Category: Friday Linky

So over on the Ruminator I made a post about Star Wars, specifically about why there’s a Star Wars-related link here every week. I think it’s sorta interesting, plus it has something like a billion Star Wars links in it. So, you know, go take a look, and tweet it or whatever. Tweets feel great.

Since then I’ve discovered this week’s Star Wars linky: Lando sings karaoke in the Cantina bar.

A short film that offers an ominous take on the idea of what a superpowered being would mean in the world. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet but it seems like it’d be hot stuff.

Twin Peaks pie & coffee: supercut & infographic

Huge US govt dept displays an admirable thoroughness in computer security: smash everything with a brick.

Genuinely disturbing account of increasing deployment of armed response units in U.S. policing. Founded on the same mix of paranoia and unchecked power that causes most of that nation’s problems as it shuffles backwards into some kind of weird capitalist authoritarianism. (Not that any other nation is free of this kind of overreach.)

Biggie vs. Thomas (the Tank Engine) (via Richard Burge)

The Rockwell Integrated Space Plan. (Space as in rocketships, not space as in architectural design.)

The Anagramaton: a Twitter bot that finds tweets that are anagrams of each other. Amazing. (via DavidR who got it via Mike Upton; no, I’ve been corrected, via Mike who got it from David)

99 Problems (via Mike Sands)

Fascinating wee article about crypto-currencies like Bitcoin and how they work. Well worth a look, especially if (like me) you occasionally suspect you should know more about Bitcoin.

Kindle Worlds: release your fanfiction through this official route, earn real money, get incredibly rich. Okay maybe not that last one. An odd selection of worlds there at launch…

Huge book domino chain at the Seattle public library (which is a really cool space, I hung out there quite a bit when in Seattle)

How Rambo was perceived in Tonga and Bougainville. Wow.

Huh, it’s already the second half of 2013, I should really get around to linking to Teju Cole’s “12 essays I wrote in 2012“. And also to reading those essays.

And finally… have I ever linked to this before? been int he linky folder for *years*. It’s Bad Romance.

It’s the 4th of July in the USA! To honour the occasion, make an effort to seek out and enjoy an American cultural product or consumer item.

150th anniversary of Gettysburg. Check out these photos of veterans gathering at the 50th anniversary. (via AndyMac)

So, so perfect: all the American flags on the moon are now white.

Twelve Tones. A half hour video about music, patterns, shapes, and stuff. I haven’t watched it yet but Hugh Dingwall says it’s amazing and I clicked around in it a bit to figure out what it was and every bit that I watched was really interesting and made me want to see more. So. Try it.

How I taught myself to code in eight weeks (via mundens)

Why this vintage Masters of the Universe figure still smells bad three decades on (via DavidR)

Jason Everman, the guy who was thrown out of Nirvana just before they were hugely famous and then Soundgarden just before *they* were hugely famous, has an interesting story to tell about those events and what came next for him.

Artist refashions Barbie to real teen-girl proportions. It looks really weird, and also awesome. (Yes I’m linking to an article on Stuff.co.nz, which amazingly enough covered this ahead of all my other much trendier sources. First in NZ for your Barbie-related news needs!)

Like many, I snorted at and shared the image of a CNN panel discussion with the on-screen graphic, “N-Word vs. cracker: which is worse?” When you can’t even say one of the words, you have your answer. But now this clip from that discussion is also being shared, and it’s well worth watching. Levar Burton (best known internationally for Star Trek TNG) discusses how he was raised, and raises his kids, to follow a set routine when stopped by police to avoid being brutalised.

Revising your writing again? Blame the modernists.

Jamie Oliver read his first book recently. I posed a question on Facebook: if one of your friends wanted to read a book for the first time, what book (on your shelf) would you offer? Loads and loads of people made cool suggestions.

Jack Kirby comic artstravaganze: loads of his amazing double-page spreads. It’s kind of obvious why he was the King, looking at all these jammed together like this. (via Dylan)

The impossible “literacy” test once required of black voters in Louisiana. (via Nick Tipping)

Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe. Ingenious!

