December 30, 2010
But not broccoli?
10 year old Remy eats bone marrow, heart, brains, szechuan peppercorns, scorpion, pig lips, worms, dung beetles, testicles, shrimp heads and other food oddities.
A profile of a few families who chose to cross the border and a view of agricultural work in America for migrant laborers.
Do American citizens really want the agriculture jobs "illegals" are "taking?" Apparently not...
"Only 8,600 people expressed an interest in working in the fields, says Ms Machuca. But they made demands that seem bizarre to farmworkers, such as high pay, health and pension benefits, relocation allowances and other things associated with normal American jobs. In late September only seven American applicants in the “Take our jobs” campaign were actually picking crops."
Black Hole, Son
Someone's made a short film out of Charles Burns' Black Hole. [contains nudity, profanity, mildly annoying interface] (via io9)
He's Not Dead, It's Just That His Tour Has Ended
Notes from the Road is a Tumblr with "notes, photos & video of the Leonard Cohen 2010 World Tour by: J.S. Carenza III". Also: Emily St John Mandel on the tour, at The Millions: Take This Waltz: Leonard Cohen’s Tour Comes to an End
I, for one, welcome our new image hosting masters
"We tried to pick images that quickly became popular, generated hundreds of thousands of views, were interesting, and/or somehow changed the Internet as we knew it."
Imgur has become the standard among social news and media websites for sharing images. With the weight of 20 billion annual views, Imgur presents The Best Images of 2010. (Anti-memesters beware, the list is full of 'em)
Ugly sweater interceptor.
Amazon has patented a system that would allow gift recipients to return a gift before they even get it. [more inside]
Sometimes you can judge a book by it's cover
A Gallery of Art Deco bookbindings.
One of the artists was Paul Legrain (who also worked with Rose Adler); was the tutor of Mary Reynolds, accidental surrealist companion and lover of Marcel Duchamp. She was also a bookbinder extraordinaire.
One of the artists was Paul Legrain (who also worked with Rose Adler); was the tutor of Mary Reynolds, accidental surrealist companion and lover of Marcel Duchamp. She was also a bookbinder extraordinaire.
Martin Klasch Blogspot
Eclectic, cheerful and interesting visuals with plenty of links worth exploring to other sites: Vintage | Ephemera | Comics | Children's Illustration | Poster Art from the The Martin Klasch Blogspot. [more inside]
special snowflakes....
The 25-Year 'Foreclosure From Hell'
Patsy Campbell has been fighting her foreclosure in Florida courts for the past 25 years. She has not made a mortgage payment since 1985 while foiling the efforts of several banks to evict her from her home in Okeechobee, Florida.
Farmers of the Poor
For all the faults of the poorhouse, the system it replaced was perceived to be even worse. In post-Revolution America, if you were poor, you could be "farmed out" at public auction to the lowest bidder. [more inside]
Amazon Banning Books that Discuss Fictional Incest
In a more recent action of book banning, Amazon appears to be banning books about incest that are not top rated titles. Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein is available, for example. Covered here as well.
As dull as dishwater
Om nom nom
The Air Force of the U.S. Civil War
After a test flight nearly ended in disaster at the start of the Civil War, Professor Thaddeus Lowe recovered his balloon and headed back North. Recognizing the potential use of air vehicles in the war, he managed to get an invitation to the White House in order demonstrate the capabilities of balloons in the war effort. [more inside]
At first glance it may seem mediocre but over time you see why such a vehicle would inspire so much loyalty and devotion.
During the month of December, tor.com has been publishing essays on the Twelve Doctors of Christmas. Today artist Pia Guerra gives us the gift of an extended metaphor: the fifth Doctor as a Volvo. [more inside]
Look Really Super, Supergirl
Super style simply strikes you? Jeweler nOir teamed up with DC Comics for a line of sparkly Superhero accessories. Wear Gotham city as a ring or just beat Diana at her own game.
Affirmative Inaction at American Public Universities
Wm. M. Chace, former dean at Stanford then president at Wesleyan and later at Emory University, argues affirmative action at the great American public universities is dead, that opposition to affirmative action has drastically reduced minority enrollment at public universities, and only the private institutions can now carry out this public good. (And see Chace’s interesting earlier memoir: 100 Semesters: My Adventures as Student, Professor, and University President and What I Learned Along the Way. [And an earlier MeFi conversation about his article The Decline of the English Department.])
