The Lawsuit Over Calling Someone 'Fucking Crazy' on Twitter Is Fucking Crazy Hey, those of you with poor Twitter judgment: It’s completely cool to call someone “fucking crazy” on Twitter, though you might have to go through the trouble of a legal battle with the person you accused, as one horse enthusiast in Kentucky just found out. The whole thing is a bit nutty, so bear with me here for a moment: Toxicology research scientist Mara Feld bought a horse named Munition for $1 a few years ago. Feld quickly learned that keeping a horse in Massachusetts is not a cheap proposition, and sold Munition to a person who eventually sent the horse to a slaughterhouse. Not a good look. The whole thing raised a bunch of eyebrows in online horse communities and eventually, in 2010, got to Crystal Conway, who works in the thoroughbred industry in Kentucky. After reading about what happened to Munition, Conway did what lots of us do after we read something very upsetting—she hopped on Twitter and tweeted: “Mara Feld aka Gina Holt [an alias]—you are fucking crazy!” The Lawsuit
Global Game Jam asks developers to use the public domain, in Aaron Swartz's honor Susan writes, "Over 22K game developers from all over the world (72 countries) came together this past weekend (January 24-26) at the annual Global Game Jam (GGJ). This year's event was record breaking, having churned out over 4K games with the theme 'We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.' The yearly event focusing on collaboration, experimentation and innovation in games challenges developers of all skill levels. The jam is about creating community as well as creating games, all jams are physical jams where you have a chance to grow your skills and your network. Add to that the event prides itself on being hardware and software agnostic -- open to digital and analog games that are open source adhering to a Creative Common's license. "As if making a game from start to finish with your new found friends at one of the 400+ local jams isn't hard enough, the GGJ offers diversifiers help challenge developers just a bit more. Global Game Jam (Thanks, Susan!)
What if we used stereo minijack cables for MIDI? - cdm createdigitalmusic “It was acceptable in the 80s…” The standard MIDI DIN cable – that’s the big honkin’ connector you use on most of your MIDI gear – has become the bane of music hardware makers. The problem is, as gear has gotten smaller, the standard DIN connector hasn’t. And that’s a big problem, literally. As a result, a lot of hardware that should have had MIDI in and out doesn’t, to save room. To be clear, on devices that can fit a MIDI DIN, it still makes sense. It doesn’t have to be this way. Now, you may have noticed a lot of gear includes minijacks onboard. But here’s where things get interesting. Well, whether it worked or not would depend on how that minijack connector itself was wired. It turns out most of them are using the same wiring – seen above. Pin 1 – Tip Pin 2 – Sleeve Pin 3 – Ring So long as you have two pieces of gear wired this way, you can connect them with a standard stereo minijack audio cable (that’s a single stereo minijack at both ends). Comments welcome.
Blog My Times column of 30 December 2013: It was only five years ago that “Anglo-Saxon” economics was discredited and finished. Continental or Chinese capitalism, dirigiste and heavily regulated, was the future. Yet here’s the Centre for Economics and Business Research last week saying that Britain is on course to remain the sixth or seventh biggest economy until 2028, by when it is poised to pass Germany, mainly for demographic reasons. Three others of the top ten will be its former colonies: the US, India and Canada. Even today, of the IMF’s top ten countries by per capita income, four are part of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora — the United States, Canada, Australia and Singapore, (Hong Kong would be there too if it were a country).
