February 10, 2012
Arbitrary Architecture
Apparently Moby has started a blog about architecture in Los Angeles.
A Lily Among Thorns: St. Kateri Tekakwitha
Later this year, the Vatican will canonize Káteri Tekahkwí:the, a/k/a Catherine Tekakwitha, a/k/a "Lily of the Mohawks." Born in 1656 to a Mohawk father and Algonquin mother, some are celebrating the canonization of the first North American indigenous saint. For others, the news is bittersweet, inciting mixed reactions derived from complex emotions, especially to those of American and Canadian Native ancestry, for whom the news represents a painful reminder of the dark history of European colonization of North America.
The compelling survival story of Tekakwitha (or "the Clumsy One") has long been cherished as a religious conversion story by non-Natives of European descent, particularly Catholics, who claimed her as one of their own and held her out to the world as a model of piety and Christian values. In her classic 1890 biography of Kateri, The Life and Times of Kateri Tekakwitha, The Lily of the Mohawks, 1656-1680, Ellen Walworth documents Kateri's ascetic lifestyle - which included self-flagellation, frequent fasting and even sleeping on a bed of thorns - in vivid detail. Describing her interest in Tekakwitha as sparked by "the thought of a mere Indian girl reared in the forest among barbarians," Walworth's spin on Kateri's tragic life seems to echo the pro-Indian assimilation line which was typical of the Assimilation era of federal Indian policy. However, in more recent years, some authors have attempted to reclaim her story by digging deeper into her dark history from more diverse secular and non-secular perspectives. For example, Mohawk author and biographer Darren Bonaparte argues for painting a more complex portrait of a future saint which more fully incorporates and appreciates her Mohawk roots.
The Technique Zone
Why not avoid the commercial Hallmark Holiday trappings by making your Valentine a personalized art-piece this year? Over at The Technique Zone, Sam gives simple sequenced photo tutorials on how to make an acrylic paint transfer on card or canvas, beeswax frontispieces, a slide mount box, sooty stamped cards.
I've got passion in my pants and I'm not afraid to show it ...
Keep it TIGHT, BRIGHT, & SEXY! This Vancouverite strutting his stuff in Australia is a shining example of young Canadian manhood. [more inside]
It's all about the grapes...
Japan Tsunami Pictures - Before and After
Japan Tsunami Pictures - Before and After See how Japan has rebuilt in the 11 months since the earthquake and tsunami
I think there's a front moving through.
14 years of US weather in 33 minutes.
go ahead, admit it, some of you weather geeks are going to watch the whole 33 minutes!
At last, a way to express your inner Viking Dwarf
Fraley v. Facebook: Social Media, Privacy, and the Law
"The Fraley plaintiffs sued Facebook, alleging that its 'Sponsored Stories' feature, which displays ads on Facebook containing the names and pictures of users who have 'Liked' a product, violated California’s Right of Publicity statute. The statute forbids the commercial use of an individual’s name or likeness without consent. Integral to the plaintiffs’ claim was the assertion they had been injured because they were “celebrities” to their Facebook friends, such that their endorsements of the products in the Sponsored Stories held economic value—economic value that they were deprived of when Facebook published their Stories without their consent." - Famous for Fifteen People (Stanford Law Review): Celebrity, Newsworthiness, and Fraley v. Facebook (Citizen Media Law Project)
The End of the Free Market?
We're All State Capitalists Now 'No, according to some commentators, the contest between the two Asian superpowers is also fundamentally a contest between economic models: market capitalism vs. state capitalism.' [more inside]
Raise the Crime Rate
Raise the crime rate: an argument for the abolition of prison.
9 pictures of cats on glass tables taken from below
LBJ, Saint
Kickstarted
The last 24 hours at Kickstarter has demonstrated that the site has become a major player. At 12:45pm Thursday, NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced that the city work work with Kickstarter to spotlight community projects and businesses in need of funding in those same areas. Just over an hour later, at 2:08pm, Elevation Dock becomes the first Kickstarter project to reach $1M in pledges. Four hours later, at 6:42pm, Double Fine hits the $1M mark after being on Kickstarter for just under 22 hours. By the end of the day on Thursday, Kickstarter has seen its largest day of pledges, with $1,605,981 put towards projects. As VC Fred Wilson tweeted, "they don't come very often, but days like this are why startups are exhilarating."
