Russian Sledges

designjargonbullshit.com.

(from nbcnews.com PhotoBlog)

CHRISTINE, I SAID I WAS SORRY.

CAN I PLEASE COME BACK ON THE MAINLAND?

I’LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, I PROMISE.

On the right is your restaurant receipt. On the left is the scrap of paper you will probably throw out in 20 seconds.

Because you weren’t already getting enough news from your TV/radio/computer/phone/electronic highway billboards (and occasionally newspapers and magazines), someone has come up with yet another way to provide you with the latest headlines — your restaurant receipt.

Washington, D.C., eatery Old Ebbit Grill has become a test case for a program that would give diners a slip of paper, in addition to their restaurant bill, full of the latest stories from the Associated Press.

The idea is apparently to “leverage thousands of existing restaurant printers as a new worldwide printing press,” according to this press release about the not-at-all-silly-or-wasteful idea.

Of course, it’s also about making money through ads that would go on the soon-to-be-completely-disregarded-and-discarded slip of “Latest News.”

Not surprisingly, the first company to try advertising in this format is Domtar, a biggie in the paper industry, which hopes to promote the use of paper because no one really likes trees anyway, right?

[via Eater.com]

Somewhat related, Bill Barnwell has a good piece in Grantland looking at RGII's injury from both an ethical and a practical standpoint. He concludes that it was wrong to let RGIII play in the moment for practical reasons (hampered by injury) and wrong when you look at the entirety of the situation. The most damning piece of evidence isn't what happened in the game, but what happened weeks before:

Sunday broke with the news that Dr. James Andrews hadn't cleared Robert Griffin to come back into the Week 14 game against the Ravens after suffering the initial knee injury, despite Mike Shanahan claiming otherwise as part of the justification for pushing RG3 back in for four plays. Shanahan pretended that there was a conversation with Andrews offering his consent for the move when Andrews noted that he had been shielded from evaluating Griffin by the head coach.  
The medical staff -- including Andrews -- evaluated Griffin on Sunday after his injury and said that he was, according to the untrustworthy Shanahan, "fine to play," suggesting that the team had checked with the doctors to "ask them their opinion if we would be hampering his LCL ... or was he in good enough shape to go into the game and play at the level we need for him to win." It seems like an impossible argument to win. Griffin didn't have an MRI during the game or miss time until suffering his second knee injury of the day. He had a gigantic brace on his knee built specifically to support his LCL, so it's not a surprise that the doctors would suggest that LCL wouldn't be hampered. Even if Griffin was healthy enough to step back onto the field, the dramatic dip in his performance should have been enough to tip off a coach who's been around football for his entire life that something was wrong.

From USA Today:

Andrews, however, told USA TODAY Sports on Saturday that he never cleared Griffin to go back into the game, because he never even examined him. 
 "(Griffin) didn't even let us look at him," Andrews said. "He came off the field, walked through the sidelines, circled back through the players and took off back to the field. It wasn't our opinion.
"We didn't even get to touch him or talk to him. Scared the hell out of me." 
Yet when asked by news reporters, Shanahan described a conversation with Andrews this way: 
"He's on the sidelines with Dr. Andrews. He had a chance to look at him and he said he could go back in," Shanahan said Dec. 10. 
"(I said) 'Hey, Dr. Andrews, can Robert go back in?' 
'Yeah, he can go back in.' 
 'Robert, go back in.' 
"That was it," Shanahan said.

I think it's worth recognizing that circumventing medical opinion is an old tradition in football. Barnwell makes the point that Shanahan has been around the game for his entire life. But that is actually the problem. Football is premised on the hazy morality of "playing through pain." And it isn't hazy simply because of what football is, but because of what people are--which is to say very different from each other. 
Even by those standards, it's still dishonorable to conjure medical cover for a questionable decision. In a league where coaches are cycled in and out every two or three years, and players are disposable, the incentive toward conjuring cover is obvious.

“People say we’ve never sold out… No one ever approached us.”

