Sufjan’s Privacy
There’s nothing personal anymore. To me, there is a real sacredness to privacy, especially because we live in an exhibitionist culture. There’s such a magnitude of record taking. It’s so exhaustive. Bandwidth and hard drive space are able to accommodate limitless capacities to take a record of anything and everything. Maybe I do really value the kind of personal-private creative endeavor that’s done in isolation. My Dad used to say that the balance of the world relied on all of the monks who were living outside of society in creative isolation. I don’t quite understand the ascetic life or the private life or the monastic private life. But I definitely understand privacy’s value.
Sufjan Stevens, speaking in an interview with Brandon Stosuy, Interview Magazine.
The Allard Motor Works J2X MKII
I think I think this is fantastic.
the monkey you know
Monkeys can recognize photographs of other monkeys they know, proving that they can both detect differences in faces and figure out if they’ve seen them before, researchers report.
Why Google DNS Is a Big Deal
A nice my-mom-can-understand-it explanation of this whole Google DNS business.
Camel Case
I find myself returning simply to reread this paragraph:
Camel case even infiltrated literature. “Deviance or innovation?” Ron Silliman asked in his 1996 poem “Under,” before imagining himself living the erotic life of the insertive capital: “How sweetly, smoothly I slip inside of you where I belong.” Copy editors, meanwhile, were overwhelmed. At first, sentries at The New York Times allowed interior capitals only when the second element of a compound was a proper noun — when the word crammed next to “Bank” was “America,” for example. But in November 1999, the newspaper capitulated (as it were). Thereafter every brand name was permitted up to three idiosyncratic majuscules. Three! And why not let the dog sleep on the sofa? “Traditionalists,” admitted the magazine Copyediting in January 2008, “have lost the battle.” Most authorities now instruct writers to capitalize whatever the corporations tell them to. Writers of the world, fight back!
via Daring Fireball
Vintage Prime Computer Ads
With Tom Baker a.k.a. Dr. Who
(thanks, Dale)
The Iranian Crackdown
If it wasn’t before, then getting fired for crazy photos online is officially a first world problem:
His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It warned the 29-year-old engineering student that his relatives in Tehran would be harmed if he didn’t stop criticizing Iran on Facebook.
Two days later, his mom called. Security agents had arrested his father in his home in Tehran and threatened him by saying his son could no longer safely return to Iran.
closing down the UFO inquiry unit
The British military has shut down a hotline that took reports on UFOs.
The spokesman said closing down the UFO inquiry unit would save about 44,000 pounds ($73,000) a year and would not add to the security threats Britain faces.
He said no one has lost their job because of the closure of the UFO portfolio, which over the years had detailed tens of thousands of sightings, including many with fanciful illustrations about purported encounters with aliens.
Geza and Zslot
Two destitute brothers living in a cave on the outskirts of Budapest, Hungary, could inherit a mammoth share of a $6.6 billion fortune left by their long-lost grandmother.
badge of honor
When I was growing up, in Ann Arbor, Mich., there was a little debate: Should school officials try to prevent black students from using the N-word? I don’t believe the issue was ever settled. And this brings up the question of whether “teabagger” could be kind of a conservative N-word: to be used in the family, but radioactive outside the family.
Give it a ponder…
James Lipton — spokesman for teen culture?
GJ 758 B
Astronomers say they have taken the first direct image of a planet-like object orbiting a star much like our own sun.
The object called GJ 758 B orbits a parent star that is comparable in mass and temperature to our own sun, said study team member Michael McElwain of Princeton University. The star lies 300 trillion miles (480 trillion km), or about 50 light-years, from Earth.
A tablet/e-reader demo
Done by Sports Illustrated, oddly enough. Makes me almost want to read a magazine. Almost.
via a ton of folks
Zadie Smith on The Essay
The literal truth is something you expect, or hope for, in a news article. But an essay is an act of imagination, even if it is a piece of memoir. It is, or should be, “a form of thinking, consciousness, wisdom-seeking”, but it still takes quite as much art as fiction.
How To Cook A Fucking Steak
Pretty straightforward, really. To start:
Go to the goddamn grocery and get steak. Yes, the grocery. A little ammonia is not going to kill you, you pussy. You want to be all fancy and grass-fed and environmentally conscious, go ahead, I don’t give a shit, just get a fucking steak.
