Tag: fridaylinky

Halal Linky

This is amazing – spot-on riff on the sitcom format assuming a family of Muslims who are “not that kind of Muslims!” – beautifully done to highlight some of the challenges & injustices faced by Muslims in the US today. And funny! Four very short episodes, and I loved them all.

Via theremina: communes where no-one turned up

New blog you want to read: watching 1970s Coro Street.

Saw Avengers: Age of Ultron. I liked it. I could probably write a lengthy blog post about it but, who cares, right? Anyway, you can basically reverse engineer my opinion by reading this Wired piece about how Marvel’s killing the popcorn movie, and assume I think the writer is wrong about every single thing.

Video games don’t have to be fun

Weird hidden levels of the Kanye West computer game

The unpleasant truth about climate change

Via Billy: the Chewbacca hoodie.

Via Peter A: lovely close-ups of Star Wars original trilogy models. (I feel like some of these models are old friends, but I’ve never seen them in this level of detail before!)

Apparently there was a medieval English colony in the Black Sea? Fascinating piece of history, lining up evidence from various sources.

Nerd culture world exploded about some comments from Simon Pegg. The reaction was dumb. Pegg’s explanatory blogpost is good.

How the media didn’t talk about the WACO shootout. (Hint: race.)

And finally, via Pearce, a job ad that provides a very special opportunity. Full of wonder. “I sometimes just quickly write movie pitches that are 200 pages long so I just need an assistant who isn’t overwhelmed by 200 page movie pitches.” That’s about the most sane thing in there, too.

Cybercrime Linky

Important piece of cultural history: when the FBI raided a game company because they thought their game about hacking was real

David Simon goes into more detail on his prescription for Baltimore, and his fury over what’s going wrong

Reconsidering the Wire in the wake of Baltimore events – what David Simon left out. I don’t find this argument convincing, to be honest, but there are some cogent points in there. Worth a read.

Enter the completely unique fantasy world of Clichéa! It’s so original!

Why does the US Army care so much about women’s lacrosse?

Keith Ng breaks down the journalism breakdown. This is where it’s at, and it ain’t good.

Those ads in your podcast – what’s going on there? Does it matter that they’re there? Interesting overview of the business of podcasting.

The lost short film that played before the Empire Strikes Back has been found

Amazing Lego Millennium Falcon interior

And finally, via Ben: hands being cut off in Marvel movies – a deliberate tribute to Star Wars? Maybe so!

Rinky Dink Linky

via Jenni S: A Good Cartoon, helping out editorial cartoons that need a bit of assistance to be good.

This is why I stopped making an effort to see festival films with a director q&a: every question in every Q&A session ever.

Actually-useful tourist tips for anyone going to NYC. Delivered by an Italian puppet. This would have been good to watch in advance of my visit to Noo Yawk.

It’s no longer Star Wars Day but Tim Russ’s performance in this video is great, so: a Star Trek guy explains Star Wars Day!

A site all about those picture transfer activities, where you rubbed a pencil on a picture to stick it on a background? Anyone younger than me will be saying whut but my GenX peeps will know the ones. Loads of pictures – nostalgiafy your brain: Action Transfers.

Joss Whedon talks about why he left twitter, and it wasn’t because of militant feminists. Where did that story even come from anyway?

How to extract a confession ethically. Really interesting – five simple techniques that work much better than waterboarding.

My fave pop culture critic writes a defence of Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch.

And finally… Anna Kendrick’s Shower Thoughts

Outrageous Linky

Here’s a brutal metaphor for social inequality, compellingly illustrated by Toby Morris.

Jamas has dug up a Wonder Woman TV pilot from the 60s. I’d never heard of this. I can’t bear to watch it, either. Maybe you are stronger than me?

Via Tom Crosby: turns out Lovecraft has strong game in the field of Yo Momma jokes.

David Simon on what’s going on in Baltimore – first on his blog, a short post but read the comments for dozens and dozens of replies from Simon; and then in this detailed Marshall Project interview.

Also, Ta-Nehisi Coates – an address at Johns Hopkins on the roots of the problem and a blog post about why he does not condemn the rioters.

Undisclosed a new podcast offering deep-dive nitty-gritty on the Adnan Sayed case covered in the smash-hit podcast Serial, by people who know more about the case than anyone.

Upsetting detailed article on how there’s no fury like a man scorned, especially when he wants to whip up an online hate group. Discover the seedy, nasty origins of gamergate in this Boston Magazine feature.

Interesting article about the “missing stair” theory in creating safe spaces, involving a typically unpleasant story about a man being out of control and a woman being targetted, this time at a punk gig in Austin, Texas.

Does this link work for all you foreigns? I dunno. But locals should definitely know – probably NZ’s finest ever piece of television, the superb Outrageous Fortune about a criminal family who try to go straight, is all online for the watching at the TV3 site. (This is promotion for the upcoming prequel, Westside, which I dearly hope is as good as it needs to be.)

And finally… girl, you don’t need makeup

Moose Rescue Linky

The Ruminator’s Lord Sutch wrote a followup to my piece on call-out culture, about actually calling people out for sexist/racist nonsense in the real world. Unlike my piece, it’s sharp and short and funny and enraging. Check it.

Typography relies on optical illusions

Ben S revealed to me that the Pac-Man Pong crossover is actually a real game

Incredible Lego Erebor (from the Hobbit)

This was linked everywhere but worth it anyway: David Chase dissects that final sequence from The Sopranos. (Which I still have never watched.)