Pac-Man as survival horror game (via Sonal)

My Imaginary Well-Dressed Toddler Daughter

Laurie Penny: I was a manic pixie dream girl
Asher Wolf: I was never a manic pixie dream girl
Read ’em both. (Second one via Gem Wilder.)

C-3PO rapping. How did I never know about this?

And finally, the Unipiper has upped his game… OF THRONES. This makes no sense.

No Linky last week on account of storm! We had no power for 12 hours and no internet for 48 hours. Apart from our woodshed and a few other minor things, our house made it through just fine, which was a relief! Anyway, my linky backlog just got bigger.

James Gandolfini reads ‘In the Night Kitchen’

Does the Dog die? A website for very specific spoilers: find out if the cute animal in that movie you want to watch will make it through the film alive. (via Conan)

Classical sculptures in contemporary clothes – you probably saw this already but just in case.

Did you know that action figure collectors make review videos? Here’s one for the Agent Coulson action figure (from the Avengers film). It’s… special. (via Dave Chapman)

Why I am no longer a skeptic (via the other moose)

Watch Disney Princesses heads explode

Here is what happens when you cast Lindsay Lohan in your movie. (via Blair R. The more I find out about Hollywood-right-now, the more this resonates.)

For some reason a revelation in a 2005 film magazine article started making the rounds online this month. I’m pleased it did, because it was news to me. It involves Dame Judi Dench, crafts, and extremely bad language.

Fathers of girls are more leftwing than fathers of boys. (Note, the article presents the causality as straightforwardly cultural, but includes at the end a more complex suggestion about relative testosterone levels; there’s room for both levels of causation to be active at the same time.)

Re: Nigella – here’s an intriguing, sad little analysis of why no-one directly intervened – and why that might have been for the best. (I’d sign my name under the first bit, but I wouldn’t go so far for the second bit, but definitely worth thinking about.) (via Brian Nisbet)

Security cameras celebrate George Orwell’s birthday

Google Poetics: found poems from google search predictions. (via Michael Upton)

And Michael also sent me something with the note: “Social change activism, SF (including Star Wars reference), writers seeking funding, perks involving speculative hip-hop (!?) – I think this link goes here?”

Dan le Sac writes perceptively on crowdfunding – what we lose, as well as what we gain

Outstanding micro-doco about two very young boys who made their own metal band. Inspiring and fun.

GZA. School science classroom.

Phil Sandifer, who has been writing an incredible, delightful redemptive analysis of Doctor Who’s entire history for several years now, has started publishing his next project: an account of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. It starts here.

At least once a year, NZ media headlines some international creative (advertiser, toy manufacturer, fashion designer etc) who has made use of Maori imagery and symbolism, to the consternation of Maori. This happens for American First Nations too of course, as recounted in the excellent blog Native Appropriations. And sometimes… rarely… it all works out really well and everyone is happy.

Tetris Hell (via Scott A)

Dog grooming competition

The Before Watchmen project gets eviscerated in this spectacular takedown at the Hooded Utilitarian. Works for me.

And finally… Justin Giger

[Wordpress deleted most of this post. I’ve rebuilt as much of it as I could remember, but with fewer pithy asides and probably forgetting to acknowledge some sources. C’est la vie.]

Oh snap! Honest Disney movies. (via Karen)

The Tony Awards opening is as good as you’ve heard

Wikipedia entry on Timothy Dexter is jawdropping (via Julian von Sligo)

Complaint-letter generator (via Hugh Dingwall)

Tim Denee: 7 life lessons from Lester Freamon

Chuck Wendig: 25 things to know about sexism and misogyny in writing and publishing

Urban myths about cooking steak (via John Fouhy)

The logic of the surveillance state – best thing I’ve read on the PRISM stuff.

