February 2008 Archives
February 29
Animal Minds
The Nature Photography of E.J. Peiker
E.J. Peiker, Nature Photgrapher There are a lot of nature photographers out there -- some better than Peiker and some worse -- but what fascinates me about Peiker's site is the number of photos available. A birdwatcher's dream, it features pages of photos of over 500 different species of birds, including an index devoted solely to wild waterfowl. Maybe animals are more your speed? How about nearly 150 pages of photos of wild animals (including my favorite - a quite handsome, flower-eating porcupine.) There's also a section for scenic photography featuring 23 states and 20 countries (or you can search by national park.) The photos are, unfortunately, not that big but there a ton of them, many of them quite pretty.
Candy for your brain
Surf your music. Audio surfer is a new game that uses .mp3 files to create racetracks of musical goodness. If guitar hero and F-Zero had a love child, this would be it.
The Missing Link found at last.
Kevin Ray Underwood found guilty of first degree murder in the April 2006 killing of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin. The jury only needed 20 minutes to decide on his guilt. Previously on Metafilter, because he linked here. How could a seemingly normal, albeit "single, bored and lonely", young man become a cannabalistic child rapist and murderer? Exhibits: The blog he kept for almost four years up until the day after the murder. A collection of misc information about Underwood, including (near the bottom) the text of an online chat he had with a friend after killing Bolin. An extremely disturbing transcript of his confession to the FBI. Video footage of the trial. Deliberations will begin Monday as to whether or not he will be sentenced to death.
Super-Duper-Size Me
Hungry? Arteries not quite plugged enough? Behold, the Big MacChicken.
Don't you die on me man!
Flash Friday Fun: Experience the thrills of amateur surgery as you play Amateur Surgeon over at Adult Swim . You'll be performing transplants with a chainsaw, suturing wounds with staples and shocking patients back to life with a car battery. [more inside]
New VU
I'm not into VU bootlegs really, but apparently this is a big deal. It's the ONLY available live stuff from 1967 and has only become available in literally the last two days. Recorded just after the release of The Velvet Underground And Nico and featuring the debut performance of Sister Ray (19 mins long) and the *previously unheard* song I'm Not A Young Man Any More. That's right, A NEW VELVET UNDERGROUND SONG. And it's fucking good too. This version of Sister Ray absolutely shreds and is what the Velvet Underground are all about.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Singin' in the rain
Rainwear in Films has a very narrow focus.
Wings of Desire... or something
Buddy Miles RIP
Drummer Buddy Miles has died. Another wonderful musician - one who played with Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies - died far too young.
What we're gonna do right here is go back. Way back.
Go way back into time with a deliciously analog collection of mastermixes from 1980s-era soul radio from London. [more inside]
WE DID IT THROUGH TEAMWHURK!
Boston Mayor Tom Menino is running for president. Here's why he'd be a better president than Mitt Romney. And he's done vocals for a techno track.
Riding the Waves
Riding the Waves of interest in MVC web frameworks such as Rails, Django, TurboGears, and Cake, comes the latest entrant: Ruby Waves. Interesting features include request lambdas, hot patchable, nestable templates, app reusability, and decoupled controller/view. Is the proliferation of MVC projects helping to push innovation forward? Or pointlessly reinventing the wheel? (via RubyInside)
More White House lies...
Tim Goeglein, director of the White House office of public liaison, is a plagiarist.
... and he actually admits it.
... and he actually admits it.
“It is true,” Tim Goeglein wrote to The Journal Gazette in an e-mail. “I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses."Found by Blogger (and MeFi lurker) Nancy Nall.
Signifier Signed
Excuse me, Ms. Ono, Mr. Gehry, Sen. Wellstone—pardon me Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Castellanetta, Gov. Ventura—would you mind signing this paper?
Oh no, don't sign your name. Sign mine.
Oh no, don't sign your name. Sign mine.
The curious habits of the Mall Ninja
The Mall Ninja is easily distinguished by an abundance of “tactical” gear, such as fatigues, a thigh holster (with, of course, a Glock), combat boots, bandolier and other accouterments. Read the collected stories of the the Rapid Tactical Force at one of America’s largest indoor retail shopping areas! Marvel at their cunning equipment selection (such as duct taped trauma plates) and learn from their battles with the dreaded mall gangs.
I for one welcome our new "Controllers"
It's official. The aliens are coming. In 2017. Turns out they might like The Beatles after all. The UN is on the case. The Hindus are going to be especially upset.
Are Liberals and Conservatives Different Species?
Are Liberals and Conservatives Different Species? Get this: Everyone in our sample was an American, a teenager, and belonged to the same major religious tradition of Protestantism. In these respects they were culturally uniform. But some belonged to conservative denominations such as Pentecostal and others to liberal denominations such as Episcopalian. As Ingrid combed through the data, which involved tedious hours in front of the computer, the differences that began to emerge were astounding. It was as if these conservative and liberal religious youth were--different species. [via 3quarksdaily] [more inside]
Echo Part Travel Mart
Need some barbarian repellent ? How about some leeches? You can get it all at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart. They travel time so you don't have to.
Teaching to Testosterone
Teaching to Testosterone. Dr. Leonard Sax is promoting his version of single-sex classrooms in public schools based on inherent biological differences between young boys and girls.
Stop me if you've heard this joke: DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES
Once again, The Onion comes a little too close to the truth for comfort. Or in reality, are things working just fine? Security at Diebold is as tight as ever. Concerns (again) in Ohio. Also: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." (Bill Shakespeare)
Neil Gaiman's American Gods
The novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman is being offered for free in its entirety at the Harper Collins website (only viewable using HarperCollins' BrowseInside system). It was put up in celebration of the seventh birthday of Neil Gaiman's blog. Which is appropriate since Neil Gaiman started his blog to chronicle the process of turning the text of American Gods into a physical book. [via the man himself, natch]
I like the part where they blow up the planet.
Turning Star Wars Japanese -- Manga Scenes Done Better: StarWars.com writer Pablo Hidalgo explores the differences between the American and Japanese comics adaptations of the original trilogy.
Make a Leap of Action.
Leap For It! The 2008 Slingshot Organizer, a staple publication of the Slingshot Collective based out of Berkeley, urges mass participation in Leap Day Action Night.
O-BA-MA
will.i.am is on a roll. It is hard to top his YES WE CAN video inspired by Barack Obama, but I think he comes pretty close in his just released WE ARE THE ONES video. [more inside]
Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own.
Phreaking subculture alive and well
If you thought phone phreaking was a dying art, you may be surprised to read the story of "Li'l Hacker", as told by old-school hack/phreaker Kevin Poulsen.
Hey, I actually kind of liked Moonwalker!
The 10 Worst Celebrity Video Games Ever. Your favorite celebrity cash-in video game sucks. [more inside]
How To Draw The Venture Bros.
Do you desire to achive artistic perfection? Can you tell both humorous and dramatic stories in the Jackson Publick Fashion? Are you titillated by a man dressed like a butterfly?! If so, follow me... For I am... the Character Board SupervisorTM, and from my base on the moon, I can teach you to draw all things... Venture!!!* [more inside]
Detritus From a Dream
Shaun O'Boyle recently returned from Cape Canaveral where he photographed the artifacts of the early space program. They are part of the Modern Ruins site (previously, previously, and previously) which is a great place to waste an afternoon.
Coptic Illusion?
An exchange student spending the school year with a host family in Egypt claims he was starved by the family. Johnathan McCullum, as part of an AFS program, was placed with an Egyptian family who, as Coptic Christians, fast over 200 days a year. His weight went from 155 to 97 pounds during his stay. He says friends and teachers wanted him to change his host family, but he felt he had to "tough" out the year. Others in the exchange program feel that Johnathan and his family are simply out to make a buck.
McMansion ghettos
The sub-prime mortgage crisis is giving way in some places to crime ridden McMansion ghettos, perhaps the beginning of a larger long term trend in demographics: "many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay."
Mongolian Overtones
In Mongolia, overtone singing (or hoomei, as it's known locally) is mainly a guy thing, but there are exceptions to the rule, for example, the Hoomei Women's Group. More commonly though, women who want to sing do so in an exquisite, soaring style like this and this. Sometimes the men do the hoomei thing while the women do that soaring thing. Then there are those lovely choral arrangements. And then there are those rare moments when the YouTube poster's description of a clip just hits the nail square on the head, as with this one: amazing. [more inside]
Relax. Just chart it!
Song Chart Meme. A series of charts breaking down popular music.
No real issues. Just stuff and nonsense
Synaesthesia Ho!
Why is this day not like other days?
Why Leap Years are used.
Leap Years in other calendars.
About Leap Day itself.
On this day in history.
The Leap Year Capital, Anthony, Texas.
February 30?!
[via]
February 28
Monkey Does Handstand on Tight-Rope Walking Goat
Papa Palmérino Sorgente, the Pope of Montréal
Robert Petway - Catfish Blues
And here we have a couple of YouTube productions, screensaverish animations of photos and lyrics to the original recordings: Robert Petway - Catfish Blues and Tommy McClennan - It's Hard To Be Lonesome. This is mostly about Petway and Catfish Blues but you can't mention Petway without mentioning McClennan, as they ran together in their time and as both did versions of Catfish, a song canonical in Delta Blues, recorded and performed by nearly everyone--Muddy Waters - Rolling Stone, for example. Petway just happens to be the first person to record Catfish, and quite possibly the person who wrote it and certainly. to my mind, at least, the person who nailed it... in the uptempo version at the very least. [more inside]
dubstep
The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millennium General Assembly
Internet Troll Moves to Quash Subpoena Designed to Uncover their IRL Identity
Two Yale Law School graduates who allege they were subjected to a campaign of online harassment file suit against the site's owner and two dozen internet trolls for copyright infringement, defamation, and a variety of other tort and IP claims. In the latest developments, the website's owner was dropped from the lawsuit, and another defendant moved (seemingly pro se) to quash a subpoena served originally on their ISP to reveal their identity. [more inside]
Serving Bowls Made From Bacon
Bacon Cups are sure to make your next party a hit.
Improved Billboard Touts AT&T and NSA Collaboration
"The Billboard Liberation Front today announced a major new advertising improvement campaign executed on behalf of clients AT&T and the National Security Agency. Focusing on billboards in the San Francisco area, this improvement action is designed to promote and celebrate the innovative collaboration of these two global communications giants." [Via Threat Level.]
Cesar Millan Ain't Got Nothin' On Me
What do a balding man with a unique talent, shopping carts, and Extended Validation SSL Certificates have in common? Well, this: Liberty Fillmore: The Cart Whisperer (YT). Won't you think of the carts and visit No More Abandoned Carts today?
I'm Barak Obama, and yes, I've got four quarters.
Youtube Political Post Mike Nelson of Rifftrax and Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame riffs on six political ads.
Just Like Rudy if He Had Been a Bike Wheel
I Finally own a Zipp Wheel… A little story of how a bike racing fan came to own a fancy, schmancy carbon race wheel during the recently concluded Tour of California. [more inside]
Ikonoklast Panzerism
Rammellzee***
Ramellzee, Toxic C1, and Basquiat @ the Rhythm Lounge 1983***
David Brunner Mix video live printemps de septemb
Rammellzee (or RAMMΣLLZΣΣ, pronounced "Ram: Ell: Zee", born 1960 in Far Rockaway, Queens), is a graffiti writer, performance artist, rap/hip-hop musician and sculptor from New York. [more inside]
1 in 99.1
1 in 99.1 American adults are now incarcerated according to a new Pew Center study (pdf). Some interesting numbers from a NYT article on the report: 1 in 36 Hispanic adults are incarcerated, 1 in 15 blacks, 1 in 9 black men aged 20-34, 1 in 355 white women aged 35-39. Some context from the World Prison Population List (pdf).
It's this week's lolcats
Fail Dogs. That is all.
Penn and Teller ripped off by Koreans
Today on Penn Jillette's video blog he mentions a hilarious crew of Koreans have ripped off an old Penn and Teller trick.
Bringing back the warmth to the ground
What does it take before a song becomes a pop standard? Does a recording by four different generations of performers count? When originally recorded, Rolf couldn't play digeridoo, so the instrument was simulated with eight bass fiddles. On release it made number 2 in the charts and was kept from the number one spot by Elvis Presley's Return To Sender. [more inside]
Whisker, Quill, Feather, Gill
The Fantastic Menagerie: a literally beastly Tarot deck resplendent with 19th century artwork by J.J. Grandville, which you can find plenty more of here [Projects]. [more inside]
It's an Attention Economy, we just live in it
Some say economics is changing so radically that attention is of more value than money or material wealth. If that's true, then should Paris Hilton and Britney Spears be considered role models? Must we each be stars in order to be a success, to get anything achieved, or to gain even the slightest traction?
Stroll Down 35W bridge
Take a stroll down the Minneapolis 35W bridge using Google's street view (now with more cities) [more inside]
McCain's extraterritorial birth
Is John McCain eligible to become president of the U.S.? He was born on a military base in the Panama Canal zone, which was not sovereign US territory. The Constitution provides:No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. Is McCain a natural born citizen?
Alan Dargin RIP
Master of the 'didge' - after veins burst in his throat some years ago while he was playing the didgeridoo, doctors warned that continued playing would threaten his life. Admitted to hospital last week with bleeding on the brain, he died on Sunday from a brain haemorrhage. He was 40. [more inside]
Phone Porn
The Nokia Morph concept phone is currently featured in The Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition (warning: flash interface). This 'self-cleaning' shape-shifting mobile follows Nokia's other recent phone concept, the environmentally-friendly Remade, unveiled at Mobile World Congress earlier this month.
Joe Maphis, King of the Strings.
I tell you what, buddy, that ol' Joe Maphis fellow outta Bakersfield, he was one fast picker. Yup, fast as greased lightning and smooth as gaht-damn silk on that double-neck Mosrite guitar. He and the missus have a little advice for you, too: Don't Make Love In a Buggy. And though Joe was mainly a picker, he did pen one memorable little country ditty which you might've heard in some honky tonk along the line: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music). [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
Cities of God
RIP Boyd Coddington.
John McCain's Sweet Ride
The lavishly-furnished custom Boeing 727 figures in the current tempest over his relationship with female lobbyist Vicki Iseman who provided and flew with McCain on the plane. Lots of colorful background in this investigative report by Daniel Hopsicker, the best muckraker since Gary Webb [more inside]
I think I'm in Love
Love is everyone. Love is a not so massively multiplayer game that uses Verse. Worlds are built on top of a procedural engine (like Spore) and content creation is done in real time. Someone recently took a look at Love and it was good. Did I mention it was open source? And written by one guy, Eskil Steenberg. [more inside]
Stage 6 to Shut Down Today
Stage 6, recently linked in a popular FPP, has announced it will shut down today. Rumors about why include their battle against UMG to a "ridiculous battle of egos."
haramaki, waist warmer
In Japan haramaki were originally worn as part of samurai armor to protect the stomach and kidneys. They have evolved to become a handy winter fashion accessory, which keeps the whole body warm. [more inside]
February 27
BC brings in revenue-neutral carbon tax
The revenue-neutral carbon tax: an idea whose time has come? The British Columbia government has just introduced a carbon tax, starting at $10/tonne in July 2008 and rising to $30/tonne in 2012. All revenues from the tax (close to $2 billion over three years) will be returned to taxpayers in the form of income tax cuts, reducing income and corporate taxes to the lowest levels in Canada. Details from the BC budget. Globe and Mail. [more inside]
"Cause E's Got It All Covered"
Whew--just squeaked this post in for Black History Month. Vintage YouTubery of Richard Pryor, Jackie Robinson, Bill Cosby, and James Earl Jones, each reciting The Alphabet on Sesame Street. And then Patti LaBelle blows 'em all away with a Gospel Rendition.
Welcome To [insert your name here]Land!
How To Start Your Own Country In Four Easy Steps. You’ve picked out a flag, written a national anthem, even printed up money with your face on it. But what’s the next step?
Do you really care about the starving children of Africa.
Is your daddy the Black President?
State of the Black Union I came across a clip from this year's event and thought it was worth sharing. Dick Gregory via crooksandliars.com
It's The Ones Who've Cracked That The Light Shines Through
Jeffrey Lewis brings you The Complete History of Punk Rock and Its Development on the Lower East Side (1950-1975) in eight and a half minutes. [more inside]
Very cool camouflage photographs
Negotiation stories
Do you have a good negotiating story? Tell us about it. 37signals asks for, and gets, some interesting stories.
He's gone Yoinz.
"With a voice beyond imitation -- a falsetto so shrill it could pierce even the din of a touchdown celebration -- Cope was a man of many words, some not in any dictionary." RIP Myron. Double Yoi!
going forward with the "true eye of a lynx" to study the very anatomy of nature
"While we are generally horrified by monstrosities in the case of human beings, we love them in fruit" - Giovanni Battista Ferrari (naturalist, "discoverer" of the blood orange and the cure for scurvy).
Illustrations in Ferrari's book Hesperides sive de Malorum Aureorum cultura (1646) are based on close collaboration with Cassiano dal Pozzo and his Paper Museum, called one man's project to "commission drawings of all known antiquities, and to attempt to systematically categorize this vast repertory of visual images." [more inside]
lil komsomol playkit
Ready, kids! Unsatisfied with your kids slow adoption of very important homeland security adjustments? Buy them the Playmobil Security Check Point! How does this stack up against increased TSA checks of toys?
Excuse me, I think my forearm is ringing.
The ultimate in nerdy tattoos? "Jim Mielke's wireless blood-fueled display is a true merging of technology and body art. At the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition, the engineer demonstrated a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin."
30 day sex (or no sex) challenge
A church in Tampa, FL has issued a 30-day sex challenge: If you're married, have sex every day (PDF of daily workbook). If you're not married, don't have sex at all (PDF of daily workbook). There's a blog, there's a billboard, there's a lot of press. [more inside]
Ideas in the Air
To The Best Of Our Knowledge is one of the most wide-ranging and literate public radio shows in the US, a two-hour "radio salon" featuring leisurely exploration of weekly themes like No Smoking, Identity Crisis, Weekend, and The Mind, Music, and Math. Host Jim Fleming approaches these big ideas through the works of authors - journalists of all stripes, memoirists, poets, fiction writers, essayists. Five years' worth of shows are available on audio archives; you can also search the impressive list of authors by name, or subscribe to the podcast. [more inside]
RIP William F. Buckley, Jr.
RIP William F. Buckley, Jr. Like him or hate him, agree or disagree, there's no doubt that he was articulate, entertaining, and influential.
Where Can an Old Junky Get Some Good Balls These Days?
Suddenly a warm flood pulsed through his veins and broke in his head like a thousand golden speedballs. William S. Burrough's A Junky's Christmas. Warning: The color scheme will make you turn to heroin to stop the pain. [more inside]
Physics milestones of the past 50 years
Physical Review Letters' 50th anniversary retrospective promises to be an interesting survey of the physics landscape for the past half-century.
The shot not heard around the world.
Did you know that two weeks ago - last Valentine's Day - a pact was signed in Texas allowing cross-border military activity between Canada and the US? I'd supply more links but there's not much out there.
Water, water, anywhere?
We're making another effort to find water on the moon. Beginning in 1964 with the Ranger spacecraft, we've been lobbing things at poor old Luna. Lately we've been trying to find water there so that future explorers don't have to haul the stuff up the gravity well from Earth. [more inside]
Gettysburg in Lego
The Battle of Gettysburg in Lego, done by 7th Graders: Day 1; Day 2; Day 3. [youtube links] Lots of blood and flying bodies. Complete with Matrix references. Soundtrack by The Eagles, Queen, and Richard Strauss. [via]
Building big buildings. And knocking others down.
The new terminal at Beijing airport is big. No, wait, I mean it's REALLY BIG. That is, REALLY FUCKING BIG. And there's plenty of other massive construction projects underway in Beijing, many designed by European architects. Like they say, though, if you wanna make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs. And well, they seem to be doing a better job of that than these guys. [more inside]
Article from BBC News about Quake in the UK
The Sublime, Nihilistic Elegance of Assquatch Art
Coilhouse brings us "Assquatch Art," which they describe as "a rustic art form." Strangely, this is probably SFW.
Righting the FAIL boat.
The Cougar Ace [previously] became an instant Internet meme when she nearly capsized while shifting ballast near Adak, Alaska. Not enough told is the story of righting her, which required incredible bravery and, sadly, the loss of one human life.
when they pry it from my cold, dead hands
Net Neutrality Update: Comcast admits to paying people to stack the room in their favor at a public hearing with FCC commissioners in Boston. Via savetheinternet. Previously.
February 26
Don't Ask Me What It Means
"In" is a lovely, maddening, hypnotic 23-minute CG/live-action abstract short created by Philipp Hirsch and Heiko Tippelt. via
Hoping for a new voodoo?
In 1980 Ronald Reagan surrounded himself with economic thinkers that challenged the prevailing Keynesian doctrine with supply side economics. In the same way that Arthur Laffer and Milton Friedman drove Reagan's thinking. A new generation of economists from the University of Chicago are advising Barack Obama. Will behavioral economics change politics the way supply side economics did a generation ago?
Figures in a Parkland
In 1783 a French artist going by the name of Carmontelle created a scroll that was 138 feet long and offered viewers a continuous translucent moving image called "Figures in a Parkland". The Getty Museum beautifully put the scroll on exhibit. Be sure to take a virtual stroll through the images.
learning math online
Two American icons meeting for the first time onstage
"The most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear," Frank Sinatra wrote of rock 'n' roll during the time of Elvis Presley. But Frank wasn't stupid... he knew his relevance was fading and if you can't beat 'em, you have to join 'em. So in 1960, Elvis Presley was welcomed home from his two year military tour by the Frank Sinatra Timex Show "Welcome Home Elvis" special. Later Sinatra said, "I'm just a singer. Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture."
Mimimimimimi, mimimimimimi, mimimimimimi
NetClassicsFilter: All 24 of the 25 GI Joe PSAs redubbed by Eric Fensler, via YouTube:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[some nsfw] [previously] [also via] [more inside]
Waiting for Apple to develop the iPileOfSeeds
Chris Woebken is a designer, with some interesting "what if" technology ideas, including a nanotech computer interface and an ultra-thin electronic picture frame.
Eikongraphia
Selling something? Try some humor with your pitch.
