October 2013 Archives
October 31
The Girl in the Closet
From the Dallas Morning News, an 8-part profile of Lauren Kavanaugh, who was kept in a closet for six years before being rescued at age 8 weighing 26 lbs, and of the remarkable people and recovery that has followed. [Warning: this story and the accompanying photos and videos are immensely hard to read, watch and listen to, and this piece is a trigger for every possible kind of abuse.]
"Here's Johnny!" vs. "Boo!"
In celebration of Halloween, The Dissolve has devoted three long posts to The Shining: a keynote examining the film and King's relationship to it, a staff discussion, and a critical comparison of the film with the 1997 TV miniseries written by King. (Scrubbed the show from your brain? Let this episode of Nostalgia Critic refresh your memory.)
The Scoop on Poop
Animated GIFs and other art from Matthew DiVito
Matthew DiVito is a motion graphics designer and an aspiring game developer, whose current specialty is animated GIFs that are hypnotic and beautiful. You can see a series of his animations on his Tumblr and a few individual works on Cargo Collective, which has a few of his short videos from Vimeo
Creating the Innocent Killer
Hell Houses
Evangelical churches across the country run "hell houses" on Halloween. These attractions show how "sinful" activities can ruin young lives. Some churches are trying to be more positive in their messaging. For those who are interested, you can now buy your own "hell house" outreach kit. [more inside]
Yanks Go Home!
Select Magazine, 1990-2000. "This is a website dedicated to my favourite 90s music magazine Select. I'll slowly be scanning in features, to give random flashbacks to the 90s music scene."
professional rock climber Joe Kinder cuts down juniper trees for sport
Professional sport climber Joe Kinder recently admitted to cutting down two Juniper trees at the base of a climbing cliff in the Tahoe, California region in order to make a climb safer. Kinder at first did not admit to the action, which may be illegal (with fines up to $500 and up to six months in jail if the tree was in the Tahoe National Forest) but has since posted an apology (My Actions, My Responsibility, And My Mistake) to his blog.
Your Halloween Soundtrack
2012 sees slowdown in the increase in global CO2 emissions
From the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency... (Interactive Presentation)(Actual Report PDF)
Actual global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached a new record of 34.5 billion tonnes in 2012. Yet, the increase in global CO2 emissions in that year slowed down to 1.1% , which was less than half the average annual increase of 2.9% over the last decade. This is remarkable, as the global economy grew by 3.5%. This development signals a shift towards less fossil-fuel-intensive activities, more use of renewable energy and increased energy saving. Increases in fossil-fuel consumption in 2012 were 2.2% for natural gas, 0.9% for oil products, and 0.6% for coal.
United States Devil Map
Can't decide where to go trick or treating? Jonathan Hull has created an interactive map of all the places in the U.S. with words like Devil, Hell, or Satan in the name. [more inside]
Sad Chili Cheese Nachos
"my friend told me to watch this cooking video while listening to sad music. so i mixed a little something for you all" Hello Wildcats. Chef Steven Reed shows us how to cook chili cheese nachos in the microwave. Additionally, spaghetti, creamed corn and potatoes, and Rice-a-Roni.
The USS You
ShapeWright Ship will take your name (or really any string of text) and generate a 3D model of a spaceship based on it.
The Appointment
The Appointment is a horror film from 1981, starring Edward Woodward as the father of a family possessed by some sort of malevolent entity. Although it has (probably quite rightly) been largely forgotten, it does have a really fantastic opening scene. [more inside]
Canopy Cats
We are closed. Thanks for 46 years.
The end of the Waffle House: Regulars say goodbye to Bloomington, Indiana's second oldest restaurant. Bud Powell and his wife Myra opened the restaurant, one of the first Waffle House franchises in the country, on Oct. 10, 1967.... The legends showed up from time to time — Bobby Knight, Woody Hayes — but it was the regulars who received special treatment. Everybody knew everybody. Senior night was Tuesday. You could bring your girlfriend, your kids, your mother-in-law — everyone was family.
"What ironical tricks are played on the poor unsuspecting Nordics!"
76 Years Later, Maryland Tries To Right A College Football Wrong (SLDeadspin) In October 1937, Maryland administrators threatened to cancel a game with Syracuse unless the then-Orangemen benched their offensive star, Wilmeth Sidat-Singh. The problem, as Maryland saw it, was that he wasn't the right type of colored boy.
What could improve a Thomas Kincade painting?
Artist Jeff Bennett has found the best way to make Thomas Kincade artworks palatable. You add some Star Wars!
Words are weapons
"Unspeak is language that deliberately loads the dice. War on Terror. Weapons of mass destruction. Climate change. Failed asylum seekers. File sharing. Austerity measures. Oil spill. Erectile dysfunction. Once we tune in to unspeak we start seeing and hearing it everywhere" -- UK journalist Steve Poole's book Unspeak has been turned into a six part interactive documentary series by Dutch new media group Submarine Channel, narrated by Poole himself. [more inside]
Creepy things in a museum? Never!
Including the wind-up friar automaton repeatedly claiming his faults and not one but two creeping baby dolls, the Smithsonian lists the 11 collection objects giving them the creeps this Halloween.
"Miss Kate helps me."
A Month of Witches Tennessee author Betsy Phillips (previously) (previously) is back again with a month's worth of spooky stories.
Its eyes are bigger than its.. everything
"Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your font..."
The story behind the Cheers logo and opening titles.
"A clever Halloween costume triggers nostalgic memories of classic TV typography."
"A clever Halloween costume triggers nostalgic memories of classic TV typography."
Legato Gelato = Smooth and Cool
Have some slang you want to insert into the popular consciousness? Rappedian (Comapper?) Zach Sherwin shows you how to do it in his pukka new music video, Legato Gelato.
A Freeform Chicken-Flavor Explosion
Real Kitchen as Alinea -- This Halloween, Chicago take-out cafe Real Kitchen is dressing up as modernist Michelin-starred restaurant Alinea.
Meet badBIOS, the multi-platform malware that jumps airgaps.
oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh
For sale: baby shoes. Baby doesn't have feet
New Kindle feature: doesn't cause the plane's wings to fall off anymore!
Just in time for holiday travel, the FAA now approves use of portable electronic devices for the entire duration of your flight.
Why I quit major league baseball
Surely THIS ... Rob Ford documents released, video described by police
A Rob Ford video has been found by Toronto cops. Toronto police chief Bill Blair says the video cannot be released or described, and will be placed before the courts because some unnamed person will be charged with extortion. While he never mentions the word "crack", he does say that the video is congruent with what has been described in the media and does not appear to have been doctored. [more inside]
Grand Illusions
"Everybody's doing a brand new dance now."
"The Lurch", performed by Ted Cassidy, on Shindig, 1965. You might remember him from a television show.
'You need to say, 'I'm Devin Wang and I'm the person in that picture."
OK Win!
Question: How good would you have to be to win an OK GO video contest? Answer: Very good indeed. See the winning video for OK Go's "I'm Not Through' here
The History Of Baseball, In One Weird, Beautiful Drawing
Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Fly Ball (previously: 1, 2, 3) takes to Deadspin to show off his latest creation, an Árbol de la Vida (Tree of Life) capturing many of baseball's important historical figures, places, and events.
Prison Architect flash mob
Are you a dark dreamer?
Dark Dreamers was a series of interviews with horror writers and directors and other icons. Several of them are on youtube: Clive Barker; Wes Craven
Harlan Ellison (1, 2, 3); Richard Laymon; Richard Matheson; Julie Strain (MLYT)
Love Is Lost
Just in time for Halloween, David Bowie releases the kind of creepy video for Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy for the DFA). The original track comes from his most recent album, The Next Day. [more inside]
WWI in Color
World War I in Color is a documentary designed to make the Great War come alive for a 21st-century audience. The events of 1914-18 are authoritatively narrated by Kenneth Branagh, who presents the military and political overview, while interviews with historians add different perspectives in six 48 minute installments annotated within. [more inside]
they were everywhere
Halloween Google Doodle
Google's Doodle is a fun Halloween themed game. Add different combinations of ingredients into the witch's cauldron for some spooky surprises. [more inside]
Somehow not sponsored by Red Bull
October 30
We think about the positioning of our legs, the position of our hair...
Caroline Heldman on The Sexy Lie
In the 5 minutes that I've been giving this talk, on average the women in this audience have engaged in habitual body monitoring 10 times. That is every 30 seconds...It simply takes up mental space that can be better used completing math tests, completing your homework. It just sucks our cognitive functioning.[more inside]
The pizza is aggressive.
It's the Jimmy Neutron Happy Family Happy Hour! [slyt; nsfl]
Virgin-American ailines safty video rap
Prepare for Take-Off Virgin-American airlines has a informational show that's better than an in-flight movie
Cisco going to pay H264 licensing fees to provide free codec
CIsco has decided to pay MPEG LA licensing fees for EVERYONE! Cisco has decided to pay the MPEG LA licensing cap fee and will be open sourcing, as well as providing free binary blobs to browser providers, for H.264 in order to push it's adoption in WebRTC. [more inside]
"As always, they are published without Medvedev’s permission."
Ringo takes a shot. And Again.
A steady spiral into one core truth
The Trouble with "Carrie": Strong Female Characters and Onscreen Violence.
Whether she's volunteering to take her sister's place in the arena or grooming her son to lead the resistance; gunning down the gangsters who sell drugs to the kids in her neighborhood or swinging swords to avenge her daughter, the "strong female character" is often stirred by a maternal concern, a quintessential desire to preserve her community, to protect the weak and vulnerable. Her bad-assery must be in the service of a greater good. Even when she's more ethically complex (like the Bride, who begrudgingly admits that all the people she killed to get to her daughter, "felt good"), she never takes a place at the table of Walter White's grand epiphany: "I did it for me."
Carrie does what Beatrix Kiddo and Ellen Ripley and Katniss Everdeen don't: She does it for herself. Her vengeance, her violence, is in service to no one, no noble good. She doesn't kill because her family and friends have been threatened. There are no friends, no fellow outcasts, to protect from the bullies. No little sister to shield from Mama's wrath. Only her. And she is enough. Carrie kills because she was wronged.
Magic, Monsters and Movies: The Rise and Fall of the Midnight Ghost Show
Placing a bag over the boy‘s head, Dr. Silkini proceeded to cut if off with a knife. The girls in the audience squealed and screamed as blood dripped over the white tablecloth. Just after this decapitation, the Frankenstein monster seized the newly-severed head and started down the steps into the audience. At that precise moment, the house lights went off. Enthralled onlookers thought the rampaging creature was loose in the dark.
During the blackout, girls shrieked and boys shouted as ghosts, bats, and eerie faces zoomed about overhead and up and down the aisles. On the stage a chorus line of glowing skeletons danced in front of tombstones and vanished as they floated skyward. After three minutes of special effects and imaginative terror, there was a flash explosion and then the lights came on.
The above description of a sequence from "Dr. Silkini‘s Asylum of Horrors" conveys what an audience might have experienced at a typical midnight ghost show around 1941, as excerpted from Beth A. Kattelman's paper from 2010, Magic, Monsters, and Movies: America’s Midnight Ghost Shows (PDF), and covered in additional detail on the Paleofuture blog post The Rise and Fall of the Midnight Ghost Shows.
During the blackout, girls shrieked and boys shouted as ghosts, bats, and eerie faces zoomed about overhead and up and down the aisles. On the stage a chorus line of glowing skeletons danced in front of tombstones and vanished as they floated skyward. After three minutes of special effects and imaginative terror, there was a flash explosion and then the lights came on.
The above description of a sequence from "Dr. Silkini‘s Asylum of Horrors" conveys what an audience might have experienced at a typical midnight ghost show around 1941, as excerpted from Beth A. Kattelman's paper from 2010, Magic, Monsters, and Movies: America’s Midnight Ghost Shows (PDF), and covered in additional detail on the Paleofuture blog post The Rise and Fall of the Midnight Ghost Shows.
You have slumbered in the dark
The guestlist is for friends, family & people you might want to fuck.
Jacksons Silmarillion would be somewhere between 1200 - 1500 minutes
"reading into poems nasty little messages that aren't there"
Joyce Carol Oates's new story about an imagined interview with Robert Frost has been called outrageous, even an attack on the poet. [note: story link opens a print dialog]
"I Quit" Lit
"I Quit Academia" -- An Important, Growing Subgenre of American Essays
Point Here If ...
Living In The U.X.A.
"At the height of the Great Depression, a group of unemployed Oakland workers decided to take matters into their own hands. The system wasn’t working, so they set up their own system. Money was nearly worthless, so they decided to live by barter. They called themselves the Unemployed Exchange Association and they soon went on to write a remarkable chapter in American economic history. This is their story."
Setting the record straight on the flu vaccine
That is not an exhaustive list, but it’s exhausting.
A collective narrative of trying to make it on $17,000 a year: bargaining testimony from a UCSC student-worker
We make only $17,000 a year. We make only $17,000 a year in a town where almost that entire paycheck goes to rent. So today I’m going to talk about how academic workers try to get by on $17,000 a year.
We make only $17,000 a year. We make only $17,000 a year in a town where almost that entire paycheck goes to rent. So today I’m going to talk about how academic workers try to get by on $17,000 a year.
I love the smell of cat urine in the morning
BBC: A number of Dell users have complained that their Latitude 6430u Ultrabooks "smell of cat urine" ... Another customer, Hoteca, said: "I thought for sure one of my cats sprayed it, but there was something faulty with it so I had it replaced. The next one had the same exact issue. It's embarrassing taking it to clients because it smells so bad." Other users said they had blamed their cats for the smell. [more inside]
A Very Spooky Episode
A WEEK OF KINDNESS: a novel in collage
SUNDAY. Element: Mud. Exemplar: The Lion of Belfort.
MONDAY. Element: Water. Exemplar: Water.
TUESDAY. Element: Fire. Exemplar: The Court of Dragons.
WEDNESDAY. Element: Blood. Exemplar: Œdipus. [Certain images NSFW on account of Victorian prurience] [more inside]
MONDAY. Element: Water. Exemplar: Water.
TUESDAY. Element: Fire. Exemplar: The Court of Dragons.
WEDNESDAY. Element: Blood. Exemplar: Œdipus. [Certain images NSFW on account of Victorian prurience] [more inside]
going to the next level
Snow White in Auschwitz
"Knowing of Dina's artistic ability, Freddy asked her to paint a mural on the wall of the barracks to cheer up the children. She agreed, although she expected she would be executed if the Germans caught her. This was some time if February 1944. Using paints that were smuggled from various sources, Dina set to work painting a scene of Snow White looking out over the Swiss countryside. Dina knew that some of the children had seen the movie and would recognize the character. She had seen the movie 'seven times in a row' back in Czechoslovakia."
The amazing, sad, triumphant story of Dina Babbitt (née Gottliebová)—artist, animator, concentration camp survivor. [more inside]
The amazing, sad, triumphant story of Dina Babbitt (née Gottliebová)—artist, animator, concentration camp survivor. [more inside]
We Saw Nothing
"We have entered the new millennium and yet we still have no idea what 95% of the universe is made of." The Large Underground Xenon experiment has failed to see a single particle of Dark Matter. Will the Lux Zeplin have better luck?
The Day the Martians Came
Seventyfive years ago today, a broadcast of light music was interrupted for a special bulletin from Intercontinental news.
I don't wanna go but I gotta go.
After 13 years, the Best Show on WFMU will sign off for good December 17. Tom Scharpling (previously, previously) announced on last night's broadcast that WFMU's weekly 3 hours of mirth, music, and mayhem are coming to an end. Friends of Tom stormed Twitter in grief and praise, and some concern about what the Best Show's departure will mean for fundraising at free-form, listener-supported station WFMU. [more inside]
Aviator
The Science of a Great Subway Map
Researchers at an MIT lab have devised a way to determine how well straphangers can comprehend a subway map in a single glance. Massimo Vignelli really DID know what he was doing.
October 29
The Logic of Stupid Poor People
"If you are poor, why do you spend money on useless status symbols like handbags and belts and clothes and shoes and televisions and cars? One thing I’ve learned is that one person’s illogical belief is another person’s survival skill."
Yes It's True, The Videos
Since releasing their 4th full-length album in early August, The Polyphonic Spree has been quietly unleashing videos on the unsuspecting populace. Raise Your Head is the most recent. [more inside]
It's a Halloween miracle!
The Typing of the Dead (previously), in which players blast their way through waves of the undead by passing typing challenges on a PC keyboard, has been hailed as one of the strangest games ever made. And today, the world's foremost typists-versus-zombies simulator shockingly rose from its grave, as Sega released The Typing of the Dead: Overkill to Steam without so much as a press release to spoil the surprise. [more inside]
The Annual Halloween Horde of Horrible Happenings
Mid-19th C. terrors, ca. 1840-1865: short fiction selected for the occasion by Miriam Burstein, a.k.a. The Little Professor, an expert on 19th C. British literature (especially including "lost" but formerly popular religious novels). [more inside]
GhostFood
"From a street-parked GhostFood truck, Simun and Songster and their team of trained staff will be serving a menu of three items, each of which conjures up a future dining experience for a food whose supply is currently threatened by climate change. " // "Its menu offers a curious collection of substitutes for potentially endangered foods: artificial recreations of chocolate, cod, and peanut butter." // "Pop one of the placebos--or “edible textural substitutes”--in your mouth and enjoy."
Against all odds, my gigantic ego continues to attempt greatness
In case you didn't know, Allie "Hyperbole and a Half" Brosh has a book coming out. And Salon have evilly published a sneak preview excerpt of it. They also have an interview with Brosh, in which she talks about writing, stand-up comedy and made-up words. Like psssssp. Go read the interview.
Music Is The Shorthand Of Emotion
Mother sings, baby reacts. [SLYT]
Target: 1 billion stars
The European Space Agency will be launching the Gaia Mission on December 12 It's mission? To get high res pics of 100 billion stars. But that is only the beginning of the coolness of the Gaia mission. It will have two telescopes projecting onto a single camera's CCD. The heat shield that protects the instruments will also generate power for the telescope. And it's destination is L2.
But is that an American billion or a European billion? What? I don't know that! ...ahhh!
Ban the Box, the Private Edition
Target Bans the Box. Target Corp., one of the nation's largest employers, joins the growing number of cities and states to Ban the Box. Most Ban the Box legislation has been targeted towards public employers and contractors, but there has been a growing trend to enact legislation applicable to private employers, including in Target's home-state Minnesota. Target is one of the few private employers to take the step, and as far as I can tell, the largest yet. [more inside]
"If you truly want to unwind, a cargo ship trip is just the ticket."
Pirates of the Indian Ocean, thieves in the Red Sea and Egyptian bazaars on the Suez Canal: Travelling from Malaysia to Germany with cargo ship MV Hatsu Courage.
You'll find I'm full of surprises
Drone Of The Dead
"A free public domain version of Fantasia is far too expensive"
“Hold a live Puppy constantly on the Belly.”
In the late 1740s, John Wesley—a British evangelist and the co-founder of Methodism—published Primitive Physick, or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases. The tome gave regular people ways to cure themselves, using items they could find in their own homes. - Here are some of his suggested home remedies.
Never Saw It Coming
New information from a very old brain
Some sites are calling this the oldest brain found. However, there have been other finds and at least one major site in Florida that holds older remains. The trick now is to extract DNA and information that can aid in medical advances.
Free Palgrave Pivots
Hey, scholars, academics, and assorted geeks: Palgrave MacMillan is offering their first 100 Palgrave Pivots (midlength academic writings from around 25,000 to 50,000 words) for free until 11/1 at 1:00 p.m. GMT. Go!
Single, my glass.
A consignment of Literature goes forth to all parts of the World.
In 1925, the Federation of British Industry created a series of silent films meant to document various aspects of British industrial work being done at the time. Included in that series was a film on the work of Oxford University Press. Oxford University Press and the Making of a Book. (SilentLinkYouTube)
"Good luck", replied the demonic game board
Feng Zhu's concept art and digital art tutorials
Feng Zhu is a concept artist who has worked with a number of big name movies and video games, and has opened a design school in Singapore. With the general background out of the way, here's his website with hundreds if vivid pieces of concept art to stimulate your brain (*cough cough*NaNoWriMo*cough cough*), and a long list of free tutorial videos that have been included in at least one list of best free digital painting tutorials. [more inside]
What's He Building In There?
San Francisco's Bay Barge Mystery "Something big and mysterious is rising from a floating barge at the end of Treasure Island, a former Navy base in the middle of San Francisco Bay." And now one has showed up in a Maine harbor. Update from C|Net News.
Bras in Space
Bras in Space: The Incredible True Story Behind Upcoming Film "Spacesuit"
When we think of the Apollo 11 moon landing, what do we think of? President Kennedy’s bold vision. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s heroism (unfortunately we rarely think about Command Module Pilot Michael Collins). Perhaps we even think of the incredible engineers, rocket scientists, astrophysicists and all the other geniuses at NASA who made it possible. Now we want you to think about your grandma’s bra.[more inside]
A different sort of Cap
nos gusta lo que hacemos
Everything you think you know about salsa music is BS. The truth is: Orquesta el Macabeo [more inside]
It knocks like a swearing finger
"The problem was that my colleague spoke in Dutch expressions haphazardly translated into his own unique English versions.
The result was a trail of bizarrely strung together words that senselessly hung in the air and required my constant nod and smile of approval/understanding. Many a mornings were spent hearing about cows being pulled out of ditches, tall tulips getting their heads chopped off and monkeys (yes, monkeys!)." -- It may you the sausage be, but translating Dutch expressions into stonecoal English is just one of the many things Dutch people like. (Previously, on Sinterklaas.) [more inside]
The result was a trail of bizarrely strung together words that senselessly hung in the air and required my constant nod and smile of approval/understanding. Many a mornings were spent hearing about cows being pulled out of ditches, tall tulips getting their heads chopped off and monkeys (yes, monkeys!)." -- It may you the sausage be, but translating Dutch expressions into stonecoal English is just one of the many things Dutch people like. (Previously, on Sinterklaas.) [more inside]
But it is hard for Ben to take the long view.
I Married A Jew. Published January 1, 1939 in the Atlantic.
You can't outrun a GPS receiver.
Police firing GPS tracking 'bullets' at cars during chases. The GPS Launcher sits behind the grille of a police vehicle and deploys tracking tags onto fleeing vehicles. The launcher is activated by a control panel (located inside the vehicle) or by a remote key FOB. The launcher, containing two tags, is activated by a control panel (located inside the vehicle) or by a remote key FOB. The system also includes an on-board air compressor. Installation required. Starchase: The Pursuit Ends Here.
Life is mostly froth and bubble
If regular coffee bores you and you are looking for something more with your caffeine boost in the morning, you should probably look no further than Kohei Matsuno's unique style of 3D coffee art (via)
Welcome to the world of Achewood Court...
"For a decade and more, every waking hour of my life involved Achewood, trying to make Achewood great, trying to repeatedly find that elusive twist or beat or turn of phrase that defined it, to raise the bar I felt I'd set, every goddamned day..."Here comes a special boy: 'Achewood' is back, but TV isn't ready - The Verge on Achewood's recent revival, the animated incarnation, and Onstad's personal struggles.
Why Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment Isn’t in My Textbook
Three months ago, Psychology Today blogger Susan Krauss Whitbourne posted an essay entitled The Rarely Told Story of Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment. I eagerly read it in the hope that it would reveal some heretofore relatively unknown truth about this famous experiment. But, in fact, the essay is simply a summary--a well written one--of the experiment that takes at face value Phillip Zimbardo’s and his colleagues’ conclusions. In the introduction to the essay, Whitbourne states that the experiment is “Depicted in movies, television and of course all introductory psych textbooks…” It’s true that Zimbardo’s experiment is one of the two or three most famous experiments in the history of psychology. But it’s not true that it’s depicted in all introductory psychology textbooks. I’m the author of one such textbook (which is now in it’s 6th edition and is used in many colleges and universities). One of the questions I’m frequently asked about the book by professors who teach from it is, “Why don’t you include Zimbardo’s prison experiment, like all other textbook authors do?”Here’s why, the results of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment have a trivial explanation. See also, The lie of the Stanford Prison Experiment [more inside]
Days of Future OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME
Legophone (no actual lego involved)
Google/Motorola unveil new modular phone idea. This is a partnership with the the Phoneblocks people, which was generally not well received when we last discussed the idea.
A Pledge to My Readers
I’ve always written high-quality sentences, prepared with the finest grammatical ingredients. In the coming year, I’m raising the bar even higher: I’ll be offering only artisanal words, locally grown, hand-picked, minimally processed, organically prepared, and sustainably packaged... - by Michael Erard, reprinted at Medium
Zombie Story
Zombie Story is an imgur album about the uncanny similarities between Pixar's Toy Story movies and AMC's zombie apocalypse interpersonal drama The Walking Dead. [more inside]
October 28
Unfortunately, the Big Bad Wolf is still on the...
Homelamb: Sesame Street meets Homeland, parody ensues.
PRESS START
Cartographic mash-ups
Tubism combines the London Tube (or metro map of choice) with any imaginable topic: wine, LGBT celebrities, or songs about Paris. "Tubists may create aesthetic experiences, but presenting information in unexpected ways is usually a higher priority."
we are friends
Katniss better watch her ass
There's a number of things that make 1938's "The Adventures of Robin Hood" so awesome. There's the star power and charisma of Errol Flynn. There's Erich Wolfgang Korngold's great score. There's the glorious three-strip Technicolor process. And then, leaning in the corner there, is Howard Hill. [more inside]
Overrated, Underrated, or Properly Rated: Pearl Jam
The Old Man Next Door
"Saddam had his spider hole. Manson had Barker Ranch. For James “Whitey” Bulger, the anonymity of advanced age provided ample cover for him to hide out 16 years in Santa Monica, a stash of blood money stuffed in the walls and guns at the ready." The last days of America’s most wanted mobster.
Everyone wants to believe that they are special.
I Met A Convicted Serial Killer, And He Made Me Feel More Loved Than Anyone Else In My Life -- "Simply put, that afternoon, we—the serial killer and the young Marine sniper—were perfect for each other." [more inside]
POLIT-ICO Play-Book, presented by UNION-PACIFIC RAILROAD
What If POLITICO Had Covered the Civil War? Playbook, Emancipation Day Edition
Alchemy
Peter Nitsch ported aa-lib to Flash, allowing easy conversion of images to ASCII art in a browser.
The site may take a few moments, without any indication of progress, to load.
Translator Beware
"Why translators should give Dr Alaa Al Aswany and Knopf Doubleday a wide berth" is a "cautionary tale," which involves literary agent Andrew Wylie, seen in a recent metafilter post, and translator Jonathan Wright who says, "The least I can say is that he [Dr. Aswany] is not an honorable man. But let others be the judge, as I explain the origins of our dispute." Some of Dr. Aswany's objections to Wright's translation can be found in this file.
The cycle of life. through the phenakistoscope
topeng monyet
Indonesia's masked monkey trade. The circus-like performance is called topeng monyet and is regarded by some Indonesians as an important folk art tradition dating back to the 1890s. [more inside]
Giving you the tools to understand and appreciate art
Grayson Perry's lectures on art: "Art is very popular but I think many people are still quite insecure around galleries, particularly commercial galleries which are quite intimidating. I want to answer a few of the very basic questions that perhaps people even in the art world think that it’s almost too gauche to ask. They might think they’re irrelevant or even that they’ve all been answered now and everybody knows the answer. I’m starting with this lecture called Democracy Has Bad Taste, because I want to talk about the issue of quality because I think this is one of the most burning issues around – how do we tell if something is good?
Who tells us that it’s good? And of course does it really matter? And I want to talk about what are the criteria by which we judge art made today." [more inside]
Broadcast Quality
Script excerpts and development materials from The Top 20 Best Written TV Series [exhibit] from the Writers Guild Foundation collections. [more inside]
Oh SNAP!
“If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food.” Food stamp assistance in the US will be cut by $5 billion this Friday. Among those affected by the cuts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, are 22 million children and 9 million seniors and people with disabilities.
A long time ago, in a gla... a gax... oh fart.
Welcome to The Cutting Room Floor. 3,773 articles and counting!
Time-sink alert: The Cutting Room Floor is a site dedicated to unearthing and researching unused and cut content from video games. From debug menus, to unused music, graphics, enemies, or levels, many games have content never meant to be seen by anybody but the developers — or even meant for everybody, but cut due to time/budget constraints.
We draw a thick line on what has happened in the past.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki has died. The first prime minister after the fall of communist regime in Poland was later an UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Bosnia and resigned this post in protest over the failure of international community to prevent the Srebrenica massacre. [more inside]
So much for my Yelp revenge
When the men's clothing retailer author D. Foy contacted about purchasing a suit was unresponsive, Foy took to Yelp to post a negative review about his experience. The retailer responded with a threat of retaliatory feedback directed at Foy's upcoming novel.
"Remember – language is the battleground of humanity."
