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AI Jukebox is a fascinating project from OpenAI...
Guess the AI Jukebox artist AI Jukebox is a fascinating project from OpenAI that uses cutting-edge neural neworks to perform all sorts of musical magic -- it can take a clip of a song and continue it in a new way, sing text lyrics in any artist's voice, make a song sound like it's being sung by someone else. My favorite? Tell it to generate music by an artist without any other info, and it will produce a gibberish song with nonsense lyrics... that still sounds 100% real and just like the actual singer or band with their unique style.
You can hear instruments, melodies, sometimes an audience, the breathing of the lead singer -- but the whole thing is generated completely from scratch by the AI, not with samples or digital sounds. It's not flawless -- some of the songs ramble, with glitchy effects or a mutating voice. But these just add to the vibe, like it's from a dream or a parallel universe.
I went through their database to find the best examples of these tracks from the most famous artists, then turned them into an audio quiz on Sporcle -- complete with AI-generated art of the artists I made to serve as hints in the second round. How many of the artists can you name?
Joe Biden's first State of the Union address
Happening now: President Joe Biden delivers his first official State of the Union address (after last year's "address to a joint session") during a time of crisis both domestic and international. Tune in on YouTube to hear #46 on coronavirus, democracy, the economy, the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the situation in Ukraine, for the first time with two women on the podium behind him, and for (potentially) the last time under full Democratic control of Washington.
Bitrot that doesn't kill posts makes them stronger
> comp.basilisk - Frequently Asked Questions :: Is it just an urban legend that the first basilisk destroyed its creator?
Almost everything about the incident at the Cambridge IV supercomputer facility where Berryman conducted his last experiments has been suppressed and classified as highly undesirable knowledge. It's generally believed that Berryman and most of the facility staff died. Subsequently, copies of basilisk B-1 leaked out. This image is famously known as the Parrot for its shape when blurred enough to allow safe viewing. B-1 remains the favorite choice of urban terrorists who use aerosols and stencils to spray basilisk images on walls by night. But others were at work on Berryman's speculations...
Almost everything about the incident at the Cambridge IV supercomputer facility where Berryman conducted his last experiments has been suppressed and classified as highly undesirable knowledge. It's generally believed that Berryman and most of the facility staff died. Subsequently, copies of basilisk B-1 leaked out. This image is famously known as the Parrot for its shape when blurred enough to allow safe viewing. B-1 remains the favorite choice of urban terrorists who use aerosols and stencils to spray basilisk images on walls by night. But others were at work on Berryman's speculations...
Classic Megaposts Remixed
In 2008 and 2011, we explored the early history of two titans of children's television. Starting in the '80s, fresh off success with MTV, producer Fred Seibert helped revitalize a struggling Nickelodeon with a comprehensive brand overhaul -- infectious doowop jingles, surreal interstitials, and a visionary slate of original shorts that brought it "from worst to first" in the ratings. In the '90s, he followed suit at Cartoon Network, working with creative director Michael Ouweleen on a series of inventive musical idents that reinterpreted the network's properties through stock footage, indie music, and original animation in a wide variety of styles, along with another groundbreaking roster of shorts that, along with the Nicktoons, would become some of the most famous in the history of American animation. [warning: Frankenstein's monster post inside]
Another day in Pontypool
Originally released back in 2008, Canadian indie horror flick Pontypool [trailer] is a modern zombie tale quite unlike any other. Loosely based on a dense, complicated novel by Tony Burgess and inspired by Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, it tells the story of Grant Mazzy, a grumbling yet likable radio host (played by veteran character actor Stephen McHattie) whose penchant for philosophical ramblings gets him booted from Toronto to the sleepy winter pastures of Pontypool, Ontario. One bleak morning, as the outspoken Mazzy chafes against no-nonsense producer Sydney Briar (played by McHattie's wife Lisa Houle!), disturbing news begins rolling in of a series of bizarre and violent incidents sweeping the town. Trapped in their church basement broadcasting booth, Mazzy, Briar, and intern Laurel-Ann Drummond struggle to understand the odd nature of the crisis and warn the wider world before it's too late. But this is no ordinary virus, and they find their efforts may be causing far more harm than good. You can watch the film on YouTube or Kanopy, but if you're pressed for time you can also experience it in its more logical form: as a one-hour BBC radio drama [Archive.org audio version] voiced by the original cast (albeit with a different ending). And after the credits, make sure not to miss the film's playful non-sequitur coda [analysis] -- which was spun off into the buckwild 2020 "sequel" Dreamland starring McHattie, Houle, Juliette Lewis, and Henry Rollins.
