January 16, 2019
BBC follows the Bishan Otters
Why this adorable otter family took over Singapore's streets (BBC) After crashing a British otter-fan wedding proposal, the famed Bishan Otter Family have been followed by BBC documentary cameras. Bernard "OtterGrapher" Seah has quickly become the go-to expert at respectfully tracking the Bishan Otters. [more inside]
John (Jack) Bogle (1929-2019)
Jack Bogle has died. "If a statue is ever erected to honor the person who has done the most for American investors, the hands down choice should be Jack Bogle. For decades, Jack has urged investors to invest in ultra-low-cost index funds. In his crusade, he amassed only a tiny percentage of the wealth that has typically flowed to managers who have promised their investors large rewards while delivering them nothing – or, as in our bet, less than nothing – of added value. In his early years, Jack was frequently mocked by the investment-management industry. Today, however, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he helped millions of investors realize far better returns on their savings than they otherwise would have earned. He is a hero to them and to me." -- Warren Buffett, 2016 [more inside]
Remembering why the backstop is needed
These pictures show what life looked like during the troubles. The future of the Irish border is one of the key issues of the Brexit negotiations. Because of its sensitive history, there are fears over what might happen if a hard border and checkpoints returned.
Bird Box (Abridged)
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scored the Netflix film Bird Box, and they've done a digital release of an abridged score available now. A full score on physical product will be available later. For now, they've put the track Outside on YouTube for everyone.
🔇
Catalog number STUMM433 is a Mute Records box set of John Cage's 4'33" interpreted in sixty different ways by sixty different artists, including New Order, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Afghan Wigs, Goldfrapp, Moby, and Depeche Mode, totaling roughly six hours of music. Each recording will be paired with a video; here is Laibach's (NSFW). [more inside]
International House Of Champions
The Camaro IROC-Z “There were only 166,976 total IROC-Z's made during the years in production. If you subtract the ones that were totaled in accidents and the ones stolen and parted out, you don't have many left. They are fast becoming the modern era's vehicle of choice among collector's.” [more inside]
Many of the best stories are waiting to be written
One year after launching its Local Reporting Network to support investigative journalism in small-city newsrooms, independent journalism nonprofit ProPublica examines what they've learned in the process.
so far unidentified gene on sheep chromosome 10
The St Kilda Soay Sheep Project. The research project has been running since 1985. Counts "of the whole of Hirta’s Soay sheep population has been conducted most years since 1952".
About the sheep.
Goth as duck
tl;dr, it's Falun Gong evangelism
Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening
Through trial and error (mostly error, he says), Vermonter Peter Burke has developed a great way to enjoy fresh greens year-round without special equipment and at low cost. He describes his method in a book and a podcast. Yankee ingenuity at its finest.
Christiana Herringham: artist, campaigner, collector
Christina Herringham (1851–1929) was a founder and benefactor of the National Art Collections Fund in 1903. Her career as an artist and art writer is less well known. Herringham undertook early experimentation with tempera painting alongside her translation of Cennino Cennini’s (c.1370-c.1440) treatise on painting techniques [1st ed., 2nd ed. via Archive.org]. Herringham’s meticulous approach to understanding “medieval art methods” was a catalyst for the foundation of the Society of Painters in Tempera. Her writing for the art press [Burlington Magazine, no free previews] ... reveals her expertise on the technical aspects of connoisseurship. 'The greatest living critic': Christiana Herringham and the practise of connoisseurship [PDF, abstract from University of Sussex]. [more inside]
Shaking the Rafters
Mutiny on the Sex Raft “He wants to be very progressive and radical giving power to the women,” says Lindeen, “but when it comes to the crisis of the captaincy he’s very macho.”
StarTrekFilter
Somebody is watching Star Trek TNG using their phone camera. With a cute filter enabled.
The professional must reshape and expand their service to add value
Merger is a new short film "about the future of work, from cult director/designer Keiichi Matsuda (HYPER-REALITY). Set against the backdrop of AI-run corporations, a tele-operator finds herself caught between virtual and physical reality, human and machine. As she fights for her economic survival, she finds herself immersed in the cult of productivity, in search of the ultimate interface." [Via] [more inside]
"A flock of sheep brings humanity and freedom to the city.”
Paris Pastoral: A City Recultivated Mira Kamdar discusses the history, present and future of urban agriculture in Paris. Including: urban shepherding -- concrete honey, and Paris as a refuge for bees -- biodiversity -- 19th century glass bells for local agriculture -- zoning -- dedicated livestock trams -- and paths for hedgehogs to circulate among suburban gardens.
“...designed to appropriate any voice activated device.”
Project Alias By BjørnKarmann “Alias is a teachable “parasite” that is designed to give users more control over their smart assistants, both when it comes to customisation and privacy. Through a simple app the user can train Alias to react on a custom wake-word/sound, and once trained, Alias can take control over your home assistant by activating it for you. When you don't use it, Alias will make sure the assistant is paralysed and unable to listen by interrupting its microphones. Follow the build guide on Instructables or get the source code on GitHub.” [Vimeo]
Over here we call that a "Kaiju Pizza"
Westbrook, Maine is a small city (not town! They're very particular about that) in Southern Maine heretofore known primarily as the location of the SD Warren Paper Mill, formerly the world's largest.
This week, the town became nationally known as the location of another world's largest: perhaps the biggest rotating ice disk anyone's ever seen.
Writing Systems
This web site presents one glyph for each of the world’s writing systems. It is the first step of the Missing Scripts Project, a long-term initiative that aims to identify writing systems which are not yet encoded in the Unicode standard. As of today, there are still 146 scripts not yet encoded in Unicode.
chaos
Minorcan Food of Florida
Way down in St. Augustine, Florida, America's oldest city*, jewel of the First Coast, you'll find a unique and largely unheralded culinary tradition: Minorcan food. [more inside]
My ancestors did wrong. It's right here in black and white.
#1 is Edie. She's 45 years old, and valued at $800. And she, her, it's hard to say the word…owner...it's not right. This is my second great grandfather, William Hayes Paxton. #2, Julia. She's 26, valued at $1400. The list goes on. There are 44 names on this list.After Two White Colorado Women Unearthed The History Of Their Slave-Owning Ancestors, They Turned To Reparations by Ann Marie Awad, Colorado Public Radio (article and audio of radio interview at link). [more inside]
not just for students
rtyn mbdx: the mysterious modern art of google image search
Type two random 4 letter ‘words’ into google images and you’ll get a set of abstract art paintings. Why? A reddit forum which tries to identify mystery objects has identified a, er, mystery... [more inside]
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