September 2008 Archives
September 30
Venetian Flair
The Most Serene Republic, quite possibly the most underrated of all the acts on the Arts & Crafts label, create music in a similar vein to fellow Canadian indie rockers Arcade Fire, Stars, and Broken Social Scene. Experience their explosive, big-band, polyphonic, experimental flair by listening to their 3 releases in full: Underwater Cinematographer (2005), Phages EP (2006), and Population (2007). A few video music videos as well: The Men Who Live Upstairs, Oh God, Content Always Was My Favourite
Horror for the casual insomniac
Doomed Moviethon exists as an excuse for Richard Schmidt to go on insane, caffeine-fueled horror movie benders and record his impressions as sanity erodes... Could you do 28 Giallos in 60 hours? [more inside]
Man saves dog from shark attack
Great Cyber Crimes and Hacks
The best criminal hacker is the one that isn't caught — or even identified. These are 10 of the most infamous unsolved computer crimes as selected by PC Magazine. However, some do get caught. Here are nine of the most infamous criminal hackers to ever see the inside of a jail cell. PCMag also reached back into the early days of computing and dredged up the most inspiring examples of hacker brilliance they could find. [more inside]
What's in a game?
What can one learn from the design choices of past games? John Harris discusses different game aspects, 20 games at a time, at Game Design Essentials. You can read on 20 Open World Games (where generally the player is left to his own devices to explore a large world), see your destroyed controllers in a new light with 20 Difficult Games or check out 20 Mysterious Games (that rely on algorithmically-generated content or emphasize secret-hunting), 20 Unusual Control Schemes and 20 Atari Games. What about roguelikes, you say? [more inside]
Search like it's 2001...
To celebrate their 10th birthday Google have brought back their oldest available index dating back to 2001.
The Ghosts of Futures Past
"We are living in interesting times; in fact, they're so interesting that it is not currently possible to write near-future SF" – why Charles Stross might have to market his next novel as fantasy.
I'm writing in Stephen Colbert
Bother Voting doesn't care who you are going to support this election, as long as you get out and vote. Now all you have to do is use their creative e-cards and banners to convince your friends to hit the polls.
RIP Hayden Carruth 1921-2008
"Why don't you write me a poem that will prepare me for your death?" Hayden Carruth's wife, thirty years his junior, asked him. He did so, and it became one of his most popular poems. Carruth, who celebrated his 87th birthday last month died last night at his home in Munnsville New York. Carruth was the winner of the the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry collection Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey. He edited Poetry magazine from 1949-1950 and was a poetry editor at Harpers. [more inside]
Neverdrinkmilkagain, neverdrinkmilkagain, I promise, neverdrinkmilkagain...
I don't care how creative you think you are. You can't top this for terrifying imagery. "She was chasing children in a cow costume."
Real Relevant?
Considering DVDs seem a bit long in the tooth, this recent foray into the world of DVD ripping seemed a thinly veiled attempt to pick a fight with the MPAA. After invoking the Glaser Doctrine this morning, guess they got what they wanted. [more inside]
The $1.4 Trillion Question
"Through the quarter-century in which China has been opening to world trade, Chinese leaders have deliberately held down living standards for their own people and propped them up in the United States. This is the real meaning of the vast trade surplus—$1.4 trillion and counting, going up by about $1 billion per day—that the Chinese government has mostly parked in U.S. Treasury notes. In effect, every person in the (rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about $4,000 from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China." James Fallows on how the trade deficit between China and America works and what it means for the future.
Cats Defending Henhouses
Worried about social-network data mining? Facebook hires Ted Ullyot, former right-hand man to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as its general counsel. Tapping Ullyot, who worked on the infamous torture memo and other illustrious projects, is a sign that the burgeoning Scrabble platform "is a little more grown-up," says Facebook public-policy VP Elliot Schrage.
Termite Mounds
Photoshopping Community @ Flickr
"The amount of time it would take for the community to self-regulate -- I don't think it could sustain itself in the meantime. Anyway, I can't think of any successful online community where the nice, quiet, reasonable voices defeat the loud, angry ones on their own." —Ruling the global masses, one image at a time. The art of moderation as practiced by Heather Champ, Director of Community at Flickr. [more inside]
IMDB has movies and TV now
The IMDB is hosting movies and TV. If the expanding collection doesn't yet do it for you, there's always http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/, or, for your silent film needs, plain old youtube.
fortunately we only lost a few onions.
So one time, Dave Secretary provided much happy distraction. Consequently, I thought a link to his blog might be welcome. [more inside]
Video Panorama
A most unusual panorama: a proof of concept combining 180 degree panorama photography along with camera movement.
The camera mounted with a fish-eye lens is placed on a trolley traveling in a circle.
New York Subway
London Underground blogger Annie Mole experiences the New York subway for the first time here -> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Collaborative handwritten Bible created across America
"To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, the best-selling translation with more than 300 million copies in print, Zondervan has launched Bible Across America, a cross-country RV tour. Bible Across America features an RV, piloted by a four-person team, that is traveling across the continental United States, making stops at churches, universities, retail stores and special events where people are invited to contribute a verse to complete a handwritten Bible – America's NIV." [more inside]
shake shake shake
"The Quake-Catching Network is a collaborative initiative for developing the world's largest, low-cost strong-motion seismic network by utilizing sensors in and attached to internet-connected computers." The Economist's writeup notes that, since network communications are (sometimes) faster than the speed of sound in the earth's crust, a distributed network's observations of a temblor might reach a warning network before the quake itself reaches a traditional seismometer. [more inside]
Stochastic cascades, credit contagion, and large portfolio losses
"In the limit of an infinite economy, the number of initial downgrades is Poisson distributed. This captures the idea that the shock initially affects only a small number of firms.
Nonetheless, the distribution of the total number of defaults has slowly decaying tails ... A firm might well be able to absorb its shock, but it might not be able to absorb both the shock and the resulting deterioration in the average rating. The initial downgrades may thus trigger additional defaults that, in turn, further deteriorate the average rating, and so on. In
a large economy, this cascade can be described by a branching process." Ulrich Horst, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2007. (Internet supplement!) [more inside]
Acoustic performances at LiveDaily Sessions
Concert promoter LiveDaily has an acoustic live sessions program (video starts playing). It's been running since March of this year and so far 33 artists have performed: Priscilla Ahn, The Raveonettes, Black Lips, Paddy Casey, Dawn Landes, Lykke Li, The Duke Spirit, Frightened Rabbit, Foreign Born, The Dodos, The Virgins, Radar Bros., Langhorne Slim, Shwayze, Joseph Arthur, Missy Higgins, Wild Sweet Orange, Le Switch, Deadly Syndrome, Steve Poltz, Weather Underground, Imaad Wasif, Rogue Wave, David Ford, Takka Takka, Black Ghosts, The Airborne Toxic Event, Tally Hall, Lionel Loueke, Calico Horse, Rademacher, Judith Owen and Carrie Rodriguez
Oooh!
Jump to it
Sometimes with Youtube, there's a specific part of a video you want people to see. Splicd generates a url to send people that clip. For instance: cooking a rat or an interesting part of a lecture. (On load, a small amount of each clip's beginning is played.) [more inside]
Completely new websites!
Tired of the current web? Have all the cool domain names already been registered? The second web bills itself as geocities 2.0 with a web browser-esque interface stuck on top of it "a completely new World Wide Web. A new Web Browser, a new domain name system and completely new websites."
September 29
A lyric so nice they used it twice
Boom Boom, Talk Talk, Jump Jump, Hey Hey, Go Go, Ooh Ooh, Mony Mony, Sugar Sugar, Chug-a-Lug Chug-a-Lug. OK, that's it for now. Bye Bye Baby.
Michael Bérubé is back blogging
Michael Bérubé, professor of American Literature and Cultural Studies at Penn State, one of America's most dangerous professors, award winning blogger, author, and father of Jamie Bérubé, has started up his blog again. I, for one, welcome our new(ly) blogging (again) overlords.
previously
What caused the Viking Age?
What caused the Viking Age? It has long been a source of, er, conflict among Nordic scholars. A new study ($ub-only) suggests the Viking Age was triggered by a shortage of women (lack of).
Down By (Copyright) Law
Why is Nina Paley depressed? Her debut feature film, Sita Sings the Blues — which she animated herself in Adobe Flash — screened to general acclaim at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. It won the best feature-film award at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival and best American feature at the Avignon Film Festival. Oh, wait, here’s the problem — she can’t find a distributor willing to take a chance on her unconventional, very personal film. (This is a bad year to be shopping an indie.) Because she doesn’t have “synch rights” to the compositions underlying the Annette Hanshaw songs that inspired the story — and now constitute its backbone — she can’t give the film away. Having invested so much in striking prints of the film for festivals and making screener DVDs for press, she’s too broke to pay the $220,000 it would take to clear the 11 songs for distribution. (Don’t miss the spreadsheet showing exactly how much the various players expect her to pay to clear each 80-year-old song.) And now she notes, with tongue maybe half in cheek, she may be on the hook for felony copyright infringement. Also, she’s newly homeless. What’s an indie animator to do? Previously discussed here and here.
Mail-Order Friends: The Comic Book Squirrel Monkeys
Ecuador has a new constitution
Voters in Ecuador appear to have approved a new constitution yesterday, guaranteeing rights to clean water, universal healthcare, pensions, and free state-run education through the university level. It also may allow President Rafael Correa to remain in power until 2017. Particularly of note is a world first bill of rights for nature which grants inalienable rights to nature. [more inside]
Art In The Twenty-First Century
Art:21 - art in the twenty-first century is the only series on television to focus exclusively on contemporary visual art and artists in the United States, and it uses the medium of television to provide an experience of the visual arts that goes far beyond a gallery visit. Fascinating and intimate footage allows the viewer to observe the artists at work, watch their process as they transform inspiration into art, and hear their thoughts as they grapple with the physical and visual challenges of achieving their artistic visions. 72 featured artists: 300+ video clips: youtube page: examples - Janine Antoni: Eleanor Antin: Alfredo Jaar: Ann Hamilton: Sally Mann: Matthew Barney: Matthew Ritchie
Sinestro had the script printed on YELLOW PAPER.
The Green Lantern movie is back on! Minus Jack Black! Early concept art is looking exciting, though sadly we’ll never see Paul Newman in the role of Hal Jordan.
Ha. Dou. Ken.
GOOOOOOOOL! Abuelaaaaaa!! GOOOOOOOL!!!
SLYT: A compilation of that good ol' meme: Lucy Castillo y Javi Fesser en Peliculas Pendelton's Abuela Patadas a un Bebé series. [Warning: much baby kicking ensues. Previously.]
Sleeping, dead, alone
Elizabeth Heyert struggles to remove the photographer from portraiture, moving contra Richard Avedon.
Three series: Sleepers (interview), Travelers (interview), Narcissists [NSFWish] (essay).
The Supreme Court and America’s international relations
When Judges Make Foreign Policy. "In a globalized, post-9/11 age, decisions made by the Supreme Court are increasingly shaping America's international relations. When the next justice is appointed, our place in the world may well hang in the balance."
US Bailout bill, TARP, and economists' and journalists' reactions
Following the recent preciptious downturn in the US banking sector, a compromise draft bill is going to a vote in Congress today. The text of the bill [110-page pdf]; The Wall Street Journal's summary of the bill; an open-for-comments public analysis of the bill at publicmarkup.org. Some questions answered and unhappy acceptance from economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman; a strenuous rejection from Nouriel Roubini; via same, an IMF study of 42 banking crises from 1970 through 2007; further criticism from Nomi Prins for Mother Jones.
The Woodman Speaks
Woody Allen interview in New York Magazine For its 40th anniversary New York Magazine scored an interview with one of the icons of American cinema, the filmmaker most associated with the city with the possible exception of Martin Scorsese
Terror At Home
Chemical irritant empties Islamic Society of Greater Dayton's mosque. This after Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West appeared as a paid advertising insert in the Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun, Hamilton JournalNews and Middletown Journal, all owned by Cox Ohio Publishing, on Monday, Sept. 22. [more inside]
Surfacing
Beaked Whales "might be the least understood group of large mammals on Earth". One thing is relatively certain, however: sonar appears to kill them. [more inside]
'Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals'
A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.
Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill "within days" of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.
It's not the economy, stupid.
"You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don't know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue..." (previously) The infamous bear study bought up by McCain in the first debate is one of his favourite pork barrel examples, but little actual information is given about the study. Here is the website giving details about the project, with more info, a quick fact sheet and a podcast. This is one of the rare times when a candidate will air an opinion on science in a popular setting.... [more inside]
What was it like during the Great Depression?
What was it like during the Great Depression? University of Oregon Economist Mark Thoma links to interviews by Studs Terkel which deal with the Great Depression. All interviews in Real Player format. Interviewees: Gardner C. Means, economic adviser to FDR. Peggy Terry, a migrant farm worker (my favorite interview). Virginia Durr, civil rights activist. Ed Paulsen, dayworker. Emma Tiller, cook. Pauline Kael (yes, that Pauline Kael). Mary Owsley, farm worker. Much more in the Hard Times section of the wonderful Studs Terkel website, which has been featured twice previously on MetaFilter (1, 2) [via Obsidian Wings]
September 28
60 Concert Posters From Ten Amazing Artists
60 Concert Posters From Ten Amazing Artists. Warning! All 60 images are on the one page so this page might take a while to load.
The story of a cab ride.
oh gross!
80's sillibiz, parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids. Garbage Pail Kids cards.The checklist. A few of the Garbage Pail Kids' artists: Luiz Diaz l John Pound l Tom Bunk. [more inside]
the death of illiquidity
Tiny Silver Death Machine
"In Denver there were vendors nearby when we ate breakfast. Stretch limos outfitted with powerful communications technology stalled in murderous crosstown traffic. Helicopters shine searchlights down at the buildings, the crowd. Chanted rhymes emerge like a collective tribal memory. Allegations are advanced concerning faked pregnancies. "This is one of those moments." There is a meet-and-greet with the guy from the Doobie Brothers.
A voice from the subconscious: Toyota Corola."
Don DeLillo blogs about the Presidential elections for The Onion.
A voice from the subconscious: Toyota Corola."
Don DeLillo blogs about the Presidential elections for The Onion.
Freeways Without Futures
The Congress for the New Urbanism has just released Freeways Without Future, their top-10 list of aging highways that should be demolished in favor of city-friendly boulevards. "There's a whole generation of elevated highways in cities that are at the end of their design life," says John Norquist, head of the Congress for the New Urbanism. "Instead of rebuilding them at enormous expense, cities have an opportunity to undo what proved to be major urban-planning blunder." Take that, Robert Moses.
The path to 'victory'
Is This a 'Victory'? "We hear again and again from Washington that we have turned a corner in Iraq and are on the path to victory. If so, it is a strange victory."
Gives a whole new meaning to "Terror Watch List"
The Casio F91W is a cheap, common digital watch which, as described by Casio themselves, has a "tried and true style great for casual wear". It has a fairly unremarkable set of features: water resistance, a light, an alarm and a calendar. There is, however, one undocumented feature that makes this particular watch special – it can be used as evidence that you're a terrorist. More info at Wikipedia.
Time zones
Let's Talk About Killing Zombies
Before even writing The Zombie Survival Guide never mind World War Z, Max Brooks was lecturing on how to survive an uprising by the living dead. [more inside]
HUNGARIAN SHORT STORIES
Earl Palmer, thanks for the rhythm.
A musician passed away just the other day. In all likelihood you never knew his name. But you've probably heard him, no exaggeration, on thousands of occasions. He was drummer Earl Palmer, and some of the thousands of songs he propelled with his versatile grooves and masterful sense of time include Tutti Frutti and Lucille, La Bamba, Let's Go Get Stoned, I Don't Need No Doctor, Unchained Melody, You've Lost That Loving Feeling... the list goes on and on. Oh, and there's the TV themes he drummed on, like say, Mission Impossible. And here you can see New Orleans native Earl demonstrating how he put the beat under Professor Longhair's classic Tipitina and on Fats Domino's I'm Walkin'. He was one superb rhythmist. Au revoir, Earl Palmer. [more inside]
This video contains so much more than flashing lights
Dancefloor Dale (autoplaying music video) — NSFW after 1:05, and never safe for epilleptics. [more inside]
September 27
Japan in the Space Elevator race
Japan is showing renewed interest as another contender in the race to build the world's first space elevator. Japanese scientists believe they can complete the project with an optimistic trillion yen budget, and are sponsoring an international conference (no English) this November to draw up a timetable. [more inside]
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous. Got me?
What Art Students Are Up To
Student artwork from the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL. Departments include computer animation, photography and digital imaging, interior design, and others. [more inside]
Heads Above Water
Laura Sanders paints realistic portraits of people swimming with their heads above the water. [more inside]
Next, run with scissors.
Judge a book by its cover. See if you can guess the Amazon rating.
collections of images
Beautiful, vintage children's books from the Netherlands. If you click on the cover you can get close-ups of the entire book, page by page. 655 picture books from 1810 to 1950. Some examples: The Willows l Bellaroontje l Flower Children l The Circus l The Sparrow and the Starling. There are 67 extraordinary collections in The Memory of the Netherlands. [more inside]
If the Bar can get any lower...
Sami al-Haj, The TV cameraman, 38, was never charged with any crime, nor was he put on trial; his testimony makes it clear that he was held in three prisons for six-and-a-half years – repeatedly beaten and force-fed – not because he was a suspected "terrorist" but because he refused to become an American spy. There is the worrying fact of medical complicity in his torture. (previously 1, 2) [more inside]
Zoom into Aluminium
Accomplished by seamlessly blending images captured with different photo and microscopy techniques – and some deal of illustration – delve deep into the matter, from the hair above to concrete, steel and more in the Weird, Weird Science Channel. Via forgetomori
Interview Sarah Palin
Paul Newman is dead
One of the great ones in movies has left us. Paul Newman died friday at the age of 83. BBC reports it was cancer. Not only a great actor, he was a great supporter of wonderful humanitarian causes.
Lyonesse - shadow island of the Atlantic
In Tennyson´s epic poem Idylls of the King, Lyonesse is the place where the final, epoch-shattering battle between Mordred and King Arthur takes place. In the older Arthurian romances, Lyonesse is the birthplace of Sir Tristan, and it is supposed to have bordered Cornwall in the southwest of England. No historical evidence of Lyonnesse has been found, and the academic consensus seems to be that the French author of the Prose Tristan got his British geography catastrophically wrong, and that he really meant Lothian in Scotland.
There are, however, those who believe that Lyonesse was a real realm which once reached from the Scilly Islands to Land´s End. The people of Penzance and southwestern Cornwall certainly seem fond of stories about sunken lands, church bells in the deep, and drowned forests. According to family legend, the ancestor of the local Trevelyan family was a sole survivor who rode across the causeway to Cornwall as Lyonesse crumbled into the sea behind him.
He Chose ... Poorly.
Survive the Outbreak: Interactive zombie movie. At certain points of the movie you will be prompted to make a choice.
What would you do?
You'll most certainly die, but at least you get to come back and try again.
*NSFW due to profanity.
September 26
Coming soon to an episode of Primeval
According to new fossil evidence 50 million years ago the skies above London were ruled by a relative of the goose, the size of a light aircraft, with toothy crocodile-likejaws. Or as The Sun puts it... DON'T RUCK WITH THIS DUCK!
Sweetness and Shadows
Literary oddities
Unusual books. Unusual art made from books. Unusual bookcover. Unusual bookshelves. Unusual bookstore.
OMG only 18 months til the Olympics and you don't have tickets yet!
The 2010 Olympic Winter Games ticket requests start one week from today! It's just up the road in Vancouver, B.C.. [more inside]
A-11 Offense
The A-11 Offense (All Eleven Players Potentially Eligible) is a new, scrimmage-kick formation based, offensive system in football... The Football Math.
Muxtape Tells All
Muxtape's Justin tells the story play-by-play. You may remember an earlier post about muxtape being shut down. After all kinds of speculation, discussion, and consternation, we can finally know what really happened.
The Wars of John McCain
The Wars of John McCain. "John McCain believes the Vietnam War was winnable. Now he argues that an Obama administration would accept defeat in Iraq, with grave costs to American honor and national security. Is McCain’s quest for victory a reflection of an antiquated pre-Vietnam mind-set? Or of a commitment to principles we abandon at our peril? Is there any war McCain thinks can’t be won?"
