Saturday, November 30, 2019

Waves Breaking In The Sky

An Amazing Photograph by Amy Hunter
These clouds develop due to differing wind speeds in the atmosphere. Because the air is saturated at this level of the atmosphere, a cloud can form. At the top of the wave, the air is moving faster than the air at the bottom of the wave.

Tweet of the Day

Chemirocha

The story of how early American country music star Jimmie Rodgers was discovered and reimagined in Kenya.


Drawn & Recorded: Chemirocha from Drew Christie on Vimeo.

Via

Seven Vertical Miles

 Seven Vertical Miles takes the viewers on a journey several miles under the ground, deep into the coal mines in Balochistan. These coal mines are approximately 3,700 ft deep, and the workers travel in and out through manual rail-carts while risking their lives every single day.

Fox and Owl

A fox and a snowy owl face off in Cobourg, Ontario.



Via Laughing Squid

Friday, November 29, 2019

Tweet of the Day

The Secret Lives Of Irish Travellers


Irish Travellers (Irish: an lucht siΓΊil, meaning ‘the walking people’), are a traditionally itinerant ethnic group whose members maintain a set of traditions. Photographer Joseph Philippe Bevillard captured intimate photos of the lives of these travellers over a decade.





More here

Before the first wireless TV remote control there was the “Lazy Bones”


The first TV remote control was the Zenith Flash-Matic, developed in 1950. It was nicknamed the “Lazy Bones”. A cable ran from the TV set to the viewer and a motor in the TV set operated the tuner through the remote control. Viewers changed the channel by rotating the tuner clockwise or counterclockwise. The remote control included buttons that turned the TV on and off.





More here

h/t Hal Prentice

Truckla Meets Tesla

See the making of Truckla
Maker/robotics enthusiast/non-engineer Simone Giertz (aka the queen of shitty robots) converted her Tesla model 3 into a pickup truck (Truckla) and drove it to Elon Musk's Cybertruck reveal.




Via DAVELOG

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Tweet of the Day

It's too early in the morning for tears but…

Sing Sing Thanksgiving

This clip is from the feature-length documentary by David Hoffman, Sing Sing Thanksgiving, recorded in 1973 at the prison outside New York City.



Via Blort

Neon Light In Cinema

Anton Moskalenko has made a supercut of film clips that use neon light to beautiful effect. Warning: some of it is NSFW.


BEAUTY OF NEON LIGHT IN CINEMA from Anton Moskalenko on Vimeo.

See a list of the films here

Via

Have a Happy Thermite Thanksgiving!

Oh no, you forgot to take the turkey out of the freezer and the family will be arriving shortly! All is not lost! If you have ten pounds of thermite kicking around you can cook that twenty-five pound frozen fowl in under thirty seconds. (Best done outdoors).



I have been posting this for nine years and it continues to be a perennial favourite.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Tweet Of The Day

Via Blort 

LE MANS 1955

"300,000 spectators are watching from the sidelines. It is 6:00 PM when Pierre Levegh’s car ploughs into the spectator stands, scattering the crowd with his car engine’s hot debris. It is a tragedy that will cost more than 80 lives. And yet, the race goes on."



Via Things Magazine

The Somme Then And Now

More than 100 years ago cameramen Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell arrived on the Somme about a week before “Z” day. Their documentary Battle of the Somme is significant as an early example of film propaganda, an historical record of the battle and as a popular source of footage illustrating the First World War.
YouTuber MC C stood in the exact locations where Malins and McDowell shot their footage and re-filmed them to provide a fascinating Then and Now recreation.



(Grabbed from my friend Hal's Facebook page)

The Typologies of New York City

Sam Morrison created a crowdsourced hyperlapse video of New York City using almost 1300 photos from Instagram of iconic/stereotypical shots.

Scientists Capture Time-Lapse of an Immune Cell Moving Through the Body

Migration of immune cells within the perilymphatic space of the inner ear of several zebrafish embryos.



Via Petapixel

“I Wanna Be Sedated” played on a dulcimer



Via TMN

The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line: We don’t cure cancer and we don’t save lives, but maybe that guy had a good meal.


All the Google searches, YouTube videos and turkey tweets in the world can’t match the small-bore magic that happens here on the fifth floor of a suburban office building 34 miles southwest of Chicago.
Traffic on the Turkey Talk-Line on Thanksgiving Day 2018Calls 11,265
Texts 3,758
Live chats 1,002
Emails 371
Average call length 3 minutes, 9 seconds
Average hold time 4 minutes, 17 seconds 
Butterball Turkey Talk-Line 800-288-8372, text 844-877-3456, email butterball.com/contact-us.

