September 2, 2023
Solar energy modules may help solve renewable storage issues
These solar energy modules generate enough heat to melt metal. It's hoped they can help solve renewable storage issues. Renewable energy company RayGen has officially opened its $27 million solar and thermal power plant project, in north-west Victoria.
We built a giant eagle puppet for Iceland's national day
Monotype-oly
Fonts are a ubiquitous commodity. Every font you see — on your computer screen, a street sign, a T-shirt, or your car’s dashboard — has been crafted by a designer. With 4.5k independent artists selling on MyFonts today, many struggle to attract customers and to make a living in an oversaturated market. It’s only getting harder, as designers must compete with and abide by the terms of one company that’s approaching behemoth status: Monotype. from Where do fonts come from? This one business, mostly
Long Inseams and Candy
Wearing her now iconic extra-long inseam running shorts, Courtney Dauwalter has cemented her status as the greatest ultrarunner of all time by completing the unprecedented hat trick of winning the Western States 100, the Hardrock 100, and UTMB in the same summer. [more inside]
BLAST!
"Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who was associated with the Vorticist movement in London, certainly died youngest. He was killed at 23, and, except for a few surviving sketches, and several small pieces of sculpture made while he was in the trenches (now lost), the period of his full artistic production actually ended when he left for the Front, in September of 1914, when he was still 22."
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska: The Process of Discovery. [more inside]
For just zero dollars a day, you can not hit a bridge
This Labor Day Weekend, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation has an important message for people moving to Boston. [more inside]
42 Students, Three Days, One Survivor, No Rules.
Battle Royale, revisited [The Verge] “Before The Hunger Games, Fortnite, or Squid Game, the concept of the “battle royale” came from a pulpy 1999 Japanese novel by Koushun Takami. The movie, directed by Kinji Fukasaku and released just a year later, slims down some of the book’s context (scrubbed is the alternate history of Japan winning World War II), but the setup is more or less the same: a class of 15-year-old students are randomly selected to be made an example of. They are dropped on a remote island, given some weapons, and forced to kill each other off until a single person remains — the victor. Kids murdering each other? How cruel! But that’s the point. The violence of the battle royale is supposed to scare the authoritarian regime’s citizens into productive submission. As the students die, the movie counts down the remaining ones, like sport. Battle Royale is mean, and it’s not subtle.” [YouTube][Trailer] [more inside]
Logistically I still can't believe we pulled it off
How 'Weird: The Al Yankovic Story' Pulled Off the Cameo Filled Pool Scene [12m15s] is a look at the insanely celebrity-cameo-laden pool scene from the entirely accurate biopic. Everyone is so enthusiastic about the project, it's charming. It's a thing you'd enjoy if you enjoy this kind of thing.
The Quest to Pick Up the Lost Lifting Stones of Ireland
For centuries, Ireland’s stones were more than just a feature of the rugged landscape: The ability to pick them up off of the ground had deep practical and spiritual meaning. Lifting stones were used in tests of manhood (and, in a few cases, womanhood), hoisted at funerals to honor the dead, carried at weddings in celebration of the couple, and used to determine whether a man was strong enough to earn work as a farmhand. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, during British colonization, the practice largely vanished. Most of the stones remained untouched where they were last lifted. (archive.today link)
"Life is a journey that's not measured in miles or years."
alternate endings to hamlet | jennifer peepas
alternate endings to hamlet by Jennifer Peepas (aka Captain Awkward). A quick but worthwhile read (there's also a 10 min. audio version) that ends with a killer reimagining of Hamlet. Content warning: threats of sexual violence.
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