Sunday Links

I’m in London and kind of busy. I preposted some London themed Sunday links for you.

1868 – the year that your socks could kill you 

Museum Celebrates Hunk of Fat that Nearly Flooded London with Feces: Pieces of the Whitechapel fatberg, which once weighed more than a double-decker bus, are now on view at the Museum of London.

Women's March through London (1915) 

Fashion fit for a suffragette procession

An Interactive Map of Grim London Via

London’s Bizarrest Final Resting Places

Oldest Footage of London Ever 

The Execution Dock in London was used for more than 400 years to execute pirates, smugglers and  mutineers

If London Were Like New York A peep at London after the American invasion of 1907.

The Truth about the Eccentric Jane Lewson who died aged 116 in 1816 She was reputedly one of the figures who may have provided the inspiration for Dickens’s Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.

Noli me tangere During the Blitz, Londoners rallied for concerts held in the vacant National Gallery, whose treasures were stored deep in a distant Welsh mine—all but one work, Titian's Noli me tangere. What was so special about that painting?

A tour guide to great lives: Women's London by Rachel Kolsky

London Scenes In The Marvel Cinematic Universe Films 

There's A Silly Old Bear Afternoon Tea for fans of Winnie the Pooh.

Tolmers: Beginning or End? A classic documentary depicting a fight by local residents, small businesses and squatters in central London to stop their neighbourhood being destroyed by property speculators. See Part 2

A Secret Bit Of London's Roman Wall You Can Actually Walk Through

A public toilet in Tottenham is a new pub 

This Old House

Stripping wallpaper and found this message underneath that was written by Mr. Nag. We’ve been in this old house 32 years now and our dogs, Katie and Dash, though long gone are still loved.

Jiff Correspondence Card For Busy Students

Gasoline was initially discarded

Edwin Drake dug the first oil well in Pennsylvania in 1859 and distilled the oil to produce kerosene for lighting. Although other petroleum products, including gasoline, were also produced in the distillation process, Drake had no use for the gasoline and other products, so he discarded them. This was common practice until the invention of the automobile. By 1920, 9 million vehicles powered by gasoline were on the road, and service stations selling gasoline were opening around the country. Today, gasoline is the fuel for nearly all light-duty vehicles in North America.

Link

Thanks Bruce!

That's How Every Empire Falls

Steam Powered Dentistry

This sketch of “teeth painlessly extracted by steam power” appears on an envelope addressed to a Dr J. Chapman of Totton, Southampton. It's nice to imagine someone taking the time to decorate  the envelope before it made its way through the Victorian postal system.

More here

A Chair at the Beach

Thinking of sitting on that chair? Of course you are. But is it worth it?



Via Miss Cellania

Kurt Cobain On Identity

Kurt Cobain, co-founder of Nirvana, was born on this day in 1967.



Via

The United States of Canada

What would a map of the US look like if American states had the same population imbalances as Canadian provinces?

Click here for larger image

38.9% of Canadians live in the province of Ontario while just 0.4% reside in PEI. This map by Reddit user Upvoteanthology imagines a superstate, Shanherria, with 38.9 percent of the U.S. population that spans the entire U.S. South, plus Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas and the non-Chicago parts of Illinois. Meanwhile, Maine is roughly equivalent to Prince Edward Island, and the three northern territories map to Alaska.

Via The Map Room

Dress Like A Woman

Dress Like A Woman, with a foreword by Roxane Gay and introduction by Vanessa Friedman, features more than 300 pictures showing women at work across the world – and examines their evolving roles, from domestic servants to astronauts.

Four young Hopi women grind grain in Arizona, around 1906
Photograph: Edward S Curtis/Library of Congress

Women of the Forestry Commission section of the Women’s Land Army
carry logs on their shoulders ready to be stacked at Culford Camp,
near Bury St Edmunds, England, in December 1941
Photograph: M McNeill/Getty Images

Astronaut Peggy Whitson during a spacewalk from
the International Space Station in 2017
Photograph: NASA

More here 

Arctic Energy Positive Hotel

International architecture firm Snøhetta's latest concept, “Svart” is  built with an emphasis on sustainability, has a yearly energy consumption reduced by approximately 85% compared to a modern hotel and is able to produce its own energy. It is also a stunning piece of architecture.

