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October 29
Corpse pose
Real Amazons wore pants
Forget the stories about cutting off breasts and murdering boy children. Also the ones about an all-female lesbian society. And definitely forget about the golden lasso and the invisible plane. Real Amazons were formidable warriors who wore trousers, rode horses, got tattoos, smoked cannabis, drank fermented mare's milk and were part of "a people notorious for strong, free women", according to Adrienne Mayor in her book The Amazons:
Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. [more inside]
Dunkin' Cronuts
Starting November 3, Dunkin' Donuts will introduce a limited edition "Croissant Donut" across the nation. Just don't call it a you-know-what. "Are we copying a specific bakery in New York? The answer is no," says John Costello, Dunkin's President of Global Marketing and Innovation. When asked about the similarities between Dunkin's product ($2.49 each) and the one trademarked by Chef Dominique Ansel ($5 each), Dunkin's Executive Chef Jeff Miller responded: "I've tried the product that you mention... I like ours better."
See my grotesque grin: I smile for YOOUU
The only song you need for Halloween: Skeletons by Inflatable Boy Clams. Play it over and over! [more inside]
The story behind an iconic photo of jazz-induced hysteria
In 1951, photographer Bob Willoughby took a now-iconic photo of jazz saxophonist Big Jay McNeely and some fans in the clutch of the music during a concert at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. In 2009, Marc Myers of JazzWax contacted Willoughby to discover the story behind the photo. "You could taste the energy in that air. To this day I have never seen or heard anything to match it."
Naked Scripture Vs. Geopolitical Influence
Berkeley Students Rally To Remove Bill Maher As Commencement Speaker following critical comments about Islam.
"Freedom of speech, freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence, freedom to leave a religion, equality for women, equality for minorities, including homosexuals, these are liberal principles that liberals applaud for," Maher said, "but then when you say in the Muslim world this is what's lacking, then they get upset."
In what began as a debate over Islam between Maher, Sam Harris, and Ben Affleck on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, tensions rose. [more inside]
"Freedom of speech, freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence, freedom to leave a religion, equality for women, equality for minorities, including homosexuals, these are liberal principles that liberals applaud for," Maher said, "but then when you say in the Muslim world this is what's lacking, then they get upset."
In what began as a debate over Islam between Maher, Sam Harris, and Ben Affleck on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, tensions rose. [more inside]
Indie Beef
Mark Kozelek aka Sun Kil Moon is a personality.
Recently he played the Ottawa folk festival and there was sound bleed from another strage from the band The War on Drugs.
This irritated Kozelek and he wrote a song about it.
It had mixed results.
Kozelek has apparently been watching the Internet for mention of him and The War on Drugs because the second diss track has been released based on the criticism Kozelek has received.
A Dispatch From The Future
Evgeny Morozov writes for the New Yorker: The Planning Machine, on Project Cybersyn (previously) and Big Data.
Greg Grandin in The Nation responds: The Anti-Socialist Origins of Big Data
The new terror
Speaking of global memes... it started first in California, where a man dressed as a clown has been threatening people with an axe. And then it spread to France, where armed clowns have been assaulting people all over the country. Where will this horror strike next? (Me, I think they're space aliens.)
Needs More John Carpenter
FACT magazine runs down the 100 greatest horror soundtracks (that's a lot of horror soundtracks). Also, there's a companion streamable YouTube playlist.
Cookies!
Just in time for the new season, it's The NBA Fan’s Guide to Talking Trash During Pickup Basketball
You were't planning on sleeping this week, were you?
Lauren Davis rounds up webcomics to give you thrills and chills on io9, calling out 18 specifically, then listing additional titles in some of the descriptions. [more inside]
Please read the form again.
a man's home is his castle, a woman's body has never been wholly her own
"Trust Women" is a popular motto in the pro-choice movement. It sounds a little sentimental, doesn't it? Part of that old sisterhood-is-powerful feminism it is fashionable to mock today. But "Trust Women" doesn't mean that every woman is wise or good or has magical intuitive powers. It means that no one else can make a better decision, because no one else is living her life, and since she will have to live with that decision—not you, and not the state legislature or the Supreme Court—chances are she is doing her best in a tight spot.How Pro-Choicers Can Take Back the Moral High Ground: an excerpt from essayist and poet Katha Pollitt's latest book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights. [more inside]
Goodbye
Putin on the ritz
Most people in the English-speaking parts of the world missed Putin's speech at the Valdai conference in Sochi a few days ago, and, chances are, those of you who have heard of the speech didn't get a chance to read it, and missed its importance. (For your convenience, I am pasting in the full transcript of his speech below.) Western media did their best to ignore it or to twist its meaning. Regardless of what you think or don't think of Putin (like the sun and the moon, he does not exist for you to cultivate an opinion) this is probably the most important political speech since Churchill's “Iron Curtain” speech of March 5, 1946.Via includes tl;dr of top 10 points
Scroll through the horror movie memories
Why not just quit your job and spend all of your savings on a horror-themed road trip where you visit the real locations of some iconic scary movies. If that sounds like too much effort, well we've done a Google-based trip ourselves.
Here's what we found... [more inside]
Here's what we found... [more inside]
"Didn't Lady Gaga just donate a million dollars to you guys?"
The Red Cross' Secret Disaster — ProPublica and NPR report on the American Red Cross' poor responses to Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy. [more inside]
Hollywood Ending
Hollywood Ending Near for Orson Welles's Last Film. The Other Side of the Wind due in theaters next year.
Joni Mitchell in colour
This isn’t the earliest TV footage that exists of Joni Mitchell, but it’s surely the earliest footage of her performing that’s in color. -- Joni Mitchell on Canadian television in 1966.
Verdingkinder
"I bind you, Hollywood, from doing harm"
Halloween is almost here which to me means one thing: overanalyzing horror flicks for any feminist undertones! ... [N]o season has better metaphors for misogynistic fears and powerful female sexuality than the scary movies that permeate almost every channel and film festival throughout October.At Autostraddle, Nina suggests nine horror films she likes in the "Blossoming-Teenage-Girl-Becoming-A-Woman" sub-genre. She is far from alone in her search for interesting feminist themes in horror cinema and literature. [more inside]
October 28
"TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am..."
The Tell-Tale Heart by Annette Jung Ed hates the disgusting eye of his father and so he made up his mind to take the life of the old man to rid himself of the eye forever. Based upon the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. [Previously]
Perhaps the 4 most intelligent things you can read about Ebola today.
The 4 most intelligent things you can read on Ebola today?
1) This week I received a "monograph" for review from an unlikely, politically removed scientist. It was plainly titled "Summary of Ebola Virus Disease," and written in exhaustive scientific detail. The author was Steven Hatfill. If the name rings a bell—I don’t want to dwell on this, but it's germane to the context of his perspective I'm sharing here—it’s because he was very publicly, very falsely accused of killing several people with anthrax in 2001... What he does know, at a depth that can rival any scientist’s knowledge, is Ebola. An interview, with Steven Hatfill and more: 21 Days. [more inside]
Photos of Veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, c. 1858
Antares rocket explodes at the Wallops Flight Facility
An Antares rocket with the Orbital Sciences Corporation Cygnus CRS Orb-3 spacecraft bound for the International Space Station exploded today shortly after liftoff from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. [more inside]
Weapon of choice? 100% Cotton, poly-fill twin.
The Pillow Fight Prank demonstrates that many people are remarkably ready and more than happy to play suprise-pillow-fight. [slyt]
Crisis in Mexico: the government is killing students - again
Something happened the night of September 26th, 2014 near the town of Iguala, 100 miles from Acapulco, Mexico. According to The New Yorker: “Scores of uniformed municipal police and a handful of masked men dressed in black shot and killed six people, wounded more than twenty, and rounded up and detained forty-three students in a series of attacks carried out at multiple points and lasting more than three hours [...] The forty-three students taken into police custody are now ‘disappeared.”
All 43 students, all young men who were studying to become rural teachers, are still missing, presumed dead. [more inside]
From a Mefite, Announcing a Compendium of Letter Templates
The Art of Letter Writing investigates The New Century Standard Letter-Writer (1900), a collection of example letters for people to use as templates over the course of one's whole life," from A Clerk Apologizing to His Employers, and A Young Lady Desirous of Securing Farm-House Board, to A Gentleman to a Young Lady Friend of His about a Misunderstanding (from Wondermark)
Of bells, harps, accordions, the kalimba and a saw: amiina
If you've encountered delicately uplifting chimes and bells or a singing saw, seen the contributions of a string quartet in a Sigur Rós video, heard the last recording by Lee Hazlewood and noticed the gentle singing and music, or listened to Yukihiro Takahashi consider words, then you've possibly encountered the Icelandic band amiina. [more inside]
Haters Gonna... Eat at BK?
McDonalds' latest marketing push includes a variation on their ubuquitous "I'm Lovin' it" slogan. (WSJ link... if you prefer, AVClub)
"lovin' beats hatin'"
Article also covers the new "Our food, Your questions" campaign with an ex-Mythbuster. They hope to rebound from sagging same-store sales in the U.S. and the growing buzz for competitors like Chipotle (which, almost obviously, is mentioned in the article).
"lovin' beats hatin'"
Article also covers the new "Our food, Your questions" campaign with an ex-Mythbuster. They hope to rebound from sagging same-store sales in the U.S. and the growing buzz for competitors like Chipotle (which, almost obviously, is mentioned in the article).
10 hours of street harrassment, edited down to two minutes
That's regulatory capture!
LEMONADE WAR: a short film starring Patton Oswalt, Taylor Buck, Mo Collins and Werner Herzog. View more films here from We The Economy: 20 Short Films You Can’t Afford to Miss.
√2N
At the Far Ends of a New Universal Law
The law appeared in full form two decades later, when the mathematicians Craig Tracy and Harold Widom proved that the critical point in the kind of model May used was the peak of a statistical distribution. Then, in 1999, Jinho Baik, Percy Deift and Kurt Johansson discovered that the same statistical distribution also describes variations in sequences of shuffled integers — a completely unrelated mathematical abstraction. Soon the distribution appeared in models of the wriggling perimeter of a bacterial colony and other kinds of random growth. Before long, it was showing up all over physics and mathematics. “The big question was why,” said Satya Majumdar, a statistical physicist at the University of Paris-Sud. “Why does it pop up everywhere?”
Still No Howard the Duck
Marvel reveals yet more superhero-laden movies in the pipe for the next 5 years.
"And let's acknowledge that between Marvel, DC, Sony and Fox there are now 29 comic book movies coming out between now and 2020" [more inside]
An internet of firsts, some of them still online
The Webpage FX blog compiled a list of 13 internet "firsts," from the first email sent (1971) and the first spam, sent out to 400 people (1978), to the first photo posted online (1992) and much later, the first Instagram photo, (2010).
when your food label is bumpy, you must toss it
A WaPo profile of industrial design student Solveiga Pakštaitė and her latest invention, a bio-reactive food expiry label called Bump Mark: Landfills are overflowing with food. Here's a gelatin label that could limit the waste.
Misleading labels are one reason that consumers waste nearly 40 percent of the food they buy — and one of the inspirations behind Bump Mark, a new bio-based food label made with gelatin. As the food in a package starts to decay, so does the gelatin; when it finally expires, the gelatin reveals a layer of bumps. If the label is still smooth, a consumer finally knows unequivocally that food is still safe to eat... By changing the concentration of gelatin, the designer can match the label to specific foods. A weak concentration breaks down faster, and works for foods such as milk and meats that don't last as long. For any given food, the label can be adjusted to degrade at exactly the same rate.[more inside]
"Limitless wealth was a craft project."
The Great Paper Caper: Wells Tower (previously) reports on how one guy in Canada, Frank Bourassa, manufactured over $200 million in counterfeit U.S. twenty-dollar bills and more-or-less got away with it.
Vintage Supercars Rotting away in a Forest
“Nature is stronger than technology, and that I will show here,” said Michael, who has no doubt succeeded in displaying the power of nature that triumphs over even some of the most revered examples of man-made machinery.
"It's something of a puzzle, this electoral politics thing."
The Persuadables
How strategists see the 2014 Senate battlefield, state by state, featuring exclusive voter data.
How strategists see the 2014 Senate battlefield, state by state, featuring exclusive voter data.
If? When? Why? What? How much have you got?
For their annual contribution to the AV Undercover series, GWAR has their way with Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls". New singers Blothar and Vulvatron (the ass-kicking, blood-spewing-from-her-bosom new female face of GWAR!) then transition the song into a weirdly moving, personalized take on Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" in tribute to fallen comrade, Oderus Ungerus, aka founding member Dave Brockie. [more inside]
Their stories, in their own words
Sometimes when I'm with [the boys], I feel like I'm not a girl.
The Afghan Women's National Cycling Team trains six mornings a week in the quiet predawn streets of Kabul to futher their dream of one day qualifying for and participating in the Olympics. "In a country where girls have faced acid attacks just for going to school, the dangers of doing sport in public go beyond insults or the momentary impact of a well-aimed stone." [more inside]
Could you patent the sun?
Today is Jonas Salk's 100th birthday. Salk, who reimagined the idea of a vaccine by suggesting that immunity could be established in the body by using inactivated viruses chose not to patent his polio vaccine, which he first tested on his own family. [more inside]
The internal threats of Stephen King's books
The closest a film has ever come to adapting King’s internal-horror aesthetic is a film King himself has publicly lambasted: Kubrick’s version of The Shining. It’s the most artful, scary, and beautifully directed of the King adaptations, and even excludes some of the novel’s more overt (and potentially silly) visual elements, such as the hedge animals that come to life and stalk the family in the yard. Yet, the film never tackles the serious human horrors that infect Jack Torrance throughout the novel, specifically his alcoholism, along with the themes of cyclical abuse and mounting financial pressure. King’s criticism of the film is that Torrance, as played by Jack Nicholson, is portrayed as unhinged right from the start, whereas the novel slowly unravels the man’s sanity, the haunted house he occupies pushing him deeper into madness and violence. [more inside]
Proper pastrami is a painstaking, labor-intensive process.
The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise
David Dunning, professor of psychology at Cornell, writes for the Pacific Magazine on how confidence and incompetence often go hand in hand:
We Are All Confident Idiots
poli sci is dirty business
Profs Bumble Into Big Legal Trouble After Election Experiment Goes Way Wrong Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch filed a complaint Friday alleging that Stanford University and Dartmouth College researchers broke four laws by sending 100,000 election mailers to voters that appeared to come from the state. Their peers in the field have ripped their social science experiment as a "misjudgment" or -- stronger still -- "malpractice." [more inside]
Old Masters
After 80, some people don’t retire. They reign. A collection of portraits of and interviews with men and women of a certain age. Here there be wisdom.
The plant crime of the century
In January, one of the last remaining specimens of a nearly extinct water lily was stolen from Kew Gardens. Collectors and nursery owners continued to beg Magdalena for the plant. “All the time,” he said. “All the time.” He sensed that people were willing to break the rules. “When there is no way of getting it, people grow sick and obsessed.” When the water lily was taken from the Princess of Wales Conservatory, Magdalena wasn’t shocked in the slightest. “What surprised me is that it took so long,” he said.