September 22
"I'm *not* anti-science... I'm for *responsible* science."
Seriously impressive fourteen-year-old Rachel Parent debates Monsanto investor Kevin O'Leary about genetically modified foods. Parent, who is the founder of the anti-GMO organization Kids Right To Know, takes on O'Leary (best known for playing the antagonist in shows like Shark Tank) in an unexpectedly solid debate, countering him point-by-point and cutting him off when he attempts, in his typical Mr. Wonderful way, to condescend to her.
September 21
WIFE: The grey ones
"The Grey Ones," which premiered at TEDx SoCal in Long Beach in July 2011, is a performance piece by LA-based "illusory performance makers" WIFE and features music by Amon Tobin.
Its description: "Inspired by ancient myth, organic matter, decay, and transcendence, The Grey Ones explores the use of projection mapping on moving bodies and statuesque and saintly gestures to tell a story of the beginning of time."
More videos can be found at WIFE's Vimeo channel.
Congress Plus
The Hill’s Megan Wilson, based on documents leaked on Monday, reports that the American League of Lobbyists (ALL) is considering dropping "lobbyist" from its name.
"The organization confirmed to The Hill it is 'discussing a rebranding,' and is taking 'baby steps' toward that goal. Top choices for a replacement name include The Association of Government Relations Professionals, The National Association of Government Relations Professionals and the Government Relations Professionals Association, 'based on board meetings and emails,' the document says." [more inside]
Veteran Suicides
"Why the suicide rate among veterans may be more than 22 a day. Every day, 22 veterans take their own lives. That's a suicide every 65 minutes. As shocking as the number is, it may actually be higher."
Additional data by state can be found here.
THIS OTTER CAN JUGGLE!
On Charles Mingus
An Argument With Instruments: On Charles Mingus. How a jazz artist’s relationship to black identity gave his music its stormy weather. [Via]
No Obamacare for animals
From September 1, it is illegal in Alabama to rescue raccoons, skunks, foxes, bats, oppossums and other animals. [more inside]
It warped my fragile little mind
Now Showing | 234 episodes, 16 seasons, 95 hours, 1 epic marathon #hellyeah #nosleeptilsouthpark [more inside]
The Problem with Warrior Princesses
Jennifer Sky, a former model/actress, recently published a NYT op-ed about her recurring role as Amarice in Xena: Warrior Princess, stating, "Gender was not relevant in the Xenaverse." Her perspective has been met with some contention.
NOW IT LIVES ON THE FLOOR, BOOM
WJSV Complete Day
Thursday, September 21st, 1939, radio station WJSV in Washington, D.C., recorded their entire broadcast day -- from sign on, to sign off. The entire day is available here.
The World in 2096 According to Paul Krugman in 1996
White Collars Turn Blue: "But computers are proficient at analyzing symbols; it is the messiness of the real world that they have trouble with. Furthermore, symbols can be transmitted easily to Asmara or La Paz and analyzed there for a fraction of the cost in Boston. Therefore, many of the jobs that once required a college degree have been eliminated... So enrollment in colleges and universities has dropped almost two-thirds since its peak at the turn of the century. The prestigious universities coped by reverting to an older role. Today a place like Harvard is, as it was in the 19th century, more of a social institution than a scholarly one -- a place for children of the wealthy to refine their social graces and befriend others of their class... While business gurus were proclaiming the new dominance of creativity and innovation over mere production, the growing ease with which information was transmitted and reproduced made it harder for creators to profit from their creations... How, then, could creativity be made to pay? The answer was already becoming apparent a century ago: creations must make money indirectly by promoting sales of something else."
Respect to the men in the icecream van
It's the weekend, time to start raving. If you adore hardcore, like it loud, are needed on the dancefloor and keep jumping all over the world (even Maaskantje), then you know there's always the sound above your hair and you're already hyper hyper (shoutout). Now Ramp it up (it's only logical), reach somewhere deep inside, move your ass and go Faster, Harder, Scooter.
By the way, how much is the fish?
By the way, how much is the fish?
The Derk Isle
The first translation of The Adventures of Tintin into the Scots leid is now available, and is a joy to read aloud. Give it a shot! It was also recently published in Gaelic and Welsh (Yr Ynys Ddu).
