September 15, 2010
Before the heliosheath
Emily Lakdawalla has published the first 42 of 99 Voyager Mission Status Bulletins (thanks to space fan Tom Faber). Before the days of the internet, updates on space missions were distributed via newsletter. From 1977-1990 NASA published these Voyager newsletters to update scientists and enthusiasts. Both Voyager I and Voyager II are still out there, hurtling toward the stars. Voyager I and II weekly status updates from 1995-present are currently available online. Lakdawalla will be publishing the rest of the bulletins after she indexes them.
Vintage children's illustration
Flickr user katinthecupboard has scanned and posted nearly 2000 vintage illustrations, largely from children's books. Luckily they have been organized into collections and sets, and extensively tagged. There's so much in there that I hesitate to point out any individual images I especially like, but here's a few starters: A foppish Mercury, freezing child Jesus in modern city, children playing with sunbeam, boy with a bone-whistle, dancing fairies, bathing silhouettes and sailing ship and merman riding a sea creature.
Yoga Bear
Hua Yang De Nian Hua
"Hua Yang De Nian Hua, or "To those who we remember fondly", is a 2000 short film by Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai that was shown at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival. It consists of a 2m 28s montage of scenes from vintage Chinese films, most of which were considered lost until some nitrate prints were discovered in a California warehouse during the 1990s, set to a song from the soundtrack of Wong's In The Mood For Love, a golden oldie by Zhou Xuan."
And I said to him, 'Man, relax.'
"When Herzog Rescued Phoenix", an animated short of Werner Herzog's account of rescuing Joaquin Phoenix from a car crash, from Sascha Ciezata, the creator of "When Lynch Met Lucas". (SLYT post, technically, but there's a true story behind that.)
Udderless Brooklyn
Once upon a time, cows were milked in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. The city dairy provided a safe, affordable source of nutrition for children in 19th-century New York, and was an important bulwark against one of the city's most insidious killers: swill milk. The dairy and its cows have disappeared, but the story of the swill milk scandals lives on. [more inside]
Stasis: a short film about memory
Statsis: A short film by Christian Swegal In the future, an Ex-Soldier is placed in virtual exercises to cure his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the simulations, he sees glimpses of a mysterious girl, presumably someone from his past. When a Stranger appears in his facility offering answers, the Soldier finds himself once again asked to kill, this time for her... [more inside]
No Baggage Challenge
Rolf Potts will travel through 12 countries in 42 days, with his current location updated here. He intends to do all this with no luggage, no backpack, no man purse -- not even a fanny pack. [via mefi projects]
Now entering The Dark Zone.
It's 1962, and for a few glorious months the world stands still and looks (down, down, down) to Atlantis for the World's Fair.
Perhaps you also missed the 1924 El Dorado World's Fair? And of course reserve your tickets today for the 2040 Moon World's Fair. (Experiments in Typography on the Web, via Waxy Links.)
While his guitar gently weeps...
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez drops his fifth solo album of 2010, in Tychozorente, which is available to stream as well as purchase (for a minumum of $6.99) from the link. [more inside]
Christians in the Hand of an Angry God
In a five part series he wrote a few years ago, blogger J. Brad Hicks breaks down how, in the mid-1960s, the Republican party made a conscious decision to rebrand themselves as the party of Christians, and in doing so, how they had to shift the ideology of the churches to what he calls a "false gospel". [more inside]
Plug it up! Plug it up!
Even as the Deepwater Horizon well nears the day when it will finally be sealed for good, and BP finds itself falling under continued criticism as it is discovered that oily sediment is coating the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, the US government has announced that 3,500 unused oil wells must be sealed by the companies which drilled them. [more inside]
"Well, at least it'll keep me from being so self-involved!"
Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, creator of the artwork announcing May 20, 2010 as Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, goes into hiding at the suggestion of the FBI, following the fatwa issued against her this summer. [more inside]
Hotword Blog
Dictionary.com has a blog! It explains, usually in fairly short articles, the etymology of different words, the reason September is the ninth month, and what an "Emmy" is, among others.
The Lady Was a Spy
Eileen Nearne was found dead in her flat in Torquay on September 2, apparently alone and forgotten. But it turns out, she was neither.
How many ways can you shuffle?
How many ways can you shuffle? Here are some to get you started (along with how to manipulate them): the Overhand Shuffle, the Riffle Shuffle, the Hindu Shuffle, the Faro Shuffle, the Pile Shuffle, and the Mongean Shuffle. If you can't master one of those, I suggest the Wash Shuffle, a shuffling machine, or the ever-popular 52-Card Pickup. [more inside]
But can she speak Swedish?!
