February 2016 Archives
February 29
And the award for wtf-ery in award show production goes too.....
The Oscar for Costume Design 1987! Starring...... Lauren Bacall, a fashion montage, wild inexplicable dancing, and Jenny Beavan winning an Oscar (and not giving a rip * about award show fashion conventions.)
*this is the article that lead me to look up Beavan's speech for her prior Best Costume Design win for A Room with A View. I prefer these theories over what is likely the reality.
*this is the article that lead me to look up Beavan's speech for her prior Best Costume Design win for A Room with A View. I prefer these theories over what is likely the reality.
“please tell him that I am the American Sholem Aleichem.”
peep
The Art of Manhole Covers
You're walking on art in France , Seattle [1, 2, 3], Minneapolis, Moscow, Brisbane, Japan [previously], and elsewhere all over the world [1, 2]. [more inside]
Yo my heart's like my planet/ A black hole of red granite
Star Trek + Hamilton = MY SPOCK -- a parody of "My Shot" retelling the story of a bastard, orphan, son of a Vulcan and a human, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Alpha Quadrant. (apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda) (SLYT, via Birth. Movies. Death.)
NY Penn Station - could its best days be ahead of it?
Inside America's worst train station: What makes New York's Penn Station suck so bad? Today, Penn Station is more like a polished turd, except it’s not really polished... I called up James Ramsey, founder of Raad Studio, former NASA engineer, co-creator of the Lowline project, and all-around keen architectural eye, and asked him to give us an expert's look at why exactly this place sucks so much — to play Virgil to our Dante as we descend into the hellish circles of New York's Pennsylvania Station. [more inside]
George Kennedy 1925 -2016
Passed away at age 91. Sandy-haired, tall and burly George Harris Kennedy, Jr. was born in New York City, to Helen A. (Kieselbach), a ballet dancer, and George Harris Kennedy, an orchestra leader and musician. He has German, Irish, and English ancestry. A World War II veteran, Kennedy at one stage in his career cornered the market at playing tough, no-nonsense characters who were either quite crooked or possessed hearts of gold. Kennedy has notched up an impressive 200+ appearances in both TV and film, and is well respected within the Hollywood community [more inside]
Just something in my eye
Taking shy bladder syndrome to the next level
This is the scariest toilet in the world [more photos]. Or maybe this is. This one lets you adjust your level of scary. More contenders.
The Bidding War
Play dead or be dead
The scene that helped The Revenant earn an oscar nomination for VFX is hard to watch. It's also disturbingly realistic, even though a stunt man substituted for an actual bear. How'd they do that? By consulting bear experts and studying videos of actual attacks. [Warning: last link is brutal]
Those who do not learn from the Reddits of the past...
Reddit 3016 is the result of 4 years of work by Blair Erickson, who built a very detailed parody of what Reddit 1,000 years from now might look like; including alternate sites like HoloTube and Huffington Planet to make the experience complete. Although most of the posts are satire of au courant Reddit trends, it is at least worth admiring the amount of detail, including fake comments on fake Imgur (sorry, Hologur) posts.
50s Glove Lunch
Kate McKinnon and Kumail Nanjiani (joined by Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch) parody Carol for the Independent Spirit Awards. They also took on Room.
“Whatever happened to predictability?”
At Sea with America's Largest Floating Gathering of Conspiracy Theorists
It’s an experience that may not appeal to everyone—a seven-day cruise at sea, with the aim of “taking back power from corrupt and greedy institutions, attain true self-authority, and realize our genuine Self behind the masks … discovering the truth, taking command of our lives, and attaining genuine inner realization” —with every odd belief you can think of listed as entertainment: GMOs, Monsanto, bee colony collapse, ecology, global warming, climate change, fracking, HIV, autism, Big Pharma, medical suppression, vaccinations, fluoridation,… electoral fraud, identity chips, 2nd amendment, and so much more. Anna Merlan writes charitably yet unflinchingly for Jezebel about her experience joining them [more inside]
“They just added an extra five days of festivals, of partying...”
The Surprising History Behind Leap Year by Brian Handwerk [National Geographic]
The ancient Egyptians did it, and so do we. Here's how a leap day—which occurs Februrary 29—helps keep our calendars and societies in sync. It's that time again: This Monday, February 29, is a leap day, the calendar oddity that occurs (almost) every four years. For centuries, trying to sync calendars with the length of the natural year caused confusion—until the concept of leap year provided a way to make up for lost time.[more inside]
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History ‘is a free-content not-for-profit project dedicated to publishing the history of industry in the UK and elsewhere. Its aim is to provide a brief history of the companies, products and people who were instrumental in industry, commencing with the birth of the Industrial Revolution and continuing up to recent times.’ It ‘contains 115,164 pages of information and 163,140 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.’ Browse by Archived Publications, Biographies (‘over 35,000 pages of biographical notes on individuals’), Industries, Locations or Timelines. There is also a blog.
Judge a Book by Its Title
It's time again for one of our favorite* literary awards, the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year (previously here) and this year we've found it in time for YOU to vote on it. So, what's your published poison? Behind the Binoculars: Interviews with Acclaimed Birdwatchers or Paper Folding with Children** or Reading from Behind: A Cultural History of the Anus or Reading the Liver: Papyrological Texts on Ancient Greek Extispicy*** or Soviet Bus Stops or Too Naked for the Nazis or Transvestite Vampire Biker Nuns from Outer Space: A Consideration of Cult Film ? [more inside]
“It’s your fault, so you fix it.”
the Kurds are on the move
The Kurdish key - "Kurds are key to a Middle East solution as they hold the balance of power in Iraq and Syria, as well as being in the midst of an insurrection in Turkey. The US needs the Kurds as much as it needs the Turks in its efforts to defeat Isis." (also btw /r/Kurdistan: Who Exactly Are 'the Kurds'?; End Times for the Caliphate?)
February 28
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
Seventy years ago this month, U.S. Army Sergeant Isaac Woodard, recently discharged after having served in the Pacific during World War II, boarded a Greyhound bus in Georgia. What happened during his trip outraged the country. [more inside]
go
#TrapCovers: inspired by acoustic covers of Beyonce's 'Formation'
The internet is full of interesting ebbs and flows, and a current push-pull started with Beyoncé's video for 'Formation' (previously), which she also featured in her Super Bowl show. Then came the much-derided acoustic covers. Those covers inspired Nathan Zed to do a trap cover of 'Hey Jude', and the #TrapCovers really took off from there (more on Twitter)
Illinois Budget on hold
The state of the Illinois Budget. The current Illinois Budget Crisis started almost 8 months ago. While talks continue services are slowly falling part without funding. [more inside]
Finger-lickin' 8-bit
Play ColonelQuest, the 8-bit, "historically accurate" video game based on Colonel Harlan Sanders' mythological life, that is part of its hipster makeover to improve flagging sales.
The Movie Poop-Scene Database
An exhaustive list of acts of defecation and encounters with feces in motion pictures. Via -- of course -- PoopReport.
This is why you always look up.
Photographer Mehrdad Rasoulifard is taking viewers on a visual journey through the history of ancient (and modern!) Iranian architecture and design. He captures the structural and artistic intricacies of iran’s most significant places of worship and cultural complexes, including the tessellated and tiled ceilings of historic mosques. [via designboom]
Zipf''s Law
Sweet Home Alabama - Where the minimum wage must be $7.25
Many cities have either thinking about or have been upping their minimum wages as their residents have struggled to keep up with the inflated cost of living that living near large urban centers. Birmingham, AL was the latest city to plan to up its minimum wage to $10.10 last week.
The Alabama state legislature immediately stripped away the ability for Alabama cities to set their own minimum wages.
The Alabama state legislature immediately stripped away the ability for Alabama cities to set their own minimum wages.
What's inside that £500 battery pack.
Markus Fuller dissects a battery pack for some high end Swiss stereo equipment. There are some pretty generic materials inside some pretty high priced electronic goods. A nerdy but strangely mesmerizing video. Follow up post.
"Being Iceland, it gets complicated."
Saga Thing is a podcast [iTunes link] about the Sagas of the Icelanders by Professors Andrew Pfrenger and John P. Sexton. The format is simple, the two of them discuss a single saga over the course of one or more episodes. Then they render judgment at the end, on such issues as the quality of its nicknames, witticisms, characters and bloodshed. If you need a refresher on the medieval literature and history of Iceland, Saga Thing has you covered with three introductory episodes (1, 2, 3), or you could listen to the BBC's In Our Time episode about the sagas. Andy and John also have a few short episodes on related topics, such as the gruesome blood eagle, dueling and Norse remains in Newfoundland.
Mine and Theirs
Are picky eaters born or made?
Adipositivity: The Valentine Series (NSFW)
Couples Project: “As author Junot Diaz once wrote, if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves,” photographer Substantia Jones explains. [more inside]
Golden Mountain Dim Sum
"This is a show tune, but the show hasn't been written for it yet"
The Fierce Courage of Nina Simone by Adam Shatz
“It is understandable to a capable schoolchild.”
The People Who Believe Electricity Rules the Universe
. . . “Science is returned to the people—the garage tinkerer, the practical engineer, and the natural philosopher,” Thornhill told Motherboard.
. . . “Science is returned to the people—the garage tinkerer, the practical engineer, and the natural philosopher,” Thornhill told Motherboard.
Devo All Around
Devo creates an interactive 360 music video, What We Do. To watch 360 degree videos, you'll need the latest version of Chrome, Opera, Firefox, or Internet Explorer on your computer. On mobile, use the latest version of the YouTube app for Android or iOS. Devo also created a non-interactive version of the same video (but it's really not the same).
What women find in friends that they may not get from love
Female friendship was not a consolation prize, some romance also-ran. Women who find affinity with one another are not settling. In fact, they may be doing the opposite, finding something vital that is lacking in their romantic entanglements, and thus setting their standards healthily higher. (SLNYT)
Anaheim vs. Klanaheim
Yesterday, a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim, CA left three people stabbed and over a dozen arrested. Unfortunately, Orange County is no stranger to white supremacist groups, though headlines like this aren't common. Photographer Heather Davini Boucher offers an up-close photographic account of the confrontation from start to finish.
No Utopia
By James H. Burns: Recently, a television mini-series based on Arthur C. Clarke’s classic novel, Childhood’s End, debuted internationally. But if the vagaries and fortunes of Hollywood had been just a bit different, there could have been such a production, or a theatrical feature film, far sooner, from Universal Studios - The Lost Childhood’s End: A Tale of Phil DeGuere, The Late 1970s, and Arthur C. Clarke’s Classic Novel
When to stop dating and settle down, according to math
Optimal stopping is a math theory that can be used to solve real world decision problems. In the real world, it is often applied to help decide when to stop dating and get married.
Ya Momma So Black
Roadtrip like it's 1966
Every year for the last 50+ years the BC Ministry of Transportation has had a instrumented truck drive every mile of every highway in the province to record highway conditions. Part of the instrumentation is millions of pictures (one every 10-30 metres). The Ministry has compiled selected sets of those pictures from 1966 into video photolog trips of selected highways. Highway 1 from Lytton to Revelstoke; The Island's Malahat; Highway 99 from Horseshoe Bay to Squamish; [more inside]
"Aristocrat of Science Fiction"
"That's what Life Magazine calls GALAXY!" The Internet Archive presents the complete run of classic sf magazine Galaxy, from 1950 to 1980.
Previously on MetaFilter. (via HackerNews)
Previously on MetaFilter. (via HackerNews)
Drink! Feck! Girls!
RIP Frank Kelly, Irish actor best known for playing Father Jack in the UK Channel 4 comedy series Father Ted. He died 18 years, to the day, after his co-star Dermot Morgan.
Irish women sawn open during childbirth seek justice
"I felt sick when I signed the paper, when I signed away all my rights. It looked so horrific when it was all there. I can't help but think about the time I was getting a scan and the man said 'You're cut asunder, turn around and I'll show you what they've done to you'.
I just didn't want to see it. I knew what happened was so awful." [more inside]
Matchstick Puzzles
Matchstick Puzzles - I've always been intrigued by these little sticks with their rounded heads. There are just so many fun things you can do with them... I started collecting matchstick puzzles a long time ago and have decided to display them all on this blog.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Beats?
A sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 classic sci-fi "Blade Runner" has finally been assigned a release date in early 2018. The movie will be directed by Denis Villeneuve (most recently, "Sicario" and "Enemy"). But - who should score the new film? FACT Magazine presents who they would want to hear soundtracking Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford’s adventures with the replicants. [more inside]
February 27
“When asked my name, I struggled between ‘Kenneth Reitz’ vs ‘I ॐ AM’.”
“The programming community has been opening up over the past few years about mental health issues, so, I want to take this opportunity to open up about my own.” Kenneth Reitz, developer of the famed Python
requests
module (as well as tablib
, records
, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Python) has written an essay about suffering a mental health crisis and discovering that he has bipolar affective disorder."Batshit Crazy"
The GOP is freaking out about the ever-increasing likelihood of Trump as their nominee. The New York Times talks to GOP leaders and consultants, who talk of a Republican National Convention floor fight and an effort to save the rest of the party's candidates. And Lindsey Graham roasts the whole party.
No vestige of a beginning,–no prospect of an end.
An excellent short video from the British Geological Survey about Siccar Point. In the spring of 1788 James Hutton set off with John Playfair to the Berwickshire coast. They took a boat trip from Dunglass Burn east along the coast with the geologist Sir James Hall of Dunglass. In the cliff below St. Helens, then just to the east at Siccar Point they found what Hutton called "a beautiful picture of this junction washed bare by the sea", now known as Hutton's Unconformity, the birthplace of modern geology.
CALL NOW! 217 352 0178
Mental Waste Collection and Disposal Service
The MWCDS turns psychic garbage into physical trash. A telephone landline (AT&T) and cassette tape answering machine (Panasonic KX-T 1920 EASA PHONE) is available 24/7 for waste drop off. All calls are confidential. All cassette tapes are sealed in concrete after recording. After the cassette tapes are sealed in concrete a site is determined for burial or storage. The placement into this site involves a ritual administered by the GROUNDSKEEPER.
Spoilers below the fold. [more inside]
The MWCDS turns psychic garbage into physical trash. A telephone landline (AT&T) and cassette tape answering machine (Panasonic KX-T 1920 EASA PHONE) is available 24/7 for waste drop off. All calls are confidential. All cassette tapes are sealed in concrete after recording. After the cassette tapes are sealed in concrete a site is determined for burial or storage. The placement into this site involves a ritual administered by the GROUNDSKEEPER.
Spoilers below the fold. [more inside]
"or have otherwise obtained"
Data broker Acxiom has released a tool About The Data to let you see (some of) the data they have and sell on you. [more inside]
Santigold: embracing the absurdity of current music consumption
Santigold is back with her third album, 99¢ (YT playlist), omnivorous pop in a post-genre age. She's been promoting the album throughout 2015, and enjoying the process this time around, trying to incorporate some of the joy from her son, Radek. She's been bending genres since her self-titled debut album, but this time around she's in a different place from her prior album, Master of My Make-Believe, which was fit for the dystopian end of the Age of Aquarius ... crackling with discontent, with a powerful cover designed by Kehinde Wiley (previously). [more inside]
So THIS is what you do with a liberal arts degree
In some ways, it is hard to imagine two paths more different than being a writer and being a spy. It is certainly hard to imagine two careers with more wildly disparate stakes. And yet there are parallels in the underlying qualities of their practitioners: an interest in psychology, a facility with narrative, a tendency to position oneself as an observer, and a willingness to lie and call it something else.--writer Jennifer DuBois explains what it was like to be hired by the CIA.
Yellow Eggplants, White Carrots, Seeds Everywhere
The Tuneless Choir of Nottingham
"Not everyone who wants to sing can. This is the choir for those who can't." If the BBC link inspires you, you can start your own Tuneless Choir wherever you are. Or you can just follow along with the fun on their Facebook Page. (Here's their version of Living on a Prayer.) The Nottingham Post reports the initiative has been a great success so far.
"NASA and the space" is not a buddy movie
"The Evolution Of Webdesign is a collection and imitation of Webdesign Trends from 1991 to 2015." with a slider. and Neil Armstrong.
Happy Pokemon Day!
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the first Pokemon games releasing in Japan. 20 years ago today, a set of unsuspecting video games would be released that would end up spawning so many sequels, a long running anime series, a collectible card game and numerous spin offs. [more inside]
Next Level Sh*t...
a 6 minuute spin (slyt) A top is a toy designed to be spun rapidly on the ground, the motion of which causes it to remain precisely balanced on its tip because of inertia. Such toys have existed since antiquity. Traditionally tops were constructed of wood, sometimes with an iron tip, and would be set in motion by aid of a string or rope coiled around its axis which, when pulled quickly, caused a rapid unwinding that would set the top in motion. Today they are often built of plastic, and modern materials and manufacturing processes allow tops to be constructed with such precise balance that they can be set in motion by a simple twist of the fingers and twirl of the wrist without need for string or rope. (wiki) [more inside]
bullet points
An entrepreneur tries to start a company and raise venture capital in Silicon Valley — and then finds out she is pregnant.
Wouldst thou like a taste of my artisanal evil cheese?
Oh my goodness! Jolly bad show old boy!
Cumulative and Compounding Opportunity Costs
How do you quantify the effects of things that don't happen to you? "The whole point of living in a culture is that much of the labor of perception and judgment is done for you, spread through media, and absorbed through an imperceptible process that has no single author." (previously; via)
†
Devil Daggers is an irresistible Sisyphean nightmare. [The A.V. Club]
It’s an endless first-person shooter where you run around a floating arena and try to kill everything that moves before they kill you, which usually happens in under 60 seconds until you get the hang of things—and even then, you’re lucky to last much longer than that. The only weapons at your disposal are your wits, your agility, and the infinite daggers you can shoot from your hand in either a concentrated shotgun blast or a machine-gun-like hose of death.[more inside]
Dearest Nerds,
Melissa Harris-Perry (previously) published this letter to her staff yesterday, announcing her decision not to appear as part of MSNBC's weekend election coverage, after several instances in which MSNBC bumped her weekend morning show.
Greatest African American skater ever is down and out...and loving it?
"There’s a conventional narrative of how [1986 World Champion figure skater Debi] Thomas went from where she was to where she is — that of a talented figure undone by internal struggles and left penniless. But nothing is ever that simple with Thomas. "
The leg exercises are pivoting curtsy lunges
Ellen Page is going on Gaycation!
Viceland comes screaming out of the gate with Gaycation. A series by Ellen Page and Ian James Daniel, they visit locales and investigate how it is to be gay in foreign countries compared to the United States; the first episode taking place in Japan.
The Foggy Dew
Odetta sings The Foggy Dew
Odetta recorded a haunting version of ‘Foggy Dew’ for her third album My Eyes Have Seen (Vanguard records, 1959). Often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”, the African-American Civil Rights activist, actress and singer’s debut album ‘Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues‘ was released on Tradition Records whose president and director was Paddy Clancy of the Clancy Brothers.[more inside]
Another basic vulnerability found in Linux
One of the Internet's core building blocks has a vulnerability that leaves hundreds or thousands of apps and hardware devices vulnerable to attacks that can take complete control over them. There is a patch available for Linux-based devices that do domain-name lookups, but it will take time to patch them all.
February 26
Are negative forces playing a larger role than expected?
Fyfe, Meehl, England, Mann et al. (2016) Nature climate change article: A lot of ink has been spilt about global warming.
A big and recent argument has been on the last 10-15 years and whether (or not) we have had a substantial reduction or change in the warming rate, sometimes called "the pause".
A major development: some of the top IPCC authors (including Michael Mann) have just published a commentary suggesting it's real... [more inside]
The New Republic has been sold again.
"Chris Hughes, the owner of The New Republic, said on Friday that he had sold the magazine to Win McCormack, a publisher and editor based in New York and Portland, Ore., who founded the literary quarterly Tin House. Mr. McCormack will appoint Hamilton Fish, the publisher of The Washington Spectator and a former publisher of The Nation, to be publisher and editorial director, The New Republic said."
Okay. Thanks. Long live the First Order.
The modern adventures of the Solo family. Spoilers if you've been living under a rock since December.
Buckwheat - Rhubarb - Sorrell
The Plant Food Tree of Life leads you through the major plant foods and their evolutionary relationships. It is a complement to the list view of the same information, in which each link takes you to a related article at the excellent blog, The Botanist in the Kitchen.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh
Trains in distress. (slyt)
“Is my Slack down or am I fired?”
The Deactivation of the American Worker with the creepiest GIF illustartions ever.
(semi-ironically, the same day this piece was published, The Awl announced its "current editors are departing and it is looking for a new editor(s)-in-chief." The editors' Slacks are still reportedly working, so it isn't too sudden.)
(semi-ironically, the same day this piece was published, The Awl announced its "current editors are departing and it is looking for a new editor(s)-in-chief." The editors' Slacks are still reportedly working, so it isn't too sudden.)
werkin werkin werkin
New York Times Magazine's The Work Issue: Reimagining the Office presents longform articles on questions regarding hiring, teamwork, meetings, automation, and more. Semi-permeable paywall. [more inside]
“Social media is 95 percent of what happens in all relationships now"
Selfies, Dating, and the American 14-Year-Old. "As crushes go from real-life likes to digital “likes,” the typical American teenage girl is confronted with a set of social anxieties never before seen in human history. Nancy Jo Sales observes one 14-year-old as she gets ready to embark on her first I.R.L. date."
“In my family, a B-flat was a fuckin’ B-flat.”
How Randy Newman and His Family Have Shaped Movie Music for Generations by David Kamp [Vanity Fair] Sure, you know of the Oscar-winning composer behind Toy Story and his endearingly offbeat songwriting, but Newman, 72, is also the patriarch of a clan that has helped shape movie music since the talkies. [more inside]
the oscars are coming.....
Screen Junkies have released their Honest Trailers Oscar Clip. They are also having an Oscar party at their YouTube channel. (previously)
fabrication is the ultimate sin of journalism
The bombshell accusations left anyone who'd ever worked with Thompson wondering if he'd scammed them too. It's a tricky question to untangle, noted Josh Marshall, the editor and publisher of the liberal online publication Talking Points Memo, which had published one of his essays. "One of the dirty little secrets of fact-checking," Marshall wrote in an editor's note, "is that it is quite difficult to uncover a determined effort to deceive." Juan Thompson Wrote About St. Louis for the National Media. But Were Any of His Stories True? [more inside]
New Music from Seattle
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Spoons (feat. Ryan Bedard) (SLYT)
7. Tattoos of memes are a thing now
Melissa Click has been fired.
Controversial prof booted by University of Missouri Board of Curators. Communication faculty member Click rose to fame and notoriety for her role in recent protests against Missouri's administration, where she called for two journalists, one a student, to be blocked or removed from a protest site. Images and video of her circulated widely.