The Legacy of Daniel Pearl
In January, 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl disappeared in Karachi, Pakistan while seeking to meet with shadowy figures he believed to be connected with Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber." Before long, it became clear he had been kidnapped, and then that his captors had murdered him. His family responded by setting up a foundation with the mission "to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and innovative communications." Among the events and programs sponsored by the foundation: [more inside]
The Great Schlep
The Great Schlep. Sarah Silverman explains why you should get your fat Jewish ass on a plane to Florida to convince your grandparents to vote for Obama.
Everyone's baby
If you were a parent, and had lost your child during birth--what would you do? Grieve--yes; mourn, of course; photograph your dead child... ? WHY? [please don't click if you're a soon-to-be-parent] [more inside]
While I lay dreaming of you...
The Earth Dies Screaming [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [more inside]
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket
Library Finds is seriously beautiful photography and explication of little-seen gems in the library stacks, from a self-confessed "techie, not a librarian, who is quite fortunate to be surrounded by books everyday". From the green to the teal and now to the blue.
Bottoms up
Now that the presidential debate is back on, it's time to prepare by selecting the most appropriate drinking game for tonight's debate. [more inside]
Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Photoessay
PoliticsFilter
It's election season, and the stakes are high. The incumbent party is looking a little frayed, and people are looking for change. The opposition leader (a young chap, who despite being neither gifted, nor black, has likened himself to someone of that definition) is accused of profiting from parliamentary questions about undeclared shareholdings. And forget about your $700 Billion, this election has been rocked by scandal over an undeclared NZ$100,000 donation. Some would suggest that the state of the nation can be read largely through sales of doggy chew toys.
science visualization
2008 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge "The winners -- in categories including photography, illustration, informational graphics, and multimedia -- captured the crystalline beauty of diatoms, the expanse of the human circulatory system, a fairy tale tea party re-invented, and the dynamic life of a plant cell." (previously)
Diesel SFW XXX
Diesel's SFW XXX viral will have you looking at pinball machines in a whole different light. And harmonica playing. And the maracas. And corn on a cob. The list goes on.
Q.E.D. (quote, ellipsis, diacritic)
Typography for Laywers. A basic introduction to typography in a clean, well-organized (and still growing) site. [more inside]
Crap - I only made $15B last year
There are still some smart people left on Wall St. Hedge fund manager, John Paulson, made a cool $15B for his fund as the housing market imploded. His cut? $3-4B. Not too shabby for a year's worth of work. [more inside]
Slow Food Nation '08
Slow Food Nation '08 was a four-day conference with a panel of food luminaries (Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, Eric Schlosser, ..) to discuss the future of food in America. Sessions included The World Food Crisis (1:13), Climate Change and Food (1:20), Building a new food system (1:22), and more (streaming video, MP3 download, transcripts).
Find the Star, a third time
Come and watch a DVD
This is not your FDIC. This is the Rich White Man's FDIC.
A private FDIC?
The Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service, or CDARS, is a way to conveniently spread bank accounts across multiple banks. CDARS, run by privately held Promontory Interfinancial Network, offers its customers up to $50 million of deposit insurance, or exactly 500 times single account limit mandated by the FDIC. Promontory does this by arranging to distribute client funds nationwide in $100K increments to over 2,300 banks. Promontory is nothing if not well connected: while founders Mark Jacobsen previously served as Chief of Staff at the FDIC, co-founders Alan Blinder was Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Eugene Ludwig was Comptroller of the Currency, several former members of the FDIC currently serve on Promotory's board.
Not surprisingly, some folks are openly critical of Promotory, some going so far as to state "It undermines a lot of the safeguards around the FDIC deposit fund."
The Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service, or CDARS, is a way to conveniently spread bank accounts across multiple banks. CDARS, run by privately held Promontory Interfinancial Network, offers its customers up to $50 million of deposit insurance, or exactly 500 times single account limit mandated by the FDIC. Promontory does this by arranging to distribute client funds nationwide in $100K increments to over 2,300 banks. Promontory is nothing if not well connected: while founders Mark Jacobsen previously served as Chief of Staff at the FDIC, co-founders Alan Blinder was Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Eugene Ludwig was Comptroller of the Currency, several former members of the FDIC currently serve on Promotory's board.
Not surprisingly, some folks are openly critical of Promotory, some going so far as to state "It undermines a lot of the safeguards around the FDIC deposit fund."
Must be the season of the witch
With all the terror in the news lately, it's easy to forget that the Halloween season is upon us. Everyone's entitled to one good scare (besides that loan you need), and there's probably a haunted attraction popping up in your neck of the woods right now to provide it. Born of a storied history including phantasmagoria, the Theatre du Grand Guignol, and Midnight Spook Shows, haunted houses are now a 500 million dollar a year industry and the stuff of urban legend. Whether you prefer something more authentic, theatrical, cinematic, or truly horrifying, there's a spook house for everyone. If, of course, you have the nerve. (Grand Guignol previously)
Rococo Exhibition
Continuing Curve , brings together an unprecedented collection of designers and objects of different eras to celebrate the joyful and liberating spirit of rococo. [more inside]
September 25
Oh sh*t.
And then there were ten
Planning and working toward ultimate goals that appear unattainable or even unrealistic does not militate against a finding that this was a terrorist group [more inside]
handpainted signs from Nepal
Beware of Dog. Nepali artists paint signs on metal. Before and After. The story behind Danger Dogs. Click on the names of the different artists at the top of the page for various styles. [more inside]
And then there were...?
Let's Eat!
Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power, an urban farm in Milwaukee, has won a MacArthur Genius grant. Growing Power uses aquaculture, vermiculture, and sustainable agriculture to raise food in an urban environment. Chefs of the region have taken notice, but that's not Growing Power's main purpose. Congratulations to only the second farmer to win a Genius Grant. [more inside]
"It was the parents not wanting to continue the journey with their kids," Landry said...
Safe Haven laws have been around for almost a decade. Not wanting to be left out, Nebraska passed their own this past year, with some possible unintended consequences.
Aleksander Wolszczan
In 1992, Aleksander Wolszczan discovered the first planets outside our solar system. Now, the Penn State professor been accused of spying for SB, the Polish Secret Police. He calls it a "smear campaign."
Terrorist fist bump!
Mock the Vote: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert interviewed.
Circus Slang for Gauchos.
Every trade has a history, a culture and secrets, all most vividly expressed in the special terms used by its workers. The circus is, of course, no different as this handy dictionary of circus slang shows. It contains entries for both American and European circuses, and has a handy list of vaudeville slang words as well. These unique words used on the carnival lot around the world demonstrate a language that defines a world of wonders, and now you can use them to impress your friends and insult your enemies!
Dark Flow
Mysterious New 'Dark Flow' Discovered in Space. "As if the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy weren't vexing enough, another baffling cosmic puzzle has been discovered. Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon 'dark flow.' The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude." [more inside]
Get ready to burn through a lot of ink!
"A Solitaire Civization game that's compact enough to play on a plane ... Using only a pad of paper, a pencil, and a specialized deck of cards, lead your civilization through the ages to become ... civilized." A free "print-and-play" board game. [more inside]
Some of the biggest questions/That's ever been asked/Do you know where life is going/Can you tell where it starts?
Assignment details: Discuss the following: We know that life exists on Earth, and has taken billions of years to evolve into the things we see today. But has this happened anywhere other than Earth? Well, to help sort out this headscratcher of a question, NASA has commissioned MC Oort Kuiper, aka Jonathan Chase, a grad student at the University of Glamorgan, to write a rap about it. "Astrobiology" appears in the European edition of Astrobiology Magazine.
Politcal Sketch
"As he walks past I am struck by the way, from his default gloomy expression, he constantly flashes his rictus grin at people, like a doomed and slightly out of control belisha beacon" - The Guardian's cartoonist Steve Bell on drawing Gordon 'Gordy' Brown (video). He's in the process of producing a number of sketchbooks covering the conference season - Liberal Democrat, Labour 1, Labour 2. And he covered this year's Democrat and Republican conventions and also visited 'Manifest Hope' (video), an art exhibition based around images of Barack Obama. Previously.
When Books Could change Your Life
When Books Could Change Your Life: an excellent essay on Children's literature by Tim Kreider, (previously), on the importance of reading as cultural socialization.
Plurality of Words
Anathem,
Neal
Stephenson's new book, is stupendous, possibly his best.
But his
acknowledgments page
(summarized in the print version and as expansive as ever on the
Internet
Reticulum) might be even more interesting, and poignant,
especially
as an introduction to the niftiest piece of metaphysics in
the book: the quantum
effects
(PDFs) of
consciousness among
many worlds. [more inside]
Genius
Walter Kitundu is one of this year's MacArthur Fellows, a musician and artist who invents and builds new instruments from turntables, strings and the interactions of the elements. His recent invention, the Ocean Edge Device, uses the flow of the rushing tides to provide energy for on-board accordion and turntable instrumentation.
... but then I was like, 'there's no sharks here'
When most people think of the Great Lakes, surfing is the last thing that comes to mind. Unsalted seeks to expose the unique world of Great Lake surfers. [more inside]
Star Stories and the Nobel Prize
Star Stories explains the life and death of stars using a multimedia
approach that incorporates images, animation, video and text. From the official website of the Nobel Foundation. Don't miss out on the other cool games . [more inside]
Sug as in sugar, rue as in rue the fucking day
S**tstorm
China banks told to halt lending to US banks. Unemployment figures climb to a 7-year high. New home sales fall to 17-year low. Ruh-roh. [more inside]
Ten bucks of Sharpie to a whole! new! room!
Think it costs a fortune to redecorate your basement? Not anymore -- you can do it for ten bucks worth of permanent marker.
Visual Migraine simulator
Finally I can show you what I see in my head when I have a Visual Migraine. I get these a couple times a year, but only recently found this site with the amazingly-accurate flash animation.
A Break From The Insanity
Here's an article and slideshow to help escape the worries of the world. A great article and slideshow about the Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu (Southeastern India). (NYTimes)
Astral Decades
“In the condition I was in, it assumed at the time the quality of a beacon, a light on the far shores of the murk; what's more, it was proof that there was something left to express artistically besides nihilism and destruction.” Lester Bangs on the topic of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks which began recording exactly 40 years ago today in Century Sound Studios NYC. [more inside]
September 24
Art you can really get hung up on
So, as a fashionista or due to your upbringing, you don't want to use wire coat hangers. Yet they keep accumulating in your closet. And perhaps you don't have a thrift shop or dry cleaner in your vicinity that will accept them. You can only use so many weenie roasters and dowsing rods, and your old talent for unlocking car doors is useless on modern locks. What to do? Well, some people improve/camouflage their hangers by covering them with braided strips of plastic bags, fabric, or yarn. But there are other, non-clothes hanging, uses for wire hangers. At the simplest end of the spectrum, you could make a toilet paper holder, or wool sock blockers. You could use the wire as a frame for decorative wreaths (or a wreath for your stitch and bitch party), or little Christmas trees or a Christmas card display rack. You could make a light fixture, or a chandelier. If you have a surplus of plastic hangers, they can become a light fixture too. Or you could make a chair. If you're feeling especially artistic, or just want something to fill in a blank space on the wall, you might follow the lead of artist Lawrence L'Hote, or of artist Philippa King, and make, say, a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, or a sculpture based on a Picasso sketch. And if you're really enthusiastic about the possibilities of wire hangers, try your hand at making a gorilla, a spaceman, or a hooker like artist David Mach. Just please be particularly careful not to put an eye out, since that's not an improvement on mashed clothing.
Fiction, pure fiction.
That 700 Billion Dollar number that everyone's talking about? They made it up.
"You Are Not Clever"
FineArtFilter: Taco Photography. Plus Hatemail and Critiques. And you can buy them on this recommendation - "Probably the best fine art taco photography I've seen".
Put the gun down, and step away
The clathrate gun hypothesis has been discussed previously, but now might be a good time to start considering it less hypothetical. [via] [more inside]
A moving image of capitalism screaming and exploding
In the early days of the occupation of Iraq, a "gathering of antagonists to capital and empire" known as the Retort Collective published Afflicted Powers, a contentious analysis of September 11th and its aftermath grounded in the Situationist concepts developed by Guy Debord in The Society of the Spectacle. Two lengthy excerpts can be read online: an introduction to the war as a "struggle for mastery in the realm of the image", and a critique of the "Blood for Oil" argument. [more inside]
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption
The realistic style is easy to abuse: from haste, from lack of awareness, from inability to bridge the chasm that lies between what a writer would like to be able to say and what he actually knows how to say. It is easy to fake; brutality is not strength, flipness is not wit, edge-of-the-chair writing can be as boring as flat writing; dalliance with promiscuous blondes can be very dull stuff when described by goaty young men with no other purpose in mind than to describe dalliance with promiscuous blondes. There has been so much of this sort of thing that if a character in a detective story says, "Yeah," the author is automatically a Hammett imitator.
Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder" (1950)
Try that with a fiat currency!
Federal Reserve Fan Fiction via the XKCD blog.
Meetings With Remarkable Men
It’s good to be loved
In the French Quarters of New Orleans you are very likely to come across various street entertainers. Grampa Elliott is one such performer.
Elliott Small has had a smattering of recordings over the years like the 1976 Malaco record discussed hereSince that time no record lables have produced any of his work that I can find. He spent his time performing on street corners in the Quarter until Katrina, some people feared the worse, but he turned up on Royal street in 2005 no worse for wear. Here is a story by Rick Bragg of the NYT [more inside]
Dominoes Made of Dominoes
Dominoes Made of Dominoes Awesome and very chromatically beautiful. Watch for the hold-outs that refuse to collapse.
That number two hoodoo that you do so well
Dog poop is serious business. When it's not properly disposed of, it can be a significant pollutant, contaminating groundwater and streams. Some cities are taking action, but few are willing, able or ingenious to go as far as Petah Tikva, Israel, which is building its own dog-poop DNA database with the intention of rewarding conscientious pooper-scoopers and punishing scatological scofflaws.
Stairway to Stardom
Staya way do Stah dim - Please...don't....make...it...stop
Apologies if this is old internets...just seeing it for the first time today and was awestruck. A quick search didn't turn up much 'previous'. Happy Autumn!
mentioned...but broken
Apologies if this is old internets...just seeing it for the first time today and was awestruck. A quick search didn't turn up much 'previous'. Happy Autumn!
mentioned...but broken
Manual for postmodern childrearing
Do not pretend the child exists as a subject with any greater relevance than all the other surrounding objects with pretensions to subjectivity – be they present or absent.
Questioning the copy.
Questioning the copy.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me... on the other hand, don't.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain have made public their views on immigration, but it's helpful to understand how the system actually works. To that end, Reason presents this flowchart which illustrates exactly how rough it is to immigrate to America.
Reenacting Slavery
Reenacting slavery at Chickamauga National Military Park. When a reenactor put his knapsack on the ground, the person portraying his slave picked up his knapsack and "moved it before I could say a word. I instantly knew that I had an opportunity to demonstrate the institution's cruelty here, and so I did not acknowledge his act, did not thank him for it, did not make eye contact, did not stop my talk. My own cruelty -- even to make a teaching point to the audience -- made me shudder inside." [more inside]
The Ayahuasca Monologues
Surrendering to the Spirit Vine. Artist Alex Grey (previously) describes his experience with "the champagne of ayahuascas."
Fly My Pretty!
On this day in 1852, Jules Henri Giffard made the first powered and controlled flight in a steam powered airship. His 27km journey from Paris to Trappes predated the Wright Brothers' 12-second flight by over 50 years. [more inside]
Bow Before the Almighty Cloud
Dot Matrix Revolution Animators Superbrothers release their follow-up to their 1st pixel animation, Children of the Clone. Also check out their illustrations on flickr.
{via Laughing Squid}
Because there are more important things to do on Friday night
McCain calls time! John McCain has asked that the first presidential debate be postponed and he will suspend his campaign so he can focus on the economy. No response from Obama yet. But it may be due to his approval rating, The latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Obama has taken a 45-39 percent lead.
Why is Paul McKee ruining the north side?
Blairmont: The Final Dose. Yesterday Rob Powers of Built St. Louis (prev.) completed a 189-post tour of the North St. Louis properties bought and left to ruin by developer Paul McKee's Blairmont Associates LLC. Residents trying to rebuild in this area have had to deal with nearby Blairmont properties catching fire, collapsing due to brick rustlers, and obstructing their efforts to improve their own homes. Four years this has been going on and still nobody knows what McKee is up to. Much more information at Ecology of Absence.
Let's see if we can't get that up on the Internet.
SLYT: Crazy preacher comes to the defense of Bristol Palin. Starts out slow, but picks up steam.
Avast, Ye Scurvy Homophobes!
On September 19th, the Westboro Baptist Church planned a protest outside the National Conference of Editorial Writers, claiming that they were "responsible for the satanic milieu in this evil land" and for assisting the "satanic agendas" of "baby-killers and fags."
But September 19th also happened to be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And thus, a group of local residents were inspired to stage an effective, and entertaining, counterprotest.
audio memories of the world
Sound glimpses into the past. The Phonogrammarchiv was founded in 1899 and is the oldest audiovisual research archive in the world. There are some fascinating sound samples listenable online from the Historical Collections-1899 to 1950, including: The First Expeditions 1901 to Croatia, Brazil and the Isle of Lesbos; Zulu Recordings 1908; Papua New Guinea (1904-1909) and some lovely recordings of old Musical Boxes from Vienna and Prague. [more inside]
The latest example of tiny homes for hard times. $8000 US.
Shipping containers could be 'dream' homes for thousands. Yes, the design isn't great. They should have a contest for a version that would keep the cost the same. Esthetics don't have to be expensive.
Ain, tsvai, dry, shiki-shiki shvanie
Arguably the most addictive song on the formidable 214-song GTA IV soundtrack is "Schweine" by Russian singer/actress Glukoza ("selling music without sex since 2003"). [more inside]
Nu, Zayats ...
In 1969, Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm released Nu, Pogodi! (Well, Just You Wait!), a series that followed the multitalented and comical Wolf in his quest to capture the Hare. Having very little dialogue but considerable music, it was an international hit across eastern Europe. Most who followed the show will tell you that despite attempts to portray Wolf as anti-authoritarian and decadent, Wolf had a much greater fanbase. Why else would the Nu Pogodi game be based on him, and not Hare?
Active Army unit to be stationed within US
"Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time..." (SLthisisveryscaryYT)
"No, Miss Vega. Consider the Black Box theory!"
"So, that’s my long and winding history of a little postcard from the Upper West Side of Manhattan!" Suzanne Vega writes about writing the hit song Tom's Diner, coping with its numerous remixes, and its part in the birth of the MP3 music compression format.
17 Years Later Here We Are Entertain Us
It was 17 years ago today, September 24, 1991, Nevermind hit the shelves and changed popular music forever. The story of Spencer Elden, whom you may know as the little baby floating toward a dollar bill on the cover was covered on NPR recently. Butch Vig produced Nevermind, Andy Wallace mixed it. You can watch Vig talk about recroding Nevermind, "Polly" "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and many of the other songs.
EPIC FAIL: The Astroturf is always greener on the other side.
Rusty Shackleford over at right-wing anti-Muslim jihad blog The Jawa Report has posted that the Obama campaign, in an effort to portray Sarah Palin a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, is engaged in a smear campaign through the use of viral video and astroturf techniques on You Tube. [more inside]
September 23
Help
Obama's Got Options, Baby.
Maybe America needs Barack more than Barack needs America... It's got to be tough being Barack Obama these days. Just managing to hang onto a slim lead in the polls against a truly horrifying Republican ticket - after eight years in which a Republican administration has all but destroyed the nation. Having to explain to people over and over again that no, he's really not a Muslim, and people still don't believe him. Sarah Palin. Maybe America isn't worth Barack's trouble. Maybe there's other fish in the sea, America. Maybe you ought to think about that a little and stop being this way. Canada has an election coming up too, and given what they've got to work with, more and more Canadians are starting to take a hard look south of the border.
Aubergine (eggplant) recipes
Ashbury's Aubergines has a collection of over 3000 eggplant recipes, sorted by ingredient and cuisine.
Gas Free
Gas Shortages Throughout the Southeast More than a week after Hurricane Ike, there's little or no gas around much of the American Southeast. [more inside]
Mixtube: YouTube mixtapes
Mixtube allows users to create online playlists of songs on YouTube, and play those assembled by others. Both mixing and playing have a nice simple interface. Here's one I took a few minutes to make.
