November 4, 2009
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Inside Gaza
"Every opportunity for peace in the Middle East has been led to slaughter" Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker writes about the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip nearly eleven months ago, talking to Palestinians, Israelis and aid workers. Political context combined with incredibly saddening everyday civilian life.
Brilliant folding power plug
A brilliant industrial design (IMO) for a slimline UK power plug. The UK plug is an exceptionally chunky and large lump; a real pain in the computer satchel. This video shows what appears to be a manufacturable design that turns it into an elegant device. SLYT. [more inside]
“The crowd is his domain, just as the air is the bird’s, and water that of the fish. His passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd.”
The 65-Year-Old Virgin: Robert Bergman’s photographs, finally revealed. "The last time Robert Bergman had a gallery show, it was 1964, and he was 20 years old. The college dropout and his best friend, Danny Seymour, took their earliest photographs, produced in a 'lint-filled darkroom'—a.k.a. his mother’s laundry room—to a 'rinky-dink bookstore' in Minneapolis’s run-down West Bank. 'Me and Danny just threw some pictures up on the wall,' he says. 'You couldn’t even call that a show.' Bergman is 65 now, and making a real debut in not one but three venues, at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center; Chelsea’s Yossi Milo Gallery; and, extraordinarily, the National Gallery of Art. (This is the National Gallery’s first artist’s debut show ever.)" An interview with Robert Bergman, and a slideshow of some of his work.
The Fore River Shipyard
The Fore River Shipyard was in service between 1886 and 1985, first under the management of the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company, then Bethlehem Steel, and finally General Dynamics. She helped to close out the age of sail with the construction of the largest sailing vessel in history without any kind of engine. Besides providing a substantial number of liberty ships, surface warships of various classes, and submarines during WWII, it may also be the source of the "Kilroy was here" graffiti. [more inside]
Stormy the ferret dies from H1N1
Stormy the ferret has died. While the video accompanying that report claims dogs and cats are safe from H1N1 the Iowa Department of Public Health says otherwise. A cat in Iowa is confirmed with swine flu. Turkeys and pigs have also gotten it. The USDA is now releasing confirmed and presumptive cases in domestic animals (PDF).
A rocking tetro-tech banquet and multi purpose events facility!
"When you hear the popular phrase “Party like a rock star” in the national media, one tends to think of tony destinations, glittering venues, and dazzling celebrations. All of these perceptions will apply to Cleveland when The Rockometer building is completed." [more inside]
Wayne Levin
Britain Can Make It!
Making the Modern World presents a set of twisty little passages through the history of science and invention, from the eighteenth century to the contemporary era, brought to you by the UK's Science Museum.
World's Longest Invisible Fence
Twenty years ago this month, the nearly 700 mile border between East and West Germany started to disappear. "The fence is long gone, and the no-man's land where it stood now is part of Europe's biggest nature preserve. The once-deadly border area is alive with songbirds nesting in crumbling watchtowers, foxes hiding in weedy fortifications and animals not seen here for years, such as elk and lynx. But one species is boycotting the reunified animal kingdom: red deer." According to the Bavarian National Forest Park Service, scientists [link in German] have recorded nearly 11,000 GPS locations for 'Ahornia," a red deer who appears to never enter the Czech Republic.
Radio radio
Please dismantling the Radio(?). your have only screwdriver. The tool you can use is the screwdriver. Japanese skill is NO need to slove this puzzle. Good luck. [Via JIG.]
