Himalountain

Radiohead is once again doing crazy awesome things to traditional music mediums. After being cut free from their label, they are doing the unthinkable for a successful band - making their music free and accessible to fans. The freedom they have applied to In Rainbows in general is fantastic: allowing fans to choose the album price, the Nude remix contest. With few exceptions, the record industry has not embraced or even really recognized the sea change brought on by digital media - not only music “piracy” but also the proliferation of fan remixes. Radiohead, Beck, NiN and a few others are catching on - and I’m glad to see it.

Now Radiohead made a music video for House of Cards using 3D imaging technology (no cameras or lighting) and provided the visualization data for users to play with and make their own music videos.

Here is the original video:

Check out the youtube group for fan-made videos.

Oh and here’s the data plus a “making-of” video.

If you haven’t read it already, you should also check out this interview in Wired of Thom Yorke by David Byrne (Talking Heads interview Radiohead - hee!). I also found Byrne’s accompanying opinion piece on the future of the recording industry really interesting.

“Taste Test” is one of my favorite features on the Onion AV Club (the non-parody wing of America’s Finest News Source). The foods they taste range from probably good (Inverted Junior Mints) to foreign (Japanese Kitkats) to stupid (Mountain Dew “Quest” Doritos) to really really gross (Pickle Sickle). Most fall in the latter two categories. My favorite part of each review is the “Office Reactions” section.

(source: AV Club)

Yesterday’s review was of 2 new meat flavored Combos crackers: Cheeseburger and Bacon, Egg & Cheese. I’ve always been sort of freaked out by meat flavored crackers and by Combos in particular. I’m glad I’m not alone on this one.

A complete list can be found here.

(source: Gawker)

Detroit News infographic on baggy pants configurations that will get you in trouble in Flint, Michigan. This is like something from the Onion.

At first when I noticed one of Jundt’s recent gReader shares, I was like “Why would anyone subscribe to a blog about cakes?”

Then I saw this entry

Read the background story by Scott Meyer of Basic Instructions here or here. I also laughed until I almost cried.

Some days you have to remember why you started down whatever path you are going. For me, it had a lot to do with reading Carl Sagan. I stumbled upon this Pale Blue Dot video today and thought I’d share the love. Listen to the famous essay narrated by Sagan in all its glory (with mildly cheesy video montage):

The Pale Blue Dot

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “supreme leader”, every “superstar,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ve ever known, the pale blue dot.

and go read Contact. I’d lend you my copy but I never got it back the last time I lent it out.

I really really hope the head-swapping meme takes off.

Catladies (via Gawker)

Previously on Himalountain: Manbabies

Anyone who knows me well (not any of you suckers) knows that I love me a claw game. Like this one, it really Wang’s my Chung:

How amazingly awesome is this? (found via photobasement)

Of course, if I had ever bothered to read the wikipedia report on claw games, I woulda known that ‘prizes’ like this (and stranger things (women’s underwear?)) are quite common in some corners of the world.

(Can’t just call it a motorcycle gang if half the members don’t have motorcycles…)

This weekend juuulia gets her Vespa, which means the group will consist of one Ducati, one Harley, one Vespa, and one as-yet-to-be-determined. Probably another scooter.

So I’m going to go on record right now and say that I’m expecting this out of you, juuulia:

I will accept nothing less.

… but at least the internet keeps me amused. The old “Stapler in Jello” prank taken to the next level:

Step-by-step photos here. (Thanks Duane!)

Previously (LOLMoth)

I was telling Jundt about MWLLOL tonight at the magical driving range (miniature horses tee up your golf balls) so I thought the vast readership of Himalountain deserved the link:

“Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians”