Category: Friday Linky

Hey 15-year-old self in 1991! It’s 2011 calling. Guess what! They made a movie out of Thor! THOR! With the big dots on his chest and the big red cape and the hammer! Yes, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. No-one here saw that one coming either! And here’s the kicker: the director is Kenneth Branagh! I KNOW! No, I’m not kidding around! Truly. Yeah, you see, all those genre things that mainstream media despises? Turns out they win. Doctor Who is back and is incredibly popular. The Lord of the Rings gets made into films, too, and you’ll never believe who –

– what’s that? Star Wars? Um… we don’t talk about Star Wars.

From the Alligator, a recap of the last five years of Spider-Man comics continuity in the form of a Calvin & Hobbes strip. (Oh, comics, keep on being you!)

Amazing image of the night sky

Fantastic post at Kiwipolitico about the Treaty of Waitangi and its relevance to contemporary NZ. Highly recommended to Kiwi readers, overseas folk might find it a bit impenetrable!

Understanding cities – did Jane Jacobs have it wrong? These books say she did.

Gender bias in children’s books (via Emma B)

The six stages of movie geek evolution – via Andrew (Bartok)

Have fruit and veg become less nutritious? (Scientific American) – via John Fouhy

Harry Potter novels retold as one-page comic strips (see also: Salon coverage of real-life Quidditch, which bemuses me because Quidditch is a terriblly designed sport. Isn’t it?)

8 creepy video game urban legends that turn out to be true

World’s biggest Pac-Man

Amazing beatbox vid:

My age-match Nathan Rabin from the AV Club describes ’94 in music, his favourite music year. Some overlap with my own preferences may be assumed.

And finally… Ridiculous pictures of Celine Dion

The royal wedding happens Friday evening NZ time. I think 90% of the nation is having semi-ironic viewing parties. It will be on in all the pubs. What is this I don’t even

In honour of the creation of a new fairytale princess: the 10 Best or Worst Comic Book Princesses

From the Flatlander and many other places – Amazon’s book with an asking price of $23-million.

1950s pin-up girls: reference photos and final versions

Some smart people been writing ’bout passwords recently. Hamish Ritchie linked to a logical argument that “this is fun” is a much safer password than “3rfff89tk”. And James Wallis reveals a password method that doesn’t require you to remember very much at all.

Sartre Wars: (via Dangerous Minds)

5 ways Obama “Birthers” are like climate change deniers

My fellow moose Jonathan Todd gave a talk at Nerdnite Welly about interesting stuff. (I haven’t watched it yet but why wait to share!)

NNW5 – Consciousness and Reality, Story, and Bad SF movies from nerdnite wellington on Vimeo.

From Mr 2trees, the Doctor Who Redesign Project. Love this stuff!

You’ll want to read this chat with Wendell Pierce for what he says about being Bunk on The Wire, but the best bit is him talking about making Get On The Bus and working with Ossie Davis.

And finally, a sequel to E.T. that brings the scares!

(Worth noting: E.T. started out as a horror film called Night Skies)

You’ve seen this, right? Peter Jackson’s update from the Hobbit set?

It’s quite lovely. And somewhat bemusing, because to us Wellington folk this is “local chaps talk about what they’re up to around the corner”.

Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand – the fascinating story. There’s a movie to be made about Ayn Rand, but the upcoming adaptation of Atlas Shrugged is not it…

Warren Ellis describes a phone call with Alan Moore:

Hand-stitched covers for Vogue

She don’t like Firefly:

A chart showing comparative death tolls for various atrocities in the 20th century.
(via Svend)

You have seen this newspaper before

As Japanese game show pranks go, this is at the less crazy end, and I love it:

How many Cormac McCarthies does it take to change a light bulb?

And finally… two sets of freaky eyes:

Chicks With Steve Buscemi Eyes – you only need to see this once, and your fate is sealed for all time. (Via half the internet.) (Actually called “Buscemeyes”.)

And then: Muppets with people eyes.

Did you check out all the amazing linky people added in comments last week? So much good stuff there. I haven’t even got to the end of the list myself. Go back and see. And hey, it’s not too late to add yours…

But the grind of linky is eternal and unceasing, so here be more:

The Content Farm, which shows how one good joke executed flawlessly can be all you need.

Data about infographics, presented as an infographic.

What a personality cult actually is (I found this quite enlightening)

Forbes fictional rich list

Star Wars the musical from 1996! This is an unlicensed adaptation of Star Wars performed by high-schoolers, with new Star Wars lyrics to famous songs. The bits I watched work surprisingly well – it’s heaps of fun. (This is what I hoped Glee the TV show would be like.) Here’s a sample, the rest at the link:

Star Wars the Musical: Act 1, Part 1 from Funny Farm Films on Vimeo.

Office supply art

Automated voicemail transcription service is asked to transcribe the poem Ozymandias. Fascinating. Found art as mashup?

Photos of 1800s theatre stars. Also in 1800s photography: Lewis Carroll’s photos.

60 completely unusable stock photos

Relive your adolescent frustration with this compilation of game deaths:

And finally, via Dangerous Minds of course, the stylings of the Eminems of Ayn Rand, the Vanilla Ice Tea of the Tea Party, yes it’s the conservative movement’s rap duo: The Young Cons. Swoon!

PITY THE APRIL FOOL: Kids dressed like Mr T

So hey – it’s my birthday tomorrow. Give me a birthday gift of an interesting link to an essay, video, picture, whatever. Pop it in the comments, and I’ll open them tomorrow! Hurrah!

This one’s been all over. From its origins until the late 80s, Schulz’s strip Peanuts used a four-panel format. (It then changed to three panels with more formal experimentation.) 3eanuts takes those strips and removes the fourth panel. The rhythm still works because 3-panel strips are more common these days, but without Schulz’s bitter/redemptive final panel gags the tone is… well. Lets just say it’s one more sign that Peanuts was a really really weird strip to be globally famous. It’s not exactly Garfield.

From Alastair G, since seen everywhere: 20 sad etsy boyfriends

Mills & Boon covers recreated – first saw this via Jenni

Mike U pointed out these political/philosophical reviews of the Mr Men books

Police vs Clowns, locked in time:

William Burroughs on Led Zeppelin

“Do you LIKE HIM like him?” That’s contrastive reduplication.

Meant to do this one last year: an American writer reviews and compares the first episodes of NZ’s Outrageous Fortune, and the US remake Scoundrels. In the comments, OF co-creator James Griffin sounds off. Great stuff for people curious about why TV some shows work & some don’t.

A channel featuring the worst of YouTube

Fantasy travel posters

Via Warren Ellis, one heck of a short film (a wee bit disturbing)

I linked this on Facebook aaaaaages ago, but think it never made it to a Friday linky: Pictures of Muslims wearing things

Evie found this neato diagrammatic version of Hamlet.

Spider-Man wants you to vote! And drink vitamin C! And use contraception!

There’re a lot of lipsync videos on YouTube. This is the most impressive one you’ll ever see.

Bad postcards

EC Segar’s Raiders of the Lost Ark

From the Smithsonian – Top 10 consequences of having evolved (via Monsieur Bartok)

Greatest letter ever printed on sportsteam letterhead

Trailer for fanfilm adaptation of Lovecraft’s Whisperer in Darkness – this has been in my list for months and months, come out already film!

Yoga – not as old as you think

Why are easy decisions so hard? (via gnat)

And finally… Iron Crocodile

Baby Willa has had 3-month immunisation jabs this morning. All good. Some concentrated linky to immunise you against the internets:

From the Alligator: now this is a boot

For the Alligator, and everyone else with impeccable taste: Where’s Randy Savage?

Now here is a Liz Taylor movie I would sit down to watch: The Drivers Seat (1974). Knifeman, I presume you have heard of this film? Viewing party!

Recycling a bottle, flashmob style:

And a social norm breaking experiment that is also basically a flashmob (I will restrain myself from talking at length about how this is a dumb way to do a normbreaking learning exercise):

The British Library is collecting and recording children’s games from around the world – another wonderful resource from the BL who do amazing stuff, and I hope they don’t lose much capacity under the Cameron govt…

Via Hamish Ritchie, all the spoilers (um, spoilers for everything)

Via David Ritchie, Withnail & I meets Star Wars

An appreciation of Bulwer-Lytton, whose name is now on that ghastly bad-first-lines contest, poor devil.

