June 16, 2013
Ain't No Such Thing As A UFO
Mirage Men is a book and documentary by fortean investigator and author Mark Pilkington on governmental manipulation and general mindfuckery of UFO investigators. "In 1983, while researching a documentary on the subject of UFOs for HBO, [Linda Howe] was engaged by Richard 'Rick' Doty, an agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), initially with the promise of helping her investigate an alleged UFO landing near Ellsworth Air Force Base. But Howe's meeting with Doty took an unexpected turn when the AFOSI agent suddenly produced a manila folder, saying she could take a look at it but, not remove it from the office or make notes. Within it was a document titled "Briefing Paper for the President of the United States of America on the Subject of Unidentified Aerial Vehicles", which listed a number of alleged UFO crash retrievals by the government, as well as paragraphs that became "emblazoned" on Howe's mind concerning how they had discovered that Homo sapiens was a species created by extraterrestrials through genetic manipulation of primates." [more inside]
Time Travel to 1930's Paris
Paris Apartment opened for the first time in 70 years Including intriguing links to a scandalous Belle Époque art wold romance and a $3 million dollar painting. Subject of this AskMe last year but includes additional photos. [more inside]
Global Bloomsday
For the first time, James Joyce's Ulysses will be read around the world in one day. Today. Which is Bloomsday. The reading, organized by the James Joyce Centre, draws upon volunteers from 25 countries. Previous readings of the book include the excellent RTE (Irish public radio) version from 1982, now made freely available. And a short excerpt read by Joyce himself.
Cocaine's A Hell Of A Drug
Sly Stone's history of drug addiction and eccentricity is well known. But, a recent California Court of Appeals ruling details how a series of ill advised business deals left Stone destitute. [more inside]
"We perceive the world through metaphors"
Why I Am No Longer A Skeptic
That's right: the nerds won, decades ago, and they're now as thoroughly established as any other part of the establishment. And while nerds a relatively new elite, they're overwhelmingly the same as the old: rich, white, male, and desperate to hang onto what they've got. And I have come to realise that skepticism, in their hands, is just another tool to secure and advance their privileged position, and beat down their inferiors. As a skeptic, I was not shoring up the revolutionary barricades: instead, I was cheering on the Tsar's cavalry.Referenced in The Cult Of Bayes' Theorem [more inside]
Hillbilly Heaven in Chicago
Chicago's hillbilly culture may come as a surprise. The great migration of African Americans from the South to Chicago is, of course, widely known and well documented; their impact on the south and west sides continues to be clear. The lesser known and somewhat later stream of white Southerners ("hillbillies" for short, though that's a pejorative, of course) had a big impact on the city's north side. [more inside]
And the home of the
The NFL announced a change to its bag policy Thursday and beginning with the 2013 season, only clear plastic, vinyl or PVC bags will be permitted inside NFL stadiums. [more inside]
At the junction of Joyce and the War on Terror
The first thing I did after I heard about the highly classified NSA PRISM program two years ago was set up a proxy server in Peshawar to email me passages from Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.
7 year bookends
Daily curated Tumblr of the Harvard Houghton Library
The Houghton Library is Harvard's largest for rare books and manuscripts, and the tumbler currently showcases an image a day, with a link to the record in the online catalog for anyone who wants to know more about the source or come in to see it in person.
Teddy and Alice
Abraham's homework
Ingenious Headpieces
(street scene)
What's a holometer?
Teddy and Alice
Abraham's homework
Ingenious Headpieces
(street scene)
What's a holometer?
Back when a textile factory worker had the right stuff
Fifty years ago today, Valentina Tereshkova became the first textile factory worker, first civilian and of course first woman in space. She completed 48 orbits, in the process amassing more space time than any of the American astronauts had logged. It would be almost twenty years before a second female astronaut got into space, slightly more than that for the first American woman. In total, fiftyseven women have flown into space, or roughly ten percent of the total number of astronauts.
"Best day at work ever."
Motor Trend has put a considerable amount of effort and money into their YouTube presence (autoplay) over the last year or so, and have pulled up a decent batting average for quality videos. However, one of their series stands head and shoulders above the rest: Roadkill (also autoplay). Starring Hot Rod Magazine's Editor in Chief David Freiburger and Staff Editor Mike Finnegan, Roadkill is a roughly 20 minute web series, typically posted the first Friday of every month, and is essentially two hot rod/muscle car guys taking on self-imposed amusingly bad ideas - such as throwing a dart at a map and trying to buy a car and drive home on only $1,500 - or occasionally chronicling the goings on at major Hot Rod Mag events like Hot Rod Drag Week. [more inside]
Wonderfilled
Oreo Wonderfilled Anthem. And during which show did The Martin Agency decide to roll out its new, optimistic, and wonder filled (yes I know) Oreo ad campaign? Why, during the sometimes dark and always cynical show Mad Men, of course. [more inside]
A test for the mind as much as the body
The Self-Transcendence race starts today.
It's a run around the block, 5,649 times around the block.
Runners cover 3,100 miles, running 6 am to midnight over 52 days, at least 60 miles a day over concrete. The best runners average 75 miles a day. All the runners seem to have the same mantra.
The first race was in 1997, “The first couple years, the kids threw things at us.”
Keep the LiDAR on it
In a Sydney Morning Herald exclusive, an international team of archeologists have revealed the discovery of a hitherto unknown city in Cambodia.
Dr Evans, director of the University of Sydney's archaeological research centre in Cambodia, said the ''eureka moment'' in the discovery came weeks earlier when the lidar data popped up on a computer screen. ''With this instrument - bang - all of a sudden we saw an immediate picture of an entire city that no one knew existed which is just remarkable,'' he said.Mahendraparvata, as the city is known, is estimated to be 350 years older than the UNESCO Heritage site of Angkor Wat, built on on Phnom Kulen before Jayavarman II descended from the mountain to build another capital. As Dr Evans said ''This is where it all began, giving rise to the Angkor civilisation that everyone associates with Angkor Wat." The news comes on the heels of the recent repatriation of looted archeological treasures back to Cambodia by the New York Metropolitan museum.
Haunted by the Future
How New Yorkers Make It There
'80s Emiliano melodic pro-Soviet punk
CCCP Fedeli alla linea was an Italian "Emilian1 melodic music pro-Soviet punk" band that performed and recorded between 1981 and 1990, disbanding on the same day as German reunification. For those who can read Italian, here is their story in their words. For the rest of us, Wikpedia does a pretty good job of thumbnailing the group, calling their sound a "genre-defying convergence of militant rock, industrial music, Folk, electropop, Middle Eastern music, and even chamber music." CCP's final album was Epica Etica Etnica Pathos (Epic, Ethics, Ethnic, Pathos), recorded live in an abandoned farmhouse/villa in the Romagna countryside. (exterior shot, and a couple more pics on this page) [more inside]
Chromatic Typewriter
American painter Tyree Callahan converted an old typewriter from 1930s into a machine that prints colors instead of letters.
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