October 7, 2010
At Fate's Edge
Nehrim is atotal conversion of the Oblivion engine by the German amateur team at SureAI. Four years in the making and one of the largest mod projects ever completed, it features a massive new hand-crafted world, an elaborate and compelling main quest, dozens of side-quests, over 50 professional voice actors, a reworked leveling and crafting system, new spells, new items, new enemies and an original score of over 50 songs. Those who persevere through the prologue into this open world will be rewarded with a truly brilliant classical RPG. [more inside]
No Glove No Love
The thinking, and this is communicated very directly to the young men, is that if you don't participate, you're gay. You're effeminate. You're not a real man. You never mature from being a boy to being a man.Confused as to what the hell is going on in Die Antwoord's latest (very NSFW) music video "Evil Boy" (lyrics)? Well, it's a protest against Xhosa ritual male circumcision (Photos of the ceremony. More photos.) Xeni Jardin addresses why the video may be "misinterpreted as homophobic".
amazing dancers from Georgia, the country
Wow l more. That incredible and joyous exuberance was created by the Georgian National Ballet, Sukhishvili in training l On stage in costume. [more inside]
A Year of Days
Two friends, 365 days, one picture a day: A Year of Days.
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand O God.
What You Missed This Morning
What You Missed This Morning, a photography competition at the blog Cycling Tips attracted some beautiful photos: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4.
Purple Diary [NSFW]
Apple jailbreaks itself
Apple Inc. is making a version of its iPhone that Verizon Wireless will sell early next year, according to people familiar with the matter, ending an exclusive deal with AT&T and sharpening the competition with Google Inc.-based phones. [more inside]
Ms. Roboto
A robotic teacher, Ms. Saya, conducts her first class at an elementry school in Tokyo. [more inside]
I never saw a discontented tree.
They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fasted rooted they travel about as far as we do. The quote is from John Muir, of course ("John o' the Mountains"). I guess there's a lot of these beauty of trees sites, but this is the first one I've encountered, and it's stunning.
Client/designer relationships explained. Finally.
My fingers are bleeding just thinking about the paper cuts.
“This should be understood, should not be a surprise and not considered harassment.”
“They threw out what Tribune had stood for, quality journalism and a real brand integrity, and in just a year, pushed it down into mud and bankruptcy,”. Tribune Company - Tales of a Bankrupt Culture: 'Based on interviews with more than 20 employees and former employees of Tribune, Mr. Michaels’s and his executives’ use of sexual innuendo, poisonous workplace banter and profane invective shocked and offended people throughout the company. Tribune Tower, the architectural symbol of the staid company, came to resemble a frat house, complete with poker parties, juke boxes and pervasive sex talk.''“They threw out what Tribune had stood for, quality journalism and a real brand integrity, and in just a year, pushed it down into mud and bankruptcy,” said Ken Doctor, a newspaper analyst with Outsell Inc., a consulting firm. “And it’s been wallowing there for the last 20 months with no end in sight.”'But even as the company foundered, the tight circle of executives, many with longtime ties to Mr. Michaels, received tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.' [more inside]
Lou Dobbs, busted.
Lou Dobbs became notorious during his at CNN for his views on immigration, particularly advocating enforcement against those who employ illegal immigrants. Today, The Nation accuses him of just that. Lou Dobbs responds.
Caesar → Czar → Kaiser
Czar Nicholas II was an early and ardent fan of film, and commanded that some of the significant events of his life be captured on celluloid: including his coronation in 1896 (the first film of a state occasion anywhere, nicely narrated and expanded upon at the HowStuffWorks video site), and the retreat with his family in 1917 (a repost from the excellent but difficult to navigate WPA Film Library). More (still, color) film from Czarist Russia previously on Metafilter.
Shattered
Hey Mick, why don't you start singing Gimme Shelter at the mixing desk in the middle of the a huge crowd and then leisurely stroll to the stage. Nothing bad will happen. (SLYT) [more inside]
In the Life of 'The Wire'
Anyone who loved David Simon's ‘The Wire’ will be interested to read Lorrie Moore’s recent piece in the New York Review of Books overviewing the series (and its sixty great episodes, originally broadcast between June 2002 and March 2008).
Crowd Sourced Efficacy Response in Depression Treatments
An interesting graph based on the results of an informal user poll as to the response/efficacy to various treatments for depression.
"Fish oil, also popular, showed up as much less effective than [...] expected." [more inside]
Moves moves moves for days
If you are an NBA basketball player and you do not play for a certain team in Florida, this is probably the most terrifying thing you will see this pre-season: Hakeem Olajuwon schooling Dwight Howard. [more inside]
So Freakin' Excited
The Gentle Art of Poverty
A former magazine writer in his late fifties moves to San Diego and lives on very little money indeed. In the October 1977 issue of The Atlantic, he describes the stratagems behind his thriftiness. [more inside]
Confessions of a Used Bookseller
Have you seen people at library book sales going over all the books with a barcode scanner? One of these folks reveals his methods and discusses his feelings about what he does.
