December 21, 2013
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Sometimes it's hard to remember that there are Holiday songs that aren't about being jolly, rocking around Christmas trees, and drugging your girlfriend's drink. From the dirgelike to the hopelessly obscure, here are some Christmas carols you probably won't hear on Black Friday. [more inside]
Intuitive Guide to Principles of Communications
Charan Langton (blog) hosts Complex To Real: which "...offers tutorials I have written on various topics in analog and digital communications that will help you cut through this complexity." [more inside]
An Engineer's Guide to Cats, 2.0
An Engineer's Guide to Cats is a helpful video about cats, time travel, gravity, adorableness. [more inside]
The hobbit — an unexpected deficiency
Vitamin D has been proposed to have beneficial effects in a wide range of contexts. We investigate the hypothesis that vitamin D deficiency, caused by both aversion to sunlight and unwholesome diet, could also be a significant contributor to the triumph of good over evil in fantasy literature.
Common Arabic female name; said by an amnesiac sun god? (5)
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Arthur Wynne's creation of the crossword puzzle, Google's homepage hosts a (not terribly difficult) example of the form today.
Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf" - Isolated Tracks
Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf" - Isolated Tracks
While not an immediate hit, "Hungry Like the Wolf" is considered a classic song today, due in no small part to the band's use of emerging technology.
“That track came from fiddling with the new technology that was starting to come in”, guitarist Andy Taylor said in an interview with Blender magazine. They joined a Roland TR-808 drum machine with a sequencer and a Roland Jupiter-8 keyboard.
The isolated tracks are a treat to listen to - sadly, Simon Le Bon's vocals are not featured as one of the tracks.
While not an immediate hit, "Hungry Like the Wolf" is considered a classic song today, due in no small part to the band's use of emerging technology.
“That track came from fiddling with the new technology that was starting to come in”, guitarist Andy Taylor said in an interview with Blender magazine. They joined a Roland TR-808 drum machine with a sequencer and a Roland Jupiter-8 keyboard.
The isolated tracks are a treat to listen to - sadly, Simon Le Bon's vocals are not featured as one of the tracks.
Meanwhile, on the blue, the thread is flagged as newsfilter
A Novel Use
Stuck on that novel or just looking for some writing inspiration? Swing by the WritingPrompts subreddit for a wealth of clever prompts, each with a different set of constraints. Be sure to browse the stories submitted in the comments. [more inside]
Christmas music that won't make you want smash the stereo.
Bill Adler's Xmas Jollies 2013, via LAtino USA this year. Christmas music. It is bad. There is no escaping it. This playlist might help. [more inside]
Enoby, Evony, Egogy, and Tara
That's when you started graphing everything.
DO YOU WANT TO SING CHRISTMAS CAROLS WITH AMY POEHLER?!?!
snort snort grunt wheeze
Mr. Rick Wakeman on keyboards ... and various other concerns
Whether taking all mankind close to the edge with his keyboard contributions to every punk's favorite prog-rock band Yes, or going it solo (in fully sequined gown) with all Six Wives of Henry VIII all the way to the center of the earth, or perhaps with figure skating Knights of the Round Table, or composing the score for Ken Russell's Liztomania (and "acting" in it), or doing definitive session work for the likes of David Bowie, Black Sabbath, etc, or candidly singing the praises of Christianity and/or Freemasonry ... [more inside]
Once upon a time before photoshop.....
Phillipe Halsman is probably best known for his collaborations with Salvador Dali and for his Jump series.
A Latvian, he was exiled from Austria in 1931 after serving prison time for patricide and went to Paris where his photographic career really began; also this series of magnum galleries shows the full diversification of his work.
Previously.
A Latvian, he was exiled from Austria in 1931 after serving prison time for patricide and went to Paris where his photographic career really began; also this series of magnum galleries shows the full diversification of his work.
Previously.
Without A Leg to Stand On
John Bell Hood’s Leg — "This marked Hood’s third major combat injury; he had suffered an arrow through the hand while fighting Comanche Indians in 1857, and had lost the function of his left arm after being struck by shell fragments at Gettysburg. Hood was a famous general, but he now faced an outlook shared by hundreds of thousands of other soldiers who were likewise injured during the war. He became dependent on the kindness of strangers, like the Little family, in order to start his long road to recovery in the midst of a realization that he would live the rest of his life as a disabled man." By Brian Craig Miller, New York Times, December 20, 2013.
What scale did you say that was in?
You or someone you know, at one time or another, might have taken a blade of grass, positioned it between thumbs or fingers, and made some sound, a note or two, by blowing over it. You can actually do the same with certain other things, like, say, fish scales. But chances are that neither you nor anyone you know can make music like the music Marin Toma of Romania, back in the 1930s, made with a fish scale. I mean, hey, just listen to this.
BMJ Christmas Edition
Every year the British Medical Journal publishes a special Christmas edition.
- The survival time of chocolates on hospital wards: covert observational study
- The Brady Bunch? New evidence for nominative determinism in patients’ health: retrospective, population based cohort study
- A statin a day keeps the doctor away: comparative proverb assessment modelling study
- Like a virgin (mother): analysis of data from a longitudinal, US population representative sample survey
- Following celebrities’ medical advice: meta-narrative analysis
- Being right or being happy: pilot study
- We wish you a merry x-ray-mas: Christmas signs in radiology
- Watching cement dry: a necessary but costly irritation in lower limb orthopaedics
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
Christmases around the world: Children Dancing to《铃儿响叮当》at 2008 Christmas Party, Xiangxiang North Gate Church, Hunan (China; 1:13); "Gloria in Excelsis Deo," Blind Musician on the Side of the Road (Benin; 1:28); Performance by Companhia de Dança de Aveiro at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology Francisco Gentil (Pediatric Section?), Lisbon (Portugal; 3:28); "Aldi's Surfing Santas" Advertisement (Australia; 1:35); Danza de Música Folclórica por la Navidad, Riobamba (Ecuador; 3:18); "A Very Vancouver Christmas," Dan Mangan (Canada; 3:17). [more inside]
Why is pop music so sad?
Why is pop music so sad? A study (PDF) published in the Journal of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts tracked the mood of pop songs over five decades of Billboard charts, and it confirms that pop has changed in substantial ways.
Over the years, popular recordings became longer in duration and the proportion of female artists increased. There was also an increase in the use of minor mode and a decrease in average tempo, confirming that popular music became more sad-sounding over time. (MP3 podcast) [more inside]
King William's College General Knowledge Paper 2013-14
OED birthday word generator: which words originated in your birth year?
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