In 1994, a McDonalds customer called Stella Liebeck was awarded nearly $3 million in damages by a New Mexico civil jury after she spilled coffee on herself.
The affair has long since gone down in history as the most extreme case of frivolous litigation – ‘the poster child of excessive lawsuits’.
As the New York Times revealed this week (or, more accurately ‘recapped’, as the details had been investigated before) the story wasn’t quite so cut and dried.
In the latest installment of the PBS Blank on Blank animated interview series, Kurt Cobain talks to Jon Savage in 1993 about, among other things, identity.
Previously: Janis Joplin
Update: Transcript on his Cork connection.
Kurt Cobain: “My mother has always tried to keep a little bit of English culture in our family. We drink tea all the time. Tea, yeah. Although I’ve never really known my ancestry. I didn’t even know until this year that the name Cobain is Irish. I found out, through different phone books, throughout America, couldn’t find any Cobains at all, so I started calling Coburns. And I found this one lady in San Francisco and she had been researching our family history and we came from County Cork, which is a weird coincidence because, when we toured, we played in Cork. And the entire day I walked around in a daze. I’ve never felt more spiritual in my life. I was almost in tears the whole day. It’s the weirdest thing.”
Youtuber and moon loon Lunarmodule5’s impressive mashup of all six moon missions between 1969 and 1972. Sez he:
Probably the biggest project I have ever attempted. All the Apollo lunar landings, of the original DAC coverage realligned to 45 degrees to show what the LMPs saw on the descent, with the audio segmented from all of the flights.
Awolnation’s ‘Sail’ played on a 2KW audio-modulated, dual resonant, solid state, water-cooled tesla coil at at Maker Faire Kansas City.
The young chap demonstrating it (for the 67th time, presumably) could do with a jolt.
Brains. How do we eat them? How do we use them?
A guide to surviving the human apocalypse.
‘The Duck Machine’ by British designer/sculptor David Cranmer consists of 49 independently controlled rubber duckies connected via actuated rods to independent, microprocessor-controlled motors.
We have been staring slack-jawed at it could watch it all day.
A newly released HD version of the masterful 2010 short The Deep by director and stop-motion animator PES, featuring an aquatic world populated by old hand tools, keys, chains and film lenses.
A limited edition print (top) is also available.
Fullscreen HD recommended.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QekSE3NBf7s
A frenetic PBS Digital Short video remix of the sights and sounds of Tokyo by the mighty Kutiman featuring (among many other things) a host of Japanese musicians including Nobumichi Tosa of art group Maywa Denki playing the Otamatone.
Written and Directed by erstwhile Disney animator Rocky Curby, who sez:
“It’s a Texas fried treat”! A robot cow searches for its mother in a slaughter house, while being chased by a killer robot.
Previously: Dark Vessel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsCR-gUbF88#t=30
The somewhat stonking Across The Floor by Owen Brady & The Blue Shakes.
It’s their first video. Be nice.
(Thanks Owen)