Read More: The New York Times

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Tweet of The Day


Link

Baby Yoda Cake!

Feed your Baby Yoda love with this adorable cake from Sideserf Cake Studio.



Via Foodiggity

SISTER: An Intimate Stop-Motion Short

Animator Siqi Song explores the deeply personal implications of China’s One Child Policy in her powerful animated short, SISTER.



Via Colossal

The World’s Highest Post Office

Hikkim is a tiny village in India’s Himalayas whose claim to fame is that it is home to the world’s highest post office.


The World’s Highest Post Office from Great Big Story on Vimeo.

Stray pup found sheltering kittens from the cold


Image Credit

This is a heartwarming story. A Good Samaritan brought this pup and her adopted 'babies' in to the Pet and Wildlife Rescue in Chatham, Ont. after spotting the stray dog sheltering the five kittens at the side of the road.



The dog has been named Serenity and is available for adoption. The kittens have been placed in a foster home until they are old enough to go to a permanent home.

More here

Mocean

"The feeling of jumping off the rocks in the dark by myself just to capture the very first rays of light hitting the ocean without another sole (sic) in sight is unexplainable, it's one of the most amazing feelings ever, it's like my own personal therapy."

MOCEAN. A film by Chris Bryan from Chris Bryan on Vimeo.

Via Kottke

The lost art of whistling loudly with your fingers


Although humans have used loud whistling for hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years, it is a dying art. If stranded it could save your life. Here’s how you can learn to do it, and the history behind your newest survival skill. 



Read more here

Snowboarding at night in Lapland



Via 

Monday, November 25, 2019

Do you like mushrooms? Why don't you dress like one?



Jamie Green created gorgeous clothing designs based on the parasol mushroom and red cage fungus for his senior thesis.




Via Boing Boing

Song Map of the UK


Dorothy studio has created a map of the United Kingdom that references more than 1,400 pop songs.





"Some of the songs included on the map have obvious geographical references – such as Sunshine over Leith by The Proclaimers, Newport State of Mind by Goldie Lookin Chain, Sheffield: Sex City by Pulp and Cardiff Afterlife by Manic Street Preachers – while others are more cryptic. For example, Dorothy has placed Farmer’s Daughter by Babyshambles in Glastonbury (a nod to Emily Eavis, the co-organiser of Glastonbury Festival and the daughter of farmer Michael Eavis), while Wonderwall by Oasis sits at Hadrian’s Wall, and David Bowie’s Scary Monsters and Super Creeps hovers over Loch Ness."
More:  It's Nice That

Buy the map here

Tweet Of The Day

A Rescue Dog Is A Wonderful Thing

We are lucky enough to have three rescue pets. We weren't looking for them. Each one found us. I like this story by Bird Born about a dog who became a true member of his family.



Read more here 

Capybaras Chilling In A Hot Tub



Via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

How to Behave in a British Pub

In 1943, the United States Office of War Information created a training film starring Burgess Meredith to prevent soldiers bound for Great Britain from behaving like Ugly Americans.



Via Open Culture

A Library of the World’s Ochre Pigments

Medicinal and industrial ochres being processed and archived, Greece.
Image: Heidi Gustafson

Washington-based artist and researcher Heidi Gustafson collects natural minerals for the Early Futures Ochre Archive and has gathered and catalogued over 550 samples. Archaeologists, scientists, and creatives from around the world have contributed to the collection. She grinds the  ochre into pigments, which she sells to artists and also uses for her own work. Processed samples are added to glass vials and organized by region or dominate mineral type.

Ochre contributions, gathered by Caro Ross, England.
 Image: Heidi Gustafson

More: Colossal

The Art Of The Russian Satellite Dish


Yuri Kuznetsov, a retired sailor from the Ivanovo region of Russia, needed a hobby to fill his time. He began painting satellite dishes with traditional Russian patterns and his art is now very much in demand.





Via Urbanist

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Freestyle Canoeing

This is the best thing I've seen all week. I think it's my new favourite sport.



Via Weird Universe

Red Wine In Space


French startup Space Cargo Unlimited is sending a case of red wine into space in a Northrup Grumman resupply rocket but it's not a treat for the astronauts. It is part of a project that aims to study the effects of microgravity and space radiation on wine aging.

More here
Via Neatorama

Music For Sunday Morning

Sunday Links

Morning prayers, Gorbals Primary School, Glasgow, 1943 

100 years of Scottish life  Until 16 February 2020 at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

@aquamike23 has an Instagram account for his aquatic pets, fish and turtles and it's cooler than it sounds. It includes Hope, a beautiful albino turtle whose heart beats outside her shell.