Old Maps of New Jersey
Here are some old New Jersey maps, available online. Take a look at this map of southern New Jersey made by Dutch settlers in 1669. The Dutch labeled Cape May "Cabo May." Take a look at Delaware Bay. The Dutch called it Godyn's Bay. This 1709 map shows a division between east and west New Jersey. Probably most interesting of all is this map from 1795. Here, you can see archaic names of towns. What is now Pennington was once called "Pennytown." Lawrenceville was once called "Maidenhead." What is today called Hightstown was once called "Hiatstown." How about that little island off the southwestern New Jersey coast, Egg Island? Is that even there anymore?
Holy moving pictures, Batman!
Kerry Callen brings classic comic book covers to life.
Listening to the past, recorded on tin foil and glass, for the first time in over a century
Towards the end of the 1800s, there were three primary American groups competing to invent technology to record and play back audio. Alexander Graham Bell worked with with Charles Sumner Tainter and Chichester Bell in at their Volta Laboratory in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., while Thomas A. Edison worked from his Menlo Park facilities, and Emile Berliner worked in his independent laboratory in his home. To secure the rights to their inventions, the three groups sent samples of their work to the Smithsonian. These recordings became part of the permanent collections, now consisting of 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made. But knowledge of their contents was limited to old, short descriptions, as the rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass recording media are fragile, and playback devices might damage the recordings, if such working devices are even available. That is, until a collaborative project with the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory came together to make 2D and 3D optical scanners, capable of visually recording the patterns marked on discs and cylinders, respectively. [more inside]
A Bicycle Built For Food
Food blog Edible Geography reveals the history of the New York food cart. You know, the ones that look like reverse rickshaws with big boxes full of ice cream or hot dogs up front. In a related post they cover a scandalous controversy involving cart substitutions, stolen holograms, a criminal bureaucracy, and the olde 19th century rent-a-vet licensing scam.
Health Care for The Rest of Us
"Guardian 24/7 combines best-in-breed technology with protocols designed to serve the President of the United States, offering unprecedented medical attention to a demanding audience. Thanks to Guardian, your medical care can finally look like the rest of your life[...]. Our innovative ReadyRoom™ strategy places essential equipment, medications and supplies where you live, move and work. Yet everything is hidden away until needed. [...]Before Guardian, this kind of medical protection was only available to one person. But now, presidential-level care can be yours — on your schedule and your terms." Don't miss the embedded video. This appears to be in earnest.
First person
First Person was a TV series that ran during 2000 and 2001 featuring interviews conducted by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris using his (patent pending) Interrotron. Episodes included an exploration of the mind of an expert on cattle slaughter techniques, the story of a parrot who may have witnessed a murder, a professional high school student, a serial killer groupie, and other strange and eccentric people. (Previously: The smartest man in the world.)
Fix UC
A student group has a novel idea to reduce college costs: pay nothing up front, instead paying out 5% of their income to the UC system for 20 years after graduation.
Newton and Leibniz invent calculus.
There were ways to find the tangent to a curve, and the area under one, in an ad hoc manner before the birth of calculus. It was even known that these two were inverses of each other.
A bit of American History through the life of Aunt Ida
Bodie Bailey Flickr A rare and fascinating bit of family and national history captured in B&W photographs. Bodie Bailey's Flickr shares family photos collected by his Aunt Ida- an actress during the turn-of-the-century and active in the founding of California. Through the photos of this young actress, we are able to get a glimpse of early Hollywood, Mission Plays and intimate family moments.
Occupy McGill?
On Tuesday, February 7th, twenty students forced their way into an administrative building at McGill University. Since then, they have been occupying the 6th floor of the building, despite power being cut and washroom facilities shut down. Their demands? Stable funding for two on-campus groups, and the resignation of Mort Mendelson, McGill's deputy provost for student life and learning. Not all students agree with their tactics.
Stay monkey, stay.
The Rhesus Macaque that settled in St. Petersburg, Florida (previously) has apparently found his niche. [more inside]
The Scale of the Universe
The Scale of The Universe 2 (give it a minute to load)
flowchart friday fun
Flowcharts explain it all. Here is a flowchart guide. You dropped food on the floor - do you eat it? Should you have a cookie or a drink? Can you cook? (via) Look, a coffee pot! Playing D&D or WoW? Sex-act morality? Internet anger? Panflute? Which social search site should you use? Are you a cat or dog person? Are you a horse? Species identification. Are you happy? Should your band cover this song? Which Mahler symphony did you hear? Should you shave your legs?
Beneath the Planet of the Twains
Two months ago, writer/humorist/TV personality/podcast judge/deranged millionaire John Hodgman was inspired to commission a work of art from the internet. On January 20th, 2012 Hodgman's impossible dream became reality: Presenting Dana Gould as Doctor Zaius as Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain.
New video magazine about cinema
The Seventh Art is an independently produced video magazine about cinema with three sections: a profile on an interesting group/company/organization in the industry, a video essay and a long-form interview with a filmmaker.