We have a very extensive knowledge of what is happening in Syria.
The Spies Inside Damascus: The Mossad's secret war on the Syrian WMD machine.
On Aug. 20, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama declared that if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began shifting around or using his chemical weapons, Obama would consider that "a red line." The implication was that such a move would lead to American intervention in Syria. Some officials from the Israeli Foreign Ministry believed that Obama drew the line because he believed it would never be crossed. If that was his assumption, he made it based, in part, on assessments received from the Israeli intelligence services, which have waged a multidecade clandestine campaign to strip Assad of his deadliest weapons -- and which also have emerged as the United States' primary partners in collecting information on Middle Eastern regimes.
On Aug. 20, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama declared that if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began shifting around or using his chemical weapons, Obama would consider that "a red line." The implication was that such a move would lead to American intervention in Syria. Some officials from the Israeli Foreign Ministry believed that Obama drew the line because he believed it would never be crossed. If that was his assumption, he made it based, in part, on assessments received from the Israeli intelligence services, which have waged a multidecade clandestine campaign to strip Assad of his deadliest weapons -- and which also have emerged as the United States' primary partners in collecting information on Middle Eastern regimes.
Video Killed the Philosophy Star
Incidence of Catastrophe (1987-88) is video artist Gary Hill's adaptation of Maurice Blanchot's short novel Thomas the Obscure (pdf), an "ontological narrative" with being itself as its focus. Why Do Things Get in a Muddle? (Come On Petunia) (1984) is his adaptation of a metalogue from Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind (pdf).
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity -- Five laws that explain why stupidity will always be with us, dragging us down. [more inside]
27 Seconds // Beauty is Boring
Inspired by silent film screen tests of the 1920's, 27 SECONDS is an ongoing video collaboration by BEAUTY IS BORING and THE NEW TOUGH. Working within a set of restrictions (chest to the top of the head, white background, limited time and no sound), the 27 SECONDS series is a moving exploration of the vintage Polaroid format used to create the images for BEAUTY IS BORING.
It's Your Fault.
It's Your Fault "Every sexual assault case in India inspires a string of stupid and hateful remarks against women. This is our response to those remarks." (SLYT) From AIB365, an Indian sketch comedy troupe.
LEAF FROLIC
There goes Indie Cindy whose sails were black when it was windy.
Following their new release, EP1, the Pixies present a video out for their song "indie Cindy." It's about a woman, two men and a murder.
There's a reason stock video doesn't have sound
JAWS: The Text Adventure
In 1975, the blockbuster movie Jaws was released. The series culminated in 1987 with a fourth movie, Jaws: The Revenge. The NES game Jaws (online) was released that same year, incorporating elements of both the original and fourth movie. But you probably don't know about the game that Mirrorsoft commissioned in 1984 from the husband-and-wife coding team, Dave & Sara Crud. They made a ZX Spectrum movie tie-in for the original film, only for rights holders to back out and leave it unreleased for nearly three decades ... UNTIL NOW! Or at least that's the backstory MeFite malevolent wrote. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
How to Design a City for Women
In 1999, officials in Vienna, Austria, asked residents of the city's ninth district how often and why they used public transportation. "Most of the men filled out the questionnaire in less than five minutes," says Ursula Bauer, one of the city administrators tasked with carrying out the survey. "But the women couldn't stop writing."
Telephone
A study [PDF] by CUNY Professor Diana Reiss and Rachel Morrison (Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience Subprogram in Psychology The Graduate Center of CUNY) was published last week in Zoo Biology detailing for the first time a whisper‐like behavior in a non‐human primate, the cotton top tamarin at the Central Park Zoo. [more inside]
Why art should be publicly funded
Why Art? Australian ABC Arts critic, theatre blogger and author, Alison Croggon, looks at public funding of the arts - and argues for more of it.
