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31 Dec 06:43
Bone Music: How Banned Western Music in the Soviet Union Was Printed on Repurposed X-Ray Records
by Christopher Jobson
Photos via Jozsef Hajdu and Ksenia Vytuleva
Photos via Jozsef Hajdu
If you asked me when the history of bootleg music began, I would have assumed it arrived with the invention of the cassette tape, something small, inexpensive and portable that was easily duplicated in any garage from deck A to deck B. In reality, widespread bootlegging dates back even further, to the 1950s in the Soviet Union where music lovers, desperate for banned Western tunes, devised an ingenious way to print their own records. The only problem was the scarcity of vinyl.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. With the aid of a special device, people started pressing banned jazz and rock n’ roll music on thick radiographs scavenged from the dumpsters of hospitals. X-rays were plentiful (not to mention cheap), and while the records could only be pressed on a single side, the music they produced using a standard turntable was passable. The recordings even had a catchy name: bone music. From an interview with author Anya von Bremzen via NPR:
“They would cut the X-ray into a crude circle with manicure scissors and use a cigarette to burn a hole. You’d have Elvis on the lungs, Duke Ellington on Aunt Masha’s brain scan—forbidden Western music captured on the interiors of Soviet citizens.”
By 1958 the authorities caught on and the act of making x-ray records was made illegal. It wasn’t long before the largest distribution networks of illicit bone music were discovered and shut down. You can see more scans of bone music over on this page created by Jozsef Hajdu, and FastCo has a great article about the entire phenomenon. (via Junk Culture, NPR, FastCo)
Afishman126, lbstopher and 3 others like this
31 Dec 06:42
Record Breaking Wheel of Fortune Contestant Wins with 1-Letter Clue
by John Farrier
Matt DeSanto and his 2 competitors had a 3-word, 13-letter puzzle to solve. It was a character. There was one clue: a letter E at the end of the second word.
DeSanto amazingly nailed the correct answer instantly. There was no hesitation. He clicked on his buzzer and won $91,892. In the 39 years that the game show Wheel of Fortune has been on the air, no one has won as much money during normal gameplay. Read more about DeSanto's victory at the Today show (warning: auto-start video).
-via Geek Tyrant
31 Dec 05:23
The hilarious ridiculousness of the new Star Wars' crossguard lightsaber
by Casey Chan
Like the rest of us, Machinima Happy Hour wondered what would happen after the crossguard lightsaber scene in the new Star Wars trailer. Unlike the rest of us, they created this hilarious animation imagination of how ridiculous that fight would be because adding light sabers to just anything is just crazy.
30 Dec 23:34
This Shredded Kale Salad with Poached Egg and Crispy Prosciutto is deeply nourishing and incredibly flavorful.
craving more? check out TasteSpotting
#347202 - Shredded Kale Salad with Poached Egg and Crispy Prosciutto Recipe
This Shredded Kale Salad with Poached Egg and Crispy Prosciutto is deeply nourishing and incredibly flavorful.
craving more? check out TasteSpotting
30 Dec 23:33
Note: The chart is broken into pieces for readability. Full, much harder to read version HERE.
This is a chart listing the twenty most popular (English speaking?) websites every year since 1996. I like how Penthouse actually made the list the first year. Sadly, Geekologie is nowhere to be seen, presumably because we always float around between the 21st and 30th most popular website. Don't wanna be too popular, you know? They you wouldn't feel special for reading. This is like a secret club. *knock at door* What's the secret password? "Probably something about penises." *opening door* Come in, quick, we were just about to get started giving each other our superhero names.
Keep going for all the charts in order.
The 20 Most Popular Websites Every Year Since 1996
Note: The chart is broken into pieces for readability. Full, much harder to read version HERE.
This is a chart listing the twenty most popular (English speaking?) websites every year since 1996. I like how Penthouse actually made the list the first year. Sadly, Geekologie is nowhere to be seen, presumably because we always float around between the 21st and 30th most popular website. Don't wanna be too popular, you know? They you wouldn't feel special for reading. This is like a secret club. *knock at door* What's the secret password? "Probably something about penises." *opening door* Come in, quick, we were just about to get started giving each other our superhero names.
Keep going for all the charts in order.
atarianer and -1 others like this
30 Dec 23:25
IMAX 3D Camera
by Popular Science Staff
No cinema camera captures mind-blowing images like an IMAX camera, but because the cameras are so loud and heavy (the 3-D versions are around 200 pounds), cinematographers…
30 Dec 23:23
It's a war out there. I regret nothing.
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submitted by Angry_Apollo [link] [1905 comments] |
30 Dec 23:22
This Is The Best Introduction A 1986 Chevy Nova Ever Got
by Patrick George
By the mid-1980s, the Chevrolet Nova had made a rather unceremonious transition from compact muscle car to rebadged front-wheel drive Toyota hatchback. It wasn't a bad car, but it certainly wasn't a great one, nor one that people would lust after.
30 Dec 23:21
Mac Sabbath is a Black Sabbath cover band that plays the original band's tunes, but with the words changed to relate to McDonald's. There's a video of a live performance of 'Frying Pan' (Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man') after the jump, and I kept waiting for Ronald to grab that Fry Kid and bite its head off, but it never happened. Seriously? I'd be pissed if the cover was over $5. That said, I'd still let evil Grimace sign my chest with a McRib.
Keep going for the performance.
Mac Sabbath: The Evil McDonald's Character Black Sabbath Cover Band
Mac Sabbath is a Black Sabbath cover band that plays the original band's tunes, but with the words changed to relate to McDonald's. There's a video of a live performance of 'Frying Pan' (Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man') after the jump, and I kept waiting for Ronald to grab that Fry Kid and bite its head off, but it never happened. Seriously? I'd be pissed if the cover was over $5. That said, I'd still let evil Grimace sign my chest with a McRib.
Keep going for the performance.
30 Dec 23:20
Newly published NSA documents show agency could grab all Skype traffic
by Sean Gallagher
A National Security Agency document published this week by the German news magazine Der Spiegel from the trove provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden shows that the agency had full access to voice, video, text messaging, and file sharing from targeted individuals over Microsoft’s Skype service. The access, mandated by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant, was part of the NSA’s PRISM program and allowed “sustained Skype collection” in real time from specific users identified by their Skype user names.
The nature of the Skype data collection was spelled out in an NSA document dated August 2012 entitled “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection.” The document details how to “task” the capture of voice communications from Skype by NSA’s NUCLEON system, which allows for text searches against captured voice communications. It also discusses how to find text chat and other data sent between clients in NSA’s PINWALE “digital network intelligence” database.
The full capture of voice traffic began in February of 2011 for “Skype in” and “Skype out” calls—calls between a Skype user and a land line or cellphone through a gateway to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), captured through warranted taps into Microsoft’s gateways. But in July of 2011, the NSA added the capability of capturing peer-to-peer Skype communications—meaning that the NSA gained the ability to capture peer-to-peer traffic and decrypt it using keys provided by Microsoft through the PRISM warrant request.
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