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Brian Potter explains the construction of a semiconductor fab
How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fab. By Brian Potter of Construction Physics.
The survival of this ancient language is as mysterious as its origins
Shakespeare toys with numerous European languages throughout his work, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Dutch. Often, these are spoken in thick accents, with comedic pronunciation. The same holds true for his use of the various British dialects—Scots, Welsh, Cornish, and Irish—heard in scruffy taverns or high courts. In Henry V, soldiers fracture the King’s English while the king himself and a French princess descend into a comical Franglais courtship. Yet, no matter how garbled the speech, playgoers can usually identify distinct languages and dialects—that is, until they bump up against what scholars have called the “invented language,” “unintelligible gabble,” and “‘Boskos thromuldo boskos’ mumbo-jumbo” in his comedy "All’s Well That Ends Well." from I Understand Thee, and Can Speak Thy Tongue: California Unlocks Shakespeare’s Gibberish [LARB]
We Sent Ralph Nader Some of Our Favorite Pens. He Dismissed Them All.
Ralph Nader is loyal to one pen: the Papermate Flair. But Nader claims that the pens are drying out quicker then they used to. He reached out to Wirecutter (a NYT property) and they investigated.
Archive.is link: https://archive.is/54jtw [more inside]
Man on a Ledge
"Megalopolis has always been a film dedicated to my dear wife Eleanor. I really had hoped to celebrate her birthday together this May 4th. But sadly that was not to be, so let me share with everyone a gift on her behalf." Weeks after the loss of his wife, the legendary Francis Ford Coppola reveals a first look at his magnum opus more than 40 years in the making, which has finally found a distributor after the director spent $120 million of his own funds on the project. [more inside]
A book fair only in name but oh the amount of shame!
Can Yulia Navalnaya unite the Russian opposition?
Three days after her husband's death, Yulia Navalnaya announced publicly that she would continue his work and take over the management of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). Three days after her husband's death, Yulia Navalnaya announced publicly that she would continue his work and take over the management of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). She also accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of killing Alexei Navalny, and announced that an investigation into the exact details was underway. [more inside]
Archaeologists reveal reconstructed face of 75,000yo Neanderthal woman
Archaeologists reveal reconstructed face of 75,000yo Neanderthal woman.
The Neanderthal woman's skull was discovered in 2018 in a cave in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq.
World Pilot Gig Championships 2024
The Cornish Pilot Gig is a coxed 6-oar, clinker built rowing boat, originally built to take pilots out to sailing ships to pilot them into harbour. Since the first pilot to get to a ship got the job, speed became essential to anyone who wanted to get paid, requiring strong arms, stamina and innovations in boat design. While this trade is long gone, most Cornish harbours continue to support a gig club who race competitively, purely for fun and glory. [more inside]
Big ships in even bigger waves.
OH! And RIGHT into the bales!
From YouTube channel Legends Of Soapbox Racing, I present to you London's BEST CRASHES EVER #redbullsoapboxrace #londoncrashes [28m]. It's a cavalcade of hilarious car designs and amusing sudden ends. Despite the crashing, there don't appear to be any real injuries.
Let's play life
the internet has produced many things, but its driving force is cowardice. it's there in the collective failure to conceptualize how the things one does online manifest themselves in the larger world. it's there in the lionization of an almost spiritual level of intellectual laziness in the need to endlessly double down on whatever your personal brand becomes. it's there in the desire to tear down anyone who might attempt to shine a light on your own personal failures and limitations, in either your work or your larger perspective on the world. the internet is a refuge for the bad faith. Let's play life, a long post about "let's plays", internet culture and youtube by Liz Ryerson (previously)
10 PRINT "HELLO METAFILTER"; 20 GOTO 10
For many people, the first time they tried to take control of a computer centered around learning to program in BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), a simple, interpreted programming language designed around easily-understandable keywords and syntax. BASIC turned 60 a couple of days ago, so find one of the many online BASIC interpreters and write yourself a little bit of history.
We Need to Rewild the Internet
People who care about internet monoculture and control are often told they’re nostalgists harkening back to a pioneer era. It’s fiendishly hard to regenerate an open and competitive infrastructure for younger generations who’ve been raised to assume that two or three platforms, two app stores, two operating systems, two browsers, one cloud/mega-store and a single search engine for the world comprise the internet. (Noema sl) [more inside]
Philosophy doesn’t only matter for the ivory tower
By leveraging a unique large dataset and new techniques for exploring this dataset, our paper highlights the diversity of moral dilemmas experienced in daily life, and helps to build a moral psychology grounded in the vagaries of everyday experience. from A Large-Scale Investigation of Everyday Moral Dilemmas, in which Philosophers are studying Reddit’s “Am I the Asshole?” [Vox]
“Oh yes, it has the juice.”
In this video ad, the Hero Wars mascot Galahad finds himself in dire straits as but a human plough-horse upon the field. His captor, half-cow, half-human woman, brands him on the buttock with what looks like our old friend the purple devil emoji—rather a “naugty” [sic] act. Suddenly set upon by wolves, the cow lady is compromised—and Galahad steps up to become white knight, fending the beasts off with his axe. The cow lady and her new hero Galahad elope to her encampment, where she carries him around like a baby, and spots him for sit-ups. Needless to say, the episode of the bovine damsel does not occur in-game. from The Weird World of Hero Wars Ads: Sex Sells [Splice Today] [more inside]
In other news, water continues to be wet
Witty song from "Fiorello" the Broadway musical.
The great Howard DaSilva performs the showstopping number "Little Tin Box" Fiorello! is a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a reform Republican, which debuted on Broadway in 1959, and tells the story of how La Guardia took on the Tammany Hall political machine. The book is by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott, drawn substantially from the 1955 volume Life with Fiorello by Ernest Cuneo, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock. [more inside]
Orangutan becomes first wild animal seen using medicinal plant on wound
Sumatran orangutan becomes first wild animal seen using medicinal plant to treat wound. [more inside]
The children who remember their past lives
What happens when your toddler is haunted by memories that aren’t hers? In Louisiana in 2000, 2-year-old James Leininger would wake screaming, repeating the same phrases to his baffled and disturbed parents: “Airplane crash on fire! Little man can’t get out!” Over the following year, a story unspooled in memories and drawings: He was a World War II pilot whose plane took off from a boat, and he died when he was shot down by Japanese forces. James offered names of people and places, and his account would ultimately become one of the most prominent and thoroughly documented “cases of the reincarnation type,” or CORT, ever recorded.
Shut Up 'n Play Yer ... Bicycle?
In 1963, a clean-cut Frank Zappa appeared live on the Steve Allen show playing a musical composition on bicycles. The entire 16:28 is worthwhile to watch for the conversation and interaction between the two, but the performance with the show's orchestra starts at 11:56. The show's talent coordinator Jerry Hopkins discusses how the young musician's debut performance came about. [more inside]