"In a survey that looked at participation in visual arts and crafts, music, dance, theatre and literature – that is, the key art forms supported by the Australia Council – 38 per cent of Australians describe themselves as art lovers, for whom the arts are an integral part of their lives. Only 17 per cent report estrangement, believing that the arts attract pretentious elites, and a tiny 7 per cent feel no connection at all. Overall, 93 per cent of Australians reported engaging with the arts in the previous year. In 2009, more people attended art galleries (11 million) than went to the football (10 million)."
September 20
Shots from a stranger (most NSFW)
Gonzalo Benard shoots in black and white, sometimes strangers, a lot of nudes, but with a sense of humor.
He runs a blog and a tumblr of art and essays.
I've got a bird, I've got several turtles, I have a couple of toads
Mia & Roman (1968) is a 23 minute-long behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Roman Polanski's film Rosemary's Baby.
Your feel good link of the day.
Auto-Didacts Will Rule the World
Everything you need to know about web development. Neatly packaged. "Beginners, start by clicking the html box and the next lessons you should learn will get highlighted." [via reddit]
Simon Says
Sadly "It's a fake" was found written in felt tip pen when X-Rayed
A long lost Vincent Van Gogh painting collecting dust in a Norwegian attic was recently identified as authentic. Thought to be inauthentic by the original purchaser after being declared fake in the 70's, technological advancements have allowed for closer scrutiny to be paid, allowing it to be fully authenticated.
Plus, looking in the upper left hand corner you can clearly see a familiar blue structure. Finally the rumors of intergalactic influence on the painter can be put to rest.
Plus, looking in the upper left hand corner you can clearly see a familiar blue structure. Finally the rumors of intergalactic influence on the painter can be put to rest.
Getting Strong Now
Level Up
Untold Riches: An Analysis Of Portal’s Level Design, from RPS, who have been looking at level design in their Level With Me series of interviews. Meanwhile Valve will be announcing something Monday morning - probably not Half Life 3.
"We don't understand what happened. Nobody really understands..."
For several months, bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands has been leaching out of the ground near Cold Lake, Alberta, so far amounting to roughly half of the oil leaked in the Enbridge-caused disaster in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Nearby sites of high-pressure steam injection used to extract the bitumen (and which is already associated with violent seismic activity in natural gas fracking operations) are suspected to have caused fractures that push bitumen "sideways" and out to the surface. As Vice reporter Sarah Berman notes, "The oozing leaks will continue until the underground pressure subsides. How long that will take is anybody’s guess." While tons of contaminated vegetation and dead animals have been removed from the sites, access to the region and to government data by First Nation representatives has been repeatedly denied.
Wake up!
Possibly the best dad in the world, and most irritating husband. Meet Batdad via his vine movies or a youtube compilation.
Written drunk. Acted drunk.
It wasn’t a revolution, but it wasn’t just a coup either
And that is why what happened at Maspero was so terrible. A group of Copts determined to take part in public life as free citizens had organised a demonstration to protest against the demolition of a church in Aswan by Salafis acting with the complicity of the regional governor. Before all of the entirely peaceful marchers had arrived at the Maspero building, they were attacked by army units firing live ammunition. Twenty-eight demonstrators were killed, at least two deliberately run over by army vehicles, and 212 others, my daughter’s uncle among them, injured. The message was brutally clear: whatever the supposed ‘revolution’ had meant, the emancipation of the Copts was not part of it as far as the Scaf was concerned. -- In the London Review of Books, Hugh Roberts explores why the Egyptian revolution wasn't.
“When I needed soul revival, I called your name…”
On Wednesday, David Bowie's Facebook page posted an intriguing curio: a trio of videos ostensibly by an obscure '70s soul group known as Milky Edwards & The Chamberlings. The videos show needle-drops of tracks from Starman, a fabulous whole-cloth soul remake of Bowie's seminal 1972 album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The only trouble is, the album doesn't (appear to) actually exist. [more inside]
"Ask Dr. Science. Remember he knows more than you do."
