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Where in the world is me
If you were dropped into a random city somewhere in the world, could you guess where you were from context clues? City Guesser shows you a video from the point of view of a pedestrian walking through a city and asks you to guess where you think it is, then shows you how close you were.
Watermelon Burgers must be seen (and tasted) to be believed
I fully expect this recipe to be met with skepticism. In fact, a lot of you might express surprise at how good watermelon burgers turn out to be.
I want you to eat this because I want to eat this, and once you try it, you’ll want to tell everyone you know to make it too. Then you’ll be the person no one believes, and later you’ll get to experience the satisfaction of hearing those people admit you were right all along. If that isn’t a fantastic reason to try out a new recipe, I don’t know what is.
Mac to the Future
Tim Sneath upgrades his trusty Macintosh SE/30 to a brand new iMac G4 and marvels at the technological progress that a decade brings, including a DVD player, built-in Ethernet and modem, OS X Panther, EarthLink, and World Book 2004.
Jazz in 1960
It has become common knowledge that 1959 (previously) was an outstanding year for jazz: but it was no freakish outlier, as a quick perusal of the music produced in any of the neighbouring twelvemonths will show. For no better reason than it’s 60 years since 1960, why not sit back, relax, & take time to enjoy some slices of the jazz released in that year, starting with five ‘essential’ albums picked by Matt Micucci for Jazziz Magazine: Giant Steps by John Coltrane (the title track); Blues & Roots by Charles Mingus (“E's Flat Ah's Flat Too”); Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis (“Concierto de Aranjuez (Adagio)”); The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (“West Coast Blues”) and Soul Station by Hank Mobley (“This I Dig Of You”).
This Post Has Y Views
This Video Has X Views
The title of this video should change with the times. But nothing lasts forever: here's the story of how I made it work, why it used to be easier to make that work, and how it all ties in to the White Cliffs of Dover and the end of the universe.
How to play
Games have always been a part of human culture. Alone or in groups we play games to amuse ourselves, pass the time and even meet new people. Game designer Holly Gramazio invites you to turn your mind to play whether you're at work, on a train, in a museum, or even drunk. Each article is packed with ideas for games to play, wherever you are.
You should be working rather than reading this article.
Procrastination has nothing to do with self control.
“Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Score, Then Automatic Runoff
"We propose a new voting system."
Patent Depending
Patent Depending
This weekend I got to meet the charming Steven M. Johnson, an illustrator wiith a gift for a whimsical dystopian inventiveness. He's been doing this since 1977 so has a rather broad body, but some of my favorites: Fear Funiture where you can buy a hide-inside-a-bed, the dual-purpose Swimming Moat, and Classic RVs of the 1970s which should inspire some tiny-home fans. Here is a TEDx (Indianapolis franchise, nicely produced) talk he gave where he discusses finding his talent for "invention without a purpose" at the age of 36 and the lessons learned. Eight years previously.
"What they came back with made me cry."
Six months ago, a parks official cleaning out an office came across two cardboard boxes that had been sitting around for decades. Inside were 2,924 color slides, pictures made in parks across New York City’s five boroughs late in the summer of 1978. No one had looked at them for 40 years.
People in general are stupid in all domains, even now
Katja Grace asks why, if humans have been "behaviorally modern" for about 50,000 years, did it take so long to invent rope (28,000 years ago), the wheel (at least 4000 BC) and writing (3000 BC)? As it turns out, there are a lot of possible answers.
I think I may sneeze.
The complete (so far) Gazorra TNG Edits. Returning to the internet thanks to the deniably plausible youtuber Byron Hussie. A fresh new shelf for a mefi fave (Previously. Very Previously.) Because unceasing suffering needs some laugh breaks.
From boiling lead and black art: Eddie Smith on math typography
What makes Knuth’s role in typographical history so special was just how much he cared about the appearance of typography in the 1970s—and the fact that he used his technical abilities to emulate the art he so appreciated from the Monotype era. Eddie Smith at Practically Efficient essays some 6000 words on the history of mathematical typography.
