Category: Friday Linky

Because Pearce demanded it! And because I do it every Friday if I can. Here is FRIDAY LINKY!

Stanley Kubrick is on the record that HAL was not gay.

Lego pop-up house (Youtube link) via Kitty, and Lego Lovecraft house (via Keane)

Kate Beaton linked to this blog about American book cover design, and this was the entry that blew me away. These designs are from around 1880 but look like something you’d see in the 1970s. Incredible.

Also incredible from the 1880s: photos of old London

Hyperbole-and-a-half’s post about how her dogs coped with the stress of moving is getting much attention because it is hysterically funny. Read it!

Privilege-denying dude! (via Daniel Gorringe)

Famous giant monsters – scale diagram

NZ Herald has photos of an orca surfing.

Very cool Steampunk Batman designs on Warren Ellis’ message board

Lots of people in academia will have had this circulated to them – a guy who (claims to) write papers for cheating students describes his work. (Making Light figures it’s on the level and makes some very smart comments about how this relates to privilege.) Best thing for me is that the guy’s article reads perfectly in the voice of Will Ferrell’s essay-provider character from Undeclared

(NB Ferrell is not as annoying in this role)

US economic decline described super-clearly – all the things that are broke

And finally… SATYR MASTERS FROM ABYSS

Been having emails with the technicians working on my laptop. Apparently Flash 10 didn’t play nice with my graphics card. Stupid Flash 10! Various other problems are also either fixed or not fixed. (Intermittent bluescreen of death = not fixed.)

My lovely Cal found this Glee-as-horror-flick trailer, which works so well precisely because of Chris Colfer’s high-intensity portrayal of his character. You don’t need to watch the show to get the value out of this, I reckon.

The Onion, beautifully: That Global Warming thing may still be a problem

Tunnel people of Las Vegas

Thomas Scovell writes smartly about identity, growing up, Facebook privacy, and media misrepresentation, among other things. A great essay.

Using Facebook relationship status updates to chart when during the year people break up. Chart from 2008, not many explanatory notes from the creators; presumably they would have figured out that the spike around April Fools Day is an artifact of people playing “I’m engaged!” trickeries and then ending the fake engagement. Either that or April Fools day is a high-stress day for relationships?

Why you shouldn’t worry about McDonalds burgers not rotting

Daily Express editorial position re: statins undergoes some mild flip-flops.

Scott Kendrick’s wonderful Catches I Have Dropped (a cricket poem, but don’t let that scare you off) was Helen’s pick for Tuesday poem this week.

So why is Wikileaks a good thing again?

Top ten worst-singing rappers. (Is anyone anywhere surprised to see Flavor Flav on the list? I’m just delighted NWA represents.)

And finally… duck or bunny? (warning: taxidermy)

My laptop is in laptop hospital right now, so I’m timesharing with Cal on her laptop. I get 11pm onwards. This actually suits me pretty well. But I forgot to copy over my friday linky bookmarks folder, so here’s what I’ve cobbled together in the last 24 hrs…

Guy making art out of chewing gum stuck on the sidewalk

My buddy’s Dave’s game + comic shop in Fife gets some nice media coverage

Great Halloween comic by Emily Terrible (via Kate Beaton, Svend, and sundry others with excellent taste)

Incautious time traveller (prrrrobably not actually a time traveller – intriguing video though)

Jamie Hewlett’s comic of Pulp’s Common People.

Mr Ritchie shared this one – “Real in-game footage from the SNES release of Academy-Award winning motion picture ‘There Will Be Blood’, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano”

Super There Will Be Blood from Tomfoolery Pictures on Vimeo.

He was one of several people sharing this one – a newspaper corrects an error that only geeks care about,
and does so with great style…

Dennis Hopper vs. mermaid flick from 1961 now free to watch online

This one’s getting linked everywhere, for good reason: Charlie Stross points out some extremely weird stuff getting said in the UK House of Lords. Like, extremely, deeply weird. So weird that “I laundered money for the IRA” is a casual aside, quickly forgotten because of the rest. Read.

And finally… (first minute is the best bit, remaining minutes just bask in the awesomeness of the first minute)

For Halloween, here are some linky that to be honest have precious little to do with Halloween.

Johnny Cash to-do list. Hee.

Joe Atkinson, pol sci academic, writes a lengthy, interesting argument that fake news ain’t good for you. I don’t buy it, but appreciated reading it.

BBC’s great Dimensions site that overlays the size and shape of things on to a map of where you are. This really does help me understand stuff.

Matt Fraction: The Batman Dreams of Hieronymous Machines. I haven’t watched this myself yet but by all accounts it’s excellent.

