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May 19, 2010
As the shuttle program winds down, astrophotographers like Thierry Legault are taking advantage of these last opportunities to capture absolutely incredible shots like
this one, showing Atlantis' transit in front of the sun as it performs its inspection backflip before docking with the ISS. His other photography includes
this magnificent series of the launch of
STS-125.
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posted by disillusioned at 4:01 PM PST - 16 comments
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
[another great find at Postroad's blog (NSFW)]
posted by caddis at 3:20 PM PST - 21 comments
A mining town in Kentucky hoping to build a different kind of future. One of the last three Negro League stadiums. A 34-acre ranch owned and run one of California's earliest entreprenuers and rare early female landowners. The "cathedral of African Methodism" which saw the funerals of Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks. Otherwordly sand dunes in Michigan, mysterious freshwater caves in Guam, the Wilderness Battlefield...and the Merritt Parkway. These and more sites are on the (US) NAtional Trust's 2010 roster of the
11 Most Endangered Places.
posted by Miko at 1:39 PM PST - 14 comments
In an alternate universe, where steampunk is the norm at the court in Versailles, the Sun King has gone missing. Welcome to the world of the
Puppet Makers, an online comic from the imagination of MeFi's own The Whelk and his familiar illustrator/partner Molly Crabapple. [Flash interface]
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posted by hippybear at 12:55 PM PST - 49 comments
The joy of Bourbon drinking is not the pharmacological effect of C(2)H(5)OH on the cortex but rather the instant of the whiskey being knocked back and the little
explosion of Kentucky U.S.A. sunshine in the cavity of the nasopharynx and
the hot bosky bite of Tennessee summertime--aesthetic considerations to
which the effect of the alcohol is, if not dispensable, at least secondary.
Bourbon, an essay by Walker Percy. A warning: "Not only should connoisseurs of Bourbon not read this article, neither should persons preoccupied with the perils of alcoholism, cirrhosis, esophageal hemorrhage, cancer of the palate, and so forth..."
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posted by a.steele at 12:55 PM PST - 77 comments
Joeurt Puk (aka Joe Cook) is the father of Cambodian baseball. In
this feature by ESPN, Patrick Hruby looks into Cook's background and finds that Cook may not be the tireless philanthropist he claims to be.
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posted by reenum at 11:13 AM PST - 6 comments
Joe Mozingo had always been told that his family name was "maybe Italian." In a
three-part article in the L.A. Times, the "blue-eyed, surfing son of a dentist" journalist discovers that the Mozingo name actually traces back to an African slave freed in 1672.
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posted by infinitywaltz at 10:13 AM PST - 43 comments
Aman
da Walther and Shei
la Carabine became friends in Canadian high school band. They now make up
Dala, an accoustic folk pop duo who sing songs like the cutesy pop song
Levi Blues,
Alive about a hellish New Years Eve in an old cabin,
Marilyn Monroe about coming of age, and the more serious
Horses, a song dedicated to a paraplegic teenager. They have opened for Neko Case, Tom Cochrane, and Matthew Good and covered
Neil Young.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:48 AM PST - 9 comments
The Guardian has
an article on Pimm's, a traditional gin-based English summer drink. Invented by one James Pimm in London in 1840, Pimm's soon became associated with upper-class institutions and the British Empire; its popularity declined somewhat in the decades following World War 2 (apart from a few revivals as part of ironic constructions of "Britishness"), though it has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity. Recipes for serving Pimm's vary, though they typically involve mixing it with lemonade and/or ginger beer in a jug and adding oranges, strawberries, sliced cucumber and mint. While the formula remains a secret, knockoffs do exist (both Sainsbury's and Aldi sell their own substitutes, though Sainsbury's
had to change the label on its to look less like the original), or you could try
making your own.
posted by acb at 3:19 AM PST - 151 comments
