January 18, 2013
Section Two: Bonus Appendages.
Does having sex with you entail becoming married, whether legally, magically, physiologically, or some other de facto permanent relationship? Y/N If Yes, please describe our new life together.It's an unpredictable dating world out there when you're a fanfiction protagonist. With the proliferation of anonymous kink memes populated by imaginative, trope-savvy slashers and other fan-writers (usually women), you can never be quite sure when your next amorous encounter in fic may veer into the dubiously probable or physically impossible. Luckily for sexually-active fic-heroes everywhere, fan-writers Coruscera and Linbot have created a helpful meta-fandom survey to ensure your future romantic interludes run smoothly for all partners involved: "Special Circumstances Questionnaire for Sexual Partners (Male): Long Form." [NSFW for explicit sexual language. Possible trigger warnings for discussion of sexual consent and very unusual sexual practices.]
Japanese Designers 101
I’ve found that while Japan has always been a significant force in the world of design, not many people are familiar with the names or faces behind the distinct aesthetic. In this edition I would like to briefly introduce some of the notable* industrial designers of the 20th Century that have made meaningful contributions to what we know today as Contemporary Japanese Design. by the ever wonderful Spoon & Tamago [more inside]
That's the Way...
RIP Ronald Francis Watts
Goodbye Prop Joe
GOOD GIRL
The (other) Jon Brion Show
The basic history is that back around 1999/2000, Jon Brion shot a pilot with VH1 for a variety show that would feature music & comedy of the various performers hanging around LA club Largo at the time (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, etc.) but the network turned it down. So PTA decided to step in and shot his own version of "The Jon Brion Show" via 3 test episodes which he shot and paid for himself, but as far as we know never presented it to the network (or any network) for possibility to air. [more inside]
Hunt For The Gay Planet
Hunt For The Gay Planet is a game Anna Anthropy made in response to Bioware restricting all same-sex romances in Star Wars: The Old Republic to a single planet that's part of paid downloadable content.
A Tribute To “The Karate Kid”
A Tribute To “The Karate Kid.” If you liked the movie, this hits the right buttons.
When Dinosaurigami Ruled the Earth
Dinosaurigami!
More Dinosaurigami!
Further Adventures in Dinosaurigami!
Deeper into Dinosaurigami!
We'll have fun, fun, fun, until daddy takes the dinosaurigami away!
Return to the Valley of Dinosaurigami!
More Dinosaurigami!
Further Adventures in Dinosaurigami!
Deeper into Dinosaurigami!
We'll have fun, fun, fun, until daddy takes the dinosaurigami away!
Return to the Valley of Dinosaurigami!
Ohhhh... Canadaaaa...
To some, Canada's greatest guilty pleasure is Poutine (here are 38 variations, all on one page, THANK you Foodbeast) or William Shatner (who is bringing his one-man show to MY town tomorrow evening). But there are things most of us don't know about the Nice Folk to the North. Therefore, a new site for CANADIAN SEX ACTS, kind of a Kanada Sutra. NSFW and age restricted, this new site may have performance problems (insert snarky comment here); if so, just enjoy the list of names of great white north positions (Reverse Rick Moranis, Montreal Meatpie, Five-Legged Caribou...)
Sellwood Bridge
Tomorrow, January 19, you can watch as the Sellwood Bridge in Portland, OR is moved 33-66 feet to the north in order to allow a new bridge to be built in its place, while still allowing traffic to move over that part of the Willamette River while the construction is taking place.
"I never see children. So the animals are my friends."
Born in Africa to French wildlife photographer parents, Tippi Degré had a most unusual childhood.
(Possibly NSFW)
See Monkeys
Kurt Vonnegut's diagram of how a story works
"I wanted the world to know my city as I did"
In 1992, Lynn Brooks founded the non-profit Big Apple Greeter program, to help make a visit to New York City seem less intimidating and dangerous to first-time visitors: Pick a date, time and neighborhood, and the organization will match you up with a local who will spend several hours with you, helping you find your way around, teaching you the ins and outs of subways and buses, the cool shops, the great places to eat. (Their site also has some outstanding neighborhood profiles and cultural attraction guides that should be of just as much interest to local residents.) The idea spread, leading to the formation of the Global Greeter Network, which now has greeter programs in cities all over the world.
Diamond Joe, cruising for chicks on Reddit
"He was extremely difficult to try and trade records with."
Yazoo Records was founded by J. Nicholas Perls not as a way to distribute Robert Crumb's music related artwork, but as an extension of a serious record collecting habit shared by himself and a handful of other 78-rpm country-blues afficianados. Following in the footsteps of trailblazer Harry Smith and his famous anthology, over the years Perls and a few employees (notably Stephen Calt who wrote many if not most of the brilliant Yazoo liner notes) released dozens of collections of rare sides—from the raunchy blues of Bo Carter to the Hawaiian guitar of Roy Smeck. [more inside]
Modern World Lit
Modern World Lit is a carefully curated library of recommended literary fiction from around the world
The Distress of the Privileged
As the culture evolves, people who benefitted from the old ways invariably see themselves as victims of change. The world used to fit them like a glove, but it no longer does. Increasingly, they find themselves in unfamiliar situations that feel unfair or even unsafe. Their concerns used to take center stage, but now they must compete with the formerly invisible concerns of others.
