MachineMachine /stream - tagged with humour http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron text@machinemachine.net On the trail of the wild and wonderful @Horse_ebooks http://splitsider.com/2012/01/the-ballad-of-horse_ebooks/the-ballad-of-horse-ebooks-splitsider On the trail of the wild and wonderful @Horse_ebooks : http://t.co/QYGn0092 #fb ]]> Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:06:45 -0700 http://splitsider.com/2012/01/the-ballad-of-horse_ebooks/the-ballad-of-horse-ebooks-splitsider chemistry http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/13544718628

chemistry

]]> Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:33:00 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/13544718628 Priorities http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/13070580531

Priorities

]]> Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:46:25 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/13070580531 The Artist is Present (a video game about waiting in line at a museum) http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/18/the-artist-is-present-is-a-game-about-waiting-in-line-at-a-museu/ Writing articles about video games is so much fun that we often have to stop, wipe the manic grins off our faces and find something really boring to do. Sometimes we stare at a blank white wall and recite the Declaration of Independence under our breath, other times we watch Lost in Translation. Now we have a new option: We can play The Artist is Present, a game about waiting in line at New York's Museum of Modern Art created by Pippin Barr.

Unfortunately for us, the game's backstory is pretty entertaining. Contemporary artist Marina Abramović held… ]]> Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:39:30 -0700 http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/18/the-artist-is-present-is-a-game-about-waiting-in-line-at-a-museu/ The Astronaut Suicides http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/9874744077

The Astronaut Suicides

Bonus: original photos by Neil Dacosta

]]> Tue, 06 Sep 2011 04:53:01 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/9874744077 The Segway Looter http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/8816535922

The Segway Looter

]]> Fri, 12 Aug 2011 02:05:00 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/8816535922 How to fix horror, Part I: Stop trying to be so respectable http://www.slate.com/id/2297938/entry/0/ My new book Shock Value: How a few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood and Invented Modern Horror, explores how horror went mainstream by revisiting the golden age that began in 1968 with Rosemary's Baby and Night of the Living Dead and reached its zenith in the 1970s with movies like Halloween and Alien. Today the genre is bigger, more diverse, and more lucrative than it was back then, but its films rarely shock or inspire as they once did. There are many good new scary movies, but few great ones. It doesn't have to be this way. That's… ]]> Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:34:09 -0700 http://www.slate.com/id/2297938/entry/0/ Gorilla suits http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/6685709620

Gorilla suits are full-bodied costumes resembling gorillas or other large primates.

(via throwtolion)

]]> Sun, 19 Jun 2011 04:40:15 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/6685709620 Alien space bats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_space_bats Alien space bats (ASBs) is a neologism for plot devices used in alternate history to create a point of divergence that would otherwise be implausible. [edit]Definition "Alien space bats" originally was used as a sarcastic attack on poorly written alternate histories due to lack of plausibility. These attacks are usually phrased as the need for alien space bats or by saying the alternate history has gone into "ASB territory". This original definition was used by one critic to criticize Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes trilogy.[1] The term eventually evolved into a deus ex machina to create an impossible point of… ]]> Tue, 03 May 2011 15:13:35 -0700 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_space_bats Alien space bats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_space_bats Alien space bats (ASBs) is a neologism for plot devices used in alternate history to create a point of divergence that would otherwise be implausible.
[edit]Definition

