August 5, 2011
27b/6
"No way! Thieves are in the open, and a moral person must sneak around, this is turning things upside down! I don't care what others do, I must correct the meter. Please help me find a way." (via reddit)
PATRICK BERRY
1977 televised tribute to the Beatles.
In 1977, Rolling Stone magazine turned 10 years old. To celebrate, they put together a TV special, which included "A Day in the Decade" -- a star-studded, 15-minutes-long tribute to the Beatles. [more inside]
Oh My God! I Was Wrong! It was Serling All Along!
In 1963, French novelist (and former secret agent!) Pierre Boulle, released a smashing new Sci-Fi novel called La planète des singes (Monkey Planet in the UK). Like his previous 1952 bestseller, Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (Bridge Over the River Kwai), the book was adapted into a classic film - and eventually a franchise of some note. Interested in how Boulle's sociopolitical satire became one of the iconic films of our time? You can read some of the backstory about Serling's involvement with the project, then have a look at the various drafts themselves and final shooting script. [Previously].
That truck driver....
Math interview podcast
Strongly Connected Components is a podcast of interviews with mathematicians. Hear complexity theorist Scott Aaronson (of Shtetl-Optimized), Tom Henderson (of Punk Mathematics) algebraist Olga Holtz of UC-Berkeley, master combinatorist Richard Stanley of MIT, and many more.
Drugs Are Like That
The Siskel & Ebert Vault
Starting tonight, Ebert Presents At the Movies will begin airing full episodes of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert’s original PBS show, Sneak Previews. Taking a break from reviewing movies, co-hosts Christy Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky will introduce and discuss the episodes. Hungry for more classic Siskel & Ebert? Try the invaluable, Ebert-approved SiskelandEbert.org, a growing archive of home-taped episodes of Sneak Previews and At the Movies. [more inside]
U.S. Credit Rating Downgrade Expected This Weekend
Markets declined sharply this week in preparation for a U.S. credit downgrade by Standard & Poor's ABC news felt confident to break the news of the U.S. government preparing for an expected S&P down grade sometime after market close this weekend. [more inside]
She was Jewish, but to live she needed a Christian name.
A Holocaust survivor raised a fist to death. 'Leon Weinstein survived the Warsaw Ghetto. But it is the story of the little girl that he wants to tell.' 'He lay Natalie on their front step. Tears ran down his cheeks. You will make it, he thought. She had blond locks and blue eyes. They will think you are a Gentile, not one of us. Walking away, he could hear her whimper, but forced himself not to look back until he crossed the street. Then he turned and saw a man step out of the apartment. The man read Weinstein's note. He puzzled over the baby. Cradling Natalie in his arms, the man walked half a block to a police station and disappeared inside.' [more inside]
Ramen Noodle, The Wonder Poodle
You have to laugh. And count the money.
#FF @frendfromhs just meeee hahahahaha
You know that one Friend From High School? She just found you on twitter.
Studies Show Posture Affects Pain Tolerance and Hormone Levels
"According to a study by Scott Wiltermuth, assistant professor of management organization at the USC Marshall School of Business, and Vanessa K. Bohns, postdoctoral fellow at the J.L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, adopting dominant versus submissive postures actually decreases your sensitivity to pain. " [more inside]
The man who killed Pluto doesn't DESERVE those sweaters!
FOX has greenlit an update of Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (on Hulu, previously) co-produced by Sagan's widow Ann Druyan and Seth MacFarlane, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, which will air in Fall 2013. [more inside]
Shivering Trunks
Shivering Trunks is Natalia Brożyńska's debut film. The four-minute animation has quickly become a cult favourite in Poland.
No one hears you scream but these mythological figurines
NASA's Juno spacecraft launched this morning and is en route to Jupiter (launch video). Equipped with microwave, ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light detectors Juno will investigate the origins, atmosphere, and magnetosphere of the Solar System's largest planets over one year beginning with its arrival in 2016. Using its awesome solar-powered technology Juno will show Jupiter's magnetic field in detail never before seen. We probably won't hear much from Juno again until 2013, when it makes a fly-by of Earth. You can follow Juno on Twitter, so if it types out its scream, someone will hear it. Also screaming traveling aboard Juno are three very special LEGO mini-figurines.
East meets... South?
We don't need no img tag!
Asciiflow will let you draw ASCII art with a mouse and skip a lot of painstaking space-bar-hitting.
The Mix Tape of the Gods: made to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per second, now traveling 300 million miles per year
August and September 2011 mark 34 years in the journeys of Voyager 1 and 2. The two scientific probes, progeny of the Mariner program, were sent out to survey this solar system and beyond. Voyager 2 completed the Grand Tour in 2009 (excluding Pluto), and Voyager 1 is getting closer to interstellar space (previously). Both scientific probes were sent out in with a time capsule from 1977, golden records secured in plain view on the outside of the Voyager Spacecraft. These greetings from earth (alt links: Coral Cache, Archive.org) were recorded in the form of 116 images, a collection of sounds of this planet, greetings in 55 languages (YT), 27 songs from around the world, and brain waves of Ann Druyan, then recently engaged to Carl Sagan. For all that work, the "Mix Tape of the Gods" almost didn't get sent into space because of some last-minute writing in the run-outs. [more inside]
Did Obama get what he wanted?
With the conclusion of the debt ceiling debate ending in another defeat for liberals, the emerging narrative is that Obama is weak, a poor negotiator who was out-maneuvered by Republicans and forced into the agreement because of strategic errors. But Glenn Greenwald tells a different story: [more inside]
There goes the neighborhood...
Hipsters on the Hudson. The NYTimes is at it again, reporting on "Hipster Sprawl" (??).. yes, I made up that term.
Send Congress To Boot Camp
Lt. Gen. Russell Honore has a solution to the increasing splintering and radicalization of Congress: send all the members of Congress to boot camp and keep them there until they recognize their duty to America.
The Earth Is Flat (to a certain approximation)
Old Theories As Limits of New Ones -- Theoretical physicist, Lubos Motl, takes a brief tour through the history of physics, and explains the simple mathematical relationship of old theories to the theories that replace them.
“A film should be like a stone in your shoe.”
Life Before the Dinosaurs
Art is seven years old and really likes life before the dinosaurs. And he thinks arthropods are really cool.
unleashing killer blood-sucking zombies
"I want kids to find out that reading is the best entertainment there is."
Comics by Anne Emond
Comiques is a comic about "life's little trivialities" by Anne Emond. Her main subjects are her family, cat, friends, New York City and random musings. It is mostly drawn from life though her work sometimes tends towards the fantastic. Here is a short video interview with her which also features some candid shots of her cat and here's a longer interview on more technical matters. Finally, here are some random favorites: Pug, Celebrity Look-alike Generator, Irrational Rage Comic, Umbrella, Writing a Detective Story?, The Best Karamazov, Ode to the Avocado, Top of the Morning to You and The Day I Realized I've Never Tried to Dress My Cat in People Clothes.
"It's terminal!"
The Electric Radiance of Los Angeles.
LA Light is a hauntingly beautiful multiple angle time lapse short of LA by night. Shot over six months by Colin Rich, whose high altitude Pacific Star balloon imagery has featured previously on the blue.
Splitting atoms at home
Can you split atoms in your kitchen?
"My project is to build a working nuclear reactor. Not to gain electricity, just for fun and to see if it's possible to split atoms at home..." [scroll down to the bottom for the beginning of the experiment]. [more inside]
Grandma party!!!
« Previous day | Next day »