Asia Associated Press Chief Photographer David Guttenfelder is currently in North Korea covering the 60th anniversary of the country’s armistice with South Korea. As expected when documenting the country’s Mass Games the spectacle is visually incredible, yet subtly disturbing in their homogenous achievement.

Times have collected some of his photos here, whilst AP’s Big Story has got a slightly wider scoped gallery of the country itself here. Of particular interest though is his instagram account that’s got some pretty remarkable images, particularly of aged Korea War veterans, and videos of the countryside and military parades.

Worth mentioning, if not seen yet, is the 2003 documentary A State of Mind where two British filmmakers got then unprecedented access to North Korea and followed two young girls with dreams to train and participate in the Mass Games for their dear leader Kim Jong il. It certainly doesn’t attempt to unmask the horrors of the country’s regime, but it gives a very rare insight into the lives and psychology of some of its inhabitants.

Optical Ripple by Simon C Page

• An ad agency is testing adverts that transmit via train windows into a person’s head
• The Nigerian Prince and the Valley Girl: chronicling the changing history of spam
• The amazing story of Kim Jong-Il’s sushi chef
• Images of the ‘World’s largest building’ now open in China
• New Zealand, home to the best/worst news graphic ever
• History repeats as Spain’s best and brightest flee
• PBS is curating great unreleased interviews through their youtube channel Blank on Blank
• It’s kinda lunar littering, but I so want to send a £300 Kickstarter spacecraft to the moon
• Avatar creator Bryan Konietzko responds on colouring and dynamic lighting in animation
• DC teased out some details on Neil Gaiman’s new Sandman comic
• GIFs: How marbles are made
• Being a Lifelong Bookworm May Keep You Sharp in Old Age
• Former Blizzard dev: World of Warcraft “ruined a genre”

And awesome! New Walking Dead DLC has been released!

Thomas Jackson

• Exposing the Racket: A Simple Stunt Reveals How Blogs Will Print Anything for Pageviews
• Cleaner air linked to more hurricanes
• English is no longer the language of the web
• Only The Lonely By Stephen Fry
• Some of the interesting mindgames of the Korean DMZ
• Secrets of the Magus: a 1993 profile of magician Ricky Jay
• Sophia Stewart, The Real Creator of ‘The Matrix,’ Wins Billion Dollar Copyright Case
• The Changing Shape of Cinema: The History of Aspect Ratio
• Deconstructing the Cinema’s resolution jargon
• Mystery solved: meteorite caused Tunguska devastation
• DroneNet: The future of pizza delivery
• Man creates “invisible headphones” by implanting magnets into his ears
• Ryan Holiday on How To Read More
• Infographic: An Astounding Map of Every River in America

Minority Opinion by Gino Ruggeri

• I have always detested the word meme, and not just because it was coined by Richard Dawkins, though that certainly helps”

  One of many gems in this great article on the ‘Meme Generation’. Dunno why I picked that quote in particular, given it’s just subjective snide humor, but really, the rest of the article is a fantastic observation into the culture of memes, media and meta-humour. Recommended.

• Here’s another good one – on the frequent fliers who flew too much
• From an former employee, this provides a great dissection and history of Amazon’s low margins business strategy
• A wonderful deconstruction of “first world problems” condescending attitude
• Studies show that ‘Moral Realism’ may lead to better moral behavior
• From the writers perspective: How much should ebooks cost?
• Great title: The Pope’s Dove of Peace attacked by Seagull of Irony
• What’s the price of copyright crime in New Zealand? Only $617
• Oh man, the original artwork for all 12 Watchmen covers will soon be up for auction
• I have zero knowledge about the film, but I love the design of Young and Wild‘s end credits
• Cleaning work at Rome’s Colosseum has turned up 2000 year old graffiti
• North Korea is now properly on Google Maps and here 4 interesting ‘must-sees’; Informative, though zero external links to the actual maps/locations. I’m really starting to despise this trend of closed system hyperlinks on blogs. (update: this one‘s at least links out with it’s list and be sure to check out the awesome user reviews)

