August 5, 2018
Dark Miasma
The latest Oglaf is not one, not two, but twenty-four pages long. It depicts the struggle of Kronar, wrathful eagle of blood, against the sorcery of scented candles.
I’m still hoping for more Son of Kronar one day.
(Some pages probably nsfw, others on the site radically so)
Previously. Previouslier.
Barry Chuckle, RIP To You.
Barry Elliott, professionally known as Barry Chuckle one half of the Chuckle Brothers has died. I'm at a loss quite how to describe it, it's a little like if Sooty or Sweep died. That the brothers worked together successfully for so many years and managed to make themselves a positive part of so many generations' childhood memories is a testament to the man. The BBC site has a selection of photos of his career, going back to early success in iconic '60s and '70s talent shows. Tellingly many of the pictures show both Barry and Paul together, who were not only brothers, but also comedy partners for most of their lives.
RIP Charlotte Rae
The great Charlotte Rae who will always be remembered as Mrs. Garrett from Diff'rent Strokes and the Facts of Life has passed away at 92. I "reconnected" with her recently after spotting her in the first season of Sesame Street, as the postwoman. A quick search brought me to this wonderful long-form interview with her on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's website (which has hundreds of in-depth interviews with TV legends).
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tail...
Seven castaways found on remote island in Canada. “Two men fishing near Cross Lake in Manitoba, Canada, came across a small island with some peculiar castaways on Monday. JR Cook and his friend, Leon, were boating by the island when they heard what sounded like crying. They weren't sure who – or what – it was, and it was getting too dark to investigate.”
“code golfing.”
This Coder Fit a Bootable CD and Video Game Into a Tweet [Motherboard] “A few weeks ago, Alok Menghrajani, a security engineer at Square, set out to challenge himself. He wanted to fit a bootable CD-ROM, and a retro video game inside it, into a tweet.” [more inside]
medemer: be added to one another
“This country has beautiful highways, it has beautiful malls. All of you with the means have cars. Lights don’t go out. Phones don’t cut out. Water doesn’t get shut off,” he said of the United States. “So why is it that via Viber, via Facebook, via YouTube, you all spend every night in Ethiopia?” Hannah Giorgios writes about how the Ethiopian and Eritrean diaspora are responding to Ethiopia's new prime minister. [more inside]
Trowel Counting
Discovering the Archaeologists of Africa is a project to identify how many archaeologists work in Africa, what they do, what their skills and qualifications are and then to use these data to help build capacity across the continent. [more inside]
The Collections of Eric Wrobbel
Postcards from the Edge
More than 3,000 geese died what were surely horrible deaths—some of them washed to shore dead, others sunk into the Pit, while still others took off and were found dead days later in parking lots and other places around the region. And yet right now, before us, the Pit shimmers like a Tahitian lagoon, and I am fully seduced by its aural glow. “Isn’t it something?” whispers Barb.Toxic Tourism in Montana.
At loss for words
"Collusion is not a legal term."
Your lede: President Trump today confessed that his son, son-in-law, and campaign chair met in June 2016 with Russian agents in hope of obtaining Russian intelligence to sway the 2016 election. Trump - who denies advance knowledge of the meeting - defends it as "totally legal." [more inside]
Women SF Writers of the 1970s
Fighting Erasure is a series by writer and critic James Davis Nicoll where he recommends books by female science fiction and fantasy writers who debuted in the 1970s. It's in ten parts: A-F, G, H, I-J, K, L, M, N-P, R-S, and T-Z. Some writers Nicoll hasn't read, or has missed, are discussed in comments. He was inspired to start the series by Jeanne Gomoll's classic 1987 essay An Open Letter to Joanna Russ, which noted that erasure of the previous decade's women writers and fans had already begun, and Susan Schwartz' 1982 article in the New York Times about women and science fiction.
More bollocks than you’ll see on a prize ram at the Lambeth Country Show
In which Jay Rayner struggles to travel through England on public transport - “One train is cancelled. Another sits outside Swindon for an hour, unwilling to enter, as if it’s been there before and is in no hurry to repeat the experience” - but reaches The Painswick and enjoys a splendid lunch. Other recent positive reviews include the crab chip butty and the fried cheese sandwich. [Some previous Jay Rayner]
Painless
What “M*A*S*H” Taught Us
Lost among this year’s observances of the paradigm-shifting cultural events of 1968 is the fiftieth anniversary of the book “MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors,” a little-remembered shaggy-dog volume by Richard Hooker that engendered fourteen more novels; a feature-film adaptation (directed by the then up-and-coming Robert Altman); and one of the highest-rated television series of all time.
La oiseau
L’Aviatrice, a short animated film inspired by Jacqueline Auriol, France's first female test pilot. (SLVimeo, French with English subtitles)
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