This apparently is what interested you in 2017:
This is what happens when you peel off a piece of wall that is layered with 30 years of graffiti. (This post got the most hits of 2017)
The History Of 100 Years Of Women's Health Care At Planned Parenthood (Because women care about health care)
Notes - a life story, a love story (A good ad is worth posting)
Cat City (The internet loves the kitties)
Creative Woodturning (Go figure)
Drum Selector (A type of phone dial???)
R.I.P. Gerard (My saddest post ever)
灯花（The light）(Because we're suckers for anthropomorphism?)
PresidentialTrump (I try to keep him off the blog but couldn't resist this one)
Blortasia (Readers probably clicked on this one hoping to find a tasty post about my buddy. Sorry to disappoint)
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Recycled Plastic Roads
Asphalt roads contribute over 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide around the world each year. Construction company, VolkerWessels, is using recycled plastic bottles as a paving material. Lightweight and easily installed, the roads are built to last three times longer than asphalt.
More here
More here
Sunday Links
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| Image credit |
High-Design Pies
Everything you need to know to saber a Champagne
Shopping List for Champagne
Hatebeak is a death metal band fronted by a Congo African grey parrot. They never tour so as to not torture the bird. Listen to one of their tunes
The Cat In The Hat Songbook
Abandoned castles around the world
The Best Bad Restaurant Reviews of 2017
The World's Best Airlines for Economy Class travel | 2017
I could live here: Castle Combe: a picturesque medieval village in England
The architectural mastery of Ethiopia’s ancient Lalibela and St. Mary of Zion churches
18 Recipes to Kick off your Post-Holiday Reset I made the Quick Vegan Enchiladas with Sweet Potato Sauce and thought it was pretty good.
The True Story of Mrs. Alford’s Nitroglycerin Factory
Rich Industrial Style Unites Jewel Colours with Exposed Brick Walls Gorgeous! Via
Montreal’s Mount Royal Park gets some ‘windswept’ cabins
James Bond’s Martinis
Words (and Phrases) that Will Show Your Age
Murder for the Holidays: The slaying at Sandringham
Best of CH 2017: Cocktails I'm a bourbon on the rocks gal. Most of these concoctions seem unnecessarily complex to me.
Download Free Pop Art Posters Celebrate Pioneering Women Scientists
Freedom for the World’s Most Famous Hostages Came at a Heavy Price Long after the #BringBackOurGirls campaign faded, Nigeria paid a secret ransom of €3 million to free some of the kidnapped schoolgirls. Via
Operation Vegetarian: The British Plan to Cover Germany with Anthrax
What Do You Call a World That Can’t Learn From Itself? It is not even a baby. It is something more like an old man, on the edge of darkness.
On the occasion of Criterion’s release of their edition of Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 costume drama, Barry Lyndon, Todd Alcott decided to sit down and try to tackle this most perplexing and misunderstood of Kubrick’s movies. You'll find Parts 2-9 in the blog's sidebar. Via
A Rare Look Inside the Library at Grey Gardens
St Helena: How to fly into the 'world's most useless airport' Don't read this if you're afraid of flying.
The science myths that will not die Thanks Bruce!
How the Animal Menagerie of Versailles Changed 17th-Century Art
So Long, Juke Box Jimmy
Saturday, December 30, 2017
David Gilmour Sings Shakespeare's Sonnet 18
This video of Gilmour singing Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 was released as an extra on the 2002 DVD David Gilmour in Concert, but the song itself is connected with When Love Speaks, a 2002 benefit album for London's Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts.
IMO Gilmore's historic 90-foot houseboat, the Astoria, is the star of the video.
More: Open Culture
IMO Gilmore's historic 90-foot houseboat, the Astoria, is the star of the video.
More: Open Culture
Indoor Cat Tree Looks Like Sculpture
At last an indoor cat tree that isn't eye-burningly ugly! Unfortunately, at 1 million yen ($11,160CAD), the Neko cat tree is wallet-bustingly expensive.