That’s Motörhead frontman, Lemmy Kilmister, discussing his entry into the world of celebrity branded headphones. Focusing on mid-range, the new Motorheadphones are a direct attack on the headphones that overemphasize bass – Beats by Dre leading the pack. As Lemmy puts it, ”It’s like you’re listening through a towel.”

I would personally agree with that, though only a listen to tell us if Motorheadphones will be any better sonically.

The all-metal headphones will consist of nine products with three headphones and six in-ear models; ranging between $49.99-$59.99. Now available online.

Motorheadphones – The “Anti-Beats” Headphones from Motörhead is a post by Jeff Carvalho on Selectism.

One way or another, we’re all running away from Foucault. In this distressing online game, you can actually run away from Foucault with your fingertips, rather than by merely existing in society. It’s scary, all but impossible, and totally futile. Well, of course; that’s the whole point. But who, apart from some people I know back at my upstate New York small, progressive, liberal-arts college, would actually play it? Real life is punishment enough.

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Here's a bunch of eating and drinking establishments near the Central Square T stop courtesy of the new Chowder series "T-Time." On the list: 1369, Brick & Mortar, Moody's Falafel Palace and more. [C]

The two artists give a carefully choreographed performance highlighting songs from their 2012 album Love This Giant. They also throw in old favorites from their individual catalogs, including the Talking Heads song "Burning Down the House" and St. Vincent's "Marrow," from her 2009 album Actor.

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We probably should have seen this coming:

Last fall, the National Entertainment Collectibles Association, Inc. (NECA), in tandem with the Weinstein Company, announced a full line of consumer products based on characters from the movie. First up are pose-able eight-inch action figures with tailored clothing, weaponry, and accessories in the likeness of characters played by Foxx, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Remar and Christoph Waltz. 
The dolls are currently on sale via Amazon.com. A press release announcing the deal stated that the line was similar to the retro toy lines that helped define the licensed action-figure market in the 1970s and that the collection will include a full apparel and accessories line. At the time of the announcement, NECA president Joel Weinshanker said the company was "very excited to bring the stellar cast of Django to life and honored to be working with another Tarantino masterpiece."  
Action figures for Tarantino films Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 may have been better suited for such commercial pursuits. But for some projects, anything goes. On Facebook last week, a post from "Black Is magazine" posed the question: "Who's in the market for a Django Unchained action figure? Funny or offensive?"

I don't think it's particularly funny or offensive, so much as it is apropos. I'm not going to see Django. I'm not very interested in watching some black dude slaughter a bunch of white people, so much as I am interested in why that never actually happened, and what that says. I like art that begins in the disturbing truth of things and then proceeds to ask the questions which history can't. 
Among those truths, for me, is the relative lack of appetite for revenge among slaves and freedmen. The great slaughter which white supremacists were always claiming to be around the corner, was never actually in the minds of slaves and freedman. What they wanted most was peace. It's true they had to kill for it. But their general perspective was "Leave me the fuck alone." 
This is disturbing if you come up in a time where slavery is acknowledged by much of society as one of the great tragedies of history. There is a feeling that "They" got away with it, a sense of large injustice that haunts all of us. I am certain that my earliest attractions to the USCT had everything to do with the presence of guns, and the possibility of vengeful badassery. I found very little of that. I did find a lot of courage, a lot of humor, and a lot of pain over family divided by auction blocks. There was some talk of "Remember Ft. Pillow." But there was very little in the way of "Kill them all." 
It was the same with my studies of the Underground Railroad. If you read William Still's compendium of  escapes, you find very few revanchists. Instead you see an incredible number of people who escaped, not because of the labor or torture of slavery, but because a relative was sold or because they, themselves, were about to be sold to family. Slave revenge has the luxury of making slavery primarily about white people. It is a luxury that the black rebels of antebellum America had little use for. Uppermost in their minds was not ensuring that white slavers got what was coming, but the preservation and security of their particular black families. Their husbands and wives were not objects to be avenged, but actual whole people whose welfare was more important than payback I so longed to see.
It was almost as though history was refusing to give me what I wanted. And I have come to believe that right there is the thing--the tension in historical art is so much about what we want from the past and the past actually gives. All the juice lay in abandoning our assumptions, our needs, and donning the mask of a different people with different needs. This is never totally possible--but I have found the effort to be transcendent. It fills you with a feeling that is outside of yourself.
My larger point is that Django "action figures" are an excellent comment on our needs today. In that sense, they are actually like the Confederate Flag and the deification of Robert E. Lee. I don't know if this is a problem, or not. You can't really expect Americans--black or otherwise--to be American in all their other incarnations, and then suddenly change when discussing slavery. I'm pretty sure that Robert E. Lee has an action figure, too. 
So this is progress. And this is democracy. It's just not for me. And I think that's alright.