Bite Me: online comic of vampiric farce in French revolution. Haven’t read this yet either, by by all accounts etc etc.

Episode of new Scooby Doo is a Cthulhu riff, with Harlan Ellison playing himself. Wuh.

Speaking of the mythos, the HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s new film adaptation looks amazing:

Snark-filled copy edit of Twilight. A bit too mean and pedantic but I actually enjoyed this as a look at how it feels when I’m editing my own work.

Extremely confusing covers to old horror comics

Dumb weird “sexy” Halloween costumes based on comics characters.

And finally, still on the subject of costumes, check out… Iron Croc

Dirty hobbitses!

60s Dalek comic strips adapted into lovely video.

Keith Ng linked to this: teach yourself maths. No, like, REAL maths.

Free public domain golden age comics at the Digital Comics Museum

You guys know I love these “lets all cooperate to make a crazy big single roving camera massive lip synch”, right? Well, the folk behind this one told Paul Feig it was inspired by Freaks & Geeks. It’s super cheesy cool!

From stick: a virtual ZX Spectrum

Fantasy title trends

Star Wars Japan. Always more Star Wars riffage.

The 8 most obvious signs in the world.

Webcomic about getting a wee bit drunken. Warning: makes me feel ill. But amazingly cool.

Computer game about Yakuza reviewed by some Yakuza.

Mark Evanier dug up the original pitch video for the Muppet Show.

How to identify clutter.

And finally, ducks are actually wearing dog masks (and aaaaaaaaargh)

Last night I watched the gold medal match between NZ and Australia in netball. It was the most exciting sporting match I’ve ever watched. Double overtime then into golden goal, which in netball means securing a two-point lead. Netball is a game of absolute focus, where small errors cost a lot, and in a big match like this the pressure is intense to never make the tiniest mistake. Maria Tutaia, who I’ve long thought just didn’t have the nerves to finish the big matches, never wavered and delivered the win in a way that has shut me up forever. Amazing. Already being called the best netball match of all time! Watch closing minutes here (stupidly, can’t embed).

So here are some celebratory Friday linky!

Bleeding Cool provides the necessary backstory to understand a Doctor Who spoof styled after On The Buses. Read’n’watch here.

Some alumni from Joss Whedon’s weird, troubling Dollhouse show make a music video on the same theme:

OKCupid’s dataminers continue to offer insightful analysis of their many, many dating profiles with this takedown of myths around gay sex vs. straight sex.

Latest mindblowing infographic doing the rounds: the true size of Africa. Africa is really, really big. Which makes it even more shameful that I know next to nothing about it.

Only Kiwis will get this gleeful Onion-style NZ political satire from the Dim-Post: National to stand Spider-God in Epsom.

This ought to be bigger news, shouldn’t it? Scientists think they’ve figured out what’s behind the massive decline in honeybee numbers. (Remember, if the bees go, our entire ecology is screwed.)

A gallery of book cover art being reused for multiple titles.

Hilarious/cringey The Internet Never Forgets: Tumblr-log of famous actors when they were clothes models. Exhibit A: heartthrob du jour Robert Pattinson [WARNING this will make you feel dirty and wrong, he is far too young for your lust in this pic] B: Sarah Michelle Gellar [this one is just weird]

Lord of the Rings travel posters

And finally, there was that one time Jason went on Arsenio:

Via Draw: GET OUT OF THERE!

(list of featured movies)

The Global Entrepreneurship Week launch event had a focus on Social Entrepreneurship, with speakers including Sam Morgan, Marc Ellis, Rod Oram, and others. It sounds like a pretty cool thing. I didn’t make it along due to the Waitomo deadlines, but the whole thing is available via Massey’s mediasite. I look forward to checking that out. GEW is in mid-November, so keep your eyes open.

The Hobbit has been in the news for all the wrong reasons – and I don’t think NZ has had so much interest in such a fuzzy dispute for a long time. I’m still not remotely clear what the union is actually concerned about. My sympathies lie with actors, but I don’t know that the unions are discharging their responsibilities to well at the moment. Anyway, Theatreview has been tracking the entire story and dragged all the links to one place.

Sadhbh asks, are there any chick-lit novels where the girl ends up with the good guy, not the bastard? There are tumbleweeds. Well worth a read, and do comment if you have any suggestions!

FFFilm: screenshots from films. Very engaging.

The ten computer games Roger Ebert, who said games can’t be art, should play.

Very detailed interactive map of Middle Earth.

Cinema advertising tricks from the 1920s.

The pointless, creative delights of CAPTCHArt: taking one of those little CAPTCHA phrases and interpreting it through art. Often hilarious.

