Archive for July, 2010
The World Cup’s Effect on South Africa’s District 9…
A mashup of two films about South Africa: one you’ll surely recognize, the other is World Cup Soccer in Africa, distributed by Disinformation.
Scientists Develop ‘Fake’ Genetically-Engineered Blood for Use on the Battlefield
Niall Firth in the Daily Mail writes:
American scientists have developed ‘artificial’ blood that could soon be used to treat wounded soldiers in battle.
The genetically-engineered blood is created by taking cells from umbilical cords and using a machine to mimic the way bone marrow works to produce mass quantities of usable units of red blood cells.
Known as ‘blood pharming’ the programme was launched in 2008 by the Pentagon’s experimental arm, Darpa, to create blood to treat soldiers in far-flung battlefields.
The firm Arteriocyte, which received $1.95 million for the project, has now sent off its first shipment of O-negative blood to the food and drugs watchdog in the US, the FDA.
Read more: Daily Mail
Comic Artist Mack White on The Black Fridays
The Black Fridays Episode 25 — Mack White
Website • iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
The Black Fridays are please to welcome Mack White from Psi-Op Radio to our show! Tonight we continue the conversation about the JFK Assassination. We are going to play the actual audio of the assassination as well as talk with Mack about where he was that day and what a recent guest on Psi-Op had to say about his role in the conspiracy.
Mack has been a guest we have wanted to talk to for a long time. He is a noted comic artist and illustrator in his professional life as well as a talk show host. He has a lot to say and we were happy to listen!
Check out Mack White’s website here and check out Psi-Op Radio too!
I Love My Children — I Hate My Life
Photo: Jessica Todd Harper
Jennifer Senior writes in New York magazine:
There was a day a few weeks ago when I found my 2½-year-old son sitting on our building doorstep, waiting for me to come home. He spotted me as I was rounding the corner, and the scene that followed was one of inexpressible loveliness, right out of the movie I’d played to myself before actually having a child, with him popping out of his babysitter’s arms and barreling down the street to greet me.
This happy moment, though, was about to be cut short, and in retrospect felt more like a tranquil lull in a slasher film. When I opened our apartment door, I discovered that my son had broken part of the wooden parking garage I’d spent about an hour assembling that morning.
This wouldn’t have been a problem per se, except that as I attempted to fix it, he grew impatient and…
Pi, Plato, And The Language of Nature
After I posted an article about technical analysis – an investment method that looks for patterns in the stock market – a couple people commented that it reminded them of the film Pi, about a renegade mathematician somehow using Pi to search for patters in the stock market with a homemade supercomputer in his crummy Manhatten apartment.
Technical analysis was probably the inspiration for the stock market portion of the film, but did you know that the part about renegade mathematicians building supercomputers in their living rooms to calculate Pi is actually based on a true story? Aronofsky almost certainly took the inspiration from a 1992 New Yorker story about the Brothers Chudnovsky.
Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla! Here’s the “Drunk History” Version of Your Life (Video)
154 years after your birth, here’s the “Drunk History” version of your life, via Funny Or Die, starring John C. Reilly as yourself and Crispin Glover as your great rival, that bastard of a businessman, Thomas Edison.
Hope you enjoy from the Great Beyond!
A Brief History Of Science Fiction In Rock Music
Rock music and science fiction each shaped the culture of post-World War II America. But only occasionally have the two have been successfully combined (usually, thanks to some ambitious and/or drugged-out musical visionaries). Clarksworld Magazine has a nice historic overview of the use of science fiction themes in pop music. David “Ziggy Stardust” Bowie makes the cut, as does some prog rock. (Prog and sci-fi both share a high nerd factor, of course.) More surprising are the notable finds of sci-fi funk, hip hop, and metal. It’s hard to get deeper and geekier than Rush, though:
GodBlock: A Filter For Religion-Free Internet Surfing
Do you have kids at home and worry that while surfing the internet for Justin Bieber tweets, they could stumble across something depraved, like FocusOnTheFamily.com? Or maybe you just want to avoid seeing sites like that yourself, because they offend you. GodBlock.com offers a internet filter to make your computer safe:
GodBlock is a web filter that blocks religious content. It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions. When installed properly, GodBlock will test each page that your child visits before it is loaded, looking for passages from holy texts, names of religious figures, and other signs of religious propaganda. If none are found, then your child is allowed to browse freely.
