May 31, 2015
Nothing exotic or supernatural
Tatjana Joelle van Vark [previously] creates beautiful and sophisticated devices, like this recreation (including a "hypothetical planetarium") of the Antikythera Mechanism.
In this video she walks us through some of her constructions: Mythe van een Magistra
Men Adrift
For those at the top, James Brown’s observation that it is a man’s, man’s, man’s world still holds true. Some 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs are male, as are 98% of the self-made billionaires on the Forbes rich list and 93% of the world’s heads of government. In popular films fewer than a third of the characters who speak are women, and more than three-quarters of the protagonists are men. Yet the fact that the highest rungs have male feet all over them is scant comfort for the men at the bottom.
The United States of Horror
Gotta make a move to a town that's right for me 🎶
Funky town - Lipps Inc 1980 [SLYT]
Solar Flight Telemetry, Live
The Solar Impulse, the world's first solar-powered manned long-haul flying machine, is currently in the midst of the longest leg in its pioneering round-the-world journey — China to Hawaii, which at a cruising speed of less than 30mph is anticipated to take most of a week. Follow along with live flight telemetry here. Swiss businessman André Borschberg and Swiss psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, who both previously participated in the world's first round-the-world balloon voyage, in the Breitling Orbiter 3, are alternating flight legs. Borschberg is at the controls until the aircraft reaches Hawaii.
Loplop
And Loplop, bird superior, has transformed himself into flesh without flesh and will dwell among us.
Loplop was the Dada and Surrealist artist Max Ernst's alter ego. whose beloved pet cockatoo had died the same night his sister was born.
He described his birth in 1891 as having hatched from an egg that his mother laid.
Ernst took many ideas incorporated in Freud's works and used them to try to identify himself, in 1922 painting Oedipus Rex and then in 1922 Two children are threatened by a nightingale.
In 1931 Loplop; who had the previous year introduced Loplop, now introduced the surrealist group.
Ernst described collage as the "alchemy of the visual image". Loplop was the narrator in his alchemical collage novel Une Semaine de Bonté. as he had previously with La Femme de 100 tetes.
In 1937 he painted Fireside Angel predicting the rise of Fascism. and in 1940 he painted Attirement of the bride depicting his then lover Leonora Carrington. With the war arriving in Europe Ernst left for America. Loplop lived on at least through to 1960 in his sculpture.
Loplop was the Dada and Surrealist artist Max Ernst's alter ego. whose beloved pet cockatoo had died the same night his sister was born.
He described his birth in 1891 as having hatched from an egg that his mother laid.
Ernst took many ideas incorporated in Freud's works and used them to try to identify himself, in 1922 painting Oedipus Rex and then in 1922 Two children are threatened by a nightingale.
In 1931 Loplop; who had the previous year introduced Loplop, now introduced the surrealist group.
Ernst described collage as the "alchemy of the visual image". Loplop was the narrator in his alchemical collage novel Une Semaine de Bonté. as he had previously with La Femme de 100 tetes.
In 1937 he painted Fireside Angel predicting the rise of Fascism. and in 1940 he painted Attirement of the bride depicting his then lover Leonora Carrington. With the war arriving in Europe Ernst left for America. Loplop lived on at least through to 1960 in his sculpture.
Centuries-old bridges, grown from tangled roots
The Root Bridges of Cherrapunji In the depths of northeastern India, in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren't built — they're grown. [more inside]
Carolina Hall
On Thursday, the Board of Trustees of UNC- Chapel Hill voted to change the name of Saunders Hall to Carolina Hall. "University trustees made [an error] in 1920 when they recognized William L. Saunders’ leadership in the Ku Klux Klan as a qualification for naming a building in his honor." [more inside]
The Chinese Juggernaut Isn't
For American pundits, China isn’t a country. It’s a fantasyland.
Whenever I want to be cheered up about the future of my adopted country, I turn to American pundits. The air here might be deadly, the water undrinkable, the Internet patchy and the culture strangled, but I can always be reassured that China is beating America at something, whether it’s clean energy, high-speed rail, education or even the military.
Whenever I want to be cheered up about the future of my adopted country, I turn to American pundits. The air here might be deadly, the water undrinkable, the Internet patchy and the culture strangled, but I can always be reassured that China is beating America at something, whether it’s clean energy, high-speed rail, education or even the military.
“Many atheists are still in the closet,”
Wanted: A Theology of Atheism by Molly Werthen [New York Times] [Op-Ed] What do people who don’t believe in God believe instead?
The other FAIL blog
Dr. Yotarou Hatamura, who runs the Association for the Study of Failure, is also supervisor of the Failure Knowledge Database Project. He proposes adopting the "Failure Mandala" to promote the systematic understanding and dissemination of failures. To support this approach, he presents a compilation of 100 case studies of failure events organized by topic (also viewable as a single list of PDF files; and available in Japanese). Dr. Hatamura subsequently chaired the investigative committee into the Fukushima nuclear incident, which he discusses here.
3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya
New fieldwork in West Turkana, Kenya, has identified evidence of much earlier (than 2.6 ma) hominin technological behaviour. We report (paywalled) the discovery of Lomekwi 3, a 3.3-million-year-old archaeological site where in situ stone artefacts occur in spatiotemporal association(pdf) with Pliocene hominin fossils in a wooded palaeoenvironment. Given the implications of the Lomekwi 3 assemblage for models aiming to converge environmental change, hominin evolution and technological origins (pdf), we propose for it the name ‘Lomekwian’, which predates (pdf) the Oldowan by 700,000 years and marks a new beginning to the known archaeological record. (abstract)
Ballast
For the first time, "the wreckage of a slaving ship that went down with slaves aboard has been recovered." The recovery of artifacts from the 1794 shipwreck is a milestone for the African Slave Wrecks Project, a collaboration by six partner groups (including the National Museum of African-American Art and Culture and the National Parks Service) to find, document, and preserve archaeological remnants of the slave trade. Some of the objects will be included in exhibits in the NMAAHC.
We all need something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for
Adios, Hola
Hola is probably the most popular VPN service today, allowing unblocked access to region-locked content. It has been discovered, however, that they have been selling access to their network to third parties. Hola was just used as a botnet for attacking 8chan.
Adios, Hola lays down the reasons for why the extension is problematic, and helps you determine whether you are at risk.
Hola's response? That was the agreement all along.
Fatal police shootings in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide
The Washington Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting by police in 2015, as well as of every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty.
Overall, blacks were killed at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by the population of the census tracts where the shootings occurred.
« Previous day | Next day »