Trivia (should have been published on 17 August)

Inner Sanctum: 1937
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

New Orleans, 1937
“Courtyard entrance, 1133-1135 Chartres St”
Seen here from another courtyard
Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston
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Extinction is Not in Our Genes, But Misery Might Be
via Big Think by Peter Ward

I think we’re going to survive. I don’t think climate change can make us go extinct, unless we produce so much CO₂ in the atmosphere that we shut down the conveyor belt currents. These are the largest scale currents in the ocean. They are from the surface to the bottom currents, not just sideways currents. The current conveyor that takes oxygen from the top and takes it to the bottom - if we lose that, then the bottoms of the ocean go anoxic and you start down this road toward what we call a greenhouse extinction, which is the hydrogen sulfide events. It would take tens of thousands of years to get to that.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The AK-47 was the dream of every Kashmiri boy – living a life under occupation – and the nightmare of every Indian soldier… more

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50 Books Every Parent Should Read to Their Child
via Flovorwire by Emily Temple
According to a new study, the hallowed practice of bedtime reading is falling by the wayside — and that some quarter of a million children in the UK do not own a single book. This is a terrible shame, as regular bedtime stories have been shown to increase children’s performance in school, and are also awesome and can help create strong lifetime bonds, both with literature and with parents.
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50 Science Fiction/Fantasy Films That Everyone Should See
via Flavorwire by Emily Temple
Last week, Flavorwire published a list of 50 science-fiction and fantasy novels that everyone should read – an article that prompted some great discussions in the comments. Since you’re all so wonderfully geeky, we’ve decided to follow up with a list of 50 essential sci-fi/fantasy films, for those who prefer the celluloid to the cellulose. A few notes/caveats: First, this is only a list of 50, spanning two genres, so tons of great and worthy films have been necessarily left off. No disrespect meant, and classics have been given extra weight, due to the whole “everyone should see these” idea.
Next, for the purposes of this list, superhero movies, horror films (Nosferatu, Let the Right One In), monster movies (Godzilla, The Host), and movies made primarily for children (Bambi, Toy Story, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) are considered to be part of their own distinct genres and therefore ineligible. It hurts, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
I could quite happily publish these at one a day for the next 50 days although my own choices would be away from the bizarre and tending to the whimsical / fantasy.
Check out for yourself.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Brain scans? What were we thinking? The era of “mindless neuroscience” is over, says Daniel Engber… more

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Why do We get Bored?

via How-To Geek
We all suffer from boredom at some point, but there is not that much to it, right? When you are bored, you are bored! But there may be more going on ‘behind the scenes’ than you know, or where it could lead when you feel bored. Michael from Vsauce discusses interesting facts about boredom in his latest video.



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Customer buys a used song book online & discovers grandfather’s signature inside

Every now and again, something remarkable happens in the used book business. Georgie Boddington from Western Australia made an online purchase of a book (pictured above) through AbeBooks called the Songs of Two Savoyards, a collection of Gilbert and Sullivan songs, and had a remarkable surprise when closely inspecting the book.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The formative figures in 17th-century science – Descartes, Newton, Bacon – were enchanted by the inexplicable: There be monsters… more

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10 Videos Exploring The Internet As It Was In The 1990s
via MakeUseOf by Dave Parrack
The history of the Internet stretches back as far as 1969, but it didn’t become popular until the 1990s when the whole thing became commercialised, ISPs started offering access, and the World Wide Web emerged to give normal people something to actually do online.
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