Activity from Rhaomi
Displaying post 100 to 150 of 305
from
mefi
Cognitive Bias, Situations Matter, Pick a Noun, and other dead ends
Gino's work has been cited over 33,000 times, and Ariely's work has been cited over 66,000 times. They both got tenured professorships at elite universities. They wrote books, some of which became bestsellers. They gave big TED talks and lots of people watched them. By every conventional metric of success, these folks were killing it. Now let's imagine every allegation of fraud is true, and everything Ariely and Gino ever did gets removed from the scientific record, It's a Wonderful Life-style. What would change? Not much.I’m So Sorry for Psychology’s Loss, Whatever It Is: an essay by psychologist Adam Mastroianni on academic fraud, the replication crisis, and the questionable paradigms underlying a still-adolescent field
“Subject: Cool pics!” is a perfect Dimension Apple subject line
The denizens of Dimension Apple love the following things: Punctuation, trips, sharing photographs, using emoji, taking photographs, surprise parties. You might be inclined to say that they hate roasts, bits, gossip, cynicism, text abbreviations like “LOL,” and other standard features of texting in our dimension--but it is not at all clear to me that any of these things even exist in Dimension Apple to be hated. Like Android users, irony simply does not occur in Dimension Apple. A literary history of fake texts in Apple's marketing materials
Wheels coming off the (NGP) VAN?
"Democrats have relied on one company’s tools to power its campaigns. They’re now facing a possible collapse." Following the 2021 purchase its parent company by a British private equity firm, the Democratic-aligned platform NGP-VAN has seen rounds of layoffs and cost-cutting that have left some activists alarmed about the future viability of the critical organizing tool. Alternatives exist, but none have NGP VAN's market share or deep integration with Democratic campaign infrastructure. Doing the Work of Democracy Despite Lousy Tech and Data:
"Door-knocking is the best way to earn votes, but for all their vaunted tech savvy, Democrats’ core tools and voter data are a mess."
Arguably the funniest McCarthyist purge in US political history
Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has become acting Speaker of the House after Kevin McCarthy, rocked by a series of failed budget votes (and a last-minute agreement with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown), was ousted by Matt Gaetz and other far-right members of the House Freedom Caucus in an unprecedented vote. McCarthy, while likely to run for the speakership again, is no shoo-in given the 15 ballots it took him to secure the gavel just nine months ago (previously).
Barbs'n'himmler
Split-screen tonight in America: The first Republican presidential primary debate of 2024 starting in 10 minutes (moderated by Sean Hannity and featuring DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Pence, Haley, Christie, Scott, Hutchinson, and Burgum) vs. a counterprogramming interview between Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump on Twitter starting in 5. Live resources: Brian Tyler Cohen's debate livestream (with commentary) - Nitter mirror of @TuckerCarlson for those not wanting to patronize Musk/bowtie - FiveThirtyEight liveblog - NYT liveblog - Debate bingo and drinking game - MeFi chat for real-time discussion
This... is my mastapiece. This is the one that they'll rememba me for.
Clone-a Lisa: Can you paint a copy of the Mona Lisa in 60 seconds? "Anything over 80% is good, 85%+ very good, and 90% may be possible if you're extremely fast and accurate." [via mefi projects]
The S-Files
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES—118th Cong., 1st Sess. [S. 2226]
To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2024 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.
AMENDMENT intended to be proposed by Mr. SCHUMER (for himself, Mr. ROUNDS, Mr. RUBIO, and Mrs. GILLIBRAND)
Viz: At the appropriate place, insert the following:
TITLE I—UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA DISCLOSURE
This title may be cited as the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023"
To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2024 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.
