February 16, 2010
Spy and Pyro
Spy and Pyro (a flash animation about TF2 in the style of John Kricfalusi) (faster loading youtube version)
The sky above the port was the color of a NAND IC... turned out with dead channels.
Ghost shift ghost chips. A tale about a Chumby hardware developer with a keen investigative eye noticing some oddities about microSD FLASH cards from supposedly reputable suppliers.
Gamers more scary than bikers
An Australian politician who opposes the lifting of a censorship ban on adults-only computer games has said he feels more threatened by gamers than outlawed motorcycle gangs.
Talking about motorcycle gangs, and just for fun, and because it is almost Mardi Gras in Sydney,The DOB ladies.
How the cortex got its stripes
Uncoiling the spiral: Maths and hallucinations So common are these geometric hallucinations, that in the last century scientists began asking themselves if they couldn't tell us something fundamental about how our brains are wired up. And it seems that they can. (via MAPS)
a punky vest to rock your neighborhood
The Case For An Older Woman
"Older women are awesome."
Robot a Day
Doctor Who and the Overthrow of the Thatcher Goverment
"My exact words were: I’d like to overthrow the government. I was a young firebrand and I wanted to answer honestly. I was very angry about the social injustice in Britain under Thatcher and I’m delighted that came into the show." - former Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel on the shows 80s political stance. Terrance Dicks and Andrew Cartmel on Newsnight. Meanwhile former Doctor David Tennant gives his veiws on the Master-like characteristics of Tory leader David Cameron.
"Rin Tin Tin Joins the Klan"
The theatrical release of White Dog (directed by Samuel Fuller) was supressed by Paramount in 1981 over concerns that the film would be interpreted as racist, although Fuller intended the movie as a denunciation of racism.
It was only released in 2008 by The Criterion Collection on DVD.
The film features Kristy McNichol, Burl Ives, and Paul Winfield as the black trainer determined to reform the killer dog.
The score by Ennio Morricone (improbably released as a double album with Morricone's score for the 1981 designer jeans comedy So Fine) is unsettling yet sublime.
Left Hand Doesn't know what the Right Hand is Doing
Many thought the secrets of the universe would be revealed by the LHC in Switzerland, but the lower powered Brookhaven Collider briefly violated the laws of physics recently.
Man Finds A Real Dragon! Kinda Tiny…See Ma, they do exist!
The Secret
Lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good Those who think they're unlucky should change their outlook and discover how to generate good fortune, says Richard Wiseman (Via Lisa Hoover at Lifehacker) [more inside]
USDA Food Environment Atlas
YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY
Abbey Road the famous recording studios are up for sale! After losing their headline acts Radiohead and The Rolling Stones the troubled record company has posted losses of £1.75bn Former bond-trader Guy Hands has been running EMI since 2007
All Your Online Lives Are Belong To Us
'It's optional if you want to remain anonymous, but what's the point anymore?' A new generation doesn't mind sharing every detail of their lives online. So familiar online companies increasingly don't bother letting you control privacy options from the start, and make it difficult to detach. Are the privacy-concerned folks mostly older individuals who don't see the benefits of connectedness? Or are the people who share just about everything lined up with a pro-corporate culture pushed by marketers? [more inside]
The Australian woman's reproductive duty to society
Recently, a postgraduate researcher in journalism attended a talk about the challenges of Australia's aging population, given by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Afterwards, when a member of the group she was in introduced her to Rudd and mentioning the PhD she was completing, Rudd rolled his eyes and remarked that that is the "excuse" that "all" young women are using nowadays to avoid starting families.
Worst. Movie. Ever. (of the week)
The Family Business
In honor of Senator Evan Bayh, son of former Senator Birch Bayh, not seeking re-election, Talking Points Memo provides a slideshow of sitting congresspeople whose familial connections may (or may not) have helped them get where they are today.
Everybody knows about the Bushes and the Kennedys, but family political dynasties are even more common than most people realize, with most U.S. presidents being related and hundreds of local, state and national offices currently or previously held by children, grandchildren, cousins, etc. of the original politicians.
When I am writing my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be.
Roger Ebert, his writing, and his battle with cancer are hardly foreign topics here, but this in-depth interview/profile from Esquire about Ebert's illness, loss of speech, and late career burst of creativity is worth a read.
"I thought it would be interesting to write music for public spaces..." - Brian Eno
Music For Real Airports is a multimedia art project collaboration between interactive artists Human and musicians The Black Dog. With the project set to launch April 24, 2010 at the Sensoria festival of music and film, the project recalls Brian Eno's 1978 work, Ambient 1: Music for Airports. [more inside]
Elizabeth Drew on the state of US health care reform
Is There Life in Health Care Reform? Elizabeth Drew analyzes the current prospects for US health care reform, in the New York Review of Books. Logically, there should still be a way to get a bill passed. But logic went out the window on January 19. The situation was as much psychodrama as legislative stalemate. The perfectly reasonable argument was made to Democrats in Congress, mainly by the administration, that, having voted for the bill already, it would be worse for them to fail to pass it than to pass it, but this seemed not to be heard.
I Killed Someone Once
"And maybe this is the time to share a secret that I've kept for quite a long time. I killed someone, once..." So begins BBC journalist Ray Gosling's televised confession in which he briefly describes the time he smothered his lover who was dying of AIDS. Police are now investigating.
Twitter activity visualization
TweetCatcha visualizes the tweets resulting from the latest news articles that appeared during the last 24 hours on the New York Times website. Pretty amazing for student work. See TweetCatcha in action (warning: it takes a bit of time to load). While it's loading, here is the creator's blog post describing it.
Weird Al Snark, now in Concentrate!
Weird Al makes up interviews with some of the finest artists in the recording industry. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Micheal Stipe, Eminem, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, and even a rare interview with Kevin Federline.
Anatomy of a murder
On January 19th, 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was murdered in Dubai. A senior Hamas military commander, al-Mabhouh was reportedly in the city to arrange a shipment of arms to Gaza. While Dubai is no stranger to nefarious dealings and political assassinations, this one has an added layer of intrigue: arrested Palestinians and 11 mysterious agents traveling on a hotchpotch of European passports. [more inside]
Sex Squad - man with penises for hands questions kids about sexual health
There’s a new ally in the fight against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and misinformation about sex: the Middlesex-London Sex Squad. The team of cartoon superheroes is part of Adventures in Sex City, a new online game launched today by the Middlesex-London Health Unit. (NSFW) [more inside]
Pitchfork: A Defense
The Village Voice recently released their 2009 Pazz and Jop poll. Several critics on the I Love Music message boards noticed its similarity to Pitchfork's 2009 poll. Pitchfork's Editor-in-Chief Scott Plagenhoef steps in and over the course of fifty posts defends the apparent "Pitchforkification of music."
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