Trivia (should have been 11 October)

Salty Alice: 1909
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

March 1909. Hartford, Conn.
“Newsgirls waiting for papers. Largest girl, Alice Goldman, has been selling for 4 years. Newsdealer says she uses viler language than the newsboys do. Bessie Goldman and Bessie Brownstein are 9 years old and have been selling about one year. All sell until 7 or 7:30 p.m.” Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine for the National Child Labor Committee
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Great mistakes in English medieval architecture
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

The great cathedrals and palaces of medieval England were designed by people who made it up as they went along, and often discovered midway through a multigenerational project that they’d run out of space for an arch, or designed a building that couldn’t hold up its own ceiling.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

History of fairy tale
It’s said that fairy tales at are the roots of fiction. Probably so. But scholars can’t even agree on what constitutes a fairy tale… more

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Marijuana-Smoking Couples Are More Peaceful Toward Each Other
via Big Think by Orion Jones
After following 634 couples over nine years, researchers at the University of Buffalo found that partners who smoked marijuana together were consistently less violent toward each other. In fact, husbands and wives who smoked together had the lowest rate of intimate partner violence.
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The cave monasteries of India
via Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza

“As startling as Petra,” writes William Dalrymple, “but completely overlooked by tourists.” [Financial Times]

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

History of Rock ’n’ Roll
How does aesthetics affect history? In spurts that look forward, as well as backward. Take rock ‘n’ roll…more

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Words That People Get Mixed Up
via Killer Web Directory
Here I have a useful infographic from the UK transcription website called Fingertips Typing Services all about words that people commonly get mixed up. Learn about the difference between affect and effect, your and you're and plenty more.
Continue reading

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50 Years of Visionary Sci-Fi Computer Interfaces
via Stephen’s Lighthouse by Stephen Abram

You just have to look at this at full size

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Tolstoy's false disciple
How did Leo Tolstoy, a writer of such psychological sophistication, succumb to the charms of a third-rate con man like Vladimir Chertkov?… more

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3,000 Year-Old "Street Art": The Petroglyphs of Gobustan, Azerbaijan
via Big Think by Robert Montenegro

This photo was snapped by Walter Callens at Gobustan (sometimes written as "Quobustan") in Azerbaijan.
His description:

Settled since the 8th millennium BC, the area contains thousands of rock engravings spread over 100 square km depicting hunting scenes, people, ships, constellations, animals, etc. Qobustan's consecration in the world stage arrived in 2007, when UNESCO included the 'Qobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape' in the World Heritage list.
The oldest petroglyphs date from the 12th century BC. Later, the European invaders also left their marks: inscriptions left by Alexander the Great's cohorts in the 4th century BC and 2,000-year-old graffiti written by Trajan's Roman legionnaires!

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Trivia (should have been 9 May)

The East India Company: The original corporate raiders
via 3 Quarks Daily: William Dalrymple in The Guardian

One of the very first Indian words to enter the English language was the Hindustani slang for plunder: “loot”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word was rarely heard outside the plains of north India until the late 18th century, when it suddenly became a common term across Britain. To understand how and why it took root and flourished in so distant a landscape, one need only visit Powis Castle.
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An eco-system inside your home
via BBC by LJ Rich
Imagine having a garden and self-contained eco-system inside your home with fish making fertiliser for the plants and the plants filtering the water clean for the fish. The system will help you grow fresh healthy food and even improve your air quality.
Continue reading and watch video

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Piero di Cosimo: Renaissance “Madman” for the Modern Age
via Big Think by Bob Duggan

Half a millennium later, you would think the Italian Renaissance could hold no more secrets from us, no “codes” to decipher. And, yet, secrets hiding in plain sight continue to startle modern audiences with the depth and breadth of that amazing era. One of the well-kept secrets, at least until now, was the work of Piero di Cosimo, subject of his first major retrospective, Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Called “a madman” for his personal and artistic quirks by Renaissance chronicler Giorgio Vasari, Piero’s ability to paint in multiple genres all with a dizzying amount of detail may have seemed madness to contemporaries, but appeals to modern audiences conditioned for such visual assaults. There may have been a method to Piero di Cosimo’s madness after all.
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A festival of colorful emotions
via OUP Blog by Kiyokazu Okita

It is as if a massive color palette fell on earth from the hand of the Almighty. The whole atmosphere is painted with bright colors – red, pink, yellow, blue, green, and purple. Young and old, men and women – all are soaked in colored water, running around, laughing loudly, shouting, and throwing mud on each other. It is a war where a water gun is your weapon, colored water is your bullet, and colored powder is your smoke screen. If you are a foreigner, locals tell you not to go out on this day. If you are unable to control your curiosity, they will have no mercy on you.
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50 Great Genre-Bending Books Everyone Should Read
via Flavorwire by Emily Temple

Sometimes, it seems as though the arguments about genre – be it poetry vs. fiction, fiction vs. nonfiction, literary fiction vs. SF vs. fantasy vs. mystery vs. vs. vs. – will never end. So why not just take yourself off the board entirely? After all, marketing professionals aside, does anyone really care what genre they’re reading if the book is good? After the jump, 50 genre-bending novels guaranteed to enthrall you, whether you’re a literary fiction snob or a die-hard fantasy nerd.
Enjoy without judgements!
It seems that I have a lot of reading to do! Although some of these have been recommended to me by my daughter and/or granddaughter I have actually read not a single one.

