August 19, 2011
"This is not a high fidelity record"
In 1900, Lionel Mapleson - librarian at the Metropolitan Opera - acquired a Bettini cylinder recorder. Equipped with the machine and a giant recording horn, Mapleson began to make covert recordings of Met performances from the flies of the stage. Over the next few years, he made some of the earliest live recordings (and in some cases the only recordings) of many of the most popular voices of the late 19th and early 20th century. (Sometimes he also recorded his family). [more inside]
Keepon dancing
Will a slightly pared down version of the My Keepon, a fuzzy yellow dancing robot, be this year's holiday hit? (For extra added schmoopy, a portion of the proceeds will go to autism research.) Pretty fly for an AI.
Anselm Kiefer
Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow bears witness to German artist Anselm Kiefer’s alchemical creative processes and renders as a film journey the personal universe he has built at his hill studio estate in the South of France. [more inside]
Dogs can smell cancer
Recent research on whether dogs can smell lung cancer supports prior research on the subject, which concluded that dogs can smell both lung cancer and breast cancer. [more inside]
Does Rather More Than a Spider Can: Genetically Engineered "Bulletproof" Skin
Dutch Artist Bio-Engineers Spider Silk into Skin, Making It "Bulletproof". Following on the work of Randy Lewis, a scientist studying how ultra-resilient artificial spider-silk can be used for body armor and other military products, Dutch artist Jalila Essaidi has integrated this engineered silk into a patch of human skin. Experiments with a rifle necessarily followed.
Video and her explanation here.
Cruise the D
The Woodward Dream Cruise is an annual event, bringing out nearly every classic and not-so-classic car in southeast Michigan. Bumper to bumper, a blessing or a curse, depending on who you are and how badly it screws up your trip to the grocery store or the emergency room. But, if nothing else, it is Pure Michigan.
DJ Bronco's Brasilian Soul Mix
Single-link-1-hour-Brazilian-music-mix-filter: DJ Bronco's Brasilian Soul Mix. No playlist, but does contain awesomely solid Brazilian tunage... enjoy!
Mmmm...pressed peanut sweepings
64 slices of American Cheese and other foods from the Simpsons attempted in real life
Not included: Gummi Venus De Milo, Homer's Patented Space-Age Out of This World Moon Waffles, Skittlebrau, Floor Pie, the Flaming Moe [more inside]
Not included: Gummi Venus De Milo, Homer's Patented Space-Age Out of This World Moon Waffles, Skittlebrau, Floor Pie, the Flaming Moe [more inside]
Green Listening
Muppets: The Green Album (previously) is now available to listen to in its entirety as an NPR "First Listen".
'Serve the people'
China debate over US envoy's coffee run. 'The low-key actions of two top US officials have sparked heated debate among China's netizens about the nature of public servants. A photograph of new US Ambassador to China Gary Locke ordering coffee and carrying his own backpack generated thousands of online comments. A visit by Vice-President Joe Biden to a small Beijing eatery fuelled debate. Many praised the informality of the two men's actions, contrasting them with status-conscious Chinese officials.' [more inside]
Seeing with sonar
Tacit is a wearable sonar system for the vision-impaired that communicates the distance of nearby objects using variable pressure on the wrist of the user. Part list, circuit diagram, and detailed instructions for building the ~$100 device included.
Helen DeWitt
AM: Do you have a favorite kanji character?