Selling something? Try some humor with your pitch. Donna Stuff4Sale. My 95 Ford Ranger. McNeeb Auto.
Only Visiting This Planet
"I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God's hand reaching down to pick me up." Larry Norman, "father of Christian rock," dead at 60. YouTubery: 1, 2, 3.
The Myth of the Surge
The Myth of the Surge: "Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq." [Via Devoter.]
What a struggle. Struggle, struggle, struggle.
Comics are funny when you change them (sometimes)
Garfield minus Garfield: "Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?"
Campaign Finance Bites the Hand That Made It
Last year, as McCain's campaign seemed stumbling into the grave, it applied for federal matching funds for the primary season. After Super Tuesday, McCain withdrew from the system. Or did he? If he didn't, he's capped at $54 million to spend till September -- and he's already spent $50 million of it. Former FEC Chairman Brad Smith tells, in bravura detail, the whole whirling story. (via Election Law Blog) [more inside]
The Torture Playlist
Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, "prolong capture shock," disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.
Don't stop talking.
Qantara (meaning bridge in arabic) is a German based website looking to have dialogue with the Islamic world. Turkey is carrying out a radical revision of Islamic texts trying to define modern Islam. Through dossiers and dialogue and slideshows Qantara is helping this debate.
She don't... What now?
You talked to her father, prepared a YouTube worthy proposal, gathered all your courage.... and she said no. How will your life go on? And what are you going to do with the ring? Enter I Do... Now I Don't, an auction site that caters to broken-hearted lovers such as you. Started by a fellow who has been there. Buy if you dare. Via
My eyes hurt from all the tiny lines!
Mazes and complexity Like mazes? Check out these computer generated mazes that might play tricks with your visual cortex. Each is available as a downloadable PDF that will take, um... at least a minute to solve. [more inside]
Crime fighting robots are finally here
Many business owners have struggled with crime in their communities and the impact that can have on their business- but when the police have their hands full, sometimes your complaints just fall through the cracks. One Atlanta bar owner has taken matters into his own hands by building a crime-fighting vigilante robot.
Premature Evaluation
In the March issue of Maxim magazine, music critic David Peisner gave the Black Crowes' upcoming release Warpaint two and a half stars out of five, remarking:
"...they sound pretty much like they always have: boozy, competent, and in slavish debt to the Stones, the Allmans, and the Faces."
Nothing remarkable, right? Except he had never heard the album.
I'll jack your gold-plated pen knife, bitch, and that's reality, you better lose you pre-9/11 mentality
NetSol and ICANN Sued over Domain Tasting
Ars Technica is reporting that, "A class-action lawsuit has been launched against domain registrar Network Solutions and ICANN over the controversial practice of domain tasting. The suit was initiated on behalf of Chris McElroy, a search engine optimization specialist who goes by the handle NameCritic. McElroy has long been an extremely vocal critic of ICANN and is a regular participant on the organization's mailing lists." Users everywhere, likely including a number of MeFites, rejoice. More: Network World article, Press Release, Network Solutions defense of the practice, ICANN comments on the practice.
The Universe is Like a Windows Media Player Visualization
The observable universe just got a bit smaller. Johan Mauritsson and his colleagues at Lund University in Sweden have released what appears to be a video of an electron oscillating on a wave of light.
You're late! He used to be pink.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake
The Tragedy of Britney Spears
She is intelligent enough to understand what the world wanted of her: that she was created as a virgin to be deflowered before us, for our amusement and titillation. She is not ashamed of her new persona — she wants us to know what we did to her.
February 25
how to revise a resume
A Resume Experiment. In which career blog JibberJobber responds to a request for resume help by assembling a team of hiring managers and professional resume writers to review the document: Part 1
: Introduction | Part 2: First Impressions/Reactions | Part 3: Formatting the Resume | Part 4: Content is King | Part 5: Wrap Up
Preserving the Heritage of Zonians
Canal Zone Images is a collection of stories and images about the Panama Canal Zone. Did you know that the construction workers were paid in gold and silver ('spiggoty' dollars)? "Paper money was not used on the pay car at all. In the first place, there was always a danger of its blowing away, and in the second place paper money in the hands of negro workmen soon assumed a most unsanitary condition." [more inside]
Have you ever TRIED to fuck a grapefruit?
I knew that sooner or later, the backlash to xkcd would begin, but I never expected it would start over.... fruit...
R. Stevens, that old Diesel Sweetie, is the first to respond.... Now, a very well-interfaced polling device is put online for your fruit opinions...Vote for the fruit of your choice... but vote! [more inside]
The fierce urgency of cashing out now.
Payback is a b*tch. Former presidential scandal Gennifer Flowers is putting the tapes of her recorded conversations with Bill Clinton -- which she was previously offered $5 million for -- up on the auction block. [more inside]
Back Porch Videos
Back Porch Videos "Way before the internet and YouTube, there was public access cable television. And so...we proudly present these vintage clips from the 1980's alternative music video show, "Back Porch Video." Premiering January 28, 1984, this pioneering program was crewed and hosted by high-school students from the Dearborn/Detroit, Michigan area. Stay tuned for the ultimate best (and ultimate tacky) in retro-80's videos - from pop alternative, to hair bands, to rock and some of the most exclusive hardcore!!!"
Almost 700 videos of post punk brilliance.
"Sharkey's Day" by Laurie Anderson:
Rare Iggy and the Stooges - MC5 Footage:
"Beat Box" by Art of Noise:
"Kiss Me on the Bus" by The Replacements:
"Our Lips are Sealed" by Funboy Three:
"Let Me Be Your Pirate" by Nena:
"Rainy Season" by Howard DeVoto:
"Save it For Later" by the English Beat:
"Boys in the Street" by Eddie Grant:
"Too Loud" by Robert Plant Student Video
Prozac doesn't work better than placebo
A new peer-reviewed meta-analysis of clinical data demonstrates that four widely-prescribed SSRI anti-depressants, including Prozac and Effexor, are not more effective than placebos. Summary from the Guardian. [more inside]
Slow Death Captured on a Blog
Slow Death Captured on a Blog. Brian Hill died February 2, 2008 after living with and blogging about his experiences with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. A similar story, previously. [more inside]
Airliner Videos
Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
Anglo-Finnish artist Sanna Annukka's vibrant, flat design work (especially her Icons series) got me curious about her, well, iconography.
She mentioned The Kalevala previously, the Finnish national epic poem (in Finnish here), a tale of creation and heroism that arguably spurred the Finns to independence from the Russians.
Like so much else epic and awesome, it spawned a '70s prog band, with three albums.
She mentioned The Kalevala previously, the Finnish national epic poem (in Finnish here), a tale of creation and heroism that arguably spurred the Finns to independence from the Russians.
Like so much else epic and awesome, it spawned a '70s prog band, with three albums.
Not With Reynols
Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts
Quantum Mechanics: Myths and Facts (pdf), a recently-updated paper on the Cornell arXiv peer-review site. By Hrvoje Nikolić of the Rudjer Bošković Institute in Croatia. [more inside]
Queue for the soup kitchen may start here
"What we are now seeing is the break up of Bretton Woods mark 2." The Guardian's economics editor, Larry Elliot, on growing fears of a global depression.
[single link op-ed alert]
Daydream Painting
Sonic Youth fan? Got a spare 5 million dollars? Then you can be the proud owner of the original art for 'Daydream Nation' - Kerze by Gerhard Richter.
We still build moving landmarks. *ding, ding*
Building a landmark. Nearly 135 years after first rolling up Clay Street, San Francisco's famous cable cars are still using an elegant, yet antiquated system of understreet cables and two types of unpowered cars to move delighted tourists and patient locals across the city every day. But most riders don't realize that five specialized craftsmen in a shop in an industrial part of town make up the the last cable car factory in the world, still building cars by hand, from plans reverse-engineered from a car disassembled in 1982. [via]
Howl's Moving Castle papercraft
Howl's Moving Castle - in papercraft. Stop motion animation of the assembly here, flickr set of the finished product here, details on the kit here. Found via.
Sarkozy unbleeped
Pardon my French: after (allegedly) showing up drunk at the G8 (Mefi), walking out from 60 minutes, and almost getting in a fight with angry fishermen (translation), French President Sarkozy, while visiting the Paris International Agricultural Show, snaps at a man who refused to shake his hand "Casse-toi pauvre con". But what exactly does this mean in English? He hasn't (yet) slapped a kid, unlike his presidential rival Bayrou, but he's still not in the same league as De Gaulle, who answered to a heckler shouting "Mort aux cons!" ("Death to the idiots!") the sublime "Vaste programme, en effet" ("Tall order, indeed").
It Came From Canada
Do you like Canadian music? I like Ukrainian-style country music, military band covers of "Shaft", Funky Gospel, Quebecois Surf Rock, Hillbilly Calypso, and a professional wrestler singing country music. All this and more courtesy of It Came From Canada, a treasure trove of ultra-rare Canadian music. Via Projects, from the creator of Five Bucks On ByTor.
Seems like everyone is ****ing around
There seems to be a lot of bleeping going on lately. But now it's time, with the help of our friend Count von Count Bleep (wikipedia), to bleep the number of times you can have a laugh with the bleeping bleeps. Start here and then go on: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
And more bleeping fun with Ernie, Bert, Oscar, and the Cookie Monster: 1, 2, 3, 4. [more inside]
The world's first Swahili clock
The Kamusi project, an online Swahili-English dictionary site, has created the world's first clock that tells Swahili time. Not to be confused with the conceptual clocks of Tibor Kalman, like the Five O'Clock Clock, or Kalman's jumbled time clock tower
The Swahili clock reflects an actual conceptual change that takes place for Swahili speakers. In Swahili culture the day starts at sunrise (unlike in the Arab world where the day starts at sunset, and in the Western world where the day starts at midnight). Sunrise in East Africa, being exactly at the Equator, happens every day at approximately 6:00 a.m. And for that reason, 6:00 a.m. is "0:00 morning" Swahili time. So the hands of a watch or clock meant to read Swahili time would always point to a number opposite to the number for the actual time as spoken in English. That is, the Swahili time anywhere in the world (not just East Africa) is delayed by 6 hours. [more inside]
Another day, another Ankylosaur
The Times Machine
The Times Machine allows easy browsing of every edition from 70 years (1851-1922) worth of New York Times in the original format. Very cool.
Jimmy's Fucking Ben Affleck
Jimmy Kimmel's response to his girlfriend Sarah Silverman's reverse-ode "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" premiered on his post-Oscar broadcast.
It's star-studded and just as hilarious. Enjoy, but remember, it's potentially NSFW audio!
I paint self portraits because I am the person I know best
La Real Frida offers beautiful film footage of Frida Kahlo.* Beyond her own self-portraits, some of the most iconic images of Frida are portraits by her 10-year lover, photographer Nickolas Muray. [more inside]
February 24
Lots and lots of money.
putative clandestine organizations
The International Institute of Social History was founded in 1935. It is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions in the field of social history. From their collections: Secret Societies: Documents and illustrations of Freemasons, Jesuits, Illuminati, Carbonari, Burschenschaften and other putative secret societies and clandestine organizations.
A New Age of Sail?
Some time this month, French wine will once again be transported by sail. As the Guardian reports today, French vineyards concerned about climate change are about to make life much easier for oenophiles wishing to reduce their carbon footprint. Later this month, the Belem, a 19th century barque will sail from Languedoc to Dublin with 60,000 bottles of Bordeaux. [more inside]
Japanese book jackets
Students Rewarded for Destroying Productivity
The Winners of the 10th Annual Independent Games Festival were announced Wednesday night at this year's GDC. Finalists in the Student Showcase included Crayon Physics Deluxe (previously), Flip Side and Empyreal Nocturne, as well as a 2-D platformer named Polarity, developed by the same team behind Bandology and Skyrates.
Design and the Elastic Mind
Design and the Elastic Mind is a MOMA exhibit of cool objects, gadgets, websites and ideas. Some personal favorites are The PainStation, The Religious Helmet, Body Modification for Love, The Minutine Space and Lightweeds.
Hellraisers on F1 wheels
When F1 was sex and drugs and rocky roads. Starring, of course, James Hunt. And Jody Scheckter's iconic 6-wheeled Tyrrell P34. And your crash of crashes, Niki Lauda at Nurburgring 1976. Despite falling into a coma and suffering extensive facial burns, Lauda was back in 6 weeks at Monza.
The Amber Room found?
The Amber Room found? German treasure hunters using electromagnetic pulse measurements are "90% sure" the Russian "Eighth Wonder of the World" was buried by the Nazi's in a man-made cavern 20 meters underground near the village of Deutschneudorf (map), but it will take "..until Easter to get into the chamber because it may contain booby traps and has to be secured by explosives experts.. The chamber is likely to be part of a labyrinth of storage rooms that the Nazis built." Russia is eyeing its return, "If, hypothetically speaking, the room still exists."
half-baked food for thought
Sushi Science and Hamburger Science: I had always regarded science as universal and believed there are no differences in science at all between countries. But I was wrong. People with different cultures think in different ways, and therefore their science also may well be different. In this essay, I will describe differences I have observed between Western science and Eastern science. Let me start with a parable......
My Paper Mind
The Beatles Are Your Old Bicycle
Before Obamania, there was Beatlemania ☺ Washington Coliseum (02/11/64) Melbourne (06/17/64) Hollywood Bowl (08/24/64) Wembley Stadium (04/11/65) Paris (06/20/65) Barcelona (07/03/65) Shea Stadium (08/15/65) Munich (06/24/66) Tokyo (07/01/66) Dodger Stadium (08/28/66)
I Dream of Hillary... I Dream of Barack
I Dream of Hillary... I Dream of Barack. The world's first metaphysical poll on the Democratic contenders. Complied by Sheila Heti.
It's Official.
"Prepare for death and follow me."
The Muscle Shoals Sound
The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section was comprised of four session musicians operating out of the tiny northern Alabama town of town Muscle Shoals. Just four unassuming crackers who happened to have provided the funky underpinning for a huge number of hit songs by, among others, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Paul Simon, Joe Cocker, The Staple Singers , Jimmy Cliff and many, many others. Hey, they were the house band to the greats. Big respect to the men from 3614 Jackson Highway! [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
Let it blaze! Let it blaze! For we have done with this ‘education’!
Virginia Woolf: A feminist's view on why we go to war.
February 23
Start the Conversation
Frrvrr uses cutting-edge technology to identify topics you might be interested in based on your browsing history, public records, health records, email activity, legal filings, and web profiles.
Frozen Dead Guys On Parade
Frozen Dead Guy Days. Thousands of waving spectators line the streets of Nederland, Colo. (pop. 1,394), as a parade filled with skeletons, helmeted Vikings, pompadoured Elvises and antique hearses makes its way down First Street to mark the beginning of Frozen Dead Guy Days—a celebration that’s part Mardi Gras, part county fair, and all tongue-in-cheek. The 2008 celebration will be held March 7-9.
The Marvel Assistant Editors' Month
Back in 1983, before crossovers and limited edition covers ruined the industry, Marvel had a really great idea for a special month of comics. [more inside]
New evidence challenges official picture of Kennedy shooting
NOT the JFK shooting but Robert Kenedy's One link,yes,but information worth thinking about.
If this is true, then what does it tell us about other information the govt processes?
[...]The official record states that senator Robert F Kennedy, like his brother before him, was killed by a crazed lone gunman. But the assassination of a man who seemed to embody so much hope for a bitterly divided country embroiled in an unpopular war still troubles this nation. [more inside]
You are not yet enlightened, Inky-san.
Essential.... essential.... essential...
Since 1993, Pete Tong has been hosting the Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1. A group on imeem seems to have uploaded them all. Tracklistings here. Some of the best of all time: Carl Cox - 1996 (tracklisting), Paul Oakenfold - 1994 - (The Goa Mix) (TL), Leftfield - 1994 (TL). A few good ones from the last couple of years: Justice, (TL), Soulwax (TL), Eric Prydz (TL). And one of my personal favorites -- Scott Bond - 2000 (TL)
Debord's Board Game
Playing Kreigspiel on a LAN. Guy Debord created a board game in 1977 called Kriegspiel, a war game ostensibly based on the principles of Clausewitz as articulated in On War. An online version of this game was recently created by the Radical Software Group, and released online. The rules seem slightly more complicated than chess.
SurveillanceSaver: "A haunting live soap opera."
"SurveillanceSaver is an OS X screensaver that shows live images of over 400 network surveillance cameras worldwide." There is also a Windows version. Or check out the camera feeds without installing a screensaver (here are the feeds from Axis network cameras, for example). [Via.]
Wardell Quezergue: The Creole Beethoven
Regarding the 'Creole Beethoven' Wardell Quezergue, composer, arranger, big band leader, master of Second Line funk, who brought us Earl King's Trick Bag, the Dixie Cups' Iko Iko and Chapel of Love, King FLoyd's Groove Me, Baby, Jean Knight's Mr. Big Stuff to name but a few--not to mention A Creole Mass--and who, later in life, survived Katrina, to become, among other things of late, according to Home of the Groove's Quezergue Onstage and Behind The Scenes, a street performer in the French Quarter. His is a name that ought not be forgotten. [more inside]
Love, Korean Style.
Cheju Love Land (NSFW). A comment in a recent MeTa thread reminded me of this (ahem) expose. It's linked on stavros’ OutsideInKorea site [previously on MeFi].
Songs for Drella
21 years ago, Andy Warhol died of complications from gallbladder surgery. Lou Reed and John Cale, two founding members of the Velvet Underground -- Warhol's Factory house band -- paid tribute to their mentor on the 1990 album Songs for Drella. Edward Lachman's recording of a 1991 performance is available on YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 [more inside]
Traumatic anal intercourse with a pig
February 22
Webcasts from the Library of Congress
Webcasts from the Library of Congress. Hundreds of recent public programs from the Library of Congress, from Indian Religious Freedom, to Litigate or Legislate? to End of European Colonial Empires, to Robert E. Lee, to 1507 Waldseemuller World Map. Other topics include Performing Arts, Education, Government, World Affairs, Literature, Religion and Science. [more inside]
Don't Stop Believin'
Who knew when Arnel Pineda, lead singer of a Journey cover band called "The Zoo," posted videos of his band on YouTube that he'd grab the attention of Journey itself and be invited to be its new lead singer? (via) [more inside]
When a fish makes you shout and freak the fuck out, that's a moray.
You know how the exomorphs in Alien had a second jaw that reached out and bit you while they were biting you with their regular jaws? Moray eels have that. Just thought you should know. [more inside]
The African American Experience in Photographs
Missouri's digital archives of African American portraits. African American portraits from Florida's archives. The Black Archives of Mid-America. Missouri's archives, with a specific section for the African American community in northeast Missouri. [more inside]
Yin Yang
Yin Yang is an acceptable side-scrolling game with a cute gimmick.
SXSW 2008 showcased artists
Each year since 2005, SXSW released a torrent of songs for people to sample their showcased artists. It's a terrific source of new, eclectic music. This year, a fan found out they weren't planning to do this, so he took matters into his own hands: here's the torrent, with "764 different artists... almost 3.5 GB of new music, for free." (previously in 2007)
Proper internet forum behavior video.
How to act on an internet forum. Yup, just a single link to a video – informative on how to behave nevertheless. Even here on Metafiler. [more inside]
A Shell of a House
RegisterFly, er RegFly at it again
ICANN accreditation yanked, RegisterFly rebrands and tries again. Though partner Robert O'Niell claims otherwise, it looks like former CEO Kevin Medina is still in the picture.
Without accreditation and their former registrar partner, eNom, RegisterFly, uh I mean RegFly has partnered with leading wholesale registrar Tucows to start selling domain names again. RegisterFlies.com comes out of retirement. Previously.
Door Game
Beery eyed
Benefits of Beer
There are a ton of these but this is by far my favorite.
All the Kirk you can eat
Free Star Trek. The only Star Trek that matters -- the ones with Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest. [more inside]
No dueling
Improvisations on modified banjo and guitar by Paul Metzger. Please click through to his videos first, then to his recordings. His use of java means that I can't link directly to them. [more inside]
ArtReview.com
Create your own Pollock [Friday Flash Fun] and some decent art -related content , utilties and blogs as well on ArtReview.com
Church giggles to the extreme
In 1962, in a mission-run girls' boarding school in Kashasha, Tanzania, a student started laughing uncontrollably. Her laughter spread throughout the school, and the girls grew violent when teachers tried to calm them. Administration closed the school, sent some girls home, and the "epidemic of laughing and crying" spread to villages up and down the Bukoba district. [more inside]
And the winner is . . .
Oscar Night In Hollywood "If we can huckster a President into the White House, why cannot we huckster the agonized Miss Joan Crawford or the hard and beautiful Miss Olivia de Havilland into possession of one of those golden statuettes which express the motion picture industry's frantic desire to kiss itself on the back of its neck?"
The Atlantic reprints an indispensible Raymond Chandler article from 1948.
Books Oprah Wants to Club
It's time again for the greatest literary competition this side of Bulwer-Lytton: The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title (previously), and YOU can vote here for your favorite from 'the shortlist':
I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen (scroll down to see the author's blog)
How to Write a How to Write Book (other books by the author, mostly unavailable)
Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues (written by a woman)
Cheese Problems Solved (ONLY £135.00)
If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs (with extra points for the author's name: Big Boom)
and People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood (this might be declared ineligible since the publisher's cover picture shows a shortened title) [more inside]
I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen (scroll down to see the author's blog)
How to Write a How to Write Book (other books by the author, mostly unavailable)
Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues (written by a woman)
Cheese Problems Solved (ONLY £135.00)
If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs (with extra points for the author's name: Big Boom)
and People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood (this might be declared ineligible since the publisher's cover picture shows a shortened title) [more inside]
"Even I, Lucas, have heard the legend of a man-fish. "
Ben Chapman, who played the Gill Man in The Creature From the Black Lagoon, has passed on. Interviews with the actor/stuntman discussing his iconic role are here and here.
The South will Rise
Tennesse and Georgia's war over water There are about five million residents in north Georgia affected by the drought. The phrase "if its brown flush it down, if its yellow let it mellow" has become part of the local jargon in an attempt to encourage water conservation. [more inside]
The Dyatlov Pass Mystery
Nine experienced cross-country skiers hurriedly left their tent on a Urals slope in the middle of the night at around -30 degrees Celsius for no obvious reason, casting aside skis, food, boots and most of their clothes. Soon they would be dead, some with injuries more suited to car crash victims, and apparently dosed with radiation.