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Beautiful photo of impact basin on Mercury
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder

NASA' Astronomy Picture of the Day is of the Caloris basin on Mercury.
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Ten fun facts about the Irish Fiddle
via OUP Blog by Miki Onwudinjo

Even though the harp is Ireland’s national symbol, the fiddle is the most commonly played instrument in traditional Irish music. Its ornamental melodies are more relaxed than the classical violin and improvisation is encouraged. The fiddle has survived generational changes from its start as a low-class instrument popular among the poor. Now, the Irish fiddle is playing an instrumental role in preserving traditional Irish music and culture.
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Behemoth: 1943
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

January 1943
“Freight operations on the Chicago & North Western between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa. The crew, with exception of the fireman, chat while waiting for orders to pull out.”
Photo by Jack Delano
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30 3D Pavement Drawings To Blow Your Mind
via Lifehack by Amy Johnson

Julian Beever is a talented artist who has mastered the art of creating unbelievably life-like optical illusions in the street. A master of perspective and creativity, Julian creates unique art using a technique called anamorphosis.
The art is drawn from a certain perspective, so you can see the picture perfectly from one angle. And when standing in the right place, these mind-blowing pavement drawings leap off the street, looking so life like it’s hard to believe they’re just drawings.
Continue reading/viewing

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10 fun facts about the harp
via OUP Blog by Miki Onwudinjo

The Harp is a string instrument of very ancient lineage that is synonymous with classical music and cupid’s lyre. Over the years, the harp has morphed from its primitive hunting bow shape to its modern day use in corporate branding. Across the globe, each culture has its own variation of this whimsical soft-sounding instrument.
Check out these ten fun facts about the harp.

Women’s magazines in the Nordic style: Politics, politicians and the welfare state

an article by Laura Saarenmaa and Iiris Ruoho (University of Tampere, Finland) published in European Journal of Communication Volume 29 Number 3 (June 2014)

Abstract

The article explores the engagement of women’s magazines with the political public sphere in Finland.

The material for the study consists of the political content of three long-lived (1968–2008) women’s magazines that are still in existence. Women’s magazines in Finland have supported the rise of women in power from the 1960s onwards. Consequently, women’s magazines are being utilized in political performance in ways that should be put under critical scrutiny rather than bypassed as mere political advertising.

Theoretically, the article draws on the debates around the personalization of politics and the emergence of celebrity politics. Furthermore, in studying these women’s magazines, the article highlights the particularity of the Nordic context.

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Trivia (should have been 5 October)

Pampa Depot: 1943
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

March 1943
“Pampa, Texas. Going through a town on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe”
Photo by Jack Delano, Office of War Information
View original post

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Ancient monuments then and now
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Above are before and after images of Chichen Itza's El Castillo step-pyramid in the Yucatán that the Daily Grail's Greg Taylor shared in a brief post about “How Far Should We Go in ‘Restoring’ Ancient Monuments?.”
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Secret life of passwords
Our passwords, ourselves. More than an annoyance, they are suffused with pathos, mischief, sometimes even poetry. They are totems of our inner lives… more

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Parasites Practicing Mind Control
New York Times via 3 Quarks Daily

A microscopic cyst in the brain of a mouse containing thousands of Toxoplasma gondii parasites. New research has found that the parasite is able to exert a form of mind control by turning its host’s genes on and off. CreditJitender P. Dubey/U.S.D.A.
An unassuming single-celled organism called Toxoplasma gondii is one of the most successful parasites on Earth, infecting an estimated 11 percent of Americans and perhaps half of all people worldwide. It’s just as prevalent in many other species of mammals and birds. In a recent study in Ohio, scientists found the parasite in three-quarters of the white-tailed deer they studied.
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Pinpointing the Ponderosa
via Big Think by Frank Jacobs
This is probably the most recognisable map of the latter part of the 20th century. It’s certainly the only one guaranteed to provoke outbursts of humming in viewers of a certain age. But where is the Ponderosa exactly?

