July 23, 2015
It'll buff out
Thinking of hiring a stretch limo for that graduation, prom, wedding or some other event? Top tip! If you do, perhaps don't try and drive it over a level crossing. Especially on a rail line used by trains hauling a "ten thousand ton" load. (Video features train collision with unoccupied vehicle, amateur video production effects). As in the Telegraph, Jalopnik, ABC news and Car Buzz. And a follow-up video by the county sheriff.
Faint ydy’ch oed chi?
In 1865, a customised tea clipper called the Mimosa delivered around 150 Welsh men, women and children to an uninhabited corner of southern Argentina. Today, in far corners of Patagonia, Welsh culture and language still survive.
Keyboard Magic From Cairo
Islam Chipsy is a virtuoso keyboard player, using a synth to extend the traditions of Arabic music.
listen, listen, listen and enjoy.
“It was her debut… She wanted to do this.”
‘Leaving the Faith’: Faigy Mayer’s struggle in her own words
On Monday evening, a 30-year-old Jewish woman named Faigy Mayer fell to her death from a rooftop bar just one block from Tablet’s offices in Manhattan. The event was reported as a suicide... At the very least, we hope that publishing this article under her byline enables Faigy Mayer to have something of a legacy—in her own words. [more inside]
On Monday evening, a 30-year-old Jewish woman named Faigy Mayer fell to her death from a rooftop bar just one block from Tablet’s offices in Manhattan. The event was reported as a suicide... At the very least, we hope that publishing this article under her byline enables Faigy Mayer to have something of a legacy—in her own words. [more inside]
Flip the Switch
"Why can't an amputee be shot with glamour?"
Photographer Shoots Powerful (and Sexy) Nude Portraits of Amputee Veterans. More Michael Stokes photography. NSFW.
Do not shoot selfies with the wildlife
‘‘You gotta have vision to feed your dreams!’’
Why Is It So Hard to Get a Great Bagel in California? [New York Times] San Francisco bakeries have tried and tried again to replicate the chewy, crusty perfection of New York’s specialty. They are still trying. [more inside]
All we want from you is just your best
Jennifer Pan’s Revenge: the inside story of a golden child, the killers she hired, and the parents she wanted dead. - Karen K. Ho writing for Toronto Life magazine [via tabs]
The Best Books of 2015 (so far)
The Best Books of 2015 (So Far) By Christian Lorentzen at Vulture. "These ten stand out as having made an especially remarkable impression on the past half-year." [more inside]
Switzerland Work-Life vs American
Zippy slices!
Is that just an accent nail, or are you happy to see me?
Most people are familiar with the handkerchief code, which uses different colors of bandannas[NSFW: sexual language] to signal coded messages between queer people. Mostly the province of gay men in the 1970s, today femmes of all gender identities are bringing flagging back in a new movement known as "femme flagging", a way to use style to fight heteronormativity and invisibility in the queer community. While most femmes "finger flag" with nail polish, Queer Fat Femme offers a few more suggestions as well as some conversation starters in the event you see someone else femme flagging.
Here comes the Sun.
Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips
Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips
"The...map is the result of a painstaking and admittedly quixotic effort to catalog the country as it has been described in the American road-tripping literature. It includes every place-name reference in 12 books about cross-country travel...and maps the authors' routes on top of one another. You can track an individual writer's descriptions of the landscape as they traveled across it, or you can zoom in to see how different authors have written about the same place at different times."[more inside]
‘‘What we are living is anarchy, war, death...."
"Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East? ISIS and other extremist movements across the region are enslaving, killing and uprooting Christians, with no aid in sight." --a comprehensive piece by Eliza Griswold (SLNYTMP.)
