May 31, 2011
"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine."
Amnesty International first reported in March that Egyptian authorities were conducting "virginity tests" on female protestors. Today, military authorities admitted that these tests took place and tried to defend the practice.
Doom in your browser
Doom was a classic game, revolutionary in its time. And it took a high-end machine to run it, like a 486 running 25 MHz (ooh! aah!). Times have changed: it's been ported to Javascript, and it will run in your browser.
The Wikipedia of symbology.
There are symbols from Asia. Wiccan symbols. Symbols from Freemasonry, Christianity, and Native Americans. Explore the Symbol Dictionary.
The Dirty Talk Of The Town
The Awl compiles a history of profanity at The New Yorker. Padgett Powell once said that the usage rules used to be so restrictive, he was forced to change "big-butt sheriff" to "big-bubba sheriff" in "The Winnowing of Mrs. Schuping" (1991; great story).
Milo Goes To The Movies
FILMAGE: The Story of DESCENDENTS / ALL is an upcoming feature-length documentary about pop-punk pioneers Descendents. The makers are looking for photos, video, and film of the band. The band's first album, 1982's Milo Goes To College, was an instant classic with songs like I'm Not A Loser. Various splits, reformations, and line-up changes followed. Their most reformation in 2010 included sets at Australia's No Sleep Till festival (full Sydney set at Moshcam). Classic Desendents: I'm The One. Merican. Hope.
Magic Headphones
Magic Headphones
"DJ Fresh - Louder (Doctor P & Flux Pavilion Remix)" DUBSTEP, The dancers are ( in order) Marquese "nonstop" Scott/ Julius "iglide" Chisolm / Cyrus "glitch" Spencer . Videography by Jason Locklear
Time is Money
The Shredder Clock will start shredding anything you put in it, from homework to $100 dollar bills, unless it is manually shut off immediately. No snooze button, either.
Syed Saleem Shazad
The Most Dangerous Place In The World On May 29, fearless Pakistani journalist and author Syed Saleem Shazad disappeared on the way to a TV interview concerning his story about al Qaeda infiltration into the Pakistani military. On May 30, his badly beaten body was found in a canal 150 km from his home in Islamabad. Shazad, Pakistan Bureau Chief for Asia Times Online, had written many provocative stories that brought him threats from Pakistan's ISI. Shazad's murder shows again why Pakistan is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists.
Finite Crisis on Single Earth
DC to reboot entire universe. Will debut same-day digital distribution of 52 new #1 comics in September. [more inside]
Anatomy of a Mashup
Anatomy of a Mashup - an amazing visualization of "Definitive Daft Punk."
Crime Fighting Armored Gloves
A robber is cornered in a dead-end alley: He turns to face the police officer pursuing him, ready to fight. He pauses. The officer’s left forearm is encased in ballistic nylon, and half a million volts arc menacingly between electrodes on his wrist. A green laser target lands on the robber’s chest. He puts his hands up; it’s a fight he can’t win. [more inside]
"My father was a squirrel — so I've got my father's hands."
Somehow, this makes the Mushroom Kingdom even more trippy
Depixelating Pixel Art: "Naïve upsampling of pixel art images leads to unsatisfactory results. Our algorithm extracts a smooth, resolution-independent vector representation from the image which is suitable for high-resolution display devices." [more inside]
Now I don't go back to Lidl
Hard Luck Guy
Say, you wanna hear a sad song? Eddie Hinton was a guitar player, vocalist, and songwriter from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Co-writer of one of the tenderest, sexiest hits of the late 60s, Dusty Springfield's Breakfast in Bed, Hinton was a key member of the world-famous Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section from 1967 to 1971 (turning down an invitation from Duane Allman to be a member of the Allman Brothers Band) who worked as a studio musician on albums by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, the Staples Singers, and Toots Hibbert, but his early success was sidetracked by mental problems, booze, and drugs. [more inside]
Iranian Internet 2.0: The First Halal Internet
Iran has a conflicting relationship with the internet. On one side, a large portion of the population are online, and even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a well-publicized blog in 2006 (though it now seems to be offline). Then there was Iran's internet revolution in 2009, when there were country-wide internet censorship that was countered by use of web proxies. Later that same year, a company affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps purchased a majority share in the nation's telecommunications monopoly. The fact that IRGC was involved with a for-profit company was not news, as IRGC has long been involved in Iran's economy, but their role in communications was more troubling. The latest news causing a stir is a "halal" internet for Iran, "an internet that conforms to Islamic principles, to improve its communication and trade links with the world," according to a quote from head of economic affairs with the Iranian presidency, Ali Aqamohammadi. [more inside]
The Third Eagle of the Apocalypse
Phallic Symbols at Denver International Airport. Many of the paintings and sculptures at DIA contain hidden images of paganism... On previous videos I have pointed out that this is actually the figure of a naked woman, and the crotch is formed by a bird form. But right opposite the woman is a penguin...