The comedy troupe Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre started in 1975 when five University of Iowa graduate students hoped to score some free beer. You may have heard Ask Dr. Science (Wikipedia) sketches on
All Things Considered. Ask Dr. Science first ran in 1982 (or maybe on New Year's Day 1981) as a project of Duck's Breath members Dan Coffey and Merle Kessler on KQED. [more inside]
C-dif, gonnorhea, and life-threatening diarrhea are making a comeback
"Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become
infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at
least 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of these
infections. Many more people die from other conditions that were
complicated by an antibiotic-resistant infection." This week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Antibiotic resistance threats in the United States, 2013, a first-ever snapshot of the burden and threats posed by the antibiotic-resistant germs having the most impact on human health. "If we’re not careful, the medicine chest will be empty when we go there to look for a life-saving antibiotic,” CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden told reporters. Reports in the Washington Post and New York Times. (Also previously.) [more inside]
Should I eat that?
You Just Threw Out a Perfectly Good Gallon of Milk Because You Think the "Sell By" Date Means Something. Food waste is a huge problem. Globally, one-third of all food produced goes uneaten. In the US, that's up to 40% (pdf report). What can we do to prevent labeling confusion? And the most important question... should you eat it or is it expired?
Giant Bomb
PayPal locked down the developer’s account, and said it could only have 50% of the funds. The rest would be released as development continued, based on PayPal’s assessment of the situation. PayPal was, essentially, going to become a producer going forward. Crowdfunding's Secret Enemy is PayPal
Oh no, here it comes. That I'm alone.
Louis C.K. explains to Conan O'Brien why he hates smartphones. "You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That's being a person." (via)
“New textbooks will have to be written!”
The truth IS out there: British scientists claim to have found proof of alien life
A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, after it harvested strange particles from the edge of space. The scientists sent a balloon 27km into the stratosphere, which came back carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.
'Alien Life' Claim Far From Convincing, Astronomy Experts Say
Isolation of A Diatom Frustule Fragment from the Lower Stratosphere (22-27Km) - Evidence for a Cosmic Origin
A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, after it harvested strange particles from the edge of space. The scientists sent a balloon 27km into the stratosphere, which came back carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.
'Alien Life' Claim Far From Convincing, Astronomy Experts Say
Isolation of A Diatom Frustule Fragment from the Lower Stratosphere (22-27Km) - Evidence for a Cosmic Origin
Lois Weber: Frequently Forgotten Pioneering American Movie Director
Lois Weber was an important early American film-maker who pushed the boundaries of film-making so she could better tell the stories she wanted to tell. Several of her early silent films are on youtube: Suspense (1913; ~10 minutes) (she directs herself, experiments with the split-screen view and unusual and effective camera angles including shots from above and using the car's side mirror); Hypocrites (1915; ~4 minutes) (featuring dual roles, nudity, and a strong use of techniques like multiple exposures and complex editing - as well as a strong moral message); and
Where Are My Children (1916, ~1 hour, 10 minutes) (a complex and controversial film even then about birth control (pro) and abortion (anti)). [more inside]
As you can see, I am dying.
A boy makes a violent pact with a wolf in Jeff Le Bars's bloody and beautiful animated short Carn.
TOP TEN PARTY COMMANDMENTS - by Playboy Magazine
"Every year Playboy releases the ultimate guide to campus life: our infamous party school list. Over the years, it has been brought to our attention that some of our long-standing party picks have a not-so-toast-worthy, rape-ridden side to their campus life. Somewhere in the countless hours we spent tallying up co-eds and scoring beer pong, we lost track of the most essential element of the Playboy lifestyle: sexual pleasure. Rape is kryptonite to sexual pleasure. The two cannot co-exist. For our revised party guide to live up to our founder’s vision, we had to put a new criterion on top. Namely, consent. In other words… A good college party is all about everyone having a good time. Consent is all about everyone having a good time. Rape is only a good time if you’re a rapist. And fuck those people. In our new found light, we proudly present to you Playboy’s 2013 Top Ten Party Commandments, the ultimate guide for a consensual good time." Or did they,
College students across the country conspired to promote consent: the story behind yesterday’s Playboy hoax.[more inside]
The Inside Story Of The Feminists Who Fooled Us Into Thinking Playboy Cared About Consent
5,000 pairs of scissors
He doesn't juggle. He doesn't twist balloons... He just stares.
Residents of the English town of Northampton have been disturbed by the recent appearance of an sinister anonymous clown. Alan Moore is probably not responsible.
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