Their deaths are still unexplained, 49 years later.
The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Accident. [more inside]
Writers on Screenwriting
Word Into Image: Writers on Screenwriting {youtube}
William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) (1 2 3)
Robert Towne (Chinatown) (1 2 3)
Carl Foreman (High Noon) (1 2 3)
Neil Simon (The Odd Couple) (1 2 3)
Paul Mazursky (An Unmarried Woman) (1 2 3)
Eleanor Perry (The Swimmer) (1 2 3)
William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) (1 2 3)
Robert Towne (Chinatown) (1 2 3)
Carl Foreman (High Noon) (1 2 3)
Neil Simon (The Odd Couple) (1 2 3)
Paul Mazursky (An Unmarried Woman) (1 2 3)
Eleanor Perry (The Swimmer) (1 2 3)
Maybe More Than One Sheet of Paper, But Still
I got a forwarded email this morning purporting to be images from a contestat the Hirshhorn “Modern Art Gallery” in DC. The images were pretty cool; I’m not the only one who thought so. Just one thing, it turns out there was no contest and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has no connection that I could find with the artist, Peter Calleson. Still, however you find it, the work is well worth a look.
Again to see the Wiz(ard)?
Rick Cook, the author of the 5 novels in the "Wizard's Bane" series of computer-infused light fantasy from the early 90s (the first two are available, free, and legally, courtesy of the Baen Books Free Library) was in the middle of writing a sixth in Spring 2000, when he underwent emergency heart surgery. The result of that, and the meds that followed — he says in his blog — is that he has the sixth book (The Wizard Recapitalized) about 90% complete, but can't finish it, and he wants to know if he should release it anyway. Not all that much [more inside]
"It will be exquisite, and there will be many corpses."
On the Road of Knives is never-ceasing illustrated carnage... Zak Smith, Shawn Cheng and Nicholas Di Genova alternate drawing a perpetual narrative of monsters killing monsters being fought by monsters.
Paper Pilot: Battle of the Air
Not one, not two, no, sixteen games!
Grid16 for your Flash Friday consideration. Turn up the sound, tune your game reflexes to maximum, and enjoy a wide variety of games at the same time!
Bye Hoboken, as you drown in climate-changed caused floods
New Jersey is drowning , or rather it would if the the future as predicted by David Spratty & Philip Sutton in climate code red comes true. Philip Sutton said in an interview that "within five years the Arctic ice in the summertime will be all gone.". With all the ice melting, the waterlevels rise - will your house be under water?
Viva Obama
Obama Reggaeton from the Tejanos wing of the Viva Obama movement. Love the big, white hats! [more inside]
February 21
Now that Kosovo has declared independence, will Abkhazia follow?
Now that Kosovo has declared independence, will Abkhazia follow? The Abkhazian "autonomy" within Georgia already has its own president and parliament, as well as an independent army that has managed to expel Georgian presence by 1993. They've even got their own flag. The only thing missing? Official recognition from the UN. [more inside]
I think we can all agree that this is bad.
Trial by Internet
It's a cause célèbre jamboree, starting with Mumia Abu-Jamal: Guilty! Innocent! Guilty! Innocent! [more inside]
Perennial New Wave Planter: Piet Oudolf
"The vision (pdf)I have developed on gardening (pdf)and especially in my work with perennials (pdf)is based not only out of respect for nature(pdf) but also the power, energy(pdf), emotions, beauty and aesthetics(pdf) it gives." - Piet Oudolf [more inside]
Mmmmwah!
Affairs of the Lips. "We kiss furtively, lasciviously, gently, shyly, hungrily and exuberantly. We kiss in broad daylight and in the dead of night. We give ceremonial kisses, affectionate kisses, Hollywood air kisses, kisses of death and, at least in fairytales, pecks that revive princesses." But, why do we kiss?
Geldof on Bush
Bob Geldof in Rwanda gives Bush his props.. Bob Geldof, who has worked tirelessly to ease the suffering in Africa, has praised President Bush on his policies and efforts in that country. The singer was annoyed that the press had mostly ignored the exuberant reception that Mr. Bush has consistently received during his five-nation tour this week
The mysterious Kid Bailey
Kid Bailey was a Mississippi Delta bluesman blessed with the kind of slightly gravel-tinged voice that emanates authority. His recording career was a very short one, however, consisting of precisely one day, and yielding precisely two songs. Very little is known about Bailey himself, and the identity of the 2nd accompanying guitarist on his only known recording remains a mystery, though there has been some some speculation. I've been doing a little speculating myself, regarding some of Bailey's lyrics, and any of you blues linguists who might want to help fill in the blanks, please see the [more inside]. [more inside]
The Synchronicity Project
The Synchronicity Project Since 2005, Japanese art director Jun Tsuzuki has been running a project he calls Synchronicity, where he asks people all over the world to take a picture of what they are doing at a pre-determined moment in time. [via]
Live Free Or Die ... Silly?
Members of the Montana legislature (out of session) appear to be attempting to force the Supreme Court's hand in a fairly landmark gun-control case, Heller v. DC. Through an extra-session resolution, they are invoking contract law, by stating that the contract between the Montana people, through our Constitution, and the Federal Government will be ... ? ... if the Heller case is decided 'incorrectly'. What is at issue is one of the SCOTUS' seminal opportunities to rule concerning collective rights versus individual rights for firearm possession. [more inside]
Unflattering Photos From The Campaign Trail
Borders self-publishing and in-store distribution service
Borders and Lulu.com have teamed up to create Border's Lifestyle, a new service allowing anyone to design and publish their own book and have it distributed through Borders stores, even including your own book tour and in-store readings. Is it, according to Ben Vershbow of if:book, "bringing vanity publishing to a whole new level of fantasy role-playing,"1 or a real innovation in book distribution, bypassing the professional gatekeepers? [more inside]
It's about a bike
The '...is your new bicycle' meme is your new bicycle. I like bikes.
Oh ... You don't wanna look in there.
The sequel to Repo Man will finally arrive next month - in graphic novel form. The script was originally floated by Alex Cox in 1994, but an attempt at filming it was unsuccessful. Now, the comic version, illustrated by Chris Bones, is on its way from Gestalt Comics. [more inside]
Fancy pants flash game
"Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept." - Doug Larson
Like hockey fights ? Like the movie Slapshot? Want to see the real Chiefs? Les Chiefs is a documentary on the toughest team in the Quebec Semi-Pro Hockey League. There can be 10 fights in a single period. Goalies fight. Coaches fight. Some fans fight in the stands with the players who live just yards away, in a ramshackle apartment in the stadium (formerly a ramshackle storage closet).
Other fans lovingly craft belts in the belief that hockey is a religion and The Chiefs are its avatars. And players players question, even as they sign up for underground boxing matches and run up 100 to 1 penalty minute to goal ratios, whether they’re hockey players or circus side shows. (some links may be NSFW for violence) [more inside]
¡Luchadores y más luchadores!
Perhaps most famous luchador of all time is El Santo (aka Samson), who starred in, amongst many other things, the MST'd
Samson
Vs. The Vampire Women (Google Video). He even had his own photo
comic and bag
figure. However, even El Santo himself would gasp at
the phenomenal athleticism of today's luchadores. Skeptical? Well check out some highlights here,
here and here (YT + Warning: obnoxiously rawkin' music) and then decide.
Jesus Christ, Ebay!
The International Crusade For Holy Relics has been fighting (pdf) to have things like the nails used to attach J.C. to the cross removed from Ebay.
Serbs appear unhappy about independent Kosovo
This past Monday, the US recognized Kosovo as an independent state. Today, Serbs appear a little upset. [more inside]
I am ironman
Implants and transplants can be used to create a particularly exquisite type of horror, being so intimately connected to our own bodies. They can overwhelm us, assimilate us, drive us mad, piss us off, or consume us. [more inside]
happy endings
Soukous Radio is an online radio station that plays/streams this energizing, joyous, African fusion music, known for its bright guitar sound and rumba/salsa beat. The name, Soukous, is derived from the French word secouer, to shake. A popular, recent Soukous video by two Ivory Coast singers, DJ Eloh and DJ Mix, The Bobaraba (which means “big bottom” in the local Djoula language), celebrates booty shaking. [more inside]
Because DRAM doesn't get frostbite.
Frozen fire-gutted building
It's never a happy occasion when a 130 year old brick building goes up in flames. But when the fire crews have to spray down the building (and the surrounding city block) in sub-zero temperatures, the end result looks stunning. [more inside]
Video of USA193 satellite being shot down
A video has been posted showing the shooting down of satellite USA193 high over the Pacific! [more inside]
Four onboard, 188 to go
Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and Costa Rica and four cities in other countries have made the pledge to aim for being carbon neutral. New Zealand and Costa Rica had earlier decleared this ambitious goal, but now Iceland and Norway have joined in. Way to go!
Of the 192 nations on this planet, there are now only 188 to go.
Cryogenic Venting
Light Reflection: a brilliant fan of cryogenics venting from a relief valve on STS-122 Atlantis' ET (external tank) post-separation. Also see this handheld video of the ET, with money shots at 2:15 and 3:55. [more inside]
The Water Cure
During the Philippine-American War at the turn of the 20th century, American soldiers used a torture method called "the water cure" to extract information from Filipino fighters. [via brijit]
11 Point Underdogs
The 41st Annual Holy Angels/Santa Anita Jockeys Charity Basketball Game takes place tonight. The 7th/8th grade basketball team for Holy Angels Catholic School will be facing against jockeys [scroll down for details] from Santa Anita Park. The charity game [youtub vid from last year's game] raises money for Holy Angels Athletic department. The jockeys are currently 11 point underdogs for tonight's game.
Reports of Reading Decline Greatly Exaggerated?
Are people reading less? Government survey says: yes. Declines in how much and how well people read “are adversely affecting this country's culture, economy, and civic life as well as our children's educational achievement.” Also the cause of poor test scores. Steve Jobs agrees: Kindle DOA because nobody reads books anymore. WaPo says 1 in 4 persons read no books in 2006. And children didn't keep reading after they got through Harry Potter, either.
So literacy's in a long slow decline.
But wait. [more inside]
But wait. [more inside]
Put your headphones on
Oh, Senator!
This little news story might be slightly damaging to John McCain's campaign. You know how the press lets stuff like this slide.
uno dos tres cuatro cinco sex?
Sciuscià
February 20
Psi Not?
"You bend your words like Uri Geller's spoons", sang Toad. But how is it that science can dismiss Geller as the fraud he is without experimenting on every psychic claimant? Surely someone claiming telekinetic powers might be telling the truth? Quantum physics to the rescue.
"Garlic: The Silent Killer," "Juicy Beans," and 39 other fascinating projects of SCIENCE!
Crystal Meth: Friend or Foe High school science project alchemy: dumb shit into comedy gold.
thermal appliances for the poor
Turbo stove busts the inventor. A handy stove that promises to save remaining forests can me made simply and cheaply for people who cook indoors with gathered wood. Others show how to make it yourself.
The Soul of France
Flirting with the Forbidden, for centuries, Romans and French have enjoyed the pleasures of a unique songbird. Once caught, this tiny bunting is kept in a small cage, where its eyes are poked out. It is then force fed oats, millet, and figs until it's plumped up to four times its size. It is subsequently drowned alive in cognac, roasted at high heat, then served as an exquisite - and illegal - meal. Traditionally the diner enjoys this delicacy - approximately the size of a human thumb - underneath an embroidered napkin. The head is bitten off, the entire body eaten in one crunchy bite. Said to embody the "soul of France," it was, reportedly, the last meal of Francois Mitterrand. Writer Michael Paterniti recreates the experience of dining on l'ortolan, superbly told in an episode of "This American Life."
A urinely,Why not use it to make children's toys? Children are always breaking their toys.
What do you get when you mix vegetable oil and urine? No, it's not tome fetish -- well, not yet, anyway. It's self-healing rubber, of course. (Via.)
Never will another spitwad go unpunished.
Waiting for Mary
The Leonard Schrader Collection
The [Leonard Schrader] Collection consists of 8,462 vintage lobby-cards and 5,000 related items - many the sole surviving traces of long-lost silent films - acquired by late screenwriter/filmmaker Leonard Schrader over the course of 27 years.
New York Talk Exchange
In an information age, telecommunications such as the Internet and the telephone bind people across space by eviscerating the constraints of distance. To reveal the relationships that New Yorkers have with the rest of the world, New York Talk Exchange asks: How does the city of New York connect to other cities? [more inside]
Six (million) and out
The ultimate in fantasy sport: Each of the eight cricket franchises in the new Indian Premier League had a total of $5 million (£2.57 million) to bid at auction in Mumbai for the players who would represent them. The players receive the winning bid as their annual salary.
Unlikely stories, likely
Poet, playwright, novelist, mural painter, experimentalist, illustrator; a “fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian”; and perhaps “the greatest Scottish novelist since Sir Walter Scott,” Alasdair Gray has a new book out. [more inside]
Cotten pickin' good
Elizabeth Cotten [previously] sits down and talks with Pete Seeger. She plays the "Wilson Rag," "Mama, Your Papa Loves You," and Pete joins her for "Freight Train." (Lyrics are provided for "Freight Train," so you can all sing along, too.) [more inside]
The Moth: Listen to Stories
they're more like can openers than iron chefs
Torture is a blunt instrument
Five myths about torture In a Washington Post column, Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy, explains why five beliefs about torture are wrong. In a Harper's interview, he answers six questions. "Yes, torture does migrate, and there are some good examples of it both in American and French history. The basic idea here is that soldiers who get ahead torturing come back and take jobs as policemen, and private security, and they get ahead doing the same things they did in the army. And so torture comes home. Everyone knows waterboarding, but no one remembers that it was American soldiers coming back from the Philippines that introduced it to police in the early twentieth century." [more inside]
Food with Eyes
Food with Eyes. Found when I searched for the phrase after seeing some of Lileks' cast off mascots. Oddly, in this list of creepiest fast food mascots, only one or possibly two are food with eyes.
Not enough? Don't just look at food with eyes; don't just eat it; be food with eyes.
Previously.
phlatluigi?
College student researches his own cancer
Josh Sommer is a student at Duke who is researching and advocating to find a cure for chordoma, a rare type of cancer that he was diagnosed with during his freshman year of college. He's not new to being an advocate-- when he was in high school, he and his mom (Dr. Simone Sommer) spoke publicly about the dangers of toxic mold, which they had both experienced firsthand.
Blacker than black, it's gone
Apparently, the new black is... really, really black. "Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black." But what possible benefit to society could come from this blacker than black substance? Why, invisibility cloaks, of course! [more inside]
GTFO noob
Magical dragon-faeries? Flaxen-hair'd elflords? Dank scary dungeons, reminiscent of Grandpa's basement? Kids' stuff. Whether you're a Camwhore, Emo Kid, or Troll, Forumwarz everything relevant about the Internet (i.e., Forums and IM) distilled down to a browser-based RPG. Buy warez from shady Russian dealers, upgrade your hacking/whining skills, pwn total strangers by crashing their web sites, and join or fight a shadowy government conspiracy. You have nothing to lose but your dignity.
essays and short stories in the New Yorker and "Best American" series
Here are the essays and short stories originally published in The New Yorker that were later collected in Houghton Mifflin’s annual “Best American” anthology series (1915-present). [more inside]
What Europeans think of each other
Equal Opportunity Geeks
Move Over Alpha Geeks, Here Come the Fangrrls an article about thousands of women gathering for a sci-fi convention, and what it means in fandom circles. [more inside]
Blacken Chinese Man
Reh Dogg is quite the man.
Serving the Tiny Masters
Michael Cook likes to play with wormspit. And to share his interest in sericulture he's created a site devoted to the raising of silkworms, including the Cecropia, North America's largest moth. Not to be confused with the Hawk Moth, another very large moth, Cecropias are members of the Saturniinae family. Saturniid adults have vestigial mouth parts and no digestive system so they usually live no more than a week. So perhaps it’s best to get down to business right out of the cocoon. (SFW Moth Porn) [more inside]
Never Gonna Make You Cry
Obsolete Skills
What do making a poultice out of deer fat, IDDQD & IDKFA, and balancing the tonearm on a turntable have in common? They are obsolete skills.
AND AMAZING FRIENDS!
Wheel of branding, turn turn turn, tell us what resonates with our target demographic. Lego… anime… pokémon!
Windows Vista Sensei spends his time "traveling from place to place in a quest to help the underprivileged global citizens… With his sense of clarity he possesses the things that legends are made of." If that marketing copy isn't compelling enough, there's a game, a conference, a web comic and a series of "webcasts" you can complete to earn the "311t3" Source Fource figures. Collect them all! [Compare][Contrast]
Windows Vista Sensei spends his time "traveling from place to place in a quest to help the underprivileged global citizens… With his sense of clarity he possesses the things that legends are made of." If that marketing copy isn't compelling enough, there's a game, a conference, a web comic and a series of "webcasts" you can complete to earn the "311t3" Source Fource figures. Collect them all! [Compare][Contrast]
How I built my house for £4,000
The next-gen hot 100 (game) developers 2008
Next Generation presents the Hot 100 Game Developers of the year. See which developers are lighting up the world of games in 2008. For the impatient: skip to the end. [more inside]
paper's hero: bill blackbeard
"Bill Blackbeard is a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers. This major collection, consisting of 2.5 million clippings, tearsheets and comic sections, [spans] the years 1894 to 1996... [more inside]
Bono's Joshua Tree RIP
Iconic joshua tree has fallen... many fine photographs centering on the national park and lots of information about the trees are included on this fan site. via [more inside]
February 19
"When I push on the ball of my foot, it rotates the wrist."
Dean Kamen's Artificial "Luke" Arm - Segway inventor reinvents the prosthetic arm: "I've been able to do stuff with this that I haven't, seriously haven't, done in 26 years... uh, pick up a banana, peel a banana and eat it without it squishening... I can't wait to get one of these in a real environment, a home environment, and actually my wife can't either. She's going, oh yeah, I got lots of stuff for you to do."
Inflicting a historical atlas on the world
Physicist Howard Wiseman has a hobby, history. On his website he has three history subsites, filled with lots of information: 1) Ruin and Conquest of Britain 2) 18 Centuries of Roman Empire 3) Twenty Centuries of "British" "Empires". Especially informative are his many maps. As he says himself: "Drawing historical maps of all sorts has been a hobby of mine since my mid teens. Now I can do it digitally, and inflict it upon the world!"
Free Congress
In trademark style, Lawrence Lessig today announced the creation of a congressional exploratory committee. If in the next few days he decides to officially enter the race, he'll be running in the special election on April 8th to fill the CA-12 seat recently vacated by the death of Tom Lantos. A run by Lessig would likely be seen as a new front the the technocratic, post-partisan movement Barack Obama is attempting to catalyze; Lessig was a colleague of Obama at the University of Chicago law school, helped to draft Obama's technology plan, and is describing his potential run (his first attempt at public office), and the larger Change Congress project he also announced today, as an attempt to save Congress as an institution from the corrupting influence of money. [more inside]
Skillz or Fake. You Decide!
Fans of Futbol (Links to futbol vids) should enjoy this short vid of some amazing skillz. [more inside]
truth is a story scribbled in chalk, just an hour before the flood
Having worked as a philosophy teacher in a Scottish primary school and a domestic and child abuse worker with Scottish Women's Aid, perhaps it comes as little surprise that Karine Polwart's music often dwells on the darker side of life. [more inside]
A History of Evil
A History of Evil. A beautiful animation, from Zeus to Elvis to Bin Laden.
By Their Greatness We Shall Know Them
Bourdainfilter: Culinary curmudgeon Anthony Bourdain and writer Michael Ruhlman announce the nominees for the first annual Golden Clog Awards, honoring "The Best and Worst of the Year in Food." [via] [more inside]
Very cool spiders!!
Every scene must turn...
The Wager: "I'll bet you that video games will never become a significant form of cultural discourse the way that novels and film have. I'll bet you that fifty years from now they'll be just as mature and well-respected as comic books are today," posits game designer Steve Gaynor. Responses and rebuttals. [more inside]
Encephalon
Encephalon: Briefing the Next US President on 24 Neuroscience and Psychology Issues. Encephalon, the neuroscience blog carnival has returned after a brief hiatus and is being hosted at Sharp Brains. [Via Mind Hacks, which will host the next edition.]
Archaeology and Early Human History of Texas
Texas Beyond History is a comprehensive web site covering the last 10,000 years of human occupation of (what is now called) Texas. A small section of the site was previously posted on Metafilter. via archaeolog.
Ancillary Art
ANSI art gets the respect it is due. On January 12th, 2008, ACiD Productions produced an art show of legendary MS-DOS artists Somms and Lord Jazz. Their digital art was turned into hangable pieces using home-brew scrollable LCD light boxes hung on the gallery walls. [more inside]
Beat-boxing Basset
What Would Jesus Drink?
What Would Jesus Drink? -- “A rabbi, a priest and a minister walk into a bar.
The bartender looks at them and says, ‘What is this, a joke?’
In one Pennsylvania bar, it's no laughing matter.
On the last Friday of every month, teams of chaplains...set up camp in the Market Cross Pub in Carlisle, Penn. for a few hours to lend a sympathetic, non-judgmental ear to patrons looking for someone to listen to their tales of woe.” [more inside]
A credit to his race: the human race
Arthur Ashe's words and legacy. Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) was the first (and only) black man to win Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the US Open tennis tournaments and a very vocal civil rights activist and leader. Last week on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, Brian had on Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe[embedded audio player] and they were remembering a moment on Martin Luther King Day 1993, when Arthur called into the show from his hospital room (he died three weeks later). His views from Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Muhammad Ali and the 1966 and 1992 Los Angeles riots are at once eloquent and riveting.
Doodling and deliberating.
The American Gallery of Juror Art. Deliberations, a blog on juries and jury trials, solicits art made by folks while on jury duty. Some dude drew a sweet bike. Another had detailed notes on his fellow jurors, divided into "knuckleheads," "reasonable people," and "who knows." (Original here.) It's a small collection at the moment, but hopefully more to come.
His Master's Voice
"And I saw records made! Music literally written in wax!" RCA Victor takes you, step by step, through the records manufacturing process of 1942. A few years later, they brought us the cassette tape, though it wasn't exactly "compact" yet. And let's not forget that RCA "exclusive": Living Stereo! "You know, in this gimmicky world of ours, RCA has never lost sight of what they started out to do: to reproduce sound with so much clarity and fidelity that you could "close your eyes and think you're there."
