This morning I realized I hadn't received any comments here for a very long time. I checked on Blogger and found 1100 unmoderated comments dating back to last March! Somehow my settings no longer enabled comments to be sent to my inbox so I was not seeing them. I fixed the problem and went through all the comments, deleted the spam and abuse and read and posted all the rest. Thanks to all of you who continued to react to my posts even though I appeared to be ignoring you.
Sunday, February 28, 2021
This Gorgeous Floating Research Station Cleans Oceans
Watch Iris Flowers Go From Bloom to Decay
Neil Bromhall of the Right Plants plant identification database compiled a series of 4K timelapses showing the entire lifecycle of various iris flowers.
Via Memo Of The Air
Sunday Links
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Mothmeister's disturbing, but somehow lovely, Wounderland. Via Everlasting Blort
Sgt Pepper Photos: A project to locate the source images used on the cover of The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Via Perfect For Roquefort Cheese
For your delectation: Hideous Jello lamps
A trippy visualization of the internet's evolution
Over 250 Pictograms Depicting Japanese Culture Free, the way we like it.
How many of these famous passages in literature can you identify?
Literary Hub has chosen some of the most quoted lines from literature and turned them into a quiz. I didn't do as well as I thought I would.
Now you can smell like a font with Autobahn's Alphabetic Perfume Collection
Welcome to the Woodlands Lodge, a Twin Peaks lodge for squirrels
PSA: How to disable a robot dog if it's attacking you. Via Perfect For Roquefort Cheese.
Generique, Miles Davis from the film "Ascenceur Pour L'Echafaud" Now I want to watch the film.
Because we all could use some good news: Cheese Isn't Bad For You Thanks Bruce!
The Virtual Fashion Archive Via Things Magazine
From the page to the floor: The art of dancing explained Thanks Bruce!
The complex constructed history of Chandigarh Chairs A group of design historians is creating a more accurate and just narrative of Pierre Jeanneret’s modernist furniture of the 1950s.
Bleeding edge products that don’t bleed. Could This Be the Lab-Made Dinner Party of Our Future?
Do different ways of using citrus peel to garnish cocktails produce different tastes?
The Stasi Scent Library Sometimes Stasi officials did not bother with being subtle and merely told subjects to put a cloth under their armpits or even under their pants in the groin area. The cloth was carefully handled by tweezers in an effort not to allow contamination by other human scents.
Dark, lovely impressionistic paintings by Reggie Burrows Hodges
People Share The Funniest Contact Names They Have In Their Phones
Can you guess which actor ditched acting to build trailers? Via Things Magazine
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Quails In Space
Experiments studying the effects of space flight on embryo development in Japanese quail, conducted in 1990 and 1992 on space station Mir, revealed that embryonic development and hatching is possible during space flight https://t.co/tjCfIh5gCx [video: https://t.co/7YvMETAVcf] pic.twitter.com/pBSYLBYVRV
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 27, 2021
A Century Ago
"A century ago, Russia was enduring a terrible famine, the Irish Free State was created, U.S. President Warren Harding was inaugurated, the Tulsa Race Massacre took place in Oklahoma, a new machine called a “dishwasher” was introduced, New York’s Madison Square Garden was home to “the world’s largest indoor swimming pool,” and much more."
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The original caption reads: "Washington, D.C. - Louise Johnson and Sgt. Stubbie, the famous war dog, made a striking sight in the parade. Stubbie was the most decorated dog in the AEF, wearing wound and service stripes earned in action. Miss Louise Johnson is daughter of Colonel Johnson, of the General Staff, USA." # Bettmann Archive / Getty |
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| In May 1921, the Irish Republican Army briefly occupied and then burned the Dublin Custom House, which housed a British government agency, during the Irish War of Independence. # Bettmann / Bettmann Archive |
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The original caption from April 25, 1921 reads: "All the drudgery of dishwashing—this three-times-a day task which comes to the housewife who does her own housework—has been eliminated by the new dishwasher shown in this photograph. It is the invention of a Cincinnati school teacher, who sought to make things a bit more pleasant for his wife. Incidentally, his idea was worth $12 to him, for a manufacturing concern thought so much of the 'dishwasher,' they purchased the rights and will seek to add a little joy to thousands of other housewives. With the aid of only hot water, dishes placed in a wire rack and set into the drum are made clean and spotless in two minutes." # Bettmann Archive / Getty |
See more at The Atlantic
Thanks Bruce!
The First Complete Photographic Tarot Deck
Photographer Bea Nettles discusses her series Mountain Dream Tarot (1970-72), the first complete photographic tarot deck. She recently released a third edition.
I love her work and was disappointed to miss the first large-scale retrospective of her fifty-year career, Bea Nettles: Harvest of Memory, at the Eastman Museum in Rochester last year because the Canada - US border has been closed due to Covid-19. I did, however, watch the virtual exhibition.
Tweet Of The Day
One of the most amazing clips I’ve ever seen.
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) February 21, 2021
Check out this “school bus” arriving in Mongolia...pic.twitter.com/UJluyjLgRf
Friday, February 26, 2021
Ancient Hunting Scene Fresco Restored
Pompeii has completed a major restoration on a large fresco in the garden of the House of the Ceii, bringing back to life its intense colours, with the help of laser technology.
Oh Boy Records - 40th Anniversary Documentary (Teaser)
John Prine's Oh Boy Records, the country’s second-oldest artist-owned independent label and the oldest in Nashville, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year with a new documentary that will air as a mini-series on Oh Boy’s YouTube channel.
Lost Languages Revealed in Ancient Library
Saint Catherine’s Monastery, nestled in the shadow of Mount Sinai, is home to one of the world’s oldest continuously used libraries and it holds thousands of ancient manuscripts and books. Older parchments were sometimes erased and reused leaving multiple layers of writing known as palimpsests. Some of these contain lost languages which are being revealed by the Sinai Palimpsests Project using spectral imaging technology.
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| Image source |
Source: Smithsonian Magazine (2017)
Ted Cruz Piñata
A Dallas party store decided to capitalize on public anger at Ted Cruz for fleeing to Mexico during a state of emergency in Texas by creating a piñata of the senator masked up and strolling through the airport, luggage in tow.
Link via FB pal Hal.
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Brilliant LEGO Memes
Ochre Jelly recreates internet memes in LEGO. My favourite is 'Woman Yelling At Cat' (above). The brick version of the 'Distracted Boyfriend' meme (below) is also pretty good.
See more of Ochre Jelly's work here
Via Neatorama
Washing the windows of the world's tallest building
At an awe-inspiring 828 metres high, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest skyscraper in the world. It stands over half a mile above the desert sand and has over 24,000 windows. Here's the team whose heart-stopping job it is to clean them.
Via bookofjoe
Stone Sushi
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
The Town That Derailed a Diesel Train for Emergency Power
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| Photo: Ryan Remiorza (AP) |
In January of 1998 a series of ice storms brought down power lines and the towers supporting them, leaving over 1.5 million people in Quebec without power in the middle of winter. The mayor of Boucherville borrowed a diesel-electric locomotive to use as a super-sized emergency generator. The train was derailed and moved under its own power 400 feet down the middle of a paved street to provide power to the town. This was Canada's worst ice storm ever and I remember it well but I'd never heard this story before. Thanks Bruce!
More: Gizmodo
Small Scale LA
Los Angeles-based artist Kieran Wright's project Small Scale LA is a love letter to the city in 1:24 scale.
Follow on Instagram
Technicolour Beef Wellingtons by Anthony Rush
Beef Wellington is a dish of British origin that is meant to impress. A beef tenderloin is coated with pâté and a mushroom mixture, wrapped in crepes and puff pastry, then baked. Honolulu chef Anthony Rush makes an even more complicated version by adding colour and texture to the pastry crust. The result is stunning.
Frederic Edwin Church's Iceberg Paintings
He used a small rowboat to venture over the deadly waters and closely study the forms and colors of icebergs in the Arctic landscape.
See More: Flashbak
The Many Lives of a New York City Doorman
Meet Yves Deshommes, a doorman, art dealer, and violinist.
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Dafa Metti
The difficult lives of undocumented Senegalese migrants who sell souvenirs under Paris' Eiffel Tower to support their families back home.
Globe Possibly Engraved on an Ostrich Egg by Leonardo da Vinci (1504)
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| Image by Davidguam via Wikimedia Commons |
This artifact attributed to Leonardo is engraved on two conjoined halves of ostrich eggs. And it features a single sentence, in Latin, above Southeast Asia: Hic Sunt Dracones–“Here be dragons.” It is the first depiction of the “New World” on a globe, indicating that da Vinci knew about Columbus’ voyages when the globe was made in 1504.
Ochre Sea Star
The ochre sea star's predation of mussels is so extreme, it influences the whole intertidal ecosystem!
Monday, February 22, 2021
POV Ski Ride
Chris Benchetler does a challenging run down California’s Mammoth Mountain.
Type To Act
The Climate Crisis Font shrinks in response to Arctic sea ice data. The font by Daniel Coull and Eino Korkala is currently being used by the Nordics’ largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat to visualise the effects of climate change.
More: It's Nice That
Lucky Knot Bridge
Inspired by both the Möbius strip and the Chinese knotting art, the Lucky Knot Bridge in Changsha, China, combines three bridges in one.
What Gordon Parks Saw
‘I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.’
– Gordon Parks (1912-2006)
Via Aeon
Like Chalk and Cheese
Combinations of things which definitely do not belong together, or are completely different from one another, in idiomatic expressions from across the globe.
More: English and Drama blog
Sunday, February 21, 2021
This is not something you see every day.
Ok, watching a 140-year-old full-on Victorian mansion cruising through the city streets is hands-down one of the top wildest things I've ever witnessed.
— Austin Elliott (@TTremblingEarth) February 21, 2021
The Englander house moving from Franklin St to Fulton St this morning in SF pic.twitter.com/kqbyiy62ke
Tweet Of The Day
This classic short film shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife. Two Inuit men in Canada’s Far North choose the site, cut and place snow blocks and create an entrance--a shelter completed in one-and-a-half hours [full video: https://t.co/XXgxImEFrF] pic.twitter.com/pNY7wHHqji
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 21, 2021
London from above
Jason Hawkes is known for his breathtaking birds-eye shots of London. This beautiful aerial footage of London was shot from a helicopter in 5K
Via Londonist
Sunday Links
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| Usadanu (@usalica) |
Beautiful photos of a Japanese shrine in the snow by Usadanu (@usalica)
Cute: Here Comes The Sun
A game for Sunday morning: Animal Bastards Via MeFi
From World War I to the Rave Scene: Britain's Forgotten Wartime Structures Via Everlasting Blort
This house is so skinny that if you put on 10 pounds you'd have to move.
The fairy-tale village hidden off a busy Berkeley street: Normandy Village is an anachronistic slice of medieval life.
A nice piece of writing: For the Love of Oranges
Miss meeting up with friends at a bar for a drink during these socially distanced times? 'I Miss My Bar' Replicates The Atmosphere Of Your Favourite Watering Hole
Ken Burns Answers Every Question We Have About His Hair
Instagram Fruit The secret behind Del Monte’s Pink Pineapple. Thanks Bruce!
Paul Simon Tells the Story of How He Wrote "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
During these days of unvaried routine I'm looking for new recipes to shake things up a bit. Instagram Picks: home cooks to follow
Angelic: Cosmic Voices from Bulgaria & Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Pony exhaustion will do it every time! Things Women In Literature Have Died From Via MetaFilter
US Covid-19 deaths, explained in 8 charts and maps: If every American who died has left nine people grieving, as one study suggested, there are now more than 4 million Americans who have lost a loved one to the pandemic.
Islamic 12th-century bathhouse uncovered in Seville tapas bar
You Are Now Aware of Firematic Racing: A Combination of Drag Racing, the Olympics, and Fire Fighting Thanks Bruce!
10 Scientific Ways to Get a Cat to Like You (I suggest wearing tuna perfume)
Just The Recipe is an app that gives you the ingredients and directions without all the extraneous rambling, popups and email lists.
The Inglorious History of King's Cross and its Station - a haunt of Thieves and Murderers
How many wives did King Henry VIII have? Where does the word “fuck” come from? Why did people wear bearskin shoes? Wikipedia has all the answers.So on the 20th anniversary, OneZero asked the individuals who made Wikipedia what it is today how it all started. An Oral History of Wikipedia Thanks Bruce!
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Beaded Ear Saver For Those Who Wear Masks Often
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| Photo: Tara Kiwenzie |
Tara Kiwenzie, of Wikwemikong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island, makes beaded barrettes that aren't just beautiful; they're also functional, keeping ears free from the discomfort of wearing a mask.
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| Photo: Tara Kiwenzie |
Tweet Of The Day
Tiny Bunnies ! pic.twitter.com/ZixsmWcCDL
— ♡Dina Ribeiro♡ (@DinaRybeiro) February 18, 2021
Penguins Toiling In a Cigarette Factory
In 1935 these cartoon penguins were mascots of the Kool Cigarette Company.
A Day In The Life Of A Sushi Master
Chef Nozomu Abe from Sushi Noz takes us on a journey through his everyday life.
Friday, February 19, 2021
From Snurfing to Snowboarding
The Snurfer popularized by inventor Sherman Poppen in 1965 in Muskegon, Michigan laid the foundation for snowboarding as we know it.
Via Kottke
Good Morning Little Hedgehog
This video of a hedgehog waking up is the most adorable thing I've seen all week.
Via Digg
72- Hour Beef Wellington
This is a meal that is definitely worth waiting for. The video is very soothing to watch even if you feel you lack the skill or patience to make the dish. I like the way he talks about the beef as if it's his little friend.
1948's "Cars of the Future"
Unfortunately these "streamlined marvels on wheels" never became a reality.
Via Boing Boing
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Akari Kokeshi Light the Way in an Earthquake
Read more: Spoon & Tamago
The Surface of Mars in 4K
High definition footage captured by NASA’s three Mars rovers–Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity has been stitched together by ElderFox Documentaries to create the most lifelike experience of being on Mars.
See more: Open Culture
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Tweet Of The Day
Tower climber Kevin Schmidt shows what it takes to change a lightbulb on the top of a 457 meter high television broadcast antenna over the South Dakota plains while being filmed by a quadcopter [source and full video: https://t.co/9kpyYrXj2a] pic.twitter.com/FcwOXKVonC
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 17, 2021
Monumental Macramé
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Tweet Of The Day
Shadow of a Millipede walking 🐛
— Science is Amazing (@AMAZlNGSCIENCE) February 16, 2021
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by Chris Dull (Facebook) pic.twitter.com/efKggaYjNn
How to Transport a Bee Colony
Guy transports a bees colony by carrying the queen is his fist; the rest of the bees crowd around where their queen is 🐝🤯
— Science is Amazing (@AMAZlNGSCIENCE) January 28, 2021
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by daniirodman (TikTok) pic.twitter.com/euDdYlL9h8
Snow Rolling
Many of us are looking out the window today and looking at a lovely wintery scene but it's loses its charm when we have to clear our driveways and sidewalks. Here's a lifehack that supposedly makes it easier. Has anybody tried it? If it's really so much easier why hasn't everyone been doing it forever?
Flipping Fantastic!
It's Shrove Tuesday
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| Danish beer pancake |
Happy Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Faschingsdienstag, Malasada Day, Sprengidagur, Martes de Carnaval, and Pancake Day!
In the Middle Ages Shrove Tuesday was a day for Christians to confess sins so they enter into the season of Lent and prepare for Easter with a clean spirit. In New Orleans, Venice and Brazil there are elaborate festivities before the austerity of Lent. Today it's also known as Pancake Tuesday. In some parts of the world it's an excuse to eat pancakes. Pancake races are held where participants run down the street, flipping pancakes in a frying pan. Authentic Danish pancakes are made with beer and served with ice cream. Nothing wrong with that! Get the recipe at VisitDenmark
'Self Medicating Media'
Tired of staring at your own four walls? Spend your evening in a jazz bar in Paris (below), immerse yourself in a Harry Potter setting or take a carriage ride through the woods. Ambience videos pair relaxing soundscapes with animated scenery to soothe your soul. There’s a video for every taste and mood.
More suggestions here
World's Longest Hockey Game
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| (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press ) |
Monday, February 15, 2021
Manatees Basking With Dolphins
Drone footage captured 170 endangered manatees basking together with a pod of playful dolphins swimming through the group in shallow waters off Florida’s west coast.
Cake Shield
What a 16th-century plague survival guide has in common with COVID-19 advice
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| Ambulance men of Florence, Italy, carrying a patient on a stretcher while wearing masks to ward off the plague. |
Stay six feet apart, no shaking hands, only one person allowed out of the house to do the shopping. Does that sound familiar?
Sunday, February 14, 2021
The Animations That Changed Cinema
"In just over half an hour, the series’ creators Lewis Bond and Luiza Liz Bond explore animation produced all over the world over nearly the past century in search of the films that have widened the boundaries of the medium."
