November 11, 2014
What is a Jeffree's? I'm not sure, but here's their newest music
In 2011, Diplo's Mad Decent label spun off a web-focused sub-label, Jeffree's, focusing on trap, tropical bass, moombahton, and associated distorted club-type sounds. As label honcho Paul Devro explained, the plan was simple: collect what producers had already made, post a new single or EP every two weeks, at first for free, then offer it for sale. The freebie window is closed, but you can still stream the lot, and read about the twelve tracks below the break. [more inside]
Landing on a comet LIVE!
interview with filmmaker Laura Poitras
A nicely lengthy interview with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras. Poitras was one of the key figures involved in the revealing of Edward Snowden as the NSA whistleblower; she has a film (Citizenfour) opening this week. Poitras discusses her role as a documentary filmmaker, as well as her unique perspectives on the War on Terror, NSA surveillance, her status as a high-profile dissenter, and being on the receiving end of government harrassment.
A turning tide in the drug war?
California passed proposition 47 on election day, changing a number of crimes- including possession of hard drugs- from a felony to a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, Vermont has decided to offer treatment as an alternative to prosecution for those caught with heroin possession, and Rahm Emanuel has discussed changing Illinois law so that those caught with 1 gram or less of any controlled substance won't recieve a felony in an attempt to get support for tougher gun laws. In addition, Oregon, Alaska, and DC voted to legalize marijuana, and Florida's vote to legalize medical marijuana failed but with 58 percent in favor. Is this the beginning of the end for the War on Drugs?
The first step is admitting that you have a problem.
Aren't they all bitter pills?
Do you hate swallowing pills? Let NPR's Nina Totenberg show you how using animated GIFs. A new study shows that the pop bottle technique for tablets and the lean forward method for capsules improve pill swallowing for 60% of people who use the pop bottle and 90% of people who lean forward. For kids, there are extensive resources that teach them how to swallow pills. Why swallowing pills is hard is a subject of study, and is a big deal, since it causes around 40% of people to delay, skip, or avoid taking medicine.
Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?
In a wide-ranging discussion about democracy, capitalism, and the American body politic; Chris Hedges interviews political theorist Sheldon Wolin in eight parts. (via) (previously) [more inside]
Vulgar Display of Cuteness
Wyatt (8 mos) plays Pantera [slyt]
Mars None
Mars One, a private company registered in the Netherlands, is preparing to launch a one-way manned mission to Mars in 2018. With 200,000 applicants for the trip, a minuscule $6 billion dollar budget, and contracts with companies like SpaceX, Paragon, and Lockheed Martin, the company plans to leverage the power of private development and high risk tolerance into a space voyage beyond the means of our current government-based exploration efforts.
If only any of it were real. [more inside]
If only any of it were real. [more inside]
Nice startup you have there...
"Defensive patent aggregator" RPX have a new line of business: selling patent troll insurance to startups.
"how to" videos by Dave Hax
AND THE WORLD AND THE WORLD AND THE WORLD
And now, because it's Tuesday: a stop-motion LEGO animation of The Cult performing their 1985 hit, She Sells Sanctuary.
The Rise of the 'In-Between' Model
In an Elle interview with "plus-size" model Myla Dalbesio - she's a size 10 - on her new Calven Klein campaign, the "rise of the 'in-between' model" is discussed. [more inside]
The founder of the Mormon Church had up to 40 wives.
For the first time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints(Mormons) has admitted that their founder had up to 40 plural wives, some as young as 14, others already married to other men. This is the latest essay in a series of essays covering some of the more controversial claims of the church. Others have included the ban on blacks until 1978, Joseph Smith's ability to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics, and using seer stones to translate the Book of Mormon
The Living New Deal
In less than a decade, The New Deal changed the face of America and laid the foundation for success in World War II and the prosperity of the postwar era – the greatest and fairest epoch in American history.
The Living New Deal project inventories, maps and publicizes the achievements of the New Deal and its public works in all 50 states and outlying territories. [more inside]
"Is this a 50-year or a 500-year moment?"
"If we struggle to grasp the pity which the condition of dependence on wage-labour elicited in 14th century Florence—if we misread the fierceness with which people fought against being forced into that condition in England at the start of the 19th century, taking it for ignorant fear of technological progress—then this is probably because, for most of the intervening period, the opposed political and economic forces structuring our societies have been united in the assumption that this kind of work is normal and desirable. Wherever you look, to the left or to the right, you will have a hard time finding a politician who doesn’t want to create more jobs. They may argue over the best means to do so, but they would hardly think of asking whether employment as we know it is a good thing."
