Category: Friday Linky

Mediahint is a way to get around territory limitations on what internet stuff you can see. Like, for example, a show you like that’s on Yahoo Screen but isn’t available to NZ viewers. For example.

Googled "mediahint yahoo screen". (For, ah, reasons.) Clicked on the "maps" tab by mistake. Ummmm… (cc @danharmon) pic.twitter.com/bJpSR1f83s

— morgue (@mr_orgue) March 19, 2015

Via AndyMac: Tintin – boy reporter or gonzo journalist?

Help the crew of the Enterprise escape a holodeck rendition of the classic adventure game, Maniac Mansion

“Just how did our nation’s 750 million acres of forests become overrun with adult magazines?”

Fascinating – a cartoonist describes, in comic form, how he was asked to lighten the skin tone of an ethnic character.

The other moose has a compelling, funny review of 50 Shades of Grey. “Dudes. Get real drunk and see this movie.”

Timely: as New Zealand is ROCKED by the sight of a woman farting on her first date with The Bachelor NZ (“the Fart the stopped the nation“), new research reveals the truth about fart anxiety variance by gender and sexuality.

The writer of that Atlantic piece on ISIS replies to comments & criticism

Challenging, angry Al Jaz editorial after they saw how much people care about coverage of Syria.

Robert W’s getting closer to launching his association for renters in the Wgtn region – and has revealed the name: Renters United! Check it out, and follow him for updates.

A plot outline for one of the original Hardy Boys novels, as handed over to the writer who’d have to bang it out in a month.

How did depictions of Jesus end up making him so hot?

Alasdair reviews a minor Stallone film from 2013 and excavates ideas of vigilantism in film and the history of crime and its civic response and it’s just a great post, read it.

10-year-old kids do a school play based on Twin Peaks. Wonderful.

Alternative March Madness bracket: the worst things on the internet. Nice!

Extremely watchable and often very funny 25-minute film telling the story of why wrestling is fantastic entertainment, using the example of the most hated man in wrestling, and with all the wrestlers played by women, and with some great cameos to boot. If you’re like me, you’re still thinking “25 minutes is a long time”. Just give it a try. It’s pretty great.

This supercut will make you happy. Dancing makes everyone happy.

And finally, speaking as a hardcore fan of the film in question, I just don’t think there’s much market for this particular kind of merchandise: a life-replica of Bishop from Aliens after he got torn in half.

Is Charlie Brown the worst baseball manager ever? Well, yes, obviously. But also: no, he’s not.

The Guardian moves to put climate change in a prominent place in its media coverage. The 24-hour news cycle is not hospitable to complex, large-scale issues that don’t regularly generate controversy. This kind of strategic action from media gatekeepers is necessary if we the public are ever going to truly appreciate how important this is. I hope other media channels – those less associated with handwringing lefties like myself – take the same step.

Robert Downey Jr., in character as Tony Stark, delivers a kid a bionic arm. This is just neat.

Back to the Future – in makeup to look 30 yrs older, vs. what they actually looked like 30 years later

Watching Aliens for the first time with a bunch of kids – this resonates with me, I saw that film age 10 and it (a) scared the crap out of me (b) inspired the crap out of me. I had no crap remaining by the end. (Jack Elder helped me find this again after I lost it, cheers)

Via Jenni – new digital games explore an alternative to shooting people with your sweet machine gun: showing them empathy, seeking consent, and caring for them.

Office Space, with the real Michael Bolton.

And finally, via Meredith Y, monetising the last untapped resource in Silicon Valley:

Why women love Jupiter Ascending

We know willpower is a resource that can be depleted. Here’s a way to actually manage it like a resource.

Anti-VD posters from WWII are pretty amazing.

Watchmen, described for the visually impaired

Fifteen-minute adaptation of Lovecraft’s “Shadow Out Of Time”. Off-kilter mix of animation and live-action, which suits the fevered tone of the story pretty damn well actually. (via Mad Lizards on G+)

Fifty Shades of Hutt (Jabba, not Lower)

Via Ben: the secret history of knock knock jokes

d3vo showed me this crazy short video of Wired trying out a new service where you send a text asking for anything and they’ll get it for you. As d said in his email to me, this probably won’t scale very well…

Also via d3vo, someone who’s never watched Doctor Who ranks the Doctors

And finally, Dr Phil with no talking

Secretary is no better than 50 Shades, guys. (Except for being a *much better movie*.)

The journal Basic & Applied Social Psychology just banned significance testing, p-values, t-tests, and the rest from its pages. Every method you learned in that undergrad psychology class you took just went out of date…

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is back, and once again the major story each week is posted for international viewing on the Youtubes. Here’s a great one on tobacco – those who remember the crazy fight in NZ over plainpacks will appreciate this, as will everyone who raised an eyebrow at the National party bringing in two ex-tobacco lobbyists in its new crop of MPs. Hilarious and crucial. Watch it.

Christina Aguilera doing musical impressions of Cher and Britney is pretty entertaining.

An MH370 obsessive talks about being an MH370 obsessive.

Tom the Dancing Bug on the new Harper Lee book.

Big Birdman – perfection. Caroll Spinney is 81 and still in the big yellow birdsuit!

And finally…

My lovely friend Debbie Cowens, half of the people behind Mansfield with Monsters, has a novel being PledgeMe’d into existence by Paper Road Press. “Murder and Matchmaking is a dark comedy that answers the question: if Mrs Bennett is so worried about what will happen to her if her daughters don’t marry … why doesn’t she really do something about it?” It’s already written and edited, the funding campaign is to get it printed and into bookstores. Check it out!

via Rachel B: Scientific experimentation to really figure out what’s up with those McDonalds hamburgers that don’t decompose.

via Shane: a trailer for the new Terminator film that finally makes sense of all those Terminator films

Hey, remember Cosmopolitan? It was like a website made out of paper updated every month? And it was an early master of the clickbait headline. Anyway, now I’ve reminded you, I bet you wonder what it’s doing these days! Well here’s something it’s doing: publishing NSFW images of Disney princesses enacting scenes from 50 Shades of Grey. Because who the hell knows.

The Ruminator: how the card game Presidents & Assholes describes a left-wing view of life. (Read to the bottom to find out what card game describes a right-wing view of life.)

The fat woman who designed the fitness game Zombies Run, on being a fat woman who designed a fitness game.

Laurie Penny & Meredith Yayanos bring you Fifty Shades of Socialist Feminism

Lots of “what is ISIS really” articles going around. Here’s one I read, at the Atlantic, who are usually pretty good. I have no idea how to evaluate how accurate it is.
EDITED TO ADD: I’ve seen quite a few responses to this article claiming it portrays ISIS as Islamic and thus Islam is the problem; but that’s now how I read this article at all. Here’s a good response that adds lots of great info to the discussion but, in my reading at least, doesn’t actually contradict the Atlantic piece at all.
SECOND EDIT: An overview of pushback on this piece, but I still think Wood’s point in this article was to say ISIS is Islamic in the same way that, like, people who bomb abortion clinics are Bible-literalist Christians. That said, finding this article celebrated by Fox News people and Richard Dawkins doesn’t give me much comfort.

The WaPo digs into what’s really going on with this new Harper Lee book, showing evidence that it’s actually a first draft of what became To Kill A Mockingbird. (I see this article has been syndicated all over the place! Good.)

Via Scott A: absolutely compelling evidence that Stevie Wonder is not blind OMG

And finally… Which freaky James Spader character are you?

Thanks Mundens for making sure I didn’t miss Cthulhy yoga. Delightfully, this short vid is narrated by right-on leftie journo (and personal fave) Laurie Penny.

Beastie Boys: Fight For Your Right To Party, without the music.

Chait vs everyone else (in this case, Gawker) re: online political correctness. I am not unsympathetic to Chait, though – but I see the tense battles over language as a sign of a massive growth step currently underway, as the entire English-language discourse tries to level up to a new level of self-responsibility. Sure there’s counterproductive stuff going on, but the overall direction of change is pretty clearly towards increased love for thy neighbour, and if Chait could step out of his paradigm for a minute he might see that.

Via Craig Oxbrow: every time travel movie ever, ranked. (They get the Bill & Ted films around the wrong way, though.)

Via John Fouhy – A discussion forum for “junior crew” on the official website for the late-90s Douglas Adams computer game Starship Titanic spawned an eager roleplaying community that continues today.

Dangerous Minds has the recording of a Nirvana concert where the band, furious at how their support act had been treated, trolled the crowd hard. I didn’t know about this but I’m keen to listen!

