June 30, 2011
Can I Get Some Pockets Or Something?
"A pop version of the song was done, featuring a mess of big name artists..."
The Post-American World
What does a post-American world look like? NPR interviews Fareed Zakaria on America's future role in world events.
Why the NYT still rules
Blockbuster: DSK may be freed Friday as the rape case against him collapses The NYT reports prosecutors found the chambermaid was involved with drug dealers, possible extortion. previously
NYC Street Photography
NYC Street Photography by Matt Weber. | Cars/Buses | Subways of NYC | Men of NYC | Women of NYC | Urban Landscape | Portraits | Urban Prisoner | 911 Related | Gay Pride | Harlem | Old New York | Times Square. [more inside]
Everything you eat is waste, but swallowing is easy when it has no taste.
Reports suggest that director Terrence Malick's recent film The Tree of Life, starring popular actor Brad Pitt, is experiencing a 5-10% walkout rate. Are misconceptions about the film driving audience members out of movie theaters in anger and bafflement? (previously)
The Ray Harryhausen Creature List.
The Ray Harryhausen Creature List A video compilation of all Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animated creatures.
Any Way The Wind Blows
"Bohemian Rhapsody" covered the the Porkka Playboys. Finnish polka group covers Queen's classic. [more inside]
Did he get fired for using the word dick, or for calling the president a dick?
Mark Halperin, currently of influential political site The Page, founder of groundbreaking Washingtonian blog, The Note, has been a journalist and political analyst for twenty years. Until yesterday, he was a popular talking head at the MSNBC network. Halperin drew criticism and landed himself out of a job after calling President Obama "a dick" on the air. Reactions are delightfully mixed.
Of course, Halperin has already apologized.
20 years and thousands of still frames
Terminator 2 - 20 Years. Sunday, July 3rd marks the 20th anniversary of the release of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" in theatres, so Rymdreglage (now known as "Ninja Moped") made a nifty stop-motion film in honor of the occasion. (Rymdreglage / Ninja Moped previously)
Unlimited union and corporate campaign contributions... who?
The Federal Election Commission has given satirist Stephen Colbert the green light to form the "Colbert SuperPAC." Colbert, via his PAC, can now therefore accept unlimited contributions for whatever candidates and causes he wishes.
Arrrrr, I've got nuffin' to do this weekend
Avast ye dogs of the North Americas: Arr, clear the decks of yer calendar for July, for ye've some skivving to do. Curs of the crown need not apply. [more inside]
and they even included Robyn!
Using album & digital song sales, Hot 100 rankings, radio airplay, YouTube views, social media, concert grosses, industry awards and critics' ratings, Rolling Stone compares sixteen female artists to name the Queen of Pop. [more inside]
A Phoney Video
Splitscreen: A Love Story is a short film by JW Griffiths. Filmed entirely with two Nokia N8 phones, it was the winner of the first Nokia Shorts competition.
What if justice finally comes creeping around?
Eric Holder has announced a full criminal investigation into the deaths of two detainees in CIA custody. The breaking story is also being reported by Talking Points Memo. This latest development comes as a result of a preliminary DOJ investigation into possible criminal acts stemming from the Bush torture policies that President Obama requested in August 2009, which was broadly criticized at the outset as not going far enough.
Get 'em while they're hot!
Stuck on a train for an hour every day and sick of sudoku? Hands love to knit but the brain gets bored? Riding out the recession as a streetcorner sign-twirler? Or maybe you've just got a burning desire for "cultural conversation of the depth you demand." If so, then Metafilter's own Colin Marshall has got what you need at the Marketplace of Ideas. [more inside]
When you buy or think pink, know where your green is going.
New York Attorney General: Coalition Against Breast Cancer - "Scam". 'The state of New York sued a breast cancer charity on Tuesday, accusing it of soliciting more than $9 million and spending virtually none of it on the cause.' 'The Coalition Against Breast Cancer, based in Long Island, told donors their money would go toward research and mammogram screenings, but spent most of the $9.1 million it collected over five years on fundraising fees, salaries and benefits and personal goods, the state attorney general alleges.' But what about all those "pink" products that tout a donation to a charity when you buy? [more inside]
An Open Letter to RIM
I prefer my vacuum cleaners to be lovable, personally
Here, we refer to personality as the use of human personality characteristics to describe a robot vacuum cleaner. The translation from personality to behavior was inspired by a role play in which a group of actors was asked to act like a robot vacuum cleaner with these desired characteristics... Attributes, such as macaroni, were available to support acting out some of the situations (e.g. ‘cleaning a dirty spot’)... The actors were asked to act out situations—as if they were the robot vacuum cleaner—making use of motion and sound... In general, the actors either crawled about or walked around at a slow pace to imitate a vacuum cleaner. Often, a typical vacuuming sound was simulated by them. [more inside]
Married, With Infidelities
Dan Savage speaks about the concept of monogamy.