Make art. Make art with people you love. Respect the art you make.
"Here's the thing. You have no real control over popular success. You only have control over artistic success. If you're not concentrating on the latter, the best case scenario is you do not achieve the former." Jeffrey Cranor, co-writer of "Welcome to Night Vale," talks about what has made it a success. (Night Vale, previously.)
"...the active clearance of the by-products of neural activity..."
I'll come at night / for no one censures / traveling the path of dreams
We know very little about Ono no Komachi aside from that she was Japanese, female, a poet, and the subject of numerous medieval legends about her beauty and hard-heartedness, with her name becoming a metonym for a beautiful woman (much like Helen is in English). Our best guess as to her dates is "active in the 850s," and as to her background, "probably a lady-in-waiting to someone in the capital," though tradition has spun out many speculations. Based on 22 poems thought reliably attributed to her, she is considered today one of Japan's greatest woman poets, noted in particular for her passionate love poems and her technical mastery, especially at using words with multiple meanings.
This last feature makes her difficult to translate, of course, but nonetheless people keep trying -- her most famous poem, selected for the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, is one of the most-translated poems from any language. Links to several attempts at her corpus inside. [more inside]
This last feature makes her difficult to translate, of course, but nonetheless people keep trying -- her most famous poem, selected for the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, is one of the most-translated poems from any language. Links to several attempts at her corpus inside. [more inside]
Real science, all the way from Scotland.
“I have not had one meal that was not just perfect”
Alan Martin—"winner" of a pass that permits him to eat as much Olive Garden as he wishes in a 7 week time period—speaks out. [more inside]
Let the river take them, river drown them
If you're plagued with a particularly troublesome earworm - perhaps related to a disproportionate number of cooks - then let Ibeyi erase it with their languid and hypnotic River (and its disquieting video). [more inside]
The most perfidious thing about Dungeons and Dragons is ...
Boing Boing looks back on the truth behind the D&D Steam Tunnel tragedy Jason Louv writes for BoingBoing and outlines the truth behind the tabloid sensationalism of the D&D Steam Tunnel tragedy and what really happened to James Dallas. Note - it's far more complicated and tragic than was reported at the time. [more inside]
"Something amazing and enlightening and terrible and haunting happened"
Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Pedro Zamora, the cast member of MTV's The Real World: San Francisco who was openly gay and lived with HIV. [more inside]
Here's a box of chocolates; it is your duty to eat them.
People like order in their lives. This does not go down well with those who feel that social restraints of any sort are a bad thing, but these people are a distinct, if very noisy, minority. Most of us want social rules of some sort – not oppressive ones, of course – but rules that govern the way we conduct ourselves towards others. We want people to queue correctly.
We like it when people don’t chew with their mouth open. We love it – although we may be cowed into not saying this – when an able-bodied person gives up a seat to somebody who is clearly frailer. Personally, I like it when anybody gives up a seat on a train to anybody else, frail or not. (Novelist Alexander McCall Smith discusses Jane Austen's Emma in The Daily Mail.)
We like it when people don’t chew with their mouth open. We love it – although we may be cowed into not saying this – when an able-bodied person gives up a seat to somebody who is clearly frailer. Personally, I like it when anybody gives up a seat on a train to anybody else, frail or not. (Novelist Alexander McCall Smith discusses Jane Austen's Emma in The Daily Mail.)
Revenge of the nerds, on three. Break!
"MIT’s students, faculty, and alumni won 80 Nobel Prizes between 1944 and 2013. In that time, MIT football won a total of 80 games." Until this year. This season's MIT football team is undefeated, 8-0.
Shootin' and Tootin' All Night Long
Douglas Fairbanks was more than the Thief of Bagdad. In 1916, he was Coke Ennyday, a detective with a taste for drugs. [more inside]
Praise for the glories of war and the futility of peace.
"Here's to words like courage, sacrifice, discipline, glory, maimed, dead. Here's to war." Joe Frank on war. [more inside]
Dare you enter the gates of Chinese Hell?
The Chinese hell scrolls presented here treat the afterlife as a spectacle, as a display intended for public consumption. Ostensibly based on popular tales such as Tang Emperor Taizong's visit to hell in the first half of the seventh century C.E., they attract their viewers through their dark and yet cartoonish torture scenes, appealing to the same morbid curiosity fed by gothic novels, horror movies and Halloween ghosts in the West. Yet their main function was not entertainment but didactic, propagating a basic message of retribution. Every act of goodness will be rewarded; every act of evil will be justly answered.-- From the introduction to the online collection of Chinese hell scrolls developed by Ken Brashiek at Reed College.
Water Bottle Kuduro
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