December 6, 2016
Survivors speak highly of it
Austrian ski resort Obergurgl-Hochgurgl has three live webcam feeds to its guest rooms; in 2015, "some idiots" photobombed all three. The photobombing is now under control, so this year's video shows the new extreme ski run.
YOOOOUUUUU AND MMAAAEEEEE. MAAAEEEEEEEE AND YOOOOUUUUUUUU
I Fucking Live For Haunting Covers Of Literally Any Song In Movie Trailers - the comments have some great additions too.
This isn't Amsterdam.
There's a futuristic sort-of new highway in Paris.
Ear of the Year
100 Outstanding audio stories of 2016. The best podcast episodes & audio journalism of the year, as chosen by the Bello Collective team, in categories including:
Investigative journalism;
politics & history;
first-person storytelling & interviews;
out of the ordinary;
human behavior, love, & other feelings;
science, nature & technology;
cool collaborations & serialized stories;
audio drama;
documentary-style. [more inside]
“To them, the gray jay is a stranger.”
We give you the gray jay. Also known as the whiskey jack or Canada jay, it is Canadian Geographic’s official choice for National Bird of Canada. [Canadian Geographic] There are more than 450 species of birds across Canada, but until now, not one of them has been designated as our national bird. In 2015, the team at Canadian Geographic decided it was time to change that, and founded the National Bird Project with the aim of declaring an official bird for Canada by 2017, the 150th anniversary of Confederation. [more inside]
Cooking In Russia
Greg Easter and his Youtube channel, CookingInRussia, are one of the internet's greatest (and growing) repositories of culinary knowledge. I was reminded again of his unequalled excellence when he recently posted his unbelievable recipe for Persian Rose Chicken. Everything he teaches is directed at the home cook, but he will never dumb it down or simplify anything to sacrifice flavor. If a stock cube will make it taste just as good as stock from scratch, he's absolutely fine with that. But if stock from scratch is what's required, he will quite directly tell you to start roasting those bones, buster. [more inside]
What your social-media news feed could look like if things go wrong
The Pessimist’s Guide to 2017. Donald Trump and Brexit shocked most of the world in 2016. But not readers of last year’s Bloomberg Pessimist’s Guide, which warned that the unthinkable could happen in both cases. Now the authors are turning their attention to 2017. (SLBBW)
Your Cure for Luposlipaphobia
The Sweethome Guide to Menstrual Cups
This week, the Sweethome (previously) tackles the question of finding the best menstrual cup for a first-time user to try out. With menstrual cups (previously) quickly increasing in popularity from relatively unknown status, it can be difficult to figure out what models to try and what size your vagina even is, so the article includes some helpful tips on guesstimating size and cervix height. Cups don't work for everyone and there's definitely a learning curve, so making sure to start with a model that's probably not completely the wrong size can be surprisingly important! Of course, testing out cups in an evidence-based way meant designing an artificial vagina to keep things consistent--which turned out to be a bit more difficult than previously expected.
I'm a stupid moron with an ugly face and a big butt and my butt smells
It was four a.m. when we arrived in the lot...
But one day I realized recruiter emails were something else altogether: writing prompts. From a captive audience. [more inside]
Don't ask a question you aren't prepared to have answered
The Best Southern Albums 2016
"So, if 2016 left you feeling crappy, you can turn to our music for solace and inspiration. We hope you find both inside this list, and we expect you will." (SL Bitter Southerner)
That is when I say, oh yes yet again, can you stop the cavalry?
It is the time of year when the voice of Jona Lewie, a musician since school and a composer and performer across several genre for over half a century, becomes frequently heard in shops and on radio. Stop the Cavalry is a single from 1980 (live: [1] [2] [3]); the arguably anti-war protest song was not originally intended to be a Christmas single, and was kept off the #1 UK chart spot by songs from the recently deceased John Lennon and the St Winifred's School Choir. The tune, often covered by brass bands, is more well-known in the USA through the cover by The Cory Band with The Gwalia Singers (also Gwalia Singers on own and background). However, Jona was successful before this... [more inside]
This land is our land
Gillan Alexander's seed drill is on the fritz. So the winter wheat he’d hoped to get in the ground this early-October morning will have to wait until a parts dealer more than 80 miles away locates the necessary ball-bearing housings. Alexander, 59, who also grows sorghum and soybeans in rural Nicodemus, Kansas, puts the hassle in perspective: “My grandfather farmed wheat here using mules. I’m grateful to carry on that tradition, though it’s hard, even with modern equipment, and it does put pressure on me. I feel like I need to do an exceptional job, not only because that’s what farmers do, but because I’m one of the few black farmers left—in this town, the state, and the nation.”
RIP Czech rock guitar legend Radim Hladik (1946–2016)
Hladik, who died Sunday from lung disease, would have turned 70 next Tuesday. He was considered his country’s equivalent of a Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton, but performed in relative obscurity behind the Iron Curtain. [more inside]
Socialize Finance
The economic geography of a universal basic income - "An underdiscussed virtue of a universal basic income is that it would counter geographic inequality even more powerfully than it blunts conventional income inequality. By a 'universal basic income', I mean the simple policy of having the Federal government cut periodic checks of identical dollar amounts to every adult citizen, wherever they may live. Importantly, a universal basic income would not be calibrated to the local cost of living. Residents of Manhattan would receive the same dollar amount as residents of Cleveland. But a dollar in Cleveland stretches much farther than the same dollar in Manhattan..." [more inside]
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