If you are one of the newly-visible others, this all sounds whiny compared to the problems you face every day. It’s tempting to blast through such privileged resistance with anger and insult.
Tempting, but also, I think, a mistake. The privileged are still privileged enough to foment a counter-revolution, if their frustrated sense of entitlement hardens.
Xiao Xiao
In 2001, Zhu Zhiqiang began uploading a series of martial arts animations featuring stick figures to Newgrounds.com. The name of the series was Xiao Xiao.
I help students learn how to study all types of rocks.
Complex scientific concepts explained using only the thousand most used words in the English language. In the spirit of xkcd's Up-Goer Five comic. (Previously.) Use the Up-Goer Five Text Editor to make your own contributions.
The line between science fiction and true science is often thin
In 1990, Isaac Asimov was working on a TV series to bridge science fiction and science fact, "synthesizing his visionary ideas about where humanity is going." He passed away in 1992, and the series never progressed beyond the pilot, which was re-worked and released as the documentary Visions of the Future (YouTube playlist, via Brainpickings, which calls the video "essentially, the antithesis to the Future Shock [documentary] narrated by Orson Welles"). [more inside]
Ask him about his chickens
Aaron Peterson is a nature photographer and writer based near Lake Superior on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He takes many photographs of bike trips, like this ice biking series.
The rider, Ryan Labar, chimed in with a technical comment.
More of Aaron's galleries.
The rider, Ryan Labar, chimed in with a technical comment.
More of Aaron's galleries.
The Power of Lard
Has the cordless telephone been invented
Premiering this week at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, two Youtube video channels! ... [more inside]
Referred to hereinafter as 'Burglar'
A lawyer provides a detailed analysis of the contract between Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves in The Hobbit. [more inside]
“The cruelty of the ballet world has become surprisingly pathological.”
Bolshoi Ballet Director Is Victim of Acid Attack: [NYTimes.com] "A masked man threw acid in the face of Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the legendary Bolshoi Ballet, on Thursday night, leaving him with third-degree burns and possibly threatening his eyesight, Bolshoi officials said on Friday morning."
I'mma take your grandpa's style.
So...........here we go again?
Jihad in the Sahara.
It is no suprrise that Mali is the latest Muslim country to experience western Intervention. This has resulted in escalation.
The north of Mali is as alien to the average soldier from southern Mali as the Alaskan tundra is to a citizen of Massachusetts or Manchester. This is the land where the local Tuareg or Arab in his souped-up turbo 4x4 is king. A map of the various conflicts. In October a der Spiegel journalist spent 2 weeks in the north of the country and in November CS Monitor asked Will Mali be Africa's Afghanistan?
I want it NOW! I want cake NOWWWWW!
A Bad Lip Reading of the NFL (SLYT) Football knowledge not required.
Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Poe.
After a few weeks of well-reported rumors that Lance Armstrong was going to confess, he publicly admitted to years of doping in the first of a two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey. [more inside]
Smart Girls Ask Amy
Amy Poehler's YouTube channel Smart Girls has a segment called Ask Amy, where she provides helpful, honest advice to viewers. Unsurprisingly, it is awesome. [more inside]
A Little Off the Top
"A rough calculation of current rates of soil degradation suggests we have about 60 years of topsoil left." Via.
Transgender Clergy in the Episcopal Church
Last summer, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church approved a measure affirming the right of transgendered members to be eligible for both lay and ordained ministry. Before the vote, pioneering Episcopal LGBT group Integrity USA distributed copies of "Voices of Witness: Out of the Box" to Convention delegates. The short video profiles several transgender Episcopalians, including clergy, as well as cisgender supporters.
In other Episcopal LGBT news, the Dean of the National Cathedral in Washington DC announced last week that the Cathedral would begin celebrating same-sex weddings effective immediately.
"I steal every good idea."
What 'creative' types want us to think they feel bad about. Like the bathroom door confessions of yore but on the internet and you can vote to absolve or condemn each confession. Curiously, confessions about stealing other people's ideas almost all get more 'condemn' votes.
The Origins of Neoliberalism
Philip Pilkington writes for naked capitalism: The Origins of Neoliberalism
Part I: Hayek's Delusion
Hayek’s entire ideology and career had begun to come apart in the 1930s. His theories were shown to be inconsistent in the academic journals of the time and the practical implications of those theories had shown themselves to be both discredited and dangerous. A man in such a position only has two choices: he can either completely re-evaluate his ideas which, if they were held with unshakeable conviction and constituted a core component of his emotional make-up, as seems to have been the case with Hayek, would have likely resulted in a mental collapse; or, alternatively, he can engage in a massive repression, shut out reality and construct around himself a fantasy world.[more inside]
"All the groupies were at the Led Zeppelin concert."
"Prog Rock Brittania" is a BBC documentary about the great (and/or pretentious) bands that made up the UK's contribution to a somewhat controversial musical genre. Direct link seems to be busted, but Youtube saves the day: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Shotgun wedding
Shotgun wedding (video) in Bir el Ater, Algeria. I don't know anything about this video, but discovered that Bir el Ater was cradle of the stoneage Aterian civilization between about 80,000 and 40,000 years ago.
You don't need a drop in every track
"Even drum and bass works best when it's a constant, steady assault, those subtle changes that mark one track from the next being the bits that make Bermondsey boys on bail take their shirts off and twist their own jaws into "Z" shapes". Tongue-in-cheek Vice article on the new rave culture in the US
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