Recently Click was suspended by Mizzou, and also charged with assault by local prosecutors. She ended her appointment with the university's journalism department. A group of state legislators wanted her gone. A similarly-sized group of faculty publicly supported Click. [more inside]
Recently Click was suspended by Mizzou, and also charged with assault by local prosecutors. She ended her appointment with the university's journalism department. A group of state legislators wanted her gone. A similarly-sized group of faculty publicly supported Click. [more inside]
I understand that there is a writer named Jonathan Franzen
Rebecca Solnit: 80 Books No Woman Should Read.
Justina Pelletier
The family of Justina Pelletier has filed a lawsuit against Boston Children's Hospital; in 2013, while being treated for a suspected mitochondrial disease, the physicians at Boston Children's intercepted the teen's care, believing her issues were psychosomatic. When her parents attempted to get her discharged, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Family Services stepped in, and Justina was placed in a psychiatric unit. [more inside]
*Some* of the kids are all right
The current crop of 28-34 year old Canadians is the wealthiest ever , according to an internal Finance Canada study obtained by the CBC. This group averaged a net worth of $93k, compared to previous 28-34 year olds' more typical $60K. Most of this wealth is concentrated in the top 10%, whose net worth doubled to $500k, while most others saw a gain of only $1500 (CBC video). But efforts to narrow the gap are underway, in some corners: Ontario announced that students with family incomes under $50K will be getting free tuition for college or university.
Face/On
Face Swap Live is an app for iOS and Android phones that lets you swap faces with someone (or some thing, like your cat) using your phone's camera. It garnered some attention last year for the horrific nightmare fuel that can result from a swap. Now, Rhett LeCompte has recorded a video of himself singing "We Are The World" using Face Swap to play all the original singers.
GNC, Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreens accused of selling adulterated herbals
The New York State attorney general’s office accused four major retailers on Monday of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that they remove the products from their shelves. The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. The tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies. [NYTimes], [WaPo] [more inside]
Talk softly, but equip a large aerial
The University of Washington has developed Passive Wi-Fi. A method of generating 802.11b transmissions using backscatter communication, while consuming 10000 times less power than existing Wi-Fi chipsets (and 1000 times less power than Bluetooth or Zigbee)
Passive Wi-Fi transmissions can be decoded on any Wi-Fi device including routers, mobile phones and tablets. [more inside]
Silver, metal, liquid, blue
Earth May Be a 1-in-700-Quintillion Kind of Place
The Crazy Injustice of Denying Exonerated Prisoners Compensation
In California, as well as many other states, even if a prisoner is exonerated of the crime for which they were imprisoned, they are not automatically compensated for prison time. They may have to wait years before receiving payments, if they receive any at all.
The Turncoat
Burly and middle-aged with a mop of brown hair, Jessop spent more than a decade as security chief and spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous sect that split from the mainstream Mormon church at the turn of the last century. As head of the "God Squad," he was perhaps the highest profile FLDS member -- with the exception of its prophet, Warren Jeffs. 'Thug Willie' spills secrets of FLDS and its 'prophet' [autoplay video -- stop that and read the article] [more inside]
February 25
The Rosa Parks Papers Collection
The Library of Congress has digitized thousands of items from Rosa Parks's personal papers collection. The collection includes materials ranging from handwritten reflections on her arrest to books she owned to family photographs and even birthday cards.
Start Your Art Journey Today
Irshad Karim, creator of /r/ArtFundamentals on Reddit, has compiled a series of drawing lessons for free for all beginners and anyone looking to refresh their artistic skills. [more inside]
Sadako vs. Kayako
What started as an April Fool's joke on the Ju-On website is now becoming an actual movie.
Two of the biggest Japanese horror franchises (リング / Ringu and じゅおん / Ju-On) are combining forces to make Sadako vs Kayako. [more inside]
One can deal with the world through puppets
A four part documentary, each of 15 mins, about Jan Švankmajer probably the greatest living surrealist. Pt. I. | Pt. II. | Pt. III | Pt. IV.
An interview from 2012 - Freedom is becoming the only theme, and a previous incredibly thorough post.
An interview from 2012 - Freedom is becoming the only theme, and a previous incredibly thorough post.
Election time in Iran
Iran goes to the polls on Friday to elect members to two bodies: Parliament and the Assembly of Experts. Moderate President Hassan Rouhani is not facing a ballot test directly, but his agenda - in particular, last summer's landmark nuclear deal, and the economic benefits that were supposed to follow - will be. Moderates face an uphill battle, however, since the Guardian Council disqualified almost half of the more than 12,000 candidates who signed up to participate in these elections, many — if not most — of them reformists. The Assembly of Experts chooses the next Supreme Leader, and considering the age of the current supreme leader, this contest may determine the fate of the country for the foreseeable future. [more inside]
After Thirty Years of Guilt - "My Burden Has Been Reduced"
Last month NPR reported a story about Bob Ebeling, one of the NASA engineers who tried, and failed, to stop the Challenger launch thirty years ago. His guilt and depression touched the hearts of many listeners, who wrote Mr. Ebeling, telling him he did all he could and wasn't to blame. Those letters have finally helped him move past the guilt.
Next step: Yoga in the Olympics
The USA Yoga National Championship is coming up in a few months. Competitors will execute six poses (four mandatory, two of their own choice) for points based on asana (physical movement), balance, stillness, breathing, and concentration. Before you roll your eyes at America making an ancient form of spiritual exercise into a competition, there have been such competitions in India for at least the last two centuries, and possibly thousands of years. Chavie Lieber takes a look at "Champions of Zen".
Better to light a single candle than shred in the dark.
Behold the Candela Vibrophase, the world's first candle powered guitar effect. More details here. Brought to you by Metafilter's own (well, sort of) Zachary Vex.
Damnnn Daniel
It started with Snapchat videos that got reposted to twitter 10 days ago. And then it went viral. Of course Daniel and Josh went on Ellen. But when you finally make it to the New York Times ("We Should Probably Have a Conversation About ‘Damn, Daniel’") the meme has probably run its course.
Finance, old wood, and flame
How do you make a secure record of a debt or exchange if you can't read or write? Cut a number of notches across a stick to symbolize the assets involved, then split the wood lengthwise: you now have two tamper-proof receipts, one for each party to the transaction. The split tally method formed the basis for much of European bookkeeping between medieval times and the modern era. [more inside]
Yams
My Autistic Brother's Quest for Love
Randy is 27, one of 3.5 million Americans on the autism spectrum. He suffers from what is officially called PDD, or pervasive developmental disorder. "My brother has always wanted what most of us do: love. Someone to care about. Someone who will care in return. Someone other than our mother." A loving sister chronicles her brother's search for a lasting relationship.
Hell yeah, I could tell you some stories.
MeFi fave Tony Zhou (now with co-writer Taylor Ramos) examines how the Coen Brothers use Shot / Reverse Shot.
Texts From Last Millennium
Newspaper Snippets from August 28 - September 2, 1859 This is a series of excerpts from newspapers describing the largest solar storm on record in essentially real time for the era. The Aurora Borealis it caused was visible in the Carribean, and it shorted out telegraph lines across Europe. [more inside]
How Every City Became Brooklyn ... or perhaps not
Bon Appétit looks for Brooklyn in the Midwest. The Midwest is not impressed.
In his survey of restaurants and chefs in Indianapolis with hipster credentials, John Birdsall looks for evidence of cultural Brooklynization of the Midwest, and he finds it. Eater contributing editor Sarah Freeman would beg to differ, or at least demand some more analysis, and certain chefs take her side. All of which raises some interesting questions about cultural migration and appropriation and "authenticity" that can't be answered in a pair of articles (the first of which is really more of a travelogue than a fleshed-out thesis), but the questions they raise are FUN.
“Collection GOERING, inventaire des peintures.”
"Hermann Göring’s personal art log is a twisted treasure map, a guide to looting and pillaging and gift-giving among the Nazi brass, and a tracking mechanism for the Nazi occupation of Europe."
My images investigate America.
"Coming from a background in Political Science, I find the rapid changes in social structure unique to this country an abundant source for creating pictures that stand as visually and historically interesting." [more inside]
#EddieWouldGo
The Eddie (Quicksilver Big Wave Invitational) is a GO. The competition, held in honor of Eddie Aikau, is held only when open-ocean swells at Waimea Bay, HI reach a minimum height of 20 feet between December and February -- conditions that have occurred only 8 other times since the competition began in 1984. Eddie's brother, and past competition winner, Clyde Aikau called today's conditions "one of the best days I've seen in 40 years." You can watch live here or follow #EddieWouldGo on Twitter. The Eddie, previously.
“So then they understand: ‘If I smell TB, I get food’.”
The rats who sniff out tuberculosis. by Emma Young [The Guardian] The African giant pouched rat can be trained to sniff out tuberculosis more accurately than most lab tests. So why is the medical profession still sceptical? [more inside]
Pulp Fiction: The Internet Archive's "If" sci-fi magazine run
"If was an American science fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn. The magazine was moderately successful, though it was never regarded as one of the first rank of science fiction magazines. It achieved its greatest success under editor Frederik Pohl, winning the Hugo Award for best professional magazine three years running from 1966 to 1968." The Internet Archive hosts 176 issues of If, as part of its pulp magazine archive. [more inside]
Gonna Be a Busy 13 Episodes
Season 2 of Marvel's "Daredevil" is nearly upon us. Here's are two glimpses of what's in store, one featuring the Punisher, and the other spotlighting Elektra.
Face front, true believers!
The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift
The other KKK: how the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift tried to craft a new world. They were hippies from 1920's Britain started by a pacifist who liked the outdoors activities of the Boy Scouts, John Hargrave. Designing Utopia: John Hargrave and the Kibbo Kift was published in November 2015. If you ever wondered about where Ramsey Dukes (Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians) came from, his parents met in the Kibbo Kift. He talks about that and other things in a new hour 42 minute interview with Gordon White on the Rune Soup podcast.
The New South
Southern correspondent Matthew Teague and photographer David Levene profile six US states – Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia – in the run-up to the vital Super Tuesday primary elections. A series of long-ish reads and photos from The Guardian.
Unified, focussed, huge
Let’s not kid ourselves, we ain’t young. We have pretty big ideas garnered from many years of listening to shitty records, splendid records, and albums that are supposed to be influential. Each time we notice our name getting mentioned on certain genre specific internet forums we get the fear. Who in their right minds wants to get stuck playing one sort of thing for seven years and beyond?London/Somerset/Watford band Hey Colossus, "the most exciting guitar band on the planet" according to Artrocker Magazine, have spent 12 years producing noisy/doom/stoner-influenced/experimental/riff-rock. Near the end of 2015, however, they declared that "it is more subversive for us to compose songs with rigid song structures than it is to absentmindedly clang off another riff-athon." The result, the Radio Static High LP, can now be streamed at The Guardian or via Spotify. [more inside]
I still have to be extremely careful as they have that razor sharp barb
Is Miller Wilson the next Steve Irwin? Watch him dive off his kayak, wrestle stingrays and help a pregnant stingray give birth. All while maintaining a Wildlife Documentary commentary.
February 24
Meet the Coaster Geeks
"It's not just about knowing the rides; it's about knowing manufacturers, plans, build spends. Everything. There are geeks who know how many bolts are in any Disneyland ride. Others have spreadsheets charting their top ten rides and what dates that order changed. It's very, very serious." [more inside]
The Unknown 17
Jesse Owens usually gets all the attention when people talk about the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, but the documentary Olympic Pride, American Prejudice looks at the other black athletes who traveled with Owens to Hitler’s Berlin 80 years ago, including Jackie Robinson’s big brother Mack, and Tidye Ann Pickett-Phillips, first black American woman to compete in the Olympics.
Miss Hobbs and the Gunslingers
A photograph of the petite secretary was sent to every Oregon newspaper - Her image appeared to be that of a teenage schoolgirl. Could she confront a ruthless and lawless town and shut it down? - A tale of the Old West and the New America.
The return of Lush
Anyone's better than that awful Mr. Brooke.
"Jo, having devotedly fulfilled her readers’ expectations for years, confounds our hopes by ending up not with the dashing, boyish Laurie but with Professor Bhaer, a somewhat older, less glamorous, rather didactic German tutor. To anyone steeped in the conventions of romance—not to mention conventional plotting—the gesture has for generations felt almost vindictive on Alcott’s part." Who is Professor Bhaer? Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
"Nope, he's Laotian, aint ya Mr. Kahn?"
"Liberals generally love quirky comedies like Community, Parks and Recreation, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and The Mindy Project; conservatives tend to prefer reality shows and crime dramas including NCIS, Duck Dynasty, The Bachelor, and Top Gear. But for 13 years there was a show that drew laughs from viewers of all political persuasions." King of the Hill: The Last Bipartisan TV Comedy (SLAtlantic)
And the best part is, he works for kibble!
A steaming bowl of life
Ramen, despite its reputation as a cheap fast food, is a complex pillar of modern Japanese society, one loaded with political, cultural and culinary importance that stretches far beyond the circumference of the bowl.Dive in with one of Japan's top ramen bloggers.
Now this first SLIIIDE... shows a very, very interesting thing ...
RIP character actor George Gaynes, known as Police's Academy's Cmndt. Eric Lassard in the Police Academy series, the father in Punky Brewster, and also General Hospital's original mob boss, Frank Smith who tortured Luke and Laura. He was 98. Variety obit
Eye Candide
Dr. Carla Hayden could be the #nextLOC
President Obama announces his intent to nominate Dr. Carla Hayden as the next Librarian of Congress. Dr. Hayden would be the first-ever professional librarian in the position. She is currently CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, served as President of the American Library Association from 2003-2004, and she was the first African-American to receive the Library Journal's Librarian of the Year Award. She began her career with the Chicago Public Library in 1973. [more inside]
What audiences are saying is, "that wasn't funny."
Is heavy metal the new form of world music?
Metal's appeal has gone global, and is deepening. Leading nations emitting potent metal sounds now include some in southeast Asia, South America, and the Middle East.
(SLWSJ)
"Be prepared to burn."
What Comes After Neo-Tokyo?
Whatever happened to the animators who worked on Akira? (NSFW) Find out with over 30 minutes of clips that start with a scene from 1988's masterpiece of Japanese animation, Akira, and follow each animator's career across the decades. [more inside]
What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood*
What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood* (*If you’re not a straight white man.) (SLNYTimes, Interactive)
Zap! Pow! Movies grow up!
So, over the next few months, if you pay attention to the trades, you'll see Hollywood misunderstanding the lesson they should be learning with Deadpool. They'll be green lighting films "like Deadpool" - but, by that, they won't mean "good and original" but "a raunchy superhero film" or "it breaks the fourth wall." They'll treat you like you're stupid, which is the one thing Deadpool didn't do. - Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn on the success of Deadpool. And indeed the film prompted much speculation as to what R-Rated superhero movies could be made. Warner Bros, about fifteen minutes later: "Here's an R-rated superman movie!"
Shrewsbury clock: A portmanteau
A mental coffee break, so to speak. I quite like Rimbshot and Dogs and Cats, among others. Oh, and Reasons, because he is describing our cat.
The Unbearable Lightness of Web Pages
Web pages are ghosts: they’re like images projected onto a wall. They aren’t durable. Contrast this with hard-copies—things written on paper or printed in books. We can still read books and pamphlets printed five hundred years ago, even though the presses that made them have long since been destroyed. How can we give the average independent web writer that kind of permanence? Joel Dueck on building a website with Matthew Butterick's Pollen, allowing it to also be published as a printed book.
The Truth About the MiG-29
Let’s face it: Soviet jets are ugly, and MiGs are some of the worst offenders. The Vietnam-era MiG-17 and MiG-19 represented a utilitarian tube-with-wings-on-it trend; they were followed by the deadly MiG‑21, a rational sculpture of angles and cone. This one is different. The fluidly beautiful MiG-29 looks like its larger twin-tail contemporary, the slab-sided F-15 Eagle, to the degree that a Bolshoi ballerina resembles a roller derby star. [more inside]
Witness the Firepower of This Fully Armed and Operational Battle Station
Helicopter drops might not be far away - "Central banks could be given the power to send money, ideally in electronic form, to every adult citizen. Would this add to demand? Absolutely."
February 23
Ketchikan or Bust!
The Race to Alaska: the rules are simple: captain a boat from Port Townsend to Ketchikan along the Inside Passage of British Columbia, with no motors and no support. Don’t get eaten by a bear. The first boat wins $10,000 cash. The runner-up gets a set of steak knives. [more inside]
You spin me right round, baby / Right round like laundry, baby
Electronic music couple Matmos have continued their career-defining run of making music by sampling weird and/or thematic sounds
(various stuff, “western” instruments, medical devices and procedures, martial instruments, things related to the lives of famous gays and lesbians)
by recording Ultimate Care II, a single piece of music made entirely of samples recorded from the selfsame Whirlpool washing machine.
A Pitchfork interview on the process. Music videos for excerpts three, five, and nine. A live performance on their own washer.
(various stuff, “western” instruments, medical devices and procedures, martial instruments, things related to the lives of famous gays and lesbians)
by recording Ultimate Care II, a single piece of music made entirely of samples recorded from the selfsame Whirlpool washing machine.
A Pitchfork interview on the process. Music videos for excerpts three, five, and nine. A live performance on their own washer.
A Few News Items
A short story by Shrilal Shukla, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell. Wherein a politician enters the real world of his constituents.
"What interrupts that cycle?"
PBS newsmagazine Frontline devotes two hours to exploring the massive rise in the abuse of street opiates like heroin, how the United States started prescribing more and more legal opiates, and how programs like drug courts and diversion programs are being used to treat the problem in Seattle. Chasing Heroin. (slfl)
a space devoid of busyness and dedicated to unburdened clarity of mind
Artist Agnes Martin on Inspiration, Interruptions, Cultivating a Creative Atmosphere, and the Only Type of Person You Should Allow Into Your Studio (by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) [more inside]
Your plastic pal who's fun to be with?
No Thin Mints for Communion
The St. Louis Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church has some issues with the Girl Scouts , particularly, "in regards to sex education and advocacy for “reproductive rights” (i.e. abortion and contraceptive access, even for minors)" (2-page PDF). Don't worry, though -- Archbishop Robert J. Carlson isn't telling you not to buy cookies: "Each person must act in accord with their conscience." [more inside]
"Debt collectors are like me and you"
ACA International is a national trade group for collection agencies, debt buyers, and third-party debt collectors. This is their legislative tool kit, including talking points. The ACA scored a recent victory in the Wisconsin state legislature, which voted this week to ease lawsuits by third-party collectors against Wisconsin residents alleged to be in debt.
There are trolls in this forest
A forest kindergarten is a type of preschool education for children between the ages of three and six that is held almost exclusively outdoors. Whatever the weather, children are encouraged to play, explore and learn in a forest or natural environment. The adult supervision is meant to assist rather than lead. Amos Roberts, reporting for SBS Australia, gets a first hand impression of what this means in practice when he visits one in Denmark.
Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper. -- Sappho
LABOUR markets are hotbeds of inequality. For every dollar a white American man in full-time work earns, the average white woman earns 78 cents and the average Latina only 56 cents. Marriage is a boon for male earnings; motherhood drags female earnings down. Likewise, gay men earn about 5% less than heterosexual ones in Britain and France, and 12-16% less in Canada and America, even after controlling for things like education, skills and experience. Yet one minority appears immune to this scourge: Lesbians (SLEconomist, semi-permeable paywall).
"Side Note: Three Broomsticks Inn does not take debit cards."
The Setup Wizard, a blog about being the Hogwarts IT Guy. Relatively recent, and yet fairly brilliant blog about what it's like to be the muggle IT guy for a bunch of wizards and witches. Nice shoutout to Bowie in there too.
The Other Capitals of the World
You're Letting All the Air Out
Frog Imperial March Instructions (proper keyboard/numpad may be necessary):
- Play this video
- With your cursor focused on the video, type the following: 6 6 6 8 56 8 56, 3 3 3 2 56 8 56 8 56, 2 7 2 3 4343 7 4 6565 87 8 56 8 56 [more inside]
- Play this video
- With your cursor focused on the video, type the following: 6 6 6 8 56 8 56, 3 3 3 2 56 8 56 8 56, 2 7 2 3 4343 7 4 6565 87 8 56 8 56 [more inside]
"Coolie Women Are in Demand Here"
I was made to recite the story of my greatgrandmother, to the extent that I knew it: Her name was Sujaria, and this was her village. The British took her away in 1903 to work their sugar plantations in a place now known as Guyana. She sailed on a ship called The Clyde. My grandfather was born on that ship.Gaiutra Bahadur traces the story of her great grandmother's singular journey as indentured labour meant for the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, shedding light on the lives of women in British India over a hundred years ago.
Reported uptick in resignations deemed highly political too
When a medical journal shared some "unflattering" observations about childbirth in Texas (contraception down, childbirth up), two years after Texas defunded Planned Parenthood, it caught the attention of the state Senate.
Especially since two of the authors were employees of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. One of these two has since retired, although the particular verb describing his departure varies from publication to publication. [more inside]
K Records
Is K Records a 'Broken, Sinking Ship'?
Legendary Olympia Label Struggles to Stay Afloat as Kimya Dawson and Other Artists Demand Unpaid Royalties---
Where to start with the indie charm of Beat Happening and K Records
Debtor's Prison in 21st Century America
In praise of those we've lost to the literary wilderness.
Lithub commends twenty undeservedly neglected writers to our attention. Stephen Sparks offers two lists: Ten Great Writers Nobody Reads and 10 More Writers Nobody Reads. The authors, men and women, of various races, come from all over: Brazil, France, Britain, Honduras, the United States, the Maghreb, Italy, Germany, and Zimbabwe. [more inside]
ars gratia artis?
Richard Prince's new "portraits" are a reminder that someone else can sell your Instagram pictures for $100,000. When does appropriation go too far? Richard Prince sucks, but his Instagram paintings [prints] are genius trolling. Why the latest copyright lawsuit matters, from experts. [more inside]
"How a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country"
The moment of truth: We must stop Trump "Democrats, your leading candidate is too weak to count on as a firewall. She might be able to pull off a general election victory against Trump, but then again she might not. Too much is uncertain this year. You, too, need to help the Republicans beat Trump; this is no moment for standing by passively. If your deadline for changing your party affiliation has not yet come, re-register and vote for Rubio, even if, like me, you cannot stomach his opposition to marriage equality. I too would prefer Kasich as the Republican nominee, but pursuing that goal will only make it more likely that Trump takes the nomination. The republic cannot afford that."
"A crooked smile became associated with a crooked character."
Brace Yourself: Why we want — and how we get — straight teeth. by Rose Eveleth [Racked] [more inside]
Good-bye, productivity
Mienfield, a massively multiplayer online minesweeper.
"But, good Lord, I still have some apologizing to do."
