August 23, 2013
Midnight Music from TOKiMONSTA
Jennifer Lee makes music under the name TOKiMONSTA. The Los Angeles born-and-raised musician started out in beat-battles, then released some remixes that got broader recognition in a style clearly inspired by older hip-hop and trip-hop. She got her start releasing her music through her friend, Flying Lotus, but has only released one EP for his Brainfeeder label. Her discography includes two proper albums, a handful of EPs and singles, plus various appearances on compilations, never sticking with a single label for any length of time. Her style started with 1990s hip-hop and trip-hop, branched out into IDM and "grittier" styles, and her new album, Half Shadows, was said to range from "delightfully weird" for the collaboration with Kool Keith, to "lush, hypnotic" for the track with Andreya Triana. The album also features a collaboration with MNDR (possibly NSFW skimpy clothing scene in intro) and with Gavin Turek. [more inside]
Turning back time with Quadruplex videotape
A clip of the Edsel Show (Oct 1957) is the oldest surviving broadcast video recorded electronically to videotape, a turning point in an era where TV shows were preserved on film (Feb 1958) and kinescope (Sep 1960). Kinescope was achieved by training a film camera on a television monitor, showing camera cuts just as the audience at home would see it. Some studios were able to
print video directly onto the film (Feb 1956) with great results, achieving something close to video. The year 1958 saw the earliest surviving color video clips, such as an address by President Eisenhower (May 1958), An Evening With Fred Astaire (Oct 1958, restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive), and Dinah Shore (Nov 1958). [more inside]
Same-sex marriages now happening in New Mexico
This past Wednesday, the Doña Ana County County Clerk in Las Cruces, NM (my hometown!) started issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. The Attorney General of NM says he won't challenge the move. The Washington Times (I know, I know) has the story. So does the NYT, if you haven't used up all your free articles for the month. Two days later, a District Court judge ordered Santa Fe County to begin issuing licenses to same sex couples. Bit by bit, the 47th state is becoming the 14th state.
Electric Counterpoints
Johnny Greenwood (guitar) (2013), Mark Stewart (guitar), Los Angeles Electric 8 (guitars, third movement), Neo_Impressioniste (recorders) [more inside]
If it's controversial, announce it on Friday evening
Managing Editor Jimmy Soni appeared on CNN Friday to explain The Huffington Post's latest effort to fight trolls: as of next month, commenters won't be allowed to post anonymously on the site.
"We're looking to promote civil discourse on our site," Soni said. "We want to do what we've always done: promote a positive, healthy community at our global news website."
"We feel like it reflects the maturing internet and our maturing website," he added.
Video here.
A mystery or a memory
Sylvain Sylvain's "Rampage of Songs"
Most Friday nights at 10 PM EST, the guitarist of the New York Dolls hosts a "Rampage of Songs" on the band's Facebook page [more inside]
The Reality Show
Schizophrenics used to see demons and spirits. Now they talk about actors and hidden cameras – and make a lot of sense. Clinical psychiatry papers rarely make much of a splash in the wider media, but it seems appropriate that a paper entitled ‘The Truman Show Delusion: Psychosis in the Global Village’, published in the May 2012 issue of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, should have caused a global sensation. Its authors, the brothers Joel and Ian Gold, presented a striking series of cases in which individuals had become convinced that they were secretly being filmed for a reality TV show.
NSA paying internet companies millions for PRISM
"The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program" the Guardian reveals [more inside]
Going Underground
Slug bugged
Consumption of lungworm snails can transmit the lungworm parasite Angiostrongylus cantonensis, which can cause meningitis in humans and respiratory problems in dogs, which can eat afflicted slugs while running through open fields. Researchers at the University of Exeter hooked up LEDs to these snails to study their nighttime movements through gardens and how those movements might help them act as a vector for the parasites.
The March.
The March (1963, restored) from the US National Archives.
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I Forgot My Phone (SLYT)
"Not five years ago, he condemned backers of gay marriage as amoral."
A Conservative Catholic Now Backs Same-Sex Marriage
"Among religious conservatives, opposition to same-sex marriage has remained essentially unquestioned. Which is why “The Things We Share: A Catholic’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage,” an essay by Joseph Bottum, published Friday on the Web site of Commonweal magazine, is something new in this debate."
"Among religious conservatives, opposition to same-sex marriage has remained essentially unquestioned. Which is why “The Things We Share: A Catholic’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage,” an essay by Joseph Bottum, published Friday on the Web site of Commonweal magazine, is something new in this debate."
Diamonds, Daisies, Snowflakes... New York!
Movin' On Up: A skewed history of New York City as depicted by the opening themes of 1970s TV shows
Dreams are real
Dreams are real [YT, 3:01, cats]
We Aren't Prophets.
This was Zombotron. Welcome to Zombotron 2, the Zombotronner sequel. This planet keeps its own secrets, and lots of them we ourselves are eager to know in Zombotron 2: Time Machine [Flash], where the Zombotronning deepens.
Does what it says on the fabulous, glitter-bedecked tin.