Via Fubiz Media

I love this firm's work and have posted previous projects here and here

You Need Beehives In Your Living Room

BEEcosystem has created a system of wall-mounted observation hives that can be easily expanded in a hexagonal, honeycomb style, and even lets you invite the bees into your living room. This concept, bringing bees closer to humans in an urban environment, is not only good for the bee population as a whole, but it increases the understanding of the importance of bees and their role, as we learn to live side-by-side.

Via Bored Panda

How to cut a Parmigiano Reggiano cheese wheel

This video shows how to use specialized Parmesan cheese knives to cut the cheese by hand.



You will probably never have a Parmigiano Reggiano cheese wheel but, if you are ever lucky enough to possess one, you now know how to cut it. Your friends will be mighty impressed.

Via Boing Boing

Electrify Your Drawings

This silver ink pen lets you connect electrical circuits simply by drawing on paper.

Everything But The Girl - Acoustic

Acoustic is the seventh album by Everything but the Girl, released on 2 June 1992. It's perfect for Sunday morning. Give it a listen.

Via

Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe

 PickChur has compiled a collection of "meanwhile in the parallel universe" cartoons.

Lots more here 

Thanks Bruce!

Interactive Grooming

Tarkan Sarim's digital grooming tutorials show how to sculpt a hairdo like a virtual hair stylist. Even individual strands of hair can be manipulated.


Interactive Grooming with Maya from Autodesk Media and Entertainment on Vimeo.

Via 

Sunday Links

GIN - How The Liquor Known As “Mother's Ruin” Went From Scourge To Savior

This is so cool: Looking out the window is like a never-ending movie about a small, specific place in the world. Windows of San Francisco features views from 100 different windows around the city.

How figure skaters choose their music, explained with Adam Rippon 

Sausage, Kale, and Crouton Saute from Smitten Kitchen So easy. So damn good.

Talking animals: we aren’t the only species capable of speech …  Ongoing studies show that some mammals and birds can mimic the sound of the human voice.

Metal Cats: Hardcore Metal Musicians Pose With Their Cats 

The Evolution Of The New York City Skyline

Cow escapes on way to slaughterhouse, smashes through metal fence, breaks arm of man trying to catch her then swims to safety on island in lake Badass bovine!

You Have to Be a Practicing Christian to Own a Home in This Idyllic Michigan Town

50 Epic Design Fails We Can’t Believe Actually Happened 

Flickr's Top-25 photos of 2017 

A Talking Cat Fought the Law, and the Law Won

Fortean Ireland: Dark Days and a Phantom Town

Best First Class beds in the sky, from Singapore Airlines’ suites to Etihad Airways’ apartments

5 Reasons You Should Build a Bug Hotel and How to Do It

Tangled Up in Blue: Deciphering a Bob Dylan Masterpiece

Absurdist Dialogues with Siri: channeling the personality of a nonhuman living among humans.

Sidewalk Labs: Google’s Guinea-Pig City in Toronto  Will Toronto turn its residents into Alphabet’s experiment? The answer has implications for cities everywhere.

Gucci Celebrates The Year Of The Dog

1912: The Newfoundland Who Made a Daring Ice Rescue in Brooklyn

Infra Realism

In her Infra Realism series, Melbourne photographer Kate Ballis turns familiar and well-documented landscapes into a world of surreality. 

"Ethereal, dreamlike and psychedelic, Infra Realism invites us to take a second look at an overfamiliar world."
More here 

"Three Billboards Outside Grenfell Tower" Protest

On 14 June. 2017 a fire broke out at the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of public housing flats in West London causing 71 deaths and over 70 injuries. Residents had expressed significant safety concerns prior to the fire, with criticism levelled against the council for fire safety and building maintenance failures. The fire has come to symbolize bureaucratic neglect of the poor.