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
sample videos for Nikon D90 and Canon 5D MkII
Exciting things are happening on the DSLR market: both the new Nikon D90 and Canon 5D MII can shoot video and now the first real footage is becoming available on the web: Chase Jarvis showcased the D90 a bit back and now Vincent Laforet demonstrates what the 5D MII is capable of (more on his blog, including behind-the-scenes footage)
Laforet predicts these cameras will change the landscape rather rapidly: You can use your prime and zoom lenses (...) with it - and shoot wide open… so you can shoot films with fisheye lenses, 50mm 1.2 as well as the 200mm f2 or 400mm 2.8 that you may already own… [more inside]
Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove
In Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove, Kristan Horton imitates the satirical movie Dr. Strangelove and creates a new world for the film—silverware become an airplane, plastic and coffee grounds become the sky. [via]
Michael Moores latest film free online
Michael Moore's newest movie Slacker Uprising is available for free download, the "first major major film to be released in such a way," according to the Associated Press. "This film, really isn't for anybody other than the choir," said Moore. "But that's because I believe the choir needs a song to sing every now and then." [more inside]
Baghdad Nights
Baghdad nights: evaluating the US military ‘surge’ using nighttime light signatures (PDF). A team of UCLA geographers using satellite imagery to track the amount of light emitted in Baghdad at night found that electricity use in Sunni neighborhoods fell prior to the surge and never returned, indicating that ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias drove the Sunnis away before the surge began and was largely responsible for the subsequent decrease in violence. [Via Passport]
?!??zone (NSFW)
NSFW: [The new EA game Spore] + [Your naturally lecherous, lascivious, lewd, libidinous imagination] = Sporn!
Evolution : Gorilla to Monkey
Damon Albarn’s career reads like a roadmap to some musical no-man's land: start a pop band, turn into an indie/hip-hop/dub “virtual” group, followed by a supergroup featuring Tony Allen and Paul Simonon, and throw in an album of Malian guitar music for good measure. [more inside]
Project Blinkenlights Toronto: Stereoscope
Remote control Toronto's City Hall by iPhone during Octobre 4th Nuit blanche. Project Blinkenlights will again transform a huge building into a computer display. This time 960 windows of Toronto's City Hall. Everybody can submit animations to be shown and there will be client programms for iPhone and OSX to receive the signal and interact with the installation. Watch the previous installations in Berlin [Mefi thread] and Paris [Mefi thread] on Google Video.
Deportation's not the worst that could happen
For nearly 20 years, Hessamddin Norani and wife Sedige Khazravi have run a small convenience store in North Buffalo, working 15 1/2-hour days, seven days a week. The couple face deportation if their request for asylum is rejected by an Immigration Court judge. [more inside]
Strongbad's 200th Email
Happy Bicentenemail. Strongbad answers his 200th email in this installment of the long-running Homestarrunner.com web site. Featuring a musical intro by They Might Be Giants.
Libor in the LRB
"The calculation of Libor is co-ordinated by just two people, who work in an unremarkable open-plan office in London’s Docklands .. They do this electronically, but sometimes the co-ordinators make a phone call to a bank that hasn’t sent in its estimates, and if the latter seem implausible – typos, for example, are fairly common – they’re checked, also with a quick call: ‘Hi there, is the Kiwi chap [provider of the estimates for borrowing New Zealand dollars] about? . . . Bit of a spread on the two month. Everyone else is coming in a good bit under that.’" Calculating the Libor and how London became the center of the international money markets, from the LBR.
The Waldo Ultimatum
Man of steel, woman of retcon, kid of non-existence
Superman rebooted! - The next Superman movie will be ignoring 2006’s Superman Returns, something that has been suggested by comic book writers when asked how to save the franchise. Mark Millar has his own idea of what Superman needs: Mark Millar.
Your favorite conductor sucks.
“Another Rosenberg Executed”? Classical music critic Donald Rosenberg may be the reigning expert on the Cleveland Orchestra, having written an entire book on the esteemed ensemble. But failure to fawn over conductor Franz Welser Most has gotten him booted off his newspaper’s classical music beat. People are beginning to notice… [more inside]
"Merkle's Boner," 100 years later
One hundred years ago today, September 23, 1908, the Chicago Cubs played the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. In one of the best seasons in baseball history, the two teams were in a hot pennant race - separated by one game with two weeks left in the season. What happened next is one of the most famous blunders (if it even was a blunder) in baseball history. [more inside]
DEAR COMRADE!
Soviet Music "You are browsing a resource which is devoted first of all to the history and culture of the Soviet Union, the country which the West for a long time usually named as "The Empire of Evil", the country to which some people in the West perceive as "something big and snowy".
I offer you to try to look outside the frames of usual stereotypes, to try to understand life of a unique country, with its interesting history, beautiful culture and miraculous relations between people.
The music submitted on this site - is an evident sample of a totally new culture, which completely differs from all that, with what Hollywood and MTV supply us so much. This culture, being free from the cult of money, platitude, violence and sex, was urged to not indulge low bents of a human soul but to help the person to become culturally enriched and to grow above himself." [more inside]
beastlies
Homesoft's Disk Images of Atari 8-bit Games
Homesoft's Disk Images. 354 disks full of 8-bit Atari games. Click on game titles for screenshots. [more inside]
"I can name that tune in 300 yards..."
"I can name that tune in 300 yards ..." Not for much longer, though. Honda prepared for an upcoming commercial by cutting grooves in a road in Lancaster, California. These grooves, if driven over at just the right speed and in just the right car (one guess!) should play something resembling the William Tell Overture. But once filming was done (and I'm sure the commerical will be as impeccably produced and successful as Honda's other ads), locals and tourists were left with the driver's equivalent of that huge floor keyboard in Big, with some drivers lining up to play over and over again. Result? The city will pave over the road today. But hey, we'll always have Anyang. And Japan (previously). And Denmark.
Mississippi Fred McDowell
When the Rolling tones recorded an old blues tune called You Gotta Move on Sticky Fingers back in 1971, it was another instance of a tune by an old black man, known only to blues aficionados, suddenly becoming part of the consciousness of a gazillion people who probably never would've heard it otherwise. But let's pay a little visit to the man who originally wrote and recorded the song, Mississippi Fred McDowell, shall we? Here's a jumping version of Shake 'em On Down, his haunting Going Down to the River, the gospel blues of When I Lay My Burden Down, Highway 61, My Babe (you'll note the similarity to "This Train"), Louise, and his version of the American folk/blues standard John Henry. And don't miss the beautiful 1969 documentary featuring McDowell at Internet Archive, Blues Maker, which features some superlative acoustic performances, and footage of the people and environment of the Mississippi delta country.
Comic strips translated into Middle English.
Japes for Owre Tymes is a blog that translates one newspaper comic strip a day into Middle English. "Why? Because it can..." If you want to try reading the translated strips but need a bit of help here's a Middle English dictionary.
Buy My Sh*t Pile, Henry!
Buy My Sh*t Pile, Henry! With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their "distressed assets", i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government...
MacArthur's new fellows
2008 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grants announced. Probably the biggest name is the New Yorker's music critic Alex Ross. [more inside]
This one's for the history nerds
The Brothers Warner premiering nationally via PBS this week. From Rin Tin Tin to Eastwood, the story of the original Hollywood independent filmmakers.
Ponzi Scheme, Credit Default Swaps in 2004 vs. 2008
"As no rational agent would be willing to take part in the last round in a finite economy, it is difficult to design Ponzi schemes that are certain to explode. This paper argues that if agents correctly believe in the possibility of a partial bailout when a gigantic Ponzi scheme collapses, and they recognize that a bailout is tantamount to a redistribution of wealth from non-participants to participants, it may be rational for agents to participate, even if they know that it is the last round. We model a political economy where an unscrupulous profit-maximizing promoter can design gigantic Ponzi schemes to cynically exploit this "too big to fail" doctrine." [more inside]
September 22
Metallica Friday
Metallica released a new album, Death Magnetic, but people are still celebrating their first four albums. Grindcore bands Psyopus and Fuck the Facts team up every Friday on their current tour to play a Metallica cover. Their fans, most of which were probably born after the first four were released, go apeshit over it. [more inside]
Thomas Doerflein, dead at 44.
Fo Shizzle My Nizzle
teh free markets, ur doin it wrong
LOLFed. Doan cry, emo banker! If you hate the latest financial crisis news, but love image macros, then this is the site for you. It's like I Can Has Cheezburger meets the Wall Street Journal.
National Anthems of the World
Have you ever wondered what the national anthem of Bolivia, Nepal or The Republic of Seychelles sounded like? Well wonder no more because NationalAnthems.info has got you covered! It claims to have the national anthem for every country in the world in MIDI format, along with downloadable lyrics and sheet music so you can sing and play along. But if the MIDI format isn't doing it for you, there's also other sites that you can visit that have downloadable MP3s of pretty much every national anthem this planet and its inhabitants have to offer, such as this one or this one, which is notable in that the anthems featured there were performed by the US Navy Band. And finally, for your further reading and listening pleasure, check out this forum which contains background information on and even more links to downloadable national anthems.
The Umbrella Killer
Scotland Yard thinks it knows who killed Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov with a ricin-tipped umbrella on the streets of London 30 years ago this month. Police are hoping to press charges against the man known as Agent Picadilly, who received a secret medal for his services. Interest in the case was sparked by "Kill the Wanderer", a book by journalist Hristo Hristov, who gained access to the archives of the former Bulgarian security service. Bulgaria has extended its own investigation, just as the statute of limitations on the Markov murder was set to expire.
High Times Hard Times
Last month, a wonderful documentary entitled simply Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer debuted in NYC and LA and was very warmly received. It tells the story of a singer regarded by many jazz fans to be among the greatest who ever lived (her strikingly modern small-group recordings from the 1950s attest to a singer whose talent grew far beyond her Big Band days), and who, despite living an incredibly self-destructive life, lived and performed well into her 80's. Here's Anita from her famous 1958 Newport performance, and here are some other notable clips: Honeysuckle Rose, Let Me Off Uptown (w/Gene Krupa and feat. Roy Eldridge; a huge hit in 1941), Love for Sale, and more from the film here.
“A big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst’s couch.”
Though their cameras have produced some of the defining photographs of the twentieth century, Leica have struggled in the new digital age. However there are still some aficionados for the Leica's 'kiss'.
Ogre, anyone?
The New Shock
Obama: The Price of Being Black
Photographs of Abandoned Places
24 Stunning HDR Photographs of Abandoned Places. 42 Essential Flickr Abandonments Groups Dedicated to Abandoned Places, Properties and Buildings.
File under 'futility'
Having seen their profits eroded to filesharing networks and Itunes, the major labels have a new plan: Go back to physical media.
Dragon's Lair Uncut
Uncut footage from Dragon's Lair (1983) [recently on MetaFilter], one of the first full-animation laser-disc arcade videogames [and animated by Don Bluth]... if you didn't have an endless supply of quarters, see what would have happened had you directed Dirk the Daring left instead of up in these scenarios: (QT .mpeg files) Three Caverns | Green Thumb | Crumbling Roof | Bats! | Giddy Goons | Bottles and Pot. [via classicsreunited]
Fred, Barney and Betty Pending
Meet Wilma, the first model of a Neanderthal based in part on ancient DNA evidence. The findings indicate that at least some Neanderthals had red hair, pale skin, and even freckles, adding to the relatively recent evidence that Neanderthals did not interbreed with humans (previously), might have been outbred into extinction by Homo sapiens, and were probably not as stupid as we thought.
It's weird being a ball
"MIDDLEBURY, Vt. -- Rainey Johnson, sporting a yellow shirt, yellow socks and yellow paint smeared on his face, darted across the freshman quad.
Other students, in capes, ran after him clutching brooms between their legs and grasping in vain for a tennis ball stuffed in a sock hanging out of his yellow shorts." [more inside]
Obligatory accreditation system for IT security products
Give us your secrets. The Chinese government plans order foreign manufacturers to reveal information about their digital products, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday. It will introduce rules requiring foreign firms to disclose secret information about digital household appliances and other products from May next year, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing unnamed sources. If a company refuses to disclose information, China would ban it from exporting the product to the Chinese market or producing or selling it in China, the paper said. [more inside]
Classic cars in barns
We put together Bringatrailer.com because finding great vintage cars online has become too much of a hassle. There is no need to keep sifting through hundreds of hopeless projects or overpriced dealer inventories to find that one car you’ve been looking for. We pick the winners and save you the trouble… the best bargains, the best dream cars, and the best rarities.
Your Favorite Obscure Word Sucks
The Times Online: Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be exuviated abstergently to make room for modern additions that will act as a roborant for the book. [more inside]
macrovision
The AirTraffic Team at zhaw has posted a video depicting global flight activity over a single day to their site: windows media link / quicktime link. that's all.
Welcome to my Study
How do you do! I am the little book that you have made.
Book of Short Stories :: Short stories written by New York State 5th graders in 1931. (Be sure to read the About page to get a sense of the setting of the times.) (via Thingamababy)
Start your week with a bit of Bollywood, why don'tcha'?
Live performances at AOL Sessions
AOL Sessions has live videos from more than 150 different artists specially recorded for the series. Here are just a few of the artists on offer: Paul McCartney, Mary J. Blige, Modest Mouse, Tori Amos, Robyn, Tom Petty, Rhymefest, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Natasha Bedingfield, Cat Power, Toby Keith, Lil' Wayne, Robert Plant, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kelly Rowland, Weezer and Brian Wilson. To the left of the videos there's a Q&A link that has short interview videos with the artists as well as behind the scenes footage and longer interviews.
Saturday night poker night is about to get a lot more interesting ...
Hedge Funds employ many different strategies to make money. There are long/short funds, event driven funds, emerging markets funds [.pdf], funds looking to profit from global macroeconomic trends and a large number of funds employing a wide range of arbitrage techniques to make money.
But these techniques are the tried and the true. As both assets under management and market turmoil have grown significantly, hedge funds are rapidly branching out into domains far, far detached from finance: art, litigation funding and now even poker.
But these techniques are the tried and the true. As both assets under management and market turmoil have grown significantly, hedge funds are rapidly branching out into domains far, far detached from finance: art, litigation funding and now even poker.
Best pals in the NYT break-room
The Wall Street bailout proposal has prompted Bill Kristol and Paul Krugman to write identically-minded columns opposing the plan.
September 21
Beats flipping a coin...
Still considering your options in the Canadian federal election? Try The Undecided, a web site that compares platform planks from the five major parties and gives you the ability to compare your opinions and prioritize the issues. When you are done, you get an assessment of which party you are most closely aligned with.
Of course if you are STILL undecided, there is always the Undecided Party..
That giant fountain projection thing
Primal source at GLOW (video), Burble London (an implementation of Open Burble) (video), Evoke (video) - the transformative artworks of Haque Design and Research. Interview with Usman Haque. Previously.
The Lost City of The Khazars
The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people, of which many apparently converted to Judaism. Some believe they are the ancestors of many East European Jews. The Khazars were the subject of Arthur Koestler's controversial 1972 book, The Thirteenth Tribe, as well as anti-Semitic lore. Now a Russian archaeologist says he found a gold-mine of evidence about this once-great nation. No Jewish artifacts yet, however.
make your own
Postcard.fm Send audio postcards to your friends. Free. Upload any photo of yours or image off the web and any MP3 you choose in a single upload process, then enter your email address and that of the person to whom you wish to send the mix. Done— it’s simple. p.s. postcard does not sell, spam, or share the email addresses of senders or recipients. via
Flash Frustration in One Dimension
Z-Rox is a flash game based on determining what object is being shown in one dimension. Answers can be anything, letters, numbers, shapes, symbols, objects. All answers are in English, type the answers when you know what you're seeing. This game is hard, have fun!
Conservatives are scaredy-cats
Soiled doves, prairie nymphs, filles de joie & the old west sporting life
Meet Dora DuFran and her cat house of Deadwood; Perle De Vere and the working girls of Cripple Creek; Annie Chambers of Kansas City; and Squirrel Tooth Alice of Sweetwater. In the wild west, prostitution was one of the few career options for women. Western history is filled with many colorful tales of shady ladies and legendary madams. [more inside]
No milk today
Why can't China guarantee safe milk for its babies? "From the outset, in what seemed like some bizarre parallel universe, rather than alert Chinese parents as soon as possible to potentially life-saving information about the melamine contamination, baby formula producer Sanlu and various levels of government tried to shut down information. (...) Chinese journalists say the government's Central Propaganda Department, however, issued orders that Chinese media not send their own reporters to further investigate the story." [more inside]
Official: GM Chevy Volt
Official: GM reveals the production Chevy Volt 2011.
The world premiere of Blog Theatre.
The world premiere of Blog Theatre. Please give a warm applause for this evenings production of George Washington.
Paulson: Foreign Banks Can Use US Rescue Plan.
Paulson: Foreign Banks Can Use US Rescue Plan. Treasury Fact Sheet, "broader eligibility" if Paulson decides. Pressure builds at Morgan, Goldman. You Decide (kinda), probably no one listens.
Early Paul Simon
Jaco
21 Years ago today Jaco Pastorius died.
Jaco plays with Joni Mitchell.
Jaco plays with Weather Report
Jaco plays The Word of Mouth
Joni Mitchell on Jaco
Pat Metheny on Jaco
Jaco plays with Joni Mitchell.
Jaco plays with Weather Report
Jaco plays The Word of Mouth
Joni Mitchell on Jaco
Pat Metheny on Jaco
from Argentina to Alaska
Candelaria and Herman Zapp drove from Argentina to Alaska in a 1928 Graham-Paige. They wrote and self-published a book about their trip and are now planning a similar trip across Asia. [more inside]
There is only hope.
Have we seen this election before? Life imitates art as the current election cycle continues to echo the fictional 2006 Preisdential Election on The West Wing. Will the debates then be live and unmoderated like the seventh season episode "The Debate"? Will the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate suffer the same fate? And what would two-term President Josiah Bartlett say to Senator Barack Obama? (Final link warning: fan fiction by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin)
Culture Clash
Blogs about India (from an expats perspective): Welcome to India! Namaste, Namaste... please come in and enjoy yourselves... you must've heard a lot about us, but you ain't seen nothing yet. [more inside]
Denver's dirty little secret
One of the most beautiful and disturbing places in Denver. It a quiet place and quite the place to see. A movie was made about a house and the fellow who rented it one day...adjacent to the park. Scared me to death as a little kid.
'Winning the cosmic lottery'
The Islamic art collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Islamic art collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has beautiful objects to delight every fancy, whether you seek manuscript illustration (more), calligraphy (more), glassware (more), archetectural elements (more) and much, yes, more! If you want some knowledge to go with the beauty then you are in luck because on the site there is an overview of Islamic art history from inception to the now.
September 20
The Venice Architecture Biennale 2008
Kieran Long in The Architects' Journal: "The 2008 biennale is the year that the avant-garde finally disappeared into its own darkest recesses. Let's hope the recession finishes the job."
via
via
One Web to Rule Them All
"I would like to take a broader look at the Web. I would like to consider what the Web can do for society on a scale we have not yet seen. And I would like to enlist your help to get us there." ― Tim Berners-Lee announces the World Wide Web Foundation [more inside]
The 47th and Drexel Bit. Remember It?
APA bars participation in military interrogations
Psychology Group Changes Policy on Interrogations. The American Psychological Association has adopted a measure prohibiting its members from participating in interrogations of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and other military prisons where detainees have been tortured (previously). [Via Paper Chase]
The Police go to eleven
This interview with Andy Summers has some real these-go-to-eleven moments, as well as some lick-my-love-pump [lego!] moments, as does this interview with Sting where he shows off his writing process on state-of-the-art 1981 gear. (QLYT)
TIP TOP
The Elephant in the Room: Market Prosperity versus Republican Administration
Americans pick stocks better than they pick presidents? It is no secret that the stock market does better under Democrats than Republicans. Some have speculated as to why the market does this, as if it's not supposed to work that way. Even when conceding the facts it is a bitter pill to swallow, as if the results confirm the benefit of a regulatory environment.
"Women hold up half the sky"--Chinese proverb
Pickering and the Female Computers. In 1881, Edward Pickering, the director of the Harvard College Observatory, became so impatient with a male lab assistant’s work that he famously declared his maid could do a better job. Rather than take offense, his 24-year-old maid, Williamina Fleming, instead took him up on the offer. She ended up working at the Observatory for the next 30 years, supervising the tedious work of cataloging photographic plates, but also discovering variable stars and novae, helping to develop a classification system—and, perhaps even more importantly, hiring nearly 40 female assistants, many of whom went on to have distinguished scientific careers. [more inside]
Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.
Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind
Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind. Testing shows people "read" online text much differently than printed text. [more inside]
Y'a un «fuck» qui s'ennuie en maudit..
