September 6
Answers to Paul
DOGS FOR SALE (SL Tumblr)
"That's not even Mike Nesmiths real hat."
In honor of The Monkees recently concluded pseudo-victory-lap-quasi-memorial-for-the-late-David Jones North American tour, the first of which to have Michael Nesmith anywhere near it in over 20 years; here is the last time the famously reluctant Monkee had anything to do with the rest of the boys, 1997's ABC television special Hey Hey It's The Monkees. [more inside]
I'm sorry Mario, but your DJ is in another castle
93 Still (Gummy Soul Remix)
93 Still (Gummy Soul Remix, free download) In celebration of the 20th anniversary of 93 'Til Infinity, Souls of Mischief graciously opened their vaults to give Gummy Soul the exclusive acapellas of their classic album, to remix for the first time ever. [more inside]
This Journal is a memorial. New entries cannot be posted to it.
Disch died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 4, 2008, and, if one so desires, Endzone can be read as a suicide letter. But then, so could his entire body of work; the reduction of any writer's output, whether it be that of Sarah Kane, David Foster Wallace or Hunter S. Thompson, to an explanation of his or her suicide divests it of intention and frisson. It reduces the novelist to a patient of post-mortem psychotherapy. Clute, reversing this impulse, wrote that Disch took his own life "to demonstrate that he really had meant what he had been saying over [his] career." -- Brendan Byrne reviews the last work Thomas M. Disch completed before his suicide: his Livejournal.
Data Visualization Fun Fridays: Mapping Arms Data.
ARMSGLOBE: an interactive visualization of the international trade in small arms (generally defined as lethal weapons for use by individuals) from 1992 to 2011. Click on an individual country or type its name into the search box to examine it separately. Uncheck the boxes in the lower right corner to narrow down by category. Drag the slider at the bottom or click the graph button to view change over time. May take a while to load on slower connections. [more inside]
"What are we doing on this rainy field that tilts over in the earth?"
because I said I would
because I said I would is a website run by Alex Sheen. It's dedicated to the memory of his father, whose legacy to his son was the importance of keeping one's promises to oneself and to others. Alex sends promise cards to anyone in the world who wants them-- simple pieces of paper on which to write a pledge or commitment, a way to stay true to your word. Last month, Alex received a message from a young man with a unique confession, and decided to reach out to him.
No Free Lunch
A New Jersey school district chooses to withhold lunch from kids whose parents forgot to refill their lunch accounts. There has been a great deal of controversy regarding the school districts decision to withhold food from children who don't have money on their school account.
However, it should be noted that the article mentions: "Part of the reason we're doing this is to help hold parents accountable." Dr. Ronald Taylor, the Superintendent, says that the district will warn parents when their account is down to five dollars, which is about three days before it's empty.
Good fences make good neighbors
Something or someone is building tiny towers and fences in the Peruvian Amazon. And nobody knows who, or what they are, or why they're being built.
MoneyEggBall
From Kirk Goldsberry, the man who brought you CourtVision (previously), comes Pass Atlas: A Map of Where NFL Quarterbacks Throw the Ball.
eBay Menswear Power Search
Haberdashboard runs an organized eBay search on quality menswear brands in your size(s), and includes some nice search refinement options.
Does Robocop STILL bleed?
The trailer to the "Robocop" remake was released yesterday, and as expected there was a lot of grumbling from fans. There is one significant change that the film shares with another recent remake of a brutal action film ("Total Recall"): The switch from an "R" rating to a "PG-13". Next year will be the 30th anniversary of the "PG-13" rating, so it's worth considering (especially for those of us whose memories go back that far) what the rating has wrought in cinema (previously).
Simon Cowell your days are numbered. Owls will get you while you slumber
You've probably seen videos by Jonti Picking, AKA Weebl. He's the guy behind such Internet legends as Badger Badger Badger, Look At My Horse, Narwhals, and Kenya, and his knack for combining catchy music with absurd words and animations has resulted in an extensive library of earworm songs. There's Magical Trevor, who's shown up time and again (and again). He has songs about other animals, like crabs and giraffes and breadfish and baby baboons. (My favorite video of his is Owls by a wide margin.) He also writes about real people, like Stephen Fry and Patrick Moore!
The Man Who Sold the Bonds
There have been a few misconceptions about the Bowie securitizations over the years. I’ll try to describe, in relatively plain English, what happened.
Dick Raaijmakers, 1930-2013.
Pioneering Dutch electronic/tape composer Dick Raaijmakers has died. Raaijmakers was an early adopter of electronic technology for music production, and his work in the field expanded far beyond the laboratory to include film, theater, installations and visual art, and literature. He wrote for orchestras, percussion ensembles, educational and industrial films, Satie-inspired ambient and background environments, and unorthodox "musical" objects such as tractors and bicycles. He was also a noted essayist and author on new concepts and applications related to sound. [more inside]
I am Aleksandr, the very last knitter.
