July 5, 2014
Switched-on Classics
Digital Classicists: Scholars who study the ancient Greek and Roman empires are creating a growing array of 21st-century interactive, multidimensional presentations about people, places and events from the world of antiquity. If you dig around you'll uncover some deep and meticulous work by geographers, historians, archaeologists, and art historians working in digital space. [more inside]
Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation
7 countries' attempts to grapple with their troubled pasts, and move beyond them.
Happy birthday, Joe Bell
World War II veteran Joe Bell — who gained internet fame when a video of runners shaking his hand went viral — was honored as grand marshal in the San Jose 4th of July Parade yesterday; he led the parade in a motorcycle sidecar driven by his son, Matt. [more inside]
Evolution of the PC, 2004-2014
A Decade of Computer Design [SL-Engadget]
"You think I want to live like I'm somebody's throwaway?"
Walter Dean Myers, a best-selling and deeply respected children's author and tireless champion of literacy and education, died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness. He was 76 years old. [more inside]
Important Public Service Announcement
What Phish sounds like to people who don't like Phish.
Occasional nonsense with bits of individual instruments, some canned applause, and tons of laughter..coming from people watching this. Also: don't forget Harris Whittles continuing to try and make Scott Aukerman (Comedy Bang Bang) love Phish!
This video achieves “Shepard Smith watching True Blood” gayness levels.
I Am the Real Nick Cave
DIY Magic Shell and more
If hot weather has you in the mood for an ice cream treat, Serious Eats has you covered* with a recipe for DIY Magic Shell and five suggestions for how to use it, including faux Klondike Bars, dipped soft-serve cones, ice cream pops, and something they call a King Cone but which looks a lot more like a Sundae Cone or Drumstick to me.
*depending on how much of a messy eater you are
*depending on how much of a messy eater you are
Birth of the International Touring Organ
Cameron Carpenter is a classical organist who takes his instrument very seriously. If you want to hear him play, check out his versions of Schubert's Erlkönig, Chopin's Revolutionary Étude, and his mostly Bach program at the 2012 BBC Proms (Toccata and Fugue in D minor excerpted here). For more background, see this NYT interview. But please watch that first video at least once -- you won't regret it.
Police testilying costs the Big Apple millions
The expensive consequences of New York City’s heavy-handed approach to policing protest have been on display lately. In December, the city finally settled most of the lawsuits stemming from its mass arrest of protesters during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Earlier this month, falsely arrested Occupy Wall Street protesters announced the largest settlement yet between participants and the powers that be, with the city poised to shell out nearly $600,000 in damages. NYC already paid $350,000 last year to settle a suit over its destruction of media equipment and Occupy’s library during the 2011 eviction of Zuccotti Park, $82,500 this past December to settle an Occupier’s suit claiming that police beat him up across the span of three arrests, and $50,000 the month before to settle a suit by people arrested on suspicion that they might later attend a protest.Nick Pinto reports on the consequences for New York of the heavy handed police approach to e.g. the Occupy Wallstreet movement
Designing a Perfect Summer
Kiel James Patrick and his fiancée Sarah Vickers spend much of their time meticulously photographing the many splendors of a certain strain of New England life - the world of "prep". But are the people who appear in Sarah and Kiel's photos really their friends? Do Sarah and Kiel own these incredible homes? Or are they just taking social media marketing to a whole new level?
Mine is the beige house. No, the other one. No, the one next to that.
In his new book Ciphers, German photographer Christopher Gielen (previously) reveals haunting images of our endlessly repetitive development through aerial views of American urban sprawl. [more inside]
Muskrat Love: "Every time I sing this song, I think of Henry Kissinger"
Toni Tennille informed an audience that she and the Captain performed Muskrat Love at the dinner in honor of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (PDF) as part of the Bicentennial celebrations at the White House, much to the intrigue and/or confusion of Henry Kissinger. Though there doesn't seem to be any video of the performance, there is some photographic evidence (description of photos (PDF)). The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum tumblr has a post on the event, with a higher quality image of Captain and Tennillee in action. For better or worse, there aren't any people in muskrat-type costumes to be seen.
Walter Tull, on the new UK £5 coin
Walter Tull was the first ever Black officer in the British Army, and the first black officer to lead white men into battle. He was also only the second black player to compete in the top division of football, playing for the Tottenham Hotspur and Northhampton Town. An unassuming pioneer, his life has inspired a play, a documentary and a petition.
As part of a series of coins on the centenary of the Great War, The Royal Mint has begun a programme of commemoration that will continue over the next five years, telling the emotive story of the journey from outbreak to armistice through a series of United Kingdom £5 coins, arranged in six-coin sets. Passed over for the Military Cross, allegedly due to the Army's institutional racism that banned "negros and other persons of colour" advancement to officer ranks, Walter Tull has his own coin at last.
Tales from the Victorian Press
The man killed by an automation. The man attacked for getting a shave. The 3,000 mile long alcoholic bender. The angry mob attacking the seller of How to Correct Woman. The man driven insane by tarantulas. The escaped polar bear in Scotland. The monkey who learned how to make a noose. All this and more discovered by Jeremy Clay, author of The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton: and Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press and regular writer for BBC News's Magazine Monitor.
Also: "There are living in the small village of Leyton, Essex, four persons of the name of John Swan, not at all related, and all with wooden legs, although not one has been in the army or navy."
killing them with kindness
Farm Confessional: I Raise Livestock and I Think It May Be Wrong - "[Bob] Comis talked to Modern Farmer about the self-doubt he feels while raising animals for slaughter and his desire to see humanity evolve into a species that does not kill to eat." [more inside]
The Valley of the Shadow
The Valley of the Shadow is a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War. Here you may explore thousands of original documents that allow you to see what life was like during the Civil War for the men and women of Augusta and Franklin.
Presented by the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia.
Cultural Cannibal: The journalism of Gabriel García Márquez
“Would I want to read the young García Márquez’s journalism if it didn’t happen to be written by García Márquez?” I asked myself while speedwalking toward Bocars Libros in the Barracas neighborhood of Buenos Aires, and again while shelling out 150 pesos for the three-volume Obra periodística with an introduction by Jacques Gilard. Back home, reading his work, my anxiety was quickly dispelled. Gabriel García Marquez (1927–2014) is known in the English-speaking world for his lyrical, densely descriptive novels, but as a journalist he was acerbically funny, charming, and slightly bizarre. The young García Márquez devoured what surrounded him. Everything was raw material for his newspaper columns—film adaptations of Faulkner, nudism, dancing bears, the letter X, a woman he saw in an ice cream parlor who may have been the “ugliest I’ve ever seen in my life, or, on the contrary, the most disconcertingly beautiful.” [more inside]
"Welcome to a show about things you can see..."
Produced by Kansas City PBS affiliate KCPT, Rare Visions & Roadside Revelations is a TV series spotlighting "outsider artists, grassroots art environments and offbeat attractions of all kinds." [more inside]
The Pimps and Prostitutes of 1970s Times Square
From 1972 to 1982, Sheldon Nadelman worked as a bartender at the “roughest bar in town”—Terminal Bar, directly across from the Port Authority. When he wasn’t pouring drinks, Nadelman was taking photographs of his patrons. He had good material: as one regular put it, “through these doors pass some of the most miserable people on Earth.”
Girls, Gills, and Great Whites
Last year, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy launched the Gills Club, a STEM project to jump start girls' interest in sharks and science. It's going swimmingly. For those who can't make it to club activities, Ocearch's Shark Tracker offers an opportunity to follow the travels of tagged sharks (previously). Gills Club blog.
Do you have a plan to harm yourself or anyone else?
“If I were going to pull a Virginia Tech or a Columbine,” he said, “I wouldn’t tell you about it, would I?”
Inconceivable!
Imagine a world where Fezzik was played by Aaaarnold, and Buttercup turned out to be an alter ego of Monica, because that almost happened.
Bonus: imagine a world where a reunion movie happened.
"And you think Mark ignored you because you're a woman?"
The Ping Pong Theory of Tech Sexism by Ariel Schrag. A web comic about the subtleties of workplace sexism in male-dominated industries.
Colorado is playing smart
Six months after legalizing cannabis , Colorado is cashing in money while Denver crime rates have suddenly fallen. Meanwhile, in the rest of the World...
Deliberately wasting your time
Diehard fans of Blackadder, Bottom, The Young Ones and/or Monty Python, do you know your lines? Resting in a quiet, dusty corner of the web is a comprehensive repository of the scripts in plain text. The first Blackadder episode is hard to read, it's a solid wall of text, the next is slightly better. After that things improve. [more inside]
No, YOU'RE going to need a bigger boat
"Jaws" ridiculous, say kids who owe everything to "Jaws." Richard Dreyfuss's kids re-visit film history. [alt url]
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