Tag: fridaylinky

So I was going to link to some of the trolling & bullying stories that are unfolding at present. Then I decided I just didn’t want to. There are some tricky and interesting issues embedded in the stories, but the stories themselves are so unpleasant that you are almost certainly happier not knowing. Instead I will just link to The Art of Controversy (Schopenhauer).

(That has been sitting in the linky folder for about a year… so have the next two.)

Irina Werning’s second set of “back to the future” pics, restaging people’s youthful snapshots many years later.

The 12 most baffling genres of stock photo, explained!

Now, fresh stuff. This academic mansplaining tumblr has been tearing up the place in the last week. Check it out. Some of the stories are amazing – but, and this is crucial, they are all entirely believable.

Simplified map of the London tube

Star Wars illustrations in the style of classic religious art.

The AVClub is doing a readalong of the Sandman comics series

Whoa: There were plans for an Audrey Horne spin-off from Twin Peaks???

Lord of the Rings family tree project

A short film in which Sean Penn and Kid Rock learn to love each other despite their political differences. If you can watch this you are a stronger person than me, but it is fully worth clicking through to random points and trying to fathom what the hell this signifies about political discourse in the USA.

Via Svend, here is a Kickstarter for a boardgame. It is a Christian boardgame. Watch the video. And, um, yes.

Salon article “Burning Man is on its last legs” is actually not about Burning Man being on its last legs, but it is a really quite effective description of what it feels like to be kicking around at the infamous desert festival.

As Halloween approaches, here’s a creepy short film. (via Craig Oxbrow) Really very nicely done. Gave me a shiver.

Babysitters Club: Where Are They Now?? (via Amanda Lyons) (misses out Claudia Kishi becoming a twitter hashtag – Gem Wilder has the scoop on that)

HackerTyper was suggested by @nzben for use during @keith_ng’s TV appearances about his adventures in leet superhacking (apparently he used a little-known exploit called File > Open)

One switched-on couple I know have been making a real effort over a long time to bias their daughter’s media consumption towards stuff with gender equality. Here’s a sign of the fruits of all that work: her reaction to Star Wars. This, right here, is a glimpse of a different and better world. Much respect, you guys.

Speaking of gender stuff: 10 female electronic music pioneers you should know – Delia’s in there of course, plus 9 others. (via @theremina)

Matchy matchy (via Tim Denee)

Janet pointed me at this amazing reinterpretation of the famed “marshmallow study” (where kids try to hold off eating marshmallows, you know the one). Smart critique looks like this!

The countdown clock to the Hobbit premiere is now live in Wellington, but did you know there was another completely separate Hobbit movie out this year?

And finally, via @mcquillanatornz (who all the cool kids are following on Twitter these days): Beetles dressed as Jurassic Park characters. So perfect in every way.

Still not convinced this isn’t a brilliant satire, but – via Lev Lafayette – a video that will totally convince you to vote Romney. Fantastic, right to the end.

(I’ve embedded a lot of video this week. That’s made the blog hiccup in the past – if anyone hits problems loading the page, give me a comment or email and I’ll turn some of the embeds into links.)

Timeline of cybernetic creatures (via Bruce Sterling)

Get a commentary track for a movie that is still in theatres. Start of a new trend?

The AVClub lay out the 50 best films of the 90s. (Part 2) (Part 3) I remember the 90s. It was a time when I went to a lot of movies. I have seen most of these films. Though I still haven’t watched their pick for #1 film, mostly due to my longstanding (and mostly irrational) aversion to the subject matter.

Fantastic hacking of the graphics on the London tube.

Bad Lip Reading has been around for a while, but this takes their work to a Whole. New. Level. Don’t skip this one.

Concept art from the legendary unmade John Sayles sequel to Jurassic Park, which involved dinosaurs becoming a military special operations squad.

Orkney, man. That place is remote as all get out, but also it turns out, was way more important than you’d guess way back in the day.

Star Wars people = illiterate (via Paul)

Encyclopedia of Golden Age superheroes. By Jess Nevins, who is the planetary expert on this stuff.

An exam gets interrupted in a memorable way

The Golden Ratio: unlearn what you know about it, folks. (Art History people & Maths people will be particularly interested in this.)

