July 16, 2023
Je t'aime
Jane Birkin, actor and activist, died yesterday 16 July 2023 at her home in Paris. For anglophones of a certain age, her 1969 song with Serge Gainsbourg was a powerful incentive to learn some French. Tributes from President Macron "Parce qu’elle incarnait la liberté, qu’elle chantait les plus beaux mots de notre langue, Jane Birkin était une icône française" and many others. Chapeaux!
The Barbie Watchlist
Writer and director Greta Gerwig provided Letterboxd with a watchlist of 29 movies that inspired the look and script of the upcoming Barbie movie. A subsequent interview expanded the list to 33 movies. (YouTube link if you'd rather watch the interview than read it.) [more inside]
They Came From Outer Space to Become a Show's New Face
[MLYT] In 1989, Australians John Thomson and Mark Shirrefs began planning a children's magazine series hosted by crash-landed aliens learning about Earth. Ten years later, they pitched it... as a children's sitcom ABOUT such a show, hosted by characters the network doesn't know are real alien schoolchildren. It went straight to series without even a pilot order, and got a second season. This is Kid's Breakfast... or rather, Pig's Breakfast.
Middle Eats
Middle Eats teaches you about various Middle Eastern cuisines with educational explorations of Egyptian breakfast dishes, Syrian comfort food, Libyan mbakbaka, Palestinian chicken and rice, and more. Want more? [more inside]
exposing restaurants that leave tails on shrimp
"Secondly, @dril's tweets contain references to various topics such as merchandise, horses, caves, and movies like Dunkirk. While it is challenging to pinpoint their specific career, their diverse range of interests suggests a broad knowledge base. Additionally, their tweet about their wife moving to the big Apple to entertain the idea of becoming "Rudy's Slut" hints at a potential involvement in the entertainment industry." -TwitterGPT takes any public Twitter handle and generates a quick, questionably accurate report and then helpfully suggests a book as a gift.
Racist Shitstain's Destiny.
Jesse James Comer took exception to a Bungie community manager sharing content by Destiny 2 creator Uhmaayyze. Mr. Comer expressed his ire by engaging in a campaign of "racist, stochastic terrorism" against the campaign manager.
Unfortunately for Mr. Comer, Bungie took him to court over his behaviour and won to the tune of $489,435.52. For trolls more generally, it would appear that this case establishes precedents that may well be applied in future cases.
Best Hard-Boiled Egg Method - tested head to head
We Tried 7 Ways to Hard-Boil Eggs and Found a Clear Winner Ann Taylor Pittman for The Kitchn. "I was delighted to find that most methods worked quite well. A couple gave less-than-stellar results, and some received higher ratings from me because they produced great eggs with less effort. I rated each method on a scale of 10, with one being the worst, and 10 being the best. While a few scored very well, only one method scored a 10 out of 10. You may also be interested in Do 'Better' Eggs Really Taste Better? by J. Kenji López-Alt at Serious Eats, and 9 Egg Gadgets I’ve Tested (So You Don’t Have to) from www.emmymade.com.
The big hurrah before it all started to come apart
Journey - Frontiers & Beyond [1h30m] records the band Journey's 1983 tour supporting the Fronteirs album. Peculiarly, it was done by NFL Flims, not an outfit I'd normally turn to for a rock and roll documentary. It's a lot about logistics and the crew who put on the show, as well as the band who were at the absolute height of their powers.
Superman v. El Tata
In 1987, Christopher Reeve visited Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship to lend his public story to actors being threatened by the military regime. Link is to a Radio Ambulante segment transcription/translation in English, but you can also read/listen in Spanish.
You got a fast car
“On one hand, Luke Combs is an amazing artist, and it’s great to see that someone in country music is influenced by a Black queer woman — that’s really exciting… But at the same time, it’s hard to really lean into that excitement knowing that Tracy Chapman would not be celebrated in the industry without that kind of middleman being a White man.” On the complicated reaction to the Luke Comb’s cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car.
Big numbers
The human body has around 30 trillion cells. The vigintillion is a cardinal number represented in the US by 1 followed by 63 zeros, and in the UK by 1 followed by 120 zeros. Before this post, there were 325 (5x5x13) posts which contained 'potato' and 2522 (2x13x97) wich contained 'cat'. A bajillion is a huge number. Rayo's number was claimed to be the largest named number. If you could stack $44 billion in $100 bills, it'd be 30 miles high. Some populations are huge, but others less so. The Eddington number, the number of protons in the observable universe, is currently estimated to be 10 to the power of 80. Even 200,000 is a big number.
Comedy Pet Photography Awards 2023: Meet some of the Finalists
Small gallery of photos of animals doing cute things No mystery links here, exactly what it says in the title. [more inside]
Not Yet, Roger
Really careful....not yet Roger..... Roger! (SLYT 30s). In which a feline friend demonstrates athletic non-prowess.
Look Back at Anger
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