tweet of the day
from the comments
Deron, what if I wanted that link all long and protruding and horrific to look at? What if that was an intentional design decision, asking the viewer to confront something in themselves while simultaneously requiring them to process information in a format that isn’t ideal? Link-fixing has plagued the exploratory information performance art movement for far too long, and when my National Endowment for the Arts grant gets cleared you better just watch out. There will be links, ugly links, it’s going to get disgusting with the underscores and the slashes and the periods and all manner of disgusting coding meant to transport us from one fixed position on the web to another fixed position.
Hillman Curtis, artist series — Deposition: Espirito Santo
from the spam
Anyway Charles wanted to be a part of that so he re-arranged the letters of his name and thought it was really cool to use a last name that doubled as alias which you know means also known as more or less.
learning to speak with dolphins
Herzing found the study sessions were most successful when, before playing, the humans and dolphins swam together slowly and in synchrony, mimicked each other and made eye contact. These are signs of good etiquette among dolphins. Humans also signal their interest in someone with eye contact and similar body language. Perhaps these are universal — and extraterrestrial — signs of good manners.
I wanted more from this article, but the ideas — language, intelligence, the search for extra-terrestrial life, inter-species communication — are interesting nonetheless.
LCD Soundsystem – I Can Change
I’ve been obsessed with this song lately. You will be too.
headline of the day
Man shot after fight in restaurant over best Mexican state dies
The Watson Episodes of Jeopardy
Part 1, Day 1
I’m not sure how long these will be online, but if you haven’t watched the Watson episodes of Jeopardy, they feel significant in a way that the first glimpses of the potential of the internet did.
tweet of the day
Coney Island Hot Dogs
Distraction: An occupational hazard of visual research. I was looking for cowboys.
Carry on.
You Should Date an Illiterate Girl
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
Don’t forget to click over to page 2 at the bottom of page 1.
Dear Clusterflock
If you found a wallet in a fast-food restaurant, would you be inclined to just turn it in or try to return it to its owner yourself?
quote out of context
Since the conscious mind can only handle a few thoughts at any given time, it’s constantly trying to “chunk” stuff together, to make the complexity of life a little more manageable. Instead of thinking about each M&M, we think about the scoops. Instead of counting every dollar we spend, we parcel our dollars into particular purchases, like paying for a hotel room. We rely on misleading shortcuts because we lack the computational power to think any other way.
The Last Roll of Kodachrome
Two years ago, photographer Steve McCurry heard the whispers. Due to the digital-photography revolution, Kodak was considering discontinuing one of the most legendary film stocks of all time: Kodachrome, a film which was to color slides what the saxophone was to jazz. McCurry spoke with Kodak’s worldwide-marketing wizard Audrey Jonckheer, hoping to persuade Kodak to bequeath him the very last roll that came off the assembly line in Rochester, New York. They readily agreed. And recently, McCurry—most famous for his National Geographic cover of an Afghan girl in a refugee camp, shot on Kodachrome—loaded his Nikon F6 with the 36-exposure spool and headed east, intending to concentrate on visual artists like himself, relying on his typical mix of portraiture, photojournalism, and street photography.
Tyche, the new ninth planet
John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, astrophysicists from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, think data gathered from NASA’s Wise telescope will reveal a ninth planet orbiting in the Oort cloud, captured from another solar system by the sun’s gravity.
Whether it would become the new ninth planet would be decided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The main argument against is that Tyche probably formed around another star and was later captured by the Sun’s gravitational field. The IAU may choose to create a whole new category for Tyche, Professor Matese said.
Tyche will almost certainly be made up mostly of hydrogen and helium and will probably have an atmosphere much like Jupiter’s, with colourful spots and bands and clouds, Professor Whitmire said. “You’d also expect it to have moons. All the outer planets have them,” he added.
Twitter killed the radio star
Mick Jagger joins an illustrious group of celebrities killed by Twitter, including Justin Bieber, Aretha Franklin and Charlie Sheen.
Nova, Hunting the Hidden Dimension
An overview of Benoit Mandelbrot and the mathematics of fractals.
Galena (Illinois) Public Library
Unaltered Digi Hari photograph of the Galena Public Library, constructed circa 1906. One of the many US libraries owing its existence (in part) to the Carnegie Foundation.
from the archives: September 26, 2006
Radiographer (and the Donkey Show Analogy)
My French-Algerian anatomy professor was discussing certain enzymes and how they are specific to certain tasks and therefore incompatible with others.
To elucidate this point, he asked if anyone in class had been to Laredo. A shy 18-year-old girl innocently answered yes.
And then the instructor began discussing the mythic donkey sex show to prove that, yes, some things are incompatible . . .
(There were several people separately muttering, “Oh, no, he didn’t . . . ” )
Yeah, did I say that he is my favorite teacher of all time? 8 am classes are like splashes of cold water, invigorating me for the day. Though you would think it would be a cold shower that I would need after class, somehow the experience is just the opposite.
“I’ve never dated a hive mind before”
This American Life Knows the Coke Secret Recipe
The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. Locked in a vault in Atlanta. Supposedly unreplicable. But we think we may have found the original recipe. And to see if the formula actually might be Coke, we made a batch. Or, anyway, we asked the folks at Jones Soda and Sovereign Flavors to whip up some up, to see if it tastes like Coke.
The recipe is here.
God (or the devil) will be in the details
Target’s announcement that it will open a store in one of Chicago’s great architectural landmarks, Louis Sullivan’s former Carson Pirie Scott & Co. store, is at first blush welcome news, both for the building and the Loop.
The building, located at 1 S. State St. and largely constructed between 1899 and 1906, was designed for retailing and Target is a retailer. That’s good.
Pete Shelley: “Homosapien” (1981)
from the archives: March 25, 2007
Arcade Fire meet Sergio Leone. Both benefit.
Hat-tip Three O’Clock in the Morning. Incidentally, emawkc is soliciting comments on the “art” (if any there is) of the mash-up. Opine there or here, if you wish.
(Ooh. Some people got kind of wrought up.)