The world's mostly southerly herd of reindeer is to be culled in an attempt to save the environment of the tiny island of South Georgia.

The owners of Chicago's Intelligentsia Coffee are expanding to Manhattan with a shop in West Chelsea. Intelligentsia has sold its beans in NYC for many years now, and the company has a training facility in Soho, but this will be its first official coffee shop in the area. No word yet on the exact location, but it's slated to open in March. [Sprudge]

Like it or not awards season has arrived and predictably for costume design that means little surprises with regards to nominations.

BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) have just announced their line-up for 2013. While all the choices are worthy, one especially, collectively they demonstrate a misunderstanding of exactly what costume design is and what it brings to film. Period, fantasy and spectacle are still applauded above all facets, and even though this is part of costume design it should never be the overriding factor in determining the very best of costume design. Costume serves narrative and whichever film released in 2012 has achieved that most successfully deserves to be rewarded. BAFTA nominations below:

Anna Karenina – Jacqueline Durran
Great Expectations – Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
Les Misérables – Paco Delgado
Lincoln – Joanna Johnston
Snow White and the Huntsman – Colleen Atwood

Moonrise Kingdom: Overlooked, despite those shoes.

So who is missing from the list? Well, Django Unchained (Sharen Davis), The Hunger Games (Judianna Makovsky) and Moonrise Kingdom (Walicka Maimone) to name but three. Lawless (Margot Wilson) also ticks a lot of award boxes – namely that it is period and features an exciting use of colour. If BAFTA were really thinking outside of the box they could have included Moonrise Kingdom, which was both period and kooky. Yet even taking costume design at its most basic, fundamental level, surely anyone could see that Mirror, Mirror (Eiko Ishioka) deserved a mention?

Hopefully the Oscar Academy Award nominations will be a little more inspiring. Again, taking nothing away from those on BAFTA’s line-up, in fact congratulations are in order. But sadly it is obvious that the art of costume design still has a long way to go in being truly understood. Award ceremonies almost broke the mold two years ago with Black Swan (which won Amy Westcott a CDG) – let’s see them do it again.

The British Academy Film Awards take place on Sunday 10 February 2013.

© 2013, Chris Laverty.

Archipelago Cinema is perhaps the first floating cinema to ever exist.

Designed by a German architect Ole Scheeren, he said he aimed to create "A sense of temporality, randomness, almost like driftwood. Or maybe something more architectural: Modular pieces, loosely assembled, like a group of little islands that congregate to form an auditorium." 

The audience floats in the middle of a beautiful lagoon, enjoying movies and being separated from the screen by the water. Ole Scheeren saw them as pieces, joined together by fun and joy. Nature and technology, put together into an amazing opportunity for people who want to experience a unique feeling and add something more to the experience of watching a movie.

The base for the cinema is based on the techniques used by fishermen for floating lobster farms construction.

"It's remarkable that with the digital switchover complete, 41% of UK households owning HDTVs and Britons leading the world in accessing TV content over the internet, more than 13,000 households still watch their favourite programmes on a black-and-white telly." BBC 01/09/13

Наркомпуть. Он твой жалеет пятки! И тебя во все лопатки, без забот и без хлопот, паровоз иль пароход куда надо довезет! / People’s Commissariat for Public Transportation. He feels sorry for your feet, so he prefers to take you without effort and hurry on train or ship, wherever necessary!

Before meditating and looking within, making sure to look good on the outside, too.

This classic South American treat is literally cornmeal mixed with mashed plantains and cheese. So basically, as you could imagine, it's amazing. Try out my Mandocas recipe on Tablespoon

The new vanguard of gender activists wants a broad, inclusive way to describe sexual minorities.