From World B. Free to Free Willy in 6 Steps
Since LeBron James has made his film debut, it is now possible to link every player in NBA history to nearly every actor in film history through him in an expanded version of the Kevin Bacon Game. Sure, Kareem and Shaq, among others, might have bridged this particular media gap already, but they didn't have a web app making it easy to figure out how Russell Westbrook connects to Clint Eastwood or Dolph Schayes to Dolph Lundgren. (previously: Erdős-Bacon numbers and Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath numbers) [more inside]
"chromed-out robo-sexual stew"
Why I Deleted Your Band's Promo Email (SLTumblr)
Hwæt a minute mister postman
“You’re making this shit up!”
A Zoomorphic Performance: Joaquin Phoenix in P.T. Anderson’s The Master, Daniel Fairfax [more inside]
There's a new fermion, you guys
Princeton researchers have discovered a long-theorized, never-observed variety of massless (quasi)-particle called the Weyl fermion. Exciting things to come maybe! (Bat-signal: expert.) [more inside]
Pareidolia, Hypervigilance, and the Uncanny Valley - You Know, For Kids!
Where else do you keep your needles?
The Avery Needle Case Resource Center is your comprehensive source for information about brass needle cases created by the W. Avery & Son company between 1868 and 1890. [more inside]
Why Don't You....
The Twitter account Diana_Vreeland pays tribute to the celebrated fashion editor/social maven by coming up with colorful suggestions for how to live your life.
Web Accessibility Is For Everyone
For most of us, the internet is functionally a necessity, with much of our lives lived on or enabled by the Web. But for the disabled, the internet is too often an unfriendly, inaccessible place, with many sites and services not being designed to support accessibility. But Web accessibility needs to be for everyone, in our ever more connected world, not only from the standpoint of letting the disabled into an increasingly important public accommodation, but because accessibility is just good design. (SLSlate)
Keep Feeling Fasciation
A photo of deformed daisies taken near Fukushima has recently gone viral. As serious as the Fukushima disaster is (previously), these particular deformities were probably not caused by radiation, and similar mutations have been found in a variety of plant species all over the world. The condition is known as fasciation or cristation, it has a number of potential causes, and it can look pretty cool. In some plants it's even a desired trait: the cockscomb celosia, aka "brain flower", is deliberately cultivated for its fasciated blooms.
Senator, please be careful of the backdrop... uh, nevermind.
In the wake of Donald Trump giving out his phone number, Senator Lindsay Graham decides to take action. And for those of you wondering, yes, Graham still uses a flip phone.
I’ve been a self-starter since I started myself, by myself.
TOP QUALITY PROFESSIONAL SEEKS ALL POSITIONS. By Kate Nacy at McSweeny's Internet Tendency. Previously.
Obama-mania, a political minefield, and changing narratives.
It will be Barack Obama’s first visit to the land of his father as American president and a far cry from a 1988 trip when his luggage got lost. Obama will be visiting only Kenya and Ethiopia. Yet each is the base for two Africa-wide trends. In Ethiopia, he will give a speech at the headquarters of the 54-nation African Union, the main body trying to lift the standards of governance among its members. But the White House appears more focused on Kenya, which is Africa’s center of innovation and host to a global “summit” of entrepreneurs.
Swedish anti-immigration right plans "offensive" pride parade
Next week is pride week in Sweden and even social conservatives are getting in on the fun. The catch? They intend to host an LGBT pride parade through suburbs which contain large muslim immigrant populations. Left-wing activists have called the pride parade a racist attempt to offend muslims and are planning a counter-demonstration.
The protest is organised, by Jan Sjunnesson, a journalist closely associated with the the anti-immigration right-wing Swedish Democratic party. In recent opinion polls the party polled 23.3% which, if followed in elections would make them Sweden's second largest political party. The party is linked with fascism and the far right (associations they would dispute)
(NB:Google Translate links) [more inside]
"you can turn pretty much anything into a police procedural"
If you're tired of the endlessly minor variations of TV's Police Procedural shows (seriously, "CSI: Cyber"?!?), check out "The Encyclopedia of Hypothetical Police Procedurals" for great non-existent shows including... [more inside]
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