AMENDMENT intended to be proposed by Mr. SCHUMER (for himself, Mr. ROUNDS, Mr. RUBIO, and Mrs. GILLIBRAND)
Viz: At the appropriate place, insert the following:
TITLE I—UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA DISCLOSURE
This title may be cited as the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023"
Friday Flash Fun Forever
Still mourning the death of Flash, and with it an entire era of online gaming? Enter ooooooooo.ooo (9o3o), the new searchable (and playable!) web frontend for the incredible Flashpoint preservation project. Browse over 145,000 preserved Flash games powered by the Ruffle emulator, and share your favorites with a simple link. Highlights:
DICEWARS -
Fly Guy -
Alien Hominid -
Samorost -
Crimson Room -
Nanaca Crash! -
Line Rider -
Don't Shoot the Puppy -
Bloxorz -
Gimme Friction Baby -
The Impossible Quiz -
Portal: The Flash Version -
Feed the Head -
Sprout -
Achievement Unlocked -
QWOP -
Cursor*10 -
Dino Run -
Grid16 -
Meat Boy -
SHIFT -
You Have to Burn the Rope -
6 Differences -
Canabalt -
Don't Shit Your Pants! -
Nevermore 3 - Small Worlds -
Don't Look Back -
Redder -
VVVVVV (demo) -
Synopsis Quest -
The Room Tribute -
The Scale of the Universe -
Mitoza -
Wonderputt -
Bullet Bill 3 -
Frog Fractions -
Dys4ia -
Snakes on a Cartesian Plane -
Want (gulp) more? Download Flashpoint Infinity to stream over 156,000 games from 70+ platforms (including Shockwave, Java, and Unity) plus over 27,000 animations... or clear some space for the monster 1.76 terabyte Flashpoint Ultimate to store every single file locally. So much more inside!
Redditors, in defense of Reddit, destroy Reddit
Anger over an astronomical increase in Reddit's API prices [prev.] boiled over this week as multiple third-party app developers were forced to close down, with one -- Apollo dev Christian Selig -- posting a scathing exposé detailing the company's shady dealings... including a recorded phone call disproving CEO Steve "spez" Huffman's claim that Selig blackmailed them. Huffman took to the site's vaunted AMA format to do damage control, only to double down, ignore tough questions, and reap thousands of downvotes. In response, the community has organized a massive subreddit "blackout" to protest the rate hike that will bankrupt popular apps, hamper critical moderation tools, and exclude blind users. While such protests are not new, this one is unprecedented in scope: 20,000+ mods from over 7,000 subreddits with more than 2 billion collective readers, from familiar mainstays like /r/aww, /r/videos, and /r/todayilearned to niche subs like /r/Eragon and /r/Panda. Facing layoffs, a major pre-IPO valuation cut, and a runaway user revolt reminiscent of Digg [prev.], could this be the end of the "front page of the internet"? Watch the site wink out in real time [livestream], join the fight on /r/Save3rdPartyApps and /r/ModCoord, backup your data, or check out some up-and-coming /r/RedditAlternatives.
[META] Last call for Steering Committee nominations
PSA: This week is the last call for user nominations to the second Steering Committee to help set policy and oversee the site budget for the year ahead. Do you want to help chart a course for this community (or know someone who would make a great pick)? Send in your nominations today! More details from the full MetaTalk post inside.
POTUS SOTU's NOTICE
In about half an hour, President Joe Biden will be making his second State of the Union address -- the first before a divided Congress, and widely seen as a soft-launch for his 2024 re-election campaign. Watch on YouTube (PBS), or check out Politico's cheat sheet for an advance transcript, background, and analysis. More: NYT: Biden’s State of the Union Prep: No Acronyms and Tricks to Conquer a Stutter - Politico: Biden’s 2022 State of the Union report card: Where he delivered — and fell flat - FiveThirtyEight: In Defense Of The Mostly Pointless State Of The Union - AP: U2′s Bono, family of Tyre Nichols’ among Jill Biden’s guests - State of the Union 2023: Who is the designated survivor? (unannounced at press time!) - Republican response: newly-elected Arkansas governor (and former Trump press secretary) Sarah Huckabee Sanders - Rep. Delia Ramirez to give progressive's response - Don't forget MeFi Chat for live reactions!
"Nowhere else is the lifegiving power of water so clearly demonstrated"
In winter, the Kalahari Basin in northern Botswana is a dusty, windswept wasteland of scrubby flora, with precious little rain. But not for long. As captured by a somber and wondrous segment from the original BBC Planet Earth, summer showers from the Angolan highlands soon feed a meandering river that splays out across the wilderness, flooding a vast inland delta that transforms hundreds of miles of arid desert into a verdant everglade teeming with life: the Okavango. This seasonal miracle, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Africa's Seven Natural Wonders, attracts all manner of megafauna that have adapted to its myriad creeks and lagoons, from migratory birds and amphibians to all five Big Game species (making it a boon for ecosafaris). And though it is (like most things) under threat from exploitation and climate change, conservationists worldwide are working tirelessly to defend it.
