supposed hero football player. It’s easy enough to point to cases where the police were acquitted. And yet, against all expectations this time, justice was blind.[more inside]
It's a toilet.
At an alarming, unprecedented 100% success rate, literally every participant in my focus group correctly identified the abstract, gender-neutral concept I came up with to identify a restroom. Update: Printable Gender Neutral Bathroom Signs Project. Double Update: this is now a thing.
Cosplay Rescue Woman is the hero we need *and* deserve
Feeling down about the world? Well, there are people who go to conventions for the express purpose of helping cosplaying strangers repair their awesome costumes, and these angels often dress in their own awesome costumes to boot. So things must not be that bad. (via io9)
1.5C
By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle. By comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster. - A historic deal has been struck in Paris to reduce carbon emissions and reduce global warming, with a ceiling of 2 degrees centigrade and a goal of 1.5C. 2015 has been the hottest year on record.
Baby steps in Saudi women's rights and democracy
Today (Dec. 12, 2015) marks a few significant milestones for Saudi Arabia: the third time municipal elections have been held in recent times, and even bigger, the first time women could vote, and stand as candidates, though female candidates had to deal with a number of restrictions and rules not placed on male candidates. Despite these limitations and the low turn-out by women, Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi professor and leading women's rights activist, embraces these "baby steps" towards more equal rights and greater democracy. At the same time, the younger generation of Saudi women find more freedom and progress in a new gaming convention for women only.
Iron Age poetry in motion
Animation of the warrior plate of the Gundestrup Cauldron, the largest surviving example of European Iron Age silver work.
Except this
Why Engagement Rings Are a Scam (NSFW language)
The Real Reason You're Circumcised
The Bizarre Truth About Purebred Dogs (and Why Mutts Are Better)
Why Tipping Should Be Banned
[more inside]
The Real Reason You're Circumcised
The Bizarre Truth About Purebred Dogs (and Why Mutts Are Better)
Why Tipping Should Be Banned
[more inside]
The Wild Reeds
Funnybones
Comics and the Anthropological Imagination, from the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography. Solidarity: a graphic ethnography. At the food bank: a graphic commentary. Sketching the Melee. Trachyte - Mumbai. Drawing in Time. Tale of the Sarnia Nose .
8,000 watts of Holiday Cheer
The wild, over the over top, totally insane holiday lights of Dyker Heights! Bonus A Local's Guide To The Christmas Lights
MOVIE SIGN!
Mystery Science Theater 3000 lives! Joel Hodgson has successfully raised close to $6 million on Kickstarter to reboot MST3K. Hodgson projects that the money raised will fund 12 episodes of
the series' new incarnation. The reboot will star Jonah Ray as its new host/experimental subject; Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn as the new voices of Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo; Felicia Day as Kinga Forrester; and Patton Oswalt as TV's Son of TV's Frank. Many more guest stars have signed on for cameo appearances, and guest writers will include Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland, and Avenue Q's Robert Lopez. [more inside]
Next stop, Arkham.
John Ott is a model railroad enthusiast and an H.P. Lovecraft fan. Perhaps inevitably, he has produced part of Arkham, Mass. in HO scale. [more inside]
how to look at the art of the British empire
There can be few more contentious subjects than the empire, and few artistic legacies more explosive. Now, Tate Britain is to hold the first major British exhibition of masterworks from the colonial period – and the results are revealing - William Dalrymple writes
December 11
We Asked Astrobiologists About Jose Canseco's Plan to Terraform Mars
We Asked Astrobiologists About Jose Canseco's Plan to Terraform Mars. Sadly, the former MLB homerun slugger seems simply to have run with Elon Musk's suggestion to continuously bomb Mars with a sequence of atomic explosions. Renowned climate scientist and professional buzzkill Michael Mann replied, “There are so many things that could go wrong here it is difficult to know where to start.” Michio Kaku makes the carpet bombing/terraforming seem pretty straightforward.
GOT for Tots
Who Said ‘Game of Thrones’ Wasn’t for Kids? "What mother in her right mind would tell children the stories about beheadings and torture? A single parent for whom mealtimes are agony."
Heavy
"These days, when I see someone so heavy, I think, That’s a happy person." Raised in a sharecropper’s cabin, trapped inside half a ton of flesh, this literate, companionable young man had dreamed of seeing the world. Aside from some carnival tours and one disastrous trip to New York, he never lived his dream. But in his short life, he found something else.
The story of Robert Earl Hughes.
Three farting uncles, Two puking dogs, Anaphylaxis in a pear tree.
Carolyn Hax's Hootenanny of Holiday Horrors 2015 was today. Advice Columnist Carolyn Hax hosts a (nearly) weekly chat in which people share their problems and she offers (nearly) instant advice. But sometimes you don't really need advice. Sometimes you just need to tell someone about the things your relatives did to you (or gave to you) at Christmas. [more inside]
"the founding of the first US libraries through the first 100 years"
The Digital Public Library of America has an online exhibit A History of US Public Libraries [more inside]
Aerial photos of airports, with a detour into abandoned airstrips
MeFite backseatpilot likes airplanes, airports and photography, and combined those into a collection of photos of New England (and beyond!) from a mile high. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
We Don’t Even Want to Talk About Midi-Chlorians At All
Ever since its 1977 cinematic debut, the Force has been strong in popular culture. People with only passing exposure to the Star Wars saga probably have at least a general notion of how the story’s mystical energy works: light sides and dark sides, wizard-like abilities over objects and minds, laser-beam swords. But who is the Force strongest with? And how has the balance between light and dark shifted throughout the series? In anticipation of “The Force Awakens,” we decided to find out by watching every minute of the first two trilogies to identify, measure, and categorize use of the Force. This was a delicate exercise, mainly because the Force is vague and entirely fictitious. But we’re confident in our findings—and if you search your feelings, we think you will be, too. The Force Accounted [SLBB]
AirBnB and Discrimination, Part II
A working paper by three Harvard Business School researchers shows evidence of "widespread" discrimination against African-American guests by Airbnb hosts.
Previously on MetaFilter, a paper by two of the study's authors, Benjamin Edelman and Michael Luca, found a similar effect involving the prices African American hosts could command on the service. [more inside]
Previously on MetaFilter, a paper by two of the study's authors, Benjamin Edelman and Michael Luca, found a similar effect involving the prices African American hosts could command on the service. [more inside]
Keep on grinding
MY CRUSHES (Secret Group)
What happens when you put all the people you have a crush on in the same secret Facebook group? Nobody gets mad, only one person leaves, you get a glimpse of what it's like to live Tina Belcher's best life, and you wind up owing them all Taco Bell. [more inside]
“America represents wilderness and freedom, and also a big house,”
Living a Frontier Dream on the Outskirts of China’s Capital by Andrew Jacobs [New York Times]
Welcome to “Hometown America,” as Jackson Hole is called in Chinese, a mammoth real-estate venture that is an exacting pastiche of an American frontier town, albeit one with a wine-tasting pavilion, a spa and security guards dressed as park rangers, who salute every passing car. Modest entry-level homes sell for $625,000. Larger abodes — described by Jackson Hole’s developers as castles — have an attached vineyard and fetch nearly $8 million. The developer, Ju Yi International, says that more than 90 percent of the 1,500 homes have already been sold. Occupying more than a square mile of arid land in northeast Hebei Province, Jackson Hole has plenty of room to expand.
I'll be fine if I go to the chiropractor later
Women Try To Pose Like Female Comic Book Heroes... and their attempts are photoshoped to match the original.
Is that a doorstop or are you happy to read me?
Are books getting longer? A new survey says yes. One of the factors cited in increasing book length is the availability of short digital content, such as Kindle Singles or Serial Box (serial SFF). But many of those digital books are going unread after purchase. Meanwhile, the rise of e-books is costing jobs: warehouse jobs.
Stork Derby
In death, Millar unleashed his biggest prank ever — a last will and testament that was basically a giant social experiment. By promising a vast sum of money to the Toronto family that could have the most babies in a 10-year period, Millar set off a race to give birth the moment he died.
Two new "shots" prevent bleeding out
Here's how a simple invention plugs a gunshot wound in 20 seconds Plus Scientists invented an injection based on snake venom that stops bleeding in 6 seconds (Warning: Graphic Imagery in both articles)
Plot Twist: Spoilers actually a thing
In a plot twist to the 2011 study that said that spoilers are not a thing (previously) comes a new study from VU Amsterdam showing that spoilers totally are a thing.
C'est mon plaisir!
Isabella smoked cigarettes, and the newspaper ran stories claiming she had taken zoo lions for a stroll in the park. A dahlia bears her name, and so does a mountain peak in Washington. She once shocked all of Boston Society by showing up to the Boston Symphony Orchestra bearing a headband that declared, "Oh you Red Sox." She invited the Harvard Football team to her home after they beat Yale. She hosted a boxing match at her home and, while the men fought, she danced. She had two large diamonds attached to wires and wore them bouncing in her hair. At the opening of her museum, she served champagne and donuts. The woman courted the world, and the world courted the woman.
The most horrifying place to find yourself trapped is an echo chamber
Steven Universe (Previously) is an animated series created by Rebecca Sugar which airs on Cartoon Network. It is known for excellent world building, progressive sensibilities, a heartwarming, genuine sense of humor, and a cast of characters which is deep, complex and diverse. It has received significant critical acclaim and has cultivated a large and diverse collection of fans. The show's fandom has recently experienced controversy when some individuals engaged in a campaign of harassment and bullying that drove a young Steven Universe fan artist named Paige Paz (aka Zamii070) to attempt suicide. [more inside]
We jog when not carrying items.
To retain the final human dignity of control over one's death.
Dr. Peter Rasmussen: retired oncologist, hospice physician and advocate for Oregon's Death with Dignity law, was given a terminal brain cancer diagnosis in Spring 2014. The Oregon Statesman Journal followed Dr. Rasmussen's end-of-life journey in articles, photos and videos, as he grappled with the same issues he once fought for on behalf of his own patients. Harper's Magazine: When I Die. [more inside]
Recite 'The Fatiha,' Laugh Your Muslim Ass Off
Muslim-owned comedy venue offers "Trump Special," gives free attendance to Muslim-Americans. Mo S. Fathelbab is a Muslim-American and owner of The Experiment Comedy Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He’s offering a ‘Trump Special’ - anyone who can prove that they are Muslim by facing Mecca and reciting ‘The Fatiha’ gets free admission.
Google's vision of self-driving cars is wrong, says MIT professor
David Mindell is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. He has a new book: Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy. He has a one hour interview with Erik Davis on Expanding Mind podcast where he talks about deep sea submarine robots, drone airplanes (remote piloted aircraft) and google cars. Short CNET article: Google's vision of self-driving cars is wrong, says MIT professor.