0
"What do you get when you combine 15kgs of silicon, 2km of wool, 46 highly enthusiastic filmmakers and 2 years of hard work? …Zero." (youtube / also on vimeo) Official site. [more inside]
The embarssment of online handles
The Eternal Shame of the Online Handle asks prominent digirati about the source of their original online name (and features mathowie). Aside from embarrassment, those who chose their handles or avatars lightly may ultimately suffer, since research suggests that you may become more like your avatar. With the decline of the pseudonym, including for those who might rather be anonymous, online handles may be turning into a thing of the past, (MeFi excepted). What's the story of your original handle? [My original screen name on Prodigy was nicodemus, cause magical rats were awesome in the 1990s]
MC Hotdog
MC Hotdog is a Taiwanese rapper whose songs deal with tempestuous girlfriends, his love for Taiwanese women (some translation), problems with the cram school system, being half-assed, how other musicians suck, how badass he is and lots of other topics. All thoroughly NSFW, certainly if your boss speaks Mandarin, and full of casual sexism. (MLYT. Previously.)
New "Normal" temperatures released by NOAA, increased extreme weather events
When a TV meteorologist says "temperatures will be ten degrees above normal", the word "normal" has a specific meaning. Every 10 years NOAA re-calculates the "normal" temps for the USA based on the prior 30-year averages. The new normals have just been released, based on the 30 year period 1980-2010. Hotter is the new normal. With hotter weather comes more extreme weather. Extreme Weather and Climate Change, 3-part series from Scientific America .. and map of extreme weather events 1995-present.
Bunny haircut!
This is how angora rabbits are sheared to collect their soft fiber which can be spun into yarn and knit into sweaters, mittens and hats.[SLYT] [more inside]
"Too much violence, not enough humanity."
Giles Turnbull responds to the "20 craziest job interview questions" (as asked by such companies as Pottery Barn and Google).
A veritable balloon menagerie
Balloon twisting is more than ballon animals. If you get really good, you can make life-sized dinosaur skeleton replicas, complex alien flora and fauna, or intricate scenes with thousands of balloons. It all starts with learning how to twist and shape balloons. If reading diagrams doesn't work for you, there are plenty of tutorial videos online.
On-location dance videos online
If you like dance but are stuck in a computer chair all day, you could do worse than watch some of these on-location videos showing people dancing for the sheer love of it. Folks from Brooklyn and India made BollyBrook (short for "Bollywood-meets-Brooklyn"), a music video featuring dancing in Mumbai. A 9-year-old girl dances in Tiananmen Square (don't miss her pas de deux with her father near the end of the video). A kid with the handle iTr3vor dances in the Apple Store (one of many videos in his series). And yes, Matt Harding probably helped start it all with his "dancing badly around the world" videos last decade. [more inside]
Dissecting an episode of ‘Mythbusters’
Dissecting an episode of Mythbusters. Categorizing and graphing the various fillers and recaps and the A and B stories on MeFi’s de facto fave TV show, Thomas Baekdal comes up with a theory as to why you end up watching all the way through. [more inside]
Grunt controller
With shrieking tennis players Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka taking part in the women's semi-finals at Wimbledon today the BBC has taken action by launching a device called Net Mix, which allows users to turn down the grunts of the players while listening to the radio coverage.. Previously, Belarusian tennis player, Victoria Azarenka ‘wail’ registers at 95 dB, but that's not the loudest (Listen Victoria Azarenka ‘wail’ here)
The Energy Landscape of 2041
Energy: the new thirty years' war; we are heading for a global succeed-or-perish contest among the energy big hitters – but who will be the winners and losers? Michael Klare; (via )
Now with feline heat sink
The 555 Footstool commemorates one of the most iconic integrated circuits ever produced. Since its introduction in 1971, electronic hobbyists and tinkerers have found endless applications for it: timing, flashing, oscillating, measuring, tone/sound effects generation, etc. Check out the winning entries in a recent 555 design contest.
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