Civil Rights defeat in Maine
Maine became the 31st state to block same-sex marriage through a public referendum Some said the loss was a sign that the state-by-state approach favored by the largest gay-rights groups had failed and that the focus should move to repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriage, and which Congress can overturn without voter approval. Others argued that the defeat only reinforced the need to keep winning grassroots support. [more inside]
"He was my knight on a shining bicycle"
Franny Armstrong is the director of McLibel, The Age of Stupid, and founder of the 10:10 campaign, which aims to cut 10% of carbon emissions in 2010. She was walking through Camden, North London, on Monday night, when a group of young girls pushed her against a car. One of them was armed with a metre-long iron bar. She called for help from a passing cyclist ... who turned out to be Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. [more inside]
The House on Garibaldi Street
The capture of Adolf Eichmann is one of the more daring spy operations in the post WWII era. The story spans 17 years, beginning with Eichmann's clandestine escape from the Allied forces and the Nuremberg trial, and ending with his hanging in Israel. [more inside]
A New Way to Explore the World
Michael Surtees latest photo experiment is called #walkingtoworktoday. The rules are simple and open to anyone—while walking to work take a photo. From there the photo needs to be pushed to Twitter via Flickr while containing the hashtag #walkingtoworktoday somewhere in the tile. But there wasn’t one dedicated space outside of Flickr to see the photos, and even then it was only seeing it through one medium—you didn’t get to see the tweets. So that’s why he decided there needed to be a site. Surtees created #walkingtoworktoday using Daylife tools that contained Flickr and Twitter moduals. The main modual streams photos from Flickr while the right rail shows the tweets. It’s an interesting redundancy that works.
Comrade Draper, we have a new account from Acme Caviar.
How would it be if a house was dreaming?
Cleveland serial killer highlights police indifference
Alleged serial killer and convicted rapist Anthony Sowell is creating even bigger problems for the Cleveland police department, who have been accused of joking about missing victims, passing the blame onto those victims and outright incompetence. As of today, the body count is up to 10 (plus one skull), and people around the world are wondering what went wrong.
The Price of Sex: Women Speak
The Price of Sex: Women Speak Since the collapse of communism in 1989, millions of former Soviet bloc residents have migrated abroad, looking for opportunities. These waves of migration breathed life into one of the oldest yet darkest criminal enterprises--the trafficking of human beings into sexual slavery. Hundreds of thousands of Eastern European women have been sold into prostitution. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, a Bulgarian who immigrated to the United States in 1990, has documented their journeys from villages in Moldova to the streets of Turkey and nightclubs in Dubai--where prostitution is an equation of supply, demand and desperation.
Change We Can Believe In . . . Eventually
A secret treaty is bad news? I'm shocked! shocked!
The Obama administration's proposed internet sections of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have been leaked, the analysis says it's very bad. [more inside]
Military Censorship of Photographs in World War I
Military Censorship of Photographs in World War I: "During the course of World War I, tens of thousands of photographs were withheld from publication by the U.S. military. These included images that might have revealed troop movements or military capabilities, pictures that were liable to be used in enemy propaganda, or those that could adversely affect military or public morale. The development of military controls on publication of photographs during WWI was described in a 1926 U.S. Army report (15.75MB PDF) that is illustrated with dozens of images that had been withheld, with a description of the reasons their publication was not permitted."
Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. (Correctly) Sees as Useless
Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. (Correctly) Sees as Useless. Similar to the now debunked Sniffex (as seen previously on Metafilter), the ADE651 detects explosives, firearms, grenades, narcotics, elephant ivory, bank notes, and according to its manufacturer's website, "human research." [more inside]
City of Bikes
Car-free cities: an idea with legs
Car-free neighbourhoods are no unrealistic utopia – they exist all over Europe.
Car-free neighbourhoods are no unrealistic utopia – they exist all over Europe.
The sun is a mass of incandescent (Blue) gas...
Happy Birthday, Big Bird!
As you may have noticed from Google this morning, today is the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street! New seasons are in production including the newest muppet, Abby Cadaby, but today is a day for our old friends. Videos a plenty to fuel your nostalgia.
Horrie the Wog Dog
Army Pack: Horrie the Wog Dog, 2/1Australian Machine Gun Battalion. An Australian soldier in WW2 befriended a puppy, and he went to great lengths to save him after the War. I saw it this morning on Letters of Note and thought it was great. Be sure to read to the end.
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