Come for the posts, stay for the comments
A few months ago I posted a picture of Operation Crossroads Baker and it has been slowly accumulating some rather interesting comments. For example:
My brother was on the Navy ship as a young sailor testing nukes on the islands. A few years ago he had me research as the VA told him no records showed him on the ships and the records burned in the 1970s in St. Louis. I researched the ship, found it named after a town in Wyoming and called the local library (2007). Not only was it the ship, they had a copy of the original manifest with his name on it! He had suffered from burning skin, then swollen private parts that had to be operated on, two children born with the need for braces on their legs. He has skin disorders at 73 years of age.
What I saw and purchased for him was the DVD showing the “Bikini Islands (Bikini Atoll) and the sailors in underwear swabbing the decks without even a mask on. He told me they went once a week below and a geiger counter was used to see if they were active!
His ship was painted in San Francisco, still active – painted again and then sunk 50 miles off of the coast line because they decommissioned it. I was told this when I called the libray. He went to the reunion and saw some of the original buddies.
US Government is waiting until those who were there die. Agent Orange had a congressman who fought for the soldiers in Viet Nam. Where are they for these men?
Sobering.
How to buy on eBay
I am continually amazed at how many people incrementally bid up an item they want six days before an auction is over. It’s like watching someone walk around with a switch unknown to him flipped permanently to stupid. It’s easy, really. All it requires is patience, knowing what you want, what it is worth, what you are willing to pay for it, and then, again, and this is the important part — waiting.
Thank You, Daring Fireball
Weekly Picture 170
Mae Rolling Downhill, Austin, TX 11.28.2009
Weekly Picture 169
The Jeff Wall, MoMA, NY, Studio Installation Shot, Austin, TX 11.24.2009
Transcribed: birthing herself into the kingdom of God
Jackie Bauman, November 29, 2009.
Well, I don’t remember things in great detail or order but I never forget what mother went through in her passing.
She was at home and I’m trying to think how it started — I brought her — I don’t know how close it was to when she had her surgery, but she didn’t like anybody telling her what to do, but I think it was a Saturday that she was here and Dad was coming in and out because we were the only ones at the farm at the time and there’s just something that you intuit when there’s not somebody there explaining to you what’s going on but I felt very strongly that she was going to pass from this world to the next that day and it’s amazing because you don’t — there’s nothing that tells you that that’s going to happen, but you have an inner sense of awakening that things are not just a usual Saturday and so we were in the bedroom and mom was sitting on the edge of the bed and she was talking and then she quieted down and just was sitting there — I was behind her and she was facing forward and I was facing the back of her and at a certain time she started going into a breathing pattern and I looked at her to see what she was doing and she was sort of lying there with her body going forward like this over and over and over again and I thought, I wonder what’s she’s doing, but she continued that and then I realized that she was, her body was, in a motion like she was pregnant and needed to release a baby and so I just sat there — she was very very intent with what she was doing and wasn’t talking to anybody but just concentrating on what her body needed her to do — and so she sat there and then she would kind of go kind of you know a breathy sound and then she’d lean back a little bit and then she’d take another breath and then she’d push a little harder and I was watching her and I thought this is strange because I was with Dad when he died and he didn’t do anything like that, he just sat there, and his, you know, worked with his breathing, until finally there was no breath left for him to take.
Kelley Deal Handmade Scarves
I love these one-of-a-kind wool scarves made from old sweaters. Available on Wire & Twine. They are currently all sold out, but you can follow Kelley to find out when more make it online!
wiggle the robotic fingers
A group of European scientists say they have successfully connected a robotic hand to a man who had lost an arm, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial hand and control it with his thoughts.
Americans prefer white
International and North American car color preferences.
three is the loneliest number
A psychological study compares loneliness to a virus.
They found loneliness is catchy with three degrees of separation. So a person’s loneliness depended not just on his friend’s loneliness but also on his friend’s friend and his friend’s friend’s friend. Participants were 52 percent more likely to be lonely if a person to whom they were directly connected (one degree of separation) was lonely. For two degrees of separation, the number drops to 25 percent and 15 percent for three degrees.