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

The history of trolls
Magnificently grotesque, vicious, or perhaps comic, the troll is a resilient character. Why we need trolls…more

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Vinyl record recycled into lamp
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Sandman “up cycled” a vinyl record and camera tripod into a neat studio lamp! (via Laughing Squid)

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The Islamic State is destroying the greatest melting pot in history
Tom Holland in The Spectator via 3 Quarks Daily From the dawn of civilisation, the Fertile Crescent has been a cradle to strange and fascinating sects. Not any more

As the fighters of the Islamic State drive from village to captured village in their looted humvees, they criss-cross what in ancient times was a veritable womb of gods. For millennia, the Fertile Crescent teemed with a bewildering variety of cults and religions. Back in the 3rd Christian century, a philosopher by the name of Bardaisan was so overwhelmed by the sheer array of beliefs to be found in Mesopotamia that he invoked it to disprove the doctrines of astrology. ‘It is not the stars that make people behave the way do but rather the diversity of their customs.’
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Inimitable Clive James
The Clive James voice: intensely serious yet self-mocking, grave but never solemn, highbrow but never snobby. And always gorgeously inventive… more

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How sandstone arches form
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker

It’s not caused by erosion. Instead, the rock, itself, forms the arch and the erosion just washes away everything else around it.
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Wrestling with Contradictions in Government Social Media Practices

an article by Lars Haahr (Information Systems Research Group, Aarhus University, Denmark) published in International Journal of Electronic Government Research Volume 10 Issue 1 (January-March 2014)

Abstract

Research in government social media practices highlights expectations of co-creation and progression mirrored in maturity models, but research also documents low deployment degree and thereby points to a discrepancy.

The paper suggests that the authors instead of co-creation and progression draw on a dialectical approach and understand the development of government social media practices as a wrestling with contradictions. The case of emerging social media practices in a Danish municipality used to illustrate this framework suggests three main categories of contradictions in emerging social media practices:

• contradictions between service administration and community feeling as forms of practice,
• contradictions in organizing between local engagement and central control, and 
• contradictions in the digital infrastructure between proprietary municipal websites and public social media platforms.

The paper discusses if a paradox lens will enhance our understanding of inherent contradictions or the dialectical notion of contradiction serve the purpose. The paper contributes to a dialectical theory of contradictions through an analysis of emerging government social media practices.

The first page of the article is available here

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Working with vulnerable groups in social research: dilemmas by default and design

an article by Jo Aldridge (Loughborough University, UK) published in Qualitative Research Volume 14 Number 1 (February 2014)

Abstract

Tensions have been highlighted, particularly in disability rights research and activism discourses, between the demands of the academy, the needs of vulnerable research participants as active contributors in research and between researchers themselves who are often caught in multiple dilemmas regarding these conflicting demands.

This is particularly the case in research governance and practice terms when ‘top down’ pressures (e.g. from the academy, from funders) are often at odds with the need for a ‘bottom up’ approach to vulnerable research participants who often require adaptive, more inclusive and sometimes individualistic (case-by-case) qualitative methodological approaches.

These issues are the focus of this article, which draws specifically on evidence from participatory studies with vulnerable groups and participatory photographic studies, in particular, to demonstrate the need for more collaborative and democratic approaches to research praxis.

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Trivia (should have been 4 October)

Liz: 1956
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

1956
“Actress Elizabeth Taylor”
Photo by Robert Vose for the Look magazine assignment The Elizabeth Taylor Story: A Woman at Last
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The History of Boolean
This Simple Math Concept Went Nowhere For A Century And Then — BOOM — Computers

George Boole 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864
“And,” “Or,” “Not”
Boolean algebra is the combination of logic and algebra, initially developed by George Boole, for whom the subject is named, in the 1840s and ’50s, and later refined by other logicians through the rest of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Read more

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

The self is moral
Are we ourselves, or are we our souls? From Locke onward, philosophers have debated whether memory or morality shapes our identities… more

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The Milky Way above, and the bioluminescent Atlantic ocean below
via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin

A stunning photograph by photographer Fefo Bouvier: Noctiluca bioluminescence in the Atlantic Ocean at Barra de Valizas, Uruguay. Above, the Milky Way, seen in a gloriously dark sky free of man-made light.
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A tool to fix one of the most dangerous moments in surgery
a TED talk via 3 Quarks Daily


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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

William McPherson has a Pulitzer Prize and no money. He isn't wretched-of-the-earth poor, but he’s poor. Here’s how he reached that status… more

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The limits of animal life on Tatooine
via Boing Boing
Maggie Koerth-Baker on why the megafauna of George Lucas’ parched desert world makes no sense. It’s not the dry heat that’s the problem; it’s the food supply.