She’s an Iron Chef. The Executive Chef of Bon Appetit Magazine. The founder of Chefs for Humanity. A UNICEF spokesperson. The winner of a 'Hero Visibility Award' from the Human Rights Campaign. And now, celebrity chef Cat Cora is teaching the Muppets to cook. Two new video series have premiered online: "The Muppets Kitchen" and "Hasty Tasty Cooking Tips with Cat Cora and the Muppets." (Warning: autoplaying videos.) The series are "designed to inspire kids to get involved in the kitchen and to help moms prepare simple, nutritious and most importantly delicious dinners." [more inside]
Build it and they will come
PC Gamer: Do you have a good sense of piracy rates with Steam games?
Gabe Newell: They’re low enough that we don’t really spend any time on it.
Gabe Newell on Steam, piracy and DRM, part of PC Gamer's Valve Week.
Gabe Newell: They’re low enough that we don’t really spend any time on it.
Gabe Newell on Steam, piracy and DRM, part of PC Gamer's Valve Week.
Digital Fingerpainters (heh)
Love to finger paint with pixels? Or do you prefer the stylus for your stylizing? Either way, the International Association of Mobile Digital Artists beckons (gestures?). It all started with a group of enthusiasts on Flickr (Flickr group).
Membership is free. So is registration for the Mobile Art Conference 2010 (NYC), but they're accepting donations. [more inside]
Membership is free. So is registration for the Mobile Art Conference 2010 (NYC), but they're accepting donations. [more inside]
Lunch at Sardi's every day
Producer Ken Davenport announces he will be "crowd-funding" an upcoming Broadway revival of the musical Godspell. [more inside]
Christine O'Donnell wins Republican primary for Senate
Tea Party candidate and Sarah Palin endorsee Christine O'Donnell - a former chastity lobbyist - has defeated the longest-serving Congressman in Delaware's history by six percentage points to claim the Republican nomination for Vice President Biden's former Senate seat - despite Karl Rove's televised statements to Sean Hannity that she says "nutty things": It does conservatives little good to support candidates who, at the end of the day, while they may be conservative in their public statements, do not evince the characteristics of rectitude and truthfulness and sincerity and character that the voters are looking for. [more inside]
GStalk
A Google engineer was recently fired for spying on several teens through their GTalk, Gmail, and Google Voice accounts.
He accessed contact lists and chat transcripts, and in one case quoted from an IM that he'd looked up behind the person's back... In another incident, Barksdale unblocked himself from a Gtalk buddy list even though the teen in question had taken steps to cut communications with the Google engineer.
Google statement confirming the shenanigans.
He accessed contact lists and chat transcripts, and in one case quoted from an IM that he'd looked up behind the person's back... In another incident, Barksdale unblocked himself from a Gtalk buddy list even though the teen in question had taken steps to cut communications with the Google engineer.
Google statement confirming the shenanigans.
Home on the range (your garden) the slimy snail version
Are snails ravaging your vegetable garden? You don’t want to become a snail murderer so you gently put them in your neighbor’s garden or a nearby field, yet the snails seem to return. According to 69-year old amateur scientist (also the 2010 “So you want to be a scientist” winner), this is because snails have a homing mechanism, which she learned more about by using pails, snails, neighbors, and nail polish. So if you want to get rid of snails, move them beyond their home range of 100 meters (perhaps the garden of your neighbor’s neighbor? )
Other interesting experiments for this year’s contest included a crowd experiment at rock concerts; this amateur scientist (Sam O’kell) wore pressure sensing vests and stood at different locations during concerts. Other experiments (e.g. analyzing facebook profiles, etc.) from the competition.
"Neither the college nor the band endorses pornography."
Grand Rapids-based Calvin College has canceled an upcoming concert by acclaimed rock band The New Pornographers because of concerns over the band's name. [more inside]
Girl on a whaleship
In October, 1868, Laura Jernegan, a 6 year old girl from Edgartown, Massachusetts set out on a three year whaling voyage with her father, mother, brother and the ship's crew. She kept a diary throughout the voyage, which can be viewed online.
The largest aircraft ever to have disappeared without a trace.
Mooing Vuitton in the verdant fields of a mall.
"What was lost in the realm of economic exchange is reclaimed in the realm of cultural/semiotic performance. Branding also identifies the product relative to the chain of signifiers constituting its brand “family,” in the same way that ranchers brand livestock with the sign of their ranch." [via]
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