Postings from Afghanistan: A Kandahar Journal
"My name is Captain Doug MacNair, I coordinate the media embedding program from a desk here in Ottawa... I have embedded more than 250 journalists in our program, and no embed has given me more personal satisfaction than yours... Thanks for being handy with a pencil and a piece of paper. Thanks for writing so well about the things that are hard to draw. Thanks for leaving your family to do an important job. I know how that feels and it’s never easy. Most of all Richard, thanks for risking your life while you do all those things." Q&A with Richard Johnson. Via.
A Happy (belated) President's Day
Paul Graham on trolls
A 12-inch by 12-inch canvas.
Before Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover in 1938, at the age of 23, all albums came in plain brown wrappers. Steinweiss's idea to create a package that had something visual on the outside to lure the consumer was a huge success. A tribute show for the 90-year-old Steinweiss will be held at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, California, until February 23, 2008. More about Steinweiss here and here. First link via.
Castro Retires
Castro Retires. "I neither will aspire to nor will I accept -- I repeat -- I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief," says Castro in Cuban newspaper Granma - where he regularly posts his thoughts on international news. [more inside]
February 18
Poem as Comic Strip
Poetry's turn to go graphic. The Poetry Foundation has invited a few graphic novelists to illustrate poems from its archive. Via.
The People's Singer
"If Communists liked what we did, that was their good luck," said Lee Hays, founding member of the Almanac Singers. A fascinating portrait of one of the linchpins of the politically engaged folk movement of the '40s and '50s. Hays sang beside the more celebrated (and, on one important day in Bob Dylan history, infamous) Pete Seeger on such classic Almanac albums as Talking Union. [Listen here.]
The Invisible Fist of the Free Market
What market has grown from $900 billion in 2000 to more than $45.5 trillion and is completely unregulated? Welcome to the world of Credit Default Swaps. Speculative derivatives have been described as "financial weapons of mass destruction" by some guy named Warren Buffet. Some people wonder how you can have "$1 trillion in swaps bet on the success or failure of GM when the entire market cap of GM is a mere $15 billion." Credit Default Swaps are being triggered from Northern Rock in the UK to ANZ Bank down under as the "subprime" crisis unravels. AIG's CDS loss portfolio has already climbed to $5 billion from a previsouly estimated $1 billion. [more inside]
Postum, we hardly knew ye
"...the most effective means of popular education at society’s disposal."
I think that the main reason for the practical intelligence and the political good sense of the Americans is their long experience with juries in civil cases. I do not know whether a jury is useful to the litigants, but I am sure it is very good for those who have to decide the case. I regard it as one of the most effective means of popular education at society’s disposal.Dissent offers commentaries on jury duty from Alexis de Toqueville, Joanne Barkan, Paul Berman, Susan Cheever, Nicolaus Mills, Maxine Phillips, Ruth Rosen, Jim Sleeper, Michael Walzer, and Darryl Lorrenzo Wellington. [more inside]
Semi-newsworthy
Slow news day: One properly used semicolon inspires paroxysms of joy in the NYT.
What? No torpedoes!?
sQuba Submersible Sports Car --Rinspeed calls the sQuba the first real submersible car. Unlike military amphibious vehicles, which can only drive slowly on a lakebed, the sQuba travels like a submarine - either on the surface or submerged. The interior is resistant to salt water, allowing the skipper to drive into a lake or the sea. The only downside? It's a convertible.
“One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
On Saturday, March 29, 2008, at 8 pm in each time zone cities around the world will go dark: Sydney will follow Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra; In the Philippines, in Manila the lights will go out; Bangkok in Thailand; Tel Aviv in Israel; Suva in Fiji; Copenhagen in Denmark; In North America, Atlanta followed by Chicago, Toronto, Phoenix and San Francisco will be black. It’s Earth Hour. [more inside]
Wikileaks Plugged
Wikileaks has been plugged. Get it? Leak... plugged. Brilliant.
Wikileaks, the fairly recent tool for providing both publicity and anonymity to whistleblowers leaking classified documents, has been censored! Well, it was already censored by China, but this time it's the Land of the Free (no, not that one). The DNS records have been deleted by Californian host Dynadot after a court injunction following action from a Cayman Islands bank. Naughty ol' Bush-appointed Judge White, apparently.
But don't worry, you can't stop the signal. There are zillions of mirrors. Look at them shine.
"New Copernican Revolution"?
A Day in the Life of Richard Devylder
A Day in the Life of Richard Devylder [wmv, 11.5 minutes long, subtitled]
Richard Devylder, deputy director at the California Department of Rehabilitation, was born without arms or legs. The video shows how technology enables him to navigate through his daily life, everything from work, doctor's visit, eating to swimming.
Richard Devylder, deputy director at the California Department of Rehabilitation, was born without arms or legs. The video shows how technology enables him to navigate through his daily life, everything from work, doctor's visit, eating to swimming.
"World's Greatest Music Collection" being auctioned
Do you love music? Do you have at least 3 million dollars? If you answered "yes" to these questions then you may be interested in bidding on "The World's Greatest Music Collection." (single link to ebay auction)
What Are Words For?
Obama accused of plagarism. Clinton aide Howard Wolfson claims Barack Obama plagarized a speech by Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA). If they do seem similar, it could be because they were likely written by the same person, political consultant David Axelrod, a man who gets around.
Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1922 - 2008.
Alain Robbe-Grillet, French author, member of the Académie française and subject of this recent Mefi post, has passed away at age 85.
Oh, the humanity!
Solar cell directly splits water for hydrogen. Thomas E. Mallouk and W. Justin Youngblood, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry, together with collaborators at Arizona State University, developed a catalyst system that, combined with a dye, can mimic the electron transfer and water oxidation processes that occur in plants during photosynthesis. They reported the results of their experiments at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science today in Boston.
Orson Welles - full of country goodness and green pea-ness
Get me a jury and show me how you can say "in July" and I'll… go down on you. Orson Welles, famed for his acting and directing in such classics as Citizen Kane, also spent his later years doing occasional voiceover work for commercials -- most famously, this spot for Findus Frozen Peas. [more inside]
The Cut-and-Paste Personality
These identity thieves don't want your money. They want your quirky sense of humor and your cool taste in music.
Among the 125 million people in the U.S. who visit online dating and social-networking sites are a growing number of dullards who steal personal profiles, life philosophies, even signature poems. Dude u like copied my whole myspace, posts one aggrieved victim.
Rediscovered photos from Lincoln's second inauguration
"New" photos emerge of Lincoln's second inauguration The Library of Congress has discovered new photographs taken in 1865 at Abraham Lincoln's second inauguration. For years they were filed under President Grant's archive, mislabeled into obscurity. Incidentally, this week will be the grand opening of Lincoln's summer "cottage" in northwest DC.
Shadow puppetry
Shadow play has been a part of human civilization for tens of thousands of years. After its birth in China, it spread to many other geographical areas and cultures, most notably Turkey and Greece. Shadow theatre is seen as a predescesor to cinema; in fact, the earliest existing animated feature is Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927). (YouTube has her hand cream ad, "The Secret of the Marquise".) Today, a few regional companies still practice shadow theatre. Animators such as Thanh Nguyen of 300 infamy and Aleksey Budovsky [flash] have taken the influence of Reiniger and shadow theater in their own directions, and film students make their own silhouette movies. Learn about the history of this fascinating craft [flash], or make your own.
sonic interpretations
"What is the sound of color? We asked that question of 5 musicians. We assigned each musician a different color. They wrote 5 tracks. We gave the colors and tracks that inspired them to 5 directors." The Sound of Color contains the songs and videos that were created. The site and free downloads are only available through March 15. (Via Carolina Vigna-Marú) [more inside]
Bringing Back The Drive-In
The first drive-in movie theater was opened on June 6, 1933, by salesman Richard M. Hollingshead in Camden, N.J. On the bill was a twilight showing of the British comedy Wife Beware. And so the drive-in era was born, peaking in 1958 with almost 5,000 theaters in the U.S alone. These days you'd be hard pressed trying to find one but thankfully there are plenty of handy lists online telling you just where to find one (there's even one for Aussies like me!). And that's not all we have to be thankful for; the drive-in scene is apparently witnessing something of a "mini-revival" at present. Don't feel like going out? Then why not make your own? First you'll need instructions on how to build one. Then you'll need intermission-advertisements (you can download or even just watch heaps of them for free here). And then you'll need a handy list of the kinds of films they used to show at the drive-in. If you're in the US, you'll need to know some of the special rules the FCC has for drive-ins, and if you have any more questions, I'm sure the fine folk at the United Drive-In Theater Owners Association could help. All of this sound like too much work? Then just sit back and check out the videos and photos on this nice site (it's about drive-ins, of course!).
On Victor Borge
A world-class comedian, Victor Borge could please a crowd with his Phonetic Punctuation or Inflationary Language bits. But he was also a brilliant pianist, as showcased when he improvised an impressive encore to a piece he had only heard and never played before, much to his apparent delight. Still better was when he'd merge the two passions, like in Page-Turner or The Minute Waltz. He entertained for more than 75 years, performing up to 60 shows even at 90 years old. He died peacefully in 2000, just two days after performing a concert in Denmark, on the blue here, before dots were all the rage. [more inside]
Would you like to play a game?
Fun and games with mathematics and mathematical puzzles (e.g. heart basket, Rubik's Cube, Rubik's Magic, hypercubes, and more) in both English and (with yet more content in) German.
February 17
From Anschluss to Zyklon B
The Dictionary of Coming to Terms with the Past (Wörterbuch der 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung') examines over 1,000 German words that have Nazi connotations, such as Endlösung (Final Solution) and Selektion, It is featured in a review by der Spiegel. Such loaded words still constitute a minefield for Germans today, as the Archbishop of Cologne discovered last year in a situation analogized to Senator Biden's use of the term "articulate" when referring to Senator Obama. [more inside]
Independent Kosovo? Why Not Vermont?
Kosovo is technically part of Serbia, but it's been governed by the U.N. since 1999, after NATO militarily intervened to stop Slobodan Milosevic's brutal suppression and expulsion of ethnic Albanian separatists. Now that it has declared its independence (with US support), the elephant in the room remains: Independent Kosovo? Why Not Vermont? "Why is statehood OK for some people but frowned on for others?" There is no internationally accepted standard for independence. "This is the great hole in democratic theory."
Prince Rupert's Drops
Prince Rupert’s Drops are quickly cooled teardrop shaped glass pieces that have amazing physical properties. While tough on the big end, they will explosively shatter if broken on the small end.
Subprime Artistry
The Subprime Primer. [via] An entertaining, lo-fi, comic-book style explanation of the complex Subprime Mortgage mess.
A Solar Grand Plan
A Solar Grand Plan: By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions. [Via Gristmill.] [more inside]
Over 2000 classic short stories
Over 2000 classic short stories from American Literature as well as an option to sign up for a short story of the day rss feed. Among the authors on offer are Kate Chopin, Saki, O. Henry, Louisa May Alcott, Ambrose Bierce, H. P. Lovecraft, Jack London, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Dickens, Herman Hesse, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Honoré de Balzac, Edith Warton, P. G. Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes, Leo Tolstoy, Aldous Huxley, Roald Dahl, Henry James, Katherine Mansfield and I could keep going for a while. The point is, there's over 2000 short stories in there.
Can you make yarn from beard hair?
Scandinavian Grace's beard cap has inspired the internet. Now plans are available to make your own bearded cap. Have a large head? No problem! Skeleclavas lack a beard, but make warming your head a little more hardcore
Harvard boosts open access for faculty publications
Harvard's Faculty of Arts & Sciences voted unanimously last week to mandate "Open Access" to published articles - a first at a U.S. university, though the dean will apparently grant a waiver to anyone who wants to opt out. More to follow? Peter Suber's Open Access News is tracking reactions. [more inside]
Alright, Steal
Where did Lily Allen get her music from? Her own head? Her producer's heads? Her co-writers' heads? No. Lily 'borrowed' liberally from old reggae and ska tracks and even soft porn soundtracks. The music like dirt blog (a find in itself) outlines every sample and influence in 'Alright, Still', and the result is much more interesting than the album itself. Music like dirt provides some brilliant links to classic reggae, ska, calypso, jazz..... [more inside]
February 16
delete what they end to all of the loop press
delete adult scroll conflict for (or: 10 minutes of Perl scripting with Vista)
Succeed Socially
Another weekend sitting alone in your apartment? Thinking of sending that two thousand word cry for help to anonymous Ask Metafilter? Maybe you should take a look at the advice at Succeed Socially first. [more inside]
Kuduro
There was a time when it seemed that groups like Frederic Galliano presents Kuduro Sound System and Buraka Som Sistema would do for kuduro what groups like Diplo and Bonde do Role did for Funk Carioca: make it popular with hipsters in the United States. But it hasn't happened yet. Why?
Where would Jesus borrow?
A University of Utah study finds there's a geographical correlation between payday lenders and the Christian Right. Consumerist has another summary that includes the maps, so you don't have to use Google Maps to view them.
Pearls of Distraction and Disunderstanding
PMOG stands for Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Players play without playing; clicking around the internet turns into experience points and currency. Players can bomb each other, wage war over web sites, and lead other users on web missions. Ordinary web sites become caches for items and currency. PMOG fuses an MMO into our WWW.
Inventive insurgency
Fake terror. The Banana theory of terrorism. While I'm at it, fake Lutheran Ascetecism, fake bread, fake gay sex, fake DIY, fake beer (fur der Deutsch), fake punk petition, fake shopping, fake yogurt, and fake cops.
Philosophy and Comedy
Henri Bergson's "On Comedy"
Helene Cixous's "The Laugh of the Medusa"
David Chalmer's Philosophical Humour
Monty Python's "Philosopher's World Cup" [more inside]
Helene Cixous's "The Laugh of the Medusa"
David Chalmer's Philosophical Humour
Monty Python's "Philosopher's World Cup" [more inside]
George Lawrence and his amazing Lawrence Captive Airship
Motto: "The Hitherto Impossible in Photography is Our Specialty." Meet George Lawrence. Saying that "he took pioneering aerial photographs using kites" doesn't quite do Lawrence Captive Airship justice. Dubbed the Lawrence Captive Airship it utilized a string of seven kites to lift the specially designed cameras to heights of 2,000 ft. Cameras weighing as much as 49 pounds and capable of producing negatives from 10 x 24 inches to a staggering 30 x 87 inches in size. The largest negatives yet taken from any airborne vehicle. [more inside]
Game over man!!! (Maybe)
Has Blu-ray won the war? Toshiba has halted production of HD-DVD players and recorders. This on top of announcements by Netflix, Walmart, and Warner Bros. to not support the HD-DVD format. (It was less than a year ago that Walmart seemed to crown HD-DVD as their format of choice.) Now we can all break down and buy a Blu-ray player. Or can we?
Best of the web you bet!
Poker hand simulator. Get a feel for the odds before you bet the farm.
Hoosier Daddy Sampson to Dakich
Kelvin Sampson probably gone Sooner than later. Ever since Bob Knight got fired from Indiana University, alumni have been upset that one of his lineage was not brought in to replace him. [more inside]
Chicken Flap.
Last summer, the Missoula MT city council deadlocked on the question of whether city folk should be allowed to keep "urban chickens". (Missoula, pop. 57,000 is what passes for urban in Big Sky Country.) Reporter Ann Medley made a wonderful video essay on the issue for New West. [more inside]
Early Kraftwerk @ YouTube
Early Kraftwerk @ YouTube, from when they still had long hair—Ruckzuck live on WDR TV in 1970; Truckstop Gondolero (aka Rückstossgondoliere), a 1971 performance where the line-up is Florian with Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother, later of NEU!; Heavy Metal Kids (audio only), also from 1971; and a lovely version of Tanzmusik (1973). [more inside]
Chess Problems
Chess Problems has hundreds of problems in six difficulty classes from novice to fiendish [java]
Everybody Freeze
Frozen Grand Central. A little bit of Saturday fun. The folks at Improv Everywhere are at it again. This time they freeze over two hundred people in Grand Central station. (via GoodSh** NSFW) [more inside]
The Psychology of Snarkiness
...people whose brains are best equipped to understand sarcasm tend to have aggressive personalities.
Also: "those who can hang with sarcasm are always the most interesting conversation partners at a party"
Also: "those who can hang with sarcasm are always the most interesting conversation partners at a party"
He's more NORML than he appears
You may know Rick Steves the Travel Dweeb from his PBS series on European travel tips, which he has leveraged to build a burgeoning tourism business. But the dude's down with the cause(s) , including serving as the host of an ACLU-sponsored program on drug law reform.
Hervé This: the man who unboiled an egg
Hervé This, dubbed the "Father of Molecular Gastronomy", is also known as the man who unboiled an egg.
Reinvent yourself with an MBA.. in farming
Trying to get unemployed youth interested in farming, Pasana O2 boasts a slick website (Japanese only unfortunately), a vision statement, a newsletter and oh yeah, an underground farm covering one square kilometer inside a former bank vault. [Via our very own]
The thirtieth birthday of online communities
During a January blizzard thirty years ago in Chicago, Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss came up with the idea for a computerized bulletin board system. One month later on February 16, 1978, the first public online community was officially established, and it was named CBBS. [more inside]
512 bytes of text to create a movie
POV-Ray Short Code Contest #5 - The animation round! This time the competitors were allowed 512 bytes of POV-Ray code to create a (short...) animation. The rules of rounds 2 and 3 (previously on Mefi) allowed 256 bytes but to create stills. [more inside]
Little Hat Jones - Bye Bye Baby Blues
Little Hat Jones - Bye Bye Baby Blues
Bye Bye Baby Blues Tab
Dennis (Little Hat) Jones, a Texas bluesman considered a notable of Naples, Texas. He record ten sides of his own and made nine more accompanying the very idiosyncratic and hard to follow Texas Alexander. Bye Bye Baby Blues is a very sweet song that also appears on the Ghost World soundtrack.
See also Texas Blues Guitar (1929-1935) .
Bye Bye Baby Blues Tab
Dennis (Little Hat) Jones, a Texas bluesman considered a notable of Naples, Texas. He record ten sides of his own and made nine more accompanying the very idiosyncratic and hard to follow Texas Alexander. Bye Bye Baby Blues is a very sweet song that also appears on the Ghost World soundtrack.
See also Texas Blues Guitar (1929-1935) .
"Leaving no trace [of our daily lives] is nearly impossible."
The Anonymity Experiment. Is it possible to hide in plain sight? Privacy-minded people have long warned of a world in which an individual’s every action leaves a trace, in which corporations and governments can peer at will into your life with a few keystrokes on a computer. Now one of the people in charge of information-gathering for the U.S. government says, essentially, that such a world has arrived.
February 15
Adventures in Balrog Math
Paul is Dead.
In the squares, not on the intersections, goddammit!
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, "International Chess" was the only widely known chess variant in the West. It had its problems. People tried to solve them. Of course, they could just play xiangqi instead. There's also janggi, Makruk, and the granddaddy of them all, chaturanga. Perhaps the most refined game in the family, however, is Japanese Chess--shogi. [more inside]
Talk about Talk is Cheap
"'Obama is all talk' is all talk." Matt Burton, creator of Readable Laws and other projects aimed at opening up government and the political process to the masses, has chimed in on the issue of the "substance" behind the rhetoric of the various candidates. He notes how in articles such as this people attack Barack Obama for his fine oratory but lack of details. He then digs in and asks, Who really is being specific about their stances on the issues? Barack or Hillary?
FreakAngels
FreakAngels. Warren Ellis has a new web-based graphic novel starting today, with art by Paul Duffield.
Batmanimé - Batman gets the anime treatment
The New Adventures of Batman was the first animated show dedicated specifically to Batman, and since has been followed by more recent adaptations like Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, and the presently on going The Batman. Now Bruce Wayne receives the Animatrix treatment this year as a lead up to The Dark Knight with Batman: Gotham Knight. (Ten minute video about the project) [more inside]
Double Nickelled & Dimed
"In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings." Introduction to the book which arose from his "journey", which was inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich. [more inside]
Bull Poker
Desperate for money? Short on good sense? Bull Poker might be for you! Last one to get up from the table and run for his life wins the pot! All YouTube links. Warning: Some gore and blood. [more inside]
History, writ Gangsta
The 5 Most Badass U.S. Presidents of All-Time. Just in time for Presidents' Day weekend. In ascending order of badassitude: Andrew Jackson, John F. Kennedy, John Quincy Adams, George Washington and your number 1, Theodore Roosevelt. [more inside]
Islamic Courting
Back in May, an Egyptian professor found a loophole to allow an unmarried female to be alone in the presence of a man. All she has to do is breastfeed him 5 times. Radā is a technical term from Islamic jurisprudence meaning "the suckling which produces the legal impediment to marriage of foster-kinship". Now the good people over at Haase & Martin have come up with their own way to get under that burka.
A Howl that went unheard for over 50 years
For more than 50 years, it was believed that the first recording Allen Ginsberg made of Howl was in Berkeley in March 1956. Now, an earlier recording – made on Valentine's Day 1956 at Reed College, Portland, Oregon – has been found. Reed have made it – along with seven other poems Ginsberg read the same night – available here. (Click on "Allen Ginsberg reads ..." for drop down menu; apologies for crappy quicktime interface.)
Brought to you by the letters N, P, and R
Om nom nom nom! NPR's In Character interviews Cookie Monster. In addition to the video interview, there is are articles (written and audio) about The Big C.
It seems wrong to call a gun 'cute'...
The Record Business Is ...
His Career Is In Your Hands. Musician / Producer Butch Walker (formerly of Marvelous 3) had a rough autumn in 2007. He was renting a home from a Chili Pepper, a home into which he had moved all of his personal and professional belongings. Unfortunately, Flea's Malibu rental property was directly in the path of California's November batch of wildfires. Tough break indeed. So how does an artist recover from such a devastating loss? He gives away his newest live double-album for free. Or $5.99. The choice is yours. Why? The domain name says it all.