In the Shadows. The healthcare and human rights challenges of the LGBT populations of Malawi -- where homosexuality is outlawed. Via
ʕʘ‿ʘʔ
Razing and burning: the costs of rapid urbanization in China
With 53 self-immolations since 2009, these Chinese villagers might bring to mind the self-immolation by Tibetans, but the Chinese villagers are highlighting a different issue. The rapid urbanization of China is having a number of impacts across the country, with rural communities being demolished to build new urban centers. While many people are moving from rural farms to cities to find more lucrative jobs, some are fighting back to keep their rural communities intact, or to retain their family farms. When other options are gone, desperate villagers turn to self-immolation (NPR). [more inside]
WE ARE TOP OFFICIAL OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACT REVIEW PANEL
A brief history of the Spanish prisoner scam.
Scroll Down to Riker
About a Girl: Coy Mathis' Fight to Change Gender
About a Girl: Coy Mathis' Fight to Change Gender (single link rolling stone. previously: 1, 2)
One night in January 2010, Kathryn was tucking him in for bed under his pink quilt, and Coy, then three, seemed upset. "What's wrong?" she asked. Coy, his head resting against his kitty-cat-print pillow, hugged his pink stuffed pony with the glittery mane that he'd gotten for Christmas and said nothing, his mouth bent in a tight frown. "Tell me," Kathryn urged. Coy's chin began to quiver.
"When am I going to get my girl parts?" he asked softly.
"What do you mean?"
"When are we going to go to the doctor to have me fixed?" Coy asked, tears now spilling down his cheeks. "To get my girl parts?"
Turns out, there's an elevator
One man's garbage...
Trashswag is a crowdsourced map for people to share and post reusable materials that they spot left outside. It is a resource for creative hobbyists, artists and people conducting renovation works to find unique, salvageable old wood, windows, doors, metal, glass and furniture. So far I think it's mostly Toronto and Montreal but is expanding to other areas.
How many languages will survive in a digital world?
Digital language death: Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today, some 2,500 are generally considered endangered. Here we argue that this consensus figure vastly underestimates the danger of digital language death, in that less than 5% of all languages can still ascend to the digital realm. We present evidence of a massive die-off caused by the digital divide. — See also: [more inside]
There's plenty of blue chip hill rats 'round here ready to jump ship
The unexpected death of U.S. Representative Edgar Englewright (VA-14) launches the beginning of a whirlwind morning for Chief of Staff, Elliott Clarice, and his happy band of misfits. [more inside]
The Incredibly Deadly Deku Stick
Man beats Ocarina of Time in just over 22 minutes, while explaining to a crowd how he does it. [more inside]
Turned out alright in the end.
"Akira Nishitani, who directed Final Fight and Street Fighter II at Capcom before forming his own company Arika has recently started a Twitter account. Since then he has been sharing lots of trivia and behind the scenes anecdotes, mostly related to the original Street Fighter II [...] I've decided to go about translating some of his Tweets." [via]
The Lighter Side of...
My Friend Dave, twentysix mini essays on Dave Berg, longtime Mad Magazine cartoonist, by Craig Fischer.
October 27
How to get out of an Egyptian jail
Free, Tarek and John:
Longread by Justin Podur about the campaign to free Canadian filmmaker John Grayson (among his films is the South Africa-based Proteus) and doctor Tarek Loubani, who were on their way to Gaza via Egypt in August 2013 when they were detained. Insight into what went on behind the scenes and what political and strategic calculations were made.
The longform.com guide to standup
The longform.com guide to standup. Not a ranking, but rather a collection of links to long form articles about some legendary stand-up comedians. [more inside]
Welcome to Offal Pudding Lane
Take a fly-through tour of 17th century London! Six students from De Montfort University have created a 3D representation of London before the Great of Fire of 1666. The digital model is based on the area surrounding Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire began. The project is the winning entry in the Off The Map competition, in which students were invited to build 3D models based on maps at the British Library.
The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think
Douglas Hofstadter, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, thinks we've lost sight of what artificial intelligence really means. His stubborn quest to replicate the human mind.
“Western culture is Islamically forbidden”
When the car exploded, the same two words occurred to him, and to the ticket taker, and to every other person who saw or heard the blast, which could be heard on the other side of Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city: Boko Haram. That neither they, nor practically anyone else in Nigeria, knew what Boko Haram was exactly or why it would want to bomb a bus station was beside the point. Officially, according to the Nigerian government, Boko Haram is a terrorist group. It began life as a separatist movement led by a northern Nigerian Muslim preacher, Mohammed Yusuf, who decried the country’s misrule. “Boko Haram” is a combination of the Hausa language and Arabic, understood to mean that Western, or un-Islamic, learning is forbidden. In 2009, after Yusuf was killed [BBC, The Guardian]—executed, it’s all but certain, by Nigerian police—his followers vowed revenge.[more inside]
Free art books online from the Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim offer 474 free art books online. 99 art catalogs from the Guggenheim. 375 MetPublications. An example: Masterpieces of Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [more inside]
An animator explains why she studies physics
Lions Tigers & Bats!
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog
The Cost of Living
The Rising Cost of Cancer Drugs: "New drugs could extend cancer patients’ lives—by days. At a cost of thousands and thousands of dollars. Prompting some doctors to refuse to use them."
Polyamory: "When Three Isn't A Crowd"
This latest article focuses on a triad raising a child in Atlanta. CNN.com has spent more than a little time on polyamory throughout the years (unusual for a 'mainstream' publication. As usual, there's the 'poly could end up hurting the children' counter-arguments, but this is certainly a more even-handed portrayal than in a lot of other arenas, and is not particularly preachy in either direction.
Lou Reed (1942 - 2013)
On Amazon and world retail domination.
Ex-Amazon employee Eugene Wei on Amazon's "profitless business model" fallacy, and why the claims that Amazon is not profitable are fundamentally wrong. "If Amazon has so many businesses that do make a profit, then why is it still showing quarterly losses, and why has even free cash flow decreased in recent years? Because Amazon has boundless ambition. It wants to eat global retail. This is one area where the press and pundits accept Amazon's statements at face value. Given that giant mission, Amazon has decided to continue to invest to arm itself for a much larger scale of business. If it were purely a software business, its fixed cost investments for this journey would be lower, but the amount of capital required to grow a business that has to ship millions of packages to customers all over the world quickly is something only a handful of companies in the world could even afford." Wei also previously touched on this in Amazon, Apple, and the beauty of low margins.
Wes Anderson's The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders
Wes Anderson's The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders Last night Ed Norton hosted Saturday Night Live, and this short film trailer parody was the standout. [more inside]
Anytime I hear the wind blow, it will whisper the name "Edna"
Marcia Wallace, the Emmy-winning voice of Edna Krabappel on “The Simpsons” and earlier Carol Kester, the receptionist on the 1970s sitcom “The Bob Newhart Show,” has died at 70
NYT
LAT [more inside]
Stock up on the handyman's secret weapon
From 1991 to 2006, there was one show that stood ready to help Canadian men with much needed advice on D.I.Y., hunting, fishing and other wildlife pursuits, not to mention married life and other challenges of modern life. Now the entire archives of the Red Green show are available on youtube.
Two Thumbs Up
Statistics Done Wrong: a free guide for scientists
Statistics Done Wrong is a guide to the most popular statistical errors and slip-ups committed by scientists every day, in the lab and in peer-reviewed journals. Statistics Done Wrong assumes no prior knowledge of statistics, so you can read it before your first statistics course or after thirty years of scientific practice.
"It's a cake with two tiny dolls that look like us. EAT A SLICE."
Thru Tokyo
October 26
Ransomware & Rogues Galore
Youtube user rogueamp dedicates his channel to discussing fraudulent antivirus software, AKA "rogues" and "ransomware". (MLYT)
"It's easier to change a body than to change a mind."
Cowell had been a racing driver, a Spitfire pilot and a prisoner of war – but her biggest challenge was to become the first person in Britain to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. Two years after Roberta Cowell's death, an obituary in the Independent. [more inside]
Cat Power: Super Mario 3D World preview
"Meow." He forms his hands into claws and performs a slow cat-scraping motion. To his left and to his right sit the esteemed producer and the director of Super Mario 3D World. "Meow," they both say, before also demonstrating the clawing feline action. Shigeru Miyamoto on Super Mario 3D World, arriving next month on Wii U.
Copies are beginning to show up in reviewer's hands: Super Mario 3D World is shaping up beautifully. It's a visual stunner, with gorgeous effects and lighting that take Mario graphics to an entirely new level, certainly showing greater flair than the 2D New Super Mario Bros. U. There are some attractive textures at work, with the art style flourishing with powerful hardware, alongside a rock steady and terrifically fluid frame rate.
Eurogamer offers a look at 5 levels [part one | two | three] • Previews from Nintendo:
E3 2013 Developer Direct | October trailer | Gameplay trailer • Nintendo Minute: Multiplayer | New Power-Ups
The men from Shangri-La
On November 9th, 2013, the four remaining Doolittle Raiders will perform their final Toast Ceremony.
A Lackadaisy Air
From the New-York Mirror of February 24, 1883:
“. . . a new and valuable addition has been made to the slang vocabulary. … We refer to the term “Dood.” For a correct definition of the expression the anxious inquirer has only to turn to the tight-trousered, brief-coated, eye-glassed, fancy-vested, sharp-toes shod, vapid youth who abounds in the Metropolis at present. … The Dood is oftenest seen in the lobbies of our theatres on first-nights. He puffs cigarettes or sucks his hammered-silver tipped cane in the entr actes, and passes remarks of a not particularly intellectual character on the appearance and dresses of the actresses. His greatest pleasure lies in taking a favorite actress or singer to supper at Delmonico’s or the Hotel Brunswick—places he briefly calls ‘Dels’ and the ‘Bruns’—where he will spend his papa’s pelf with a lavish hand. … ”[more inside]
How to Speak Singlish
Merdre!
Alfred Jarry, 19th century playwright and writer, is often credited with the start of the Theater of the Absurd with his infamous play, Ubu Roi. In 1965, Jean-Christopher Averty produced a French made-for-TV movie based on the play, which is an odd mix of the cartoonish and the Bayeux Tapestry, with live actors - Ubu Roi (SLYT, 95 min, NSFW language, French, press CC button for English subtitles).
The Map Is Not The Territory
But down in the underground, you'll find a series of tubes...
Deep below the streets of New York City lie its vital organs—a water system, subways, railroads, tunnels, sewers, drains, and power and cable lines—in a vast, three-dimensional tangle. Penetrating this centuries-old underworld of caverns, squatters, and unmarked doors, William Langewiesche follows three men who constantly navigate its dangers: the subway-operations chief who dealt with the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, the engineer in charge of three underground mega-projects, and the guy who, well, just loves exploring the dark, jerry-rigged heart of a great metropolis. What Lies Beneath.
Terror from the Deep
CreatureCast - Rhizocephala - a charmingly animated look at the lifecycle of rhizocephalan barnacles, one of the more horrifying (non-charming) parasitic crustaceans (likewise). NOT a practitioner of parasitic castration but still disturbing: The bobbit worm. Happy swimming!
Maid training camp
"One of the most important aspects of the interview is to check the tidiness of the future help. Lam Ling checks the hands of a student." In a beautifully shot series, French photographer Gratiane de Moustier depicts the Indonesian women and Hong Kong employers who are linked together in global care chain, beginning at their training camp in Java to their final place of employment in the homes of Hong Kong families.
Breaking Bad ... on Ice!
Anaesthetic optional
Have a nagging cavity but don't have the time or money to see a dentist? Luckily for you, there's DentiDrill. See the promotional video. [more inside]
UK: there's a big storm, a 'hurricane', coming (possibly)
The 'worst storm since 1987' is due to hit the UK over the next few days. It may also hit 'northern France and the Low Countries'. It may be 'overwhelming' and 'there is a risk of some parts getting two inches of rain in a six hour period'. The Met Office has warned that 'England and Wales will be hit by a significant storm on Sunday night with winds of up to 80mph in some areas'. They also said the predicted storm was 'not one you would see every year' and that 'exceptional winds will batter Surrey'. Drivers are advised to 'at a minimum, take a fully-charged mobile phone and warm, weatherproof clothing.' Some media outlets claim, however, the storm will only be the worst of the last five year, though in Bristol it'll be the worst in 'two decades'. Never the less, 'stay well away from trees'. [more inside]
Programming Language or Pokemon?
NSA eavesdropped upon...
Former NSA director Michael Hayden overheard on train doing a phone interview... Tom Mattzie, previous MoveOn director DC, overhears Michael Hayden doing a phone interview on a train and retweets it.
Television Trauma
If It Were (R.L.) Stine (SLTumblr)
Catatumbo, an everlasting lightning storm and symphony of light
Catatumbo lightning (action at 5:17) is a mysterious and amazing celestial light show that happens from 160 to 300 nights a year, up to 280 times an hour and up to 10 hours per night. It is a powerful and nearly continuous thunderstorm with up to 40,000 bolts of lightning per night that flash mostly from cloud to cloud. The indigenous people call it the River of Fire in the Sky. It takes place in a remote, poor [in Spanish], politically troubled and dangerous corner of the planet, in Catatumbo, Venezuela on Lake Maracaibo, where the houses are all on stilts. [more inside]
"Full speed ahead, Mr. Cohen!"
Terry Gilliam fans are patiently waiting for the release of "The Zero Theorem", his first film in four years. In the meantime, let's go back thirty years ago to the moment that Gilliam really found his footing as a director in between the filming of "Time Bandits" and "Brazil". It all concerns a bunch of elderly accountants... [more inside]
No, THATS the sun
In celebration of the end of the latest season of Children's Hospital, South African producers Your Girlfriend made a tribute video: It's Children's Hospital Africa.
SHUB SHUB SHUB
'Colonic' by Emily Haworth-Booth the winner of the Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story prize 2013. Interview
"I used to live there"
Astronaut Chris Hadfield (previously) reflects on his career, life on the International Space Station, and the challenges of returning home (as well as commercial spaceflight and the film Gravity) in an interview with the Guardian.
The most famous book from each state in the US
A map of the most famous books set in each U.S. state. Which of these books have you read? Is there a book you think should be on the list that isn't? (the full list) It reminds me of a recent post on the Blue featuring a writer who spent a year reading one novel from every country in the world. Metafilter users, of course, have been there done that. [more inside]
The industry term is "ritual".
A Ghost Story is a web comic that follows two unlicensed and semi-illegal "paranormal exterminators" who work as ghost busters for hire in a world where ghosts are so common they are widely regarded as household pests. Using unconventional methods and their connections to various shady dealers of occult items, the duo meet new "friends", ruin everything for everyone and are usually the driving force behind city wide panic.
Driving While Female: Saudi women risk imprisonment to protest the ban
Women in Saudi Arabia may not drive. Today, many take to the road in protest, despite grave risks. Even cyber support may be grounds for arrest and the movement's primary website has been blocked. It's been an issue for decades; here's a writer remembering women donning disguises to drive and the sad case of a mother unable to take her injured child to the hospital. Driving may be the point of a sword aimed at securing other freedoms and attaining more autonomy.
The Great British Row Off
"The criticism ranged from the gently cynical to the downright obnoxious, but as the series went on I noticed an increasing degree of personal vitriol and misogyny. We (female) finalists are supposedly too meek, too confident, too thin, too domestic, too smiley, too taciturn … If I see one more person used the hackneyed "dough-eyed" pun I will personally go to their house and force-feed them an entire Charlotte Royale." -- Great British Bake Off runner up Ruby Tandoh speaks out against the sexist criticism aimed at the show's female contestants by people like tv chef Raymond Blanc. [more inside]
October 25
THE FORM OF FORMS
Everybody's got to start somewhere, right? So why not enjoy Charity Scanvenger Hunt organizer and Supernatural star Misha Collins' excruciatingly earnest acting debut in the 1999 educational film NO BRAINERS ON TAXES.
The Dr. Hans Sachs Poster Collection: Auction II
The second of 3 auctions of the Dr. Hans Sachs poster collection (scroll down for text) can now be viewed online. Day One, Day Two, and Day Three. A sample (click image to enlarge). Previously...
These guys are fucking AMAZING.
Kiyohiko Senba is a composer who’s been likened to Zappa for his ambition, talent, madness, and virtuosity, but his music is considerably easier to get into. Get ready, because his large-scale orchestra project, Kiyohiko Senba and the Haniwa All-Stars, is about to blow your goddamn mind.
Let's start simple and ramp up. Hohai Bushi sounds a bit like an Ennio Morricone composition but with more electric guitar. Taiikusai is so heartfelt, yearning, and soaring that I cried when it got to the climax. They cover both Franz Schubert’s “Standchen" and Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t To Say You Love Me” in ways that are all kinds of awesome. But the real treasure for me is this one, which begins with them playing the Village People’s “YMCA” but then transitions into Daimeiwaku, a freaking phenomenal good original piece that sounds – I don’t know how else to describe it – like James Brown and John Philip Sousa decided to play Katamari Damacy together and had a really good time. (With some klezmer and Leonard Bernstein thrown in there too, for good measure.) But wait! There’s [more inside]
Let's start simple and ramp up. Hohai Bushi sounds a bit like an Ennio Morricone composition but with more electric guitar. Taiikusai is so heartfelt, yearning, and soaring that I cried when it got to the climax. They cover both Franz Schubert’s “Standchen" and Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t To Say You Love Me” in ways that are all kinds of awesome. But the real treasure for me is this one, which begins with them playing the Village People’s “YMCA” but then transitions into Daimeiwaku, a freaking phenomenal good original piece that sounds – I don’t know how else to describe it – like James Brown and John Philip Sousa decided to play Katamari Damacy together and had a really good time. (With some klezmer and Leonard Bernstein thrown in there too, for good measure.) But wait! There’s [more inside]
The dawn of an era, available and emulated in your browser to play.
A few months ago there was a list of links to classic video game emulators posted. Very recently, I'm pleased to report, those links all came true. The Internet Archive bespoke upon aforementioned consoles, computers, and mileposts on our way to the tech utopia of today, (seriously, where's my flying car?) and they asked us to do something: Imagine every computer that ever existed, literally, in your browser. And it was so.
I have absolutely no affiliation with jscott, btw. Thought I should disclose that.
It is a game-crazed community that stretches around the world
Azen. PC Chris. Korean DJ. Mew2King. Ken. Isai. Mango. The Smash Brothers is a 9-part, 258-minute documentary on the history of competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee. Series discussion. Via.
The Feudal Internet
The Glam Scammer
"In cities across the country, Michael Manos has thrown fantastic parties with faux celebrities and top-shelf tequila sponsors. He ingratiates himself in gay communities, fakes a European accent, and often has claimed to be the disavowed gay son of a Greek millionaire, though he actually grew up middle-class in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Along the way, he’s taken thousands of dollars from socialites and the well-heeled, who were easily blinded by his glitter and glamour. He duped actress Jane Fonda. He sold tickets to a “chic” fundraiser in honor of Sen. John McCain, who later said he’d never heard of him. Manos is a bank robber, a one-time male escort on Capitol Hill, and the target of more than one cross-country manhunt. He is also a convicted kidnapper who helped keep a man locked in the trunk of a car for four days. For that, he spent more than a decade in a New York prison. And now he’s behind bars again, this time in Louisiana."
"Oh God, you didn't just say that."
Yesterday's debate among the four mayoral candidates in St. Paul, Minnesota had some pretty interesting moments. Current mayor Chris Coleman's facial expressions are not to be missed. Yay democracy!
You shut your mouth you dirty gun
Mexican Standoff (SLYT)
The forests blotted out memories of what had gone before.
Accidental Rewilding - In places once thick with farms and cities, human dispossession and war has cleared the ground for nature to return
The forest had entered a cycle Tomaž had not seen before, in which many of the giants had perished. Some had died where they stood, and remained upright, reamed with beetle and woodpecker holes, sprouting hoof fungus and razor strop. They looked as if a whisper of wind could blow them down. Others now stretched across the rocks and craters, sometimes blocking our path, sometimes suspended above our heads. Among the trunks lying on the ground, some were so thick that I could scarcely see over them. Where they had fallen, thickets of saplings crowded into the light. Seeing the profusion of fungus and insect life the dead wood harboured, I was reminded of the old ecologists’ aphorism: there is more life in dead trees than there is in living trees. The tidy-minded forestry so many nations practise deprives many species of their habitats.by George Monbiot [more inside]
Are you ready to be heartbroken?
In which Anglo-Scottish golfer and sometime singer-songwriter Lloyd Cole is interviewed by the Italian leftist tabloid La Repubblica. Features a gorgeous, solo version of his early masterpiece.
Wonderbook
Infographic shows you how award-winning science fiction is born - From Jeff Vandermeer (and collaborators) Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction. Trailer, website, interview.
A new soundtrack to the H.G. Wells classic featuring Richard Burton
Ollie Teeba from The Herbaliser:
"A few years back I was given, as a Christmas gift, the 'Collectors Edition box set of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds'. As well as tons of interesting facts about the creation of the original recordings it had several CD's of alternate takes, remixes etc. On one CD, I excitedly discovered that they had included all of Richard Burton's dialogue parts, without music. Having already created and performed an alternate live DJ score to silent film 'The Lost World' from 1927, this seemed like a great opportunity to do a similar project with one of my favourite childhood stories."
"This is by no means intended as an improvement to Mr Wayne's recording but a tribute to H.G Wells, Jeff Wayne, Richard Burton, Orson Welles and of course Solid Steel."
Listen here (It's the second hour)
Adorable waterslide for ducklings
Someone went to the trouble of building a waterslide for cute fuzzy baby ducks. Spoiler: the ducklings love it! (SLYT)
The King Stay the King
The Wire Poster Project features posters for each of the epigrams preceding each episode. Benefits go the Baltimore Urban Debate League.
This was the scariest two-sentence combination I heard as a doorman.
Better to be called paranoid than to be called a tyrant
Abdellatif Kechiche, whose film La Vie d’Adèle / Blue is the Warmest Color recently won the 2013 Palmes d'Or at Cannes, has "let loose everything he has on his heart" (lâche tout ce qu’il a sur le cœur) in a long text submitted to the French magazine Rue89 (in French; moderately good English translation here). [more inside]
Ownership in Britain is broken
After a trade dispute, Grangemouth plant will remain open. Just another case of a greedy union almost driving a company out of business? Perhaps not. Robin McAlpine argues that this case underlines the broken nature of British industry and its relationship with the unions, as well as the media's ability to report on stories outside of London
My Heart Sings For You
Around the time Ravi Shankar passed in December of last year (previously) his daughters Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones were working on collaborative tracks for a new album with producer Nitin Sawhney. While the project, which was half way finished at the time, was conceived and planned some time before Ravi Shankar's passing it comes as no surprise that many of the tracks became infused, shaped and sometimes entirely transformed by the immediacy of their experience of the loss of their father. Emotions of sadness, loss and reconciliation run deep within some of the recordings. The album's title track "Traces Of You" is a filigrane dew sprinkled spiderweb gently spun from interlacing threads of melody and texture. An incredibly tender expression of what happens when the raw pain of grief is transformed into the bittersweet melancholy of memories, forgiveness and reconciliation. [more inside]
MY CAR
Science! For the Win.
Eleven year-old Floridian Peyton Robertson figured out how to make a better sandbag: leave out the sand. After witnessing the damage hurricane Sandy caused across the nation, the concerned middle-schooler sought a way to help mitigate flood damage caused by the storms. Peyton fills his bags with a salt and polymer mixture which expands when wet. The bags also use an unique center-locking mechanism, allowing them to overlap for an even stronger flood barrier.
[Note: not in America? Video won't play for you? Try this link instead.] [more inside]
"Dwarven society is more egalitarian than… human feudal societies were"
Dwarf Fortress: A Marxist Analysis
What one does in Dwarf Fortress is create a colony of an existing dwarven fortress – you’re always sent out as a team from a much larger existing stronghold elsewhere, and your foreign relations with other dwarves are limited to that particular fortress, on the whole. Even though your settlement is independent and self-governing, and the relations with the mother fortress mostly those of trade, the purpose of the game in all its open-endedness can be nothing other than to create oneself in the image of the previous fortress. In other words, fundamentally in Dwarf Fortress you reproduce the existing structure of dwarven society on a merely quantitatively expanded scale.[more inside]
Arcade Fire Ruined CMJ
"Last week, Arcade Fire swooped in and took a Canadian-sized shit all over this year’s CMJ. They totally ruined it."
Mumblegore
Schiano Schiano Schiano
Breaking Madden: Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, Greg Schiano, and Greg Schiano. Greg Schiano, the head coach of the still winless Buccaneers said earlier this season that the solution to their problem was more Greg Schiano. To test this theory, Jon Bois (previously) tinkered a bit with Madden to reproduce this week's Bucs-Jaguars game with Greg Schiano as every player on the Bucs.
The Stolen Ones
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune newspaper published a special project recently: The Stolen Ones investigates the local child sex trafficking industry, and documents stories from survivors and their families. (SFW, but some readers may find the content disturbing.) [more inside]
Pitchfork Review Generator: eldritch murmur of arachnophobic pre-drone
"I could happily write about this beyond what the word count allows but in the interest of being concise it's a timorous call to arms of positively hands-in-the-air pre - club." Pitchfork Review Generator, mashup generator for aspiring music journalists. If you're looking to generate the cover art for these non-articles, the random album art generator linked in this MetaFilter thread is down, but there are at least three others currently online: 1, 2, 3. [more inside]
“It is good to see that NOEL EDMONDS has bounced back.”
On 1st November 1988, ITV dispatched over fifty crews to chronicle the production, reception and marketing of British television, at a time when, with satellite television yet to launch, the four main networks were your only viewing choice. It became the documentary One Day In The Life of Television, which you can now watch in full on YouTube. [more inside]
With the tropical sun blasting down on it, the ship was ravaged by rust.
In a remote corner of the South China Sea, 105 nautical miles from the Philippines, lies a submerged reef the Filipinos call Ayungin. In most ways it resembles the hundreds of other reefs, islands, rock clusters and cays that collectively are called the Spratly Islands. But Ayungin is different. In the reef’s shallows there sits a forsaken ship, manned by eight Filipino troops whose job is to keep China in check... It was hard to imagine how such a forsaken place could become a flash point in a geopolitical power struggle. Jeff Himmelman (words) and Ashley Gilbertson (images). A Game of Shark and Minnow [SLNYTimes interactive, (calm) autoplaying audio]
Countries within Nations
Chinese Provinces and Indian States : "local leaders are increasingly running much of India and China, which are home to a third of all humanity, from the bottom up. That is affecting how both countries act in the world, which means that these countries need to be understood from the inside out"
Maura O'Connell to Retire as Solo Act
“I’d say that my great days, they’re all done,” she said. “I figured out after the last record I did that I’m what is known as now, a legacy artist, which means basically, you’re on your own. . . . It’s been a long road, and it’s been a great road — I’ve been very lucky so much over my life. But at this stage I feel like I’m only going backwards.”[more inside]
MAN BITES SHARK!
It was, in his own words, "do or die." "Horton then rolled toward the beast, grabbed its fin with one hand and with the other hand... lit that fish up."
A Celebration of Those Who Have Passed.
Burlesque star Bunny Pistol shows off her method for applying decorative face makeup for Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), while also providing a little history about the holiday. [via]
People Dying Like Marion Cotillard
Can't get enough of Marion Cotillard's death scene in The Dark Knight Rises? Enjoy People Dying Like Marion Cotillard.
LinkedIn offer to man-in-the-middle all your email, for free!
LinkedIn offer to man-in-the-middle all of your email, for free! LinkedIn Intro is a new service by LinkedIn, adding inline data to all your iOS emails. "But how can they read my emails?!" you ask: you use the best encryption money can buy! Well, you just need to install one little security certificate... after all, how much of a a bad idea can it be? LinkedIn are well-known for their good security practices!
"I've been coasting on 'great idea' costumes for the last ten years."
Rob Cockerham (MeFi's own!) is quite the mad genius when it comes to making Halloween costumes. This year's offering, perhaps inspired by his vacation in April, is his most complexly detailed masterpiece yet. Presenting: the making of The Happiest Costume On Earth.
October 24
When is a screw not a screw: An examination of fastener nomenclature.
The difference between a bolt and a screw is a controversial topic. Confusingly, even some screws can also be bolts. Thankfully, the department of homeland security is on the case. The DHS notes, perhaps predictably, that "international standards are not necessarily applicable" to the US. In conclusion, fasteners are a land of contrasts.
"A song is either good to start with, or it's bad."
SBPCh ("Samoe bol'shoe prostoe chislo", Russian for "The Biggest Prime Number") is a St. Petersburg-based band that combines indifferent, low-key rapping with charming synth-and-acoustic-guitar arrangements. Their live shows are chaotic and involve handing out cheap instruments to audience members first; their recorded music is stripped-down and friendly. I first discovered them through Birthday and Beasts on Far From Moscow's Apples compilation—to me, it sounds like something out of the tetherball scene in Napoleon Dynamite. The Three of Us is a more driving song with an unusual balance of instruments; the album it's on, Flash Card, is generally pretty terrific. (The opening song, Russian Music, makes me pretty damn happy.)
