May 31, 2012
The Questor Tapes (1974)
"The Questor Tapes is a 1974 television movie about an android (portrayed by Robert Foxworth) with incomplete memory tapes who is searching for his creator and his purpose. Conceived by and executive produced by Gene Roddenberry, the script is credited to Roddenberry and fellow Star Trek alumnus Gene L. Coon."
Codenamed Buffy
Former Apple software and hardware engineers have been hired to create a Facebook smartphone.
News of the Buffy phone first emerged in November. It is expected, like Amazon's Kindle reader, to run on a customised version of Android, according to Digitimes.
Beautiful crystal prisons
Micah Lee and Peter Eckersley of the Electronic Frontier Foundation say ”No place, and no system, can be perfect if it denies its citizens the freedom to change it, or the freedom to leave.”
Creatives of the world, unite!: Apple’s new iOS 6 Maps app with 3D mapping is coming this summer.
Helicarrier
While I have heard the first rumblings of the obselescence of Blu Ray, this 30 disc Avengers’ Helicarrier Blu Ray Disc Case is tempting.
May 30, 2012
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
"Wikipedia lists a number of inspirations for Ridley Scott's Alien. The Thing from Another World, Forbidden Planet and most obviously It! The Terror from Beyond Space; these I had seen. But it is only this weekend I have been exposed to the Italian schlock majesty that is Mario Bava's Terrore nello spazio (1965), variously known as Demon Planet, Planet of Blood, Space Mutants, The Haunted Planet, The Haunted World, The Outlawed Planet, Planet of Terror, The Planet of the Damned, (perhaps most correctly) Terror in Space and best as Planet of the Vampires."
Hic sunt dracones
"Two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found in deep water off a western Greek island, challenging the idea that ancient shipmasters stuck to coastal routes."
Star Wars Trilogy: The Radio Play
If William Shatner played C3PO and Christopher Walken played R2D2.
May 29, 2012
Video Game of Thrones
First impressions are promising. It appears the game offers two distinct playable characters.
The second character you play is Alester Sarwyck, the heir to Riverspring who mysteriously disappeared 15 years before. He returns (for the funeral of his father) as a sort of fire-priest, with all manner of fire-related abilities; Sechi is keen to emphasise that, because he has been away for 15 years, he has to deal with complex political fall-out.
Useful suggestion from the comments: A "slap Joffrey" minigame.
Diegetic Thinking Skill
"Diegetic Thinking Skill is basically when a player is good at imagining themselves as having the same constraints and opportunities their character would have in the game world."
The Overthinking Person’s Drinking Game
Drink when ambivalence haunts you.
May 28, 2012
Quatermass (1979)
"Influenced by the social and geopolitical situation of the early nineteen-seventies and the hippie youth movement of the late nineteen-sixties, Quatermass is set in a near future in which large numbers of young people are joining a cult, the “Planet People”, and gathering at prehistoric sites, believing they will be transported to a better life on another planet. The series begins with Professor Quatermass arriving in London to look for his granddaugher, Hettie Carlson, and witnessing the destruction of two spacecraft and the disappearance of a group of Planet People at a stone circle by an unknown force."
Part 1 - Ringstone Round, Part 2 - Lovely Lightning, Part 3 - What Lies Beneath, Part 4 - An Endangered Species.
Honey intoxication
The honey collected by the Rai people of Nepal has an intoxicating, relaxing effect, thought to result from the grayanotoxin present in the nectar collected from white rhododendrons.
Necrotic pollutants
To clean up the cesspool the Ganges River has become, India has used sewage-treatment farms, pumping stations, purification plants and twenty-five thousand flesh eating turtles.
May 27, 2012
The Cross and the Switchblade (1970)
"The Cross and the Switchblade is a book written in 1962 by pastor David Wilkerson with John and Elizabeth Sherrill. It tells the true story of Wilkerson's first five years in New York City, where he ministered to disillusioned youth, encouraging them to turn away from the drugs and gang violence they were involved with. The book became a best seller, with more than 15 million copies distributed in over 30 languages.