And finally… the Dick Tracy comic strip scrambler. Every time you reload it randomly assembles three Dick Tracy panels. I dunno either.

(The pigphone was the logo for a flat party we had in… 2001? It was a great logo of a phone that looked like a pig. I can’t find a digital version but my paper records are extensive, so hopefully it will be found.)

Taxonomy of rap names

London Review of Books reviews a book about the rise of creative writing programmes, and there is much thunder and lightning

From Dylan: the Edward Gorey house

Gator found Jim’s Pancakes – pancake art!

Male ensemble does Gaga:

Sesame Street madness. Beth found the Monsterpiece Theatre Twin Peaks parody, which I’d never actually seen:

And their recent riff on Tru Blood has been doing the rounds as well:

Dark Patterns: things on the web that are designed to trick you

The most powerful colours in the world

And finally… a complete rap album inspired by the West Coast Avengers, the lesser-known laid-back late-80s/early-90s alternative to the mainstream Avengers. Even Darkhawk gets a track.

Seen this in a couple spots, I think Karen Healey was first to give it linky: perfume that makes you smell like a library.

via Nonwrestler: the Art of Penguin Science Fiction. Very nice. Love those late-60s Alan Aldridge covers.

via the Other Mr Ritchie, the one who didn’t just become a Dad, some incredible photos of atomic blasts in action.

A gay 15-year-old chose suicide to escape bullying recently, and Dan Savage of the Savage Love column/podcast responded.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don’t have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better.

So they’ve started a YouTube channel to deliver this message to LGBT teens who need to hear it. Spread the word.

This week’s Star Wars: the secret origin of Chewbacca. Which is to say, pretty conclusive proof that the Chewie design was swiped. Really about the messiness of the creative process, and a good read.

I dunno if permissions will let people see these, but it’s facebook so presumably they will (ba-DUM-dum). It’s Dermot’s take on Star Wars In Cork (that’s the place in Ireland, not the thing that goes in bottlenecks)

via Hroethgar, tilt-shift techniques applied to Van Gogh paintings. Looks awful on some, but breathtaking on others.

Further sign of mainstreaming of geek concerns: geek fashionista collection based around sci-fi imagery. TARDIS dress anyone? (Back when I was a lad, this sort of thing could only exist in a MAD magazine parody. Now it seems odd that it hasn’t happened before. Which brings me to…)

“Team Unicorn”, a quartet of lady gamer geeks, produced this parody of the most-parodied-song-ever California Gurls. Its a “we are geek girls hear me roar” song. It has Seth Green rapping.

Geek and Gamer Girls Song – Watch more Funny Videos

In its wake this vid produced a small flurry of discussion. Anarchangel smartly discusses some of this reaction in terms of contested subcultural boundaries, and gives some awesome linky. Alternative/geek royalty Theremina expressed unease about the vid on Twitter, and was appreciative when someone pointed out this vid along similar lines:

There’s potential for a lengthy post on this and related issues. Anyone have time to write it?

Wil Wheaton considers the hairdo of the character he played on Star Trek, Wesley Crusher, in the face of an enthusiastically bad-language using celebration of same.

Tube map of modern science. Smart.

And finally, Wikipedia’s introduction to the world of Flirty Fishing – 70s-era evangelism-by-prostitution. Times have changed.

Keeling over, that is. Still busy. BUT NOT TOO BUSY FOR LINKY

Video about goin’ climbing in Wgtn. Haven’t watched it, too busy, but its W-town so if you’re local you probably know some of the people in it. Maybe even the guy in the screencap right here.

Tough Love from Chunky Farmer on Vimeo.

Fun with Google 1: Google Scribe completes famous quotes

Fun with Google 2: Google Patent reveals patents by famous people. Check out Eddie Van Halen’s rocking self-portrait.

Classically-trained voice teacher evaluates the style and technique of five heavy metal vocalists. (This is an example of that rare subspecies of linky that will be catnip to both Sokky and Jet Simian.)

Via the Knifeman, Joyce Carol Oates short story right there for the reading (I haven’t yet but Joyce Carol Oates that’s why)

Have I ever linked to You Are Not So Smart before? Great blog that points out all the ways we get stuff wrong. Fun, insightful, and important, because man, so many problems caused by not realizing you might be wrong about something.

From Jack, more Star Wars culture – Darth Vader the cathedral gargoyle

The New York magazine article that was the basis for Saturday Night Fever: Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night. Written in the new journalism style, this appears impossibly mannered now, and I doubt you’ll be surprised to hear the writer made it all up.

And finally… this totally made my working day yesterday. A relaxation-tape version of Snoop’s (decidedly not safe for work) Gin & Juice. Love it.