January 20, 2012
Adorable
Extinct Monkey Lives!
SFU graduate students captures photos of the "critically endangered Miller’s Grizzled Langur, which had never been documented in the 38,000-hectare Wehea rainforest and was thought to be possibly extinct."
YouTube is full of videos that could be used for 418 error pages
How many Presidential candidates can you name?
There are over 400 2012 Presidential candidates not named Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, or Ron Paul. Mental Floss lists 11 of them.
I was a fan way before I knew it was underground.
Until 2009, the human clitoris was an absolute mystery: Get ready, everybody — it's time you were brought up to speed on some important features of the female anatomy. (possibly NSFW: some diagrams of internal anatomy) [more inside]
rat haus reality
As we near completion of the current Year of the Rat, it feels appropriate to tell a story about how rat appreciation started, how the ratitor came to be, and how the organic unfolding of rat haus reality awareness manifested, first in the building of the balsa wood house itself (preceded by the rat cabin and ancestral rat hans), then in its image scribing, next as a gift-in-photo series, and now as this virtual gathering place for consciousness to further explore, expand, and extend itself.
The Waffle House Terrorists
This past November, news broke of a rather odd domestic terror plot that had been broken up by the FBI. Four senior citizens in northern Georgia who met regularly at a local Waffle House, were allegedly planning to spread ricin and botulinum toxin in Atlanta and Washington, DC, in order to kill millions of people and "save the Constitution." But was there ever really a conspiracy?
STOP BEING SKINNY AND TIRED!
Ask for Amazing WATE-ON. Retronaut's collection of dietary supplement ads offers some historical perspective on the obesity epidemic. [more inside]
Top Ten books of famous authors
Top Ten Favorite Books from authors: Stephen King's 10 favorite books. David Foster Wallace's 10 favorite books. Sue Monk Kidd's 10 favorite books via the CS Monitor.
Elephant (innards) on parade.
Inside Nature's Giants is a ridiculously educational British science documentary series featuring dissections of very big animals, including a giant squid, a sperm whale, a giraffe, and many, many more. [more inside]
"Let's open up this pit!"
The ability to recreate an entire movie is insignificant next to the potential of the Force.
Back in 09', Star Wars Uncut (previously) asked people to recreate 15 second chunks of Star Wars: A New Hope however they wanted, using live action, animation, text adventure screens, SCUMM interfaces, costumed pets, and more. Now they've been edited together to recreate the entire movie as a homemade, constantly shifting media experiment. (Vimeo link)
The sound of the ages
Years by Bartholomäus Traubek: a record player that plays slices of wood.
Beneath the molecular diagram was the simple caption “MAKE ME!”
SiHKAL: Shulgins I Have Known and Loved: After spending days, weeks, months poring over the work [PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story; TiHKAL: The Continuation; lab books] of psychonaut-in-chief, Alexander Shulgin, Hamilton Morris mustered up the chutzpah to give him a call and request an interview. The result is this: an epic love-fest on the man who birthed Ecstasy in a test-tube. Hamilton visits the Shulgin residence (in San Francisco, naturally) and tempers his fanboy freakout with a rare and intensive look at the home and laboratory that caused the balls of millions to trip. For those who prefer text, here is the video in article form. [Shulgin previously: 1; 2]
Chicago Gang Cards
In the 1970s and 1980s, Chicago gangs distributed gang cards to stake their neighbourhood claim. Full gallery available here.
West Memphis 3 Continued
New witnesses surface on the infamous West Memphis 3 case based on Peter Jackson's upcoming documentary which will premiere as one piece at the 2012 Sundance. Here's the trailer. [more inside]
That's not just a kid's instrument
People can't decide if he looks more like Tom Cruise or Keanu Reeves. But whoever he looks like, it's the way he sounds and what he can play that make Benoît Sauvé unique. [more inside]
Internet wins: SOPA and PIPA both shelved
SOPA and PIPA dropped by Congress. The ideas present in both SOPA and PIPA may return, but both bills in their present form—and with their present names—are probably done for good.
"And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of us has any pockets.’ " ~ J.M. Barrie
Not as good as Beetlejuice, but still pretty good
Alec Baldwin has a podcast on WNYC, Here's the Thing, in which he has ~20 minute interviews with pretty much anyone he's interested in talking to. [more inside]
Life is a dream.
Hollywood dream of filmmaker Nicholas McCarthy is stop and go. 'His 11-minute thriller had just played Sundance. He had hoped the premiere would launch — after many failed attempts — his dream of making it. He was offered one meeting on which all his hopes rested.' 'This might be his last chance. He was 40, with a wife and baby. Like countless dreamers, he'd existed on the outskirts of Hollywood, fending off debt and doubt, staying afloat with low-wage jobs, diligently writing screenplays and making short films, hoping to hold on long enough to catch a break.' [more inside]
Playing for the other Team(sters): Project 59
Today on Rewind a remarkable historical piece that features two American icons who clashed over issues of corruption and misappropriation of funds in the 1950s and 60s. They are Robert Kennedy- former Attorney General of the United States, but at the time Chief Investigator of the Rackets Committee for the United States Senate, and James Hoffa- head of the Teamsters Union. (MP3) [more inside]
But there's no sex-fueled crime spree
Confessions of a Binge Drinker : "If, as the CDC suggests in a new report, binge drinking leads to violence, spread of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, and risky behavior, then why am I doing just fine?" [more inside]
Joe Pass plays a Fender Jaguar
WE SELL ALUMINUM SIDING (AND JOKES)
The Schleppers.
A history of the New York comedy underworld in the 1950s, from WFMU's Beware of the Blog. Featuring Joe Ancis, Jack Roy (aka Rodney Dangerfield), and Lenny Bruce.
A history of the New York comedy underworld in the 1950s, from WFMU's Beware of the Blog. Featuring Joe Ancis, Jack Roy (aka Rodney Dangerfield), and Lenny Bruce.
Korean Popular Songwriting
A short list of Kpop songs with double word titles from the last 3-4 years:
Cry Cry
High High
Mirror Mirror
Spark Spark
Cooking Cooking
Push Push
Sorry Sorry
Haru Haru [more inside]
National Aerobics Championships
The 1988 Crystal Light National Aerobics Championships, hosted by Alan Thicke. This is still a thing.
Underwater Experiments
"Live sex shows, it ain't."
Think Downton Abbey is good? The New York Times' national desk, and over 30,000 others, can't get enough of the live webcam for Wisconsin's recall (previously). Broadcasting from an undisclosed location, the characters -- including "Sideburns" and "Flirty von Flirtenheimer" -- put the "men" into "Government Accountability Board." Background.
Forget about the election, I'm waiting on the recording contract.
I, I'm so in love with you. The soulful side of President Obama. (slyt)
Ugandan Little League woes and a win: “If we can beat Canada, we can beat anyone”
In July 2011, Uganda's Little League baseball team became the first African team to qualify for the Little League World Series, which was held in Williamsport, Pa., in August 2011. After beating the the 22-time World League qualifying Arabian American Little League squad from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the Ugandan team couldn't take part in the world series after their visas were denied (NYT; alt: HuffPo), due to concerns about birth certificate validity, but that's not the end of their story. The Canadian team from Langley raised funds to travel to Uganda, giving the Ugandan team the match they were denied. [more inside]
Javascript
What's a JavaScript Closure? Ever wonder about some of JavaScript's more advanced and esoteric features? Nathan Whitehead's interactive tutorial explains and walks through each of these concepts one step at a time. At the end of each lesson, you are encouraged to write short snippets of code demonstrating the concepts that you just learned, which are then automatically checked for errors and verified.
Perhaps you're new to JavaScript, or programming in general; CodeAcademy offers similar interactive tutorials that will teach you the basics, and hold your hand along the way. Perhaps you'd rather learn at a more even pace; CodeAcademy's CodeYear will introduce you to one new concept every week throughout 2012. [more inside]
Perhaps you're new to JavaScript, or programming in general; CodeAcademy offers similar interactive tutorials that will teach you the basics, and hold your hand along the way. Perhaps you'd rather learn at a more even pace; CodeAcademy's CodeYear will introduce you to one new concept every week throughout 2012. [more inside]
Freud: the last great Enlightenment thinker
Freud: the last great Enlightenment thinker. Freud never held out the hope of tranquillity. Rather, he aimed to reconcile those who entered psychoanalysis to a state of perpetual unrest...psychoanalysis does not so much promise inner peace as open up a possibility of release from the fantasy that inner conflict will end.
When a benefit is suggested for men, the question asked is: "Will it benefit men?" When a benefit is suggested for women, the question is: "Will it benefit men?"
Goodbye to a legend
Etta James, jazz legend best known for "At Last," died today after a bout with leukemia and dementia, while her husband and sons were battling over her savings.
Might As Well Jump
Turn that phone over
You order your food, everyone places their phone on the table face down. The first one to flip over their phone loses the game and pays for everyone's meal, otherwise everyone pays for themselves. Don't be a dick when you're out with friends at a restaurant.
You call those fist names?! Say hello to Bono and Sandra Day O'Connor!
Are you at a pugilistic disadvantage because your fist names are substandard or uninspired? Problem solved.
The Legend of Ungrashzon
Not sure what this Dwarf Fortress thing is all about? The Legend of Ungrashzon (German SLYT, English subtitles available) illustrates.
you gotta keep the devil way down in the hole
Fukushima: Inside the Reactor 2 Containment Vessel, 1/19/2012. Here are Mainichi Daily News and Japan Times reports.
Drunk Ron Swanson
Drunk Ron Swanson That is all.
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