February 18, 2014
He said that in the end it is beauty that is going to save the world now
La bella vita: True beauty pleases the eye and the mind – but can it help us to become better people? "In 1795, the German dramatist and poet Friedrich Schiller published a book with a fearsome title – On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters. It has never become well-known, which is a pity, because it contains some of our most useful insights into the nature and value of beauty. Schiller’s starting point is an analysis of the human condition. He wants to understand our delight in what we find beautiful. Instead of asking which things are beautiful, Schiller is curious about what is going on in us when we respond with this distinctive, intimate thrill and enthusiasm that leads us to say ‘that’s beautiful’. Different things might provoke this response in different people. But why do we have it at all?" [Via]
The alpha female's job is now complete
The ice is getting thicker
For the first time in five years, Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake, has frozen enough to allow visitors from northern Wisconsin to walk across the lake to the ice caves of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. [more inside]
Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Castrate a Hippo
You and you and me and baby makes four.
A Vancouver child has become the first person in B.C. to have three parents named on their birth certificate, under province's recent Family Law Act that features a provision permitting up to four parents. [more inside]
Lord of the Jing(le)s
Miami Ad School Berlin student Valerio Amaro combines his two passions in life (advertising and The Lord of the Rings) by asking himself, "What would happen if J.R.R Tolkien worked in advertising?" His answer: One Ad To Rule Them All . [more inside]
Well, maybe a little fallible
Toronto Historical Map viewer
The Toronto Historical Map viewer (created by Nathan Ng, also behind the Historical Maps of Toronto website) is a zoomable map that allows the viewer to shift between maps of the city at numerous points from 1818 to 2012. [more inside]
You're in big trouble, mister!
Did Danny Tanner deal with the grief of losing his pregnant wife in a fatal car crash by creating an imaginary daughter named "Michelle"? (SLYT)
Trusting God
Patrick Henry College has been called "God's Harvard." The tiny, elite school is considered a safe haven for fundamentalist evangelical Christians. It teaches a dominionist "Biblical Worldview" and has a uniquely religious campus culture (pdf) that emphasizes evangelical moral values. Which leaves female students in a particular bind: How do you report sexual assault at a place where authorities seem skeptical that such a thing even exists?
Just when you thought it was safe to feed the bunnies.
Banished: the widely anticipated city-building strategy game released.
You control a group of exiled travelers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland.
Created by a single developer, Luke Hodorowicz, Banished reached 13 500 active players* on its first day of release on Steam. [screenshots] [more inside]
Created by a single developer, Luke Hodorowicz, Banished reached 13 500 active players* on its first day of release on Steam. [screenshots] [more inside]
A cartographic history of why North, not East or South, is up
How the north ended up on top of the map is an article by Nick Danforth, author/curator of (The/Mid) Afternoon Map blog, detailing how the north-up orientation came to be the default orientation, looking beyond Eurocentrism to Byzantine monks and Majorcan Jews who set the path for modern cartography. If you want more information, you might enjoy the Wikipedia article on the history of cartography, or you can really dig deep with the three-volume text, The History of Cartography, which is available in full from the University of Chicago Press online, split into individual PDFs for each chapter. [more inside]
I would hide it by talking to people with my hands over my face
A young woman with hirsuteness caused by PCOS talks about living as a "bearded lady." Previously: another young woman with a beard who observes the Sikh practice of kesh (uncut hair).
The return of the mighty Afghan Whigs.
Sixteen years after their last album, '1965' (it wasn't only Madonna making kick-ass music in 1998), Bob Odenkirk outs The Afghan Whigs' return with a new album on SubPop, 'Do to the Beast'. For your viewing pleasure, the video for the sublime new western 'Algiers'. The album sees light of day on April 14 & 15, 2014. Greg Dulli on getting the band back together and how Bob Odenkirk happened to tweet first.
Citizen Ailes
A few years back, Fox News head Roger Ailes moved to Garrison, NY, built a house, bought the local newspaper, and got involved in local politics. New York Magazine has the story of Ailes' efforts to remake the small town in his own image, and the rage, paranoia, and narcissism those who've interacted with him have come to expect.
Looking for versatile
'Looking': On Bottom Shame. The fifth episode of HBO's Looking, "Looking for the Future," focused solely on the relationship of Patrick and Ritchie. Ritchie will be your Rachel (and your Ross).
“I developed games to escape. This was my own world I created."
The New Yorker profiles Klaus Teuber: The Man Who Built Catan
"These choices are unavoidably ideological"
"Finlayson’s attitude to language can be related to his politics. As an admirer and advocate of free market capitalism, he considers human society nothing more than the sum total of the actions of an aggregate of free and rational individuals. Just as these free and rational individuals are wholly responsible for their beliefs and choices, so they are entirely responsible for the meanings of the language they use. If there is any ambiguity in a piece of language, then this is the result of some individual’s failure to stop splitting infinitives, or breaking some other rule. " -- At Reading the Maps, Scott Hamilton rejects New Zealand's Attorney General and Minister of Treaty Negotiations Chris Finlayson's reductionist calls for "clear" language, in favour of the more complex approach to English as articulated by H. W. Fowler.
Where no photographer has gone before
Oh, No! Bob Casale, Devo founding member, dead at 61.
Bob Casale passed away last night from conditions that lead to heart failure. Mr. Casale formed the band Devo in 1972 with his brother Gerald Casale, and brothers Mark Mothersbaugh and Bob Mothersbaugh, and drummer Alan Meyers (who passed away last year).
On Not Going Home
On Not Going Home "Logically, a refusal to go home should validate, negatively, the very idea of home, rather in the way that Said’s idea of exile validates the idea of an original ‘true home’. But perhaps the refusal to go home is consequent on the loss, or lack, of home: as if those fortunate expatriates were really saying to me: ‘I couldn’t go back home because I wouldn’t know how to anymore.’ And there is ‘Home’ and ‘a home’. "
Man bites dog
"My dog bit my child" A thoughtful post from blogger Lola the Pitty with excellent tips on how to monitor play and help kids to successfully interact with family pets. [more inside]
carefully cut up a straight stretch to the tip of the nose
Sandra Holmborn does bloody makeup, nails and lips and also offers tutorials like this one, making lips into an eye.
frugal engineering can boost your space program
Trip to Mars Doesn’t Have to Break the Bank
Just days after the launch of India’s Mangalyaan satellite, NASA sent off its own Mars mission, five years in the making, named Maven. Its cost: $671 million. The budget of India’s Mars mission, by contrast, was just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last year’s space-based hit, “Gravity.” “The mission is a triumph of low-cost Indian engineering,” said Roddam Narasimha, an aerospace scientist and a professor at Bangalore’s Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research. “By excelling in getting so much out of so little, we are establishing ourselves as the most cost-effective center globewide for a variety of advanced technologies,” said Mr. Narasimha.(NYTSL)
"We're not just making music together, we're making history"
Deep Elm Records, which turns 20 years old next year, today announced that all 200+ of its albums are available on a "name your price, no minimum" basis: "If you have means please show them love by naming your price. If you do not have any means, in exchange for each download we kindly request that you post, share, tag and tweet to tell your friends about each album as our bands depend on your word of mouth." [more inside]
From the Fifteenth Arrondissement
Mavis Gallant, one of finest writers in English of the 20th century, has died. Gallant was 91, and had been suffering from osteoporosis for many years. [more inside]
@BarackObama Tomorrow: @HouseOfCards. No spoilers, please
On Valentine's Day, Netflix released the second season of House of Cards. 16 percent of Netflix users on one particular Internet service watched at least one episode of the show over the weekend, and shares of Netflix hit an all-time high of $439.49 on Thursday. But when, exactly, Does Watching a Lot of Netflix Become a 'Binge'?
Wall Street Debutants' Big Party
"I wanted to make the sound more like rock."
45 years ago today, Miles Davis and the remnants of the second quintet recorded In a Silent Way. Produced by Teo Macero, its release in July of 1969 marked (for some) the beginning of something different. [more inside]
Visual Patterns.
Visual Patterns. Here are the first few steps. What's the equation?
Jerry Orbach Tours the Law and Order Set (SLYT)
Codename: ANTICRISIS GIRL
Top-secret documents published by The Intercept reveal how GCHQ and the National Security Agency have targeted Wikileaks and "the human network that supports Wikileaks", with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution, targeting The Pirate Bay and Anonymous, urging countries to file criminal charges against Julian Assange, and secretly logging visitors to the Wikileaks website. [more inside]
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