October 8, 2012
The Ballad of Davy and Nicole
Davy Rothbart, perhaps best known for the Found magazine and series of books, got a random drunken phone call in a motel room from a breathy woman wanting phone sex. He somewhat cheekily "obliged," and continued to take her calls, less cheekily. It turned out to be quite a journey, and a destination. What Are You Wearing? [more inside]
My Father, The Parasite
Minimal Android
Minimal Android minimal homescreen, minimal icons, themes, wallpapers or other minimalistic android things - as long as it is minimal and meant for android.
I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE FUTURE
Time-lapse video of magnetic putty engulfing various rare-earth magnets
The Maker
The Maker. A gorgeous short stop-motion animation about a creature who has only one important mission (SLYT) [more inside]
It was hell down there!
A visit to the underworld: the unsolved mystery of the tunnels at Baiae "In 1932, the entrance to a hitherto unknown tunnel was discovered in the ruins of the old Roman resort of Baiae, on the Bay of Naples. Packed with rubble, wreathed in choking gases, and heated to more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit by nearby magma chambers, it was difficult and dangerous to excavate. But when, after 10 long years of work, the amateur team exploring it finally broke through to lower levels, they uncovered something truly remarkable: a complex, pre-dating the Romans, built around a boiling underwater stream that seemed to have been designed to ape a visit to the Greeks’ mythical underworld." (A Blast from the Past)
""It was sad to see the fans cheer for somebody getting hurt"
NFL Chiefs player Eric Winston rants (audio) against stadium fans who cheered when Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassell was knocked out during game play. "We are not gladiators and this is not the Roman Colosseum. This is a game."
The iEconomy
The iEconomy: Apple and Technology Manufacturing. Since January, the New York Times has been running a series of articles "examining the challenges posed by increasingly globalized high-tech industries," with a focus on Apple's business practices. The seventh article in the series was published today: In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword. Related: For Software, Cracks in the Patent System and Fighters in the Patent War. [more inside]
Keeping in-depth reporting alive
Narratively is "devoted exclusively to sharing New York’s untold stories—the rich, intricate narratives that get at the heart of what this city’s all about." The site, launched in September, presents one long-form piece of journalism, sometimes text, sometimes video, sometimes a photo essay, sometimes audio.
on Huawei from non-Chinese in China
In light of the US House Intelligence Committee recommendation that American companies should be blocked from carrying out mergers and acquisitions involving two Chinese telecommunications firms, ZTE and Huawei, how do people in the telecommunications industry think about Huawei? And what is really going on with the Shenzhen-based ICT conglomerate? Hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn of the Sinica Podcast (recorded in Beijing) cover Huawei in depth in August at The Huawei Enigma with guests David Wolf and Will Moss.
You are not Gary Busey or Son of Sam, but your mugshot is still on the internet.
How people profit from your online mugshot and ruin your life forever. A Gizmodo article, and a recent piece in Wired magazine, on how mugshots-as-entertainment have turned minor incidents into persistent embarrassments, and the cottage (extortion) industry that has sprung up in response.
Microbial Bebop
When looking for inspiration, most songwriters to go well-used emotional wells – triumph or loss, love or heartbreak. But Peter Larsen, a biologist at Argonne National Laboratory, looked to the microbes of the English Channel. He used seven years’ worth of genetic and environmental data, converting geochemical and microbial abundance measurements into notes, beats, and chords.
Art.sy
Drink your juice, Shelby
Sally Field was honored this weekend as the Human Rights Campaign's Ally for Equality at the 16th Annual National Dinner. She was introduced by her youngest son, Sam Greisman, and gave this speech.
"A conclusion is not the point at which you find the truth, it’s only the point at which the exploring stops. We do it quickly and unconsciously and the effects are long-lasting."
The person you used to be still tells you what to do: "We work from conclusions made years ago, usually with no idea of when we made them, or why. Most of our standing impressions are probably based on a single experience — one instance of unpleasantness or disappointment that turned you off of entire categories of recreational activities, lifestyles and creative pursuits, forever." (via notnamed)
Your Mother Should Know
Rock guys cover showtunes: You probably know (if you're old enough) The Beatles' version of Til There Was You from The Music Man, Bobby Darin's somewhat-canonical Mack the Knife, originally from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, and The Marcel's cover of Rodgers and Hart's Blue Moon. But you might be less familiar with ... [more inside]
OED appeals to professors and madmen
Has anyone seen a blue-arsed fly? Someone must have cooties. This is no FAQ, can you make a make a defining contribution to the OED?
Tell Yassar I'm on My Way
On October 19, 1995 Chuck Phillips interviewed Tupac Shakur at Can Am Studios Tarzana, California for an article published in the LA Times. The recordings were previously unreleased. Tupac talks about how the United States is full of gangs (the FBI/ATF/Democrats/Republicans), disparate media treatment of artists, how Tony Danza wrote him in prison, how Shakespeare's stories are the same things rappers talk about in their music, and the worth of black people's lives.
"I guess if you were to approach me in the street and ask me how to play QWOP, I'd tell you to take a more experimental attitude in your life, and not to rely so much on the hard work of others."
An interview with Bennett Foddy, the creator of QWOP, in which, to the surprise of no one, he states, "I don't feel any sympathy for people who find a video game hard. At all. It never occurred to me to try to modify QWOP so that it was easier to play." [more inside]
A Bend in the River
Explore the subtext of the London Skyline through a journey down the Thames with Caryl Phillips and an exquisite photographer.
...exchange some of their UK employment rights...
"New Owner-employees will exchange some of their UK employment rights for rights of ownership in the form of shares in the business they work for, any gains on which will be exempt from capital gains tax." [more inside]
Just how gay is Seattle?
Just how gay is Seattle? Pretty gay.
Eating the plate instead of the food
With the possible exception of the Nobel awards, physicists seem to get all the press these days, whether they're doing quantum level work at the LHC, or cosmology via the latest satellite data. Biologists, not so much. It's too bad, because Richard Lenski is running one of the great evolutionary experiments of our time, and it's producing interesting results. [more inside]
The Moving Finger types; and, having typed, Moves on
Perhaps that is the way to get handwriting back into our lives – as something which is a pleasure, which is good for us, and which is human in ways not all communication systems manage to be. It will never again have the place in people's lives that it had in 1850. But it should, like good food or the capacity to take a walk, have some place in our lives from which it is not going to be dislodged. Extracted from The Missing Ink: The lost art of handwriting (and why it still matters) by Philip Hensher.
Rummy Couples
"Two people. I call them "Rummy Couples", dressed allmost alike. The last 5 years I managed to photograph 56 of them."
Brewing Up a Storm in Raidió Teilifís Éireann!
In celebration of the upcoming RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) Big Music Week almost every notable public service broadcaster in Ireland (and many hundreds of others!) assembled in RTÉ headquarters in Dublin to sing along to The Stunning's “Brewing Up a Storm”: shot in one continuous take the result is pretty spectacular!
Emptiness
Australian national identity. "Liam Pieper reflects on the shielding that has led to Australian peoples' perpetual ignorance of our true history." [more inside]
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