November 6, 2017
Eight hundredth anniversary of the Charter of the Forest
The Charter of the Forest gave the commons rights, and protected the common good. Facsimile and translation, rich with words. A proposed modern version. In Our Times discusses it with the Battle of Lincoln (around 35'). A glorious tree that was coppiced for centuries. Previously (Chomsky, commons), previously (secret history of Magna Carta).
To swear is human; to moo, bovine
Who can resist adorable baby cows? Not these dogs and humans. Older cows are pretty fun, too—and give excellent face baths. Aw heck, just watch this compilation of charming cows. [Most videos have cheery music]
A Surprising Puerto Rico [Corporate] Good News Story
In which a large corporation reacts to a major natural disaster with a bit of heart that feels completely heartwarming to me. TJX [TJ Maxx & related companies] Paying Its Employees In Puerto Rico, Even Though Its Stores Remain Closed [more inside]
A puffin would also be fine, thanks!
Last week, author, UN speaker, and Chuck Tingle avatar Zoe Quinn was banned from Postmates for attempting to order a penguin from the zoo. [more inside]
Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!
A Few of My Favorite Things
et maintenant, de bonnes nouvelles / and now, some good news
Valérie Plante a été élue maire de Montréal. Elle est la première femme à occuper cette fonction.
Valérie Plante has been elected as mayor of Montréal. She is the first woman to hold this office. [more inside]
Valérie Plante has been elected as mayor of Montréal. She is the first woman to hold this office. [more inside]
Off to the vet!
Downtown Portland. Morale: Excellent. You may: 1. Visit a brewery...
Travel Oregon : the game is a web-based travel adventure simulation, rendered in a style which may appear historically familiar. Choose what type of traveler you are e.g. Yoga Teacher, Winemaker or Surfer, spend your $1,000 on supplies (artisanal coffee is $5 a pot, kombucha is $3), choose your region of the Beaver State, and away you go. Part of the Travel Oregon tourism website.
Hanezeve Caradhina
Adapted from an ongoing manga by relative newcomer studio Kinema Citrus, Made in Abyss (youtube trailer) explores the drive of curiosity, the limits of humanity, and a giant, terrifying pit. [more inside]
The Museum of Online Museums
This site, a rabbit-hole, only got a casual mention back in 2012. Two other posts from 2011 were about specific collections, so I believe this is the first post about the full site.
The lists are updated quarterly so there's a lot new (and they're marked since the last update). The sections for the main collections are The Museum Campus, The Permanent Collection, and Galleries, Exhibitions, and Shows. Then, over on Page Two / Archives (link in the upper right corner), are several other categories of lists/links for such things as posters, typography, comics, maps & travel. I dipped into Typography and quickly realized I'd be there for hours, so have put it off. Great fun.
The pod eased into the stream and he drank to his last day driving
A brave journalist sees the bittersweet vision of the end of his job and his industry. Building on the many fascinating discussions [fp btw, hello to all] here on the cars that will drive themselves, Bob Lutz of Automotive News takes a guess at the near future of the automotive industry. Bring on the pods.
Zappaland the Hard Way
Muggles become Μύγαλοι [Mugaloi]Greek for field-mice, quite appropriate
"I was American, and that was all I wanted to be.”
If he be worthy
What To Do When Racists Try To Hijack Your Religion White supremacists are coopting Norse heathen symbols. Should the heathens ignore them? Protest them? Create a new theology?
Why you hate contemporary architecture
It’s somewhat stunning just how uniform the rejection of “ornament” became. Since the eclipse of Art Deco at the end of the 1930s, the intricate designs that characterized centuries of building, across civilizations, from India to Persia to the Mayans, have vanished from architecture. . .no modern buildings include the kind of highly complex painting, woodwork, ironwork, and sculpture that characterized the most strikingly beautiful structures of prior eras. [more inside]
Trouble in Paradise
5 November 2017 - the ICIJ leaks a literal treasure trove of documents related to the piggy banks of the 1% Wilbur Ross, Bono, Trump, Apple, and Queen Elizabeth II are among over 120k people variously implicated in leaked documents pertaining to an estimated $10 trillion dollars in funds.
