What’s all that noise?

That buzzing, that drone, the sound of an ”elephant in distress” during the World Cup matches. It’s the vuvuzela, of course.

The vuvuzela is a plastic blowing horn, developed in the 1990s by soccer fan Neil van Schalkwyk. In South Africa, sports fans used to bring homemade tin blowing horns into the games until van Schalkwyk, with a grant from South African brewer SAB Miller, developed a plastic one. It is now a $6.5M industry.

In 2008, FIFA had ruled that the vuvuzela would be banned at the 2010 World Cup because it could be used as a weapon. But the South African Football Association argued the vuvuzela was integral to the South African soccer experience, and FIFA dropped the ban for the Confederation Cup and World Cup. The vuvuzela has come to be a symbol of support for the South African team, and has even been referred to as a “12th man” in their match against Mexico. 

I don’t think it’s too bad, from a spectator’s view of course. For those that can’t stand it, the South African Earplug Co may have the answer - an earplug in the shape of a vuvuzela. Now that’s great.


Iron Chef offers to cook meals for LeBron once a month

$13,050,826,460,886.97

That’s a lot of debt. (total debt outstanding, via crazynutjob)

(Reblogged from crazynutjob)

The American people expect your companies to have a technological response to this disaster on par with the Apollo Project, not Project Runway.

That’s Rep Edward Markey in the BP congressional hearing last week.

I’ve been fascinated by this oil spill and the lack of solutions to stop it. You can watch the recently released videos of oil and natural gas just spewing out of a big hole in a pipe on the ocean floor. An estimate of 200,000 gallons are leaking each day. And they don’t know how to stop it? It seems unfathomable, doesn’t it.

And meanwhile we have all involved parties blaming the other. The reason for the spill was an accident - a well blowout which caused an explosion. There is a “blowout preventer” that is supposed to clamp down and cut off spilling oil in the event of such an accident. BP’s internal documents show their blowout preventer was broken - there were at least four significant problems on a device that can have 260 possible failure spots. How is there no backup plan for a device with 260 possible failure spots? So now BP is blaming the manufacturer of the device, Cameron, and Cameron is likewise blaming BP. More props to Obama here - he was angry at this blame game, stating “I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter. You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else.” Right on.

So how is it that there is no solution? BP’s plans to stop the leak have proven unsuccessful - a huge dome to cover the leak, a smaller top hat to capture escaping oil and siphon it to a ship, heavy chemicals to break up the oil. They’ve come up with a “junk shot” of golf balls or old tires, or a pipe inserted within the broken pipe to divert the oil backwards. They even have a suggestion box, and have received 60,000 calls and over 10,000 tips, 700 of which have moved on “to the next phase.” One of which was a project backed by Kevin Costner, who since 1989 has been funding a project led by his scientist brother to create a centrifuge that separates oil from water. BP just yesterday agreed to test six centrifuges. If you build it.. 

“

For if we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line with our own, studies suggest that we become more polarized, more set in our ways. That will only reinforce and even deepen the political divides in this country.

But if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and our beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from.

Now, this requires us to agree on a certain set of facts to debate from. That’s why we need a vibrant and thriving news business that is separate from opinion makers and talking heads. That’s why we need an educated citizenry that values hard evidence and not just assertion. As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously once said, “Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Still, if you’re somebody who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while. If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website. It may make your blood boil; your mind may not be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship. It is essential for our democracy.

Obama’s commencement speech at University of Michigan
Exit Through the Gift Shop was pretty brilliant. (Though rather unsettling for those prone to motion sickness.) Read a bit about it on Wired. Update 04.27.10: I’m stuck on this film, and keep telling everyone about it. Here’s an interesting new tidbit about it.. I was told by someone very very very close to Banksy that Mr. Brainwash is a “Banksy prank” aimed to prove he can start from nothing and build a brand from the ground up again. Which is why when you look at the show there is thousands of dollars worth of custom made props all paid for by Banksy. I was told that Banksy will announce he is behind Mr. Brainwash. What I find funny though is how all of the garbage that is being sold through the name Mr. Brainwash will probably be worth as much as the Bansky stuff when it all goes public. Proving once again people are whores for brand names. Tricky.. View high resolution

Exit Through the Gift Shop was pretty brilliant. (Though rather unsettling for those prone to motion sickness.) Read a bit about it on Wired.