To a Nacreon in Heaven
In Norse mythology, the earthly realm of Midgard and the divine plane of Asgard are connected by a shimmering rainbow bridge -- the magnificent Bifröst. Though scholars debate whether the legend of this lustrous path was inspired by the famed aurora borealis or the star-studded arc of the Milky Way, there is perhaps another possible candidate: nacreous clouds [timelapse]. Also known as polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), these breathtaking formations can be seen (quite rarely) in the high polar latitudes in wintertime at dusk, when a mass of super-cooled water ice forms so high up in the stratosphere that it reflects light from a sun that's well below the horizon at ground level. The result: diaphonous pearl-white sheets and iridescent streaks that light up the bleak twilight landscape with an otherworldly glow. (It's not all sunshine and stratospheric rainbows, though -- when mixed with nitric or sulfuric acid, these 10-15 mile-high clouds can contribute to ozone depletion over the polar caps [video].) Not a fan of winter weather? You may chance to see their more temperate cousin, the spectral and blue-tinged noctilucent cloud, which sometimes forms in summertime months north of 50° latitude (and north of 50 miles straight up). Or if you live near a space coast, you might see one of a menagerie of "twilight phenomenon" -- artificial light-clouds formed by multi-stage rocket plumes backlit by the sun -- including the spectacular space jellyfish. Just make sure to keep your eyes on the road...
Elegy for a Criminal Lawyer
Saul Goodman started as a joke -- a sleazy, motormouthed "two-and-a-half-dimensional" take on TV lawyers, a bit of comic relief brought on for a four-episode stint to help guide Breaking Bad protagonists Walter White and Jesse Pinkman into the criminal underworld. Brought to life by Bob Odenkirk, Saul proved to be one of the show's most popular characters, and in the wake of the show's blockbuster ending AMC announced a prequel spinoff series: Better Call Saul. But what was conceived as a 30-minute case-of-the-week sitcom quickly developed into a compelling legal drama and deep character study of Goodman's past as "Slippin'" Jimmy McGill, his evolution, and bleak future at an Omaha Cinnabon -- "we don’t want to get to Saul Goodman … and that’s the tragedy." Supported by vice-tight writing, masterful cinematography, and impeccable performances by Michael McKean, Patrick Fabian, Jonathan Banks, Michael Mando, Tony Dalton, Giancarlo Esposito, and especially breakout star Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, the series has only grown more acclaimed as it progressed and, with its last batch of astonishing episodes, arguably surpassed its predecessor to become one of the greatest dramas in television history. Now, after seven years, six seasons, 62 episodes, one Peabody Award, multiple hiatuses, a COVID pause, and a brush with death, Better Call Saul is set to air its long-awaited series finale tonight at 9PM Eastern. It's showtime, folks.
[sweet guitar riff]
Jack De Sena is a former child actor and the voice of Sokka and the Dragon Prince. His longtime pal Chris W. Smith is a former Blue Man, actor/writer/producer, and juggler. Together they make Chris & Jack [trailer, Twitter, previously], a criminally underrated YouTube channel featuring high-concept, high-production value comedy sketches shot through with smartly-written metahumor and and a surprising amount of wholesome emotional honesty. Highlights:
Groundhog Daying -
Wormhole Monocle -
The White Room -
The Secret Weakness -
Abduction and Mind Wipe -
Body Swap -
Secret Alien -
Your Whole Life is a TV Show -
The Art of the Heist -
The Moments Between the Montage -
If Scrooge Slept In -
What's My Line? -
Deja Vu -
The epic struggle to invent a new holiday: July Sixth Park -
15-minute magnum opus MOVIES IN SPACE, about a cultural-exchange astronaut who is catapulted by host Eepgarg into the strange, strange world of alien movie production.