I'm Not Sleeping Because I'm Happy
The first official Canadian government flight carrying Syrian refugees touched down at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport late last night. [more inside]
The Wayfarer
Funk Whips Old Age
Fifty years ago this week, Terry Funk had his first professional wrestling match. He retired in 1983, having held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for more than a year and nearly three dozen other titles (many of which were in territories *not* owned by his family). Retirement didn't agree with Funk, so he signed with the then-WWF, where he fought Junkyard Dog, Tito Santana, and Hulk Hogan. He retired again a few years later, and then three more times in the 1990s. And in 2006. And in 2013. Maybe his most recent retirement match, wherein he lost by disqualification to Jerry "The King" Lawler on October 24th of this year at the age of 71, will be his last (he did, after all, take a fireball to the face). [more inside]
I wonder if he's friends with Bobby Tables?
“We Patch Anything”: WPA Sewing Rooms
During the Depression, the Works Project Administration put American men to work on large-scale, highly-visible undertakings, like dam building and highway construction. Women, too, needed work, and some of them found it through WPA Sewing Rooms, where they earned wages for making clothing for low-income Americans. [more inside]
Tell me of your homeworld's activity books, Usul.
We Investigate Post-Pooping Protocol
Gift Up
Gift Up is by a Los Angeles-based comedy troupe Local Business and is a re-imagining of Give Up—the Postal Service’s classic album—as a Christmas record: [more inside]
And a fourth one, le'Mehadrin, for Chinese food
So it's Chanukah. Time to ask that age-old question: Do Jews have trash cans in their kitchen?
'Grateful Doe' no more
One of the most investigated 'John Does' has been positively identified. 20 years after he was killed in a car accident, and a year after a new campaign to identify him began on Imgur and Reddit, 'Jason Doe' or 'Grateful Doe' has been positively identified through DNA as Jason Callahan of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. [more inside]
December 10
Understandably Cause for Alarm
Star Simpson, on the aftermath of the airport "bomb hoax" case, how her school failed her, and how MIT's new student law clinic could have helped. "I would have been grateful to ask questions of someone. Was I actually going to go to prison? What were my options? Should I, in the great American tradition, try to sue somebody? What would accepting a plea deal mean? Was it a good plea deal? Should I keep going with the case, instead? On top of having nobody to turn to, I was disallowed from talking about the case in public. Someone needed to make those decisions and I was completely on my own. Honestly I just wanted it all to be over, but that option was mostly unavailable. I just want you to consider for a moment asking the nearest 19-year-old with no prior interest in nor experience at all with the law for guidance on what to do with any court case. You can tell me how it goes." [more inside]
"The secret of happiness is here"
Off-Broadway's "Daddy Long Legs" musical (based on the novel that inspired the 1955 movie) is livestreaming tonight's 8 pm ET New York performance right now. [more inside]
majestic
SLYT: Pstereo by Emilie Nicolas, the music video.
Mavis Beacon: Modern Warfare
ZTYPE Dominic Szlablewski offers a game in which you learn to type (or just have fun) by annihilating words.
Autism's Lost Generation
Some autistic adults have spent much of their lives with the wrong diagnosis, consigned to psychiatric institutions or drugged for disorders they never had. Last year, Scott Hartman moved into his own apartment for the first time. He quickly learned to balance his budget, squirreling away money to buy a Blu-ray player or Xbox games. He started taking long walks to his favorite fast-food joints: Hardee’s, Papa John’s, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell. To get to the science museum or the library, his other favorite destinations, he is learning the intricacies of public transportation. Scott can enjoy these simple pleasures because two years ago he was finally diagnosed with autism. He was 55.
Play this videogame without looking at the screen? Challenge Accepted
The People Who MacGyvered The Most Difficult Video Game Levels [slcracked] (The French lady who plays without looking at the screen only made it to #2.)
There are Other Forces at Work
"I went over to Germany, and I saw one millionth of a performance of a piece of music." John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats, Wolf In White Van) travels to Halberstadt to report on a John Cage concert that will last 639 years.
A township could not be exactly six miles on each side
Grid corrections : places where North American roads deviate from their otherwise logical grid lines in order to account for the curvature of the Earth. You could drive out there your whole life, de Ruijter realized, and not realize that certain stop signs and intersections exist not because of eccentric real estate deals, but because they are mathematical devices used to help planners wrap a rectilinear planning scheme onto the surface of a spherical planet.
Put me in your land art show
Shadows and Co: two collage noir shorts by Fabrice Mathieu
Fabrice Mathieu created something new, and an homage to the shadowy, noir films he loves with two shorts: In the Shadow, creating a film from shadows and silhouettes, and Master of Suspense, a story built from Alfred Hitchcock's cameo introduction and cameo appearances.
"I'm not really comfortable saying either of those words."
All Roads Lead to Rome(s)
Every cell of this grid contains the starting point to one of our journeys to Rome. Now that we have our 486,713 starting points we need to find out how we could reach Rome as our destination. For this we created a algorithm that calculates one route for every trip. The more often a single street segment is used, the stronger it is drawn on the map. The maps as outcome of this project is somewhere between information visualization and data art, unveiling mobility and a very large scale.Some beautiful and interesting visualizations of transportation models for Europe and the world, including all the towns called "Rome" in the United States. Also: Urban Mobility Fingerprints and Create Your Own (Europe Only).
“How did we get from Kitty Hawk to here?”
Take Flight [New York Times] [Magazine] The year’s best actors lift off in a series of tributes to the ultimate Hollywood magic trick. To watch in virtual reality on your phone, download our app. [more inside]
Lit at B-school
I was so goddamn excited about this show that it brought me to tears.
Cracked contributor Alice Jane Axness was recently encouraged by friends to check out the new Marvel series Jessica Jones (previously) on Netflix. And the reason wasn't because it's another stunning addition to the Marvel Universe, but because of it's brutally accurate depiction of sexual abusers and their victims (SLCracked).
'Why does a goat jump?'
An illustrator in Dali, China
Jason Pym is a British illustrator who has been living in Dali, China for 11 years. His love for his adopted city in an idyllic part of Yunnan province is plain to see. He also makes illustrations for Penguin Books China, and labels for his wife's homemade jam, featuring cos-playing dragons. (Here's a link in Chinese with more dragon-goodness.)
"Tintin mashups. Because the world needs them."
Had Herge had a slightly different turn of mind.
"A bold race bred there, battle-happy men causing trouble & torment"
“So at Christmas in this court I lay down a challenge: /
If a person here present, within these premises, /
Is big or bold or red-blooded enough /
To strike me one stroke and be struck in return, /
I shall give him a gift of this gigantic cleaver /
and the axe shall be his to handle how he likes. /
I'll kneel, bare my neck and take the first knock. /
So who has the gall? The gumption? The guts? /
Who’ll spring from his seat and snatch this weapon? /
I offer the axe — who’ll have it as his own? /
I’ll afford one free hit from which I won't flinch, /
and promised that 12 months will pass in peace, /
then claim /
the duty I deserve in one year and one day. /
Does no one have the nerve
to wager in this way?”
[more inside]
Nobody ever pays a political price for targeting Iranian Americans
In response to the attacks on Paris and San Bernardino, on Tuesday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed HR 158, a bill that bars Iraqis, Syrians, Sudanese, Iranians, and people who have traveled to those countries from participating in the visa waiver program which allows passport holders from 38 countries to travel without securing a visa. [more inside]
The gulf isn't as wide as it used to be, but then was it ever?
The American middle class is losing ground. A bonus CBC story in which those of us in Canada can calculate how we compare to the US middle class.
Sometimes, a whale dies.
One of the most beautiful, amazing, and depressing things I’ve ever done is participate in a whale necropsy. This work helps us understand the patterns of whale mortality, and determine whether whale deaths are natural, or possibly man-made.
This is important stuff. In fact, their work has helped guide changes in policy, especially when it comes to designing the shipping lanes that go into and out of San Francisco Bay. Their research helped establish new, longer, and narrower shipping lanes that reduced the chances of ships hitting, and often killing, whales. This work saved whales’ lives. [more inside]
"Starving silences who you really are."
There Once Was a Girl. A work of criticism and of memoir on the false narratives surrounding anorexia in life and literature.
(Some may find the descriptions in this essay disturbing or triggering.)
(Some may find the descriptions in this essay disturbing or triggering.)
Can you own part of an asteroid?
How Asteroid Mining Is Changing Space Law
On November 24, President Obama signed the “US Commercial Space Law Competitiveness Act” into law. Among other things (like that the government should not pester SpaceX), it states that any US citizen who takes a chip off an old block of asteroid then owns that chip. [more inside]
On November 24, President Obama signed the “US Commercial Space Law Competitiveness Act” into law. Among other things (like that the government should not pester SpaceX), it states that any US citizen who takes a chip off an old block of asteroid then owns that chip. [more inside]
The Court takes its time on Fisher
Abigail Fisher, the white student who is challenging the use of race in admissions at the university which rejected her application in 2008, was back at the Supreme Court again, as she was for the first round of arguments in her case in October 2012. [more inside]
Your Right Of Passage
Neil Kaplan is fascinated by the stories told by old passports, especially those relating to the Holocaust, and the resonance they have for today's immigrants and refugees. "It seems strange to admit that in 2015, the right to exist in certain physical spaces on Earth—spaces bound by imaginary lines drawn on maps by our governments—can be prevented by a pocket-sized paper travel document."
Wanted: Star Wars Celica, last seen 1977 (or maybe 1990s?)
We've all seen weird merchandising attached to blockbuster (or would-be blockbuster) movies, but that sort of thing used to be much rarer before George Lucas famously haggled the merchandising rights for Star Wars away from 20th Century Fox in exchange for a lower director's fee and made gazillions. Forty years later, "Star Wars" has been slapped on virtually anything you can think of, including a 1977 Toyota Celica that was the prize in a nationwide sweepstakes held after the movie had become a huge hit. [more inside]
Slap Kirk - what it says on the tin.
With all the Star Wars hype lately, it's important to spend some quality time with Star Trek. To that end, smack your captain up with Slap Kirk.
Serial Season 2, Episode 1: DUSTWUN
Bowe Bergdahl without preamble, and in (some of) his own words. In the middle of the night, Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl grabs a notebook, snacks, water, some cash. Then he quietly slips off a remote U.S. Army outpost in eastern Afghanistan and into the dark, open desert. About 20 minutes later, it occurs to him: he’s in over his head.
Monkeys all love peanut butter.
Just targets.
Uncanny Valley (SLVIMEO) Short film of a possible future path for VR gaming.
Speak up, Stay Safe(r)
Feminist Frequency (the website created by pop culture critic and Gamergate scourge Anita Sarkeesian) has published a guide for protecting yourself against harassment in digital spaces.
Outsourcing, exploitation and the new reality of work
As you read this story you will recognise that the economic system that continues to keep black people very, very poor in this country has been broken for so long, and the private sector has been so strong for so long, that we have a vast imbalance that has been allowed to flourish unchecked. We the people have not been demanding when it comes to scrutiny of corporate conduct. [...] This story – this one you will read about Coca-Cola - is part of a rich canon. It exists because of First and Gqabi and Nxumalo and Jaffer and countless others.via [more inside]
"There had better be an offering to the Old Gods"
John Roderick of the Long Winters sets down the criteria for a good Christmas song.
