Train Wreck: 1922
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
Laurel, Maryland. July 31, 1922
&“Two B&O freights wrecked in head-on crash at Laurel switch”
National Photo Company glass negative
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The guerrila paradox. Irregular fighters often humble richer and more-advanced foes. Then they tend to do something silly: adopt conventional tactics... more
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How Polarity Makes Water Behave Strangely
via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
Have you ever wondered why ice floats in liquids, how small insects can walk on water, or why water in a lake freezes from the top downward? Learn what makes water behave the way it does in this fascinating TED-Ed talk given by Christina Kleinberg.
How polarity makes water behave strangely – Christina Kleinberg [YouTube]
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Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
via 3quarksdaily by Morgan Meis
The comedy of the poem is its reproduction of a range of acoustic and rhythmic strategies that the reader immediately recognises as typical of a certain kind of poetry, but with nonsense words. The suggestion is that all such poetry is driven to a degree by the inertia of style and convention, that the sound is as decisive as the sense in determining what gets said; indeed, when we “run out of sense” the sound trundles on of its own accord. But how could one begin to translate “mome raths outgrabe”? We have no idea what it means. The only strategy would be to find an equally hackneyed poetic form in the translator’s language and play with it in a similar way. Liberated by the fact that many of the words don’t have any precise meaning, the translator should not find this impossible, though whether strictly speaking it is now a translation is another issue.
more from Tim Parks at the NYRB here.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Ray Kurzweil wants to reverse-engineer the human brain. It’s a fetching idea to some; malevolently far-fetched to others... more
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Neurocapitalism
an article by Ewa Hess and Hennric Jokeit published in Eurozine Articles
The fear of depression, dementia and attention deficit disorder legitimises the boom in neuro-psychotropic drugs. In a performance-driven society that confronts the self with its own shortcomings, neuroscience serves an expanding market.
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I was in two minds about including this in here but thought it an interesting piece and could not think what else to do with it!!
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Are you smarter than a particle physicist?
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
arXiv is a website where papers in physics and mathematics are published before they've gone through the formal peer-review process.
snarXiv is a parody site where people submit faux-physics papers full of comical jargon.
Now, you can test your physics knowledge in a fun game that combines the two.
Can you tell which title belongs to a real research paper and which one is a joke?
“As it turns out, I am utterly terrible at this,” says Maggie (and I’m no better)
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Modern life, we’re told, is out of sync with human evolution. Thus the paleo diet and other fads – all belying the way evolution actually works... more
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In which a sea cucumber is overcome by lust
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
This is how the vast majority of sea cucumbers reproduce — by rearing up and releasing a stream of gametes (that is, sperm or eggs, depending) into the water.
WARNING: This video may be considered not safe for work. Especially if you work for or with sea cucumbers.
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Fascinating Photos of Repurposed Churches Around the World
via Flavorwire by Jennifer Lewis
When a church is no longer used as a place of worship, a desanctification ritual is performed to render the space a “regular” building. Then, the building is sold and transformed into whatever the owner wants — a home, a bookstore, a Dunkin Donuts, anything. Despite this de-churching process, a church will always feel like a church, so it’s an odd thrill to walk into a “bar”, order a beer, and realize you’re surrounded by gorgeous stained glass windows and vaulted ceilings.
Oh, the agony of trying to choose just one image to bring you as an example. In the end, however, it had to be the bookstore. You can view the rest of the images here (don’t forget to scroll down past the adverts).
The ceiling is “to die for”.
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