The Beat-Alls: Get Back
21 years ago this month, Cartoon Network aired a very special episode of The Powerpuff Girls. Though nominally a harmless kids series about three adorable kindergarten superheroes, creator Craig McCracken attracted an unexpectedly diverse audience (50% male, 25% adult) by sneaking in a surprising amount of violent mood whiplash and adult in-jokes -- and on that last point, this particular episode was king. Broadcast on the 37th anniversary of their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show, "Meet the Beat-Alls" was an extended and sophisticated metaphor for the rise and fall of The Beatles, cramming more than forty song references and dozens of visual jokes into only ten minutes of animated allegory. Catch the original episode here or read the transcript, but for the full effect, watch this remarkable YouTube mash-up (playable via the Wayback Machine!) that splices the referenced song clips directly into the audio track. Want more PPG goodness? You can start with the special "Powerpuff Girls Rule!!!", a sly, hyperkinetic celebration of the show's tenth anniversary directed by McCracken himself that features every character (and totally subverts an important one). But as far as weirdness goes, it's hard to top Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, a long-running fan-made webcomic which stars the trio alongside Dexter, Samurai Jack, Invader Zim, and tons of other network icons in an unusually dark manga adventure. Oh, and don't forget your plate of beans.
Still Incredible
Stephen Biesty is an award-winning British illustrator famous for his bestselling "Incredible" series of engineering art books: Incredible Cross-Sections, Incredible Explosions, Incredible Body, and many more. A master draftsman, Biesty does not use computers or even rulers in composing his intricate and imaginative drawings, relying on nothing more than pen and ink, watercolor, and a steady hand. Over the years, he's adapted his work to many other mediums, including pop-up books, educational games (video), interactive history sites, and animation. You can view much of his work in the zoomable galleries on his professional page, or click inside for a full listing of direct links to high-resolution, desktop-quality copies from his and other sites, including several with written commentary from collaborator Richard Platt [site, .mp3 chat].
A Long Bet Pays Off
Cool news from Archive.org:
11 years ago, on the site longbets.org, a friendly wager was made between two mavens of the web: Jeremy Keith and Matthew Haughey. The bet, to be revisited a decade and a year later, would be whether the URL of their wager at Long Bets would survive to a point in the semi-distant future. That is, this day, February 22nd, 2022, (2/22/2222).
As of this writing, the URL absolutely has survived.
The sublime science fiction of Ted Chiang
Twelve years on, Ted Chiang remains perhaps the finest author in contemporary science fiction -- and the most rarefied. A technical writer by trade and a graduate of the distinguished Clarion Writers Workshop, Chiang has published only eighteen short stories in the last thirty years, one and a half dozen masterpieces of the genre whose insightful, precise, often poetic language confronts fundamental ideas -- intelligence, consciousness, the nature of God -- and thrusts them into a dazzling new light. His collected works, mostly available in the anthologies Stories of Your Life and Others (2010) and Exhalation: Stories (2019), have cemented his reputation as one of the greatest SF storytellers of all time (and inspired one of the best SF movies of all time). Click inside for a complete listing of Chiang's work, with links to online reprints or audio versions where available, as well as a collection of one-on-one interviews, links to his other writings, video essays, movie clips, and lots more.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Humanity (2nd Edition)
Everybody knows TVTropes is the best and most time-killing-est way to learn about the clichés and archetypes that permeate modern media. But dear reader, there is so much more. Enter UsefulNotes. Originally created as a place for tropers to pool factual information as a writing aid, the subsite has quietly grown into a small wiki of its own -- a compendium of crowdsourced wisdom on a staggering array of topics, all written in the site's signature brand of lighthearted snark. Though it reads like an irreverent and informal Wikipedia, its articles act as genuinely useful primers to complex and obscure topics alike, all in service of the project's three goals: "To debunk common media stereotypes; To help you understand some media better; To inform (and sometimes entertain) about subjects common in storytelling." Click inside for bountiful highlights... if you dare.
"Very grateful sentient tomatoes busily working on their third opera"
Halfway through the third book of the Hitchhiker's Guide series, there is a throwaway reference to a doomed starship, one whose incredible splendor was matched only by the cosmic absurdity of its maiden-day annihilation.
But the story didn't end there. Unbeknownst to many fans, this small piece of Adamsian lore was the inspiration for an ambitious and richly-detailed side-story: a 1998 computer adventure game called Starship Titanic.
Designed by Douglas Adams himself, the game set players loose in the infamous vessel, challenging them with a maddening mystery laced with the devilish wit of the novels.
The game was laden with extra content, including an in-depth strategy guide, a (mediocre) tie-in novel (and audiobook) by Terry Jones, a whimsical First Class In-Flight Magazine, and even a pair of 3D glasses for one of the more inventive puzzles.
