Director Daniel Jewel invites us into the magical and world of foley artist Pete Burgis and Sue Harding who create sound effects using techniques that look odd when you see them but sound spot on when paired with the right visual.
One of the best stories if you haven't read it already.
Hijacker D.B. Cooper leaped from a plane in a storm with $200,000 and a parachute and was never seen again. The FBI, after 45 years of investigation, is letting him slip into legend for good.
On Nov. 24, 1971 passenger Dan Cooper threatened to blow up a Northwest Orient flight if he didn't receive $200,000, four parachutes and a flight to Mexico.
As part of the agreement between Cooper and authorities, passengers on the flight were dropped off at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In exchange for the hostages, ransom loot and the parachutes were brought aboard.
Shortly before hitting the Oregon border, Cooper jumped out of the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes. Neither Cooper, nor his remains, were ever found. Tattered ransom money was found along the banks of the Columbia River in 1980.
After Brexit, it appears Sir Patrick Stewart has found a new home on the range.
The venerable Shakespearean actor, who has also stolen scenes as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek and Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men, has inexplicably shown up in a YouTube video, singing cowboy songs.
The video was sneakily announced on Stewart's Twitter account June 30, along with a picture of him in full western regalia, holding a guitar with what is presumably his backup band. It appears to be a mock infomercial to sell a group of albums of Stewart singing songs from the prairie titled Patrick Stewart's Cowboy Classics.Read more...
data food. food data? snacktistics? foodformatics?
When the first “data cuisine” workshop kicked off in Helsinki in 2012—with dishes such as “Criminal Herring in Fur Coat,” a savory representation of Finland’s crime rates—not many likely expected the movement to last. Yet here it is four years later with its U.S. debut in Boston, in which chefs composed scrumptious snacks riffing on local issues like food sourcing, wealth inequality, and water pollution.
About that last one: Yes, there really was a fecal-coliform cocktail, called... retch... “A Million New Friends.” Fortunately, no toxic bacteria were included. But the culinary strangeness didn’t end there. Below, find some of the other fare served at the June event at the Goethe-Institut Boston. Descriptions were provided by the Data Cuisine organizers, which include Moritz Stefaner and Susanne Jaschko. (Gaitskell Cleghorn Jr., ex-chef at the community nonprofit Haley House, acted as culinary director.)
From above, all three vodka jello shots look almost the same. A nontransparent light-blue layer doesn’t allow you to see what’s under the surface—just as the water in the Boston Harbor looks like throughout the year. But independent of when in the year you take a bath, you will always make contact with more fecal-coliform bacteria than considered harmless. In proportion to the average amount of coliform bacteria in summer and winter, lemon zest is added to the jellos. Blueberries are used for the harbor rocks, a plastic whale is added to the summer version, and candy cane and powdered sugar to give an impression of snow and slush in the winter version. The third glass shows the max amount of coliform within the recreational limits.
Many factors affect fish populations in the Gulf of Maine, but certainly water temperature has a major impact on the populations of cod and lobster. These seafood entrees create awareness for the rising lobster population and the declining cod population in the Gulf over the past 16 years.
A ceviche, a cold dish, represents the ratio of both dwellers in 2000. You can experience the effects of rising water temperature in the two lukewarm sous-vide morsels representing data from 2007. And eventually, in the 2014 preparation—yes, it’s getting hot—both the lobster and the cod are broiled and served with smoked paprika and burned fins.
This Bostonian layered-rice dish makes a critical statement about the class-based disparities in relation to densities of hazardous waste sites in Massachusetts. Basically it shows that the poorer you are, the more you are exposed to pollution. Hence, the black rice increases with the density of waste sites, with a dramatic-looking sewage of waste (pesto) of the upper layer [leaking] into the soil (white rice). Finally, the amount of scrambled egg on top indicates the income group.
In this smoothie-drinking performance, each of the fruit purees must be consumed simultaneously through straws whose length corresponds to the distance the food has traveled to Boston. The blueberries imported from Canada result in a 7.5-inch straw; the strawberries from Peru in a 27.75-inch straw; pineapple from Costa Rica in a 31-inch straw; Greek peaches in a 32.7-inch straw; Turkish cherries in a 35.7-inch straw. And finally, the Chilean Blackberries traveled the longest way resulting in a 37.5-inch straw.
The recent “The Color of Wealth in Boston” report revealed the difference in access to liquid assets in the Boston population. The research inspired Boon and Carol to make six daiquiri variations in which the different rums used indicate the ethnic group/origin and their amount of liquid assets. In many cultures, alcohol is made from sugarcane byproducts. In order to produce rum, sugarcane needs to ferment, which means it must be put aside and not touched for some time, just like people do with their financial assets.
The cocktails should be served in ice spheres of different thickness (thick = most assets = more protected; thin = least assets = least protected) which must be cracked before drinking. The performative action of slashing the ice reminds us that for those people with little liquid assets a simple event such as an accident or loss or employment means financial hazard.
The winner of Saturday's College World Series game between the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers and the Texas Christian University Frogs was decidedly this kid.
at first i thought this was extreme. but then i remembered that ohio is full of crazies from both ends of the spectrum. this whole thing is one big circus. i hope nobody does anything duuuuumb.
