November 16, 2017
OSSA LATINITATIS SOLA AD MENTEM REGINALDI RATIONEMQUE
FR. Reginald Foster, The Vatican's Latinist [Archive.org]
The number of Foster’s students runs into the thousands, and many of them are now themselves some of the most dedicated teachers in the field. “When I was in college I asked people, ‘Hey, we all know Latin is a language. Does anybody actually speak it anymore?’ And they told me there was one guy, some guy at the Vatican, who still spoke the language, and that was Fr. Foster,” says Dr. Michael Fontaine, a professor of Classics at Cornell University. “I said to myself, ‘I have to study with this guy.’ And that changed everything for me.” Dr. Paul Gwynne, professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the American University of Rome, said of Foster, “He is not just the best Latin teacher I’ve ever seen, he’s simply the best teacher I’ve ever seen. Studying Latin with the Pope’s apostolic secretary, for whom the language is alive, using the city of Rome as a classroom . . . it changed my whole outlook on life, really.”[more inside]
We've changed kings since then, some of us twice. No one cares.....
…....no one remembers. The uncounted.
US Military officials say that the air war against ISIS is the most precise in history. [more inside]
What's new, Atlas?
Boston Dynamics has posted a new video. It's 54 seconds of a robot doing things I never thought they could do. [more inside]
What If It Was Voodoo?
For years, this day had seemed inevitable. It was the predictable end to nearly a decade of well-documented and thoroughly-investigated psychological and physical torment: threatening phone calls, notes, strange encounters, vandalism, fires, animal killings, and a half-dozen violent physical attacks; all perpetrated by an unknown assailant. There were about a hundred documented incidents between 1982 and 1989. Someone was terrorizing her. After Cindy’s death, there was a thorough investigation. It culminated in the lengthiest and most expensive public inquest in British Columbia’s history. Cindy’s death was ruled a suicide.
The Mysterious Death of Cindy James [more inside]
I have time left. I have a feeling I could still get a little sexier.
Each year Mallory Ortberg explores the horror of what it takes to be crowned People's Sexiest Man Alive. She began with Adam Levine. Then there was Chris Hemsworth and David Beckham. Now, Blake Shelton has been named Sexiest Man Alive. God have mercy on his soul.
Gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, possibly some condiments
The Greggs £24 advent calendar has 24 tear-off doors that customers can exchange for a treat in a Greggs shop - though the choice of promotional picture has raised eyebrows. However, the UK Evangelical Alliance says it is "not too outraged" about the Greggs nativity scene (contradictory quote), while a vicar from t'north is not amused.
Becky Barnicoat rounds up some tweets, while Peter Ormerod argues this is not an issue to be outraged about.
(First mentioned by fearfulsymmetry)
Girl Gangs UK & US
Teddy Girls and Drag Racers. The Teddy Girls had their own style but were often overshadowed by the Teddy Boys. This is a short photo-essay on the girls.
Next, we have a photo-essay on a girls' drag-racing team, the Dragettes of the Kansas City Timing Association drag strip in the 1950s. They preferred convertibles and they worked as their own mechanics, too. The Dragettes
“Alter Dark allows you to patch NES ROMs in the browser via a REST API.”
“Alter Dark is a new project that lets you create your own screensavers out of NES ROMs. It was put together by Rachel Weil, an NES homebrew expert and glitch enthusiast, and recently shown off at NodeConf EU in Dublin. For Weil, it combines two of her favorite things: messing around with NES software and the dated aesthetics of screensavers. The name is also a play on the After Dark software package release in 1989 which consisted of, among other things, a flying toaster screensaver.” API files and code at GitHub. Rachel Weil also discusses how screensavers influenced her work, spurring a years-long obsession with putting screensavers where they don't belong. [YouTube]. [via: Kotaku]
Every physical record shop and record event on the planet
Welcome back, Frank
The Punisher, Marvel’s avatar of gun violence and toxic masculinity, is hitting TV screens at possibly the worst ever time (just like every other time), to mixed reviews. With the shows focus on angry male white men the characters popularity with law enforcement officers and the military may be more troubling than ever.
Timbuktu's learned history and legacy
Timbuktu has long been Africa's El Dorado. Located on the southern edge of the Sahara and north of the Niger river (Google maps), what was initially a small river-side settlement bloomed as a trading hub for salt, gold, slaves, ivory and later, books. While its academic prominence has never returned to its peak of centuries past, it is still a treasure trove of ancient manuscripts from western Africa, maintained and protected through the years by families who have kept these works safe from numerous regime changes. These are the lost (and found) libraries of Timbuktu (hour long documentary on Vimeo from documentary producer; more info from BBC Four and stream if you're in the UK). [more inside]
Are you okay, Elon?
Big Eck's big show
Alex Salmond is the ex-leader of the Scottish National Party who lost his Westminster seat at the last election. He has recently launched The Alex Salmond Show on RT. This has been criticized by many other politicians and journalists (many of whom have actually appeared on the channel) but is seen by others as a voice against a pro-nationalist mainstream media. His first main guest was deposed Catalan president, Carlos Puigdemont, You can watch the episode on youtube.
The “Depressive Dream Girl” of online dating
I Pretended to Be Emily Dickinson on an Online Dating Site Would a lovelorn poet, obsessed with death and privacy, be able to woo a modern man?
"an additional toll of up to 100 deaths every day"
The squeeze on public finances since 2010 is linked to nearly 120,000 excess deaths in England, with the over 60s and care home residents bearing the brunt, reveals the first study of its kind, published in the online journal BMJ Open. The critical factor in these figures may be changes in nurse numbers, say the researchers, who warn that there could be an additional toll of up to 100 deaths every day from now on in.The original research is published in the BMJ Open journal. [more inside]
Dead-eyed capitalism with Snapchat's puppy filter on
A report from Millennial 20/20, a two-day conference held in the Carriageworks “creative space” in Sydney; where hundreds of marketing executives, CEOs, startup founders, big-data analysts, “disruptive innovators”, “change makers” and “thought leaders” gathered to discuss the subject of “millennials”, and how to most effectively monetise them. The WiFi password was “SmashedAvo”, there were branded fidget spinners in the swag, and the overall attitude was one of predatory infantilisation.
Benedict Allen I presume
British explorer Benedict Allen found alive in Papua New Guinea, 16 Nov, 2017
“He has been sighted alive and well near a remote airstrip in Papua New Guinea having trekked vast distances. He has requested rescue and efforts are under way to get him out. This is only a reported sighting, but it is the second sighting and it’s a tribal commission that has been looking for him and they have reported him in. So unless they have got it horribly wrong, and I’m not aware of any other lost British explorers in that part of Papua New Guinea, Benedict Allen is safe and well.”[more inside]
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