"Alien space bats" originally was used as a sarcastic attack on poorly written alternate histories due to lack of plausibility. These attacks are usually phrased as the need for alien space bats or by saying the alternate history has gone into "ASB territory". This original definition was used by one critic to criticize Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes trilogy.[1] The term eventually evolved into a deus ex machina to create… ]]> Tue, 03 May 2011 12:27:43 -0700 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_space_bats Mad German Auteur, Now in 3-D http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201105/werner-herzog-profile-cave-of-forgotten-dreams The daring German filmmaker Werner Herzog once walked a thousand miles to propose to a woman. He once plotted to firebomb his leading man's house and once ate his own shoe to square a bet. He once got shot in the stomach during a TV interview, then insisted on finishing. And despite it all, his latest adventure—a 3-D documentary about cave paintings—still sounds batshit crazy. Chris Heath goes spelunking deep inside the mind of modern cinema's oddest icon ]]> Mon, 02 May 2011 16:35:29 -0700 http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201105/werner-herzog-profile-cave-of-forgotten-dreams Gif and Take: dump.fm http://artcritical.com/2011/02/28/gif-and-take-dump-fm-where-registered-users-post-and-modify-animated-images/ Dump.fm is a digital version of the old Surrealist genre of the exquisite corpse, a “show and tell” for the polymorphously perverse. The art of dump.fm is genuinely interactive. Social relations are inherent to the entire art making process for these artists, rather than just getting tagged on when a conventional, art world artist begrudgingly begins the promotional stage for their work. The creators of dump.fm have allowed users to post images by pasting URLs into a box or uploading them from users’ computers. There is a convenient interface that allows users to post stills from webcams that dump.fm users… ]]> Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:05:08 -0700 http://artcritical.com/2011/02/28/gif-and-take-dump-fm-where-registered-users-post-and-modify-animated-images/ All the greatest scenes where someone talks a computer into self-destructing http://m.io9.com/5715101/all-the-greatest-scenes-where-someone-talks-a-computer-into-self+destructing Want to learn how to make a computer go foom just by talking to it? Here's a step-by-step tutorial from the master himself, Captain Kirk. And below, we've got every scene where someone destroys a computer with carefully chosen words. ]]> Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:16:00 -0700 http://m.io9.com/5715101/all-the-greatest-scenes-where-someone-talks-a-computer-into-self+destructing Art for animals http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/11/pattern-recognition-art-for-an.php Yesterday afternoon, Matthew Fuller gave a brief but fascinating overview of artworks that make a direct address to the perceptual world of non-human animal species. As you will see quite a few amazing works have been done in this field.
Art for animals is art with animals intended as its key users or audience. Art for animals is not therefore art that uses animals as a substrate or a carrier, nor as an object of contemplation or use.

You can find online the text related to his presentation which was titled Pattern Recognition - Art for… ]]> Sat, 27 Nov 2010 07:44:00 -0700 http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/11/pattern-recognition-art-for-an.php Do you like our owl? http://www.flickr.com/photos/huge-entity/5038138779/

Mr. Daniel posted a photo:

Do you like our owl?

]]> Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:26:44 -0700 http://www.flickr.com/photos/huge-entity/5038138779/ Forget those creative writing workshops. If you want to write, get threatened http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/16/charlie-brooker-writing-deadlines/print One of the side-effects of having your work appear in a public forum such as this is that people often email me asking for advice on how to break into writing, presumably figuring that if a drooling gum-brain like me can scrape a living witlessly pawing at a keyboard, there's hope for anyone.

I rarely respond; partly because there isn't much advice I can give them (apart from "keep writing and someone might notice"), and partly because I suspect they're actually seeking encouragement rather than practical guidance. And I'm a terrible cheerleader. I can't egg you on.… ]]> Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:13:00 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/16/charlie-brooker-writing-deadlines/print Lamest edit wars - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars Occasionally, even experienced Wikipedians lose their heads and devote every waking moment to edit warring over the most trivial thing. This page documents our lamest examples. It isn't comprehensive or authoritative, but it serves as a showcase of situations where people lose sight of the big picture and obsessively expend huge amounts of energy fighting over something that, in the end, isn't really so important.

Back in the good old days, people would just get out their swords and guns and fight a duel; nowadays physical combat has been replaced by careful inciting of personal attacks, strategic… ]]> Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:46:00 -0700 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars SAME HAT! (tumblr) http://samehat.tumblr.com/ For folks that haven't checked it yet, the newly re-launched SAME HAT TUMBLR is up and running!

The SAME HAT! Tumblr is curated and run by 8 contributors. It features art/videos/music and random whatever from the bowels of the internet-- all stuff loosely related to the imagined community that is "SAME HAT". ]]> Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:34:00 -0700 http://samehat.tumblr.com/ Porn for the Blind http://pornfortheblind.org/ Porn for the Blind is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing audio descriptions of sample movie clips from adult web sites. This service is provided free of charge. ]]> Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:27:00 -0700 http://pornfortheblind.org/ The illustrated guide to a Ph.D. http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is. It's hard to describe it in words. So, I use pictures. Read below for the illustrated guide to a Ph.D. ]]> Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:47:00 -0700 http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/