"In 1970, a film adaptation was released, starring Pat Boone as David Wilkerson and Erik Estrada (in his screen debut) as Nicky Cruz, the teen gang member whose life was transformed by Wilkerson's ministry. The film has been viewed by an estimated 50 million people in over 30 languages in 150 countries, according to World Film Crusade."
May 26, 2012
What fungi sprout in Yuggoth
Irregular orbits of small icy bodies beyond Neptune suggest Planet X, four times the size of the Earth, waits there lurking.
Auto China 2012
"Global automakers are showcasing the latest concepts and models at Auto China 2012 in Beijing. Here are a selection of images from the show floor."
May 25, 2012
More than just a car - a way of life
When Emile Leray's Citroen 2CV broke down in the desert he took a hacksaw an rebuilt it into a working motorcycle (file this under too good to check).
Pedigree
Daughter of Isabella Rossellini, granddaughter of Ingrid Bergman, Elettra Wiedemann is new face of Coast.
Moshe Safdie - Sky Habitat Singapore
Features an impressive infinity pool.
May 24, 2012
All this water is yours
"Adopting an estimate of 100 kilometers depth, if all the water on Europa were gathered into a ball it would have a radius of 877 kilometers. To scale, this intriguing illustration compares that hypothetical ball of all the water on Europa to the size of Europa itself (left) - and similarly to all the water on planet Earth."
In elf news
Icelandic MP Árni Johnsen has taken steps to protect a family of elves by relocating a thirty ton boulder (via Quotulatiousness).
In Vinland news: Iceland is not going to adopt the Canadian dollar as its currency.
Ragnarok couture
Say what you like about the Order Of Fenris, I like the cut of their jib.
May 23, 2012
Charlene Bagcal - Solace
'Solace' is a fashion film exploring the relationship between a young girl and an Angel of Death (via Haute Macabre).
Truly, I'm doing it wrong
Truly, being an academic is one incredible Nazi-fighting adventure after another.
Moog Google Doodle
In case you haven't played Google yet today.
Related: Google putting the "G in design."
May 22, 2012
The trial of Lili St. Cyr
From the LIFE Archive, Retronaute features Edward Clarkes photos of the trial of Lili St. Cyr.
The New Aesthetic
"Perhaps more than any other design discipline, fashion is engaged in an intense dialogue with the past."
May 21, 2012
May 20, 2012
Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower
I'm eating cold pizza for breakfast. Fuck yeah!
Sac State Jazz Singers at Monterey - All Along the Watchtower
A capella, fuck yeah!
May 19, 2012
I've got a bad feeling about this
At least it's not a sequel.
Pulsar sound
"This pulsar lies near the centre of the Vela supernova remnant, which is the debris of the explosion of a massive star about 10,000 years ago. The pulsar is the collapsed core of this star, rotating with a period of 89 milliseconds or about 11 times a second."
May 18, 2012
There went the magic formula
In March of 1962, John Steinbeck wrote a letter to Edith Mirrielees, his creative writing professor at Stanford 40 years earlier.
Phone Password Breaker
With your email address and password, the police - or anyone else, for that matter - can access your iCloud. I am not sure why this is news...
May 17, 2012
Daphne Guinness Interview by Alex Fury
"In Fashion interview with Daphne Guinness. Joining In Fashion's cast of the industry's most influential characters, Fashion Director Alex Fury speaks with Guinness on aspects of a life rich in the appreciation of art, beauty and luxury."
Paris is Burning (1990)
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the drag ball culture of New York City.
Me gusta
Oona Castilla Chaplin (born 4 June 1986 in Madrid, Spain) is a Spanish actress, flamenco dancer, and ballerina.
May 16, 2012
Chocolate Covered Cosplay
"When you hear the word cosplay, the first image that comes to many people’s minds is a waif-like Asian girl."
You press the button, we do the rest
In a basement in Rochester, NY, Kodak had a nuclear reactor loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium.
May 15, 2012
Video Game of Thrones
First impressions are promising. It appears the game offers two distinct playable characters.
The second character you play is Alester Sarwyck, the heir to Riverspring who mysteriously disappeared 15 years before. He returns (for the funeral of his father) as a sort of fire-priest, with all manner of fire-related abilities; Sechi is keen to emphasise that, because he has been away for 15 years, he has to deal with complex political fall-out.
Useful suggestion from the comments: A "slap Joffrey" minigame.
Related: Screenshots.
Winter is coming
But why?
From the comments:
Paging Annie Wilkes
What happens if George R.R. Martin dies before finishing The Song of Ice and Fire?
The magical eyebrows of Emilia Clarke
The rest of the cast scrubs up nicely too.
May 14, 2012
Spiderman - The Canon of Doom (1981)
It could be they mean "cannon" but "canon" is a fitting testament to Doom.
Game of Thrones Season 3 is going to be a problem
"Researchers at Ohio State University say bookworms have been shown to adopt the feelings, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of fictional characters they relate to in a phenomenon called 'experience-taking'."
May 13, 2012
Convoy - The Movie (1978)
Which reminds me: Somewhere, I should still have my CB Radio board game kicking around...
But not the six most ineffective...
The six stupidest video game school commercials.
May 12, 2012
Authors@Google: Tim Harford
"Tim Harford speaks to Googlers in Mountain View on May 25, 2011 about his book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure
The quintessential capitalist
"I think I gave myself a dare. It was the height of the Cold War. The readers, the young readers, if there was one thing they hated, it was war, it was the military....So I got a hero who represented that to the hundredth degree. He was a weapons manufacturer, he was providing weapons for the Army, he was rich, he was an industrialist....I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him....And he became very popular."
Light from a small, oozing alien planet seen
A NASA infrared telescope spotted light from the alien planet 55 Cancri e, which orbits a star 41 light-years from Earth.
By contrast: The definitive picture of planet Earth.
May 11, 2012
The Harrier
Sadly, I have not been able to identify the provenience of this one. Loving the soundtrack. Ken Freeman? Clannad, even.
Jump Jet (1981)
Remember the Royal Navy?
"BBC documentary from 1981 on the successful development of the Harrier vertical take-off, fixed wing aircraft, telling the story of the development of the design from the first day of its conception.
"Good interview segments with Sir Stanley Hooker, designer of the Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine, and with Bill Bedford, test pilot for the P.1127 prototype."
May 10, 2012
Shelf Hotel
"Rather than design a run-of-the-mill skyscraper for a new hotel in Xian, China, architects 3Gatti decided to put lots of smaller buildings on a gigantic set of shelves."
The guarded secret of plants
An artificial leaf has been designed that can turn water into hydrogen energy and oxygen, powered by sunlight.
May 09, 2012
Berlin Calling (2008)
Berlin Calling is a 2008 German tragicomedy directed by Hannes Stöhr. The movie depicts the events following DJ and producer Ickarus' (Paul Kalkbrenner) institutionalization for drug abuse. German language film (nsfw - drug use, sexy times).
Gavin McInnes - How to dress your age
McInnes has an issue with men wearing T-shirts with writing on them but even he makes an exception for "So?" Otherwise, this is sound.
May 08, 2012
We don't need no education
"I single out philosophy and anthropology because those are two fields — along with zoology, art history and humanities — whose majors are least likely to find jobs reflective of their education level..."
May 07, 2012
Breathe in. Breathe out.
P0nd is a brief, Flash-based relaxation game. I admit I didn't find it relaxing until I got the hang of breathing. Your space bar mastery will be much improved by the end (trust me on this) (hat tip to Things Are Good).