Also, it's like 350 bucks on eBay
Want to spend a few hours on a wargame? Well, you definitely do not want to unroll the 10-foot board that comes with The Campaign for North Africa, because not only will you need to find nine friends, but y'all are likely to spend upwards of 1500 hours playing what Richard Berg, the game's designer, called "wretched excess... but it was designed specifically as such."
It's the lip syncing that really blows my mind if I'm honest
Episode Four: The Search for the Black Spider.
A live-action Adventure Zone fanfilm directed by Curtis McOsker.
"an occasional draft will look like a passing cloud"
A demonstration of Schlieren photography, which makes minute changes in air's index of refraction visible, allowing us to see air that is moving or that contains gases that would otherwise be invisible. A segment from a Science Channel program has some additional examples and some explanation.
No yak, that's like an ox.
Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?
... the english stackexchange investigate (via)
The inspiring, educational and wild illustrations of Ed Emberley
The influential, instructional illustrator Ed Emberley is in his 80s and still drawing. He has a range of styles, from the Caldecott Medal-winning Drummer Hoff (1967) to his creatively die-cut Go Away, Big Green Monster (1992), and perhaps most memorably a whole range of drawing books, which generally start with the reminder that if you can draw these things → · U D Δ □ ⇝ you can draw all kinds of things. If you can't find his books, the EMBR Group has a blog of Ed Emberley's Drawing Pages, and his website has more activities to print and use for non-commercial purposes (full terms of use).
We are creatures of duty, Captain
Freshly Remember'd: Kirk Drift. There is no other way to put this: essentially everything about Popular Consciousness Kirk is bullshit. Kirk, as received through mass culture memory and reflected in its productive imaginary (and subsequent franchise output, including the reboot movies), has little or no basis in Shatner’s performance and the television show as aired. Macho, brash Kirk is a mass hallucination.
Craig Is A Contradiction, But He Does Not Know It.
Every Story I Have Read About Trump Supporters in the Past Week
- Alexandra Petri, WaPo
We should check for traps again.
Sue The T-Rex Is Running A D&D Game On Twitter & It Is Freaking Amazing.
Come for the brigands. Stay for the dinosaur facts.
A gender-swapped version of the recent presidential debates
Actors did a meticulous recreation of excepts from the debates, and there was discussion from the audience afterwards.
"Salvatore cast fellow educational theatre faculty Rachel Whorton to play “Brenda King,” a female version of Trump, and Daryl Embry to play “Jonathan Gordon,” a male version of Hillary Clinton, and coached them as they learned the candidates’ words and gestures."
Tango Americano
The database at TV Tango allows you to see the American TV schedule for any day since 1950. You can check out your birthday or any other significant date. They also include TV show ratings going back to late 1982.
Scapegoating Trade Deals
NAFTA and other trade deals have not gutted American manufacturing — period.
"...here in America, you can, as you definitely can elsewhere, mobilize a great deal of populist energy by identifying foreigners as the enemy. I do not think this is an impulse that it is healthy for any part of this country. I do not think this is something any political movement that seeks to do anything other than destroy can dare to encourage."
The Twentieth Day of January
Now, I never paid any attention to this. I had no interest in reading an obscure spy novel just because Trump liked it. But then over Christmas after the election, I was visiting family in Bozeman, Montana. And there it was, in a used bookstore: The Twentieth Day of January.
THEORY OF EVERYTHING: And? Is it good?
“JOSH GLENN”: No, it’s terrible. The plot is ridiculous.
Radio Around the World
Radio.garden
A browsable map of streamable radio stations around the world.
square peg, round hole
The ambiguous cylinder illusion
(youtube) - finalist for Illusion of the Year 2016. More up-to-date illusions!
We are all neoliberals now.
Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism.
The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?
The Re-Readables
What book(s) can you read over and over and over again?
Help us make a master list of weeknight recipes!
What are your recipes for weeknight meals? What do you have for dinner that you make yourself in a relatively short amount of time and/or with relatively little effort? Help us figure out a variety of dinners to put on a meal-planning list!
