Saturday 16 June 2012

10 stories or links I found educative, interesting or just plain weird

Urban plant tags
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
I’m amused and charmed by this theoretical public art project proposed by Minneapolis’ Carmichael Lynch Creative. Urban Plant Tags explain the care, placement, and proper feeding of inanimate objects like benches, street lights, and fire hydrants.
You can go to the website to read those plant tags more clearly.

But I love the care instructions for this bench: “Apply Real Estate Ads Annually – Occasionally Wipe Clean – Keep Warm With Butt”.

Side note: Perhaps you are confused by the fact that this fire hydrant appears to be on a stilt. That’s because it snows so much up here in Minnesota that they have to build the fire hydrants tall enough to clear the winter snow cover. An amusing regionalism.
See the whole set of urban plant tags
Via Andrew Balfour
[NOTE: I’ve given up!! If a story needs two or more pictures then it does.]

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Conversation is performance art. Raconteurs are erudite entertainers, quoting Yeats and quaffing Scotch. Can that be taught?... more

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In Praise of Underachievement
via Big Think by Orion Jones
A little-known book on the virtues of laziness, written in 2006 by a medical doctor named Ray Bennett, is receiving some renewed attention for its serious discussion of purposeful mediocrity.
Read More

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Harley-Davidson Brochure, 1948
via Retronaut by Chris

Source: Old Car Manual Project
Gosh, how I yearned for something like this - and ended up with a Francis-Barnett on which BF and I went everywhere.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Sex is a force with a will of its own. For those who hoped to reform the human heart, reality has been a harsh teacher. Pascal Bruckner explains...more

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How Tribalism Overrules Reason, and Makes Risky Times More Dangerous
via Big Think by David Ropeik
When I was a kid, my synagogue was right across the street from a Catholic church. Bellevue Avenue made such a clear dividing line between us – The Chosen People – and them…the enemy. No doubt the view from the other side of the street was the same.
Read More

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A Meeting of Mind: Neuroscience, Art & the Creative Process
via Big Think by Orion Jones
New efforts are being made to reconcile neuroscience with the arts and humanities, a process which is throwing further light on the fact that our brain works in a very creative way simply viewing a piece of art.
Read More

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Jonathan Haidt delights in showing how philosophers get it wrong. Funny that his work is a rehash of moral philosophy, served up as science...more

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A unicycler's guide to physics
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Watch this video and you’ll better understand both some of the basics of Newtonian physics and how to ride a unicycle successfully. It’s part of a new series of videos made by MIT and Khan Academy. The videos are meant to be for K-12 students, but let’s be honest. After a few years, most of us adults have forgotten this stuff and need to re-learn it, too.
Via Open Culture and Patricia Hswe

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Yale Crew: 1913
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive - Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
Yale Crew: 1913
June 1913. New Haven, Connecticut. "Yale Freshman 8"
A motley crew and its coxswain.
5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.
View full size.
Two thoughts came to mind when I viewed this picture. The first you will appreciate if you enlarge somewhat is that the scanty clothing leaves little to the imagination (pity about the lack of eye candy appeal). The second thought was that fit and healthy young men like these did not last long in the trenches where they would be likely to have ended up in 1917 (or sooner if they volunteered in Canada).


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