A 5d100 of free RPGs
One Thousand Monkeys, One Thousand Typewriters is the largest online source of free role playing and story games. With so many choices, you may want to look at the winners of the 2006 Game Chef contest, with its interesting rules: Crime and Punishment, the RPG about being a writer for a crime procedural TV show; Liquid Crystal, about a robot with no memory; Time Traitor with its mysterious Factors; and the haunted house story Merryweather. [more inside]
Nature Aquariums
Nature Aquariums. Little plastic castle and bubbling treasure chest don't do it for you? Me neither. But the living landscapes Aqua Forest Aquarium creates in fishtanks are gorgeous. [Flash-based image gallery]
Mori Seiki’s Cutting Dream Contest 2007
The Gold prize in the Die and Mold machining section of Mori Seiki’s Cutting Dream Contest Awards 2007 was won by the Kawanami Ironworks Inc. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the company machined a jacket from aluminum. [more inside]
The metafilter of extremism
Suicide bombers in Valhalla "Sverige fights back! I'll see the heroes in Valhalla, inshallah."
Where can you find an eclectic mix of Fascists, Libertarian Socialists, Trotskyists, National Anarchists, DPRK apologists, Dixie lovers, Christian Reconstructionists and Islamists all in one place? [more inside]
Max Gogarty Hits the Road
'Radioactive mama, we'll reach critical mass tonight'
Atomic Platters :: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security
missing: 3 right feet
Last summer two right feet washed up on shore within a week of each other on two separate tiny islands in British Columbia. Today a third right foot has just washed up.
The island where eye color can kill you.
A mindbending logic puzzle. A thousand people on the island, 900 brown-eyed and 100 blue-eyed; anyone who learns their own eye color must kill themself the next day; a visitor mentions that there is a blue-eyed person on the island; what happens? Nothing, you say, because they already know that? Wrong. Further details at the Terry Tao post linked above, but don't scroll down below the boxed description unless you want hints and/or spoilers. [more inside]
In the flash of a click
The Power of Photography (might or might not be NSFW) with accompanying articles: Stricken Child crawling towards a Food Camp [1994] | The Falling Man [2001] | The Youngest Mother [1939] | Born Twice [1999] (via)
The Frontline Club
The Frontline club is a media club in west London supporting international independent journalism. Started by Vaughan Smith (prev) after the Frontline TV agency closed, it has a restaurant, cinema and hosts talks by leading journalists. The website has blogs, articles and photography, and you can watch full length videos of talks, with people like Jeremy Paxman, David Horovitz and Robert Thomson
I Want To Say One Word To You: Plastics Recycling... Okay, That's Two Words.
A Visual Guide To Recycling Plastics. Most recycling programs only accept plastics #1 and #2, so being able to quickly identify them can be a time saver when sorting your recycling. In the future, we should be able to recycle plastics #3 through #7 — but for now these outcasts must be banished to the landfill (that’s too bad, because a lot of stuff is made from plastic #5).
February 14
Cult of the Horse Mask
Tom Green, master of comedic timing, has introduced me to the cult of the Horse Mask(NSFW link).
A horse mask? (also NSFW) Yes, a horse mask. A...horse mask? Yes, yes, a horse mask. Oh? A horse mask? Dude, yeah, a horse mask.
Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology
Theoi Greek Mythology is an internet encyclopedia with over 1500 pages on various characters from classical myth, covering everything from famous gods and goddesses to obscure nymphs, titans and monsters. If the confusing familial relations of the Greek gods vex you, there are 10 different family trees to help you make sense of it all. There's also an extensive library of ancient works concerning classical mythology and a bibliography should you long for more to read. Last but not least, Theoi has a gallery of over 1200 artworks from antiquity, which I have been happily browsing for a good while.
Boom boom bap.
It may lack the hilarity of an unaccompanied David Lee Roth crooning to himself like a lunatic, but surely someone has a use for twenty three unaccompanied John Bonham drum tracks.
Humans vs The Sea
A Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems "What happens in the vast stretches of the world's oceans - both wondrous and worrisome - has too often been out of sight, out of mind. The goal of the research presented here is to estimate and visualize, for the first time, the global impact humans are having on the ocean's ecosystems."
When this world's big enough for all different views...
From unprecedented chart-topping, to crossover appeal, to the bizarre image change and retirement from music, he was truly country's Michael Jackson. While many of us may not have cared for his music or paid much attention to his core audience, those of us who were inspired despite ourselves by the (previously posted) Will.i.am video might just find something in the surprisingly liberal prince of the red states. [more inside]
The Lost Films of Orson Welles
::Call me Ishmael::Don Quixote::A Lesson for all Actors::Father Mapple's Sermon::The Lost Films of Orson Welles:: [more inside]
Be part of the "counter-culture"
The Day of Purity is a day when youth can make a public demonstration of their commitment to remain secularly pure, in mind and actions. ... When you stand up for sexual pruity you send a message to parents, churches, communities, legislators, and the media that you want a better world. Be politically incorrect! Sponsored by Liberty Counsel. (via)
Four Score and a terabyte ago…
Spartacus Roosevelt Hour Podcast is a weekly hour of obscure noise, glitchy electropop, fake nostalgia, bastardized exotica, tweaky lounge, creepy ambient and musical non-sequiturs. Also, it features an Alabaman with a Skype account named Spartacus Roosevelt.
Just think what Hustler could accomplish with this ...
"A lot of people won't lick a magazine no matter how good it tastes." You think? And yet this is not the first time it's been tried.
Looking for love in all the wrong places
Furverts, Expectoration, and Body Inflation. A handy guide to the other side of Valentine's Day.
Henri Salvador
Henri Salvador died yesterday, age 90.
"In his 70-year career, Henri Salvador also gained popularity as a dancer, pantomime artist and TV personality. His musical range included prewar chansons, whispery bossa nova, children's favorites and rock 'n' roll." And his English wasn't bad.
But Would They Let Saint Mary Officiate?
WWJD? Well, he definitely wouldn't let a woman tell him what to do. At least, that's the theological position one institution of Christian learning has taken. And this isn't the first time the perhaps ironically named St. Mary's Academy has taken a "positive stand" on principle. Another take on the story here. (Via Boing Boing.)
Happy V-Day From The 5th Circuit
"I've been anticipating this for some time," said Ray Hill, consultant for a number of local adult bookstores, speaking of the infamous Texas Dildo Law [Molly Ivins video, not only NSFW but too funnt for work] prohibiting the posession of six or more "obscene devices." [more inside]
Tomorrow's Pioneers
The main character of Hamas' show Tomorrow's Pioneers has evolved once again. Assud, the Jew eating rabbit replaced Nahoul the bee - a martyr who died waiting for medical treatment. The original character on the show was a Mickey Mouse lookalike named Farfour. His death was also blamed on the Israelis.
The professionalism, reliability and public accountability of a news organization are three of its most valuable assets.
iReport.com - "a brand new beta site for uncensored, user-powered news. CNN built the tools, you take it from there. All the stories here are user-generated and instant: CNN does not vet or verify their authenticity or accuracy before they post. The ones with the "On CNN" stamp have been vetted and used in CNN news coverage."
Yes, you probably would need a TV to know what we are talking about
Fancast is a new site currently in beta, that tries to combine TV listings, IMDB type information, and aggregate full length episodes of TV shows from places like CBS and Hulu. It is also designed to allow you to connect you with shows and movies from iTunes, Netflix, and more. It is owned by Comcast but anyone can use it. via
witness the strangest customs of the red, white, brown, black and yellow races ... attend their startling rites, their mysterious practices ... all assembled for you
The Secret Museum of Mankind :: "Published in 1935, the Secret Museum is a mystery book. It has no author or credits, no copyright, no date, no page numbers, no index ... The tone of the commentary is dated, and uniformly racist in the extreme, often hilariously so. It reads like the patter of a carnival sideshow barker, from a time when the world was divided between "modern" Europeans and "savages" ... Presented here is the Secret Museum in its entirety, all 564 pages scanned and transcribed-- nothing is omitted or censored ... Treat it as entertainment instead of education (don't take it seriously and don't believe a word it says!), adjust for the blatant racial bias of the time, and enjoy."
Devil Skin, indeed
Just some cellophane condom wrappers from the 1930 and '40s. Nicely matched with syphilis awareness posters from the same era. [more inside]
6 milion bucks, and no iPod. Sheesh. MP3s are the future!
When it comes to home theaters, I thought I'd seen it all. But nothing's come close to this. First, I'm going to try to describe the sheer magnitude of Jeremy Kipnis' theater. His Stewart Snowmatte laboratory-grade screen is the biggest I've ever seen in a home, and in the back of the theater, there's a Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector. I'm looking everywhere, jotting down questions, and Kipnis sounds almost giddy talking about his theater's capabilities. He refers to his baby, the Kipnis Studio Standard (KSS), as "The Greatest Show on Earth." And from the looks of it, he may be right.
I should hope so, it cost six million dollars.
Love is a lottery
Lupercalia is a festival that probably pre-dates Rome, and which later became known as St. Valentine's day. It had everything; sacrifice, cake, nudity, spanking and a love lottery. What do we get? A card. If we are lucky. But, who was Valentine? Did Chaucer make the whole thing up? [more inside]
Say it with small cheeseburgers.
DOH. Its Valentine's Day and you forgot to make a reservation, and now everyone's all booked up. Except White Castle. [more inside]
He got nailed.
Doctors successfully removed a two-inch nail from a man's genitals yesterday. Doctors pulled the nail out of his urethra on their first attempt and later said the man could have died if the object had not been spotted on X-ray. The man had admitted himself to SMC on Sunday night with extreme abdominal pain and was unable to speak.
The man told doctors the last thing he remembered was having something sprayed in his face and being fondled by one of his assailants before he blacked out. [more inside]
Amusing (if Messy) Stop-Motion Valentine's Day Ad
An entertaining stop-motion animation from an AdHack (a DIY-ad startup) user. The audio is slightly unsafe for work, and it gets a bit weird and, uh, extra-chocolatey near the end, but it's certainly worth 30 seconds out of your Valentine's Day.
Just a couple of guys hittin' the drink for fish with a couple of masks and spears
Seventy four years ago, something happened off La Jolla Shores, California, that changed the world of ocean recreation forever. An invitation-only group of watermen, the Bottom Scratchers became the founding fathers of free diving. Although the club would eventually grow to only 20 members, the men did everything they could to grow the sport and teach others how to spear fish, keep a good spear gun or get lobsters and abalone on breath-held dives.
Super-natural.
February 13
John Alvin, RIP
His career started with the memorable poster he created for Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, but encompassed so many more iconic movie posters of our time. ET? His work. Blade Runner? His too. The Lion King? Also his. You may not recognize the name, but the body of work speaks for itself. Although I didn't know his name back then, his art (especially this) made me want to design movie posters as a kid. He died last week at age 59. RIP John Alvin.
Hungry Russian Students
Hungry Russian Students (single link youtube)
For Whom the Bell Tolls - airbag edition
Some people like to text while driving(YT).
Others think TWD is dangerous enough to be illegal.
At last there is a solution for literate(YT), bookish types (Googvid) to get in on the fun.
Sadly, as with everything good, reading-while-driving has its haters too.
At last there is a solution for literate(YT), bookish types (Googvid) to get in on the fun.
Sadly, as with everything good, reading-while-driving has its haters too.
Jacques Brel et compagnie
YouTube user lightning49 has 160 of videos of French singers which she has subtitled with her translations. Her biggest collection is of Jacques Brel videos but there are also songs performed by George Brassens, Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf as well as a smattering of other stuff. To start you off with a few songs here are three of my favorite songs by Brel, Je suis un soir d'éte, Le moribond and La valse à mille temp along with Charles Aznavour's La boheme, Edith Piaf's Milord and Georges Brassens' Les passantes.
Mapping beer. Glorious beer.
The Beer Mapping Project is a Google Maps mashup with brewery and pub locations. So far, they cover eight countries, including Belgium, the UK, Australia, and, well, Italy. There are of course multiple regions of the US.
AKA The Creature, 1985
Titan find -
The hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn’s moon may contain hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all of Earths known oil and natural gas reserves.
In Rainbows Remixed
Michael Carlson's Big Night
What do you do when Charlie Trotter and a party of twenty of the world's best chefs come to dinner? Chicago hipster chef Michael Carlson serves a 14 course meal to some very refined palates. The next day he cancels all reservations, gives away everything from the refridgerators, and drops out of sight for months. [more inside]
Sauvé du lychage
Saved from a lynching: Enrico Dangino, friend of Vigilante Journalist photographs a man seized by a mob and about to be set ablaze, then, with the help of his compatriot, frees him. More photographs and blogging from the ground in Kenya's current political crisis from Vigilante Journalist. via.
Possibly the best Craigslist post ever
Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees
Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees was the first movie on the internet. Also, allegedly the first indie movie edited on a digital non-linear system. Mostly, though it's just awesome because it features a cameo from William S. Burroughs and is just plain weird. [more inside]
New Meaning to "Gettin Smashed All Weekend"
Easily the most hotly-anticipated game for the Wii (if not ever), Super Smash Bros. Brawl has topped 1 million sales in its first two weeks in Japan (U.S. release date is next month [3/9]). Featuring the addition of celebrated video game characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake to its bloated cast, as well as the ability to record fights, design levels, single-player storylines penned by Kazushige Nojima (Final Fantasy VII), and the first SSB game to feature online play, it's no wonder the game has delivered on the hype and become only the 7th game in acclaimed magazine Famitsu's storied history to receive a perfect 40/40 score. Watch the Japanese intro, spoil the game for yourself by checking out all leaked in-game secrets, or simply learn more about all the details that went into the game with this chat with the head game developer. Finally, if you're hardcore enough to hang with the big boys, head on over to the Smash Boards and find yourself a tournament to participate in.
Search Engine on Acid
Oamos is a "metasearch engine" that generates a sprawling cornucopia of sound, text and images based on your query.
What is an "affected provincial?"
Are you an affected provincial ?
"Affected Provincialism can take many forms, but personally I prefer borrowing heavily from the combined qualities of the naturalist, philomath, dandy and aesthete. Independence, liberality, optimism, playfulness, curiosity, lightness, and generosity are integral to Affected Provincialism; it's modeled loosely on the idea of the eighteenth-century gentleman amateur, as wrongly imagined by a twenty-first-century twit."
via
Room in a Box
Moving houses but don't want to buy bulky furniture? Get a Casulo.
DAMMIT!
Think you've had clumsy moments? Ten bucks says you've never had one quite this bad.
Welcome to Bil
Welcome to the BIL Conference Wish you could go to TED but don't have the money? Try BIL! As described on their site "an open, self-organizing, emergent, and anarchic science and technology conference. Nobody is in charge. If you want to come, just show up." With a number of talks in various categories, the most notable being Aubrey De Gray. The conference takes place in Monterey, CA on March 1st and 2nd.
Path of the Cloud Demon through the city of St. Louis
"Men were picked up and hurled against buildings, horses and carriages sent flying here and there, and falling wires full of deadly fluid added to the horror of the scene,"The St. Louis tornado of 1896, one of history's deadliest. Photos. [more inside]
Amchi Mumbai ~ My Mumbai
And they've got antioxidants!
Last minute valentine idea: Chocolate Ganache Truffles.
"You'd have to go a long way to screw it up." (video, expect an interstitial)
Mythbusting Canadian Health Care
Harvie Krumpet:
Harvie Krumpet: Part 1, part 2, part 3.
Good stuff for a cold February wednesday.
(youtube. s'been mentioned in passing here before, but here's the thing itself)
Good stuff for a cold February wednesday.
(youtube. s'been mentioned in passing here before, but here's the thing itself)
Meghan McCain on the trail.
Meghan McCain's blog. Just another political blog, by another candidate's daughter. O! what the internet has wrought. [more inside]
Sapp Time resumes on February 23rd
This is a post about 6'4", 380 lb. professional fighter and entertainer Bob Sapp. A good place to start is this fantastic, disdainful overview of Sapp's kickboxing career through 2005. It features lots of pictures, crooked officiating, illegal blows to the back of the head, and some well-deserved humbling. Sapp is also known for a less distinguished MMA career, which includes one of the most exciting fights of all time, against the great Antônio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira (Watch it here: [Round 1] [Round 2]). [more inside]
Win with Weth
Weth wins lots of contests. And you can win with Weth too. [Second link has a brief, but well-worth-it, sound clip]
Heavy on trivia, slowly presented.
Did You Know 2.0 (Youtube 08:19) Facts about education, population, globalization.
Thrift Store DJ -- The Continuing Search for Vinyl Castaways
Hungry for some retro and slightly offbeat music? Visit Thrift Store DJ (owned and operated by Metafilter member Otis) and download or listen to streams of albums from many different genres such as Bossa Nova, Caribbean, Exotica, Flamenco, General Fruitiness, Greek, Hawaiian, Latin, Mambo, and Polka. Via (in a roundabout way)
Hark! A Vagrant History Comics by Kate Beaton
Canadian artist Kate Beaton draws wonderfully expressive comics which she publishes variously on her website and her LiveJournal, Hark! A Vagrant. In December 2007 she asked her readers to suggest historical figures and promised to draw comics based on the first twenty submissions. Highlights of the resulting series include Mary Shelley, Genghis Khan, and yes, even Søren Kierkegaard. [more inside]
Michigan to build the country's first Maglev public transportation system
Michigan to build the country's first Maglev public transportation system between Detroit and Ann Arbor. The Interstate Traveler Hydrogen Super Highway will utilize solar and hydrogen power and TCP/IP for communications. The cars will carry people, cars (drive on/off) and cargo. Construction is set to begin this year. [more inside]
No sushi for Jew!
"Today there is no eggroll..." As posted at jewschool, your best source for hip heeb hype,
Asian restaurants across [Israel]detante went on a one-day spring roll strike on Tuesday in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu. [more inside]
Asian restaurants across [Israel]detante went on a one-day spring roll strike on Tuesday in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu. [more inside]
"Snoopy would be proud"
Uno the Beagle named Best in Show at Westminster. For the first time since its inception, a Beagle took the top honors at Westminster Kennel Club's annual Dog Show. The honors usually go to dogs such as Wire-Haired Fox Terriers, Poodles, and Welsh Corgis, with traditional household dogs such as Beagles being honored merely by appearing in the ring. The winsome Uno took the top hound honors, and was the audience favorite for Best in Show.
Be kind, Rewind Rewind.
Michel Gondry has a new movie coming out called "Be Kind Rewind." And then, since I guess he wasn't entirely happy with the way the studio's trailer looked, he made his own.
(NSC) - RIP Ron Murphy, master vinyl cutter.
Ron Murphy cut records, but not just any records.
Responsible for cutting the actual vinyl master plates of much of the now revered Detroit Techno including Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance's seminal Knights of the Jaguar, and much more - he demonstrated impeccable craftsmanship and skill in both mastering records for sound and aesthetics at company known as Sound Enterprises source link AKA National Sound Corporation. Schooled in Motown, dubplates and jukeboxes, he is the bespoke-crafted, analog link between the digital future and analog past that is the roots of Techno music and modern techno DJ culture. [more inside]
God speed Charles Fawcett; there's too few of your kind.
Charles Fawcett. Film maker, adventurer and activist. In his 92 years, Mr. Fawcett rescued English POWs, starred in 100+ movies, and helped show Charlie Wilson why he should fund an army.
February 12
Shiny scooters.
Pixish Tantamount to Spec Work?
Prominent blogger Derek Powazek, who left his JPG project under prickly conditions, started a new project called Pixish. Pixish allows users to create open calls for submissions from designers, photographers and other artists who then offer up their work for comparison. Voting on the work reveals a winner, who then receives a prize outlined in the initial post. Following a post by Adam Howell that claims Pixish is nothing more than a 2.0 portal for spec work, a debate has emerged online as to whether Powazek's latest foray is a formula for ill-will amongst the design community.
Rose Azure, meet Celestino Pink.
Baltimore Cop V.S. the Skateboarder: Farva Looses his Cool
Baltimore Police Officer V.S. the Skateboarder. (video) Officer, Salvatore "Farva" Rivieri, has been suspended and is the subject of an internal affairs investigation. "Hey, let's pop some Viagras and issue tickets with raging, mega-huge boners." Now gimme a litre o' cola!
The Best Sandwiches in America
The Best Sandwiches in America Esquire magazine lists the very best examples of many very delicious sandwiches nationwide.
Coney Island Playground
Godspeed You! Black Emperor officially calls it quits, citing the Iraq war as a primary catalyst. "The last American tour that Godspeed did was in the run up to the current war in Iraq. For what Godspeed did, it was very difficult for us to work out a way for us to communicate directly with the audience about what was going on." Umm...yeah. So who's to fill their giant post-rock shoes? Well, most of the members have moved on to other projects, most notably Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band (among others). That's not to mention the slew of next generation bands that have culled GY!BE as a primary influence to get your fix: Sparrows Swarm and Sing, Sweek, The Seven Mile Journey, or johnnytwentythree, just to name a few.
Like love from a lab: Science Valentines
Haven't gotten your sweetie a Valentine's day card yet? Don't sweat it, here are some cards POWERED BY SCIENCE! (via Neatorama)
Hong Kong fooey
Hong Kong sex scandal. Edison Chen's cache of private photos may be the biggest Asian sex scandal ever. Starting roughly on Feb. 5, developing, developing.
Some pix NSFW but pixelated, and you'll have to google if you want the real images.
Pop Psychology: Type A / Type B Personalities
Are you a Type A personality or Type B personality? There are lots of tests online to find out.
Type A and B personality descriptions always remind me of the supposed left brain / right brain differences, but according to the Wiki, the differences between right and left brain are not so simple.
Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban'
British internet users face ban for illegal downloads. A draft copy of a Green Paper produced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport was leaked to The Times newspaper which detailed how the government was considering introducing legislation that would require ISPs to take action against users who access pirated material. [more inside]
How about, like, playing a Hoover on my ding dong here
The awesomeness of 70s porn dialogue and non-sex scenes. All YouTube links, all more or less NSFW. Bat Pussy rides to the recue on a Hoppity Hop. The Swedes do their version of an animated Snow White. "Can I see your thing now?" More Swedish goodness. "What kind of deals did you have in mind?" And a young Ron Jeremy tries his moves on Seka.
