Category: Culture

Smalltalk Calendar

Just in case you’re a bit lost for words any month of the year (day of the week), just figure out where you are on this chart and go for it.

Via College Humour.

More old posters for new movies

I like these too, from designer Olly Moss.

A few more here.

New movies, Old posters

These are fantastic.

More here.

Musical Peanuts

I know Ben has a bit of a thing for posting Peanuts Comics. But there’s no monopoly on ideas in the blogosphere… is there?

And I like this one (found here). I think it explains my fixation with Radiohead.

And this tangentially related piece of street art is also pretty cool and postworthy.

Via this tumblog.

Hipster Preacher: as crazy as the other YouTube crazies

Ok. I’m glad the Wine Barrel guy from Brisbane doesn’t have a monopoly on crazy.

“We have the most revelation of any generation that has walked the planet.”

I can take this “revelation” and leave it… but thanks.

Oh. This explains it.

Bad Christian Music: Redux

So, the title of this video on YouTube promises so much, and delivers so little. It ends up being a guy using a Poker motiff and standing in a bar, singing about Jesus while wearing an awful shirt and doing bad Country Music style dancing.

Though, the country style dancing is not as bad as this country style dancing…

And I know what you’re thinking – these videos have been stripped from their original context, where it was probably ok to be dancing like a cowboy and singing about Jesus.

Well, I ask you, were these eyebrows ever ok, in context? The words are ok – but this is a Television commercial for Christianity, and that sort of facial expression has always been synonymous with “crazy”…

At the very least, he didn’t forget the words.

But what you guys really need to inspire you is a Christian boy band (as in kids – as in something like Hanson, but not)…

This is what happens when they grow up. They become a “Christian Crunk Rock Band”… called Family Force Five.

Maybe they didn’t get enough Psalty the Psinging Psalmbook, and his rhythmic dog Blooper.

Maybe we all need some Kerney Thomas, whose seemlessly redubbed televangelist programs are something to rival the Wine Barrel Church in heresy that makes you unsure whether to laugh or cry.

More music to study to: Gotye

I’m really looking forward to the new Gotye album. Here’s his first song:

Music to Study to: Boy and Bear and Deerhunter

Speaking of music. I’m enjoying the Boy and Bear EP With Emperor Antarctica:

And a bit of Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest I suspect many of you will like the former more than the latter…

Compare and Contrast: Owl City and the Postal Service

I heard this song somewhere, and then a friend favourited it on YouTube.

I’d always thought it was by the Postal Service, until I shazammed it (is that a verb?). Turns out I was wrong. And thousands of Internet people have already commented on the similarities.

And if you think the Postal Service sound a lot like Death Cab for Cutie that’s because Ben Gibbard is in both bands.


So there you go, I’m educating you all so that you don’t have to continue listening to the inferior knock off.

Happy Meals? Happy times… a study of burgers over time

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt does cool stuff with food. And he’s just done it again. He set out to debunk a popular myth about McDonalds – the idea that their burgers not decomposing is somehow a damning indictment on their food. How? Well, he cooked some home made burgers and recorded similar results.

Here’s where he describes his experiment, and here are the findings.

His conclusion:

“… the burger doesn’t rot because it’s small size and relatively large surface area help it to lose moisture very fast. Without moisture, there’s no mold or bacterial growth. Of course, that the meat is pretty much sterile to begin with due to the high cooking temperature helps things along as well. It’s not really surprising. Humans have known about this phenomenon for thousands of years. After all, how do you think beef jerky is made?

Now don’t get me wrong—I don’t have a dog in this fight either way. I really couldn’t care less whether or not the McDonald’s burger rotted or didn’t. I don’t often eat their burgers, and will continue to not often eat their burgers. My problem is not with McDonald’s. My problem is with bad science.”

Forewarned is forearmed…

Lest you think the story about a farting boy was the low point of my internet browsing today, think again, there’s a report going round that the off-cuts from circumcision procedures in hospitals around the world (the foreskins – hey, it’s in the Bible so it’s ok to mention here) are being sold for hundreds of dollars a pop to help develop moisturiser. Fancy that? Fancy that! Fancy, that. Three appropriate responses.

The Stir’s Christie Haskell dug deep into the largely hidden industry of baby foreskins. An infant’s foreskin has special cell properties, similar to those found in stem cells. Their versatility means that they can be used to cultivate skin cells.

Because of this, they’re not tossed out with the rest of the medical waste after a birth. Instead, hospitals sell them to companies and institutions for a wide variety of uses. Companies will pay thousands of dollars for a single foreskin.

Some of the strangest purposes they’re put to:

  • Cosmetics: Foreskins are used to make high-end skin creams. The skin products contain fibroblasts grown on the foreskin and harvested from it. One foreskin can be used for decades to produce fancy face cream like the SkinMedica products hawked on Oprah.
  • Skin grafts: In addition to making products for skin, a baby’s foreskin can be turned into a skin graft for a burn victim. Because the cells are extremely flexible, they’re less likely to be rejected. Currently, this technology can be lifesaving in providing a real skin “band aid” to cover an open wound while a burn victim heals. Researchers at Harvard and Tufts are working on advanced skin replacements that use human foreskins.
  • Cosmetic testing: All those cruelty-free cosmetics you buy? Some of them are tested on foreskins. This yields better results, since they’re human skin. And it saves the lives of the rodents your shampoo would otherwise be tested on.

Yeah. From here. Corroborated here (and elsewhere – or it could be some sort of horrible joke)

The things Fox calls news: Boy passes gas on school bus

I think this might be old.

But it doesn’t stop it being a damning indictment on the editorial policies of local branches of Fox News.

Seriously.

“Boy farts on school bus, gets detention” wouldn’t have even been given a run in my school newspaper.

Life through the lens of Facebook

A cool video, with a few swear words (in text).

OK Go’s latest clipstravaganza: Now with extra toast

OK Go make the best film clips. By a long way. If I had to list the top three film clips of all time they’d have the top three spots… this is amazing.


Last Leaf

OK Go | Myspace Music Videos

Seinfeld and Economics

While I’m on the subject of economics, if you like Seinfeld, and want a crash course in economic principles, then this is the website for you. It uses clips from the sitcom to teach economic principles. Who knew, the show wasn’t about nothing afterall – but about economics.

Here’s an example that teaches you about game theory, and cost-benefit analysis, and dominant strategy.

“George thinks he has been offered a job, but the man offering it to him got interrupted in the middle of the offer, and will be on vacation for the next week. George, unsure whether an offer has actually been extended, decides that his best strategy is to show up. If the job was indeed his, this is the right move. But even if the job is not, he believes that the benefits outweigh the costs. “

The site is called Yada, Yada, Yada, Econ.