Sunday Links

Halo with Three Parhelia, Winter Harbour Melville Island”

Some lovely views of Polar Regions: Watercolours By Queen Victoria's Spy  (image above)

Detroit’s Michigan Central Restoration is a symbol of the Motor City’s resilience. More than 3,000 artisans helped revive the 1913 Beaux Arts train terminal 

Take a tour of Alcatraz - via Memo Of The Air

The Son Who Couldn’t Leave Paul Barreto lived in a small room in the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan where his father and his boyfriend were squatting. After five years he was able to escape. (NYT gift link)

Being There The 1937 phrasebook Collins’ Pocket Interpreters: France paints an alarming picture of a typical visit to France.

Justin Johnson slides on anything

“He lived in a two-bedroom rancher assessed at $167,000, less than the value of the armored Secret Service vehicles parked outside.” President Jimmy Carter was very different from other recent presidents (in a good way).

High Hopes: Ant on a rubber rope paradox.

This is good news for me: It appears that coffee has a positive effect on human health. via the new shelton wet/dry

These colourful Victorian beach cottages came up in my feed today. When our children were very little Mr. Nag and I decided to move from Toronto to a quieter community. We looked at a house on this circle but decided it needed too much work and moved to Niagara on the Lake instead. 

The amazing DynaTAC! This is what mobile phones looked like when I was young.  I predicted they’d never catch on.

A story about compassion: Mark saw his patient comfort a dying man. And that moment has stayed with him. 

I loved this article about author Raymond Chandler by Greg Olear. I read all of Chandler’s detective novels when I was a girl. I liked him so much that a friend silkscreened a T-shirt for me with a Chandler quote, “Not Peculiar, Just Uninhibited” over a noir image of a detective in a fedora. I wore it until it was in tatters. I assumed I knew a lot about the author but apparently I did not.

These toddlers groovin’ on Whitney Houston is the sweetest thing. via Everlasting Blort

Local Alternatives to California Sober

Siri is a spy. The only clue that users had was eerily accurate targeted ads that appeared after they had just been talking about specific items like Air Jordans or brands like Olive Garden. I have 4 Apple devices and have never used Siri. I guess I’m not paranoid after all.

For those of you who work in a public space: This handy gadget gives you eyes in back of your head. 

Best New Places of 2024  Twenty-four offbeat places encountered by the Atlas Obscura community last year.

Inside Zildjian, a 400-year-old cymbal-making company in Massachusetts via Kottke

A series of Leaving and Waving photos photographs tells a story about family, aging, and the sorrow of saying good-bye. via Memo Of The Air

Whistleblower finds unencrypted location data for 800,000 VW EVs  A story about unprotected data on Amazon's cloud.

Baby Bird Found Alive Inside Dead Man's Stomach After Being Swallowed During Fertility Ritual  via the new shelton wet/dry

Ten of the Very Best TV Episodes of All Time  I had to watch the Madmen episode because it is my favourite series. I have seen all 92 episodes of that show 3 times and now I’m tempted to watch the whole series again.

In 1985, a black bear in northern Georgia died from a cocaine overdose. It was stuffed and is now at the Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington, Kentucky. Because of a loophole in Kentucky marriage law, it is allowed to perform legally binding weddings.  I did not know this until I read 52 Things I Learned in 2024 by Kent Hendricks. I post his list every year and I learn a lot.