This week's house craving: The Wolff Residence Via

How much would it cost to make the crown placed on the head of Elizabeth Windsor during her 1953 coronation? An awful lot.

You can stay in this Japanese hotel for $1 if you agree to be livestreamed on YouTube

The best road trip itinerary to see all the US National Parks

'The Gospel According to Water' Is Joe Henry's Next Second Chance A good read.

Calculate your dog's age with this improved formula. According to this method my dog's age in human years is 75.4 years old.

A Nile Journey Guided by 19th-Century Women 

Creative Street Murals by Roadsworth Thanks Bruce!

Emoji Storm shows all the emojis rolling on Twitter in real time. Via

Cat colour and pattern charts Via Rusty's Electric Dreams (an excellent inbox zine)

Pop Toppers: Let the aliens from They Live top your Christmas tree 

In 1909, 22-year-old Alice Huyler Ramsey set out to become the first woman to drive across the United States. Find out more at Futility Closet

Adorable Pet Sable Has Its Own Insta Page

 John Beasley Greene's photographs of Egypt in the19th-Century

An Afternoon with Leonard Cohen My career in music had come to an end, half the homes in my neighborhood stood empty from foreclosure, my marriage was unravelling, and a puppy we named Shaky Lennon King reintroduced me to Mr. Cohen through our daily long walks as he sniffed and strutted while I pumped songs into my ears. Via Everlasting Blort

What Causes Foggy Brain?

Her Purchases Are Real, Her Reviews Aren't: A woman stumbled into a side hustle that’s resulted in hundreds of free Amazon products, worth tens of thousands of dollars.

A Festival of Destruction in One of the Oldest Cities in the World 

Anti-Eating Face Mask There are days when I could use one of these.

Looking for something good to read? The 20 Best Novels of the Decade (plus runners up)

London's Characterful Shopfronts Captured Before They Are Swept Away By Gentrification

Vodka Shots with Stalin: On the Dinner That Changed the War 

How the Wiyot Tribe Won Back a Sacred California Island The tribe finally completed a ceremony interrupted by a massacre in 1860. Thanks Bruce!

Saturday, November 23, 2019

A Trip To infinity

This Mandelbrot pattern zooms in to a depth of 1.2e1077!



Via The Awesomer

Tweet Of The Day

A Subversive Village of Urban Miniatures


Eelus, 2019

Pop-up Urban Miniatures is part of the Artists Open Houses Christmas Festival in Brighton, England. Participating artists include train-writers, muralists, designers, and painters, who typically work at a much larger scale.


Antony H Haylock, 2019. 

DONK, 2019


More: Colossal

Friday, November 22, 2019

RIP Gahan Wilson

Good thread.

Tweet Of The Day

The Rise and Fall of the TV Dinner

When life hands you 260 tons of perishable turkey make frozen dinners!



Via Neatorama

What To Do When An Insurance Company Won't Accept Your Claim

Have you ever been given the runaround on an insurance claim? You might appreciate this family's approach. When an insurance company refused to accept documentary evidence of a man's death his grieving South African family delivered the decaying corpse to their offices.



More: Neatorama

Road To Nowhere

I have been an unwavering fan of David Byrne since Talking Heads:77. This is so cool:



Via Mr. Nag

How Rich Is Bill Gates?

Betty Cam animated some bar graphs that put the wealth of Bill Gates in proportion with other points of reference. It is obscene.



Via Boing Boing 

Typologies of New York City: A Crowdsourced Hyperlapse.

A hyperlapse trip around New York City composed of crowdsourced photos.
 (Seizure warning.)

The Dark Side of Amazon Echo

Click here for larger image

Anatomy of an AI System, a project by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joleri, won The Design Museum’s Beazley Design of the Year 2019 prize. The infographic maps out the environmental impact of extracting rare earth metals for the device, the cost of its human labour and analysed the data that such devices collect from users without their knowledge.


Anatomy of an AI System from Design Museum on Vimeo.

Via: It's Nice That

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Tweet Of The Day

On This Day

Spirit of the West singer John Mann dies at 57

 John Mann, who as lead singer of Spirit of the West helped create the soundtrack to countless Canadian parties and celebrations, has died. Diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease when he was 50, Mr. Mann died Wednesday in Vancouver. He was 57.



More

The Last Woolworth Luncheonette

The luncheonette counter at Woolworth’s Bakersfield - Farley Elliott

When I was kid my mum's younger sister, Sheila, would take my sisters and I out every Friday after she got paid. She'd deposit her cheque at the Bank of Montreal on Notre Dame Street in Lachine and we'd head over to Woolworth's for a milkshake or an ice cream float. 