This week Justice 4 Grenfell protesters drove three provocative signs through the streets of London. In a  nod to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the Oscar-nominated film directed by Martin McDonagh, the billboards were bright red, with black letters that read:

 71 DEAD
AND STILL NO ARRESTS?
HOW COME?

More here 

I just saw that a similar protest is taking place in Miami

New US Postage Stamp Celebrates Year Of The Dog

2018: Year of the Dog

This year’s addition to the United States Postal Service Lunar New Year-themed stamp series was designed by the late artist Clarence Lee. It is a subtle picture that centers on three elegant, twisting lucky bamboo. A red paper decorated with the Chinese character indicates good fortune, while a dog, rendered as a traditional paper cutout, waves from the upper-left corner.  The Lunar New Year series of 12, which illustrated each of the 12 zodiac animals, was introduced in 1992.

2017: Year Of The Rooster

2013:Year of the Snake

 2008: Year of the Rat

More here 

Tarkovsky's Polaroids

Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky is best known for such cinematic masterpieces as Solaris, The Mirror, Andrei Rublev, and Stalker. He favoured long takes and leisurely scenes that explored the beauty and mystery of everyday life and his films often seem to be composed as a montage of still photos. His Polaroid photos show a similar way of looking at the world.

Images:  Andrei Tarkovsky from the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids from Thames and Hudson.

More here 

Posted without comment.

1933 newspaper article on artist Frida Kahlo #womensart pic.twitter.com/UZEjBMERfB

— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) February 17, 2018

The Empire Has Collapsed

Empire is a series of artfully photographed post-apocalypse miniatures by artists Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber. The work presents a world transformed by climate uncertainty and a shifting social order as it stumbles towards a new kind of frontier. Nix is the architect of these tiny structures, while Gerber is the sculptor. A single diorama takes anywhere from three to fifteen months to complete.

More: Urbanist

High-Speed Photography (c.1965)

Two photographers shoot a cat falling, matches igniting, and an egg breaking in order to observe the behaviour of objects and faces in slow motion.

Idiomatic Fridge

 Wrong Hands

Paris' Sci-Fi Urban Utopia

The Espaces Abraxas is a complex of 19-story buildings with 610 apartments  in Noisy-le-Grand, France, They were designed by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill in the late 70s and early 80s to mix social classes but it failed in that respect. Here's a 360° look inside the dramatic landmark that is a real-life "Hunger Games" city.

And whatever I am, wherever I am, this is me

Hannah Hauxwell passed away recently aged 91. She was living alone on her family farm, with no water or electricity, when in 1973 she became famous after being featured in Barry Cockcroft's documentary Too Long a Winter, about the north Pennines community.



Via MetaFilter

Apparently this video is blocked in the US. Frequent contributor Bruce has offered an alternative link in a comment.

London - Streets in Motion

Photographer Nicholas Goodden put together his best cinemagraphs and timelapse sequences in this video of London which blends still and motion at various speeds.

Rasputin Played on a 1905 Marenghi Organ

Alexey Rom has a passion for music and tech. He  programmed this century-old Marenghi Organ to play the old disco hit Rasputin by Boney M.



Via Miss Cellania

Portraits Shot in the Style of Old Master Painters

Dutch fine art photographer Gemmy Woud-Binnendijk's portrait photos, inspired by classic artworks, would be at home among the paintings of the old masters.

Link

Via

Night Windows

Designed and directed by Ian Cross, this film captures moments of city life through a train window.


NIGHT WINDOWS • SHORT FILM from Ian Cross on Vimeo.

Via

On This Day

In the early morning hours of February 15, 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank in a winter storm off the coast of Newfoundland. All 84 crew members were killed. I will never forget this day.

