Mark Bowden on discovering narrative and the value of beginner’s mind: “only if you are truly ignorant can you ask the truly ignorant question”.

Why rebels and insurgent groups the world over love the Toyota Hilux
pickup as much as their AK-47s. Not difficult, Sherlock K.. Everyone and the NYT knows that even « infamous Puntland pirates (…) driv[e] Toyota Surfs, a light, fast sport utility vehicle that has become the pirate ride of choice ».

…and muscles show up in different ways (…) not everyone who is fit is also lean…
100 photos of athletes posing in underwear carefully scanned.

There is not one, but three fake Apple store in Kunming, China. Kunmwho?

The Stoner Arms Dealers: How Two American Kids Became Big-Time Weapons Traders And how the Pentagon later turned on them (via believe in anything)

Ever asked why a music from an overweight Hawaian singer made it to the top of the charts several years after his death?

Here is the answer…

In October 2010, Axe re-ran its 2004 Lynx deodorant advertisement originally aired in 2004.

Hooverphonic. 14 Chanteuses auditionnees pour remplacer Geike Arnaert:

And the winner was…

…Noémie Wolfs
Un petit dernier pour la route?

On en redemande?

..is an American patriotic song written by Frank Loesser and published as sheet music in 1942 by Famous Music Corp. The song was a response to the attack on Pearl Harbor that marked United States involvement in World War II.
The song describes a chaplain (« sky pilot ») being with some fighting men who are under attack from an enemy. He is asked to say a prayer for the men who were engaged in firing at the oncoming planes. The chaplain puts down his Bible, mans one of the ship’s gun turrets and begins firing back, saying, « Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition ».[x]

Un curieux bricoleur que Fabrice Bellard. Il a cree FFmpeg (…a crazy complex tool. It was written by a guy who is just frighteningly smart. It’s hard to use, and most of the flags are configuration options for the codec being used. No one really knows how to use it. I’ve spent a lot of time getting it to work. People trade magic incantations for it over forum posts. If you care about quality, you should be using a preset. [x]), et bien d’autres choses encore…

12,000 screenshots of the front page of the nytimes.com (author caveat: unfortunately, you can only watch the whole 7 minutes if you stick to 480p).

Working on this video was fascinating because the past year was filled with dramatic events (from the Chilean miners [0:39] to the Arab Spring [3:38] and the Japanse Tsunami [4:54]) that I got to watch unfold time and time again. Watch out for them in the video; I took special care to slow down certain time periods.

Author is Phillip Mendonça-Vieira (blog). Yes, that guy who wrote ReadLess. Better explained by himself, in a TED-like video:

thesis from Phill MV on Vimeo.

He also wrote a Timelipse video HOWTO.
via Kottke