February 15, 2015

The Medieval Citole

Studying and making an early instrument called a citole. Until recently, this style of instrument was not recognized as separate from a gittern.
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 7:59 PM PST - 26 comments

What a putt!

There goes John [SLVimeo]. He's walking up the sidewalk. Gonna go in to the building to get his putter, and ball. He's got 18 intense holes ahead of him. Who knows how he'll do. A mini-golf game is shot like a pro golf game with commentary.
posted by Deathalicious at 7:55 PM PST - 26 comments

WK Fine Tools Library

WK Fine Tools is an internet magazine devoted to traditional and fine woodworking. The site also maintains curated collections of downloadable woodworking books and tool catalogs and manuals. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 6:55 PM PST - 14 comments

Open Mind - a philosophy and cognitive science resource

Open Mind - "This is a website with numerous peer-reviewed philosophical texts covering a wide range of topics and disciplines that are available for free. This means that the texts are not restricted to the use of academics and students in the developed world who can afford to download them, but are available to anyone, anywhere." [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 4:10 PM PST - 9 comments

If "50 Shades" had been written by a man.

Tickld shows us what That Book would be like had a man written it. 50 Sheds of Gray, on Twitter; on Amazon 'Are you ready to be tortured in a way only a woman can torture a man?' she asked. I nodded nervously. 'OK' she said and ate half my chips."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 3:17 PM PST - 93 comments

[EPILEPSY WARNING] This LSD makes me think I'm on this video

The video for composer and electronic musician Dan Deacon's new single "Learning to Relax" is a dazzling display of pulsating colors. [more inside]
posted by JauntyFedora at 2:30 PM PST - 27 comments

What's Wrong With Public Intellectuals?

Here’s a personal confession. [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 12:29 PM PST - 21 comments

"I was on my bed and I heard gunshots. And my heart raced,"

2 Deadly Shootings Within Hours in Copenhagen; 5 Wounded [New York Times]
A shooting at a free speech event featuring an artist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad and a second shooting hours later outside a synagogue left two dead and five police officers wounded in Copenhagen, stirring fears that another terror spree was underway in a European capital a month after 17 people were killed in Paris attacks.
[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 12:24 PM PST - 264 comments

Latest best seller from François-Marie Arouet

After the Charlie Hebdo killings, Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance is flying off the shelves. [more inside]
posted by jfuller at 12:21 PM PST - 18 comments

Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, not Places

These days, we provide thermal comfort in winter by heating the entire volume of air in a room or building. In earlier times, our forebear's concept of heating was more localized
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:29 AM PST - 101 comments

"What's on the page is what's on the page": Marvel's 1st trans character

"Angela: Asgard’s Assassin is one of my favorite comics of moment, with two kick-ass female leads and no shortage of Asgardian humor. Currently, A:AA is being co-written by Kieron Gillen and Marguerite Bennett, with art by Phil Jimenez and Stephanie Hans. It focuses on Thor and Loki’s long-lost sister, Angela, who was raised by the Angels, and has been causing all sorts of trouble now that she’s back in our worlds. Angela travels with a woman named Sera, and the most recent issue gave us some insight into both Angela and Sera’s backstories."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:09 AM PST - 39 comments

Hard Time Valentines

Four couples, who are homeless and living in New York, talk about their lives.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:05 AM PST - 5 comments

Roots of visual mapping

A brief exploration of beautiful historical taxonomy trees, timelines, diagrams and other visual mappings. One of these is from the Codex Amiatinus and could be the oldest mind map in existence.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:26 AM PST - 4 comments

Understanding Chad's intervention in Nigeria

On Thursday morning, January the 29th, news percolated through social media that Chadian forces, with the tacit consent of the Nigerian government, had crossed the international frontier and recaptured Malam Fatori – a north-eastern Nigerian town that had been captured by Boko Haram in October last year. This was a watershed moment. For the first time in Nigeria’s 54 years as an independent country, foreign troops are conducting major military operations inside the country. Similarly, with Chad’s intervention, the war against Boko Haram has entered a new phase, and possibly presages a wider regional intervention – the balance sheet of which can only be properly assessed in the fullness of time.
So why did Idriss Deby send Chadian troops into Nigeria? How are we to make sense of this bold gambit?
posted by MartinWisse at 3:18 AM PST - 42 comments

"Let the strong wind of fish farming blow across the country!"

North Korea has published 310 new patriotic slogans which, as translated by the BBC, are a mix of classic socialist pontification ("Wage the class struggle dynamically by relying on the masses!"), insight into the country's multitude of perpetual problems ("Bring to completion the rehabilitation of the northern railways as early as possible!") and frequent WTF-ness ("Read the minds of producers first before measuring the quantity of their products!")
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:08 AM PST - 92 comments

Putting a human face on Greece's financial crisis

Greece's recently appointed finance minister may have a secret weapon -- charisma. One commenter has called him the world's most interesting man. He certainly lives in interesting times.
posted by Sir Rinse at 12:22 AM PST - 97 comments

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