The chain folded years ago but a lone Woolworth luncheonette counter lives on at an Antique Mall in Bakersfield, California. It has 22 counter seats, Formica tables ringing the room, and an open kitchen. They are waiting for me to place my order for a vanilla shake.

I WANT NOTHING. I WANT NOTHING. I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO.

This is brilliant. After yesterday's damning  impeachment testimony Trump took to the White House lawn with briefing notes, written with a sharpie in CAPS, in an attempt to slough off any blame. Twitter reimagined his ranting as a Ramones song.



Via Open Culture

Related: Tiny Hand Font

What would happen to our world if humans suddenly disappeared?



Via Pasa Bon!

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Life in Miniature

Delph Miniatures creates itty bitty versions of everyday things like washing machines, ironing boards, and mobility scooters.


Life in Miniature from Ellen Evans on Vimeo.

Via 

Ten years, 100 songs, three minutes

One hundred earworms from the last decade.



Via Boing Boing

Girl Who Was Denied School Pictures Gets Professional Photo Shoot


When photographer Jermaine Horton heard about Marian Scott being denied school pictures because of the red extensions in her hair, he decided to help her get her confidence back by giving her the professional photo shoot she deserved.

Continue reading

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

RIP Louis: Wells Cathedral Cat


“It is with heavy hearts we say goodbye and goodnight to the gentleman, charismatic and adorable ‘Ginger Boy’. He will be greatly missed by all.”
Louis charmed visitors to Wells Cathedral, was featured on a variety of merchandise and starred in a YouTube video:



More: The Association of English Cathedrals

Tweet Of The Day

Just Mushrooms Blooming



Via TwistedSifter

Monday, November 18, 2019

Brexit With Bunnies

YiMiao Shih: Rabbrexit means Rabbrexit

London -based artist YiMiao Shih re-envisioned rabbits from the stories of Beatrix Potter, A.A Milne and Lewis Carroll as part of a mass exodus from Britain. Using embroidery, she created an illustrated tapestry that satirises the narrative of Brexit. The resulting piece, Rabbexit, An Homage to Brexit, was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s 250th Summer Show. The project grew to form an exhibition of illustrated objects titled Rabbrexit means Rabbrexit.

YiMiao Shih: Rabbexit, An Homage to Brexit

YiMiao Shih: Rabbexit, An Homage to Brexit


Read More:  It's Nice That

They Came to Attack Us


They Came to Attack Us from Efram Potelle on Vimeo.

Via Blort

Tweet Of The Day

Accordion Bros PlayThe Imperial March

Vasyl and Viktor Kravchuk treat us to a rousing version of John Williams' Star Wars classic Imperial March (Dark Vader's Theme).



Via Geekologie

Welcome to the magical world of ambient soundscapes

Sound artists on YouTube are churning out ambient soundscapes: lengthy audio-centric videos meant to invoke the feeling of being somewhere else. They aim to give listeners "brain tingles" through various visual and auditory techniques such as whispering, scratching, and tapping.







More here

Via Things

Mothers And Daughters

Mothers And Daughters  is a short film by Gabriella Marsh depicting the tensions between a mother, her unresponsive teenage daughter and her demanding elderly mother.


Mothers And Daughters from Gabriella Marsh on Vimeo.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Tweet Of The Day

12 Historic Places Threatened By Climate Change

With climate change come floods. Venice is the most recent example. Island communities such as the Bahamas and Puerto Rico have been hit with increasingly powerful hurricanes, and stronger monsoons are contributing to extreme flooding in southeast Asia. Mountain regions lie in the flood path of melting glaciers.
Atlas Obscura brings us a dozen heritage sites, from Carthage to Los Alamos, that are at risk.

Castillo de San Marcos
St. Augustine, Florida

Wat Mahathat
Bangkok, Thailand

Read more
Thanks Bruce!

Exit Here

Photography: Agnese Sanvito

Restaurateur Oliver Peyton and Transit Studio are rethinking the future of the funeral parlour. With Exit Here they hope to break down the taboos around death and make a difficult time somewhat easier through their designs.

The Bitter Pill urns

Day Of The Dead casket



Read More

Sunday Links


Venice Underwater: The Highest Tide in 50 Years Venice is a magical city. These photographs are heart wrenching. Via

What Not To Do the First Day in Prison

Gastro Obscura: How grilled ape, braised bear paw, and steamed camel hump came to symbolize national unity.

Cinder Gets Fit  A YouTube channel for chubby kitties.

