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Why not eat octopus? [New Yorker]

"I like to think of an octopus as a blobby, eight-fingered hand with a mind of its own. And then I’m suddenly not so keen on the idea of eating it."

comment posted at 6:49 AM on Oct-4-14

Tucker Cullinan is a concept artist whose styles span vivid organic/sci-fi scenes in water colors and lost worlds from the imaginary past, to colder, sharp-edged futuristic worlds, and computer illustrations of imaginary prototypes. More on his blog and his portfolio site, plus two interviews.
comment posted at 3:28 PM on Oct-3-14

Time after time, professors in mathematics and the sciences have told me that building well-ingrained chunks of expertise through practice and repetition was absolutely vital to their succes Understanding doesn’t build fluency; instead, fluency builds understanding. In fact, I believe that true understanding of a complex subject comes only from fluency.
comment posted at 4:09 PM on Oct-3-14

Pay the Piper -- Where Todos Fight Distractions! [via mefi projects]
comment posted at 6:35 AM on Oct-4-14
comment posted at 5:39 PM on Oct-8-14

According to the philosopher Anselm Jappe, who has come to Lisbon to give a talk at the Teatro Maria Matos, in capitalism we are defined by our relation to labor. But the system is a “house of cards that is beginning to collapse”. It is time to rethink the concept of labor.
comment posted at 11:14 AM on Sep-28-14

"Many Marines I talk to are skeptical of the aims used to justify the war - fighting terrorism, getting weapons of mass destruction (which they never see). Quite a few accept that this war was probably fought for oil." 'The Killer Elite', Evan Wright's coverage of a US Marine Corps Battalion in the 2003 Iraq War (later developed into the book and TV series Generation Kill).
comment posted at 5:08 PM on Sep-27-14

Flotsam General Store: A Post-Structural Online Shopping Experience. A new thing by H. Jon Benjamin (previously) and Eugene Mirman (previously). Here's how it works: You send them money. They send you a sack with things in it. What things? Things they've made. No really what things? You'll have to order a sack to find out.
comment posted at 5:38 PM on Sep-27-14

how to tell when a robot has written you a letter.
comment posted at 6:06 PM on Sep-27-14

Raiders of the Lost Ark as a black and white silent film.
comment posted at 7:17 AM on Sep-24-14

"...it’s a world so full of carnal conflicts of interest and deception that only now are biologists getting to grips with all of its ins and outs, including an understanding of why human sex may be about pleasure rather than pain."[via BBC]
comment posted at 11:30 AM on Sep-20-14

This week, of course, provided a glorious example of how technology companies have normalized being indifferent to consent: Apple ‘gifting’ each user with a U2 album downloaded into iTunes. At least one of my friends reported that he had wireless synching of his phone disabled; Apple overrode his express preferences in order to add the album to his music collection. The expected 'surprise and delight' was really more like 'surprise and delete'. I suspect that the strong negative response (in some quarters, at least) had less to do with a dislike of U2 and everything to do with the album as a metonym for this widespread culture of nonconsensual behaviour in technology.

Deb Chachra talks about the age of non-consensual technology.
comment posted at 8:41 PM on Sep-17-14

With Saturday being the 15th anniversary of the tragic departure of the Moon from Earth orbit, it's a good time to visit The Boneyard, home to all the disassembled remains of the Eagles used in the Space 1999 series.
comment posted at 3:36 PM on Sep-15-14

“True, the Nazis were trying to find the Ark of the Covenant so they could destroy the world,” Canuto says. “But methodologically and legally they were in the right.” Why archeologists hate Indiana Jones. Also, why doctors don't like medical dramas; what is inaccurate about TV portrayals of lawyers and the legal process (PDF); and, finally, the terrific analysis of the portrayal of academics in children's books. When your profession is portrayed on TV, what do they get wrong?
comment posted at 3:51 PM on Sep-14-14

81 year-old Charlie goes to Burning Man. (NSFW)
comment posted at 8:09 AM on Sep-13-14

A Buzzfeed writer exercises her semiotics and gathers a bunch of stock photos to recreate Tinder, the quick glance social dating app, to find out why we swipe.
comment posted at 9:24 AM on Sep-13-14
comment posted at 10:57 AM on Sep-13-14

A site designed and developed by Charlie Clark exploring the use of color in movies.
comment posted at 3:06 PM on Sep-8-14

"Since the middle of Kindergarden, I have been taking pictures of my daughter on her short walk to school in NYC. 1,380 photos later, we finally made it."
comment posted at 7:06 AM on Sep-5-14

