Matt

“I meant you have no sense of humor.”

“Yes, I do. I am like Haley Joel Osment in that one movie but instead of dead people I see humor.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I see Stuttering Stanley doing stuttering stand-up comedy.”

“They gathered and began the sandwalk, gliding over the surface in a broken rhythm that would disturb no maker.”

“They fell into the disjointed rhythm of movement across this broken land." 

"There was no rhythm to it that might tell a marauding worm something not of the desert moved here.”

Pittsburgh-based geographer Stentor Danielson has drawn an incredible series of fantasy maps of real United States cities in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien. Large posters and small prints are available to purchase online from his Etsy store, Mapsburgh.

images via Mapsburgh

via FlowingData

photo by Ossip van Duivenbode

The Markthal is a new indoor food market in the Netherlands — specifically Rotterdam — with a design centered around a massive arch. The arch structure contains 228 apartments and simultaneously shelters the indoor market hall, which has 100 food vendors and eight restaurants. Massive glass facades, the largest of their kind in Europe, enclose each end of the archway. The Markthal was designed by MVRDV and developed by Provast.

photo via scagliolabrakkee

photo by Ossip van Duivenbode

photo by Ossip van Duivenbode

photo via scagliolabrakkee

via designboom

Host Tom Scott (see previously) explains why the British have separate hot and cold water taps instead of having them mixed in a recent episode of Things You May Not Know. Scott also explains why he still won’t drink from the hot water tap.

Hey France! I have a book out for you!

“Slittens” is an amusing site that superimposes submitted photos of adorable kittens with the equally adorable faces of sloths, creating a slightly disturbing, but still very cute result. The accompanying commentary is also pretty amusing.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Remember last month, when I was working on a screen saver and I reviewed all nine Hellraiser movies and made a supercut of every on-screen appearance of the Lament Configuration?

As soon as I posted it, it was immediately blocked with seven content-ID matches. So I filed a DMCA fair-use counter-claim, because this video -- made of dozens of 5 second clips from these films for the purpose of analyzing the special-effects techniques that went into them -- is clearly fair use.

Well, yesterday they finally replied, and I thought you'd be interested to know what that looks like, because it is the excrement of a bull and it stinketh:

Copyright Notice: The Lament Configuration, Supercut

Your video may include clips that are owned by a third party. To watch the matched clips please play the video on the right. The video will play from the point where the matched content was identified.

Your video is blocked in some countries.

Copyright details:

• 1:53: Visual content administered by:
  Starz Media LLC: Claim released.

• 10:18: Visual content administered by:
  MegaTube: Claim released.
  Miramax : Dispute rejected, claim has been reinstated.

• 0:17: Visual content administered by:
  Starz Media LLC: -

• 8:10: Visual content administered by:
  MegaTube: Claim released.

• 4:05: Visual content administered by:
  egeda: Dispute rejected, claim has been reinstated.
  Image Entertainment: Dispute rejected, claim has been reinstated.

I have no idea who "MegaTube" is (those words are impossible to search for) but I'm guessing they're one of those companies that just files copyright claims on everything in order to get adwords on it, and give up as soon as someone complains.

For the others, and to nobody's great surprise, how this works is you say "Fair use!" and Youtube asks their corporate overlords what they think. Then MPAA content mafia then replies, "Well yes, that looks like fair use to me, too! We're so sorry that our robot, with no human oversight, accused you of being a dirty thief." Just kidding, they don't even believe in the concept of fair use, so they say "no".

The conversation we just had (and by "we" I mean "me and the robots") is:

• Robot: YOU ARE A THIEF
• Me: This is fair use because XYZ
• Robot: NO

Nice that there is no explanation or justification for their opinion.

So after that, you have three options you can click:

1. OK, got it (in a giant box, bigger than the other links below it)
2. If you think this is an invalid claim, you can file a dispute.
3. If you still think this is an invalid claim, you can file an appeal.

I already clicked #2 last time, so I don't know why it's still there, so let's see what happens when you click #3... You get a page that has an "Error Dialog"-style box, with a big yellow MTA "warning triangle" and everything, that says:

Appeal reinstated claim

Are you sure you want to appeal?

You will be required to provide your contact information to the claimant.

An appeal will result in either:

• the release of a claim on your video

• OR a legal copyright notification from the claimant. In this event your video will be taken down and you will receive a copyright strike on your account. If you have received additional copyright strikes, this may suspend your YouTube account Learn more

OH NOES! If I dare to dispute their rejection of my claim, they're going to know who I am and there's going to be a legal hoo-ha something-or-other!

Ok, first of all, it's obvious that they're just trying to scare people with the way they're phrasing this here. "If you click this button, terrible things will happen to you! The sky will darken with lawyers!" They intend most people reading this, who don't understand how this works, to interpret that as "if you click this button, someone's going to sue you."

But second, let's look at the proposition they are actually making to me right now:

• Me: I believe this video is fair use.
• Youtube: Other corporations disagree, and we trust them implicitly. Your choices:
  1. Agree with us that you are a dirty lying dirty thief, and we'll still allow it to play in some countries.
  2. Disagree with us, and we're going to take it down everywhere forever. And I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.

How does that make any sense at all? If today it's reasonable for it to be un-blocked in some countries, how does my filing of an appeal change that?

That's just them being vindictive, and trying to discourage anyone from ever filing an appeal.

So let's ride this turd-train to the end and see what happens. I clicked continue, and got this form:

Your full name and contact information will be shared with Image Entertainment,egeda.

• Your full legal name
• Email address
• Street address, City, State/Province, ZIP/Postal code, Country

You originally disputed the claim based on fair use. Please explain why your use of content is subject to fair use according to the following statutory factors. Learn more

• Purpose and character of use:
  (I said: "Nonprofit, educational use. It is an analysis of how certain visual affects were achieved in nine different films.")

