April 8, 2014
His name was Dick
Sooner Or Later is a torch song written by Broadway idol Stephen Sondheim for the 1990 film Dick Tracey, Here's it performed by Bernadette Peters for the RuPaul show in 1997. Oscar performance by Madonna. Album version. Film version .
Speak to me, Warriors!
Less than 24 hours after delivering his first promo on Monday Night RAW in years, which came only days after his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, WWE is announcing that Warrior, formerly Jim Hellwig, best known as the Ultimate Warrior, has passed away at the age of 54. (And before anybody asks, this appears to be real, rather than of the "ghost Warrior appears in a mirror but only Hulk Hogan can see him" variety.)
Mysterious, amnesiac man in Norway
Man found in Oslo with total memory loss - He speaks 4 languages, including Russian, and calls himself John Smith.
Previous "mystery people" discussions: Seattle and UK
Previous "mystery people" discussions: Seattle and UK
Researchers Use Stem Cells to Regenerate Muscle Nearly as Strong
Scientists Progress in Quest to Grow Muscle Tissue in Labs - "The researchers are now working on optimizing the growth of human muscle tissue, including finding a way to get blood flow to the tissue, the best source of cells and the best growing medium for the cells."
Bears, wolves and panthers, oh my: the return of predators to the US
Removing predators from the wild has thrown ecosystems off-kilter, triggering domino effects that scientists are just beginning to understand. In "Wild Predator Invasion," NOVA follows scientists who are trying a simple but controversial solution: returning apex predators—like wolves, bears, and panthers—to their natural environments. [more inside]
We can't all be Tommy Wiseau
"I've watched a lot of terrible films over the years... And even by these standards, Driscoll's output is atrocious. But whereas directors like [German] Uwe Boll will happily revel in a 'worst film director ever' title, Richard has absolutely no sense of humour about it. He genuinely thinks he’s creating art." --- This is the story of British actor/director Richard Driscoll, his 2012 film "Eldorado" and how it all landed him in jail.
Neo-Tokyo is about to EXPLODE!
A= Tokyo’s bid committee for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games appointed Fujio Fujiko’s famous robot cat Doraemon as a special ambassador.
B= Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga Akira predicted the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games way back in 1982.
A+B= I had to make this video.
[SL Vimeo - via]
B= Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga Akira predicted the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games way back in 1982.
A+B= I had to make this video.
[SL Vimeo - via]
Those acorns went straight to his legs.
This video is an eight minute tutorial on how to carve an Iberian ham. You might feel the need to pause it for a drink and a plate of jamon at your nearest tapas.
Let's all get on the same page.
What exactly is bullying, anyway? [PDF] Centers for Disease Control: The inconsistent definitions used to measure bullying coupled with evidence indicating the importance of distinguishing bullying from other types of aggression between youths highlight the need for a uniform definition. [more inside]
Acronymphomaniac, Banned Book Betty and the Thing on the Library Carpet
Execute
Untrusted, a game you can't win unless you change it.
Screw weight loss. I want to be able to benchpress a bear.
16 neato burrito body positive illustrations. (Some are NFSW). (slBustMagazine)
Churning for Eurovision
Just over a month out from the final of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Denmark, and the line-up of acts contesting semi-finals one and two, and getting a bye into the grand final, is clear. While there's the usual rivalries, and a special focus on how Ukraine and Russia will do in the voting, the entry that is receiving much early attention is from never-winning Poland... [more inside]
Abyssmal odds
The depth of the problem - this WaPo infographic hints at the immense challenges that Australian and Chinese search teams will face in recovering the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 black box from its suspected location at the bottom of the Indian Ocean
Baaaaaa....
Jackson Pollock, Mural
The restoration of Jackson Pollock"s 1943 painting "Mural" (6 minute autoplay video) In a project that has taken nearly two years, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles have employed various cutting-edge techniques to painstakingly restore Jackson Pollock’s 1943 "Mural". [more inside]
"IT'S UNDERNEATH US!"
POSEIDON REX: HALF DINOSAUR! HALF SEA MONSTER! ALL TROUBLE! [SLYT]
"A small, secluded island off the coast of Belize suddenly finds itself terrorized by a deadly predator from the planet’s distant past, when deep-sea divers accidentally awaken an ancient evil. Jackson Slate and his team of underwater cave explorers unearth much more than long-lost Mayan treasure while plumbing the depths of a world famous blue hole. They disturb a creature that’s been hibernating for over 60,000 years—a rampaging behemoth of death and destruction not only at sea but also on land."
Future52
Future 52. Fifty-two weeks, fifty-two creators, fifty-two creations of Hoverboards, Robots, Starships, Wearables, and Energy Weapons.
Feathers worth more than diamonds
For forty years around the turn of the 20th century, ostrich plumes were the height of fashion, and a major industry: at its peak, ostrich feathers were, ounce-for-ounce, nearly as valuable as diamonds, so much so that £20,000 of feathers went down with the Titanic. The market for feathers was, in large part, run by Jews: Sephardi Jews exported feathers, Jews in London and New York traded them, and Eastern European Jews left Russia and Lithuania in the thousands to farm feathers, flocking to Oudtshoorn "The Jerusalem of Africa." In 1914, the boom ended, leaving many destitute and leading to anti-semitic backlashes. A brief but entertaining history of the feather trade can be read in this PDF excerpt. Some of the beautiful "Feather Palaces" of Oudtshoorn still survive, as does a small Jewish community and some vintage fashion.