Aleksandr is a fantastic little animated adventure, made in 2010, about yarn production and knitting in a little village set amongst the clouds, and what happened the day a carelessly discarded yarn spool came to the attention of their neighbour down below. Learn more about the production of Aleksandr and the team that created it here.
Why Do Men Keep Putting Me in the Girlfriend-Zone?
You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend. But then, then comes the fateful moment where you find out that all this time, he’s only seen you as a potential girlfriend. And then if you turn him down, he may never speak to you again. This has happened to me time after time: I hit it off with a guy, and, for all that I’ve been burned in the past, I start to think that this one might actually care about me as a person. And then he asks me on a date. [more inside]
What's worth preserving out there anyway?
Inspired by the NYT Pulitzer prize-winning “Snowfall” report, the Charlottesville VA paper the C-ville Weekly decided to "take our last best shot at untangling the Gordian Knot that is the Bypass problem" in one long, media-rich article.
Put down the iPhone, we're going to party like it's 1986
Canadian family lives like it's 1986 - "No computers, no tablets, no smart phones, no fancy coffee machines, no Internet, no cable, and – from the point of view of many tech-dependent folks – no life."
Political Science Is Rife With Gender Bias
By many measures, women in political science do not achieve the same success as men. Their ranks among full professors are lower; their teaching evaluations by students are more critical; they hold less prestigious committee appointments; and, according to a new study, their work is cited less frequently.
Why? [more inside]
In the Name of the Father: An Editor Who Soared, Then Flew Away
TH€ s-!Mp$0NnS!
I'll never look into your eyes again
How To End It All - Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad), Alan Ball (Six Feet Under and True Blood) and Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (Lost) talk about making television in this goldening age, wrestling with expectations, and the very difficult, quasi-existential task of ending it all. Explaining The Sopranos' final scene
Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here
Inspired by her father's struggle against fundamentalism in Algeria in the 1990s, Karima Bennoune interviewed hundreds of people of Muslim heritage from dozens of countries who also work for social reform. She hopes their stories will counterbalance oversimplified narratives about majority Muslim nations. Bennoune's website provides an excerpt from the book, and she is interviewed on Open Democracy (transcript).
Australia Decides: Old Moon-faced McPsychopath vs Sleazy McNoPlans
Australia goes to the polls tomorrow. Want the skinny on three word slogans? Want to know about the fabled voters of 'middle Australia'? Are you confused about preferential voting? Aussie comedian Dan Ilic has you covered with #C@%TASTROPHE 2013: Guide to the Election. [more inside]
The Whiteman Cometh
A full hour-long musical based on Breaking Bad and inspired by Andrew Lloyd Webber, as performed last month at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Los Angeles: Walter White And The Amazing Blue Crytal Meth.
September 5
"I'm not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous."
Found in Translation
Though it is common to lament the shortcomings of reading an important work in any language other than the original and of the “impossibility” of translation, I am convinced that works of philosophy (or literature for that matter — are they different?) in fact gain far more than they lose in translation. [more inside]
Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government
Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government. "Why does public conflict over societal risks persist in the face of compelling and widely accessible scientific evidence? We conducted an experiment to probe two alternative answers: the “Science Comprehension Thesis” (SCT), which identifies defects in the public’s knowledge and reasoning capacities as the source of such controversies; and the “Identity-protective Cognition Thesis” (ICT) which treats cultural conflict as disabling the faculties that members of the public use to make sense of decision-relevant science. [more inside]
TIFs explained with sharpies
Something That Means Something
When record store owner Jeff Bubeck buys an old record collection out of an abandoned storage unit, he has no idea what he’s stumbled across. Jeff learns the collection once belonged to the late great J. Dilla, one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time. Along with the thousands of LP’s from Dilla’s personal collection, there is something else that is uncovered, something huge... [more inside]
A roiling sea of leather-jacketed anger and raised middle fingers
The chant began less than two minutes into the first song. An undercurrent at first, just a few hecklers. But it got louder with repetition, each wave building on the last. Soon the chant threatened to drown out the band itself.
“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”
1986: Punk band Discharge goes hair metal
“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”
1986: Punk band Discharge goes hair metal
Mexico's Teachers Unions, disrupting Mexico City and Oaxaca
Since late August, tens of thousands of protestors have taken over Mexico City's already chaotic streets. They've repeatedly closed down the main boulevard, chased lawmakers out of Congress, and even shut down the thoroughfare to the airport, forcing tourists and travelers to walk to terminals under police escort. Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto was forced to postpone his address by one day and move the venue to the secure grounds of the Presidential residence. The protesters are the country's teachers, who are angry about a set of reforms being debated in Congress, which have now passed, with some compromises to appease the teachers unions. [more inside]
When he was conceived, Bill Clinton was president.
Liam Burke is a baby. He has just learned to crawl. He was conceived through in vitro fertilization, one of several embryos made for his parents, and kept in a freezer. What makes Liam special is how long he was in that freezer: the embryo that became Liam Burke was kept "on file" for 19 years.
Acceptance for Dummies
"Babe, you made a mess..."
Community's Gillian Jacobs would really appreciate it if you would chew with your mouth closed. [SLYT] [PG-13, Possibly NSFW]
Why do so many incompetent men become leaders
In my view, the main reason for the uneven management sex ratio is our inability to discern between confidence and competence. That is, because we (people in general) commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence, we are fooled into believing that men are better leaders than women. In other words, when it comes to leadership, the only advantage that men have over women (e.g., from Argentina to Norway and the USA to Japan) is the fact that manifestations of hubris — often masked as charisma or charm — are commonly mistaken for leadership potential, and that these occur much more frequently in men than in women. -- The Harvard Business Review asks why are less than competent men getting leadership positions when much more qualified women aren't?
We'd be happy to help you out with that spec....
The NSA has been spending $250 million a year on its "Sigint Enabling Project". The purpose of this project is to "actively engage[s] the U.S. and foreign IT industries to covertly influence and/or overtly leverage their commercial products’ designs' to make them 'exploitable."
Classified N.S.A. memos appear to confirm that the fatal weakness, discovered by two Microsoft cryptographers in 2007, was engineered by the agency. The N.S.A. wrote the standard and aggressively pushed it on the international group, privately calling the effort “a challenge in finesse.” “Eventually, N.S.A. became the sole editor,” the memo says.
The NSA requested that these reports not be published. [more inside]
Classified N.S.A. memos appear to confirm that the fatal weakness, discovered by two Microsoft cryptographers in 2007, was engineered by the agency. The N.S.A. wrote the standard and aggressively pushed it on the international group, privately calling the effort “a challenge in finesse.” “Eventually, N.S.A. became the sole editor,” the memo says.
The NSA requested that these reports not be published. [more inside]
Character Writings of the 1600s
The Corranto-Coiner, the Huffing Courtier, the Prater, the Squire of Dames, the Braggadocio Welshman, the Droll, the Pot Poet, the Ingrosser of Corn, the Duke of Bucks, the Drunken Dutchman Resident in England, the Factious Member, the Common Singing Men in Cathedral Churches, the Wittol, the Knight of the Post, and many more neglected stereotypes of 17th century England. [more inside]
Looking for a Restroom? Try Amazon.
Conversations with Booksellers Extensive conversations with booksellers representing nine great American bookstores. From tiny Faulkner House Books in New Orleans to goliath Powell's City of Books in Portland, discussing issues relating to bookselling in these modern times.
Watching a thing done well is a pleasure in itself
Jimmy DiResta has made a lot of videos for MAKE Magazine over the past year, and here he shares his five favorites: http://makezine.com/video/diresta-celebrating-one-year-on-make/ [more inside]
Kitsault: a time capsule ghost town waiting to come back to life
Super PAX Man
JH Williams III and Haden Blackman walk off Batwoman
In a letter crossposted to both Haden Blackman's and JH William III's website, they announced they are planning to leave Batwoman due to a number of 'eleventh hour changes', including a refusal to have Kate Kane marry her fiancee, Maggie Sawyer. [more inside]
I am my beloved's, and my beloved trades commodity futures
Wedding Crunchers: An n-gram analysis of wedding announcements in the New York Times going back to 1981. See, for example, the decline in elite prep schools, how well the five boroughs are represented, or the rise (and fall) of hedge fund managers among the newly wed. The site's creator offers a more detailed look over at Rap Genius.
great little fixer-upper
Entrepreneurism is alive and well in America.
It was inevitable. We should have seen it coming. A Florida marketing genius and an Illinois company have teamed up to bring us Carlos Danger brand weiners. 100% beef, but I found no indication on the company's website that they're kosher. Carlos Danger claims that they're roughly twice as big as the average weiner!
Meeting Real Live Poor People
First Nations peoples are on the cusp of change
First Nations and the Future of Canadian Citizenship (CBC Ideas) Part history lesson, part memoir, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations takes to the stage to share stories of the people he represents and his own past. In his lecture titled It Feels Like We're On the Cusp, National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo sets out why he believes First Nations peoples are on the cusp of change. via CBC Ideas [more inside]
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