Downworthy: A browser plugin to turn hyperbolic viral headlines into what they really mean DIY Filmmaking: How to Build Your Own Dolly for $50 Whether you’re just starting out as a filmmaker or you’ve moved into the big leagues, you can never underestimate the value of a good dolly. The beauty of building a quality dolly yourself is that you don’t have waste your budget on rental fees — now, or on future projects. So, let’s take a look. What to Buy For this tutorial, we went with the most basic build we could to save as much money as possible. So, if you want a thicker PVC pipe, smoother wheels, or stronger brackets, you can spend a little more money. First, you need a 2′ x 2′ board — just big enough to support your tripod. For the wheels, you can use either rollerblade wheels or skateboard wheels. Next, you’ll need 4 “L” brackets that have enough holes for you to screw through the bracket to attach it to the piece of wood. Finally, find the right size nuts and bolts for the wheels you bought. Shopping List: 1/4 inch hex bolts (8)1/4 inch nuts (16)1/4 inch washers (8)2′ x 2′ plywood boardL brackets (4)Wheels (8)PVC Pipe (2)
Unrestorable: American Graffiti Deuce Coupe - Hagerty Media When pop culture becomes pop history Movie cars have a special magnetism that often outlasts the movie. Consider the bizarre creations that powered the Mad Max maniacs in the two post-apocalyptic thrillers from the 1980s. Today you can buy replicas of the bizarre creations in The Road Warrior – from Pappagallo’s “beerkeg” roadster to the cut-down ‘60s Ford pickup with the machine gun, or even Max’s own Ford Falcon Interceptor. But those are replicas, the real cars are Holy Grails, and many were destroyed during filming. For many Baby Boomers, American Graffiti’s star cars are icons. Alongside Harrison Ford, Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Wolfman Jack, Candy Clark, Paul LeMat, Bo Hopkins, Suzanne Somers, Mackenzie Phillips and Charlie Martin Smith, who could forget the yellow ’32 Ford Coupe, white ’58 Chevrolet Impala, black ’55 Chevy 2-door sedan, white ’56 Ford Thunderbird, and candy-apple red ’51 Mercury Coupe?
The 10 strangest musical instruments 1 The Great Stalacpipe Organ Leland W Sprinkle was an electronic engineer whose day job was at the Pentagon. Sprinkle spent three years, armed with a small hammer, a tuning fork and an angle-grinder, searching for good-sounding stalactites in Luray Caverns, Virginia, and then altering them so they played in tune. The resulting organ can play 37 different notes, with the reverberance of the cave adding an ethereal quality. 2 The Blackpool High Tide Organ There are only a few examples of permanent sonic art in the world, and three of them are wave organs – in San Francisco, Zadar in Croatia, and Blackpool. 3 The road that plays Rossini Just outside the city of Lancaster in California is a road that plays Rossini's William Tell Overture. 4 Musical ice Terje Isungset, a Norwegian drummer and composer, makes instruments out of ice extracted from frozen lakes by chainsaw. 5 The Cat Piano 6 Aeolus Acoustic Wind Pavilion Aeolus is a 10-tonne instrument created by artist Luke Jerram.
Haunted Paper Toys Welcome to the toy shop! Here you'll find a variety of rather unusual paper toys, all free for you to print out and enjoy. The toys include a hearse playset, coffin gift boxes (with occupants), a little cemetery, a few dark gloomy haunted houses, several unusual board games, some horrifying monsters, and quite a few other dark delights. So pick out some toys, print out the pattern pages, and with a few common supplies like scissors and glue you're ready to create all these strange little curiosities. I hope you'll enjoy them all. I recommend printing these toys on HEAVY CARD STOCK. THE GHOST SHIP If you've often considered building a model ship, but find yourself hesitant to assemble the eighty or ninety quadrillion pieces they usually involve, then you might enjoy building this trusty old vessel. Click here to build yours! THE DARK PROMISE Here's a replica of the ship that sent fear into the hearts of pirates the world over. Click here to build yours! Click here to build yours!
DRM-free comics of excellence from Image Comics The rise of Marvel's Comixology has meant that DRM -- Digital Rights Management -- has become the norm for comics, meaning that your collection is forever locked to Comixology's platform, and it is illegal for anyone except Comixology (and not the artists and writers who created the comics!) to unlock them so that they can be viewed on non-Comixology players. It's as though Comixology had come up with a scheme to get us to buy our comics in a form that could only be put into special longboxes that they alone can sell -- longboxes that can only be stacked on the shelves they choose, and comics that can only be read under the lightbulbs they authorize, in the chair they approve. Every penny you spend on Comixology increases the cost of your switching away from it -- and increases the extent to which a single company (now owned by Disney) controls and sets the rules for making, publishing, retailing and reading comics. Some comics creators are pushing back. (via Kadrey)