"Until last year, I was considered something of a champion of social conservatism in Canada and was well known among politically active Christians. I hosted a nightly show on Crossroads Television for twelve years, was a syndicated Sun columnist, and wrote briskly selling books with such titles as Why Catholics Are Right. Today, as a decade of same-sex marriage waves its arms at Pride parades, I am working away at a new book, Coming Out: A Christian’s Change of Heart and Mind over Gay Marriage. Oh, dear. How and why did it go so terribly wrong?" Michael Coren discusses how he changed his mind about same-sex marriage.
"I have a nature that doesn't panic in these situations"
RIP Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown, Royal Navy officer, Battle of Britain survivor and test pilot who flew a record breaking 487 different types of aircraft. [more inside]
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
States of Being Besides Nirvana
After many months, Something Awful (and now also The Bad Guys Win) comedy/insanity writer Zack Parsons (previously) has finally confirmed the long-promised finale of his and Steve Sumner's series of Call of Cthulhu 1990's Handbook campaigns starring Kurt Cobain, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and Eazy-E as they battle forces beyond human ken: the custom module Hard Ticket to Baghdad. (He also eventually finished the Tooth Tooth series because word is bond, god.) Beneath the fold: the entire story so far, including the recent 'solo project' campaigns. [more inside]
The Third Coen Brother
Much like Steven Spielberg and his longtime collaboration with John Williams, it’s incredibly difficult to imagine a Coen Brothers film without the indispensable work of Carter Burwell: [more inside]
February 22
Eerie music from the dark side of the moon
"Astronauts onboard Apollo 10 say they heard mysterious "music" on the dark side of the moon.
They didn't know if they were hearing things and were left wondering if music really was coming from behind the moon.
The answer is - sort of - but not really.
They could hear an "outer space-type" droning musical sound when they went around the back of the moon at the end of the 1960s and say they were worried nobody would believe them". CNN news piece with short clip of the sound.
The X-Positions
Every Episode of The X-Files, Ranked From Worst to Best, not including the recent FOX revival. Regardless of how those episodes would stand up in the list, David Duchovny would love to come back for more, while Gillian Anderson might prefer to play a Bond villain.
Un film de Paris [SLVimeo]
Terrible Tilly
One mile west of Tillamook Head, a rock rises from the ocean. Shaped like a sea monster, it is where old Nor’easters go to die. Where Indians believed under ocean tunnels inhabited by spirits came to the surface. Where sheer cliffs drop straight into the sea to depths of 96 to 240 feet. Where clinging to the top, fighting off the gripping hands of the sea, stands a lighthouse – a symbol of the precarious line between human endeavor and the forces of nature.
It's Not a Streetlamp Photo
On Fark.com, a user asked for help identifying the mysterious subject of a photo he'd taken. "Why don't we let William of Occam sort this out:
William, what is more likely:
a) that a hitherto unobserved light source hovvering over some hills very far away just happens to look exactly like a nearby streelamp when photographed, or
b) Forked accidentally took a picture of said nearby streetlight and didn't realise it?"
"Single Women Are Our Most Potent Political Force"
Almost a quarter of the votes in the last US presidential election were cast by women without spouses, up three points from just four years earlier. They are almost 40% of the African-American population, close to 30% of the Latino population, and about a third of all young voters. The most powerful voter this year is The Single American Woman.
Come For The Outrage, Stay For The Sloths
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. In case anyone missed this, a surprisingly good, yet humorous description of the types of hurdles women must go through to obtain an abortion in the US (with bonus bucket of adorable sloths thrown in for good measure).
Unbound: A ★ InstaMiniSeries
In the Fall of 2015, David Bowie gave us unique pre-release access to the music from ★ (pronounced ‘Blackstar’), his 28th studio album, allowing us to create our own visual interpretations of his songs, with no limits or preconditions on his part. Completed in December 2015, UNBOUND: A★InstaMiniSeries takes the audience on a journey of evocative images inspired by the moods suggested in the album’s music, lyrics and artwork. Each episode of the series is sure to capture the imaginations of all who experience it and will undoubtedly lead to endless speculation and discussion of meaning, metaphor and intention. We are honored to have had this opportunity and hope you'll join our 16 episode series, premiering February 25th. New episode every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
The stuff that dreams are made of
It is one of the most iconic props in film history. For 75 years since Humphrey Bogart tracked down The Maltese Falcon, various collectors have claimed to have the Falcon itself. Some of them must be wrong. Vanity Fair put the properly-alliterative Bryan Burrough on the case, and of course, a shadowy mystery ensued. [more inside]
A live husky for a hat
How not to get into the Iditarod by Blair Braverman (SLStorify)
The Wheaton of the West
Jeff Sharlet writes about Westmont College and it's deep ties to The Fellowship. previously: C-Street, The Family, and Capitol Hill.
Corporate Feminism and thankless emotional labour
I talked about how dismal the numbers were, and how the numbers were bad because the experience was bad, and how the numbers wouldn’t change unless the experience changed. And then, I offered a piece of hope that I didn’t at all believe in. One of my friends said, “I thought you were going to end with ‘and then everyone dies’ but you didn’t, how did you do that?” and I didn’t say, “I lied”. It felt a little like a lie, though. It would have felt even more like it had I known that a guy was using that event to pick up girls. A sobering article on one woman who gave up on corporate feminism.
Nefertiti Hack
Artists Covertly Scan Bust of Nefertiti and Release the Data for Free Online: Al-Badri and Nelles take issue, for instance, with the Neues Museum’s method of displaying the bust, which apparently does not provide viewers with any context of how it arrived at the museum — thus transforming it and creating a new history tantamount to fiction, they believe. Over the years, the bust has become a symbol of German identity, a status cemented by the fact that the museum is state-run, and many Egyptians have long condemned this shaping of identity with an object from their cultural heritage. (project link: The Other Nefertiti)
“...publishing in the Soviet Union was the art of the impossible.”
Russian Purge Part 1: Putin Doesn't Need to Censor Books. Publishers Do It For Him. by Masha Gessen [The Intercept_] [more inside]
A peek into the traveling libraries of light house keepers
In 1885, there were 15 lighthouse districts in the US, and over each served an inspector, who visits every light-station quarterly, and his duties include maintenance of all those aids to navigation in it, the discipline of its personnel and pay to each keeper. When he visits a lighthouse that has a library he takes it away and replaces it (Google books preview). Those traveling lighthouse libraries were carried in heavy-duty, dual-purpose boxes that doubled as small book cases. [more inside]
grandeur and monstrosity
"Are you excited for your birthday?" "Not one bit."
109-year old Flossie Dickey celebrates her upcoming 110th birthday with Good Day Spokane! anchorwoman Nichole Mischke.
Worse than that, they called her incompetent
Marcia Clark’s crucible came smack in the middle of the 1990s, when it is indeed fair to say that very few people wanted to talk about sexism. It is being revived for the screen today, during a period when lots of people want to talk about sexism and perhaps especially want to talk about the sexism of the 1990s.The redemption of O. J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark.
February 21
Would you like sex chat Y/N beep boop
Sex bots don't even have to be that good to do their job....Their sole purpose is to get the dater to want to chat more. And a pent-up dude online is the easiest mark. As acclaimed AI researcher Bruce Wilcox puts it, "Many people online want to talk about sex. With chat bots, they don't require a lot of convincing."--Rolling Stone on Online Dating's Sex Bot Con Job
We have a minority for every occasion.
Rent-A-Minority is a revolutionary new service designed for those oh-shit moments where you've realized your award show, corporate brochure, conference panel is entirely composed of white men.
RIP (Rest In Pot) Renato Bialetti
There is surely no doubt that many, many coffee lovers here at Metafilter have used the classic Bialetti stove top espresso pot throughout the years. Heck, 200 million of them have been sold worldwide, including sales to, oh, I'd guess about 1 million Mefiers? So I think it's fitting that we honor the passing of Renato Bialetti, the businessman who brought the iconic appliance to the masses, and whose ashes have been placed, appropriately enough, in a replica of one of his famous pots. But let's also remember and pay our respects to Renato's papa Alfonso Bialetti who set the whole thing up in the first place, and who commissioned illustrator Paolo "Paul" Campani to create the little image of the mustachioed man (Renato himself!) who graces every Bialetti Moka pot. Mille grazie signori Bialetti!
this is not 100% serious
Code Words For “Gay” In Classic Films &
Code Words For Lesbianism In Classic Films
by Mallory Ortberg
Code Words For Lesbianism In Classic Films
by Mallory Ortberg
The Many Uses of Charcoal
In Otter News...
'Unauthorised trousers' kill an otter at the Calgary Zoo (more proof that pants are evil). On the otter hand, police in Newport, Shropshire, UK. responded to a report of an injured otter on the side of the road, and found the “otter” was a fake fur collar detached from a coat. What they did next will make you think "THAT's a Twitter meme". [more inside]
Update: the bus exploded
New York Times' Frugal Traveler columnist Lucas Peterson was frugal travelin' on a Megabus from Chicago to Milwaukee (average fare $10) today when the coach burst into flames. He livetweeted the entire ordeal. [more inside]
Ooh ah, up the RA!
With the upcoming centenary of the Irish 1916 Easter Rising, Limerick's own dole-queue Dadaists the Rubberbandits (previously here , here , and here) present their Guide to 1916. If you're Irish you'll find it hilarious, if you have the misfortune not to be Irish, you'll learn all you need to know about the Rising. And also hopefully find it hilarious.
Investigative reporting in Moab UT
Jim Stiles at the Zephyr does a thorough job reporting on a small group of people dismantling small town governments in the Rocky Moutnain west. Are Rebecca Davidson and crew agents of change bringing small town 20th century bureaucracies into 21st century reality?
Or are they neocons dismantling “big government” from within one small town at a time?
Or they just conmen snowing ignorant/greedy city councils?
Story long and well researched and still in progress.
Catfilter: Living on a Purrayer
Place your cat under the protection of the Cat Goddess, Bastet! If your cat needs a little extra protection, the San Francisco Cat Museum will add it to its prayer list to Bastet (Goddess of Warfare and protectress of felines). [more inside]
Why Do We Teach Girls That It's Cute to Be Scared?
First, roll for strength, dexterity and continence
AD&DRP: Actually, this is your grandmother's AD&D.
Winter Is Trumping
Combine the violent arrogance of barbarian royality with US politics and you have... Winter Is Trumping.
Should 'adjustment' be the goal?
In a 'sick' society, sanity is relative - "Is it good to be 'well-adjusted' to rapacious capitalism and consumerism? What defines 'mental health' (or illness) in such a culture?" Is Humanity Getting Better?[1,2] (via)
The Sexy, Holy Saga of Vanity
The Sexy, Holy Saga of Vanity: Prince’s Muse Who Found God: Vanity, aka Denise Matthews, passed away this week. She led a fascinating life, from inspiring the legendary musician Prince to becoming born again. [more inside]
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Every society has to answer for its morgue
CSI: Dixie — a digital history project of coroners' inquests from South Carolina during the 1800s. [more inside]
Can a Historical Novel Also Be Serious Literature?
Children of the Century: For writers of historical fiction, fact fades and feeling persists. by Alexander Chee [New Republic] [more inside]
Thanks, Lemon
In which Hank Green muses on the loss of his greyhound Lemon, as the camera remains fixed on his feet. [slyt]
They shall not pass.
One hundred years ago today began the terrible battle of Verdun. The German strategy called not so much for territorial conquest as for simply killing as many Frenchmen as possible, to "bleed France white". The name of the plan was Operation Gericht, as in judgement or, grimmer still, the place of execution. Up to nearly one million casualties resulted.
The battle was the most bloody and destructive of World War One up until that point. It would last for the rest of 1916, continuous fighting lasting for more than 300 days. [more inside]
The battle was the most bloody and destructive of World War One up until that point. It would last for the rest of 1916, continuous fighting lasting for more than 300 days. [more inside]
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul
The Perimeter Photographer Quintin Lake is walking 10,000 miles round the British coast, clockwise in sections starting from St Paul's Cathedral, posting a picture a day. [more inside]
Cult classic
February 20
Put the Beatles record down.
Salon interviews music critic Jim Fusilli:
“We’re surrounded by people who, despite a narrow perspective, insist the music of their youth is superior to the sounds of any other period,” he writes. “Most people who prefer old music mean no harm and it’s often a pleasure to listen to them talk about their favorite artists of the distant past. But others are bullies who intend to harangue us into submission, as if their bluster can conceal their ignorance. They ignore what seems to me something that’s self-evident: rock and pop today is as good as it’s ever been.”
No electrons were harmed.
For over 35 years, Roy Underhill has shared his love of American woodcraft. Using only the hand tools of early America, Roy proves that woodworking doesn’t have to be noisy, dangerous or expensive. His insights into the principles of the craft reveal the enduring relationship between tools and material — between the human hand and the creations of culture. 142 episodes of the Woodwright's Shop is available free of charge from PBS. Each episode features construction of a woodworking project using traditional methods or a lesson on use of a traditional tool or technique. [more inside]
"Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten"
The original 1977 release of Star Wars has long been the holy grail for fans. George Lucas famously made numerous changes for each release and once declared, "A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]." Even the National Film Registry (created in response to the pleas of filmmakers like Lucas) which inducted Star Wars in 1989 does not have a copy. Fans resorted to creating "despecialized" editions (previously) in an attempt to recreate the original. Understandably, fans were delighted when Team Negative1 completed a digital scan of an original 35mm print. [more inside]
*DUNK* Ohhhhhhhhhhh *DUNK* Ohhhhhhhhhhhh *DUNK* Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
“You don’t know what you just saw, but when you see it in slow motion you’ll know what you just saw.” The NBA released a mix-tape of last weekend’s All-Star Weekend Slam Dunk Contest. The highlight of the weekend was Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon's Slam Dunk Duel but even the All-Star's kids got in on the action. For the greatest of all time, there's the Ultimate Slam Dunk Contest Mixtape. You can also view it in 360 FreeD Angles. [more inside]
Ayn Rand, Worst Aunt Ever
Ayn Rand's letter to the collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur that is her niece is what you would expect. [more inside]
The fine art of making wallpaper by hand, in the "machine mad" 1960s
Two short, incomplete clips of making patterned wallpaper, largely by hand, in the 1960s from British Pathé: Wallpaper (1963) made by routing sycamore wood blocks hand block printing, seen again in Perfect Match (1968) where "color mixing is still a primitive pour and stir method." Bonus: Out Takes / Cuts From Cp 433 - Wallpaper, Feather Flowers And Perspex Sculpture (1963) and see also: Lino Decor (1958)
Overthinking a plate of beans: Vine Edition
"Mini mystery! I've hidden 6 clues of who killed kitty. High 5 if you can solve my little crime story :)" - Ian Padgham explains all in "The Shortest Mystery You’ve Ever Watched" (spoilers!)
Moments Of Weightlessness
The Inside-Out Piano. Pianist, inventor and performer Sarah Nicolls developed her unique ‘Inside-Out Piano’ to explore the belly of the instrument and to coax out some of its hidden sounds. In Moments Of Weightlessness, she explores the extraordinary unexpected characteristics of the instrument, moving it around the stage to gradually reveal her parallel journey into motherhood.
I am like you. You are like me.
"For 3 year old Clark Reynolds, Thursday began like most others." Janell Ross on Pete Souza's photograph of Obama and his "little visitor." [more inside]
"I can't afford to buy groceries..."
Dear Jeremy... starts the open letter from [former] customer service representative Talia Jane to Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, highlighting her inability to live in the San Francisco's Bay Area on the wages paid by Yelp subsidiary Eat24. [more inside]
We’re not doing science, we’re doing magic.
How many trees are on our planet?
The total number of trees is close to about 3.04 trillion - "Crowther's group looked back in time and calculated that the Earth has actually lost nearly half its trees since the start of human civilization. 'We're losing 10 billion trees every year and that's a net number'. So how did the group with the lofty goal of planting a billion trees react to these numbers? Their new goal is to plant a trillion trees." (oh and be sure to Meet Hyperion, the World's Tallest Tree! ;)
Canada’s prisons are the ‘new residential schools’
In Canada, the Indigenous incarceration rate is 10 times higher than the non-Indigenous population—higher even than South Africa at the height of apartheid. 75 years after First Nations were given permission to travel freely, 50 years after being given the right to vote, and just 20 years since the closing of the last residential school, our history of colonization has been quietly forgotten. [more inside]
It's not instagram, it's analog!
Kodak's Analog Renaissance with Super 8 Camera
"Kodak’s Super 8 project tells an interesting tale about opportunity and value in today’s post-digital economy."
"Kodak’s Super 8 project tells an interesting tale about opportunity and value in today’s post-digital economy."
Ice stacking on Lake Superior
“You’re not operating a justice system here."
When the Public Defender Says, 'I Can't Help'
"Eight-five percent of these defendants are unable to afford their own lawyer and will need a public defender to represent them. But in New Orleans, where I am in charge of the public defender’s office, we simply don’t have enough lawyers to handle the caseload. Last month, we began refusing new cases."
"Eight-five percent of these defendants are unable to afford their own lawyer and will need a public defender to represent them. But in New Orleans, where I am in charge of the public defender’s office, we simply don’t have enough lawyers to handle the caseload. Last month, we began refusing new cases."
Swooce Into Skooks
Of the countless video edits under the umbrella of YouTube Poop (previously), few have shown such consistent quality as the Scooby Doo parody The Misadventures of Skooks. Episode One, Two (alternate version if blocked in your region), Three, Four, Five. Epilogue: ReBooB. (Warning: contains swearing, sexual references, violence, drug use and Batman). [MLYT]
The ongoing problem of the Sexy Douchecanoe
"The Sexy Douchecanoe isn’t an official trope, as such; at least, it’s not one that I often find people analyzing, subverting, and/or railing against. It is one, however, that I run into constantly because, while they’re often unfairly associated with strapping, half-dressed men on paperback covers, Sexy Douchecanoes actually pop up in every medium and every genre."
February 19
Emma Watson and bell hooks Talk Feminism in Paper Magazine
Engaging with feminism, there is this kind of bubble now that goes off in my head where these really negative thoughts about myself hit where I'm able to combat them in a very rational and quick way. I can see it now in a way that's different. I guess if I could give women anything through feminism -- or you're asking about power -- it would just be, to be able to move away, to move through all of that. I see so many women struggling with issues of self-esteem. They know and they hear it and they read it in magazines and books all the time that self-love is really important, but it's really hard to actually do -- [via boingboing]
Pee-wee's Big Holiday
What sparked the Cambrian explosion?
An evolutionary burst 540 million years ago filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals. The trigger behind that revolution is finally coming into focus
, according to the journal Nature. [more inside]
"Obama's face has been etched out"
A short video tour of the library at Guantanamo.
Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.
The artist who dared to paint Ireland's great famine.
"Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland lost more than a quarter of its population to starvation, disease and emigration, while its English overlords hemmed, hawed and, in at least one prominent case, cited God’s will as justification. And yet there is just one painting known to exist that captured the famine as it was unfolding: “An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of Their Store,” which depicts a family peeling away the hay and earth protecting its “store” of harvested potatoes, only to find the dark of rot." [more inside]
It's A Deal
BBC: David Cameron says a deal struck with EU leaders will give the UK "special status" and he will campaign with his "heart and soul" to stay in the union.
The PM said the agreement, reached late on Friday after two days of talks in Brussels, would include a seven-year "emergency brake" on welfare payments.
He added the deal included changes to EU treaties and would be presented to his cabinet on Saturday at 10:00 GMT.
EU exit campaigners said the "hollow" deal offered only "very minor changes". [more inside]
"That is really the thrill of my career."
Steve Martin Performed Stand-up Last Night for the First Time in 35 Years "I'll be honest with you, right off the top, because I'm a little upset with the Beacon Theatre," one joke began. "I was backstage and I used the restroom. And there was a sign that read, 'Employees Must Wash hands.'" Pause. "And I could not find [pause] one employee [pause] to wash my hands."
Electioneering on the campaign trail
Astronaut ice cream is a lie
Astronaut ice cream is a lie (SLYT)
Choose Life.
The Vinyl Frontier
Brazilian businessman Zero Freitas owns over six million records, a collection which he intends to catalogue for public use and transform into a vast listenable archive. Writer and cultural sociologist Dominik Bartmanski visited Freitas’ São Paulo warehouse for a rare interview with the man himself.
Pantsula: It is a defiance, a statement to say 'We can outlive poverty'
Pantsula is a form of energetic dancing that originated in black townships of South Africa during the Apartheid era, and it's still alive and thriving over 60 years later, pulling in and spinning out influences to other dance styles from around the world. Pantsula dancers show their moves and tell their history and reason for dancing. [more inside]
Spending, Use of Services, Prices, and Health in 13 Countries
The data totaled about 20 gigabytes, compressed.
I have a copy of Amazon. Meaning that, on my hard drive there is a massive chunk of Amazon’s product and reviews database—a listing of nine million or so products and 80 million or so reviews taken from 1996 to 2014. The names of all the books in that chunk, their sales ranks, their categories. Every pair of pants for kids, every sock. All the books about Hitler; all the books about snakes. All the different Lego sets. Whatever.
bad roomie (NSFW)
dinner DATE
(You didn't need that, and, trust me, you don't need more, but incase you want more, there's more.)
[more inside]
(You didn't need that, and, trust me, you don't need more, but incase you want more, there's more.)
[more inside]
Twenty years of Democracy Now! in review
Twenty years of Democracy Now! (alt link, transcript) Currently an hour-long television and web broadcast, the award-winning news program began on the radio on February 19th, 1996 on the eve of the New Hampshire presidential primary. Previously.
Alvin Buenaventura (1976-2016)
Alvin Buenaventura, comics publisher, editor, art dealer, and advocate, passed away Feb. 11, 2016 at the tragically young age of 39. [more inside]
The goal is one book a day.
"The Complete Review, “a selectively comprehensive, objectively opinionated survey of books old and new,” sits on the margins of the literary world, where it has flourished for sixteen years. As of last Friday, according to an analog counter on the site’s decidedly unglamorous homepage, it had reviewed three thousand six hundred and eighty-seven books, from a hundred different countries, originally published in sixty-eight different languages—an average of two hundred and thirty books a year. Virtually all of this criticism, and everything else on the Complete Review, is the work of Michael A. Orthofer, a fifty-one-year-old lawyer who was born in Graz, Austria, and brought up in New York City. " [more inside]
Stand up. Ms. Lee's passing.
THE HAIRY PANIC
The rural Australian city of Wangaratta is fighting a particularly heavy accumulation of fast-growing tumbleweed called "hairy panic." Residents have had to clear the several meter-high piles, which have reached roof levle, of hairy panic several times a day. A large vacuum could possibly combat the grass (Panicum effusum), which occurs throughout Australia and New Guinea and can grow up to 70 cm (2' 4") high.