Blockly Games is a series of educational games that teach programming. It is designed for children who have not had prior experience with computer programming. By the end of these games, players are ready to use conventional text-based languages.
comment posted at 3:40 PM on Sep-4-14
comment posted at 4:50 PM on Sep-4-14

Post-Structuralism Explained with Hipster Beards; and Part 2 (DLBuzzFeed)
comment posted at 9:05 AM on Sep-1-14
comment posted at 2:26 PM on Sep-1-14

Taco Bell opens its "upscale" brand extension, U.S. Taco Co., in Huntington Beach: the first of what could be many. "It's food truck food you don't have to chase." The LA Times takes a first look. Money describes it as taking (secret) aim at foodies: "The goal is to win over entirely new customers, notably the folks who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Taco Bell, KFC, or Cinnabon."
comment posted at 3:19 PM on Aug-31-14

Authors can choose to respond to reviews in many ways. This is a bad choice. Found at the LJ of James Nicoll.
comment posted at 4:00 PM on Aug-31-14

Brenna Twohy, representing Portland, OR, performs her poem "Fantastic Breasts and Where To Find Them," about Harry Potter, pornography, and non-consent, at the 2014 National Poetry Slam.
comment posted at 5:12 PM on Aug-20-14

10 Elaborate Floor Plans from Pre-World War I New York City Apartments
comment posted at 5:54 AM on Aug-19-14

I quit liking things on Facebook for two weeks. Here's how it changed my view of humanity
comment posted at 1:00 PM on Aug-18-14

Millennials Don't Stand A Chance. A terrific debate from Intelligence Squared: "...spotlight is shown on millennials and their use of revolutionary technology while growing up in a time of recession. Some think they are coddled, narcissistic and lazy. Have we let conventional wisdom blind us to the millennial's openness to change, innovation, and optimism in the face of uncertainty, which, in any generation, are qualities to be admired?" (running time ~50:00)
comment posted at 2:22 PM on Aug-14-14
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comment posted at 4:10 PM on Aug-14-14

Humans Need Not Apply. Video essayist CGP Grey explains why we need to start preparing for a post-human economy.
comment posted at 1:55 PM on Aug-13-14
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comment posted at 2:49 PM on Aug-13-14
comment posted at 5:17 PM on Aug-13-14

Like Hell.
comment posted at 5:19 AM on Aug-12-14

Robin Wiliams famous for his impressions, role as Genie in Aladdin, standup comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire and many other comedy roles has died at the age of 63.
comment posted at 6:43 AM on Aug-12-14

Abandoned Republic: Before its current incarnation as the Gap's dressier cousin, Banana Republic sold military surplus and safari-style clothing.
comment posted at 1:31 PM on Aug-8-14
comment posted at 2:14 PM on Aug-8-14

"Though red big barns and big red barns are semantically identical, the second kind pleases our ears more." The Secret Rules of Adjective Order.
comment posted at 4:44 AM on Aug-8-14

The School for Postmen is a 16 minute short film from 1947 by French director and physical comedian Jacques Tati. It's being shown on The Guardian's website and is introduced by their film critic Peter Bradshaw. The film is about a postman in rural southern France trying to finish his round on time.
comment posted at 5:25 AM on Aug-7-14

The Higgs boson and the purpose of a republic
comment posted at 8:48 AM on Aug-3-14

Let's go Headlighting for Spiders! [PDF, 1978] Found some. Found-- WHOA!
comment posted at 9:26 AM on Aug-3-14

"Vampire" is known to be haunting beautiful, making the viewer feel both love and uneasiness, comfort and despair. Art depends on the signs found within semiotics just as much as language does, because without these signs we would have no way of interpreting the meaning of visual art.
comment posted at 2:31 PM on Aug-2-14
comment posted at 7:21 AM on Aug-3-14

Previously, on Metafilter, we met Jeff Highsmith, who designed and built a pseudo Apollo Mission Control panel play desk for his son. He's done it again, with a "spacecraft" for his other son.
comment posted at 2:19 PM on Aug-2-14

An interactive explanation of Markov chains
comment posted at 4:58 AM on Jul-30-14

YouTube user crysisknife007 has apparently spent the last several weeks compiling 12 hour clips of various ambient (and some transient) sounds. Hits include 12 hours of keyboard typing, a hair dryer, and various alarm sounds, each lasting for 12 hours. But the real draw here is his collection of Extended Ambient Space Sounds. Many of your favorite spaceship sounds are here, from both the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, as well as Alien and 2001. Also notable: Jabba The Hutt laughing for 12 hours.
comment posted at 5:30 AM on Jul-30-14