December 3, 2012
Frog Peak Music UNBOUND
Frog Peak Music has a number of interesting publications UNBOUND for your perusal. Highlights include Divisions of the Tetrachord by John Chalmers, The Early Works of James Tenney by Larry Polansky and Prose Collection by Christian Wolff.
Relevant to MeFi's Interests
James Groccia is a ten-year old with Asperger syndrome and self-describes at the "most loyal Lego fan". He is involved in a Lego playgroup to help with developing his social skills. After spending two years saving for his dream set, he was disappointed to discover that it was no longer in production and was priced beyond what he could afford on the secondary market. He decided to ask Lego for help. Lego responded.
Ex Libris Houdini
Ehrich Weisz may not have had much formal education, but he grew up to be Harry Houdini, self-educated stunt performer, escape artist, and owner of "one of the largest libraries in the world on psychic phenomena, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, demonology, evil spirits, etc., some of the material going back as far as 1489." Houdini bequeathed much of his collection to the Library of Congress, which received 3,988 volumes from his collection in 1927, including a number of magic books inscribed or annotated by well-known magicians. Archive.org has more of the Harry Houdini Collection online. He also put a great deal of research into his tricks, as seen in his letter to Dr. W. J. McConnell, a physiologist at the U.S. Bureau of Mines, written up after Houdini's watery grave stunt in 1926.
"You can't always take. You also have to give back."
At age 70, and after 46 years of building Leuken's Village Foods into a three-store chain (two in Bemidji, Minnesota, one in Wahpeton, North Dakota), Joe Leuken is ready to retire. He could have sold the stores to the highest bidder. Instead, he's giving them to his employees. [more inside]
The sheer loathsomeness of nausea and vomiting does seem to serve a biological purpose.
The news that Duchess Catherine is expecting a baby set off a storm of tabloid squee, speculation on her maternity wardrobe, and, of course, a joke Twitter account (@RoyalFoetus: RT IF YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO SERVING ME). But the reason the royal family announced the pregnancy so early, reportedly shy of 12 weeks, is not very funny. A Royal Spotlight on a Rare Condition:
It used to be a major cause of death in women until the 1950s when they introduced IV fluids. ... there are a lot of misconceptions about it. A lot of women are treated really badly. They’re treated like they’re faking it or that they just don’t want their child. We have a lot of women who have lost pregnancy after pregnancy, or who had abortions because they just couldn’t tolerate it.[more inside]
The arsonists who stare at goats
The festive season is approaching, so it's time for everyone's favorite giant Swedish straw caprid to suffer from repeated attacks. Already ("The front hoof smells of petrol") this year's goat at Gävle has been attacked. Of the 76 goats to date, 33 have been burnt (includes goats burnt down more than once and goats only partially burnt), 7 vandalised (includes goats thrown in the river), 1 run over and 1 stolen, giving a survival rate of 45%. The goat attracts international attention and attacks; in 2001 a tourist from Cleveland, Ohio was jailed for 18 days [Swedish] [English] for igniting the goat. Last year's goat survived to December 2nd (traumatic video). Gävlebocken is 13 metres tall and consists of 3.6 tonnes of straw. While intact it tweets, and blogs in Swedish and English. [more inside]
When I'm stuck with a day...
Punch Brothers, Mandolin Brothers and Lloyd Loar
On Monday September 24th, Mandolin Brothers were visited by 3/5ths of The Punch Brothers: Chris Thile, along with Chris Eldridge and Noam Pickelny. Chris played their Lloyd Loar 1924 F-5 mandolin and their 1925 Fern. Among the numbers they played was a lovely rendition of Tennessee Waltz. Previously [more inside]
Led Zeppelin - Royal Albert Hall, January 9, 1970
I heard you're tired of cute cats so here are some cute dogs instead
What's cuter than a corgi in motion? A corgi lying completely inert. What's cuter than that? A corgi lying still so his owner can vacuum him. [more inside]
Fake Planning Notices
Just digging around on Mars, looking for stuff...
That rover the United States sent to Mars found something. It won't blow your mind, but it's interesting if you're into Mars geology.
Jump on the Magnetic Highway and ride to interstellar space.
Voyager One, the furthest man made object from earth, recently entered the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have nicknamed this boundary area the Magnetic Highway.
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS?
For the past few years, Topless Robot has run a column called Fan Fiction Friday (NSFW text, criticising the worst of the worst in fan-fiction (probably NSFW), crack-fiction, vile fan-fic and bad grammar in a style similar to MST3K.
Several weeks ago Topless Robot founder Rob Bricken made the leap to Gawker Media's science-fiction-and-science website io9, and announced to the surprise of many that FFF would continue.