Far From Moscow has written about them a number of times. Their article The Strange Advantages of Indifference talks about SBPCh's recording process and musical philosophy:
Far From Moscow has written about them a number of times. Their article The Strange Advantages of Indifference talks about SBPCh's recording process and musical philosophy:
Key here is the notion of "awkwardness." In other words, all members of SBPCh feel that honest expression, either on stage or in the studio, never comes from a clamorous display of bold, brash statements, even when they're made with confidently wielded technology. Quite the opposite: veracity and candor should come in humble forms.
the purity myth
Lately, it seems like everyone's talking about Molly: MDMA rebranded for a new generation of gyrators. However, Molly is much safer than Ecstasy, the electronic dance music scene's prior party favor, because it's pure. Right? [more inside]
San Francisco’s most glaring contradiction
San Francisco Magazine visits the Tenderloin: "Barring a seismic shift in city politics, the TL is not going to gentrify the way that similar neighborhoods have in other cities. Not next year. Not in five years. Maybe never. For better or worse, it will likely remain a sanctuary for the poor, the vulnerable, and the damaged—and the violence and disorder that inevitably comes with them. The thousands of working people, seniors, and families, including many Southeast Asians, who make up a silent two-thirds majority of the Tenderloin’s 30,000 residents will remain there. And so will the thousands of not-so-silent mentally ill people, addicts, drunks, and ex-cons who share the streets with them—as well as the predators who come in from the outside to exploit them. The Tenderloin will remain the great anomaly of neighborhoods: a source of stubborn pride for San Francisco, or an acute embarrassment—or both."
Doctor No
Raquel Welch: Space-Girl Dance
Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
For a long time, there have been newspaper stories and covers of magazines that talked about “The end of antibiotics, question mark?” Well, now I would say you can change the title to “The end of antibiotics, period.”
Do What They Say And Everything Will Be Okay
Do you folks like coffee
In a move eerily reminiscent of Dethklok's performance of the Duncan Hines Coffee Jingle (albeit at the opposite pole), Metallica will be performing in Antarctica. Just as the fictional death metal band partnered with a fictional coffee brand, Metallica bring their increasingly cartoonish presence to an audience "...of fans from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico who enter a contest through Coca-Cola Zero." Oddly, the band will be performing inside a dome on the Carlini Argentine Base with no amplification, and the performance will be transmitted to fans through headphones. [more inside]
"Statlas also makes it easy to spot the littler plays"
You old fishface you
This 419-Million-Year-Old Fish Has the World’s Oldest Known Face What makes it remarkable is everything that’s come after it: It’s the oldest known creature with a face, and may have given rise to virtually all the faces that have followed in the hundreds of millions of years since, including our own.
Worst Beatboxer Ever.
You Suck, Sir
Screen to Page
You are it. No, you are it. Hey, you are really it. You are it...
The double album Daydream Nation, by Sonic Youth, turns 25 this month.
The first single from the album, Teen Age Riot, "was about appointing J Mascis as our de facto alternative dream president". Other songs were about author William Gibson's "cyberpunk" literary concepts ("The Sprawl", or (maybe) about Joni Mitchell ("Hey Joni"). The album has been reissued previously in 2007, and today on facebook, the band announced " the original 2xlp and cd will be back in print in early 2014 along with more early sonic youth lps + cds".
His comments are no longer in his pocket
It has been ten years since Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" (previously) hit theaters. And though the notoriety and fanbase of the film has grown in that time, information on the man behind it has not. Greg Sestero, who was perhaps the closest to Wiseau and the project, has just published "The Disaster Artist" on his work with the film. The Dissolve has a lengthy review/analysis for your enjoyment.
"Ray Collins, we love you!"
Los Angeles, late 1962. A bar-band's guitarist invites a drunken carpenter on-stage to sing "Work with With Me Annie". Louie Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the death of Frank Zappa, let us pause to celebrate the life and ponder the fate of Mother Ray Collins, who passed away last December.
Ray Collins was one of Zappa's earliest collaborators, the Mothers' lead vocalist, an under-appreciated contributor to the Mothers' sound (and to "conceptual continuity"), one of a very small number of people to share song-writing credits with Zappa, carpenter, taxi driver, dish washer, world-class procrastinator, a perennial "where are they now" subject since 1968, and finally unofficial Village Greeter of Claremont, California. [more inside]
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the death of Frank Zappa, let us pause to celebrate the life and ponder the fate of Mother Ray Collins, who passed away last December.
Ray Collins was one of Zappa's earliest collaborators, the Mothers' lead vocalist, an under-appreciated contributor to the Mothers' sound (and to "conceptual continuity"), one of a very small number of people to share song-writing credits with Zappa, carpenter, taxi driver, dish washer, world-class procrastinator, a perennial "where are they now" subject since 1968, and finally unofficial Village Greeter of Claremont, California. [more inside]
I'd like to propose a new MeFi holiday tradition
Tired of the treacly sweet bonhomie of the upcoming xmas season? Then it's time for Takanakuy! It's a festival from the Peruvian highlands designed to work out the past year's differences with a little sockety-boom! And Takanakuy isn't just for the menfolk anymore. Women are just as eligible. Even kids can get into the act! Just watch out for the refs with the whips, they are not afraid to use them. Here's Vice's take on the whole megillah. With plenty of drinking before and after to sooth smushed mushes, I can see this soon becoming a long-standing MeFi tradition! No more long, drawn out MeTas, just a couple of shots and a couple of pokes to the kisser, ending with a hug and more booze. All is settled. Until next xmas!
Racism, Band Names, and Trademarks
"In fact, the implication is that if we weren’t Asian, there wouldn’t be any problems because people wouldn’t associate our name with an obscure racial slur. And while it’s true that the people in the band can be identified by a band’s name, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the members literally embody the name of the band. No one thinks ’The Rolling Stones’ are literal masses of undulating rock or that ’Led Zeppelin’ is a metallic reincarnation of the Hindenburg blimp.” [more inside]
Potential
Juárez Correa felt a chill. He’d never encountered a student with so much innate ability. He squatted next to her and asked why she hadn’t expressed much interest in math in the past, since she was clearly good at it.
“Because no one made it this interesting,” she said.
-- Wired reports on a teaching method finding success in Mexico
Sold out
"Future historians, pondering changes in British society from the 1980s onwards, will struggle to account for the following curious fact. Although British business enterprises have an extremely mixed record (frequently posting gigantic losses, mostly failing to match overseas competitors, scarcely benefiting the weaker groups in society), and although such arm’s length public institutions as museums and galleries, the BBC and the universities have by and large a very good record (universally acknowledged creativity, streets ahead of most of their international peers, positive forces for human development and social cohesion), nonetheless over the past three decades politicians have repeatedly attempted to force the second set of institutions to change so that they more closely resemble the first. Some of those historians may even wonder why at the time there was so little concerted protest at this deeply implausible programme. But they will at least record that, alongside its many other achievements, the coalition government took the decisive steps in helping to turn some first-rate universities into third-rate companies."
Don't Be That
For the past decade, the Men's Rights Movement has been gaining traction on the Internet—and growing ever more radical in its attacks on feminists. R. Tod Kelly explores whether a movement where moderates are marginalized can ever break into the mainstream.
Artist somehow makes her sleeping babies even more adorable
Do babies dream when they sleep, or they simply rest peacefully? Queenie Liao, an artist and a mother of three boys, has shared the adventures that her child Wengenn dreams of during his sleep. Combining artistry and imagination with photography, Queenie has created captivating photos using plain cloths, stuffed animals, and other common household materials to create the background setting.
“You know what you are, you franchise bastards.”
When the announcement had been made that Wimbledon FC would be moved to Milton Keynes, to later be rebranded MK Dons, a meeting was called by Wimbledon fans. Toward the end of a charged meeting in the Wimbledon Community Centre, Kris Stewart, then chair of the Wimbledon Independent Supporters Club, realized that the fans had no chance of hanging on to their club and that no amount of protests would stop the franchise moving to Milton Keynes. In that moment Stewart made his walk through the crowd toward the microphone. “I’m tired of fighting,” he said before issuing a spontaneous rallying cry that has become legendary among fans of AFC Wimbledon. “I just want to watch football.” (SLTheMorningNews)
Meet the Groundpounders
This week, thanks to the end of the government shutdown, the Marine Corps will put on their 38th marathon. Four men, Mel Williams, Al Richmond, Will Brown, and Matt Jaffe, will attempt 26.2 for the 38th time.
Skull and Bones gangs of New Orleans, a Mardi Gras tradition from 1819
Doors cracked, and people peered out at the apparitions on the street. Most of the grown-ups smiled and said “Good morning”, or “Happy Mardi Gras!” Kids peeked around their parents, looking thunderstruck. “Get up outta that bed! It's Mardi Gras morning!” the bone men yelled, “You gotta get your life straight!” One of the less well-known traditions of Mardi Gras in New Orleans are the Skull and Bone gangs who come out in the early morning. Their mission, besides the celebration of Mardi Gras, is to seek out small children and warn to live their lives rightly least the skull and bone spirits should have to come to them too soon. The tradition lives on, continuing what began around 1819, now mingling with the "younger" traditions of the Mardi Gras Indians and the Baby Dolls. For more history, check out Gumbo Ya-Ya, a collection of Louisana Folk Tales, on Archive.org
Well reem, innit?
The Only Way Is Essex was the first of a new wave of scripted reality shows in the UK, inspired by their popular US equivalents. Yet what started as a riff on the old joke of the bimbonic 'Essex Girl' has somehow had an impact on linguistics (including a dictionary entry) and what we think of as beautiful. [more inside]
"Wikipedia is strangling itself"
Star Trek Meets Monty Python
Star Trek Meets Monty Python. (SLYT). Extremely silly.
The Lady with the Fairy Fingers
Cliff Edwards (possibly) serenades "one of the half-dozen best manipulators in the history of magic", Suzy Wandas. [via] [more inside]
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
"This moustache is a Movember moustache."
To kick off the men's health awareness project Movember, Nick Offerman presents, How to Grow a Moustache and Great Moments in Moustache History.
Brand Vs Paxman
droplet [small]droplet[/small] [small][small]droplet[/small][/small] etc
Angel Haze Finally Does Justice To Macklemore’s “Same Love”
Angel Haze, who last year described her pansexuality to the Guardian and who was previously featured on metafilter for her heart-wrenching rap that transforms Eminem's "Cleaning Out My Closet" from an adolescent boy's angry confessional to a young woman's crushing autobiography[ALL KINDS OF TRIGGERS], has released her version of Macklemore’s “Same Love” (Previously) (Previouslier), which just slays with its honesty and vision.
Same Love by Angel Haze[more inside]
Candy Box 2
...unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle...perhaps...
"...What I have to say is very simple and very short: He's the greatest director I've had the good fortune, pleasure and honor to work with up to this point. It'd take too long to explain. He's wonderful. He knows more about cinema than anyone. He's the greatest director I know, the greatest cameraman, the best at framing and lighting, the best at everything. He's a living encyclopedia of cinema."
-Alain Delon
Le Samouraï: Jean-Pierre Melville's Work of Art
via the best film blog to ever exist, Cinephilia and Beyond
-Alain Delon
Le Samouraï: Jean-Pierre Melville's Work of Art
via the best film blog to ever exist, Cinephilia and Beyond
"Mandatory jail time for crowdsourcing or crowd-judging."
We need better implementation, not more ideas. In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Kevin Starr argues that prizes are a distraction and don't actually lead to more innovation.
October 23
OSHA? Don't need 'em.
This 1935 film of the London Midland & Scottish Railways' Crewe Works construction of a 4-6-2 Pacific-type steam locomotive [SLYT] is a fascinating study of heavy industry in prewar Britain. And not a hard hat in sight!
Mixed Marriages in China a Labour of Love
Take a ride on the dark side
Collectors Weekly takes a look at dark rides. "Most roller coasters put their stomach-dropping slopes and brain-twisting loops front and center for all the world to see. But the amusement-park attractions known as “dark rides” keep their thrills hidden. As you’re standing in line for a tour of a haunted house full of ghosts and ghouls, a high-seas adventure with pirates, or a ride on the range with gun-slinging cowboys of the Wild West, all you can see are the riders in front of you, who get into little cars before disappearing through swinging doors into the dark. You hear the sounds of screams and shrieks coming from within. And then, an empty car arrives, stopping before you with a mechanical ka-thunk. You’re next."
LED-ORABLE
Little Gordon
Little Gordon gives his Mum a mouthful [0:47] ----- Little Gordon's restaurant Nightmare! [1:52] ----- He's back... and his school dinner better be up to scratch! [1:11]
"the laughing stock of the Internet and two music genres"
Engineer turns hardcore band into EDM nightmare after they fail to pay. [T]he engineer, known only as Dan, funnelled the “best 30 mins I’ve ever spent” into reworking the material and uploading the final product. What was surely meant to be a hard-hitting, passionate composition of brutal metalcore integrity is now a cringeworthy dance track.
Sandy and the MTA
"He already knew things were worse than anyone expected. During Hurricane Irene, in August 2011, flooding at Battery Park was bad — but not three-feet-of-water-over-Lower Manhattan bad. The area was a lake, the subway stairs at the South Ferry entrance a small cascade." [more inside]
The truth about T. rex
Twiggy Mac
Many of the Macintosh team members gathered Wednesday, September 11 2013 to play with one of the original “Twiggy Mac” prototypes still in running condition. Quick, Hide In This Closet!
List of reasons for admission to an insane asylum in the late 1860s
Here's what could have got you admitted to the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane (Weston) aka Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the late 1860s: Imaginary Female Trouble... Jealousy and Religion... Tobacco and Masturbation... Carbonic Acid Gas... Parents were Cousins... Fell off Horse in War... Dangerous Minds
The PsyWar Society
The PsyWar Society: An International Association Of Psychological Warfare Historians and Aerial Propaganda Leaflet Collectors.
The History Of Air-Dropped Leaflet Propaganda. A timeline of leaflet operations [more inside]
"We'd like to do an old number, and it's one of my favorites."
Joe Pass and Ella Fitzgerald play duets in Hannover in October, 1975. Alternate, longer version with better annotations and video quality but also more audio hiss. Fitzgerald, Pass, and a full band at Ronnie Scott's in 1974.
Lost Soul
"I’ve been waiting 10 years for someone to ask about his life, not his death". The amazing life — and mysterious death — of former NBA player Bison Dele.
Blind Bets vs Sure Things
Few industries would routinely pay millions per unit of an item, sight unseen, with minimal (and sometimes no) market research. So how can the TV business afford to operate this way? To understand the economics of scripted television, we need to examine the idiosyncratic journey of a show from concept, to pitch, to script, to screen. And we’ll see why, in a business where only a few hits stand out any given year, lavish spending is the cost of staying relevant. -- The Economics of a Hit TV Show
"Oh, this is a REAL earthquake."
Roger Craig, Giants manager: I was in my office when the walls started shaking. I heard Don Robinson hollering, "Earthquake! Earthquake!" I told everybody to run out to the parking lot. It was asphalt and it was just rolling. -- Grantland's oral history of the Loma Prieta earthquake and the 1989 World Series
Remember, remember this bloke in November
For those of you thinking of taking your first whack (or second, or tenth) at Nanowrimo next month, take some inspiration in the story of John Creasey. [more inside]
Go To Bed, Scum
GWAR's Oderus Urungus Reads 'Goodnight Moon' [NSFW]
I'm a hero hunter. I hunt heroes. Still haven't found any.
"In this way, Mills achieves a genuine transgression: he admits defeat. Which is to say, he reveals himself as only creating new masculine fantasies in the same mode as his prior works – superseding Virago’s feminine motives in favor of manly rage at spoiled ambitions – while at the same time savaging superheroes in a way that is not truly destructive, but merely substituting an arguably worse status quo for the genre’s prior lies. As you say, Marshal Law is grim ‘n gritty in the fashion of its day, but I would add that Mills’s admission of inefficacy at promoting substantive change marks it as the only post-Watchmen work — and, by its murder mystery, its wartime background, its American critique, and its spoofing of extant superhero archetypes, it is very specifically post-Watchmen — that betrays some cognizance as to the ways in which Watchmen’s legacy would be processed: more violence, more darkness, more ugliness atop a hardly-cracked genre foundation." -- Janean Patience and Joe McCulloch discuss Marshall Law; part 2, part 3, part 4.
The Power of Patience
It took me nine minutes to notice that the shape of the boy’s ear precisely echoes that of the ruff along the squirrel’s belly—and that Copley was making some kind of connection between the animal and the human body and the sensory capacities of each. It was 21 minutes before I registered the fact that the fingers holding the chain exactly span the diameter of the water glass beneath them. It took a good 45 minutes before I realized that the seemingly random folds and wrinkles in the background curtain are actually perfect copies of the shapes of the boy’s ear and eye, as if Copley had imagined those sensory organs distributing or imprinting themselves on the surface behind him. And so on. What this exercise shows students is that just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you have seen it.
Love Him, Hate His Politics
Jeanne Safer writes about being "married to [Richard Brookhiser] with whom I violently disagree on every conceivable political issue, including abortion, gun control, and assisted suicide. I thought the recent government shutdown was absurd, infantile, and destructive; he was a fan. And not only is he a conservative Republican, he’s a professional conservative Republican, a Senior Editor of National Review, the leading journal of conservative opinion in the country."
I hope the beer in hell is non-alcoholic.
Ruby-Strauss learned his craft working for the notorious Judith Regan, in whose shadow all lowbrow publishing still operates. In college at the University of California, Santa Cruz, he had been a comp-lit major who scoffed when friends talked up popular sci-fi books. “I was too pretentious,” he says. “I was reading Camus.” (A far way from that to Tucker Max, I noted. “Is it?” he replied.) Under Regan, he came to appreciate the simpler beauty of “books that sell.” He acquired a book by shock-rock star Marilyn Manson and then a series of pro-wrestling books, still his highest-selling titles ever. He once took Regan to a match, where he remembers her looking around the arena and declaring happily of the crowd, “You could sell them blank pages!” (SLNewRepublic) [more inside]
Bounce Versus Pinch! Which Will Win?
The epic battle for species cuteness continues! Bull Terrier versus a Crab. [slyt]
Clearly I don't belong here
Which (US) state matches your personality? A fun little quiz based on an exhaustive psychological study of American attitudes.
Happy Mole Day 2013
Today (10-23) from 06:02am to 06:02pm chemists and other science enthusiasts around the world celebrate the mole! [more inside]
Adam Curtis mini film on the modern hug on television
October 22
Why People Mistake Good Deals for Rip-Offs
Why People Mistake Good Deals for Rip-Offs. In another experiment, the ventral putamen, a region of the brain that processes reward, was more active when people drank Pepsi than when they drank Coke—except when they were told that they were drinking Pepsi. Coke’s brand appeal is so powerful, and our ability to determine the value of cola so fickle, that our brains respond differently as soon as we learn that what we’re drinking isn’t Coke. The physical experience doesn’t change at all, but we’re unable to peg the value of a brown, caffeinated soda until we know where its life began.
Final Fontasy
Type:Rider is an exploration of the history of typography, from cave paintings to the modern day, in which you play a colon (which navigates something like a motorcycle) traversing a landscape composed of various fonts. [more inside]
Bart to the Future
Siracusa pens longform review of OS X 10.9 Mavericks
Along with today's release of OS X 10.9 Mavericks (a free download from the Mac App Store) comes John Siracusa's remarkably detailed 24,008 word review of the new OS for Ars Technica.
[more inside]
[more inside]
On being short.
Was Shakespeare a Woman?
Did Amelia Bassano Lanier write William Shakespeare? Her single volume of poetry, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum was published in 1611, but Amelia Bassano Lanier (1569–1645) may have left us even more. John Hudson, a British Shakespeare scholar and director of the New York theatre ensemble the Dark Lady Players has written that if Bassano did not write all of the plays, she was certainly a major collaborator. He is not alone.
Shake, shake, shake señora
You were always my favorite to boop.
Presenting Reddit's most adorable, most tentative, cutest hyper-specific subreddit: Boop. Best of Boop.
High School Student Discovers Skeleton of Baby Dinosaur
Luckily I was able to quickly sample my screams of pain
Banjo Gyro, one of the weirder videos on YouTube, is a short film about three restaurant employees—Sammy, Bill, and Finger—who hunt demons. Sort of like Invader Zim meets David Lynch's "sitcom" Rabbits.
How Pixar screwed up cartoon cars for a generation of kids
"The eyes of anthropomorphized cars are the headlights, not the windshield. When we look at a car, we see the front end as a sort of face. They're almost always bilaterally symmetrical, like a face, they have roughly the same number of general features, so it's easy to ascribe eyes, mouth, and even sometimes a nose to the various components. Like I said, we're really good at doing this. Consider the simple emoticon — :-) — and you'll see what I mean. We see faces in everything." [more inside]
high spirits
The ghostbots were created by man. They hovered. They grooved to smooth jazz. They look and feel like ghosts. And they have a plan.
There is no cost to getting things wrong
Trouble at the lab: Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To an alarming degree, it is not
"Academic scientists readily acknowledge that they often get things wrong. But they also hold fast to the idea that these errors get corrected over time as other scientists try to take the work further. Evidence that many more dodgy results are published than are subsequently corrected or withdrawn calls that much-vaunted capacity for self-correction into question. There are errors in a lot more of the scientific papers being published, written about and acted on than anyone would normally suppose, or like to think."
"Academic scientists readily acknowledge that they often get things wrong. But they also hold fast to the idea that these errors get corrected over time as other scientists try to take the work further. Evidence that many more dodgy results are published than are subsequently corrected or withdrawn calls that much-vaunted capacity for self-correction into question. There are errors in a lot more of the scientific papers being published, written about and acted on than anyone would normally suppose, or like to think."
Dealing with the KNOW-IT-ALL
So letters that have an untrue basis... do not get printed
On October 8, the LA Times' Letter Editor, Paul Thornton published a piece entitled, "On letters from climate-change deniers" following up on a claim in an earlier article that said, " Simply put, this objection to the president's healthcare law is based on a falsehood, and letters that have an untrue basis (for example, ones that say there's no sign humans have caused climate change) do not get printed." [more inside]
Seventeenth-century crowd funding
Taylor was a waterman who first entered the book trade in 1612 with a collection of verses. From that point on he kept up a prolific stream of publications, including in 1618 an account of a journey on foot to Scotland published as The Pennyles Pilgrimage. In the previous year Taylor has published a similar account of his journey to Hamburg, but this book had two twists. The first was that Taylor had set himself the challenge of completing his journey without begging and relying on spontaneous offers of hospitality. The second was that Taylor tried to fund it through subscriptions.
Foundation
"The maths that saw the US shutdown coming". Peter Turchin (Previously) has a mathematical model that shows why the US is in crisis, and what will happen next. [more inside]
20-years on the bench pays off
As the 2013-14 NBA season approaches, the last year of the reign of Commissioner David Stern, Sports Business Journal takes an in-depth look at his successor, New Media enthusiast, marathon runner, and fan of competitive balance, Adam Silver. [more inside]
We Must Consider the Sounds of Knives and Forks
Noise: A Human History is a cool 30-part radio series by David Hendy in collaboration with the British Library Sound Archive and the BBC that explores the past 100,000 years of sound and listening.
Heritage Minutes: History by the Minute (plus parodies)
Got a minute for Canadian history and some CanCon (prev: 1, 2, 3)? Great! Because Heritage Minutes are just that - 60 seconds of history from Canada's past. To date, there have been over 70 short segments produced, and you can watch them online at Historica Canada, and read about people and events below the videos. If you don't know where to start, here are the top 5 minutes according to a poll from 2012, and the top 10 from Macleans. But if that's all too serious for you, there are also parodies, plus more in this YouTube playlist.
But watch out for the venomous spurs
What's in your invisible fanny pack?
Retro F1 Liveries
Politics as usual
Did Race Play a Role in the Shutdown? Republicans from the House districts that have the highest levels of racial resentment were about 60 percentage points less likely to vote for the deal to end the shutdown than Republicans from districts with low levels of racial resentment.
They say they thought there were fewer homeless people than before.
If you declare, in a famous poem affixed to the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor, “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me,” you might consider that a certain commitment has been made. (SLNYer)
The Old Ways
"Really Rosie"
In 1975, CBS aired the half hour animated special "Really Rosie" with story and lyrics by Maurice Sendak (based on five of his children's books) and with music composed and performed by Carole King.
Many have fond memories of the broadcast ("Chicken Soup with Rice" is a particular childhood earworm), and though it has yet to make it to DVD, you can watch it in full on YouTube. The special was later turned into an Off-Broadway production in 1980 and continues to be performed by kids across the country.
I Was Short and Ugly and I Had a Speech Impediment
My Life as a Young Thug (Mike Tyson, for New York magazine)
"You can't 3-D-print a highway"
Stanford lecturer and genetics startup co-founder Balaji Srinivasan delivered a talk entitled "Silicon Valley's Ultimate Exit", at the Y Combinator startup school on Saturday. The provocative talk, described as "a fantasy of seceding from the U.S." with "undertones of class hostility as well as simple naïveté", is just the latest escalation of the techno-utopian and often anti-government rhetoric from Silicon Valley's elite class (previously: 1, 2, 3).
This ain't your daddy's Monster Mash.
Looking to freshen up that old October playlist? Allow me to recommend Halloween Booootie, three free, full-length compilations (2009, 2010 and 2012) of bootlegs and mashups all perfectly themed for your next graveyard smash.
But do you want some more? Are you looking for, dare I say, the real wicked shit? Then please, step this way... [more inside]
But do you want some more? Are you looking for, dare I say, the real wicked shit? Then please, step this way... [more inside]
Appletopia
An excerpt from the new book Appletopia: Media Technology and the Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs by Brett T. Robinson. [more inside]
Looking out the window while landing on the moon
Simultaneous video and selectively played audio of every Apollo lunar landing on one screen. (via Collect Space) [more inside]
A way for the monkey mind to cope with the modern world
The Melancholy of Subculture Society, an essay on the rise of multiple subcultures, the idea of “opting out” of the mainstream culture and the social and psychological benefits of the existence of alternative status hierarchies. [more inside]
Sugar-shamed
"There are times when we should feel shame, like when we’re tempted to hunt for Communists. But nowadays one suspects that Joe McCarthy would have just accused his critics of “red-shaming.” On shaming.
Criticism v. Reviews
Bioshock Infinite is the worst game of the year. An essay on the sad state of videogame criticism.
It Could Be Worse
I signed up for an account on Healthcare.gov last week. It wasn’t the smoothest process, but I was able to create an account. Some parts are slow; sometimes you have to reload a page to make progress. But it’s starting to work. It will be fixed, because it has to be. And now that the launch and inevitable crash has finally happened, in a way the worst is over. Real-world traffic is providing programmers all the debugging data that they could ever want, and “all bugs are shallow with the president watching,” as Paul Ford writes in Bloomberg Businessweek, paraphrasing the open-source-software advocate Eric Raymond’s assertion that “with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” -- Rusty Foster in The New Yorker
Yo! Oy! Motown meets Anatevka
October 21
I Need To Find Roy! This Is The Life Of My Story!
Scream and shout
Science for the epic motherfreaking win
Too big to ...?
Matt Levine writes in the Wall Street Journal: Morgan Stanley Now Obeying Rules, Reducing Risks, Eating Cupcakes
So while of course it's possible that this is just next-level perception manipulation and I've fallen for it -- that Morgan Stanley has found a novel way to take on immense amounts of complex risk and hide it behind an army of retail brokers and a layer of cream-cheese frosting -- I think that this story is what it appears to be. Morgan Stanley seems to be de-risking by cutting back on risky activities, and responding to new regulations by obeying them.On the New Wall Street, Boring Is Better [more inside]
Some mercy may be discovered
"One of the greatest stories, true or fictional, in all literature is Gibbon’s account of the life and martyrdom of Boethius under the Ostrogoth Theodoric. Senator, poet, philosopher, man of reason, he was the last of his kind in all these categories. The story is an incomparable masterpiece of prose. From the opening sentence, "The Senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman," Gibbon builds a mighty organ toccata. He always seems to see ahead to every echo and resonance and inversion of rhythm, through the idyllic description of The Consolation of Philosophy to the terrible climax — the philosopher garroted and clubbed to death in the last gloomy hours of Theodoric, followed by the swift cadence, and the coda of the martyrdom of his fellow Senator Symmachus — four crowded pages of the most solemn music. Each man speaks in his own style. Gibbon speaks with such sublimity because, sitting in his quiet study, he was totally involved in the defense of reason against the triumph of barbarism and superstition and the ruin of all bright things." [more inside]
No thanks, I use video games to escape my reality
Are your "friends" pushing illegal marijuana cigarettes? Don't let drugs get in the way of your dream car! Keep sober with these snappy comebacks to narcotics. [SLYT Australian PSA]
Tiny Time Machine
In the December 2004 issue of SPIN, we published Los Angeles journalist/musician Liam Gowing's detailed, empathetic look at the last years of Elliott Smith's life and the circumstances that led up to the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter's apparent suicide. "Mr. Misery" was difficult to read, a tremendous challenge to edit and fact-check, and one of the most remarkably intimate pieces in the magazine's history. On the 10th anniversary of Smith's death, it's now available for the first time on the site. [more inside]
France in the NSA's crosshairs
Using documents leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, Le Monde reports that the NSA has been intercepting French telephone communications on a massive scale. Under a programme called 'US-985D', the NSA is collecting not only metadata but recordings of telephone calls: From 10 December 2012 to 8 January 2013, 70.3 million French telephone calls were recorded.