Epic cat rescue tale
Epic journey of Kunkush - a refugee cat. A story which could have been raised in a lab to strike at the heart of all those on Metafilter who love cats and a good cry. (SLGuardian)
Officialish Video for Alicia Keys-No One
Sometimes you have to dance like no one is watching. To Alicia Keys. In the ice and snow. On a dock. You may fall, but you must get up again. (SLYT, awesome, made my day)
Also, It Rattles
In one case -- a girl fell in love with a donkey
Ophelia feels that Hamlet is acting strangely. So she hires Titus and Dronicus, private investigators, to find out what's going on. (A three episode web series on youtube.)
Side by Side by Sondheim and Reich
Reich and Sondheim: In Conversation and Performance (2:04:46). Composers Stephen Sondheim and Steve Reich in conversation on stage at the Lincoln Center in New York, interspersed with performances of their work. A summary from the Hollywood Reporter is here, including a list of all pieces played.
The Dumbest Boy Alive
In May 2008, on a Friday afternoon, on a bodybuilding forum, a debate started: If you're doing something "every other day", does that mean you do it 3.5 or 4 times in a week? How many days are even in a week anyway? 7? 8? 0?
Jon Bois details this discussion in the latest episode of Pretty Good.
Chandra Brambra, Chandra Chandra Bendram
Please enjoy this gloriously kitschy 2001 performance of a house-pop song entitled "7th Element," by Russian singer Vitas. (Vitas previously on MeFi, singing a um, pretty different repertoire.) [more inside]
Patti Smith’s Eternal Flame
“No matter what anybody thinks about any of them,” said Patti Smith, “every record I’ve done has been done with the same amount of care, anguish, pain, suffering, and joy. We never threw a record together. Each record was done really seriously, as if our life depended on it.”Alan Light interviews Patti Smith, discussing her life and work. [more inside]
Something New From This Old House
Starting on March 24, 2016, long-running historic house restoration public television show This Old House will begin a 10-episode arc with something completely new -- a brand new pre-constructed, energy-efficient house modeled after other Massachusetts North Shore houses from the late 1700s. A video preview of the project [2m5s]
The possessed has been delivered
Andrzej Zulawski, the legendary Polish cult director, has died at the age of 75 after a long battle with cancer. A non-conformist visionary of world cinema, his approach to storytelling is idiosyncratic and characterised by explosions of violence, sexuality, and despair. The actors in his movies have played out the most intensely high-pitched emotions in cinema history which inspired the French to coin the term 'Żuławskien', meaning 'over the top'. [more inside]
The Perfect Democratic Stump Speech (sl538)
We asked Democratic speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum to write a totally pandering stump speech for an imaginary Democratic presidential candidate — one who espouses only positions that a majority of Democrats agree with (we also did the same with Republicans). Here’s the speech he wrote, including notes to explain his phrasing, behind-the-scenes tips on appealing to Democratic voters and the data he used to decide which positions to take.
The Gilded Age, Henry George, the Land Value Tax and the Progressive Era
Kim-Mai Cutler: Nothing Like This Has Ever Happened Before - "San Francisco Bay Area poverty rates in all nine counties have increased in the last economic cycle, even with the Facebook and Twitter IPOs and private tech boom. The main transfer mechanism is land and housing costs, as rising rents and evictions push service and other low-wage workers to the brink. [Henry] George's solution was a single land tax that would replace all other government revenue sources. If an owner wanted to develop their property to make it more useful or productive, George argued that they should have the right to keep the value from those efforts. But increases in the value of underlying land were created by — and ultimately belonged to — the public at large." (previously: 1,2,3) [more inside]
February 18
Not 'remembered,' I don't care about being remembered.
We are the killers. We stink of death. We carry it with us. It sticks to us like frost. We cannot tear it away. [...]
The Aztecs in the shock of the conquest, of utter destruction, tried to regain their speech, and they tried to describe simple things. A cave. A cave is a place of darkness. It is full of fear. It is dark, yes, very dark. And fear looms there. And do we dare to enter? Because the cave is big and it is dark.A 70-minute conversation with Werner Herzog, loosely structured by one of his favorite books, J. A. Baker's The Peregrine. [more inside]
Women's healthcare affected by growing number of Catholic hospitals
The Guardian reports on an accusation by a former Muskegon County, Michigan health official claiming that a Catholic healthcare provider forced five women between August 2009 and December 2010 to undergo dangerous miscarriages by giving them no other option. Catholic hospitals must follow the Ethical Health Directives issued by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and with consolidation in health care providers, more and more Americans are affected. [more inside]
Picture a horizontal line of 4-inch stilettos, dangling at eye level
The women's empowerment conference industry (sl Bloomberg)
I don’t think I’ll forget iPhone Butt
What happens when you zoom in too much on Google Maps. Discoveries by digital artist Kyle F. Williams.
Swishy-chug
I think they will taste like yarn.
This Speech Was Written For President Nixon To Deliver If The Astronauts Didn’t Make It To The Moon. (slClickhole)
Depression lies because Depression is a dick.
Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself
A team of programmers has built a self-generating cosmos, and even they don’t know what’s hiding in its vast reaches. Through the use of procedural generation, No Man’s Sky ensures that each planet will be a surprise, even to the programmers. Every creature, AI-guided alien spacecraft, or landscape is a pseudo-random product of the computer program itself. The universe is essentially as unknown to the people who made it as it is to the people who play in it—and ultimately, it is destined to remain that way. As previously mentioned here.
Tread lightly
'Heavy Sea' by Pejac (slyt)
"So I had to use the moonlight alone."
The World Press Photo Foundation has announced the winners of its 59th annual photo contest. The Photo of the Year, by Warren Richardson, is Hope for a New Life, showing a refugee passing an infant through a barbed-wire fence at the border between Hungary and Serbia. Many of the photos show violence and its aftermath; all are powerful reminders of the world we share, in both beauty and terror. (via The Atlantic)
Nevada and South Carolina
Tonight, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton will face off in a town hall from Nevada that will also will stream live at MSNBC.com and NBCNews.com and the Spanish-language version on Telemundo.com, ahead of this weekend's Nevada caucus. Meanwhile, three GOP hopefuls, Donald Trump, John Kasich and Jeb Bush will be in Columbia, South Carolina to answer questions from voters ahead of the Feb. 20 Republican primary in the key Southern state. The event starts at 7 p.m. and will be moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper.
How Serious Computer Geeks Count On Their Fingers
How to count to 1000 on two hands Covers counting on your fingers in binary, a skill far more people should have. Be careful you don't offend anyone when you hit 4, 128 and especially 132. [more inside]
1 Galleon = $25. 1 Sickle = $1.50. 1 Knut = $0.05.
A Reddit thread recently broke down the exchange rate between Wizard and Muggle money, and in doing so shed some interesting light on the financial disparity between many of the characters in the Harry Potter universe. [more inside]
View from the left eye
This is why we can't have nice things
"After Taryn Wright exposed an elaborate fake tragedy on Facebook, she found herself leading a squad of online detectives – but on the internet, it doesn’t take long for a crowd to become a mob." (Guardian)
Little wink, little wink.
Who is Dan Quayle?
Here is an episode of Jeopardy!, airdate February 6, 1992. Commercials are included.
Loose Ends
An aspiring documentary filmmaker records the post-college struggles of her best friend...sorta. (SLYT)
Japan's Disposable Workers
Net cafe refugees | Dumping ground | Overworked to suicide. A three-part documentary based on Shiho Fukada's portrait series, Japan's Disposable Workers. Previously. [more inside]
"I got to be an investigative reporter totally by accident."
Christopher Robbins interviews Robert Caro for Gothamist.
"There is no qualification: it was a complete failure."
Longform sports news and commentary website SB Nation, one of the websites under the Vox Media banner, has developed a reputation as being a location for well written and thoughtful commentary on not just sports, but society as well. Which is why it was surprising when they wound up publishing a disastrous longform article about former cop and convicted rapist Daniel Holtzclaw that wound up being little more than a racially charged hagiography. [more inside]
Fishdog River Brewing Co.’s Ultimate I.P.A.
"When we started developing the recipe for the Ultimate I.P.A., back in 2004, we had one goal: to concoct an ale so utterly undrinkable that the craft-beer community would have no option but to shower it with praise." [SLNewYorker]
Can you fly this plane and land it? Surely you can't be serious?
You ask and (a person on) the internet provides: What should I do if the pilot passes out and I (with no flight training) have to land the plane? Watch this 10 minute video that walks you through the steps on a Boeing 737. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. [via Presurfer] [more inside]
We are committed to ethics, and absolutely un-committed to not-ethics.
Point & Clickbait is the internet’s finest source for reliable, ethical, and above all true gaming news.
Full of news (Developer Commits Vile Act Of Censorship By Altering Game Before Release), opinions (I Hope There Aren’t Any Straight Characters in Dragon Age: Inquisition), reviews (Ubisoft Game: The Review), and much more, it's the ONLY video game site you'll ever need to read again.
Full of news (Developer Commits Vile Act Of Censorship By Altering Game Before Release), opinions (I Hope There Aren’t Any Straight Characters in Dragon Age: Inquisition), reviews (Ubisoft Game: The Review), and much more, it's the ONLY video game site you'll ever need to read again.
“The chilly environment for women may not be going away any time soon."
The Peer Perception Gap. The Washington Post describes a study in PLOS One which had a goal of identifying peer gender bias in the biology classroom: Men over-ranked their peers by three-quarters of a GPA point [...] In other words, if Johnny and Susie both had A's, they’d receive equal applause from female students — but Susie would register as a B student in the eyes of her male peers, and Johnny would look like a rock star.
February 17
Menstrual Pain Is a Public Health Issue
Period pain can be “as bad as a heart attack.” So why aren’t we researching how to treat it? [Via.] [more inside]
I'm all about that golf cart, boss
ESPN's oral history of Marshawn Lynch's post-game celebratory trip in the injury cart after his Cal Bears knocked off the University of Washington Huskies in overtime. [more inside]
"I’ve eaten the same meal on a plate, it just wasn’t that good"
"Power Bowls" are the newest trend for hot skinny people (are there any other kinds of trends we care about?) [more inside]
You can jail revolutionaries but you can't jail a revolution
The first feature-length documentary to shed light on the Black Panther Party — and all its reviled, adored, misunderstood, and mythologized history. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is now streaming online. [more inside]
Who honeys the guides?
"When Hadza want to find honey, they shout and whistle a special tune. If a honeyguide is around, it’ll fly into the camp, chattering and fanning out its feathers. The Hadza, now on the hunt, chase it, grabbing their axes and torches and shouting “Wait!” They follow the honeyguide until it lands near its payload spot, pinpoint the correct tree, smoke out the bees, hack it open, and free the sweet combs from the nest. The honeyguide stays and watches. It’s one of those stories that sounds like a fable—until you get to the end, where the lesson normally goes. Then it becomes a bit more confusing."
Wood for Sheep
Castle Cheese has been found to be doctoring its “100 percent parmesan” with fillers that include wood pulp. Or…more wood pulp than is typically allowed by the USDA. Even more startling, some of the grated "parmesan" included no parmesan at all.
“The tipping point was grated cheese, where less than 40 percent of the product was actually a cheese product.”
Young Thug is an ATLien.
There’s nothing about Young Thug that’s not a paradox. He wears women’s Uggs but travels with AR-15’s everywhere he goes. He calls his friends, the same ones carrying the AR-15’s, “babe” and “lover” yet is from one of the toughest parts of Atlanta—the south side—where he is at once a hero and an outsider and a leader of the psychedelic fashion movement of rap hippies. Devin Friedman chases music’s most colorful enigma around the streets of Atlanta to answer one question: Exactly what planet is Young Thug from?
writes Laura Secord erotic fan-fiction
Do you long to be the next big thing in CanLit but suffer from writer's block? Or maybe your ideas are insufficiently Canadian. Never fear, the CanLit premise generator is here to help you, but only after multiple scenes of ice skating.
1.21 Gigawatts
The War On Cash
The End of €500 Bills. Larry Summers wants to get rid of the US $100 note. Is it fighting fraud, crime and money laundering or an actual War On Cash? Is it really a plan to simply drive up bank fees? What about the 9.6M US households that are unbanked? When even Monopoly goes all-electronic can anything be done to stop all-electronic banking?
People in prison drawing people who should be
For over a year, we asked people in prison to paint or draw people we felt should be in prison–the CEOs of companies destroying our environment, economy, and society.
Here are the results. Click on the images to see the crimes committed by both the companies and the artists.
WEATHER IS HAPPENING
W E A T H E R - I S - H A P P E N I N G | BOSTONS SOURCE 4 NO NONSENSE WEATHER NO GAMES PPL THIS IS IT THIS IS DEFINITELY IT | ABOWT. |
E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard
E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard (sl; nyt) Online shopping is even worse for the environment than traditional retailing, with environmental costs including additional cardboard and other packaging plus emissions from "increasingly personalized" freight services. "Consumers expect that even their modest wants should be satisfied like urgent needs [....]From a sustainability perspective, we’re heading in the wrong direction."
"Oh, you an expert?!"
Ever want to see what happens when a trash talking, nimble-fingered Washington Square Park chess hustler unknowingly takes on a chess Grandmaster? (via) This was posted to YT as a bonus clip from The Tim Ferriss Experiment TV show.
Tensions over private commuter shuttles in SF
The SFMTA is weighing an appeal that would dismantle the private commuter shuttle program, after the program was approved last November. Yesterday the board approved changes that would keep the program going for another year. [more inside]
U.S. Prison Racial Disparities Slightly Better Now
The good news is that the U.S. incarceration rate is dropping. The less-good news is that black men are now only almost six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men, down from more than seven-and-a-half times as likely in 2000; black women are now just twice as likely as white women to be behind bars, where they used to be six times as likely. [more inside]
Is a Surrogate a Mother?
Cats are cute but sometimes clumsy
Forget checking for hedgehogs on Bonfire Night - Nissan have put together an ad to remind you to knock on your car bonnet in the winter.
Rails past and present
Rail Map Online Maps showing all rail lines both past and present. Currently covered areas: UK & Ireland and Western USA.
useful?
The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens
"That feeling when you hit a million followers, make more money than your mom, push a diet pill scheme, lose your blog, and turn 16."
Luck
David Milch, creator of NYPD Blue and Deadwood, has burned through some $100 million in lifetime earnings, and is $17 million in debt to the IRS, due at least in part to massive gambling losses.
Classic Books, and thier punctuaion heat-maps
Can you recognise a well known text via only it's punctuation? "I wondered what did my favorite books look like without words. Can you tell them apart or are they all a-mush? In fact, they can be quite distinct." [more inside]
They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone
Investigations into the San Bernardino attack by the FBI have been potentially impeded by information locked in an iPhone 5c found on one of the perpetrators. A federal court judge has ordered Apple to assist the FBI in defeating any and all security measures built into the device. In a turn similar to Ladar Levison's letter to Lavabit users (previously), Apple has written a letter to end users about the civil rights at stake.
February 16
“First up: two hundred and four hours of chanting.”
Ever since August of 2013, first Laurent Fintoni (“And This One Time…”) and then Miles Bowe (“Pay What You Want”) have traveled to the farthest reaches of Bandcamp to find its best content (at least, by the slightly outré lights of FACT Magazine). While twenty-six of the releases have disappeared, more than one hundred remain. They are linked within, for your sampling pleasure. (Not included: “It made quite a splish” by The Fish Was Delish) [more inside]
Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy
Why Hamilton—Not Jefferson—Is the Father of the American Economy - "How we can better energize America's economy, create more jobs, and provide more fulfilling lives for our citizens?" By Stephen Cohen and Brad DeLong (previously; [unfinished] book preview) [more inside]
Affinity fraud
Why were most of Bernie Madoff's victims Jewish? For instance, he "wiped out Elie Wiesel’s life savings, and stole $15 million from Wiesel’s foundation." Answer: Affinity fraud. "My own incidental exposure would be comical if the stakes weren’t so serious. I happen to live in a majority African American neighborhood in south Chicagoland. . . ."
♫Come and face the music, the music, hallelujah, hallelujah♫
The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuses would very much like to speak to Catholic Archbishop George Pell about child abuse by the Ballarat Catholic Clergy and claims that Pell tried to bribe an abuse victim to keep quiet. Formerly the highest ranked Australian clergyman and now posted to the Vatican, Pell has declined to attend the Commission to give evidence, claiming that he's too unwell to fly. Amidst anger from survivors at Pell's continued delays and pro bono offers from doctors to transport Pell safely, musical comedian and Matilda composer Tim Minchin wades into the mix with an empassioned plea: COME HOME (CARDINAL PELL) [more inside]
Architectures
Architectures is a youtube playlist of 53 short (1/2 hour) architectural videos of buildings around the world, mainly Europe.
The Patronage and Cronyism of the "Hillary Clinton Victory Fund"
Blogger suggests that a win For Hillary Clinton's methods on the way to the White House is a loss for participatory democracy. Alongside the quiet rollback of Obama's ban on contributions from federal lobbyists within the DNC comes what appears to be a novel tactic to maintain control of the nomination process by the Democratic establishment or HRC: the formation of fundraising agreements between HRC and state Democratic parties. The implications for participatory democracy do not seem good given that state parties with their success financially tied to HRC's success must oversee very narrow caucuses and primaries.
I'm just charging $10 because I need to buy paint
"It's a tremendous strain on the animators' wrists."
The Simpsons to air live episode (well, kinda sorta...)
"The final three minutes of the May 15 show will use motion capture technology to animate actor Dan Castellaneta — the voice of Homer whom Jean called 'a great improviser' — in real-time." [more inside]
"The final three minutes of the May 15 show will use motion capture technology to animate actor Dan Castellaneta — the voice of Homer whom Jean called 'a great improviser' — in real-time." [more inside]
Indignant Comments Below
"Last season, this thing was not a thing,” says trend spotter, a freelance expert." 'Trend Piece' by Rosemary Counter.
The More things Change, The More They Stay the Same
Ramon Casiano is a name you won't likely recognize. At a show this weekend, the Drive-by Truckers debuted a song called, Ramon Casiano, which you can listen to here. (it's track 18. I couldn't find a way to link directly to it. It tells the largely forgotten story of Ramon's murder in Texas in 1931 by Harlon B. Carter, who went on to become head of the NRA, and is largely responsible for changing the organization from one that promoted hunting and sportsmanship to one that focuses on combating anything that smacks of "gun control."
Preparing For Your Appointment at the Podiatrist.
Preparing For Your Appointment at the Podiatrist Identify the problem. Recall your shaky theories about the dark spot on your left big toenail that first appeared you-can’t-remember-when: it’s mud, it’s a smear of brown hair dye, it’s a bruise from a 25-pound bag of trash you dropped on your foot while clearing out your childhood home to put it up for sale.
Vegan Butcher Shops: A global trend finally hitting the U.S.
At The Herbivorous Butcher, vegan meats are escaping the uncanny valley of meatless meat flavors. Although not the first vegetarian butcher shop in the world, they appear to be the first in the U.S., part of a global trend. Their grand opening was January 23rd.
Became a recluse and bought a computer. Set it up in the home
"Whatever you think, y’know, 45 percent – nearly half the country – is not interested in computers, doesn’t fucking want access to them, can’t afford them. That’s British. Why does everyone have to be online? That’s not English to me."
An interview with Mark E. Smith of The Fall from Channel 4 News last night. NME coverage.
GOLDEN GLOBE COMBO!
“It rubs the lotion on its skin.”
'Silence of the Lambs' at 25: The Complete Buffalo Bill Story by Kory Grow [Rolling Stone] [more inside]
Little Atoms: A lot of time
Little Atoms is a London based website, podcast and magazine dedicated to ideas and culture with an emphasis on ideas of the Enlightenment. A radio show, that became a podcast, that has made the counter-zeitgeist move of recently creating an actual print edition. A ridiculous amount of brain food that will waste/enhance many a mefi’s (wo)man hours.
Highlights (for me so far)
Podcast: Peter Pomerantsev on Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible.
Article: Blue Monday’s not real, but the happiness industry can still get you down.
Random: David Bowie translated into Old English. [more inside]
Where are the minority professors?
From The Chronicle of Higher Education: An interactive look at the demographics of more than 400,000 professors at 1,500 colleges, showing where those of each rank, gender, race/ethnicity, and tenure status can be found. [more inside]
the first, most vital task of every radical revolutionary
Millennial Revolt with Marshall Harford III: How I Use Radical Self-Love to Express My Hatred of Capitalism [more inside]
Highway to the Vapor Cone
Ensign John Gay of the U.S. Navy had just returned home from several months aboard the U.S.S. Constellation in the South Pacific when his phone rang. A reporter for a photography magazine was on the line, hoping to discuss the 2000 World Press Photo Awards. Gay was perplexed: “Who are you and what do you want?” he said. The reporter explained that Gay’s photo had taken first prize in the Science and Technology category, which was news to Gay: he didn’t even know he’d entered the prestigious contest.
Love, Naturally*
Why Do Black Women In Movies Have To Choose Between A Weave And A Relationship? "Pop culture fronts like black women can’t love both a partner and our hair extensions, but it’s really not that deep." Hannah Giorgis writes for Buzzfeed about the strange movie trope of black women taking out weaves when falling in love
.
The NSA’s SKYNET program may be killing thousands of innocent people "In 2014, the former director of both the CIA and NSA proclaimed that "we kill people based on metadata." Now, a new examination of previously published Snowden documents suggests that many of those people may have been innocent."
Espionage Techniques of Seventeenth-Century Women
While Dr. Nadine Akkerman of Leiden University was examining letters sent by Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (Google books preview) during her exile in the Hague, she discovered that some were filled with secret codes.... Akkerman was intrigued as to why the queen would require such covert correspondence. This was her first encounter with the 17th-century female spy.Within England, Dr. Akkerman uncovered a network of more than sixty female spies. [more inside]
hooooooooooooooo...
"On February 26th I lost my life, too."
"Minutes after Kendrick Lamar scored his fifth Grammy of the night for Best Rap Album, he won the stage. Performing a medley that included "Alright" and "The Blacker the Berry," he approached the microphone chained to other black men in a makeshift prison block. What followed was a Biggie-invoking, glow-in-the-dark, Fela!-inspired event fit for Broadway."
"Men are the new carpetbaggers..."
The Testosterone Takeover of Southern Food Writing In which Kathleen Purvis asks why male voices have come to dominate big-market Southern food writing and pokes at the genre's resulting obsessions with "bourbon, barbecue and pork belly." From The Bitter Southerner.
Brush your teeth, do your homework, and speak Finnish.
Learn everything you need to know about Finnish—the secret language of Finland—with Kirikou. Jump wantonly, and learn the magic of verbal derivational suffixes. Kiitos! Anteeksi.
Hazard cone? Where?
To start your Tuesday morning: Pets that are stuck but pretending everything is fine.