The joint Federal-Provincial Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster found that the crew were not trained, the safety equipment was inadequate, there were no safety protocols for the supply ship, and that the platform itself had a number of flaws. - Wikipedia

This is your brain in love

Skunk Bear 

The Secret Musical Life of S-Town’s John B. McLemore

S-Town was an absolutely riveting and disturbing podcast. It now appears that John B McLemore had interests that he did not reveal in the podcast.  In 2012  McLemore asked American musician Tor Lundvall for permission to upload a mix he’d made of some of his ambient pieces. Lundvall agreed and his label, Dais Records shared the the mix on social media to promote Tor Lundvall Remixed in Three Movements.
Five years later Lundvall went online to see if that mix was still up and was surprised at what he found. He discovered that John B. McLemore, an old-clock restorer in Woodstock, Alabama, was the same musician with whom Lundvall had exchanged emails and letters. Now, Dais is set to release Witness Marks: The Works of John B. McLemore – five original ambient compositions and field recordings that McLemore had sent back in 2012.




More here

Gâteau Gato

French food artist/animator Alexandre Dubosc has created an amazing cat themed zoetrope called "Gâteau Gato" ("cat cake").



Via  Boing Boing

The Death of Street Art Troll, Hanksy

For seven years Adam Lucas, aka street artist Hanksy, turned pop culture figures into parodic public art memes. His most famous one involves Banksy’s signature rat stencil with Tom Hanks’ face emblazoned on its head. Lucas now wants to rebrand himself as an artist by using his real name.

Via

She was a maid at 9, wrote a hit song at 11 — and won a Grammy at 93

“Domestic, 71, Sings Songs of Own Composition in ‘Village,’” ran a New York Times headline in November of 1965. The piece, about a woman with “five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, a guitar, a banjo and about 20 old-time folk songs,” heralded the return of then-unknown folk songstress Elizabeth Cotten, who was poised to play the Gaslight Cafe, on Macdougal Street in a Greenwich Village still quaintly set off by single quotation marks.

More here 

Valentine's Day Newspaper Headline

Hubbard, 31, said Friday from his hospital bed he's decided his marriage plans were definitely off after being shot by girlfriend Rosie Moss, 33, three times in 16 months. Hubbard said the wedding was planned for today in Detroit, but he added, "I'm not getting married now. I'm no fool. I'm tired of getting shot."

More here 

Control Men with CHEZ-ELLE

Apparently I've been doing it wrong.

Via  ✨From Deco to Atom✨

Iraqi women's lives after Isis

Photographer Abbie Trayler-Smith's poignant and appalling photographs document Iraqi women as they attempt to rebuild their lives after years spent under the control of Isis.

Abbie’s work is on display at Anima-Mundi art gallery from 16 February – 24 March 2018.

More: It's Nice That 

Guy Makes Crazy Furby Organ

Sam of Look Mum No Computer turns things up to 11 with his insane Furby Organ. This is for the one or two of you who haven't seen it 50 times already.



Via TwistedSifter

Why Is The Triple Axel Such A Big Deal?

The axel is a figure skating jump named after Norwegian figure skater Axel Paulsen who, in 1882, was the first skater to perform the jump. It is insanely difficult.



Via TYWKIWDBI

Nobody Showed Up To Read For This Old Library Dog

Sting is a 10-year-old retired racing greyhound who now works as a certified emotional therapy dog. Children practice their reading aloud to him at a local library in Minnesota as part of the Paws To Read program.  The children improve their reading skills and Sting enjoys it too. When nobody showed up to his recent gig his handler, John Muellner, posted on Facebook asking children to keep the lonely dog company for the evening.

The post was shared over 100,000 times, and the library has been inundated with requests for readings with Sting, with the program receiving a huge boost in interest. Sting is now sold-out for months in advance.

More: Bored Panda

Candy Heart messages written by a neural network

Candy hearts are small, chalky, sugary confections bearing a brief Valentine’s message. Most of us have sucked on a few of them back in the day.
Research scientist Janelle Shane collected a bunch of these messages and gave them to a learning algorithm called a neural network. Some of the candy heart messages it produced were traditional, others were downright weird.

More here 

If The World Warms up Just 4ºC

This map published in 2009 by New Scientist illustrates what the world might look like if the Earth warms by just 4ºC. It's bad news for coastal areas and many of the most heavily populated areas of the Earth. Canada and Russia, on the other hand, would become the new bread baskets of the world.

Via
More here