February 22, 2011
Beginning To End
Beginning To End. This amazing one-man show was a collaboration between Jack MacGowran and Samuel Beckett. It was recorded for RTÉ Television in 1966.
North To The Future
In 1968, Richard Proenneke retired to the desolate Twin Lakes region of Alaska. Alone, he built himself a log cabin, filming the endeavor with a 16mm camera. He lived there for 30 years. Dick passed away in 1999, at age 82, but the cabin is still there, and you can visit it.
static void wake_up_dreamer(struct dreamer_attr *dattr, int level)
the no in nom
Food Mourn: the opposite of food porn.
This is the moment my parents dressed me up as a footballer and turned me gay.
Are we born gay? And if we were, how would we know it? Sociologist Lisa Wade asks the question in response to the blog Born This Way, a collection of images of LGBT adults as children. Perusing the photographs tells an interesting story: being gay — that is, being sexually or romantically attracted to members of the same sex — is conflated with being gender non-conformist — adopting the mannerisms and interests of the other sex. (Previously)
Subway reefs
Subway Submarines - a photo essay by and interview with industrial art photographer Stephen Mallon on NYC subway cars repurposed into underwater reefs. (via @stevesilberman) [more inside]
Talking fast and making cool videos does not mean learning is happening
So you're me and you're in math class and you're learning about graph theory, a subject too interesting to be included in most grade school's curricula so maybe you're in some special program or maybe you're in college and were somehow not scarred for life by your grade school math teachers. [more inside]
I think the owls are my favorite
Just Another Day at the Office...
Slave Auction Animation
Bid 'Em In. An animated video to accompany the late, great Oscar Brown Jr.'s song "Bid 'Em In." via [more inside]
It's the Inequality, Stupid
Eight charts that explain everything that's wrong with America from Motherjones.com
Horror On The Holodeck
Five Round Salute for Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
The Doctor's Brigadeer has died. Nicholas Courtney (Dec. 16, 1929 - Feb. 22, 2011)
io9 obit (in OLD blog format, yourewelcome), 2008 Interview, Nicholas Courtney's Website
io9 obit (in OLD blog format, yourewelcome), 2008 Interview, Nicholas Courtney's Website
"This is a daily phenomenon for all women now"
Egypt's women face growing sexual harassment. 'Some women in Egypt say they suffer catcalls, groping and other sexual harassment daily. For a time it seemed the Tahrir Square protests might point to progress, but the attack on TV reporter Lara Logan and others showed otherwise.' 'In 2008 the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, a nongovernmental group that campaigns against such abuse group polled 2,020 Egyptians and 109 non-Egyptian women. The results: 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign women surveyed said they had suffered sexual harassment. About half the women said they were harassed every day. The research showed that more than two-thirds of the women reporting abuse wore traditional Muslim head scarves or robes. Some even wore a flowing body-length black burka, with veil and gloves. Fewer than a third of the women wore Western attire.' [more inside]
NBA Writing 2010
Out Sync of
Out of Sync: "A man departs his house, only to realize what he leaves behind. By separating sound from visuals, Out of Sync paints a uniquely involving portrait of a marriage at breaking point. Is there still time to save the relationship?" [more inside]
It's kind of like Minecraft, except you drive a bus in Germany...
Do you like video games? Have you ever wanted to comprehensively reenact the daily life of a double-decker bus driver in 1985 West Berlin? Your prayers have finally been answered. Aerosoft's impressive Omnibus Driving Simulator allows you to take command of the venerable 1980s-vintage MAN SD200 and SD202 double-decker buses (in 20 authentic 1980s advertising liveries) along West Berlin's Omnibus Route 92, complete with an accurate simulation of all four production-runs of the SD200's transmission, drivetrain, climate control, and passenger information systems. If the SD202 doesn't cut it for you, or you want to escape the clutches of West Berlin, there's a comprehensive map editor and scripting engine at your disposal. (via) [more inside]
The Container Ship
Container ships are the backbone of today's globalized world. Many people seem to be unaware of the invisible but pivotal role that they and their Merchant Navy staff play in our daily lives. One reporter spends five weeks at sea, and the resulting piece is an enlightening surprise.
Static at Rest: RIP Dwayne McDuffie
Dwayne McDuffie has died. If you recognize the name, odds are you already know his resume, but here goes: founder of Milestone Media, creator of Static, executive producer of Justice League Unlimited, writer of many comics and perhaps the most visible advocate of minority engagement in comic books. Details are non-existent at this point, but McDuffie was said to appear healthy and happy within the last week at appearances for the just-released All-Star Superman DVD.
