August 24, 2010
Journeyman Pictures
Journeyman Pictures has uploaded nearly 4000 videos to YouTube. Many of these are trailers for the documentaries they sell, but they have also posted hundreds of full-length videos. Most are for short documentarie, but there are a lot of features too. It's somewhat daunting to explore, but the playlists are a good place to start, and so are the shows: Features, Shorts, News and Savouring Europe, a European travelogue series. Here's a few interesting ones: Gastronauts, about French culinary students working to make astronaut food more palatable, Demon Drummers, about student Kodo drummers, India's Free Lunch, about the effects of free school lunches on Indian society, The Twitter Revolution, about YouTube and Twitter's role in the 2009 Iranian uprising, Europe's Black Hole, about Transnistria, the breakaway region of Moldova, Small Town Boy, about a gay male carnival queen in a small town in England, The Vertigo of Lists, Umberto Eco talks about the ubiquity of lists in modern culture and Monsters from the Id, about scientists in the science fiction films of the Fifties.
The strange case of solar flares and radioactive elements
Australian election non-result
The people have spoken mumbled a bit. The Australian Federal election held last Saturday has produced an extraordinary result. A minority government with the support of 1 Green and (maybe) 4 very independent independents will should result, but which way will it fall, left or right? Every Westminster-style government, claimed to produce strong stable majorities, now has a hung parliament.
Even though results may not be known for several days yet, we can acknowledge the outstanding work of the Australian Electoral Commission. (Previously).
Haunted Houses
The list of New York artists who died of AIDS over the last 30 years is countless, and the loss immeasurable. Last Address uses images of the exteriors of the houses, apartment buildings, and lofts where these and others were living at the time of their deaths to mark the disappearance of a generation. The film is a remembrance of that loss, as well as an evocation of the continued presence of these artists work in our lives and culture. (via)
not to be confused with the pinball pirate
The Pinball Ninja has assigned himself a daunting task: repair 500 pinball machines in the 365 days of the year 2010! He's a little behind at the moment (#289 at last count), but the journey is still entertaining, and filled with insights into pinball repair. [more inside]
Satoshi Kon, director of Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress, dead at 47
Satoshi Kon, the director of such celebrated anime movies as Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Paprika, has died (reportedly of cancer) at the age of 47.
Kon's movies dealt with the slipperiness of the boundaries between performance and reality, truth and illusion. His death leaves the status of his next movie, The Dream Machine (Yume miru kikai), in doubt. As outsourcing and a long recession have taken their toll on Japan's increasingly insular anime industry, David Cabrera notes, I cannot think of a single person alive in the Japanese animation industry who would have been a greater loss than Mr. Kon.
Jackanory time
Web of stories - "There are few things more interesting or more pleasurable than to watch someone tell a good story. And one story always leads to another."
Squeal Like a Pig
This year is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Deliverance. "Dickey wrote about men, neither dudes nor (although they were fathers) dads. The men in “Deliverance” meet real monsters and recognize their ability to become, in Dickey’s phrase, countermonsters."
He's not Haggard, though the economy is
Do you feel overwhelmed trying to understand the driving forces behind our economic collapse. When listening to the latest Planet Money podcast, do you find yourself yearning for something a bit more toe-tappin'? Meet Merle Hazard. "He is the first and only country singer to write about mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, and physics."
4625 kHz
Early color film tests
Early color film tests : 1912, Chronochrome, Deauville, France :: 1922, Kodachrome, Paragon Studios, Fort Lee, New Jersey (details)
The Book of Imaginary Beings, Illustrated
Fantastic Zoology - A graphical interpretation of J.L. Borges "Book of Imaginary Beings" [more inside]
Miniature Mythological Man
Keep your eye on the ball...
It was revealed today that on July 20th about 1.8kg of yellowcake uranium was seized in Chisinau, Moldova. The asking price was 11 million dollars. [more inside]
Quality over quantity
The Perfect Five posts five songs per week(ish): a recent hit, a cover, a classic, a remix, and a wildcard. "A music blog for people who don't have time for music blogs."
Tilt!
Pinball - a fun brainstorming and decisionmaking online tool from the BBC.
Choose Your Own Occupation
Human society cannot be rationally understood until what it is seen it for what it is: The Story of Your Enslavement. [more inside]
I don't know why it's called Hipmunk
Hipmunk is a new easy-to-use flight search tool from the co-founder of Reddit and the author of AppleScript: The Missing Manual, funded by Y Combinator.
Rape as a tool of war in eastern DR Congo
Rape used as a tool of war: 200 women gang-raped near Congo base U.N. says. UN Chief outraged, FWIW. All links to news articles, but not for the weak of stomach.