Key to solving these puzzles was the game's groundbreaking communications system -- players interacted with the ship's robotic crew through a natural language parsing engine called SpookiTalk, whose 10,000+ lines of conversational dialogue spawned 16 hours of audio recorded by professional voice actors, including John Cleese, Terry Jones, and even Douglas Adams himself in several cameos (spoiler cameo). Want to experience the voyage for yourself? Then pick up a $6 modernized copy of the game on Steam or GOG, watch this narrated video playthrough... or peruse this spectacular MetaFilter comment from developer Yoz Grahame, which touches on not just behind-the-scenes trivia and unknown easter eggs, but the most remarkable story of accidental online community you're ever going to hear.
Disney's Tower of Babel
Unlike many cinematic exports, the Disney canon of films distinguishes itself with an impressive dedication to dubbing.
Through an in-house service called Disney Character Voices International, not just dialogue but songs, too, are skillfully re-recorded, echoing the voice acting, rhythm, and rhyme scheme of the original work to an uncanny degree (while still leaving plenty of room for lyrical reinvention).
The breadth of the effort is surprising, as well -- everything from Arabic to Icelandic to Zulu gets its own dub, and their latest project, Encanto, debuted in more than forty tongues (can you even name that many?).
Luckily for polyglots everywhere, the exhaustiveness of Disney's translations is thoroughly documented online in multilanguage mixes and one-line comparisons, linguistic kaleidoscopes that cast new light on old standards. Highlights:
"One Jump Ahead," "Prince Ali," and "A Whole New World" (Aladdin) -
"Circle of Life," "Hakuna Matata," and "Luau!" (The Lion King) -
"Part of Your World", "Under the Sea", and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" (The Little Mermaid) -
"Belle" and "Tale as Old as Time" (Beauty and the Beast) -
"Just Around the Riverbend" and "Colors of the Wind" (Pocahontas) -
"One Song" and "Heigh-Ho" (Snow White) -
"When You Wish Upon a Star" (Pinocchio) -
"When She Loved Me" (Toy Story 2) -
"Let It Go" (Frozen) -
"How Far I'll Go" and "You're Welcome" (Moana) -
"Remember Me" (Coco) -
"We Don't Talk About Bruno" (Encanto) -
Disney Classics, Princesses, Heroes, and Villains in their native languages
Scary Sketches We Glimpsed in the Dark
More than forty years ago, folklorist Alvin Schwartz published Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the first of three horror anthologies that would go on to become the single most challenged book series of the 1990s. But most of the backlash was against not the stories themselves (which were fairly tame), but rather the illustrations of artist Stephen Gammell, whose bizarre, grotesque, nightmarish black-and-white inkscapes suffused every page with an eerie, unsettling menace.
While the books were briefly re-issued in 2010 with new, milder illustrations by Brett Helquist of A Series of Unfortunate Events fame, the outcry was so great that the move was reversed a few years later. Gammell's dark vision would go on to inspire several monsters in the respectable 2019 film adaptation produced by Guillermo del Toro (with a sequel on the way).
But for purists, the original art is available for your viewing pleasure: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones. Interested in revisiting the stories themselves? Then don't miss the dramatic readings of YouTuber daMeatHook, or the official audiobook(s) narrated by Patton Oswalt, Melissa McBride, and Alex Brightman.
Choose Wisely
It's a simple concept: Given a choice between two random movies, which one do you like best? That's the driving force behind Flickchart, an addictive review site for movie lovers. Faced with two posters, click the one for the title you prefer (weeding out the ones you haven't seen). Good! Now do it again. And again. And again. With each new face-off, Flickchart perfects a growing list of your favorite films -- and there can be no ties. This leads to some difficult dilemmas: Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark? Citizen Kane or The Godfather? WALL-E or Spirited Away? But you needn't struggle alone -- Flickchart is also social. By drawing on the data of tens of thousands of fellow users, you can create remarkably specific lists: Martin Scorsese's Best Period Films. The Best Road Movies of the 1980s. The Worst Movies of All Time. If you rank enough films, you can generate interesting personalized charts, like "Your Favorite Musicals" or "The Best Movies You Haven't Seen." These filters carry over to the ranking system, letting you judge nothing but Horror movies or 1960s movies or unranked movies or movies from your top 100. You can also comment on popular match-ups, lending your voice to contentious debates like Ghostbusters vs. Back to the Future or Jaws vs. Predator. Not a movie fan? Don't worry. Flickchart will be expanding into books, games, and music soon at some point. Until then, you can give your own data sets the Flickchart treatment using this tool from Gwern Branwen.
Revisiting the Authorized Guide and Companion to Dune
Snippets of poetry from the Imperium; a sample folk tale from the Oral History; brief biographies of over a dozen Duncan Idahos; two differing approaches to Paul Muad'Dib himself and to his son Leto II; Fremen recipes; Fremen history; secrets of the Bene Gesserit; the songs of Gurney Halleck -- these are just some of the treasures found when an earthmover fell into the God Emperor's no-room at Dar-es-Balat. Out of print for more than three decades, disavowed by Frank Herbert's estate, and highly sought-after by fans, the legendary Dune Encyclopedia is now available on Archive.org as a fully illustrated and searchable PDF.