I love this: great art in ugly rooms (via Dangerous Minds)

Russian colour pictures from a century ago (via Svend)

Star Wars pulp covers

And finally: the Seinfeld theme, slowed down 1200%

Okay just in case you missed all the other dozen times I shared this: my article on gender stereotypes and kids at the Ruminator.

Amazing photos from NYC a century ago (via Theremina)

Fitzcarraldo remade in cardboard (also via Theremina)

From global warming to fluoride: why do people deny science?

How to play chess properly:

Lovely short comic story about a retired superhero meeting a retired supervillain. Not the most original idea but it’s done really well.

This month’s Tube Map: ghost stations of the London Underground

Fantastic article at the Awl about the 2013 Bitcoin conference. It sounds like capitalist madness foaming over rock-solid logic. Loads of bizarre photos, too! (via Allen Varney)

Global Rich List (via Chris O’Neill)

1943 Walt Disney Employee Handbook

A stormtrooper’s family album

“He’s the only actor since Marlon Brando that’s actually done anything new with the art of acting; he’s successfully taken us away from an obsession with naturalism into a kind of presentation style of acting that I imagine was popular with the old troubadours.” – Ethan Hawke gets Nic Cage.

The word “ampersand” comes from lazy schoolkids. (Via Mike Upton)

NZ Birds Online: new tool to identify that bird out your window.

73-year old artist who works exclusively in Microsoft Excel.

Free download of legendary 1981 solo boardgame Barbarian Prince

Dangerous Minds turned up some wider photos of the tank man in Tiananmen Square. It’s amazing what a zoom out will do to your understanding of an event.

British Medical Journal research article: The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute

Hey, Before Sunrise fans – watch Jesse and Celine tell people to turn off their cellphones

And finally, all the audience “oohs” from Saved By The Bell. This becomes like music, and then gets weirder.

9/11 conspiracy theorist changes his mind. Because of… facts! Has that ever happened before?? (via Nate C)

BBC’s Newsnight devoted ten minutes to exploring the question: was Doctor Who a bit rubbish in the 80s?

Freaks and Geeks is getting the AVClub Classic treatment. The pilot episode writeup appeared today. It’s my favourite TV show ever, employing the form of commercial television for a character study with novelistic depth, and founded in a humane compassion that is rare in any narrative.

Extreme Barbie Jeep Racing (via Bruce Baugh)

The “PUNK” music collection, exclusively on CD. Basically the only collection of punk music you’ll ever need. Features all your favourite punk bands, like INXS and Crowded House. (via DavidR)

Greatest wedding photo in the history of the world (via Keane)

Letter to Richard Dawkins about religion. Some well-put stuff in here.

BBC recipe site has a recipe for Marmite on Toast. As you’d expect, the comments are worth your time. (via loads of people)

This gender-swapped recasting of Lord of the Rings is spreading like wildfire because it is Just. That. Good. If you click through only one linky this week, make it this one.

Article about a fascinating 19th Century dictionary that traced words from India into British English. (via Damon)

The Folk Ye Bump Intae – charming sketches of people in Glasgow. I can’t help but sound out all the dialogue, it is so well-caught.

Wow, the secret behind this lake full of skeletons genuinely stunned me (Allen Varney)

How did I miss this? In support of the deluxe book collection of Al Jaffee’s Mad Magazine Fold-Ins back in ’08, the NYT created some interactive digital versions. Marvellous. (via Toby Manhire)

There have been many articles on Steven Moffat and gender politics in Doctor Who, but this one is the sharpest I’ve found. (To be honest though it’s his longform plotting that bugs me more.)

Poor people in Manila start living in a cemetery. Fascinating. (via Malc)

Mormon flowchart for your soul – wow.

Facehugger, life-size, in lego.

On Facebook, I share stories about my 2-year-old daughter from time to time. This one rapidly became infamous. I proudly share it further here.

