Your Daily Awesome

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(thanks Katy!)

Since I’m visiting family in Texas at the moment, I’m in the middle of my annual cable television gorge, wherein I don’t sleep for days and finally witness all of these programs whose names and plotlines I know from coworkers and the new collective media unconscious. What I’ve learned so far is that Burt Reynolds is on television all the time. Deliverance, My Name is Earl, Smokey–I’ve flipped past them all since dinner tonight. But still–who knew he had his own museum?

This place is crammed with everything anyone has ever given Burt Reynolds. Every award. Every photo. Every key to every city. Every honorary Sheriff’s badge. Every poster. Every movie script. A horse-drawn carriage (minus the horses) given as a gift by Dolly Parton. The canoe from Deliverance. And creepily detailed paintings made by Burt Reynolds fans. One shows Burt riding shirtless on a horse, with a big furry dog in his arms. I can’t imagine why Burt wouldn’t want that one hanging up in his home.

According to Pat and Kate, the nice volunteers who work at the museum, they would be showing a montage from Deliverance instead, but they can’t get into the back room where they keep that tape.

*That amazing drawing is from the museum giftshop.

In the late summer of 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, leveling entire cities and leaving others under vast amounts of water. Thousands of Americans were stranded on rooftops and in dangerous makeshift shelters. Stranded in a city submerged, the narrators of Voices from the Storm survived the devastation brought on by Hurricane Katrina only to find themselves abandoned—and even victimized—by their own government. These thirteen men and women of New Orleans recount, in astonishing and heartrending detail, the worst natural disaster in American history.

Today’s excerpt features Dan Bright, a New Orleans native who spent almost nine years in prison for first-degree murder before he was exonerated of the crime and released from prison in 2004. The night before the storm, Bright was arrested and taken to Orleans Parish Prison for dubious misdemeanor charges. The morning of the storm, guards left Bright and his fellow inmates to die in their cells as floodwaters swallowed the building. Those who managed to escape, including Bright, were met by heavily armed guards waiting outside the building, who held the inmates for days on a highway overpass without food or water.

Late, late—maybe early Monday morning—maybe like 4 or 5. Hard wind, very hard wind. Lights went out in the jail. I was on the top floor. We can look out the window. They had these little portholes that you can look out, and see the rain, the wind blowing, and the water starting to rise.

It was early. You can see the water is constantly rising. You gotta remember, we’re stuck in these cells. Guys on the first level, on the bottom level—man, they hollerin’ and screamin’. No one comes. They were hollering for the guards to come. Begging, pleading. You had guys who had broke windows out, burning sheets and blankets, flagging them to try to get some attention. In fact, helicopters was flying over, and guys was holding blankets out the windows, burning blankets to try to get their attention. And no one came and helped them.

The lights had done went out, so you can imagine being in this water, in the dark with this water constantly rising. Only thing we had to do now is to break out. We wasn’t trying to break out just to be breakin’ out of jail, we breakin’ out to save our lives.

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You can watch all your favorite films (like Star Trek, Psycho, and Deepthroat) as ascii files here. This is the beauty of the internet.

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology
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“Working over the past few years, McCollum has designed a new system to produce unique two-dimensional ’shapes.’ This system allows him to make enough unique shapes for every person on the planet to have one of their own. It also allows him to keep track of the shapes, so as to insure that no two will ever be alike.

“For the time being, around 214,000,000 of the shapes have been set aside for creative experimentation. These can be used for many different purposes - not only for fine art and design projects, but also for various social practices: as gifts, awards, identity markers, emblems, insignias, logos, toys, souvenirs, educational tools, and so forth. The shapes can be printed graphically as silhouettes or outlines, in any size, color or texture, using all varieties of graphics software to build, carve, or cut the shapes from wood, plastic, metal, stone, and other materials.

“The basic system for making the shapes is now complete, but the project of actually constructing all of them is much too large for McCollum to finish by himself, or in his own lifetime. For this reason he is organizing it in such a way that others may continue completing them in his absence. He is also making shapes available to others, with the hope that people will come up with many interesting ways to use them.”

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Buttons is a camera that will capture a moment at the press of a button. However, unlike a conventional analog or digital camera, this one doesn’t have any optical parts. It allows you to capture your moment but in doing so, it effectively seperates it from the subject. Instead, as you will memorize the moment, the camera memorizes only the time and starts to continuously search on the net for other photos that have been taken in the very same moment.

Essentially, it is a camera that - using a mobile communication device - takes other’s photos. Photos that were created by someone who pressed a button somewhere at the same time as its own button was pressed. Even more so, it reduces the cameras to their networked buttons in order to create a link between two individuals.

After a few minutes or hours, depending on how soon someone else shares their photo on the web, an image will appear on the screen. In a way, it belongs half to the person who had pressed the button and still remembers that moment. Because of that connection, the photos are never dismissed as random, no matter how enigmatic they may be.