"Mmm....BRAINS!"
YouTube Cat Lady has been identified.
This past Saturday evening a woman dumped a rescue cat into a garbage bin on the side of a residential street in Coventry, U.K. Fifteen hours later owner Darryl Mann: "I came down to feed Lola on Sunday morning but couldn’t find her anywhere. It was really hot day outside and I searched nearby alleyways but suddenly heard a tiny meowing coming from the bin. I looked inside and I found her in the bin, she was terrified and covered in her own mess....At first I thought she’d somehow climbed inside the bin herself but when I checked the CCTV I was gobsmacked to see some a woman had done it deliberately." Mann posted the video to YouTube and Facebook in an effort to find the perpetrator. As a result, the woman was identified by this morning. [more inside]
The 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit poisonings
On August 16th 1951 a number of people in the quiet southern French town of Pont St.Esprit began to fall ill. Stomach pains were soon followed by violent and often terrifying hallucinations. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed and more than thirty people were taken to asylums in nearby towns. It was soon decided that the cause was bread poisoning and the evidence pointed to just one Bakery. The reason, it was believed was 'ergot', a fungal infection found in Rye bread which had often caused mass poisonings in Medieval times. Journalist Hank Albarelli, however, claims that a recently released CIA memo shows that the CIA were in fact testing LSD on the inhabitants of the town. [more inside]
Barry Goldwater's photographs of the West
In addition to being a five term US senator, Barry Goldwater was an accomplished photographer, particularly of people and landscapes of the American West. [more inside]
120 days in the hole
After 17 days, 33 Chilean miners have been found alive 2,300 vertical feet underground in a gold and copper mine. Now the only thing left to do is get them out safely -- in about four months.
Quicksand is deeper than I knew
Soon, there may be no more bats.
Nine species of bats have been affected by White Nose Syndrome so far, and it has killed over one million bats to date. [more inside]
The weeks long traffic jam
A 60-mile traffic jam in northern China has entered its tenth day, and could last for weeks longer.
Ranking Colleges on Educational Quality
Washington Monthly has released its annual college rankings, which focus on a univerisity's contribution to the public good, including the number of ROTC and peace corps graduates relative to size, the percentage of work study spent on community service, the percentage of students served recieving Pell grants, and quality of research. UCSD, Morehouse College and St. Mary's University of Texas were big winners. Alongside it, feature articles on college dropout factories, the bare-bones education experience at University of Minnesota-Rochester and the ever-increasing amenities and costs of George Washington University.
Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts
The Smoking Gun has come into possession of an unusual RFP from the DEA: they want 'Ebonics experts' to help decipher wiretaps.
Electrons are the new photons.
Electron microscope images of insects and other tiny critters. Art embedded in your microchips, under an electron microscope. Zooming in on a tooth, with the help of an electron microscope. Electron microscope checks out a record's grooves.[previously] A flower so small only those with electron microscopes can see it! Raspberry under an electron microscope! Zoom in on an ant's head, with the power of electron microscopy! An electron microscope makes a self-portrait! An electron microscope examines a leaf! Want to see something else under an electron microscope? Send it to these guys!
Now That's a Light Cycle
The 72-Hour Expert
"If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter." - PJ O'Rourke visits Kabul
No comment
Have you ever found yourself frustrated while reading some stupid comments written on a website? We've all been there. This addon, CommentBlocker, is the perfect solution for us who get annoyed daily on comment posts. Firefox only. (via)
It doesn't mean gold, it means thousand!
You've read the press release, watched the video, and checked out the how-to blog. You, too, could follow in the tracks of the Space Squid folks by publishing your prose in clay tablets, immortalising it for the ages.
A preventable tragedy?
25 Hong Kong tourists were held hostage in Manila in a 12-hour bus siege that ended with ten dead and six injured. [more inside]
Homo novus
The comic series Ex Machina [PDF preview] was started in 2004, created by Y: The Last Man writer Brian K. Vaughn and artist Tony Harris. The main character, Mitchell Hundred, is an ex-superhero who hangs up his jetpack and successfully runs for mayor of New York City in an alternate post-9/11 timeline. The last issue (#50), released this week, concluded the series with a harsh yet wonderfully written view of Hundred's political fate. BKV talks about the final issue with IGN [Spoilers].
Teeny little blocks of art
There are 9 Lego Certified Professionals. Nathan Sawaya, Rene Hoffmeister, Sean, Kenney Nicholas Foo, Dan Parker* , Robin Sather, Adam Reed Tucker, Beth Weis and Dirk Denoyelle. [more inside]
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