Oscar winning shorts
Senate Votes for Retroactive immunity
Senate votes for retroactive telecom immunity 67 senators voted against the Dodd/Feingold amendment to strip telecom immunity from the Protect America Act. It still needs to be pass the house. [more inside]
Hamster dance 'll cost you more than 5 cents
Hamster Market Bubble in China. Hamsters have become the must-have pet in China since the Year of the Rat began on 7 February. Hamster demand has tripled in recent weeks and some enterprising individuals might be buying them with the sole intention of holding them for a short period before flipping them for a profit. For my own part, I'm working with HSBC in trying to launch a market in hamster-backed short term notes.
'It Speaks for Itself'
British Movietone News - Digital Archives :: Apparently complete archives of the UK Movietone Newsreels from 1929 - 1979. Free registration required. Uses Quicktime. Beware of many lost hours ahead. Via DaddyTypes
Umm, sorry about the genocide
A Nation Apologizes. (Sydney Morning Herald.) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal children. Here the history told from an Aboriginal perspective in Archie Roach's great song "Took The Children Away." (Youtube) (song lyrics).
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has a blog. This is an "official" blog covering issues of privacy issues and legislation in Canada.
Sorry, There Was a Flameout on Metafilter
Though recent research indicates we learn to lie at a young age, and lie more often as we grow older, apparently we aren't so great at coming up with excuses for missing work. One site, designed to help with this problem, offers "proof" that you needed time off. Phoney Excuses claims that over a quarter of a million people have visited their site. The site warns its forms are intended "for entertainment purposes only." (Warning: NSFW-- last link is obnoxiously loud).
Ever Thine
Sailors' Valentines were, according to maritime myth, made by lonesome sailors at at sea in the early to mid 19th century. However, research revealed they were made by residents of Barbados and sold to sailors. These pieces, often in octagonal wooden boxes, are stunning examples of shellwork. [more inside]
Keep it under your Stetson.
Free Speech Doesn't Mean Careless Talk! World War II posters from the US Merchant Marine at War. More posters (Rivets are Bayonets, Drive them Home). There's lots of other cool stuff, like this brief history of privateers during the Revolutionary War.
First World War Draft Cards
Famous, infamous, and interesting World War I draft cards, including The Bambino, Groucho, Moe, Satchmo, Scarface, and Sergeant York. [more inside]
"When the world's great scientific thinkers change their minds"
"When the world's great scientific thinkers change their minds". Some Big Name thinkers (Dyson, Pinker, Venter, ...) change their minds on some Big Ideas (race, evolution, global warming,..) and explain why in about a paragraph each. Via Edge.
Six Guantanamo prisoners charged.
Several prisoners held at Guantanamo are charged, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. According to this soundbite, after their time in military court, they'll be able to appeal the decision in civilian court.
Just put down your camera. Game over.
Breathtaking photos. No further links necessary. Rarindra Prakarsa is a photographic amazement.
~(@)~
"I believe that before anything art should bring happiness to the viewer." ~ Adib Fattal, Syrian Painter who infuses his work with bright colours (Titanic), optimistic scenes of places he remembers as a child (Jenin, Palestine), and wild life (Return of the Birds). More of his work here. [via]
February 11
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
A look at the (likely terrible) CGI Star Wars prequel hitting theaters this autumn. The "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" movie is expected to run around 100 minutes and pick up between episode II and III. Anakin Skywalker is not yet Darth Vader. The story will then continue in 30-minute smallscreen installments.
Querying the hive mind
Querying the hive mind [pdf]
Jane McGonigal, one of the lead designers of I Love Bees writes about collective intelligence, the phenomenon of massive groups of people gathering online to solve problems, as it played out in I Love Bees (an alternate reality game).
Jane McGonigal, one of the lead designers of I Love Bees writes about collective intelligence, the phenomenon of massive groups of people gathering online to solve problems, as it played out in I Love Bees (an alternate reality game).
Spongebob + Casablanca = Awesome
A special treat from the Annie Awards on February 8th, 2008. The cast of Spongebob Squarepants redubs a clip from Casablanca. They are accurate to the script; which makes it completely awesome. via.
Do do do dooo dooo
Rainbow Divider warning: sound; animated gifs; awesomeness
Headgehog eating.
The Yankee King of Spain
Acquitted of the murder of Francis Scott Key's son by the first successful pleading of temporarily insane? Check. Civil War Union general? Check. Medal of Honor winner? Check. Amputated leg on display to the public? Check. Lover to the deposed Queen of Spain? Check. Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce you to Major General, Foreign Minister, and Congressman Daniel Edgar Sickles. [more inside]
Adieu Howard
Doodles, Drafts and Designs
Doodles, Drafts and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian. Including crayon tests, the original telescoping shopping cart and more. [via the horse's neck]
All your berries in one basket?
"It's amazing how we rely on them." BlackBerry email service went down this afternoon in "The Americas Network." That's bad. But is over-reliance on a network the worst of it? Or is it the thumb-ache? or the back-ache? or the work-life imbalance? or the shakes?
Three Little Vids
Three Little Pigs claymation Music video by Green Jelly NSFW YouTube
Three Little Pigs as told by Christopher Walken NSFW YouTube
Three Little Pigs BeBop Trio Looney Tunes cartoon (YouTube) [more inside]
The Pritzker Military Library
The Pritzker Military Library, a "public institution for the study of the citizen-soldier as an essential element for the preservation of democracy." Found while doing some after-film research on Charlie Wilson's War, the site is a trove of largely non-partisan, often refreshingly candid military perspectives. Particular highlights are video and audio interviews with Jim Lovell and Congressional Medal of Honor winners.
Wiimote + LED Yo-Yo = "yo-yo core"
Finish your plate please.
The Twenty Worst Foods in America. There's something for everyone!
Zed-neck
Meathook Through The Nose
Yeah, that's right. It's just a video of a guy putting a meathook through his nose & back out his mouth.
Anonymous' Church of Scientology protest has some and gone
If you have missed knowing about the 'declaration of war' from Anonymous, Jess Lee does a good job of summarizing the story. In short: some people don't like the Church of Scientology and have been waging a virtual war on the Church's various electronic presences. After some of that, someone called for a live action: protesting in front of CoS facilities.
It happened this weekend. [more inside]
Would he swear on the Bible?
"We have the chance to accomplish two other things: to provide a model for what a truly sincere, forthright, and courageous Presidential candidate might look like, and to demonstrate how desperate America’s voters are to see one." Jesus in 2008!
Esalen, where "California" bubbled up
Esalen: Where "California" Bubbled Up (one photo mildly NSFW) For many others in America and around the world, Esalen stands more vaguely for that metaphorical point where “East meets West” and is transformed into something uniquely and mystically American or New Agey. And for a great many others yet, Esalen is simply that notorious bagno-bordello where people had sex and got high throughout the 1960s and 1970s before coming home talking psychobabble and dangling crystals. In short, Esalen is in every way, even geologically, California at its most extreme. It is its caricature, as well as its noblest expression.
Chris Lightfoot - "a one man think-tank"
It's a year since the untimely death of
Chris Lightfoot. He had a remarkable
combination of political commitment and technical expertise that led him to develop sites
such as WriteToThem and Pledgebank for the splendid political and social
software group, MySociety.
His political writing brings a sharp and sarcastic wit to bear on such subjects as the Iraq war, and ID cards.
There are also some good rants.
A sad loss to British society.
Alternative, political and swedish poster art
proggensaffischer.se - alternative, political and swedish poster art. The main gallery can be found here. [The site is in swedish, some of the posters are NSFW.] [more inside]
"We'd like to confirm, from the crew of Apollo 17, that the world is round."
The most widely-distributed photograph in history may be The Blue Marble, a shot taken in 1972 by an unknown crewmember on Apollo 17. In 2002, NASA released a new Blue Marble photograph, familiar to desktops everywhere, using a composite of many photographs. In 2005, Blue Marble: The Next Generation offered even better views and some spectacular animations of the seasons from space. In the same spirit, the Discovery Channel just launched Earth Live, which lets you see the dynamics of weather and climate through a well done interface.
Viral Obama
John.He.Is turns John McCain quotes into a beautiful song. Two suburban women sit around discussing whether or not America is ready for a smart President. Filmmakers get ready to release Barackula: The Musical. Rap musician BigHitBuda drops Elect Obama. [more inside]
Put down that diet soda and back away slowly
An older study that claims artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain, has resurfaced. In addition to the other health hazards linked to artificial sweeteners, it appears there is yet another reason to go back to nature. Unless of course you take advice from Nancy Appleton, Ph.D, who seems to think sugar is the cause of almost everything.
I just want more episodes of Metalocalypse
With the Writer's Guild of America strike possibly coming to close in a couple of days, you might be interested in a guide to when the various shows will be coming back.
If any of these pictures appear on your friends wall, he's better off than he is letting on.
A trio of thieves have made off with over $150 Million in art from E.G. Buehrle Museum in Zurich, Switzerland. The four stolen paintings are Cézanne's The Boy in Red Waistcoat, Degas's Viscount Ludovic Lepic and His Daughter, Monet's Poppy Field Near Vetheuil and Van Gogh's Blooming Chestnut Branches.
This comes only two weeks after 2 Picasso pieces were stolen in Pfaeffikon, Switzerland. No one has been caught in either thefts. [more inside]
DIY Biotech
Worried about the state of biodiversity? Why not make some of your own? Moore’s law is all over biotechnology right now. Can the hackers be far behind? MIT's Drew Endy doesn’t think so. Ready to get started? You might already have some of the tools that you will need. Plans for others are available on the web. All you need now are some parts.
RIP Rep. Lantos
Rep. Tom Lantos, 80, passed away this morning. Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, he was the only Holocaust survivor to ever serve in the United States Congress.
Iminimi
Here we have a virulent earworm (with a high language-independent sing-along quotient) from early 80's Hungary. Over here we have a site for constructing catastrophic webcam karaoke versions.
Penile Art.
He's not just a poet. Pricasso also paints with his penis. He's 'done' Ron Paul and other world leaders. This is not a self-link, but it is a tad NSFW.
At The End Of The World, No One Can Hear You Scream.
February 10
Guqin, Confucius' favorite musical instrument
One of the songs on the Golden Record included on the two Voyager spacecraft was Flowing Water performed by Guan Pinghu on the guqin. The guqin, Confucius' favorite instrument, has been played in China for at least 3000 years. There's a lot of guqin videos out there but the two players I listen to the most are jts1702a and Charlie Huang (who is the main contributer to Wikipedia's excellent guqin article).
Roy Scheider, RIP
But for now we are young, let us lay in the sun
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was released 10 years ago today. Happy Neutral Milk Hotel day. [more inside]
The jolliest indoor games. . .demand a floor.
Floor Games. H.G. Wells and miniature gaming.
Before the AT, Joseph Knowles was Naked in the Woods
"It was now dark and here I was in this spruce thicket without food or fire, naked, and miles from a camp." It was 1913, and Joseph Knowles had with cooperation of the Boston Post, decided to prove that man could survive in the wilds. Pictures and courtesy of Google Books, Knowle's own account, Alone in the Wilderness.
It's National National Awareness Month Awareness Month!
I'm going to kill myself in 90 days
"I'm going to kill myself in 90 days." A blogger calling herself "Jane" sets up a blog to chronicle her final 90 days, and is calling on the internet for suggestions on how to do it.
Disturbed blogger? Or another "viral campaign" for something soon to be revealed? [more inside]
Is Rice Right?
Biofuels worsen global warming
Biofuels worsen global warming, according to two studies published in Science last week. Current US biofuel policies would double carbon emissions over the gasoline alternative. More details: ScienceExpress fulltext pdf of study #1, powerpoint summary of study #1, abstract of study #2, summary of both, policy recommendations pdf (via: 1, 2). [more inside]
Actually, sometimes you can tell
This week I've been perseverating on Chuck Berry's great 1964 song "You Never Can Tell", so now you get to too! Unless you're over 50, you probably know it from the Thurman/Travolta dance in Pulp Fiction, but here are some other versions worthy of your attention: [more inside]
Video and photos of spacewalks
The environment does terrible things to the human body and it smells. Many people go for that
walk anyway. [more inside]
Mr. Good Enough
"Everyone laughs a little too hard for a little too long, not because we find these sentiments funny, but because we’re awkwardly acknowledging how unfunny they are. At their core, they pose one of the most complicated, painful, and pervasive dilemmas many single women are forced to grapple with nowadays: Is it better to be alone, or to settle? My advice is this: Settle!" [more inside]
web 2.0 Genealogy
Kindo - Web 2.0 Genealogy
Don't shoot him - you'll only make him mad
Invasion of the Jellyfish The box jellyfish [AKA Sea Wasp] is so packed with venom that the briefest of touches can bring agonising death within 180 seconds. And if comes under sustained attack it responds by sending its compatriots into a super-breeding frenzy in which millions of replacements are created. The really bad news is that the box jellyfish and another equally poisonous species, Irukandji, are on the move. Scientists are warning that their populations are exploding and will pose a monumental problem unless they are stopped. First aid for stings.
1,780 Cult-Movies Online
1,780 Cult Movies Online ~ A huge repository of online movies described as cult classics.
Reconciliation of church and state?
I think its time that we joined a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern pluralistic society. Obama on religion and politics. (SLnonYTP)
Space shuttle does a back flip
Great Depression, Nostalgia, Futurism
Hank Stuever's 3000-word Washington Post article thinks about the Depression and what it means to the U.S. now. via Snarkmarket
February 9
Do the loco-motion with me.
Perepiteia. Thane Heins, who named his invention after a Greek word meaning an action that "has the opposite effect to that intended," has perhaps created a...perpetual motion machine. His 20-year obsession has broken up his marriage and lost him custody of his two young daughters. Contraption stumps MIT professor. Is it a hysteresis brake? Or a scam. YOU decide.
The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2007
Test your national pride
InfraGard
The FBI Deputizes Business. "Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to 'shoot to kill' in the event of martial law."
"So find humor in that, and go ahead and put it in your review."
The King of Kong, continued. If you enjoyed "The King of Kong," check out the Onion AV Club's recent, impromptu, and insightful interview with Billy Mitchell. Also featured are responses by filmmakers Ed Cunningham and Seth Gordon.
Bitlet: stream torrent music
Is the 2007 U.S. Sub-Prime Financial Crisis So Different?
Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University have compared the recent US subprime mortgage crisis with five downturns in industrialized economies in the past 30 years in their brief paper, Is the 2007 U.S. Sub-Prime Financial Crisis So Different? (pdf). Their conclusion: “given the severity of most crisis indicators in the run-up to its 2007 financial crisis, the United States should consider itself quite fortunate if its downturn ends up being a relatively short and mild one.” Summarized, with some data and charts, here. Via.
Fear(less)
College Photographers of the Year 2007
Truck Bearing Kibble
Truck Bearing Kibble is an intricately illustrated web comic clearly inspired by Perry Bible Fellowship (previously), albeit with more pop culture references. I recommend it for fans of both PBF and Cyanide and Happiness. [more inside]
"Hey, my Cheetah could paint that!"
Human artist or ape artist? Six paintings, six chances to show your expertise or just guess correctly. (Previously) Hint inside. [more inside]
photographs of wildlife
World Press Photo of the year 2007
February 8
Begging The Question
I don’t understand the term “begs the question.” I know I use it incorrectly—or so I’ve been told—but I don’t know what I’m supposedly doing wrong. Can you explain? The Morning News' The Non-Expert tackles "the phrase that nobody understands."
Freeze frame
In 1855, Frenchman Joseph Fortuné Petiot-Groffier died. One of the first daguerrotypists, the pioneering photographer was apparently poisoned by his own chemistry. Some 152 years later, in the twilight of chemical photography, his lab, found intact, is viewed in a new light. Via. [more inside]
Bootleg Woody Guthrie concert restored
... a small, heavy package wrapped in brown paper arrived in the mail at the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City. Inside was a mess of wires.
It wasn't a bomb - it turned out to be the only live recording of Woody Guthrie known to exist. The wire was fragile, bent, stretched and twisted. Jamie Howarth applied some algorithms he had developed to restore old recordings, and the result has been nominated for a Grammy.
178 years old and still going strong
"There's a place that sells these motorhomes on the road to Newton Abbot, and one day we were going past and James said: 'Let's buy one of those. Then we can go wherever we like, whenever we like, and no one will be able to stop us.' "
Britain's oldest honeymooners (combined age 178) hit the road - with a love story that'll warm your heart.
Britain's oldest honeymooners (combined age 178) hit the road - with a love story that'll warm your heart.
Fashion Week NYC: The Movie
Was your invite to Fashion Week lost in the mail? Have no fear- you can watch video of some of your favorite designers and models at the official Mercedes Benz Fashion Week website. If you're more into schadenfreude than Sean John, check out the Zac Posen show to see Karen Elson take a tumble .
Aimee Mann Celebrity Christmas Show
The Aimee Mann Christmas Trilogy Parts One, Two, and Three (YT links) featuring: Paul F. Tompkins, Jon Krasinski, Emily Procter, Patton Oswalt, Weird Al Yankovic, Bob Odenkirk, Fred Armisen, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell.
I agree, my show is not very good, caller. My show is fantastic!
"I'm on Setanta Sports" with José Mourinho. Fantastic. The Special One returns to the world of football with his very own talk show. Very good. More clips inside. Be champions! [more inside]
Lego Eddie Izzard
vintage images of the Far East and Asia
Loser gets creamed
The Belgian version of Russian roulette.
Songerize
Keeper of the heart's relics
Lyfrau o'r Gorffennol or Books from the Past is a growing online collection of books of Welsh cultural interest which have long been out of print. Some are in Welsh, some in English, all are available to download in a variety of formats or to read online. Found as the collection includes a book on the Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Siôn Cati, the famed bard, genealogist and bandit trickster supreme from Tregaron. It's one of a host of well-presented digital archives built using the multilingual open source Greenstone software suite.
The Washington Indpendent
The Washington Independent went beta a few weeks ago. The site employs several reporters to do investigative journalism on topics of national importance. [more inside]
Psychologists Protest APA's Position On Interrogations
Citing the organization's "sharp shift in values and direction," Ken Pope, prominent member of the American Psychological Association (and a former chair of its Ethics Committee), resigned his membership on February 6. He's the latest of a growing number of professional psychologists who have quit APA in protest of its position on the use of psychologists in government interrogations in the "War on Terror."
Computer thief foiled
Boo is not the smartest computer thief on the planet. Or maybe not the luckiest since he grabbed a computer from an IT specialist.
Polygamy pays (in more ways than one).
It's been going on in Britain for a while. Now hundreds of men in Toronto are receiving welfare for each wife. Is this what Rowan Williams has in mind?
Kiss your free time goodbye.
Protector. ~Flash Friday~ Protector takes the mechanics of tower defense games, and adds an RPG element to it. Specialize, level up, and say goodbye to your free time. previously
Getting to the Square Root of this Function
Getting to the source of 5 beautiful lines of Quake 3. Rys Sommefeldt traces the history of a very quick (and now infamous) inverse square-root function used in Quake 3. (via) [more inside]
C'est une beauté de chemin à faire, hein?
So, good day, and welcome to the Bob and Doug McKenzie FPP. How's it goin' eh? Like, I've got some back bacon fryin' up on the Coleman, a dozen donuts, a two-four, and our topic today is stuff on the internet relating to these two Canadian hoseheads. So, like, sit back, put a toque on, grab a beer, and enjoy! [more inside]
Philip M. Parker writes and publishes over 85,000 books on Amazon
Philip M. Parker[1][2] has written and published over 85,000 books on Amazon in the past few years, although by his own count the total published is over 200,000. He is like a writing machine - in fact, he has created a machine that churns out an original book about every 20 minutes. A few sample titles: [more inside]
If you can't say it in words, say it in song
A most succinct explanation of the current problems facing Wall Street.
The Beast Is Red
Leonard Pierce aka the Ludic Kid is going undercover at CPAC for Sadly, No. While some may know him best for his Geek Index, his current work reporting from the frontlines of the culture wars is all the more hilarious (and chilling) for its basis in reality: parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
What does the future hold?
The Cabinet Office in the UK has published "Future Strategic Challenges for Britain" [full pdf, summary pdf, website], a 180-page document which summarises current futures thinking in the UK Government, with a horizon of about 20 years. It includes predictions on big issues such as democratic participation, foreign affairs, climate change, family life and public services.
Listening to shortwave radio in 2008 is a willfully quixotic undertaking
Waging a tiny rebellion via shortwave radio. "Missing the Internet's precision, what I think most recommends shortwave radio now is its offer of quest. It's in the hunting for something unknown that might not be there anyway, and if it is, may dissolve, sputtering, eaten by sunspots or zapped in static."
Mukasey's Nuremburg defence
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, US Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to investigate allegations of illegal waterboarding and wiretapping, arguing that the Justice Department could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a Justice Department opinion, such as those written by John Yoo authorizing torture, even if that opinion turned out to be wrong and the behavior criminal. (The former head the Office of Legal Counsel has described these memos as "advance pardons" for lawbreaking.)
Mukasey also told the Committee that he would not enforce contempt citations against former White House officials who refused to respond to Congressional subpoenas.
Black History Month
Rim Shot
Dog Plus Pony
Glimpses of South Asia before 1947
Glimpses of South Asia before 1947 1,150 illustrated pages by the world's leading Ancient Indus Civilization scholars
774 photographs, postcards, lithographs, engravings, and archival film of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka before 1947
Research into primary education
The Primary Review has published three research reports about primary school education in the UK and elsewhere. The Structure of Primary Education: England and Other Countries. Primary Curriculum and Assessment: England and Other Countries. Press release summarising some of the findings. [more inside]
And Introducing Seth Rogen as Cary Grant in North by Northwest!
Hitchcock Classics as illustrated in the 2008 Hollywood Portfolio from Vanity Fair.
February 7
How to grow a glacier
Villagers in the mountains of northern India and Pakistan have been growing their own glaciers for centuries. They're small domesticated glaciers, cultivated by hand, and they provide a reliable source of water for agriculture. Legend has it that they made glaciers to block mountain passes and keep the Mongol Hordes out! More detail in New Scientist - subscription required, but you can probably see this instruction sheet.
Brodner's Take on the Primaries
Cartoonist Steve Brodner sketches the American candidates for president as Odd Couples in a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Best. McCain. Evah.