Two weeks in (NSFW) io9 editor Annalee Newitz announced that FFF would be cancelled claiming "it's not going to work on io9". [more inside]
Golden Gate Park Windmills
At the western edge of Golden Gate Park sit two Windmills, claimed to be among the largest in the world. Built over 100 years ago to irrigate the park, they were eventually made functionally obsolete by electric water pumps and were allowed to fall into a state of neglect. The North (Dutch) Windmill was given a face-lift in 1980, and more recently The South (Murphy) windmill has been completely restored. For the first time in decades both windmills started spinning, appropriately enough, on Queen's Day earlier this year. The entire reconstruction process of the South Windmill is documented in this extensive photo gallery.
“Is it true that my daughter knows a Negro?”
In 1928 Heiress Nancy Cunard founded the Hours Press in France publishing among others Aragon and Beckett both at one time her lovers.
Her relationship with African-American musician, Henry Crowder caused a major scandal and 1934 Nancy Cunard published Negro: An Anthology which was banned in the British West Indies and several West African colonies on the grounds of its "seditiousness".
It was inspired by her observance of the infamous Scottsboro Boys case.
Her relationship with African-American musician, Henry Crowder caused a major scandal and 1934 Nancy Cunard published Negro: An Anthology which was banned in the British West Indies and several West African colonies on the grounds of its "seditiousness".
It was inspired by her observance of the infamous Scottsboro Boys case.
Treevenge
Trevenge depicts Christmas from the perspective of sentient Christmas trees. After being hacked down and shipped to homes, they are subject to "humiliation" by humans, who decorated them and make them stand in their living rooms. The Christmas trees have had enough, and go on to massacre and kill an entire town as part of their uprising.
• [Not the least bit safe for people who anthropomorphize objects, don't do gore, or don't do creepy violence - Seriously]
• [Not the least bit safe for people who anthropomorphize objects, don't do gore, or don't do creepy violence - Seriously]
An example of "order out of chaos"
"Draw some random points on a piece of paper and join them up to make a random polygon. Find all the midpoints and connecting them up to give a new shape, and repeat. The resulting shape will get smaller and smaller, and will tend towards an ellipse!" [code to make this in Mathematica] [a version which allows you to watch the process step by step, with 10 vertices or 100]
"But more important than mere longevity was the fact that he had lived through and been a part of more baseball history than almost any other man."
The results of the 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee Election were released today, and the three men elected were Jacob Ruppert, who owned the Yankees for 24 years and helped steer the team from mediocrity in the 1910s to some of the greatest teams in baseball history; Hank O'Day, one of the longest-serving umpires in league history and the man who made the official ruling on Merkle's Boner, and Deacon White, the first great catcher and one of the main players in the first baseball dynasty, the Boston Red Stockings of the 1870s National Association.
[more inside]
Mister nice guy
Mister nice guy - As a cartoonist, Tim Kreider seemed to loathe almost everybody. His essays tell a different story.
We’re going to Mars! WITH A SPACEGIRL, TWO CATS AND A MISSIONARY
In 1964, Zambia joined the Space Race with help from Edward Makuka Nkoloso, an enthusiastic, if overly optimistic, primary school teacher (partial transcript, video very much of its time). Though the rocket never left Lusaka, and there was never any real support from either the Zambian government or UNESCO, Nkoloso's project caught the imagination of Spanish artist Cristina de Middel in her short film, The Afronauts. Middel explains, "The images are beautiful and the story is pleasant at a first level, but it is built on the fact that nobody believes that Africa will ever reach the moon. It hides a very subtle critique to our position towards the whole continent and our prejudices. It's just like saying strong words with a beautiful smile." via.
Comic Writer Services 2.0
Interested in writing comics? Here are dozens of links on how to do it.
Drawing a bead on Bowser
pool cartoons women cartoons
"it's not my existence that is the problem here"
Dr. Carmella's Guide to Understanding the Introverted! drawn by Schroeder Veidt. See also Explaining the Transgender Experience (made after this first attempt) and Circles of Acceptance (in easy-to-read cartoon form). [more inside]
Being Boring
Dispatch from the Boring 2012 conference.
"An Uncovered Woman and Beatle-Haired Men Will Never Liberate Our Holy Places."
From the BBC blog of documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis: "Save Your Kisses For Me: How the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and the Israeli Right became co-dependents in an abusive relationship." Includes images / film clips from the BBC news archive. [more inside]
Palestinian Football
A soccer stadium in Palestine was destroyed recently and a number of European based footballers signed a letter condemning the act.
