• Bryan Stevenson’s crusade with the US justice system and why mass incarceration defines us as a society
• While Europe debates it, decriminalising prostitution has been great for New Zealand
• Craig Thornton and the obsessive world of underground cuisine
• “It’s so pervasive. It’s a virus.” Tom Waits’ 2002 letter on the commercialisation of songs
• The 25-GPU cluster that’ll crack a password in under 6 hours
• A letter to the TEDx community on TEDx and bad science
• Statistician Howard Wainer on the most dangerous equation (pdf)
• Study shows Fox News viewers have a 20 point lower IQ than the national average
• A man wrestled a shark to get back his nephew’s severed arm
• Wickr – now you can send ‘self-destructing’ messages
• A new trailer released for that South Park video game. Still looks good.

Asperatus clouds over Scotland via The Cloud Appreciation Society

• Olympic opening ceremony: Ai Weiwei’s review
• South Korea’s Im Dong Hyun:the ‘blind’ Olympics world record setting archer
• There Are Four Olympic Athletes Without Countries To Represent
• The Greatest Chris Brown Album Review of All Time: ‘No Stars Ever’
• Music Labels Won’t Share Pirate Bay Loot With Artists
• Computer confirms: All music sounds the same these days
• Strong evidence that a real name policy would fail to improve comment systems
• The New York Times is Now Supported by Readers, Not Advertisers
• Celebrities and their Unnecessary Public Apologies
• From Forbes: “The porn industry as I knew it is dead. And it appears a new industry has arisen.”
• Heath Ledger’s Joker was probably inspired by Tom Waits (gets an automatic yes from me)
• Where Did John Wayne Get His Walk?
• Ancestry.com Claims Obama Is Descendant of John Punch, First Enslaved African-American
• Mitt Romney follows up insulting London with straight-up racism in Israel
• Horror Hospital: The Most Shocking Photos And Testimony From The Dawood Military Hospital Scandal (warning: very graphic)
• Fall, Mortality, and the Machine: Tolkien and Technology
• Climate change study forces sceptical scientists to change minds
• The 50 Best Socially Awesome/Awkward Penguin Memes

This is a short film about famed artist John Baldessari. It is narrated by Tom Waits. This short film needs no more prompting for you to watch it.