Labyrinth 2.0 in flash
Hide an image in html
Hide an image in html ... a neat CSS trick. Highlight the block of text at the bottom of the page as if you were going to cut & paste it. [more inside]
All the better to see you with
As a photographer, you need to get close to your subject. But sometimes things get between you and your subject. Things such as state lines, restraining orders, and guard patrols that can keep you miles away from the people you want to shoot. What do you do at times like this? Get a bigger lens. [more inside]
"Are you there God? It's me Kibbutz"
Got a question for God? Tough. But godsbot the Christian Robot might be the next best thing. A $10 donation (minimum) will get you one year of access--or at least click the Google ads. More in the press release. Oh, and via.
Happy lunar new year!
Celebrate by wearing your best hanbok!
Like Paris Hilton. Or Venus Williams. Or random Korean celebs. Don't forget to dress the dog!
Koreans wear traditional dress, hanbok, during the holidays and for major events such as weddings or funerals. Designers continue to reinterpret it, while colorful variations on styles of centuries past make their way to films and TV.
The movie is Untold Scandal, the TV drama is Hwang Jin Yi.
(My)Folia
Gardeners unite! Folia is a new website for gardeners to organize, document and share their adventures. And now you too can obsess about your seed saving and hardiness zones. [more inside]
the other Public Enemy + Anthrax collaboration
The Joseph Curseen, Jr., and Thomas Morris, Jr., Processing and Distribution Center opened in December 2003 with little fanfare. Formerly the Brentwood (D.C.) Post Office, it was renamed by House Resolution 3287 in honor of the two postal workers killed after two letters containing anthrax passed through on their way to Capitol Hill. [more inside]
Trebek: the glue that holds television together.
Having hosted over 5,000 episodes of Jeopardy, it would be impossible for Alex Trebek not to spaz out once in a while. Here are some of those magical times (this ones got swearing...). Trust me, nobody else in the world swears with as much raw talent.
Slow Flash interface that's actually worth it.
Very cool demos in Flash (can be very slow loading).
What are you looking at?
CringeFilter
Across the nation, not long ago, millions cringed watched enrapt as a collection of earnest young celebrities musically celebrated Barack Obama with the "Yes, We Can" video. Not to be outdone, most of Pearl Jam (mysteriously, bellower Eddie Vedder abstained) united to record a...a...a cover of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock." Retitled...oh, I think you can guess.
Your tax dollars at work.
Interested on how the gummint is using Spectral Sensing Technology do defend us from attacks? You'll feel much safer after viewing the Futuristic Sensor System Dramatic Research Presentation of the 2008 International Symposium on Spectral Sensing Research (ISSSR-2008). (The tour of the Conference Site is in the same vein, with different music.)
Exploration Baltimore
The yearly Best of Baltimore awards released by Baltimore City Paper have been providing a guide to Charm City for over a decade. You can find the best independent bookstores, theater, nachos, and plumbers. Or perhaps your tastes run more exotic--do you need the best constant reminder that Peter Angelos is the anti-Christ? The best place to get run over by bicyclists while hiking? Or the best place to make fun of stressed-out PreMeds? And there are always surprising picks; for example, check out the 2006 winner for best cheap entertainment. So when you're planning your next Baltimore visit browse the archives and find somewhere to enjoy yourself.
This Dying City
Cleveland is dying, and it is beautiful. A collection of stark photographs of Cleveland as it is dying before our very eyes.
Political Emotions
The Feel Tank. "We are a feel tank, but this does not mean that we do not think. We are governed by outrage that the desires and demands for a less bad life and a better good life continue to go unrecognized."
Secret Military Patches
I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me is a new book by author and interesting person Trevor Paglen. He collects patches designed by military personnel to commemorate secret "black-ops" projects.
Let me through, I'm a nosy person
Curious why the power is out at your office or the fire engines are rushing past your home? If you live in Seattle, public911 might be able to tell you.
Mixing Oil, Water, and Little Falling People
The Falling Sand Game is an engrossing but hard-to-describe online toy/game that lets you create environments using falling streams of sand, water, oil, and salt by adding fire, plants, clay, and other substances. Inspired by The Falling Sand Game are a number of variations, such as PyroSand, featuring many kinds of explosives, and Hell of Sand, with little people who you can torture. One of the most interesting versions is The Powder Game, which lets you paint with superballs, adjust air pressure, and build very satisfying volcanoes and gardens. For even more, WxSand [downloadable .exe] is a Windows version with lots more options and many interesting mods. [Games are Java applets and are incredibly addictive, especially The Powder Game]
"You just heard the drums. It seemed like he kept them going forever."
Mixed With Love: The Musical World Of Walter Gibbons: "This tale begins with a skinny white DJ mixing between the breaks of obscure Motown records with the ambidextrous intensity of an octopus on speed. It closes with the same man, sick with Aids and all but blind, fumbling for gospel records as he spins up eternal hope in a fading dusk. In between, Walter Gibbons transformed the art of DJing and marked out the future co-ordinates of remixology." [more inside]
Nothing's gonna change my world?
Fears that malevolent aliens will tune into this week's broadcast of The Beatles' song "Across the Universe" have been voiced by scientists.
It takes a woman.....
The First Women Barefoot Solar Engineers Of The World ( youtube ) trained at the Barefoot College in Rajasthan. Using traditional puppetry as an educational medium, Sanjit Bunker Roy's school has been causing a quiet but sure revolution in sustainable development for over 30 years. ( previously )
Fat Ass
Skinny is in for male models. Ever since Hedi Slimane joined Dior Homme, male models are becoming skinnier and skinnier. The reduction in male silhouette means that the male supermodels of the early naughts (such as Tyson Ballou and Tyson Beckford) have stopped heading to Europe for casting calls. With the Council of Fashion Designers of America releasing health guides for female models just last year, it seems that the fashion industry wants their men 6 feet tall and with a 28 inch waist. The good news? I finally will be able to find pants that fit me.
The Cult of Wikipedia
The Cult of Wikipedia - An expose by The Register on conflict of interest at Wikipedia.
Times ain't Like They Used To Be: Richard "Rabbit" Brown, New Orleans Songster
In 1900 they were everywhere. Singing on street corners, in front of circus entrances, or just moving down the dusty roads of the South, playing anywhere a crowd might be cajoled into donating a dime to the cause. To survive they played any request--ballads, popular tunes, white hillbilly music, hymns, and the newly emerged blues. Songsters were the first folk musicians to be "professional" ...Most songsters faded into the past. A few waxed recordings, leaving a tempting glance into their world--and many questions. Such is the case with Richard "Rabbit" Brown, one of the most celebrated songsters and the only one from New Orleans to record.Times ain't Like They Used To Be: Richard "Rabbit" Brown, New Orleans Songster--so, James Alley Blues is the song most everyone names as Brown's greatest and, now, you can play it online here. [more inside]
The Many Worlds of Artist Suzanne Treister
The website of artist Suzanne Treister holds many treasures, such as watercolors based on NATO's item codification system, reimaginings of the front pages of various newspapers as alchemical drawings, invented Amiga videogame stills and, my favorite, the huge images from Hexen2039 - new military-occult technologies for psychological warfare. She's also the director of the International Corporation of Lost Structures and the Institute of Militronics and Advanced Time Interventionality, an organization committed to time travel based research since 2005. Rumor has it that Treister and IMATI star researcher Rosalind Brodsky are one and the same person. The Rosalind Brodsky page has a ton of stuff on it. Here's a small sample: Time Travel Equipment Designs, Brodsky's Delusional Watercolours, Biography of Rosalind Brodsky and Time Traveling Costumes.
February 6
Still living after all these years
Founded in 1947 and surviving today both as a relic of the psychedelic 1960s and a continually groundbreaking troupe, the Living Theatre found a national spotlight during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a "nomadic touring ensemble" performing anarchist, sexually-liberated, audience-participatory, collectively-created, sometimes nude or semi-nude productions like Paradise Now, the Legacy of Cain, and Frankenstein, under the direction of founders Julian Beck and Judith Malina. Beck died in 1985, but Malina, now 81, remains both an inspiration and a leading actress (currently starring in the company's Maudie and Jane).
Hire Michael Schur
The authors of the sportswriting-mocking blog Fire Joe Morgan have dropped their previous anonymity. Among the blog's contributors was the late Robert Altman. [more inside]
When frisking a suspect, beware of low-riding jeans.
PSP Spontaneously Combusts, Burns Hole in Kid's Pants
A PSP residing in the pocket of a Michigan elementary school student caught fire in the kid's pants and caused burns to the boy's inner leg. The boy escaped serious harm, only being treated for minor burns at the hospital. But maybe Chen should start considering what he puts or doesn't put in his pants.
Your Moment of Late Night Cartoon Violence
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Conan O'Brien fight over Mike Huckabee (which is so much more fun than
Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon fighting over Sarah Silverman).
Yeah, fake fight, especially knowing Conan and Colbert are united against bears. [more inside]
Yeah, fake fight, especially knowing Conan and Colbert are united against bears. [more inside]
Man versus nature
Domesticated by photographer Amy Stein explores the tension between settled and wild spaces.
Stranded is another collection of work dealing with the expectations of public and private space.
More self-explanatory: Women and Guns and Halloween in Harlem. She also has a fine blog.
Stranded is another collection of work dealing with the expectations of public and private space.
More self-explanatory: Women and Guns and Halloween in Harlem. She also has a fine blog.
I'm f*****g Matt Damon
The feud between Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon is very Andy Kaufmanesque. Only Andy never dated Sarah Silverman.
Commitment ceremony, or needing to be committed?
As national signing day approached, a small town in Nevada got excited that one of its football stars would go to a big time college program. Finally on the fated day town notables and media gathered for a ceremony where, Kevin Hart, made his choice known. Then it all unraveled, he was never recruited at all.
Life Is Sketch Comedy and God and the Bible
blah blah baby shoes blah
Civil War and/or Aerial Reconnaissance Nerds Only
The of Battlefields and Bibliophiles blog has a fun quiz. Check your knowledge of American Civil War battlefields by guessing which battleground is featured in the Google Earth images. Answers here. [more inside]
The Mechanical Universe on Demand
The Mechanical Universe...and Beyond is a critically-acclaimed series of 52 thirty-minute videotape programs covering the basic topics of an introductory university physics course. This well produced and highly informative 52 episode series, hosted by David Goodstein of Caltech, is available as Video on Demand (Note: simple registration required to view videos). [more inside]
Planning for a LONG walk
Plan your trip to a far away spot on the globe. You might wish to walk in a straight line or maybe just take the shortest route (other than, perhaps, digging). Take your camera in case you pass one of these. [more inside]
eye-opening curiosities
"Of all the various types of optical objects known to exist, far and away the most magnificent and attractive are the optical fans." These sly spying devices, now rare collector curiosities, were once a more discreet and chic alternative for spying on your neighbors in fashionable gatherings than opera glasses, spyglasses, or jealousy glasses.
ZEPPELIN! Well, sorta.
The Bonnaroo lineup announcement is always a big deal, but this morning's was especially exciting because according to the Associated Press and any number of news outlets, the reunited Led Zeppelin would be headlining. Trouble is, it's not true. It's all-girl cover-band Lez Zeppelin. [more inside]
Is alcohol worse than ecstasy?
A BBC Horizon documentary, asks "Is alcohol worse than ecstasy?" (iPlayer link valid for UK users until 11 Feb). Here comes the science... [more inside]
Come and take it
The president of The University of Texas at Brownsville has refused to sign a right of entry request granting access to surveyors planning the U.S./Mexico border fence. This comes shortly after Cameron County landowners were forced to allow the government access to their land. Meanwhile, landowners in Hidalgo County are filing the next wave of lawsuits.
Skelewags
Skelewags - drawings from a delightful Burtonish/Goreyesque world, including some skewed takes on Carroll's Alice.
Britain: we discovered the queue
Oh, I say old chap--do you mind not going all "immigrant" on me, and spitting all over the place? Thank you very much. (how Britain proposes to solve the problem of integrating its migrant population)
Body Worlds: Home Version
Love "Body Worlds,"(previously) but wish you didn't have to say goodbye to all those exquisite corpses upon leaving the exhibit hall? Well, now you can bring a slice home with you. [more inside]
February 5
And something is vacant when I think it's all beginning : The Late Allen Ginsberg and Beck in Conversation
Not exactly breaking news, but still:
The Late Allen Ginsberg and Beck in Conversation
Related YouTuber: Beck on the late Allen Ginsberg
To complete the circle: Jackass by the South Austin Jug Band.
The Late Allen Ginsberg and Beck in Conversation
Related YouTuber: Beck on the late Allen Ginsberg
To complete the circle: Jackass by the South Austin Jug Band.
Cheika Rimitti, Mother of Raï
Head over to Cheikha Rimitti's MySpace page and listen to the first tune up on her player (starts when you open the page), called Saida. Whoa! Is that badass or what? Well, there's 5 other tunes of hers there for your listening pleasure, covering a wide swath of stylistic territory within the Algerian music tradition she was such an important part of. Yet another MySpace page pays tribute (with 4 more songs!) to this powerful singer, and you can also learn more about her at the Cheikha Rimitti website, which is in French, but with links like "Musique" and "Vidéos", you shouldn't have too much trouble with it. There's an informative English-language video biography of this "Mother of Raï", not to mention this performance footage (with those fantastic flutes!) of Saida. [more inside]
Death Map of Baltimore
Google mashup: Last year's homicides in Baltimore. Depressed yet? Try looking at it in Black and White. [more inside]
The Notes of a Japanese prisoner in the USSR
Kiuchi Nobuo - a Japanese airman in World War II, was captured and sent to a prison camp in the Ukraine. He tells his story with drawings.
Drinking songs
Drinking Songs & Barroom-lore is an unbelievable collection of audio , textual and other materials related to "traditional drinking songs (many bawdy), toasts, recitations and other bar-room folklore." If that's not enough, check out ARRR!!!'s sea shanties and drinking songs and/or Barstool Mountain's Top 100 Drinking Songs. Still not enough? Well, OK. [more inside]
All Across the Universe
Here we go...
Well, it seems that some British scientists have succeeded in creating a human embryo from three parents. Oh, let the games begin... [more inside]
S.H.A.D.O. supreme headquarters
Once, sure. Twice, Maybe. Three? Four!?!
Much of the Middle East has been without reliable internet access recently due to the somewhat suspicious cutting of four seperate underwater cables, in seperate locations, within a few days of each other. The problem has been alleviated by re-routing of traffic until ships can reach the cables to repair them, a process which may take several weeks. The problem was initially believed to be caused by anchors of passing ships, but that has since been retracted and deals have already been signed by several companies for new cables. [more inside]
The Dancing Pig
Getting MAD at Bush
In all its 55 year history, MAD magazine has been known much more for media satire than political satire... anything political was often camouflaged as a movie or TV parody and generally less partisan than most. (How can you take their politics seriously when they offered Alfred E. Neuman for President?) Another thing about MAD is how rarely it goes outside its "Usual Cast of Idiots" for content. Well, things have changed, as the MAD editors used 10 Pulitzer Prize Winning Op/Ed Cartoonists to illustrate the incendiarilly-titled “Why George W. Bush Is in Favor of Global Warming”. The usually web-shy MAD even allowed the New York Times to put most of the piece online in a slideshow. [more inside]
Pictures by Cat
Fritz Cam [german homepage] is a collection of pictures taken by a cat during his daily walkabout using an interval camera attached to his collar.
The Most Frightening Sandwich In The World
Often described as Elvis's favorite sandwich, the Fool's Gold Loaf has to be seen to be believed. Not satisfied with mere still pictures? Try the video from this Spokesman-Review story.
Even in its glory, though, the Fool's Gold Loaf is just one (three-pound) part of the Elvis gastronomen: if you want to eat like Elvis, the way is clear. And, of course, there are plenty of cookbooks.
The art of Lilly McElroy
The art of Lilly McElroy: "The gestures that Lilly performs for the camera are simultaneously loving and cruel; they are an attempt to discuss the desire and difficulty involved in making a connection...These photographs, videos, and installations that she produces, while trying to interact, acknowledge the possibility of failure - that someone might not catch her, that a connection might not be made." [more inside]
America's Middle Class
Livin' Large - To hear the Lou Dobbses and Bill O'Reillys of the world--not to mention politicians ranging from Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton--the middle class of America (however you define that term) has never had it so tough. Between credit squeezes, out-of-control immigration, rising costs of education and health care and everything else, it's all darkness out there for those of us who are neither millionaires nor welfare cases, right? (A video presented by Drew Carey and reason.tv)
Doing less with more
Bush requests $515.4 billion in funds for the defense budget from congress.
So what do those numbers mean?
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments states the DoD’s base budget will grow to record (or near-record) levels and will require even greater increases in the coming years.
The troops wouldn’t mind the planned pay raises commensurate with the private sector, housing that doesn’t smell like bug powder and mold, and chow that doesn’t turn your stomach.
But according to the CSBA’s analysis ( here * caution PDF) , it’s doubtful that even an ideological Bush clone would be able to implement those increases given the economic realities.
Some vets blame the silence of the generals.
Should everything have changed post 9/11?(*PDF)
Why A Recession Might Be A Good Thing
The Upside of the Downside "I never imagined I’d find myself in the curious position of having so much more than my parents ever had, of having more, frankly, than I ever thought I would have—and yet simultaneously feeling like I’m falling behind, that I need to earn more, save more, invest more, acquire more. When did I begin to feel this anxiety of acquisition? How did I become such a jackass?"
I have always known that at last I would take this road...
Any fool can hire an architect to draw up a plan for a house, but it takes a truly inspired fool — which is to say, an artist — to start building and see where the earth and driftwood and shards of broken pottery take him. [Slideshow.] [more inside]
Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures
"I found your camera at Lollapalooza this Summer. I finally got the pictures developed & I'd love to give them to you." [via PostSecret]
The new It-boy?
Who's the new darling of the literary world? Charles Bock. Although, some are asking, how the hell did a guy like him get all this high-profile coverage? [Bock previously on MeFi]
Men from Nantucket need not apply
The man who runs xkcd
has created the LimerickDB.
Though often quite dirty
There are more that are nerdy;
If you check out the best ones, you'll see.
has created the LimerickDB.
Though often quite dirty
There are more that are nerdy;
If you check out the best ones, you'll see.
My Own Private Ariel
Steven Karl Zoltan Brust, one of my two or three favorite authors of all time, has written a Firefly novel, called "My Own Kind of Freedom." As Joss Wheedon has decided that he does not want novels to be written based on the series. So instead of selling it as he had hoped, SKZB has declared it to be a fanfic, and released it to the general public under a Creative Commons license.
Catholic flap over free flapjacks
There is no word on whether IHOP has asked the Vatican to shift the timing of Lent.
As mentioned previously, today is not only Super Tuesday, but also Fat Tuesday, otherwise known as Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or...International Pancake Day. IHOP is not a happy camper that the biggest payday in its calendar (when it admittedly not only gives away free pancakes but raises money for charity in the process) has to compete with our pesky American democracy. As they say in their press release: “Super Tuesday, set for February 5, 2008, encroaches upon the centuries-old celebration of Pancake Day, traditionally held the Tuesday preceding Lent to rid iceboxes of forbidden dairy products.” So it decided to thumb its nose at the Catholics and declare next Tuesday "National Pancake Day," even though it's during Lent, which defeats the entire purpose. Except for those whose religion's highest priority is the consumption of free pancakes.
As mentioned previously, today is not only Super Tuesday, but also Fat Tuesday, otherwise known as Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or...International Pancake Day. IHOP is not a happy camper that the biggest payday in its calendar (when it admittedly not only gives away free pancakes but raises money for charity in the process) has to compete with our pesky American democracy. As they say in their press release: “Super Tuesday, set for February 5, 2008, encroaches upon the centuries-old celebration of Pancake Day, traditionally held the Tuesday preceding Lent to rid iceboxes of forbidden dairy products.” So it decided to thumb its nose at the Catholics and declare next Tuesday "National Pancake Day," even though it's during Lent, which defeats the entire purpose. Except for those whose religion's highest priority is the consumption of free pancakes.
Character. Integrity. Do.
20 minutes or so on why I am 4Barack. A very thoughtful and eloquent comparison (transcript) of the core differences between Obama and Clinton - by Creative Commons CEO and Professor Lawrence Lessig.
Madame Tutli-Putli
Novel techniques in the making of stop-motion short Madame Tutli-Putli. And the movie itself (alternate link).
Hold the front page
Also, make sure to bring a number two pencil
Will It Live In Infamy?
Concorde on steroids
Whooosh! London to Sydney in 5 hours on the A2 Hypersonic from Reaction Engines. Green too. If they can pull it off.
Barry Morse has Died
Barry Morse - an actor with an extremely rich and varied career, popular in many roles but iconic as the (original) pursuer of Dr Richard Kimble in the (original) tv series The Fugitive, and memorable to Sci Fi fans as Professor Victor Bergman in Space: 1999, has passed on. He was 89. [more inside]
The contrysides were nice and the plants were singing and the birds and the sun was almost down from the top of the sky.
Half life: Full Life Consequences! Cartoon version! Based on the first piece of fan fiction to ever be critically acclaimed. [more inside]
Starship Sofa: SciFi Podcast
Starship Sofa is a science fiction podcast with biweekly short fiction from known authors (David Brin, Bruce Sterling) and a more regular discussion on SciFi concepts and authors. Warning. podcast contains Geordie accents and the stories contain terrible fake American accents.
Art in the Age of Digital Ubiquity
I was going to share the many amazing videos that StSanders has uploaded to youtube featuring guitar gods like Van Halen and Santana shredding, since they have inexplicably only received scant mention on mefi so far. But StSanders' account has been suspended all all videos have been removed! [more inside]
February 4
Chicken hypnotism
Buy Platinum (if you can afford $1800 per ounce)
Jewelers, engine parts manufacturers, and most of all, investors are watching as platinum hits an all time high, topping $1800 per ounce. An electic supply crisis in South Africa is to blame/thank for this unprecedented rise as mines are facing limits to the amount of electricity they can use. A mining analyst said it could eventually top $2000/oz.
Low-bit gal from 'round Tokyo-way.
