April 10, 2014
A book that reads as satire to adults & documentary to teens
Beloved British writer Sue Townsend, best known as the creator of the Adrian Mole books has died aged 68.
Townsend's creation was unleashed on the world in 1982 with his last literary outing in 2011's Aidrian Mole's Royal Wedding.
While Mole remains her best known creation (and made the jump to TV) she was also a playwrite, had written other novels [more inside]
AT&True Detective
Rust Cohle’s market research questions give the adorable kids a lot to think about. Infinity. Bigger. [more inside]
What If Everything You Knew About Poverty Was Wrong?
"A sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, Edin is one of the nation's preeminent poverty researchers. She has spent much of the past several decades studying some of the country's most dangerous, impoverished neighborhoods. But unlike academics who draw conclusions about poverty from the ivory tower, Edin has gotten up close and personal with the people she studies—and in the process has shattered many myths about the poor, rocking sociology and public-policy circles. [more inside]
Notre professeur à pris sa retraite.
Dr. Pierre Capretz, who taught French at Yale University for several decades, passed away at the age of 89 on April 1st of this year, qu'il repose en paix. Capretz is best known for his 1987 PBS series of half-hour French-language lessons, French in Action, which combined language immersion using to a simple romantic-comedy narrative followed by a classroom-style review, featuring Professeur Capretz, of the narrative with emphasis on the concepts, vocabulary, and grammar. [more inside]
Irene Fernandez 1946 - 2014
Malaysian human rights activist Irene Fernandez died on March 31st 2014 at age 67 from heart failure. She was arrested and charged with one year imprisonment in 1996 for "publishing false information with the intention to harm" after publishing a report on abuses of migrant workers in detention camps in Malaysia, and was acquitted in 2008 after multiple delays due to losses of important files. She received a Right Livelihood Award in 2005 for her human rights and migrant advocacy work. She is remembered by activists in Malaysia and overseas, politicians, and international media. [more inside]
A person can never be broken
Tom Lehrer Is Dead...Er...Alive And Well And Living In Cambridge, Mass.
I know what you thought -- you saw the name Tom Lehrer and thought "Shit! Obit thread! I loved that guy!" Well, sailor, it's your lucky day because he's not dead yet, he's 86 years old and still hanging in there. At least that's what this surprisingly in-depth and clickbait free article at BuzzFeed has to say. He's notoriously shy of interviews and did not do one for the reporter here, nevertheless you'll learn all about his brief-but-illustrious career and why he tossed it all away at a relatively young age. [more inside]
Machinima is a wonderful thing
"The waves, the waves, the waves..."
The Delian Mode (Kara Blake, 2009) - A 25-minute documentary about composer and pioneering electronic musician Delia Derbyshire, perhaps most familiar to Mefites for writing the theme song for "Doctor Who".
Lies, Damn Lies and Chicago Police Reports
The Chicago Police Department reported 415 Murders in 2013, the lowest number since 1965 . However, there were at least 18 deaths that according to Chicago Magazine, should have been classified as murders, but were not. The CPD has issued a response, however an interview with the mother of one of the unreported murders seems to support the Chicago Magazine article. [more inside]
HOW THE WOMAN GOT HER PERIOD
Dr. Suzanne Sadedin answers the question "What is the evolutionary or biological purpose of having periods?" on Quora with the best type of science-based storytelling.
“Quantum” means a condensing of the sublime.
No. No, no, no, and no.
Burnin' for you
The county vibrated with fire engines groaning over gravel driveways. The county vibrated with suspicion. The county went about its business. The county burned down. People assumed that the culprit must be someone who lived among them, and people would be right. It would be a love story. [more inside]
White Dwarf
Before Firefly, there was the television movie White Dwarf, a far-future pseudo-western scripted by Bruce "Wild Palms" Wagner. The story is essentially Kurosawa's Red Beard relocated to the tidally-locked planet of Rusta, a frontier world split between a Victorian dayside culture and a medieval nightside kingdom. Neal McDonough stars as an arrogant young Earth doctor dispatched to a Light Side clinic to complete an internship under the unorthodox Paul Winfield.
A New Nation
Stephen Colbert will take over for David Letterman as host of The Late Show. Just weeks after coming under fire for an out-of-context tweet, the former Daily Show correspondent and host of The Colbert Report will enter network late night. Will he drop the character? Would his fans embrace the real Colbert? Bonus footage: a young Colbert as a reporter for Good Morning America.