What if Wayne Gretzky got hit by a bus before having kids?
Creatures avoiding planks - "After around a thousand generations of training, the agents became half decent at avoiding planks. Please see the final result in this demo." [more inside]
December 9
Ceres gets Salty
Cloudy, with a chance of cryovolcanoes - unraveling the secrets of the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, including the mysterious bright spots.
4:45:26
Barbiephonic, an audio experiment from mhoye
Of the six attempts [to listen to the whole file] I’m aware of, four were called off when the death threats started, one due to the near-breakup of the couple making the attempt, and one person drinking themselves to unconsciousness at about the 90 minute mark. I’m not saying that to make a joke. I’m telling you because this is real and it’s an SCP-grade psychic biohazard. No highly esteemed deed was committed here; this is not a place of honour.[more inside]
The U.S. School That Trains Dictators & Death Squads
The dictators and death squad leaders, who committed acts of genocide, were trained within the gates of Fort Benning, at the School of the Americas – otherwise known as the “School Of Assassins.” Abby Martin investigates this notorious school that is largely hidden from the American public; it’s crimes around the world, its star graduates, why it exists and the movement to shut it down.
“I just need to be me now, because I’ve had enough.”
What is actually going on with men, right now? What are they afraid of and unwilling to talk about? How do the inner lives of men affect women, other men, our culture? We see men struggling to define themselves at a time when gender definitions are expanding. We see men dealing, sometimes gracefully and sometimes not, with the weight of their power. And we learn that what it means to be a modern man is just like everything else: complex, messy, and always changing. Medium presents: The Men Issue [more inside]
Ork records: the hidden side of New York punk
Book the death star for your holiday!
When the intersection of sport and patriarchy turns ugly.
"When I started taking EPO, he told me, 'if you say that to anyone I'm going to kill you" In an exclusive Cyclingnews podcast, Canadian cyclist Geneviève Jeanson details the abusive coach-athlete relationship that she alleges led to her career-long doping. [more inside]
Art if isolated and specialized can't create culture. It needs a Cult.
The long life of the incredibly prolific Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs has come to an end.
He was baptised a catholic to save him from the camps and went on to became the most prominent member of the "Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.
A graphic artist, painter, sculptor, designer, stage designer, architect, composer and poet.
He was influenced from an early age by Klimt and later hints of Dali which resuled in a rare interview.
He was rarely mentioned in the British media.
He was baptised a catholic to save him from the camps and went on to became the most prominent member of the "Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.
A graphic artist, painter, sculptor, designer, stage designer, architect, composer and poet.
He was influenced from an early age by Klimt and later hints of Dali which resuled in a rare interview.
He was rarely mentioned in the British media.
It's not too much, is it?
Design an 18th century wig. Pile on the flowers, plumes and ships to recreate -- or surpass -- the opulent, impractical hairstyles of the French court, thanks to the Victoria and Albert Museum. [more inside]
KOUIGN-AMANN
Cyberattacks are increasingly common. The power grid is vulnerable.
Cybersecurity is an increasingly important concern. The Washington Post recently ran a great special series on the issue. The rate of major hacks is growing. The power grid is especially vulnerable, and a hack on it will be especially damaging. It's not a question of if, but when. [more inside]
Devil's Hole Pupfish, the tiny, tenacious desert fish
Go about 50 miles east of Death Valley and you'll find Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, a detached unit of Death Valley National Park. This complex of desert oases includes one significantly protected tiny body of water, both physically and legally. Known as Devil's Hole, a small portion of this underwater cave is home to the tiny Devil's Hole Pupfish, the smallest of the desert pupfish and one of the world's rarest fish with a wild population of 35 at it's low point in 2013. [more inside]
RIP, Doug Tompkins
Conservationist and North Face founder Doug Tompkins died Tuesday in a kayaking accident in Patagonian Chile. [more inside]
60 years of dropping bombs on America's enemies with little effect
Ground crews scouring the aging frames for rust often find graffiti in hidden nooks by previous generations — a recent discovery, perhaps commenting on the age of the planes, featured primitive cave-style animal paintings.-- With at least one pilot whose father and grandfather also flew it, the B-52, Big Ugly Flying F...ellow is now in its sixtieth year of active service.
Shock and Awe
Candid Camera in the Soviet Union
Murphy Bill Controversy
Mental Health Groups Split on Bill to Overhaul Care: "The result: more people treated earlier, and more treated against their will."
A Psychiatrist Opposes The Murphy Bill and Here's Why. [more inside]
"All of you Americans are fired"
"The H-2 guest worker program, which brought in 150,000 legal foreign workers last year, isn’t supposed to deprive any American of a job. But many businesses go to extraordinary lengths to deny jobs to U.S. workers so they can hire foreigners instead." [more inside]
I feel like I know Britney... but sometimes my arms bend back. Oops!
“MAKE THE GALAXY GREAT AGAIN!”
The Machiavelli of Maryland
'If there’s one point on which I agree with the leftist weaklings, it’s 1) that McDonald’s must go and 2) that American citizens should be forced en masse to take a course in phenomenology, so that they can develop the proper philosophical disposition necessary for understanding the incarnate evil of the chicken nugget.' Thomas Meaney profiles Edward Luttwak, strategy consultant, historian, rancher, right-wing bloviator, classicist and LRB contributor. [more inside]
...but they can never stop Napster - the idea!
Taxster reviews all of today's hottest P2P programs: KaZaA, Morpheus, Limewire, eDonkey2000, and more! [more inside]
Guys, this angry, hungry bear in our house is a big problem.
What If Bears Killed One In Five People? You wouldn't put up with that. So don't put up with this. 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted by the time they finish college. [more inside]
Holy shit this is going to change poetry forever
Minter needed, must own straightedge, compass, and additional tool.
An Alphabet of Heptagons By heptagons, I mean seven-sided coins. OK, it won't be a full alphabet - it will have a few gaps, and I may have to cheat in some cases. When I've finished the alphabet, I'll open up the topic to comments.
after all this / tell them about the water / how we have seen it rising
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet and climate activist from the Marshall Islands. Recently, she performed her poem Tell them at a protest calling for fossil fuel divestment at the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference.
Transcript on Democracy Now. [more inside]
"He never touched the world..."
The New York Times looks back on the boy in the bubble.
I heart u chubby squirrels
"We decided to give a significant portion of the proceeds to charity.”
Remember when the Wu Tang Clan decided to sell only one copy of their latest album? And remember when some asshole bought a pharmaceutical company and jacked up the price on a drug by 5,500%? You can probably tell where this is going -- Martin Shkreli was the guy who bought Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. [more inside]
Spoiler: the top three are correct
Looking for a reading list for 2016? The BBC has polled over 80 book critics from outside the UK to find out what they think are the 100 greatest british novels [more inside]
Thomas Piketty seminar
Discussion of Piketty's book on Crooked Timber On December 7 Crooked Timber began posting a seminar on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. 2 responses to the book so far with 10 more to come, followed by the author's response.
December 8
The emperor was naked, and so is this.
"Respected research math is dominated by men of a certain attitude. Even allowing for individual variation, there is still a tendency towards an oppressive atmosphere, which is carefully maintained and even championed by those who find it conducive to success." Recent Princeton graduate Piper Harron's PhD thesis isn't written for these men. It is very cool number theory, and it is art.
Quantum computing! Brought to you by Google, Goldman Sachs, the NSA...
Google successfully tests the first commercially available quantum computer. Google/NASA's Quantum Computing / AI lab has verified that D-Wave Systems recently announced 1000+ qubit quantum computer works as designed: really, really, really fast. "A 100,000,000x leap in computing power", one of their board members claims. In addition to Google, NASA, and government grants, D-Wave's CEO, the former CTO of Goldman Sachs, also obtained large initial investments from the financial industry. One of their first customers? Los Alamos National Laboratory, "a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security." This obviously has huge implications for public key encryption, scientific research... everything, really.
Thirty-five years ago, during the Dolphins vs Patriots MNF game,
Howard breaks the news --The behind-the scene debate about how to present the matter.
Following the game, Ted Koppel did a special Nightline report.(slyt)
The following night, ABC devoted a special edition to Lennon.(slyt) [more inside]
Following the game, Ted Koppel did a special Nightline report.(slyt)
The following night, ABC devoted a special edition to Lennon.(slyt) [more inside]
We have to show everyone how happy we are!
The Part About The Crimes
On the heels of Canada's announcement of a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, CBC will be tweeting every 6 minutes over 24 hours the names, photos and cases of over 250 women under the hashtag #MMIW.
And now, the paddling of the swollen ass. With paddles.
US Patent 6,293,874: User-operated amusement apparatus for kicking the user's buttocks.
An amusement apparatus including a user-operated and controlled apparatus for self-infliction of repetitive blows to the user's buttocks by a plurality of elongated arms bearing flexible extensions that rotate under the user's control. The first post is provided with a crank positioned at a height thereon which requires the user to bend forward toward the first post while grasping the crank with both hands, to prominently present his buttocks toward the second post. As the user rotates the crank, the user's buttocks are paddled by flexible shoes located on each outboard end of the elongated arms to provide amusement to the user and viewers of the paddling.[more inside]
"There is a certain power and mystery in secrets..."
WIRED does a deep dive into the identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, and points the finger at Dr Craig Steven Wright: "Either Wright invented bitcoin, or he’s a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did."
Billy on the Street's "Escape from Scientology"
Billy Eichner hosts the first episode of the obstacle course gameshow "Leah Remini's Escape from Scientology." Rachel Dratch is the contestant.
Mindsuckers
NPR’s Book Concierge
Once again, NPR has organized their list of the year's best books into the Book Concierge, a recommendation engine with 29 categories - everything from It's All Geek to Me to The Dark Side to Eye-Opening Reads - available to mix, match, and sort.
Who Built The Moon? We did. Or... will.
"At some time in the future humanity will embark upon the most distant and most important journey it is ever likely to take. It will be necessary to travel 4.6 billion years into the past to complete a massive engineering project to create Earth's Moon." Who Built the Moon?
What began as theory persists as style
When Nothing Is Cool is an insider critique of English academia's culture of critique. [more inside]
Human Echolocation
How Human Echolocation Allows People to See Without Using Their Eyes "Daniel Kish, who lost his vision when he was a year old but has made headlines for climbing mountains, riding bikes and living alone in the wilderness." His case and others like him helped inspire studies into human echolocation, something even sighted people are capable of learning. [more inside]
Donut Cat & Friends
Donyatsu - an anime series wherein the ruins of human civilization are inhabited by . . . cute animals shaped like round baked goods. On a given one-and-a-half-minute episode, they might try to play with a giant robot or quote Terminator. [more inside]
Soloway describes herself as “seditious.