Made from circular poles of wood sourced from Japan’s Hida region, the tree incorporates a Greek marble base, Danish fabric and hemp rope from Japan.
Via
Dabchick Wets The Bed
Dabchick, Barnaby Dixon‘s puppet, awakes to find out that he’s wet the bed and explains this messy faux pas by reenacting the elaborate dream he had the night before.
Via
Via
Friday, December 29, 2017
Photographs of remains of the Hiroshima atomic blast
Ishiuchi Miyako photographs remains of the Hiroshima atomic blast from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Through Miyako’s lens, the things we leave behind are not merely totems of ourselves, but rather objects with lives of their own.
Images: From Here and Now: Atomic Bomb Artifacts, ひろしま/Hiroshima 1945/2007—.
Via
Trippy Green Code In The Matrix Is What???
Origami Birds
Origami enthusiast Cristian Marianciuc creates beautiful paper birds with painstaking precision.
More here
More here
Tempus Fugit, Memento Mori
Time flies. It seems like 2017 passed in the blink of an eye. This kinetic metal sculpture entitled "Tempus Fugit" is a working clock in the medieval style with small "minions" that keep it running.
Created by Imachination Labs.
Created by Imachination Labs.
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Midcentury modern birdhouses
This collection by California-based Sourgrassbuilt draws off the vernacular architecture of the traditional birdhouse. They are so cute!
More here
More here
What To Do If, God Forbid, You Fall Through Ice
I hope this doesn't happen to you but, if it does, you'll be prepared.
Via Ontario Conservation Officers Association
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon. Now, He’s the Only One.
No one else spoke his language anymore. The survival of his culture had suddenly come down to a sole, complicated man.
Read More
Read More
Funny Marriage Tweets
Marriage is a journey. You might as well have a few laughs along the way. Bored Panda has compiled a list of tweets from people who appear to be doing just that.
More funny tweets here
More funny tweets here
#DoWhatYouCan't
Ostriches can't fly. Or can they? This award winning Samsung ad shows how VR can transport you to other worlds.
Foxes
I love to see these sweet foxes by @hourlyFox sprinkled among the daily political horror show tweets. They cheer me up every day.
— Fox (@hourlyFox) December 27, 2017
— Fox (@hourlyFox) December 27, 2017
— Fox (@hourlyFox) December 26, 2017
Theatre Curtain Taliesin
Frank Lloyd Wright made an abstract drawing of a Wisconsin landscape and his students surprised him by turning it into the curtain for the theater at his school, Taliesin.— Avery Trufelman (@trufelman) December 21, 2017
FLW loved it, but thought that the whites were too stark, so he painted it with a thin layer of weak coffee. pic.twitter.com/CIKEAXCVOV
The Sprinkler Sprinkled
Cinema pioneer Louis Lumière directed and produced L’Arroseur arrosé (“The Sprinkler Sprinkled”), the first known film comedy, in 1895. Just 45 seconds long, it was also the first film with a story line.
The poster for L'Arroseur (above), illustrated by Marcellin Auzolle, is the first poster designed to promote an individual film.
Link
Thanks Bruce!
One Of Russia's Last Guitar Factories
This guitar factory in Izhevsk, Russia, struggles to stay afloat as its traditional ways try to compete with cheaper musical instruments made abroad.
More here
More here
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
La Conquête du Pain
Bread, it is bread that the Revolution needs !
Craving a little Marx for lunch? Or maybe an Engels with ham and cheese? Those are the names of some delicious, cheap (3€ to 5€), hand-made with organic flour sandwiches at La Conquête du Pain, the only self-managed bakery in the Ile-de-France region. The Conquête du Pain shows that running a successful business can go along with solidarity and mutual assistance in the neighbourhood.
More here
Happy St. Stephen's Day
… Mixed up with that drink made from girders.
