June 23
"I think my father is a hateful person first. The religious beliefs gave him a forum and permission to be cruel to the world."
Nate Phelps, son of Fred Phelps,
answers questions about growing up in the Westboro Baptist Church, and his life after leaving it. (Warning: descriptions of domestic violence.)
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posted by roger ackroyd at 4:55 PM - 0 comments
Liz Climo's mostly animal cartoon tumblr,
Hi, I'm Liz.
posted by Atreides at 2:27 PM - 11 comments The Hunt For The Perfect Mattress. 'Technology in bedding is becoming as advanced as that of running shoes or rockets, with an explosion of gels, foams, latex and assorted materials harvested from organic rubber plantations and rare sheep around the globe, being molded, refined and patented by innovators and entrepreneurs to provide night after night of perfect, deep sleep.'
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posted by VikingSword at 2:14 PM - 31 comments
The changing prominence of the contralto. While female contralto pop and jazz singers can be heard on just about every i-device and radio station in the United States and Europe, their classical counterparts are increasingly rare in today's opera, concert, and radio programming.
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posted by Currer Belfry at 1:53 PM - 5 comments
There is a critical shortage of acute mental health services throughout
the nation that is making it increasingly difficult for people who don't meet standards for "imminent danger" to receive adequate care.
Barring a dramatic change in the systems that provide care, what alternatives are there for seriously mentally ill people?
Incarceration has often become a form of care provision, but behavioral courts are an emerging
alternative. (
Previously.)
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posted by liketitanic at 1:33 PM - 4 comments
Essayist and cartoonist Tim Kreider is no stranger to film criticism (
previously) but his thoughtful, surprising, detailed analysis of
Lynch's The Straight Story and
Spielberg/Kubrick's AI deserve special attention.
posted by The Whelk at 12:54 PM - 14 comments Having trouble with Javascript? An automated solution, the descendant of a long line of
DWIM aids to programming, is at hand. (library name NSFW)
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posted by zippy at 12:18 PM - 21 comments For the past 4 days, up to 12 million
NatWest /
Royal Bank of Scotland customers have been unable to pay bills, move money or get paid due to a
technical problem. Customers have been unable to complete on house purchases and some are stuck because they can't pay hotel bills abroad. The new
mobile banking service has also been affected.
The bank has called in
7,000 staff to open all weekend as problems persist.
Just three months ago, the
State-controlled bank
outsourced nearly 300 back-office roles to
Hyderabad in India.
posted by Lanark at 10:48 AM - 42 comments
The Frog's Bollocks (and Other Assorted Bollocks) NSFW. Not Shown To Scale. Not Narrated by Richard Attenborough. NOT related to
this story (I hope). Blame
Drawn.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:10 AM - 14 comments
Conceptual Juggling using illuminated balls is exceptionally mesmerizing.
[slyt]
posted by quin at 10:00 AM - 13 comments
Driving down the street in LA, you may notice coffee shops, gas stations or motels with bright primary colors, sweeping lines, bold angles and a retrofuture feel:
Googie - Architecture of the Space Age [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:55 AM - 13 comments Clearing the Bar Is the Easy Part: [NYTimes] "Mark Hollis is a pole-vaulter, and while he and his competitors here feel significant pressure as they compete for a place on the Olympic team, the anxiety they experience just trying to get their equipment to meets is sometimes even more excruciating."
posted by Fizz at 8:36 AM - 24 comments
The Power of Crowd Sourcing. When Fox News provided a list of ten pranks to help your marriage (as we all know, that junior high locker room horse play was really preparation for a healthy and loving monogamous relationship), the Internet rose as one to say, "These are fantastic, but we need more!" Sorting the comments by Popular/ Best shows you how normal people, people
just like you and me, added a little butter and salt to this Paula Deen-esque confection of an article.
posted by yerfatma at 6:51 AM - 105 comments
Alison Brie gives a candid interview [YT, 29:41] with film critic David Poland as part of his
DP/30 series. Topics covered include her schooling and early career, landing roles on
Mad Men [YT, 0:54] and
Community [YT, 4:52], developing as a comedy actress, interacting with a cult audience, what it's like to be the internet's favorite subject of
titillating animated GIFs, and how to pronounce "GIF" for that matter.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:58 AM - 34 comments
Almost sixty years ago,
a BBC satirical review created a segment to mark current events in Mississippi. Almost sixty years later, Millicent Martin's song and dance number
still has the power to shock. (slyt, nsfw, inflammatory/racist language, etc.)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:10 AM - 31 comments June 22
Increasing evidence suggests that the alarming rise in allergic and autoimmune disorders during the past few decades is at least partly attributable to our lack of exposure to microorganisms that once covered our food and us.