"That night, Soloway sat in the bathtub, while her husband, Bruce Gilbert, a music supervisor for film and television, brushed his teeth. She remembers telling him, “ ‘I don’t want to use the money to pay off our debt. I want to be a director, and I want to make a film with it and get into Sundance. I want to double down on me.’ And Bruce was, like, ‘O.K.’ ” Then, just as Soloway was making the leap to directing her own material, her father called one afternoon and came out as transgender." (SL New Yorker)
I try not to be afraid. I am still afraid.
Being A Girl: A Brief Personal History of Violence [The Belle Jar]
Hamill, Fisher, Ford, Kasdan, Abrams, Boyega, Driver, Ridley
I Was Internet Famous
Here, nine YouTube sensations whose lives were upended briefly in the past decade (plus one from the prehistoric web era, before YouTube made its debut in 2005) speak about this odd, relatively new kind of fame. Most embraced the experience, seeing where it would take them. Some ended up in dark places. A couple have made it their living and found themselves with new careers. Others stepped away, opting out of the flame wars. Pay attention: Someday, the accidental celebrity could be you.
The Beginning of the End of Big Government IT
The state of California just announced that the new technology underpinning its Child Welfare System [pdf] won't be the usual "IT Solution" bought up in one big lump to follow a 4000-page specification. Instead, it's going to be built as a series of smaller modular projects driven by user needs, drawing on agile methodologies, a wider range of vendors, and, wherever possible, open standards and open source software. The decision, made in collaboration with Code for America and the federal government, sets an important precedent for how governments on all levels can get past the pitfalls of the standard procurement model. [more inside]
Professor Kanye and the Business of Yeezus
Kanye gave a lecture at the Oxford Guild earlier this year, and it's now available on YouTube for everyone's viewing pleasure. [more inside]
What Billy Bragg Songs Mean To Us
Take a ride on the Genre Line to Nonlinear Rant Again
Mistrust the process.
The Philadelphia 76ers are the worst team in basketball, by design. Under general manager Sam Hinkie, the team has been unabashed in stockpiling players they hope will one day be great while barely even trying to win games in the meantime, since worse teams get better draft picks. (Previously) But those days may be over, as it seems the NBA itself has effectively forced the Sixers to hire an executive who will at least try to build a winning team. It's a rare, if not unprecedented, instance of a professional sports league stepping in to save a theoretically independent team from itself. [more inside]
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”
Four-day marathon public reading of War and Peace begins in Russia. [The Guardian]
A marathon four-day Russian public reading of Leo Tolstoy’s vast classic novel War and Peace kicked off on Tuesday morning, with more than 1,300 people in more than 30 cities preparing to make their contributions to the record-breaking project. Coordinated by Tolstoy’s great-great-granddaughter Fekla Tolstaya, and featuring a number of cultural luminaries including the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda, the readings are being streamed by Russian state television channel Kultura. One volume of Tolstoy’s fictionalised history of Russia during the Napoleonic campaign will be read each day.
“Beer doesn’t care what color you are": Annie Johnson, brewmaster
Annie Johnson can replicate beer from taste. “I have a real knack for tasting something and breaking it down,” she says. “If I like it, I can immediately go home and make it.” But it's her own original experiments with beer that bring amazing creations to the table: her light American lager, Mow the Damn Lawn, earned her the title of Homebrewer of the Year in 2013. She's not your average beer geek, and has things to say about strange additives (Reddit AMA), race and craft beer, and her favorite tools. She is BrewMaster-in-residence at PicoBrew. [more inside]
The pronunciation is a little strange, so you can practice: SCHLONG
Ronnie helps the non-native speaker get the hang of swearing, talking about sex (NSFW) and related body parts (NSFW), prostitution (NSFW), drugs, getting high or just chilling. Also, piss. Jade will teach you some Multicultural London English and childish insults. Emma talks shit and more shit, and teaches you ways to describe the women and men you're attracted to. James delves into Christian Bale's notorious rant for useful expressions in a two part lesson (both NSFW). [more inside]
On dads and dad music (SL Storify)
Mallory Ortberg asked her Twitter followers to share their dad music stories, and, boy, did they ever deliver.
The fall of Jersey:
How a tax haven goes bust. Guardian long-read describing the rise and fall of Jersey as an offshore tax haven.
Vincent walks!
Veterinarians at Iowa State University have successfully implanted prosthetic legs in Vincent, a three-year-old cat.
Jon Stewart returns!
Jon Stewart returned last night to the Daily Show. He was there to ask for support in getting the Zadroga Act passed, which would provide funding for first responders who were injured on 9/11. Although the bill was scheduled to be included in the Transportation Bill, it was pulled by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The bill has 67 senators and 270 Representatives pledged to support it, but Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan continue to block it. It has to be added to the Omnibus bill by Friday, or all funding will be cut.
December 7
The Least Essential Albums of 2015
The (Onion) A. V. Club continues its annual tradition by announcing the least essential albums of the year. While many of them are bad, the purpose is not to highlight the most awful music but the music which has the flimsiest justification for being made. [more inside]
Classic Art with a Modern Twist
2015 marks the 400th anniversary of the famous Rinpa School painting of the Wind God and Thunder God (Fujin-Raijin-zu). This has led a modern painter of the Rinpa School to add his own twists on the iconic painting, first in a collaboration with Nintendo to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. and, shortly thereafter, to celebrate the new Star Wars movie's release. In addition to these, the artist, Yamamoto Taro, has quite a history of producing traditionally-styled Japanese paintings with a modern sensibility and a touch of humor.
Nethack 3.6.0 released
Twelve years after its last update (3.4.3), Nethack 3.6.0 has been released. [previously] [previously]
גם זו לטובה
Judaism's core texts grew out of millennia-long conversations and arguments across generations, with interconnected dialogues, source citing and (re)interpretation. Now, it's all going digital: Sefaria is creating a massive public domain, interactive "living library of Jewish texts and their interconnections, in Hebrew and translations." Their goal is to build a reference resource and community that "gives a better learning experience than anything that comes before it," from ancient to modern texts and "all the volumes of commentary in between." Read texts, browse submitted public source sheets on dozens of topics or visualize associations between texts.
2015 Dataviz Roundup
Information is Beautiful Awards 2015 showcases the best of the year in data visualization, data journalism, and infographics. The first two are particularly striking: Introduction of the Measles Vaccine and A World of Languages
Dag That Is A Lot of Music
At spin.com, They Might Be Giants Look Back on Every Album They've Ever Made.
All watched over by machines of loving grace
Creating the Tamagotchi Singularity. 13 emulated Tamagotchis, with custom made AI to meet their every want, inspired by an XKCD comic. The Tamagotchi Hive. Youtube video of a talk about the hive.
Life after Death Star
Chris Donovan, an unlikely high fashion shoe designer
Chris Donovan was a telephone technician for 25 years, when in his early 50s, he decided to change careers rather drastically. He sent his designs to Polimoda in Italy to enroll in fashion design, specifically shoe design. He was accepted, and graduated at 55, and now designs high fashion women's shoes, inspired by everything from gnarled trees to hip replacements, architectural features and plumbing fixtures, as seen on his Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest accounts.
Tang Blue
As announced by Ellen deGeneres in 2013, there's a sequel planned to Finding Nemo, it's called Finding Dory, and here's the first trailer.
25 Best Films of 2015
Rolling Stone writer David Ehrlich's video countdown of the best films of 2015... [Vimeo] (Note: May contain spoilers for PHOENIX.) [more inside]
My other lawn, its shredded
One great rock show can change the world
Indie auteur Richard Linklater pleasantly surprised audiences with his charming 2003 comedy School of Rock, in which a struggling musician (High Fidelity co-star and Tenacious D frontman Jack Black) hijacks a 4th grade prep school class and inspires them to become a killer rock band. Buoyed by likeable characters, a great soundtrack, remarkably talented kid musicians, and Black's lengthy, irrepressible, almost improvisational classroom scenes, the film earned rave reviews and inspired scads of copycat programs around the world (as featured in the '05 documentary and reality series Rock School). But while the cast kicked ass at their ten-year reunion concert in 2013, plans for a sequel fell through. Everyone loves an encore, though. And so this weekend saw the Broadway debut of the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical starring Alex Brightman, with a TV adaptation to air on Nickelodeon next year. Because there's no way you can stop... the School of Rock. [more inside]
Buzzfeed Mental Health Week
"We’re launching Mental Health Week at BuzzFeed today because media can play a huge role — for good or for ill — in how people see themselves and understand their mental illnesses. We see it around the globe: a shift from seeing depression, anxiety, and other disorders as shameful personality flaws, and toward understanding them as the illnesses they are."
I'll do this until the election.
One man is replacing guns with sex toys in photos of GOP politicians. That man is Matt Haughey.
Ten cookies that [allegedly] make all other cookies irrelevant
"On top of the mountain, people are too close to God."
The planned Thirty Meter Telescope will be a $1.4 billion observatory that can look 13 billion light years away and see the biosignatures of planets outside our solar system. Or at least, it might be -- its construction has been delayed and further work is not certain to happen, due to indigenous Hawaiian concerns about the site desecrating Mauna Kea. [more inside]
no one suffers from avoidable heart disease like gaston
Art, Art Baby
Art Baby Gallery is an online platform looking to represent and expose young artists "[a]mid an environment that is often hostile to budding creatives." [more inside]
This new discriminatory policy cannot be God.
Light pollution will not be a factor.
Live in North America? Do you have binoculars or, at the very least, eyes? Well then, you might be able to see Venus during the day today. That is, until the jerk Moon gets in front of it. [more inside]
vers le bas avec Tor!
The French government mulls laws to block Tor and public WiFi. Is this what happens when police ask Santa for presents ("liste au Père Noël", according to Le Monde)?.
(via)
Holly's Walk On The Wild Side Has Ended
This man has an actual black hole devouring his jawline.
December 6
Walatta Petros: Ethiopian nun, radical leader and lover of women
"She was a revered religious leader who led a nonviolent movement against European proto-colonialism and was the founding abbess of her own monastery, which still exists today. She led an amazing life: a woman who was born to an adoring father, lost three children in infancy, left her abusive husband, started a movement, defeated a wicked king, faced enraged hippos and lions, avoided lustful jailors, founded seven religious communities, routed male religious leaders, gathered many men and women around her, and guided her flock subject to no man, being the outright head of her community and even appointing abbots, who followed her orders. Her name is Walatta Petros (which means Daughter-of [Saint] Peter, a compound name that cannot be shortened) and she lived from 1592 to 1642." Now the story of her life is available in English in a new translation by Wendy Laura Belcher and Michael Kleiner, "The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman". [more inside]
Into the uncanny valley: 80 robot faces ranked by creepiness
“Robots are transitioning from something that’s part of a technological environment to something that’s a feature of our social environment,” she says, “always teetering on this boundary of being really creepy and really likeable. That’s something we need to understand.”
