March 28, 2022
teaspoon based research
The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute. Related content (SL Reddit content): "the realities of working in a public sector job". On the Blue previously.
The Slo Mo Guys
Let me introduce you to the YouTube channel of The Slo Mo Guys [12m]. They just posted a video today, of a Newton's Cradle vs. different projectiles, filmed close to 100K frames per second. They have a lot of other videos, including this look at pinball machines [13m]. There is filler at the beginning of each video to skip if you want to get right into the slo mo action.
Three Mile Island accident: 43 years later
"Beginning around 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, a series of technical and human errors led to a partial meltdown inside the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Four[-plus] decades later, the event remains the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history." ‘Three Mile Island: As It Happened’ — a three-part podcast. [more inside]
The Prayers of Our Faith
Our liturgy, that’s advertising. It’s produced some great and beautiful art. What I would argue to you is that all of it—the television commercials and the print advertisements, the marketing campaigns and the logo designs—constitutes the United States’ artistic patrimony; that our great literature is the jingle, the copy, the billboard, the TV spot. Ed Simon is Tripping the Late Capitalist Sublime [The Millions]
So Big and So Square and So True
Songs of The IBM is the 1937 corporate hymnal that proclaims "there is no God but IBM and T.J. Watson is his prophet" with lyrics praising the company's founder. It is impossible to overstate how cult-like these songs are, extolling not just Watson, but also the T-H-I-N-K Slogan, the Vice Presidents, District Managers, and each of the seven Product Lines (Tabulation, ITR, Industrial Scales, Writing Machines, Radiotype, Proof Machines, and Ticketographs). [more inside]
"…but we are progressing very far on the resistance front."
Patty vs. Patty tells the story of Toronto’s bizarre 1985 “patty wars,” when Jamaican-Canadian bakers went head-to-head with the federal government over the name of their beloved beef patty.Waging war on the Jamaican patty: Canada’s bizarre beef with the delicious snack [more inside]
Chelsea Troy on advice and backup
"On offering help that’s actually helpful" by Chelsea Troy:
there are two kinds of help: 1. Advice, and 2. Backup. And it’s exceedingly common to offer #1 to people who need #2.
ur-apples
East to Eden "What follows here is a chapter from Roger [Deakin]’s Wildwood, to which I have written a short postscript essay that tells—by means of the story of a seed and a tree—how Roger continues to root and branch through my life and the lives of many others, long after his death" (introduction and postscript by Robert Macfarlane [previously]) [more inside]
toys that became real
Much Loved, intimate portraits of threadbare companions. Flopsie, Bobo, Daddy Bunny, Teddy Tingley, Peter Rabbit, Panda, One Eyed Ted, Edward, Patsy, Gerry the Giraffe, Pierre, Brownie. A collection of portraits of stuffed animals and the stories of their relationship with the people who own them. Photographs by Dublin based photographer, Mark Nixon. [more inside]
“A public punishment… disguised as a trifling psychic disturbance”
Writing in The New Yorker, Becca Rothfield reviews and critiques two new takes on shame and its uses and abuses, particularly in online contexts (How To Do Things With Emotions by Owen Flanagan and The Shame Machine by Cathy O’Neil): “The Shaming-Industrial Context” (archive.org)
Grimoires and Gematria and Giggles, oh my
Esoterica is the YubTub channel of Dr. Justin Sledge, a scholar of the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion. In each of his video essays he does a deep dive on the mystical traditions, texts, and progenitors of various occult traditions, with a very scholarly eye and a surprisingly witty dry humor. [more inside]
I think that I shall never see a Thread as lovely as the Free
That's right, Monday people, it's time for the Free Thread! For discussion of trees, shrubs, mosses, fungi, carnivorous plants, and -- well -- let's not get too caught up on botany here, let's just talk about stuff!
i would make a pun here but the track titles already did them all
Nine Inch Nails via Eight Bit Architecture: Pretty Eight Machine, by prolific chiptune musician Inverse Phase, is a reinterpretation of the classic NIN album on a variety of different 8-bit hardware configurations, ranging from the C64 and Atari 800 to special onboard sound chips from the Famicom Castlevania 3 cartridge. [more inside]
I know a thing or 2 about Tow-Joe's
Back alley deals, fake crashes, arson, and even murder—nothing is off limits in the ruthless world of Canada's towing companies. From The Drive, an interesting look at Canada's towing industry.
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