Another brick off the tower of Babel
As part of National Geographic's Enduring Voices project, Gregory Anderson, K. David Harrison and Ganesh Murmu travelled to Arunachal Pradesh to document the Aka and Miji languages - and in the process, they found a previously undocumented language, Koro (not to be confused with Koro, Koro or Koro). The NG site has a video and gallery; you might also be interested in this interview given by Harrison to NPR, which includes a small audio selection of Koro words and phrases.
In the Courtyard of the Beloved
"IN THE COURTYARD OF THE BELOVED is a visual and aural portrait of Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah, a Sufi shrine in New Delhi, India. Made from over 18,000 still images and ambient sounds recorded on-site, rapid-fire bursts of kaleidoscopic imagery assemble into fractured collages where a moment expands outwards and then converges back into itself, fleshing out a three-dimensional rendering of place."
“... like a killer whale born in captivity in SeaWorld."
"The Man Who Never Was." Vanity Fair editor Todd S. Purdum follows up his 2007 profile of then-Senator John McCain and a scathing 2009 profile of Sarah Palin by asking whether McCain, "...the leader so many Americans admired — and so many journalists covered — ever truly existed." (Previously)
The Germans Wore Grey, You Wore Blue
Color Photos of the Russian Front Even though color photography was no longer entirely a novelty by the time of the Second World War, it is still uncommon and intriguing to see color photos from the war. Even moreso in this case, as the pictures in this EnglishRussia.com post are mainly of the German army fighting in Russia. The images include scenes of actual combat as well as behind the lines, though there was only one I noticed that featured a wounded soldier. There's even a picture of some GIs near the end of the series.
No food stamps for Faygo
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has asked federal permission to ban the use of food stamps to buy sodas and sugary drinks in New York City. In an op-ed in the New York Times, the city and state health commissioners argued in favor of Bloomberg's proposal, saying the practice amounts to "an enormous subsidy to the sweetened beverage industry." [more inside]
for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat
Mario Vargas Llosa wrote poems when he was young. His father famously responded by sending the boy to military school—where he spent two ghastly years, gathering inspiration for his first novel—La Ciudad y Los Perros, published in English as The Time of the Hero. The military burned a thousand copies of the book and Vargas Llosa's infamy was secured.Mario Vargas Llosa, who once ran for president of Peru and once punched Gabriel Garcia Márquez in the face, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature, meaning Ladbrokes dodged a bullet. [more inside]
Your Wife is Dead
A new poem by Ted Hughes describing the last few days of Sylvia Plath's life has been discovered. The poem is printed in the dead tree edition of today's New Statesman but the Daily Mail has published the text online
Gimcrack
Gimcrack hospital (PG) where the nurses are pretty and the Doctors are pissed.
Is an occasional dose of WTF such as advising about Charlotte’s polishing regimen or visions of vulva, or how about a travelling chinaman called bruce or even grand master revivified.
There is even advise on caring for your neovagina
(Gimcrack: - a showy object of little or no value; first use 1676 (NSFW)
Is an occasional dose of WTF such as advising about Charlotte’s polishing regimen or visions of vulva, or how about a travelling chinaman called bruce or even grand master revivified.
There is even advise on caring for your neovagina
(Gimcrack: - a showy object of little or no value; first use 1676 (NSFW)
the world of facts
Bombay [nsfw], the new video by El Guincho, is a sexy parody of Carl Sagan's greatest hits. [more inside]
The prints left behind
Labelscar aims to chronicle the ghostboxes of America - the stripped carcasses of malls and out-of-town retail parks left over once the forclosure buzzards have moved in. And there's a lot of them about. (On the endangered list). [more inside]
Fifteen-year-old takes on snake-oil salesman in between classes
A 15-year-old Welsh schoolboy with Crohn’s disease has taken on the peddler of a supposed “alternative remedy” which is, in fact, a dangerous industrial bleach. Despite initial criticism from others with Crohn’s, he is making considerable headway. [more inside]
Risking everything
On October 5, 2010 PBS' POV aired The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. It can be viewed online through October 27. (alternate vimeo link) [more inside]
All I really wanted was a pony
Most of you are too poor to appreciate the early Christmas shopping at Neiman Marcus. I like the His & Hers MetroShip Luxury Houseboat, but maybe the Edible Gingerbread Playhouse or the Chariot Electric Tricycle would be better for the kids. [more inside]
What can we do after Gijs?
Gijs Gieskes is an astonishing inventor/hacker/bender/maker of electro/mechanical/audio/artistic devices.
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