via How-To Geek by Andrew Heinzman
VALIS Studio/MIA/Janelle Mona
Whether holograms of Tupac and Michael Jackson give you the heebie-jeebies or a dose of nostalgia, you’ve got to admit the technology is impressive. But how does it work? And are these really holograms or just projections?
Of course, not all onstage holograms are posthumous ethical conundrums. The technology has been used to simulcast performances by Janelle Monae and MIA, to throw the Gorillaz avatars on stage with Madonna, and to bring fictional stars, like Hatsune Miku, to life.
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via Interesting Literature
Among Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous tales, ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ is one of the shortest. In just a few pages, Poe paints a powerful picture of a luxurious masked ball, which is then interrupted and ultimately destroyed by the presence of a mysterious figure. You can read ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ here before proceeding to our summary of the story below.
In summary, ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ is about a mysterious disease or plague which kills the sufferer within half an hour, causing pain, sudden dizziness, and profuse bleeding. To avoid this terrible pestilence, a wealthy noble named Prince Prospero retreats with his retinue of a thousand of his friends and hangers-on to one of his abbeys, where they promptly set about enjoying themselves with parties, revels, and other entertainments:
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via Ancient Origins by Trevor Bryce
Royal Palace at Ebla. Source: CC BY-SA 3.0
Spectacular things were happening in Mesopotamia in the period we call the Early Bronze Age, particularly in the southern part of it, commonly called Babylonia. It was here that the wealthy, sophisticated Sumerian civilization developed, its growth and prosperity greatly spurred by the invention of writing. A magnificent assortment of beautifully wrought items, like those unearthed from the so-called royal tombs of Ur and now on display in the British Museum, testifies to the high level of craftsmanship of the Sumerian civilization at its zenith.
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via Boing Boing by Jason Weisberger
The greatest of all time. I cry every time I watch Inigo Montoya destroy Count Rugen. I can bring my self to cry by thinking about it.
Several more where this came from
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via The National Archives Blog by Elizabeth Goldring
The original will of Nicholas Hilliard written 24 December 1618
(catalogue reference: PROB 10/360)
Nicholas Hilliard – goldsmith, portrait painter, royal servant – was buried in St Martin-in-the-Fields, at the western end of London’s Strand, on 7 January 1619, 400 years ago this year. Born in Exeter at the tailend of Henry VIII’s reign, Hilliard was about 72 at the time of his death. The nature of his final illness is unknown, though for decades he had suffered periodic attacks of both gout and melancholia.
Nonetheless, Hilliard’s was an exceptionally long and rich life, notable for the wide range of people he met and portrayed, as well as for his own journey to the heart of the Tudor and Stuart courts, where he decisively shaped the images of the monarchs he served: Elizabeth I and James I.
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On Myra Breckinridge and the Life of Gore Vidal
Camille Paglia Unpacks the Mores of a Different Era
via Arts and Letters Daily: Camille Paglia in Literary Hub
“I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess.” With that imperious opening sentence, Gore Vidal introduced his flamboyant transsexual heroine, one of the most willful and amusingly self-aware characters in modern literature.
Myra’s voice suddenly intruded into Vidal’s consciousness at his penthouse terrace apartment in a shabby 17th-century building in Rome’s historic district. It was a unique episode in his more than two decades as an author: “I never quite had that experience, an otherworldly voice, one that took me over. I felt like a medium.” Although he normally worked slowly, Myra Breckinridge “poured out” in a rush. Vidal finished it in a month, “from new moon to new moon.” But he claimed that two weeks of work had passed before he realised Myra was transsexual.
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If this interests you then sit back and enjoy the fairly long journey.Continue reading
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posted by S. Abbas Raza to 3 Quarks Daily: Kate Becker at FQXi:
Lost Cause
Can entropy explain our perception of time?
Credit: agsandrew
Our lives are full of experiences that, like cause and effect, only run one way. The irreversibility of time, and of life, is an essential part of the experience of being human. But, incongruously, it is not an essential part of physics. In fact, the laws of physics don’t care at all which way time goes. Spin the clock backward and the equations still work out just fine. “The laws of physics at the fundamental level don’t distinguish between the past and the future,” says Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at Caltech. “So how do you reconcile the time symmetric laws of physics with the world in which we live?”
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via Ancient Origins by Wu Mingren
Cowrie shell money. Source: tradol / Adobe .
Shell money is a form of currency that was used in various parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and Oceania. This type of money makes use of a type of marine snail known as cowrie and therefore is known also as cowrie shell money. In some parts of the world shell money served as currency up until the 19th/20th century. While shell money is no longer used today as currency, it continues to be produced and made into ornamental costumes or headdresses.
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Exposing the "Razzle Dazzle" carnival scam
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Razzle Dazzle is a carnival game in which you roll marbles into a tray with numbered holes. Once you get to 100 points, you can win fabulous prizes. It looks like a can't lose game, but in this video Brian Brushwood and mathematician James Grime reveal why it's a scam.
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via Interesting Literature
Previously, we’ve offered poems about mothers, poems about fathers, poems for sons, and poems for daughters. Now, it’s the turn of the spouses: here, specifically, ten of the best poems for husbands, or about husbands, whether real or fictional. Some of these husband poems are tender, some are sweet, some are sad, some are humorous.
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