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posted by j03 at 11:46 PM - 79 comments
Happy 100th birthday, Alan Turing! 2012 is the
Alan Turing Year, with celebratory academic events around the world all year.
BBC News has a set of (brief) appreciations, including one in which two of
Turing's colleagues share memories. Google has an
interactive Doodle of a Turing Machine today (that article has some explanation and links to a useful video if the doodle's confusing).
[more inside]
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:53 PM - 20 comments As a marriage advocate, the time has come for me to accept gay marriage and emphasize the good that it can do. I’d like to explain why.
The founder and president of the socially conservative Institute for American Values has changed his mind on same-sex marriage. If not much else.
posted by gracedissolved at 7:04 PM - 86 comments
These Americans is an historical photo narrative with such gems as "
Photobooth", "
Last Prisoners Leave Alcatraz", Dorothea Lange:"
Internment", and the very sexy "
Tally Ho". *Nudity and other possibly offensive photos for some*
posted by gman at 5:10 PM - 29 comments
Murray Leinster wrote more than
fifteen hundred works of speculative fiction. Technovelgy notes the
science fiction tropes and devices that he invented, as well as other writers.
Chee!
posted by winna at 4:17 PM - 17 comments Kirsty Mitchell's late mother Maureen was an English teacher who spent her life inspiring generations of children with imaginative stories and plays. Following Maureen's death from a brain tumour in 2008, Kirsty channelled her grief into her passion for photography.
She retreated behind the lens of her camera and created
Wonderland, an ethereal fantasy world.
posted by Arbac at 3:29 PM - 12 comments
The season finale of
The Legend of Korra is upon us - airing in the United States tomorrow on Nickelodeon. Korra creators
Michael Dante DiMartino and
Bryan Konietzko answer questions at the
Wall Street Journal about the show and
the finale (season spoilers) ahead of time. It's not too late to catch up by
watching all 10 previous episodes here.
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posted by Atreides at 2:13 PM - 84 comments Poland shaken by case alleging an illicit CIA prison there. 'For years, the idea seemed unthinkable, absurd. A secret U.S. detention center in a remote corner of Poland, where Al Qaeda suspects were brutally interrogated by the CIA? About as likely as "the Loch Ness monster," is how one Pole described it recently. That monster is now rearing its head.'
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posted by VikingSword at 2:02 PM - 82 comments
Where to see Kandinsky in the world's museums. Each museum page links to images, including many early works. Eye candy.
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posted by Listener at 1:00 PM - 19 comments
GDP since Jesus. That headline is a big promise. But here it is: The economic history of the world going back to Year 1 showing the major powers' share of world GDP, from a research letter written by Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JP Morgan.
everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world. [more inside]
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:54 AM - 76 comments
Adaptive sports are generally limited to people with disabilities. What if
everyone participated in adaptive sports?
posted by chickenmagazine at 11:28 AM - 34 comments
Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror is a YouTube video guaranteed to get you excited about NASA again. It shows the elaborate process that will get the
Curiosity rover onto the
Martian surface on
August 5. It involves the largest supersonic parachute ever built, multiple vehicles, 76 explosive devices, and a
skycrane.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:13 AM - 70 comments
"Book TV's
After Words features the author of a recently published hardback non-fiction book interviewed by a guest host with some knowledge, background, or connection to the subject matter of the book." There's also a
podcast version (link goes to XML feed), for those who'd rather listen. Many more non-fiction author interviews can be found at
Booknotes (transcripts and streaming video). If your tastes run to interviews with authors of fiction, check out the BBC's
Modern Writers archive.