The Misremembering of ‘I Have a Dream’
The Divine Miss Spoon
From the nearly-forgotten 80s educational show Vegetable Soup, Woody the Spoon tells you how to make gohan, Japanese-style rice. If Woody's voice sounds a little familiar, it's because he's voiced by Bette Midler.
Genre-Bending Covers
From the music website, Cover Me, Five Good Covers: five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song. Why not enjoy all new versions of Cars, Milkshake, Can't Help Falling In Love, The Sound Of Silence, Life In A Northern Town, Modern Love, You Shook Me All Night Long, Age Of Consent, Don't Fear The Reaper, Be My Baby, and much, much more. ( Cover Me previously)
I Keep My Bipolar Disorder Secret at Work
The most frustrating part of my situation is that I can count on one hand the number of people who know about my mental illness. The stigma that surrounds mental health is suffocating, and I don’t feel comfortable talking about it with most of my friends and family, and certainly not my boss or colleagues.
Writer opens up about mental illness stigma in the workplace.
League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth
The New York Times is reporting that pressure from the NFL led ESPN to pull out of an investigative project with FRONTLINE regarding head injuries in American Football. The two-part investigative report and book will reveal how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage. ESPN has a $15.2 Billion deal with the NFL. (Football concussions previously: 1, 2, and 3)
Sitting at the desk by the door
On Monday, web technology mogul Dave Winer shared his theory about the gender imbalance in software engineering. This kicked off a hashtag on Twitter as well as this response from Rebecca Greenfield and this correction from Andy Baio. Yesterday Winer posted a follow-up, declaring "I don't care why there are so few women programmers." It was later revealed that some comments on this post were deleted, including the personal testimony of a 54 year-old female veteran of software engineering. [more inside]
The sound of the vintage Ferrari engine alone is worth the click.
What Kind of Sorcery is This?
You see a lot of people doing whatever they can
In a publicly issued statement on August 22, Chelsea Manning announced her status as a woman as well as intent to undergo gender transition [more inside]
"The player's the boss; it's your duty to entertain him or her."
Lead programmer John Carmack is clearly the main reason behind the technical superiority of Id's games.... When the contractor Id hired to do the network drivers for Doom didn't come through, Carmack matter-of-factly wrote a network driver and had it up and running the next day.Monsters from the Id: The Making of Doom (reprinted from Game Developer magazine issue #1, January, 1994.)
[Project] specialist John Romero ... plays the latest beta making his own sound effects with his mouth to compensate for the game sound effects that haven't been added in yet.
fell into a sea of grass
There is never a perfect time for this type of transition...
Fruit Cake & Dripping, but no Oyster
49 Years in the making, a map of how London Tube stops 'taste' to lexical-gustatory synaesthesia sufferer James Wannerton. [more inside]
Photos of people and places in bordertowns
"Borders feel like places of movement. A transition point from one place to another. You don't think of people making a home there. But they do."-A description of Photographer Lara Shipley's project, Coming, Going and Staying
Are backing tracks killing live music?
So does any of this matter to the most important people in the equation, the audience? Live shows sound great these days, that's for sure. How could they not, with bands of our era being able to play along to studio-quality backing tracks through more powerful and more accurate PA systems than ever before? To me it boils down to what audiences really expect from a live performance. What is the point of seeing a band, or act, live? [more inside]
Iceland 2.7, Dominican Republic 41.7
Roads kill map: an interactive map of worldwide traffic fatalities, including causes of death and levels of enforcement, created by the Pulitzer Center. According to the WHO, road injuries are the 9th cause of death worldwide, with 90% occuring in developing countries where they are expected to rise to the 5th rank, "leapfrogging past HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis", due to growing traffic numbers and lax enforcement. (Via /.)
How the hippies saved physics
A recent book by David Kaiser tells the story of the Fundamental Fysiks Group of Berkeley, California during the 1970's. Here is a one hour oral presentation from the November, 2012 Cambridge Science Festival. Kaiser describes the book's title as tongue-in-cheek, but he does argue that the physics outsiders made a substantial contribution. [more inside]
Moral Philosophy: The Flash Game
Can you defeat some of history's greatest philosophers, discover the true nature of morality, and escape the afterlife armed with only the Socratic method? You can if you are Socrates Jones: Ace Accountant Pro Philosopher!
We're all waiting for the other kids' moms to throw theirs out first
"We talked about how it’s crazy that there is this generation of comics collectors that basically all have the same collection. Exactly the same. Like the one we just saw. And how it’s (basically) worthless. And how those collections were worth real money even ten years ago. Maybe more like 20 years ago. Remember G.I. Joe #2 from 1982? It used to be worth 40 bucks. Now, just a click away, there are 6 used from various sellers starting at 99 cents. Spahr joked that we should have all sold when the market was at its peak in the early ’90s." -- Bad news for those of us who wanted to fund our kids' college funds with our comics collection: even rare comics are worthless now.
20 Historic Black and White Photos Colorized
When we see old photos in black and white, we sometimes forget that life back then was experienced in the same vibrant colours that surround us today. This gallery of talented artists helps us remember that. Via r/ColorizedHistory.
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