Related thought: Walden: A Game.
Your shadow weighs a ton driving down the 101
More real estate porn from California. Good news for the mandarin class.
Facade
An aerial view of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion facade and ride-building is a revelation.
May 06, 2012
Mushmellow - Toxic
Cover tracks always risk descending into parody or merely clever translation of the original into another genre. Ideally, a new interpretation should juice up whatever was best about the original. Our Ukrainian friends understand.
Hurra Torpedo - Toxic
Britney Spears meets Norwegian post-industrial.
May 05, 2012
Lovecraft : Fear of the Unknown (2008)
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
Revelation: It turns out Tennessee Williams published in Weird Tales. Who knew?
Original sins
"There's something to be said about the sacred nature of a superhero's origin story."
Inez & Vinoodh - Dior: Secret Garden - Versailles (2012)
A film by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, starring Daria Strokus, Melissa Stasiuk and Xiao Wen Ju in La Galeries Des Glaces - Château de Versailles. Music by Depeche Mode: 'Enjoy the Silence'
May 04, 2012
Gone to Croatan
The British Museum has re-examined a 16th century map of North Carolina and found hints to the destiny of the lost colony at Roanoke in the form of hidden markings showing the location of a fort further inland.
CSI Hauslabjoch
Ötzi contributes the oldest blood sample ever retrieved.
May 03, 2012
There is a black hole in the internet and that is 'sound'
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop is being "reborn" through a partnership between the BBC and the Arts Council.
Reminder: The Alchemists of Sound.
More importantly: The goddess Delia Derbyshire. Ziwzih! Ziwzih! OO-OO-OO!
"Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!"
Stephen King argues the wealthy should pay more in taxes. With few exceptions - he takes care to exclude himself - the rich are insufficiently charitable to address his concerns (global warming, paying America's "staggering" war debt, and so forth).
King's alternative: Using state power to force other wealthy people to spend their money the way he demands. Because Leviathan, that's why.
My favourite part of the argument concerns King's two radio stations in Bangor, Maine.
King argues the government would do a better job spending your money than you do. Generalizing from his own experience, he would seem to have a point.
From the comments: A bumper sticker idea.
"I Work.
I Pay Taxes.
I Do Not Receive A Government Check.
I Am The 49%"
Peak plastic
If we’re running out of oil, that also means that we’re running out of plastic.*
* I didn't get past the "if". But, it's an interesting point. I, for one, welcome our Bakelite future.
May 02, 2012
Spartacus Chetwynd, et al.
This year's shortlist of Turner Prize nominees are Spartacus Chetwynd, Luke Fowler, Paul Noble and Elizabeth Price, two filmakers, an illustrator and a performance artist. Chetwynd, pictured above left, is odds on favourite.
Outrage here.
Related thought: It's not like Alan Moore ever planned to write a sequel to Watchmen.
Transit of Venus
Venus transits the Sun on June 5 and 6. A good harbinger for my prospective jury duty.
The Boundary Effect
A new study shows that walking through doorways makes you forget important things.
May 01, 2012
Once upon a time - James Cameron (1984)
"Mark James Walter Cameron (17 June 1911 – 26 January 1985) was a prominent British journalist, in whose memory the annual James Cameron Memorial Lecture is given."
He said "Every time I roll the paper into the typewriter, I think 'today's the day they're going to find me out'.”
1% rule
"The 1% rule states that the number of people who create content on the Internet represents approximately 1% (or less) of the people actually viewing that content (for example, for every person who posts on a forum, generally about 99 other people are viewing that forum but not posting)."
The "90–9–1" version of this rule states that 1% of people create content, 9% edit or modify that content, and 90% view the content without contributing.
Moore's Law lives
Intel's newest line of processors, named Ivy Bridge, are three-dimensional and incorporate features as small as 22 nanometers (as opposed to today's chips with features as fine as 32 nanometers).