Read this fascinating article here

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How Death Valley's ‘sailing stones’ move on their own
Becky Crew in Science Alert (via 3 Quarks Daily)
Located above the northwestern side of Death Valley in Eastern California’s Mojave Desert, an exceptionally flat dried lake called Racetrack Playa contains a peculiar phenomenon. Dozens of large stone stabs made of dolomite and syenite – often weighing as much as 318 kilograms – move across the cracked mud, leaving a series of smooth trails behind them.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Freedom from food
What would you do with an extra 90 minutes each day? Read? Write? Sleep? Watch TV? All you have to do is stop spending time on food… more

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The History of the Barometer and How it Works
via How-To Geek
The barometer may seem like a simple instrument, but it is very useful for helping us predict changes in the weather, especially when it comes to severe storms. What is the story behind the invention of this awesome weather forecasting tool and how does it actually work?

Trivia (should have been 4 May)

15 Mobile Apps Guaranteed to Waste Your Precious Time
via MakeUseOf by Dave Patrick
There may be an app for everything these days, but not all apps are created equal. Some apps will add value to your life, making you more productive or helping you improve in some meaningful way. Other apps, well, they’ll have the opposite effect.
We have compiled a list of 15 popular apps guaranteed to waste your time. We’re not saying whether they’re good, bad, or even indifferent, but they’re likely to suck away your spare time to such a degree you may regret ever having installed them in the first place.
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Dandelight – the little light pretty enough to be a flower
via Red Ferret by Donyae Coles

Most people look at dandelions and call them weeds. In the fall they become seed bearing balls of fluff where wishes are born if you’re a kid. If you’re a grownup, you’re probably upset at the damge they’ll do to your lawn. The Dandelight might get you to start believing the humble dandelion is pretty enough to be a flower again.
Continue reading and discover that the head is a real dandelion puff and this is not cheap. But it could look gorgeous in a household with no animals or small children.

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Bullets and bacteria
via National Archives by Sarah Castagnetti

First World War hospital in Birtley, County Durham, 
catalogue reference: MUN 5/157
What are you more scared of – a bullet or bacteria? To a soldier on the Western Front his greatest enemy was arguably not the German soldier firing at him from the trenches opposite, but the threat of infection to his wounds.
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Psychotherapy now and in the future
via OUP Blog by Tom Burns and Eva Burns-Lundgren

The 20th century has been called ‘the century of psychiatry’, and in many ways one could read that as ‘the century of psychotherapy’. A hundred years ago, at the onset of World War I, psychotherapy had touched the lives of only a tiny number of people, and most of the population had simply never heard of it. Since then it has reached into almost every aspect of our lives – how we treat the mentally ill, how we understand our relationships, our appreciation of art and artists, and even how we manage our schools, prisons, and workplaces. Our culture has become one quite obsessed with understanding how people feel and our daily language is peppered with psychotherapy language.
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NTSB re-investigate plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

More than 55 years after a plane crash killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson, the National Transportation Safety Board may re-examine the accident, previously thought to be pilot error in the face of bad weather.
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Beethoven and the Revolution of 1830
via OUP Blog by Katherine Kolb

That Beethoven welcomed the French Revolution and admired Napoleon, its most flamboyant product, is common knowledge. So is the story of his outrage at the news that his hero, in flagrant disregard of liberté, égalité, fraternité, had himself crowned emperor: striking the dedication to Napoleon of his “Eroica” symphony, he addressed it instead “to the memory of a great man”. Less well known is how the memory of another great man, Beethoven himself, figured in the lead-up to the second French Revolution – the one that toppled the Restoration Monarchy in a mere three days of July 1830, and that Delacroix commemorated in his provocative “Liberty Leading the People”. That story, too, bears telling, not least because it encapsulates one of the great revolutionary shifts in the history of Western music.
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Mystery Coach: 1910
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

From around 1910 comes this 5x7 glass negative showing a rail car fitted with ... what? Post your informed supposition in the comments.
View original post to see what the ideas were.

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Big Data, tastefully done
via Confused of Calcutta: a blog about information
Take 2543 recipes from 8 subcuisines.
Use 194 unique ingredients drawn from 15 unique categories.
Connect the dots.

Continue reading

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The dazzling kinetic sculptures of Bob Potts
via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin
A video from M.A.D. Gallery: “In his one-man workshop housed in an 1850s barn, Potts creates ethereal kinetic sculptures capturing the very essence of natural rhythmical movements like the flight of birds or the oars of boats in his inimitable style. The 72-year-old is a connoisseur of form, movement, and visual grace.”
Have a look for yourself

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The economics of chocolate
via OUP Blog by Johan Swinnen and Mara P. Squicciarini

Cocoa and chocolate have a long history in Central America but a relatively short history in the rest of the world. For thousands of years tribes and empires in Central America produced cocoa and consumed drinks based on it. It was only when the Spanish arrived in those regions that the rest of the world learned about it. Initially, cocoa production stayed in the original production regions, but with the local population decimated by war and imported diseases, slave labor was imported from Africa.
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What use is ‘social investment’?

an article by Brian Nolan (University College Dublin, Ireland) published in Journal of European Social Policy Volume 23 Number 5 (December 2013)

Abstract

The notion of ‘social investment’ has come to play a major part in debates about the role of social spending and the future of welfare states in Europe. This paper argues that social investment can be seen as a more or less detailed orientation or paradigm for social policies and spending or as a conceptual base and framework for analysis, and that it is also increasingly employed for political or rhetorical as well as academic purposes.