Culture en péril - In these Canadian election times and in response to the recent Culture cuts from Conservatives - three of the best Quebec talents in music, theater and humor join forces and hit back hard (lol) with a highly satirical imagining of the replacement program (captioned).
Pirates of the Rei-chan
Four-year-old Rei-chan plays the electone on tv. Then the "genius electone girl" is invited to perform for Johnny Depp (part 2, part 3), when he went to Japan to promote the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. (She and her friends also gave the same performance for Orlando Bloom.) [more inside]
"You can't tell where one animator leaves off and the other begins."
56 years ago today, Rabbit Seasoning hit movie theaters for the first time. This cartoon classic is the work of Mike Maltese, (whose centennial birthday was celebrated earlier this year) a cartoon writer whose work is arguably far more well known than his name, having brought the world works such as One Froggy Evening, What's Opera Doc?, the downright surreal Duck Amuck and many others. He even makes an appearance in the live action/animation blend "You Ought To Be in Pictures" (as the security guard at 3:50). Despite his relative obscurity, Maltese downplayed his own role: "In the cartoon business, no one can take the credit for the finished product."
All the Things You Are
Body parts in music: Skinny Legs - Soul Finger - Into My Arms - Fingertips - Can't Get You Out of My Head - Skinny Leg Blues - These Arms of Mine - My Pal Foot Foot - (Not Just) Knee Deep - Good Foot - Legs - Toes - Dope Nose - No Nose Job - Pick Yer Nose - Yummy Yummy Yummy (I got love in my tummy) - Lips Like Sugar - Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain - Sunshine On My Shoulder - Grandma's Hands - I Want To Hold Your Hand - Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See - Watch My Feet - Protect Ya Neck - Make Yo Backbone Slip - Baby Got Back - I Like Small Butts - Stomp 'Em in the Nuts and, of course, Punch 'Em in the Dick. [NOTE: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
September 19
Clay Shirky In Charge
A Distant Replay
The game as it was played in 1958 “is still an entertaining sport to watch, but it’s just not near as complicated,” Reid said. Writer Mark Bowden watches the 1958 NFL Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants with Eagle's coach to find how he thinks the game has evolved. They find a game that is at times barely recognizable as being in the same sport. (Via)
An extraordinary work of art
Eufrosinia Antonovna Kersnovskaya was a Russian woman who spent 12 years in Gulag camps and wrote her memoirs in 12 notebooks, 2,200,000 characters, accompanied with 680 pictures. How Much Is a Person Worth? has all 12 notebooks online, in Russian, some images NSFW and disturbing. (Just click on no 1 to 12 to see thumbnails of notebooks.)
Witold Pilecki
On this day in 1941 a man named Witold Pilecki deliberately got himself arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Pilecki was a spy sent in to investigate the camp and establish underground resistance cells. He sent reports to Warsaw, which passed them to London. In 1942, his reports that prisoners were being gassed were not believed. [more inside]
Universal Algorithm of Experience
Universal Algorithm of Experience: Rev. Luke Anthony Murphy has produced four books of graphs over the past five years: Relationships, Spiritual Matters, Money, and Problems. These graphs are attempts to give shape to the conditions that produce the internal environment of anxiety. Recently a group of these were presented in a show called Wilderness at Bernadette Salvage Fine Arts in conjunction with 7hours in Brooklyn.
Rev. Luke Anthony Murphy is a painter and shows this work as well as his digitally produced drawings and photos in New York, Toronto, and Berlin. He currently lives in East Harlem, New York, and works for CBS.com.
Man For Young Girl To Become My Wife
New Reef Creatures Found in Australia
Hundreds of New Reef Creatures Found in Australia. Hundreds of new marine creatures have been discovered in three Australian reefs by CReefs, a census of coral reefs which is part of the Census of Marine Life, a ten-year initiative to assess global ocean diversity.
"Total Warming"
Slacktivist Wraps Up Left Behind
Slacktivist has been discussed on the blue before. His epic deconstruction, interpretation, and at times even translation of the Left Behind book series started in October of 2003. Today, it has come to an end. In between, Slacktivist has explored the impact of the Left Behind series and the fundamentalist worldview on religion and the media, and even gone on to inspire Left Behind fanfic. Fred Clark, the Slacktivist himself, intends to continue his five year project with the Left Behind movie, followed by the second book, Tribulation Force.
Sir Ben Kingsley's Minor Threat
CDSs and you.
How AIG fell apart is a good article giving an overview of Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) and the role they played in AIG's struggle. CDS issues are a crisis that quite a few saw coming just a few months ago and one that was discussed here then, although AIG was thought be a special "safe" case among CDS issuers. Indeed it now seems that AIG's particular problem was that it had failed to hedge the CDSs they issued with CDSs acquired from other institutions, presumably on the premise that they were insuring assets too safe to fail.
Getting the News About Ike
Has there been a media blackout in the wake of Hurricane Ike? The following remarkable exchange between a local reporter and TX Governor Rick Perry (during a press conference) regarding the restricted access to the Bolivar Peninsula suggests Federal officials have still not allowed news helicopters to view the devastation in that area. That the peninsula remains restricted for returning residents is perhaps understandable, given the destruction, but it is less clear why media access to the area should remain restricted.
Reuse
The Gits: Great American Rock and Rock Band
Pitchfork television is featuring "The Gits: Great American Rock and Rock Band" (music embedded) for the next week. [more inside]
Chronophage
"'It is terrifying, it is meant to be,' said John Taylor, the creator and funder of an extraordinary new clock to be unveiled tomorrow by Stephen Hawking at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. 'Basically I view time as not on your side....'" The Corpus Clock. (via)
Playing 20 questions with the world.
Rosenbaum, The Plausible-Fabulist
Like others before him Benjamin Rosenbaum is making his debut short story collection, The Ant King And Other Stories, available from his publishers, Small Beer, as a free download. More than this though, he is holding a competition to find the best derivative work inspired by it. These include "translations, plays, movies, radio plays, audiobooks, flashmob happenings, horticultural installations, visual artworks, slash fanfic epics, robot operas, sequels, webcomics, ASCII art, text adventure games, roleplaying campaigns, knitting projects, handmade shoes, or anything else you feel like." [more inside]
Buy yourself a tonne of CO2 emissions
sandbag.org.uk is a not-for-profit website that allows members to buy up surplus "permits to pollute" that form the currency of the European Union's emissions trading scheme (or EU ETSs). Members can then "retire" them so that they cannot continue to be traded between the industrial polluters - cement, steel and car manufacturers etc - forced by EU regulation to operate within the system. "I suppose it's a bit like burning money in front of someone so they can't spend it on something bad," says the founder, Bryony Worthington, to the Guardian. [more inside]
Lazy Journalism
Fun lovin' prankster and b3ta user godspants edited the wikipedia page on Cypriot soccer team AC Omonia to include the "facts" that the fans are referred to as "the zany ones", wear hats made of shoes and sing a song about a little potato.
Yesterday there was a match between Omonia and British club Manchester City. British Tabloid the Daily Mirror used the wikipedia "facts" in their build-up article. Daily Mirror obviously doesn't realise their journalist has been guilty of incredibly lazy research, despite the prankster emailing them, and the Mirror refers to the "Zany ones" in their post-match article the next day.
September 18
JeansList
Among the dopest female lyricists in Hip Hop history, fans were dismayed when Jean Grae seemed to retire from Rap. But she returned and now she's got a new plan. Want her to kick sick lyrics on your project? Check out the ad she put on Craigslist this afternoon. 16 bars for $800. "You got beats?? cd's?? envelopes?? yousendit?? protools? Whatever you got I'll try and find a way to work with it." Though she proclaims "I work fast, so you'll have em fast," you might want to be patient. [more inside]
Land, ho!
Tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day. In honor of that, lift your voices and talk like a woman pirate, mateys!
Piracy may have mainly been a boyzone, but the high seas saw a number of female captains and crew members as well, sometimes the subjects of fanciful stories and fetishes (possibly NSFW). [more inside]
I'm so calm, I've gone loopy!
Flash so good it couldn't wait till Friday: Loops of Zen is a puzzle game where you reconcile all the loose ends so there is no beginning or end. Deceptively simple, yet very relaxing. [more inside]
Flippin' 'Eck, Tucker!
The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language
"At least once in your life you should read the Bible all the way through because it does not say what you expect it to say, no matter what you expect it to say. Here is the translation of the Bible you want to read: The Message. This new street-wise paraphrase is looser than a translation and so irks purists. But it is storming Christian campuses and youth groups with its boldness, readability, and strong vernacular. Translated by one amazing guy, it's as far from old King James as one can imagine. For those who find the Bible warmed-over old news, The Message is like reading it for the first time. --KK" (full text) [more inside]
Chris Harrison's gorgeous visualizations
Word Spectrum; SearchClock; Digg Rings; Bible Cross-references: the gorgeous analytical vizualizations of Chris Harrison. [more inside]
The origin of the anus
The Clarion Call of Obsession
The Clarion Fund has been placing DVD advertisements in newspapers. That, in itself is not terribly new. What's new is that they are advertising fear and propaganda, and they're only targeting swing states. [more inside]
Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.
confessional
The Who we never knew
The Russell T. Davis papers – As he prepares to leave the role of Doctor Who show runner (previously) he’s releasing a book of email exchanges with Doctor Who Magazine writer Benjamin Cook about his time on the longstanding British SF series, revealing the younger face of Who he’s like to see, and plans for a Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover which never materialized.
RTC II
Banning short selling? Firing Chris Cox? Treasury Secretary Paulson has reportedly floated the idea of an 80s-style "Resolution Trust Corporation." Maybe we're finally turning the corner...or at least stopping the hemorrhaging.
Ninja Warrior: The Iron Fireman of Gifu
Sophie Can Walk
Sophie Can Walk , a documentary that chronicles "the prejudice faced by baby-Americans born without the ability to walk" (Via BoingBoing)
Typographunnies
We admire your work
We know the NSA is watching. They have corporate buddies to help them out. But now they've found a true ideological soul mate - China [more inside]
Delete-me-not
Quark-Gluon Plasma
The ALICE Collaboration is building a dedicated heavy-ion detector to exploit the unique physics potential of nucleus-nucleus interactions at LHC energies. The aim is to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities, where the formation of a new phase of matter, the quark-gluon plasma, is expected. This website aims both at introducing non-initiates to the field of physics covered by ALICE and at providing regular information on the evolution of the experiment, with detailed reports of its results and analysis.
September 17
Wildman of the Loire, Didier Dagueneau RIP
Wildman of the Loire, Didier Dagueneau RIP Didier Dagueneau, iconoclastic motorcycle driving beard-sporting winegrower of France's Loire valley, died today in a private plane crash. Dagueneau pushed winemaking in his region to a new level; his Silex (100 percent sauvignon blanc), farmed biodynamically on flinty soil, is a profound wine. I recently tasted the '99 Silex, one word: incroyable. A wine that redefines sauvignon blanc and makes you happy to be alive. Dagueneau also pushed younger colleagues like the cidermaker Eric Bordelet to pursue their craft at a higher level: the result is Bordelet's Granit pear cider, from 300 year old biodynamically farmed pear trees.
PMSbuddy
PMSbuddy.com is a free service created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your wife, girlfriend, mother[!], sister, daughter, or any other women in your life are closing in on "that time of the month" - when things can get intense for what may seem to be no reason at all.
Vote in my space.
Newfoundland's Progressive Conservative Premier registered his Anything But Conservative campaign today with Elections Canada. The same agency also deemed that the online vote swap on Facebook is in fact legal. They're hiring.
Crush, Texas - Town for a Day
The "Crash at Crush" was the intentional head-on crash of two Katy locomotives on Sept. 15, 1896. The results were not quite what Agent Crush had planned. Scott Joplin wrote The Great Crush Collision March [more pictures] to commemorate the event and it was also an inspiration for 'Head-On' Joe Connelly.
[more inside]
GetBodySmart.com
GetBodySmart.com is a wonderful and remarkably complete resource to learn about the systems that keep our body running, including the skeletal , nervous and even urinary systems. What's more amazing is that it's all created by one man in his spare time and for no gain of his own. Read his mission statement here.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine...
Legendary Motown songwriter and producer Norman Whitfield dead at 65. Whitfield co-wrote (often with Barret Strong) many of Motown's greatest songs, including I Heard It Through The Grapevine, War, Papa Was A Rolling Stone, Ball Of Confusion, Cloud Nine and Just My Imagination. He also worked as a producer for The Temptations, among others, and won a Grammy in 1976 for the score to the film Car Wash.
Wolfman
Shaun Ellis is a wolf behavior expert who raises abandoned wolf cubs and teaches them, by example, the basics of being a wolf. Here he is teaching wolf cubs how to howl. He's also been experimenting with using recordings of howling to protect farms and livestock from wolves. Awwwooooo!
When Prague Spring Gave Way to Winter
palin's yahoo mail hacked ... oh anonymous, what will you do next
Sarah Palin's email gets hacked by Anonymous (right, that Anonymous). And given the legal controversy surrounding her email, one wonders if the fact that her yahoo email accounts are now deleted constitutes destruction of evidence or violations of public-records laws. Its hit Wikileaks too, but, I'm not sure they have more then what's already released (rapidshare).
Ian Hibell, cyclist.
R.I.P. Ian Hibell. Bikes rarely let him down. Escaping once from spear-throwing Turkana in northern Kenya, he felt the chain come off, but managed to coast downhill to safety. He crossed China from north to south—in 2006, at 72—with just three brake-block changes, one jammed rear-brake cable and a change of tape on the handlebars. In his book, “Into the Remote Places” (1984), he described his bike as a companion, a crutch and a friend. Setting off in the morning light with “the quiet hum of the wheels, the creak of strap against load, the clink of something in the pannier”, was “delicious”. [more inside]
Drugged up on drugs
Games auteur Messhof has been mentioned once before on metafilter but his latest (windows only) game, Randy Balma Municipal Abortionist, hasn't. It's trippy, frustrating, disturbing, short, and totally free. You might like to play some Punishment first to get an idea of this guy's sensibility before heading straight for the ubercrazy.
Dance like an indian
You're my Love
Pehli Nazar (First Look)
Salaam-E-Ishq (Salute thy Love)
Tujhe Aksa Beach Ghuma Doon (May I show you around Aksa Beach)
Singh is King
oil tied economies - the gift that keeps giving
As many peoples eyes will be elsewhere the readers of the blue may not have seen the red flowing in the streets of Mother Russia.
Russia’s two main bourses, RTS and MICEX, said on Wednesday they were suspending trade until further notice. How bad? Russian shares suffered their steepest one-day fall in more than a decade on Tuesday, losing up to 20 per cent, as a sharp slide in oil prices and difficult money market conditions triggered a rush to sell. [more inside]
F1 + F2
42 + 1?
And another thing... Author Eoin Colfer (best known for the Artemis Fowl books) has been commissioned to write a sixth Hitchhiker's Guild to the Galaxy novel. [more inside]
September 16
Don't feed the bears
Yogi Bear may have been smarter than the average, but Ranger Smith had it right. Don't feed the bears. As a Montana game warden put it: human feeding "can lead to problems later and ultimately mean the animal has to be put down." A similar event had a Utah ranger upset, saying: "when you have a bear that becomes unafraid of humans, that's not a good thing."
Trumpeteer Videos
Trumpet Kings is a blog dedicated to videos of trumpeteers, mostly jazz but there are a few classical ones. On the companion youtube channel there are 184 videos. These are some of my favorite things: Wynton Marsalis - Riot, Dizzy Gillespie - trumpet battle, Maynard Ferguson - Round Midnight, Louis Armstrong - C'est Si Bon, Miles Davis - No Blues, Ray Anthony - Harlem Nocturne, Booker Little - Minor Mode Blues, Ingrid Jensen - Foxy Trot and Sergei Nakariakov - Bach's Air.
For a Prosperous Tomorrow
Anarkon is a corporate collective comprised of the nations most innovative and forward thinking businesses, known internally as Affiliates. Our primary objective is to sell a long overdue revolution to the American public through an innovative branding and advertising campaign which will benefit today’s large corporations, the American economy and the consumer alike.
The Fed "hopes" A.I.G.
The Fed has decided to bail out A.I.G. with an $85 billion dollar loan deal, which will result in 80% of the company being owned by the government.
Hue test.
How's your hues? Test your color hue ability with this online test. Horizontally drag 'n' drop the squares in the correct hue order.
"I spent 16 years in prison for a crime I didn't commit."
Remember Jeffrey Deskovic? (If not, spend a minute browsing the links on the previous thread first). He just wrote an interesting position piece on what can be done to make sure that what happens to him doesn't happen to others.
Black Swans and The Fourth Quadrant
THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. "In the following Edge original essay, Taleb continues his examination of Black Swans, the highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. He claims that those who are putting society at risk are "no true statisticians", merely people using statistics either without understanding them, or in a self-serving manner.
I'd contribute to her defense if she gets caught.
It's nice to share. Cheney sued over not releasing VP documents to the public.
The Society of American Archivists, American Historical Association, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington are suing Vice President Dick Cheney for not transferring the vast majority of his records to the National Archives and Record Administration for eventual release to the public. [more inside]
twilight zone, the edge of light
The "terminator" is the dividing line between day and night as seen from on high. This shadow line is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. [more inside]
Moasics: they aren't just for Roman bath houses anymore!
Uh oh, you smashed a dish while you were washing up. But you don't get upset, because you know what to do with the pieces. Being both cultured and crafty, you not only know about the long and illustrious history of mosaic art but also that you can make mosaics from china and ceramic shards as well as pebbles, beads (new or removed from old jewelery), shells, marbles, or even lego or Scrabble tiles. So you take those pieces of your broken plate (and others that klutzy you has broken in the past) and, following some basic instructions, make numbers for your house, a fireplace surround, a birdbath, a flowerpot, a table or two or four, a tray, picture or mirror frames, a wall mural/homage to Hitchcock, or even a floor. By now you're wishing you had a spare basilica or Roman villa so you could really go nuts. And, besides planning on picking up some thrift shop china, you're eyeing that 48-piece reindeer-and-elves Christmas dinnerware set your mother-in-law gave you a few years back and thinking it's really too bad you're so clumsy and likely to break it in the very near future.
Nine vignettes about the Alaskan Secession
Hope Generator
Generations of Hope is a non-profit set up to bring kids out of foster care and into extended families with grandparents. The community of Hope Meadows was repurposed from housing on a closed Air Force base in Illinois. (The NYT article erroneously refers to the community by the non-profit's name. No matter. The story is still inspirational.) [more inside]
Elephants + Instruments = Thai Elephant Orchestra
The Thai Elephant Orchestra. Founded by Richard Lair and Dave Soldier [previously] at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, Thailand, a former logging camp. • Listen to tracks from the Elephants' two releases: Thai Elephant Orchestra (2001) and Elephonic Rhapsodies (2004) [They're the 6th and 7th albums on the page] • A New York Times Article from Dec 16, 2000 • A National Geographic segment (audio) that accompanies a larger piece (video) about the changing lives of elephants in Thailand • A full-length documentary (.mov format) • Youtubery: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 [#4 is a beautiful animation which also incorporates paintings made by the elephants at the Center.] [more inside]
A Most Immaculately Hip Aristocrat
Richard Myrle Buckley was too hip for the room. This most immaculately hip aristocrat translated the classics: Poe, Shakespeare, the Bible into Hip and left us all gassed, jonesing for more. Lord Buckley was a formative influence on monologists, poets, and performers from Whoopi Goldberg to Del Close (previously), and like the much anticipated movie about Close's life, 2009 should reveal the life of Lord Buckley through filmmaker Michael Monteleone's documentary, Too Hip For The Room: The Righteous Reign of Lord Buckley (.mov). [more inside]
"Va fan culo!"
φαινομαι
Weather History Offers Insight Into Global Warming. Weather History Offers Insight Into Global Warming. The problems that often haunt other weather records — the station is moved, buildings are constructed nearby or observers record data inconsistently — have not arisen here because so much of this place has been frozen in time. The weather has been taken (at Mohonk House, [map] ) in exactly the same place, in precisely the same way, by just a handful of the same dedicated people since Grover Cleveland was president... That extremely limited number of observers greatly enhances the reliability, and therefore the value, of the data. [more inside]
Photographs of the aftermath
50*lol
Fifty People, One Question
New Orleans filmmaker Benjamin Reece asks fifty New Orlean's residents a single question: "If you could wish for one thing to happen by the end of the day, what would it be?".