Previously on Lost (previously)
Nearly a dozen years since the series finale of Lost, the intricate story might seem a little hazy in retrospect. One could always refresh with Lostpedia, sardonic animations, or high-speed costumed re-enactments. Or for longtime fans, why not reminisce by revisiting the show's infamous bookends -- the artfully inscrutable scenes which introduce or conclude each season (plus a few other key scenes)? S1: Pilot - The Monster - Walkabout - Sawyer's letter - Jin and Sun - Parting Words - Exodus - S2: Make Your Own Kind of Music - Rose and Bernard - The Button - S3: Downtown - Hurley's Van - Charlie - We Have to Go Back - S4: Oceanic Six - The Constant - Alex - The Coffin - S5: Mineshaft - Jacob and the Man in Black - What About Me? - S6: Sideways - Underwater - The Submarine - Final Battle - Moving On - The End - Epilogue. Or settle in and watch this 3-hour retrospective labor of love.
A time capsule of a time capsule from the dawn of computer animation
Five years before Toy Story proved to the world that pure CGI -- a field long relegated to the role of special effects -- could be an art form in its own right, Odyssey Productions attempted to do the same on a slightly smaller scale. Drawing on the demo reels, commercials, music videos, and feature films of over 300 digital animators, the studio collated dozens of beautiful* and cutting-edge clips** into an ambitious 40-minute art film called The Mind's Eye. Backed by an eclectic mix of custom-written electronic, classical, oriental, and tribal music, the surreal, dreamlike imagery formed a rough narrative in eight short segments that illustrated the evolution of life, technology, and human society: Creation - Civilization Rising - Heart of the Machine - Technodance - Post Modern - Love Found - Leaving the Bonds of Earth - The Temple - End credits (including names and sources for all clips used). It was the beginning of a groundbreaking and influential audiovisual series -- all of which has been lovingly preserved by digital archivists decades after the fact.
Look at this stuff. It was airtight.
Almost Everything by Kirby Ferguson was a web series featuring a good-natured Canadian geek who used slick, fast-paced video presentations to comment on the world's ills. Highlights: Trajan is the Movie Font - Slumdog Controversy - Talent is Hard Work. Ferguson would soon perfect his craft with the sprawling pop-cultural project Everything is a Remix [website - transcripts] -- described in a 2011 Atlantic interview as a "sweeping, four-part series asserting that all creative work is a recombination and transformation of existing elements" that is "as much a philosophical odyssey as a documentary series" -- as well as This is Not a Conspiracy Theory, "a documentary about where conspiracy theories come from, what they reveal about all of us, and the real quest to discover the hidden forces that shape our lives."
It was a great day for America, everybody
Circa 2010, after David Letterman signed off and the Worldwide Pants production logo faded, viewing audiences were oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly became the impromptu dance floor for a shameless Scot making an absolute giddy fool of himself while lip-syncing pop songs alongside a menagerie of puppets (and a couple of scantily-costumed stagehands). Preserved on YouTube for your viewing pleasure, the complete collection of Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show musical numbers:
"Say Hey (I Love You)" [Michael Franti & Spearhead] -
"White Lines" [Duran Duran] -
"Wonderful Night" [Fatboy Slim] -
"Istanbul" [They Might Be Giants] -
"Oops!...I Did It Again" [Britney Spears] -
"MMMBop" [Hanson] -
"In the Navy" [Village People] -
"Fireball" [Don Spencer] -
"I'm Yours" [Jason Mraz] -
"The Lonely Goatherd" [The Sound of Music] -
"She Taught Me How To Yodel" [ Frank Ifield] -
"Fire!" [Arthur Brown] -
"Monster Mash" [Boris Pickett] -
"Over At the Frankenstein Place" [Rocky Horror Picture Show] -
"I Melt with You" [Modern English] -
"Addicted to Love" [Robert Palmer] -
"Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" [Trace Adkins] -
"Ça Plane Pour Moi" [Plastic Bertrand] -
"Scottish Rite Temple Stomp" [Ninian Hawick] -
"Look Out, There's a Monster Coming" [Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band] -
"Chant of the Wanderer" [Sons of the Pioneers] -
"Take Your Tongue Out of My Mouth" [Jeff Daniels] -
"You've Got a Friend" [James Taylor] -
"Dracula's Lament" [Jason Segel] -
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" -
The lost "Dr. Who" cold open -
The show's full theme song, "Tomorrow's Just Your Future Yesterday" -
The spectacular farewell number: "Bang Your Drum" [Dead Man Fall]
Pepsi re-Review
It's a bit late (and not quite as "official" as the last time around), but as we approach Super Bowl LVI, why not consider revisiting some of the best non-Super Bowl commercials of the 2010s: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like [Old Spice] - Ship My Pants [Kmart] - Love Has No Labels [Ad Council] - One Second per Day [Save the Children] - Lamp 2 [IKEA] - Back to School Essentials [Sandy Hook Promise] - Embrace Life [Sussex Safer Roads] - A Boy and His Duck [Iams] - Dumb Ways to Die [Melbourne Metro] - The Truth is Worth It [NYTimes] - Like A Girl [Always] - The Best Men Can Be [Gillette] - Reindeer Games [Microsoft] - Eat the Ice Cream [Halo Top] - Dilly Dilly [Bud Light] - Dream Crazy [Nike] - Monty the Penguin [John Lewis] - The Epic Split [Volvo] - Dave's Epic Strut [MoneySupermarket] - Real Beauty Sketches [Dove] - I Will What I Want [Under Armour] - Plash Speed [Sony; subtitles] - Wes Anderson: Come Together [H&M] - Thank You, Mom [P&G] - Share a Coke [Coca-Cola]
Can you find Satan (again)?