I still haven't told you about the dream.
Toormina Video- a short comic by Pat Grant
Getting Away from Legalese
Despite its reputation for being dense, awkward, and repetitive, legal writing can be simple, readable, and concise when done well. Legal writing blogs, such as Bryan A. Garner's Law Prose, are here to help. Non-lawyers may also find these useful when reviewing a lawyer's work, reading legal documents, or in their own formal writing.
Building cool dungeons in D&D
Here is Justin Alexander's "Jaquaying the Dungeon," a crash course in old-school D&D adventure complex design, for all you grognards out there.
- 1.Definition - Jennell Jaquays wrote many classic RPG adventures for a variety of systems and publishers, notable for their non-linearity.
- 2.Techniques - On non-linear dungeon construction.
- 3.Philosophy - Why do non-linear dungeons matter, how to make good use of it.
- 4. Applied to Keep on the Shadowfell - Jaquaying a typical linear dungeon module.
- 5. General application - Othter ways Shadowfell could have been improved, summation.
- 6.Ways to connect dungeon levels - An appendix of ways to connect dungeon levels to each other.
- 7.Tips and Tricks - Tricky ideas to delight/annoy players.
- Justin Alexander's Gamemastery 101 is further loaded with good GMing advice.
It stands for "Special Person Entering the World... Egg Yolks"
In 1990, the Fox network was looking for a sitcom to become the next Cosby Show. So initially, David Mirkin, Adam Resnick and Chris Elliott pitched Get A Life as "What would Dennis the Menace be like, at age 30?": a show starring Elliott as a likeable, wisecracking 30 year old bachelor who lives with his parents, has a job as a paperboy and is beating the system by refusing to grow up. But once they had a green light....
I CAN TOLERATE ANYTHING EXCEPT THE OUTGROUP
"today we have an almost unprecedented situation...We have a lot of people...boasting of being able to tolerate everyone from every outgroup they can imagine...And we have those same people absolutely ripping into their in-groups---straight, white, male, hetero, cis, American...This is really surprising. It’s a total reversal of everything we know about human psychology up to this point...people who conspicuous love their outgroups, the outer the better, and gain status by talking about how terrible their own groups are. What is going on here?" (Slate Star Codex)
Let Me Tell You About Homestuck
5 years.
7,000 pages.
13,000 panels.
700,000 words. [Approximately the length of the Bible.]
Over 3 hours of animation.
Over 23 hours of soundtrack.
15 separate games, in 3 unique styles.
PBS once called Homestuck the "Ulysses of the Internet". Its author, Andrew Hussie — who resembles Joyce in his impishness, stylistic maximalism, and fondness for disturbing smut — calls it "a story I've tried to make as much a pure expression of its medium as possible". It has become a cultural phenomenon, inspiring proms and dominating Amazon makeup reviews. But most importantly, it's a rollicking good read, equal parts slapstick and epic, bildungsroman and cultural commentary.
What on earth about it makes its fans so overly zealous? And how the hell does one start the daunting process of reading Homestuck? If you're even the remotest bit curious about this Internet phenomenon, the following is a teensy-weensy introduction to just what makes Homestuck so terrific.
7,000 pages.
13,000 panels.
700,000 words. [Approximately the length of the Bible.]
Over 3 hours of animation.
Over 23 hours of soundtrack.
15 separate games, in 3 unique styles.
PBS once called Homestuck the "Ulysses of the Internet". Its author, Andrew Hussie — who resembles Joyce in his impishness, stylistic maximalism, and fondness for disturbing smut — calls it "a story I've tried to make as much a pure expression of its medium as possible". It has become a cultural phenomenon, inspiring proms and dominating Amazon makeup reviews. But most importantly, it's a rollicking good read, equal parts slapstick and epic, bildungsroman and cultural commentary.
What on earth about it makes its fans so overly zealous? And how the hell does one start the daunting process of reading Homestuck? If you're even the remotest bit curious about this Internet phenomenon, the following is a teensy-weensy introduction to just what makes Homestuck so terrific.