Watch the video to see how it happens, or read more

You know those cars with that keyless entry pad? The one under the driver’s side handle? Well, if you look closely you will see that there are really only 5 buttons, labeled “1/2″, “3/4″, “5/6″, “7/8″, “9/0″. In an effort to avoid a little confusion, I’m going to call those buttons 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, respectively. I am going to give you a sequence of minimal length that, when you enter it into a car’s numeric keypad, is guaranteed to unlock the doors of said car. It is exactly 3129 keypresses long, which should take you around 20 minutes to go through.

9 9 9 9 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 5 1 1 1 1 7 1 1 1 1 9 1 1 1 3 3 1 1 1 3 5 1 1 1 3 7 1 1 1 3 9 1 1 1 5 3 1 1 1 5 5 1 1 1 5 7 1 1 1 5 9 1 1 1 7 3 1 1 1 7 5 1 1 1 7 7 1 1 1 7 9 1 1 1 9 3 1 1 1 9 5 1 1 1 9 7 1 1 1 9 9 1 1 3 1 3 1 1 3 1 5 1 1 3 1 7 1 1 3 1 9 1 1 3 3 3 1 1 3 3 5 1 1 3 3 7 1 1 3 3 9 1 1 3 5 3 1 1 3 5 5 1 1 3 5 7 1 1 3 5 9 1 1 3 7 3 1 1 3 7 5 1 1 3 7 7 1 1 3 7 9 1 1 3 9 3 1 1 3 9 5 1 1 3 9 7 1 1 3 9 9 1 1 5 1 3 1 1 5 1 5 1 1 5 1 7 1 1 5 1 9 1 1 5 3 3 1 1 5 3 5 1 1 5 3 7 1 1 5 3 9 1 1 5 5 3 1 1 5 5 5 1 1 5 5 7 1 1 5 5 9 1 1 5 7 3 1 1 5 7 5 1 1 5 7 7 1 1 5 7 9 1 1 5 9 3 1 1 5 9 5 1 1 5 9 7 1 1 5 9 9 1 1 7 1 3 1 1 7 1 5 1 1 7 1 7 1 1 7 1 9 1 1 7 3 3 1 1 7 3 5 1 1 7 3 7 1 1 7 3 9 1 1 7 5 3 1 1 7 5 5 1 1 7 5 7 1 1 7 5 9 1 1 7 7 3 1 1 7 7 5 1 1 7 7 7 1 1 7 7 9 1 1 7 9 3 1 1 7 9 5 1 1 7 9 7 1 1 7 9 9 1 1 9 1 3 1 1 9 1 5 1 1 9 1 7 1 1 9 1 9 1 1 9 3 3 1 1 9 3 5 1 1 9 3 7 1 1 9 3 9 1 1 9 5 3 1 1 9 5 5 1 1 9 5 7 1 1 9 5 9 1 1 9 7 3 1 1 9 7 5 1 1 9 7 7 1 1 9 7 9 1 1 9 9 3 1 1 9 9 5 1 1 9 9 7 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As with his other projects, Mr. Davidson needed entry, and he got it in the form of the gang leader, known as Bengie.

“He was kind of a brilliant visual guy,” Mr. Davidson said. “He took me to this roof, and I remember thinking, ‘This kid’s going to throw me off the roof and then rob me,’ but he’s pointing down at the stickball game and saying, ‘Get that,’ and saying: ‘Oh, there’s the Statue of Liberty. You can see it through all these television antennas.’ ”

The images of that summer have an eternal quality to them, as if the gang might still be drinking beer in paper cups on the beach, but the Jokers’ world was already beginning to change. Heroin was making an entrance; one gang member died from an overdose at 19.

A few years ago, Bengie got in touch with Mr. Davidson.

“I went out with him to the old neighborhood,” the photographer said. The candy store where the gang used to hang out was gone. “He took me for a cafe latte.” The neighborhood had changed, and so had the Jokers; Bengie is now a drug counselor, and Mr. Davidson’s wife is writing a book about his life.

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Bactroban, 2005, Record cover collage with yarn
Installation View, Solo Show 2005
Tasmarm, 2005, Record cover collage with yarn

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“Bischoffs is a taxidermy warehouse that services the movie industry in LA. It’s huge and cluttered and fucked.”

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Powell Peralta has an amazing searchable archive of their old ads and tons more nostalgia wank stuff on their site

When the renowned Japanese sculptor Hananuma Masakichi learned that he was dying of tuberculosis, he vowed to leave behind a life-like portrait of himself for his beloved. He carved his likeness out of wood while studying himself with an adjustable mirror. The hair, fingernails, teeth, and toenails of the sculpture were all pulled from his own body. The statue is composed of over 2000 seperate pieces being hollow with the exception of the feet. The head, thighs, calves, and every member of the anatomy was carved separately and the whole put together…

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Things get so punk at 1:09
The Young@Heart Chorus