Via Open Culture
Sunday Links
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| Taking babies out for a pram ride at the Essex Babes' Hotel and Nursery Training Centre in 1926. FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES |
The Rise and Fall of Britain's Biggest Pram Collection (photo above)
Scale Model of Ancient Rome by Italo Gismondi: Known as the Plastico di Roma Imperiale, the plaster model was commissioned by Mussolini in 1933 and depicts Rome in the 4th century AD at the time of Constantine. Via MeFi
A Poet Laureate of New Orleans: Earl King’s lyrical blues and electric stage presence set him apart. But he’s never been properly honored as a Louisiana writer who penned songs for Dr. John, the Neville Brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimi Hendrix.
Two Brothers Go On a Naughty Place Name Tour Across UK Warning: Rude Words!
The island of unwanted goods: Inside the warehouses where dud Amazon orders go to be reborn Via Things Magazine
The Invention of the Ski Chairlift Without this historic pre-World War II technology, skiing would likely still be a niche sport pursued primarily by adventurous mountaineers. Via Miss Cellania
It's crazy how fast some things change Kowloon Peninsula, Hong Kong in 1964 and 2016
'Millies' are a tribute to the female mill workers who were the backbone of the linen industry in the early 20th century.
Watch the icebreaking ships of the Baltic working in real-time on this interactive map of icebreaking and traffic.
We have a garage that is filled to the rafters with useless junk (I call it our Little House Of Horrors). This garage renovation would make my life happier.
Earth at a cute angle: Oblique views (also known as off-nadir views) connect our own lifetime of experiences with the unfamiliar view from space. Thanks Bruce!
Wisdom does it again: Septuagenarian albatross hatches new chick on Midway
Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue, an experiment in modern music
That time that Frank Zappa produced a record for Burt Ward (aka Robin, Boy Wonder) (It's as bad as you might expect)
If you like lounging around in camo pants you might also like this table.
An Eggless Egg Made from Mung Beans Great for vegans or those who think it's gross to eat something that comes out of a chicken's butt.
I Cupid, officially announce my retirement as the mascot of Saint Valentine’s Day because it's weird and creepy. McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Play A Kandinsky
Abstract artist, Vassily Kandinsky, heard sound in colors and shapes. Play a Kandinsky is a machine learning experiment that lets you explore what he might have heard when painting “Yellow-Red-Blue” in 1925.
Do It Justice
Made as a reminder to his deceased father, this film by director Nate Townsend reminds viewers about the importance of capturing moments.
Friday, February 12, 2021
Printing Fish
I learned about Gyotaku today via things magazine. It is a method used over centuries by Japanese fisherman to record their catches. Naoki Hayashi continues the practice in Hawaii, keeping the ancient artform alive.
All Riders | The Fight for Accessibility
The battle for accessibility in the New York City Subway told by those fighting it.
Thursday, February 11, 2021
The Baby Plague Quilt
Kauaʻi ʻōʻō's Last Song
This is the hauntingly sad song of the last male Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, recorded in the Alaka’i Wilderness Preserve on Kauaʻi in 1987.
Via Futility Closet
A Tour of U.S. Accents
A large and varied continent like North America has given rise to a wide variety of accents in the English language.
Baron Munchausen's Dream (1911)
Georges Méliès' ten-minute film, made in 1911, depicts the pleasures and terrors that plague the drunken baron.
Tweet Of The Day
Because you want to see a Red Panda deliver flowers.
— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) February 10, 2021
Credit: @AnimalsWorId pic.twitter.com/Y92uDekdi4
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Tuesday, February 09, 2021
Radio Garden
My friend Alan introduced me to this free resource yesterday and I've been having a lot of fun with it. It's an online portal to thousands of radio stations around the world.
Tweet Of The Day
"The Gingerbread Man in 52 Seconds"
— bardsea-green films (@BardseaGrnFilms) February 9, 2021
fairytales & film @LandofLoreFilms#FairyTaleTuesday #film #indiefilm #filmtwitter #cumbria pic.twitter.com/XqDG2JACQn
Christo and Jeanne Claude: A Lifetime of Memories Revealed
"Ahead of Sotheby’s upcoming auction, ‘Unwrapped – the Hidden World of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’ (17 February | Paris), discover how the walls of their apartment told a life story of their personal connections through works by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Marcel Duchamp, and many more."
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