Tastes like Summer's Eve
You've probably heard of Ed Hardy clothing, but did you know that there is also a full range of Ed Hardy beverages? [more inside]
Browbeaten, weary-eyed, terribly optimistic units of the boobilariat.
Ben Hecht, arguably one of the greatest screenwriters in Hollywood history, started his career in the (sometimes literally) cutthroat world of Jazz Age journalism at the Chicago Daily News. Throughout 1921 he wrote a series of remarkable vignettes collectively titled the Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago: stories of drifters, fops, and artists from Michigan Avenue to Chinatown, but most of all a fond portrait of the city itself. Collected in book form and gorgeously illustrated, the Thousand and One Afternoons are in the public domain and readily available online. Each story is four or five short pages in length, and goes great with coffee.
Medicine in the Americas
Medicine in the Americas is a digital library project that makes freely available original works demonstrating the evolution of American medicine from colonial frontier outposts of the 17th century to research hospitals of the 20th century. [more inside]
Kreayshawn
Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada
Basic bitches wear that shit so I don't even bother [more inside]
Basic bitches wear that shit so I don't even bother [more inside]
More WHO information on cellphones and cancer
In a shift from its earlier position, the World Health Organization has stated that cellphones "possibly carcinogenic." Full report (PDF).
"/b/ has given rise to more fluid practices to signal identity and status in spite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of technological support."
4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community is a paper by researchers from MIT and the University of Southampton. The paper itself [PDF].
Did your cactus die?
“I’d gladly put my balls on the chopping block for the benefit of mankind.”
The Rise of Chinese anti-semitism and contemporary support for Hitler as a display of Chinese nationalism.
Here is an article from the Asia Times. that discusses the fact that "a rumor is spreading virally throughout the Middle Kingdom that asserts that Austrian-born Hitler was raised by a family of Chinese expats living in Vienna."
Apparently "as the rumor spreads throughout the Chinese social web, admiration for Hitler is growing stronger and stronger. Blog posts with titles like 'Why I like Hitler' are popping up every day, and an increasingly greater share of young Chinese are choosing to express their nationalism by voicing support for Hitler."
Viral link to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome questioned
Editors of the journal Science have asked the co-authors of a 2009 paper that linked chronic fatigue syndrome to a retrovirus called XMRV to voluntarily retract the paper. Science editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts and executive editor Monica Bradford cited concerns about the validity of the findings, saying other scientists hadn't been able to replicate them, among other reasons. [more inside]
Pentagon: computer virus an "act of war", can respond with military force
'The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.'
J-E-T-S!
In 1995, the NHL's Winnipeg Jets were officially sold to an investment group in Pheonix, Arizona, despite community outrage and a last minute fan rally. [more inside]
Supersupercut
Choose one.
With a coalition government and the recent turmoil over the voting system, sometimes British democracy feels like it's in a bit of a crisis. Thank goodness you can now vote on issues that really matter.
Huffduffer
Huffduffer is like Instapaper, but for audio. You can create your a personalized podcast from audioclips you find on the Internet, but don't want to listen to right that second. [more inside]
The Borneo Blog
The Borneo Blog - fascinating photographic journey from the late 1960s of life and culture in Kapit, Sarawak, Malaysia* via Mefi Projects. [slightly NSFW - some topless locals]
The edible is the political
Encountering Urdu poetry's modern heavyweight
Faiz for Dummies. Worth a read even if you don't know Urdu.
You managed not to get eaten then?
"From Papua New Guinea to Stoke-on-Trent, Prince Philip has left his mark around the world. As his 90th birthday looms, Hannah Ewan recalls the soundbites that could only have come from one man"
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