HD: I like this one: 峠
because it reminds me of a poem by Christina Rossetti:
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men
(what I mean is, it’s terribly nice to have the radicals for mountain, up and down form the character). I’m very fond of 競 because it makes me think of two men skating with their arms behind their backs in a Dutch painting, wearing black frock coats and breeches. 明 is not very exotic, of course, but it’s nice to have the word for ‘bright’ represented by the sun and moon – this is a bit like certain German words, where the elements of a phenomenon are put together for the word: there’s Morgengrauen (morning grey) for the sky lightening to grey just before dawn, and Morgenröte (morning red) for the sky when it first turns red, similar sort of thing. An interview with Helen DeWitt, author of The Last Samurai, Your Name Here, a novel written with Ilya Gridneff, and the forthcoming Lightning Rods. DeWitt will be in New York September 8 - 11.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men
(what I mean is, it’s terribly nice to have the radicals for mountain, up and down form the character). I’m very fond of 競 because it makes me think of two men skating with their arms behind their backs in a Dutch painting, wearing black frock coats and breeches. 明 is not very exotic, of course, but it’s nice to have the word for ‘bright’ represented by the sun and moon – this is a bit like certain German words, where the elements of a phenomenon are put together for the word: there’s Morgengrauen (morning grey) for the sky lightening to grey just before dawn, and Morgenröte (morning red) for the sky when it first turns red, similar sort of thing. An interview with Helen DeWitt, author of The Last Samurai, Your Name Here, a novel written with Ilya Gridneff, and the forthcoming Lightning Rods. DeWitt will be in New York September 8 - 11.
there's not very much to say about me
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990 - 87 min)
Warhol's Cinema - A Mirror for the Sixties (1989 - 64 min)
From The Factory: 1963-1968
Excellent photo slide show
Warhol's Cinema - A Mirror for the Sixties (1989 - 64 min)
From The Factory: 1963-1968
Excellent photo slide show
Yes, they consider us cockroaches. Cockroaches left in charge of increasingly advanced and destructive technology.
"Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis" A scholarly paper (33-page pdf) summarized by the Guarniad with its most attention-getting scenario semi-explained by DiscoveryNews: "[the aliens may] want to exterminate us for the greater good of the Milky Way." (for the record, it was NOT written for NASA though one of the authors is a "NASA dude")
The Rebuilding
The Memorial. "People talk a lot about the "healing process." Well, this is New York. In the aftermath of a tragedy of monumental proportions, the healing process has been noisy and rude, with elbows out, redolent of greed, power, and the darker forces that drive human existence. And most of the shouting has been about how to make a fitting monument to what happened here. But in a hundred years, all the shouting and all the politics will be forgotten. What will be remembered is what is built here, now, on these sixteen acres." [more inside]
When two readers love each other very much, they raise a smaller reader
Awesome times in East Germany
Secret Spy Photos from East Germany Revealed! All kinds of awesome from the time that the Berlin Wall fell. [coral cache]
Back to Washington for Boeing
Boeing's new Dreamliner plant in South Carolina was found to be retaliation for union strikes by the National Labor Relations Board, an independent agency (On Point radio show).
That's prompted Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to launch an all-out war on the NRLB according to Dahlia Lithwick.
(Previously.)
Shortage of STEM Workers
Is There a Shortage of Skilled Foreign Workers? What is never mentioned is that “the best and the brightest” are already here. This argument is an old one. [more inside]
What if law schools opened their own law firms?
The job market is saturated and graduates are unable to get hired anywhere to get proper training. Law professors Richard Rhee and Bradley Borden have a solution: law schools should open their own law firms.
The pop culture art of Phil Noto
Phil Noto illustrates the hell out of comics, TV, pulp fiction, music, and being a six year old artist at his blog, Your Nice New Outfit. Oh shit it's the Master Blaster!
1 1 2 3 5 Eureka!
13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence After studying how trees branch in a very specific way, Aidan Dwyer created a solar cell tree that produces 20-50% more power than a uniform array of photovoltaic panels. [more inside]
Guatamalan Mother Searches Five Years for Daughter
In a case that is rocking the international adoption world, a Guatemalan judge has ordered the return of a six year old girl to her biological family. [more inside]
Day of Honey, Day of Onions.
Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love and War [reviews, excerpt] discusses Iraqi intellectualism, war and food, ancient Iraqi cooking, the Middle East's dependence on imported wheat, and the link between bread and civilian uprisings. [more inside]
Robert Breer, 1926-2011
On August 12th, pioneering experimental animator Robert Breer passed away at the age of 84. [more inside]
Attack on British Council in Kabul
"Today is our independence day from Britain. They recognised our independence 92 years ago; today's attack was marking that day" - 12 dead confirmed thus far as a result of suicide attack on British Council building in Kabul.
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