Previewing Expo 2020 Dubai 

‘Runaway Train’ Video Helped Find Missing Kids 25 Years Ago 

Depressed Guy Adopts A Cat, Illustrates The Ways It Has Helped Him 

Thread, Fashion and Costume: Darrell Thorne creates larger than life personas using a combination of body paint and headpieces.

A Time Travelling Greenwich Village Studio Hides an Incredible Art Collection

Robert Falcon Scott’s final letters  Read the full diary online courtesy of the British Library, where it now resides. Via 

Space Face 

North Dakota’s Fargo Brewing Company has put pictures of adoptable dogs on its beer cans. Who could resist?

Deserted Iranian Homes Reclaimed by Nature 

Now available to rent: Original Home of Billy and Ruth Graham in Montreat, NC No thanks.

Amazing Aerial Shots Of London From A Helicopter London looks great from any angle.

These Canine Playing Cards Have The Most Brilliant Illustrations

The Internet Archive is Digitizing LPs to Preserve Generations of Audio  The Internet Archive is working with the Boston Public Library to digitize more than 100,000 audio recordings from their sound collection.

 How To Make An Earthquake Early Warning System With Cats Via Miss C

The Plastics Collection at the Syracuse University Library holds a variety of early plastic objects made of celluloid, thermoset plastics such as Bakelite and Catalin, as well as plastics made popular after WWII. Take a look.


The Mitosaya Botanical Distillery in Chiba houses over 500 different varieties of herbs

Mouse-Deer 

Human hair behind pigeons' lost toes

Music For Sunday Morning

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Tweet Of The Day

Definitely Knot Art

Many people see knots as defects but not woodworker Keith Williams who used used offcuts that contain knots from dozens of trees to create a beautiful multifaceted geodesic sphere.



More: Colossal

Full Contact

A woman from a conservative Mormon family finds her true calling as a gender smashing Roller Derby athlete.


Full Contact from Sub64Films on Vimeo.

Instagram star is a middle-aged white cat that doesn't care for salad

Smudge may be an Instagram influencer with more than a million followers but he has taken his newfound fame in stride (and he's still unimpressed by salad).

'He eats dinner at our table. He gets really upset if he doesn't have a chair,'
says Miranda Stillabower, owner of Smudge, a suburban Ottawa Instagram star.
 (Author Unknown)

"He's just a cat, as amazing as he is," his owner said. "He has no idea he's famous. He goes about his daily life and it's normal, then you go online and he's everywhere. That's when it starts to be crazy."

More: CBC News

Friday, November 15, 2019

Art Nouveau On Acid

The psychedelic art of the 1960s was heavily influenced by the Art Nouveau movement.



Via  Doobybrain

Simulation of baking bread, cookies and pancakes

Using 3D graphics TeranGroup presents an amazingly accurate visual simulation of baking breads, cookies, pancakes and similar materials that consist of dough or batter



Via Boing Boing

The Invisibility Cloak You've Always Wanted

When I was a kid I thought it would be cool to have an invisibility cloak so I could watch people without being seen. Now Canadian camouflage company Hyperstealth Biotechnology has developed a light bending material that renders people and objects near invisible to the naked eye. It is still in the prototype stage and is intended for military use in the field where troops and tanks could be concealed. Unfortunately it is not expected to be available to the public anytime soon so my dream of being invisible will have to remain on hold for the time being.

 

Link
Via 

Algorithm Takes The Water Out Of Underwater Images

Engineer and oceanographer Derya Akkaynak has developed an algorithm that brings more clarity to underwater photos by removing the visual distortion caused by water.





Link
Via 

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Tweet Of The Day

Pardon the language.

Earthlings


The Earthlings series is my way of depicting life and people and ideas in a geography with volatile responses - Ali Γ‡etin. 
He envisions what Earthlings may look like after the planet has come to a dystopian end.



Respect Mama! from Ali Cetin on Vimeo. Animated in after effects.

Via Everlasting Blort

Venice Submerged

Photo: Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images
St. Mark's Basilica has flooded for the sixth time in 1,200 years - the fourth in the last 20. More than 80% of Venice was under water when the tide was at its highest and although levels had receded by daybreak further bad weather was expected later in the week. Climate change is being blamed.

Link

The Art Of Scratchboard

 BOMONSTER uses a knife to scratch away the black surface, creating these unique hot rod and motorcycle designs. I particularly like this one because of the bird and lizard:



See more here

Thanks Bruce!

Max Cooper - Repetition

This video by Kevin McGloughlin is mesmerising.



Via SylK's Playground

Narwhal

This abandoned pup has a tail at each end.



Mac's Mission in Missouri will place him for adoption once it is determined that the extra tail is healthy.

Via Boing Boing