It then sets out some serious issues and concerns in that regard, including whether social investment can credibly be presented as the paradigm most likely to underpin economic growth per se or indeed employment-friendly growth, whether the distinction between social ‘investment’ and other social spending is robust conceptually and the difficulties faced in seeking to make such a distinction empirically, and whether focusing on that distinction and on a narrowly economic rationale is the most useful way to frame the debate about the future of social spending.

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The quality of healthcare jobs: can intrinsic rewards compensate for low extrinsic rewards?

an article by Jennifer Craft Morgan (Georgia State University), Janette Dill (University of Akron) and Arne L Kalleberg (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) published in Work Employment & Society Volume 27 Number 5 (October 2013)

Abstract

Frontline healthcare worker jobs are among the fastest growing occupations in the USA.

While many of these are ‘bad jobs’ with low pay and few benefits, the intrinsic nature of frontline work can also be very rewarding. This article examines the influence of extrinsic job characteristics (e.g. wages and benefits) versus intrinsic characteristics (e.g. meaningful tasks) on job satisfaction and intent to stay with one’s current employer.

This article uses a mixed-methods approach, drawing on survey data collected from frontline workers and organisations in a variety of healthcare settings, as well as interview and focus group data from frontline workers to contextualise and interpret the findings in the multi-level models. The results indicate that both intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics are significant predictors of job satisfaction, but only extrinsic characteristics help explain intent to stay with the employer.

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Trivia (should have been 28 September)

Teamwork: 1939
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

April 7, 1939
“Twins become mothers together for second time in less than two years. Accustomed to doing practically the same things all their lives, these Washington twins, now mothers, have apparently decided that having their children together would certainly be in order. The mothers, Mrs. Eileen Moon, left, and Mrs. Kathleen Robie, last week gave birth to daughters to set a new record at Columbia Maternity Hospital. Mrs. Moon’s youngster, whom she named Carol, was born on March 29, while Mrs. Robie’s new daughter Nancy Lee first saw the light of day on April 1. This same thing happened in July 1937 when Mrs. Robie gave birth to a girl and a few hours later Mrs. Moon’s baby, a boy, arrived.”
Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative
View original post

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The road to hell is mapped with good intentions
vbia OUP blog by Kathryn Gin Lum
Antebellum Americans were enamoured of maps. In addition to mapping the United States’ land hunger, they also plotted weather patterns, epidemics, the spread of slavery, and events from the nation’s past.
And the afterlife.
Imaginative maps to heaven and hell form a peculiar subset of antebellum cartography, as Americans surveyed not only the things they could see but also the things unseen. Inspired by the biblical injunction to “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction… and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14 KJV), the maps provided striking graphics connecting beliefs and behaviour in this life to the next.
Continue reading

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Shakespeare's genius is nonsense
Shakespeare and the brain. Wordplay, poetics, figurative language: the Bard can teach cognitive scientists about meaning and the mind… more

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Eric Standley's incredible laser cut paper sculptures
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
Eric Standley, the artist known for his insanely intricate laser-cut paper sculptures, explains his breathtaking work.
Continue reading and see the incredible video of this work

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Your Brain on Coffee
via How-To Geek by AsapSCIENCE on You Tube
Most of us can appreciate a good cup of coffee and the glorious caffeine it contains, but how exactly does coffee affect our bodies and brains? Learn more about this wondrous drink and how it interacts with our bodies in today’s awesome video from YouTube channel AsapSCIENCE!



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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Myth of childhood innocence
Childhood innocence: Its uses are economic as well as emotional. Consider the appeal of Shirley Temple… more

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Octopus Cares For Her Eggs For 53 Months, Then Dies
Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science (via 3 Quarks Daily)
In April of 2007, Bruce Robison sent a submersible into a huge underwater canyon in California’s Monterey Bay. At the canyon’s base, 1400 metres below the surface, he spotted a lone female octopus—Graneledone boreopacifica—crawling towards a rocky slope.
The team sent the sub to the same site 38 days later and found the same female, easily recognisable through her distinctive scars. She had crawled up the slope itself and was guarding a group of 160 small, milky teardrops cemented to the rock. They were eggs.
Continue reading

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Scientists Search For Answers Inside Mysterious Siberian Crater
via Big Think by Robert Montenegro

A massive and mysterious crater was recently discovered in a remote part of the Yamal Peninsula in Northwest Siberia. According to The Siberian Times, the first round of scientists to explore the 70-meter-deep hole have returned from their expedition without a precise explanation for how it came to be, simply saying that its formation was a natural phenomenon.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

How stoical was Seneca?
Stoic, earthquake expert, humorist, dramatist: Was Seneca knowledgeable about death? Or a complete novice on the topic?… more
I found this essay fascinating.