Satan rocks
Heavy Metal Jr is an amusing & sweet little documentary about a heavy metal band called Hatred, average age 11.
Georgia: "They Started It!"
The last resort
Martin Parr is a celebrated English photographer who has a reputation for being both preoccupied and inspired with notions of consumerism, foreign travel and tourism. Now you can actually go on holiday with him. The School of Life, a maverick cultural institution in London, is offering a weekend away with the sardonic snapper in the Isle of Wight. [more inside]
September 15
Gallipoli
Gallipoli is one of the most famous battles of World War I. Fought in on a Turkish peninsula in 1915 it was, like most Great War battles, a huge waste of life and largely fruitless. Jul Snelder's site has a wealth of information, the causes, history and aftermath of Gallipoli, the slang of the ANZAC forces, placenames in both English and Turkish, interesting little factoids, how Allied troops used subterfuge to hide their evacuation, the Turkish perspective, pictures of the battlesite today juxtaposed with old photographs, a mini-travel guide to Gallipoli and much more. One of the most famous units at Gallipoli was the Australian 12th Light Horse Regiment. To learn more about this type of unit, responsible for the "last successful great cavalry charge" two years after Gallipoli, I direct you to the excellent website of the Australian Light Horse Association, where you can learn anything you might reasonably want to know about the subject.
I'm a magician, Spencer. A furious magician.
Who did what now?
Down Syndrome Testing
All pregnancies are now recommended to be screened for Down Syndrome. 90% of those tested positive have opted for an abortion, while some in support groups discourage this to avoid becoming a vanishing minority with less funding. Now that campaign promises are being made to those with special needs, while vowing to outlaw abortion, a parent or voter might want to know more details. The costs used in this analysis were $146 for first-trimester screening, $66 for the second-trimester Triple Screen, and $86 for a second-trimester Quad Screen. A consultation with a genetic counselor is estimated at $68, and if a diagnostic procedure is also done, the total cost is $1,308. Terminations of pregnancy done in the first and second trimester are $648 and $1,146, respectively. The societal cost of raising and caring for an individual with Down syndrome is $762,748. Previously on Metafilter.
Richard McMahan's Miniature Art Museum
Richard McMahan's Mini Museum For the past 18 years, artist/art historian Richard McMahan has been making tiny replicas of the world's masterpieces, from ancient Egyptian tombs and Lascaux cave paintings to Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp. Charleston's Halsey Institute of Contemporary art has an online exhibit and 8-minute mini documentary. A short interview. [more inside]
I'm telling you I was the king of Spain
I am Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. I am the Dauphin of France. I am, by the grace of God, Pope. [more inside]
Now They Call It Grayscale
Black & white films to be remembered.
Boys zone
"60% of men trim their pubes. What, really?"
Ron Paul rejects your entire mana-based monetary system!
Beepy Little Girl
The Diving Pool
"A dreamlike state tinged with a nightmare" - that's The Diving Pool, a newly published collection of three novellas by Yoko Ogawa. Despite having won every major literary award in Japan, Ogawa is little known to the English speaking world (the French have translated her extensively), although two stories - Pregnancy Diary (one of the novellas in The Diving Pool) and The Cafeteria in the Evening and A Pool In the Rain - have graced the pages of The New Yorker. Here's a preview at Google Books. If you liked that, consider pre-ordering The Housekeeper and the Professor, her latest novel to be translated into English.
An environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem
Time Capsule: the internet and E-democracy. “Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted and we must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality personally.” - Susan Crawford, University of Michigan School of Law.
In recognition and memory of the beginning and continuation of the political internet, they have organized a Time Capsule of e-democracy's beginnings - everything from using e-mail to plead your friends to vote to flash animations that set the web alight. It is to be sealed on September 22. Help tell the story of internet politics.
Urban Air Trees
Video report about the newly constructed "Urban Air Trees" in Madrid, Spain. These unique structures are designed to both affect the surrounding environment and act as a social centers. Using live plants and photovoltaic cells the Air Tree produces a substantial amount of oxygen and energy. Designed by Urban Ecosystems.
and after all, we're only ordinary men
Pink Floyd keyboardist and founding member Rick Wright joins Syd Barret at the Great Gig in the Sky.
Ninja Cat
Ninja Cat - Blink and you die [SLY]
Not quite an egg and frying pan moment...
This is Your Nation on White Privilege is an excellent essay by anti-racism activist Tim Wise about how white privilege is shaping current American politics. " ^ previously
82 - 0
Video evidence of Slovakia's 82-0 slaughter of Bulgaria in the women's ice hockey Olympic qualifier.
Convey your heartworm feelings
"I love Chinglish: it constantly surprises and delights me. It refreshes our view of language, and reminds native English speakers of our own deficiencies in other languages. It also sometimes defines a wonderful characteristic of Chinese matter-of-fact-ness".
The Spirit Of Saul Bass Survives
RocknRolla, isn't by all accounts a great film, but it does have a rather nifty title sequence (hi res), courtesy of Danny Yount of Prologue films. [more inside]
Run to the Hills
The collapse of holiday firm XL has prompted the largest airlift in British history as emergency flights were put in place to bring 22,000 very angry people home. Even Bruce Dickinson has been helping out. [more inside]
Hey Jeff - Where's my "advertising your new site" badge.
Stack Overflow is now out of beta. Designed as a question and answer forum for programmers, it's been made to fill the gap currently filled by sites like the much hated and oft mispronounced Expertsexchange. If you're sick of having to scroll to the bottom, and you write code, then this could be for you. The site has been made by a team headed by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky. These are two uber-bloggers who've made a name for themselves talking about how to code. Of course, for haters of Stack Overflow, there are already a couple of sites to pamper to your anger. Finally, if you're wondering what a stack overflow is, then wikipedia has the answer.
I am at a loss to explain what I, and many other people, saw.
"I can clearly remember people shouting: 'What the hell is that?' I got to a console and people were loudly telling me to look to the east of Salisbury Plain. Twenty miles east of the eastern extremity was a series of returns, or radar blips, which were appearing in that position. There were five of them initially. Then six and then seven all following the same track." Wing Commander Alan Turner MBE was sworn to secrecy after he tracked a series of unidentified objects soaring over southern England at incredible speeds. This is Wing Commanders Turner's account of what he personally observed at RAF Sopley in the summer of l971.
September 14
ANTS in Space
The Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm (ANTS) "...is a
generic mission architecture consisting of miniaturized, autonomous, self-similar, reconfigurable, addressable components
forming structures. The components/structures have wide spatial distribution and multi-level organization. This ‘swarm’
behavior is inspired by the success of social insect colonies...."
ANTS may one day teem through the solar
system.... (last two links large QT files) [more inside]
ForestFilter
Old Growth Forests Are Valuable Carbon Sinks. "Contrary to 40 years of conventional wisdom, a new analysis published in the journal Nature suggests that old growth forests are usually 'carbon sinks' - they continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for centuries." Seven Best National Parks for Visiting Old Growth Forests. 20 Visually Arresting but Threatened Forests. [more inside]
Brokergeddon.
Lehman Brothers files for liquidation. After an all weekend emergency meeting at the New York Fed, no rescue, and LEH is gone. AIG announcing restructuring tomorrow. Bank of America in merger talks with Merrill Lynch, offering to buy the firm outright at $29/share, which values the 94 year old firm at a paltry $40 billion. The futures market say that stocks are not happy.
Charles Darwin to receive apology from the Church of England
"Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still." The comments are included on a Church of England website promoting the views of Charles Darwin to be launched on Monday.
Being Productive on Salvia
"Look at our current situation with that camel f*cker over in Iraq. Pacifism is not something to hide behind."
stop fowarding
Zip, bop, wizzzz!
All is Full of Love
Bitone are full of love. : Björk's song "All Is Full Of Love" is covered by Ugandan children and youths on an album by a organization called Bitone (meaning "talent"). Their mission is to restore the lives and hopes of children between 8 and 18 years old in Uganda, whom have been traumatized by the death of their parents or loss of their home due to disease, war, or economic hardship. [via]
You say muslim, I say muslin.
Harper gets a crush
National Post hosting Harper version of "I've got a crush on Obama" Do video's such as these (the original here) really help persuade people to vote one way or another? I can't believe that someone would be so dough-headed to fall for this kind of nonsense, but that's just me.
Palin, pancakes, and the straight talk express
Have the wheels come off the straight talk express? At least one sleeping giant woke up today: the NYT finally gives Sarah Palin a thorough vetting and the results aren't pretty. The McCain campaign's aggressive - and many say dishonest - tactics in promoting Palin may have sparked the beginnings of a media backlash. Camp McCain's reaction: We don't care and intend to stay on offense. And about that offense, they will soon have some help: Group With Swift Boat Alumni Readies Ads Attacking Obama. How low will things go? At this week's Values Voters Summit, 'Obama Waffles' with racial stereotypes were all the rage.
Quest for a true 3D Mandelbrot Fractal.
Quest for a true 3D Mandelbrot Fractal - a very nice exploration of Mandelbrot/Julia set fractals in various kinds of 3D space.
"It's Never Too Late - Why Not Now?"
"We're having him do what our 13-year-olds do. But Bernie was doing things the rest of us shudder to imagine when he was 13." Holocaust survivor Bernie Marks is preparing for his bar mitzvah, 65 years late.
September 13
Ecoda dobutsuen
The Eco Zoo - some amazing Japanese 3D Flash. If you take a close look at the animals there... you might be able to get some tips to live in a more environmentally friendly way!
More lipstick!
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL [advert precedes video]
Two scampering octopi
Deft Palate
Two-hundred -and-forty million years ago, a recently-discovered amphibian hunted with a special feature:
teeth in the roof of the mouth. [more inside]
From beautiful downtown Gondwanaland!
Gary Owens (previously) and Eric Boardman on dinosaurs: "More Dinosaurs," 1, 2, 3. "Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs," 1, 2, 3. "Son of Dinosaurs," (featuring Jimmy Stewart) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Not dinosaurs, but still cool: "Prehistoric World," 1, 2, 3. [more inside]
META
RIP, DFW
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.
First reported by an anonymous tip to a blog, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed that David Foster Wallace has hung himself.
Farsi alphabet book
A is for Automobile, B is for Bazooka. An Iranian kids' coloring book made during the Iraq-Iran War, intended to teach the Farsi alphabet, has been scanned and uploaded to Photobucket. [more inside]
Offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person
Sabrina Guzzanti, an Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to five years, according to the provisions of the Lateran treaty. [more inside]
Hacking the Hadron
Hackers attack Large Hadron Collider Hackers have mounted an attack on the Large Hadron Collider, raising concerns about the security of the biggest experiment in the world as it passes an important new milestone.
Johnny Clarke, The Name Behind The Hairstyle
Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) film from 1982 on The Bard of Salford, John Cooper Clarke. You might know him from here. NSFW. [more inside]
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Magnified
Cranach Magnified, courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum, enables users to compare and analyze the "surprisingly minute features" of several paintings by the great Lucas Cranach the Elder. For much more Cranach, visit the extensive listing at Artcyclopedia, which includes, among other things, the woodcuts at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; several paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum; and more paintings at the National Gallery of Art.
We regret to inform you.
In Their Boots is a new online "magazine show" about the impact of the wars on US servicemembers and their families. The latest episode features the founder of the American Widow Project, a new documentary and an organization dedicated to helping out other war widows across the country.
Who's Afraid of the Twelfth Amendment?
The Twelfth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has serviced the two-party system since 1804, but not without controversy. Little known about Amendment XII is that it requires an absolute majority of over half of the electoral college to win, currently 270 out of 538. If not, as in the case of third party state victories, or a tie of 269 each, the House of Representatives then selects the president from the top three contenders, with each state delegation having only one vote (also requiring a majority). Here's what the selection might look like today, advantage Democrats. However, it is the newly elected House that gets to decide the issue by the following March 4th (with the current VP ascending by default of indecision).
Get the Hell out of My Sandbox. It's Mine and You Can't Play Here
Surprise , Surprise. The big guys of the computer world get anti-competitive when some one gets to close to their turf.
stop crying kindle fanboy
Some are calling it the "Kindle Killer". (Demo launch video at engadget.) Plastic Logic's new e-reader, expected to be out in the first half of 2009, does promise to offer a lot that Kindle and most other other popular e-readers don't, like a larger display, big enough to provide a newspaper or magazine layout; touch-based markup and annotation; the ability to read standard documents and other file types without conversion; (promised) Wi-Fi connectivity (including the ability to transfer documents between readers); and last but not least, a screen display that you can hit with a shoe, and isn't that something we've all been waiting for during these tense times? [more inside]
Here's to a better, stronger America! (points to flag)
GEORGE PUTNAM (all caps, because that's the way he said everything), Los Angeles Television/Radio Legend, has died at the age of 94. A protege of Walter Winchell who came to L.A. in 1951 to restart a stalled career as a news anchor, he was famous for his dramatic style and extremely UNobjective reporting. Retrospective of his colorful career: Part One, Part Two. Best known on the Web as the "outstanding news reporter" who narrated the '50s alarmist documentary "Perversion for Profit", he was also acknowledged as the model for the Mary Tyler Moore show's bombastic newsman character Ted Baxter (seen here sitting in on a real newscast). Not restricting his editorializing to his daily "One Reporter's Opinion" segment, he is credited/blamed for the election of Sam Yorty as mayor of Los Angeles. And when TV News outgrew him, he found a home for the next 30 years doing Talk Radio (where some of us believe Rush Limbaugh also modeled his style after him). And that’s the up-to-the-minute obitfilter; up to the minute, that’s all the obitfilter. [more inside]
Photographer Jill Greenberg Just Photographed John McCain
She's an Ardent Democrat And boy, did she let her feelings be known through her work. Here's her website(NSFW).
Fifty knot winds with occasional furries.
They said that Hurricane Ike could bring unimaginable disaster in its wake...
but no one could've predicted the full extent of the horror. (YouTube, 31 sec. or still photo) This unexpected furriness brought to you by this guy. Prankster(NSFW)? Jackass? Potential Darwin Awards recipient?!
but no one could've predicted the full extent of the horror. (YouTube, 31 sec. or still photo) This unexpected furriness brought to you by this guy. Prankster(NSFW)? Jackass? Potential Darwin Awards recipient?!
September 12
The Aesthetic of Anticipation
What does the artist do to a machine? There's a hammer lying here. Suppose we consider the computer a tool very much like the hammer, only we don't know what to make with it or what to do with it. [more inside]
Mormon vampires?
LDS Sparkledammerung IS HERE! The crypto-mormonism of Stephanie Myers' Twilight series. (Spoilers, image heavy, extreme derisiveness)
Unearthly Island
Even the inhabitants of Socotra might think some of their island is beautiful but a bit outré.... Alien landscapes on Earth.
Find pictures that look the same, with or without metadata.
Piximilar searches through large image collections to instantly retrieve visually similar images, based on color, shape, texture, luminosity, etcetera. [more inside]
LET'S DANCE
RIP Gregory Mcdonald
NetFlix Origami
NetFlix Origami The fun way to recycle your NetFlix flaps
Bullshit Easier To Swallow In Pill Form
Vitamin purveyor Matthias Rath^ has dropped his libel case against Ben Goldacre^ and the Guardian. Goldacre's take. [more inside]
Rotating Drumstool Policy
Matt Cameron gained a lot of respect early on in the Seattle grunge scene, particularly for his ability to make odd time signatures feel like straight time. Over the years he kept time for Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Temple of the Dog, and his own Wellwater Conspiracy. Since 1998 he's played with the last men standing of the Seattle heavyweights, though it's a little known fact that he recorded drums on the original pre-Vedder demo. In the 8 years between, Pearl Jam had a few other drummers of note sit in. [more inside]
Negating a frame activates that frame
"...the posterboy for Generation Halliburton."
"I asked [Bono] why, in his opinion, [Tony] Stark couldn’t be content with charitable work à la Bill Gates, shaping the world with his billions. "You have to understand these guys," was Bono's one-line reply. "Bill's software. Stark's all hardware." Vanity Fair profiles a year in the life of Tony Stark, and asks what the literal and figurative ascent of the inventor/playboy/superhero means for 21st Century geopolitics. Is Iron Man "the embodiment of an outdated American fantasy -- a self-made, unilateral, technological solution to hopelessly complex problems"? Or is he merely the improbable but logical outgrowth of one young man's vast wealth, careless hedonism, prodigious intellect, and strained familial and mentor relationships? Christine Everhart examines the political implications and personal motives of Stark's quest to beat swords into plowshares -- while profiting from the retrofits. [more inside]
The Feminine side of Buddhism
As in most religions, Buddhism's pantheon of deities and saints has been male dominated. The preeminent exception to this is Kuan Yin, the goddess of compassion, also called Guan Yin or Kannon. She is the female form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, who underwent a gender shift after being popularized in China. She has inspired amazing forms of worship. [more inside]
Photos of the 2008 Paralympics
Photos of the 2008 Paralympics. Sadly the Paralympics rarely garners the coverage of the Olympics, but thanks to the internet you can witch videos of the competitions at Universal Sports (though it may be region-blocked, require registration and only seems to work on Windows).
I Am The King Of Meta
WireFilter: David Simon speaks at USC Law on journalism and The Wire. (Youtube - 1:22:50; a few mic/sound problems in the first few minutes)
Can you hear the people sing?
Les Misbarack. (Slyt? Yes. Awesome? Yes.)
Not with a bang but with a televised political satire
"We don't vote for them, we don't even know their names and we're not quite sure what they do. But they wield enormous influence. They are the power behind the power. They are The Hollowmen." You can watch the Australian Broadcasting Company's new political satire The Hollowmen [warning: sound] on the web. Or you can find it via Bittorrent. (Or if you live down under I suppose you could watch it on ABC 1 Wednesdays at 9pm or ABC 2 Thursdays at 8:30pm.) It's worth a look because it may be the funniest new satire on any English-language network. [more inside]
Speed Limit: Cars 30 - Skateboarders 40+
Adam Kimmel shares a video of a couple of sane and sedate runs down Claremont Avenue in Berkeley, California. (The likely route.)
Virtual Spider
Ever wanted a pet spider but didn't want to bother with all the messy upkeep? Try a customizable tarantula in your browser! (flash) (NSF Arachnophobes)
Tipping Point Ahead
Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip, an 11-minute animated film about climate change by activist Leo Murray, complete with script with references
5873 was their best album
(Happy birthday, Neil) Did you enjoy VH1's rockin' Passover special, "Matzo and Metal?" How about "Matzo and Metal II: Back to the Desert?" Then you're going to love "RUSH HASHANAH!!!!1!1!!"
As the Rolling Stone article points out, the title is not just an excrutiating pun, or an excuse for a 24 hour Rush marathon. Challah Fame member Geddy Lee is also a child of Holocaust Survivors.
As the Rolling Stone article points out, the title is not just an excrutiating pun, or an excuse for a 24 hour Rush marathon. Challah Fame member Geddy Lee is also a child of Holocaust Survivors.
Joan Wulff - 1st Lady of Fly Fishing
Joan Wulff, one half of the most famous couple in fly fishing, has devoted 60 years to perfection in casting. [more inside]
Coming from Uranus to check my style
Another dimension, new galaxy - J.C.R. Licklider was one of the most influential people in the history of computer science . Dr. Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (or “Lick”), was the Director of ARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office and from 1963-64 put in place the funding priorities which would lead to the Internet, and the invention of the mouse, windows and hypertext. In 1960 he was writing about Man-computer symbiosis and The Computer as a Communications Device . He also wrote epic memos such as his 1963 memo to “Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network ”
whale anti-collision
A new whale anti-collision system "A remarkable feature of Andre's system is its ability to single out and track an individual whale among all its “family” members in the same area – a breakthrough made with the help of a West African musician. In attempting to unravel the chaotic rhythms of the sperm whale clicks, he was struck by the similarity between his underwater recordings and African tribal music. A Senegalese griot (drummer) confirmed the likeness and – amazingly – was able to pick individual whales from André’s recordings through their distinctive rhythmic structures."[via]
Jesus came and touched me down inside!
"Ban, ban, Ca-Carol Ann?"
Britain's biggest exam board has removed a poem by Carol Ann Duffy from the GCSE syllabus and asked schools to destroy the anthology it is contained in because it makes a reference to knife crime. This followed a complaint made by Pat Schofield, an exam invigilator. Duffy responded with the poem: Mrs Schofield's GCSE. [more inside]
Dog Days of Occupation of Iraq
Endgame in Iraq - 9/11 release of Sean Smith's latest video. This one, finished this summer, is of candid interviews with soldiers in the 101st Airborne in Baghdad. [more inside]
Bazooka and more.