The Cocaine Supply Chain
National Geographic investigates popular “recreational” drugs in its upcoming Drugs, Inc. series, starting this Sunday, July 11 with a look at coke, then continuing on to marijuana, heroin and meth:
The supply chain of cocaine stretches around our world, bringing vast wealth to a few … and misery to millions. Follow its trail through the eyes of peasant farmers producing cocaine paste, a trafficker tied to Mexican cartels and a 28-year-old crack dealer in Miami’s poorest neighborhood. And literally see the true nature of cocaine addiction via revolutionary brain photography in a leading lab in Brookhaven, N.Y.
Cult of Zir and Ogo Eion Talk About Their New Album
Cult of Zir and Ogo Eion talk about their new album Shortwave Ministry for Theatre Noir. Via Technoccult:
Ogo: I brought my “trademark” shortwave radio, which i scored at a thrift store some ten years ago maybe – it’s seen much use since then. It’s a Sony FM/AM multi-band receiver ICF-5900W. It never breaks and keep battery charge for years. And I’ve always been quite impressed by the variety of sounds I can conjure up from this little beast. [...]
Is the shortwave radio modified in any way?
Ogo: It’s not circuit bent, no. Though it’s seen some wear over the years that has seemed to affect it.
Nolon: I ran it through the same filters and delays and reverbs as everything else. There was some ham radio christian we tapped that night a few times. Something about homosexuality, a real bigot.
Ogo: Right. Mostly I ride those “sweet spots” between channels – static frequency sweeps and whatnot. But…
NSA Launches ‘Perfect Citizen’ Surveillance Program
Siobhan Gorman reports on the NSA’s latest Big Brother scheme, for the Wall Street Journal:
The federal government is launching an expansive program dubbed “Perfect Citizen” to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies running such critical infrastructure as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the program.
The surveillance by the National Security Agency, the government’s chief eavesdropping agency, would rely on a set of sensors deployed in computer networks for critical infrastructure that would be triggered by unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack, though it wouldn’t persistently monitor the whole system, these people said.
Defense contractor Raytheon Corp. recently won a classified contract for the initial phase of the surveillance effort valued at up to $100 million, said a person familiar with the project.
An NSA spokeswoman said the agency had no information to provide on the program. A Raytheon spokesman declined to comment.
Some industry…
Germans Want To Throw Psychic Octopus Into Shark Tank
Paul the Octopus in his aquarium tank next to a soccer shoe marked with the German flag colors. Photo: Tilla (CC)
You knew the psychic octopus was going to upset a lot of people in its homeland, Germany, if it predicted–correctly–a loss for their team. As AFP/The Local reports, the eight-legged wonder now needs all its supernatural powers to remain in good health:
It won’t come as much of a consolation to heartbroken German fans, but at least Paul, Germany’s now world-famous “Octopus oracle,” has maintained his perfect record predicting World Cup matches this summer…
The “psychic” creature has correctly predicted all six of Germany’s matches and, amid excruciating drama broadcast live on national television on Tuesday, plumped for Spain, causing anguish across the country.
The eight-legged soccer soothsayer was spot on Wednesday, as Carles Puyol’s semi-final header shattered Germany’s dreams of winning their fourth World Cup…
According to daily Der Westen, there have been “a…
Make My Day Pastor: Bring Your Gun Into Church in Louisiana
Thou Shall Not Kill. Unless it’s Time for Worship. The Times-Picayune reports:
Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law one of the more controversial bills from the recent legislative session, one allowing guns to be carried into houses of worship.
Jindal’s office said Tuesday the governor acted on the bill in the past few days after receiving it June 20.
Including the “gun-in-church” bill, House Bill 1272 by Rep. Henry Burns, R-Haughton, Jindal has signed into law 940 of the 1,067 bills the Legislature sent him, vetoed 12, and used his pen to line-item spending measures in four different budget bills.
Burns’ bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.
