December 19, 2016
Unbearably cute but totally unkoalified
It turns out this Koala covered in burrs just needed a hug. Or a very cautious brushing from a distance while wearing motorcycle gloves, anyway.
Yes, there's video. (No, it's not in landscape orientation.)
ITs love Christmas too
Sophos IT Christmas (single link Xmas ad but fun anyway).
Unicorn meat appears twice
Can't figure out what to get your least-favorite friends and relatives? You probably can't find any of these creepy vintage toys, but there many classy gift ideas in these brilliant and useless lists.
I'd rather ... just ... sing ....
Analysis of fossilized Antarctic bird's 'voice box' suggests dinosaurs couldn't sing. Which is to to say:
The discovery of the Mesozoic Era vocal organ (Nature, paywalled) -- called a syrinx -- and its apparent absence in non-avian dinosaur fossils of the same age indicates that the organ may have originated late in the evolution of birds, and that other dinosaurs may not have been able to make noises similar to the bird calls we hear today.Dinosaurs didn't quack or cluck, but may have sounded more like an ostrich (more samples). [more inside]
I Think We're ALL Bozos On This Bus
Worried about the future? Concerned about targeted advertising? Does virtual reality or augmented reality seem threatening? Is the spectre of Artificial Intelligence something that alarms you? Don't worry, Firesign Theatre covered all this for you 45 years ago in their fourth album I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus [38m]. Let the air out of your shoes (if you wear them) and discover what you forgot you knew!
Pauvre sapin
In downtown Montréal, a balsam fir has become the object of snark and controversy. Twitter accounts for the tree have been set up in both French and English. The tree's presence in Montréal's Quartier des Spectacles is the result of an attempt to erect North America's largest Christmas tree to mark Montreal's 375th anniversary. Through no fault of its own, Montréal's tree has garnered coverage by the New York Times since, to date, Rockefeller Center's tree is still the tallest.
Wine is good, I told myself. Hot chocolate is good.
Red Wine Hot Chocolate Is a Thing, and It’s (Surprisingly) Delicious [The New York Times] Frosé? That’s a summer drink. Hot toddies, eggnog, mulled wine? Please, those are for your parents. No, no, the must-have drink of winter 2016, at least according to a small but dedicated circle of food blogs, is red wine hot chocolate. A post this fall on Martha Stewart’s official Facebook page called it “spectacular.” Soon after, Cosmopolitan magazine called it “the best of both worlds.” The Kitchn, a popular recipe site, called it “the answer to your cold-weather blues.” And last month, The Daily Mail had an “exclusive” on a version of the recipe that had grown popular on Pinterest.
Ode to an Unknown Engineer
wobble sproing run gambol frisk cavort
Newborn fawns are fitted with expanding radio collars to track their movements as they learn to walk. Radio active?
Objects of the class “Objects of the class”.
Statistician Andrew Gelman's list of "Objects of the class":
Objects of the class “Foghorn Leghorn”: parodies that are more famous than the original. (“It would be as if everybody were familiar with Duchamp’s Mona-Lisa-with-a-moustache while never having heard of Leonardo’s version.”).[more inside]
Let’s have a festival of light
The Maccabeats sing about Hanukkah - Hamilton style!
Bobcat snags fresh salmon for Christmas
Earlier this week, Ranger Lee Snook took a morning stroll down to Taft Creek, a tributary of the Hoh River, to look for salmon that were spawning. But when Snook arrived at the river, she wasn’t alone. A female bobcat was out fishing, which is not your everyday sighting in the park, since the cats are usually elusive. [more inside]
Spoilers, obv.
California Prop 47, Two Years Later
Ventura County Star published a five-article series on the effects of California Proposition 47. Article 1: Former felons find new jobs and new hope after Prop 47: Proposition 47 reduced nearly 200,000 felonies to misdemeanors. Every downgraded conviction brings former felons closer to better jobs and better lives. [more inside]
A stitch in time saves nio
"Household Objects and Appliances Cross-Stitched. Swedish designer Ulla Stina Wikander uses household appliances and cooking tools as the base to her cross-stitched sculptures, bestowing outdated objects with a new life. Most of the items come from the 70s, yet the patterns she covers their bodies in are much older. The cross-stitch designs come from the 59-year-old artist’s vast collection, allowing Wikander to give a new context to each blowdryer, rolling pin, and typewriter she covers."
We’ll tweet how the German word for “mansplaining” is “herrklären"
Ah, 2016, what words can describe you? According to Merriam-Webster, the 2016 Word of the Year is "surreal". Notable too, Merriam-Webster's decision to make their Twitter feed into a "sassy" voice about language.
At least it doesn't star Shia LaBeouf
Fear of a cuck planet
So what does it mean, then, to be a cuckold? In the Red Pill framework, it’s easy to slot in: liberals and progressives have sacrificed their masculinity, their ‘manhood’ (whatever that is) and their time-honoured place in the world, undergoing a metaphorical castration and degradation to appease their ‘Blue Pill’ phantasms of equality. Yet surely metaphor cannot fully account for the use of a term so rooted in racialised (or out-and-out racist) pornography and, further back, the insecurities of white slave owners. It is here that the connection between frustrated sexuality, white-pride race hatred, and distrust of liberal society (and all its permissive permutations) intersect most clearly. [more inside]
No, none of us is worth what we are paid.
Perhaps in the end the problem is that people want to pretend that they are filling a valuable role in the societal division of labor, and are receiving no more than they earn--than they contribute. [more inside]
To The Wonder
Yes, 2016 has been a rough, rough year. But Slate has the cure: An incredibly arbitrary, but necessary, salute to Stevie Wonder. [more inside]
Cat Rapper. =^..^=
A magician, a glass pitcher and your childhood fears walk into a VCR...
Old stuff is always being rediscovered, but it's not every day an entire genre is unearthed. Behold: the Video Almanac/Babysitter. Dr. Misterio's Patented Video Almanac of Fun (opening, Volume 1, Volume 2). Wacky Zany Video, from Kool-Aid and Kay Bee Toys (here's an ad for it). Vitsie the Videositter - opening - Dinosaurs (complete video, parts 1 2 & 3, excerpts) - Vitsie Visits Space (excerpts, Job on the Moon song, Solar System song). (Credit for finding Dr Misterio goes to Rangoon of PoeTV.) Anyone know of any others?
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