Алехандро Као де Бенос / Cao de Benos хорошо известен не только в международном чучхейском движении, но и среди тех людей, кто просто интересуется КНДР

Алехандро - потомок очень древнего Кастильского аристократического рода, живет в Королевстве Испания, в городе Саломо.  Впервые факел Чучхе загорелся в его сердце в далеком 1990-м году, когда юношей он познакомился на книжной выставке с делегатами из КНДР, и те рассказали ему о Ким Ир Сене и Ким Чен Ире.

Данный день явился поворотным в его жизни. Много бессонных ночей провел он на бензоколонке, заправляя автомобили толстосумов, копя тем самым деньги на поездку в рай Социализма. Но этот путь испанского дворянина не был столь уж оригинальным. Многие заслуженные международные сторонники КНДР, специалисты и чучхейские ученые, расскажут Вам, о том как захваченные один раз Идеями Чучхе они бросали все и копили деньги на первую поездку в Пхеньян, беря кредит, продавая для этого, кто автомобиль, кто гараж. 

Это на Юг - в оккупированную зону, марионетки бесплатно свозят Боингами прихлебателей со всех концов света, прикармливая их т.н "грантами", чтоб затем вырастить из них свои клеветнические пропагандистские орудия. Но в КНДР, помочь смогут, только советом, который на самом деле окажется "дороже любого куска золота".

Очевидно, что в данном пролетарском подходе и заключается живучесть и главная сила последователей Идей самостоятельности, черпающих силы и средства прямо из самой гущи народных масс

Наконец, собрав нужную сумму, Алехандро ступил на землю КНДР, с которой теперь не растается ровно половину дней в году.

Недавно, одна известная иностранная газета поместила репортаж о жизни известного чучхеиста в Испании и в КНДР, который приводим и мы

Алехандро в своем доме в Саломо, Испания

Недалеко от Пэктусанского тайного лагеря

Частый гость фестивалей

С родителями

На городских улицах южноиспанских городов

Пронося факел Чучхе по земле Сервантеса и Долорес Ибаррури.

Его труд отмечен многими наградами и дипломами

из газеты "Независимость"

P/S     Чучхейский календарь на новый 2013 год. Отличный подарок и сувенир из КНДР

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(NEW!) Drew's blog is The Worst Things For Sale.

This map from the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States (1932) shows how long it took to travel across the United States in 1800, with a starting point in New York City. For example, New York City to New Orleans took about four weeks. By comparison, the map below shows rates of travel in 1930, when railroads allowed travelers to cross the country in about 4 days. For more maps, check out Mother Nature Network.

via I Love Charts

Celtics veteran Kevin Garnett is known as something of a vicious trash talker—and on Monday, he thoroughly enraged Knicks star Carmelo Anthony on and off the court, to the point that Anthony stood outside the Celtics bus waiting for him post-game. What could have set Anthony off so much? According to Black Sports Online, Garnett said to him at one point, “Your...wife tastes like Honey Nut Cheerios.” And it turns out that Anthony and wife LaLa Vasquez are separated right now. [ more › ]

Prepare to be overwhelmed by this six page story of eating in Hong Kong with Toro and Coppa chef Jamie Bissonnette in The Phoenix. As guests of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, he and writer Cassandra Landry eat and drink, uh, everything. [TP]

Bringing their Radiophonic Workshop to the web, the BBC attempt to recreate their classic Wobbulator and Ring Modulator sounds online, using JavaScript and HTML5.

Those looking forward to the ManRay reunion February 1 at Brighton Music Hall have a new reason to celebrate: Cambridge Day reported last night that the legendary Cambridge nightclub could be...

Support indie media! Read the rest at thephoenix.com . . .

There's caring about politics, and there's... that: a guy — obviously, a guy — refusing to tip a server at a restaurant because of tax policy. The photo comes via author Michael Kindt from California — and probably L.A., because, I mean, c'mon — as evidenced by the mention of Proposition 30, which was a bill passed this past Nov. that raised sales taxes and taxes on the rich in California. More »