David Arthur Kelly of seminal noise band Kittens passed away 3/30/08. Sonic Unyon are graciously offering three albums in memorial. [more inside]
Sendak
Was there anything he had never been asked? He paused for a few moments and answered, “Well, that I’m gay.” "Maurice Sendak’s 80th year — which ended with his birthday earlier this summer and is being celebrated on Monday night with a benefit at the 92nd Street Y — was a tough one. He has been gripped by grief since the death of his longtime partner; a recent triple-bypass has temporarily left him too weak to work or take long walks with his dog; and he is plagued by Norman Rockwell.
Or, to be more accurate, he is plagued by the question that has repeatedly been asked about Norman Rockwell: was he a great artist or a mere illustrator?"
Yelling Fire! in a crowded asylum.
The fire you kindle for your enemy often burns yourself more than them. For want of water, a house burns down. The hydrants were off. Why? Well to prevent terrorism, obviously.
The other IKE that deserves attention
Those who judge hurricane risk merely by their Saffir-Simpson category number (1-5) are not getting the entire picture. Another (coincidentally-named) IKE (Intergrated Kinetic Energy) proposes an improved method of classifying hurricanes, one that takes into account their size and separates the danger components of sea surge (which kills 9 out of 10 hurricane victims) and wind. By that measure, Hurricane Ike is the most dangerous storm in 40 years. Ike's path reminds many of the greatest natural disaster in U.S. History, the Great Hurricane of 1900 (91 minute History Channel video on Google) which killed thousands due mainly to the great sea surge. After that the 17' Galveston sea wall was built and it has never been topped since by hurricane waves. Hurricane Ike may change that as current wave heights (WVHT) being reported by buoy data in the vicinity of Ike are well over 20 feet. A computer-simulated "Hurricane Carly" shows the results of various sea surges for the Galveston area (with graphic graphics): Play with real-time data and forecasts for the western gulf with the experimental nowCoast.
You Know... For Kids
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: "You're never too young to learn about the idiocy of racism and the folly of prejudice." [more inside]
A Picture Is Worth a 1,000 Bucks
Seth MacFarlane [Family Guy | American Dad!] presents his Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. But wait... this will not run on Fox - it is web only, and with Google backing. It is also intended that the ads are delivered as part of Google AdSense offering with the NYT stating "advertising will be incorporated into the clips in varying ways". [more inside]
September 11
Hoogerbrugge flash
Darkly funny flash Friday, click on the image, recent works: Public Opinion, Penis Envy [nsfw], World Peace, Crime and Punishment, No News and Year of the Pig by Dutch artist, Han Hoogerbrugge. [more inside]
"All your better deeds shall be in water writ"
In August of 1820 one of the most beloved poets of his age came to the defense of another poet who was fast slipping into obscurity after a string of flops and a barrage of devastating reviews. That poet receding into oblivion? John Keats. That mightily loved poet? Barry Cornwall. Barry who?! Barry Cornwall was the nom de plume of solicitor Bryan Waller Procter, who won the admiration of a great many, including no lesser a reader than Pushkin. You can acquaint yourselves with this now almost wholly forgotten literary figure by reading volume 1 of his 1822 Poetical Works or other texts by and about him on Google Books. As for Keats, well... Keats is everywhere.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Morton Sobell -- transcripts, facts revealed
Morton Sobel, co-defendant with Julius Rosenberg, acknowledges spying. Confirms Julius Rosenberg participated in spying, Ethel Rosenberg likely framed. National Archives releases transcripts.
A-Maze-ing amirite? Sorry...
Flash Friday Fun: Maze Stopper 2, help your character reach the flag first by placing obstacles for your opponent(s). You are scored by how much faster you are than your opponent. There is a "Freeze" tool to make placing obstacles easier. There is a walkthrough for when you get stuck, and if you're anything like me you will.
Why does everybody hate me?
Imagine if you were the only person on earth; if no one else could understand you except yourself. No matter how hard you tried, you could never make contact with the outside world, not for long at least. This is the life of a Schizophrenic. Here, in a simulation created to understand what a typical trip to the pharmacy is for a patient suffering from Schizophrenia [previously], you will experience for a few minutes what life is all about for people afflicted with this disease. (via) [more inside]
"We are living in a metal world"
Iraqi heavy metal? Sure, there's Acrassicauda. They're named after a scorpion. The Guardian has an informative article about them. There's been a movie made about them, which the New York Times has written about. Four members of the group, more recently based in Turkey, were seeking refugee status. Are they any good? I dunno, I guess so, but I''m not all that keen on metal, myself, so I'm not the best person to ask. Just go listen to 'em at their MySpace page.
I am so f*@$!ng STUPID! I left grandma at Walmart!
Onesie are classically trained artists from Oklahoma. As such they make shorts like Big Brown Beautiful Bear "a sweet little song " Beautiful Day, and much more . Enjoy, I think.
I'm not bad, I'm just photographed that way
The cake is a yellow square.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The most moving Super Mario-inspired song.
Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is in Another Castle. John Darnielle (of the Mountain Goats) and Kaki King perform a song, sung from the point of view of Toad from the Super Mario Brothers video game franchise.
Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness
Too bad the guy was only thirty eight - just two years older, he'd have been worth three times the points...
Did you grow up anticipating sports where death would be likely, if not certain? Almost certainly played by convicts, possibly with robot limbs? And which would be even more likely to have chainsaws and flamethrowers not usually found in the sports of today? Those We Left Behind’s look at Future-sports of the past, in videogames, movies and comics is for you!
Where are cats?
Cats I am near. Stick a postcode or address in below, and we'll show you cats near it.
Wisconsin Attorney General sues Elections Agency
The Attorney General of Wisconsin, JB Van Hollen, is suing the state Elections Board to remove from voting rolls all voters whose registered names & addresses don't match the records at the Department of Transportation. [more inside]
Support Our Poops
LHC webcam
LHC Webcams. There's been a lot of LHC news lately but a less-publicized series of Compact Muon Solenoid proton collision tests is scheduled for today, and CERN has been kind enough to set up a live streaming webcam to watch the CMS in action. (There's also a view of the parking lot but I think that's more so underground-bunkered LHC staff can see the weather.) It's fairly dull viewing but if you're interested in the science of it all, it's great nerdy fun. Maybe you'll even see a black hole or two. ;)
"I'd like the Department of Missing Babies..."
An 81-year-old man walked out of his house in suburban Boston yesterday and found a baby left on his doorstep. John Tuckerman was going outside to check the temperature before running an errand, and discovered a very newborn baby in a tote bag with a note. It's standard local news stuff, but I'm sharing it with you because the Newton, MA police released the 911 call that Tuckerman made and it's worth a listen.
Boy, you're going to bring home some meat this summer!
John Travolta's custom built home with runway
An ubergeek's manifesto
Ken Levine, creator of Bioshock, gives a funny and inspiring speech about growing up geek before the internet and the era of 'geek chic'. (SLGV, and annoying age check)
"I can tell you that she went well."
RIP Nagi Noda (1973-2008) Amazingly talented art director/music video director. Sentimental Journey. Hearts on Fire. She's My Man. Her website of collected works, Uchu Country. Antville thread with a beautiful story from Aaron Stewart-Ahn is here.
Querying the noosphere
According to a recent international survey, there remains no global consensus regarding who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. "On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator... The U.S. government was to blame, according to 23 percent of Germans and 15 percent of Italians." The poll was collected by World Public Opinion, a neat website filled with various polls about interesting topics.
Craigstistics
Google's speedy little red browser.
You may have heard about Google's new Chrome browser (previously). Did you know that where it really shines right now is on speed, especially with rendering JavaScript? vs Firefox, IE, Safari. vs Opera. video vs Firefox. and also vs IE, Firefox on tests other than JS handling. Not bad for being in beta, at version 0.2.
barbed wire kisses
The New York Times has finally come out and said it - marriage is about money.
Palin family christmas card
Now I know how to Criticize Lin Piao and Discredit Him Completely, next time won't you join with me? Lots of other great covers on this site, but this one takes the (happy kids marching with rifles) cake. (via)
McCain and the OODA loop
John McCain was trained as a fighter pilot. Fighter pilot training is greatly influenced by John Boyd, who developed the OODA loop theory, which some say General Petraeus has adapted to the ground in Iraq, the real reason "the surge" appears successful. The OODA loop has been applied to business, computer security and now it appears that McCain is applying it to politics with some success. [more inside]
Tastes like honey to the child; like oil to the elderly.
Depending on how you want to think about it, it was funny or inevitable or symbolic that the robotic takeover did not start at MIT, NASA, Microsoft or Ford. It started at a Burger-G restaurant in Cary, NC on May 17, 2010....
Manna, by Marshall Brain of pop-sci emporium HowStuffWorks.
Manna, by Marshall Brain of pop-sci emporium HowStuffWorks.
Do you believe in me?
10-year-old Dalton Sherman of Dallas, Texas is an impressive young public speaker. (SLYT)
Uncle Sam & 911
Uncle Sam & 911: "Listen man, I think I have to move on…" (cartoon)
September 10
personal virtues
Teapot Dome 2008 -- "The report also detailed cozy relationships between energy companies and other officials in the royalty-in-kind program office. Some 19 officials — a third of the staff — took gifts from oil and gas executives, some with “prodigious frequency,” it said." [more inside]
Tufte x jQuery = awesome
Craig Mod, who you may remember was the developer of geographic news attention index buzztracker.org, has developed a new interface to the 2008 election: Everymoment Now. [more inside]
Dust Jackets from American and European Books, 1926-1947
Over 2500 dust jackets of American and European books from the years 1926 through 1947. Here are some that caught my eye: Burned Evidence, If You Know What I Mean, Ikaria, Murder for the Millions, Dream of the Red Chamber and A Farewell to Arms. Finally, I can't help but link to a German book about Russian book jackets, the subject of an old post by Alvy Ampersand.
Open-source online exhibit platform
Omeka is a newly available, open-source web platform, bringing good-looking, functional online exhibitry within reach of smaller museums, libraries, and arts groups. From the Center for History and New Media.
Not Potter. But smarter?
Crushed fans of Harry Potter expressed outrage upon learning they must wait another 8 months for the newest film installment. The timing of the announcement rather handily coincides with the release of Scholastic's "39 Clues" -- a book whose blend of interactive intrigue is supposed to take over young readers' imaginations where Harry leaves off. [more inside]
What makes people vote Republican?
What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress.
Your chocolate fingers
Little Hands - Documentary Short
"Little Hands offers a glimpse into the lives of a group of deaf children at a Danish 'fritidshjem,' a recreation centre where they meet after school."
A fascinating short documentary, approximately 17minutes.
A fascinating short documentary, approximately 17minutes.
Dew drops
Revamp
If you use Flickr, your home page is about to change. It looks more like a social networking site than ever. [more inside]
Canadian Federal Election Thread
Harper has called a federal election in Canada for October 14, 2008, ignoring his own fixed election date law. Polls predict another minority Conservative government. It will be the third national election in just over four years. [more inside]
He didn't call the company, but he did write up a headline.
"News-flow" analysis is used by some automated trading systems to buy and sell stock based on stories circulating in the media. United Airlines (UAUA) stock plummeted the other day. And it plummeted fast. Like, lost %75 of it's value in 20 minutes fast. The problem? The news-flow that triggered this sell off was based on a mis-labeled story from 2002. via /.
She's the ****ing Batgirl
DC Comics' All-Star Batman and Robin series (from creators Frank Miller and Jim Lee) has taken quite a bit of heat here and there, but it's not the dubious quality of the book that has its publisher urging retailers to pulp its newest issue: It's some censored dialogue that managed somehow to not quite get censored. [more inside]
Consider my opinion changed.
Surge? More like... something that rhymes with surge.
The military surge in Iraq is failing. Sure, violence in the country is down significantly, but that's as much due to the Sunni Awakening, which began significantly before the surge got going in 2007. Unfortunately, everyone, particularly the McCain campaign, seems to have forgotten that the goal of the surge was to provide political stability, and it totally hasn't. [more inside]
Put the South in your mouth
Southern Rock may have made a loud entrance into popular culture a few decades ago, but it certainly didn't end there. Many bands have continued the tradition of adding a real southern flavour to their music by combining blues, boogie, country and rock, while often hitting us with dual-guitar attacks. Although some are more often classified as alt-country, their sounds can range from having a heavy country influence, to being a lot more rocking. [more inside]
A damn fine cup of free entertainment.
Surname Surfin' Sur-prises
World Names Profiler is a pretty amazing Flash tool, that allows you to see where other people with your last name are distributed across the world, in frequency per million, right down to the city and regional level. Fun to pair with the NameVoyager.
Interactive Singles Map shows you where the ladies at
Remember that disheartening map that cataloged the ratio of unmarried men to women per city, wherein the East coast was Single Lady Central and the West coast was a Boystown? Now there's an interactive version where you can adjust for age range, which dramatically affects the results. [VIA PROJECTS]
UFO or Solar Car?
Marcelo da Luz has been attracting a lot of attention with his snazzy solar car. He's hoping to set a new world record by driving the car from Buffalo, NY, to Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
Needs. More. Cowbell.
Needs. More. Cowbell. Morecowbell takes any MP3 file and adds synchronized cowbell along with random Christopher Walken clips. For example, David Bowie or Coldplay.
The Matanuska Colony: The New Deal in Alaska
The 'Dirty Thirties' saw farmers hit with the double-whammy of the Great Depression and the ecological disaster of the Dust bowl years.
"In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered 203 families from the hardest-hit areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan the chance to start fresh in a new land, in a fertile Alaskan valley with the melodic name Matanuska."
"It was heady, fine-sounding stuff on paper. Picked from relief rolls in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the prospective colonists knew their Promised Land was a wilderness, but the Government was going to turn the wilderness overnight into an Eden with running water, radios, a cinema. It was going to set each family up on fine 40-acre farms with every necessity, many a luxury, 30 years to pay." It didn't quite work out as well as they'd hoped.thirties' saw many farmers in the United States [more inside]
We don't put out
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is a long-lost, never-released movie about an all-girl punk band. Since its non-release on cable outlets in the mid-1980s, it has been credited with inspiring the riot grrrl movement, and it counts among its fans Courtney Love, Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vaill, the late filmmaker Sarah Jacobson, and, inexplicably, Jon Bon Jovi (who dated star Diane Lane in the 1980s). Twenty-seven years after Paramount execs shelved the film, Rhino will be putting out legitimately releasing the film on DVD. At a recent screening in conjunction with Allison Anders's Don't Knock the Rock festival, star Diane Lane had this to say: "Twenty-seven years in the making!" [more inside]
A day in the park
Is it a slide or a large uncircumsised appendage? Advances in playground technology - what will they think of next? (via BuzzFeed)
"forward, forward I say"
"Fog of War" cited by United States Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad. He was speaking to journalists to clarify reports concerning his unauthorised contacts with foreign government officials, among them Asif Ali Zardari; a then contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan.
Earlier this year he was being touted as a possible successor to Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan as seen in these two articles.
So who is Zalmay Khalilzad? Neo con and oil businessman. [more inside]
Gotta get up, gotta get up, gotta get up
All hail the energy drink! Potentially dating back as far as early 1900s Scotland, the energy drink has evolved from a nasty-tasting "health tonic" into a brightly-colored and supercharged fuel for body and/or mind. [more inside]
September 9
...sorry...
(Internetworking Frequency, 2.4 gigacycles.)
The Early Television Foundation and Museum Website covers the nascent days of the nation's pastime, with interesting items like mechanical TVs and programming schedules from 1939.
Indie Game: Muslim Massacre
Muslim Massacre. Satire or just for shock value? You decide. Windows only.
Obama is inclusive in his support for PNGs
Build your own Astroland
Sure, you're sad that Astroland at Coney Island has closed for good. But buck up, l'il Astro-nut! You can buy the rides and build your own! (Astroland's website is still active for now.)
Venus and Mars - not what we thought
Why aren't men and women becoming more alike? A husband and a stay-at-home wife in a patriarchal Botswanan clan seem to be more alike than a working couple in Denmark or France. The more Venus and Mars have equal rights and similar jobs, the more their personalities seem to diverge. International Sexuality Description Project findings.
Live Strong
Thirty-seven year old Lance Armstrong has announced that he will end his 3-year retirement from professional racing to try for a record eighth victory in the Tour de France.
Camille Rose Garcia
The Birth of the Ipod
You may have never heard of Kane Kramer, but it's likely you use the product and online store he patented. In 1979.
Sculptor Nemo Gould makes robots out of found objects
"Survivor: Extremophile Edition" Results Show
Is life possible even in the coldest depths of space? If so, this tough little guy has long been thought to be a good candidate. Now, finally, analysis of the Tardigrades (a.k.a. "water bears") exposed to open space as part of the TARDIS project is finally complete. So what's the verdict? [more inside]
The Black Pantanis
Up to now, no black cyclist has ever competed in the Tour de France. One man hopes to to change that.
Last month Nicholas Leong, a Singaporean photographer and supporter of the Major Taylor Association (previously: 1, 2), travelled to Eldoret in Kenya, a place better known for producing world-class distance runners. There, he found two Kenyan cyclists and took them to France to tackle one of the Tour's most iconic climbs: Alpe d'Huez. [more inside]
Ron Paul '08: So sayeth the Lord.
The Alliance Defense Fund is organizing Pulpit Freedom Sunday, urging Pastors to explicitly endorse Presidential candidates in violation of IRS rules governing the non-profit status of religious organizations.
Corn and You
The Corn Refiners Association would like you to know two things. One: High Fructose Corn Syrup is just fine. And two: anyone who says differently is an ignorant jerk. [more inside]
Prop. 8 is a money boon
While millions are flowing into California on both sides of the gay marriage battle, California's anti-gay leaders are raking it in through their nonprofit orgs.
Japan through wonderful vintage photos
Vintage 3-D stereoviews of old Japan, Meiji and Taisho era swimsuit girls, working people, geisha, and kids, old Japan salt prints, dozens of T. Enami glass slides, and strange or offbeat images: all part of a vast and superb collection of Japanese photos from 1862 to 1930 by flickr user Okinawa Soba. [more inside]
The North Korea of the Privileged
History of the browser user-agent string
Is that a Spicey Sausage in Your Pants?
The victims told deputies they awoke Saturday morning to the stranger applying spices to one of them and striking the other with an 8-inch sausage. Bill McEwen gives us the skinny on the pun fallout from such an event, along with an historical analysis of other sausage related assaults. Don't forget your Pappy's!
RocknRolla: It's Ova
Peter Bradshaw pwns the new Guy Ritchie film. I mean, doing yet anotha stinka of a drama about the mee-lee-a of the ersatz London gangsta?
Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea
Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea is an exhibit by Swoon composed of seven floating sculptures made from discarded materials. Following a performance tour down the Hudson River, it is docked at Deitch Studios in NYC until October 18th.
Life as an asexual couple
It is actually more than two dozen traps.
'And Now For Those All-Important DNA Test Results...!'
When reality bites, it leaves deep scars... behind the scenes of The Jeremy Kyle Show. 'One-Night Stand On CCTV!' 1, 2, 3 - the episode mentioned in the article. Brooker on Kyle. Dead Ringers sketch.
Now I can cross "Post an FPP" off my list...
I’ve never wanted to be that guy that just talked about going out and doing things. So last year I decided to leave my home and my job and I set out to accomplish some of those things I had never done but kept telling myself it would be cool to do someday.
Amtrekker has spent the past 433 days doing just that. He only has two rules: he can't go home until he does all 50, and he can't spend any money on lodging. To date, he has crossed 44 off his list. (via PodCacher) [more inside]
So you want to be an Engineer?
For 150 years or more, the locomotive engineer has held a special place in American history. [more inside]
Hector Zazou has died
Banking shares: New Day or False Dawn?
A bottom for banking? Buying or selling shares in a company one manages - insider trading - is legal in The United States, provided the relevant forms are filed with The SEC. This information is then made available to the general public via EDGAR, Sec Form 4, or high level aggregators. Investors scour web sites for such filings, as purchases or sales of a companies shares by insiders are public evidence of managements private opinions regarding the future prospects of the firm they are running.
Even before yesterdays relief rally insider buying in banking shares hit a two decade high. So does this surge in buying indicate the worst is over in banking? When trading its best to pay close attention to a broad range of signals, because sometimes even the insiders get it wrong.