February 15
Bummm Dam Bum. Bummm Da-Bum. Bummm Dam Bum. Bummmmmm Dam-bum.
William Carrà is a somewhat mysterious affiliate of Nicolas Jaar’s Other People record label who makes DJ mixes of eclectic sounds suited for late night. Some things they incorporate: a cappella covers of the theme from The Social Network, piano etudes, sad orchestral music, cool jazz, opera, and wandering instrumental rock. Here are three of them: Elegy, The Heart Has Its Reasons Which Reason Knows Nothing Of, Contemplative Prayer
ATOMIC BOMBS
That time Solzhenitsyn made a presentation to Timofeyev-Ressovsky on American atomic weapons, in the gulag. [more inside]
“Would we even be here if Julian Acox was white?”
In a 7-Eleven in Reno on Feb. 2, 2013, around 2:30 am, Julian Acox had a confrontation with the members of a motorcycle club. A few minutes later, as Acox was fleeing in his car, he fired his gun, killing one of the club members, Merlin Herrald.
Self-defense, or first-degree murder? A stand your ground state, and a black defendant. Race, self-defense and making of a murder charge
Self-defense, or first-degree murder? A stand your ground state, and a black defendant. Race, self-defense and making of a murder charge
Reylo — My Heart Will Go On
At least we spelled your name right!
The New Yorker unfurls a longform expose on Harvey Levin's gossip empire, TMZ, in The Digital Dirt - How TMZ gets the videos and photos that celebrities want to hide.
MILK PLEASE
Hoaxmap.org: Tracking unsubstantiated rumours about refugees
'Hoaxmap' busts rumors about refugees in Germany Reacting to viral rumours and accusations made against migrants arriving and living in Germany, Karolin Schwarz and Lutz Helm from Leipzig have launched hoaxmap.org, which researches and refutes claims made in German social media by contacting local police and newspapers.
The McGurk Effect
"The two women were alone in the London flat."
The Golden Notebook Project: the complete text of Doris Lessing's novel, with copious annotations and responses from seven women readers.
Trees: 10, Concrete: 0
The term APHERCOTROPISM refers to the response an organism makes as it grows to overcome an obstacle in its way.Or, how to convince tree roots to make 90 degree turns.
Six Extinctions in Six Minutes
Six scientists at the American Museum of Natural History explain what we know, and what’s still mysterious, about the disappearance of six different species/genera. [more inside]
Match: Drawn
The 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik occasioned a fantastic series of caricatures, by Icelandic artist Halldór Pétursson, of Fischer and Spassky. The unwatermarked versions at the bottom of the page are the result of some simple but clever image processing.
The Present
The Present is a short animation by Jacob Frey, about a boy who would rather spend his time playing video games instead of discovering what's outside. One day his mom brings him a little surprise which makes it hard for him to concentrate on his games.
How are you gentlemen !!
Fifteen years ago today, Bad-CRC made a flash video from a techno song and a bunch of forum shops, and posted it to the Internet (youtube copy). [Warning: blinky lights.] The rest is history.
Deadpool! (S)he's a Mean Motherfucker!
Not so sure about the soundtrack, frankly
Charles Darwin’s List of the Pros and Cons of Marriage
Hammer In Her Hand
Beverly “Guitar” Watkins is seventy-six years old. She is wearing house slippers, a hair net, and an Atlanta Hawks t-shirt on backwards. She is probably the greatest living blues guitarist that no one has ever heard of. [more inside]
On the straightness of cucumbers...
The History of the Cucumber. Or how to ferment a cucumber, badly.
You savor the repetitive, deliciously mundane rhythms of survival
What Romance Really Means After 10 Years of Marriage "You are both screwed, everything will be exactly this unexciting until one of you dies, and it's the absolute greatest anyway."
Long Lunch
This is the last time I leave the house until I finish the novel.
Eventually, I wind up in the master bedroom, looking at a poster against the wall that has a hand-drawn map of Area X on it, just like I thought the former director would have left behind. It’s a poster I drew myself, of course. But I stare at it for a while, and a genuine feeling of dread and fear travels up my spine. I’m seeing the room through Control’s eyes—he’s looking at a map created by some unknown source, wondering what the hell it’s doing in the former director’s bedroom.
Getting an entire trilogy published in less than a year is bad for your (mental) health, as Jeff Vandermeer found out writing the Southern Reach trilogy.
Getting an entire trilogy published in less than a year is bad for your (mental) health, as Jeff Vandermeer found out writing the Southern Reach trilogy.
It's time to liberate you from the shackles of freedom and democracy
The Jihadis Next Door follows a small cadre of British born extremists, including a bouncy castle salesman turned alleged Daesh executioner and a part time bus driver who moonlights as an online theological superstar. Documentary maker Jamie Roberts, who spent two years filming the cell, was ambivalent about giving fundamentalists a platform, but as the film makes clear, this is not what mainstream Muslim Britain wants. [more inside]
“Walking for five minutes feels like running a marathon.”
That’s how Sarah Norfolk describes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Seventeen other sufferers also offer their impressions of this debilitating condition. [more inside]
Eve's Glory
A hundred years after the First World War, modern women demonstrate military prestige by donning vintage uniforms historically exclusive to men. Highlighting uniforms from the Second Industrial Revolution until the end of the Weimar Republic, Eve's Glory compares the ceremonial attitudes historically associated with the military to the proud independence of modern women. [more inside]
A video that transcends any language barrier
"WHAT IF, SET FIRE TO 10 000 SPARKLERS!" (3:04 SLYT)
February 14
Our Nimble Lass
Back in March, a few of us here at the magazine got e-mails from friends who had seen an intriguing item listed on eBay. “1930s stripper/dancer scrapbook—Cincinnati,” the posting announced, “Jean Harlow’s double.” So we bought it. But who was she? [more inside]
Who gets scarce drugs?
While Martin Shkreli's decision to raise the price of a cancer drug by a factor of more than 50 has attracted some bad press, another problem plagues patients: drug shortages are forcing doctors to ration access. [more inside]
The Tiniest Gallery
The Tiniest Gallery "I like art, so I built a single-serving art gallery that features local artists and hung it on the fence outside my house. "
[via mefi projects]
a big heads up
Making sense of the Oregon standoff
A Montana based, politically conservative journalist went to Oregon looking for kindred spirits. He didn't find them. He does, however, connect some dots between economic despair, the Arizona Strip and the Taylor Grazing Act, the Mormon Church, the Koch family, CS Lewis, the US Constitution, and the likely undiagnosed mental illness that led some of the occupiers to risk their lives in defense of principles they simply have no basic understanding of.
It’s just not worth it.
You see them everywhere—exhausted young women pouring all their spare energy into organising, encouraging and taking care of young men who resent them for doing it but resent them even harder when they don’t. You see them cringing for every crumb of affection before someone cracks and it all goes wrong and the grim cycle starts again. You can fritter away the whole of your youth that way. I know women who have. - Laurie Penny, Maybe you should just be single [SL NewStatesman]
The Taste of Honey
Honey An organization dedicated to stopping the silence on the subject of sexual assault. Survivors share their truths, find support, and bring awareness to their community.
"I thought of myself as an accomplished woman of lively contradictions,
My Last JDate - "At 54, after 30 years of marriage and two of loneliness, I went on JDate to find a man and found Dean." [more inside]
Brazil's Dysfunctional Prison System and more
Two articles by Carla Ruas a Freelance writer and photographer based in Brazil.
Running the joint: - This is the story of Presídio Central, a correctional facility in Brazil that has become a headquarters for the organized crime. And it all began when a cab crashed into the lobby of the fanciest hotel in town. [more inside]
Running the joint: - This is the story of Presídio Central, a correctional facility in Brazil that has become a headquarters for the organized crime. And it all began when a cab crashed into the lobby of the fanciest hotel in town. [more inside]
"Death, The Prosperity Gospel, and Me"
An essay [NYT] by Kate Bowler, author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, following her diagnosis with stage 4 cancer.
The prosperity gospel has taken a religion based on the contemplation of a dying man and stripped it of its call to surrender all. Perhaps worse, it has replaced Christian faith with the most painful forms of certainty. [more inside]
"there are ten enthusiastic seconds in 6 weeks"
Valentine, be the unforgiving tundra to my deranged penguin.
Life is too damn short for phone calls
All You Need is Chocolate, Butter and Eggs
I’m going to call my sister & order sushi. You should do something, too.
It must be nice to have Washington's hairdresser at your side
National Geographic's Robert Krulwich discusses George Washington’s Oh-So-Mysterious Hair (which was red, and not a wig!). Includes a set of delightfully-illustrated instructions for replicating Washington's signature look, just in case you want to look like a dollar bill.
Chubiiline
5th-grader Nigerian-American Ify Ufele channeled the bullying she got for her size towards designing and making Chubiiline, a line of plus-size fashion with African influences.
Midnight Radio
Pray and Obey
[Warning: not a pleasant read]
A Polygamist Cult's Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of Warren Jeffs
Previously, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Equality by Edward Bellamy
Equality [internet archive] was first published in 1897: "The story takes up immediately after the events of Looking Backward with the main characters from the first novel, Julian West, Doctor Leete, and his daughter Edith. West tells his nightmare of return to the 19th century to Edith, who is sympathetic. West's citizenship in the new America is recognized, and he goes to the bank to obtain his own account, or 'credit card', from which he can draw his equal share of the national product... " (previously 1,2) [more inside]
One big hand, two little hands.
February 13
Claim what's yours
MissingMoney.com is a database of governmental unclaimed property records. Exactly what it says it is. Click here for a list of participating states and provinces and links to individual states and provinces, along with contact information for the agencies for each respective jurisdiction. [more inside]
"This is the sound of China’s young and restless."
A mixtape featuring 20 young independent bands from China, curated by Wooozy, one of the country's leading indie music blogs. "From sunny Guangzhou and cyberpunk Chongqing to the frigid northeast grasslands beyond Beijing. From shoegaze to riot-weird." It can also be downloaded in full here.
Another one from the NOPE file
The Whip Spider: A spider with hands/claws. Let the nightmares begin!
Reality is what it used to be
The Brain: What is Reality To conjure a reality from all [that] sensory information your brain needs about half a second. [more inside]
Peyton Manning’s squeaky-clean image was built on lies
"Peyton, you messed up. I still don't know why you dropped your drawers. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe not. But it was definitely inappropriate. Please take some personal responsibility here and own up to what you did. I never understood why you didn't admit to it...."Peyton Manning’s squeaky-clean image was built on lies, as detailed in explosive court documents showing ugly smear campaign against his alleged sex assault victim by Shaun King
Antonin Scalia (March 11, 1936 - February 13, 2016)
Louisiana's budget irresponsiblility so bad, it threatens football team
The state of Louisiana is facing a massive budget shortfall. Former governor Bobby Jindal positioned himself for a presidential run by slashing taxes and cutting spending, pinning his fiscal policy on the hopes that oil revenues from the Gulf of Mexico would continue to grow. Those revenues have failed to materialize, leaving the state with a deficit. Since higher education funding is one of the largest components of the state’s discretionary spending, it was one of the hardest areas hit. Louisiana has made deeper cuts to education than any other state, and colleges in Louisiana are receiving 55% less state funding than they did before the recession. The state now finds itself with a gap of $850 million for this year, and more than $2 billion next year. The result has been steeply rising tuition and decreased enrollment. It’s about to get much, much worse. [more inside]
Wisconsin teledildonics
"We grew up pretty conservative," she recalls. "My parents kept us away from everything. Now everything we do is a sin." Meet Chris Johns and Tabitha Rae, the God-fearing Wisconsin couple who, if web glitches, fiercely defended patents, and a shortage of Novint Falcons don't stop them, are going to build the future of remote fucking right here in the Upper Midwest.
Another Vietnam
"We're gonna arm this thing and go hunting"
How Rogue Techies Armed The Predator, Almost Stopped 9/11, And Invented Remote Warfare [more inside]
The Elwha River Comes Roaring Back
Eighteen months after removal of the last chunks of two dams on Washington State's Elwha River, an event marked on Metafilter by this brilliant post by edeezy, the Seattle Times documents the remarkably fast recovery of the Elwha ecosystem, from headwaters to saltwater. Complete Seattle Times' Elwha coverage
Just in time for Valentine's Day, a reminder that ...
Federal Prisoners of New York
In case you missed it, Humans of New York (previously) has recently been doing a series specifically on federal prisoners in the northeastern United States. The project is ongoing, but you can read the stories compiled so far, and general reactions to the stories, on the facebook page or instagram.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple
Zika is not the new Ebola But what is the truth about Zika and microcephaly?
Argentine and Brazilian doctors suspect mosquito insecticide as cause of microcephaly
Meanwhile Brazil’s health minister insisted on Friday that authorities were “absolutely sure” Zika was connected to microcephaly, though it has yet to be scientifically proven.
A review of four years’ worth of medical records finds far greater numbers of microcephaly cases from before the ongoing Zika virus epidemic than had been officially reported.
(Related)
Argentine and Brazilian doctors suspect mosquito insecticide as cause of microcephaly
Meanwhile Brazil’s health minister insisted on Friday that authorities were “absolutely sure” Zika was connected to microcephaly, though it has yet to be scientifically proven.
A review of four years’ worth of medical records finds far greater numbers of microcephaly cases from before the ongoing Zika virus epidemic than had been officially reported.
(Related)
“Let's get started before my headache gets any worse.”
Trek at 50: The quest for a unifying theory of time travel in Star Trek by Xaq Rzetelny [Ars Technica] [more inside]
By itself, a comma is a portrait of a guitar. This is entirely correct.
Strunk & White's Elements of Style, rewritten by a predictive text generator by Jamie Brew. Follow along at @elementstrunk. [more inside]
“Whenever I smell asphalt, I think of Maureen.”
February 12
Apprentice & Mentor: A First Deer Season
I’ve watched my dad gut a lot of deer, but this time it was different. It’s different when it’s your own deer. Everything was really interesting, how all the organs fit together and how they all come apart. How much blood is inside a deer…--11 year-old Iris, reflecting on her first deer hunting season. [more inside]
Github Gender Gap
Researchers find software repository GitHub approved code written by women at a higher rate than code written by men, but only if the gender was not disclosed. (slGrauniad) [more inside]
HERCULES MULLIGAN! A TAILOR SPYING ON THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
Finally, the article on your favorite spy who sews that you always wanted. Also, he saved George Washington twice and Washington stopped in the middle of a parade to have breakfast with him. [more inside]
How Inequality Works When You're Not Famous
Squashed Roach
Why is it so hard to squash a cockroach? "Insects, whether they creep or fly, live in a world of hard knocks. Who has not stepped on a cockroach, then raised her shoe to watch the creature get up and scoot under a door? Bees and wasps, for their part, face a never-ending obstacle course of leaves, stems, and petals—bumblebees crash their wings into obstacles as often as once a second. Now, researchers are learning how these creatures bend but don’t break."
Danglerack Cuckooclock
FIRST, there was the Benedict Cumberbatch Name Generator.
NOW? If you have Python installed, there is module cumberbatch.
NOW? If you have Python installed, there is module cumberbatch.
> pip install cumberbatch [...] >>> cumberbatch.full() 'Fragglerock Cabbagepatch' >>> cumberbatch.full() 'Bendandsnap Covergirl' >>> cumberbatch.full() 'Bakery Capncrunch'[more inside]
Leicester City Longshot
Premier League leader Leicester City entered the season as a 5,000-1 underdog -- the same chance as a bet on Elvis being alive -- which is why the English soccer team could become the undisputed champion of beating the odds. [more inside]
Snack Check
2 friend requests pending from the BFG and the Lorax.
In the deep stillness of a forest in winter, the sound of footsteps on a carpet of leaves died away. Peter Wohlleben had found what he was looking for: a pair of towering beeches. “These trees are friends,” he said, craning his neck to look at the leafless crowns, black against a gray sky. “You see how the thick branches point away from each other? That’s so they don’t block their buddy’s light."
How to destroy an iPhone
Your Friday touch of Zen
With the highly-anticipated release of two King Hu masterpieces on home video by the Masters of Cinema organization, as well as the critical success of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin last year, it seems like the wuxia film is making some inroads into the Western critical consciousness. So I thought I’d put together a guide to some of the essential films of the genre. - 30 Essential Wuxia Films
AIM love, IRL
"I changed the quotes in my AOL Instant Messenger profile almost daily, and fretted over the right combinations of font and color to make my IM voice look as bright and edgy as I wanted to be in real life. I started conversations with acquaintances who made me feel shy in person. I imagined I had inner beauty and wit, and that in chatrooms and AIM was where I could shine until that outer beauty showed up. And slowly, the IRL me started to become more like the me I allowed myself to be online... Matt and I built our relationship over AIM. We used AIM because it was our most practical option; like many teenagers in the year 2001, we didn't have cell phones. We did have computers in our respective bedrooms, though, and parents who weren't expecting phone calls after dinner hours."
Cute and cuddly dolphins are secretly murderers
They do not just behave like Flipper Dolphins are clever and sociable, but they also have a dark side that will make your hair stand on end
The opposite of rape culture is nurturance culture
"Violence and nurturance are two sides of the same coin. I struggle to understand this even as I write it."
From Nora Samaran, author of Dating Tips for the Feminist Man (previously).
Algorithmic Education vs Indie EdTech
An algorithmic education, despite all the promises made by ed-tech entrepreneurs for “revolution” and “disruption,” is likely to re-inscribe the power relations that are already in place in school and in society.
Whether it's annotating the scholarly web, creating connected copies through wikity or domain of one's own, alternatives to algorithmic education are offered by the indie edtech movement.
Heliciculture
Why I had to become a snail farmer According to a site dedicated to looking at France through data, Snails production in France is limited to 191 farms. Don't miss all the gory details of snail farming. [more inside]
A doctor shares his terrifying experience with undiagnosed Lyme disease
How Ronald Reagan paved the way for Star Wars selling everything to kids
If asked to think of the lasting legacies of Ronald Reagan, you might conjure up the long shadow of US military intervention in Central America or the coordinated attack on organized labor and public-sector programs. Probably few of us would think about the spectacle of Shrek hawking Twinkies. But one lasting consequence of Reagan’s reign is felt by every parent in the country every day: As president, Reagan opened the floodgates to targeted junk food marketing to children and teens.What Ronald Reagan has to do with Dora on your Popsicle package: the backstory behind Shrek hawking Twinkies (and everything else) [more inside]
Musical Tidbits
Rick Rubin: My Life in 21 Songs
Michael Jackson's Pet Chimp Bubbles Is Retired in Florida
The 4.5-foot-tall, 185-pound chimpanzee is built like a high school wrestling coach with a gray beard and a small bald spot just above his brow. Keepers have called him ugly, but he doesn't care. He's come a long way since hanging on Michael Jackson's hip. Bubbles' moonwalking days are over. [more inside]
Radio 2.0?
Anchor , which seems to be to audio what Twitter is to writing or Instagram to photography, launched a few days ago as a new "truly public" radio where everyone can contribute and comment. [more inside]
"Launch Day Urine Bags" - Locker R5
During the course of a project to produce a detailed 3D model of the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, we were able to observe and record some hand-written notes and markings in areas of the spacecraft that have been hidden from view for more than 40 years.[more inside]
Wooooooooooo! Woo wooooo!
PUP - DVP (Official Video) (SLVimeo)
"The earth just had a terrible day in court"
For the moment, the fate of the Clean Power Plan — and the question of just how capable the United States is of self-governance — remains uncertain. The Supreme Court ordered the Plan to be temporarily halted, most likely until the Court hands down an opinion on the legality of the Plan in June of 2017. If the Plan survives the next presidential election, and if it is ultimately upheld by the Court, then Tuesday’s order will only succeed in delaying the new rules. If the Court ultimately strikes down the Plan, however, the United States could be left impotent in the face of a looming catastrophe — and not just with respect to this particular catastrophe. The states challenging the Clean Power Plan call for sweeping changes to the balance of power between the regulator and the regulated. Indeed, if some of their most aggressive arguments succeed, it’s unclear that the federal government is permitted to do much of anything at all.-Ian Millhiser for ThinkProgress, "Inside The Most Important Supreme Court Case In Human History"
the reaction to 'chaos cinema'
How Video Games Are Changing The Action Movie - "It’s evidence in the case that videogames have started showing a strong influence on cinematography beyond goofier incarnations such as CGI, tie-ins, or critically derided adaptations. Instead, the movies leading this charge across mediums are rooted in physicality and often adored by cineastes."
"Wearing it now is kind of my comeback."
Save the fucking Curzon
"Pretty please, with a cherry on top." The Curzon is one of the best cinemas in London, but it's under threat from plans to redevelop its Soho home. In its bid to survive, the cinema has produced this original, inventive (and very sweary) video (SLYT).
Soon joining the Great Cloud in the Sky
SoundCloud has lost more than $70 million over the last two years . Recently released financial statements paint a grim future for the streaming service, as despite an increase in investment they still struggle to capitalize on a userbase close to 200 million. FACT presents five reasons why.
Diving Below the Ice
“You’re confusing everybody.”
The New York Times has obtained and published a video of a first grade teacher at the Success Academy, a charter school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, berating and ripping up the paper of a six year old after the child could not explain to the class how she solved a math problem. [more inside]
Death Cab For Yeezy
Death Cab For Yeezy (SLSoundcloud. Does what it says on the tin)
"Everyone has a story. Like mine, it's rarely visible from the outside."
In the short hush right after, I think about something Chris said: "It is such an emotional journey to train for your first fight, even if you are a totally stereotypical dude." I am surprised to find myself so overwhelmed with gratitude that I tear up... And then they call my name.
"Why Men Fight" — a beautiful longform story about manhood, trauma and amateur boxing, by Thomas Page McBee.
"Why Men Fight" — a beautiful longform story about manhood, trauma and amateur boxing, by Thomas Page McBee.
FPS
Hardcore Henry trailer (NSFW)
February 11
sqweee-wahhhh
Seattle's Experiment with Campaign Finance Reform
Starting in 2017, city residents will be able to contribute to local candidates without spending a dime of their own money. Instead, the government will send each registered voter four $25 vouchers that they can give to candidates of their choice. No cutting a check. No minimum contribution. Candidates can opt out, but those who participate will have to abide by strict limits on spending and on receiving private donations. [more inside]
Viking Funeral counts for two pumps
Hingle McCringleberry and Kimble Mathias of the Portland Tigers are known for their unique endzone dances, often taking them too far.
Inside the Eye
Inside the Eye: Nature’s Most Exquisite Creation "If you ask people what animal eyes are used for, they’ll say: same thing as human eyes. But that’s not true. It’s not true at all" [more inside]
"Why doesn't she just leave him?"
More women are killed by intimate partners in the United States than by any other group of people. It's not strangers, friends or acquaintances who pose the biggest threat to women's lives: It's the men they date and marry.
