“I got no strings to hold me down”
Even Half-Witted Rust Belt Muffler Men can become Real Boys.
(“When you wish upon a star . . . “)
from the comments
Japanese pregnant dolls from the 19th century
(via marginal revolution)
Data.gov
Maybe he is a nerd:
The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Although the initial launch of Data.gov provides a limited portion of the rich variety of Federal datasets presently available, we invite you to actively participate in shaping the future of Data.gov by suggesting additional datasets and site enhancements to provide seamless access and use of your Federal data. Visit today with us, but come back often. With your help, Data.gov will continue to grow and change in the weeks, months, and years ahead.
glass frog
They did, Paul. They did.
After 74 years, Kodak is retiring Kodachrome.
Photojournalist Steve McCurry’s widely recognized portrait of an Afghan refugee girl, shot on Kodachrome, appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. At Kodak’s request, McCurry will shoot one of the last rolls of Kodachrome film and donate the images to the George Eastman House museum, which honors the company’s founder, in Rochester.
“I want to take (the last roll) with me and somehow make every frame count … just as a way to honor the memory and always be able to look back with fond memories at how it capped and ended my shooting Kodachrome,” McCurry said last week from Singapore, where he has an exhibition at the Asian Civilizations Museum.
The Zapruder film was shot on Kodachrome.
Ratatat – Seventeen Years
This band is keeping me sane today.
more cow burps
Vermont dairy farmers Tim Maikshilo and Kristen Dellert, mindful of shrinking their carbon footprint, have changed their cows’ diet to reduce the amount of gas the animals burp — Coventry Valley Farm is one of 15 Vermont farms working with Stonyfield Farm Inc., whose yogurt is made with their organic milk, to reduce the cows’ intestinal methane by feeding them flaxseed, alfalfa, and grasses high in Omega 3 fatty acids. The gas cows belch is the dairy industry’s biggest greenhouse gas contributor, research shows, most of it emitted from the front and not the back end of the cow.
the origins of father’s day
An article from Inspiration Line explains that, according to an article in The Spokesman-Review, “one group of men conventioneers laughed and said they didn’t want a Father’s Day. A National Fishing Day would be better, they told her.”
President Nixon made it law in 1972.
tea time
(via slaughts)
hey baby
(a)
The McLean team already had studied men and women looking at photos of adults’ faces on a computer screen. They rated facial beauty, and could do various keystrokes to watch the photos longer. A keystroke count showed men put three times more effort into watching beautiful women as women put into watching handsome men.
(b)
This time 13 men and 14 women were shown 80 photos of babies, 30 of whom had abnormal facial features such as a cleft palate, Down syndrome or crossed eyes. Participants rated each baby’s attractiveness on a scale of zero to 100, and used keystrokes to make the photo stay on the screen longer or disappear faster.
Women pressed the keys 2.5 times more than men to make photos of babies with the facial abnormalities disappear, researchers reported in PLoS One, a journal of the Public Library of Science. That’s even though they rated those babies no less attractive than the men had.
(c)
Both genders spent equal time and effort looking at photos of the normal babies.
Cow burps.
Belching cattle, pigs, and sheep produce about a quarter of the methane released from the United States into the atmosphere each year.
The EPA under President Barack Obama has said it has no plans to regulate the gas, even though the agency recently included methane among six greenhouse gases it believes are endangering human health and welfare.
The cloven lobby is strong.
Richard Was a Dick
Speaking to Charles Colson after the January 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, the president said: “I admit, there are times when abortions are necessary, I know that.” He gave “a black and a white” as an example.
“Or rape,” Colson offered. “Or rape,” Nixon agreed.
What is a browser?
*Headdesk*.
(Via Wisdump)
Rock on.
(Via Unstoppable Robot Ninja)
Read more
Dear clusterflock,
The Bureau of Communication (via Lauren @ Enjoysthin.gs)
From the comments
…
I harken back to something I heard that resonates with me. When we love, we are called to perform in that expression.
I can say “I love you” as many times as I like and have it mean as many different meanings as the number of times I say it. But when I am, willingly and often without forethought, moved to move on another’s behalf, that’s when I know it’s real.
Jump – Eric Zener
These paintings by Eric Zener remind me of everything I love about swimming.
Nessie
Dear Clusterflock
Do you say “I love you” even if you don’t mean it? How often? What compels you?
listen here
Last weekend I got a great gig covering a few days of five orchestral concerts
Did he deserve it? Hell, yes.
I am a very PA person myself, and while I try to hold it in check with coworkers, this man really and truly pissed me off. He berated me, belittled me, constantly criticized my work (which he would then turn in as his own, without making changes), and he was rude and offensive to students, which count for 90% of our customer base since I work on a college campus. Some days, I would push his buttons just to see how far I could get, and how red I could make him turn (think cooked lobster). He gave me a bad review, stating that while I was excellent at my job and with customers, I didn’t treat him with the proper respect (understandable) and spoke too often about things like Viking helmets and zombies. He actually put the following comment in my annual review. “While I appreciate D’s enthusiasm for subjects dear to her, sometimes she talks too much about Zombies, and shows a lack of respect for me as her manager and an internationally published poet by suggesting I wear a Viking helmet.”
. . .
Did I try to get him fired? You bet, and everyone knows it. Did he deserve it? Hell, yes.
—Diane, comment 16.7 on the post no good deed…, Passive-Aggressive Notes, May 12, 2009
Y’all? I love Diane.
He’ll always just be “Flint Man” to me.
He stands bravely outside the derelict Dort Mall, Flint, Michigan’s first indoor mall, doubtful his original home. I found this guy while doing some research in Flint last December, and I’ve wanted to share him with the flock ever since. Frankly, like the rest of Flint, he scared me a little, but after some research I’ve changed my view. Dilaudid eyes belie his splendid past: Happy Half-wit Muffler Man. I dig his tony hat and tropical shirt.
Atreyu!
via Snarkmartket
I never sought anything in you but yourself
From a NY Times review of Cristina Nehring’s book A Vindication of Love.
“We have been pragmatic and pedestrian about our erotic lives for too long,” she writes, and in an examination of real and invented figures from the Wife of Bath to Frida Kahlo, she revels in love affairs that do not rely on our more hackneyed narratives. The result of Nehring’s literary and historical inquiry is a celebration of the wilder, messier connections. Her heroes and heroines tend to die, like Young Werther, who shoots himself; or try to die, like Mary Wollstonecraft, who throws herself off a bridge; or suffer, like Abelard and Heloise, one of whom is castrated and one of whom ends up in a nunnery. And yet Nehring admires these flamboyant men and women for the creative force of their affairs, for their ability to live outside the lines, for the ferocity of their feelings. She sees our modern goals of marriage, security and comfort as limited and sad, and quotes approvingly Heloise’s statement to Abelard: “ ‘I looked for no marriage bond,’ she flashed. ‘I never sought anything in you but yourself.’ ”
(via marginal revolution)