In 2009, years before he would fully debase himself in service of neofascist Trumpist iconography, conservative painter Jon McNaughton graced the internet with a work that he claimed "may truly be the most important new painting of the twenty first century": One Nation Under God. A veritable who's-who of right-wing bugaboos and sacred cows, McNaughton felt compelled to include an interactive canvas to explain the myriad symbols... a gimmick that was soon brilliantly skewered by Shortpacked! creator David Willis. Blithe to criticism, McNaughton would follow up this opus with more Kinkade-meets-Garrison giclée schlock that would embody the conservative psychodrama of the 2010s, including The Forgotten Man, Legacy of Hope, and -- what else? -- NFTs. But is he trolling the left, or the right?
Hier soir c'était une bonne soirée!
Twelve years ago, to celebrate their initiation week, 172 communications students at the University of Quebec at Montreal decided to put on a show. After weeks of preparation, the costumed and prop-wielding crowd enacted an exuberant, complex, and flawlessly-choreographed performance of the Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feeling" that sprawled through the campus's multi-story Judith Jasmin Pavilion... and they did it all in one continuous take (on their second try). A look behind the scenes. A decade later, a new student body recreated the spectacle with a new song. It was the capstone on a long-running fad called lipdubbing -- a video phenomenon where a single camera moves through a crowd of highly coordinated lip-syncers in a single seamless take, with the original recording dubbed over the finished product.
When Wolf Blitzer got Richt-rolled
Just over a dozen years ago, Andy Richter destroyed Wolf Blitzer in Celebrity Jeopardy (twice, if you count the rehearsal show). His final score of $68,000 (donated to St. Jude's) remains the highest one-day total for the invitational. Of course, Richter is no stranger to the game.
Advertising (reruns) in the public interest
"What if America wasn't America?" That was the question posed by a series of ads broadcast in the wake of the September 11th attacks, ads which depicted a dystopian America bereft of liberty: Library - Diner - Church - Arrest. Together with more positive ads like It All Starts with Freedom, Remember Freedom, and I Am an American, they encouraged frightened viewers to cherish their liberties and defend against division and prejudice in the face of terrorism [20 years previously]. The campaign was the work of the Ad Council, a non-profit agency that employs the creative muscle of volunteer advertisers to raise awareness for social issues of national importance. Founded during WWII as the War Advertising Council, the organization has been behind some of the most memorable public service campaigns in American history, including Rosie the Riveter, Smokey Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog, and the Crash Test Dummies. And the Council is still at it today, producing striking, funny, and above all effective PSAs on everything from student invention to global warming to arts education to John Cena reminding us that loving America means loving all Americans, dammit [previously].
Remember the Alt Text
It was a simple story about a responsible owl, trying to raise a curious (human) son and a geeky (human) daughter in their giant treehouse while dealing with his longtime bear buddy (and honey researcher), Steve. Though it debuted, humbly enough, in the Cracked.com forums, Benjamin Driscoll's drolly sweet comic Daisy Owl soon gained a loyal following, earning a regular feature there and routinely making the front pages of sites like Digg and Reddit. In March 2009, Driscoll went pro, quitting his job to work on the comic full-time and making Daisy Owl one of the few self-sufficient webcomics on the net. Its quirky, character-driven humor, focused mainly on children, friendship, and families, earned comparisons to a PG-rated Achewood, as well as plenty of fan art. Highlights: Basement - Honey - Parenting - Shampoo - Skittle on the Moon - Nightmare - Movie Night - Thrift Store - Classic Dad - Wallpapers
Monsters Inc + Nightmare Before Christmas + retro Japanese videogame = …
"Once upon a time there was a game that nobody ever played, sitting on the floor in the back room of an empty arcade. The game was full of life and strife, mega-monsters and robot fights. We Are The Strange was the title. Now meet the players who live inside, idle." Fifteen years on, revisit the improbable story of outsider filmmaker M dot Strange and his solo indie fever dream, We Are The Strange.
