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June 1, 2023 |
![Kind of Amazing Photo of the Mendocino headlands I snapped a couple months ago](images/Mendo2.jpg)
Photo from the Mendocino headlands I snapped a couple months ago. Click to expand
- James Burke did great scientific mini-series, and someone
adjacent, earlier, was
Alan
Whicker -- he had a documentary show called "Whicker's
World" which ran for thirty years. Here's one about where the
monied set partied, in the inter-war period, the Most
beautiful Hotel in the World, what they called the Too-Kay,
the Royal
Picardy in Toquet on the French coast, demolished 1968
after being abandoned for many years.
- At Nag on the Lake, the Bolwoningen Ball Houses, affordable,
government housing in the Netherlands, c.1980. Nice, like an alien village in a science-fiction.
- Five Ways SF Writers Sidestep
the Problem of Relativity.
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May 26, 2023 |
- In Rolling Stone, How 'Disney Adults'
Became the Most Hated Group on the Internet. On Reddit, anyway.
- The Rolling Stones promoting their first LP on the Mike Douglas show, in 1964. An earliest TV appearance, they play Carol, Tell Me, Not Fade Away and I Just Wanna Make Love to You; and curiously, they're not lip-synching the first and third numbers; but the second and fourth are the studio recordings. Don't miss the break with lucky fans Gloria, Donna and Susan.
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May 24, 2023 |
- Incredible Singapore time-lapse, the Lion City II - Majulah by Keith Loutit. (The first one, where he does weird things with focusing, not recommended.)
- At Mac's Motor Garage,
the Ford Falcon Death Cars of Argentina. For nearly eight
years, one of the most bone-chilling sights was the sudden apearance of a green Ford Falcon at one's front door. This early 60s Falcon they kept producing there, year after year; it's also one of the
seven strange Fords you'll never see.
- At Vox, How some people get away with doing nothing at work."Funemployment" was always my goal, before retirement.
- In Smithsonian magazine, the Unsuccessful WWII Plot to Fight the Japanese With Radioactive Foxes. 'Wild Bill' Donovan figures prominently in the story (the OSS decided to release 30 glowing foxes in Washington, DC's Rock Creek Park to gauge the reactions of the locals) but there's no mention of these phosphorescent kitsune on his Wikipedia page.
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May 9, 2023 |
![DS outside West Berlin Citroën dealer, 1978 West Berlin Citroën dealer, 1978](images/citroen1.jpg)
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April 28, 2023 |
- Two from This Is Colossal -- rich,
organic textures of soil, stone, and timber by Ukrainian
artists Andriy and Olesya Voznicki, amazing. Also, Raffaele Salvoldi's
Architectonic
Installations -- Elaborate Towers from Basic Building
Blocks. My first take: they're popsicle sticks, but no.
- In the news, Illinois
man fatally shot by neighbor while using leaf blower. I'm not
surprised; if I was armed you might be reading a story like this
about me. Opinion
in the Washington Post doesn't get it, claims
the shooting is among recent, high-profile incidents of people being shot
while doing mundane, everyday actions, from ringing a doorbell to
pulling into a driveway. No, Timothy Bella, this is not
the same, he was provoked. James Fallows DOES get it, his latest
sub-stack on the topic promises relief: Gas-Powered
Leaf Blowers Are Going Away. Really. He's my champion anti-blower
crusader.
- Also from James Fallows, (since I just discovered his 'Breaking the
News' repository, and he's one of my favorite journalists), 5½ Simple
Things I Learned About China.
- Beamer,
Dressman, Bodybag by Alexander Wells, who lives in Berlin. On
the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish & global Englisch.
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April 24, 2023 |
![May 1974 National Geographic, James P. Blair photo: the 100-meter dish at the Max Planck Institute May 1974 National Geographic, James P. Blair photo](images/hello.jpg)
From the May 1974 National Geographic, the 100-meter dish
at the Max Planck Institute near Bonn in "The Incredible Universe" cover story. My reaction upon seeing this just
now was "Hello? Hello? Anybody out there? Hello!" |
April 20, 2023 |
- A pair of new, official Beatle videos:
I'm
Only Sleeping and Here,
There and Everywhere (featuring Lucy in the Sky).
- Extraordinary Richard Misek documentary:
A History
Of The World According To Getty Images.
- I learned about tightening nuts & bolts way before I ever
heard the kinda hincky "rightie tightie, leftie loosie" mnemonic.
When forced into some odd orientation by the task at hand, I use
the
right-hand rule to remember. But the equivalent expression in
Spanish is worth noting:
La derecha oprime, la izquierda libera.
