October 23, 2023
The Pharmacy in the Cupboard
It's cold and flu season - buckle up and watch yourself on trains and subways, because if you get what I've had, it's a doozy!.
Let's bone up on how to make yourself (or your loved ones) feel better when you/they feel terrible. And by all means, share your favorite remedies! [more inside]
Kevin the baby echidna reunited with Kevin his rescuer
Kevin the baby echidna, who was saved from floodwaters, reunited with Kevin his rescuer. Last year "Kevin" the baby echidna was pulled from floodwaters along the Darling River, shivering and alone. After 11 months of rehabilitation he was released back into the wild — but not before he was reunited with his rescuer.
Take me right back to the track, Jack.
Please enjoy Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five performing two songs about trains: 1. Choo Choo Ch'Boogie - 1946 (recorded live); 2. Texas and Pacific - 1947 (recorded live)
"Ike's Train Car of Terror"
"At one time this Pullman railroad car was the apex of luxury -- at least according to Stagecoach Stop USA, which in 1978 parked the car on the attraction's front lawn and opened it as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Railroad Car Museum. Supposedly used by President Eisenhower in the 1950s-..."
or was it?
Australia's loooong train journeys
While not even approaching the world's longest train journey of 18,755km, Australia offers a number of journeys by train that ask us to consider the opposite of how we mostly travel - the journey is the thing, not the destination. [more inside]
Hobo Shoestring rides the rails
Best ride to Ohio! I've been riding freight trains since 1989 and have since ridden over 2,700,000 [miles] of steel rails in 49 USA states, eight provinces of Canada and 14 states in Mexico. The Mighty Train Wrecks musical tribute. Youtube playlist of his journeys.
“What the hell?” Mark moans, above. “Carbondale,” I say.
I pull out the last bottle of red and, after fetching two coffee cups from the galley, pour us a drink. Writers need time, and Amtrak, it would appear, has all the time in the world. But maybe they ended the residency program for the same reasons Mark and I have written nothing on this train: There’s just too much else to do and see. America changing shape before your eyes. from Fast Times on America’s Slowest Train
How was it possible for a group of trained people to put on such a flop
The evening of JFK's inauguration also marked the first (and last) episode of a new CBS panel game show, "You're In The Picture," hosted by the inimitable Jackie Gleason, with panelists Jan Sterling, Arthur Treacher, Patricia Carroll and Pat Harrington, Jr. The following week Jackie appeared in that time slot again, but without sets or a panel. He spent the entire time before a studio audience giving a improvised monologue about how resoundingly the show had flopped, as well as a story from his early career, while drinking booze-laden coffee. Both episodes are up at the Internet Archive. Thanks to StarkRoads for finding these! CW: guest misgendering for humor, cultural insensitivity typical of 1961 pop culture, and commercials.
Mount Quaint & Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore? (y/n)
In 1995, short-lived video game publisher Inscape released The Dark Eye, a point-and-click first-person adventure game based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. [more inside]
The *other* Boris Karlov
Seek out what magnifies your spirit.
On each anniversay of the Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings), Maria Popova writes about the most important lesson she's learned that year. Today, on the 17th anniversary, we have one new lesson and the sixteen previous lessons. Learn how to question your universe from a poem about pi. Learn how to outgrow yourself. And don't forget to embrace joy.
Hats are cakes, and handbags are toasters
"A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it’s scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways. The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission." (Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review) [more inside]
Sometimes it's easier to click a checkbox in Excel than rewrite genetics
This was immensely frustrating and dehumanizing
Air Canada has a bad history with wheelchairs. They break them, lose them, refuse them. This week, the one they left behind belonged to Canada's Chief Accessibility Officer, Stephanie Cadieux.
Froderick
Froderick gets a home. (SLYT)
All Dogs Go To Heaven
"Operation Attack"
NPR and the Climate Information Center report on how, in the '60s, gas utilities and the American Gas Association started using public relations firm Hill and Knowlton and industry-funded scientists to sway public opinion. [more inside]
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