• Delusional Doppelgängers: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti State Hospital
• I’m Sick Of Pretending: I Don’t “Get” Art
• NASA outlines ingenious plan to resurrect the Kepler planet hunter
• A spurned techie’s revenge: Locking down his ex’s digital life
• Physics explains why tapping the top of a beer bottle produces a geyser of foam
• TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats From The US That Prove It
• The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath
• The quest for Shadow of the Colossus’ last big secret
• Pop music is louder, less acoustic and more energetic than in the 1950s
• What the … Why everyone and your mother started using ellipses … everywhere
• A simple explanation of how money moves around the banking system
• U.S. family that tried living without anything ‘Made in China’
• Mexican Cartels Enslave Engineers to Build Radio Network
• Population 1: the town that’s been reclaimed by the prairie
• Confessions of a porn site boss: Part 1 & Part 2
• The War on the War on Death Begins
• Never let the facts get in the way of a good story eh?

Simon Stålenhag

• Developed: the good for 1000 years, 5-dimensional memory crystal
• Forget LED bulbs—the future of interior lighting is lasers
• After 50,000 generations, bacteria continue evolving greater fitness
• Fourier Transform: The Math Trick Behind MP3s, JPEGs, and Homer Simpson’s Face
• Recent surface warming has probably been underestimated
• What Happens to Google Maps When Tectonic Plates Move?
• How a hatred of bureaucrats and a wall saved a Japanese nuclear plant from meltdown after tsunami
• China will look to Thorium Salt reactors for energy starting in 2040
• China unveils boldest reforms in decades
• Why Scandinavian women make the rest of the world jealous
• Pope’s unprecedented survey signals far-reaching reform
• Abandoned Walmart is now America’s largest one-floor Library
• How One Man Earned 4 Million Airline Miles by Buying Dollar Coins
• Alison Bechdel on the Bechdel Test
• Fuck yeah! AMC Ordering ‘Preacher’ Pilot
• Rave and Hardcore YouTube Comments Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity
• Some of history’s weirdest and fiercest combat helmets
• White Teen In Blackface Responds To Black Critics: ‘Worry About Finding Your Dad’
• Brazil referee decapitated after stabbing player

Plus, Howard, the world’s first Kim Jong-un Impersonator. I want one for my birthday party.

• A few notes on The Culture by Iain M Banks
• A Nigerian cook survived 2 days underwater in a shipwreck air bubble
• CIA Releases Analyst’s Fascinating Tale of Cracking the Kryptos Sculpture
• Why France insist school pupils master philosophy
• A SEAL Team 6 veteran comes out as transgender and what it could mean for the military
• Fitch says China credit bubble unprecedented in modern world history
• The numerous crazy keywords the NSA is tracking
• Brain training app brings big data to human cognition
• Recent breakthroughs mean we are on the cusp of Big Graphene Solar Sails for crude interstellar missions
• How Close Are We to Getting Google Glass in a Contact Lens?
• Is “ironic” the most abused word in English? When is it correct to say “that’s ironic?”
• The Quiet Shame of the Half-Book Reader
• At The Movies, The Women Are Gone
• I wanna play Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe

Amanda Hugginkiss (variant) by Tim Doyle

• You Won’t Finish This Article – Why people online don’t read to the end
• Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
• 33 Unwritten Social Rules Everyone Needs To Follow
• Changes in China: 2000, now and 2025
• Then again, China’s real-estate bubble
• How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists
• Despite doomsayers, the world’s agriculture is on the rise
• The man who can see in ultraviolet
• Two accelerators find signs of a particle that nobody can explain
• A huge discovery in prime numbers and what it means for the future of math.
• Watch a Bread City Slowly Decompose Over 6 Months
• The sealed bottle garden still thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
• When We Held Kings: The oral history of the 2003 World Series of Poker
• Moby Offers Music to Filmmakers for Free
• Trends found amongst the top Youtube channels

And finally, though turn your sound down at the end of it…

One thing I’m quickly discovering about having this blog again is that I don’t feel so guilty about always closing so many tabs at the end of a web surfing session and I finally have an excuse to clear out my bookmark folders which is so backed up, it’d make the Collyer brothers blush.

Anyway, here’s some articles…

Citizen Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick’s films were landmark events – majestic, memorable and richly researched. But, as the years went by, the time between films grew longer and longer, and less and less was seen of the director. What on earth was he doing? Two years after his death, Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate and let loose among the fabled archive. He was looking for a solution to the mystery – this is what he found.

One bit in particular I loved…

(In fact, I soon discover, Kubrick did write back to fans, on random, rare occasions. I find two replies in total. Maybe he only ever wrote back twice. One reads, “Your letter of 4th May was overwhelming. What can I say in reply? Sincerely, Stanley Kubrick.” The other reads, “Dear Mr William, Thank you for writing. No comment about A Clockwork Orange. You will have to decide for yourself. Sincerely, Stanley Kubrick.”)

Also…

China unveils rival to International Space Station
The project heralds a shift in the balance of power among spacefaring nations. In June, the US space agency, Nasa, will mothball its whole fleet of space shuttles, in a move that will leave only the Russians capable of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The $100bn (£60.5bn) outpost is itself due to fly only until 2020, but may be granted a reprieve until 2028.

Spaaaaaaaace.  It’s awesome. There’s also a further write up on the facts at bad astronomer here.  And finally…

Zaarly Makes It Possible To Buy Pretty Much Anything
That’s where Zaarly comes in. Zaarly is an almost shockingly simple app that lets you list whatever it is you’re looking for, be it a set of 17th century porcelain shepherdesses, tickets to an Evanescence concert, reservations at a fully booked restaurant or whatever else you can imagine paying for the privilege of having. Zaarly makes it so that anything–object, experience or otherwise–can be for sale.