July 28, 2023
Record release of 380 baby seahorses into Sydney Harbour
Record release of 380 baby seahorses into Sydney Harbour gives endangered species hope. Marine scientists were able to find perfect conditions to raise the enchanting creatures, resulting in three pregnant males producing hundreds of babies.
More Than Just Hurt
Silent Spring for your wardrobe: Alden Wicker talks about the chemicals lurking in our clothes in an interview on NPR about her new book, "To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick--and How We Can Fight Back."
"I was right there with you, and I didn’t see that. How did you see it?"
ADD, and My Photography or Where the Hell is the Leica? Sure I’ll Play Parcheesi! "All my life until that point, I was told that I was lazy, that I would be a failure in my life, that I had better buckle down and fly right and keep my nose clean. I was a troublemaker, a bad kid. I believed it after a while.
I knew there was something wrong with me. No matter how much I would try to “do it” like the other kids, pay attention, take legible notes, and get my homework turned in on time, I was an utter failure at it.
Except for photography.
That and reading kept me alive."
I understood him to pronounce "The United States" as "The United Snakes"
'Groucho Marx and the United Snakes of America' gives a brief history of the case. Interestingly, his brother Harpo was praised by Hoover for smuggling papers out of the former Soviet Union.
Australians fitness startup Zenbly and its fabulist founder
The fall of Zenbly. Australian fitness startup founder seems to have faked his AI PhD from Columbia University, with a fabricated degree certificate and everything. [more inside]
Houston's heat wave: ‘I Don’t Want to Be Here Anymore’
Houstonians pride themselves on how they tolerate heat. This summer, the heat has become intolerable. (ghostarchive.org)
As God is my witness, I thought humans could fly
For the first time ever, the Japan International Birdman Rally will be broadcast live worldwide on Youtube. For this 45th edition of the rally, the human-powered aircraft division will be live in 15 minutes, and the gliders will be live in 23 hours. Commentary will be in Japanese, but you can keep up with International Birdman news in English at the Japanese HPA blog. Enjoy some of the less successful entries from previous years, or Yuri Watanabe's 60km Japanese record from 2019, second only to the world record of 115km, set in 1988.
Quentin Crisp, a life in film
It's hard to believe, perhaps even astonishing, that The Naked Civil Servant [1h17m] was shown on British television in 1975. John Hurt's brilliant portrayal of Quentin Crisp in an unflinching film about being nonbinary homosexual in Britain, based on Crisp's 1968 autobiography, propelled both men into immediate fame. Hurt revisited the role 34 years later in 2009 , after Crisp's 1999 death, for An Englishman In New York [1h14m], based on the broad sweep of Crisp's later life in America. [more inside]
Barbie is Now Queen. But for my generation, Sindy reigned supreme.
Viv Groskop invokes dolls’ breast size as a feature of national stereotypes: "It wasn’t an idea purely of my own invention, aged five or six, but by the late 1970s I had acquired the understanding – by social and parental osmosis – that there was something “off” about Barbie. She was vulgar, American and very possibly a bit up herself. (The very worst things a female, whether doll or human, could be, we imagined.) I realise now that this was all really to do with what these dolls looked like naked: Barbie’s boobs were obvious, pneumatic and borderline pointy; Sindy’s boobs were more demure, subtler, almost self-effacing. Barbie represented something unapologetic and very possibly sexual. Sindy was safe and wholesome." [more inside]
The Crane River
The
Crane River winds gently through West London, from the vast concrete bulk of Twickenham Rugby Stadium, past the
shot tower that is the last remnant of the vast gunpowder factory that lasted from 1776 to 1927 (blowing up 55 times), to the sunken Feltham Circles which are one of the few open graffiti walls in London. If you're lucky on your walk you can see seven species of bats, water voles, kingfishers, adders and eels, tawny owls and glow worms or Muntjac deer.
"Fatigue Can Shatter a Person" by Ed Yong, The Atlantic (fulltext link)
Everyday tiredness is nothing like the depleting symptom that people with long COVID and ME/CFS experience. (archive.is)
The Grogue of Democracy
In some contexts, small-batch production represents high quality and care – French cheeses, Italian olive oil and Kentucky bourbon, for example. In others, it signifies cheapness and inferior quality. Cabo Verdean grogue can possess both elements, leading to highly charged debates over its value. from Inside the grogue wars of Cabo Verde [more inside]
The Restaurant that has Something for Everyone
Common sense for restaurant success is actually the opposite of everything the Cheesecake Factory does. Minimize labor, minimize ingredients, minimize everything. Restaurants are expensive to maintain and trimming excess helps survivability. But everything on the Cheesecake Factory's ridiculous 20-page, 250-item menu is made fresh in the kitchens; except, ironically, the cheesecakes. [more inside]
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