Because I just saw a link to this right now and expect it’s fun: technologies missing from sci-fi movies, including amusingly enough the bicycle.
Full-on Oranges right now. Check out our website that I plugged last week!
www.orangesathalftime.co.nz
And come like our Facebook page!
There are recipes in this exhibition. For reals. Also, lots about rugby.
Young left-wing supporters of multiculturalism were gunned down in Norway because of fear.
Before this: an attack on members of the Unitarian Church in Knoxville. Attempted murder of Gabrielle Giffords.
Fear creates violence. But fear is a powerful political tool.
It seems to me that this is the inevitable result of a media environment in which it is okay to joke about assassinating a liberal candidate for the presidency, in which an extreme bigot is called kind and decent by the President and venerated in the media after his death, where a high-profile media figure explicitly identifies liberals as internal enemies, where countless slurs and attacks on left-wing views are broadcast and repeated daily.
There is a huge media machine working feverishly to create hatred towards liberals. How then can this violence really be any kind of surprise?
But there is no responsibility taken. (Edit to add: More.)
Yes, everything extremely hectic right now as a major project comes close to launch.
The project is Oranges at Halftime: Rugby and the Kiwi Experience, a travelling exhibition hitting the road around NZ on August 9. It’s going to be a fun attraction, using our national game to explore NZ social history. Nothing too serious, and plenty to interest anyone I reckon! Come see us on Facebook, too…
Also of significant note: the Ennies awards, the biggest awards in role-playing games, are up for vote now, and ICONS what I worked on is up for recognition in several categories. Nice one! So go vote if you know one end of a D20 from the other. Several friends have work nominated in other categories, too. It’s a good-looking slate this year. Lots of cool stuff happening in RPG-land.
Anyway, I’m loath to go two weeks without linky, so here are a few that have caught my eye. Only short ones because there is much work to be done!
Stephen Judd wrote this excellent piece about the prevalence of antisemitism in NZ. Since then there’s been a big flap about !1potential Mossad agents in the Christchurch earthquake!!1 – worth reading that chatter with this in mind. (Yes, Mossad have a painful track record of farming NZ passports for their agents. Yes, there were a few odd things about the actions of the Israelis who survived the quake. But.)
Phil Hartman is only known in NZ via The Simpsons. His SNL audition is worth a watch…
Mahna Mahna – the original version!
Can’t remember which of my wrestling nerd friends shared this: a discussion about 10 wrestling events and whether they were real or staged. Wrestling is one of the strangest, most post-modern entertainment forms in existence. I have fairly little interest in the actual thing itself, but find the way it tells stories and the collision between fiction and reality to be endlessly fascinating.
Star Wars: speeder bike. Or is it meant to be something else? [It seems so! Bat Pod! Cheers to Mr D Ritchie of Hamiltron.]
And finally, via Ivan, the apotheosis of the weird alignment chart trend: Batman alignment chart
The Willa is gleefully rolling around the room, which gives me just enough time for a quick bout of Friday linky.
Infographic: Size 8 variance across fashion designers
LIFE has a gallery of pics from the Mad Magazine offices. Eventually someone is going to make a movie about this magazine, and they will win a whole swag of Oscars.
Took me a while to get around to reading this, but it is recommended: 30 years on we are still learning from AIDS
The Batmobile and the ECTO-1 in the style of Pixar’s Cars. And characters from the Lord of the Rings in the style of indie kids and hipsters.
For Māori Language Week: make your own kid’s book in te reo
Short film, worth watching:
Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.
Design a better bike (or, really, fail to design a better bike)
And finally… you seen the Hunt Me For Sport guy, right? It’s been on real news and suchlike, even. Cool. How about this then: guy visits a flea market in his dreams, returns with a mission to create the weird toys he saw there.
Approach the bench.
Via delightful Chinashop: actors given a character + situation, told to communicate it in a still photo – quite fascinating and lots of fun, but it wore me out! (Vanity Fair)
Famous Dead Mormons. Salt Lake City holds the most comprehensive genealogical database anywhere, I believe. So all your ancestors probably are Mormons too.
The Wire as Dickensian fiction. (Tried to linky this back when it was new and hot but the widespread interest killed it. Now it is live again and well worth seeing if you didn’t catch it first time ’round!)
Natalie – birth to 10 years old in one minute
Scandalous 1970s teen magazine Star, in its entirety online
And finally… a 1990 video promo for cyber-Tolkien RPG Shadowrun. As the kids say, lolwut