Banks to Feds: drop regulations or small businesses will get it
This is not the typical lobbying we think about; it’s more like lobbying-through-threat: try to regulate us, and we’ll make life so miserable for innocent bystanders that you’ll drop the regulations. Here, the regulation in question simply makes banks responsible for noticing the fraud happening over the payment system they nominally control. They don’t want to do it, because they don’t want to lose lucrative business from predatory scam artists while they look the other way. -- When a division of JPMorgan Chase refused to process payments for a small business selling condoms, it was not out of prudishness, but part of an attempt to force the US government to drop their payday loan regulation by hurting small business owners through overly liberal interpretations of federal guidelines.
RIP (in advance) Archie Andrews
36 variant covers of the upcoming issue of Life with Archie commemorate his upcoming death. The penultimate issue (#36) involves Archie "heroically sacrificing his life to save that of a dear friend", with the final issue reflecting on the lives of Riverdale residents one year on.
One of Christie’s flaws “is that he makes enemies and keeps them.”
When Christie was fourteen years old, he heard [now former NJ Governor Thomas] Kean, who was then a member of the state legislature, speak at his junior high school. He told his mother that he wanted to become a politician; she drove him to Kean’s house and told him to knock on the legislator’s door. “Sir, I heard you speak,” he told Kean. “I think I want to get into politics. How do I do it?” Writing for The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza provides an account of Chris Christie's political history from start to Bridgegate.
This is why we can't have nice things.
"Naturally, the record for the largest and most costly single engagement in EVE history was expected to stand for some time. It didn’t."
Liberal Majority in Quebec
After a 33-day campaign, the Parti Liberal du Quebec under leader Dr Philippe Couillard has emerged victorious in last night's provincial election. The final seat count is LIB: 70, PQ: 30, CAQ: 22, QS: 3, OTH: 0. [more inside]
Women's Work
Over Easy - "Elite education may impoverish and indebt young women and do little to get them a job, but at least it makes their eggs valuable."
Reproductive Medical Associates of New York, a fertility clinic associated with Mount Sinai Hospital, maintains separate websites for egg donors and egg buyers. The home page of the donors’ site features a large stock photograph of a young woman holding schoolbooks. Behind crossed arms the pretty brunette model is clutching what looks like but is not a copy of Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism, along with a white three-ring binder. She wears a zippered velor jacket in the same shade of blue as the graphic that emerges from behind her head in an oversize font: Become an Egg Donor[more inside]
Eppur si muove
The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown is a nine-part series posted by sci-fi author and statistician Michael F. Flynn to his blog last year, covering the historical conflict between heliocentrism and geocentrism, with a special focus on Galileo. They are based on an article (pdf) by Flynn which originally appeared in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Analog. [more inside]
Should've played more Risk on the Subway.
The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want U.S. to intervene Mark Twain once said that "God created war so that Americans would learn geography."
"On March 28-31, 2014, we asked a national sample of 2,066 Americans (fielded via Survey Sampling International Inc. (SSI), what action they wanted the U.S. to take in Ukraine, but with a twist: In addition to measuring standard demographic characteristics and general foreign policy attitudes, we also asked our survey respondents to locate Ukraine on a map as part of a larger, ongoing project to study foreign policy knowledge. We wanted to see where Americans think Ukraine is and to learn if this knowledge (or lack thereof) is related to their foreign policy views. We found that only one out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map, and that this lack of knowledge is related to preferences: The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force." [more inside]
As big as pop gets
Diana’s challenge to the monarchy was that she took its nickname – The Firm – literally. She had been fired by the firm, and like a true entrepreneur she set up her own business as its competitor, disrupting it by doing exactly the same things – touring the world, visiting the poor or sick or industrious – with less protocol and more agility. The ultimate 80s icon was taking 80s politics to its unthinkable conclusion: privatise the monarchy. To do it, she used things the Royal Family could hardly touch – the media; youth; even pop.Music journalist Tom Ewing's ongoing coverage of every UK #1 single reaches the biggest seller of them all: Elton John's Candle in the Wind 97.
Le Douanier
Surveillance state reverse
Reuters: EU court rules against requirement to keep data of telecom users [different news sources: BBC, The Register] Considerably more detail is available in the ECJ press release (pdf) and the full judgement but the Court has invalidated Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC and struck a very clear blow against metadata storage in national law as the authority of the directive will soon cease to exist. This has a particular impact for UK MeFites, as UK law was based on the Directive and crucially passed through Parliament via the European Communities Act and thus skipped some review steps but is founded on the validity of the directive being implemented. Remaining national law would of course also be open to challenge on the same grounds. [more inside]
Home. Sweet. Home.
"Squatters took up the fight where the homesteaders had shown the way, occupying abandoned buildings with a more DIY approach. Whereas homesteaders, beholden to the rules of the government programs that sponsored them, hadn’t been permitted to occupy a building until the work was complete, squatters moved in and lived in the raw spaces from the beginning, putting in the time and effort to transform the buildings without the financial support or sanction of the government. They scavenged materials where they could, and employed skill-sharing, learning building skills from those with experience and then passing that knowledge along. By 1989, there were an estimated two-dozen squatted buildings in the Lower East Side."
Ding Dong the Bits Are Dead
Internet Explorer 6, listed by PC World as the eight worst tech product of all time has finally been inhumed.
The Unprofitable Valley
Why is so much stuff mediocre? Matt Stohrer, saxophone repairman, has an explanation he has dubbed The Unprofitable Valley.
Baby elephants are the new cats [slreddit]
Crank up the Henry Mancini. At Baby Elephant GIFs, one of reddit's fastest growing new communities, over 20,000 Elephanthusiasts come together to share the joy of puerile pachyderms figuring out how to charge and how to eat, among other important life lessons. [more inside]
Horses nuzzling cats
Horse delicately nuzzling a cat | more nuzzling |mini horse nuzzling | paw nuzzling | nibbly nuzzler [music ] | possessive, wet nuzzle.
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