10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting

a fantasy of empire via 3quarksdaily by Morgan Meis
In 1929, two years after he resigned from his job as a policeman in Burma, George Orwell settled, in his mind at least, the question that still troubles many people in Britain and the US: whether the British empire was good or bad. Burma’s “relationship with the British empire&rdqwuo;, Orwell wrote, “is that of slave and master. Is the master good or bad? That is not the question; let us simply say that this control is despotic and, to put it plainly, self-interested.” Writing in 1942 about Rudyard Kipling’s legend of British soldiers, administrators and engineers in the colonies carrying heroically the white man’s burden, Orwell was blunter. “He does not seem to realise,” Orwell wrote, “any more than the average soldier or colonial administrator, that an empire is primarily a money-making concern.”
more from Pankaj Mishra at the FT here

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
What's ugly beyond belief, singed, moldy, water-stained, and, until now, inaccessible? Archimedes' brain in a box... more


Silent Era Movie Posters via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Amanda
Difficult choice, as always, but I think I liked this the best!
The rest are here.
Thank you to Verdoux



‘Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow’ Seagram’s Ads, 1940s via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris

3D Movies

In the mid-1940s, Seagram’s advertised its VO Canadian whiskey with a series of extremely manly magazine ads about ‘Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow’ – unspecified futuristic thinkers who liked the fact that Seagram’s was patient enough to age VO for six years.
Technologizer Other pictures:

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Literary fiction is not a standard to aspire to, says Geoff Dyer. It's merely a convention that writers and readers collapse into, like an old sofa... more

Big Balloon to Cool Earth via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in the Philippines in 1991 led to the Earth cooling slightly for two years. Now British scientists are preparing to trial a potential solution to global warming that mimics the effect. This geo-engineering involves using an ordinary hosepipe …
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From Spain to the Americas, from the convent to the front: Catalina de Erauso's shifting identities via Eurozine articles by Isabel Hernández
Isabel Hernández analyses the account of the 17th century nun Catalina de Erauso: She seized the first chance to run away from a convent and, dressed as a man, went to South America where she joined the Spanish army – “entirely a masculine realm”, as Hernández puts it.
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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Politics and principles. When it comes to staying in power, democrats and dictators have more in common than not... more

Ocean Acidity Blamed for Ancient Extinction via Big Think by Big Think Editors
Earth experienced its most dramatic extinction crisis of all time 250 million years ago when about 90 percent of ocean-dwelling species and 70 percent of land-dwellers disappeared. What caused the massive die-off has long been debated but a new study suggests ocean …
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Debating “Guilty Pleasures” via 3quarksdaily by Robin Varghese
Over in the blogosphere, a debate seems to be emerging. So far Atrios, Matthew Yglesias, Amanda Marcotte and Lindsay Beyerstein have weighed in.
It seems that “guilty pleasures” are things people like but can’t justify liking.

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