"I didn't expect it to be very driver friendly,"
Behold, the World's Fastest Log Car [Road and Track]
"THE FIRST TIME YOU SEE IT, your brain almost short circuits—nope, uh-uh, that's not real. But it is, and it is exactly what it looks like: a tree car. More specifically, it is a car made out of a western red cedar log with a concave mouth for a "grille", a wooden roll bar and wooden fenders, and a pair of turbines protruding from its rear. The thing looks ludicrous, like something a crazed Woody the Woodpecker would drive, or maybe a George Barris creation if he had ever gotten lost in the Pacific Northwest with an axe and a flask of whiskey. It gets better: The log car is rear-wheel drive, uses the mechanicals from a Mazda RX-7, and is powered by eight lithium-ion batteries. More than 500 pounds of them. Why? Why would someone do this, you might ask. And who? Who in the world would devote time to such a project? Also, what? What were they smoking? Must've been some potent stuff."
Thinking Outside the Bike Box
Robert Egger of Specialized Bicycles thinks UCI racing regulations are stifling bike design: His latest prototype, the fUCI, is both a protest and a design experiment. This ultimate go-fast bike features an in-frame motor (previously), aerodynamic windshield, integrated trunk, oversized wheel, and smartphone dock. [more inside]
Majmuna's Tombstone
"Oh he who looks upon this tomb! I am already consumed inside it, and dust has settled on my eyes. On my couch in my abode there is nothing but tears, and what is to happen at my resurrection when I shall appear before my Creator?" [more inside]
Cooler than me?
By Donnie Wahlberg
The Story Behind New Kids on the Block’s Insane (and Preempted) 1991 Halftime Show (SL Playboy) NSFW
Steven talks black holes
The Demon In The Dark
Taking race out of human genetics
In the wake of the sequencing of the human genome in the early 2000s, genome pioneers and social scientists alike called for an end to the use of race as a variable in genetic research. Unfortunately, by some measures, the use of race as a biological category has increased in the postgenomic age. Although inconsistent definition and use has been a chief problem with the race concept, it has historically been used as a taxonomic categorization based on common hereditary traits (such as skin color) to elucidate the relationship between our ancestry and our genes. We believe the use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research—so disputed and so mired in confusion—is problematic at best and harmful at worst. It is time for biologists to find a better way. - An editorial in Science exploring the conundrum facing genomic researchers where race is both fundamentally flawed as a scientific model and violently dangerous but still the only consistent lens through which study participants understand the information they have about their own connection to human diversity [more inside]
To Anyone Who Thinks They're Falling Behind
Mutant Rock!
If you like relatively obscure teenage superheroes and Joan Jett-style rocking out, block out six minutes to watch this fan film of Marvel's New Mutants at a Lila Cheney concert, by Greasy Pig Studios. [more inside]
The Careful Design of Cave Story
Still not having enlightened you to the extent of your plight, Cave Story teases bits and pieces of its plot to remind you that you're not just a player jumping and shooting enemies. You're a character, venturing forth in an unknown world for unknown reasons, and it's up to you to unravel the story. Cave Story recognizes the importance of narrative, and utilizes this storytelling experience to enhance the game's design while simultaneously guiding you through the mysterious island and its inhabitants.
Atticus Finch is wired in
Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of the 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird is coming to Broadway. Producer Scott Rudin told the New York Times that while no casting decisions have been made, “The Atticus we do is going to be the Atticus in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" [more inside]
"No wonder that bloke's hiding out on the moon."
Charlie Brooker versus 2015 The creator of Black Mirror and some friends look back at 2015.
(SLY)
"Happy Valentine's Day!" the woman threatened.
"[E]ver since noticing a beautifully wrinkled and mysteriously sensual older French woman at a friend’s party, and, having inquired if she was the wife of the frizzy-haired, balding older man with the huge, horn-rimmed glasses next to her, and being informed that, “Nooo, she’s his mistress. They’ve been lovers for many years,” I’d decided that loverhood was what I aspired to." "The Magic Trick," by Carolita Johnson. (SLTheHairpin) [more inside]
“A Sort of Anti-Extremist Flappy Bird”
‘I am a radicalised goat hell-bent on jihad’ – the FBI’s new anti-Isis video game:
“As the title suggests, there are more metaphors to unmangle here: a wooden mannequin bound by strings, for example, which you can free by visiting all the site’s sections. These are rendered as rooms of a confusing family home, which appears to contain a dingy, windowless lecture room and a serial-killer basement.” (SLGuardian)
Naturally, there is a right way and a wrong way of wording telegrams.
If you are alive to the need of making every minute count in this modern, high speed age, you will often have occasion to avail yourself of the facilities of the highly organized institutions which have succeeded the old time operator bent over his telegraph key in the little dingy telegraph office of a few generations ago.So said one Nelson E. Ross in his Small Booklet entitled "How to Write Telegrams Properly" in 1928. [more inside]
NASA's Visions of the Future Calendar Images
The images for JPL’s Visions Of The Future 2016 Calendar, which was an internal gift to JPL and NASA staff along with scientists, engineers, government and university staff, have been put online. "As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future." [via] [more inside]
past performance is no guarantee of future results
Portfolio Visualizer is a website that lets you backtest asset allocations, conduct Fama-French Factor Regression Analysis, look at Asset Correlations, run Monte Carlo simulations, find the efficient frontier, or test market timing models against historical data. [more inside]
Gravitational Waves Exist
Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found Them. The New York Times also has a writeup.
Around the World in OKGO
New music video shot in zero gravity from our very very very very very very very very very old friends OKGO.
A mad medley of The Andrew Sisters and The Supremes with Sammy Davis Jr.
A month from today will be 50 years since Sammy Davis Jr. satisfied a whim and had The Andrew Sisters sing the hits of The Supremes, and vise-versa. The quality isn't great, and it's only a snippet of Sammy's short-lived show from 1966. If you want more, here's the full episode, full of singing, dancing and comedy: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6.
But can you escape the bear?
The Internet Archive now has Windows 3.1 emulation running in the browser, including a stock installation of the OS, WinTrek, Tapei, and most importantly SkiFree. [more inside]
Kutiman gets his/your jazz on.
Kutiman has dropped his new video album: OFF GRID (YouTube version here).
"In this new work, Kutiman utilizes his unique method of carefully blanketing together YouTube users' original content into one natural and cohesive audio-visual experience. This time around, Kutiman plays with the concept of expanded time, musical complexity and intricate layering while adding special visual effects to create a new perspective of the Jazz genre."
The Death of the Most Generous Nation on Earth
Sweden's initial humanitarian response, and subsequent withdrawal in the face of the European refugee crisis. (Single link foreign policy article.)
Herland
"In 1915 women could neither vote, divorce nor work after marriage, yet in that same year the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman envisaged a revolutionary world populated entirely by women who were intelligent, resourceful and brave." -- For Radio 4 science fiction writer & critic Geoff Ryman looks at the utopian feminist tradition in science fiction, with contributions by Stephanie Saulter, Laurie Penny, Dr Sari Edelstein, Sarah Le Fanu, Dr Caitríona Ní Dhúill and Sarah Hall. Related: ten women who changed sci-fi.
Platform Cooperatives: Money as a (Public) Service
In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears - "Few places are tilting toward a cashless future as quickly as Sweden, which has become hooked on the convenience of paying by app and plastic." [more inside]
for multiple meanings of 'Hack'
Last weekend The Stupid Shit No One Needs & Terrible Ideas Hackathon happened in Brooklyn. (Considering the first 'Terrible Idea' listed is 'Soylent Dick' please assume NSFW-ness) Vice.com and the Guardian have additional tawdry details. [more inside]
February 10
To Lick A Panda?
A Collection of Negro League Documentaries
A variety of documentaries about Negro League baseball: Only The Ball Was White, Black Ball, Extra Innings: Preserving the History of the Negro Leagues, and The Long Summers of Lou Dials. [more inside]
[E]verything I have done will be held against me and spun by my accuser
Zoë Quinn explains “why [she] just dropped the harassment charges [against] the man who started GamerGate.” (via Ellen Pao’s Twitter.)
Don't let it get you down, the singularity is as near as it's ever been.
A Son Rises in the West
Twenty years ago a Seattle boy moved to Nepal after being recognized as the reincarnation of a revered Tibetan lama. The public’s reaction to his mother’s decision to let him go says as much about our understanding of parenting as it does about Buddhism.
The Unlikely Ballerina meets the Little Dancer
Excavating a wasp nest
Wasps are a dangerous introduced pest in New Zealand. Here, a researcher excavates an active German wasp nest by hand. Thrill to the angry buzz of outraged wasps! Recoil as they hurl themselves at the camera! Goggle at the venom splatters! 10 minutes of terrifying yet compelling man on wasp action. [more inside]
Enough is enough, you greedy bastards
Anfield Road prices to stay frozen for two years. After many protests [nsfw:language] over a price increase from £59 to £77 - that included an unprecedented 10000 fan walk-out against Sunderland at the 77th minute (result 2-0, final score 2-2), Liverpool FC owners Fenway Sports Group stepped back and apologized from the original pricing plan. [more inside]
Fox Fail
All Hail The Algorithm
As reported this weekend, Twitter announced today that timelines will no longer be ordered strictly by reverse chronology. [more inside]
Proudly pretentious.
"We accuse someone of pretentiousness to call out false authority and deflate delusions of grandeur. But we’re also using the word as a tool of class policing: a way to tell a person to stop putting on airs and graces." Dan Fox, Why I'm pretentious and proud of it [more inside]
The Odds of Dying
Everyone dies of something, but after slogging through the daily news, you'd think most people die from terrorism, shark attacks and gas explosions. But are these tragedies — not to mention deaths from lightning strikes, plane crashes and tsunamis — actually top killers in the United States?
"The sadness of the robot."
The always-excellent Shmuplations has translated a 2011 interview about the creation of classic NES game Rockman, known in the US as Mega Man, and its sequel. It's a great depiction of the creative process relating to game development.
Reparations, One Meal at a Time
On Female Fuccboi Style
Dynamic spectrogram of dial-up modem handshake sounds
Sexual harassment in science redux: now with paleoanthropology!
Loudly, and apparently without caring who heard her, a research assistant at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City charged that her boss—noted paleoanthropologist Brian Richmond, the museum’s curator of human origins—had “sexually assaulted” her in his hotel room after a meeting the previous September in Florence, Italy. At the meeting, one person who heard the allegations was Bernard Wood, 70, a senior paleoanthropologist originally from the United Kingdom. In St. Louis, Wood canvassed younger researchers about their experiences with Richmond. He asked everyone the same question: “Does this alleged behavior come as any surprise to you?” He didn’t get the “yes” he was expecting.
How the Literary Class System is Impoverishing Literature
One of the most compelling arguments for literary diversity has to do with the people who are following behind. If a little Mexican-American girl grows up with dreams of being a poet, what happens when she looks at the prize winners each year and doesn’t see anyone who looks like her? Can a young African-American man aspire to being a Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist if he doesn’t know that there is someone like him out there? I would argue the same thing happens for working-class kids, especially those in families more concerned with putting food on the table than getting to the symphony, families who see the arts as the sole pursuit of the rich (as my own working-class immigrant father did).
0/10 would send to Twitter jail
This week, copyright trolls came for @Dog_rates, the beloved Twitter account that rates dogs (but NOT saber-toothed tigers or t-rexes). In a chilling move, the troll threatened to make a similar attack on @Dog_rates's biggest rival/colleague, @EverythingGoats. Twitter has refused to comment.
“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.”
The Brackets for The Morning News 2016 Tournament of Books by The Tournament of Books Staff [The Morning News]
You already know the titles and judges that will participate in this year’s tournament. You likely perused the “long list” for a glance at 86 of our favorite works of fiction from last year. You might have even checked out our 11 previous tournaments, just to whet your appetite—or maybe you have no idea what we’re talking about, in which case you should go read this primer. [Download the 2016 brackets as a .PDF][more inside]
“the peanut butter standard put many lawyers’ children through college.”
Atlas Obscura brings us the story of the mid-20th Century "Peanut Butter Hearings", where the Peanut Butter Manufacturers Association faced off with the FDA (and the Peanut Butter Grandma, a.k.a. Ruth Desmond, head of the Federation of Homemakers) to hammer out the exact percentage of peanut butter that had to be peanuts. (via Mental Floss)
"Junkie Whore"—What It's Really Like for Sex Workers on Heroin
She’s the dead hooker in the trunk. A universal cautionary tale, the drug-using sex worker is too wretched to be relatable, too scorned for even countercultural cred. She is repulsive, unclean and immoral. She is pitiable at best, inhuman at worst—dismissed by police lingo about murders whose victims are drug-using street workers: “No Human Involved.” If she’s white, she’s lucky enough to be merely an abject victim. If not, she’s a deranged criminal. She’s a scarred, blotchy mugshot in your local paper’s coverage of prostitution stings—recycled without regard for privacy by anti-drug PSAs to let kids know that that’s what they’ll look like after years of doing dope. She’s the woman I’ve heard my escorting clients joke about not wanting to fuck with someone else’s dick—not realizing that they are talking to a sex worker who uses heroin, as I force myself to laugh along with them.
The Polygon Shredder
The Club Is Open
Wears flannel shirts (inconsistent with city setting)
Cassandra Clare, fanfiction author turned bestselling author, has been accused of copyright infringement by Sherrilyn Kenyon for sharing such themes [pdf of exhibit] as "evil father who has to be killed", "magical swords that battle evil", "rebellious and beautiful female character" and "round room with magical portals". [more inside]
This is going to be he YOOOOOGEST FPP that this country has ever seen.
Funny or Die Made a Trump Biopic, Starring Johnny Depp [NYT]. The 50-minute comedy is streaming now at Funny or Die. (Head's up: NYT link has spoilers!)
Folding and securing paper to function as its own enclosure
‘Letterlocking refers to the folding and securing of any writing surface (such as papyrus, parchment, and paper) to function as its own enclosure.’ In their YouTube channel, Jana Dambrogio of MIT Libraries and her colleagues demonstrate a number of letterlocking techniques, from a simple method used by Russian soldiers in WWII, to more elaborate and ‘secure’ schemes employed by the likes of John Donne, Constanijn Huygens, Elizabeth Stuart and Queen Elizabeth I. [more inside]
Finding Boshek
The smuggler in the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from the original Star Wars who refers Obi-Wan to Chewbacca has been known for years as BoShek. But despite having an action figure of the character, the actor playing him was unknown. With help from the Rebel Scum forum, Billy Jensen was able to use social media detective work to track him down.
No, not another story about the voting public
Kept in the dark for 60 years, fruit flies begin to reveal their genetic adaptations. In 1954, seven years after their cousins returned from space, a colony of fruit flies was plunged into a darkness which would continue through 1500 generations right up till the present day. The results of this study shed considerable light on the role of genetic variation in physical adaptation. Spoiler: [more inside]
“The frontier of science is unlimited.”
Left Eye Lopez!
Horses can recognise human emotion, study shows Man’s favourite neigh-sayer can not only tell whether a human might be in a bad mood, it can do so from a photograph. So brilliant! [more inside]
Dr. Lecter, you are needed in Sickbay!
February 9
yarrr.
The Research Pirates of the Dark Web - "After getting shut down late last year, a website that allows free access to paywalled academic papers has sprung back up in a shadowy corner of the Internet."
How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like FREE NOIR?
Free at last?
The world could be free to sing Happy Birthday without being sued by as early as next month.
Immortal Love Rodd
Mar-co Ru-bio, Marco Rubio! 🎶 (It tested extremely well)
The Woman Who Makes Prosthetic Pinkies for Ex-Yakuza Members
When “Mike” spotted a newspaper advert for a clinic making prosthetic fingers in the 90s, he thought it was a scam. But the ex-yakuza member had booked himself a consultation within the hour. For almost a decade, a stumpy pinkie on his left hand had marked out his previous allegiance to the criminal world, preventing him from leading a normal life. A fake little finger, he thought, sounded outlandish, but it was worth a shot. It might allow him to disguise his past—and help shield against Japanese society’s prejudiced view of ex-yakuza members in search of redemption. [more inside]
baby that's all there is to the coastline craze
Carbonating the World
Carbonating the World. "Overweight, obesity, and diabetes have been spreading throughout the world hand
in hand with the consumption of ultra-processed foods, especially sugar-sweetened
beverages. My country, Mexico, has almost the highest per capita consumption of
sugary drinks in the world, where 70 percent of added-sugar consumption comes
from those products. You can stand in front of any audience and ask who has a
relative with diabetes, and a landscape full of hands will rise before you, revealing a
tragedy that has already caught up to us." [more inside]
Don't be a NARP. Learn to Snapchat like a boss from a 13-year old.
"I thought I was pretty good at Snapchat. Then I watched my little sister ..." Buzzfeed's Ben Rosen learns to Snapchat like a boss from his 13-year old sister. "I would watch in awe as she flipped through her snaps, opening and responding to each one in less than a second with a quick selfie face. She answered all 40 of her friends’ snaps in under a minute. How was this even possible?"
From Syria to the Six
What It's Like Experiencing Canada as a Refugee [video]
“Amidst ongoing attacks from public figures such as Donald Trump, it's easy to forget that Syrians and other desperate refugees are, in fact, people. One person is pushing back and rolling out the red carpet: Kourosh Houshmand. [more inside]
Live free or die.
Silly Walks
Caution: Silly Walk Zone
OCD's Jerk-Face Cousin
Life with hypochondria , as described by an anonymous and humorous buzzfeed user.
And the Oscar for Best Synthesized Performance Goes to ...
New Software Can Actually Edit Actors' Facial Expressions A new software, from Disney Research in conjunction with the University of Surrey, may help cut down on the number of takes necessary, thereby saving time and money. FaceDirector blends images from several takes, making it possible to edit precise emotions onto actors’ faces. [more inside]
Beautiful pictures about beautiful people
Studio Heads Of The Classic Era Ranked In Terms Of Personal Awfulness -by resident Hollywood expert The Whelk [via mefi projects]
Jian Ghomeshi made me remember all the times I was sexually violated
In October 2014, eight women came forward to the Toronto Star stating that well-known CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi had assaulted them. [Previously on Metafilter] As the case against Ghomeshi finally went to trial this month, it has prompted criticism over the way the defense has treated the women testifying against him. Canadian radio host and therapist Svea Vikander has decided to share her personal experiences of sexual harassment and assault, one for each day of February: "This trial is not only about a man who violated the four women pressing charges, but about whether we, as a society, trust women who tell...It's personal for me...But I can't not do it. The Ghomeshi scandal has one hell of an undertow." [more inside]
Ducks usually lie
THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN REMOVED
A Fine Mess: How Not to Assert Your Copyright in the Youtube Age by Vlad Savov [The Verge] [more inside]
Why Gloria Steinem should be no ones role model...
An open letter to Gloria Steinem on Intersectional feminism. By Sarah Grey at theEstablishment.co [more inside]
When the Pancake Bell rings we are free
A Shrove Tuesday pancake history, with seventeenth century recipes! Take twenty eggs, with halfe the whites, and beat them half an houre or more...
What is a dungeon?
WRITE YOUR OWN FANTASY GAME FOR YOUR MICROCOMPUTER (PDF) is a beautifully illustrated guide to programming (what else) fantasy roleplaying games on early personal computer hardware, along with its companion WRITE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE PROGRAMS (also PDF), covering text adventures. Hat tip to the game design Tumblr Put Games Here for the original link. [more inside]
An Emoji Tool to Support Victims of Cyberbullying.
Emojis are like modern-day cave paintings: simple, direct, visual. And because visual images are processed far faster than text, emojis can be among the quickest ways to send a message of support or concern. Anti-bullying advocate Monica Lewinsky has partnered with Vodafone on a new tool set for teens. [VanityFair]
Imperial History and Film Culture
Having fallen down the rabbit hole of British colonial cinema history, I thought to share some of the wonderful discoveries with you.
"The cognitive dissonance was wildly uncomfortable."
How 26 tweets broke my filter bubble -- B. J. May was just an ordinary Javascript developer from Middle America until a series of tweets by Marco Rogers helped him discover a wider world outside his whitebread bubble.
February 8
CoCo Avenue and Black Musicians in Kpop
When Jenny and Jenna, two Black singers regularly posting Kpop covers on YouTube, found that they were often confused for each other, they decided to band together and form CoCo Avenue, currently the world's first all-Black Kpop group. Other Black Kpop performers include RaNia's Alex, Insooni, Lee Michelle, and Tasha a.k.a. Yoon Mi Rae.
That sthmahts
More kids more math
"You wouldn’t see it in most classrooms, you wouldn’t know it by looking at slumping national test-score averages, but a cadre of American teenagers are reaching world-class heights in math—more of them, more regularly, than ever before." Peg Tyre in The Atlantic covers the new wave of deeper, faster, and hopefully broader math education. [more inside]
"I am grateful."
Daniel Bryan is arguably the most beloved professional wrestler in the entire world; he is also widely considered to be one of the best professional wrestlers of all time. He has not wrestled a match since April of 2015, when injuries forced him out of action - after they had previously cost him much of 2014 as well. He spent 2015 training regularly and going to doctors hoping to learn that he could continue to be a professional wrestler, and finally, last week, learned conclusively that he could not.
This is his retirement speech.
Wolverine, bring me a cheese pizza
"Skirt the rules but don’t break them."
People who move to New York always make the same mistake. They can’t see the place. This is true of Manhattan, but even the outer boroughs too. Whether Flushing Meadows in Queens or Red Hook in Brooklyn. They come looking for magic, whether evil or good, and nothing will convince them it isn’t here. This wasn’t all bad though. Some New Yorkers had learned how to make a living from this error in thinking. Charles Thomas Tester for one.an excerpt, The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle
A Questionable Business Plan
Buymeonce.com is a website that sells things you should only have to buy once, because they have a lifetime guarantee, lifetime repairs, or are just very well made.
Does what it says on the tin
After logging onto their computers today, staff here at the MERL were greeted by an unusual email from the Assistant Curator:
155-year old mouse trap claims its latest victim
and
How a mouse died in our Victorian mouse trap [more inside]
There appears to be a dead mouse in this mousetrap,it began,
…which is not described as being there on the database.
155-year old mouse trap claims its latest victim
and
How a mouse died in our Victorian mouse trap [more inside]
L.A. Dreamers
Wookit da bunneh!
The Scottish SPCA is looking for a new home for Atlas, a continental giant rabbit. "Giant rabbit?" you ask, "How big could a-- Oh dear lord will you look at that." The 7-month old, nearly 6-kilogram Atlas is still growing, and the SSPCA wants you to know that "A standard rabbit hutch won’t do so his new owner will need plenty of space for him."
Murray Perahia on Bach
Murray Perahia on Bach - a 28 minute chat at the piano.
as government-funded science dwindles
Meet the "rented white coats" who defend toxic chemicals: How corporate-funded research corrupts America's courts and regulatory agencies. [more inside]
This will tide me over until the Olympics.