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Bold, Abstract Celebrity Portraits That Pop
via Flavorwire by Alison Nastasi

Alessandro Pautasso’s colourful, confetti-like portraits of movie and music icons are explosive. The bold, geometric designs are a way for the artist to “revive the colours of the past” and reinterpret the iconic faces in powerful, new ways. Pautasso’s psychedelic palette suits the moodiness and personality of each celebrity, and the vivid patterns don’t obscure the soulfulness or expressive qualities each star exudes.
See the rest of the images
James Dean still makes my knees go weak!

Trivia (should have been 26 April)

They Say It’s Spring: 1924
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

April 1924
“Washington snow scenes”
Funny, this doesn’t feel much like April
Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative
View original post

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Remembering England’s Medieval Jews
via National Archives by Dr Sean Cunningham
Events on 27 January to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau urged us to remember what happened to Europe’s Jews during the Second World War; both as communities and as individuals. If we look further back, however, we also discover similar stories that should make us reflect for a little longer on the experiences of minorities in the history of our own nation.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
From parent to parenting
Fashions in parenthood. You can no longer be merely a parent; you must be parenting. The former is a role, the latter a job – and evidence of a problem… more

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Ancient cities and power: the archaeology of urbanism in the Iron Age capitals of northern Mesopotamia
an article by James F Osborne published in International Journal of Urban Sciences Volume 19 Issue 1 (2015)
This paper explores the expression of power in the built environment of ancient cities, using two case studies from the middle Iron Age (early first millennium BCE) ancient Near East: the capital cities of the Syro-Anatolian city-states in southern Turkey and northern Syria, and those of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in northern Iraq. A functional approach to urbanism, which defines cities based on their influence in the surrounding region, leads to the conclusion that although the expression of power in these two cultures’ major cities is superficially similar (though different in scale), incorporating the surrounding landscape into the discussion reveals how empires are more comprehensive than city-states in creating entire landscapes that communicate power in their built environment.
Being an academic journal there are, of course, no pictures; nor, unfortunately, is there access to the full article.

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Super Funny Science Experiments Everyone Can Try At Home
via Lifehack by Amy Johnson
Have you ever changed the color of a flower?
Sorry, you will have to click through, the embedding did not work!
This awesome video on science experiments was released by BuzzFeedYellow, and they are great fun for both adults and children. From making an egg bounce to actually making bouncy balls, this video covers six of the most entertaining science experiments we’ve ever seen.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Julian Barnes on art
Oh, the glory of being a budding modernist in 1964. Picasso, Eliot, Pound, and Stravinsky were still alive. For Julian Barnes, their examples would inform a lifetime of looking…more

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AbeBooks Explains Why Shakespeare’s First Folio is so Important
via AbeBooks.co.uk by Richard Davies
Our latest video explains why William Shakespeare’s First Folio is so significant. It’s full title is Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies and it was published in 1623. The First Folio is arguably the most important book in the English language.
Find out why here

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Inside Jim Henson’s Creature Shop of pioneering puppetry
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
Our friends at Tested visit the magical menagerie that is Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
Click through for video fascinating!!

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Violence and religion
Piety and politics. Karen Armstrong’s attempt to exonerate religion as a cause of violence is as wrongheaded as blaming religion for the world’s ills. .. more

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Blaise Pascal’s Wondertorium
via 3 Quarks Daily by Jonathan Kujawa

Everyone learns about Pascal’s Triangle when they are young. But I, at least, didn’t learn all the wonders contained in the Triangle. Indeed, we’re still discovering new things!
To construct the Triangle is easy enough: you start with 1s down the outside edges and each interior number is gotten by adding together the two numbers just above it. So the third number on the sixth line is a 10 because that’s the sum of 4 and 6.
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Trivia (should have been 27 September)

Eight-Corner Store: 1904
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

Circa 1904
“Street corner merchant in Havana, Cuba”
A sort of gazebodega
8x10 glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company
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Timelapse: Reviving Rose of Jericho plants
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Beautiful video of Selaginella lepidophylla resurrected with water. (via Colossal)

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Revelations of Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson thinks humans are brilliant creatures. And generally incomprehensible to one another… more

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Where Does the Smell of Rain Come From?
via How-To Geek

The smell that fills the air as a storm approaches is unique and serves as an indicator that inclement weather is approaching, but what causes this smell and where exactly does it come from?
Today’s video from YouTube channel “It’s Okay To Be Smart” has the answers!