And finally, a three-frame gif that will put a song in your head for the rest of the day.

A quick article on “cultural Marxism”, which is like the full conspiracy theory version of “political correctness” (via Gareth S)

How Harry Potter would go if Hermione was the main character

To fall out of love, do this

British Medical Journal study explaining why the magazines in Doctor’s waiting rooms are always old and boring. (via Steph P)

80s retro-synth soundtrack to Twin Peaks

A charming supercut of clips from those enthralling “interactive” games that used your VCR. THe Klingon is amazing.

How the ideal body shape for women has changed over the last 100 years

Sheriff’s Office rug says “In Dog We Trust”, no-one notices for months (via Bruce N)

Model train enthusiast makes a Miskatonic Railway layout. The scale model geeks and the Lovecraft geeks will both enjoy this one.

Excellent longread on the mystery of consciousness and arguments going on between neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. I still find it hard to get past Dennet’s position that consciousness is just what it feels like when your brain does its thing – it beats the others on the Occam’s Razor test at least. But I do have sympathy for the notion that everything, the entire universe, is conscious.

And finally, via Billy… David Lynch cooks quinoa and tells a story

Via Steve Hickey, the MacGyver opening credits, with music removed:

So it’s Back to the Future 2’s future. This article on Jaws 19 reveals BTTF fans have made Jaws 5-18 to bridge the gap. Humans are weird.

To promote the American Psycho film, people could sign up to receive emails from Patrick Bateman, set a decade after the novel/film. Approved by Bret Easton Ellis. Bizarre.

That time someone asked a bodybuilding forum whether they could do a full workout every other day, and it all went very weird very fast. (via Pearce)

Here’s what happens when you download the top 10 free apps from respected internet provider Download.com. Hint: it ain’t good.

Well-timed street photographs (from China)

Chinese photographer shoots big groups of people, arranges them into plaid and tartan patterns (via my mum)

Twin Peaks women as pinups – wins points for including Denise. (also via my mum. Very risque, mum.)

Blimey. A January tradition in Japan: eating rice cakes that are so sticky they can kill you. (via Bruce Norris)

Detailed breakdown of the third Hobbit film’s Battle of the Five Armies. Who fought who when and how?

Which shows changed the most between unaired pilot and broadcast version?

Nate Cull embarks on a deep dive into 80s synthpop

Via Mike Upton, a Twitter Choose Your Own Adventure:

You should probably be asleep. I've created a "Choose You Own Adventure" on Twitter. Start here ➡ @wnd_go Pleasant dreams.

— Terence Eden (@edent) January 12, 2015

Tenured professor at West Point writes brutal, relentless takedown of West Point and the whole institution of military academies in the USA.

Love is a choice. Some very lucky people have heard me ranting about this for twenty years already and I’m not done.

The rise and fall and rise of Lego – lengthy piece from Fast Company

Via Billy and then the entire internet: Who the F… is my D&D character?

Via Pearce, this guy only gives one-star reviews on Amazon, and he writes them as poetry. And they’re awful.

Via Grant & Lorin, an expert skewering of those “cosmic” science docos:

Re: last week’s linky: maybe Jack Davis isn’t retiring after all? Reports differ. He’s 90, he’s allowed to change his mind!

I think I might have linked to this before, but anyway: download heaps of pulp magazines from the Pulp Magazine Archive

My friend Jen is doing interesting freelance indy journalism on the Guardian-supported Contributoria platform. People put up article proposals, and anyone can sign up with a free membership to indicate support for any articles they like. It’s a fascinating model for getting new voices and new stories out there in a sustainable way – well worth looking into. Do sign up and have a look around – to start with, check out Jen’s latest proposal (which has been fully backed so she’s working on it now) here: The Road to Iguala: The search for 43 students missing in Mexico

A year of Listener covers. Not pretty.

Pratchett & Gaiman’s Good Omens – BBC radio adaptation with stellar cast. Free to listen around the world for another month or so.

Amazing amazing cosplay. Look at this even if you hate cosplay, it’s wild.

John Cage’s 4’33”, autotuned

Why airlines want to make you suffer

And finally, also via Pearce: penis injuries from 2014, as recorded in the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of emergency room visits. Take care out there everyone.

(Friday Linky’s gonna take a break for a few weeks I reckon. Holiday time!)