Cause it's all we've got left as they draw their last breath,
Ah, it's nice for the kids, as you finally get rid of them,
In the St Stephen's Day Murders.…
Cause it's all we've got left as they draw their last breath,
Ah, it's nice for the kids, as you finally get rid of them,
In the St Stephen's Day Murders.…
If You Like Pina Coladas
Mitch O'Connell bought a knee high stack of Swinger Ad magazines from the 70s and spent the next few months leisurely leafing through the personals. These now defunct magazines were aimed at a readership of people with specific sexual preferences such as those seeking BDSM encounters, or the services of professional dominants or submissives. Some of them were unintentionally humorous.
Via
Rolex Submariner Watchmaking Demonstration
Inside the Rolex Submariner, a demonstration of the intricacies of the Rolex calibre 3135. Watchfinder Head Watchmaker Tony Williams shows you how this famous movement is taken apart and reassembled.
Thanks Bruce!
Thanks Bruce!
Pixi Light Installation
Pixi is a light installation in Drenthe, the Netherlands, created by artist collective WERC. It consists of more than 1,000 LED lights that communicate wirelessly, reacting to each other and to the visitors. WERC wants to find out whether a technical natural phenomenon can imitate the complex aesthetics of nature, and whether the installation can interact with that nature.
Pixi Drenthe from WERC on Vimeo.
Via
Pixi Drenthe from WERC on Vimeo.
Via
Monday, December 25, 2017
The Mountain
Enjoy this stunning timelapse by Norwegian landscape filmmaker Terje Sorgjerd.
The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.
Via
The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.
Via
Sunday, December 24, 2017
What Are The World's Most Corrupt Countries?
First launched in 1995, the Corruption Perceptions Index has been widely credited with putting the issue of corruption on the international policy agenda.
Corruption Perceptions Index 2016 (Denmark is the least corrupt and Somalia ranks highest in corruption.)
Hemingway's Cuban Home
I visited Finca Viglia in 2016. It's worth a visit if you're in Havana.This video describes Hemingway's life in Cuba and the joint efforts of the Cuban government and a private U.S. foundation to preserve the house and its priceless artifacts.
Christmas Truce of 1914
On December 7, 1914, Pope Benedict XV suggested a temporary hiatus of the war for the celebration of Christmas. The warring countries refused to create any official cease-fire, but on Christmas the soldiers in the trenches declared their own unofficial truce.
More here
More here
Sunday Links
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| Casey Weldon's “Catharsis” Via |
1965 Beatles Contract Took Anti-Segregation Stance
The Red Lying Pub or not?
Where the Wild Trumps Are
A master list of the books that the most people loved this year. Lincoln In The Bardo appeared on 22 best-of lists this year. I'm ashamed to say I gave up on it about halfway in.
For puzzle enthusiasts Something to keep you out of trouble over the holidays
Anti-Nazi Christmas Pastoral Letter from the Bishop of Berlin, 1942 Via
Waiting for a miracle: a survey of Stanley Kubrick’s unrealized projects
Elf Bowling History: It's Not a Virus. It's Not Spyware. Via
So, last week, something pretty tragic happened in our household. It's taken me until now to wrap my head around it and find the words to describe the horror. An oldie but worth sharing again.
Author Elizabeth Berg Remembers the Year She Ruined Christmas
It’s In My Contract Being a movie star is pretty sweet work if you can get. So are the perks.
7 science stories in 2017 that made us go, “Whoa, that’s awesome”
Watermill for sale in Mill Lane, Keswick, Norfolk I could live here.
What to do about Kevin: He was friendly and well-educated. He loved his cat, Blueberry Panda. He shouted at demons and started fires.
Spitalfields Life has posted some wonderful images by photographer Donald McLeish (1879-1950)
How to spend two days in Portugal's second city I feel a trip to Porto taking shape...
Welcome to the molly house. 18th-Century Gay Bars
Christmas carols from Alan Turing's computer: the world's earliest surviving computer music recording.
