Procrastinaut: 13 things to waste your time with this weekend

Rob Walker, Yahoo News
·Rob Walker

This week, the U.S. weighed options for a military strike on Syria, in a last-ditch effort to get everybody to shut up about Miley Cyrus. We’ll see. Meanwhile, onward to highlights from the Procrastinaut Tumblr — where @gilbertjasono and I compile the absolute cream of the time-wasting crop (follow the Tumblr here) all week long — plus a few extra bonus items.

1. Back To School Special


I think it’s safe to say that this scored video-form syllabus for a music analysis and repertoryclass is the greatest syllabus of all time. Via Bookofjoe.

2. A Word From Our Sponsor


College Humor takes a whack at “Every Tech Commercial.” I wouldn’t say they totally nailed it, but they got some of the most irritating tropes right, and it’s pretty funny. Via Adfreak.

3. Therapy Llamas


I said, “therapy llamas.” More here.

4. Extreme Unfriending

Spending too much time on Facebook? Use Mechanical Turk to hire strangers to call and insult you into logging off when they detect you’re on the social network. That’s what some MIT students — who are obviously using their time very wisely — came up with. Alternate solution: electric shocks. More at: Pavlov Poke. Via Reddit.


5. Social Aesthetics

“Social Butterfly Blue” nail polish spotted at Facebook campus store.

6. Antisocial Aesthetics

“Anti-drone Scarf” and other counter-surveillance products available now in New Museum’s Privacy Gift Shop.

7. Broadcast Aesthetics



Indiegogo project aims to make Video Earrings so you can walk around wearing home movie, music, or “advertisement” clips. Demonstrated here on a creepy avatar.

8. Weapon of Choice


Tech artist Kyle McDonald — perhaps you’ll recall his Social Roulette project —responds to the controversial “Liberator” 3D-printed pistol effort by modifying the design file to create his own absurd variations of plastic gun.

9. Cool

A Refrigerator That Looks Like Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite .


10. Do we need more ways to make GIFs?

Of course we do. Check out these spiffy examples using the Meemoo Web app.

11. Get Vertical


 Here is a “robotic” couch rigged to balance on its legs.

12. Moving Pictures
Peta Pixel gathers up some of the technical data on two very eye-catching videos. That charming wedding video that’s been making the rounds involved a “slow motion photo booth” with a Red Epic camera and similarly serious gear. And for a spooky piece called “Dancing Ghosts,” photographer Micaël Reynaud “photographed a group of people during the day using long exposure times, and then interpolated the resulting photos into a real-time video.” I don’t really know what that means but the result is super cool.

13. And Don’t Forget
To give the drummer some.