These revelations came just as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris on a pre-scheduled visit. Francois Hollande is not pleased.
These revelations came just as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris on a pre-scheduled visit. Francois Hollande is not pleased.
YAD KCOL SPAC
OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!
Rogue troubadors in my lecture hall.
Follow the Herpes!
I put a mask on a monkey, mask on a monkey...
Cyberwar!!!!
The Digital Attack Map from Google and Arbor Networks gives you an amazing dynamic visualization of ongoing Distributed Denial of Service and other cyberattacks. You can also go back to see older attacks - like the 6-day long attack on the US in August, attacks on the anniversary of the Korean War, and others. Slate finds it a bit self-serving for Google, but the helpful video explaining DDoS is useful.
Who is Veronika Larsson?
Where a journalist tries to identify TheIneffableSwede, an online commenter on the Guardian website and elsewhere online. A journalist from the Guardian adds more context.
Now that's a big family
Now we are five: David Sedaris, on the suicide of his sister Tiffany.
I wonder what happened in all the other timelines?
All seven timelines from the "Remedial Chaos Theory" episode of "Community," all happening at once.
J.D. Salinger would have hated every single word and frame
Salinger Betrayed: despite their show-stopping if unattributed revelation of a publication schedule and descriptions for the author's posthumous works, Shane Salerno's tabloid-style documentary film (now recut), and the accompanying biography co-written by David Shields, have been very poorly received. [more inside]
"One line was about whipping someone's toosh."
"She said that there was a plot by the teacher to kill the father and the kids to kill the teacher. There was also a part where a little boy watched a little girl pee. She says that in the episode the whole town goes cannibalistic and begins to eat each other. The mother is advised to kill her daughter, which she does, with the understanding she can apologize to her in hell. The father Simpson is revered as a savior and he sings a song announcing he is gay and advises the population of men to, "find a man!". There was swearing and cursing as well."
Informal complaints received by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the television show ‘The Simpsons,’ 2010-2013 [more inside]
Informal complaints received by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the television show ‘The Simpsons,’ 2010-2013 [more inside]
More barn!
"Consider dat duh divohce."
Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking requests and performing his famous one liners on YouTube.
Round and round we go
"In the 1960s and 1970s London Transport had a flourishing international consultancy arm which made money by advising other cities on on how to go about setting up and running a metro service with a particular emphasis on advising far eastern countries how to plan their fledging metros. Rumour has it their first bit of advice was always: Never, ever run your trains in a circle!" -- So why did it take almost a century and a half for the London Underground to get rid of the Circle Line? Let Pedantic of Purley at London Reconnections explain the history of the Circle Line and why having a circle route is bad news as well as how the Circle Line was uncircled and recreated as a teacup.
And here's how we do it!
Glen Weisgerber is a pinstriper letterer for custom bikes, cars etc - Single Stroke Lettering Demo, Roundhand Lettering Demo, Jersey Style Chrome Lettering Demo
…a parable of humanness in the age of pervasive documentation.
The New York Review of Books turns 50
In February 1963, a new publication took advantage of the New York City printers strike and launched with a daring editorial: It does not, however, seek merely to fill the gap created by the printers’ strike in New York City but to take the opportunity which the strike has presented to publish the sort of literary journal which the editors and contributors feel is needed in America.
The New York Review of Books is now 50. [more inside]
Opening Day of The Guggenheim Museum
Opening Day of The Guggenheim Museum, 3:34 of color film shot on October 21, 1959 in NYC.
“Buildings & Crowd” captures the their excitement as lines formed down Fifth Avenue. The end of the film highlights the inaugural exhibition within the rotunda. With works by Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Stuart David, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, and Vasily Kandinsky.
DOG SHAMING II: ELECTRIC PUPPYLOO
"That's a beautiful mam."
Mamming is the act of laying your (clothed) boobs on a flat surface. Like a counter. Or a bench. Or the body of a person who is #planking. [more inside]
"Frankenstein speak zombie..."
Tips For Surviving, Monsters! A puppet based guide for monsters who are tired of being hunted. [slyt | via]
Why is it so hard to find a job?
Bring Back Those Glorious Years
Everything's Coming Up Profits is a new book by Steve Young and Sport Murphy detailing the Industrial, Corporate Musicals of the 50s-70s. [more inside]
October 20
For fans of: pixels, archaeologists, fatalism
CRYPT WORLDS: Your Darkest Desires, Come True!
A game for PC, Mac, and Linux. By Elizabeth Deadman.
Audio by Liz Ryerson, who made Problem Attic.
The trailer will persuade you to consume it.
The guide will tell you how to walk and urinate.
It is pretty cool.
A game for PC, Mac, and Linux. By Elizabeth Deadman.
Audio by Liz Ryerson, who made Problem Attic.
The trailer will persuade you to consume it.
The guide will tell you how to walk and urinate.
It is pretty cool.
Basement Jaxx vs Metropole Orkest: dance music gone orchestral and jazzy
If you enjoy huge orchestral stage productions of housey dance music, you might enjoy this: the electronic dance duo, Basement Jaxx, teamed up with the world's largest professional pop and jazz orchestra, the Metropole Orkest, a couple years back to create a huge stage production that had a handful of performances, consisting of re-scored Jaxx tracks and a few new productions by Felix Buxton of Basement Jaxx. There are some clips and full songs from the shows online, including pro-shot and edited clips from the Barbican in London and and from the Muziekcentrum Frits Philips (Frits Philips Music Center) in Eindhoven, collected in this YouTube playlist, opening with a behind-the-scenes clip, then getting into the proper music. There's also a compilation album (Grooveshark stream), put together from live recordings from the Eindhoven show and studio recordings.
BART strike continues
BART workers are continuing their strike into Monday, with no quick end to the strike in sight. [more inside]
Steve Buscemi
"so many working-class people across the country vote against their own interests. It all comes down to culture wars: the right has always been able to use abortion and gay marriage, and in the past women's rights, but all those things are starting to erode. There really isn't much they can throw up as a smokescreen any more."
" interviews, he says in his quick, metallic, slightly strangulated way, "aren't my favourite thing to do".
But, he does a pretty good job with this one...
Making vegetables the rock stars
"The semantic mission for me is to have “vegetarian” become an adjective that describes food rather than a noun labeling a person." An interview with Mollie Katzen, author of the iconic Moosewood Cookbook. (Includes a recipe for Vegetarian Tan-Tan Noodles from her newest cookbook, The Heart of the Plate: Vegetarian Recipes for a New Generation.)
12 Years a Slave
"I'm here because my family went through slavery" - Steve McQueen on 12 Years A Slave, the story of Solomon Northup. ‘12 Years a Slave,’ ‘Mother of George,’ and the aesthetic politics of filming black skin. Before Solomon Northup: Fighting Slave Catchers in New York. The final fate of Solpmon Northup remains unknown. (Previously)
Gay Talese and Katie Roiphe go to the Opera.
The young Talese wanted to be American, not Italian, so he resented the Verdi and Puccini, this soundtrack to the boyhood he didn’t want to have. [more inside]
Say, Mr. Producer. I'm talking to you, sir.
Flying Square of Cardboard.
1 2 Lose U
“Stylistically, I never had a plan – at the time, I was listening to a lot of intelligent drum ’n’ bass, but when I heard Squarepusher I was like, I can’t listen to normal jungle any more." Vapor City is the 9th album from North Carolina born, New York & Berlin based 'future jungle' producer Machinedrum. Illustrated by the grey-and-black industrial sprawl on the cover, (it) is about an imaginary metropolis; each of its ten tracks is devoted to one of its districts. [more inside]
"People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous."
Don't be Sad; Two out of Three Ain't Bad
Why do we feel happy when we listen to sad music? A study from the Tokyo University of the Arts and RIKEN says that while we expect sad feelings to result from sad music, often the emotions are more neutral or even positive. [more inside]
Devoted to classic UK and Italian lightweights
Classic Lightweights UK
"Through our site Patricia and I would like to share our enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, classic lightweight cycles, particularly those built in Britain and Italy.Classic Components [more inside]
Condoleezza Rice still controversial, but for different reason now
The new College Football Playoff's selection committee has been officially unveiled, and it includes revered coaches, revered players (and fathers of revered players), a three-star general and even a college professor you may have heard of. [more inside]
Burlesque Dancer Twerks To Beethoven, Which Is As Amazing As It Sounds
Michelle L'amour performs "BUTTHOVEN'S 5TH SYMPHONY" [NSFW: WIGGLING B'THONGED BUTTS - LOL] [more inside]
Raspberries and Nuclear Warheads
Pre suffragettes the founding mothers
Meet the Victorian women who fought back. Once, Queen Victoria was the only woman in the realm with no legal impediment because of her sex. She reigned over a society that was full of intelligent women going mad with frustration - and then they began to do something about it.
Oh SNAPULARITY, Slavoj!
Not too into the Singularity? Here's a Powerpoint-style presentation featuring several Alternatives to the Singularity, such as The Discombobularity and the dreaded Zizekularity!
"There's only one saving grace to this book: it might be right."
Has David Birnbaum solved the mystery of existence?
David Birnbaum made his fortune selling jewellery to movie stars. Now he has published a 'remarkable and profound' investigation into the origins of the universe. Is there any reason to take it seriously?
David Birnbaum made his fortune selling jewellery to movie stars. Now he has published a 'remarkable and profound' investigation into the origins of the universe. Is there any reason to take it seriously?
No sex please, we're Japanese
Young people in Japan are increasingly abstaining from romantic relationships and sex. The media refers to this phenomenon as sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome". [more inside]
Swan Hill, by Laura Michet
Your brother sighs and takes his pipe out of his jacket. "It's good to be home," he says, and fills the bowl. "A light?" You[more inside]put your hand out.snap your fingers. There's thesharp stabfamiliar pricklecomfortable ache in your wrist, among the bones. A flame leaps from your fingertips.
Eva Wiseman's love story.
Humans of Los Santos
A Relationship in Five Minutes
It was probably the cap on the toothpaste that did it. Matthew Flynn and Autumn Stein improvise a video that distils an entire relationship into 5 minutes.
It Is Suggested That Fans Clip The Series For Future Reference
No Spandex
Erik Gunden, voice of Bat-Mite, has left the building
R.I.P. Lou Scheimer - Mr Filmation - an Emmy and Grammy Award–winning American producer of cartoon and live TV - has died.
He was a co-founder of Filmation, a company known mostly for minimally-animated but US produced cartoons (often with reused backgrounds) and a small cast of stock voice actors (including himself) that dominated the airwaves for decades . [more inside]
October 19
Mary begat Lisa which begat Jennifer which begat Ashley....
A wonderful animated state-by-state map of the most popular names for girls since 1960. Watch the Jennifer Takeover of 1970! Thrill to the doomed Appalachian Amanda Insurgency of the late 1970s! Cower before the great Jessica-Ashley Battles! Sigh with relief at the arrival of Emma, Isabella, and Sophia as we approach the world of today! Regret naming your child the same thing as everyone else! Bonus, also from Jezebel: How to pick a weird name for your kid
There’s no condom for consumption.
Alan Weisman's new book argues that we should not only slow population growth, we should decrease the world's population to 2 billion. In the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert considers his argument for the 2 billion person world in the context of a long history of Malthusian and neo-Malthusian arguments over population growth and resource limits. “Before artificial nitrogen fertilizer became widely available, the world’s population was around 2 billion. When we no longer have it—or if we ever decide to stop using it—that may be a number to which our own naturally gravitates.”
For more context, see Paul Sabin's new book The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble Over Earth’s Future. [more inside]
Mickey Mouse and friends, brought back to the 1930s era sense of humor
Mickey Mouse in Ghoul Friend is a new Disney short, featuring the reanimated corpse of Goofy. With this information, you might get the idea that this is not what you might expect from modern Disney cartoons, and you'd be right. It's one of 19 new shorts that are part of the new Mickey Mouse series of shorts that are inspired by the 1930s era Disney shorts. If you'd like to see more, 11 of the shorts are currently available to view on YouTube (in a playlist with two bonus behind the scenes clips), from the DisneyShorts YouTube acccount. [more inside]
"What does the drone’s camera capture, and what does it occlude?"
The Sound of Terror: Phenomenology of a Drone Strike
Opponents of drone strikes say they violate international law and have caused unacknowledged civilian deaths. Proponents insist they actually save the lives of both U.S. soldiers, who would otherwise be deployed in dangerous ground operations, and of civilians, because of the drone’s capacity to survey and strike more precisely than combat. If the alternative is a prolonged and messy ground operation, the advantage of drone strikes in terms of casualties is indisputable, and it is not my intention to dispute it here. But the terms of this debate give a one-sided view of both the larger financial and political costs of drones, as well as the less than lethal but nonetheless chronic and intense harm continuous strikes wage on communities.[more inside]
"This is my gift to you. Do with it what you want."
The Course of Their Lives. While much in medicine has changed over the last century, the defining course of a first year medical student's education is still 'Gross Anatomy.' This is their hands-on tour of a donated cadaver -- an actual human body -- and is an experience which cannot be replicated by computer models. When Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Mark Johnson came up with the idea of following a med school gross anatomy class for a feature story, his editor challenged him to make it different. So he chose to intertwine the students' stories with that of Geraldine 'Nana' Fotsch, a living future donor, as sort of a stand-in for the cadaver. (Via. This four-part series contains descriptions of a human dissection. Some may find it disturbing.) [more inside]
Adventures in temporary art
Paris 13 is a massive art exhibit inside a soon to be demolished building in France's capital. [via MyModernMet] [more inside]
Violence against women—it's a men's issue: Jackson Katz at TEDxFiDiWomen
Jackson Katz, Phd, is an anti-sexist activist and expert on violence, media and masculinities. An author, filmmaker, educator and social theorist, Katz has worked in gender violence prevention work with diverse groups of men and boys in sports culture and the military, and has pioneered work in critical media literacy. Katz is the creator and co-founder of the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program, which advocates the 'bystander approach' to sexual and domestic violence prevention. [more inside]
Reflections on a Paris Left Behind
Even Hemingway, so easily spoofed, raved about the oysters. But he knew something of himself, and something of this extraordinary city, and what it gave to him.
“There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other,” he wrote. “Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it.”
Yet then he added, with just the right soupçon of sadness: “But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.”
Money
Book of Lamentations
A new dystopian novel in the classic mode takes the form of a dictionary of madness. Sam Kriss reviews a recent book. [more inside]
Two words that should not go together: "Vagina cake."
"Small apartment, sleeps one. ABOVE A HUNDRED, SLEEPING FOREVER..."
Bloke rents out a small, neat, English apartment. Finds a hatch with some tools in it. And... [more inside]
Why Sleep Deprivation Can Destroy You
In a nutshell, this new study provides evidence that we need a certain amount of sleep every night, because the brain takes this time to rid itself of toxic metabolic byproducts, which would otherwise accumulate in the brain and impair brain function, destroy neurons — and potentially cause neurodegenerative disorders.
Don't judge a book by its (fingernail) cover
Explore the Exoplanets
Explore the Exoplanets courtesy of Nasa. ""Eyes on Exoplanets" provides a scientifically accurate, fully rendered 3D universe of the 900-plus "Exoplanet" discoveries." [via NASA/Kepler, via NASAPlanetQuest]. Kepler/Exoplanets previously on Mefi 1 2 3 4 and (from 2002) 5.
Music for millions to die by
"I note here that the first Australia would have known about all this would have been Soviet nuclear strikes on US facilities at Pine Gap (near Alice Springs), Nurrungar (Woomera) and North West Cape (near Exmouth). We know that this was likely because Western spies for the Soviet Union in the late 1970s had given Moscow some insights into the significance of these intelligence and communications facilities for what it saw as US nuclear war-fighting strategy." -- former Australian deputy secretary of defence Paul Dibb talks about Able Archer, the 1983 NATO nuclear warfare exercise that the Soviet Union almost mistook for the real thing. [more inside]
California Dreamin
The Dissolve spends a week talking about Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express:
- Keynote by Keith Phipps
- Roundtable discussion from the staff
- A dissection of a particular 22 second scene by Mike D'Angelo
October 18
On the Perfect Size for a Pizza
Eugenia Cheng of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheffield has investigated the mathematical relationship between the size of a pizza and its ratio of topping to base (slpdf). We show that for a given recipe, it is not only the overall thickness of the pizza that is is affected by its size, but also this topping-to-base ratio.
The Gods Must Be Crazy, and the four sequels you might not know about
Roger Ebert thought highly of the first two films, the first he summarized as "a movie that begins with a Coke bottle falling from the heavens, and ends with a Jeep up in a tree," and called the South African slapstick film "a nice little treasure." He said the second was for people who like "happy movies better than grim and violent ones." After The Gods Must Be Crazy (YT, Crackle) and its sequel (YT), three unofficial sequels were produced in the early 1990s in Hong Kong and filmed in Cantonese, still featuring Nǃxau ǂToma throughout the continued series, and Coke bottles also feature prominently. As could be expected, these knock-off sequels integrate parts of Chinese culture into the films for the predictable humorous cultural conflicts, from hopping vampires to nefarious panda-nabbers. [more inside]
Chow Muh-muh-muh-muh-mein
Alison Gold's Chinese Food is the latest "pop" "hit" out of ARK Music to be making the rounds, following the footsteps of Nicole Westbrook's It's Thanksgiving and, of course, Rebecca Black's Friday. Beyond its hilariously forced lyrics and meter, which are par for the course, Chinese Food is being roundly criticized for being more than a little bit racist—and its racism is hardly culturally accurate, either: subtitles are shown throughout the song which shift to a number of different non-Chinese languages, including Hebrew and Arabic, and the song's climax includes a number of women dressed as geishas. But ARK Music's Patrice Wilson, aka Fat Usher, is more self-aware than he's sometimes given credit for, and his music comes close to Tim and Eric territory at times (Eric Wareheim's music videos have also been called out for dealing with race in highly problematic ways). In a little-seen but very funny response to Friday, his song Happy, Wilson lampoons both his own approach to songwriting, and the response Friday received afterwards. Another Alison Gold song produced by Wilson and ARK, Skip Rope by "Tweenchronic", that might be the proof that ARK is cleverer and more deliberate in its approach than its millions of anti-fans recognize. (Wilson was interviewed by Gawker and the LA Times in the wake of Friday; his recent defense of Chinese Food was either disingenuous or really dumb, depending on how much credit you're willing to give him.)
"The shock value of what might be called death humor"
Laughing Past The Grave
We realize we aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but we adore it, often to a perfectly scandalous degree, when others do, and especially when it’s funny.
1932 was a very dry year.
The finder of this note if the 18 Amendment has bin [sic] changed have a good Drink on us.
- E. Daniher
New News is Good News
Pierre Omidyar announces his Next Adventure in Journalism and plans to ‘free’ independent journalism.
Jay Rosen interviewed him.
High frequency networking
In New York, there are at least six data centers you need to collocate in to be competitive in equities. An in-depth look at the insanity behind modern high-frequency trading, where the speed of light is the only limit.
The Women and the Thrones
When we were little, Jaime and I were so much alike that even our lord father could not tell us apart. Sometimes as a lark we would dress in each other’s clothes and spend a whole day each as the other. Yet even so, when Jaime was given his first sword, there was none for me. “What do I get?” I remember asking. We were so much alike, I could never understand why they treated us so differently. Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime’s lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood.Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Review of Books on the Song of Ice and Fire as feminist epic. Previously.
This is how they deal with horse thievery in Denmark. (SLYT)
Card Hunter
Take some old school D&D nerdery, mix in some Magic: The Gathering and Final Fantasy Tactics, and you have Card Hunter.
Married on Monday
New Jersey court to allow same-sex marriages. A stay was not granted to an earlier ruling allowing gay people to marry in New Jersey. Asbury Park and Newark are already issuing marriage licenses for couples to marry at the first possible time on Monday. This defeats a long-term move by governor Christie and conservatives to push a statewide referendum rather than go ahead with the court's ruling. New Jersey is now the fourteenth state to allow gay marriage.
BitTorrent site Isohunt shutting down after MPAA lawsuit defeat
isoHunt shuts down, Vancouver operator ordered to pay $110 million US fine A Vancouver resident has agreed to shut down his popular downloading website and pay a $110-million fine after settling a long legal fight with the Motion Picture Association of America.
Gary Fung ran isohunt.com, a search engine for BitTorrent files, which helped users find virtually every type of copyrighted material, including music, movies, computer software, ebooks and pornography.
As of Friday, the site stated it linked to 13.7 million active BitTorrent files with 51 million users either uploading or download them.
According to Alexa.com, it ranked as the 423rd top site on the web for global traffic and 167th in Canada.
On his blog, Fung said he was "sad to see my baby go." [more inside]
First they came for the Black voters, but I did nothing, because...
The GOP's new target for voter disenfranchisement: women. As of November 5, Texans must show a photo ID with their up-to-date legal name. Only 66% of voting age women have ready access to a photo ID of this nature, as many women have not updated their photo IDs with either their married names or their name after a divorce. This disenfranchises 34% of women voters, while 99% of men are home free. Similar laws now exist or are in the process of being passed in numerous other states.
“Hi Avonte, it’s mom. Come to the flashing lights, Avonte."
Two weeks ago, 14 year-old Avonte Oquendo was last seen running out the door of his school in Long Island City, New York. Because Avonte has autism and is non-verbal, he was supposed to have one-on-one supervision at all times. Now, an unprecedented citywide search for the boy that includes searching commuter trains and subways and playing his mother's voice out of emergency response vehicles remains underway. [more inside]
Million Dollar Hero (In A Five And Ten Cents Store)
Philip Chevron - "singer, writer, composer, punk rocker, poet, Radiator, Pogue" - passed away from esophageal cancer on October 8th, far too young at only 56. He was most widely known as the Pogues’ rhythm guitarist, who penned "Thousands Are Sailing", a haunting ballad about Irish immigration to the USA that quickly became a live favourite (in later shows usually sung by Phil himself). [more inside]
Never give up, never surrender
"like a panicked 14-year-old who has yet to sprout pubic hair"
"When I read Spell as a kid, I related to Bink. It never struck me as weird that he was a dozen years older than me, but wasn’t any more mature. Now the prospect of relating to Bink, at any age, seems insane. It doesn’t have anything to do with his whining. It has to do with the way he views Spells’ female characters: as obstacles, props, and objects of lust and condescension."
Revisiting the sad, misogynistic fantasy of Xanth
Revisiting the sad, misogynistic fantasy of Xanth
When Maya met Madhur
Maya Angelou and Madhur Jaffrey share a lunch and conversation in 2005. "Maya Angelou and Madhur Jaffrey were born worlds apart, but for both, cooking and sharing food were key to their identities. We invited them for lunch to talk about recipes, love and memory."
Dean Martin - Early Performances
What did he say?
Dan Lewis, writer of the blog, Now I Know reveals this little gem:
In 1963, a group named the Kingsmen covered the song “Louie Louie,” originally recorded by Richard Berry eight years prior. The Kingsmen’s version is a classic and you’ve almost certainly heard it (but if not, here you go) and likely can sing the whole thing — kind of. You probably have no idea what the actual words are because they’re a garbled mess which is impossible to understand. But that didn’t stop an angry parent from writing to then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and insisting that the lyrics were obscene. For some reason, this lead to an FBI investigation (!) which concluded, no, the lyrics are just unintelligible. The FBI was right, but they missed something. [more inside]
Buzzfeed Minus GIFs
Buzzfeed without the GIFs - for those that love Buzzfeed's writing but can't stand the pesky GIFs getting in the way.
"Death-haunted meditations on identity and memory"
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky proposes that today’s best action directors aren’t working in Hollywood, but in direct-to-video. [more inside]
King of the WWW Ring!
Hostamania! That's right, brother... You'll be the WWW World Champion in no time with Hostamania, Hulk Hogan's new web hosting service. [more inside]
Gored in the USA
The Running Of The Bulls Comes To America (Single Link BF)
The Faces of Archer
While many of the characters on Archer may appear to be based on their voice actors, in reality, the models used were often people known or met in unexpected ways by the producers. Here are the actual models and the stories behind how they got involved. [previously]
What Do Cats See?
Does your cat act weirdly? Does it bump into and occasionally wreck stuff, like your face? Well, maybe it's not just because Grisou* is a jerk, maybe it's because it has crappy eyesight. [more inside]
Fifty or so teenagers, eavesdropping
A different sort of hell
"Technically it’s not a book at all: The Great War is actually one continuous drawing, a 24ft-long panorama narrating the British forces’ experience of 1 July 1916, spatially and chronologically, from orderly morning approach to chaotic battlefield engagement to grim aftermath. There are no boxes of text or speech bubbles, no individuated characters, instead Sacco portrays a mass event in painstaking, monochrome, almost technical detail. It’s like a cross between Hergé and the Chapman brothers; the Bayeux Tapestry as a silent movie." -- Cartoonist Joe Sacco's latest project, The Great War is about one particular day in the War: 1 July, the start of the Battle of the Somme. [more inside]
"I have been taught accommodation."
College student Lily Myers performs her poem, Shrinking Women, at a poetry slam.
October 17
WINNER: CHINA MIÉVILLE
Yooooouuuu, yoouuu can dooo anyyyything, you want to
Microwave Timing Conversion Charts
So the label on your frozen food gives a cook time, but it says it's for a microwave of a wattage other than what it says on yours. How are you supposed to know how long to nuke it for? Well, you could consult one of these handy charts!
Schnauzer Radio Orchestra - Music for a 1950s Video Game
If you looked through Dark Roasted Blend's collection of "Music For ..." album covers, you might have noticed Music for a 1950s Video Game and scratched your head. No, it's not an archive of soundtracks for the proto-video games of the 1950s, but modern creations by the Schnauzer Radio Orchestra, aka Rob Geboers of Shnauzer Studios. Basta Records has two tracks on Soundcloud (Into The Cave and Final Boss), and Schnauzer Studios has a few clips of SRO in the studio (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV), and CD unboxing. You can hear more from Schnauzer Radio Orchestra on Soundcloud. [more inside]
To Save or Serve the GPO
This August, Washington state's Fish and Wildlife Commission banned giant Pacific octopus hunting (recreational harvesting) across seven popular scuba sites in the Puget Sound -- not because the species is endangered, but simply because the sea creature is revered by the Seattle community. The law went into effect on October 6. What triggered the ban? Therein lies a story. [more inside]
RIP Ed Lauter
Character actor Ed Lauter has died. In a career that spanned over forty years, he was a familiar face on both television and film (and active until the end with appearances in "Trouble With The Curve" and "The Artist"). And with the greatest respect and affection, he also costarred in one the greatest bad films of the eighties.
SLPBS:Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Here's a would-be documentary miniseries that PBS has buried in a single 3-hour bloc. It conatains the perspective that has been lost in all of the reimaginings and reboots durinng the last 15 years. It will broadcast in repeats during the nest 2 weeks, or you can watch it online.
Here's a would-be documentary miniseries that PBS has buried in a single 3-hour bloc. It conatains the perspective that has been lost in all of the reimaginings and reboots durinng the last 15 years. It will broadcast in repeats during the nest 2 weeks, or you can watch it online.
"Certified humane raised."
Warning: This will probably make you angry about silly things.
Scrapple, Half-smokes, Marionberry Pie, Cowboy Cookies and Akutaq: Deadspin responds to Slate's wonderful state-by-state sports map (previously) with a map of regional foods, complete with highly opinionated rankings and commentary.
Don't Force Symbolism
Larry Flynt, Activist:
Don't Execute the Man Who Paralyzed Me "I would love an hour in a room with him and a pair of wire-cutters and pliers, so I could inflict the same damage on him that he inflicted on me. But, I do not want to kill him, nor do I want to see him die."
Four wings good, two wings better?
The effect doesn't work. Stanley doesn't mention it again.
The FAA vs. Trappy
Raphael Pirker, a.k.a. Trappy, is a FPV pilot who came to be well known after the video from his New York flight went viral. While most of the media coverage of Trappy's NYC exploits was positive, the incident prompted a heated debate in the hobbyist community, and the authorities took a dim view of it.
Shortly afterwards, Trappy was hired by a PR firm to do an aerial video shoot over the University of Virginia. The FAA, having banned commercial use of UAVs in 2007, took the unusual step of issuing a $10,000 fine for the unauthorized flight.
Earlier this month Trappy's attorneys filed a response(pdf) to the FAA's action which questions whether the FAA holds jurisdiction over "model aircraft" in the first place. According to Wired Magazine, he court's decision could determine the future of model aviation and miniature UAVs in the US. Once again, the response from the hobbyist/entrepreneur community has been spirited. [more inside]
drone mapping
Drone Mapping the Matterhorn "The Matterhorn has been mapped in unprecedented detail by a fleet of autonomous, fixed-wing drones, flung into the sky from the peak by their makers. What's more, the entire process took just 6 hours." [via]
ONWARD TO VICTORY
Will It Blend?
Are ‘Trans Rights’ and ‘Gay Rights’ Still Allies? New York Times examines: "Does it still make sense to think of trans rights as part of the gay-rights movement? Or at this point, is it a different campaign with different goals?" [more inside]
Up at the top there's a bucket and a mop and -
O’Bryan walked me slowly down the steep side of the mesa, to the desert floor, so I could see Star Axis in its entirety. The work’s centrepiece is a 10-storey staircase that lets you walk up through the rock of the mesa, your eyes fixed on a small circular opening that cuts through the top of the pyramid. The first section of the staircase is roofless and open to the sky, but the end of it has a stone overhang that makes it look and feel like a tunnel. This ‘star tunnel’, as Ross calls it, is precisely aligned with Earth’s axis. If you bored a tunnel straight through the Earth’s core, from the South Pole to North Pole, and climbed up it, you’d see the same circle of sky that you do when you walk through Ross’ tunnel. Gazing up through it in the afternoon glare, I saw a patch of blue, the size and shape of a dime held at arm’s length. But if the sun had blinked for a moment, fading the heavens to black, I’d have seen Polaris, glittering at the end of the tunnel, like a solitary diamond in the void."Embracing the Void," Ross Andersen, Aeon.
I didn't get your vote but I hope through my work to earn your respect
In a special election to fill the seat of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg, Newark Mayor Cory Booker (Booker previously on the Metafilter) has defeated Tea Party favorite Steve Lonegan. [more inside]
This is everything I know: a 24 comic about comics.
"I'm a professional indie cartoonist, and before that I was an aspiring pro." Spike is the author of Poorcraft, a how-to-live-well-within-your-means comic that many many of us on the Blue really dig.
Repairing a Saturn V rocket...during countdown on the launch pad
About this time, it came to my mind that during one of our training sessions we were told that one of the fully fueled prototype S11 rocket stages had been exploded out in the desert. The results showed that all buildings better be at least three miles from the launch lads - which they are. We were now within 25 feet of this 363ft tall bomb that sounded like it's giant fuse had been lit, and we were soon going to get much closer.
Repetition is the death of magic.
Of Human Bondage
The Walk Free Foundation has released its latest report on the contemporary slave trade, the Global Slavery Index (interactive map). As summarized by Al Jazeera, over 29 million people are in some form of involuntary servitude, ranging from kidnapped fishermen to women forced into prostitution to child brides. The countries with the largest populations of enslaved people include Mauritania, Haiti, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. Back in 2012, J. J. Gould wrote on the difficulties in confronting slavery in today's society: In the West, and particularly in the United States, slavery has long settled in the public imagination as being categorically a thing of the past.... It can mean having a harder time recognizing slavery when it's right in front of us.
Putrid smells reduce me to a pitiful pile
Morrissey's autobiography was released today, and rocketed straight to number one with a bullet. Published under the Penguin Classics imprint, it's full of surprises and quintessential Morriseyisms, and has even inspired a musical cover version from Peter Serafinowicz.
EU plans new laws to limit transfer of data to the US
The Guardian reports on new rules designed to curb the transfer of data to the US, with fines running into billions. [more inside]
Forgetting the sound of a dead person's voice is sadder.
What if it decides to fire?
Полигон (Polygon), also called Firing Range, is a Soviet short film from 1977. It concerns a tank that is able to read the brain impulses of enemy soldiers, and the man who designed it. The generals have great plans for this tank, but the designer, and the tank, have other plans. [more inside]
Maybe there isn't a "positivity ratio" after all.
Positive psychology superstars Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada had put forward a theory, seemingly with experimental confirmation, that was bolder than bold: that mankind, whether working alone or in groups, is governed by a mathematical tipping point, one specified by a ratio of 2.9013 positive to 1 negative emotions. When the tipping point is crested, a kind of positive emotional chaos ensues—“that flapping of the butterfly’s wing,” as Fredrickson puts it—resulting in human “flourishing.” When it is not met (or if a limit of 11.6346 positive emotions is exceeded, as there is a limit to positivity), everything comes grinding to a halt, or locks into stereotyped patterns like water freezing into ice. Nick Brown smelled bull.
And so my life began: Junior Lobby Boy-in-training
I’m going to make a “Public Castration Is a Good Idea” children’s shirt.
The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones sits down with Michael Gira of Swans to discuss, among other things, Not Here/Not Now, the new Swans live CD hand assembled by Gira. The proceeds will fund the making of Swans' next album.
Oh my but that big country elephant can play!
Fat Pony
The book is about a little warrior princess who is given a silly looking pony on her birthday, and it’s not exactly what she wanted … So [the story] is about finding value in something unexpected - Kate Beaton, best known for her Hark! A Vagrant book and website, announces Fat Pony, her new project. Wired Interview.
"like staring at a cow for 45 minutes"
Billions and Billions of Path Traces
The Physics of Light and Rendering is a talk given at QuakeCon 2013 by John Carmack, co-creator of Doom, Quake, and many other games at id Software and beyond. It provides a detailed but surprisingly understandable history of 3D rendering techniques, their advantages and tradeoffs, and how they have been used in games and movies. (SLYT, 1:32:01, via)
October 16
Women gamers, queer gamers and the trolls who hate them
"I’ve realised that if you’re a woman or queer gamer, you need a strong sense of the ironic and a mind of steel to be able to breathe and thrive in a culture that can often seem to despise you to a remarkable degree." Stephen Wright describes insights gained from watching his daughter play console games.
Will Graham's No Good Very Bad Day
Crackvids are the genre of fandom videos playing out of context or absurd audio over clips of thier favorite media but rarely do they meet the heights of this video for NBC's super serious high-Gothic drama about serial killers, Hannibal. (SLYTP, NSFW audio, SPOILERS, general fandom silliness)
There was a chance the Basketball Gods would smile down on him
It's the ultimate gamble. If the young man is successful, he comes home a hero, and becomes important. His life has meaning and purpose. But in order to succeed, he must first completely open up his soul to the consequences of failure, knowing there may be no way back out. This, above all else, is the hardest thing to do. 20 Minutes at Rucker Park.
THEESatisfaction: psychedelic space-soul jazz-rap from Seattle
THEESatisfaction is Catherine Harris-White (Cat) and Stasia Irons (Stasi), the spacey future-rap duo from Seattle who (kind of) got their break from the like-minded Shabazz Palaces, a collective lead by Ishmael Butler, aka Palaceer Lazaro. Shabazz Palaces was signed to the Seattle label Sup Pop in 2010, and they released Black Up (YT, official album stream), with THEESatisfaction featured as guest vocalists. From that appearance, Sub Pop signed the duo, and released their album, awE naturalE (YT, official album stream) last year. If that's not enough psychedelic space-soul jazz-rap, then check out their Bandcamp page, which is the source of their rambling collection of genres, and contains their releases from 2008 through the present. And if that's not enough ... [more inside]
An orphan goes to church and asks someone, anyone to adopt him
This had been his idea. He'd heard something about God helping people who help themselves. So here he was, on a Sunday in September, surrounded by strangers, taking his future into his own sweaty hands.
Dumpster Digs
Do you think you could live in 33 square feet? What about a 33 square foot dumpster? Beginning this fall, Professor Dumpster will take up residence in the customized trash bin in order to spread awareness about sustainability and promote the model of "less is more."
LOGIC! REASON! CRITICAL THINKING!
Make sure you get the hot wings! They'll blow your face off!!
The flagship franchise of Los Pollos Hermanos in Albuquerque may be completely fictional, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its own Yelp page.
jIyIntaHvIS not qajegh
Wide World of Sports Beards
"This is Brett Keisel, a defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers who makes the usually frustrating identifying process of having to look for pictures of NFL players sans helmet an unexpected pleasure. Consider two things: i) Why in the name of all that's holy would anyone want to imprison this cascading, oddly backwoodsesque yet pleasingly groomed beauty behind visor, mask or grille? And: ii) Given that he has nonetheless to do so, how the hell does he cram it all in? I'm picturing, in a pleasing sort of reverie, some sort of monstrous snood."
The Guardian presents the Greatest Beards in World Sports, parts one and two.
Scout!
The Scout Report "is the flagship publication of the Internet Scout Research Group. Published every Friday both on the Web and by email subscription, it provides a fast, convenient way to stay informed of valuable STEM and humanities resources on the Internet. [Best Of (by academic year): 2012-2013, 2011-2012, 2010-2011, etc.] Our team of librarians and subject matter experts selects, researches, and annotates each resource." [more inside]
I don't understand what's so hard to comprehend.
CBC host Peter Oldring discusses customer services at Canadian border crossings with Officer Murray Swift. Five minutes of unbelievable audio.
Another place I Will Never Live - The Chelsea Hotel
Get. A. Journal. Logan.
Wolverine gets fired. (SLYT)
The Russia Left Behind
The New York Times' Ellen Barry visits communities along M10, the Russian highway that links Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and finds a number of towns that are withering as the big cities grow. [more inside]
Ian Rubbish Sits Down With the Clash
The Last Gang in Town. Punk rock legends Paul Simonon and Mick Jones of the Clash sit down with Ian Rubbish of the Bizarros and talk of old times and how Ian was inspired by each Clash album. They then get together and jam an old Bizarros tune.
Surveillance City State.
"Reality has caught us" Ubisoft game Watch Dogs, scheduled for release next year, models pervasive surveillance as a game. Polygon's Charlie Hall investigates Chicago's vast camera network and finds the fiction might be not so far away from reality. [more inside]
Figuring out George Carlson
"In the year 8113 A.D., the most remembered cartoonist of our time may not be any of our currently revered comics creators. Not Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Jack Kirby, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, or Chris Ware. As incredible as it may seem, long after the last comic books of our time have crumpled into dust, the cartoonist of our era that People of The Future will dig (perhaps literally) could be a guy named George Carlson — an under-appreciated, largely overlooked cartoonist, illustrator, game designer, and graphic artist extraordinaire" -- In a two part series for The Comics Journal Paul Tumey explains why George Carlson is the best cartoonist you've never heard off.
Monster
Monster. "A short fable about a village that must hold a lottery to decide who will feed a monster waiting in the forest."
<3 Books
Behind the A.D.H.D. Epidemic
To be clear: Those are correlations, not causal links. But A.D.H.D., education policies, disability protections and advertising freedoms all appear to wink suggestively at one another. From parents’ and teachers’ perspectives, the diagnosis is considered a success if the medication improves kids’ ability to perform on tests and calms them down enough so that they’re not a distraction to others. (In some school districts, an A.D.H.D. diagnosis also results in that child’s test score being removed from the school’s official average.) Writ large, Hinshaw says, these incentives conspire to boost the diagnosis of the disorder, regardless of its biological prevalence. - SL NYTimes
Ideas worth saving
Donald Glover posts a series of somethings to instagram. A cry for help from a troubled star? Poetry? Song Lyrics? Sad and beautiful no matter how you slice it. (slhuffpo)
An Orgasm in Every Office
Journalist Natasha Tiku (you may remember her from her piece on Business Insider's Pax Dickinson) takes on the cult (?) of Orgasmic Meditation. [more inside]
MEDIEVAL LAND FUN-TIME WORLD
Privilege signs are fading away
New York’s ever-changing streetscape usually transforms at a pace too slow to be discerned. All appears as it was the day before, until the day comes when you realize how long it has been since you’ve seen...a privilege sign.
Farewell Detective Munch.
John Munch, formerly a detective with the Baltimore PD’s homicide squad and currently a sergeant with the NYPD's Special Victims Unit, has put in his papers. He'll be bidding farewell to his fictional coworkers and real-life fans as he heads off to retirement on tonight's episode of Law & Order: SVU. [more inside]
Sex-trafficking, fraud and money at the Somaly Mam Foundation
Cambodia Daily just ran two controversial features on Somaly Mam, a well-known trafficking survivor and head of the anti-trafficking non-profit, the Somaly Mam Foundation that funds shelters in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Somaly Mam, Cambodia's most well-known anti-trafficking activist, partly due to Nicholas Kristof whose "live tweeting" a brothel raid with Somaly Mam was roundly criticised by other NGOs in Cambodia, is accused of false stories of abuse, murder and kidnapping of young women, and the organization of hugely over-paying top staff including Somaly Mam herself. [more inside]
Utah Jazz...er...Hip Hop?
Historically, the state of Utah has had little relation to jazz music, giving the Utah Jazz the title (the team's only title) of the most incongruously named franchise in the world of sports. Would the Utah Hip Hop be more fitting?
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominations Announced
The 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations are out, headlined by Nirvana, thanks to its 1988 cover of Love Buzz that just meets the 25-year eligibility requirement. [more inside]
and if you stare long enough i swear to god it’s pointing to up
Comics writer Matt Fraction writes a heartfelt honest blog entry to a suicidal fan telling them what saved him and what could possibly save them too. [more inside]
we're all stars now, in the NOPE show
***WARNING ALL LINKS IN THIS POST POTENTIAL NIGHTMARE FUEL*** Crocodile (Krokodil), the super-powerful Flesh-Eating Russian version of morphine, has been called the World's Most Dangerous drug by such connoisseurs as Vice Magazine. Last week, news broke that it has spread to the United States, and even [gasp] New York City. [more inside]
"There's actually no such thing as an uninteresting natural number"
io9 takes a look at why the number 1729 shows up in so many Futurama episodes. It's mathtastic!
Every customer has a name, but custRec is a database record
Mama, I've been asked to the prom
It turns out that if you cut together a bunch of scenes from Disney's Cinderella along with the audio track for the trailer of the new Carrie remake, you get something very creepy, disturbing and brilliant.
Pat Robertson in the Congo
Mission Congo is a documentary that opened in the Toronto Film Festival discusses how so many of the resources from the minister’s Operation Blessing charity that was intended to aid Rwandan refugees during the humanitarian crisis of the 90’s , apparently ended up serving another purpose. Diamond mining in the Congo.
October 15
Not the girl you think you are
JJ Levine is an artist based in Montréal whose photographic series Alone Time features one person as two different people, of different genders, in the same frame. The latest in the series has just debuted on Buzzfeed and features Levine's partner as both an expectant mother and an expectant father, as well as an interview with Levine. [more inside]
Not fancy like Levittown
Cats Stealing Dog Beds
Cats Stealing Dog Beds [slyt]
What It's Like to Plummet to Earth at 834 Miles Per Hour
What's it like to plummet to Earth when your starting point is 24 miles above Earth's surface? What's it like to free-fall at 833.9 mph — 140 mph faster than the speed of sound? New footage shows Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking freefall from the stuntman's point of view. via The Atlantic
Tough Talk About Catfish
Linda Holmes, writer and editor of NPR's pop culture blog Monkey See, has some thoughts about MTV's show, "Catfished."
Look! Up in the YouTube!
75 Years of Superman in 2 Minutes (SLYT) supervised by Warner Animation's Bruce Timm (YAY!) and Man of Steel's Zack Snyder (no, he doesn't ruin it).
What can brown (water) do for you?
Greenville, Mississippi lies in the heart of the Delta and claims a number of writers from its neck of the woods, including Walker Percy and Shelby Foote. What is it about Greenville that would produce such talent? Is there something in the water? Some people think so.
Tyrant, mass-murderer ... editor.
Stalin's Blue Pencil (via).
Djugashvili (later Stalin) was a ruthless person, and a serious editor. The Soviet historian Mikhail Gefter has written about coming across a manuscript on the German statesman Otto von Bismarck edited by Stalin's own hand. The marked-up copy dated from 1940, when the Soviet Union was allied with Nazi Germany. Knowing that Stalin had been responsible for so much death and suffering, Gefter searched "for traces of those horrible things in the book." He found none. What he saw instead was "reasonable editing, pointing to quite a good taste and an understanding of history."[more inside]
Zach Dougherty, making reality less stable with animated GIFs
Zach Dougherty's hateplow tumblr is a surreal collection of looping animations, of distorted sculptures and glitches in reality.
Cockroach husbandry in China
Cockroaches being raised for cosmetics, medicine and food. "The 43-year-old businessman is the largest cockroach producer in China (and thus probably in the world), with six farms populated by an estimated 10 million cockroaches. He sells them to producers of Asian medicine and to cosmetic companies that value the insects as a cheap source of protein as well as for the cellulose-like substance on their wings."
Of course Boomerbutt has a pet koala called Rebound
Like pets? Like DC superheroes? Like Art Baltazar's artwork on Tiny Titans and other kid friendly DC comics? Then you'll love the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia, as reviewed by J. Caleb Mozzocco for Robot 6.
Nightmare in Maryville
Nightmare in Maryville - The Kansas City Star investigates the backlash against the victims family after rape charges were brought (and dropped) against local atheletes. The pattern of victim blaming and local indiference have brought comparisons to the Steubenville, Ohio case (previously) and anger on the internet. Meanwhile the Grand Jury investigation into Steubenville has brought it's first charges against an adult involved with the cover-up.
My name is Lentil, and I eat from a tube.
Lentil Bean is a French Bulldog born with a severe cleft palate. His owner fed him through a tube until he was old enough for reparative surgery. The surgery was a success, and once little Lentil could eat and drink on his own, he and his owner turned to a new task: advocacy for children with craniofacial differences. Lentil's best friend is Chris P. Bacon, a pig in a wheelchair. Lentil also has a Facebook page.
Ziggy Ziggy Sputnik
The Day My Kid Went Punk Afterschool Special - Teen decides to make himself noticed from the rest of the crowd by becoming a Punk Rocker (SLYT)
Talkin' Bout a Webolution
The awkwardly titled [2000] book, "FutureConsumer.com: The webolution of shopping to 2010," touches on everything from music downloads to grocery delivery, with a big emphasis on lists. And it's Feather's list for the 50 largest online retailers of 2010 which now stands as a fascinating time capsule of the first dot-com bubble. Naturally, Webvan makes the Top 5.
The Olympia, Paris, 1968
Charles Aznavour, at the top of his game, singing his signature song, La Boheme (SLYT). [more inside]
Getting trippy with simulated chemicals
Alan Turing's paper The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis described reaction-diffusion systems. Jonathan McCabe writes about adapting Turing's math to generate trippy images and videos. [more inside]
hexacopter nework
Matternet will be a network of drones to deliver stuff (matter), “micro-transportation” that will allow unmanned aerial vehicles to ferry all sorts of (small) goods across long distances. Video (5m). [more inside]
All Tokyo trains in real time.
Watch: SpaceX Grasshopper Rocket Launch Reaches Record Height
Grasshopper is an experimental rocket used by Space X to test returning the first stage of the Falcon 9 safely to the ground, for reuse on later flights. Last week, the latest test flight was filmed from a Hexacopter hovering near the launchpad and it's a minute and half of pure awesomeness.
It's amazing how quickly you will acclimate to the changes.
Over four thousand photographs of three hundred and fifty people were used to create this amazing stop-motion(ish) music video "Young" by Australian band The Paper Kites [via] [more inside]
Sounds of the wanderers
Whether or not all cultural historians agree with the premise that Rom people came to Europe originally from India, or whether or not the portrayals of Rom musicians in the film are always *accurate* or *authentic* ones (some have indicated they're not, or are too heavily draped in over-stylized Exotica), there is surely no denying that the film is a treasure trove of fantastic musical performances. You've probably guessed by now that we're talking about Latcho Drom, which you can see it in its entirety here.
October 14
The Julia Childs
If you become a cultural icon, those who come after in your field will almost certainly be compared to you and your achievements. And if you were the late Julia Child, ground-breaking television chef and champion of French cooking in the United States, you would find your name to be the first half of a lot of comparisons. The Julia Childs, as it were. [more inside]
Don't not make everything not private!
A Night At The Rock
"For 29 years, Alcatraz — the notorious prison off the coast of San Francisco — housed some of the nation's worst criminals: Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Birdman Robert Stroud.
Today, 50 years after it closed, it's a museum. And earlier this year, the National Park Service gave Bill Baker, a former inmate, special permission to stay the night in his old cell. He was 24 when he was transferred to The Rock. Today, he's 80."
(I can't link to it directly, but the audio is worth listening to)
Eugene Fama: "I was getting kind of tired of French..."
"... and so I took an economics course and I loved it," during a phone interview in the early morning today. Likewise, conversations with Robert Shiller and Lars Peter Hansen, shortly after the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded jointly to them for their academic contributions to the field of asset pricing. UChicago News, Yale News, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Bloomberg report. [more inside]
"I don't know if I like Mike Tyson." - Mike Tyson.
Mike Tyson - Beyond the Glory SLYT Documentary. Beyond the Glory is a documentary series that takes a look at the lives of athletes. Mike Tyson on the Wiki.
"Editing a series like this, do you detach yourself?" "No."
Hannah Price’s series, City of Brotherly Love, features portraits of men in Philadelphia captured just moments after they’d harassed her on the street. [more inside]
Better than anything Michael Bay will do with them
Turtles Forever (full length movie YouTube) was a feature length, 3 episode story from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 edition) released in 2009 as an end cap to that particular turtle continuity. Noteworthy for having the somewhat edgier, somewhat darker, definitely more angular circa 2003 turtles meet up with the recklessly wacky 1987 turtles via an interdimensional travel device. Inevitably they all end up traveling to Turtle Prime, the black and white world of the original comics and are scared out of their minds by the alpha turtles of that dimension.
The Disappearance of N
Last year, a friend of mine disappeared, and I found him in jail. I had a blizzard of thoughts about that experience; here are many of them. They didn't fit in a linear essay, so I wrote some code to present them in a tree.
[via mefi projects]
“Strike up the music, Dad.”
R.I.P. for the original ‘Jewish Hillbilly,’ Zeke Manners, died this date in 2000, who was buried – at his request – wearing “a baseball cap celebrating the Spice Girls, red suspenders and purple glasses from a 99-cent store. A cigar was in his pocket.” [NYT obituary] [more inside]
The smallest sound
In the 1950ties, before computers, before synthesisers, the Philips NatLab was experimenting with electronic music. Here are Dick Raaijmakers (aka Kid Baltan) and Tom Dissevelt to explain how they did it in a 1959 television feature and Raaijmakers again, in a 1988 documentary (part 2).
Potty narrative, by three-year-old
Jake Fried: Hand-Drawn Experimental Animations
Down Into Nothing | Jake Fried. 2013. Hand-drawn animation with ink, gouache, white-out and coffee (previously)
"Pedantic moralizing won’t mobilize Americans."
Outrage: "The world gives us no shortage of things to be outraged about, and in the right context outrage can be politically useful as well as morally appropriate. But outrage can also be reactive and unreasoned, and too often it leads us astray. It is understandable that the left, in its prolonged weakness, has come to rely on such defensive rhetoric. Over the past four decades, as unions were busted, wealth redistributed upwards, and Iraq invaded—all with electoral sanction—the American left has had little to enjoy besides the sense of righteous camaraderie which outrage can provide. But if the left has any ambitions for the twenty-first century—if it hopes to bring about good, not just decry evil—it must kick its outrage habit."
Katastichophobia
For your October delight: Top 10 horror movies, as picked by Guardian critics, Ten Exceptionally Well-Written Horror Films, Top Ten Horror-Sci-Fi Films: A Primer And Pseudo-History, The 12 Weirdest Vampire Movies Ever Made, The Top Grossing Scary Movies Of All-Time, and, perhaps most importantly of all: The 25 best horror films on netflix instant.
It's a bear. Playing tetherball.
Dad, this one's for you.
This mix was made using only my dad's records. Every one of them an original pressing, stuff he bought when he was about as old as I am now--give or take a decade. My dad never played an instrument really, and my mom always joked that he was actually tone-deaf. But man, what a taste in music--and in his own way, what an ear too. "Plays Pretty Just For You" is a new mix by Dave Harrington of the band Darkside, which has just released its debut album Psychic. Previously
How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers
Taxpayers fund the stadiums, antitrust law doesn't apply to broadcast deals, the league enjoys nonprofit status, and Commissioner Roger Goodell makes $30 million a year. It's time to stop the public giveaways to America's richest sports league—and to the feudal lords who own its teams. (SL Atlantic)
Are you glad that's over?
In October 1974 BBC host Russell Harty had a teenage musician named Brett Smiley on his show to perform his song 'Space Ace' and then interview him and his manager Andrew Loog Oldham. It was a pretty intense 4 minutes. The public reaction to both him and his music was similarly negative, and his record, Breathlessly Brett, was never released. It was recently re-issued, and Smiley is being recognized as a lost icon of the glam movement. [more inside]
Frontline's "League of Denial:The NFL'S Concussion Crisis" Airs
The much-anticipated Frontline documentary "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis" premiered on PBS last week. In August, ESPN pulled out of the project, reportedly due to pressure from the NFL (as previously discussed on MetaFilter here), while the NFL itself only days later announced a $765m settlement with over 4500 former players for claims of concussion-related disability. Reaction to the Frontline program was unsurprisingly mixed from factions involved with the issue, but generally well-received by journalists and TV critics. [more inside]
Tusk, Tusk
BBC World Service's Newshour is airing Guest Editors Week as part of the BBC’s Global 100 Women Season. Guest Editors include: broadcaster Yue Sai Kan, Google executive Susan Wojcicki, French journalist Anne Sinclair, Pakistani human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir and the former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. Chelsea Clinton began the series earlier today:
"As the luxury goods industries are expanding rapidly in China, hopefully a Louis Vuitton handbag for example or an Hermès scarf can be a status symbol as a substitute for ivory. And so it's also working with those types of companies in the private sector to ensure that their products, not ivory, are what people think of as status in China."
It's because you only went for 6 minutes.
Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity, from the New England Journal of Medicine. Among the myths discussed: Small sustained changes in eating or exercise make a big difference in weight; losing big amounts of weight quickly is less effective long-term than slow and gradual loss; that PE classes help reduce weight; and, tragically, that "a bout of sexual activity burns 100 to 300 kcal for each participant." But take heart! The authors point out that presumptions around the badness of snacking and yo-yo dieting are not supported! (There is also a correction to the original article, because the issue of breakfast remains contentious.)
You turned down a date to go to a stupid slumber party!
She was only a video store clerk - until the store TV started speaking to her! Blockbuster training video from 1990, pts 1 and 2.
Don't antagonize the dog.
Carpark is a cute little animation which reveals the dangers of teasing a dog locked in a car. [slyt | via]
12", 12x12
Yep, another clever way to play with iconic album covers. Reducing them to 12x12 grid- one pixel per square inch of the original LP. [more inside]
This Is the Average Man's Body
October 13
Better out than in.
Last Saturday this guy was selling canvases of "spray art" from a Central Park sidewalk stall for 60 bucks each. He sold seven of them. [more inside]
Danger is his first name
Danger Mouse (previously), Count Duckula, and Victor and Hugo were three of the many very silly, very British cartoons created by the Manchester-based Cosgrove Hall animation studio. First airing in the 1980s and early '90s, each of the shows were chock-full of wordplay, bad puns, absurd humour, and general zaniness. The studio stopped making original shows after being sold off by its parent company in 1991, and eventually shut down in 2009. The BBC recently covered the history of Cosgrove Hall in a short article and a much longer 30-minute radio tribute by David Jason, voice of Danger Mouse himself (as well as Count Duckula, Hugo, and many other characters). [more inside]
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: explorer, shaman, proto-anthropologist
' "Discovery" is such a loaded term nowadays in American cultural studies that one dare not use it without immediately qualifying it as problematic and politically charged. We tend to prefer "invasion" or "dispossession" or "conquest" because those words, and their attendant categories, suggest a more accurate way to characterize early American exploration.... Homi Bhabha's theory of the "hybrid" colonial subject, and his focus on the production and maintenance of colonial power, has compelling implications for the relationship between European explorers and Native Americans in Cabeza de Vaca's 1542 discovery narrative La Relación. Several scholars have commented on Cabeza de Vaca's hybridity—the collision between his Spanish heritage and his acquisition of Native American culture—but none has discussed it in terms of the exercise of colonial power and its resultant ambiguities.' This is a verbose introduction to the interesting and complex life of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of the four survivors of the 600-strong Narváez expedition, in the period of inland Spanish conquistadores. You could read more, or watch Cabeza de Vaca, the 1991 film that is "sometimes straightforward, sometimes pagaentlike and sometimes hallucinatory ... a road trip movie set in a time before there were roads."
