art | occasional fish

Monday various

Oh great. Now TMZ is running tour groups.
Finally, a genuinely interesting use of those QR codes.
The Mirror Project returns! Well, kind of. It’s an archive or time capsule of the internet that, not so long ago, used to be. If nothing else, it was neat to revisit my own entries.
How copyright enforcement robots killed the Hugo Awards [via]
And finally, Bill Wearing Socks:

Bill Wearing Socks from Niege Borges on Vimeo.

The dogs of the Moscow Metro.
First successful firing of a 3D-printed gun. Oh good.
Man’s rare vision problem cured after Hugo 3D rebooted his brain. [via]
Amazingly enough, not an Onion story:

Last week, a hopeful prospect showed up at LSU’s July football camp. He posted an impressive 4.46 40-yard dash, and he earned a scholarship offer from the Tigers’ coaching staff for his efforts.

It’s a scene that plays out on college campuses every single summer, although this offer was different for one main reason — Dylan Moses has yet to start eighth grade. [via]
And finally, while I’m not 100% sure about the message, this is a neat piece of art:

Warren Ellis on the 2012 Olympics’ closing ceremonies:

It was as conservative, hidebound and bland as the Opening Ceremony was ambitious, demented and eccentric. It played almost as an attempt to zero out what Danny Boyle and Frank Cottrell Boyce achieved and said in the Opening.

I have to admit, I didn’t watch it. By that point, my Olympic fever had waned a bit, and I didn’t really feel like putting up with NBC’s ridiculous editing and inane chatter to watch the closing. (“Our viewers may not know this, Meredith, but the Pet Shop Boys are in fact actually now grown men!”)

But the opening ceremonies were mad and brilliant.
It’s bad enough they’re planning an Expendables 3 — shouldn’t last hurrahs, y’know, end? — but now they have to talk about dragging Clint Eastwood and others into it?

â€œWeâ€™ve already begun reaching out to the bones of Steve McQueen and the John Wayne hologramâ€â€”Avi Lerner, The Expendables 4 interview, 2014

Although, honestly, that might finally get me to watch one of these things.
Amazingly enough, a campaign to turn an abandoned Detroit neighborhood into a zombie apocalypse theme park has fallen through. [via]
Are young people really using “yo” as a gender-neutral pronoun? Fascinating.
And finally, the Best Scenes From Insane Old Star Trek Coloring Books:

Here’s a question: How many people can Manhattan hold?

Some perspective: As crowded as the city feels at times, the present-day Manhattan population, 1.6 million, is nowhere near what it once was. In 1910, a staggering 2.3 million people crowded the borough, mostly in tenement buildings. It was a time before zoning, when roughly 90,000 windowless rooms were available for rent, and a recent immigrant might share a few hundred square feet with as many as 10 people. At that time, the Lower East Side was one of the most crowded places on the planet, according to demographers. Even as recently as 1950, the Manhattan of â€œWest Side Storyâ€ was denser than today, with a population of two million.
Trying To Tame The (Real) Deadliest Fishing Jobs:

From 2000 to 2009, workers in the Northeast’s multi-species groundfish fishery (which includes fish such as cod and haddock) were 37 times more likely to die on the job as a police officer.
Enjoy this Shakespeare Insult Kit, thou impertinent folly-fallen flap-dragon!
Klingon remains surprisingly unpopular in the United Arab Emerates. [via]
And finally, an LA garage door painted to look like bookshelves:

There are huge spoilers in this Breaking Bad article (In Hell, “We Shall Be Free”), but it’s some of the best writing about the show, and particularly the character of Walter White, that I’ve read going into this current, final season. And, really, if you’re not watching Breaking Bad…? [via]
Living grass portraits created by photosynthesis.
The Sound and the Fury — now in color! [via]
All Work and No Play Make the Baining the “Dullest Culture on Earth”. I can just imagine Rush Limbaugh claiming there’s some kind of conspiracy because they’re called the Baining. [via]
And finally, a really cool rendition of the Doctor Who theme song: