February 8, 2017
Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies.
sadanduseless.com cast its digital net and caught a bunch of Dads Who Didn’t Want The Damn Dogs In Their Lives.
It is the little gray cells, mon ami!
A few moments of appreciation for Agatha Christie's finest creation, fastidious Belgian Hercule Poirot -- and David Suchet, the man who most memorably brought him to life across 70 episodes and 13 series, all streaming on Netflix. Poirot was the first fictional character to have an obituary in the New York Times; he rated the front page.
Shark jumps shark in this Smash Mouth-Santana monstrosity
The A.V. Club says it better than I could: Here is the song “All Star” by Smash Mouth, but it is sung to the tune of “Walking On The Sun,” also by Smash Mouth. It’s sort of hard to tell where one ends and the next begins, a quality exacerbated by the fact that it is set to the video for Santana’s “Smooth,” because why not. There’s an uneasy body horror element to the whole thing, an unnatural embodiment being forced to perform against its will—as if there is a mind trapped somewhere deep within this monstrosity begging only to die.
Sleeping Rough Just Got A Little Less Rough In Manchester, UK
The Invisible Workload That Drags Women Down
Like much of the feminized work done more often by women than men, thinking, worrying, paying attention, and delegating is work that is largely invisible (warning: autoplay video), gets almost no recognition, and involves no pay or benefits. [more inside]
O Rio de Janeiro e Cidade Linda
Favelagrafia
Nine young people were given iphones as cameras and sent back into their communidades more commonly known as Favelas.
See the communites of Alemão (frequently a war zone), Babelonia, Borel, Cantagalo, Mineira, Prazeres, Providencia (The first Favela), Rocinha (the largest), and Santa Marta through the eyes of youth who are from these neighbourhoods and have no photographic training, just unbounded enthusiasm.
Nine young people were given iphones as cameras and sent back into their communidades more commonly known as Favelas.
See the communites of Alemão (frequently a war zone), Babelonia, Borel, Cantagalo, Mineira, Prazeres, Providencia (The first Favela), Rocinha (the largest), and Santa Marta through the eyes of youth who are from these neighbourhoods and have no photographic training, just unbounded enthusiasm.
Cowbird to enter archive-only mode
"We know this news will feel sad to many of you, especially our regular authors." On March 1st digital storytelling site Cowbird will become a read-only archive. [more inside]
The 5th wall is the ceiling
Ever wondered what it'd be like to work at Dunder Mifflin, Pearson Hardman or the Department of Parks and Recreation of the city of Pawnee?Detailed 3D renderings of workplace floor plans from popular TV shows (from the Drawbotics blog)
A few months back, our love for Sunday afternoons spent binge-watching led us to start a side project that we are proud to share with you today. As a team, we decided to use our 3D skills to recreate some of our favorite TV show work spaces, down to a lot of little details that will not go unnoticed by hardcore fans. After marathon-viewing these shows for weeks and more than 200 hours of work, here are the results...
“From Nothing Comes A King”
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword [Trailer] [YouTube] “The young Arthur runs the back passages of Londinium with his crew, not knowing his royal lineage until he draws the sword Excalibur from the stone. Instantly confronted by the sword’s influence, Arthur is forced to decide where to become involved with his power. Throwing in with the Resistance and an enigmatic young woman named Guinevere, he must learn to master the sword, face down his demons and unite the people to defeat the tyrant Vortigern — who murdered his parents and stole his crown — and became king.”
Slight vibration on my way up... Measured as below average
Kone elevators communicate constantly with their analytics cloud to help the company keep tabs on their condition. They have a real-time page that translates this communication into human language, from elevators around the world. [warning: this page talks to you as it relays the conversation, but it is in a quiet and calm voice. There is a mute option.] The analytics cloud is run by IBM's Watson, "which uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data." (pdf, p. 20). IBM's Harriet Green: "Our systems reason and create hypotheses about what may be happening, and, crucially, they learn. That means, the more data these systems ingest, the better they get. . . . [T]hese technologies will help engineers to figure out in advance when a part in an elevator may need servicing or replacing, enabling predictive maintenance" (20).
Cheaper than water for 25 years and counting
A 23-ounce can of AriZona Iced Tea is $0.99. It says it right there on the can. That is, in most gas stations and corner stores where you find such a can, cheaper than water. It's been sitting at that price point since its introduction in 1992. How the hell can you sell iced tea for less than water? [more inside]
Zambia is ahead of many nations with the new law
You don’t have to have children to take advantage of Mother’s Day in Zambia. The country now uses the term to refer to a law that allows women the day off when the symptoms of menstruation become too painful. In effect for a year, the law’s consequences are sparking debate about women in the workplace and how to create a gender-sensitive work environment.
A rare bear - the golden Brown Bear of the Gobi Desert
At a global glance, the awe-inspiring brown bear is the most widely distributed bear in the world. Of the eight bear species*, only the brown bear and American black bear are listed as of least concern. But some of the brown bear sub-species are critically endangered, including the rare Gobi bear (Ursus arctos gobiensis), one of the few larger animals to call the extreme desert its home, where they have adapted to be shaggier and smaller than their North American relatives in order to survive a far harsher climate (YouTube / National Geographic). [more inside]
And you can issue commands using a half shell
"We finally have a computer that can survive the surface of Venus... one of the most inhospitable places in the solar system. Descending through the clouds of boiling sulphuric rain is actually the easy bit—the hard bit is not being cremated by the surface temperature of 470°C (878°F) or crushed by the atmospheric pressure, which is about 90 times that of Earth, the same as swimming 900 metres under water. [more inside]
W. E. B. Du Bois' Infographics from 1900
Over 50 infographics on African-American life created by a team led by W. E. B. Du Bois to show at the American Negro Exhibit for the 1900 Paris Exposition. Jacob Alonso at Seeing Complexity puts these century old infographics into design-historical context while Ellen Terrell puts them into the context of the Paris Exposition. [via Public Domain Review]
Least Used Train Stations in the U.K.
Geoff Marshall (of Londonist) has a growing video playlist on the least used train stations in the U.K. It's turning into a quirky and entertaining exploration of some quiet corners of the network, including a surprise guest appearance! More info on Geoff's blog. [more inside]
Introducing Open Access at The Met
All 375,000 images of public-domain works in The Met collection are now available to use, share, and remix—without restriction.
Graphically Prufrock
Actually just a monkey with a Slap Chop
Whole Foods' latest Manhattan location, near Bryant Park, will feature a produce butcher. [more inside]
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss
While regular dancing has jumps, twirls and spins, indoor skydiving allows flyers to make astonishing movements in the air.
The winning performance (FB video) (YT video) in the freestyle category of the 2017 Wind Games was by Kyra Poh who is fourteen years old. She also won gold in the solo speed category (completing a set of moves in the fastest time), despite this being her first time competing against adults.
Victorian Realities: Water Closets and Hooped skirts [6min 27sec SYTL]
Victorian realities - How did they use the toilet??! If you ever wondered "How did Victorian Era women use the facilities with all those extravagant undergarments?", then this is the video for you. Note: No nudity. SFW simulated toilet use, with a chair as a prop. [more inside]
The universe Richard Dawkins imagines couldn't exist for five seconds
Robert Newman has won an award for his late 2015 radio show and book, Robert Newman's Entirely Accurate Encyclopaedia of Evolution which tackles several issues regarding evolution, particularly neo-Darwinism. He isn't much of a fan of Dawkins. [more inside]
"Colette, whose work is a window wide open on life"
Colette (in full Sidone-Gabrielle Colette 1873–1954) was a popular and critically-acclaimed French novelist whose works included: a homoerotic Girls’ School coming-of-age story (for which her unscrupulous first husband initially claimed sole credit);
an account of life as a music-hall performer (drawn from first-hand experience); a recounting of a middle-aged courtesan’s affair with a much younger man (which echoed her own scandalous relationship with her stepson); and the tale of a fifteen-year-old girl being groomed for a life of sex-work by her elderly relatives (later adapted into a Broadway play and a Hollywood musical). Please note that some links will be mildly NSFW. [more inside]
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