Mexico’s Haunting Underwater Sculptures

• There’s currently a cheese fire in a Norway tunnel causing traffic issues
• “It might not get weirder than this” an account of being in a North Korean-visiting delegation
• How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp
• CurbTXT service: contacting drivers through their license plate
• Very interesting study into the growing dichotomy of our online and offline identity
• Sleep problems could jeopardise future missions to Mars
• Using pulsars as a form of interstellar GPS
• What would hyperspace travel really look like?
• How a quarter of the cow genome came from snakes
• How Leprosy reprograms the body
• Wired’s best of CES 2013
• It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Oculus Rift will effect gaming
• The ridiculously charming world of ‘Ni No Kuni,’ Studio Ghibli’s gaming masterpiece
• This device supposedly trains you to become a human compass
• A great send up on attending a tech press release conference (and subtly, tech ‘journalism’)
• Answered: How valid is the implied legal advice in Jay-Z’s “99 Problems”?
• The producer of ‘2 girls 1 cup’ has been sentenced to 4 years for obscenity
• Drew Struzan may return for the new Star Wars trilogy posters
• A great observational piece that goes behind the scenes of Paul Schrader’s The Canyons and what happens when you cast Lindsay Lohan in your movie
• Some anniversaries you can expect to see covered this year
• 7 Strategies to outsmart writer’s block
• Bad writing advice from famous authors
• The Serif Readability Myth
• Clay Shirky: Remembering Aaron by taking care of each other
• A gallery of 30 insane cloud formations from around the world
• Another gallery of 18 Funny Restaurant Signs
• This website interestingly maps and tracks every current flight: https://www.flightradar24.com/
• And then there’s this video of this dog strutting around on two legs. TWO!

• The BBC is making a six-part adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell!
• North Korea have found a secret Unicorn lair
• A rather rare interview with Fran Walsh on The Hobbit
• The really strong possibility to there being a Planescape: Torment sequel
• Apple, SSDs and the Fusion Drive rip-off
• The Austim Advantage
• The science behind those Obama campaign e-mails
• How long are people willing to wait for a video to load? Two seconds.
• A sociological take on the Powerball Facebook fake
• Video: a 1994 profile of… the Haunted Toaster
• Video: kitty in a claw crane machine

• The Secret Lives of Supercutters
• NASA is actually working on a Faster-than-Light Warp Drive
• Cambridge to study technology’s risk to humans
• Shinichi Mochizuki’s ABC proof too tough even for mathematicians
• China’s state paper falls for Onion joke about Kim Jong-Un, publishes 55 photos in “sexy” tribute
• The New Moot: 4Chan wants to make Kim Jong-Un Time’s Person of the Year
• What would happen if Texas actually seceded?
• Building the World’s tallest skyscraper in 90 days
• An interesting outcome to a really good job interview

Fascinating Photos of Abandoned Olympic Sites Around the World

• Mystery fossil turns out to be giant fungus
• Europe’s oldest prehistoric town unearthed in Bulgaria
• North Korean army minister ‘executed with mortar round’
• I.B.M. Reports Nanotube Chip Breakthrough
• In the Olympics of Algorithms, a Russian Keeps Winning Gold
• The bleeding edge of self-healing skin-like materials
• Popular physics theory running out of hiding places
• Totally Bizarre Experimental Video Explores Slit Scanning
• The Island Where People Forget to Die
• For Zelda-playing daughter, dad gives Link a sex change
• Australian drunk survives attempt to ride crocodile
• Jimmy’s End by Alan Moore: exclusive look at the first full trailer
• Chris Addison: Fuckety-Bye To All That
• Op-ed: Is the Web Driving Us Mad?
• Puzzle: Four Men in Hats
• Flash-based puzzle: Einsteins Riddle
• and Frog Faction