Movie stills in their locations

Nick Offerman (him from Parks & Recreation) did a lengthy “Ask Me Anything” with the denizens of Reddit. I do not watch this show but I enjoyed skimming over this. If you are a fan, then it will tickle you I expect.

A lovely essay about encountering the uncanny, in the ghosts and hauntings sense. (via Dylan)

Scientific research produces a comic strip showing the poignant fate of an unlucky panda. (via @fogonwater)

And finally, here is a thing,

(EDIT: Nick Moylan found it in English!)

Star Wars villains with cute bunnies (via Rohan Smith)

TED talks come to NZ – exclusive leaked text of the opening address (delightful snark via Danyl)

The Stranger profiles the sexy, sassy Men of Rock! Bloody marvellous stuff, via Boganette

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (via Cat T)

Wow, I just learned about the Bloop. How did I never hear about this before? The world is full of weirdness. (via someone named Jason B, in conversation with the delightful Sophie O’Doom)

Lost scene from Lilo & Stitch – progressed as far as black-and-whites with full voice work. (via Gail Simone) Lilo & Stitch was a great film.

GWAR never made as much sense as they do here, in a small circular room covering a song by Kansas

Was Hogwarts all in Harry’s head? (via Hugh Dingwall)

This is so simple an idea, and yet so perfectly done. Gilbert Gottfried reads 50 Shades of Grey (via Dave Cormack)

Via Maire: a super-lovely way to learn about the amazing hexaflexagon!

Where will you be in 24 hours? Computer says, here. And it gets it right most of the time.

Neat, beautiful short comic by Eleanor Davis (via Tim Denee)

Check out, and play, the entries for the 18th annual interactive fiction competition

And finally, via Sacha Dylan: photos of women holding vegetables as weapons

If your regular news sources haven’t mentioned the Nazi Space Buddha Iron Man yet, you need better news sources, because NAZI SPACE BUDDHA IRON MAN.

Bill Bailey Docteur Qui. How have I never seen this before? via Andrew Loughnan > Michael Upton.

Reddit user attempts to ignite mass mockery of a Sikh woman. Incredibly, it ends happily for all. (via Calum Dow)

Design floorplans of TV apartments (via Gem Wilder)

When Kate Beaton says to check out a collection of vintage E.H. Shepard illustrations, it is wise to attend.

Tube map of the human body

I’d heard about this but have never seen pics before: how to hide an entire aeroplane factory (via Making Light; Sam, I’m sure this’ll be old news to you!)

A short behind-the-scenes thing on that upcoming Les Mis film. All the singing is done on-camera, no pre-record + miming! The technical challenges involved in pulling this off on such a complex production are mind-boggling, but man, the difference will tell.

Social psychology lessons from Gangnam Style

This excerpt from Ben Goldacre’s new book lays bare how pharma fraud operates through the academic system – by cherry-picking results of course.

Index of music used in NZ television commercials (via my aunt Margaret)

Today is Lunchbox day. Child poverty in NZ has been in the news lately and current affairs TV show Campbell Live has been pushing hard on this issue for a long time now. It’s become impossible to deny we have a problem. The solutions to the problem are political, but as Campbell Live has argued, they are also complex and will take a long time to work through. Meanwhile there are kids hungry right now. So they have instituted Lunchbox Day – taking donations to give Kiwi kids some food at school. In NZ, text “lunch” to 8595 to make a $3 donation. It’s deeply upsetting that there is a need for this, but Campbell Live are keeping the pressure on the bigger aspects of the problem. This is a good thing to do. Help if you can.

Charles Babbage would have killed on Twitter.

An analysis of PIN numbers. How easy is your PIN to guess? (via Making Light)

Hugh Dingwall found this great Delia Derbyshire collection

And finally, this video which has had 23 million views over the last two years, because this is what humans like to look at apparently.

Reverse verification: the process where someone tries to introduce doubt around established facts. This basically functions as a cheat code for our media systems. As Jay Rosen says at the link, verification is what the media should be doing, but they get caught up in reporting what people are saying – untangling these has proved hard. Maybe sharing this “reverse verification” idea around will be a small further step toward change.