Cal asks a very sad Wee Beastie why I made her sit in the corner.
WB: (crying) Because I didn’t listen.
Cal: I think you should say sorry to him.
WB: (looking down) Sorry daddy.
Cal: You should look at his face and say sorry.
WB: (meeting my eyes, very sad) I’m sorry about your face daddy.

And finally, the last word on Mos Eisley

There’s one week left of May, which is plenty of time for you to miss a meal. Send the money you saved to the good people at Kaibosh food rescue, a thoroughly splendid local operation that takes food that would be wasted here and delivers it to hungry people there. Worth a few of your dollars, I reckon.

Pikitia Press has more of the delightful early-60s UK girl’s comic about a British girl arriving in New Zealand.

Great Books of the Western World: don’t pay hundreds of dollars to Brittanica, download (most of) them free

I still can’t find a version of that Patton Oswalt Parks & Recreation clip that will play in NZ. Mentioned a few weeks ago, it sees Oswalt improvise the plot of a new Star Wars film. Well, someone has animated it, and it seems like it will play everywhere.

Oh my god this made me laugh: someone compiled every instance they could find where a rapper has referenced former NBA player Alonzo Mourning in their lyrics. Mostly they follow the standard structure for such references: “it’s [meaningful word] like [word that frequently appears close to the first word even if using it here makes no sense at all]”. (They also missed the first ‘Zo reference that popped into my head, from Public Enemy no less.)

Helen Mirren being legendary, this time by inviting a boy to tea in character as the Queen.

For those with an interest in Doctor Who recurring character River Song, here’s the best infographic I’ve seen of her convoluted timeline.

Irish stamp has an entire short story on it. (via Alexis)

Aliens in 60 seconds. Very nicely done. (via David R)

Interesting look behind the scenes of cult hit card game Cards Against Humanity – a true indie production, a megasuccess in a niche that can’t really be colonised or compromised. The question at the end about how long this can be sustained is a good one – it’s real easy for this kind of thing to go sour.

The full McBain movie hidden across many episodes of The Simpsons

Maire pointed me at this great music video – an epic adventure that I really liked until the bit where I started loving it.

Setting up an automated process to buy random presents for yourself from Amazon, as a kind of art project. Finding patterns in chaos. Neat, and ongoing. (via Svend)

Opening scene of Casino Royale recreated in Lego

Lawrence Kasdan’s handwritten screenplay notes for Empire Strikes Back (via Craig Oxbrow)

Photographer takes photos of her 5yo daughter as awesome women from history. (via Sam Hall)

Pitchfork’s Daft Punk article is full of bells and whistles and I found it almost unreadable. This is the first big article since NYT’s Snowfall to try and enhance the reading experience, and I think it’s also the moment that shows how Snowfall isn’t the future after all. (And not for this reason, either.) Just put words on the screen, people. Just put words on the screen.

And finally, via Julian von Sligo:

No, not Early Edition style future news. I bashed out a new article for the Ruminator, about what news websites are going to look like in a decade. Hint: a lot less like newspapers, a lot more like interactive infographics.

The alternate moose just tipped me off to the existence of some weird, interesting group creation thingamies at Reddit. You’ve heard of “first world problems”, right? Reddit has developed that concept somewhat, in some pretty bizarre ways. Find out more about the screaming and the tower and the giant wasps.

Very tangentially related: middle class movie posters

Mail order husbands (via Gator)

Deep Throat in the 21st century: Wired has a guide on how to leak something and not get nailed for it.

An interactive visualisation of every running joke in Arrested Development. (via David Ritchie, and then the entire AD-loving internets.) AD has to be the densest TV show ever, right? There’s just so much stuff in every episode. And with new episodes almost due, AD lovers really need to check out this delightful taster: Insert Me Anywhere

GeoGuesser is a fantastic browser game and destroyer of productivity. It lands you in a random Google Maps Street View spot, and you have to guess where in the world you are. (again via David Ritchie then everybody.)

