I don't know how many of you already read
Boing Boing, so I apologize if this post is boring because you've seen all this already. There's been a good haul in the last few days, so I just wanted to share some of that:
- Leather fetish steampunk masks (somebody on Boing Boing seems to like steampunk as it comes up fairly often);
- Photos of ruined hotels (I was amused to see that there's a Calgary landmark in here);
- Liquid glass that sounds pretty cool; may not turn out to do all the things it says it does but if it does even some of them that sounds pretty awesome;
- Vintage car pictures that are pretty amazingly real-looking for being diecast models with baking soda on them (really big photo gallery if you follow the link to the actual photo site);
- Star Wars themed sneakers;
- Online game that makes solving real world problems like world hunger, disaster relief, etc. sound like the most awesome Mission:Impossible / Matrix / Invisibles / etc. operation ever.
I haven't got an account on this thing so I haven't checked it out in detail, but I am under the impression (rightly or not) that it is at least in part aimed at trying to get people to really do stuff in real life also. Something about mentorships and scholarships for people who do well at the game is the main thing that gives me this impression.
- Timothy Leary interview in prison from the 70's
- Wade Davis interviewed about Voodoo in Haiti and Pat Robertson's idiocy - links also to two TED talks (one from 2003, one from 2010) he did that are super interesting.
I think Davis really does a lot re: putting across the message that people shouldn't assume that those with "lower" technology or "more backward" religious beliefs or whatever have nothing to offer humanity and "deserve" to fade out of existence; if you don't look at any of the other links, I highly recommend at least checking out these videos. Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my "old age" but personally I get a sense of awe at the adaptability of humanity from the things this guy talks about. Moreover, there's a story in the 2003 video about an amazingly resourceful Inuit elder that is pretty amusing...
(An aside: I really don't think the movie "The Serpent and the Rainbow" is as bad as many people make it out to be. It did not portray all of Voodoo as "oooh, look what the scary black people are doing," and all of the actually fucked-up "evil" Voodoo stuff in it that I remember was done by the Tonton Macout - who were, in real life, the secret police guys and thus actually pretty horrible to people.)
I do find that Boing Boing's LJ feed tends to swamp the old F-list a bit, but a lot of people don't post as much as they used to, so that works out ok for me. Sometimes it talks disproportionately a lot about things I'm not that interested in (as per
a previous rant) but I find on the other hand that it lives up to its alleged focus on "wonderful things." Comments are often stupid of course, but that seems to be true of every media blogsite ever.
Ta for the links to the Wade Davis talks. Top stuff!
The Star Wars sneakers made me giggle my ass off.
If New Rocks Boots had any Sith or Empire themed boots, I'd buy a pair for sure. lol. :)
I linked that website on FB to see what others say. ;)