On The Fundy Post, an island that’s basically straight out of Lovecraft. (Cthulhu gamers, here is your next adventure setting.)

The great Milton Bradley boardgame Heroquest, as a free-download computer game.

And finally… please forgive me… the YOGA FARMER

Over a month since it went off to Computer Hospital, my laptop has come home. Yay! No more stealing strong_light’s computer when she isn’t looking! So far it seems to be working beautifully, and (touch wood) no bluescreens so far when I try the actions that used to trigger them. (Bluescreens can be software-related – who knew?)

So, heedless of the world where there are a number of awful, awful situations unfolding, here are some linky.

Via George L – Mario as indie film! (from SXSW)

It’s a good companion to the Ferris-Bueller-as-indie-film that’s been doing the rounds:

Timely: are you prepared? (via Seth Green, funnily enough)

30th anniversary of the ZX81! I remember downhill ski racing on my grandfather’s ZX81 way back then.

I twittered about this a few weeks back – the US military publicly advertised for a company to arrange fake online identities they could use. They’ve chosen a contractor now, and the Guardian has the details.

Have you seen that clip of the UCLA undergrad sounding off about the offensive Asians in the library who don’t understand American manners? Even if you haven’t, you want to see this wonderful, wonderful response.

Why Borders failed and Barnes & Noble didn’t. (NZ buyers for Whitcoulls & Borders here – take note…)

What Dr Seuss books were really about

Kate Beaton comics redialogued by Japanese kids.

Sperm whales may have names (via Allan Varney)

From Jack – a pic of the orcas in our harbour. (Anyone have a link to other good pics?)

Dude who worked on Inspector Gadget cartoon shares sketches, notes, storyboards, and other details.

Every job interview ever. (This kind of thing is actually what academia’s discourse analysts do for real.)

Visual map of history of science-fiction – a great infographic, and the subject matter is pretty fascinating too

Letters of note has this gem from Rik Mayall (via Paul Stock)

And finally… via Dangerous Minds of course… the Careless Whisper guy:

Have I mentioned Battletruck enough lately? The answer to this question is always NO. Last night I found out that a friend and colleague with a long history in the NZ film industry was the chap who designed the epnoymous truck de battle, and in fact drove it in many of the film’s scenes. I was reduced to gibbering fanboy. Hell yes. So here are some links: battletruck. BattleTruck. BATTLETRUCK!
Bonus Battletruck Spoilers:

Now, on other links containing fewer trucks and less battling:

Kodak’s test colour film footage from 1922

A lovely poetic microfilm, How to be alone:

Infographic of all the time travelling in Doctor Who. Also from DW: interesting solo-play game.

The Perfect Body – diversity in the figures of Olympic athletes. Love this.

More about political messaging: What is conservatism and what is wrong with it?

Tearjerking story of Danny and Annie:

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Batman explains it all

Interview with China Miéville from an urban design perspective.

And finally… Wikipedia’s article on Hatebeak

Some linky for your Friday.

Old photos recreated with the same people. (from Dylan H and Emily P, I think)

David Lynch’s 1984 movie Dune had some weird kids activity books. (from Meredith at Coilhouse)

Cat laser bowling:

NZ is now in an election year, so it’s time to take a look at this one – been sitting on it for a while. It’s about providing a new frame for media coverage of an election, using the organizing principle of a citizen’s agenda. Worth talking about, maybe worth fighting for. At the very least, worth reading to remind you of the limits inherent in how we talk about elections in the media right now. (from George Darroch)

21 creepy babies in film (from the AV Club)

True life Donald Rumsfeld memo is… as you’d expect really.

Transformation decks – turning decks of cards into works of art!

Star Wars, told in iconography.

Filament linked to this about a month ago, and I found it interesting: I made out with a pick-up artist, then interviewed him

And finally… this. Contains male bottoms, so exercise discretion in the workplace.

Too much going on for proper linky. But it’s the perfect time to watch this.

Kia kaha, everyone.