SolarImpulse Lands First 24-Hour Solar Powered Flight
SolarImpulse, the solar-powered plane
Could solar powered flying be a new way to diminish the use of fossil fuels? With the success of the first 24-hour flight powered solely by the sun, the planet may be ginning. Eliane Engeler (AP writer) gives the story:
An experimental solar-powered plane completed its first 24-hour test flight successfully Thursday, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.
The test brings the Swiss-led project one step closer to its goal of circling the globe using only energy from the sun.
Pilot Andre Borschberg eased the Solar Impulse out of the clear blue morning sky onto the runway at Payerne airfield about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of the Swiss capital Bern at exactly 9 a.m. (0700 GMT; 3 a.m. EDT).
Helpers rushed to stabilize the pioneering plane as it touched down, ensuring that its massive 207-foot (63-meter) wingspan didn’t…
The Latest Mystery Web Trend: Go Ahead and Google 2204355
Culture-jamming or internet prank? Decide for yourself: call it “bullshit” or “it’s really f-d up” in the comments below.
Many news outlets are confused exactly what is the point of this video (deal with the ’80s Nintendo video game sounds at your own risk).
I have tried to figure what the hell this is about, the site Know Your Meme did an exemplar job of why the internet media is even talking about this now, and Matt Zoller Setiz on Salon made a good connection where some of the video was sourced from:
A Conversation With Mel Gibson
From the First Church of Mutterhals:
Perhaps you’ve heard that Mel Gibson is not the most pleasant man to live with. There’s been a slew of leaked audio tapes featuring Gibson saying all sorts of horrible things to his former live in lover and mother of his child.
Thanks to my contact in La La land (i.e. a herpetic bum who roots around in celebrity trash for a living), I got my hands on a transcript of the most recent diatribe. Behold:
Mel’s Baby Maker: How are you doing, Mel! It is a glorious day in this most wonderful country and I am glad to be the common law wife of such a dynamic individual!
Mel Gibson: Listen you silly cunt, how many times have I told you, do not look me in the eye when you talk to me.
MBM: I am ever so sorry Mel!
MG: You goddamn should be. Why is there a boom mike hanging from…
Pranksters Vote Bieber to North Korea
16 year-old Justin Bieber jumped into the music scene as a heartthrob for young girls. His popularity was the first thing that was hard to understand. Then, although he is a teenage white boy, he was nominated for a BET award. Now it seems that the public have created their own “unbelievable” news about him, they’ve voted for him to go to North Korea. AFP via Raw Story reports:
An online contest to decide where Canadian pop star Justin Bieber should go on tour next has been hijacked by a Web prank group that has been encouraging voters to send him to North Korea.
With just a few hours left to vote, North Korea was the top vote-getter on Tuesday in the “My World Tour” contest with more than 625,000 votes, followed by Israel with 608,000 votes and Poland with 513,073 votes.
According to the BBC, the campaign to garner votes for an unlikely…
Rushkoff Says Sell Now
Crowd outside the New York Stock Exchange after the 1929 crash.
Doug Rushkoff, counterculture guru and all-round incredibly smart dude has some worrying advice, just posted on his blog:
Yes, this is really it. The beginning of a true end-of-cycle economically.
If you own “stocks,” use these bounces to get out completely. If you have to park your money somewhere, consider yourself lucky you have money to park.
The object of the game for those who actually have capital is not how to grow it, but how to keep it. Capital has driven our economy since 1300, and the recent bull market was the end of a cycle that began in the mid-1700′s.
The fact that it is ending is not the end of the world at all. It just means that there’s a whole lot of money out there with no place to go. People can’t find a place to park their money because…
RIP: Party Down
From Nick Pell at Red Star Times:
Every once in a while a show comes along that reminds you that television isn’t a total wasteland. While science fiction had a good run with Battlestar Galactica, the main arena for quality television over the last ten years have been comedy. Whether it’s broadcast hits like Arrested Development, premium cable gems like Curb Your Enthusiasm or international favorites such as Peep Show, television comedy has come a long way from the days of the formulaic, multi-camera canned laughter disasters that once dominated the airwaves. Indeed, it is the recent crop of what The Onion called “single-camera, awkward pause” comedies that have made television worth watching again. More than just entertainment, these shows speak to the art of comedy writing.
Many shows recognized as classics now were canceled before their time…