(BookTV (but not specifically After Words) previously, Booknotes (but before the series ended) previously.)
posted by cog_nate at 11:05 AM - 7 comments The female bandmembers of
Chairlift,
Au Revoir Simone,
Class Actress, and
This Frontier Needs Heroes get together with "
an essentially revolving cast of indie Brooklyn sirens, twice a year in a living room in Greenpoint to cover a single, classic song that they learn and arrange right before they perform. Calling themselves
Girl Crisis, the group covers a classic (mostly
a capella) from a male artist each Winter and a female artist each Summer. The performances are are filmed with a Super 8 camera, are not open to the public and exist only online. Their latest: Leonard Cohen's
"Dance Me To The End of Love".
(Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:43 AM - 40 comments on{X} is an automation framework that allows you to program and customize various aspects of your Android Smartphone using JavaScript. The developers at Microsoft have also provided a set of customizable pre-baked
recipes for the JavaScriptially-challenged.
[more inside]
posted by schmod at 10:26 AM - 22 comments
These
pictures of Petere Gentenaar's large sculptural paper flowers floating in the Abbey Church of Saint-Riquier are fantastic.
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posted by julen at 10:24 AM - 8 comments A gamma-ray burst, the most energetic explosions in the universe, converted to music. What does the universe look like at high energies? Thanks to the
Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), we can extend our sense of sight to "see" the universe in gamma rays. But humans not only have a sense of sight, we also have a sense of sound. If we could listen to the high-energy universe, what would we hear? What does the universe sound like?
posted by netbros at 10:02 AM - 21 comments
Seven Kittens is exactly what it says on the tin. (Plus or minus a cat.)
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posted by Kadin2048 at 9:57 AM - 56 comments
Have
food pouches become the mainstay of the eating culture of young American children? "Mr. Grimmer believes the pouch’s popularity can be attributed to the emergence of a new way of relating to our children. He calls it “free-range parenting.”Parents, he explained, want to be as flexible as modern life demands. And when it comes to eating, that means doing away with structured mealtimes in favor of a less structured alternative that happens not at set times, but whenever a child is hungry." Some people
have concerns about the trend.
posted by Xurando at 9:02 AM - 181 comments glitch + gifs =
glitchgifs (SLTumblr, blinky)
posted by griphus at 6:59 AM - 60 comments Payhole.me. The Rules: Feed me money. Put in an address. Get something in the mail. [via
mefi projects]
posted by davidjmcgee at 6:31 AM - 68 comments
Wellcome Image Awards 2012 "Wellcome Images is the world's leading source of images of medicine and its history, from ancient civilisation and social history to contemporary healthcare, biomedical science and clinical medicine. More than 180 000 images ranging from manuscripts, rare books, archives and paintings to X-rays, clinical photography and scanning electron micrographs are available on the Wellcome Images website." (
Previously &
Previously) [cortex, is that
you?]
posted by OmieWise at 5:46 AM - 2 comments
In Praise of Leisure - "Imagine a world in which most people worked only 15 hours a week. They would be paid as much as, or even more than, they now are, because the fruits of their labor would be distributed more evenly across society. Leisure would occupy far more of their waking hours than work. It was exactly this prospect that John Maynard Keynes conjured up in a little essay published in 1930 called '
Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.' Its thesis was simple. As technological progress made possible an increase in the output of goods per hour worked, people would have to work less and less to satisfy their needs, until in the end they would have to work hardly at all... He thought this condition might be reached in about 100 years — that is, by 2030." (
via)
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posted by kliuless at 5:43 AM - 116 comments
Femfresh is a product designed for making one's ladygarden more fragrant. Yet despite the success of their TV ad campaign, which took euphemisms for one's velvet glove and spun them into a fifties song (
previously), their
Facebook page is
seeing a backlash from users who believe that vaginal deodorants are
unhealthy,
unnecessary and
sexist and that
euphemisms for the sticky bun are infantile. [NSFW content in links, Facebook page may require login to view]
posted by mippy at 5:00 AM - 136 comments
The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia is Matt Taibbi's take on
the recent convictions in the municipal bond bid-rigging case of
United States v. Dominick P. Carollo, Steven E. Goldberg, and Peter S. Grimm. These three fraudsters are among the fifteen convicted so far with regard to the federal government's investigation into nationwide municipal bond bid-rigging schemes.
[more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:18 AM - 42 comments
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