Buzzfeed has a pretty damn good Whedon interview.

Piece on McSweeney’s: AMERICA JUST ISN’T READY TO WATCH A MEXICAN SHOOT ALIENS, pointed out by David R because the author is Jenette Goldstein’s son. Ouch.
(Also, I was delighted to discover in a recent podcast that Jenette has a retail business in LA: Jenette Bras. If I was a woman living in LA you can bet your smart guns I’d be getting my breasts measured by the most badass woman in movie history.)

So, a card game called Sentinels of the Multiverse has a superhero character who is not just Māori, but a full-on traditional warrior, complete with detailed history of his traditional Māori life experiences. Hurmmmmmmm. (Tipped off by this post on Go Make Me A Sandwich.)

And finally, via Lew S, some Siberians rescue a moose. This cheered me up when I was in a down mood. The music is great.

Jaws Linky

Deconstructing the beach sequence from Jaws

Oral history of Max Headroom

Fascinating and deeply disturbing account of the Boston bombing trial – the questions that were asked, and the questions that weren’t, and what that reveals

VHS covers for recent movies. Superb.

Here’s a poem: The Ten Best Issues of Comic Books (via Pearce)

Also via Pearce: President Obama unleashes the bees as children scream in terror

Two Medieval Monks invent bestiaries – this has gone viral for good reason, it’s very hard to maintain a straight face through this.

Apparently you can bounce a battery to see if it still has a charge

Ten overlooked horror movie classics – I ran this by Pearce and some of these even he hadn’t heard about.

Star Trek fan film, featuring multiple cast members from real Star Trek, and, like whoa man. I don’t care about Trek but this is something special.

Via Daryl & Suraya, a map of rude placenames in the UK

The five psychological barriers to climate action

Via Nancy & Michael U, the New Yorker on the fascinating way “no” can mean “yes”.

Shakespeare Star Wars guy is turning Jar Jar into a political radical.

Jen W’s Contributoria piece on the parents of missing Mexican students at the UN

Fifty great genre-bending books everyone should read – I mostly clicked through to compare cover designs. The rules of cover design are different in each genre, so these books pose some challenges!

And finally, a simply perfect Carly Rae Jepsen/NIN mashup.

Rap Battle Linky

Hodor vs Groot rap battle

Classical violinist does comedic vines. Pretty good stuff! (via Bruce Baugh)

David Roberts at Grist writes a smart, sensible response to Jonathan Franzen’s wacky climate change vs birds New Yorker essay. He hits on some truths about how we make sense of something as big and messy as climate change. It’s a good read.

Sewing pattern art with dialogue added

One of my friend Emma’s poems is being studied in schools. The poem is lovely, and the comments from the yoof of today are marvellous.

The scarily organised system of spreading Russian propaganda through the medium of internet comments.

How tech journalism is failing us, using the example of Meerkat and Periscope. Actually it really is about ethics in tech journalism this time.

If Square Enix designed Star Wars

Did Hugh Hefner build an underground tunnel from the Playboy Mansion to Jack Nicholson’s house?

Hidden behind the dumbest headline you’ll see this month is a great piece on the casting agent behind Freaks & Geeks, the Office, Parks & Rec, and so much more.

Google Maps now has a Pacman mode, where you play Pacman on the streets of your hometown (via Ed)

Buzzfeed guy who randomly becomes a celebrity in China is a fun story.

And finally, Dangerous Minds is right, the musicless music video of the Ghostbusters Theme is very, very interesting

Call-Out Linky

I have a new piece up at the Ruminator: Regarding “call-out culture”: the uncontained fury of the imagined teenage Tumblr feminist. It’s kind of long. Patricia Arquette gets a mention.

Via Pearce: guy makes working Speeder Bike toy

Via Pearce: official US govt website for the Judiciary Committee goes GIF-crazy

Wowsers. 7-minute Star Wars anime, made on weekends. Superb.

Epic piece by one of the original writers on Lost, revealing exactly how much they had planned out at the start. Very revealing, vivid description of being on a writing team for a hit show, loads of industry smarts on display. found it revelatory.

Via Andrew L: Cracked hits up the 7 most demented Choose Your Own Adventure books. Wonderfully weird.

Can’t say I’m convinced by James Corden as Late Late Show host, but this piece with Tom Hanks re-enacting scenes from lots and lots of his films is great fun, because Tom Hanks.

CNN does a parody of Too Many Cooks

Father & daughter team up to make astonishingly good Lego Jurassic Park short

Google Feud is a fantastic way to waste some time.

If you read that strip from the Nib last week where the cartoonist is asked to lighten the skin tone of an ethnic character? You should definitely read this piece looking at the comic in question.

Via Jessica H: solving poverty with four simple words. This is one hell of a piece, extremely worth your time.

Via kate Beaton: 1903 special issue on Bifurcated Girls

How obesity became a disease

UK paper the Daily Express endlessly recycles the same insulting themes for its cover stories. Here’s a great visualisation tool!

All-time top 50 works of interactive fiction (2015 poll results)

A door broke in a German university. You won’t believe what happened next! (But seriously though, this is good, I lol’d.)

Forgot to do this one last week: loads of behind the scenes model shots from Blade Runner

Post-punk icons reimagined as Marvel superheroes.

Huge recent-ish Alan Moore interview that I hadn’t seen.

Via David R, and definitely R-rated so don’t click, Alien: A Sitcom In Space. In space nobody can hear the studio audience.

And finally, via Meredith Y,

Geolocked 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.

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.