July 31, 2019
Dumb jokes never change
Ancient Roman 'Pen' Was a Joke Souvenir (LiveScience): During an archaeological excavation at a Roman-era site in London, researchers found around 200 iron styluses used for writing on wax-filled wooden tablets. One of those styluses, which just debuted in its first public exhibition, holds a message written in tiny lettering along its sides. The inscription's sentiment, according to the researchers who translated it, is essentially, "I went to Rome and all I got you was this pen." [more inside]
The Game That Broke the Baltimore Orioles
For the first 123 games of the 2007 season, the Baltimore Orioles' pitching staff was doing fine. Really! They weren't bad! Everything was OK. Then came August 22, 2007, which Alex Rubenstein and Jon Bois chronicle in Dorktown #2: The night that destroyed the 2007 Baltimore Orioles forever [more inside]
If you are forced to play chess . . . you are in trouble,
Maybe non-chess people will like the first page. Chess people be like - more footnotes ! A great funny chess piece, if you like that, yea !
Found elsewhere, had to share. Kind of concerned about flooding his traffic but, but so good, great even. If you click anyway, get to where he describes forfeit "like the king’s poor diet and lifestyle choices leading to a death by natural causes". Read the rest in a John Cleese voice.
Then GRAPHS !
The new part is only that POTUS says the quiet bits out loud
Newly Released Nixon Tapes Capture Ronald Reagan Calling African Delegates “Monkeys”. Despite what the GOP might tell you today, racism was always part of the party.
Please Send Money x 1000
Nonprofit AF imagines the answers on grant proposals if non-profits were brutally honest with funders (Part 2, Part 3) [more inside]
Sir, this is a Wendy's
Har Mar Superstar performs a live Baconcert at a Wendy's in Minneapolis (twitter) Ever the iconic performer, Har Mar Superstar knows how to have a good time, including changing up the lyrics to better profess his love of Wendy's and frosties! [more inside]
A Pharmacological Symphony
Watch pills in water dissolve, expand, bubble, and explode under a macro lens. The pills again, highlights reel [more inside]
Incidentally, YOU ARE READING A THREAD ABOUT SPORES AND BACTERIA.
Seamus Blackley wants to make old-school bread. (Twitter; Threadreader unroll here.) How old would that be? "Just now, the dormant yeast I collected this week from Ancient Egyptian artifacts (with help from @drserenalove and @rbowman1234) is being fed grain for the first time in four and a half thousand years." Starring antiquities, autoclaves, and an actual loaf of Old Kingdom bread. Via kottke.org.
China is on track to beat its peak-emissions 2015 Paris Agreement pledge
As China's service-sector surged circa 2014 (Invstopedia) and was continuing the shift in 2017 (Forbes), the country also continued to struggle to control its pollution problems (Forbes, 2017), because "China’s air pollution is influenced by a wide variety of physical and chemical factors; the problems are a lot more complex than most realize." But a recent study reports that China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge (Ars Technica, June 30, 2019). [more inside]
Bookstore on wheels
This Tiny Traveling Bookstore Wanders the French Countryside "He had originally thought about opening a brick-and-mortar bookshop but decided he wanted one that could travel to French country towns whose bookstores have often closed. He also wanted a space where he could live during his travels."
The Culture Cure
So what are we to make of the scene?
[Tarantino] seems to have gone out of the way to make fun of my father and to portray him as kind of a buffoon.” - On Bruce Lee's appearance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Jen Yamato, LA Times.
Have We No Decency?
One Small Step
For the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Google created a tribute to Margaret Hamilton by positioning over 107,000 mirrors at the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert to reflect the light of the moon, instead of the sun.
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