The city of Cleveland has revealed its crowd control plan for next month's Republican National Convention, a heavily policed, fenced off 3.3 square-mile "event zone" -- the size of Baghdad's Green Zone -- with fenced-off protest areas far from the convention itself.
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Last month I wrote an article about how giving scientists a few merit badges could encourage them to be more transparent about their work. Given the ongoing discussion about scientific methods, I expected the story to draw reader comments about the badges, how to make science more reliable, and issues like that.
Instead, what people seemed most eager to talk about was a line from the Mel Brooks movie “Blazing Saddles”: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” I’d quoted it in the first paragraph of the article, and readers were rushing to email me and leave notes in our comments section and on social media to tell me that the line didn’t originate with “Blazing Saddles.” (Which I’d stated in a footnote! But that’s another matter.)
The experience got me wondering: What compels people to comment publicly online or contact an author in the first place? Only a small subset of readers ever comment or write to me. What makes people take that step? Why was it that I didn’t receive a single reader email about the badges themselves, only about the movie quote? What is it about certain topics that they provoke such passionate comments?
As a science writer, I’m lucky enough to get paid to answer questions like these. So I’m on a hunt to learn more about the psychology of what drives people to comment (or not). I’ve been poking around the research on this subject, but I want to hear from you. Whether you’re a regular commenter or someone who’s never offered an opinion online, I want to know why you comment or why you don’t.
Please take a moment to answer our brief survey. (It will take only a few minutes!) I’ll be back in a few weeks to share what I’ve learned.
"We lack confidence that Judge (Aaron) Persky can fairly participate in this upcoming hearing in which a male nurse sexually assaulted an anesthetised female patient," Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. He called the move "rare and carefully considered". ...
Stacey Capps, chief trial deputy for the District Attorney's office, said the new case was reassigned to another judge and a hearing was held on Tuesday afternoon. She said that the victim was "particularly vulnerable" factored into the move. Capps said in the new case, Cecil Webb stands accused of touching the vagina and breast of a woman who was anesthetised ahead of a surgery at a Santa Clara hospital in November 2014.
Rosen, though disagreeing with Turner's sentence, earlier backed the judge against criticism of his impartiality. But now he, too, is a critic of his impartiality.
in addition to being very important, this report is also an excellent exercise in design. i also had a chance to have a beer with cindy cohn last summer and she was very real and very cool.
The 25th year of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's activism to keep the Internet and its users free was an amazing one.
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guys - i went to a magic show a few weeks ago and learned that there used to be magic bars all over the city. that magicians society that job would bring up all the time in arrested development existed here!! a brotherhood of magicians who would perform all of the city. i gotta say, it was pretty fun to drink and be BLOWN away by slight of hand tricks. plus they know when they're cheesy and it's adorable. anyway, this place in the photo opened in 1886 and closed in 1999. i say time for a revival.
Matt Schulien’s Magic Bar, 1800 N Halsted (1886-1960) and 2100 W Irving Park (1960-1999), 1945, Chicago.
Schulien’s operated in one form or another from 1886 until 1999. The caption for the 1945 photo reads:
“Matt Schulien’s No. 1 trick is a card tossing act. A customer selects a card, Matt putts it back in the deck, gives the whole pack a mighty fling at an ancient painting on the wall. All the cards fall away but the one selected by the patron, which sticks firmly to the painting. Thirty-two cards, a few wide of the target but fast to the wall, attest to past performances.”
Thanks to John Tully for the dates of operation at both locations!
Key & Peele may have ended its five-season run last fall, but the popular Comedy Central show will live on online.
The show, which stars creators Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, featured more than 300 sketches, 176 of which previously couldn't be found on the Internet.
Now, all of them are available online for the first time ever, all on the Viacom-owned network's website.
Not sure whether to be impressed with his automation skills or be disgusted by the managerial oversight. I'm leaning toward impressed.
On the Career Questions forum on Reddit, user FiletOfFish1066 said he was hired seven years ago by an "incredibly well known" tech company in the Bay Area as a software developer. He wrote, "After around 8 months I had basically automated my own job by writing some programs to do it all for me. After that I would mostly just browse forums and do absolutely jack shit at work. My boss never really checked in on me and as long as the needed tests were taken care of he didn't give a fuck."
From around 6 years ago up until now, I have done nothing at work. I am not joking. For 40 hours each week I go to work, play League of Legends in my office, browse reddit, and do whatever I feel like. In the past 6 years I have maybe done 50 hours of real work. So basically nothing. And nobody really cared. The tests were all running successfully. I shit you not, I had no friends or anything at work either, so nobody ever talked to me except my boss and occasionally the devs for the software I was testing.
Yesterday my boss fired me. I guess IT found out after 6 years or so what I was doing and reported it to my boss. I explained I had automated my own job, but was still updating the automation tool, which was a lie. Anyway, I was fired.
He says that during those six years of goofing off, he forgot how to code, and now he doesn't know what to do next. But 376 other Reddit users have advice for him, which you can read here.
I don't think this a well-produced clip, HOWEVER, three cheers for multiple careers and skewering math.
As a child, Danica McKellar played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years. After the show was over, McKellar had difficulty breaking away from other people's perceptions of her. But in college, she discovered an aptitude for mathematics, went on to have a theorem named after her -- not because she was famous but because she'd helped prove it -- and forged a new identity. (via @stevenstrogatz)
More about Classics, Songs, Cowboy, Patrick Stewart, and Watercooler