“First off, let me just say there was a very heated NZ vs. Australia rivalry on the Cabin set. Apparently, Australia is a prison colony filled with castoffs and criminals, and New Zealand is a glorious land of Hobbit-filled imagination and wonder.
Or, at least, that’s what Anna Hutchison tells me. Suck it, Hemsworth.” – Drew Goddard, in a lengthy Q&A about Cabin in the Woods. (via David Ritchie esq.)

Now this is how you tear a highly-regarded restaurant to pieces in a review. The NYT gives one star to famed Manhattan eatery Le Cirque. (via Mark Cubey. Gator, obviously you’ve gotta click on this one.)

That “crying fire in a crowded theatre” thing – its legal history in free speech cases exhaustively examined. Way too dense for me to do more than skim, but lawyer types and free speech nerds will be fascinated with the detail too. Upshot: stop referring to it goddammit.

Amazing project you can join: help the transcription of documents from the 1920s excavation of the ancient city of Ur.

Y’all seen xkcd’s “click and drag“, right? It is amazing (but also hella frustrating to interface with after a while). Here’s an easier, zoomable version – but is this the complete picture? I don’t know.)

More about the culture and codes of behaviour among magicians, this time through the example of Teller and someone “stealing” his trick. (Gob: “Illusion, Michael!”) I never get tired of this stuff. The article is longer than it needs to be, a writer trying to give the article weight enough to be an anchor feature I guess, but is full of amazing details. (via Theremina)

Fan-made Star Wars space battle anime. Groovy as heck.

The definitive Watchmen 3

Fold your own Flight of the Conchords

There is a Magic: The Gathering puppet musical. This is a thing that exists. (via Liam Frost)

Guy playing Skyrim just decides to add all the mods he can find at once. The game becomes very weird indeed.

The YikeBike – NZ innovation, a super-light transport option?
And a cardboard bike (both via d3vo)

And if I never linked this before, I should have – some research about how our ancestors slept, and how the 8-hour sleep session is quite unusual really (also via d3vo)

Characters on the TV show Community watch a Doctor Who echo called “Inspector Spacetime”. Now there is a webseries echo of Inspector Spacetime called “Untitled Web Series About A Space Traveller Who…”, written by and starring the guy who plays Inspector Spacetime on Inspector Spacetime. Follow all that? Good. Clicky then.

If the phrase “the problem of Susan” means anything to you, you really need to read this very short story. (Narnia fanfic, via Making Light.)

The accidental history of the @ symbol. I always thought it was derived from “ea” for “each”. (via Mrs Meows)

And finally, also via Mrs Meows, gaze into the abyss that is Lindsay Nohands.

Via mrsmeows, here’s a 9-minute doco on a man in a wheelchair building a helicopter out of junk. It’s quite lovely.

Via gbaker, here’s a 9-minute doco on a group of friends playing Settlers of Catan when IT ALL GOES WRONG. It’s actually a dramatic recreation of the event – using the actual people – mixed in with talking heads. Neat stuff.

Jean Grae kills. Kill Screen. Flow deadly as hell plus your true classic arcade sounds. As the lady says, Rappity Rap.

Miniature pigeon camera! Pics of & from the pigeon photographers! (via Mike Upton)

If Star Wars was an 80s school flick (via Fraser P)

Dude, you got Daddy Skills (via lots of folk)

6 degrees of Black Sabbath (via Hugh Dingwall)

Gremlin anatomy

Photos of Christopher Robin & Pooh & the others

Via Andrew Jack – BOSCH ACTION FIGURES well statues or whatever but I’d make He-Man punch them.

People who write letters to lexicographers are as mad as people who write letters to any other place. Feel their pain. (via Making Light)

Papercraft Shackleton’s Endurance! And other disaster dioramas too. (also from Making Light)

Tracking the decline of Livejournal (Making Light again)

Warren Ellis on how to actually see the future. He’s started a Vice column too.

The Wire gets a 16-bit game

And finally… via the City Gallery Wellington, oddly enough… it’s the RAINBOW SPONGE

Delivering info to the court in the form of a comic (part of the ebook antitrust lawsuit playing out right now) (via Miri)
(Also: Judges love Star Trek, at the Legal Geeks)

The guy who wrote Strange Fruit – well. He was involved in some interesting life, as recounted in this short NPR article. (via Vivian G)

The playlist Michael K Williams listened to for playing Omar in The Wire

Gangnam Style, Cosplay Style

GQ’s “of the year” covers: Spot the odd one out.

Stained glass Tolkien

Neat tech demo for HTML5: an animated map of the Firefly ‘verse

The economics of stolen bicycles

Tim Denee explains the secret truth about Team Fortress 2

Star Wars in real life (via Keane)

In 1905 there were two rival comic strips based on the Wizard of Oz

Interesting article that argues work/labour isn’t a good basis for political organization any more – and proposes debt as the alternative. (via Allen Varney)
(Related: George Monbiot’s very short film about what comes after capitalism)

And finally, a squamous & cyclopean take on sex education…

First reading in Parliament passed, by a resounding 2 to 1 majority – it seems like NZ is on the road to marriage equality. Marvellous, marvellous news. Go celebrate with the webseries Husbands, by Jane Espenson among other smart folks. It has just started season 2, has a bunch of neat cameos, and is funny.

Doing the rounds again, a timely reminder of just what a dramatic and risky achievement Neil Armstrong (and Aldrin) managed: Nixon’s speech (by William Safire) prepared in case they didn’t come back. (via Frank)

Melanie Lynskey, NZ’s most Charlie-Sheeniated export, is doing a guest blog run at the interesting Film Experience. I like her DVD collection. Unsurprising really.

Back to the Future in Grand Theft Auto

How the patent system is really, really broken, and Apple’s recent legal victory shows how bad this is for pretty much everything. (via Michael U)

Some cute babbies listen to a guitar. I would have linkied this even before I became a dad. 45 seconds of delight.

Ruth H sent me the amazing Schmidt Pain Index. This is like a menu at a whisky appreciation night, only describing insect stings. (She got it via Mindhacks, who got it via RadioLab, which means this is the third time in six weeks that Friday Linky appreciates Robert Krulwich.)

Somehow or other Malc found this, which is an argument against the existence of e-books that just gets a leeeeeetle bit out of control. Er, WILDLY and OFFENSIVELY out of control.

Y’all are reading Gem Wilder’s blog by now right? She does linky stuff too! Her latest Wilder Web update has a big list of happymaking things, Laurie Penny on Julian Assange, Royal Tenenbaums, Stockholm subway, and moar! And she says nice things about me, *blush*.

Best personal ad ever?

It is actively hurting me to think about climate change stuff right now. George Monbiot captures the zeitgeist in his blog this week, pointing out that news of a huge new record melt of arctic ice was ignored by UK media, while front pages were covered with excited debate over where a new airport runway should go. In the US, the Republican National Convention has turned out to be a de facto climate denial party, rolling back even the verbal concessions to its reality made during the GWB administration. And closer to home, there’s this and there’s this and aaaargh. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
Go read this post by Steve Hickey about why he’s giving a few bucks to the 350 movement. I recommend you do the same. I haven’t done this yet myself but blogging about it here will compel me to follow through. I’ve got to get back on the train of taking actions around this, and every little step builds momentum. (Also related: why we are poles apart on climate change, via Karen)

Baby Got Back, in the style of Ian McKellan (via Judd Karlman)

NYT investigative piece about online reviewers for hire. (via Making Light)

Album sleeves in their original locations (via Pippy D)

Do you have enough reasons yet to love Emma Stone? No? Here’s another one then: Blade Runner photoshoot (via starlajo)(LINK FIXED NOW DOH SORRY)

Star Wars, spaghetti western style (via Pearce)

Jayne Eyre (not a typo) (via Making Light)

An amazing piece of whimsical guerilla public art: ride the bus, make a fish eat people’s heads.

And finally, via Chris Elder: water wigs, images of water exploding on the heads of bald men.

Dog Shaming is being linkied everywhere but I’m linking too because it is indeed perfect. Dogs have a broad range of dog-type emotions, but “shame” might be the one that is most similar to the human version.
Also canine: BARKOUR! (via Fraser P)

I’ve linked to The Dark Room before, but here it is again because it’s been turned into an Edinburgh Fringe show. Well worth a click around. No, I haven’t made it out of the Dark Room, not without being beaten to a pulp anyway. (ta to Craig Oxbrow for the heads up)

Teju Cole, previously mentioned here during that whole Kony debacle, has been continuing his awesome micro-length fiction on Twitter (so different to the other microfiction I’ve seen on Twitter which is almost always about cleverness). Here he explains why a Mos Def/Talib Kweli/Common track from the late 90s is perfect music. (Via Amund. Circuitous hat tip to Michael Upton who recommended listening to Black Star back before it was cool to recommend listening to Black Star.)

