anything you can do, i can do meta

“‘Mad Men’ in the public consciousness has...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:39:34 -0500

“‘Mad Men’ in the public consciousness has come to represent exactly the kind of rose-coloured fantasy world the television series was intent on dismantling.”

(via Screw Rock ‘n’ Roll)

The Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot Ale: want! (with more jobs,...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:04:53 -0500

The Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot Ale: want! (with more jobs, naturally). Via.

The Ike Reilly Assassination - I Don’t Want What You Got...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:01:54 -0500

The Ike Reilly Assassination - I Don’t Want What You Got (Goin On)

(free on Amazon mp3, at least for now!)

Randy Newman - I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It)

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:21:00 -0500

Randy Newman - I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It)

"As cultivated citizens, we are obligated to one another. We care about one another. As Cornel West..."

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:59:12 -0500

“As cultivated citizens, we are obligated to one another. We care about one another. As Cornel West has said, democracy depends upon demophilia, or love of the people. Unfortunately, sociopathic companies such as Zynga depend upon this love as well. The central task of citizenship is learning how to be good to one another, even when—especially when—it is difficult to understand our own actions. If Howard Zinn had but one lesson to teach us, it is that cultivated citizens must constantly look around and examine what they’re doing, because there is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else’s crop.”

- Cultivated Play: Farmville by A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz

thepublics: STREET FIGHTIN’ MAN The guy was coming to shoot up...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:09:00 -0500

thepublics:

STREET FIGHTIN’ MAN

The guy was coming to shoot up Jack Rabbit’s house in the middle of the night. He’d already fired on other homes in the old east side neighborhood to scare residents he’d suspected of calling the cops on him. It turned out the gunman was a drug dealer, and when neighbors had called the cops on him, or had gotten in his way, he retaliated by shooting up their houses. Earlier that day, James “Jack Rabbit” Jackson — a retired Detroit cop — parked his car in front of the dealer’s house and pointed a video camera at him in a blatant effort to disrupt his business. It drove the guy away for the day.

Now he was coming back for Jackson. And Jackson was waiting for him…

BONUS: 100 Abandoned houses (Detroit)

What happens to these neighborhoods when their Jack Rabbits fade away?

Harry Nilsson - Me And My Arrow So I was listening to some...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:08:00 -0500

Harry Nilsson - Me And My Arrow

So I was listening to some Blackalicious*, and I got to wondering who they were sampling, and it turns out Me And My Arrow had nothing to do with James Taylor (why did I think that?) but instead was part of the soundtrack to one of those hoary 70s animated specials with Ringo Starr in it, and that made me think about Thomas The Tank Engine, and Marx. So, uh, wherever we go, everyone knows, it’s me and my arrow.

*click through to listen. or go to lala. whatever:

**Tumblr doesn’t seem to like the embedded .mp3 of Me And My Arrow above; you have to manually scrub forward to listen. Or go here.

"It doesn’t matter whether you give people title deeds or secure tenure, people simply need to know..."

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:35:52 -0500

“It doesn’t matter whether you give people title deeds or secure tenure, people simply need to know they won’t be evicted. When they know they are secure, they build. They establish a market. They buy and sell. They rent. They create. They develop. Actual control, not legal control, is the key.”

- Robert Neuwirth, Shadow Cities (via ericmortensen)

purns: “Books in the Age of the iPad.” Finally. Craig Mod: As...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:15:38 -0500

purns:

“Books in the Age of the iPad.” Finally.
Craig Mod:

As the publishing industry wobbles and Kindle sales jump, book romanticists cry themselves to sleep. But really, what are we shedding tears over?

We’re losing the throwaway paperback.
The airport paperback.
The beachside paperback.

We’re losing the dredge of the publishing world: disposable books. The book printed without consideration of form or sustainability or longevity. The book produced to be consumed once and then tossed. The book you bin when you’re moving and you need to clean out the closet.

These are the first books to go. And I say it again, good riddance.

…

You already know the potential gains: edgier, riskier books in digital form, born from a lower barrier-to-entry to publish. New modes of storytelling. Less environmental impact. A rise in importance of editors. And, yes — paradoxically — a marked increase in the quality of things that do get printed.

more…

Not only is this article extremely well presented, it’s also one of the most optimistic yet sober takes on publishing and the iPad I’ve read.

Photo

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:47:34 -0500

On tetrachromacy

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:33:40 -0500

On tetrachromacy:

fuckyeahchemistry:

Some women are lucky enough to see colors beyond what the rest of us can imagine.