"The right oppresses, the left liberates."
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April 16, 2023 |
Back from second visit to Mendocino, charming village on a bluff
above the Pacific Ocean, location reminding me of Dunwich,
the
city that fell off a cliff.
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April 11, 2023 |
- Tokyo Weekender on
Japan's
Most Elusive Train: Doctor Yellow, a pair of yellow shinkansen
specifically for diagnostic/maintenance tasks. Related: at CNN Travel,
New
trains and new rail routes to experience in Japan.
- There's a lot to explore on Floor 796, an
intricate mosaic of animated GIFs. Drag to navigate; click for more info;
about
(Google translation from the Russian).
- Probing why 'March Of Time' narrator Westbrook Van Voorhis sounded
like that led me to this Babbel magazine
Announcer
Voice article, says it's the trans-Atlantic or more commonly
Mid-Atlantic
accent, a contrived blend of British and American English (rather
than how they talk in Philly and Baltimore, the region 'Mid-Atlantic'
more commonly refers to, today). Lots more good stuff at Babbel.
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April 4, 2023 |
- Bored Panda posts a collection of Stunning
Pencil Sculptures by Jennifer Maestre.
- Finally found them (and I've been searching for some time), The
March of Time newsreels I had on a VHS in the late 80s, from which
I'd dubbed some clips used in a variety of subsequent audio projects. They
were America's
Youth, from 1940;
Youth in
Crisis (1943), and Teen-Age
Girls (1945). Watching such one always wonders, why did
announcers lighten up and stop talking like that?
- "Rainbow Grandpa" Huang Yongfu creates wildly
popular tourist attraction in Taiwan:
Taichung
Rainbow Village.
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March 29, 2023 |
There's a campaign in the UK I support called
Pipe down, or
the Pipedown Campaign for Freedom from Piped Music. They've had some
successes. In Oxford, specifically, Slate reports on
Fifteen
Minutes of Blame, How a wonky city-planning
concept went from PowerPoint presentations to global right-wing
conspiracy theory. So, what's a Fifteen-Minute City? A place
where
most residents can access goods and services
within a short walk or bike ride of home. Opponents cite
something from the UN called
Agenda 21,
whose goal, according to the Slate article, is to
abolish the suburbs, confiscate F-150s, and force
citizens to move to cities. A column in the
Financial Times states that the
Anglosphere needs to learn to love apartment living, since
the answer to so many woes in the English-speaking
world is to unburden ourselves of our anti-apartment exceptionalism.
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March 20, 2023 |
- It's International Happiness Day. That NPR blog with the silly
name asked photographers
around the world for photos from their archive that capture
gratitude and kindness.
- I remember in 1964, seeing a TV show about Glen Canyon. This was
when the dam was being finished but Lake Powell hadn't formed yet. I
was amazed, the canyon looked fascinating, and unlike our TV set at
that time, the pictures in this article are in color. High Country
News: Glen
Canyon revealed.
- Linus Boman: Why Clip Art Was
Everywhere... Until It Wasn't. I was almost oblivious about the
methods of Desktop Publishing, although familiar with the results. Seems
Powerpoint's to blame for clip art's demise. Among other things, Linus
also delves into the wonton AKA the chop suey: How
this font became the face of Chinese food in America. Just wish
he didn't feel compelled to twitch his still images (deemed necessary in
order to retain eyeballs, I suppose.) Confession: this font appears on
my Hong Kong Neon page.
- Five special
versions of songs that are now available on the new box set,
"Joni Mitchell Archives Vol.2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971)" -- demos
for A Case Of You & California, a song called Hunter, River (with
French Horns) and Urge For Going (with Strings!)
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March 14, 2023 |
- At Design You Can Trust, a set of Wonderful
Photos Of The Sinister 1960 Cadillac. These are all Eldorados
without any of the lower fins (which the GM engineers called
skegs)
which sprouted on all the '61 Caddies.
- A
Brief History of Teenagers, at the Saturday Evening Post, five years ago.
- More floppy: BuzzFeed News reports, Chuck E.Cheese
still uses Floppy Disks to make its Rodent Mascot Dance. I've been
inside that place once or twice but never seen the dancing robots, just
bad pizza and a lot of kids. Regarding floppies, however, I used the 8- and
5-inchers at work but got the most utility out of the 3.5"s. For over
ten years they were essential for transfering the links & etc
found at work back to the home computer -- a perfect fit in the
shirt pocket, but eventually replaced by a flash drive on my key-ring.
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