Via Boing Boing: ‘ “Im sure most of you have heard the story of the man who, desperately ill, goes to an analyst and tells the doctor that he has lost his desire to live and that he is seriously considering suicide. The doctor listens to this tale of melancholia and then tells the patient that what he needs is a good belly laugh. He advises the unhappy man to go to the circus that night and spend the evening laughing at Grock, the worlds funniest clown. The doctor sums it up, After you have seen Grock, I am sure you will be much happier. The patient rises to his feet, looks sadly at the doctor, turns and ambles to the door. As he starts to leave, the doctor says, By the way what is your name? The man turns and regards the analyst with sorrowful eyes. I am Grock.” ‘

Via Gizmodo: ‘Alfred Hitchcock appeared briefly in the majority of his movies, making that his signature. Morgan T. Rhys edited all those cameos together in a video so all Hitchcocks fans can enjoy it. His cameos became so popular that Hitchcock decided to make his appearances more obvious and earlier in the film, so people wouldn’t get distracted from the movie trying to spot him.’

Via The Wire: ‘Jay Chapman is the creator of the most commonly used lethal injection protocol, which he concocted in the late 1970s. This lethal recipe was adopted by 37 states. Chapman’s protocol called for three drugs: sodium thiopental, a sedative; pancuronium bromide, a paralytic agent; and to stop the heart, potassium chloride. However, in the last few years, manufacturers have pulled away from selling these drugs to states for the purpose of lethal injection. Sodium thiopental, the key sedative in the protocol, has become virtually unavailable. The last manufacturer of sodium thiopental in the United States stopped producing it in 2011. The European Union banned export of it all together, and India has banned its sale. While some states attempted to stockpile the drug before the bans, sodium thiopental has a shelf life of only four years, with expirations fast approaching in 2015.

Suddenly, states were left with prisoners on death row, and no way to kill them. They had to reinvent the lethal injection. On July 23, convicted murdered Joseph Wood was executed by the state of Arizona. His execution took almost two hours, involving fifteen doses of an experimental drug combination. Witnesses watched as he gagged and choked for the majority of the two hours, his opioid receptors filling with hydromorphone and midazolam.

An …official told the judge working to find an acceptable lethal injection protocol that “You’re not entitled to a pain-free execution.” This mentality is a point of contention on both sides of the execution battle. While some believe a painful execution qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment, others believe that with murderers who are guilty of terrible crimes against humanity, the end is more important than the means.’ 

 

Via io9s: ‘The midshipman fish has, all things considered, one of the more pleasant mating rituals in nature. Rather than fighting among themselves or biting the hell out of their prospective mates – as sharks do – they try to out-sing each other. The males get together in groups and start a low humming sound. He who hums best gets the girl.The group of fish humming together gets the attention of the local townspeople. Low-frequency humming carries over large distances, traveling through the ground, penetrating walls, and rattling windows. This is why we hear the bass when cars playing loud music come by the house, rather than the higher notes. It’s also why people close to the ocean hear a humming at night loud enough to keep them up. Just as a bonus, the fish are nocturnal. These people did not know where the humming was coming from, which is why power lines and local highways got a lot of complaints until someone turned their eyes on the ocean.’

Via Salon.com: ‘One of the last things Brown said, according to a witness: “I don’t have a gun! Stop shooting!” ‘

 

Via WIRED: ‘I like everything. Or at least I did, for 48 hours. Literally everything Facebook sent my way, I liked—even if I hated it. I decided to embark on a campaign of conscious liking, to see how it would affect what Facebook showed me. I know this sounds like a stunt (and it was) but it was also genuinely just an open-ended experiment. I wasn’t sure how long I’d keep it up (48 hours was all I could stand) or what I’d learn (possibly nothing.)…

My News Feed took on an entirely new character in a surprisingly short amount of time. After checking in and liking a bunch of stuff over the course of an hour, there were no human beings in my feed anymore. It became about brands and messaging, rather than humans with messages.Likewise, content mills rose to the top. Nearly my entire feed was given over to Upworthy and the Huffington Post. As I went to bed that first night and scrolled through my News Feed, the updates I saw were in order: Huffington Post, Upworthy, Huffington Post, Upworthy, a Levi’s ad, Space.com, Huffington Post, Upworthy, The Verge, Huffington Post, Space.com, Upworthy, Space.com.

Also, as I went to bed, I remember thinking “Ah, crap. I have to like something about Gaza,” as I hit the Like button on a post with a pro-Israel message.By the next morning, the items in my News Feed had moved very, very far to the right. I’m offered the chance to like the 2nd Amendment and some sort of anti-immigrant page. I like them both. I like Ted Cruz. I like Rick Perry. The Conservative Tribune comes up again, and again, and again in my News Feed.’ (Thanks, RK)

Via Salon.com: ‘ “We are living in the most peaceful century in human history; however the 2014 Global Peace Index shows that the last seven years has shown a notable deterioration in levels of peace.”So begins this year’s peace index, an annual report released by the nonprofit Institute for Economics and Peace. The study ranks 162 countries covering 99.6% of the world’s population according to a complex set of indicators that gauge the absence of violence and political instability. These include a nation’s level of military expenditure, its relations with neighboring countries and the percentage of the population held in prisons.’

Via Salon.com: ‘The people of Ferguson are angry. Outraged. The officer’s story is dubious. Any black kid with sense knows it is futile to reach into an officer’s vehicle and take his gun.  That story is only plausible to people who believe that black people are animals, that black men go looking for cops to pick fights with. Absurdity. Eyewitness accounts like these make far more sense.

It seems far easier to focus on the few looters who have reacted unproductively to this tragedy than to focus on the killing of Michael Brown. Perhaps looting seems like a thing we can control. I refuse. I refuse to condemn the folks engaged in these acts, because I respect black rage. I respect black people’s right to cry out, shout and be mad as hell that another one of our kids is dead at the hands of the police. Moreover I refuse the lie that the opportunism of a few in any way justifies or excuses the murderous opportunism undertaken by this as yet anonymous officer.’ — Brittney Cooper, Rutgers