The Whole Earth Photolog, revisited
From grainy stills to gorgeous high-resolution portraits, from intimate pairings to stark contrasts, and from iconic standbys to little-known surprises, The Planetary Society's Earth gallery offers a rich collection of stunning photography and video footage of our world as seen from both planetary spacecraft and geostationary satellites. It is a vista that has inspired many a deep thought in the lucky few that have seen it firsthand [previously]. And it's just one of a number of annotated collections from the Bruce Murray Space Image Library.
Artifacts from the Future (from the past)
Starting twenty years ago this month, Wired magazine tapped a bevy of designers and artists in the tech field to craft detailed satirical visions of futuristic objects for a monthly showcase at the close of each issue. Following a brief hiatus in 2008, the exercise returned in crowdsourced form, asking readers to submit their ideas for a given theme and incorporating the best ones into the following month's edition. After disappearing five years later, a 2020 redesign evolved the concept once more, asking readers to share six-word headlines, Hemingway-style (or not), on an evocative near-future story. While the new-new FOUND doesn't appear to be going anywhere, why not take some time to enjoy the history of this whimsical feature than by taking a look back at the "compleat" archived run of the series courtesy of Stuart Candy, who personally scanned the gamut of it to make a thorough retrospective for his excellent blog The Sceptical Futuryst: 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010 - Candy tells his FOUND story. More: "FOUND: The Future of..." and FOUND Photoshop Contests (2008-2013) - Six-Word Stories archive (2020-present) - a direct-link index to more and better futures inside.
The last frontier of human resistance
Nearly 15 years after the first flyover, the uncontacted peoples of the Envira River land near the Peru-Brazil border, long endangered, find themselves under existential threat. Following the President Bolsonaro's brazen deregulation, intimidation of advocates, and appointment of a missionary to a key indigenous agency, the normally reclusive tribes have responded to deforestation pressure on their ancestral lands by sending desperate envoys to nearby villages -- first contacts that expose them not just to the COVID pandemic, but a whole raft of modern diseases they have no defense against. But even under risk of genocide, the people of these beleaguered tribes continue to help defend the critically important Amazon rainforest from external attack.
It's spooky season for the Biden agenda
High drama on Capitol Hill this week as the slim Democratic majority struggles over President Biden's "Build Back Better" plan. On one side: the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF!), exhaustively hashed out this summer by a cross-party cadre of moderate senators. On the other: a $3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" package containing the rest of Biden's sweeping agenda: climate, education, social care, and so much more, all packed into a single reconciliation bill that needs only 50 Senate votes. Dem centrists (led by the inscrutable Manchin and Sinema) demand passing infrastructure first, while House progressives, doubtful of centrist support for reconciliation, insist both bills pass together. After a progressive rebellion derailed an infrastructure vote late last night, and a leaked memo shed some light on Manchin's positions, the path is open to a perilous negotiation that could make or break Biden's domestic policy. Spookiest of all: the specter of a catastrophic debt default just weeks away as Republican stonewalling blocks all attempts to lift the debt ceiling.
Sunshine and Ravioli (MACARONI)
Could I interest you in everything about "Inside"?
Bo Burnham started out as a geeky kid writing parody songs in his room, but the success of his work on YouTube soon launched him into a career in comedy, where he quickly won the respect of comics thrice his age. Three innovative specials and one acclaimed coming-of-age film later, Bo seemed to disappear from the scene for years... only to return in spring 2021 with INSIDE [trailer], a striking one-man/one-room pandemic comedy masterpiece, inventively cinematic in style, which devolves from clever social media parody to incisive sociopolitical critique to dystopian internet horror to a heartbreaking elegy for a dying world as it parallels his own emotional breakdown. Two months later, with six Emmy nominations and a nationwide theatrical release this weekend, there's plenty of Content to chew on -- a full track breakdown, lyrics, commentary, analysis, and beyond. Want it? Good. There's
Adding bleed and gutters to a self-published photobook
I'm in the process of making an 8.5'' x 8.5'' photobook as a birthday gift for my brother, but realized some fifty pages in that I hadn't accounted for bleed. Is expanding the page (and photos) a quarter inch going to be enough? And what about gutters? ❄️ details inside.