Also about hippity hop music: this fascinating piece analyses the rap technique of fabulous Jean Grae from a music composition perspective; & Nathan Rabin’s history of hiphop reaches ’91 with lots of early Tupac and a surprising-to-me revelation about MF Doom’s identity pre-MF Doom.

Music puns! (via MrsMeows)

Strong Female Protagonist: a neat webcomic. Gender, superhero deconstruction, social justice, other stuff. Beautiful art & confident storytelling.

Who influenced who? Crazy data visualisation (via Hugh Dingwall)

NZ is considering legislation to require plain packaging for cigarettes. British American Tobacco’s response is the most reprehensible social marketing campaign in quite some time. (Big spend, too, with lots of TV ads as well as newspaper/magazine presence.) “CREATE” shouts the advertising (see the poster on the NBR), or if you read the small words too, If We Create It, We Should Own It. Yep, they’re making it about intellectual property, which is (1) so unlikely to succeed they’re either grasping at straws or running some elaborate double game, and (2) even more sickening than the usual corporate attempts to co-opt the idea of creative ownership. And I know this isn’t even a link, I’ve basically put a rant in the middle of a linky this week, sorry about that.

Laurie Penny writes an epic, personal, (very triggering of course) piece on rape. Julian Assange on the one hand and the entire Republican party on the other have generated lots of noise on the subject lately, but this account cuts through the din.

Photorealistic portrait created with ballpoint pens.
Speaking of which: customer reviews for BIC’s “For Her” Ballpoint Pen.

Great 2010 Fortean Times article on Dennis Wheatley, writer of super-popular stories of Drawing Room Satanists. (via Danyl)

The rise and fall of grunge typography (via Allen Varney)

53 jokes you probably missed on ‘Arrested Development’ (yep, most of these I missed)

163 horror movies in 2 1/2 minutes

James Earl Jones reads The Raven (via Bruce Baugh)

Door does a Miles Davis impression (via Nick Tipping)

TARDIS blueprint (via Allen Varney)

Maude Apatow (yes relation) writes about falling out of love with Twitter

And finally, via Russell Brown, it turns out Western music has been doing music videos wrong this whole time. K-Pop with PSY shows the way:

NASA and we know it (via half the internet)

Trond thinks about the contradiction of corporates that don’t extend free market principles to their own internal structures, instead operating in strict command & control hierarchies.

Step aside Lego. Playmobil madness is here.

Famous album covers recreated with my socks (via Gem Wilder)

The invader

No doubt you’ve seen the remix Gotye made of his most famous track, entirely from YouTube clips of people covering (or parodying) the song. Svend has pointed out this was inspired by the interesting remix project ThruYou. There is also a TED talk.

War Sand: whoa.

15 minutes of lovely coffee chats between paired-off Brit comedians. Really enjoyable.

Backstage lingo in NYC restaurants (via Paul Litterick)

For my academia peeps: Why Impact Factors Suck

What makes Paris look like Paris?

I’ve seen a few guides to how to correctly fold fitted sheets, but I never remember them. Here’s an excellent step-by-step that is impossible to forget. My sheet-folding life has changed for the better!

David Tennant – spoken word performance of Spandau Ballet’s Gold

The story of…. pallets. Really interesting. (Allen Varney again)

New website actually reads through the Terms of Service for many websites & rates them. Cool cool cool. (Allen Varney again again.)

“Science chicks from history!” (a tumblr) (via Kat Urbaniak)

Mo Farah running away from things

More people are killed by cows than by sharks. So: cow attack survival guide

Indy scenes that never happened (via Craig Oxbrow)

And finally, via Dave Cormack and several other people: Baby Got Back, sung by the movies

And also finally, from everywhere, it’s another Call Me Maybe riff. Wait a second, Chatroulette is still a thing that exists??