And in this corner, weighing in at 2,000 years, the Catholic Church
After much protestation from religious communities, the Obama administration has compromised on its controversial contraceptive law. Non-profit organizations (such as hospitals) that are affiliated with religious institutions will not be required to provide contraceptives--but insurance companies will. But some Catholics still aren't satisfied.
But once you develop empathy ... the loneliness and the emptiness become too much.
"I think a lot of women around you have experienced pain in various ways, through your words and actions. Have you ever considered: ‘I was the source of some of that. They are hurting, not just because of them and their own issues, but also because I contributed to their pain’?”Tucker Max Gives Up the Game and offers a surprisingly insightful interview on self-loathing, entering psychoanalysis and trying to grow up.
*waves hand* Greedo /always/ shot first
George Lucas sits down with The Hollywood Reporter: "The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down." [more inside]
They were lab rats, just like Tuskeegee
"Today, my daughter is getting a dose of tough love."
"My daughter thought it would be funny/rebellious/cool to post on her Facebook wall just how upset she was and how unfair her life here is; how we work her too hard with chores, never pay her for chores, and just in general make her life difficult. She chose to share this with the entire world on Facebook and block her parents from seeing it. Well, umm... she failed. As of the end of this video, she won't have to worry anymore about posting inappropriate things on Facebook..." (youtube video, contains cursing) Background. Original thread on Facebook.
The Foolish Frog (SLYP)
Drinking the FREE STRAWBERRY POP!!! Eatin' the FREE SODA CRACKERS!!!! performed by Pete Seeger. Animated in cold-war era Czechoslovakia.
Carp Wars!
The various subspecies of Asian carp are considered an invasive species in North America, and the governments of the US and Canada are working frantically to keep them from traveling up the Mississippi to the Great Lakes (previously). Unfortunately, they have circumvented sophisticated barriers designed to stop them, and as filter-feeders they are "difficult to catch using normal angling methods". But we're Americans, are we going to take this lying down? The Peoria Carp Hunters answer for us all, with a resounding, bro-ful "Hell, no!" (Warning, loud music.) [more inside]
Too Long; Do Read
The complete story of the collaboration between Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend on Puzzlejuice. [more inside]
www.breadedcats.com
www.breadedcats.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their bread, or why.
Recreating the map of the United States
The United States of 2012 : Esquire Magazine pulls together five maps that they believe reflect the zeitgeist of the current era. Of special interest is the "Where's Waldo"-like fourth map, which illustrates how minorities and the poor are either included in or excluded from American communities. (2805 x 1813 px version) Also, the aforementioned Eric Fischer's Flickr photostream is excellent collection of his maps.
Are you sitting comfortably?
A visit to Dickens World
Five years ago, I flew to England to see the grand opening of something improbable: an attraction called Dickens World. It promised to be an “authentic” re-creation of the London of Charles Dickens’s novels, complete with soot, pickpockets, cobblestones, gas lamps, animatronic Dickens characters and strategically placed chemical “smell pots” that would, when heated, emit odors of offal and rotting cabbage. ... Today Dickens World survives largely as a landlord, collecting rent from the Odeon movie theater next door and the restaurants (Pizza Hut, Subway, Chimichanga) that surround it. (previously)
We blunder through prophesy / as if through sand
London art space The Mosaic Rooms have mounted a tribute (PDF brochure) to 81 year old Syrian poet, essayist, and now artist Adonis (born Ali Ahmad Said Asbar). The poet's relevance in the era of the Arab Spring has been questioned, but many still considered Adonis a top candidate to win a Nobel in poetry (Tomas Tranströmer edged him out last year).
Nobody has a free choice when it comes to love
Could it have been something else ?
It can be anything
Do I love everything ?
Unfortunately not, but all things can be loved by different people at different times: enemies, devils, gods and chocolate candies.
-Sigurdur Gudmundsson
It can be anything
Do I love everything ?
Unfortunately not, but all things can be loved by different people at different times: enemies, devils, gods and chocolate candies.
-Sigurdur Gudmundsson
"We've agreed this is casual sex, so as long as we decide not to develop feelings, we won't."
The Geek Social Fallacies of Sex. (Probably SFW in itself, depending on your W - no naughty images - but links out may go to NSFW content) Holly Pervocracy (previously), a feminist sex blogger, revisits Michael Suileabhain-Wilson's classic but contentious Geek Social Fallacies (previously).
Breast Cancer Is Not A Pink Ribbon
The SCAR Project is a series of large-scale portraits of young breast cancer survivors shot by fashion photographer David Jay. (NSFW)
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