How to Escape a Burning Building
Someone doesn't like Love Actually
A Journey Through Havana's Clandestine Book World
I did not know that Wild Poinsettias Can Grow 8 Feet Tall
The 20 Most Expensive Photos Sold at Auction (As of 2017)
Is it an Irish goodbye a French exit, or "to leave the English way?"
Were-Cats, The Most Mysterious Cats Of All
Winter palace: Sweden's Icehotel opens its doors
How the past affects the future: The story of the apostrophe
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Facial reconstruction of ‘Mary Magdalene’ skull
Biological anthropologist Philippe Charlier, from the University of Versailles, and forensic artist Philippe Froesch collaborated on a project to create a 3D computer reconstruction of a face that might have belonged to Mary Magdalene.
More here
More here
Friday, December 22, 2017
Fix and Release
A turtle trauma centre in Peterborough, Ontario fights to save endangered freshwater turtles — using a combination of modern veterinary medicine and things from the hardware store.
From CBC Short Docs
From CBC Short Docs
Stranger Come Home
American photographer Ward Long started the series Stranger Come Home after a big break-up.
“I sold all of my furniture and shoved the rest of my stuff in storage. Disconnected from both the past we shared and the future of togetherness that we had imagined, it felt like I had stepped out of my own life. I visited old friends on one coast, my parents on the other, and all of the places that I used to live. I missed our old apartment, and the feeling of knowing every cup in the cupboard. I wondered what to do next, and if anyone really knew how to make love stay. I think a lot of people find themselves in this sad drifting world after big changes in life, but I stayed in that psychic space for a long time.”His images depict loss, people, and landscape with literary precision.
More: FotoRoom
How to Nail That Job Interview
I hope I never have to go through another job interview but, if I do, I will be armed with the knowledge gleaned from Nathan W. Pyle's comics series "Nailed It".
More: Bored Panda
More: Bored Panda
Amelia Earhart's Fashion Line
Earhart began manufacturing her clothing line in 1933 in her suite in New York’s Hotel Seymour. Her work space only included a sewing machine and a mannequin. With the help of a single seamstress, Earhart brought her fashion line to life. Initially debuting at R.H. Macy & Co. in New York, Amelia Earhart Fashions went on to be sold at 30 department stores nationwide.
The Art of Ornamental Orange Peeling (1905)
“It is surprising what can be done with the conventional orange.”
More: The Public Domain Review
I’m Beginning to See the Light
The Ink Spots with Ella Fitzgerald to welcome the coming of longer days and shorter nights.
Via The Chawed Rosin
Via The Chawed Rosin
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Cocktails for Toasting the End of Patriarchy
Cocktails from Women’s Libation: Cocktails to Celebrate a Woman’s Right to Booze, by Merrily Grashin. Published by Plume
The Feminine Mys-tiki
The Frida Kahl-ada
More here
The Longest Night
Here's a cut paper/ silhouette stop-motion animation in tribute to the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. The nights will soon be getting shorter.
The Longest Night from Angie Pickman on Vimeo.
Music, words, art and animation by Angie Pickman
The Longest Night from Angie Pickman on Vimeo.
Music, words, art and animation by Angie Pickman
The World's Smallest Christmas Card
This Christmas card is 200 million times smaller than a postage stamp. The card was made on a silicon nitride membrane 200 nm thick, with a coating on each side of 40 nm of platinum 40 nm. Measuring in at 15x20 micrometres in size, you could fit over 200 million cards in a single postage stamp by volume.
Via
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Tatsuya Tanaka's Tiny Worlds
Art director and photographer Tatsuya Tanaka has been creating delightful miniature worlds every day since 2011. His clever dioramas depict tiny characters surrounded by broccoli trees, popcorn clouds, staple skyscrapers and clothespin diving boards. Brilliant.
Previously
You can see more from Tanaka’s work on Instagram
More here
Previously
You can see more from Tanaka’s work on Instagram
More here
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