Why old sports photos often have a blue haze
Why do old sports photos often have a blue haze? Hint: it has nothing to do with film speed or color temperature.
I love you, see you tomorrow
The Last Message Received. This is a Tumblr chronicling people's final communications with one another, for reasons mundane, mysterious, dramatic or tragic. It may make you a bit misty.
Beware of the holidays
If Christmas creep has got you down, try keeping it weird with holiday music posts from WFMU's Beware of the Blog: [more inside]
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night: a sparse, feminist horror film
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is not your average vampire flick. For one, it features a who's who of Iranian actors (all speaking Persian), with various bits of the [Inland/]Southern California landscape serving as stand-ins for Iran. Plus, there's the stripped-down storytelling and the fusion of styles. It's been billed as the first "Iranian vampire Western."Join director Ana Lily Amirpour for Q&A on Iranian vampires and weird SoCal towns and learn more about her feminist horror film that turns horror film (and every day) tropes on their heads. [more inside]
Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
Although kids love Elmo for understandable reasons, adults almost all agree that Elmo ruined Sesame Street. [more inside]
You put out fresh sashimi, sometimes, arranged as best as you know how.
The Economics of Neko Atsume -- Nicole Dieker meditates on a cat-gathering future for The Billfold in a story tagged NEKO ATSUME, ONLINE GAMES THAT SUGGEST HORRIBLE DYSTOPIAN FUTURES, SERIOUSLY NEKO ATSUME IS THE CUTEST GAME I HAVE FED SO MANY CATS. If you're looking for hard economic analysis of the sardine-to-gold exchange rate, move on: this is a slice of life story in a world where gathering cats is all that matters. (And if adding a layer of "horrible dystopia" would negatively affect your gathering of cats, you might want to skip this one.) [more inside]
Don't make unnecessary journeys
Ireland is having a spot of weather, as Teresa Mannion reports. Her coverage of storm Desmond went instantly viral, earneding a remix from Super Céilí as well as numerous homages. Skip to 1:30 on the main link if you like, but I kind of enjoy the slow burn of it.
Second College Football Playoff Announced
The second annual College Football Playoff teams have been announced, and there are no surprises: Clemson vs. Oklahoma, Alabama vs. Michigan State. [more inside]
the ghost streets of LA
Other times, it actually takes on solidity and mass in the form of oddly skewed, diagonal slashes of houses. The buildings that fill it look more like scar tissue, bubbling up to cover a void left behind by something else's absence.
Antique Molds
The real old mold gold at oldmolds.com, where old molds are sold, is the photo collection in the People section, which raises the question: why was it ever a thing to eat chocolate children in pooping stances? [more inside]
Who is sitting in the Glass House? Its You!
Sprawled Out On The Freezer Case Of Your Heart
“R as in Robert Loggia. O as in "Oh my god, it's Robert Loggia.”
Robert Loggia, Rugged but Versatile Character Actor, Dies at 85 [New York Times]
Robert Loggia, an Oscar-nominated actor who had a durable career in television and movies, notably in Brian De Palma’s gangster film “Scarface” and Penny Marshall’s comedy “Big,” died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 85. His wife, Audrey Loggia, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease. “He struggled with Alzheimer’s disease for five years,” she said. “It just took its natural progression.”
The Wiz Needed a Studio Audience
"There's an intimacy to live performance that's removed through the medium of television, and in-studio audiences help restore it. After soaring, cathartic numbers, we need applause breaks. The collective gasp of appreciation when an impressive set piece dazzles, or the murmur of amazement when a section of choreography transfixes are parts of the lived language of musical theater. If you want to make a movie, make a movie. If you want to put on a show, don't play to an empty house." [more inside]
Give 'em the raspberry for the Holidays this year!
The belly bump ball was developed for anger management. It's fun to wear. It lets you bump into things. And it looks like a raspberry.
No cutesy adversaries
“I think the post-war turn towards social responsibility in science and engineering was less a turn than a sideways glance. .. If researchers like us were actually supposed to know or care about this stuff in any operationally significant way, well, I think we didn't get the memo. So let me retransmit it.”
- Phillip Rogaway. The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work. [more inside]
Subpolar Express
The Canadian Pacific Christmas Train is a rolling holiday party for a cause. Two beautifully lit trains - on a US Route and a Canada route - cruise through the Midwest, stopping in 150 towns along the way to present live music and light shows while bringing donations of cash and food to local food banks.
Composers doing normal shit
December 5
Analog synths and VHS, digital dreams, SNES
FrankJavCee knows what the kids like to listen to, and will teach you how to make songs in popular new genres, like chillwave and ocean grunge
. [more inside]
Fun use for paper products...
What if Fender made a Stratocaster... out of cardboard?
"I am not yet old enough to vote———"
Political candidates aren't technically allowed to coordinate with the Super PACs that support them. Which is why Ted Cruz quietly uploaded 16 hours of footage to an old, unused YouTube channel for his Super PACs to find. BuzzFeed found out, and Gawker decided to do him a favor and edit all their favorite, most awful moments from the footage into a single, glorious campaign advertisement: "One more hug." "I love you, Mom." "And hold for a second."
Dr. Love Lectures About Christmas
Stories Of Christmas Love: Leo Buscaglia, USC's "Dr Love" and 80s PBS inspirational speaker talks for about 45 minutes about the meaning of the Christmas season from a compassionate, optimistic, humanist perspective with a focus on love. [more inside]
Hello?
Adele's "Hello," by the movies. Edited by Matthijs Vlot.
Be excellent to each other.
Jonathan Zittrain gives a Ted Talk on the internet as a random act of kindness. But as we approach the holiday season, and holiday depression, netizens can bring kindness to real life. [more inside]
Talkin' old school.
You might not have guessed that the spiritual ancestors of talk box talkers Pete Drake and Roger Troutman are musicians from faraway Thừa Thiên-Huế Province in Vietnam.
Don't believe me? Just check it. [more inside]
Why exit interviews are important
“I received a call from the horrified IT Director (the IT Manager himself had been made redundant straight after me), to ask if I knew why they faced an ISDN bill for over £100,000.”
What the whale inspired was wonderment, a dilation of the ordinary
Whale Fall , an essay by Australian writer Rebecca Giggs. In a 2010 interview with Overland, she discusses the discipline of writing, the psychological and spiritual effects of climate change, and being labelled a "young writer": "I don’t believe in the label ‘young writer.’ All writers should zigzag, meander and fail throughout their career. All writers should embark on infinite tasks, abandon works half-way through, try to take on the wrong voice, start in an incorrect place and finish too far after the end." Her first book, After the Whales, "a work of creative non-fiction examining the place that whales hold in Australia's natural environment, our history, and our cultural imaginations", is forthcoming from Scribe.
Internet quizzes are to Metafilter as...
Tomorrow's forecast is the same, but purple.
How corporations profit from black teens' viral content
The originator of "on fleek" was a 16-year-old girl from South Chicago. "Cool hunting" by advertisers has long captured and resold content from black youth in urban communities. But the rise of social media have made the process significantly faster, and the capitalization on trends far richer. Yet the youth who create dance styles and new language are rarely compensated for their cultural work. And the shape of copyright law is partly to blame. [more inside]
They battle forces of darkness none of us can see.
"But at some point, my dad stepped into a phone booth and vowed to be more than the sum of his upbringing. He took on the monsters that followed him and declared war on the dysfunctional demons he carried. He chose to give his children the childhood he didn’t have."
A Love Letter to the Cycle Breakers. [TW: childhood abuse]
whatever happened to Cecil Rhodes?
Just look at the state of my lawn
...warm. Warmer. Disco!
Everyone remembers John Travolta's comeback role as the shlubby stoned hitman Vincent Vega in 1994's Pulp Fiction. In one of the more creative memes of tghe year, gifwizards over at /r/confusedtravolta have begun transplanting (you guessed it) a confused John Travolta into other milieu:
Oh, Click and I'll Come to You, My Lad
Montague Rhodes James was an antiquarian, cataloger, scholar (especially of apocryphal books of the Bible), as well as Vice Chancellor of King’s College Cambridge and Provost of Eton College (where he died in 1936). But he is best known for his ghost stories, excellent examples of the Victorian Christmas ghost story tradition. [more inside]
That 'etc...', it'll get you every time
Because of ongoing problems with racism, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has temporarily closed comments on all articles about indigenous peoples. [more inside]
“It is not right if people cannot use a library free from anxiety.”
Librarians in Japan upset after newspaper published names of books that novelist Haruki Murakami checked out as a teenager from his high school library. [Los Angeles Times] [more inside]
Famous woman
Julianne Moore acts for tips in Times Square SLYT NSFW swearing
On Human Gene Editing, seizing control of human inheritance
Last April, motivated by rumors of a Chinese paper published the next month that physically demonstrated the technical feasibility of editing human germline DNA with CRISPR by successfully modifying human embryos, a coalition of well regarded scientists assembled to address this fundamentally new ability and they called for an international summit. It was to be billed as a new Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA for a new age in order to lead a new global conversation on questions of whether and how to control human inheritance, which could only be dreamed of 40 years ago. This is a fundamental departure from the non-inheritable gene engineering with CRISPR covered on the blue recently. Thus, from December 1-3, the International Summit on Human Gene Editing, held as a collaborative effort between U.S. National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and The Royal Society, met to discuss the future of this technology and has come out with a clear consensus statement. [more inside]
There's a Map for that.
Redstone genius SethBling has teamed up with Verizon to bring cellular coverage into MineCraft. Video calling, from the outside world into Minecraft, is now a reality. [SLYT]
A flock of crows
A beast roams the city.
New Dorp, New York (SLYT) is an animated video from SBTRKT and Ezra Koenig.
December 4
Ark and flood in one package
The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was established in 1961 and has grown into one of the US government’s largest intelligence organizations. It employs 17,000 people, including thousands stationed overseas, and its 2013 fiscal year budget request was for $3.15 billion. Yet, the DIA is also one of the more secretive agencies in the U.S. intelligence community, regularly denying access to basic information about its structure, functions and activities. On November 20, the National Security Archive posted a new sourcebook of over 50 declassified documents that help to illuminate the DIA’s five-decades-long history. [more inside]
People react to being called beautiful.
Macs and Cheeses of the Internet
MT-40 Riddim
The Casiotone MT-40, an electronic musical keyboard, was launched on the consumer market in 1981 and discontinued roughly a year later. It was not a particularly powerful piece of gear; it came with 23 fixed timbres and six drum patterns, played on tinny electronic sounds. However, in 1985, one MT-40 ended up in Jamaica, in the hands of a young musician named Noel Davy, where its bass pads and one of its drum patterns ended up instrumental in spawning the new electronic style of reggae and dancehall. [more inside]
God, I Need This Job
RIP: Workshops. WTF is a Lab?