The Crossroads of America
A federal judge in Indiana has ordered that the state recognize the marriage of Amy Sandler and Niki Quasney. [more inside]
Gofor: Drones on Demand
Gofor is a Drones-as-a-service concept. "Drones are summoned much like taxis in other popular service apps. Your desired task is either noted at the outset using presets, or customized using voice commands." [more inside]
Boston Reunion
Photographs of survivors and responders from the Boston Marathon bombing as they convene on Boston a year later. Powerful stuff.
Protein Packing
Harvard University and XVIVO have come together again (Previouslyw/ a commercial focus, Previouslierw/an Academic focus) to add to the growing series of scientific animations for BioVisions -- Harvard's multimedia lab in the department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. 'Protein Packing' strives to more accurately depict the molecular chaos in each and every cell, with proteins jittering around in what may seem like random motion. Proteins occupy roughly 40% of the cytoplasm, creating an environment that risks unintentional interaction and aggregation. Via diffusion and motor protein transport, these molecules are directed to sites where they are needed.
Much of this is no doubt inspired by the beautiful art and explained illustrations of David Goodsell, a biologist at Scripps who has been accurately portraying the crowdedness of the cellular landscape for a long time now.[more inside]
"It’s mission: Take his 4-year-old daughter camping."
Inventor, adventurer and filmmaker Bran Ferren has built The BEST RV EVER!(even better than his previous MAXIMOG).
Melissa May-Dunn is a performance poet.
Melissa May-Dunn is a performance poet who dropped out of divinity school. A successful gofundme campaign sent her to this year's Women of the World Poetry Slam, where she placed seventh out of 72 with a tribute to a Disney villain, Dear Ursula. [more inside]
Tamiflu, Roche and the Cochrane Collaboration
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian: "Today we found out that Tamiflu doesn't work so well after all. Roche, the drug company behind it, withheld vital information on its clinical trials for half a decade, but the Cochrane Collaboration, a global not-for-profit organisation of 14,000 academics, finally obtained all the information. Putting the evidence together, it has found that Tamiflu has little or no impact on complications of flu infection, such as pneumonia." [more inside]
Cool London is dead, proclaims the Telegraph
A Song Of Rent And Maintenance
Timelapse Kelpies
Watch a seven minute timelapse of Andy Scott's work, The Kelpies being erected, a pair of 30ft steel equine statues situated near Falkirk, Scotland.
The BBC also has a sped up version, if you don't have the seven minutes spare. [previous, previous] [more inside]
Life imitates art.
Let us arise and plant
The legacy of John Evelyn’s Sylva— in 1664, on behalf of the Royal Society, the courtier, garden designer, entrepreneur, bee-keeper, connoisseur, author & celebrated diarist John Evelyn published Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions, which is supposed to have significantly influenced [PDF] forestry in the UK over the succeeding centuries. Now, ‘silvologist’ Gabriel Hemery and artist Sarah Simblet have produced a new work inspired by Evelyn’s—The New Sylva: A Discourse of Forest & Orchard Trees for the Twenty-First Century.
"Here's a tape of our little visit."
In 2000, Conan O'Brien taped a comedy segment at the NYC offices of Foote, Cone & Belding. The premise: take a chainsaw-wielding furniture huckster from Texas, and try to turn him into a star using a top-tier ad campaign. In the segment, Conan is introduced to a team of FCB copywriters, who dutifully come up with an appropriately ridiculous TV ad.
The segment went as planned; Just another remote for Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Little did he know where it would lead. Conan and one of the on-camera copywriters took a shine to each other, and stayed in touch. Two years later, Conan O'Brien and Liza Powel were married. Today they live in Hollywood with their two kids.
In a 2012 interview, Conan told CNN's Piers Morgan: "Somewhere, in the vault at NBC, there's footage of me literally falling for my wife on camera."
Roll the tape.
The segment went as planned; Just another remote for Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Little did he know where it would lead. Conan and one of the on-camera copywriters took a shine to each other, and stayed in touch. Two years later, Conan O'Brien and Liza Powel were married. Today they live in Hollywood with their two kids.
In a 2012 interview, Conan told CNN's Piers Morgan: "Somewhere, in the vault at NBC, there's footage of me literally falling for my wife on camera."
Roll the tape.
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