Even before yesterdays relief rally insider buying in banking shares hit a two decade high. So does this surge in buying indicate the worst is over in banking? When trading its best to pay close attention to a broad range of signals, because sometimes even the insiders get it wrong.
T-Minus...
In a scant few hours, scientists will make the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider. Terrified of nothing, a few deeply misguided morons have sent death threats to the CERN team, probably because of Faith-Based Science. [more inside]
“The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.” –Ben Okri
"Political content aside, the discussion provided a lovely example of how a term from literary theory has established itself in American political discourse." via Language Log
"We may expect the following. Language will be carefully crafted. Advertisements will focus on personal narratives. The campaign will employ “attack” advertisements that emotionally sway voters. Policy will be sketchy with vague descriptions that emotionally satisfy Americans while offering scant details. The emphasis will be on creating narratives that resonate with the values, beliefs, and identities of prospective voters."
– Literary Gulag, on Lakoff, Nunberg, Westen, and the narrative of the 2008 presidential election. [more inside]
"We may expect the following. Language will be carefully crafted. Advertisements will focus on personal narratives. The campaign will employ “attack” advertisements that emotionally sway voters. Policy will be sketchy with vague descriptions that emotionally satisfy Americans while offering scant details. The emphasis will be on creating narratives that resonate with the values, beliefs, and identities of prospective voters."
– Literary Gulag, on Lakoff, Nunberg, Westen, and the narrative of the 2008 presidential election. [more inside]
September 8
Hurricanes from Outer Space!
Hurricanes, as seen from orbit. Flying straight into a Hurricane.
The list of worldwide Hurricane names.
The history of Hurricane names.
Practising drugs safely?
Classic music too serious
Why are classical music concerts so serious? A fascinating history of how and why classic music concerts evolved to become so stuffy: silent formal audience, ridged schedule, and a canonical play-list of the same dead artists over and over - they used to be more fun and spontaneous, until the gatecrashers showed up..
Tarot in Plain Sight, Tarot as Insight
Wow, we've had Pomo Tarot and 80's Tarot and Star Trek Tarot and Barbie Tarot and Victoria Regina Tarot and more. But how about... Tarot as blog? Arcanalogue: Unique insights into ancient constructs via contemporary recontextualizations from a filter-practitioner. via projects.
Lies, damned lies, and graphs
Graph your life at MIT's Mycrocosm. Simple interface. Interesting potential. Worrying about. Freelance: No Idea What the Hell Is Going On. Food and Liquid Consumption. Also allows for sharing datasets with other users.
What is the opposite of a tornado?
Derechos are big, nasty storms you've probably never heard of. Join two swearing guys watching a derecho in Illinois(youtube warning). [more inside]
Things that are not what they seem
The Mighty Optical Illusions website contains a ton of things to mess with your visual cortex, from 3D chalk drawings to impossible objects; spot-the-object games, tests, and the just plain spooky, among many other categories. Or you can just keep hitting the Random Illusion button until you lose yourself.
transitions and seeking refuge
A fascinating story of the first known, Western transsexual, Tibetan Buddhist novice monk: Laurence Michael Dillon (born Laura Maude Dillon, May 1, 1915 - May 15, 1962) was a British physician and the first female-to-male transsexual to undergo phalloplasty. His brother, Sir Robert Dillon, was the eighth Baronet of Lismullen in Ireland. The editor of Debrett's told Time Magazine that Dillon was unquestionably next in line for the baronetcy: The unwanted press attention led Dillon to flee to India, and then to a Tibetan monastery. Girls Will Be Boys, a review of The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution, by Pagan Kennedy. Photograph of Michael Dillon as a monk. [more inside]
Afghanistan Civilian Deaths
Some new and disturbing footage following an air raid on Azizabad seems to be forcing the US military to do a U-turn on civilian deaths in Afghanistan. [more inside]
Presidential Crimes
Presidential Crimes: Moving on is not an option. "In deciding about legal redress, we need to be clear about the large stakes in our decision. The very multiplicity of the apparent crimes, the sheer array of arguably broken laws, is dizzying. But that multiplicity must be faced, for in it we will see that what got in President Bush’s way was not any one law but the rule of law itself. It is the rule of law that has been put in jeopardy by a project of executive domination; it is the rule of law that will continue to be in peril; and it is only, therefore, by addressing the crimes through legal instruments—through a formal, legal arena, and not simply through the electoral repudiation of bad policy—that the grave and widespread damage stands a chance of being repaired."
The Simplest Weather Report
Umbrella Today? tells you if you'll need an umbrella today. It will also text message your phone in the morning and warn you when you should bring an umbrella. (America only currently.)
The War Within
Bob Woodward has a new book released today titled The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008. The Politico has a lengthy review by Mike Allen. Bloomberg also has an early, less flattering, review. [more inside]
Documentary about a rescue helicopter crew on their tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Above Enemy Lines (youtube 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) is a BBC Documentary about a RAF Chinook crew on their tour of duty in Afghanistan. Part 4 and 5 of the film deal with the crew attempting to rescue a wounded 19 year-old soldier from a combat zone.
Gay Geeks
Spore in the wild
Will Wright's PC game Spore was released yesterday. The 'Sim Everything' game from the creator of Sim City and The Sims takes the player from cellular growth to space colonization with several stages in between. Reviews are in, and the consensus is that it's good but not as legendary as its scope (and multi-year development cycle) would suggest. The game's 'draconian' DRM has sparked controversy, causing Amazon users to bomb it with one-star reviews.
Heavy Metal Muslims
An article by Johann Hari (a remarkable columnist) in today's Independent about the substantial Heavy Metal movement in the Muslim world inserted a flicker of hope into my normally gloomy outlook on the current situation.
I know that in my youth I used Heavy Metal (old school) as a hammer to tell my parents, my teachers and the world in general that I was different from them and did not accept their rules, judgements and values.
If that is happening in Tehran, Morocco, Egypt and Pakistan then I'm with the kids.
Go Metalheads! Rock the Mullahs!
Tarantist look and sound the part but the listing on their YouTube page of 'Home town - Tehran/Los Angeles' is a bit worrying. How the hell do they work that gig? [more inside]
Two short courses
A Short Course In Behavioral Economics, an "Edge Master Class" from Richard Thaler and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman. [more inside]
Saut crapeau
Welcome to Harpeau Crapeau University. Sing along now:
Dear, dear ol' HCU,
We're filled with gratitude.
Sagest Amphibian,
Swami and trusted friend.
Our guide through the world of Maya,
Wit and wisdom, "Hi, howaya?"
Misguided A-Souls should try-ya!
God bless HCU
Dear, dear ol' HCU,
We're filled with gratitude.
Sagest Amphibian,
Swami and trusted friend.
Our guide through the world of Maya,
Wit and wisdom, "Hi, howaya?"
Misguided A-Souls should try-ya!
God bless HCU
Dafne and Ofelia
Dafne and Ofelia - Dafne at the Prado, Dafne in Almeria, the pair outside. I believe their clothing to be largely handmade. The whole photostream is quite the labor of love.
Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics...and Voter Polls
Margins of Error We can't seem to let the future alone. Even though we often get predictions about it so wrong. Because, as Niels Bohr once said, "Prediction is very difficult. Especially if it is about the future." What are the origins of political polling (beware of awful interface design)? And how is political polling evolving?
A Promise Kept
A Promise Kept: "When two medical flight helicopters collided near a Flagstaff, Ariz., hospital June 29, a promise died. It was a sacred promise from a Red Sox-loving father to his three young sons. On his 37th birthday in August, they would make the 2,100-mile pilgrimage to see the Red Sox play in Fenway Park." [more inside]
Give me your coded, your rfid tagged, your addressed masses
As simple as a typo. Your vote in the 2008 U.S. election won't [2:00-9:00] count if voter caging parties can help it. Vote caging works basically like this - (1) Send do-not-forward mail to the address listed on your registration. (2) If it comes back return to sender, your registration is challenged and can be thrown out without notice. "A challenged voter will likely cast a provisional ballot....Nearly a third of all 1.6 million provisional ballots cast in 2004 were thrown out." Previously (somewhat). [more inside]
Data-Driven Enhancement of Facial Attractiveness
Olbermann and Matthews demoted
MSNBC is removing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as the anchors of live political events, bowing to growing criticism that they are too opinionated to be seen as neutral in the heat of the presidential campaign.
Twelve Canoes
Twelve Canoes - a beautiful & media-rich site presenting the stories, art and environment of the Yolngu people who live around the Arafura swamp in north-eastern Arnhem Land, Australia. [more inside]
Amazing Physics Videos
buggy barbarity
Violent death in the insect world - grisly yet compelling macro photographs of bug-against-bug carnage.
It looked like the Eiffel Tower going for a walk.
Last year, Michael Mooney attempted to break the world record for riding the tallest bike. Instead he broke his knee. This year he tried again. Like any good biker, he got up and tried again (1:33 for the good stuff). He may not have broken the record, but he sure is awesome.
September 7
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that videogames are created awesome.
The Actionbutton.net Manifesto: The 25 Best Games of All Time. An eclectic list of awesome, and sometimes obscure games, accompanied by impassioned, long-winded, often pretentious and sometimes insightful essays/reviews. [more inside]
Voices of the Delegates.
The Third Degree
The tech business world has forever hyped the idea of "virtual communities," but it appears that the internet is actually making us more connected. Back in 1967, Stanley Milgram (of Milgram Experiment fame), proposed that we are all connected, on average, by six degrees of separation. The idea rapidly entered the popular consciousness, spawning a parlor game, and a hit play (and subsequent movie.) [more inside]
A Summer of Madness
Little Hands, Fingers Like Large Salamis
Little Hands, a commercial for Herringbone Sydney, won the Silver Lion award at the Cannes Lions 2008 international advertising festival. There is an accompanying print ad series (one in the series, "Bulgarians", was not well received by Saatchi&Saatchi Bulgaria). Today, the firm behind the Little Hands, M&C Saatchi, has been hired by the British government to sell its troubled ID card project to the public.
Getting lost more efficiently
The Political Scene
Party Faithful. Can the Democrats get a foothold on the religious vote?
The Eureka Tower Carpark
The Eureka Tower Carpark in Melbourne makes makes great use of forced perspective for its way-finding system, designed by Axel Peemoeller.
Whalesong and ocean sounds
The Jupiter Foundation and the Whalesong Project are both organizations which record humpback whale songs from floating buoys; some of their archived recordings can be found here, here, and here. (Warning, last two may resize your browser.) DOSITS hosts a more comprehensive collection of oceanic sounds, with seals and fish along with its whales and dolphins. It also has a couple of nice sections on how animals use sounds in the ocean. (Previously.) [more inside]
"For the rest of the evening my name will be Violetta."
Radar magazine: Secrets of a hipster hooker.
Small tweak to DNA may have given us our unique hands
Looking for Paul's Boutique?
Previously on Superman...
SideTaker: Need moar drama??
Are you simply not getting enough drama in your life? Do you often get the urge to listen to other peoples relationship problems? Do you like to judge random people and find Relationshipfilter to be insufficient? Well, now there's SideTaker ("Let The World Decide Who's At Fault"), a site where couples give their sides of an issue and let others decide who's right or wrong. Via.
"Letters and letters and letters."
I love you because you play awesome songs on the jukebox. Who are you? Come here, we can talk. That's Number 165 from 300 Love Letters (but there are really 400 and here's why, and here's an explanation of the project itself). Asia Wong's other projects.
Tibetan modern artists
Contemporary Tibetan artists incorporating traditional themes: Gonkar Gyatso l l Karma Phuntsok l Yungchen Lhamo [scroll down for video] l P. N. Dhumkhang l Losang Gyatso l Angsang [more inside]
September 6
"I am the angel of death for her"
The Video Diary of Ricardo Lopez On January 14th, 1996, A 21-year old Floridian man named Ricardo Lopez began a video diary to record his own growing obsession with Bjork. [more inside]
The new Nazi army: How the U.S. military is allowing the far-right to join its ranks.
Nazis in the military is dedicated to the investigative project undertaken by journalist Matthew Kennard while studying for a MS in Investigative Journalism at Columbia University in New York. It was completed over six months and explores the increasingly liberal attitude of the U.S. military to neo-Nazis and white supremacists serving in the armed forces. via [more inside]
they're back - for real this time
Braunstein, the world's first role-playing game
Most gamers have never heard of Braunstein. Sad but true. In the hierarchy of self-awareness you’ll find the circle of gamers who know what D&D is (a very, very large circle), then inside of that is the circle of gamers who know what Greyhawk is (large but smaller), and inside that the circle who knows what Blackmoor is (smaller still). And then in the very center, vanishingly small, are the people who’ve heard of Braunstein. Which is a pity, because Braunstein is the granddaddy of them all.Braunstein: the Roots of Roleplaying Games by Ben Robbins. The first role-playing game was run by soldier David Wesely in 1967, his group including none other than D&D co-creator Dave Arneson. This past GenCon Braunstein was revived! Here's what the players had to say. Handouts from an earlier Braunstein revival. David Wesely's post-game comments. [via Rob McDougall] [more inside]
Painting 10,000 words, surely
Area 56: Peeing robots, rockin' office workers, engaging panoramas, and even a few sexy girls.
drew.
Movie poster artist draws a line. Drew Struzan is retiring. Responsible for some of the most iconic movie posters from the last thirty years, some of his non-poster work can be seen at his official site. Many of the original images are for sale, starting at $30,000. Some of his paintings and drawings might be considered NSFW.
Fear and loathing in Kanesatake
Policing issues are complicated in the Mohawk community of Kanesatake, near Montréal, Québec - a firebombing last Sunday underscores tensions that have existed between the Mohawks and the Sûreté du Québec, Québec's police force. Police have been reluctant to patrol the region ever since then Grand Chief James Gabriel negotiated a controversial police deal with Ottawa in 2003 without consulting band council, resulting in a Mohawk blockade and Gabriel's exile to Montreal the following year. The Montreal Gazette says the Mohawk community wants the Sûreté du Québec to step up patrols. Some Mohawks believe Québec wants to overextend its reach. The Kanesatake have a strong independent streak and have come to blows with Québec before.
You Get To Join The Clown Club
That's Dum
Ed Rondthaler on english pronounciation. (Quicktime Video)
Why?
'There are two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day. In the other, human beings no longer necessary to our economy, to our society, are being devalued and destroyed' David Simon on The Escalating Breakdown Of Urban Society Across The US
Like, OMIGOD!
80smusicvids.com - Like totally bodacious collection of over 1000 music videos from like the raddest decade. Choice. [more inside]
Ghostschool
Ghostschool is a collection of photographs taken of the sketchbook/scrapbook of designer Wil Freeborn (and a few other tumbled bits and pieces).
Two Americas Separated by a Common Capital City
Imperium Kontratakuje
Apparently whenever US movies were released in Soviet-era Poland, the posters were discarded and replaced by new versions by Polish artists. Alternately disturbing and frickin' awesome, and often containing political comments of varying subtlety.
Previously.
pretty pickings
The 20th Anniversary of Suffer
The Cornell Evolution Project, which polls prominent evolutionary scientists about their religious beliefs, is part of a PhD thesis by evolutionary paleontologist and UCLA lecturer Greg Graffin. Mr. Graffin is also the lead singer of a band named Bad Religion, whose influential album Suffer turns 20 years old this week. [more inside]
Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth
Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth. How children learn (or: don't learn) math today. [more inside]
September 5
Talibanistan
Right at the Edge. "The Taliban and Al Qaeda have established a haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border. This is where the war on terror wil be fought – and possibly lost."
Vitamin Hamilton
Apparently, this kind of thing happens all the time in Hamilton, Ontario.
Please don't tell William Gibson this exists.
I know what you're thinking. What could be better than a below-low-budget sci-fi/horror hypersexualized movie based off of a musical, with a playwright who also decided to star in both stage and screen adaptations? Well, then, what if we up the ante! It's also a socially-conscious cyberpunk movie musical, written, directed, scored and costumed by people in 2008 who have decided that 1996 is as far as the future goes, thanks... so it's also a goth/raver socially conscious cyberpunk movie musical, complete with blue-streaked hair, muppet-fur and clunky vinyl boots! No? We need to aim higher to do better? Well, here comes the kicker, the one element that will immortalize this film: Starring Paris Hilton. Singing. In S&M gear. And a wig. Doing drugs. Lo, I bring you REPO! The Genetic Opera! (The film.) NSFW or self respect.
All but one
Mister Bookseller is a short comic by Darko Macan (translated from the original Croatian by a helpful blogger) about a bookseller who stocks almost every book in the world.
Indie game of the week: Iji
It's not often that a freeware game can truly be called a masterpiece but Daniel Remar has finally released Iji, an action platformer with touches of RPG, in which you control a female heroine with a whole lot of engineered superhuman abilities. What makes this game so good is the sheer of polish that has been put into the production and the large amount of choices there are to make. You can choose what abilities to level up with, whether or not to bother killing enemies and the path you take through each sprawling area, which can effect the outcome of the unfolding story.
Sarah-Jane Lynagh
"Her work revolves around a cluster of issues chief among which are sexuality, death, identity, abjection, the monstrous feminine and loss. Despite the universal importance of these issues her work remains firmly grounded in the specifics of her individual experience." NSFW [more inside]
Fannie and Freddie under conservatorship.
The North Hollywood Bank Job
The North Hollywood Bank Job. part two part three part four .
Inspired by this famous (and NSFW) scene from Heat, on Feb. 28, 1997, Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Matasareanu attempted to rob a Bank of America in North Hollywood, CA using body armor, automatic weapons and barbiturates. This documentary uses news footage, recreations, interviews, computer animation and a cheesy narrator to explain the chaotic hour that followed. There are some violent images. [more inside]
Antpocalypse!!!
Today's date? Why, it's...July 11, 2052, and man has been cowering in terror, self-sealed in his own living-tombs since that day of horror in...1952. Remember? 100 years ago, the sky above America turned black...with the dread flight of millions of ferocious, gigantic ants! [more inside]
Pretend you know better.
"Smugopedia is a collection of slightly controversial opinions about a variety of subjects. We offer you the chance to buy a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction at the small cost of alienating your friends and loved ones."
THE POST FOR THIN LIZZY COMPLETISTS
Fans of Thin Lizzy/Phil Lynott may be unaware of some recent audio-only you tubery. So, let me school you, as the kids say. Live versions: Opium Trail. Romeo and the Lonely Girl (cool slow version).
It's Getting Dangerous.
The Pressure Will Blow.
Don't Play Around (soundcheck). Demos: Rockula. Waiting for an Alibi. Gay Boys (song from Phil's post-Thin Lizzy band Grand Slam).
Got to Give it up. [more inside]
History of Sturmey-Archer
Foreign Dirty Noises
Free Clip Art
No really, it's good. It's from Florida's Educational Clearinghouse and students and teachers can use up to 50 pieces of it in a single project without needing any further permission. [more inside]
Frustrating Flash Friday
Flash Friday: Casual Gameplay Escape is a game where you solve puzzles to escape a room. Some puzzles are more difficult than others.
Delicate Things
Who you are is what you listen to: Prof. Adrian North of Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University recently published results of what the Beeb calls "the largest study of its kind" linking music listening habits to personality characteristics. His breakthrough conclusions? Heavy metal listeners, contrary to public perception, are not a "suicidally depressed" or a "danger to themselves and society in general. But they are quite delicate things." [more inside]
The Words They Used
"Of great concern to me, during those same four days in Denver, they rarely mentioned the attacks of September 11, 2001."
Post-convention cool down.
Something calming after the frenzied conventions. John Williams and Julian Bream team up to play a guitar duet of Debussy's Claire De Lune.
Green Behind The Ears
What was the mysterious green backdrop behind John McCain last night? Was it an attempt to restart the Colbert/McCain Green Screen Challenge? The lawn of one of his houses? Or possibly just a screw-up?
genome quilts
Genome Quilts "The quilts are visually pleasing, with their strong colors and seemingly traditional design, but they hide and reveal an entirely other construct of information." [via]
The state of hipster typography
Ever since Napoleon Dynamite became a surprise hit in the summer of 2003, and the subsequent rise of Judd Apatow a trend in sentimental but cynical film comedy was born. But this post isn't about the comedy.. [more inside]
The short life of an aquatot
Russell Tongay cheerfully dropped his preschoolers into the Mississippi River. Two-year-old Kathy made it five miles before he pulled her out. Her five-year-old brother Bubba finally staggered to shore after 22 miles. Merely a warmup, their beaming father told the media gathered on the St. Louis riverbank, for what would be his children's crowning achievement: to swim the English Channel, England to France, a crossing that in 1950 had been completed only four times.