Top Ten Fictional Poets
John Mullan in The Guardian compiles a list of the top ten fictional poets from literature. The article's comments thread has already reminded him of a couple he neglected: "Ka" (Kerim Alakusoglu) from Orhan Pamuk's Snow, and William Ashbless from Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates. Others might include Kid from Samuel Delany's Dhalgren; Cesárea Tinajero, Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima of Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives (really, the character lists for many of Bolaño's novels would provide multiple fictional minor poets of course); Adam Dalgleish from P.D. James' mysteries; Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago; Saul Bellow's Von Humboldt Fleisher. Other links to discussions of fictional poets.
Capitalism for the Long Term
In
Capitalism for the Long TermManaging Director of McKinsey & Company Dominic Barton sums up his prescriptions for the future of corporate governance for the Harvard Business Review. [more inside]
Be the first of your friends to like us on Facebook!
"Unlike the link ... likes are arguably easier to create. Moreover, they are explicit endorsements rather than implicit ones. Therefore, they carry more weight once they are pulled through the lens of our friends. More so than links, this new network of signals allows content to find you, rather than you having to go find it. The rise of likes, just as links before it, will create all kinds of new businesses. And we're just getting started." Are likes poised to replace links as the Web's primary signal? Then again, it just might be getting out of hand.
Its only words, and words are all I have
Binyavanga Wainaina remembers one night in the Kenyan countryside as a young man, an excerpt from his soon to be published memoir One Day I Will Write About This Place. [more inside]
Ladies in bands don't get ANY action
Over the weekend, critically-acclaimed musician Neko Case started a discussion with her twitter followers: "To answer your question, no, ladies in bands don't get ANY action... Back me up ladies. no one believes this." The resulting conversation lasted the rest of the night and had women musicians like Amy Millan, Miranda Brown and Michelle Branch agreeing and chiming in. So, why don't female rock stars have groupies? [more inside]
Five seconds of every No. 1 song from about 1956 to 1993
Five seconds of every No. 1 song from about 1956 to 1993.
RULAV is pronounced "AWESOME"
Rarely does building a treehouse require welding, grinding, painting, riveting, bending, crimping, plumbing, brazing, laser cutting, sound design, printed circuit board fabrication, thousands of lines of C code, distributed network protocols, sewing and embroidery. Ours did. [more inside]
IMSLP copyright clashes
... the International Music Score Library Project, has trod in the footsteps of Google Books and Project Gutenberg and grown to be one of the largest sources of scores anywhere. It claims to have 85,000 scores, or parts for nearly 35,000 works, with several thousand being added every month. That is a worrisome pace for traditional music publishers, whose bread and butter comes from renting and selling scores in expensive editions backed by the latest scholarship. More than a business threat, the site has raised messy copyright issues and drawn the ire of established publishers. (previously)
PeerReviewTube
Learning from YouTube. Ms. Juhasz, a professor of media studies, felt that her students needed to participate in this new medium in order to critique it. The same was true of her work: Academic writing on YouTube demands videos, not just words.
That idea got a major boost this month when the MIT Press released Learning From YouTube, a free "video book" that was written by Ms. Juhasz and grew out of her class. It's the first time the press has published an online-only book, and it helped developers build a new platform for authorship that they hope will be used for more such works. It's also a test of academic waters: Will similar publications, backed by established presses, count toward tenure?
Cheese sandwiches required.
The anchovies are restless. Margaret Atwood, grand dame of Canadian letters, addresses the future of publishing. [more inside]
A place for everything and everything in its place.
The Lost Thing animated, 15 mins. Nominated for and Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. Based on a book by Shaun Tan. [more inside]
Amazon takes a shot at Neflix.
Amazon's Prime Streaming service has gone live. The online retailer is adding this to its free 2-day shipping service gratis.
The Supercommuter
Joe Simonetti is a 57-year-old psychotherapist who lives with his wife in Pound Ridge, New York. His commute takes him from the northern reaches of exurban Westchester County to his office just south of Central Park. It's about three and a half hours each way. By bike. [more inside]
The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2
The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2 - How (and more importantly why) Axel Gembe, a young German hacker, stole and leaked the source code to Valve's highly anticipated Half-Life 2 game in 2003. (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun) [more inside]
Panoramirum
A gorgeous series of still, high-resolution panoramic photographs of the City of Light, its landmarks and environs, including Shakespeare and Company, by Arnaud Friche.
If you wish to travel further afield: stunning, super-wide-format photographs of the Alberta Badlands, the Great Wall of China, the floating torii at Miyajima, Bryce Canyon, Burning Man, Burney Falls, BC and much more taken by Brad Templeton, an EFF board member. [more inside]
If you wish to travel further afield: stunning, super-wide-format photographs of the Alberta Badlands, the Great Wall of China, the floating torii at Miyajima, Bryce Canyon, Burning Man, Burney Falls, BC and much more taken by Brad Templeton, an EFF board member. [more inside]
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