Some of the most exciting gymnastics routines are happening at the college level. UCLA Senior Sophina DeJesus helped lead her team to victory with a hiphop-flavored floor routine that included a whip, a nae nae, and a tumbling pass that landed in a split. The Internet is rightly losing its collective mind. The whole Bruins squad seems pretty amazing (Sophina at 1:31). But if that wasn't impressive enough for you, she can also moonwalk on the balance beam.
Disrupt this!
one weird trick that makes a novel addictive
Some things might break
How To Survive A Nuclear Bomb an 'interactive survival experience' from the channel that brought you Threads.
That's what she [redacted]
That'swhatshesaid, a one-person play by Courtney Meaker and Erin Pike, consists entirely of lines and stage directions for female characters in the top 11 most-produced plays of the 2014-15 season. The play opened Thursday night for a four-night run at Seattle's Gay City Calamus Auditorium. An hour before curtain on the show's second night, the publisher of Joshua Harmon's play Bad Jews, which is featured in the production, served Gay City Arts a cease and desist order , and the publisher's VP left Pike a voicemail claiming they'd "go after" Gay City Arts if the show continued. Instead, That'swhatshesaid went on as planned--but with a few last-minute changes. Among them: every time a line from Bad Jews came up, Pike merely mimed the stage directions as someone offstage shouted, "Redacted!" Today, according to Meaker, another cease and desist has been delivered--for a play that was not included in That'swhatshesaid because it featured no women. [more inside]
The Trouble With Superman
He’s boring; he’s unrelatable. He wears his underwear on the outside. But is that the real problem of Superman? It’s a problem that has less to do with the character himself and more to with DC Comics, which found itself stuck with a flagship character it thought needed fixing. In trying, it broke him nearly beyond repair. [more inside]
"...preferably under the wheels of an M103 bus."
"Ed Koch once said that "to be a New Yorker you have to live here for six months, and if at the end of the six months you find you walk faster, talk faster, think faster, you're a New Yorker." On the search to find the realest answer (is it "until you cry on the subway"?), we decided to hit the pavement to ask locals to finish the sentence for us. "
Take the honey and run
Robbing of bees has become an increasingly problematic crime as bee populations dwindle due to Colony Collapse Disorder and the price of a healthy hive rises. A swarm of thefts occur around this season every year in California as cells of thieves extract hives from almond orchards in the Central Valley, where 90% of all managed bees are brought every year. [more inside]
I still haven't told you about the dream.
Toormina Video- a short comic by Pat Grant
“There are a lot of pieces in this puzzle.”
In the Fractal Jigsaw Puzzle, each piece of the jigsaw (subsequent to the first) is made of a smaller, constituent puzzle. Confused? Watch the video, or just give it a whirl. Don’t worry about finishing it all in one go: the game saves your progress. [via mefi projects]
Kurt Didn't Know
In Quentin Tarantino's recent Western, The Hateful Eight, one scene involves Kurt Russell's character, John Ruth, snatching a guitar away from Jennifer Jason Leigh's character, Daisy Domergue, and promptly smashing it to pieces. The only problem? The guitar was a 140 year old original Martin on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum and was supposed to have been swapped out for a replica before being said smashed. [more inside]
Super supercuts
Vimeo user somersetVII has created 10 beautiful, masterful supercut videos. Coens | 30 celebrates 30 years of Coen Bros movies while Stanley Kubrick gets an appropriately moody and atmospheric tribute. Other standouts include Baseball on Film and Cinema: A Space Odyssey, which only a true fan of the genres could make.
Are You Poor, or Just Broke?
There’s a big difference between sharing a Netflix account and struggling to make ends meet. There’s a big difference between not being able to order a pizza or go out with your friends and not being able to pay the bills. And there’s a huge difference between being destitute and being strapped for cash. (slEverydayFeminism) [more inside]
Who Tells Your Story? Historical Fiction as Resistance
What my favourite historical fiction has done for me, besides make me happy in the way that good books do, is teach me more about justice, and silence, and perspective. These are the questions I want to spend my time examining and writing about. The limits placed on many women’s lives are the very reason they are conveniently written out of the dominant historical narrative, in a circular argument as old as misogyny itself: “Women do not appear in the record because they didn’t do anything of note, and they didn’t do anything of note because they don’t appear in the record.”
4-19-1775 NEVAR FORGET
"It Started Here." With great excitement, living history attraction Colonial Williamsburg spent more than a million dollars to put out its first-ever TV ad during the Super Bowl. The splurge may have backfired, as its use of footage of the World Trade Center towers falling on 9/11 to a Tom Brokaw voice-over angered and upset many in its target markets and puzzled plenty of others. Takes from Daily News, Esquire, Gothamist, USA Today, NY Post, Slate, HuffPo. [more inside]
You're Gonna Carry That Weight
Like to apply for the position of the head of an organization dedicated to advocating for the disabled? Better not be disabled yourself. [more inside]
On some evenings, I don't want to deny the indulgence
How Hollywood's Favorite Juice Bar Owner Eats Every Day. Come for the pretty zucchini ribbons. Stay for the magic activated cashews. via Kottke.
Ziphius, rumored to slice boats in half with its dorsal fin
Toronto-based artist Bailey Henderson sculpts the fearsome sea creatures depicted on medieval and Renaissance-era maps. [more inside]
“...we shed light on the scale of the role we play in killing...”
Hard Numbers Reveal Scale of America’s Trophy-Hunting Habit by Rachael Bale [National Geographic]
Sport hunters, those who kill animals for recreation rather than out of necessity, imported more than 1.26 million trophies to the U.S. in the decade from 2005 through 2014, according to a new analysis of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s import data by Humane Society International and the Humane Society of United States. That’s an average of 126,000 trophy imports a year, or 345 a day.[more inside]
The Cuban Money Crisis
Supercommuters
Website of the Day
Monday Punday - try to figure out the pun illustrated in the cartoon. No scoring. No prizes. And no "I don't get it, tell me" button. (Hint: If you can't figure out the first three, don't torture yourself further.) [more inside]
February 7
Oliver Morton on The Wonder of Quasars
In the far reaches of the sky there are sun-bright discs as wide as solar systems, their hearts run through by spears of radiation that outshine galaxies. The energies that feed these quasars beggar all metaphor, and their quantification seems all but meaningless. What does it serve to know that they are converting matter to energy at a rate that equates to the complete annihilation of a planet the size of the Earth ten times a second? Or that all the fires of the sun, from its birth to its death, would be a few weeks' worth of work to one of them? No human sense can be made from so inhuman a scale. Boggle, and move on. [via 3quarksdaily] [more inside]
afrofuturism from the past
Smiley happiness caused: -9
JET SET RADIOOOOOOOOOOOO
HTML V = IR
Paul Falstad's stable of science and engineering visualizations has been MeFi-celebrated as recently as 2005 and 2006. Sadly, with Java applets on death's door, they're largely inaccessible today. What remains? A lovingly HTML-Fived and expanded electronic circuit simulator, a gleaming key to understanding hundreds of different circuits and components. [more inside]
The House That Built Cam
This is where Cam Newton comes from: an institution where being African-American and excellent, African-American and respected, African-American and optimistic are normal conditions. A visit to the church Cam grew up in.
The unlikely and awesome rise of punk, anarchist, and hacker
Birgitta Jónsdóttir May Be Iceland's Next Prime Minister - "Poetry told Birgitta that she is alive. The internet taught her that she belongs in this world. The crisis showed her that she has a role to play, and politics showed her that everything needs to change." (Jónsdóttir, WikiLeaks & Iceland, previously) [more inside]
triplets+toddler
triplets+toddler -- multitasking
Haiti Elections 2015/2016
Haitian President Michel Martelly will leave office today and hand control over to a provisional government (warning: very graphic image in the link). In the face of massive protests against widespread fraud and irregularities in the election process, the January runoff election was cancelled after second place candidate Jude Celestin refused to participate in an election which he believed was rigged in favor of Martelly's chosen successor, Jovenel Moise. This leaves Haiti without a president. Martelly leaves office 30 years to the day since the end of former dictator Baby Doc's rule.
Team Ruff or Team Fluff?
Mozart: the early years
Enjoy this animated webcomic about Mozart's early exploits ... up to age nine, along with those of his sister Nannerl.
How in the world can she go to the Super Bowl?
"Demaryius Thomas has just sent his mother a picture of the most unlikely Super Bowl ticket of all, the one intended for her, and now Katina Smith has a few days to decide whether she's prepared to take it."
"I want actual change, not whack-a-mole with a grandiose troll."
Feminist Lindy West writes in The Guardian about how she's experienced years of extreme online harassment from a misogynist blogger and his minions, and about why she's not particularly happy to see them receive the same treatment.
We'll find out if we'll miss him
Dan Hicks, Bay Area music icon, dies at age 74. Last night Clare Wasserman announced that her husband, musician Dan Hicks, had succumbed to liver cancer. [more inside]
Aw Nuts!
Classic Era Warner Bros outakes, 1936-46. The breakdowns of 1941 part 1, part 2 The breakdowns of 1946. 1944
OUT: bunnies in dresses IN: piglets in dresses with kittens
But where one empire crumbles, another rises
The 101 Slow Jam
Most construction projects are bumpy....but this one, starts out smooth.
February 6
So THAT's where Fawlty Towers is.
The Great British Television Map "I'm an American, but I love British TV series, and so does my wife. As for Geography... I'm a bit more into that than she is." So, this informative map showing the locations depicted in most of the most popular British TV series*... and where they were actually filmed (if it differs)**. [more inside]
Red Africa
The Calvert Journal's Special Report: Red Africa: When international socialism met the developing world [more inside]
FUCK ME I MADE PLANS TONIGHT
this is what happens when i stay up 5 hours and 13 minutes past my bedtime [from bitches gotta eat]
High resolution images of The Garden of Earthly Delights
Hieronymus Bosch's amazing painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Exceptional detail, zoom in or out inside the painting. There are many stories hidden behind the images inside the painting. Click on the white text boxes to listen to and/or read the stories. [more inside]
Formation
Kamp Kafka
Instilling existential dread, for generations to come. "There should be a camp for Jews who don't like camp," I said. "Who feel alienated by camp." To which a colleague exclaimed, "Camp Kafka!" It came together after that. [more inside]
The Lions of Alatash National Park
Hidden population of up to 200 lions found in remote Ethiopia “During my professional career I have had to revise the lion distribution map many times,” says Hans Bauer, who led the expedition. “I have deleted one population after the other. This is the first and probably the last time that I’m putting a new one up there.” [more inside]
Pink Prepping: On pitching disaster readiness to women
Lisa Bedford's "Survival Mom" blog, which aims to help women, and especially mothers, be ready for a myriad of possible disasters, is "part of the new accessible, female-oriented, and, crucially, logical face of prepping. Even that word — prepping — makes it sound like an extension of performing responsible motherhood: like scheduling your kid’s dentist appointments ahead of time or making sure to take get your Christmas card ready in October. ... [and] Bedford’s advice feels more and more common sense." Anne Helen Petersen, "What to Expect When You're Expecting the Collapse of Society" (SLBuzzfeed). [more inside]
Mama Masika
The Democratic Republic of Congo has a troubled history to say the least. Terrible crimes were committed against children, women, and men, but one woman rose up in response. Now, Rebecca Masika Katsuva has passed. Her words. Her story: Surviving Against the Odds, It's Not the End of the World.
Bip Roberts, unsurprisingly, was the first Bip.
This is a Google Docs spreadsheet recording, for every given name ever held by a major league baseball player, the first player to bear that name. Via Value over Replacement Grit.
Because White People Always Live Near Large Bodies of Water
The Nicholas Sparks White People Experience: Lainey Gossip's Sarah reviews Nicholas Sparks's latest "whirlwind romance straight out of an erectile disfunction commercial." [more inside]
W A T E R D R O P
Waterdrop "Waterdrop" is a science fiction film about the second kind of close encounter with aliens. It is a tribute to the critically acclaimed Chinese science fiction novel "The Dark Forest"
Take the A train and you will experience the Universe
On the Food Warriors, lunch is up to the locals' vote. Traveling the length of NYC's A-train, the Internets Celebrities "talk to people on the street about their habits and tastes," ponder an ever-changing New York, and hopefully find a good meal. [more inside]
I have a scheme, a dream harem (SLvid, audio NSFW)
A slightly silly and squirrelly animation for a rather rude song. Contains meerkats with beehive hair and a very large singing squirrel with a bad wig. Found through b3ta, a long time ago.
RIP Theia, you crashed with Earth to create the Moon (maybe)
The giant impact hypothesis is the most widely supported theory for how the moon was formed, with research in 2014 adding support to this theory over other possibilities. Now UCLA-led research reconstructs a massive crash that took place 4.5 billion years ago (abstract, full article paywalled), supporting the theory that the Moon was produced by a head-on collision between Earth and Theia, a forming planet.
LSD: My Life-Saving Drug
When a freak brain hemorrhage struck out of nowhere a couple of years ago, I became a little depressed, stuck in a rut, and strangely fearful of death. So when I heard about people (in my neighborhood, even) using hallucinogens to push beyond their preoccupations, to help them live without fear, I decided that was a trip I had to take.
And now for something completely different...
Flying Fish Slaps Remix (hat tip: Kottke)
Not to be confused with the Fish-Slapping Dance. … For those still confused, here is a documentary on the complex and intriguing ritual of the ancient art of fish-slapping.
And for anyone who continues to be confused, Michael Palin explains.
Fake Online Locksmiths, lead gens and Google Maps (nyt)
Fake Online Locksmiths A locksmith’s shop on a street in Sun City, Ariz. [...] turned out to be a fiction that was created for the locksmith by a web design firm using Photoshop at what is, in fact, a vacant lot. [via marginal revolution] [more inside]
February 5
Error 53
Thousands of iPhone 6 users claim they have been left holding almost worthless phones because Apple’s latest operating system permanently disables the handset if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician.
My God, it's full of cake!
Crushed between two Portals pushes Valve's Source Engine to places it was probably never intended to go. (SLYT)
akin to a Rorschach inkblot
A federal court panel has ruled that two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts were racially gerrymandered and must be redrawn within two weeks. Critics of the 2011 Republican-led redistricting contend the map lines were drawn to concentrate black voters in districts that reduced their overall political power. North Carolina is home to 3 of the nation's 10 most gerrymandered congressional districts.
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
The cat's name is Haku
"Text Mode Lives!"
I Want to Believe
Edgar Mitchell, NASA astronaut, Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot, and outspoken alien visitation believer, has died at age 85. [more inside]
"There’s white and then there’s the how-white-my-shirts-can-be white..."
Stealing White: How a corporate spy swiped plans for DuPont’s billion-dollar color formula By Del Quentin Wilber [Bloomberg Business]
“At first, you’re like: Why are they stealing the color white? I had to Google it to figure out what titanium dioxide even was,” says Dean Chappell, acting section chief of counterespionage for the FBI. “Then you realize there is a strategy to it.” You can’t even call it spying, adds John Carlin, the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s national security division. “This is theft. And this—stealing the color white—is a very good example of the problem. It’s not a national security secret. It’s about stealing something you can make a buck off of. It’s part of a strategy to profit off what American ingenuity creates.”
Watch for the bit where it almost flies into the door
The future will be boring. TBD.
What is Design Fiction?
"the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change. That’s the best definition we’ve come up with. The important word there is diegetic. It means you’re thinking very seriously about potential objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those rather than entire worlds or political trends or geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories." — Bruce SterlingExamples of Diegetic Prototypes in Design Fiction. [more inside]
Schrödinger's Fetus
On February 2, 2016, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released new guidelines advising all sexually active women to abstain from alcohol unless they are on birth control. The recommendation and related infographic were quickly criticized. [more inside]
100 years of Dada
On February 5, 1916, 100 years ago today, the Cabaret Voltaire opened in Zurich, Switzerland, marking the beginning of Dada. Happy birthday, Dada! [more inside]
Down these mean streets a man must go
Full cast radio adaptations of The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, The High Window, and three more Raymond Chandler mysteries. Starring Toby Stephens as Philip Marlowe.
There's only power, BIM is the power.
In 1980, Menahem Golan showed us a harrowing vision of the power of rock...in 1994 The Apple is a futuristic, dystopian disco rock musical that also manages to be a druggy, sexy biblical allegory. [more inside]
A Flag for No Nations
Jury rigged Skylab fix alien satellites fall marathon man disaster refugees ubiquitous. [more inside]
Pip Pip Pip Pip Pip Piiiiip
First broadcast on Feb 5th 1924, the BBC's Greenwitch Time Signal has collected some history. The pips have marked the hour with six (or seven) beeps for over 90 years. Sometimes the pips arrive on time, but the merely human announcers "crash the pips" by talking over them. Sometimes, the pips go missing entirely, throwing the BBC and its listeners off-kilter. In 2014, Radio 4 celebrated their 90th birthday in musical fashion.
A short medley of announcers playing with, swearing at, and missing the pips (via). [more inside]
Synthetic Dance Moods from Turkey, and more psych/prog/advanced music
Are you looking for a world of progressive and psychedelic music? Look no further than Psyche Music aka Prog/Psych/Advanced Music Reviews and Psychefolk aka Psyche Van Het Folk. The sites are old, so beware of dead links, but there's also more online now than there was when Progressive.Homestead.com was first linked on the blue, over a decade ago. Now hear Metin Alatli's "Alamooga Esinlenmeler" for 34 minutes of "early 70s Moog-madness" from Turkey.
Centriphone
SLYT: Centriphone - an iPhone video experiment by Nicolas Vuignier
Dignified housing at an affordable price
"For over a decade, architecture students at Rural Studio, Auburn University's design-build program in a tiny town in West Alabama, have worked on a nearly impossible problem. How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford, but that anyone would want—while also providing a living wage for the local construction team that builds it?" Now Rural Studio has a prototype it's trying to bring to market, and it's hitting its biggest challenge yet: how to fit its small, efficient, inexpensive houses into an infrastructure that has no place for them.
Two drummers and a lot of hair
The Melvins-Big Business merger crushes the entire Houdini album live. Watch them play Night Goat and just try not to flip over your desk. [more inside]
Adorable Friday cephalopod
Even the title of the game was plagiarized.
ProbablyRichard spends an hour discussing the PC adventure game Limbo of the Lost. A game so bad and so terribly produced that "when the plagiarism was first discovered, many were incredulous that the developers could actually get away with such blatant copyright violation. Some posited that it may be an ARG (Alternate Reality Game)." and was eventually disowned by every person associated with it.
Windes blast and weder strong
The English are famous for complaining about the weather, but this is nothing new. Nearly a thousand years ago, an unknown musician set down a single verse that still carries heartfelt sadness about the longeurs of winter, leaving us a wistful window into existence, art and society in the early medieval years. Decoding the earliest surviving secular song in English.
Crossfire
Missing Jon Stewart. Trevor Noah is smooth and charming, but he hasn’t found his edge.
Cut it out NASA, you don't have the money or a plan for Mars
"Members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology tore apart NASA's Journey to Mars initiative, claiming the program needs a much more defined plan and clear, achievable milestones to work. Those in attendance also doubted the feasibility of a long-term Mars mission; they cited the massive amount of money needed for the trip — much more than NASA currently receives year to year — as well as a significant leap in technological development. Because of these enormous challenges, a few witnesses at the hearing suggested that NASA either rethink its approach or divert its attention to a Moon mission instead."
"That’s when the narcotics officers kicked in the door."
The NYPD is Kicking People Out of Their Homes, Even If They Haven’t Committed a Crime via ProPublica and the New York Daily News.
Satanic work experiments significantly impaired in such bioethics
What a marvelous knight for a moondance.
Tables Turned
Your Code in Spaaace!
In the ISS there are two Astro Pi computers, Ed and Izzy, equipped with Sense HATs, two different camera modules (visual and IR), and stored in rather special cases. They are now running code written by UK school children - the winners of a competition. The data will be feeding back soon! [more inside]
"We love you, Dave Mirra, we're going to miss you."
WOT!! No Anti - Virus Software .....
The Malware Museum (archive.org) is a collection of malware programs, usually viruses, that were distributed in the 1980s and 1990s on home computers. Once they infected a system, they would sometimes show animation or messages that you had been infected. Through the use of emulations, and additionally removing any destructive routines within the viruses, this collection allows you to experience virus infection of decades ago with safety.
Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO's Eastern Flank
Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics. As Presently Postured, NATO Cannot Successfully Defend the Territory of its Most Exposed Members. [more inside]
Why, Why, Why?
The shadow leader of the House of Commons, Chris Bryant , has joined calls for the Tom Jones song Delilah to be banned from Six Nations rugby matches because it incites violence against women. [more inside]
Flatware for those who can afford it!
Despite the name games, airline food hasn't changed much. Economy class meals still come in a wrapper, and business or first-class meals come with real cutlery. This list shows the sometimes striking difference between what the different classes eat.
February 4
That's the Way of the World
Kirk Cousins does not cheat on his wife
It began as a strange post on the Redskins's subreddit outlining the secret to quarterback Kirk Cousins's talent: faithfulness to his wife, Julie. This has spun off into an entire community celebrating the couple, which is currently excited about a touching moment from Kirk's AMA today. [more inside]
The Guardian examines the Furry Fandom
The Guardian: It's not about sex, it's about identity: why furries are unique among fan cultures: Furries tend to get a bad rap as perverse fetishists when in reality, the subculture is about playful escapism and a fascination with what links humans to animals [more inside]
Yo is More
'The Story Behind The Most Creative Job Application We've Ever Seen'
Étienne Duval is a thirty year old architect who wants to work with Bjarke Ingels at B.I.G.
... 'To catch a big fish you need a big hook! I began this application like an architectural project, by finding the key criteria and playing with it. A cover letter is an ego trip, so I thought about this hip hop video clips and told myself "why wouldn't I do the same?"
A short interview with Etienne Duval at ArchDaily
“I am a son of Baltimore.”
Prominent Black Lives Matter member DeRay McKesson has announced that he is entering the Baltimore Democratic Mayoral Primary; McKesson is the 13th candidate to enter the race. The Baltimore Sun has the story, along with follow-up coverage of how the news is being received. The story is also being reported in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Root, and Slate.
(polite clapping)
Jazz and hip-hop drummer Karriem Riggins and acclaimed DJ, J.Rocc collaborate in a 360° video where they put a live spin on two tunes from their dearly departed collaborator, J Dilla (previously: 1 2) -- "Lightworks" and "E=MC^2" [more inside]
The BBC asks:
"Ollie, you traitor!"
Toddler GoPro Hide-and-Seek
A mom, a dad, a kid, a camera, and a very special appearance by Ollie the dog!
A mom, a dad, a kid, a camera, and a very special appearance by Ollie the dog!