There Must Be Something in the Water in Iceland
Icelandic band Árstíðir sings the hymn "Heyr himna smiður" a capella in a German train station, to beautiful effect. [more inside]
Contemporary poetry from around the world in English translation
Poetry International Rotterdam has contemporary poetry in English translation from all over the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, including countries as different as Argentina, China, Finland, Iran and Romania, in languages as unrelated as French, Malayalam and Zulu, as well as many poems originally in the English language. The poets range in age and stature from those barely over thirty to Nobel prize winners. There are also videos and audio recordings of poets reading, as well as articles about poetry.
Aging face transformation gifs
Young to old, gifs showing the transformation of age. One noticeable thing in all photos is the known ‘random fact’ that the ears and nose are 2 body parts that never stop growing and getting bigger – from birth to death. All on one page, where you can click the hand icon in the corner of the image and slide the bar back and forth manually. Video from dovga. [more inside]
Never Listen to the Hat
Ben Edlund, creator of the Tick and writer for Angel, Firefly, Supernatural, and most recently Revolution, has joined twitter. So far, he has used it for posting random doodles, mentioning myths he long held to be true, and other assorted thoughts. [more inside]
A Secret Life
In 1994, the Tampa Bay Times published a riveting story about Kenneth Hardcastle. One of Tampa Bay's civic elites, Hardcastle also had a burgeoning crack addiction and a fondness for underage prostitutes. [more inside]
Grumpy isn't a mean dwarf, but he's a pessimist and has little patience
Everything Is Terrible digs up a real find: highlights from a Disney suited character performer training tape from 1976!
The Bus.
Paul Kirchner's The Bus is a surreal gag strip that ran in Heavy Metal magazine in the early 80s. It can be bought as a book, but the book is out of print. Here it is on Imgur. Downright scrumptious, old-fashioned flavor with that 70s east-coast anomie vibe.
They call me Happy Pete/I came to this store to buy myself a treat
Selling is Service, Service is Selling - A Musical Training Video
Edit by 04882 joel backdoor
"How do you calculate the effect that demons have on property value?"
Does Satan worship lower a Las Vegas mansion's value? [latimes.com] How do you determine a price people might pay for such “stigmatized properties?” It’s simple, really. You call Randall Bell.
The Death of the Urdu Script
How the internet is killing the traditional nastaliq script form of Urdu, and how Windows 8 might save it.
A Genre of Surpassing Banality
The tornado did nothing to the sharks, sorry.
Twitter: @HardSciFiMovies imagines the plots of SF/F movies moving more in line with reality.... [via mefi projects]
If you put up posters in the right place, witnesses know.
London's Great Exodus.
Whittingham Hospital
Whittingham Hospital is a beautiful abandoned psychiatric hospital near Preston, Lancashire, England. It pioneered the use of EEGs in psychiatry, and was at one point the largest such hospital in the country (and second largest in Europe), with its own railway station, 500 acres of farmland, a water tower, theatre, brewery and butchers. Said to be haunted, and now slated for redevelopment into homes, you can now take a virtual tour, and read up on its history, with horrifying patient abuse, and a nurse convicted of manslaughter in the death of a patient.
Other duties will involve catching and eating the fish and crabs
Kevin Smith has been given the green light to shoot his next film, a horror movie about a man forced to dress up in a walrus suit by a sadistic tormentor. The film will be called 'Tusk'. Smith was inspired by a real life advert placed on Gumtree earlier this year in which a man who had befriended a walrus called Gregory while living on a remote island off Alaska (now heartbroken, having returned to the UK), offered free rent in his Queen's Park flat for anyone willing to wear a walrus suit for two hours a day. The advert was a prank by a Brighton performance poet. I am not making any of this up. [more inside]
October 12
Is it humerus?
If you enjoy skeletons and terrible puns, this comic will meet your needs for today. (SLTumblr, via Reddit)
"Niagara Falls through a coffee straw...."
I have posted links to Amazon reviews before. But the reviews for the sugarless Haribo Gummy Candy.....well, I just couldn't deprive you all of what is surely the most...well....just see for yourself.
Apple Cabin Blue
Gravity
Alfonso Cuarón and Emmanuel Lubezki's 22 year collaboration continues to break new ground with the release of Gravity. Whether you enjoy Gravity or not, you may want to take a moment and consider the lengths to which Cuarón and Lubezki went to make Gravity a fully immersed cinematic experience. [more inside]
Meet My 9 Year Old Boss
Raveena Aulakh of The Star got hired at a sweatshop in Bangladesh. Her boss was a 9 year old girl named Meem.
Catch the action, guess the mystery on my show. The best show: Mr. T.
"Listen up. This is Mr. T. I pity the fool who misses my show. I pity him!" These words began about half of the episodes of Mr. T, the animated series. It was part Scooby Doo, part A-Team, and part American Anthem. But whatever it was, it was thoroughly 1980s, and its entire 30 episode run can be found below the fold. Each show featured a live action lead-in to that week's mystery, in which Mr. T. and his globetrotting, crimesolving band of child gymnasts brought down another bad guy. Following each show was another live action segment imparting a moral lesson. So, it looks like you have a few seasons to catch up, doesn't it? [more inside]
"Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?"
When DNLee was approached to write blog posts for Biology Online, she quite reasonably asked about the terms of the agreement. When she turned them down, their response was...somewhat less than reasonable. And when DNLee posted to her blog about it, Scientific American – who hosts her blog as part of their science blog network – responded in perhaps the most tone-deaf manner possible. [more inside]
"Evacuate the children, put up the blackout curtains, kill the cat."
Advice to UK animal owners just before World War Two broke out: "If at all possible, send or take your household animals into the country in advance of an emergency." It concluded: "If you cannot place them in the care of neighbours, it really is kindest to have them destroyed." [more inside]
'cause I'm as isolated as a bird now, sitting on a park bench
Free Bird. That's right, the Lynyrd Skynyrd tune. It's an icon, it's a joke. It's a legend, it's a must to avoid. It's a masterpiece, it's a disaster. It's all and none of the above. But, yeah, whatever. Here's the guitar solo, isolated. That is all. No, wait. That is not all. What the hell, here's Ian Anderson's isolated vocals for Aqualung, Cross-Eyed Mary and Up To Me.
Thus saith the Lord, I inform you that I overturn, overturn, overturn.
Abiezer Coppe is the best-known of the Ranters, religious dissenters that arose out of the poliical social, and religious ferment of 17th C England. He is most notable for A Fiery Flying Roll. (version with modernized spelling) [more inside]
Not just another freak snowstorm
"...Winter Storm Atlas took a huge toll on folks in Western South Dakota earlier this month. With reports of up to 58″ of snow and almost hurricane-force winds, South Dakotans were struck hard with an early season blizzard of historic proportions...Estimates are that upwards of 70,000 cattle, horses, and livestock perished in the storm. That means many ranchers lost all of this year’s calf crop and a good majority of their cow herds...I’ve encountered many losses in ranching, having several cattle at once struck dead by lightning, but I cannot imagine what it must be like to see dead cattle and horses strung out for more than 100 miles." [more inside]
That like totally ruined the movie for me
The Realism Canard, Or: Why Fact-Checking Fiction Is Poisoning Criticism. "Every work of fictional narrative art takes place within its own world. That world may resemble our world. But it is never our world. It is always the world summoned into being in the gap between its creators and its audience. " (via)
Core Internet Governing Bodies Ditch the US Government
ICANN, IETF, W3C, IANA -- along with all regional name registries across the globe have decided to cede oversight and control by the US Government's Commerce Department. A new global multistakeholder Internet Cooperation is to be formed to take its place at the helm of Internet Governance. Press Release from ICANN, Internet Governance Project article [more inside]
‘This is just like in the movies.’
"We are under the impression you have more ties with more countries we are not on friendly terms with than your own. We decided to bring you back to the Canadian border."
Dutch writer and animator Niels Gerson Lohman: Why I Will Never Return to the USA (nederlandse versie)
Dutch writer and animator Niels Gerson Lohman: Why I Will Never Return to the USA (nederlandse versie)
Dylan = Floating Cigarette = Aykroyd
Middle + Off: A tumblr blog that juxtaposes photos to surprising, elegant, and often humorous effect. (Probably NSFW -- there's some artful nudity in there.)
What Stephen King Isn't
Piteously primitive, a tyrant of the imagination
"I'll swallow your soul!"
Colossal sized Picassos
the notorious xx is a tremendously good mashup by producer wait what of The xx's debut album and assorted Biggie Smalls verses, mostly from Ready to Die. infinite victory and it's all about the crystalizabeths are my favourites, but the whole thing is perfect: ethereal guitar, sparse percussion, and Biggie's relentless rhymes.
Plus ... tubular bells
Known to millions of Dutch children as the chase music in Bassie en Adriaan, Mike Oldfield's avant garde rock classic Tubular Bells is forty years old this year. Largely a one man creation, with Mike Oldfield himself playing most of the instruments from bass guitar to tubular bells, a small army of friends was assembled for the BBC performance of the album's A side. [more inside]
Faces of the American Revolution
October 11
Jailangaru Pakarnu
Jailangaru Pakarnu was the first song to hit the popular music charts sung in an Australian Aboriginal language, released by Warumpi Band in 1983. [more inside]
Breakfast Can Wait
In what can only be described as a peculiar reversal of approach, Prince has released his latest video on Vevo/YouTube. Breakfast Can Wait is classic Prince, slow and funky, featured altered vocals reminiscent of Sign O' The Times era tracks, full of sexxxy goodness. The SFW video is also classic in form, with Janet Jackson-style synchronized formation dancing.
The internet will suck all creative content out of the world
David Byrne on making a living from music. 'Many a fan (myself included) has said that "music saved my life", so there must be some incentive to keep that lifesaver available for future generations.'
Settlements will be paid in doubloons
When your name is "Jamie Casino", you're pretty much required to have a commercial that looks like this (SLYT).
Black Flag v. Flag
SST label honcho Greg Ginn's lawsuit against the other former members of Black Flag, several of whom now playing as Flag, isn't going so well. Henry Rollins isn't playing with either group, but is also named in the suit. Both groups (Ginn, 1979 vocalist Ron Reyes, and hired hands playing as Black Flag, the others playing as Flag) been on tour this summer.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON PUPPY BUTT
No SATs, No Grades, No Problem
Bard College has introduced a new admissions criteria: No consideration of SAT scores or grades. Students can now submit four 2500 word essays and be admitted if their work is judged to be of B+ or better quality by faculty. Is this system just waiting to be gamed?
Genii's MagicPedia, preserving the history and techniques of magic
Genii, the conjurer's magazine is the longest-running independent magazine devoted to magic and magicians in the history of the art. Their website has a bit of information for the public including some lively forums, but the real treasure trove is MagicPedia. There, you can find over three thousand biographies, information on almost 1,700 books of and about magic, nearly 200 magic organizations, and so much more. The current featured article is on the American Civil War, and the role numerous magicians played at that time.
Hellzapoppin' Lindy Hoppin' - the Harlem Congaroos & Slim Gaillard, too
Slim Gaillard & Slam Stewart with The Harlem Congaroos is a clip from Hellzapoppin'.
Just as swingingly and athletically thereafter, The Congaroo Dancers, a Whitey's Lindy Hoppers joint, appeared in Duke Ellington and His Orchestra with the Congaroo Dancers - Hot Chocolate, also know as the Cottontail Soundie.
And, on a side note, Slim Gaillard & His Trio - Chile & Beans O'Vootee and Slim Gaillard & his Orooney Dunkers - Dunkin' Bagels O Voutie Rootie are from Slim Gaillard and his Trio - The Music Album aka O'Voutie O'Rooney. [more inside]
Just as swingingly and athletically thereafter, The Congaroo Dancers, a Whitey's Lindy Hoppers joint, appeared in Duke Ellington and His Orchestra with the Congaroo Dancers - Hot Chocolate, also know as the Cottontail Soundie.
And, on a side note, Slim Gaillard & His Trio - Chile & Beans O'Vootee and Slim Gaillard & his Orooney Dunkers - Dunkin' Bagels O Voutie Rootie are from Slim Gaillard and his Trio - The Music Album aka O'Voutie O'Rooney. [more inside]
The longest palindrome in Morse code is "intransigence"
Run Rabbit Run
Scottish rabbit in the headlights meets Scottish van drivers who refuse to squash a little Scottish rabbit who won't give way.
EU Immigration
Immigrant boat headed to Italy, capsizes, more than 200 people in the water. A little more than a week after a boat sinking that killed over 300 people, the Italian navy has reported another boat is sinking. As refugees flow into the EU, looking for asylum, countries are torn between saving lives and stymieing the flow of people pouring into countries already under strain from austerity. [more inside]
1. Somebody, somewhere does something bad
Speed traps coming soon to a park near you!
Speeding in Chicago? Your commute may become a lot more expensive as Chicago fires up and institutes a new speed camera policy. [more inside]
Picard was a bit too enthused. “You two are literally making it so!"
Ben Wyatt's Star Trek Fanfiction. Since last October, Pawnee, Indiana's most adorable curmudgeon has been writing stories about his favorite fictional characters that happen to dovetail neatly with his nonfictional life. Starting with Parks and Rec episode How a Bill Becomes a Law, his fiction extents week-by-week to comment on his life, his girlfriend-slash-wife, and the adventures of all the crew of the Starship Enterprise. He also wrote his own Star Wars remake to counter Patton Oswalt's filibustered proposal, and occasionally drops a Lord of the Rings love letter as well. His hobby is sometimes mocked by fellow co-worker April Ludgate. More fan fiction beneath the fold. [more inside]
It's always been my dream to own the largest waterfall in New York
What does 39$ Million get you in Manhattan real estate these days? How about a UES townhouse with its very own 22-foor waterfall?
Looks like someone is auditioning to replace the Hannibal food stylist.
Dr. Bunsen's Experiment
A comprehensive, double blind, experimental approach to making the best cup of coffee.
Wither Privacy
Facebook just got less private. Now anyone one can find you. Facebook has eliminated a setting that controls whether users could be found when people type their name into the website's search bar. [more inside]
Nobel Peace Prize goes to OPCW, citing Syrian conflict
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, with the Norwegian Nobel Committee saying, "Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons." [more inside]
Papa continues to preach, relentlessly
'Though I made some tough demands / I'll be proud to hold your baby in my hands.' In 1986, actor Danny Aiello, who played 'Papa' in the video for Madonna's song Papa Don't Preach, released an answer song called Papa Wants the Best for You. As reported at the time of the song's release, 'the tragedy of the father at first turning his back on his daughter haunted Aiello and he decided he'd make some kind of new statement on his own'. (Via Dangerous Minds.)
5th Avenue Blue
NY 41×41 is a very cool Infinite Zoom Illusion Video of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue created by Paul Trillo. [via] [more inside]
100 Days of Fuzzies
The twin panda cubs at Zoo Atlanta will be turning 100 days old on Oct. 23. Following tradition, they will be named on that day, with a selection of names currently open to public voting. The poll is tucked away on the Good Morning America site and is open until Oct 21.
October 10
Conflicts of interest
Conflicts of interest in the Syria debate: An analysis of the defense industry ties of experts and think tanks who commented on military intervention
Storyboard 75: The big book of narrative
Since the first stirrings of the Nieman Foundation’s narrative writing program nearly 20 years ago, the staff has tended a treasure trove of resource material devoted to excellence in journalistic storytelling. Much of that material went online first via the Nieman Narrative Digest and, in 2009, here at Nieman Storyboard. Storyboard 75 represents some of the most popular posts from our archive so far. Essays, interviews, how-to’s and analyses of narrative journalism.
Kumar Valavhadas Pallana (1918-2013)
5 Minutes With Kumar, episodes 2 - 3 - 4
The Rituals of Kumar
“THE YOUNG AGE IS A STUPID AGE”
OR
NO HUSTLE, NO BUSTLE
An interview with Kumar Pallana (1918-2013).
The Rituals of Kumar
“THE YOUNG AGE IS A STUPID AGE”
OR
NO HUSTLE, NO BUSTLE
An interview with Kumar Pallana (1918-2013).
Pink?
"I am not a ranter by any means and I have been pretty quiet about “Pinktober” and what has come to be known as “Pinkwashing” in breast cancer circles, but seeing October 13th advertised as “National No Bra Day” and as a “fun” way to support people with breast cancer has pushed me over the edge."
A perspective worth considering.
Musical Trains
A Robot Train That Lets You Write Music With Magic Markers: "... much of Suzuki's work focuses on new ways to visualize music. Looks Like Music is his new project, an alternative to standardized Western musical notation synesthetic enough for even dyslexics to understand. Even cooler? It's music notation done with robots." [more inside]
King of diamonds, king of spades! Bezos was king of the kingdom of work
The Secrets of Bezos: How Amazon Became the Everything Store, Brad Stone (Businessweek) "Amazon’s culture is notoriously confrontational, and it begins with Bezos, who believes that truth shakes out when ideas and perspectives are banged against each other. Wilke and his colleagues argued that lubricants were available in supermarkets and drugstores and were not that embarrassing. They also pointed out that Amazon generated a significant volume of sales with such e-mails. Bezos didn’t care; no amount of revenue was worth jeopardizing customer trust. “Who in this room needs to get up and shut down the channel?” he snapped." [more inside]
with your Minimum Requirement of Stephen Fry... and some other stuff
CBS made a deal with producer Greg Garcia ("My Name Is Earl", "Raising Hope", "Yes, Dear") to make two pilots recently. One, "The Millers" with Will Arnett, premiered as a series last week to good ratings and lukewarm reviews. The other remains unsold but CBS (in a semi-unprecedented move) has put the pilot up online. So sit back and waste 22 minutes with a rather "Earl"-esque complex-concept comedy starring Stephen Fry as a loyal butler and Rupert "Ron Weasley" Grint as "SUPER CLYDE".
Native peoples have fought these mascots since 1963
There has long been protest about the name of Washington's NFL team - the "Redskins". In September, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell changed his stance from supporting the name, to saying "if one person is offended, we have to listen." Then last week the President of the United States sided with changing the team's name. Shortly afterward, the NFL agreed to have representatives meet with the Oneida Nation about the name in the next month. Then yesterday Washington team owner Dan Snyder wrote a letter to fans and season ticket holders in an attempt to defend the name "Redskins". But one writer tells what Snyder essentially said with his letter. Amid an official campaign and groundswell of support for changing the name, Ray Harbritter of the Oneida Nation professed "This is not going to away this time" [more inside]
Which Is Creepier: Mom's Costume, or the One In the Box From the Store?
Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know Podcast, has put together two amazing galleries of old Halloween costumes. Really old, homemade costumes, and Seventies and Eighties costumes.
Coming Soon
The character posters for Lars Von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" are , ahem, here (NSFW).
Leveraging Imperfections of Sensors for Fingerprinting Smartphones
SensorPrint is a proposal to exploit subtle imperfections in accelerometers as a unique fingerprint for smartphones [pdf]. It's easy to demonstrate the idea: Generate a unique ID for your own device. SensorPrint joins other hardware-based tracking concepts in the pursuit of non-configurable, location-aware, un-deletable "cookies" on your mobile device. [via]
“No other institution would have hired Glenn Greenwald.”
Freedom of Information. The New Yorker looks behind the scenes at The Guardian under current editor Alan Rusbridger, including the investigation of the News of the World phone hacking scandal (previously), overseeing the release of US diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks (previously), and the continuing reporting on NSA material obtained by Edward Snowden (previously).
Godspeed, Scott Carpenter
Scott Carpenter has died at 88. As the commander of Aurora 7 in 1962, Carpenter was the second Mercury astronaut to orbit the Earth. He is best known for having wished his friend John Glenn "Godspeed" as the latter launched into orbit. [more inside]
The Last Hunt
Worse, he is wearing a helmet and will be teased mercilessly by his peer
Greg Shapiro presents Planet Nederland, not a BBC nature show, showing the Dutch in their native habitat. [more inside]
Noble Nobel Offices
Nothing makes a carrot more appealing than turning it into a centipede
If you're looking to play with your food and you've mastered the hotdog octopus (aka octodog), and you're sad that so many of the modern foods-and-crafts projects lack poetry to describe the crafting process, take a peek at Aunt Jo and Uncle George's Kritters of the Kitchen Kingdom from 1922. (And as you could expect, it's dated and a bit racist.)
Points for creativity?
"In a bizarre case involving threats of kidnapping, beatings and physical torture — including the use of an electric cattle prod— two rabbis were charged in New Jersey on Wednesday in a scheme to force men to grant their wives religious divorces." [more inside]
Where will we be in the year 2000?
On the cusp of a new century, Hildebrand’s, a German chocolate company, produced a set of cards depicting the year 2000.
"Once, there was a boy from a small pueblo … "
"He's the most enthusiastic actor I've ever worked with, and it makes you wanna make roles for him." According to Rodriguez, "Everyone calls him Machete now. Even his mom calls him Machete." He's had hypodermic needles jabbed into his neck. He's had a power drill run through his brain. He's had an immolating crucifix speared into his vampire heart. Charles Bronson and Robert De Niro have killed him. Stone Cold Steve Austin and 50 Cent have killed him. Mickey Rourke has killed him twice. In 2010, after nearly three decades of bit parts as brutal, doomed toughs, Trejo finally starred in a movie. In a couple of days, the gonzo sequel Machete Kills will hit theaters, cementing Trejo as just about the least likely Hollywood franchise star you can imagine. (previously)
Nostalgia, Brought To You By Web Technology
2070 Paradigm Shift
Sam Hyde of the satirical sketch-comedy group Million Dollar Extreme managed scam his way into giving a TED Talk at TEDx Drexel. The results were marvelous. [more inside]
Fifty Shades of Orange
"But Bryzgalov still has one more fan-fiction story than Cliff Lee, Allen Iverson, Evan Mathis and most other Philadelphia professional athletes that do not play hockey. Because this phenomenon doesn’t happen for baseball, basketball or football." The Philadelphia City Paper on Flyers Fan Fiction.
Like a boss
Subway by Omid Singh, Winner of the Audience Award, 2013 No Budget Film Festival, interview with Omid
Lana! LANAAA!
Archer does Danger Zone [slyt]
Who Sits On All The Money?
Playing Space Invaders on a mountain
Here's three minutes of giant telescopes shooting lasers into space. (Also on Youtube). [more inside]
In 1492 Christopher Columbus Destroyed Our History
Why celebrating Columbus Day is wrong, and Bartolomé Day is right. (according to theOatmeal.com)
Unlikely to produce portals to Hell after watching, but no promises.
Eye – a video optical illusion that can produce hallucination like effects for a few minutes after you watch it. [blinky slyt | via]
IKEA or Death
Shootout at the Goodreads Corral
A couple of weeks ago, Goodreads — a massive social networking and cataloging site for books, readers and authors — announced a change in its moderation policy. From now on, the site’s administrators would be deleting “reviews that were created primarily to talk about author behavior.” [more inside]
Despise what you do. Despise your whole crew. You're so out of touch.
Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize in Literature
Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Munro is praised by the Swedish Academy as a "master of the contemporary short story." You can read a long interview with her at the Paris Review website and read some of her short fiction at The New Yorker's website: Amundsen, Gravel, Face, Deep-Holes, Free Radicals, Dimension, Wenlock Edge, The View from Castle Rock, Passion, Runaway and The Bear Came Over the Mountain.
October 9
Malala Yousafzai leaves Jon Stewart speechless
“I’ll tell him how important education is, and that I even want education for your children as well. And I would tell him, ‘That’s what I want to tell you, now do what you want.’” - Malala Yousafzai (previously), shot by the Taliban a year ago, talks to the Daily Show's Jon Stewart about what she would do if a gunman came to shoot her again, as they have promised.
Absolute power! Bzzz Bzzz.
Give me your firstborn... to cuddle
In Egypt, a campaign to promote an ‘Egyptian Islam’
In Egypt, a campaign to promote an ‘Egyptian Islam’ “This is the new regime trying to create an official Islam, a state Islam, which doesn’t exist within the Islamic tradition,” said Emad Shahin, a professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo. “It’s providing a religious justification to tolerate the killing of possibly thousands of people, and it is sending alarming signals into many segments of society. This is exactly what you call fascism.” [more inside]
Why I Stopped Writing Recommendation Letters for Teach for America
As Lightning Prepares To Strike...
Claiming they haven't been asked any interesting questions in 17 years, Pearl Jam aren't [isn't?] doing any "press" for their new album release, but they have done some unconventional, interesting interviews: with director Judd Apatow [50m, via NPR.com], with Portlandia's Carrie Brownstein [part 1 of interview linked here, right-click and choose "open menu" or discover menu at end of each segment to view more parts, or those with FaceBook can "like" to gain access to full interview, around 1h total], with Down-Under surfer Mark Richards [34m, via Brisbane Times], and with former NFL star Steve Gleason [YT, 9m30s]. (This last is less an interview and more a news magazine feature on Gleason and his struggle with ALS.) [more inside]
Human - Remote Control Tourist(s)
For eight hours a day to Oct. 13, Facebook and Twitter users can log on to the Melbourne Remote Control Tourist website and "control" two volunteer explorers with helmet-mounted streaming video cameras. Users can check out the explorers' Instagram feeds, track their locations using Google Maps or FourSquare and ask them (via a tweet or Facebook) to visit certain places, check things out or even sing a song. via adage [more inside]
Ten UK album cover locations
Look Around You. Marijuana MAKES You Violent.
Marijuana MAKES You Violent "We are a community based organization that aims to raise awareness that marijuana causes violence. We are a science based, secular, apolitical group. We are seekers of peace and truth. Don’t believe the lies put out by the media that marijuana addicts are just harmless peaceful hippies. Anyone who consumes marijuana becomes violently enraged and is capable of committing atrocious acts of violence. The toxins in the marijuana destroy the hypothalamus and amygdala, all centers of reason and rationality disappear from the brain." [more inside]
Clearly you think you're a home design genius.
Mazal tov!
Penis Beaker
Mumsnet, the popular social network of (mainly UK) parents, suffered traffic load issues today due to a post-coital hygiene question. [more inside]
Can Even $200,000 Justify the Playing of a Bon Jovi Song
Factory Farm
"With the cold, atmospheric music and time-lapse shots, it’s more like an eerie, futuristic sci-fi film than an in-your-face animal rights video. There's no gushing blood here — just slow pans that gradually reveal the immensity of scale." Samsara (previously), from the directors of Baraka and Chronos.
Elvis Costello and the Roots: 'There's no such thing as too funky'
Ahmir Thompson, aka ?uestlove from The Roots, and their producer, Steven Mandel, are secret "Elvis freaks." One of their early discussions about agreeing to their gig on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon was the possibility about playing with Elvis. The Roots took the job, and Elvis has now played on the show five times. From these collaborations, the seeds of something bigger grew, and that came to a very funky (and political) fruition with Wise Up Ghost, embedded as streaming tracks in this Guardian review, and available in a single stream from a fan on YouTube. If you'd like to hear more about how the "remixing" of some prior Costello pieces (Pills and Soap, National Ramson, and Hurry Down Doomsday, to name a few songs), Costello and Thompson spent about 40 minutes with NPR's World Cafe, or you can read their interview with the Guardian.
We are wallowing in an atemporal zone of cultural production
Habitually verbose pontificator Will Self reviews the latest tome from Mark Kermode - Britain's Rockabilly Ebert - and in doing so, reviews the changing nature of criticism.
True blue or skewed hue?
Know your shades of corporate blue!
The Ultimate (Frisbee) Argument For Visiting Healthcare.gov
John Hodgman posted about the ACA, which led his followers to tweet him about the various health problems they had encountered and the effect insurance or a lack thereof had to their lives. Hodgman retweeted many of the stories from people in their 20's and then posted 17 reasons for young people to get insured to his blog.
Even a rising tide can't raise a sinking ship...
With the government shutdown now well underway and the effects beginning to be felt, the first debt default by a major world power in modern history since the collapse of the Soviet Union speeding toward us in what could be as little as a week, what will Americans and the world think of the US Congress that refused to pay the nation's outstanding debts, making America look like a dead-beat nation to potential investors around the world? Polls show Americans overwhelmingly blame congressional Republicans for the political standoff and shutdown. With some Republican congressmen on the record arguing that a US debt default may actually be necessary to rein in further government spending, it's easy to see why many Americans blame them. [more inside]
These were the people I loved. They said "Chink" and they said "faggot."
Why I Stay Closeted In Asia (SLBF)
I denied it, as my father and sister begged me to.
I couldn't exaggerate to you how much my mother's face lit up, or how much I wanted, for a shameful second, for my lie to be true. I began to tell her a story, got into the groove, told it with what could be called pizzazz, or maybe just mercy. A monthlong fling with a Korean girl became a year ("I liked her; she had a cocaine problem"). Immediately she laughed with relief.