Tetrachromats have four color receptors rather than the regular three, allowing them to see colors the rest of us can’t even dream about. Because of genetic issues, it is impossible that a male could be a tetrochromat, and it is in fact more likely for males to be minus one of the regularcolor receptors, making them functionally colorblind.

A tetrochromat would have another color beyond the standard green, red, and blue trichromats experience, a color somewhere between red and blue, which would allow a tetrachromat to experience millions of extra colors when mixed with other shades.

However, even with an extra color receptor, tetrachromats still do not see colors above or below the regular range of human beings, rather, they see extra colors within the range.

evangotlib: rafimama: A great song about Vegan Boys.

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:30:54 -0500

evangotlib:

rafimama:

A great song about Vegan Boys.

fleetfootedfox: undergroundgaragesale: iheartmyart: 54kan:suzu...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:31:59 -0500

fleetfootedfox:

undergroundgaragesale:

iheartmyart:

54kan:suzukichiyo:t-s-k-b:

Huangshan (Yellow Mountains) (via Aaron D. Feen)

The other photos in Aaron Feen’s China set are pretty amazing, too.

"The common theory of the origin of cities states that they resulted from the invention of..."

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:13:38 -0500

“The common theory of the origin of cities states that they resulted from the invention of agriculture: Surplus food freed people to become specialists. You can’t have full-time cobblers, blacksmiths, and bureaucrats, the theory goes, without farms to feed them. Jane Jacobs upended that supposition in The Economy of Cities (1969). “Rural economies, including agricultural work,” she wrote, “are directly built upon city economies and city work.” It was so in the beginning, she argued, and continues to this day. Most farming innovations, for example, are city-based. When Rome collapsed, European agriculture collapsed. When crop rotation was reinvented in the twelfth century, it began around European cities and took two centuries to reach remote farms. In the eighteenth century, the revolutionary use of fodder crops like alfalfa to fix nitrogen in the soil was developed first in city gardens. American agriculture soared in the 1920s when hybrid corn was invented, not on a farm but in a New Haven, Connecticut, laboratory.”

- Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto (via ericmortensen)

FiveThirtyEight: US Manufacturing Is Not Dead

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:12:00 -0500

FiveThirtyEight: US Manufacturing Is Not Dead:

In conclusion, the data appear to show that the real factor in goods job creation (or loss) is the relationship between productivity and production, which unfortunately leaves little room for protectionism (even sans the trade war implications that would create), as unless productivity falls precipitously we would see no net job creation from any such endeavor.

By the way, this all jibes with much of the Jacobs I’ve been reading. Cities and the Wealth of Nations has been wrenching around everything I thought I knew (or had been taught) about economics. The more I learn, the more a large national economy (*cough* essentially the aggregate of many separate urban economies *cough*) seems to behave like an incredibly complex biological system. That oldest of economic metaphors, the human body, really is perfect. We are ourselves meta-organisms, and so are our social/economic constructions.

soy: Nathan Fillion is a Jedi Chef. Your life is invalid. (via...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:52:28 -0500

soy:

Nathan Fillion is a Jedi Chef. Your life is invalid. (via sunshinesong)

The next time anyone asks me, “Sam, what is Tumblr?” I will say to them, “Nathan Fillion is a Jedi Chef” and shrug.

Nathan Fillion, Jedi Chef. OK.

herseaoflove: mumblelogue: tsea-nami

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:50:18 -0500

herseaoflove:

mumblelogue:

tsea-nami

purns: spolikeluzhate: Is it too early to predict the Jam of...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:19:00 -0500

purns:

spolikeluzhate:

Is it too early to predict the Jam of the Summer?

I think SPO just started Summer 2010

SUMMER JAM 2010 VICTORIOUS

Oh, and someone had better tell Thomas Friedman not to take this too seriously.

"That NBC is withholding the footage from Hulu is what the Internet should actually be upset about...."

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:44:33 -0500

“That NBC is withholding the footage from Hulu is what the Internet should actually be upset about. It shows just how much of an addendum Hulu is to its owners’ digital strategy.”

- Somebody Tell Me Why the Olympics Highlights Aren’t on Hulu | The Big Money (via evangotlib) (via rafimama) (via mikehudack)

Haha, whatever it is they have, it sure as shit ain’t a strategy.

gregb: Gorillaz ft. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul - “Superfast...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:52:55 -0500

gregb:

Gorillaz ft. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul - “Superfast Jellyfish”

I’m still in awe of the guests they have on Plastic Beach. Little Dragon, Lou Reed, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Snoop, Mick Jones and Paul Simonen, Mark E Smith, Most Def, Bobby Womack…

HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? WHO THINKS TO PUT SUPER FURRY ANIMALS AND DE SOUL ON THE SAME TRACK?

Oh, right.