Look, he made us some Content
Bezos III (Gregorian Chant) /
Living in the Future /
Is it gonna end? YES When? NEVER /
I Just Want to Feel Good /
JEANS™ /
Maybe I'll Feel Better /
Five years /
Trying to be funny /
UV teeth /
[What have we done to our children?] /
The best-case scenario is Joe Biden /
S P I D E R 🕷️ /
"It's very upsetting that The Future is in front of Now." /
This Isn't a Joke /
[Never go outside again] /
How to make a peanut butter sandwich /
"Our doing isn't done and our done-ing isn't did." /
"The unspeakable fear of never hitting the wall." /
I'm sticking with ✨Jeffrey✨ /
"MY PHONE MAKES ME SAD, AWWW." /
All Eyes on Me (Early Demo) /
"It's only a problem if you go outside." /
"The thing that I'm writing about *is* an ending." /
Goodbye (alternate ending) /
The Chicken /
A sneak peek at the ICU /
I don't know what's happening /
>> One year after the original virtuosic special premiered on Netflix, Bo Burnham returns with THE INSIDE OUTTAKES, a kaleidoscopic, stream-of-consciousness retrospective consisting of over an hour of new songs, new vignettes, fake ads, behind the scenes clips, musical outtakes, confessional pieces, perfectionist tableaus and so much more (including something from yours truly).
When we get together, well then, who knows?
A year after their surprise reveal at Glastonbury, Radiohead pandemic spinoff project The Smile have finally dropped their much-anticipated debut album: A Light for Attracting Attention [full album on YouTube].
Featuring Yorke, Greenwood, Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, longtime RH producer Nigel Godrich, and an assist from the London Contemporary Orchestra, the album's heady mixture of funk, post-punk, math rock, soaring ballads, and themes of passion, alienation, and melancholy make it (perhaps) a worthy successor to 2016's elegant A Moon Shaped Pool.
Music videos:
angry #MeToo rocker "You Will Never Work in Television Again" [lyrics] -
abstract animation for orchestral odyssey "Pana-Vision" [lyrics] -
subliminal lyrics for swanky groove "The Smoke" [lyrics] -
trippy stop-motion nightmare "Thin Thing" [lyrics] -
an occult ritual framed by hopeful elegy "Free in the Knowledge" [lyrics] -
Thom ventures into a coal mine for the beautifully ethereal "Skrting on the Surface" [lyrics], a fan favorite 20+ years in the making. Full tracklist (including a complete live set list!) inside.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
Raccoon astronaut with the cosmos reflected in his helmet dreams of the stars /
Jedi sloth /
Lego Mona Lisa /
Cute animals on rainbow grass /
Bulldog in coat and hat drives an old car /
Victorian rabbit reads the paper on a bench /
Macro shot of a kitten in glasses /
Cool panda skateboards in Santa Monica /
Propaganda poster of a Napoleon cat with cheese /
Plants in a lightbulb /
Proud raccoons pose with their art /
Studio Ghibli train stations /
Kid and dog stare at the stars /
Ukiyo-e teddy bears shop for groceries /
Soup bowl monster knit out of wool /
Astronaut on a horse, pencil sketch /
American Gothic, but it's dogs with pizzas /
Badass sheep in a science lab /
Mona Lisa in Twin Peaks /
Kitty donut shop /
Colorful gamerooms, Memphis Design /
HD photo of Pikachu in a cape /
Wooden art deco cat /
Fruit golem /
Codex Seraphinianus / Voynich Manuscript /
Variations on Vermeer, Klimt, Seurat, Ohara /
"Good morning" Post-It on the ISS cupola /
Cats in blue hats /
Writer ponders her next story, oil painting /
Timepieces, De Chirico style /
Cheshire Cat and Tinkerbell play poker /
Pieter Bruegel's Incredible Hulk /
A plum and perfume served in a hat /
Earth as chocolate cake /
The orange cat Otto von Garfield in a Prussian Pickelhaube eats lasagna /
A robot paints while playing piano,
draws itself,
paints itself,
shows another robot its art / Meet OpenAI's DALL·E 2, the extraordinary new AI that creates anything you can imagine in a matter of seconds.
Together you can create something more.
For April Fool's Day 2017, Reddit launched an intriguing experiment: Place. Given a blank digital canvas, any user could add a single colored pixel at 5-minute intervals. Thanks to cooperation between myriad subreddit communities, Place quickly blossomed into a complex sprawl of jokes, memes, and digital art -- a Million Dollar Homepage for the modern era [final image; timelapse]. Five years later, Place has returned -- with the added twist of a canvas that sometimes doubles in size, with another expansion expected soon. Watch the timelapse so far, or if you have a Reddit account, leave a pixel yourself.
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].
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
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.
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?