I Met The Walrus
This has been floating around for some time now, but I don’t think it’s been here and it is fantastic enough to mention for the um-teenth million time on the web. The short story on the video:
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack
hat tip to It’s Nice That for the reminder.
Big Star – Thirteen
A few days late by web standards, but RIP Alex Chilton
caught sleeping
A good Rohrer-related read:
She shrieked in response and called for her friends. I ran back into the safety of the bathroom only to find that I’d been in the women’s room the whole time, and there were more girls here now. I tried to hide in a stall as a small mob gathered — everyone angry, taunting — wondering how I might escape.
One girl took pity and yelled for me to follow her. We made a fast exit. She pulled me toward an adjacent restroom, and told me to come close so she could tell me a secret. Feeling like this could easily be a trap, but too stunned and confused to object, I inched closer. “Banana bread,” she whispered.
supersized quantum mechanics
The day I see ”double-decker buses simultaneously stopping and going” is the day I remove my cat from its hermetically sealed box:
Cleland and his team took a more direct measure of quantum weirdness at the large scale. They began with a a tiny mechanical paddle, or ‘quantum drum’, around 30 micrometres long that vibrates when set in motion at a particular range of frequencies. Next they connected the paddle to a superconducting electrical circuit that obeyed the laws of quantum mechanics. They then cooled the system down to temperatures below one-tenth of a kelvin.
At this temperature, the paddle slipped into its quantum mechanical ground state. Using the quantum circuit, Cleland and his team verified that the paddle had no vibrational energy whatsoever. They then used the circuit to give the paddle a push and saw it wiggle at a very specific energy.
(via kottke)
Dogs as Typefaces
I feel like the combination of these two things constitute a perfect storm for Deron and Amy.
The Smurfette Principle
via Drew
Home Taping is Killing Music
Y’all were missed.
I had a fantastic time in San Francisco with Amanda Mae, Kelsey, and India. We broke bread and ate goat.
Chatroulette Map
We can geolocate pervs now. (via)
Tron Legacy
I pretty much just expect about an hour of eye candy, but I am still going to go see it.
Surfer Blood – Catholic Pagans
The Weezer comparison seems to be common in my music circles. Pitchfork also makes it.
So, a lion, two sheep, and a bear are pulling a cart…
King Crimson – Lark’s Tongue and Aspic Part I
I like my metal either over the top or just plain weird.
Beck – Tropicalia
I figured I would go old school today.
Lessig on Conservatives
Incidentally, when I was sixteen, I was doing work for the New York Republican State Committee during the 1996 Republican National Convention. (hat tip to Luke)
Sleep Is Death
Jason Rohrer’s preview of his new game, Sleep Is Death. I almost forgot to post this, but Andy’s link reminded me of it.
Geek Lust
Portal 2 is official.
Palin 2012
(hat tip to Luke)
astronauts
A nice series by Phillip J. Bond
Venus De Milo sculpted from snow
Well, the torso anyway (or so they claim). And in an act of classic Jersey:
Police told a Rahway, New Jersey family to cover their nude snow woman after an anonymous complaint.
Hot Chip – Apple Bobbing (Four Tet Remix)
I can understand why a guy would have this on repeat.
Oration
There are almost too many ideas floating around this article to summarize it adequately (Lloyd takes a pretty good stab at it). One of my favorites is the suggestion that great political orators are incapable of existing now because politicians give too many speechs:
The modern politician also has to make more speeches than ever before. It is “the tyranny of the diary”, according to Collins – where ministers will make hundreds of speeches a year, to conferences, pressure groups, openings of doctors’ surgeries. “The vast majority of these speeches are dates in the diary rather than things you’ve got to say. It’s no wonder speeches are boring if you’re doing that many. None of us has got novel things to say every week.” Lancaster agrees, remembering times working for Johnson when he’d be “churning out 10,000 words” a week. He sounded tired at the thought. “That’s not the best way to do it.”
Atkinson blames the media. He believes we are obsessed with personality, with “endless bloody interviews”. In his eyes, the devaluing of politics at the hands of journalists is encapsulated by the decline of the speech. Broadcasters, he suspects, have conspired against the form, convinced that it makes bad television. The media no longer have the time or interest to engage with the issues. Instead, they demand the soundbite, the personality and, best of all, the gaffe.
Tilt-Shift NYC
Tilt-shift seems incapable of getting old.
The Brothers Bloom
This is literally the best movie I have seen in ten years and you need to see ASAP.
Update: Amanda Mae’s interview with the director, Rian Johnson.
I want this lamp