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DIY alchemy

via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Written by three science instructors, The Chemistry of Alchemy: From Dragon's Blood to Donkey Dung, How Chemistry Was Forged is a combination weird science history and DIY projects book.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Crackpot science of generational analysis
Are generations real? Social scientists routinely make claims about millennials and boomers, but that may be little more than poll-sifted conjecture… more

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Why writers have spent centuries attacking Shakespeare
Adam Kirsch in The New Republic via 3 Quarks Daily

Does Shakespeare suck?
Ira Glass, the host of the popular upper-middlebrow radio show “This American Life,” apparently thinks so; he tweeted as much after suffering through a performance of King Lear in Central Park. The backlash has been swift and severe, thus answering the question of whether there remain any literary taboos in the twenty-first century.
Apparently, calling the Bard “not relatable” is still enough to get someone branded as a philistine.
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Don’t Fear the Internet: It’s Not Stealing Your Attention, Memory, or Life
via Big Think by Orion Jones

One doesn’t need to look for too long on, ahem, the Internet to learn that the Internet is stealing your attention, your memory, and your life. But this fear misunderstands how we have historically integrated technology into the fabric of society. Each wave of new technology has drawn criticism for changing cultural norms. The telephone was first considered a gossip machine used by housewives; the car, an absurd luxury that would only interest the super-wealthy. The rest, they say, is history.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Automation and us
Picture a future of ever-smarter machines. Increased automation will make life easier. It will also erode skills, debase intelligence, and devalue work… more

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Art history to go
via Prospero

Look at the two 15th-century versions of “The Agony in the Garden” that hang in the National Gallery in London, one by Giovanni Bellini [pictured], the other by Andrea Mantegna, and you get a sense of an adoring younger brother trying desperately to match his idol’s work.
This, as it turns out, is closer to the truth than many viewers might realise.
In seeking to improve his already successful Venetian painting workshop, Jacopo Bellini (Giovanni’s father) married his daughter Nicolosia to the renowned Mantegna.
Giovanni, a much younger and less experienced artist, was a huge admirer of his brother-in-law’s work.
Continue reading (the article is about a long-gone talk at the National Gallery)

Trivia (should have been 21 September)

Na-Ti-On-Al Life: 1905
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

Circa 1905
“Williamson Building, Cleveland”
Bonus points to the first person to transcribe all those windows
8x10 inch glass negative
View original post

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10 Amazing Paper Tricks to Amaze Your Friends With
via How-To Geek

Are you looking for some fresh tricks to amaze your friends with? Then you will definitely want to watch and learn from today’s video featuring ten awesome tricks you can perform with ordinary paper!

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

How to Stop Time
We treat procrastination as pathology, but why? Idleness, loitering, dawdling – these are often the keys to creativity… more

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Gorgeous 18th C sample books from Norwich

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

In the 18th century, the great textile mills of Norwich produced beautiful sample books that set out their range of wares.
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Meadicine man
via Prospero
In 1720, George I’s Privy Council asked Richard Mead, an eminent physician, to prepare a paper on how best to prevent the spread of bubonic plague to England. A serious outbreak of the disease in the southern French port of Marseille, caused by the arrival of an infected ship from the eastern Mediterranean, was evidence that no trading nation was safe.
Mead’s snappily titled, "A Short Discourse Concerning Pestilential Contagion and the Methods to be Used to Prevent it", advocated a more compassionate approach to containing the disease. Shutting the sick and healthy up together in their homes and waiting for nature to take its course was unjustifiably cruel, he wrote, and a move away from this draconian system was required. Mead's recommendations were incorporated into the Quarantine Act of 1721. The original paper is now on display as part of a small but fascinating new exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Dinosaurs on the ark?
Behind the animatronic Adams and sexpot Eves that attract visitors to the Creation Museum is a humourless Australian named Ken Ham. … more

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Did Neanderthals Have Minds Like Our Own?
via Big Think by Bog Think editors

Researchers believe this cave painting may turn out to be over 40,000 years old, old enough to outdate modern humans. That also means this artwork could have been created by Neanderthals, and that would represent compelling evidence that these cavemen had minds like our own, capable of abstract thinking, symbolism and even art.
Read more

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David Hockney's illustrations of Grimm's Fair Tales
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm with illustrations by David Hockney was first published in 1969 and recently reissued as a lovely slim hardback.
See more