• Nature of copyrighted work:
  (I said: "The material examined is from all of the nine "Hellraiser" films.")

• The amount and substantiality of the portion used:
  (I said: "Each clip is extremely short, roughly 5-20 seconds each.")

• The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the original work:
  (I said: "None.")

• Please confirm your agreement with the following statement:
  I acknowledge that filing an appeal may lead to legal proceedings between me and the complaining party to determine ownership. I am aware that there may be adverse legal consequences in my country if I make a false or bad faith allegation by using this process. I understand the personal contact information I provided above will be shared with the complaining party for purposes of my appeal and consent to this disclosure. I acknowledge that this information may be transmitted outside my home country as part of this process.

• Type your full name to serve as your electronic signature

Incidentally, one of the countries in which this video is now blocked is The United States of America. I wonder what countries it is not blocked in? (Update: Apparently it's only blocked in the US.)

Previously, previously.

Artist Kim Keever creates beautiful images of colorful, abstract, often cloud-like forms by dropping pigment into an aquarium tank and photographing the results. We previously posted about Keever’s wonderfully eerie flooded diorama photos.

photos by Kim Keever

via It’s Complicated, My Modern Metropolis

Today I needed a GIF to test out posting on Ello. Of course the first place I checked was Giphy and came across this wonderfully creepy winking coffee face GIF by Dunken K Bliths.

David Best, the artist who created the first monumental temple sculpture at Burning Man back in 2000 (and has created seven subsequent temples), has been invited to Northern Ireland to create a temple in Derry/Londonderry. London-based production company Artichoke Trust is producing the project, which will be built with the help of local residents. The sculpture is scheduled for completion in March 2015. It will be open to the public for one week after which it will be burned, much like the temple sculptures at Burning Man. Artichoke Trust is raising funds for the project on Kickstarter.

Northern Ireland temple design by David Best

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

POW!

patrickthomson:

this is your periodic reminder that old-timey medicines did not fuck around

A helpful chart by Compound Interest explains the chemicals that give leaves their color both when they are green and when they change color in autumn.

Leaves are green because of chlorophyll, yellow because of a combination of carotenoids and flavonoids, red because of carotenoids combined with anthocyanins, and orange when only carotenoids are present. The chart is presented with detailed explanations of each of the different pigments.

image via Compound Interest

via Gotham Knowledge

Countless colorful umbrellas cover a beach along the Adriatic coastline of Italy in a series of wonderful aerial photos of Italian beach resorts by Bernhard Lang. Lang has much more delightful aerial photography on his Behance portfolio.

photos by Bernhard Lang

via Faith is Torment

The Dancing Traffic Light is a concept by the car company Smart that translates human dancing into real-time movements on an unconventional “Don’t Walk” light. The project is intended to make waiting at a stop light more entertaining to help dissuade people from crossing against traffic.

via Coudal Partners

Squee again

Artist and freelance photographer Sabato Visconti has created a wonderfully diverse body of glitch photography. He uses a variety of techniques to digitally tweak the photographs — sometimes he relies on applications like Pixel-Drifter, and in other cases he manipulates the code directly. Visconti talks about his glitch photography in an interview with Re:form.

images by Sabato Visconti

via re:form

Designer Hilla Shamia creates gorgeous custom furniture that seamlessly combines solid pieces of wood and cast aluminum. The casting process involves directly applying molten metal to the wood, creating intricate aluminum inlays and beautifully burnt wood. Shamia’s work is available at two design stores internationally: Asufa Design in Jaffa, Israel and Entratalibera in Milan.

Furniture combining cast aluminium and wood. The negative factor of burnt wood is transformed into aesthetic and emotional value by preservation of the natural form of the tree trunk, within explicit boundaries. The general, squared form intensifies the artificial feeling, and at the same time keeps the memory of the material.

photos via Hilla Shamia

via The Fox Is Black, Colossal

Photographer Chris Morgan took these stunning macro photos of hummingbirds while on a recent trip to Costa Rica. He has much more excellent bird photography on his Flickr photostream.

photos by Chris Morgan

via Lost At E Minor

A mayfly emergence from the Mississippi River near and around La Crosse, Wisconsin on the evening of July 20th produced a massive result on radar. Reports came in of swarms and piles — yes, piles — of mayflies gathering throughout the area. The National Weather Service’s La Crosse, Wisconsin Weather Forecast Office keeps track of such events that occur from Davenport, Iowa through St. Paul, Minnesota.

The radar detected the flies about 845 pm, emanating from the river (the source) with echo values similar to that of light-moderate rain (35-40 dBZ). With a general south-to-north wind flow above the surface, the mayflies quickly moved north once in the air. As the flies dispersed moving north-northeast, they also gained altitude with some of the echo being detected as far north as Black River Falls and as high as 2500 feet above ground.

images via National Weather Service

via KARE 11, USA Today

Every sense you possess is an instrument for reacting to change. Does that tell you nothing?

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

The band OK Go has released a behind-the-scenes video about the making of the music video for their song “The Writing’s On the Wall” (see previous post) off their new album Hungry Ghosts. The behind-the-scenes video was shot and edited by Geoff Shelton.

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com
title: "Do you have a minute?" - originally published 8/6/2014 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

Target is adding its name to a legal defense of gay marriage, joining other large companies that are taking a stand, just four years after the retailer came under criticism for supporting a strident opponent of same-sex unions.

Photographer Micaël Reynaud has created a series of mesmerizing photo GIFs that turn everyday sights into surreal animated loops. He has more GIFs on his Google+ page. We’ve posted about Reynaud’s video and photo work several times over the years.

GIFs by Micaël Reynaud

via Colossal