January 25, 2012
In the end, what is life without love?
Motorsport - Love For Life The latest video created by Finn Antti Kalhol, Motorsport - Love For Life is a roughly four and a half minute meditation on auto racing, suffering and love. [more inside]
"The map reflects what the plants have known for years."
The USDA has released an updated version of its plant hardiness zone map. Based on low temperatures from 1976 to 2005, it puts most US locations into a slightly warmer planting zone. While many headlines link the overall changes with global warming, the map also reflects factors such as urban heat, prevailing winds, and the slope of the land. The Washington Post has an interactive graphic showing the old and new zones.
More Budweiser than Bud Light
"Gridiron League is a collection of idealized NFL insignias that pay tribute to each team's history and geography in a period-specific aesthetic that glorifies the Vince Lombardi-era over the Cold-Activated-era. This is not an exercise in nostalgia but an interpretation of the league's founding principles through the symbols that we, as football fans, identify with most." [more inside]
Ultramapping pinterest blog collects great maps
Ultramapping - outstanding and cool maps of all types, collected at Sha Hwang's Pinterest pinboard.
"Television has been attacking us all our lives, now we can attack it back."
Handmade Cinema. A guide to experimental film and filmmakers.
Lisa Lyon
[all links nsfw] Although [Lisa] Lyon briefly served as unofficial chairperson for women’s bodybuilding in its infancy, her fondest desire was to explore bodybuilding as an artistic medium. Elevating bodybuilding to the level of fine art, Lyon was photographed by the likes of Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe, and was the first female bodybuilder to appear in Playboy.* [more inside]
Wild Palms
In 1993, in the era of television reinvention following the earthquake of Twin Peaks, ABC aired a 6-hour miniseries executive produced by Oliver Stone and Bruce Wagner -- Wild Palms. Featuring a monster cast (James Belushi, Dana Delaney, Robert Loggia, Angie Dickenson, Kim Cattrall, Ernie Hudson, Nick Mancuso, Bebe Neuwirth and Brad Dourif, just to name a few) and with episodes directed by the likes of Kathryn Bigelow and Phil Joanou, it was a near-future cyberpunkish surreal Television Event that the New York Times described as "nothing so much as an acid freak's fantasy, drenched in paranoia and more pop-culture allusions than a Dennis Miller monologue." [more inside]
Australia Day
It's a day of high jinx, high revelry and high people in Australia; a day when a large and vocal majority come together to "celebrate what's great" about this country. But what is the meaning of all this fanfare? What is the true origin of this passionately marked day of facepaint and binge drinking? Is everyone in Australia so keen on this particular anniversary? To get to bottom of these questions, and more, join your amiable host Robert Foster [previously] as he conducts a high-octane, high-frequency satellite link-up with a representative of the Mainstream Australian media: multi-Logie award-winning broadcaster, entertainer, emu-wrangler and true blue Aussie, Kenneth Oathcarn. Rap News Episode 11: Australia Day
WARNING: contains adult Australian vernacular - viewer discretion is strongly advised.
WARNING: contains adult Australian vernacular - viewer discretion is strongly advised.
They is Me
Canadian queer magazine Xtra! has found itself at the center of controversy after refusing to refer to certain transgendered interviewees by their preferred pronoun: "they." [more inside]
"I really want folks to listen to my music just for the music..."
in which the owner of The New York Knicks, James Dolan, happens to front a blues band - JD & The Straight Shot
Bear 71
It's hard to tell where the wired world ends and the wild one begins. For years, wildlife cameras around Banff national park captured photos of animals to track their activity. One of those animals, a female grizzly identified as Bear 71, in now the subject of an NFB interactive documentary assembled from those photos.
Wi-fi Protected Setup cracked
WPS (Wi-fi Protected Setup) is a protocol used by many wireless routers to make it easy to use wireless printers and other networked peripherals. Recently researchers revealed that the protocol was unsafe. It turns out that the PIN password space is only 11,000, and most routers don't object to repeated failed attempts to log in. As a result, it is possible to brute-force try every PIN in two-four hours. An open source program called Reaver has now been released which will do this. The Department of Homeland Security recommends disabling WPS on all routers, but not all routers permit it to be disabled.
The days of our kind are numbered.
Nicol Williamson passed away on December 16th in Amsterdam from esophageal cancer at the age of 73. You might remember him as Merlin in Excalibur or Father Morning in Exorcist III.