I’ve made it about a quarter of the way through Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story audiobook. Really good stuff, full of things I didn’t know and vital connecting tissue linking things I did know. The author has supported the book with a marvellous tumblr full of scanned original art, period photos, and other bits and pieces. Here’s one that deserves a wider audience than the comics geekery, though: four young Japanese Americans, reading comics in an internment camp; Howe adds some poignancy by working out exactly what was going on in the comic stories they were reading.

The Battle of Helm’s Deep, in Lego. The scale of this model freaks me out.

You’ve tried typing “Atari Breakout” into Google image search, right?

All right. There have been some impressive home-built Iron Man costumes over the last couple years, but this GW Space Marine is outright scary:

Moth City, which has been featured on this linky several times before, is an online comic by a Kiwi creator. Now it’s free to read on Thrillbent, which is fast becoming the hottest place around for online comics presentations. Tim Gibson’s creation is just picking up more and more steam as it goes, which delights me.

What if Point Break was remade by David Lynch? Or Wes Anderson? Or Tommy Wiseau?

Ordinary American investing in Blue Chip stock gets 11% return on investment. Pharmaceutical industry investing in lobbyists to prevent drug price negotiation gets… more. No, more than that. Nope, still more. No, even more than that. Er.

A photographer visits the crumbling remnants of the Star Wars Tatooine sets.

Matt Taibbi continues to justify the existence of Rolling Stone magazine: Everything is rigged: the biggest price-fixing scandal ever

An 1809 depiction of an alien invasion by Washington Irving (he of the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow & Rip van Winkle fame) (via Svend)

And finally, a copy of the weird Doctor Who/Eastenders crossover – this version complete with production notes. (Yes, this crossover was a real thing. It is… not good.)

The truth behind all those amazing novelty items advertised in every comic for decades, by someone who went to the effort of tracking them all down. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard how the X-Ray Specs “worked”, complete with a photo reproducing the view through those magical glasses!

Chomsky & Foucault debate, in 1971, about whether human nature exists and what that means. No, I haven’t watched this yet. (via Nic Sando)

Here’s a salutary lesson for those in the museum & exhibition fields (including, from time to time, me): the Met tries to recreate the legendary bathroom at CBGB’s, demonstrating that some things cannot be recreated in any meaningful way.

How to draw sexy without being sexist: fascinating little discussion spinning out of the recent redesign of some superhero costumes. (Don’t read the comments, of course.)

Spock vs Spock in a car ad – extremely well done. Worth watching even though it’s an ad.

Star Trek Fashion Blog (via Hamish)

So it turns out that crazy creationist science homework was a real thing. And the second page of the worksheet is even more revelatory than the first. More info at snopes, of course.

Scroobius Pip merch t-shirt has in-built Scroobius Pip mask. Genius.

Aussie Star Wars (via Mike F)

Also via Mike F, another Cat Friend & Dog Friend video, again executed perfectly.

Judge Dredd gets a polished half-hour fan film, Judge Minty – haven’t watched this yet but Jet is the man to ask about such things, so linking his way.

Webcomic with Conan the Barbarian as a life coach

Kids, the highly controversial and provocative indie movie about young teenagers getting up to mischief in NYC, is twenty years old. Here’s a fantastic article that tells some of the story behind the scenes and tracks down what happened to the featured players. Yep, one of them ended up on The Wire. (I remember walking out of the cinema after watching Kids, and feeling like I was really glad I’d seen it, but I sure hadn’t “enjoyed” it and I didn’t think I’d ever want to sit through it again. This many years on, some of the impact it had on me – the rawness of the content and the style – is still fresh. But I do want to watch it again, after all.) (via @auchmill)

Flipping around gendered book covers – some neat designs.