Update 04.27.10: I’m stuck on this film, and keep telling everyone about it. Here’s an interesting new tidbit about it..

I was told by someone very very very close to Banksy that Mr. Brainwash is a “Banksy prank” aimed to prove he can start from nothing and build a brand from the ground up again. Which is why when you look at the show there is thousands of dollars worth of custom made props all paid for by Banksy. I was told that Banksy will announce he is behind Mr. Brainwash. What I find funny though is how all of the garbage that is being sold through the name Mr. Brainwash will probably be worth as much as the Bansky stuff when it all goes public. Proving once again people are whores for brand names.

Tricky..

Exactly a year ago, I descended upon Machu Picchu. It will forever be among the most amazing experiences of my life.

I’ve been meaning to put this somewhere. A while back, I made it to the last day of Brooklyn Museum’s Who Shot Rock and Roll where I saw this photo. It’s the Rolling Stones, in 1963, on their first photo shoot. The band’s manager had only one direction for the photographer, Philip Townsend - to make the band look “mean and nasty.” More shots from the shoot are in his archive.

I’ve been meaning to put this somewhere. A while back, I made it to the last day of Brooklyn Museum’s Who Shot Rock and Roll where I saw this photo. It’s the Rolling Stones, in 1963, on their first photo shoot. The band’s manager had only one direction for the photographer, Philip Townsend - to make the band look “mean and nasty.” More shots from the shoot are in his archive.

George Lois Tells the Stories Behind His Twelve Favorite Classic Esquire Covers in NYMag Andy Warhol Drowning, May 1969 “This was hot shit. The article was basically a caustic review about what was going on in the arts in America at the time, and without even reading it, I knew I wanted Andy Warhol drowning in his own soup. I just had the image in my head. And I called him, and said, ‘Andy I want you on the cover of Esquire.’ And he said, ‘Wait a minute, George, you always have an idea on the cover, what’s the idea?’ And I told him, and he said, ‘I love it!’ When Andy saw it, he lost his mind. He kept saying he wanted to trade me for the original art, he’d give me some Brillo boxes, a Campbell Soup painting. He was after me a month before he died, he was still trying to trade me. I told him I don’t want to trade, ‘cause someday that’s going to hang in the MoMA.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’d love to see it there! Me hanging in the Museum of Modern Art!’ Which is so funny, because now there’s twenty goddamn Warhols in the Museum of Modern Art.”

George Lois Tells the Stories Behind His Twelve Favorite Classic Esquire Covers in NYMag

Andy Warhol Drowning, May 1969

“This was hot shit. The article was basically a caustic review about what was going on in the arts in America at the time, and without even reading it, I knew I wanted Andy Warhol drowning in his own soup. I just had the image in my head. And I called him, and said, ‘Andy I want you on the cover of Esquire.’ And he said, ‘Wait a minute, George, you always have an idea on the cover, what’s the idea?’ And I told him, and he said, ‘I love it!’ When Andy saw it, he lost his mind. He kept saying he wanted to trade me for the original art, he’d give me some Brillo boxes, a Campbell Soup painting. He was after me a month before he died, he was still trying to trade me. I told him I don’t want to trade, ‘cause someday that’s going to hang in the MoMA.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’d love to see it there! Me hanging in the Museum of Modern Art!’ Which is so funny, because now there’s twenty goddamn Warhols in the Museum of Modern Art.”

Check out Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal in an NYT interactive map. View high resolution

Check out Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal in an NYT interactive map.