"Now you're confused. 'Then, what's a Lab?' 'It's the exact same thing as a workshop, but without the good shit." [more inside]
The demented sound of John Gavanti
"Oh Ancient Ocean!/You are nothing!/Vast you may be!/Next to me what are you?/I am beautiful pink and you are stinky green!" In 1980, members of No Wave bands Mars and DNA recorded John Gavanti. An operetta loosely based on Don Giovanni, it's the story of a man with magical powers and a strong libido who gets it on with a lioness and a grandmother "in the beautiful autumn of life," among others. It was recorded in an all-vaccuum-tube-equipment studio that Sonic Youth later used to record 1987's Sister. Glenn Kenny at Trouser Press said "Some have called this the most unlistenable record ever made, and that's a fine invitation indeed." There's a review of sorts here. There's an unreadable fake(?) interview with fans and musicians here.
My Ex Stalked Me for 11 Years
Only Christmas Carol we listen to!
Frank Kelly's The Twelve Days of Christmas Has us rolling on the floor!
This is what Christmas is like at our place.
Enjoy!
Emilio no longer looks me in the eye, but Molly has become vicious.
Jury Duty, by Anonymous. (SL Medium): There is one other person in the room who doesn’t quite fit in, the Latino man who is the only other male juror of color. He sits and stares out the window. He doesn’t join in on small talk. “I haven’t been sleeping,” he says, when asked why he is so silent. “A man’s life is at stake.” I think of him as Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men. We will share this role.
Mt. Etna has erupted
Best Albums 2015
It's time to engage in the Annual Album Arguments! And so far, Kendrick Lamar is winning the internet with To Pimp a Butterfly. Rolling Stone, Noisey (from Vice), and Spin all give it #1. Stereogum puts it at #2, behind Grimes' Art Angels
Sexual Assault Allegations Flare Up in the Adult Industry
On November 28th, adult and mainstream actress Stoya sent out a pair of tweets accusing adult actor James Deen of raping her. Deen replied on Twitter that the "egregious claims" were "false and defamatory", but more performers have since made similar accusations, including producer-director-writer-star Joanna Angel, who dated Deen for six years. [more inside]
Walking on Tigers' Tails
“The distance between the station and the train was accurately measured ... I was not nervous as it approached and I leaped without hesitation,” she recalled. She landed safely, but the rocking motion of the train rolled her straight toward the end of the car. Just before being pitched off, “I caught hold of an air vent and hung on.” Then, with a sense of the dramatic, silent film actress Helen Gibson let her body “dangle over the edge to increase the effect on the screen.” [more inside]
giving the people something they didn't ask for
Steamed bun? Cornbread? Everything bagel? Challah? Or maybe just regular old Wonderbread? Whatever the case, Bread Face Blog has you covered.
Ace: The Talented Member of KISS
Ace's High (Part 1, Part 2) is a short documentary about a four-member Ace Frehley tribute band whose members all performed in full 1970s Ace Frehley makeup and costumes. [more inside]
oldweb.today
Do It A Capella
In 1990 PBS Great Performances broadcast Do it A Capella, a Spike Lee - produced special featuring "some of the finest rock/popular/doo-wop groups in the world. . . a watershed event bringing the renaissance of a cappella to the public consciousness." [more inside]
All roads lead to receiving.
Curious about the largest single-site jail in the country? The Cook County Department of Corrections has you covered with a frankly fascinating series of short videos touring the jail's eleven divisions. [more inside]
Finally, A Bread Fit For The Kwisatz Haderach
Dune Week: Spice Filled Sandworm. Now, you too can make a proud, impressive, spice-scented Great Maker of Arrakis.
May his rising cleanse the world, or at least your kitchen.
[Dune on Fanfare]
Do You Hear What We Hear?
Cult favorite punk cabaret duo Kiki & Herb released a Christmas album full of spiteful brio years ago that's been nearly imposssible to find since ...That is until Kenny Mellman (Herb) put the entire thing on soundcloud.
Mona Shores Singing Christmas Tree.
Mona Shores Singing Christmas Tree. As explained by the AP: "It's not that an oversized tree adorned with ornaments is uncommon as a student choir sings carols in the days leading up to Christmas. It's more that the towering steel tree is decorated with garland, twinkling lights ... and hundreds of teenagers. [...] The Mona Shores Singing Christmas Tree combines the usual elements into an unusual show that will draw thousands of spectators this weekend. The 67-foot-tall tree features 25,000 lights, 5,000 linear feet of greenery, and 15 tiers on which about 220 choir members stand. About 50 other students sing from positions near the base of the tree."
The Demands From Students Protesting Racism At 51 Colleges
What do student protestors want? College students have for weeks led protests over race relations on campuses across the country after well-publicized confrontations at the University of Missouri and Yale University.
A list of formal demands made at 51 U.S. campuses has been collected on a website called The Demands. [more inside]
August Engelhardt, history's most radical cocovore
"He believed that since the coconut grew high up in the tree, closest to God and closest to the sun, it was godlike. And since it had hair and looked like a human head, he thought it came closest to being a man. According to his rather crackpot theory, to be a cocovore was to be a theophage — or eater of God."
“...things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired,”
Debate erupts as Hanya Yanagihara's editor takes on critic over bad review of A Little Life. [The Guardian] The editor of Hanya Yanagihara’s bestselling novel A Little Life has taken to the pages of the New York Review of Books to defend his author from a review that claimed the novel “duped” its readers “into confusing anguish and ecstasy, pleasure and pain”. [more inside]
How do you lose a rocket booster?
A decades old mystery is now solved! After many attempts searching through Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) images, the Apollo 16 S-IVB rocket booster impact site has been identified. [more inside]
Promises of what I seemed to be
Scott Weiland, Ex-Singer of Stone Temple Pilots, Dies at 48. The troubled singer died in his sleep on a tour stop in Minnesota. Weiland, who had been fired from STP, was in his third act, comparing himself to Keith Richards, and had lost a bandmate earlier in the year. Weiland rose to stardom 23 years ago with STP's debut Core. [more inside]
the tenuous blue wall
"There’s no question that recent demographic trends have aided Democrats enormously. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of all white voters and won election in a 44-state landslide. In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney carried 59 percent of all white voters yet lost decisively. What happened? African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and other non-whites — all overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning groups — rose from 12 percent of voters in 1980 to 28 percent in 2012.
It’s true that if every demographic group were to carry its 2012 levels of turnout and party support into 2016, Democrats’ lead in the national popular vote would expand from 3.9 percentage points to 5.1 points based on population trends alone. But, as FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver and others have argued, Democrats’ advantage in the Electoral College is much more tenuous than it’s often portrayed." Run your own simulation with 538's Swing Tracker.
It’s true that if every demographic group were to carry its 2012 levels of turnout and party support into 2016, Democrats’ lead in the national popular vote would expand from 3.9 percentage points to 5.1 points based on population trends alone. But, as FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver and others have argued, Democrats’ advantage in the Electoral College is much more tenuous than it’s often portrayed." Run your own simulation with 538's Swing Tracker.
Opa!
Is this the most emotionally moving holiday commercial ever, or is it "the worst thing I’ve ever, ever seen"? You decide.
Unpregnant
Alexandra Kimball writes about pregnancy, miscarriage, grief and feminism. Women make and unmake our children, not just in the biological sense, but in the ontological sense, too. The fetus is a fetus, and the child a child – only the woman knows. If we deny her the power to define her own pregnancy, we deny the power inherent in womanhood.
The 10 Best Actor Transformations
December 3
Pantone's Not-So-Baby Pink and Blue
Pantone did something wild and, for the very first time, named TWO colors for 2016's Color of the Year – Rose Quartz and Serenity. [more inside]
The mystery of this year's tech toy and product development in Shenzhen
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen the scooter before. It’s sort of a phenomenon.... It’s been on the Tonight Show, and showed up at the NBA Finals. Every time anyone uploads a video or picture of this scooter, the commenters all want to know two things: What’s that called, and where can I buy it? That’s where it gets weird.Wired digs into the world of generic segways without handlebars, often called hoverboards, while NPR's Planet Money comes to a similar conclusion, and actually digs inside one of the two-wheeled machines (bonus: not their take-apart, but someone else's), both finding the Hovertrax Kickstarter and related video from 2013.
When Popular Fiction Isn't Popular
Genre, Literary, and the Myths of Popularity: The massively popular books are very rarely among the best, whether shelved as “genre” or as “literary.” Want to know what the best-selling book of the year has been? Go Set a Watchmen, a cash-grab novel that many have argued was unethical to even publish. The second? Grey, another cash-grab where E. L. James rewrote 50 Shades from a male point of view. (And, yes, Hollywood “reboot” culture is absolutely coming to the literary world in the near future. I mean, hey, it’s popular.) (Lincoln Michel for Electric Lit) [more inside]
Because, sometimes, we need a little harmony..
Tough days require some peace and harmony, and there aren't many places more suited to finding that level of comfort than acapella, so I offer you the vocal crafting of The Persuasions. For a half a century The Persuasions have been softening the hard edges of the world... It felt like a good time to bring some smooth solace.... [more inside]
And the Walkley goes to...
The Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism — roughly Australia's version of the Pulitzer Prizes — announced its 2015 winners at a ceremony on Thursday. Some of the winners won't be that interesting to an international audience, but here are some that might be: [more inside]
These are my surprised wings.
The beverages are consumed regularly by thirty-one per cent of kids between the ages of twelve and seventeen, and by thirty-four per cent of those aged eighteen to twenty-four. U.S. sales for energy drinks and shots now total more than twelve and a half billion dollars—a number that the market-research firm Packaged Facts predicts will grow by another nine billion dollars by 2017. A new study [note: behind paywall] , published in the November issue of Health Psychology, suggests that appeals by energy-drink companies to the thrill-thirsty male id are coming at a psychological and physical cost, however. -- Rachel Giese, How Energy-Drink Companies Prey on Male Insecurities
Fir dearth spurs work
With a possible Christmas tree shortage looming, now's the time to take a closer look at artificial Christmas trees—by watching How It's Made style clips about them, of course, as well as a bunch of other holiday-related products. [more inside]
The shellack lies
Totally gives the plot away
Two Plants Get Uppity About Which is Better; also, Jesus Was Born
Loving the aliebn: @jonnysun
Loving the aliebn. A long interview with and article about @jonnysun, one of my absolute favorite Twitterers, who now also has an Instagram with tidbits in the captions. [more inside]
Twenty three years and counting
How to design a London Underground Station
Transport for London recently released a comprehensive set of design guidelines for building works on their stations. I don't think I'll look at an underground station in the same way again. [more inside]
What do you call a pair of flying dinosaurs?
It's rare that a comments section is more entertaining than the post or article to which it is attached, but this post comes with a garden of delightful double dactyl verse dedicated to Benedict Cumberbatch. [more inside]
"Doctor Smith, please! You're making The Robot very unhappy!"
In September, sci-fi master Irwin Allen’s 1965 cult TV classic, Lost In Space marked its 50th anniversary. Now, Netflix has won a bidding war to remake the series. Meanwhile… [more inside]
Jack McConnell, Milliner to the Stars
An NFL catch, as explained by Jon Bois
Turkish Court to Rule on Whether Stoor Hobbits Are All Bad
In Turkey, insulting the President is punishable by up to two years in prison, so when Dr. Bilgin Çiftçi posted side-by-side photos of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and screenshots from the Lord of the Rings movies, he went on trial. Çiftçi's attorney asked the judge whether he was familiar with this "Gollum" fellow, and the judge admitted he had not seen all of the movies and empaneled five experts to report on the character. [more inside]
If I have to sacrifice my family, it must be better than a Klondike bar
Atlas Obscura asks Americans what they thought Turkish Delight was when they first read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
Pistorius "was re-enacting one strand of his nation’s cruellest past."
"[If] his story were true – and even if it were not – the faceless intruder of his imagination had to have had a black face." Jacqueline Rose carefully disentangles the threads of gender, disability, and race (yes, race) in the Oscar Pistorius trial.
I spent 45 minutes of my workday looking for a specific reaction gif.
Internet Confessional. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… I looked up an essay that drove me crazy when it came out three years ago solely for the pleasure of wallowing in hate. I relished every loathsome word.
Reality is squares of peanut butter toast
At The Atlantic, Elizabeth G. Dunn dispels the Myth of 'Easy' Cooking.
While Dunn sees takeout and premade food as a modern solution, Tamar Adler maintains that home cooking can be simple. In her 2011 book The Everlasting Meal, she tries to dispel myths about homecooking and eliminate the idea that cooking has to be magic (YT).
While Dunn sees takeout and premade food as a modern solution, Tamar Adler maintains that home cooking can be simple. In her 2011 book The Everlasting Meal, she tries to dispel myths about homecooking and eliminate the idea that cooking has to be magic (YT).
HPL Insurance
Law is alive. Listen.
Life of the Law is a scrupulously fair podcast that tells stories and asks questions about the place where the law and everyday life intersects. As part of its commitment to making the law accessible, each episode comes with a full transcript. Life of the Law has covered a variety of topics ranging from
pregnancy and motherhood in prison to rules about
where cops can live to the hidden costs of traffic stops to the reason lawyer ads get so ridiculous. You learn useful tidbits, too, like the secret power of jury nullification and how difficult it is to legally sell weed in "legal" states. Not all the episodes are so weighty, though; Life of the Law has also been known to cover things like history of legal humor.
Holy Ghost People
Holy Ghost People (1967) Dir. Peter Adair. Sound. Steve Reich "Ground-breaking example of "cinema verite" filmmaking at its best! This documentary explores the individual experiences of Pentacostal Christians. Film culminates with ceremonial handling of poisonous snakes. Ironically, it is the preacher that gets bitten."
Rave tapes
"Like the Galapagos, Baikal is a closed ecosystem"
The Blue Pearl Of Siberia, Peter Matthiessen, 1991
Past eight in the evening on the last day of August, after a ten-hour climb, we haul ourselves to the high rim of the Baikal Canyon. From where we stand, high plateaus, in hard, clear light, seem to stretch forever westward to the Urals. Facing east, my companion, the huge Siberian woodsman Semyon Ustinov, spreads his long arms. Far below, his beloved Baikal, the most ancient lake on earth, is shrouded in mist that drifts up the steep talus slope as if in search of us. The canyon rim on which we stand is a mile or more above the surface of the lake, whose greatest depth is 6,300 feet, or 1.2 miles, with an additional four miles of sediment above the bedrock. The great Baikal rift is seven times as deep as the Grand Canyon, by far the deepest land depression on the planet.[more inside]
“...how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge...”
The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein [The Public Domain Review] Professor Sharon Ruston surveys the scientific background to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, considering contemporary investigations into resuscitation, galvanism, and the possibility of states between life and death.
In a few days this post may be illegal.
The Malaysian Government is rushing through an anti-terrorism bill that has already been likened to a draconian dictatorship - providing the Prime Minister and a group of other Ministers with special powers such as seizing property, curfews with hefty fines, demolishing unoccupied buildings, arresting anyone threatening "national security", and various other emergency measures enacted without safeguards. Many groups have denounced the bill and called for its repeal, including the main Opposition coalition, the Malaysian Bar and other lawmakers, and human rights organizations.
December 2
It’s easy to look back now and say that defeating fascism was worth it.
"Capra knew that the only way to earn an ending this happy would be to send the audience through utter, bleak horror, so everything before George gets to live again is shot to maximize the sense of his confinement, before breaking loose into rapture. It’s the story arc the country itself had just lived through for the four years prior." It’s A Wonderful Life shows the unending cost of being good - Todd VanDerWerff, The A.V. Club
Enough
America's gun problem is completely unique: Why is it that for all the outrage and mourning with every mass shooting, nothing seems to change? To understand that, it's important to grasp not just the stunning statistics about gun ownership and gun violence in the United States, but America's very unique relationship with guns — unlike that of any other developed country — and how it plays out in our politics to ensure, seemingly against all odds, that our culture and laws continue to drive the routine gun violence that marks American life. [more inside]
Lagavulin™
Nick Offerman's 'Yule Log' Nick Offerman Drinking Lagavulin Single Malt Whisky for 45 minutes. [Warning for the ad adverse: The linked video is obviously advertising.]
What happens when the Board Of Directors begins to panic?
I have been working with startups for most of the last 15 years, and one common pattern that I’ve seen is the startup that has a brilliant idea but terrible management. [...] I feel I can offer a real service by documenting my own experience and offering it up as a case study. I've spent the last 6 months working at Celolot, which falls into the "great idea/bad management" category. The idea is brilliant: Natural Language Processing as an interface to interact with big Customer Relationship Management tools such as SAP. The execution has been flawed. [...] All names have been changed except for mine.via HN
Horror Victorianorum
"Such was the heady moment when the taboo against Victorian art was lifted. It shows that a taboo is not necessarily a bad thing. By holding the entire Victorian era in brackets, as it were, and then revisiting it after a long interval, it became possible to see it with fresh eyes, to discover it as a vast and dazzlingly new continent." Michael J. Lewis, The new “Horror Victorianorum.”
I worked in a video store for 25 years
Сказал себе я: брось писать, - но руки сами просятся.
I told myself:-- you mustn't write!
But stubborn hands will not comply
Vladimir Vysotsky was a Russian Actor, Poet, and Musician. He wrote over 600 songs before his death in 1980.
Commonplace Books: Notebooks for Magpies
Before Pinterest and Evernote and Tumblr, there was the humble commonplace book, a space for gathering and reflecting on ideas, quotations, observations, lines from poems, and other information. "How and Why to Keep a Commonplace Book" is a brief introduction to a venerable tradition of idea curation. [more inside]
It's that time of year again!
DJ Earworm's United State of Pop 2015 (50 Shades of Pop) is now available!
Some Mothers Do Ave Em Returns
Believe it or not but Some Mothers Do Ave Em is reputed to be returning to our screens some time next year with the original cast. Michael Crawford is 73, so it's going to be a case of, Ooh Betty me knees have gone!!
Malaria vs. Mobile Phones
Malaria diagnosis made easy with smart phone app Also Smartphone microscope can diagnose malaria
Plus:
Tracking malaria with cell phones
The Peculiar Ascent of Bill Murray to Secular Saint
Over the last few years, Mitch Glazer, the screenwriter and producer, has watched with awe and bewilderment what has happened to Bill Murray. Glazer recently penned a Vanity Fair cover story on his friend, as well. "A Very Murray Christmas" premiers on Netflix on December 4th.
Please look forward when walking
Once again, a fool seeks to undo the future that is Aku.
Genndy Tartakovsky is returning to his much-loved 2001-2004 cartoon Samurai Jack with a new season in development for 2016, Cartoon Network announced today. The original run of the series depicted the titular, time-displaced hero's quest to return to his own time and bring down the demon lord Aku. It was marked by Tartakovsky's unique art style, hand-painted backgrounds depicting a surreal future world, and storytelling that could deftly shift from parody to emotionally resonant drama to straight-up slapstick. [more inside]
Tumblr Teen Bling Rings
"Inside Tumblr's Teen Shoplifting Rings." A huge online community of anonymous high schoolers is raiding malls across America and then blogging about it. [more inside]
“We’re up until four in the morning, writing Robin’s ad-libs.”
Mork and Mindy was a tour de force, averaging 60 million viewers a week (a number that would beat the top three shows of the 2014-2015 season combined) and introducing the world to Robin Williams. And then it crashed, due to constant network retooling, as well as Williams' fame and feeling that his character had gone from childlike to childish. Charlie Jane Anders and io9 take us through the short but turbulent history of every '80s kid's favorite show. [more inside]
How Railroad History Shaped Internet History
It’s no accident that Iowa, where the first transcontinental railroad began, is now home to a huge data-center industry.
And now, a departure from "Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf"
The "SyFy" network has released the first episode of their space noir television adaptation of James S. A. Corey's The Expanse novels on YouTube: "Dulcinea." (region-restricted to US viewers only -- contains a scene that may be NSFW) [more inside]
"Had we ten Hands . . ."
In 1739, an English washer-woman named Mary Collier published a long poem called "The Woman's Labour" about the difficulties faced by working women. Her poem was a response to The Thresher's Labour by Stephen Duck, which mocked the poetic conceit that agricultural workers spend a pleasant time in nature, and took a few pot shots at women along the way: "Ah! were their Hands so active as their Tongues/ How nimbly then would move the Rakes and Prongs?" Collier refutes Duck's criticisms and describes women's added labour: [more inside]
Dear John. You may be a John.
Drive on certain streets that make up known prostitution zones and you could get an automated letter because you may be a John. But no worries if you're not!
I wouldn't stand there if I were you
It's winter in 2007, and there's been an ice storm in Oklahoma. Some of that ice is now adhering to portions of the 1619-foot Sinclair Television Tower in Oklahoma City. And then, bit by bit, some of it isn't. (SLYT)
Polly-glots
Horizontal vs. Vertical
The geometry of censorship and satire, Mark Ames
I first heard about Sergei Dorkeno’s theory on “vertical censorship vs. horizontal censorship” back in 2008, right around the time that the Kremlin shut down my satirical Moscow newspaper, “The eXile."
When globalization comes home.
A Grim Bargain: Tax breaks, cheap land, and cheap labor make the American South attractive to foreign companies. Workers don't benefit.
“This station is now the ultimate power in the universe!”
It’s a Trap: Emperor Palpatine’s Poison Pill by Zachary Feinstein [.PDF]
In this paper we study the financial repercussions of the destruction of two fully armed and operational moon-sized battle stations (“Death Stars”) in a 4-year period and the dissolution of the galactic government in Star Wars. The emphasis of this work is to calibrate and simulate a model of the banking and financial systems within the galaxy. Along these lines, we measure the level of systemic risk that may have been generated by the death of Emperor Palpatine and the destruction of the second Death Star. We conclude by finding the economic resources the Rebel Alliance would need to have in reserve in order to prevent a financial crisis from gripping the galaxy through an optimally allocated banking bailout.via: Popular Science [more inside]
"how weakness is despised, how weakness can be cunning"
Mary Gaitskill and the Life Unseen by Parul Sehgal
12 Games For Christmas
12 games to play on Christmas day (or thereabouts), from Dr David King, a lecturer in games design and specialist in physical computing at the University of the Arts London. [more inside]
December 1
Good and hard
Health of Hard Science Fiction in 2015 (Short Fiction) - Greg Hullender of Rocket Stack Rank looks at whether this years stories support claims of doom for Hard SF.
Caño Cristales, the Colombian river that ran away from paradise
Caño Cristales means "Crystal Spout" in Spanish, which doesn't portray the vivid nature of the Colombian river like it's other nicknames -- river of five colors, liquid rainbow, the river that ran away from paradise and the most beautiful river in the world. The river's colors include yellow, green, blue, black, and a seasonal red from Macarenia clavigera, an aquatic herb.
Leaked Documents Show Dothan Police Department Planted Drugs
The Henry Country Report has revealed leaked documents that show a narcotics team in Dothan, AL planted drugs on black men for years. The cases were prosecuted by Doug Valeska. All of the officers involved were in a local neo-confederate organization, and many of the targeted individuals remain in jail.
Counting the hours
"The name of the game is fear nothing and risk everything."
Peace Park 2015 Full Video
This year’s PEACE PARK offers elite riders a massive snowboard playground with endless new transitions and jumps including a half mile roller run, a 60 foot BBQ road gap, a quarter pipe measuring over 100 feet long and 22 feet high, a 22 foot bowl measuring 100 feet in diameter and more – all designed on Danny Davis’s terms. Built and filmed in the West Tetons of Wyoming, this year’s groundbreaking snowboard park is inspired by Danny’s creative vision and takes cues from skateboarding and surfing.
This year’s PEACE PARK offers elite riders a massive snowboard playground with endless new transitions and jumps including a half mile roller run, a 60 foot BBQ road gap, a quarter pipe measuring over 100 feet long and 22 feet high, a 22 foot bowl measuring 100 feet in diameter and more – all designed on Danny Davis’s terms. Built and filmed in the West Tetons of Wyoming, this year’s groundbreaking snowboard park is inspired by Danny’s creative vision and takes cues from skateboarding and surfing.
Armchair Arts Adventure
Stand, virtually, on the stage of the Palais Garnier, among the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet. Use your mouse to manipulate a 360-degree video that allows you to see them from many angles as they perform Benjamin Millepied’s “Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward.” Or journey to Stratford-upon-Avon, where you can try to keep up with a frenetic Alex Hassell of the Royal Shakespeare Company as Henry V, exhorting his troops to go “once more unto the breach."
The 360-degree videos are part of an innovative assemblage of performing arts groups that went online on Tuesday morning at the Google Cultural Institute, a free website that made its name in recent years by digitizing and displaying the collections of more than 800 art museums and historical archives.
It is Grappi in your slave, for the now!
To paraphrase: Grappi is the fun friend from story and products, now in the light and shadow of a television! Interact of Grappi and do the good; make a health, not a hurt. Find a place, a weather, a friend! Do a many thing, make a Grappi joy! Hupa! You have found a strange video game that appears to originate from no known civilization. You have found Virtual Grappi. Be sure to check the instruction manual. (More from the real creator in the unfiction plane. And here's her original forum game [WARNINGS: PERHAPS TO SPOILERS])
A [NOUN] for Christmas
Mark Zuckerberg follows in Gates footsteps
Towards a new conception of the border
"I spent most of my life as a nobody."
Diana Serra Cary, also known as Baby Peggy, is one of the last living silent film actors, and possibly the only major star of the 1920s still alive. [more inside]
When AIDS Was Funny
“…if you use a razor blade and glue; you can change the whole world.”
The Art of Punk (previously) is a documentary series from MOCAtv, the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Arts’ YoutTube channel. The series looks at the visual language of the punk rock movement by focussing on three legendary punk rock bands and the seminal artists behind their iconic logos. [more inside]
Bang Bang you're dead
The County: the story of America's deadliest police. First in a five part series by the Guardian.
Here is some data which has been posted before [more inside]
He killed a mouse in Reno, just to watch him die.
Orange is the new cats. The folks behind the game Exploding Kittens want to repair their kitten-related karma. They've launched a project to convince people to put orange collars on their indoor cats and to educate people that an orange collar on a cat indicates that the cat is an escaped indoor cat who needs to be returned to custody.
"Tiny Band, Big Heart"
The 24-person marching band from Rotan, Texas, made it to the Division 1A state finals (i.e., "State") for the first time this year. [more inside]
"...which will make your enhanced viewing even doper."
The cast and crew of Tarantino's The Hateful Eight discuss the upcoming old-fashioned roadshow screenings of the first film to be projected in Ultra Panavision 70 in nearly fifty years. [more inside]
The biggest cliche in photography is sunrise and sunset.
Want to get an idea whether it'll be worth hauling your kit out to your favourite spot to capture a magnificent sunset? Consult the sunset forecast at SunsetWX. Forecast valid in continental US and adjoining fringes only. And SunCalc will let you know exactly where the sun will cross the horizon from your vantage point. [more inside]
We All Hear Differently
The analogy Kraus uses is that the world around us is like a great concert — and our brains are a mixing board. How that mixing board translates what we’re hearing can have a profound impact on what we understand about what’s going on around us... Here’s the good news: Kraus also firmly believes that our brains can be be trained to hear more clearly. She’s found that musicians and people who are bilingual are able to process sound better than the rest of us.WNYC's Only Human brings you Listen Up! - a project "to help us all become better listeners." [more inside]
In The News: Dino Eggs
Drowned dinosaur eggs' fossil remains reveal embryos grew fast Plus a new study suggests a link between dinosaur and bird nesting habits. Another article frames that study differently. And, remarkably, a treasure trove of dinosaur eggs was found in fossil-poor Japan.
Modernistmas
Modernist gingerbread houses | More | Ginger Bauhaus | Architectural 3-D ginger cookie | The history of using gingerbread at Christmas with recipes.
And women reacting to sexy men producing synthesized harsh noise
Women reacting to (and producing) harsh noise and sexy men of the synthesizer, two single-serving tumblrs from a WHPK dj (previously)
Divides over Free Speech and Free Press
A new Pew survey looks at attitudes towards free speech from around the world. It explores how different nations think about free speech and government, the press, religion, minorities, the internet. Also in the report: attitudes towards democracy, religion, and gender.
(SLP)
Chris Cornell covers the song One.
A Black Body On Trial: The Conviction of HIV Positive "Tiger Mandingo"
"In his final arguments to the jurors, Groenweghe called Johnson’s accusers “promiscuous.” Hands in his pockets, eyes downcast, he told the members of the jury that these young gay men “have a lifestyle I don’t understand, that many of us don’t understand. But, he said that HIV criminalization laws weren’t put on the books by legislators just to protect them, but to protect the public health — including the health of the jurors." [more inside]
Motor City to Bike City
Where'd you get that body double from?
Psy (previously) (previously) (previously) is back with a somewhat surreal and arguably catchy new single and video: Daddy (ft. CL of 2NE1) [more inside]
Racismo Virtual, Consequéncias Reais
The Virtual Racism, Real Consequences campaign in Brazil geolocates racist Facebook and Twitter comments and puts them on billboards near the posters' homes, with names and faces blurred. The campaign started after a torrent of racist comments on a Facebook picture of Afro-Brazilian weather presenter Maria Júlia "Maju" Coutinho. [more inside]
Nothing is Real Any More, All Hail the Matrix
Last night on Monday Night Football, the Baltimore Ravens and The Cleveland Browns (both with terrible records and disappointing seasons) battled it out to stay out of the bottom of the AFC North rankings. The Browns seemed to have the game in the bag, as a series of Baltimore mistakes placed them within field goal range and a victory. However, the kick was blocked (a rarity in the NFL) and then returned for a touchdown (even rarer) for a 0 second win by The Ravens. Browns fans were upset (NWS: cursing). The media exposure of this unlikely series of events has caused renewed interest in a list that a fan compiled in October of this year: Every Browns Loss Since 1999, Ranked.
The free Turkey men get is good
ClickHole asks: What does it mean to be a man?
Autumn Enigma
Why are autumn leaves mostly yellow in Europe and red in North America? The colour of a British wood in autumn is predominantly yellow. There are relatively few European trees which have red leaves in the autumn....Autumn is much redder in North America and east Asia than it is in northern Europe, and this can’t be explained by temperature differences alone.
At one point in time we thought this song was empowering
Of course, no post-breakup wallow cycle is complete without revisiting Lauryn Hill’s debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. So one Tuesday evening, I got my glass of wine, dimmed the lights, and got ready for my almost daily routine of crying my eyes out until my tear ducts were depleted enough to be functional around well-adjusted humans for 8 hours the next working day.
That same Tuesday is when I promptly discovered that this album is terrible...As I am sure that a few of you are still vehemently denying reality, I will submit to you some incontrovertible track-by-track truth bombs. -- "The Miseducation Is Overrated", a truth bomb by Shamira Ibrahim
That same Tuesday is when I promptly discovered that this album is terrible...As I am sure that a few of you are still vehemently denying reality, I will submit to you some incontrovertible track-by-track truth bombs. -- "The Miseducation Is Overrated", a truth bomb by Shamira Ibrahim
“Everyone knows what a New Yorker story will look like.”
Marlon James, winner of this year’s Man Booker prize, believes that writers of color are “pandering to the white woman.” [The Guardian]
The 2015 Man Booker prize winner Marlon James has slammed the publishing world, saying authors of colour too often “pander to white women” to sell books, and that he could have been published more often if he had written “middle-style prose and private ennui”.[more inside]
A History in 46 Images
"I'm Heading Out to the Black. Farewell, io9 and Gizmodo!"
Party like it's 198x!
If you’re looking for a good way to spend the rest of your week, Archive.org has unearthed a gigantic collection of cassettes from the mid-80 into the mid-90s. According to their notes, the 30GB collection was saved from the archives of noise-arch.net (previously) and donated by former CKLN-FM radio host Myke Dyer in August 2009. Due to its size and obscurity, the collection hasn’t been properly notated but is said to include cassettes ranging from “tape experimentation, industrial, avant-garde, indie, rock, DIY, subvertainment and auto-hypnotic materials”. (via FACT)
"Damn you. Where's the disc?"
Portnoy's complaining
Drummer Mike Portnoy drums a game of "Name That Tune" (NSFW) on a Hello Kitty drum kit. Bonus live set.