"I wouldn't know how to deal if you were, you know, that" she said.
As a conversation topic, witchcraft can elicit all sorts of reactions
Humming Ashokan Farewell While Viewing Is Optional
More dogs than you can throw a stick at
Are you a dog lover? Better yet, are you a dog lover who also likes vintage photographs and other imagery, featuring our canine friends? Well then, you'll want to trot on over to Vintage Dog Postcards and Ephemera. Endless scrolling awaits you. I really do think it's endless.
HTML5 Super Mario Bros.
That deserved a good kick in the shin.
Jésus-Christ Marie! Ils sont des minéraux!
Ooooh. Aaaah. Pretty. Woaaaaaah.
Do you like looking at pictures of rocks and minerals photographed against dark backgrounds? Me too. It's Bijoux et Minéraux.
▲
Who is William Onyeabor?
William Onyeabor is, or was, a funk musician from Nigeria. He self-released 8 albums between 1978 and 1985 and then became a born-again Christian, refusing ever to speak about himself or his heavily rhythmic and synthesized music. Despite giving up music for a life in the church, Onyeabor can count Fourtet, Caribou and Damon Albarn as fans. The Luaka Bop record label is releasing World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who Is William Onyeabor? next month
I'm just a bloody normal bloke... who likes a bit of torture
“There is no doubt some of Read’s stories are embellished, polished or, in some cases, stolen, but there is also no doubt that through the 1970s and 80s he was one of the most dangerous men in Australia.” RIP Mark 'Chopper' Read [more inside]
October 8
K E L O I D II
In a not too distant future, societies of all countries come to rely on an intricate network of artificial intelligence devices designed to bring efficacy to man's life. Yet, man continues to devour himself in useless wars. A strong political hierarchy now divides all powers into three factions, and A.I. devices rapidly gain ground as efficiency becomes a priority.
As social revolts grow worse everyday, authorities seek ways to control their citizens. They decide to carry out a series of tests that will determine not only whether some crucial powers can be transferred to non human entities, but also whether man is ready to yield those powers.
The world has become a cell for all man and women, who withstand and endure their lives, rather than living them. Machines might have found a solution. From now on, you are set free. [more inside]
We want to have Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Can you make us a reservation?
"There were some good looking chickens there, Jack."
"Midnight Run" celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, so its prime time to take a look at what may be the pinnacle of the Action-Comedy genre. [more inside]
The Walking Dead of Riverdale
Afterlife with Archie is a gorgeous new horror comic featuring Archie, Jughead, Sabrina, and the gang in zombie-filled Riverdale.
Author. Dreamweaver. Visionary.
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, the legendary sci-fi hospital horror romance drama from the 1980s, is now available in its entirety on Youtube. The timeless tale of hospital doctor/occasional occultist Rick Dagless and his handsome friend Lucien Sanchez, the stunning and occasionally psychic Dr. Liz Asher, and hospital director Thornton Reed (played memorably by first-time actor and occasional talk-show host Dean Learner), Darkplace spawned a number of hit singles, including the rocking ballad I'm a One-Track Lover and the heartbreaking Skipper's Song, sung from Rick Dagless to the one-eyed sexual molester that he has adopted as his new son. An episode guide follows: [more inside]
ALL HAIL THE MULTICOLORED GLOW CLOUD
Welcome to Night Vale, the most popular podcast in the US, has an openly queer narrator (Cecil) with a (requited?) crush on a person of color (Carlos, a scientist). There's no physical description of Cecil, so fans have filled in the blanks. There is a lot of debate over whether he's white or should be portrayed as such. Fuck Yeah Brown Cecil explores various options; this blogger explains why a Native Cecil matters. Night Vale of Color celebrates the characters of color and this fan-made trailer envisions a diverse cast.
But what is Welcome to Night Vale about? If you have a few minutes, the PBS Idea Channel will try to explain the unknown; if not, try this Buzzfeed primer. Or just listen to the podcast already! [more inside]
INTERNET 1897: A Series of Pneumatic Tubes, Some of Which Contain Cats
Between 1897 and 1953, the New York City post office used a system of pneumatic tubes to move up to 30% of its mail around the city. Among the first things sent whizzing across Manhattan during the inauguration of the system: a black cat. Via the links in that Atlantic article, you can find other strange aspects to the story. For example, there was a pneumatic subway in use in NYC by 1870 — The Beach Pneumatic Transit covered an entire block for three years!
What is was like to fall asleep in your car at night as a child.
An animated comic that tries to capture what it was like to fall asleep in the car at night as a child. (via)
I am underage yet I can still list drinks!/How sophisticated is that?
Long Promised Road: The 1967-1971 Beach Boys
"Isn't it an essential component to the Beach Boys myth that Brian Wilson retreated to a coma-like state after the Smile sessions?" Edwin C. Faust reviews Smiley Smile (1967), Wild Honey (1967), Friends (1968), 20/20 (1969), Sunflower (1970) and Surf's Up (1971).
Your Moment Is Waiting
Were the First Artists Mostly Women?
Were the First Artists Mostly Women? The National Geographic outlines a recent study on those handprints found near Neolithic Cave Art. By looking at finger length of the hand outlines on those walls, researchers hypothesize that 75% of the artists of iconic cave painting were women. Some adherents to other theories (the jubilent male hunter as artist; the hopeful male hunter as artist, the shaman as artist, the exploring young boy as artist) are not so convinced.
*Pop*
Wish they would let me go home
Here is the video for the J Mascis (of Dinosaur Jr) and Sharon Van Etten cover of John Denver's song Prisoners (from the tribute album The Music Is You), featuring Aimee Mann and Superchunk's Jon Wurster as two eerily committed John Denver fans. If this sounds like the kind of thing you like, you'll really like this.
It Can Wait
The Superior Court of New Jersey's Appellate Division ruled on August 27 that if, as you text someone, you have special reason to know that the intended recipient is driving and is likely to read the text message while driving, you as the texter have a duty to users of the public roads to refrain from sending the driver a text at that time. [more inside]
Ich bin ein King of Pop
The biggest controversy of the election!
It all started with a simple tweet. Nova Scotia commentator Parker Donham wanted to show his support of a local candidate by taking a picture of his marked ballot and posting it to his Twitter followers. Elections Nova Scotia took a dim view of this violation of the Elections Act, and tweeted a reply: "please be advised that your action is being referred to the RCMP for investigation", stating it is illegal to bring a recording or communication device into the polling station. Donham defends his action, and much controversy ensues. [more inside]
Pennsylvania, you get field hockey
If every US state got one sport what would it be?
Macaroni's ready
When you're back here, assume that everything is hot, sharp & poisonous
Making realistic weapons from earlier time periods* is all fine and dandy, but what about watching a blacksmith make Cloud's ridiculously large Buster sword from Final Fantasy VII, or the diamond sword from Minecraft? You can also browse all of Man At Arms videos as sorted into playlists, or watch the complete series. [more inside]
Milk: it does a body good
Do you like classic pin-up girls? Do you like milk? London based photographer Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz put the two together in these mind-boggling high speed photos featuring dresses made of milk.
Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise
"What if telekinesis was real? How would you react? Our hidden camera experiment captures the reactions of unsuspecting customers at a New York City coffee shop as they witness a telekinetic event." (SLYT, viral marketing)
The thrillsville of it all...
Gay Talese's "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold" appeared in Esquire Magazine in April 1966. Sinatra had turned down interview requests from Esquire for years and refused to be interviewed for the profile. Rather than give up, Talese spent the three months following and observing the man and interviewing any members of his entourage who were willing to speak -- and the final story was published without Sinatra's cooperation or blessing. In 2003, editors pronounced it the best article the magazine had ever published. Nieman Storyboard interviewed Talese last month about the piece and has annotated it with his comments. [more inside]
Mud, Concrete, Glass, Home
A Short History of the Highrise A four-part NYT interactive documentary by Katrina Cizek on apartment buildings through the ages, part of the National Film Board of Canada's HIGHRISE project (Previously).
We're going to need some more cards
Airboarders is the true story of every rags-to-riches based on a true story you've ever seen (SLYT).
Scientists Confirm Sheeple Safe to Eat
With 2000+ global studies confirming safety, GM foods among most analyzed "Environmental impact studies are predominant in the body of GM research, making up 68% of the 1,783 studies. These studies investigated environmental impact on the crop-level, farm-level and landscape-level. Nicolia and his team found “little to no evidence” that GM crops have a negative environmental impact on their surroundings." [more inside]
Slurp slurp
Back Streets of the Internet
#indie #delorean #kidnapping #safe #:)
Spanish Indie Rockers Delorean Safe After 'Virtual Kidnapping' in Mexico City [spin.com]
After two days' disappearance and a ransom call to family members, the group is safe, but police aren't saying more.More info here [Article in Spanish].
100% Renewable Energy Worldwide is Possible by 2030
Stanford University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mark Z Jacobson, claims that worldwide re-powering with Wind, Water, and Solar (WWS) energy, rather than continuing the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power, would save millions of lives per year from pollution, help avert disasters related to global warming, and increase worldwide economic, social, and political stability. He has a plan to achieve this goal. [more inside]
It’s a double-bind: consume, but look like you don’t
The Unique Thelonious Monk
Angel music
Tom Waits (on Robert Wilson): "Wilson, he's always playing with time. I heard a recording recently of crickets slowed way down. It sounds like a choir, it sounds like angel music. Something sparkling, celestial with full harmony and bass parts - you wouldn't believe it. It's like a sweeping chorus of heaven, and it's just slowed down, they didn't manipulate the tape at all. So I think when Wilson slows people down, it gives you a chance to watch them moving through space. And there's something to be said for slowing down the world."
Gotta keep the devil way down in the hole
"Here’s what was off-limits, according to many of the people I grew up with: books about witchcraft, the writings of Anton LaVey, Ouija boards, New Age crystals, pentagrams, albums with backward masking, and the music of most heavy-metal bands. ... Yet here’s what was okay to enjoy, according to those same chums and acquaintances: The Omen. The Amityville Horror. Rosemary’s Baby. The Exorcist. These movies passed muster because they didn’t encourage people to dabble in the dark arts; they warned people." The Exorcist And The South's Love Of Devil Movies.
Funny business names
Betty loves her Band-Aids.
The Australian Red Cross has released a slightly warped and brilliant short: Band-Aids can't fix everything. Learn First Aid. [slyt | via]
Prêt-à-Jouer and Videogame Couture
Administrators Ate My Tuition
Washington Monthly examines the rapid increase in the numbers of middle managers at universities and the correlation to the rampant increase in tuition costs at American universities.
Buffering
October 7
Alright, get a little closer to the mic, here we go...
First, you might want to listen to the Beach Boys song Sloop John B, just to refresh your memory. Then a look and listen to the video Behind The Sounds: Sloop John B will give you some nice insight into the recording and arranging process and open a window onto the keen production expertise of a young Brian Wilson, directing a roomful of seasoned session pros (none other than the Wrecking Crew). It's how they used to make records, kids!
Andrew Wylie on publishing
"Not very many people read. Most of them drag their knuckles around and quarrel and make money. We’re selling books. It’s a tiny little business. It doesn’t have to be Walmartized." Superagent Andrew Wylie, who represents Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Elmore Leonard, and Philip Roth, among others, talks about the future of publishing, his on-again-off-again relationship with Amazon, and "effete, educated snobs who read," with the New Republic.
The Impossible Geometry of Fanette G.
Bad Librarian! Bad!
Good librarians gone bad. (SLTumblr)
Do Iraqi-Jewish Treasures belong in Iraq or Elsewhere?
On Oct. 11, provided the government shutdown doesn’t interfere, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C., will open an exhibit titled “Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage.” On display will be some of the rarest of the materials that were salvaged from the flooded basement of the Mukhabarat, Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence service. All told, the collection contains an estimated 2,700 books and tens of thousands of documents that once belonged to the Jews of Baghdad, who, until they began to flee for Israel in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, constituted one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, dating back more than 2,500 years. - In the chaos of the 2003 war, remnants of a once-thriving Jewish past were saved (or stolen?) by America. Where do they belong? [more inside]
The Senate Chaplain
"You talkin' to me?" has to be the thought in the minds of every one of the members of the Senate.
Let's just get "I love lamp!" out of the way right here.
Elite Fixtures dot com wonders what popular films and comics would be like in a world where people truly appreciated the humble lamp.
We call them BATs - Big Ass Tablets
A look behind the scenes of Fox News' new news room, featuring new giant touch screen interfaces for the news investigators and an interesting image display wall.
Maybe No Longer Forever 20 Years Away?
National Ignition Facility (NIF) achieves fusion break-even "...The latest achievement has been described as the single most meaningful step for fusion in recent years, and demonstrates NIF is well on its way towards the coveted target of ignition and self-sustaining fusion."
"Good evening, I'm Conan O'Brien, President"
Conan Furloughs Non-Essential Staffers [video, 7 min]
The Colossal Vitality of His Illusion
Baz has graciously agreed to let us release this 'before and afters' reel to show our peer group the VFX work completed on his film The Great Gatsby
McCutcheon v. FEC
Supreme Court to consider lifting campaign contribution limits. Reversing McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission would allow unlimited individual campaign contributions.
The New Canon
Media Studies professor Anne Helen Petersen writes about the dominant role of Netflix in her students’ film and television consumption, and its effect on the lasting influence of works that are — or are not — available there:
Through this reliance on Netflix, I’ve seen a new television pantheon begin to take form: there’s what’s streaming on Netflix, and then there’s everything else…[more inside]
Why?
The world's most extensive study of the drug trade has just been published in the medical journal BMJ Open, providing the first "global snapshot" of four decades of the war on drugs. To sum up their most important findings, the average purity of heroin and cocaine have increased, respectively, 60 percent and 11 percent between 1990 and 2007. Cannabis purity is up a whopping 161 percent over that same time. Not only are drugs way purer than ever, they're also way, way cheaper. Coke is on an 80 percent discount from 1990, heroin 81 percent, cannabis 86 percent. After a trillion dollars spent on the drug war, now is the greatest time in history to get high.
Posters to the People
Excellent collection of free, downloadable posters that you can print at home.
Are you looking for low-budget and stylish decor?
These vintage posters can be downloaded in a high-res ZIP format and printed. Most of them are advertising from years gone by.
Are you looking for low-budget and stylish decor?
These vintage posters can be downloaded in a high-res ZIP format and printed. Most of them are advertising from years gone by.
The Schadenfreude section of the Internet
Pike County, OH: As Black As We Wish To Be
In this episode, Al Letson and guest producer Lu Olkowski visit a tiny town in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio where, for a century, residents have shared the common bond of identifying as African-American despite the fact that they look white. The middle segment of the episode, in which a daughter has split from her mother and sister and chosen to identify as white, has been re-edited and aired as a Radiolab short: Ally's Choice
M-Bots: modular cube-shaped robots
Researchers at MIT have created M-Bots, small cubes with internal flywheels that use angular momentum to move and magnets to help them stay aligned, as demonstrated in a video. At this point, the robots are not strictly autonomous; rather they are controlled by commands sent by radio.
Famous paintings re-created in old toys and other common items
Jane Perkins re-creates famous paintings and images using bits of old toys and other commonplace items. Artist's website. Related to button art. Reminiscent of the works of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
Trick or Tweet.
Bird. Here to remind you that Halloween is on its way.
Fake Real Stamps and Real Fake Stamps
The U.S. Postal Service prints more than 20 billion stamps a year, the vast majority of which are perfect. However, tiny errors can make even humble 1-cent stamps worth many times more to collectors (or philatelists, if you're feeling formal). The most famous of these is perhaps the Inverted Jenny, which features a biplane flying upside down. Only 100 of the misprinted 24-cent airmail stamps issued in 1918 were found, and one can fetch nearly a million dollars at auction, or even appear in a Florida ballot box (that one was fake). [more inside]
The 100 top things you honestly don't need to do before you die
Coal Camps USA.
Coalfields of the Appalachian Mountains. An encyclopedia of coal towns.
The 10 Most Dangerous Places in New York City
Enemy Cat-batants?
Preservation or facilitation?
Not a decrepit defunct ghost town
No, THIS is Detroit is an Imgur photo album by a Detroit resident fed off with seeing their city objectified as "exploitative ruin porn".
Let's Hike!
Tom Fassbender hiked the John Muir Trail solo and he's written about it on his blog, fordsbasement.
via
This Australian Life
Each week we choose a theme and bring you a variety of stories on that theme... well, not quite. But the Australian radio station ABC Radio National has had a program, Now Hear This, running for almost three years now. It showcases storytelling efforts from amateurs and pros, each given five minutes to tell a story on a particular theme. The results are funny, sad, and beautiful, sometimes all at once. You don't need to be Australian to appreciate them. Official site. SoundCloud. [more inside]
October 6
Apathy and Voting
Want to start your Monday with the sadness of ineffectual activism? (slHTML5) Apathy attempts to simulate social networking (not in a bad way) and activism in bicameral politics.
"I have never been custodian of my legacy."
In Conversation: Antonin Scalia "On the eve of a new Supreme Court session, the firebrand justice discusses gay rights and media echo chambers, Seinfeld and the Devil, and how much he cares about his intellectual legacy ("I don’t")." [more inside]
Spore: My View of the Elephant
A postmortem of the video game Spore from a member of the development team, Soren Johnson: "A few weeks ago and with little fanfare, Spore turned five-years-old. The game was announced at GDC 2005 during Will Wright’s annual mind-blowing speech on whatever floats through his head. The initial concept – of a game in which the player evolves a species from cellular development to galactic dominion – generated an immense amount of hype, which the game struggled to fulfill upon its 2008 release. Spore received middling reviews from the gaming press, who found the gameplay weak and unfocused, and harsh criticism from the scientific press, who felt tricked by the promise of a game built from real science.
For myself, the time is now right to put down my own thoughts on Spore’s development – my memories of the project are still fresh, yet enough time has passed to ensure that criticism doesn’t impact active teams."
Ping Pong with Knives
Narcoland
'Mexico's war on drugs is one big lie'. '"Narcoland shows how contemporary capitalism is in no position to renounce the mafia. Because it is not the mafia that has transformed itself into a modern capitalist enterprise, it is capitalism that has transformed itself into a mafia. The rules of drug trafficking that Anabel Hernández describes are also the rules of capitalism."' [more inside]
And still the party goes on.
Nero's Guests is a story about India’s agrarian crisis and the growing inequality seen through the work of the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, P Sainath. The entire film is uncopyrighted and available to watch online. As Sainath says, "There are two kinds of journalists. One kind are journalists, the other are stenographers." As to the silence of the mainstream Indian media on the farmer suicides, he noted:
"Tacitus despised Nero. His writings on the Emperor show us that. However, he wrote very little about his guests. Those who could pop that fig while human torches burned around them. But then, come to think of it, the media of our time – the first-drafters-of history – are remarkably silent about this side of our own elite. Too many of whom are today just that. Nero’s Guests.
The Big Chill
Let the enlargement of knowledge be one constant view and design in life
The Improvement of the Mind by hymnwriter Issac Watts provides surprisingly relevant and modern advice on how to learn, listen, read, debate, and converse. It proved to be inspirational to the great experimentalist and scientist Michael Faraday. Full version on Google Books.
Undelete! Undelete! Undelete!
On the cusp of Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary, rumors have been swirling for months that at least 90 of the 106 missing Doctor Who episodes have been recovered. Today, a Sunday tabloid in the UK ran the same rumor. A report in the Radio Times seems to confirm it. [more inside]
There isn't any tension-destroying, mood-killing fanservice.
Kotaku dubbed it one of the shows to watch this season, later said that it was not living up to its potential, and finally proclaimed it "damn good." Its over the top, but really fantastic, soundtrack has spawned a bit of a meme and, of course, it has inspired the requisite minecraft recreation. After all of that, though, and with the anime's first series coming to an end recently, one of the most high comments that can be paid to the series thus far is that it handles gender in a way that is head and shoulders above many other series.
If he hollers let him go
10 seconds in the span of 10 minutes
TimeFRAME (Unity plugin/plays in-browser) is a lovely meditative game created as part of Ludum Dare 27 by Tyler Owen, Clark Aboud, Alex Senechal.
Downloadable versions: Windows, Linux, Mac, Windows with Occulus Rift support.
Downloadable versions: Windows, Linux, Mac, Windows with Occulus Rift support.
Grundeinkommen - ein Kulturimpuls
Switzerland to vote on $2,800 monthly 'basic income' for adults (reddit, mr; previously-er) [more inside]
Prance-y Dance-y Fancy Death Machine
Boston Dynamics ( Previously, previously, previously) recently released video of its brand new 4-legged running robot - Introducing The WildCat
PuzzleScript
Coffee, air baths and a lunchtime martini
The kids don't give a damn about your generation's movies
Bringing Up Nick is a show where Revision3's Adam Sessler tries to teach his younger and movie ignorant colleague Nick a thing or two about classic movies and their cultural impact. First up, James Cameron's Aliens.
That tour of the whole house thing Americans do is bizarre though
"In New York City, if you yell “where do I get the F train?” at someone they will tell you, they might even STOP to tell you. If you ask them “Excuse me, I was wondering if you have a moment, I’m from out of town and my trying to find the F train, so if you could possibly…” If you set up your question with all that, they will have walked away from you after the fifth word.
In Seattle, if you are pushing your car for some reason, men will appear without a word and help you push. You’ll be pushing, and the next thing you know, there are men on either side of you." -- Cultural Secrets that I Know
In Seattle, if you are pushing your car for some reason, men will appear without a word and help you push. You’ll be pushing, and the next thing you know, there are men on either side of you." -- Cultural Secrets that I Know
October 5
You = Tourist = Jerk
Johnny T’s NYC Tourist Tips (slyt)
Boobs!
Motion-Induced Blindness
Motion-Induced Blindness plus 105 other Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions.
One Giant Stumble
While profiling Dogfish Head's new 'Celest-Jewel-Ale' moon dust brew, Outside online took a look at some of the good and bad scientific innovations in beer containment recently:: Beck's playable Edison bottle • Natty Light in 'space' • Budweiser's bowtie beercan • Heineken's lightsaber bottle.
Low-wage workers fight to make bad jobs better.
A growing number of Americans is realizing that “good jobs” aren’t coming back, and that for things to get better, they’re going to have to fight to turn their McJobs into something better. (Via Jacobin) [more inside]
Is he the David or the Goliath?
Does Gladwell matter? Is he relevant to our daily lives? If you don't think so, are you merely not his intended audience? Perhaps it's just a matter of taking it with "the proper portion of salt"?
I have such sounds to show you
Monsters Rule OK: A British Horror Playlist. Fangoria presents a mixtape of British horror that includes musical selections from Blood on Satan's Claw, The Wicker Man, Chocky, Berberian Sound Studio, A Field in England, Children of the Stones, and Twisted Nerve—as well as dialogue excerpts from Don't Look Now, The Stone Tape, Hellraiser and others.
White Lion Cub - Hear her roar
Serbia’s Belgrade Zoo welcomed its newest — and perhaps most adorable — resident, a rare white lion cub, eight days ago. On Thursday, the press got a glimpse of the little pipsqueak (emphasis on squeak), who was born to parents Masha and Wambo. [more inside]
YOUR MAGAZINE ON THE SCREEN
Wegman, Flo and Wendell
Although best known for iconic photographs of his Weimaraner dogs, artist William Wegman is also a painter. While Wegman's combined the two before, recently painting atop commercial travel postcards, he's just published Flo & Wendell, a children's storybook illustrated by dog photos painted over to tell a whimsical tale. Images and review (LA Times); video (YouTube).
Autumn in Oz: the mostly abandoned Land of Oz opens again
In 1957, Grover Robbins opened the "Tweetsie Railroad", a Wild West themed park centered around a segment of the old East Tennessee & Western North Carolina gauge railway. Then from 1965 to 1968, Robbins purchased or leased land on Beech Mountain in North Carolina (Google maps) with the idea of a year-round theme park in an area already popular for skiing. The result was The Land of Oz, which included props bought from MGM through an auction. The park was only open from 1970 to 1980, closing due in part to a fire and the death of Grover Robbins. The park was partially restored in 1990, then opened one weekend in 1993 for an employee reunion. That was the first of an annual event, Autumn in Oz, happening this weekend.
Monkey. Plane ticket. Dictionary. Go!
The Pen is Mightier than The Diving Elbow Drop Lucha Libre is Mexico's answer to wrestling. Fighters put on masks an duke it out in the ring. In Peru they have Lucha Libro where aspiring authors put on masks go on stage where they are given 3 random words with which they are given 5 minutes to write a short story. The loser has to take off his mask. The winner goes onto another round. The grand prize winner receives a book contract.
This Sceptred Isle
The Beast is Back: Campbell versus Dacre
Having dealt with Daily Mail Deputy Editor Jon Steafel somewhat robustly on Newsnight this week during a discussion of the Daily Mail’s vilification of Labour leader Ed Milliband’s deceased father Ralph Milliband, a left-wing academic and Jewish refugee who also served in the Royal Navy in World War 2, the former New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell (previously) has challenged the Daily Mail’s Editor in Chief Paul Dacre to a televised debate about the matter. While some have welcomed Campbell's forthright stance, others, more predictably, are hoping the whole thing will blow over soon.
October 4
Driving Cadillacs in Our Dreams
Red Napoleon
'Legendary Vietnam Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap dies.' 'Vo Nguyen Giap, the brilliant and ruthless self-taught general who drove the French out of Vietnam to free it from colonial rule and later forced the Americans to abandon their grueling effort to save the country from communism, has died. At age 102, he was the last of Vietnam's old-guard revolutionaries.' 'To military scholars around the world, he was one of the 20th century’s leading practitioners of modern revolutionary guerrilla warfare.' [more inside]
Classical Roman Cooking
Finding Siri
Susan Bennett has identified herself as the original American voice of Apple's Siri. She came forward after tech blog the Verge did a video feature causing some to misattribute the voice of Siri to another woman.
Kiva Interest Rate Finder
Kiva Interest Rate Finder "Kiva allows people to fund microfinance loans through Field Partners. Some Kiva Partners charge the equivalent of 109% APR. That is incredibly high. Kiva doesn't make it easy to find the partners that charge borrowers 0% or low interest, so I made a script to do so. " [via mefi projects]
myths of heaven
Joan Roosa, wife of Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot Stu Roosa, recalled "I was at a party one night in Houston. A woman standing behind me, who had no idea who I was, said 'I've slept with every astronaut who has been to the Moon.' ...I said 'Pardon me, but I don't think so'".
Not in charge of finding treasure in the dark
Grapevine (The Reflex Stems ReVision) is a deeply funky version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's version of Heard it through the Grapevine remixed by French DJ Reflex, using just the original stems. [more inside]
Slaves for football
"The indispensable English footballer whose metatarsal will snap four weeks before the 2022 World Cup is currently 12 years old, but Fifa is already worrying stagily about the temperature in which he will perform disappointingly. As for the 12-year-old Nepalese boy whose family are unwittingly saving for the chance to send him off in a few years to die laying the foundations of a stadio-mall, or the 12-year-old Qatari boy wondering not when his people voted for this, but whether they'll ever vote for anything at all … well, it would be much easier if people did not concern themselves with them."
The Guardian summarizes the current issues over the staging of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Cheap gas for your auto! Natural gas that is.
The hits keep going...
Radio Free Earth "Radio Free Earth finds the #1 song according to the Billboard Charts on a random (or determined) date, measures how long ago that date was, finds a named star that distance away, and then outputs which star that #1 song is just reaching at this moment." [more inside]
Unfulfilled dreams have a way of playing tricks on you....
Rob Meline always dreamed of being an astronaut. He became a teacher instead. But the beloved faculty member at Camas Prairie Elementary in Spanaway, Washington kept a family secret. When he fell victim to it in October 2012, he became the symbol of a flawed judicial system. What his students did next was out of this world.
Lauryn is the New Back
Hip Hop legend Lauryn Hill is set to be released from federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut today. It is the prison Piper Kerman was also in, depicted in the netflix series Orange is the New Black. Lauryn's team has released a new track as part of a new material called Letters from Exile. Consumerism.
y2bekarl's Sweet Soul Music Hit Me!
Arthur Conley - Sweet Soul Music
Alvin Cash & The Crawlers - Twine Time
Dixie Cups - Iko Iko
Robert Parker - Barefootin'
Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose A Good Thing
Al Green - Tired of Being Alone
Ann Peebles I Can't Stand The Rain
Al Green - Can't Get Next To You
Syl Johnson - Take Me to the River
King Curtis & the Kingpins - A Whiter Shade of Pale
[more inside]
Alvin Cash & The Crawlers - Twine Time
Dixie Cups - Iko Iko
Robert Parker - Barefootin'
Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose A Good Thing
Al Green - Tired of Being Alone
Ann Peebles I Can't Stand The Rain
Al Green - Can't Get Next To You
Syl Johnson - Take Me to the River
King Curtis & the Kingpins - A Whiter Shade of Pale
[more inside]
Trading in your Chevy for a kay-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak
This fall, why not kayak down a drainage ditch at speeds of 35 mph?