Rest in Peace
Theatre geeks rejoice!
Susan Blackwell is an American actress, writer and singer, best known for playing herself in the musical [title of show].[1] The web series "Side by Side by Susan Blackwell" chronicles her unconventional encounters with Broadway celebrities: sorting laundry with Daniel Radcliffe, feeding goats with Jonathan Groff, researching rectal surgeries with Norbert Leo Butz, naming dogs with Zachary Quinto and consulting a ouija board with Andrew Rannells, to name a few. [more inside]
Modified Cabinet Cards, Involuntary Collaborations and Fat Cats in Art
Alex Gross converts antique cabinet card portraits into pop caricatures (larger collection). Chris McMahon creates involuntary collaborations with bland landscape paintings he picks up at yard sales, similar to John Lytle Wilson's Corrected Paintings. And then you have fat cats in art, or Great Artist's Mews.
Ron and Tammy on the wings of a dragon
What happens when a Southern paleontologist falls for a creationist? According to Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally, it might go a little something like this.
A nation full of immortal poor people.
In 2002, Doug Monroe placed his parents in assisted living. A decade later, he's looking back at "the weighty financial and emotional costs that come with a parent's immortality": The Long Goodbye.
One Giant Leap For Tiny Plastic Mankind
White People Solve Racism
Live life as if the next moment is your last. Because, remember, time flies!
The One-Minute Fly [SLYT] An animated short (with a nod to Ice Age).
Wilco's Nels Cline rig rundown
Wilco's own Nels Cline gives a 38 minute video rundown of his stage guitars and rig.
Do You Love Me?
My mistake, if I can call it that, was trust - to think a smile was a smile and not a show of teeth. - - - All this week, tor.com is publishing The Situation, a comic based on a story by everyone's favorite Jeff VanderMeer, and illustrated by Eric Orchard. [more inside]
In Mother Russia, Leaks Wiki You
Yesterday, news broke Wikileaks founder Julian Assange announced a 10-episode television show that will feature "key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries." Today it was announced that the show will be broadcast by the Kremlin funded English language channel Russia Today. The press seems unimpressed with Wikileaks' chosen distribution channel.
Meme-ory Game
"Except for that Abercrombie. Swear that guy has Plot Armor to prevent anything bad from ever happening to him, just like his characters."
"They’re not as crappy as other cities' toilets."
Why Portland's Public Toilets Succeeded Where Others Failed. A short documentary on the Portland Loo. Official website.
Feline takeoff keeps plane on tarmac
“We now have a ‘lost cat in airplane’ file that’s got one piece of paper in it after this morning.” [more inside]
Life In Plastic, It's Fantastic
Barbie Ma Muse Famous artworks recreated with Barbie. (NSFW - some nudity)
Boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats’ n’ boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats
hip-hop family tree comix
The Hip-Hop Family Tree: A Look Into the Viral Propagation of a Culture (part two, part three) is a "semi-regular, ongoing feature" currently running in the comic Brain Rot by Ed Piskor. (Ed Piskor and Wizzywig Comics previously on MeFi)
shot to the heart
What do you get when you cross the low key folk rock of Bon Iver with the arena rock of Bon Jovi? You'd probably get something like Bon Joviver. [more inside]
784 episodes, 226 stories, 11 doctors, one legend.
Every Doctor Who story, 1963-2011, a tribute clip from YouTube user Babelcolour. If this is your kinda thing, you might dig the rest of their videos.
Do you want to see something scary?
Our burrito's will not be made of people!
An Oklahoma state Senator has introduced a bill to ensure the safety of the state's food supply. [more inside]
Pop music cutups
The Beatles, "Revolution," cut up, scrambled, and looped. The Beatles sing "one two three four" for an hour. All of Billy Joel's greatest hits played at once. Celine Dion screams for 1.5 minutes. Please enjoy responsibly. (Mostly via I Love Music.)
"Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence." -- Hal Borland
History doesn't always repeat itself; sometimes it rhymes
Germany celebrates a leader who was instrumental in bringing her power and glory as well as being responsible for carving up Poland [more inside]
O2 mobile data networks reveal your phone number to all visited websites
It appears that the O2, Tesco mobile, and GiffGaff mobile data networks (they are the same, just rebranded) reveals your mobile number (cell phone #) to every website you visit using their mobile data network. [more inside]
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