Soviet posters from before Stalin constrained the range of approved visual styles (via Joshua Newman)

Debt – the first five thousand years, in Mute. The only issue of Mute I have is full of marginal notes where I argue with the writers (at least it is on the articles I actually read) – this one is just as full of assertions and angles that seem wrong to me, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff here too. I recommend it, but go in with your brow pre-furrowed to save time. (via Svend)

Making Mordor’s economy work (via Allen Varney)

Have I linked to Scarfolk Council before? It’s worth a second go even if I have. An alternate 1970s English county, as seen through its posters, recordings and other documentation. Marvellous, weird, frequently hilarious.

And finally: here’s your Halloween costume sorted

This New Yorker article is one that makes me happy. Social psychology, for better or worse, is my discipline, and it seems like it’s finally sorting out one of its ongoing weaknesses. There’s a problem across all sciences around replication – the most prestigious journals demand new research, and academic careers demand publication in prestigious journals, so there’s a strong incentive against spending time on double-checking previous findings. The replication problem has always been particularly acute in social psychology, because it’s so hard to zoom down into fuzzy social complexity and figure out exactly what’s going on in a situation. Bring it on, folks. Also contains some other fascinating stuff – I didn’t know the famous Milgram electric shocks experiment was replicated in 2008!

For the last few years, Philip Sandifer has been writing amazing, fascinating essays about Doctor Who, tracking it across its history from the 60s on, linking it to social movements and literary criticism and alchemy and more. He has just reached the new series, and begins with an incredible close reading of the first episode for Chris Eccleston and Billie Piper. It’s lovely stuff, thoroughly readable and full of great little jokes and insightful turns of phrase, but adding up to something even greater than the sum of its considerable parts. If you are interested in Doctor Who at all you need to read this, but if you care at all about television as a medium then you’ll get something out of it. You probably do need to have watched the episode though. Jump in: Rose

Tea is the fashion! Stunning 60s marketing campaign by the NZ Tea Council to get the Yoof drinking tea. (via the Pikitia Press NZ/Aus comics blog)

Also at Pikitia: a UK girls comic story about a British orphan who inherits a sheep farm in New Zealand. Fascinating!

Holy cow, there’s someone who is so passionate in their defence of Alien3 that even I think they’re going a bit far.

Making sense of Syria’s conflict: six separate things are going on there

A writer at games site Kotaku records every instance of sexism she encounters for a month.

Going viral for all the right reasons: Reddit users discuss which Muppet would be best placed to assassinate Hitler.

Those beautiful bootleg movie posters from Ghana have been turning up all over the place again; there’s a bunch in the new selection that I hadn’t seen before (via Luke W). Here’s another site that finds other, similarly wonderful movie posters from other places. (via Andrew S)

Also all over the place right now: great behind-the-scenes pics from Empire Strikes Back, again most of these are new to me.

Sexy pool party! This has also been going viral for good reason. The woman in the bikini really commits to the bit.

Not safe for work, or for my mum: 8 other animal-style sex positions (Isabella Rossellini did the bug ones better though)

Also NSFW: Milo Manara’s history of humanity – quite breathtaking, but full of the stylised sexy nakedness Manara is known for.

Cosmarxpolitan

Bertrand Russell writes to Oswald Mosley (via RodgerD)

Mapping New Zealand by where people live. Gosh, my country has a lot of uninhabited space.

Via felicia day: One tiny hand

Ooh, linguists gonna love this. The punctuation mark “slash” is being verbalised in speech. You hear it the same way you’d expect e.g. “Can she visit slash stay over?” which is the same as “visit/stay over”. But language is always changing, and changing fast – and the meaning and use of “slash” has already drifted in some fascinating new directions. How invigorating!

Teaching intersectionality through the game Halo (via Jamie)

Four sisters take a group photo every year for over three decades.

A couple of things I really liked at The Ruminator: vintage photos of creepy window displays and a piece about the flak you get when you’re taking meds for mental health

A profile of my friend Warren, who is a full-time professional maker of Lego structures. (He has a book out.)

The best anti-piracy measure ever taken?

And finally, via Hugh Dingwall: cut me off mid-funk. (Freaks & Geeks people should definitely click.)