Palestine has historically been a difficult place to be a footballer, up to and including being imprisoned, although Mahmous Sarsak has since been freed.
Despite all of this, it looks like at least the Palestinian women’s game is on the up and up.
Lousy? Crummy? Fed Up?
Trench Talk now entrenched in the English Language - Military historian Peter Doyle and Julian Walker, an etymologist at the British Library, have written Trench Talk about how words from the first World War have become part of everyday English. [more inside]
Fantasy board games
"She's a rock 'n' roll chick and she's looking like a star"
Gloria, the first video from the fantastic Dutch musician Junkie XL's new album Synthesized, is a deadpan love letter to the cheesy music videos of the late '80s, early '90s. [more inside]
Rumble in Bazhou City
In China, people are being evicted from their homes at an alarming rate, according to a recent report by Amnesty International. Eager to spur economic development, local Communist Party officials have used violence and intimidation to force people out of their homes and farmland, including employing private gangs to attack residents who won't comply with eviction orders. In Hebei Province, however, one father-and-son duo, both devotees of Bruce Lee and facing a gang of over 30 men outside their house, decided to fight back--and won. [more inside]
"If I was to die, today or tomorrow, I do not think I would die satisfied till you tell me you will try and marry some good, smart man that will take care of you and the children"
Author Jon Meacham has a new book out on Thomas Jefferson. It is reviewed in the New York Times: Cultivating Control in a Nation’s Crucible
But this book does not address its principal concern, power, until Jefferson has accrued some. When it comes to the force that he wielded as a slaveholder, Mr. Meacham finds ways to suggest that thoughts of abolition would have been premature; that it was not uncommon for white heads of households to be waited on by slaves who bore family resemblances to their masters; and that since Jefferson treated slavery as a blind spot, the book can too.[more inside]
Coming Home to Roost: Domestic Drones (U.S)
"When most Americans think of surveillance drones, it conjures up an image of a Predator drone in a far-off land unleashing a missile against a terrorist suspect. The last thing they think of is a flying surveillance vehicle over their own city. But an increasing number of federal, state, county and municipal police departments are purchasing drone surveillance vehicles of one sort or another to watch Americans. And a few have even discussed arming the drones."
- Drones over America. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants to more than double its fleet of Predator drones for surveillance missions inside the United States. Despite Problems, there is a push to expand domestic use. Much of that push comes from a "powerful" lobbying group that most Americans have never heard of: the Unmanned Systems Caucus.
Drone Makers Push Congress to Move Up Domestic Deployment Date (follow the money). More? ACLU blog posts related to domestic drones. Here is a Map of Domestic Drone Authorizations, last updated in April. Insiders assure You have nothing to worry about, but a little remarked-upon court decision may bring the domestic drone age one flight closer to your doorstep. (previously)
Sun sets on The Daily
The Daily, much-lauded iPad-only news operation is "ceasing standalone publication" on December 15.
The News Corp publication launched Feb. 2, 2011 with cooperation from Apple and its nascent Newsstand app.
Previously.
Allow Natural Death
Comparative cat copaceticity
Researchers at the National Veterinary School of Alfort in Paris recently carried out a study of the friendliness of different cat breeds, surveying the owners of 129 cats about the cats' interactions with people. The survey determined that
pedigree cats are significantly friendlier than crossbreeds, a difference which the researchers put down to pedigree kittens being left with their mothers for longer at a crucial developmental period and/or breeders selecting for friendliness as a genetic trait. The friendliest breed of cat is reportedly the sphynx, an exotic hairless breed, possibly due to its reliance on proximity to humans to keep warm.
The Notwind
Frog Dreaming, aka The Quest (North America), aka Go Kids (UK), aka The Spirit Chaser (Sweden) features Henry Thomas as an American orphan in Australia investigating an aboriginal legend at a flooded quarry in Devils Knob national park. And yes, it's available in its entirety on youtube.
James Bond and the killer bag lady
" Assassin Jerome Johnson was a black neo-Nazi as well as a practiced marksman and member of the NRA. He also thought he was God. The night before murdering Colombo, he arrived by bus from Cambridge, Mass., carrying a caged monkey. " Mark Ames and Alexander Zaitchik dive into the shadowy CIA underworld, tracing the murder of CIA house banker Nicholas Deak.
Houses of the Holy
Creating Art from Failure. Take one epochal album by one of rock's legendary bands (called "one of the dullest and most confusing albums I've heard this year" by Rolling Stone on its release.) Name it after the nickname the band has given the venues where they appear, and for which they had written a song, which they neglected to put on the album itself. And then there's the album cover ... [more inside]
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