“My Little Edward Scissorhands” by Jvermillionaire
- Robot taxis? Ford Motor Company announces plans to unveil a driverless vehicle for use in commercial ride-sharing by the year 2021. No plans yet as to whether the company plans to partner with Uber, Lyft, or any other commercial ride-sharing services yet. So what will happen when taxi drivers go the way of the dinosaur? Taxi drivers who fear losing their job to robot cars were not interviewed for this article. [Reuters]
- Speaking of cold-blooded creatures: Aborigines “look like dinosaurs,” according to Marina Abramović. “They are really strange and different,” she wrote in her diaries in the 1970s, “and they should be treated as living treasures.” O_o [Hyperallergic]
- And then, this morning comes the news that that line about dinosaurs will be removed from an upcoming publication of Marina Abramović’s memoirs. Delete doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. [The Guardian]
- Art dorks rejoice because you can now hike up your pants and show off your love of Edouard Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass” with a pair of socks. Also available: Mona Lisa, Nefertiti [Google Ghost Press]
- CIA releases hundreds of declassified papers on UFOs. Also incredible: the CIA gives tips on how anyone can investigate flying saucers. [Open Culture]
- Anthony Antonellis’s new series for Electric Objects speeds up the slow process of “wear and tear” on tech, by burning, breaking, and busting open iPhones, desktop monitors, and printer cartridges. [Electric Objects]
- David Mermelstein argues that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s At Home With Monsters—a show that sprinkles the museum’s collection amongst that of horror director Guillermo del Toro—is kitsch masquerading as art. I haven’t seen the show, but I hate that stance, even though the show does sound kind of terrible. [The Wall Street Journal]
- Clayton Chowaniec’s net game That Pokeyman Thing allows users to play as an old person struggling to understand what the hell Pokémon Go is. It’s hilarious, and weirdly fun. [Kill Screen]
- Johnny Depp apparently made paintings with his own blood to get over a divorce. To demonstrate that this is gimmicky instead of shocking, Dan Duray outlines a short history of artists using blood as a medium, from the seminal to the schlocky. It’s a funny, quick read. (Yes, the Edward Scissorhands My Little Pony nods to Johnny Depp.) [The Guardian]
- Feel the wrath of the surveillance society, where corporations know more about you than your boyfriend does, with this fake name generator. Sure! Sounds like fun. No it’s not. It’s terrifying: it generates social security card numbers, passwords, usernames, addresses, and credit card numbers. [Fake Name Generator]
- Johnny Cash’s Tennessee ranch, replete with general store and music venue has been reopened as the Storytellers Museum outside of Nashville. Only a 14-hour drive, for those of us in the northeast! [artnet News]
- The federal agency of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is being lambasted for efforts to desegregate affordable housing. The HUD proposal would de-concentrate vouchers in low-income neighborhoods and encourage more Section 8 recipients to move to wealthier areas. The problem, according to NYC officials and advocates, is that there’s simply not enough vacant rental housing stock in the city’s wealthier neighborhoods. Maybe the sudden influx of federal subsidies for low-income renters could be used as an incentive to build more? [Curbed]
- Move over Soylent, there’s a new performance-enhancing non-food in town. Nootropics, which have been popular for some time, are now making their way into a more public eye through the help of several startups selling pre-mixed “artisanal brain boosters.” [The Baffler]
Video games make for great GIFs, especially when you isolate some of the crazy, surreal aspects of gameplay. Like these GIFs made from a video preview for Wattam, a long-awaited game from the creator of Katamari Damacy, a wacky, yet twee cult-fave Playstation game with an objective of rolling over other objects in a toy-size universe.