Everybody’s in the minstrel show
“Oh,” says the ad man. He’s responsible for the hour of primetime television Revlon has bought and turned over to Belafonte, who, by the way, will not be singing “The Banana Boat Song,” and has also decided that he won’t accept commercials.
“Oh my god,” says the ad man.
Belafonte grins now, and says what he thought then: “Swallow that sh*t, motherf***er.”
The Revolutionary Life of Harry Belafonte.
More proof that math trickery can be used for good or evil.
Amaze Your Friends, Solve World Hunger; How to Create Chocolate out of Nothing! [slyt]
Princess Diana of Themyscira
Let's All Go To The Lobby!
“Movie theaters wanted nothing to do with popcorn,” Smith says, “because they were trying to duplicate what was done in real theaters. They had beautiful carpets and rugs and didn’t want popcorn being ground into it.” Movie theaters were trying to appeal to a highbrow clientele, and didn’t want to deal with the distracting trash of concessions–or the distracting noise that snacking during a film would create. - So Why Do We Eat Popcorn At The Movies Anyway? (Smithsonian Mag)
The Overexposed Model
She's the most famous woman in the world you've never heard of. The Overexposed Model is a blog dedicated to collecting appearances of a mysterious stock photography model whose smiling face has sold eyeglasses in Greece, healthcare in Peru, oral gel in Malaysia, Jamba Juice in the US, radio stations in Germany, and countless daily deal websites. Its readers report seeing the model almost everywhere they go. [more inside]
if you go out in the printshop today
Teddy Bear Roll Out A printmaker, a printing press, and some stuffed animals.
Q&A: The Women Who Write Dinosaur Erotica
Interview at NY Mag, prompted by a few internet mockery blurbs linked in the first paragraph.
CORVUS CORAX und WADOKYO - Wacken Open Air 2013 Live
Wielding bagpipes, the largest hurdy-gurdy in the world, and a huge array of other medieval instruments, neo-medievalists Corvus Corax (official site) join with taiko drummers Wadokyo for an incredible sunset performance at 2013's Wacken Open Air festival. [more inside]
LSE: Creative industries not harmed by digital sharing
A new report (pdf) released by LSE’s Media Department contradicts widespread claims about the decline of creative industries as a result of copyright infringement. The report shows that the gaming, film and publishing industries are growing and new business models are emerging based on digital sharing. (See pages 7-8 of the report for figures.) [more inside]
Time is Money!
Once every two years "Only Watch", a charitable fundraiser for research on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, auctions unique watches provided by the prestige Swiss watch brands. It was held in 2013 on September 28, raising 5,066,000 Euros. In a year with some disappointing sales, which watch sold for the highest value? [more inside]
Now that's a fast dog.
Momoko: Is it good?
Paulo: Oh, yes! Please try it.
(and other insane Japanese textbook doodles from Twitter user 茶んた). [more inside]
Paulo: Oh, yes! Please try it.
(and other insane Japanese textbook doodles from Twitter user 茶んた). [more inside]
Africans in space? Ridiculous!
A dialogue between the Anthropocene and Afrofuturism looks at alternate aspirations for modernity: "[u]nlike what it suggests, Afrofuturism has nothing to do with Africa, and everything to do with cyberculture in the West." (via) [more inside]
Especially Azerbaijan
The Top 80 Highlights of the World according to Michael Spencer Bown, a Calgarian who may lay claim to the title of 'the most extensively travelled person in human history'. [more inside]
October 3
Come at me, bro.
Phonte has thought a lot about which rappers correspond to which classic television shows.
Gunta Stölzl: Artist, Weaver, Bauhaus Master
Gunta Stölzl was an extraordinary textile designer. She led the Weaving Workshop at the Bauhaus from 1926-1931, transforming it into an innovative and successful workshop that elevated the department they pushed women into (weaving being considered a woman's craft) into a innovative, successful department that treated weaving as art. She then moved to Switzerland where she continued her career as a designer and innovator. This website has a fantastic array of images of her work and life.
Some of my favorites: 1922 design as a student | pictures of the Bauhaus - Weimar | Working out fabric patterns | an honorary diploma | Bauhaus Masters, 1926 | rug design | Closeup of a 1960s Fabric [more inside]
Leave No Man Behind
Twenty years ago today the Battle of Mogadishu raged in the streets of the Somali capital as members of Task Force Ranger attempted to arrest two lieutenants of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. When one of the helicopters crashed, what was planned as a short mission became a street-by-street fight to reach the pilot and crew, and then evacuate them from the city. The battle – which some estimates place at 160 American, Malaysian, and Pakistani troops against 6000 Somali militiamen and civilians – became known to the public as Black Hawk Down thanks to the work of Mark Bowden, a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer who wrote a 29-part series on the battle in November and December 1997, leading to the critically acclaimed 1999 book Black Hawk Down, and the 2001 movie of the same name. [more inside]
Digital disciplines
All work and no play... it says on Bart's blackboard
TREEHOUSE OF HORROR XXIV "The Simpsons" announced that the 'couch gag' for this year's Halloween (three weeks early) episode would be 'created by Guillermo Del Toro'. What has been pre-released to YouTube is a three minute deconstruction of all the elements of a usual Simpsons opening sequence AND MORE, with almost uncountable references to horror movies (and Guillermo Del Toro movies - and Futurama).
Vivaldi's Four Seasons - as you have never heard them before
Nigel Kennedy, best known for this performance of the Four Seasons by Vivaldi at the Proms in 1989, decided to give the popular classical piece a make over. He invited the Palestine Youth Orchestra to ". . . bring(s) fresh insights to these visionary concertos, including the addition of his own improvised links between them." Youtube Link [more inside]
Opplopolis
An esoteric ensemble of characters scour the city of Opplopolis for clues to the mysterious Marvedyne. (by Kit Roebuck, formerly of Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life [previously])
Tough enough to be a Sissy in Wyoming
'Longtime cross-dresser Sissy Goodwin of Douglas, Wyo., has been anything but weak as he stands up to bigotry in the Cowboy State.' 'A stranger once drove up to his house and kicked out his front teeth. People called him a queer and a pervert. He's also been booted from countless stores, hotels and restaurants, all because of the way he dresses.' 'While Wyoming is the self-proclaimed Equality State, Goodwin has another name for the place: the Mississippi of the West, where equality comes only to the majority. He says his greatest insults have come not from any homophobic cowboys, but from people he'd known since childhood who snubbed him in public. He was once asked to avoid a local Democratic Party peace rally because organizers were embarrassed by his cross-dressing.'[LAT link, use privacy settings in browser, if needed]. [more inside]
Everywhere you look, something tells a story.
Gizmodo's look at the "Wildly Functional Studio of Video Wizard Casey Neistat." (SLYT) [more inside]
There's danger in everything
Music video for 'Wor' by Django Django filmed at the Indian Well Of Death in Allahabad (SLYT)
The One and Only Damita Jo Freeman
Damita Jo Freeman is awesome. In more ways than one. Her appearance with Joe Tex would have gotten her fired had it not boosted Soul Train's ratings. As one of the more successful of many Soul Train Dancers, Damita Jo was instrumental in standing up for better working conditions for the dancers. Also, she is is partially responsible for teaching Michael Jackson how to moonwalk. Read all about this amazing woman here.
Journal of Irreproducible Results
No, no, no---the other custom of the sea
You know what they say… When in Africa, create a mimed rendition music video of the 1983 smash hit “Africa” by Toto and post it on Youtube? I actually don’t know anyone who says that, but that’s just what the crew of a Subsea 7 contracted OSV did and their video is making the rounds this week on the internets. (slytp via gCaptain) [more inside]
Does it turn into energy? Does it go into the toilet?
In a TEDx talk from Queensland University of Technology, Ruben Meerman asks and answers a question many everyday people seem not to know the answer to: When you lose fat, where does it go? [more inside]
Whose's afraid of the NSA?
Tired of having all your posts and emails read by people you don't know? Aware that Congress will do nothing to change domestic spying; your president will not to stop it. And technology seemingly unable to restore privacy? Well here is your chance to Occupy NSA
Feral cat wranglers vs. Trapper John
On the mean streets of Chicago, it's feral cat colonists versus Trapper John, the rogue former Animal Control worker.
Three strikes
Lakisha Briggs was a victim of domestic abuse, having been beaten unconscious by her boyfriend. When a neighbour called the cops, the boyfriend went to prison for assault. And then the police served notic to her landlord to evict her and her 3-year old son or lose his rental licence. The reason? She'd made three 911 calls in four months and a local Norristown, Pa. police ordinance calls for tenants who do this to be evicted. [more inside]
"Making a The Field song is a bit like making a risotto."
Kompakt records is streaming The Field's fourth album, Cupid's Head, on Soundcloud. As that stream will eventually expire, some more information is below the fold. [more inside]
10 Things You Need to Know About Asgardians
MediAvengers: Earth's Mightiest Gossip is a blog of media parodies set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?
Last summer, researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors at six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job. If they did hire the woman, they set her salary, on average, nearly $4,000 lower than the man’s. Surprisingly, female scientists were as biased as their male counterparts.
A wonderful long article by Eileen Pollack where she talks to her former mentors, the study authors, and the other female science professors at her alma mater. NYTMagazine, worth reading especially for the absence of glib simple answers.
(Previously, of course.)
you are watching us fight
When Turntable.fm launched in 2011 it served as a unique way to listen to music virtually with friends on the web. It works on the basis of groups that let users play music on virtual decks with a queue system, chat room, and the ability to search and upload music. Two years after its introduction, its creators are fighting to keep it alive.
There will always be scammers
Forbes provides a list of 5 major scams that have popped out of the woodwork with the beginning of deployment of the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare). Be on the lookout! [more inside]
"Enclosed is a rough draft of a F.F. page..."
Sean Howe digs up "a February 1966 letter from then-Staff Writer Denny O’Neil to Marvel fan Jay DeNatale, [which] includes what’s possibly the earliest insider account of Marvel from someone other than Stan Lee." (via)
Fact Man Says: Learn an Instrument, Because It's Fun.
More wreck than Wrecking Ball?
Sinead O’Connor’s Remarkable Open Letter To Miley Cyrus "Nothing but harm will come in the long run, from allowing yourself to be exploited, and it is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent."
"...somewhere where no one was asking me for anything.”
This does not stink.
Ultra-prolonged activation of CO2-sensing neurons disorients mosquitoes. It’s hard to hide from a hungry mosquito: the insects home in on their human targets by detecting body heat, carbon dioxide, and odors. Repellents containing DEET ward off mosquitoes and other bugs, but until recently (pdf) no one knew why. Some research indicated that mosquitoes smell and avoid the insect repellent DEET. (pdf) Armed with the knowledge that carbon dioxide (CO2) present in exhaled air is the most important sensory cue for female blood-feeding mosquitoes.... [more inside]
i want my mommy
Deadly Asian giant hornets - aka Vespa mandarinia - kill at least 41 people in China. Hundreds more have been hospitalized by these 2+ inch beasts with a sting that packs a human-tissue dissolving neurotoxin. Survivor stories are terrifying. Think you are safe in the U.S. or Britain? Nope and nope. (via @BitterOldPunk)
Dead drop "peer-to-peer" file sharing
Aram Bartholl created the first file-sharing dead drops as an art project in 2010, but since then the more than 1200 USB dead drops have been installed around the world (28c3 talk, blog). Also, WiFi based dead drops called WiDrops offer better security than USB dead drops, especially for Windows machines, but require power. [more inside]
Nope Nope Nope
Map animations of history
Youtube user EmperorTigerstar draws animated maps. Like this one, plotting the Franco-Prussian War, this one, depicting World War I, or this one, showing every day of World War 2 in Europe.
Previously, previously.
October 2
I might have stared too long at the paintings
Comics artist Grant Snider's (previously) ongoing series Who Needs Art? is part whimsical introduction, part loving tribute to the great artists and art movements of the 20th century. [more inside]
“No, it's WEE-ner. Like a penis.”
Harsh realm.
The year was 1992. Grunge had hit the cultural mainstream, and the New York Times, overdue for a trend piece, printed an article featuring a "Lexicon of Grunge Speak." Their list featured terms such as wack slacks for old ripped jeans, harsh realm for bummer, and bloated, big bag of bloatation for drunk. [more inside]
You are what you read
Pump action oreo separator
The Slingshot Channel presents: The pump action oreo repeater, with optional separator. The toilet brush sniper rifle. The toilet brush revolver. Bonus - Can a slingshot hit harder than a handgun?
Hey, let's go see that movie soon as we get off the plane!
Swinging Sixties Film Posters from Japan - Bootleg Film Posters from Ghana - Retro Film Posters from Thailand
My God, it's full of stars
Chandra Sky Map - Joe DePasquale runs through the process of creating the map and some helpful tips for using the interactive tool.
Don't Look Down
Menace
The thing about being an unstoppable force is that you can really only enjoy the experience of being one when you have something to bash yourself against. Allie Brosh is in fine form in the latest Hyperbole and a Half, which is oddly appropriate for almost-Halloween.
Previously. Previouslier. Previouslierer. Previousliererer.
You, sir, are a fine dog.
I Was Made For Dancin'
The fever spread to fans across the country and every conceivable economic circumstance -- from an ex-Playboy Bunny to a hardcore riot grrrl, from a Park Avenue princess to an ultra-feminist dockworker. Their idol worship might have made for an innocent story of feminine fawning, but it escalated into a tragicomic odyssey, an interactive soap opera of warring Web sites, giddy cross-country road trips and existential epiphanies. A look at the twisted world of Leif Garrett fandom, from 2000.
Feminist Video/Film Artists
ROSLER, Martha: Martha Rosler Reads Vogue (1983) and Born to be Sold: Martha Rosler Reads The Strange Case of Baby S/M (1988) are accessible works of video art created by Martha Rosler in association with Paper Tiger Television to illustrate basic issues in feminist thought. Rosler is also well-known for her video performance piece, Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), which continues to inspire new work. Her Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained (1977) has a similar take on the measurement of a woman's body.
KREISINGER, Elisa: Pop Culture Pirate is the home of remix artist Elisa Kreisinger's feminist utopian works, including videos related to Mad Men: Set Me Free (2012); Don Loves Roger (2012); and The Evolution of Peggy Olson (2013). But also Queer Housewives of NYC (2009): One & Two. Queer Carrie (2009-2010): One, Two, & Three. The Real Feminists of Beverly Hills (2011). The Real House Husbands of New Jersey (2012). Ann Romney Loves Women (Remix) (2012). And For Your Consideration: Oscars 2011 (2012).
That's two ... [more inside]
Your face might melt before the popsicle.
Dean Martin used to make a joke in his stage shows: "I don't drink anymore. I freeze it and eat it like a Popsicle". But how exactly does that work? It's not exactly as simple as whipping up some Koolaid, poring it in a mold and sticking it in the freezer. And though summer is over and autumn is here, that's no reason not to indulge in a Tequila Lime Margarita Pop or a Havana Mojito Popsicle. And if you're feeling really daring, how about some Absinthe Pops?
Matana Roberts - Coin Coin
Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile (full album stream) is the second instalment in Matana Roberts's projected 12 part Coin Coin series of albums, "using the language of acoustic jazz to look at ideas of race, class and gender politics in American society".
Coin Coin was the nickname of a totemic figure from African-American history, Marie Thérèse Metoyer – a freed slave who founded a community along the Cane River in Louisiana in the late 18th century where people of colour enjoyed greater freedoms and opportunities than they could in most other places in the South. [more inside]
Things... that deserve a cease and desist order
Terrible Things is a party-style board game that recently finished a successful Kickstarter campaign. Yesterday Quinn & Sherry, the publishers of Things..., sent a cease and desist order to the makers of Terrible Things demanding that the game's title be changed.
"Is your position that any board game published with "Things" in the title infringes on Quinn & Sherry's trademark?"
Their answer was a simple "Yes." [more inside]
"Is your position that any board game published with "Things" in the title infringes on Quinn & Sherry's trademark?"
Their answer was a simple "Yes." [more inside]
The Perils of Presidentialism, in Action
Political theorist Juan Linz died Tuesday at the age of 86. His work focused on comparative government, including studies on totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Linz was also a prominent critic of the presidential system of government used in the United States and in much of Latin America. In his essay, "The Perils of Presidentialism" (later expanded into book form as The Failure of Presidential Democracy), Linz argued that presidential systems are inherently unstable, as they invariably lead to standoffs between the president and the legislature, each with competing claims to legitimacy. Thus, as in many Latin American countries, presidential systems frequently collapse, and often are replaced with dictatorships. The one exception to that pattern has been the United States--at least until recently. In an interview in January of this year, Linz argued that the US was succumbing to the same dysfunction as other presidential regimes. In Slate, Matthew Yglesias commemorates Linz by warning that the American system of government may be doomed to an endless cycle of crisis and constitutional disintegration, as evidenced by the government shutdown. Dylan Matthews concurs, arguing that the shutdown is "James Madison's fault."
Ten movable bridges (plus two bonus items)
Ten movable bridges for you.
“I tell them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf...”
Silk Road shut down, owner indicted
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has seized the domain of the popular online black market site Silk Road (previously), and indicted the site's owner, Ross Ulbricht, better known as Dread Pirate Roberts (previously).
"This is just a fashionable jacket."
There has been much debate about how to respond to Russia's recent anti-LGBT laws in the context of the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics. This previous post on the Blue covers it all in fine detail.
In potentially related news, Germany unveiled their uniforms their athletes will wear during the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as during medal presentations. [more inside]
Applying Nicoll's Law
"Voyager's main transmitter shines at a feeble 22 watts, which is comparable to a car-mounted police radio or -- in visible light -- a refrigerator light bulb. Though incredibly weak by the standards of modern wireless communications, Voyager's signal is astoundingly bright when compared to most natural objects studied by radio telescopes." -- Even as Voyager 1 has left the Solar System (again), it can still be easily detected by telescopes on Earth, showing once again there ain't no stealth in space.
The Leidenfrost Maze
When a liquid is dropped onto a smooth plate that is heated to a specific temperature well above its boiling point, boiled vapor will get trapped underneath the remainder of the droplet insulating it from the hot plate, allowing it to dance around the plate like oil on a wet surface in what is known as the Leidenfrost effect. Intriguingly, surfaces that are grooved into the shape of a saw blade will cause droplets suspended by the Leidenfrost effect to predictably skitter in the direction of the groove, allowing University of Bath undergraduate students Carmen Cheng and Matthew Guy to build a fascinating maze. [more inside]
"Between the pit of man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge."
On this day in 1959, The Twilight Zone premiered. Here is the orginal pilot with a long pitch from Rod Serling to sponsors explaining the show, and previewing the first season up front
Mutual Interests: Running, Balls, Water, Rolling
Need six minutes of idyllic friendship, peace, and harmony in your life? Horse and dog are friends.
(dance break)
Marina V. Shifrin, a news clip producer, was frustrated with her job. So she made a video, and using the power of interpretive dance, she sent her boss a message. It is awesome. [via]
The sound of graph paper
GaMuSo is an application of BioGraph-based data mining to music, which helps you get recommendations for other musicians. Based on 140K user-defined tags from last.fm that are collected for over 400K artists, results are sorted by the "nearest" or most probable matches for your artist of interest (algorithm described here). [more inside]
Taco Bell Telephone
Logo Mashups mixed famous brand names with somebody else's famous logo. Some were subtle, others obvious, some ingenious, other hilarious and some that will change the way you look at a logo forever. And then there's the simple mashing of two brand names together for the merger that must never happen.
"You are only as much as you settle for."
Four days before her death in 1970, Janis Joplin spoke with The Village Voice's Howard Smith for what was to be her last interview. PBS Digital Studios presents an animation (SLYT) of that interview. (via BoingBoing; PBS Digital Studios animations previously)
October 1
Learn Git branching interactively!
If you think of Git as "fun," you can play this fun Git branching tutorial game!
Feast Days
It's an open secret that many bands and solo artists allow fans to audio record their live performances for non-commercial trading. The Internet Archive's Live Music Section is maintained by volunteers from etree.org, and currently offers over 120,000 live performances from nearly 6000 bands, for in-browser streaming as well as download in a variety of formats. [more inside]
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Chain Restaurants
Snowden documents shed light on Shiban, Akbar, and Trojanov cases
New documents released by Glenn Greenwald from trove leaked by Edward Snowden show that the agency officially viewed arguments about 'due process' to be an 'adversary propaganda theme', listed alongside military threats to drones. [more inside]
Next to being a Hollywood movie star, nothing was more glamorous.
"After all I had gone through, I couldn’t believe I was finally wearing the uniform. I had made it. I was going to fly. It was such an accomplishment." International Politics and the First African American Flight Attendants [more inside]
Teahupo'o... ohhh... whooooah!
As Teahupo'o gains notoriety as one of the biggest monsters in the surfing world, the tiny area it covers gets more and more crowded. If you want to dig some fingernail-marks into the armrests of your chair, watch 2013's Inside the Monster (25:43, French with English Subtitles). Then, explore The Mechanics of Teahupo'o in this slideshow about what makes this slab tick. [previous, previous]
Because even bad Bowie is better than no Bowie
How to Read Like Bowie - David Bowie's Top 100 Books Don't miss Meta-Bowie or Bowie on metafilter music or in MetaTalk (just because).
What could possibly top Valve's announcement of the Steam Box?
"October is a fine and dangerous season in America"
Happy Political Clusterf*ck Day (U.S.)!
In one corner: the first federal government shutdown since 1996, born of the House GOP/Tea Party faction's crusade to delay, defund, and destroy Obamacare (and the Democratic Senate and President's resolve to not do that).
"Continuing resolutions" have ping-ponged between the two houses, fighting over language to cancel healthcare reform (plus a few other items, such as the implementation of Mitt Romney's entire economic agenda). National parks are closed, contractors are hamstrung, and 800,000 federal workers furloughed until Speaker Boehner drops the "Hastert Rule" and passes a bill the other branches can agree to.
In the other corner, heedless of the chaos (though not without glitches of its own): the official rollout of the Affordable Care Act and its state insurance exchanges. The portal at Healthcare.gov is your one-stop shop for browsing, comparing, and purchasing standardized, regulated insurance coverage with premium rebates, guaranteed coverage, and expanded Medicaid for the poor (in some states). A crazy day, overall -- but peanuts compared to what might happen if the debt ceiling is breached in 16 days. [more inside]
Fight For Your Right To Octobong
It was never pretty. On Sunday afternoons, you’d walk through the parking lot and swear you could hear the sound of human evolution giving up: “Screw it. I’ve done all I can for you people.” Bottles were hurled. Flaming debris spilled from garbage cans. Men (and at least one woman—I will always remember this woman) used porta-potties by peeing against them, not inside them. It was the kind of bleak dystopian hellscape that would have made the guy in Mad Max feel better about his situation. A Canadian journalist's take on the American tradition of tailgating.
*heavy breathing*
The Ninth Doctor
The pre-2005 series had a Doctor who was dressed in vaguely Edwardian clothing, who spoke with an RP accent, who had his stories adapted into books. That’s just the way it was. - Andrew Hickey's Fifty Stories For Fifty Years, one for every year of Doctor Who, reaches
2004 and Scream of the Shalka (previously) - arguably the end of the line for "Classic" doctor who. Previous instalments had covered the TV series from start to end, as well as the odd novelisation or movie. Possibly of greatest interest are the years before the new TV series where, TV movie aside, the franchise survived and evolved in strange directions via novels and audio stories. Then, at the outmost reaches of Whodom, there is the Book of the War and the strange world of Faction Paradox, which THERE IS NO FACTION PARADOX, THERE IS NO EVIL RENEGADE, YOU DID NOT READ THIS POST.
Paolo Bacigalupi's dystopian near-future cyberpunk / hard sci-fi
Paolo Bacigalupi writes hard sci-fi set in the near future, inspired in part by the stories from his science journalist friends and the imminent future of cyberpunk. Some of his works have been classified as "biopunk," due to his focus on bio-engineered products that run rampant, with involvement for battling mega-corporations that (try to) run everything in a world where oil is expensive and human labor is cheap. His first published novel, The Windup Girl (Google books preview), won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2010. He has published three novels since then, all categorized as Young Adult fiction, but Bacigalupi sees his only adaptations for a younger audience to be to shift the focus to pacing, and less sexuality, but otherwise similar to his "adult" works. He has also written a number of short stories (plus a few non-fiction pieces) over the years, many of which can be found online. [more inside]
Buffalo politics--They shoot buffalo don't they?
Tradegy of the Buffalo Commons Everything you know about buffalo is wrong. They're bison. But most aren't completely bison. They don't play a significant role in transmitting brucellosis. Bison are political. Which makes better sense management or culling the small, but genetically endangered, pure herd? Bison is actually better for you! [more inside]
American Gothic
The Elvis Impersonator, the Karate Instructor, the Fridge full of Severed Heads, and the Plot to Kill the President. In March, Kevin Curtis of Tupelo, Mississippi, was arrested for mailing ricin-laced letters to a local judge, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, and the President - only to be released a week later when another man was arrested for the crime. In the latest issue of GQ, Wells Tower sets out to get to the bottom of the tale and finds himself falling down the rabbit hole into a whole other universe of lost American weirdness.
(Know that Moo Cow the dog is okay.)
A "Protest with Every Purchase."
Breaking Good
Deadly lake turns animals into statues....
Deadly lake turns animals into statues-Photographer Nick Brandt, who has a long association with east Africa, took a detour from his usual work when he discovered perfectly preserved birds and bats on the shoreline.
We don’t have the $7 million that we need to go forward with the season
I spilled my secret and he almost picked it up!
1970s Pursettes tampons ad campaign. Featuring stilted dialog and drawn by Mad Magazine's own Mort Drucker.
Don't Cry, Don't Raze Your Eye
One year ago, the face of music changed forever. Today, it has changed foreverer, again:
GWAR covers Billy Ocean's Get out of My Dreams (Get into My Car) [more inside]
GWAR covers Billy Ocean's Get out of My Dreams (Get into My Car) [more inside]
a giant machine designed to give people what they want
"Twenty years after people began using the web en masse, it’s time, Williams said, to accept that the internet isn’t a magical universe with boundless potential. It’s just another engine for improving quality of life." Twitter, Blogger and Medium founder Evan Williams on the triumphs and dangers of convenience.
The strangers - Blood and Fear in Xinjiang
"Putting the kids out front echoed the Chinese depiction of ethnic minorities, regularly represented—as in the 2008 Olympic opening ceremonies—as children. It created a familiar, comfortable world for the majority Han clientele, especially since the kids, unlike their parents, spoke fluent Mandarin. When the back door opened, I sometimes got a glimpse of another world; a cluster of Uighur men and one woman smoking, cooking, and joking in their own language, entirely isolated from the diners." -- James Palmer on the ethnic tensions between Han Chinese and Uighur in Xinjiang.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Library
“I was there in Moscow for a year and a half, without anything, we thought we were going there for only a few days. I didn’t even have a coat with me. But the Rebbe had a policy: You don’t come back until you come back with the books.”
Extra History - The Punic Wars
Extra Credits (Previously, [1] [2]) was recently approached by Creative Assembly, the team behind the Total War series of games. With Total War: Rome II coming out and Creative Assembly determining what to do with the remainder of their marketing budget, they decided to finance Extra Credits on doing a history of the Punic Wars. Extra Credits gladly accepted, of course, and has now completed the saga. Extra History: The Punic Wars (2, 3, 4)
Singing is Serious Business Until You Find a Stick
The Coming Eucatastrophe
Over the past few years, the zombie apocalypse has come to represent an alternative to neoliberalism – an ideology that admits no alternatives.
The Political Economy of Zombies by John Powers [previously, previouslier]
Bonus: What Terrifies Teens In Today's Young Adult Novels? The Economy
The Mysterious Phantom Scoop
Fraudulent & hoax manuscripts submitted to academic journals typically present false findings by real authors. This time, however, the paper contains real (and previously unpublished) results... by fake authors. (via retractionwatch) [more inside]
It's Marven Gardens, Actually...
Florida Waterspouts
After a good day of lobstering in the Florida Keys a thunderstorm blows in, spawning multiple waterspouts. Most people would hightail it for shelter, but these guys decided to take a closer look. SLYT via
For Safer Food, Just Add Viruses
In March 2012, inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture uncovered a problem in Elgin, Texas. Beef sausage from a small family-run meat processor appeared to have been contaminated with a nasty bacterium called Listeria monocytogenes. The bug can make people sick and, in rare cases, be deadly. The processor had to recall more than a ton of sausage. It’s the kind of story that strikes terror in the hearts of other sausage peddlers, including Mike Satzow, so he uses phages to keep his small company's sausages safe to eat.