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate

Madness and the muse
That tenacious stock character, the depressed writer. Hemingway, Woolf, Wallace: We divine a link between creativity and madness. But is it a fiction?… more

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Listen to the Oldest Song in the World: A Sumerian Hymn Written 3,400 Years Ago
via 3 Quarks Daily

In the early 1950s, archaeologists unearthed several clay tablets from the 14th century B.C.E.. Found, WFMU tells us, “in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit,” these tablets “contained cuneiform signs in the hurrian language,” which turned out to be the oldest known piece of music ever discovered, a 3,400 year-old cult hymn. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, professor of Assyriology at the University of California, produced the interpretation above in 1972. (She describes how she arrived at the musical notation—in some technical detail—in this interview.) Since her initial publications in the 60s on the ancient Sumerian tablets and the musical theory found within, other scholars of the ancient world have published their own versions.
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Trivia (should have been 18 April)

Hot Sheets: 1938
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

From September 1938, a reminder of the days when doing laundry meant hauling water from a well or spigot, then boiling it in a cauldron over a fire: “Old and sick, mine foreman’s wife does washing in front yard. South Charleston, W.Va.”
Photo by Marion Post Wolcott for the Resettlement Administration.
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Neil Gaiman Salutes Douglas Adams: Why Books Are Sharks
via Scholarly Kitchen by David Crotty
The Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture is held every year to raise funds for Adams’ favorite causes, Save the Rhino and the Environmental Investigation Agency. Hopefully I don’t have to tell you who Adams was and what he wrote. But you may not know about one of his lesser works, and in my opinion, one of the best popular science books ever written, Last Chance to See. If you haven’t yet read it, you’ll learn much about endangered species and find your heart being broken even as you laugh out loud.
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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Love songs RIP
Does the rise of hip-hop mean the end of the love song? Yes, says Terry Teachout. Rap is loveless music for a post-marital world… more

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Roman Slaveowners were the First Management Theorists
via 3 Quarks Daily: Jerry Toner in Aeon (photo by Paolo Cipriani/Getty)

The Romans thought deeply about slavery. They saw the household as the cornerstone of civilised society. Similarly, the modern corporation is the bedrock of the industrial world, without which no kind of modern lifestyle, with all its material comforts, would be possible.
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Don’t blame Sykes-Picot
via OUP Blog by James Gelvin

What do Glenn Beck, Bashar al-Assad, the Islamic State, and Noam Chomsky have in common? They all place much of the blame for the current crisis in the Middle East on the so-called “Sykes-Picot Agreement,” a plan for the postwar partition of Ottoman territories drawn up during World War I.
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I thought I knew a fair amount about this area at this point in history; my grandfather served in Palestine during WW1 but this I did not know about except as a passing reference.
Very interesting.

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Madness and meaning
Even in an age of science, we cannot escape lunacy’s long history of frippery and superstition… more
An interesting essay with stunning illustrations.

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New alloy of iron and aluminium as good as titanium, at a tenth of the cost
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder

Titanium alloys are lightweight, strong, crack-resistant, and fatigue-resistant. This makes them useful in aerospace applications. Unfortunately titanium is also expensive – around $3 a pound.
Steel is strong and cheap (30 cents a pound), but much heavier than titanium, making it unsuitable for jets. Aluminum is light and cheap (84 cents a pound) but weaker than steel or titanium.
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William Hazlitt: Danger is a Good Teacher
via Big Think by Big Think editors

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was an English man of letters, a writer and literary critic held in the same esteem as luminaries such as Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Hazlitt was and still is considered the greatest critic of his age, a reputation based on his astute observations and keen humanistic essays. Hazlitt was also a painter; the above picture is a self-portrait. Despite his legendary acclaim, many of Hazlitt’s writings are currently out of print. A key theme in his writings is the importance of experience over abstraction, an idea quite evident in the quote below.
Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn, and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) – neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice.

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Einstein as a Jew and a philosopher
We know about his science, his politics, his philosophy – what else is there to know about Albert Einstein? Not least: his sense of humor… more

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Aggressive prayers, curses, and maledictions
via 3 Quarks Daily: Elizabeth McAlister in The Immanent Frame

This speech form is known as imprecatory prayer, from the Latin, imprecate, “invoking evil or divine vengeance; cursing.” The use of scripture as a form of imprecatory prayer has long been covertly practiced by both Christians and non-Christians. But the slogan to “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109.8” circulated openly on t-shirts and bumper stickers during the 2008 presidential race. Similarly, Reverend Wiley Drake, the second vice-president of the First Southern Baptist Church, issued in 2006 a statement claiming that his prayers for the death of a slain abortion provider George Tiller had been answered. These instances give us a rare display of imprecatory prayer in the US public sphere, and constitute prime examples of the use of negative prayer in American political life and beyond.
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