There is a small but very dedicated and enthusiastic group of people around the world making music with Nintendo Game Boys and other cheap electronic gadgetry. While many of them are consciously fitting their low-bit sonics into relatively straightforward and predictable dance-oriented forms, some others are taking a rather more whimsical and less predictable approach. One such favorite of mine is the utterly charming, Tokyo-based henna dress. Then there's her alter ego, beta dress. Then there's her 3rd alter ego, CAMEBOY (of GGG) . [more inside]
Howlin' Wolf on the YouTube and related links
Howlin' Wolf - How Many More Years
Howlin' Wolf - Meet Me in the Bottom
Howlin' Wolf - Highway 49
Howlin' Wolf - Smokestack Lightning
Howlin' Wolf - Dust My Broom
Howlin Wolf - I'll Be Back Someday [more inside]
Howlin' Wolf - Meet Me in the Bottom
Howlin' Wolf - Highway 49
Howlin' Wolf - Smokestack Lightning
Howlin' Wolf - Dust My Broom
Howlin Wolf - I'll Be Back Someday [more inside]
African-American Snapshots & Portraits
SF squids
Talking Squids in Outer Space : The Pinnacle of Science Fiction
Recent projects of Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Over The River Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado.
The Mastaba of Adu Dhabi Project for the United Arab Emirates [more inside]
MeatFilter
Looking Up
Lyrical visuals
Meant to be seen and heard, I say
Crank on, Captain Bike.
RIP, Sheldon Brown. Head tech for Harris Cyclery, keeper of a vast (and very web 1.0) compendium of bicycle repair lore, often linked funny guy, and a standard answer to every bicycle question in AskMe.
Who should I vote for?
A little lost coming up to the Presidential Primary? The Electoral Compass is a brief set of questions that matches your choices with the candidate whose positions are the closest to yours. Discover your position in the political landscape for the US presidential election 2008. [more inside]
Lovie Yancey, Creator of Fatburger, R.I.P.
Opening a restaurant is not an easy way to get rich, but for 36 year old Lovie Yancey, an African American woman living in Southern Califoria in 1947, the gamble paid off. As founder of the Fatburger chain (warning - audio), Lovie is remembered as the creator of arguably the greatest hamburger in a nation obsessed with hamburgers. Lovie passed away Jan 26, at 96 years of age, and even if you're not a fan of her burgers, take a moment in tribute to a remarkable woman.
Photorealistic drawings with a biro
The incredible works of Juan Francisco Casas, drawn using a Bic pen (some NSFW).
Poster Police
On Saturday police in Virginia Beach (VA) seized two promotional posters from an Abercrombie & Fitch store and have cited the manager of the store with an obscenity charge. "One [of the posters] shows a group of shirtless male models and one has his jeans low enough to show a part of his buttocks." "The other image is of a woman who is topless and whose 'breast is displayed with her hand covering just the nipple portion.'" Police spokesman Adam Bernstein: "An officer went and looked at them, and thought himself that they were pretty racy." The obscenity charge was issued under City Code Section 22.31 which makes it a crime to display "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles." [more inside]
Set!
Congress 2.0
Opencongress.org is a website for keeping track of the U.S. Congress. (previously) But, now it also a social network. So, sign-up and see what your favourite Senator has been doing, track bills and, follow important issues. Then, share that information with your friends or write about it on your blog.
"It was so peaceful a death, that I felt its reproduction would not be in bad taste. But there probably would be another school of thought on this."
Before a hill, a figure rests, his hands folded. His face retains a unsettling demeanor of peace, or contemplation. Whatever thoughts come to his mind at this point, we shall never know, for he shall never awake from his slumber. [via] [more inside]
I Can't Do That Dave, now put your pants back on
In what may be the silliest poll ever taken, British women say Men Named Dave are Most Likely to be "Well Endowed". There's a whole "Top 10" and "Bottom 10" list of names... see how you stack up. The people who did the survey do this kind of thing for companies to get publicity. It works pretty well. [more inside]
Everything I needed to know I learned as a sperm thingy
February 3
talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it.
Everybody on the dance floor for two of the high masterpieces of disco from 1979: Lipps Inc.'s Funkytown and Anita Ward's Ring My Bell. Hey, Funkytown even has its own comprehensive website! No doubt about it, 1979 was a very BIG year for disco. Not everyone back in '79, though, was ready to shake their booty. Oh well. Doooooooooooooooooooooooo [more inside]
But what about the platypi?
It's hard to believe that, back before the Internet but after the first edition of Dungeons of Dragons, there was a time when we had no easy way to pool the world's knowledge of evolutionary biology, lizard genetics, Pern, and martians to answer that most pressing question: should male RPG fans draw female humanoids descended from dragons with ginormous racks, or without?
Crumbling Paper - old, old comic strips
Crumbling Paper is a collection of old comics. And I mean old, some from the early years of the 20th Century. There are strips from artists such as George Herriman, Rube Goldberg, Basil Wolverton and Gustave Verbeek. It has such strips as Katzenjammer Kids, Little Orphan Annie and Count Screwloose. Warning: Some of these comics feature racial caricatures, as was the unfortunate norm when the strips were drawn. Here is the collector, Steven Stwalley, on Race and Ethnicity in the Early Comics. [via Eddie Campbell]
Black Mirror
Genocide of the Marios
Remember Super Mario Frustration? Kaizo Mario World is another of those super-hard Mario level hacks, this one of Super Mario World. Someone played through its first level 134 times, with save states, recording all his deaths, then digitally composited them into one trip through the level. The result was Many-Worlds Mario. (For those interested, here's a video of a tool-assisted perfect run of much of the game. Here's the rest. Here's some more.)
Tight on the Spiral
Now that Super Bowl XLII is over, all that remains is for NFL Flims to tell the tale. Documenting the greatest moments of the game since 1962, NFL Films is known for its distinctive style, its stirring music, and, until his death in 1983, the "Voice of God" narration of John Facenda.
Peter Wayne
Meet Peter Wayne. Prolific literary writer, book reviewer, architectural correspondent, church organist, chronic recidivist, drug addict, released, homeless, back in prison
Mea Culpa
Chantix may not be so hot, after all. It appears that the smoking cessation drug varenicline may have significant psychiatric side effects. I have recommended the drug in several AskMe's about smoking and so feel it is important to get the word out that it may not be as benign as originally thought.
Tearless Onion.
Ich bin im Tod erblüht
What happens in the shadow, in the grey regions, also interests us – all that is elusive and fugitive, all that can be said in those beautiful half tones, or in whispers, in deep shade.Here are some short films by Stephen and Timothy, the Brothers Quay. [more inside]
Photo albums of German soldiers
Photo albums of German soldiers. Fully scanned photos from the personal albums of German soldiers from the Second World War and the years preceding it. [more inside]
23 And Me...And Google...And Your Genome
Want your genome on a hard drive but don't have the money? 23andMe can give you almost that: a scan of your SNPs, presented online and complete with analyses derived from up-to-date medical research (and a few educated guesses). Eight months ago, blogs were rife with speculation of who 23 could be and what the connection with Google could mean. [more inside]
Strange Brew
Ayahuasca: A Strange Brew. "Can a psychotropic jungle potion cure the existential angst of the McMansion set?" Previously.
Understanding Race
A new look at race through three lenses: History, human variation and lived experience. Be sure to check out some of the quizzes, notably White Men Can't Jump and other assumptions about sports and race. [via SpoFi] A product of the American Anthropological Association.
6 degrees of weak statistics
The other Milgram experiment had less than shocking results. In fact, the famous six degrees of separation appear to be more folklore than science. [more inside]
Lee press-on car
The Tata Nano (pic) is a car that costs less new than the amount I've spent on gas during single car trips, recently announced to the auto market in India. The Chery QQ ^, successful , widely exported, and recognized as the Hostage Taker's Vehicle of Choice by China Car Times, is the runner-up for the world's cheapest car but is still approximately twice as expensive.
Yes indeed, the price of gas is not going to come back down. So much for my coast-to-coast road trips. [more inside]
an eye for nature
February 2
Ya'll n----- gonna make me leave the game. I thought ya'll loved me
Ghostface Killah begs his fans to buy his new album. He figures that if he has 100,000 myspace friends then he should have at least 30,000 early sales. He doesnt and tells downloaders that they should "cop" the CD at the store even if they've downloaded it.
Lace metal welding sculptures
From her isolated rural New York property, Cal Lane produces amazing filigree lace patterned sculptures by welding everyday and found objects. My favourites are the shovels and wheelbarrows. Background at New York Times and NSCAD University. [via gardenhistorygirl]
War FM
It's such a good feeling to know you're alive.
Fred Rogers wrote two hundred songs during his career. Here are fourteen of them, accompanied by the amazing Johnny Costa.
Comrade J: What's true in the world of spies and lies?
"My defection was the major failure of the Russian intelligence, probably in all of history," - Sergei Tretyakov, former colonel in the Russian intelligence service and the subject of Comrade J: by Pete Earley. His claims of Russian turned Canadian politicians, Russian scamming of the UN for millions, and of a Russian duped ranking member of the Clinton Administration have been denied, while legal action has frozen plans to sell Comrade J in Canada.
Two contrasting reviews of Comrade J, here and here.
Two contrasting reviews of Comrade J, here and here.
Beirut Music Videos
The band Beirut released the Flying Club Cup on October 9th, and La Blogothèque has filmed unique, one take, on the spot, mostly public 'music videos' of each track. [more inside]
"There was no forcible penetration but Hope felt as if she was being raped."
Policestate Filter: Woman who is a crime victim brutally strip searched by police. Hope Steffey's cousin called 911 to report that Hope had been assaulted. When the police arrived, Hope accidentally turned over her dead sister's driver's license, which she keeps in her wallet as a memento. After being arrested, and brutally strip searched, she is made to spend six hours in a cell, naked. Warning: the video of the incident is disturbing.
Sentenced to Death
Afghan journalist found guilty of blasphemy by Sharia court and sentenced to death. The decision has been upheld by the Afghan Senate.
Back in the Saddle
Mix and match portraiture
How to make the best Hot Chocolate
Cold outside? Gray skies and icy rain? Seasonal affective disorder got you down? What you need is a nice frothy cup of Hot Chocolate. [more inside]
Art Garfunkel's Reading Habits
“I tried ‘Gravity’s Rainbow,’ and I thought it was fraudulent:” Art Garfunkel’s Reading Habits. (previously on MeFi)
Wyclif's Bible
Just ended on eBay: Auction for the Wycliffite New Testament ca. 1400. Closing bid; US $399,100.00. The seller supposedly is The Bible Museum, Inc. (according to The Little professor). More about Wycliffite editions and some choice bookbinding samples at Bridwell Library [more inside]
Zap!
Spark, Bang, Buzz is a site (well, two sites, one at earthlink, and the other at sparkbangbuzz.com) dedicated to dangerous and awesome science.
Can you charge a refridgerator with propane?
Make an air cannon!
Flame triodes ! And, of course, as the author notes, "There is a great deal of satisfaction in the idea of having built your own laser".
Haisai Ojisan
Shoukichi Kina, peace activist, club owner, environmentalist, sailor, critic of the US presence in Okinawa, proponent of Okinawan independence, and, since 2004, member of the Japanese House of Councillors has been playing his highly influential hybrid of traditional Okinawan min'yo, reggae, and other island music styles since he formed the band Champloose in 1968. [more inside]
New peer-reviewed Creationist Research Journal
Answers Research Journal is a new "professional peer-reviewed technical journal for the publication of interdisciplinary scientific and other relevant research from the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework." Current Volume. Call for Papers.
Major Taylor
Marshall ("Major") Taylor was the first black American to be crowned World Champion in any sport, ever. Care to guess the sport? In 1899, he set the world one-mile track record in cycling (and repeated his win in 1900 and 1901. His legacy continues today with an association, a society, a foundation, cycling clubs, and a velodrome. [more inside]
Now you're thinking with... shiftiness
Shift, a flash game to take up 15 minutes of your Saturday. It's short, but interesting in the same slightly mind-bending way as Portal (and other recent flash games in the Blue). (Warning: I got dizzy)
The Top Ten Things Environmentalists Need to Learn
The Top Ten Things Environmentalists Need to Learn Unfortunately, many of those who claim to be working for environmental improvements lack an understanding of a few basic concepts which are absolutely critical to accomplishing anything. The idea that it is nessisary or honorable to make sacrifices to save this planet are overly simplistic and lack a true understanding of the forces at work. To use a phrase I have come to like, they are “Not even wrong.”
People with a History
People with a History is "an online guide to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans history." Ranging from the first stirrings of civilization to the modern day, People with a History gathers together original sources and academic articles dealing with queerness throughout history. To give you a feel for the wealth of material on the site, here are a few pages that caught my interest: The Vikings and Homosexuality, Coptic Spell: Spell for a Man to Obtain a Male Lover, an acount of a gay marriage ceremony described by Michel de Montaigne, But Among Our Own Selves (an 18th Century gay ballad), a chapter from The Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon, a 7th Century Byzantine monk and bishop, which mentions adelphopoiesis, or the rite of brothermaking, Wu Tsao, 19th Century Chinese lesbian poet, and finally Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men.
Two great cartoons
I'm not a big fan of youtube posts. But without youtube, these two favorites of mine would be lost to obscurity. One from Seymour Kneitel, "La Petite Parade". The other is a Tex Avery, "Symphony in Slang". [more inside]
RIP, Tony Silver, director of Style Wars
Tony Silver, the director of the groundbreaking hip-hop documentary Style Wars passed last night. He was a family friend of mine, and had been sick for several years with a irreversible brain condition. Style Wars is considered by some to be the best hip-hop film ever made, and by everyone to be the first. It was shot at the very start of the 1980s, when graffiti was still hip-hop's dominant form, and the idea of graffiti as art was brand new. I recommend checking out the deluxe DVD edition of the film Tony put together a few years ago after many years where it was only available as an expensive educational-only VHS, but you can also check out the 1hr 10m version on Google Video.
2008 Animated Short Film Oscar Noms
Am I Blue?
The allure of blue eyes has long been celebrated. In the Odyssey, Homer gives the goddess Athena "bright blue eyes," and our fascination persists to this day with actors like Brad Pitt and Naomi Watts. Until recently, however, no one could explain the phenomena. [more inside]
A loveable old wheelchair-bound Stalinist...
Robert Wyatt is not dead. In fact, he recently released a new album titled Comicopera. [more inside]
EFF vs. AT&T
Up Against Big Brother: "For 18 years the Electronic Frontier Foundation has fought for the rights of ordinary Americans in cyberspace. Now it’s stepped into the limelight with a legal challenge to warrantless surveillance." [Via Boing Boing.]
Yes, We Can.
Yes, We Can! -- Obama's words, set to music.
Well, I'm Sorry, Timmy, but I don't dip that way.
Hey George, Timmy was right! A new study [PDF] by the Department of Food Science & Nutrition at Clemson University confirms that double dipping is just plain gross. “The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you,” food microbiologist Prof. Paul L. Dawson says. [more inside]
What would Darth Joker do?
Can a lightsaber cut through Superman? Through him it cuts, hmmmm?
power comes in two forms–money and people
It's the economy, stupid.
The return of tight money fiscal conservatism? Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker endorses Barack Obama. [more inside]
omg, it's made of food!
Surreal photographic Foodscapes by photographer Carl Warner. Strawberry hot air balloons, towers of cheese, potato boulders, green pea boats on seas of salmon, spice roads, and sugar beaches populate these intricate and luscious scenes. More dishy foodscapes (the plate rainbow = ♥!) and other wonderful visual tricks at his Flash site in the "Fotographics" section (look for the fabulous forest of boots and the white cotton winter wonderland!). [more inside]
February 1
The Greater of Two Evils
Two lawyers have known since 1982 that an innocent man was behind bars for a murder their own client committed. The legal reason for this travesty: the absolutism of the client-attorney privilege, which guarantees that anything a client tells his lawyers will be kept in confidence forever.
"The Worst Addiction of Them All"
"The Worst Addiction of Them All", by Kurt Vonnegut, 1983. A classic and prescient essay on addiction to war.
where the guns come from, where they go
The flow of arms around the world, from 1950 to today An interesting Java representation of the flow of arms around the world, year by year from 1950 to today. View, discuss amongst yourselves. via
Rags to stitches
One dog's story of her journey from bait dog (a non-fighting dog used as a "training dummy" for fighting dogs) to loved pet. She got by with a a little help from her friends.
Hands across the water.
What do you do when you're a Panamanian golden frog and you need to let that certain special someone across the way know you're, um, interested? Sure, you could croak a few sweet nothings in her ear, but those rushing jungle streams can drown out even the most virile of frog voices. So, you... wave! Yeah, give her a little wave! A BBC film crew has captured footage of this rare (and, according to their article, now extinct) amphibian waving, fighting and mating. [NOTE: last link includes hot froggy ménage à trois. Surely NSFW!] [more inside]
The Mindscape of Alan Moore
The Mindscape of Alan Moore. Documentary featuring interview with comic book writer Alan Moore. More interviews. (previously)
Listen up newbie
Obey the moderator. (SLYT)
Packing Tapestry
Because it's filler, filler night.
Flash Friday: Filler. Fill the 2/3 of the available space using as few spheres as possible while avoiding the bouncing balls.
Of Montreal covers
Click.
Created by flash artist and graphic novelist Mateusz Skutnik, Submachine is one of the class acts of the point-and-click Web-game genre. Mesmerizing, layered and absorbing, the latest chapter in the series has just been released. [more inside]
Sitation Normal: All Fucked Up
Back in July 1994, a patrol of French blue helmets discovered, to their utter bemusement, a derelict Douglas C-47 "Dakota" in the midst of MiG carcasses in the Rajlovac airfield in Bosnia. They were intrigued enough to write down its serial number: Serial Nr. 43/15073 turned out to be a veteran of Normandy, Provence, Market Garden, the Bulge, and the Rhine.
Now SNAFU Special is back in Normandy, where it is being restored to become a centerpiece of the Merville Battery Museum. [more inside]
Man gave birth to a upper jaw.
Grow your own spare parts. At last we're regenerating properly. Scientists took stem cells from patients fat tissue, cultivated bone cells from them, crafted a nice comfy titanium cage where to grow and put the cage into man's abdomen. After 9 months, install new upper jaw.
dining designs
X-IE-VERSION-FREEZE
It slipped through the cracks on my radar, but apparently the IE8 team has met with some web standards gurus and decided that in order to move forward with full standards compliance (and support the known quirks of IE6/7 for corporate intranets), a new "version targeting" system should be put in place. Other browser vendors are not amused. Should IE just give up? [more inside]
Art Image Bank
Art Images for College Teaching is a searchable, browsable collection of 2,027, well, art images for college teaching, and appears to be mainly the personal collection of Art Historian Allan Kohl (previously on MeFi), and thus represents his interests and specialities, not to mention the variable quality of his photographic skills. Rather strong in Ancient and Medieval, especially architecture, but tapers off as you become more distant from Europe or closer to the 20th century. Nice sets include the Lion Hunt from Ashurbanipal, Iraq; the exterior sculpture of Chartres; and grave stele.
NO FATTIES
Mississippi considers banning people with a BMI higher than 30 from eating in public. Though its author doesn't expect it to pass, House Bill 282 attempts to draw attention to the obesity epidemic, exaggerated or no. Predictably, some are upset.
Not quite your Vonnegut
Undercover video (warning: very graphic) released by the Humane Society reveals abuse of animals on the slaughterhouse floor and other code violations. [more inside]
Multi-link Mike Post post
If you only watch the opening credits of 279 shows from the late 1980s, make it these 279 shows from the late 1980s. [more inside]
I believe that literature is working, even amidst this chaos, with a power that can change the world.
Haruki Murakami doesn't do many interviews. However, he granted one to a University of Hawaii journalism student and it was published in the January 2007 issue of GQ Korea. The text has been translated by the blog owner. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands. A great series from the Globe and Mail on the Alberta Tar Sands: An Empire Made of Goo, Black gold, Texas tea, The hollowing out of small Atlantic towns, Where rich and poor Albertas collide, Norway the gold standard for managing oil wealth, The climatic costs of rapid growth.
Crime in Russia
Fake Bird Poop is Pata-Fake
So you remember that 'dumb, totally fake' video of a bird pooping in a reporter's mouth that was posted and deleted a week ago? It's meta-fake. Maybe even pata-fake.
Got room on that Zimmer for two?
Microsoft offers $44.6 billion for Yahoo! The grand old man of Redmond has finally come out of the closet to woo the loveliest lady in Sunnyvale, offering a staggering $44.6 billion in cash or shares. Cash or shares? Wow! Bearing in mind the...ah...disappointments both companies have suffered over the recent past, is this a marriage made in heaven? Or hell?
I learned it from watching you!
Remember when TV raised us right? Time for Timer taught us about cheese, carrots, breakfast, and oral hygiene. The Abominable Snowman taught us about lunch, money, advertising, and the Food Group Disco! Woodsy Owl taught us to Give a Hoot! and keep America lookin' good! and Mr Yuk SCARED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF US. [more inside]
Of Man's First Disobedience
John Milton was born 400 years ago this year, and several excellent websites have been created to mark the anniversary. Two online exhibitions, Citizen Milton and Living At This Hour, celebrate Milton's achievement with a display of early editions and later artistic interpretations, while Darkness Visible offers an accessible introduction to Paradise Lost for readers encountering the poem for the first time, including an interesting discussion of Milton's influence on Philip Pullman (who responds here with his own tribute to Paradise Lost, 'the greatest poem by England's greatest public poet').
UK retailer website betrays the little children / ignorance
Buying a new bed for your daughter?. How about this little number, with a cheeky, precocious, contemporary culture-aware name. And pull-out desk, did I mention the built-in cupboard?
Mothers aren't concerned about the pull-out desk; they're concerned about the young girls' bed being called "Lolita". [more inside]
Mothers aren't concerned about the pull-out desk; they're concerned about the young girls' bed being called "Lolita". [more inside]
The hard shake, on the balls, and edible cocktails
"In the U.S., they're mixing drinks with herbs and other weird
ingredients, but in Ginza the best guys just polish their cocktails like jewels." And perhaps no Japanese mixology master has contributed more than Kauzo Ueda, who has perfected the art of the hard shake, a refinement over more traditional shake
styles. He has a disciple in NYC's Eben Freeman, who now imparts the secrets
of the hard shake via a video tutorial. [more inside]
Mujer Libre
The Scots voice of the Spanish revolution [Embedded DivX video 1hr15m; also downloadable] Ethel MacDonald was a young working class Scots woman who hitch-hiked to Barcelona to do her part in the war. There she became the English-language voice of the anarchist movement as a radio station announcer. Newspapers at home dubbed her the "Scottish Scarlet Pimpernel" for her role in helping comrades escape the crackdown that followed the May Days. Her remarkable story is told in this recent drama-documentary.