May 12, 2013
Current quest: saw a leg off the period table
Godville is a text-based "massively-multiplayer zero-player game" in which you play a god with rather tenuous control over a hero. Changes to the game, including quests and items, are crowd-sourced and voted on by the community The game is playable in browser and via Android and iOS apps. Official game wiki.
Enough With The Hipster Stuff, Alright?!?
On topics ranging from the capitalist dynamics of gentrification to the casualization of employment among ostensibly middle class Millennials, the “fucking hipster” show beats structural analysis The confluence of heavy-handed tactics and the seeming collaboration between landlords, city agencies, and a violent Hell’s Angel-like gang is telling and in many ways typical. A year before their biker piece, the New York Post ran an article entitled “W’burg has art attack: Hipsters facing boot” which covered the final stage in the long battle between long-time residents of the 338 Berry Street Lofts — artists who had moved into and transformed both building and neighborhood during the mid-1990s — and their landlord. This is the now familiar story of gentrification in New York City. [more inside]
Batman In Three-And-A-Half Minutes
Doctor Who?
BBC America has shipped the ‘Doctor Who’ Season 7B Blu-Ray/DVD set early to those who pre-ordered it. Only one problem: it includes the season finale, which airs next week. The BBC confirms on Facebook (where people are having fun in the comments,) and Steven Moffat has promised that if fans keep spoilers off the net, they'll release a special video featuring the 10th and 11th Doctors after the finale airs. [more inside]
One genome, two plants
Mosses Make Two Different Plants From the Same Genome, and a Single Gene Can Make the Difference
One of the most astonishing secrets in biology is this: every plant you see makes two different plants from the same genome. And, scientists recently reported, a single gene from an ancient, powerful lineage can make the difference.
Where would you go to the bathroom?
The self-storage unit is a portal to an alternate dimension. A single-topic blog on the news of the weird in storage units (via bldgblog)
I Don't Want Your Fucking App
The Fight For Fifteen
In what could be the largest strike of its kind, hundreds of fast food workers in Detroit walked off their jobs on Friday, echoing the rallying cry heard (or not?) across the country that the currently underpaid workers deserve $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. Friday's strike in Detroit comes on the heels of similar actions in other cities—Wednesday and Thursday in St. Louis, and in Chicago and New York City last month.
Image masking for dummies
Clipping Magic is a single-service website which allows you remove the background from images algorithmically. For example: a dog in a tub can become a dog on a white background with a few simple marks to identify what in the image is foreground, and what is background.
Accidence will happen
Asterix: Latin Jokes Explained. Andrew Girardin is working his way through Asterix, and explaining the latin bits. [more inside]
Chubby Checker's psychedelic twist
Chubby Checker, dubbed "King of the Twist" due to his hit song "The Twist" and assorted twist-related singles, went to Holland in 1971 and got psychedelic. He released a limited Europe-only album called Chequered! that included soul/psych track Goodbye Victoria ("Goodbye, Victoria. Everybody's going to the moon…"). The possibly drug-related departure may have been an attempt to reach stardom sans the novelty of "The Twist." The album was produced by known scam artist Ed Chalpin and recently remastered and reissued.
Wikipedia Recent Changes Map
Stalin's Favorite Pianist
Maria Yudina (1899-1970) born Jewish, devout Christian, staunchly anti-Soviet, and one of the greatest Russian pianists. "Yet she was hidden behind Soviet Russia's iron curtain during her lifetime and was unknown to what is now a rapidly growing and wildly enthusiastic international audience." [more inside]
This is Commander Chris to Ground Control
Today. the day after astronauts detected and repaired a "serious but not life-threatening" ammonia leak on the space station, Commander Chris Hadfield has passed over command of the space station. Planet earth is blue and there's nothing left to do ... except to release this video. Sorry, Tilda Swinton does not make an appearance. Video is suitable for all audiences. Hadfield previously on MeFi.
Terrence Malick is not a recluse.
What Terrence Malick was doing for those 20 years. "The thing that really, really bothers me about the perception of Terrence Malick is the idea that he made Days of Heaven and then sat with his thumb up his butt for twenty years. That’s not what happened; he never stopped working. Terrence Malick is not a recluse. A recluse is Howard Hughes holed up in a hotel pissing into a milk bottle."
The 10 Buildings That Changed America - And Architecture
bigger than hip hop
“Used to steal clothes, was considered a thief/Until I started hustlin’ on Fulton Street.” The mean streets of the borough that rappers like the Notorious B.I.G. crowed about are now hipster havens, where cupcakes and organic kale rule and “Brooklyn” now evokes artisanal cheese rather than rap artists.
Kids As Role Models
The Untenable Whiteness of Theater (Audiences)
A variety of Bay Area data sources are combined to highlight a problem common to many of the performing arts in the US. The good news? There is a healthy and vigorous discussion in the community around this issue.
By the Lake, Tasmania
Three young filmmakers from Melbourne, Australia were set to make a short film on the serenity of fly fishing, focusing on a man named Phipps who lived on a lake in central Tasmania. Once they met Phipps, however, that all changed. Here is a glimpse into Phipps' beautiful, quiet world. [more inside]
Think Super Bowl halftime show on LSD, with added sequins. Eurovision!
It's that time of the year again, when the (television network) continent of Europe comes together to sing, wear interesting clothing, and gyrate before an enthusiastic/baffled world. [more inside]
Thank you mom for enduring having me
"There's nothing ergonomic about being a parent." Writer Shawnee Barton talks about the non-Hallmark, less discussed aspects of being a mother: the physical changes that come from pregnancy and giving birth.
"Turns out, we are all mama soldiers returning from the battlefields of life-creation. And like most stories from the frontlines, the physical scars inevitably stir genuine emotions and sentimentality that those greeting cards fall far short of replicating."
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