Forget #vanlife, what about #nomadlife?
Miriam Lancewood and her husband Peter live a decidedly spartan nomadic existence. (slTheGuardian) [more inside]
Bastards stole their power / from the victims of the Us v Them years
One year after perhaps the most disastrous electoral result in the history of the United States, tomorrow America returns to the polls for Election Day.
With a mixed record this year of surprising victories in state-level legislative special elections, but several disappointments in Congressional ones, the Democratic party is hoping to turn the historic low approval ratings of the president into electoral victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere across the nation. [more inside]
With a mixed record this year of surprising victories in state-level legislative special elections, but several disappointments in Congressional ones, the Democratic party is hoping to turn the historic low approval ratings of the president into electoral victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere across the nation. [more inside]
The lost, glorious future of high-speed HOVERTRAINS
Who needs Hyperloop when we could have been getting around all this time in hovercraft trains?
That's right: I said hovercraft trains! Get your fill of air-cushioned, levitating nerdery after the jump. [more inside]
"Piata Mai Nei"
Before New Zealand director Taika Waititi (previously) hit the box office big leagues this week with Thor: Ragnarok, he helped usher in another blockbuster when he wrote the initial screenplay for the Disney hit Moana. More recently, he took time out of his busy schedule to translate the entire movie into Maori. So now you can now enjoy Jemaine Clement getting his Bowie on in this Maori translation of "Shiny".
☢
“All media are extensions of some human faculty -- psychic or physical.”
Our Choices to Buy Physical or Digital Games Are Controlling Our Gaming Habits [Game Revolution] “Outside of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I’ve logged the most Nintendo Switch hours playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The former I purchased on a physical cartridge, while the latter was received via digital code as a review copy. It may seem minor, but the more I think about it, the more certain I am that I wouldn’t have played either game as much had they swapped places. As digital marketplaces have become increasingly commonplace and storage becomes cheaper, most players have begun to establish a consistent preference: I prefer digital, or I prefer hard copies.” [more inside]
John John
Sometimes the gods see a little boy with a single mother and no money and decide to sprinkle stardust on him.
Friends come easy and stay true.
He is given effortless grace and talent, and the respect of his peers.
When the time comes to ask for the blessing of the great departed elder (previously), he glides down the face of a monstrous wave and through its roaring foam to victory.
He is given normal human fears, but none of the demons that the gods use to drive and torment the great.
He sails from island to island with his friends, immersed in beauty, making movies.
The gods never ask him to grow up.
Like everything else with John John, the tableau is weirdly innocent—Edenic, even.
World Parliament
In existence since 1958, the World Constitution and Parliament Association has been taking preliminary steps to form a World Parliament, as mandated by the Constitution for the Federation of Earth, which had its first draft in 1968. This constitution, under the auspices of the so-called Earth Federation Movement, sets out in detail how a world parliament should be construed, as well as defining the steps and processes we need to take towards achieving it. Jindal Global University is hosting a conference in Delhi this week: “Building the World Parliament 2017”. [more inside]
Second Mother
How do we know when it starts? How to differentiate dementia from climbing the stairs to retrieve something, but being unable to remember what? Do we declare an onset of Alzheimer’s after forgetting a famous face (you know, what’s his name?). It’s a dim boundary, but at some point our neurons struggle to recalibrate. The cortex and hippocampus are irrevocably changed. In memory loss, there is already death. Cells die and each one is a divesting of some part of the past. The cortex shrinks where the cells used to be. The spaces in between expand. Islands in the sea of the mind. An archipelago of the former self.
Lewes Bonfire Night 2017: A Wicker Man Mardi Gras.
Flaming good fun in Sussex. Every year at this time, the English seaside town of Lewes goes slightly insane. It hosts the biggest and best Bonfire Night celebration anywhere in the UK, a festival that's essentially a Sussex Mardi Gras with elements of The Wicker Man thrown in. [more inside]
I would prefer not to, said the garbage chute
A man named Hlynur Hallgrímsson tried to throw a garbage bag down the garbage chute in his apartment building while a storm passed through Reykjavík last night.
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