The most gigantic lying Smile of all time
After weeks of cryptic TikTok teasing reminiscent of Kid A-era blips, Radiohead fans were pleasantly surprised this weekend when two of the band's leading members, frontman Thom Yorke and lead guitarist Johnny Greenwood, joined Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner to perform at this year's (virtual) Glastonbury festival as a new band called The Smile (or as Thom put it, "the smile of the guy who lies to you every day"). Their eight-song set, clocking in at over half an hour, is an aggressive melange of funk, post-punk, and math rock, their most guitar-driven material since 2007's In Rainbows, all kicking off with a beautiful version of unreleased Radiohead gem "Skirting on the Surface" [background]. Best of all? Since the livestream DRM shat the bed, the event's organizers released the whole show free online: Part One video - Part Two - Part Three - individual track downloads. Full tracklist, lyrics, and other goodies inside.
It's not easy being short
One of these links is not like the others.
One of these links doesn't belong.
Can you tell which link is not like the other
by the time I finish this song?
One of these links doesn't belong.
Can you tell which link is not like the other
by the time I finish this song?
Software or websites based on "pairwise comparison" ranking?
I love using Flickchart to keep track of the films I've seen, but tired of waiting for them to expand the site to other areas. Are there any other good websites or programs where you can build a ranked database of media using repeated 1-on-1 comparisons?
"Talk... less."
In addition to the ~biweekly megathreads, the 2016 DNC saw four daily threads with 12,536 total comments, plus a 1,598-comment VP thread for literal potato Tim Kaine. This cycle there are no megathreads, and a grand total of *checks notes* zero posts or comments on either the DNC or VP nominee Kamala Harris, a charismatic woman of color with a complex record who may potentially lead the nation for a dozen years if everything breaks her way. I know the megathreads were a burden, but this seems sub-optimal, especially given the desire on the site and in society generally to spotlight women leaders, black voters, and the push for criminal justice reform.
Don't let your memes be schemes
Drama On The Internets this weekend as Reddit's admins ousted the mods and top users of a popular satirical subreddit, /r/PresidentialRaceMemes. The wrinkle this time? Most of those banned are the same person.
As outlined in this exhaustive report from /r/Digital_Manipulation [mirror], redditor /u/AlarmedScholar (best known for his "It Is Time" memes saluting the end of each Democratic campaign) was at the center of a web of literally dozens of alternate accounts, aggressively spamming his own subreddit networks into popularity and using questionable moderation tactics to steer PRM from cheeky fun to unceasing vitriol against presumptive nominee Joe Biden (alongside fervent support for Bernie Sanders Howie Hawkins Jesse Ventura Howie Hawkins again).
Shades of Unidan, shades of Digg Patriots, shades of various the_donald purges... with 92 of the top 500 subreddits controlled by just four users, is Reddit the next battleground in the social media manipulation wars?
Insurance not covering an annual check-up
I had my first primary care doctor visit in awhile last April, a routine new patient wellness visit, which is supposed to be 100% covered under my ACA plan. After a bizarre issue with the initial billing in December, I've now received a partially-uncovered $500 bill for the visit despite everything being in-network. Is this at all normal, and if so what's the best strategy for getting this number way the heck down?
Impossible. Perhaps the archives are incomplete.
I'd always thought MeFi site searches were pretty much comprehensive, but last night I came across several search terms that were clearly missing content. Has anyone else noticed this behavior in the past, or could this be a new bug?
Double-whammy in Miami: The first 2020 Democratic presidential debates
Three senators, four current or former representatives, a mayor, a governor and a former Cabinet secretary all walk onto a stage ... followed the next night by a former vice president, four senators, a congressman, a former governor, a mayor and a pair of entrepreneurs. It's not a joke set-up, it's the first Democratic primary debate, split into two nights, starting tonight, Wednesday, June 26, 2019.
The OK Computer Sessions
Radiohead is no stranger to leaks -- frontman Thom Yorke praised Napster for "encourag[ing] enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do" when their hotly anticipated album Kid A was uploaded to the service in its entirety (though the band was decidedly less thrilled when the same happened to an unfinished version of 2003's Hail to the Thief). Even pranksters have gotten in on the action. But now, after an abortive attempt at selling the stash, one leaker has given longtime fans the biggest prize yet: over 17 hours of early and unreleased material from the OK Computer era, including new full-band versions of "Lift" and "True Love Waits", an extended "Paranoid Android", alternative lyrics, rehearsals, jam sessions, found sound, and so much more. While legal eagles play whack-a-mole with download links, follow discussion of this landmark release on /r/radiohead and Discord, or get a taste of the material by browsing the scraps of it that were included in 2017 reissue OKNOTOK (including this utterly gorgeous rendition of "Motion Picture Soundtrack").
You Were the Man Then, Dog
From humble beginnings as a one-off parody of a goofy Sean Connery line, You're The Man Now Dog (YTMND) grew to become a landmark of mid-00s web culture, with its simple premise of user-generated GIF/image collages paired with text and a looping sound file spawning countless enduring memes and viral fads from the sublime and the mesmerizing to the inane and the ridiculous. While the community declined in the wake of YouTube, Vine, /r/GifSound, and other social media, and creator Max Goldberg grew increasingly ambivalent about its future in the face of medical and moderation problems, the site itself survived as a time capsule of high weirdness from the glory days of web 2.0. But now, one year after shutting down new sign-ups, YTMND has at long last gone offline for good. Punch the "." key, for god's sake, then look inside for an archive of some of the best YTMNDs of all time.