Cosmic Journeys and other space-related videos
Cosmic Journeys is a documentary series on various astronomical and space-related subjects, e.g. supermassive black holes, Apollo 12, whether the universe is infinite and many more. The creators, SpaceRip have a lot of other, shorter videos online as well. They are indexed here. Most, if not all, of the videos are available in HD.
Happy Life Day!
The Star Wars Holiday Special edited down to just over 5mins so you can actually watch it (well the low-lights) without too much pain. After than you might want a Star Wars free year.
Sega On The Wire
idiot with an FPP
Ebert reviews Jamie Stewart's "Man in Blizzard," shot during the recent snows in NYC Scroll down to view Vertov's "Man with a Camera" (version with some nice added music here), which inspired the short. Vertov has inspired many before.
American Privateer Princess
SelectArmor, owned by Michele Lynn Ballarin, is a private military company based in Virginia. Her firm is at the center of covert military action in the waters around Somalia. [more inside]
DeFord Bailey, American musician
Within that small and very specific sub-genre of musical Americana identifiable as the train imitation, there is one amazing performance, from 1926, that set the standard: Pan-American Blues. The man who recorded it did a fine and fanciful job of evoking the sounds of a fox chase as well, and his rhythmically compelling solo rendition of John Henry stands as testament to the potential for musical greatness achievable by one man and a humble harmonica. He was an African-American who was a founding member of the Grand Ole Opry, a musical institution that we rarely (as in, never) today associate with black people, and his touching and tragic story, documented here, is one that will be of interest to those concerned with the racial, economic and socio-cultural history of American popular music. He stands at one of its more unexpected intersections: his name is DeFord Bailey. [more inside]
Bobby Farrell is no more
One of the 'Dutch' (actually from Aruba and the band from Germany) most prided disco icons, Bobby Farrell, frontman of Boney M., passed away in st. Petersburg. A Crazy Dancer who arguably never got any real money for his success which was the story for this commercial. Most recent appearance of Boney M., a creation of Frank Farian (previously) was probably Ma Baker's sample in Lady GaGa's Pokerface.
Warning: Extreme cuteness
Jessica McLeod draws incredibly cute, funny, awesome cartoons. Cartoons about educated pigs, space rabbits, bad yetis, and rude flowers. You should be warned, they are very cute.
Mungo Bean: Adventure Pig!, Book 2, Book 3 Part 1, Part 2
Bad Yeti, Yeti Party
Space Rabbits: In Space, Planet Of, Battle for the Planet Of, Tea With A
Miscellaneous comics: The Indefatigable Miss Manners, Working Class Elf, Ghost Farm
She has a webcomic, Activities For Rainy Days [more inside]
Mungo Bean: Adventure Pig!, Book 2, Book 3 Part 1, Part 2
Bad Yeti, Yeti Party
Space Rabbits: In Space, Planet Of, Battle for the Planet Of, Tea With A
Miscellaneous comics: The Indefatigable Miss Manners, Working Class Elf, Ghost Farm
She has a webcomic, Activities For Rainy Days [more inside]
Don't let the oscilloscope fool you
"In the late '60's I worked for Bell Labs for a few years managing a data center and developing an ultra high speed information retrieval system. It was the days of beehive hair on the women and big mainframe computers. One day I took a camera to work and shot the pictures below."
New Achievement: Schadenfreude
It appears that Sony's PS3 is fatally and permanently hacked. fail0verflow, a team of European hackers demonstrated quite convincingly (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. [more inside]
This is a subject of but small importance; and I know not whether it will interest any readers, but it has interested me.
"This is a subject of but small importance; and I know not whether it will interest any readers, but it has interested me."-C. D.
Quick... what was Darwin's most popular book? If you answered The Origin of Species, you were wrong. It was his last book, published the year before he died, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms With Observation of Their Habits (illustrations [first presented 1 Nov. 1837, as noted in the record of the Royal Geological Society]). Darwin noted when he was beginning his career that worms churned up soil, causing heavier objects to sink slowly in the soil. He noted that all soil had passed through the alimentary duct of worms. It started off a fashion of cultivating worms by gardeners that continues to the present day. -We recently learned that we owe an element of our unique cerebral cortex, or pallium to our marine worm ancestors. (In amphibians, the cerebrum includes archipallium, paleopallium and some of the basal nuclei. Reptiles first developed a neopallium, which continued to develop in the brains of more recent species to become the neocortex of mammals." [&, ultimately, you and you and we]) [more inside]
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