Chris Hedges “Brace Yourself! The American Empire Is Over & The Descent Is Going To Be Horrifying!” – YouTube
Authors@Google: Tyler Shores “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo & Philosophy” – YouTube
Authors@Google: Kyle Johnson ‘Inception and Philosophy’ – YouTube
ink & paper by Ben Proudfoot
The Einstein Theory of Relativity 1923 on Vimeo: The Einstein Theory of Relativity is a silent animated film made in 1923 that tried to explain Einstein’s work to the general public.
Off Book | Product Design | PBS Arts – YouTube: We swim in an ocean of products. Behind each one, there is someone (hopefully) thinking about the way we experience it. In this episode of Off Book, we explore three aspects of product design: build quality and engineering fundamentals, humanism and sustainability, and speculation on the future of the product experience. In discussion with the 4th generation owner of a classic brand, a brilliant designer of socially progressive products, and an MIT researcher looking to revolutionize the product experience through 3D printing, we’ll capture a sense of the values and challenges in the contemporary world of product design.
Comic book writer Alan Moore talking about science and imagination – Nine Lessons 2011 – YouTube: And he’s wearing a Sperm-Shirt.
Alan Moore: Don’t Let Me Die In Black And White on Vimeo: Buttonholed by Alan Moore, as he presents Don’t Let Me Die in Black and White, a fascinating personal travelogue (part history, part politics, part autobiography) of his home town, Northampton, from 1993.
Greatest Card Trick Ever on Vimeo: The amazing Dave Cremin performs an impossible card trick in Times Square.
Spam Poetry Institute | Preserving the fine literature created by the world’s spammers: Preserving the fine literature created by the world’s spammers
Algorithm Measures Human Pecking Order – Technology Review: The way people copy each other’s linguistic style reveals their pecking order.
Anonymous 101 Part Deux: Morals Triumph Over Lulz | Threat Level | Wired.com: In the beginning, there were lulz, pranks and a culture of trolling just to get a rise out of anyone. But despite many original Anons best efforts, Anonymous has grown up to become the net’s immune system, striking back whenever the hive mind perceived that the institutions that run the world crossed the line into hypocrisy.
Beyond ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’: The Music of Occupy Wall Street | Threat Level | Wired.com
Crowd dynamics: The wisdom of crowds | The Economist: The strange but extremely valuable science of how pedestrians behave
The Best Christopher Hitchens Longreads – The Daily Beast: From his epic takedown of Henry Kissinger to his petty crime spree in Bloomberg’s New York, The Daily Beast picks just a few highlights from Christopher Hitchens’s prolific career.
Drone-Ethics Briefing: What a Leading Robot Expert Told the CIA – Patrick Lin – Technology – The Atlantic: Robots are replacing humans on the battlefield–but could they also be used to interrogate and torture suspects? This would avoid a serious ethical conflict between physicians’ duty to do no harm, or nonmaleficence, and their questionable role in monitoring vital signs and health of the interrogated. A robot, on the other hand, wouldn’t be bound by the Hippocratic oath, though its very existence creates new dilemmas of its own.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 opening title sequence | Art of the Title: Drawing on a fascination with home-made props and blending imagery from sources as diverse as Frank Zappa, the Mickey Mouse Club, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Joel Hodgson and his team created a title sequence with its roots in UHF television broadcasting. Tom Servo, Crow, and the rest of the gang show their seams unabashedly, embracing the spirit of the movies so endearingly skewered aboard the Satellite of Love.
Joel Robinson’s space-borne imprisonment by distant jailers is a trial of the will, every film a battle. Each successive gauntlet of schlock that Joel (and the viewer) survives drives these tormentors further and further into manic desperation. How bad will they get? How bad can they get?! Joel and his impish robot companions may be prisoners to cinematic dreck and straight-to-video garbage, but no matter how terrible the film, they joyfully embrace it. The journey to Mystery Science Theater 3000 reminds viewers of the true meaning of “so bad it’s good.”