One is silver and the other gold.
“Who is that man, and why isn’t the movie just about him?”
The best website in the world.
Trump Donald: This is absolutely tremendous.
How abortion opponents bought a Va. abortion clinic to deceive women
How abortion opponents secretly bought a Va. abortion clinic to deceive women. (WaPost) Just five minutes after signing the final papers at closing, the doctor called her office to check her messages.
“Triple A Women for Choice,” a voice answered.
The doctor thought she made a mistake and redialed.
“Triple A Women for Choice,” the voice said again.
Whoever bought her practice had the phones forwarded to the pregnancy center within minutes of the sale, before the lawyers even had a chance to close their briefcases.
Happy Porcupine Day!
On February 3rd, 2016, after more than 14 years, the Free State Project -- an ambitious plan to move 20,000 freedom-loving, law-hating people into New Hampshire to upend its political system and bring about a libertarian utopia -- has reached its 20K threshold of pledges to move, thereby "triggering the move" for the 90-plus percent of FSPers who declared their intention to relocate but haven't yet. [more inside]
San Francisco then and now
19 Historical photographs of well known places in San Francisco. Use the sliders to see them today. (SLGuardian).
Crochet taxidermy
Want to decorate your hunting lodge or baronial hall without feeling too guilty? Crochet taxidermy to the rescue! [more inside]
Until the Walls and Rafters Ring
Chronicle of Higher Ed: U. of Iowa Doesn’t Know Why Its Fight Song Blares From an Empty Building in Niagara Falls "A University of Iowa spokesman said on Tuesday that he had 'no clue' why the university’s fight song is being played, week after week, in a vacant building in Niagara Falls, NY. The mystery was first reported by the Niagara Gazette, which says the song has been repeated on a loop, for several hours at a time, on 'most nights for roughly six months.'" [more inside]
Matt LeBlanc is new Top Gear Presenter
Breaking Bread, Re-making Community
"The rich Jewish traditions in the city of Uzhhorod were all but wiped out by Nazi death camps and decades of Soviet rule. Now one born-and-bred New Yorker aims to bring them back, one perfectly browned challah at a time." "Bringing a Bite of Old Brooklyn to Ukraine," by János Chialá, Tali Mayer, and Ilya Ginzburg.
Pentagon's Social Freezing Program
"The goal is to give those in uniform the peace of mind that if they are hurt on the battlefield — hundreds of veterans suffered injuries to their reproductive organs in Iraq and Afghanistan — they would still be able to have children." (NYTimes) [more inside]
156829? Mass-market. Tacky.
Artisanal Integers - Summer of 2012. Suddenly several “integer-as-a-service-providers” spring from nowhere. They deliver “artisanal integers”. Integers which (they claim) are “hand-crafted and guaranteed to be unique and hella-beautiful”.
Going to the Puppies
This is in response to repeated requests on the grey for puppy theater FPPs.
In 1986, Dutch performing artist Wim T. Schippers put up his stageplay "Going to the Dogs", performed entirely by canines. It's available on Youtube in seven parts (poor quality video). Apparently, questions were raised in parliament.
In 1986, Dutch performing artist Wim T. Schippers put up his stageplay "Going to the Dogs", performed entirely by canines. It's available on Youtube in seven parts (poor quality video). Apparently, questions were raised in parliament.
February 3
The precogs were right
St. Louis turns to predictive policing software: "At a time when communities are crying out for justice," Crockford told me, "I never heard anyone in one of these communities say, ‘I think police need to use more computers!’"
Reese's Peanut-Butter-Ectomy with Oreo Cream Transplant
The Food Surgeon 4 minutes and 33 seconds of exactly what the title says. Do not try this at home without a medical degree and sterile conditions.
"I could do without all of the Children of the Corn sequels."
Stephen King On What Hollywood Owes Authors When Their Books Become Films: Question & Answer by Mike Fleming Jr. [Deadline] [more inside]
You look *amazing* for a two year old
A series of experiments in mice has led to what some are calling “one of the more important aging discoveries ever." [more inside]
Is this just Fantasy?
Power Animals Unleashed!
Unleash your Power Animal. Hover you mouse over the picture. When you feel the primal move you, click to learn your Power Animal. You can even hear its song in FULL SYNTH GLORY! [more inside]
On a collision course with earth
When Bat Guano created "The Bat Guano's SwaG! Radio Program," he used ingredients specially blended for listenability. All of the notes created by the finest musicians are in most of the songs he broadcasts. Genres are mixed and matched, compared and contrasted, hitting all the seasons that make it lively for the ears’ tongue. Then it is all lightly breaded and personally dipt in Ranch Dressing by your server, Bat Guano.SwaG's decades-long run on Western Michigan University's radio station WIDR FM will be ending tonight with a final broadcast from 9:00-11:00 EST, streaming Here or Here. In the mean time, you can listen to the archive on Bat Guano's website. If you're feeling spookey, start with a Halloween episode. More romantic? Valentines ep, right here. otherwise jump right in to any one of his Timeless Broadcasts [more inside]
"I listen for your footsteps"
1234!
Forty years of the Ramones ‘They were the smartest dumb band you ever heard’: Bands from the Sex Pistols to Blondie to Talking Heads recall the Bowery punks’ explosive impact
Which Reaction GIF are you?
(Multiple YouTube links) Mike Rugnetta says (via four small, linked interactive YT videos and a 14+ minute presentation worth 40% of his final mark): Personality quizzes draw us in with the promise of telling us something about ourselves, but do they truly succeed? We constantly seek to categorize our world, including ourselves. It gives us a sense of belonging, and can help us to make more sense of our thoughts and feelings. We want to be understood, but do these quizzes actually understand us, or are they simply reaffirming what we already know? [more inside]
Crisis on Infinite Networks
After months of fan speculation and adorable photoshoots, it's been officially confirmed that CBS' Supergirl TV series will cross over with the CW's The Flash. [more inside]
"But for me, this is not entertainment; it’s extremely painful."
Last night FX premiered their true crime adaptation of The People V. O.J. Simpson, based on the Jeffrey Toobin's book The Run of His Life. Marcia Clark, a prosecutor in the case, has given an interview to Vox on, "on What Episode One of The People v. O.J. Simpson Got Right and Wrong". Briefly, Clark covers how the prosecutorial team considered race, liberties the show takes, her perception in the media circus the trial would inspire, the aftermath of the case (including O.J.'s later incarceration), and the meaning of the trial in the present day.
Wally Ballou Signing Off
Bob Elliott, the legendary radio comedian has passed away at 92. It all began in Boston in the late 1940s, when Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding started goofing around on the air during rain delays of Red Sox games. Soon, they were a hit nationally as well, with such well known characters as Wally Ballou the long-suffering radio newsman and the adventures of Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife. Bob and Ray's comedy career spanned decades until Goulding's death in 1990. [more inside]
Commentary. OK? On sports. Specifically, a big sporting event.
Ever wish you could watch the Super Bowl Big Game with your favorite sketch comedy artists? This Sunday, you'll get your chance as Key & Peele have announced that they will host a live video broadcast during Super Bowl L Super Bowl 50 the Big Game. Due to legal restrictions, however, the duo are not allowed to say any of the players' names or mention the game at all. Technically an ad for Squarespace, the stream will mostly consist of the duo riffing and "talking around the game." (Key and Peele previously.)
ASCII and Emoji United!
Do you feel like you need more culture in your life? Well, then you should head down to The Tiny Gallery on Twitter! Brought to you by emoji, ASCII, and @deer_ful. [more inside]
Could It Be Used For Dating?
Behold The Frinkiac, a search engine that matches Simpsons quotes to exact screen grabs. Sure, it looks impressive, but I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them.
The Case for Class
An Open Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Liberals Who Love Him "I was once a Coates fan", writes Cedric Johnson in Jacobin. Johnson criticizes Coates for his black nationalism at the expense of class based identification.
Venturing inside Dalí's Archeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus
Dreams of Dalí is a 360º video that takes you inside Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's "Angelus" into a surreal world, featuring some notable motifs from other paintings , such as Weaning of Furniture Nutrition (1934), Lobster Telephone (1936) and First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain (1973), set to a soundscape with audio of Salvador Dalí and a bit of Halo of Flies by Alice Cooper. [more inside]
Stop Doing This. Please Retweet!
Reading a barrage of violent comments and threats doesn’t make me want to retaliate. It doesn’t make me want to fire back at those guys with the same hate and rage that they spewed my direction about me and the rest of my gender. It makes me want to censor myself. It makes me hesitant to write certain jokes. Could this tweet make hundreds of men tell me I belong locked in their closet? Will this idea I’m putting out there also end in threats of rape or murder?Is That a Threat?, by Alison Leiby for The Lighthouse.
How can everything have changed and nothing change at all?
A Colleague Drank My Breast Milk And Other Wall Street Tales I kept the conversation light. I shared a funny story about my first day on Wall Street, when I opened up a pizza box to find condoms instead of pepperoni slices. Unwrapped. I was “the new girl,” and the guys just wanted to see me blush. I did blush, and I lived.
“It’s not that bad anymore,” I said with a laugh. [more inside]
"Oh – there is a this. He is going to do a this. To me."
Melissa Harris-Perry recounts her terrifying experience in Iowa on Monday night, on a #WaketheVote trip with her political science students.
An Oral History of Deliverance
Toronto's Dad of the moment
Norm Kelly, 74, has been Councillor of Ward 40, the Scarborough—Agincourt neighbourhoods in Toronto, for over 20 years. So how has he gained the adoration of thousands of adolescents and young adults in the Toronto area and afar who affectionately call him 'dad'? [more inside]
the neon gods they made
Afterdark |
+ | Jet Plastic |
80 Proof Midnights and 98 Octane Noons | Day 4 |
Hope |
| NEED | FIXED | STATIC | Speed | Funky Mustache | Nightmoves | Tesla | 70/80 |
The neon landscape of Valenberg, via 8bitDash.com
| NEED | FIXED | STATIC | Speed | Funky Mustache | Nightmoves | Tesla | 70/80 |
The neon landscape of Valenberg, via 8bitDash.com
Luxembourg’s asteroid mining plan
The Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy announced the first government initiative in Europe to develop a legal and regulatory framework on the future ownership of minerals extracted from objects in space, such as asteroids.
For the Care and Feeding of the People Who Feed Us
When he died this week at the age of 44, Benoit Violier was considered by many to be one of the top chefs in the world, presiding over the three-Michelin-star Restaurant de l'Hotel de Ville Crissier near Lausanne, Switzerland. His death is the second suicide of a successful, high-profile young chef this year. [more inside]
February 2
Under the radar websites for film buffs
history of japan (in 9 minutes)
history of japan in 9 minutes by bill wurtz
The science of Resting Bitch Face
“We wanted this to be fun and kind of tongue-in-cheek, but also to have legitimate scientific data backing it up, "Why are some faces seen as truly expressionless, but others are inexplicably off-putting? What, exactly, makes us register a seemingly neutral expression as RBF?" (Washington Post link.) [more inside]
I Used to Shave My Furry Ankles to Win Games
"Women lose over 241 million dollars a year to direct discrimination"
“[A] bit like the French ‘gomme’ but the q is a post-alveolar click”
Whence gqom, for the West?
January, 2016? Gqom Oh! The Sound of Durban is the first full-length, high-quality audio compilation of the scene and you can stream it on Bandcamp for free. Jake Hulyer profiles the scene and album, and suggests that gqom : kwaito:: footwork : ghetto house. Kwanele Sosibo breaks the style down in more detail. [more inside]
January, 2016? Gqom Oh! The Sound of Durban is the first full-length, high-quality audio compilation of the scene and you can stream it on Bandcamp for free. Jake Hulyer profiles the scene and album, and suggests that gqom : kwaito:: footwork : ghetto house. Kwanele Sosibo breaks the style down in more detail. [more inside]
20/20 vision in the world of high-end art
A painting commissioned for the firm’s hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary, “Transport Through the Ages,” hung above the reception desk. Bouvier insists that he never used confidential information from his logistics business to buy and sell paintings. None of the thirty-five works that he sold Rybolovlev were in storage with Natural Le Coultre. “I have the information not because I am a shipper,” he said. “It is because I am clever.”The high-end of the art market is full of mystery, built on trust, reputation, and secrecy. What happens when someone starts turning all of that on its head? An art shipper, Russian oligarch, and a Rothko in The Bouvier Affair. (Sam Knight, for The New Yorker)
And she is unanimous in that!
In the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a massively popular BBC sitcom called Are You Being Served, about the “antics” of the staff of the Grace Brothers department store ... [One of the main characters] was devoted to her cat, Tiddles. She would regale her colleagues each day with tales of its various misfortunes, and was always keen to finish work on time to get home and attend to its catly needs. She rarely called the moggy by its proper name, though – it was always referred to as “my pussy”.A tribute to Mrs. Slocombe's Pussy.
Single-Serving Recipes
The Last of Its Kind Still Flying
In honor of its latest flight transporting the Orion capsule to the Kennedy Space Center, let's consider the world's most bulbous plane, NASA's Super Guppy.
The Super Guppy has a cargo area that is 25 feet tall, 25 feet wide and 111 feet long. The jumbo plane can carry over 26 tons worth of cargo and is often used by NASA to ferry large components around the country that would take too long (or be impossible) to ship by land or by sea.[more inside]
"I never met Bill Cosby. But I knew Cliff Huxtable."
Trying to Separate Bill Cosby From Cliff Huxtable by Rachel L. Swarns [The New York Times]
"It was hard then to know where Dr. Huxtable ended and Mr. Cosby began. Mr. Cosby inhabited the role so completely that for a long time I thought character and creator were pretty much one and the same, at least until the allegations of rape began surfacing with increasing frequency. Then I went from feeling certain that Mr. Cosby was just like Dr. Huxtable, to wondering whether Mr. Cosby was like Dr. Huxtable, to desperately hoping that Mr. Cosby was the devoted family man I once thought he had been."
I said to myself, "I don't believe this shit is happening again."
Martha Wash was sitting in a Los Angeles hotel room, furious and confused. It was late 1990 and the singer, relaxing before a show that night, had decided to unwind with some channel surfing. She stumbled upon a new music video by Italian house group Black Box, whose synth lines, horn stabs and pulsating, club-tailored drum patterns had already made them dance music stars. When the song's vocals kicked in, she was shocked to see French model Katrin Quinol, the ex-girlfriend of founding member Daniele Davoli, bending over and crouching in a unitard, lip-syncing Wash's vocals to the eventual hit "Everybody Everybody." - Martha Wash: The Most Famous Unknown Singer of the '90s Speaks Out (Rolling Stone) [more inside]
He's takin' to the stars, to take down the man!
Grindhouse Star Wars (slyt)
Are you a female between the ages of 18 and 26?
Army and Marine Corps chiefs: It’s time for women to register for the draft The top officers in the Army and Marine Corps testified on Tuesday that they believe it is time for women to register for future military drafts, following the Pentagon’s recent decision to open all jobs in combat units to female service members.
Kratom, controversy and harm reduction
It's a legal, natural plant that has been used in Asian medicine for centuries. Indeed, a growing number of Americans are finding it to be a useful alternative to heroin and prescription pain relievers. But of course, there's a catch. Like the opioid drugs it is used to replace, this stuff can be addictive, and it can also cause serious nausea. Unlike other opioids, however, it seems to have an extremely low overdose risk, which has caught the eye of people working to fight the record high level of overdose deaths. It's called kratom. MeFi's Own Maia Szalavitz for Vice News. [more inside]
LUXE ET VERITAS
Songwriter on Reclaiming Adele, Rihanna's Unwanted Hits
A Mom and a Dairyman Plead: Don’t Feed Children Raw Milk
Two years ago, when Oregon parents Jill Brown and Jason Young met Brad and Tricia Salyers, the families had no idea that they would eventually be sharing in a tragedy that sickened four of the Salyers’ children and left Brown and Young’s youngest child, Kylee – 23 months old at the time – with such severe medical complications that she would need a kidney transplant from her mother. All of that and more happened beginning in April 2012 when the children were among 19 people – 15 of them under the age of 19 — who fell ill with E. coli O157:H7, a potentially fatal foodborne pathogen. Soon after, Oregon health officials determined that the outbreak was caused by raw milk from Foundation Farm near Wilsonville in Western Oregon — the Salyers’ family farm. Four of the sickened children were hospitalized with kidney failure. Foundation Farm had been providing 48 families with raw milk. Raw milk is milk that hasn’t been pasteurized to kill harmful and sometimes deadly foodborne pathogens such as E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella and Campylobacter.
Quick+Regen+Slow
Colin Hanson, aka Active_ate, goes through the original (fan-translated) version of Final Fantasy V with only a single Time Mage character, and provides complete, exhaustive details of how this feat was achieved: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3. From retrogaming enthusiast site Skirmishfrogs. [more inside]
Cinesift: find a film to watch
Cinesift: A movie database site that combines Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Letterboxd and Metacritic scores, with Netflix, Amazon Prime and DVD availability, to quickly help users find what to watch.
February 1
Dinosaurs vs. Robots - What could possibly go wrong?
What can change the nature of a man?
Often considered to have the best writing of any game, 1999's Planescape Torment (as can be seen in this short video) is getting a spiritual successor. Torment: Tides of Numenera, now in early beta (the first 30 minutes of which can be seen in this Let's Play), features many of the same writers (plus other favorites). To see what made the first game so great, fans have turned the original Planescape game into surprisingly readable novels. One version just contains mostly the dialogue for one particular path through the game with just a little linking text (457 pages worth), the other features an expanded version with more original material (1,219 pages). Both are available in a variety of formats, and you can buy the original game as well.
Would have a better title, but I've got a lot of reading to do...
So anyway, here's about five million pages (many searchable) of 20th century magazines regarding things like recording, mastering, broadcasting and even microcomputers.
Chang'e 3 moon shots
The China National Space Administration released all of the images from their Chang'e 3 moon landing mission (previously), including hundreds of amazing true color, HD photographs. Some 35 GB of datasets, including photographs of and by the Yutu rover have been difficult to retrieve outside of China and have been mirrored by Emily Lakdawalla at planetary.org.
In the future, things.
Escaping generational poverty in the Mississippi Delta
In This Impoverished Mississippi Community, Teacher Assistant Is a Coveted Job. It Pays $9 an Hour. The Mississippi Delta, in particular, offers few economic opportunities, especially for women of color with children. While the unemployment rate stands at 5 percent nationally, it’s nearly 10 percent in Washington County, where Riley lives. And while about 15 percent of Americans live in poverty, more than 30 percent of Washington County residents do. The major town of Washington County,
Too poor to retire, too young to die
America's retirement crisis: 29% of people 55 or older lack savings or pensions, says the Government Accountability Office (GAO). 1 in 4 people aged 65 or older is still working, many because they have no choice but to keep working as Social Security cannot cover their living costs. These working seniors find themselves too poor to retire, too young to die.
The 2016 Iowa Caucuses
Amidst an increasingly unpredictable political season, tonight the Iowa caucuses will finally cast the first votes of the 2016 presidential campaign.
It's an outsider vs. establishment war in both parties, as Republican leaders struggle to dislodge Donald Trump and Ted Cruz from the top while Hillary Clinton marshalls her endorsements and long résumé against the populist zeal of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.
The best guesses of FiveThirtyEight, BetFair, and Ann Selzer's gold-standard Des Moines Register poll all favor Trump and Clinton, but the race remains very close, and turnout in the demanding and complicated caucus events will be key. Vox provides a helpful video explainer on the process [previously]. Pass the time with FiveThirtyEight's 40-minute elections podcast, and keep an eye on the New York Times live blog of the caucuses for real-time updates once voting starts at 8:00 PM Eastern -- and don't forget to leave your two cents in the MeFi election prediction contest!
This is the worst party I've ever been to.
Starting in July 2015, I have photographed Republican and Democratic presidential candidates as they hit the campaign trail in New Hampshire[.] [I’ve used] a harsh and direct flash, evocative of early press photography. The campaigns usually bring in their own lighting and backdrops, and this technique is a deliberate attempt to subvert their control of the optics of politics. Shooting in this way reveals the edges of this political spectacle: cold food left on a buffet line, duct tape holding up the banners[.]… The work is not meant to be critical of any candidates, but rather to focus on the banality of these events as they are set up, performed, and taken down again and again and again. [via mefi projects]
Sarah? Sarah's not here.
Behold. Erowid Sarah Palin, a twitterbot with a mission to do Markov mashups between Sarah Palin quotes and "trip reports" from the Experience Vault at Erowid. [more inside]
It'll get there eventually
World's oldest surviving inscription of the Ten Commandments? Not quite.
... conventional history teaches that the Americas were discovered by the Europeans either in 1492 by Columbus, or maybe a few hundred years earlier by the Vikings. There still seems to be an aversion among the establishment historians to even consider the idea that ancient Mediterranean peoples from the Middle East might have traveled to the Americas in the centuries before Christ. Only so-called diffusionists would have accepted a different view. And yet, there it is, this inscription in New Mexico, an undeniable witness from an ancient past telling its history ...Behold, The Los Lunas Decalogue, a fascinating "old" site south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. [more inside]
Because Everyone Loves A Good Owl
With owls of high quality on everyone's mind this week, what can the owl curious do? Luckily, Vox has your back with nine superb owl facts. (SLVox)
Nah. - Rosa Parks, 1955
23 Ways To Celebrate Black History Month In Style (Hannah Giorgis for Buzzfeed)
My ex used to call this place a "cut'n'shoot" kind of bar.
The last local honky tonk (slCreativeLoafingAtlanta)
In Case you don't already know everything there is to know
Hey @Comcast why is my internet speed 31down\9up when I pay for 150down?
Unpublished Black History
"Every day during Black History Month, we will publish at least one of these photographs online, illuminating stories that were never told in our pages and others that have been mostly forgotten.... other holes in coverage probably reflect the biases of some earlier editors at our news organization, long known as the newspaper of record. They and they alone determined who was newsworthy and who was not, at a time when black people were marginalized in society and in the media."
Your P-value is in another castle
Guess the Correlation: The aim of the game is simple. Try to guess how correlated the two variables in a scatter plot are. The closer your guess is to the true correlation, the better.
This list is great if you like to laugh and want 100 of something
In chronological order from Bert Williams to Amy Schumer, Vulture lists the 100 jokes that shaped modern comedy. [more inside]
Jacques Rivette (1928–2016)
Revered arthouse icon Jacques Rivette, whose films explored the fine line that separates reality from theater and paranoid fantasy, died at his home in Paris on Friday of complications related to Alzheimer’s. [more inside]
Guardian restricts commentary on contentious topics
Going forward, the Guardian will refrain from allowing comments on articles discussing sensitive issues such as "race, immigration, and Islam". Per Mary Hamilton, executive editor, this move is necessary in order to address "a change in mainstream public opinion and language that we do not wish to see reflected or supported on the site".