And so began the short, sad celebrity of the Aquatots, another chapter in America's morbid fascination with children pushed by parents and coaches beyond overachievement into the realm of abuse and endangerment. [more inside]
Who is Alex Harvey and why is he Sensational?
He was born in 1935, died in 1982, and as a musician didn't have a big hit record until 1974, yet in a 2004 Scottish poll with over 12,000 respondents [here], The Sensational Alex Harvey (aka SAHB) came in at #5 Scottish band of all time, beating out Simple Minds, Primal Scream, and Franz Ferdindand. Combining powerful Bon Scott-style vocals, progressive/blues rock riffs, outrageous stage antics (seen to good effect here), and a background steeped in the UK skiffle band tradition, while relatively unknown in the States, the legendary Alex Harvey remains one of the best-remembered and memorable rock stage performers in the world.
September 4
An yll wynde that blowth no man to good.
Hurricane Tracker lets you see where the big Atlantic storms are, where they've been, and where they're projected to be.
Butsky! Vutsky!
Virtual Vaudeville [shockwave] Watch a 3D simulation of legendary comedian Frank Bush in a vaudeville performance from a variety of perspectives. Switch between any of eight perspectives at any time and read the extensive hypermedia notes to gain a richer understanding of the performance in its historical context.
Chariots of Fur
Canicross is a dog sport that isn't well known in the states, but is gaining popularity in the UK and Europe. It's a little like running with your dog but a bit more technical, a little faster and way more fun.
The Pen Addict
penaddiction.blogspot.com - a blog about pens, with links to lots of other pens and stationery blogs.
Election Fever!
Everyone is all abuzz about the upcoming election! But even after introducing an act calling for fixed election dates because "this power allows the governing party to set the time of the election to its own advantage", Stephen Harper has decided to call it quits on the 39th Parliament because it's "dysfunctional" even though he's only three years into his mandate. After all, he can change his mind on fixed elections because he supported them in the first place.
Falling up the stairs
In a world turned upside down, what more appropriate abode than an upside down house? All it needs now is, say, a nice statue in the front yard.
“Sometimes I stay up so late that I have my morning coffee before I go to bed.”
The Sleep Medicine Home Page: A comprehensive links and resources one-pager for both professionals and sufferers, resources regarding all aspects of sleep including, the physiology of sleep, clinical sleep medicine, sleep research, federal and state information, patient information, and business-related groups.
Cale/Jackson '08!
This past Spring, Oklahoma State Representative Joe Dorman (D-Rush Springs) and State Senator John Ford (R-Bartlesville) joined together to put their bipartisan support behind House Concurrent Resolution 1047, a bill to designate the Official Rock Song of Oklahoma, as to be chosen by the people. As long as the song was written or recorded by an artist from Oklahoma, it would be eligible. The lengthy list of nominees has now been pared down to ten, and the voting has opened online. The finalists vary from Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" (written by Okie Mae Boren Axton) to "Do You Realize," by The Flaming Lips, and my personal pick, Three Dog Night's "Never Been to Spain." [more inside]
“I did this to douse the fire, not to cause a fire”
Bangkok is under a state of emergency this week as approximately 300,000 anti-government protestors have seized control of government buildings. Thai PM Samak Sundaravej declared a state of emergency last Tuesday and resists calls for his resignation, offering instead a referendum, as the street fighting continues. Many are worried these protests will hurt Thailand's tourist industry, which makes up 6.5% of its GDP. While some express concern about mob rule, the motivations behind the protests are many: "All we are getting in Thailand is the same vicious circle of corrupt, power-hungry leaders. This system is not working."
Palin Part II
This is a long-awaited update to the previous Palin thread. A LOT has happened since then, which I think deserves additional discussion. The last time Palin's Travels was linked to was 2004 and his most recent book that you could view on the site was Sahara. But now you can read the full texts of two more books in Michael Palin's wonderful travel/adventure series: Himalaya and New Europe. There are also loads of pictures, video (Quicktime req.) and audio clips.
Dance of the Young Girls -- Stravinsky
(SLYTP-filter) What choreography goes best with Igor Stravinsky's "Dance of the Young Girls" from his Rite of Spring? [more inside]
Not cool Rome, not cool at all.
New Scientist reports today that inhabitants of the former Roman Empire have much lower levels of a gene variant that protects against the virus that causes AIDS - CCR5-Delta32 to be exact. Previously, this genetic mutation had been attributed to the spread of the Black Death.
Kingdom of the Spiders
La Machine - the troop who brought The Sultan's Elephant to London (previously) - are at it again. This time, it's a gigantic, mechanical spider in Liverpool. YouTube. flickr.
The Mutual Tattooed Penis Admiration Society
The Mutual Tattooed Penis Admiration Society: Really fascinating archival footage from the 1980s of Sailor Sid, Jack Yount, and others. This is old-school tattooing and piercing, anchored in gay and S&M subcultures, just before it went mainstream. NSFW, and there are far more NSFW things a click away on these links. [more inside]
People who live without TV
Out There: People Who Live Without TV. About one to two percent of Americans do not watch television, which it turns out, is a common ground for the very liberal and the very conservative. [more inside]
Read Globally, Buy Locally
Tired of dealing with Amazon and the chains? New in town and wondering where all the best bookstores are? Traveling and looking for a bookstore on your visit? Try the new Publishers Marketplace Bookstore Maps mashup. There you can find all stores in an area, or just the kind you're looking for—e.g. just B&Ns in Pittsburgh or just indies and specialty stores in San Francisco. Notice a store is missing? Tell them so they can add their store to the map. Future plans include adding granularity to the specialty store category so that you can sort by type, such as Mystery, Science Fiction, Used, or Gay & Lesbian.
Good Grief
Bill Melendez worked on such animated classics as Bambi, Fantasia, and Dumbo, and directed an animated version of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in 1979. However, he was best known as one of the animators who brought Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" characters to TV and film. Their collaboration spanned 40 years, starting with the legendary "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and eventually encompassing feature films and insurance commercials. Melendez died in his home on Tuesday morning. He was 91. [more inside]
The Henry Ford of Literature
How One Nearly Forgotten 1920s Publisher's “Little Blue Books” Created An Inexpensive Mail-Order Information Superhighway That Paved The Way For The Sexual Revolution, Influenced The Feminist And Civil Rights Movements, And Foreshadowed The Age Of Information. [more inside]
September 3
Cryptarithms
MEFIEach letter corresponds to a number 0-9. The solution is unique. [more inside]
META
+ ASKME
-------
FILTER
"Homosexuality: Legitimate Alternative Deathstyle"
Comics With Problems Presents the first of a two part series entitled "Dick Hafer was an asshole"
This game, it cries?
Lucy and Bart : flash-based transmogrification.
Pickled MeFi in a jar: just add snark and food coloring!
Wish you had a good tapeworm in a jar to go with your new sofa? How about a nice pickled carnivorous sea monster for the mantle? Make your own! [more inside]
A Forest of Guitars
Dick Stacey's Country Jamboree is now available on DVD/CD after years of slowly fading into obscurity. "I was wrong in thinking the Jamboree was a thing of the past," said Dick Stacey, a man whose three gas stations and motel took over sponsoring this uniquely Maine talent showcase on a whim in 1973—and ended up lasting just over a decade. [more inside]
Profile of a Profile
Storyboard is an almost-real-time, behind-the-scenes look at the assigning, writing, editing, and designing of a Wired feature. The Birth of Storyboard is a (minimally edited) video of the conversation that spawned the project. The feature—that will be published in November—is about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. In the past he has woven the process of creating his work into the work itself, so Wired writer Jason Tanz thought it would make sense to do the same. Looking to promote his directorial debut, Kaufman has agreed to take part in the project.
You're On the Clock
A lot can happen in 60 seconds. Such as podcasts of one minute how to's, or technology tips, or even one-minute vacations[previous & ongoing] from the life you are living.
Leo Ornstein: The Sonata on the Edge and the Chaos Beyond.
Leo Ornstein is generally considered to have been one of the greatest pianists of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative and even shocking pieces made him a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic. By the mid-1920s, he had walked away from his fame and soon disappeared from popular memory. And although he passed away in 2002, the internet still remembers him and his amazing legacy of work. At this website dedicated to the artist and his work, you can read all about him as well as listen to many of his scores and MP3s-on-demand. There's also readable sheet music here at the International Music Score Library Project . And there's a register of archived documents spanning Leo's career over at Yale University's website. [more inside]
Chevaliers de l'Ouragan
The Gulf Coast has just witnessed what's being called the "the largest evacuation in US history", but let's hear from those hardy souls who stuck around NOLA to ride it out, shall we? Hey, where else are you gonna see National Guardsmen (charged with the task of enforcing curfew) put down their rifles and take the stage at a local bar for a little blues jam? And be sure to watch the video that accompanies the article: immensely entertaining!
Do Zebras get more Spam than Aardvarks?
"Analysis of traffic logs (PDF) of email received by a large UK ISP shows considerable disparity between the proportions of spam received by addresses with different first characters." [more inside]
Hard Core Solo No-Mo'
Bruce McDonald, respected Canadian indie director, announced his plans last week to make not one, not two, but three sequels to his low-budget 1996 cult favorite Hard Core Logo, essentially turning it into a franchise.
Hard core fans will no doubt hope that the films are either great enough to live up to the original, or that it's all a publicity stunt timed for the TIFF premiere of his new film Pontypool, a horror flick about zombies who spread infection through conversation. [more inside]
The rise of sea levels as a result of climate change and how to defend against flooding
A Dutch government commission came up with a plan to prevent flooding in spite of climate change during the next two centuries. Predicting a sea level rise of between 0.65 and 1.3 metres (2.15 and 4.3 feet) by 2100, and up to four metres by 2200, the commission said the chances of flooding multiplied 100-fold with every 1.3 metre rise in the sea level. [more inside]
The sharks are just jealous of our ice cream
BBC News is running a weekly ongoing series of articles that describe and illustrate common misconceptions (and manipulations) of statistics using examples from the news and ads.
Lesson 1: surveys. Lesson 2: counting. Lesson 3: percentage. Lesson 4: averages. Lesson 5: causation.
Lesson 1: surveys. Lesson 2: counting. Lesson 3: percentage. Lesson 4: averages. Lesson 5: causation.
James Powderly's story of his Beijing detention
The Bechdel Test
Alison Bechdel, creator of the very long-running "Dykes to Watch Out For" as well as the autobiographical graphic novel "Fun Home", may end up best known for her creation/popularization of "The Bechdel Test" (also mentioned on wikipedia). [more inside]
Another meeting to Save The World.
The Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness is being held in, well, Accra until Thursday, three years after the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. [more inside]
Liquid Awesome
September 2
Your last name is Presley. I want you to think NASCAR and pit stops.
Meet gold-toothed Vegas rapper Thug "Money Man" Presley, cousin to The King. Real name Kristopher Presley, Thug has been serving time in jail and just pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter for running over someone with an SUV in 2004. [more inside]
Second floor, haberdasheries.
Stair Porn (SFW)
SK8ology
Pictoplasma NYC
Pictoplasma, first mentioned here five years ago, has been busy. The Bunny Mandala is " the eternal essence of rabbit", the Character Ride (small mov) defies any quick description and the Colour Me Pictoplasma exhibition toured the world. All of which is coming to a well-rendered head in New York City on Thursday-Saturday this week.
pathos and pathology
"Hidden within the basement archives of Yale University's Historical Medical Library lie the original oil painting collection and personal papers of the first American surgeon to practice in China." Extraordinary paintings of compassion in a medical setting. [Warning, these are graphic depictions, some NSFW] Elegant, disturbing and moving portraits of patients by Lam Qua, commissioned by a medical missionary named Peter Parker in the 1830's. [No, not that Peter Parker. Via MeFite tellurian's awesome blog]. [more inside]
Medicalisation
The Medicalisation of Everyday Life. "As the pace of medical innovation slows to a crawl, how do drug companies stay in profit? By 'discovering' new illnesses to fit existing products." An extract from Ben Goldacre's new book, Bad Science. [Via]
Over and Out, Good Buddy
Musician and Actor Jerry Reed passes away at age 71 Amazing musician and good ol' boy actor and Scooby Doo regular, Jerry Reed was known for such hits as East Bound and Down and his roles in the Smokey and the Bandit series of films. [more inside]
My vasopressin made me do it
Monogamy gene in humans It was previously found in voles, as discussed here, now they found a correlation in humans.
Hot sox! This is what I've been yearning for!
Barnacle Press : archive of mostly public domain newspaper comics. Loads of good stuff, but some highlights not previously mentioned include (especially) Ella Cinders, an stylishly written flapper-Cinderella update; the less clever but still charming Cinderella Suze; the appallingly cute Diary of Snubs, Our Dog; Foxy Grandpa, about a grandfather who outsmarts prank-happy kids; The Hurry Up New Yorker, a kinetically drawn one-joke strip; The Newlyweds' Baby, about a cartoon-sexually-dimorphic couple with a terrible baby; Doesn't It Seem Strange, sort of a beautifully illustrated 'They'll Do It Every Time' for 1903-4; Bringing Up Father, class comedy with lots of rolling pin violence; the freaky-deaky Terrors of the Tiny Tads.
(Main link previously posted a couple of times in 2005, but new stuff has been added since then, and the site's been redesigned.)
I Apocalypse Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
I Apocalypse Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is an automated movie pitching machine, courtesy Metafilter's own woj. (Via MeFi projects.)
The body of the city
Visualizing Early Washington. A project at the Imaging Research Center of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County has reconstructed the original landscape of Washington DC before its radical transformation into a modern capital city. [more inside]
Diddy needs oil
Having a hard time grasping the far-reaching implications of higher oil prices? Diddy puts it in perspective.
"How can you tell when a violist is playing out of tune? .... The bow is moving. "
Why are viola players always the butt of the joke in the orchestra? Some viola jokes. Are you still laughing now?
Massacre in Rock Springs
September 2, 1885, Rock Springs, Wyoming (horrible music warning). A mining town on the frontier, the Rock Springs of 1885 was consumed with race and labor tensions, and witnessed an unparalleled event during the history of Chinese-Americans in the U.S. west. The little known Rock Springs Massacre, was perpetuated by white miners on Chinese miners and left at least 28 of the latter dead and dismembered. [more inside]
It's not dead, it's just resting
Privacy is dead - get over it [part 2] is a talk by private investigator Steve Rambam. It's a talk he has been giving for a number of years where he shows how privacy is being taken away, not by sinister plots but because people are giving it away. With people putting up everything and nothing on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and so on, as well as a growing quantity of data held in private databases, he shows how easy it is to find out enormous amounts of data on just about anyone. [more inside]
London Transport Museum
The Future Generator at the London Transport Museum is a forecasting look at the effect of transport on climate change in London. But you can get a sense of history as well. The museum's collection originated in the 1920s, when the London General Omnibus Company decided to preserve two Victorian horse buses and an early motorbus for future generations. They moved to the present location in 1980. Londoners can take a trip back in time on the Metropolitan line and enjoy a special day out in Metro-land as two historic electric trains run special excursions on Sunday 14 September 2008. [more inside]
September 1
Challenging the Evolution Industry
Rethinking Evolution with Stuart Newman, The New Master Of Evolution? Video Interview: Evolution Politics. A reformulation of the theory of evolution. Susan Mazur presents most of the players in her latest e-book: Will the Real Theory of Evolution Please Stand Up? [more inside]
Domino logic
In a world...
Said to be the busiest actor in Hollywood -- ever, Don LaFontaine was this generation's most prolific announcer, in the traditional sense of the word, lending his voice to all the major American television networks, and redefining the movie trailer. LaFontaine has died of complications from a collapsed lung at 68. [more inside]
Santa set adrift
ScienceDebate2008 Update
Barack Obama has responded to the 14 questions posed by ScienceDebate2008 (discussed previously). The Martian Chronicles has outlined some key points of his response. John McCain has not responded to the questions, but has indicated that he will respond.
St. Paul Police say Democracy? No.
Amy Goodman Arrested! Amy Goodman, award-winning journalist and host of Democracy Now!, has been arrested after she tried to figure out why two of her producers had been arrested.
Already people are responding. [more inside]
Now your t-shirts really can suit you to a T!
Like so many other people, you have a stack of old t-shirts you never wear. Perhaps you've gotten beyond wearing obscene slogans or Strawberry Shortcake logos. Or you feel it's time to retire that “Team Hillary” shirt. Or your favourite old shirt no longer fits over the impressive pecs/food hump you've acquired since high school. Or you've had it with MeFi and you want a way to repurpose/savage your MeFi blue t-shirt. No need to be at a loss! You might just settle for making a different style of t-shirt, but you can also use those t-shirts to make diapers for your baby, clothes for your toddler, or adult-sized undies, skirts or dresses. Or a bikini. Just beware of saggage. I mean, of the bikini, after it gets water-logged. You also might make tote bags or pillows, car seat covers, baby wipes, or dusters. If you get really ambitious, you can make a t-shirt quilt, taking inspiration from the many examples on the net. If I haven't given you enough ideas, you can turn to the ever authoritative and exhaustive AskMe, or you can do some further reading on the topic. Just don't get so carried away that you wind up having to go to work topless tomorrow. Unless, of course, your career path requires that anyway.
of course the people don't want war
Welcome to the October Surprise. The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's De Telegraaf (dutch) newspaper on Friday.
Gremlin in the machine
In the middle of the movie Gremlins 2, there is a sequence where the film seems to break, and where the gremlins invade the projection booth. For the VHS edition in the early 90's, they reshot a special sequence where the VHS tape seemed to be torn apart and in which the gremlins invaded a John Wayne movie. The DVD just kept the original theatrical version.
Sacha Feiner's fan video updates the "break sequence" for the Video on Demand era. via
Sacha Feiner's fan video updates the "break sequence" for the Video on Demand era. via
Photographs at the very beginning of London's Swinging 60's
Forty years ago, Swinging London was yet to swing. Everything was in black and white and, in class-bound Britain, fashion photographers were trades-men – polite, smart, seen but not heard. A new breed of snappers changed all that – Terry O’Neill, Brian Duffy, David Bailey and Terence Donovan. Bailey and Donovan started their careers in the West End studio of the doyen of fashion photographers – John French. [more inside]
Google Chrome
Google Chrome Google, faced with concerns over Microsoft using it's browser marketshare to marginalize the search engine, have decided to take the fight directly to them. Google Chrome is an open sourced browser based on the Webkit HTML engine, but adds a new Javascript engine, and some UI changes. To advertise it, they've enlisted Scott McCloud to make a comic showing the browser's features. The release date is Wednesday, but watch this space.
Bad news, seekers...
The legendary Ken Campbell has died. Interested in everything, apparantly. Just as excited to visit Damanhur as he was to go to CERN, just down the road. Fluent in Bislama, the creole of Vanuatu, into which he translated Macbeth. Founder of the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, which performed epic productions of The Warp, Illuminatus! and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not quite Doctor Who (he was beaten to the role by former protogé Sylvester McCoy). A fount of knowledge on the theatre, comedy, Fortean strangeness and science and anything else you care to mention, all of which he spun together with extensive flights of imagination into glorious, hilarious one-man shows. Totally irreplaceable, and devastating loss. [more inside]
National holidays are so boring.
Laboring on labor day? Some things to keep you busy.
Ugly Mailboxes.
Bizzare Statues.
Hand Drawn Maps.
French Manhole Covers.
What's special about this number?.
Make it work
"He's always thinking about lots of things — he's a pollinator, he brings ideas to the table" You probably know Neal Stephenson for his work as an author (generally in or adjacent to the Science Fiction genre), but he's also an inventor at Washington based "Idea Factory" Intellectual Ventures, a place with modern goals like stomping out malaria and preventing hurricanes. This is after his old job as part-time rocket scientist.
“Can you believe it! He hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!”
Literary Dealbreakers: "This book so deeply resonates with your soul that if a potential partner finds it risible, any meeting of minds (or body) is all but impossible." [more inside]
Don't Watch That, Watch This
Porn adaptations
Pilots? We don't need no stinkin' pilots!
These helicopters fly themselves. No mention of arming them, but who do they think they are kidding?
Wassup Holmes
Wassup Holmes!? Famous Last Nerds demonstrate how fun Classical Rap can be. More of their videos: famouslastnerds.com
Technology + Art = Magic
Behind Pixar’s string of hit movies, says the studio’s president, is a peer-driven process for solving problems. How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity (alternate print link for those having trouble with the first link), by the co-founder of Pixar and the president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios Ed Catmull. [more inside]