How long is too long?
While catching up with the latest politics megathread, I was surprised to see this mod note from LobsterMitten: [Note about post drafts - putting here so people will see it, but happy to talk it over more in email, will email some of the recent posters. Please keep the posts on the shorter side, maybe 1000 words or that neighborhood. Thanks.]
As a longtime crafter of megaposts, I don't think I've ever seen official mod guidance to cut them (relatively) short in this way. Posts have been edited for leaving too much above the fold, but I can think of only a handful of incidents where the post body itself got official pushback for being Too Long -- and those largely involved novella-sized posts with length-induced display errors (really) or blanket copy-pasting a website's contents.
Is LobsterMitten's advice targeted at the political megathreads only -- perhaps for performance reasons -- or should it be construed more broadly? I happen to think a well-organized megapost is the best of MeFi and a feature few vid- and listicle-driven sites can match, and in the case of the politics threads specifically they're a fine example of community collaboration that provide a valuable curated record of this chaotic era. But what do you think?
Strike that, reverse it?
Deleted posts can be flagged but not favorited. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Got jumper cables backward. Sparked and sizzled. Should I try again?
Trying to jumpstart my dead car. Thanks to a mislabeled battery on the donor car, I hooked up the jumper cables backwards at first -- a couple of brief contacts (sparks), then one for ~30 seconds, stopping when I noticed a low sizzling sound. The donor car was not cranked, and starts up fine after everything was disconnected (and the mistake discovered). Is it safe to try again, or have I done (or will I do) dangerous damage to either car?
Amazon page said new, it's refurbished. Is my laptop still a good deal?
I found a deceptively great deal on a new Lenovo laptop on Amazon, but the seller messaged me that the listing was in error and the product is actually "certified refurbished" with a 90-day warranty. Should I keep it or cancel it (or something else)?
Can anyone identify the DC-area Hilton in this video?
Some Reddit edgelord filmed himself cutting the tape that some school chaperones had placed on the hotel room doors of their students. Assuming he's too cowardly to own up himself, they need somebody to tip off the adults and clear their name. Can anyone identify the DC-area Hilton in this video and help save a bunch of kids from being unjustly punished?
"We are choosing Hope over Fear."
Ten years ago today, on a wintry night in a high school gym in Des Moines, freshman Illinois senator Barack Obama took the stage to eloquently claim a historic victory in the pivotal Iowa Caucus. But while the hard-fought win would lay the foundation for his incredible rise to the presidency (and offer a prescient glimpse into his accomplishments), the credit was not all his -- as he's happy to admit. So, in this winter of our discontent, join Crooked Media writer (and Obama alum) Chris Liddell-Westefeld as he lays out the oral history of this crucial election as told by the countless staff, field organizers, and first-time volunteers who threw themselves wholeheartedly into the arduous, long-shot effort that would change the world.
Struggle for the Heart of Dixie
One month ago, Alabama's sleepy special election to replace Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate was rocked by bombshell underage sexual assault allegations against far-right firebrand Roy Moore, lifting Democratic challenger Doug Jones into an unthinkable lead.
But after state leaders resisted calls for Moore to drop out, GOP opposition eroded, with the most toxic elements of the party eventually giving full-throated endorsement (and $$$) to the twice-impeached theocrat.
Polls showed Moore rebounding, but the unique confluence of scandal, tribalism, enthusiasm, and high stakes in this deep red state makes turnout impossible to predict.
Polls are opening now, and close at 7PM central time -- stay tuned to see if the Yellowhammer state elects a radical child abuser... or the first Democrat in a quarter century.
Lord willing and the creek don't rise
After cathartic Democratic gains on Tuesday, 2017 awaits one last big federal contest -- Alabama's December 12th special election to fill A.G. Jeff Sessions' seat in the U.S. Senate. The normally determinative Republican primary was riven by divisions, with the controversial theocratic ex-judge Roy Moore defeating establishment-backed Luther Strange. The Democrats, meanwhile, nominated respected US attorney Doug Jones, best known for successfully prosecuting the Klansmen behind the horrific 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Still, Moore was widely seen as the narrow favorite... until today's bombshell WaPo story in which multiple conservative women independently confirmed Moore sexually harassed them in the 70s -- some as young as 14. While the Moore campaign rejects the story as "fake news", GOP senators are abandoning him in droves, with talk of mounting a write-in campaign for primary loser Luther Strange. With just a month until election day, could deep-red Alabama elect a progressive Democrat for the first time in more than twenty years?