“it’s like a nutshell towing a mountain”
Since he was hired in the ’70s by Saudi prince Mohammad al-Faisal, French engineer Georges Mougin has tried to figure out a way to tow freshwater icebergs across the Arctic. Now, with 3-D tech, declassified satellite data, and tugboats, he might have cracked the way to quench the world’s thirst.
Siam vs. Mexico
From The Saddest Music in the World. Guy Maddin (2003).
“The singers are giving us a sad peek into child burial customs ‘down Mexico way’.”
“The Mexican mama is being very firm with her dead infant.
“Now go away, she wails
You are dead
Don’t sneak in at night
to nurse from my breast
That milk
is only for the living
“To Canadian ears, that may sound harsh.”
How Archivists Helped Video Game Designers Recreate the City’s Dark Side for ‘L.A. Noire’
Earlier this week, video game enthusiasts and fans of L.A. history cheered the release of Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire, a police procedural game noted for its faithful reproduction of Los Angeles circa 1947. To recreate a city now hidden beneath 64 years of redevelopment projects and transformed by age and expansion, production designers with the game’s developer, Team Bondi, consulted several Los Angeles area archives.
from the comments
I imagine a vagina made up in eastern Washington has a different look and smell to one made outside New Orleans.
Precession of the Equinoxes
The thing that caused everyone to freak out because their astrological signs had changed is one of the more fascinating stories in the history of intellectual evolution. That thing is called precession of the equinoxes, and precession is one of those phenomena that is simultaneously invisible and obvious, observable and hidden.
Let’s start with the technicalities and move to the history of it.
In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body’s rotational axis. In particular, it refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth’s axis of rotation, which, like a wobbling top, traces out a pair of cones joined at their apices in a cycle of approximately 26,000 years. The term “precession” typically refers only to this largest secular motion; other changes in the alignment of Earth’s axis — nutation and polar motion — are much smaller in magnitude.
So, precession is essentially the planetary equivalent of the wobble in a top as it spins.
If you carve the horizon into twelve roughly equivalent sections, each year, at the equinoxes, the sun will appear to rise in one and set in its opposite. Because of the wobble in the axis of the earth, the section of the sky the sun appears to rise and set in will shift very slowly over a period of roughly 2,160 years. This is the basis of astrology, as various civilizations applied meaning to the constellations they saw in each section. More interestingly, I think, our tracking of it appears to be the basis of astronomy.
To begin to notice that tracking takes time. To fully understand the cycle, and be able to project it forwards and backwards, to mark the passage of time in the relative movement of the stars, would take hundreds, if not thousands, of years — observation, measurement, notation. Once a culture had an awareness of that pattern, no matter on what scale, it could begin to find a place for itself, and make a story out of it, and because we are human, of course, that is what we did.
If you are interested in this subject, and are comfortable with an approach equal parts academic and poetic, you might enjoy Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechen’s Hamlet’s Mill. It shows glimpses of precession’s possible influence throughout the history of art, an astronomical code for our place in the universe embedded in language.
Serendipity (For Rick)
In her response to my recent “dear clusterflock” query, Carole mentioned shaking loose the serendipity.
I’m not sure this is the kind of serendipity she meant, and I know it’s not the kind I want, but here goes, just for the hell of it.
Read more
Civil Defense Planning
So I’ve made arrangements to fly to Texas for cfsIII and am thinking that it would be helpful to have a rough layout of the property with special emphasis paid to structures and to their points of entry or exit.
My concerns are: Dracula, the Wolfman, Frankenstein, and the Mummy. Also, possibly, the Living Dead.
When I was around eight or so, I worked out plans of action in the event that on my way home from school I was pursued by any of the above. There is really a lot to consider, and I would hate to be caught unprepared.
Texans trying to pronounce WI city names
For Cindy and Sheila
Now you know
The United Kingdom Explained from Colin Grey on Vimeo.
USAwesome
Illinois ranks as Most Average. I concur.
(Thanks, Susan.)
Thank You
#couldbeanywhereusa
It simply happens to be Dubuque, Iowa.
Buttermilk Breakfast (for Cece and Rick — and all y’all)
A Yankee learns to love buttermilk.
The first time I ever tried buttermilk, I spat it all over the dock. (I was in Norfolk, Virginia, just off the boat.) It wasn’t that I didn’t like it—I thought it was spoiled. The acrid taste, the little floating lumps set all the alarm bells off. I was just congratulating myself for my self-preservation instincts, when the person who had bought me the carton began upbraiding me for being just another stupid Yankee.
Well, of course, he was right.
The Horn
My friend Lou has rounded the Horn, though she is confined (briefly) to quarters on account of un catarro.
You can read about her voyage to the End of the World here.
Murdered Kansas Abolitionist David Hoyt’s Bloodstained Map and Condolence Letter
What he was doing in the area is not entirely clear. Some reports indicate that he was attempting to negotiate a truce with proslavery elements; others suggest that he was “testing” the intentions of Southerners in Lawrence by entering a proslavery gathering unarmed.
The Cowan’s Auctions copywriter continues,
Included with the lot is a 3pp letter, 5 x 8″, Leominster, 11 Sept. 1856. The letter is from James F. Legate to the parents of David Hoyt expressing his condolences and trying offer some solace in the idea that their son gave his life …that Freedom might live….Take comfort for he died that Liberty might come to the oppressed people of Kansas…. Incredibly, he also asks Hoyt’s parents if they know anyone else who will come carry on the fight: I have been laboring ever since in the State to get a party to go back with me. Has he no friends to go & do battle for which he fell a [martyr]? If so I’ll take them to the spot where he yielded his young, useful life….
Both map and letter sold last month for a mere $705.
Possible moral of the story: Do not “test” the intentions of Southerners while unarmed.
(Via SC.)
This Is Where the Road Took Us
Carretera Federal 186. Escárcega, Campeche. Mexico.
MapCrunch mesmerizes me at times, but I’ve learned that if I spend too much time idly gaping at its random displays of Google StreetView images, I can get to feeling queasy. So today I told myself, “Okay, as soon as you arrive at a place you’ve been even near, that will be the signal to stop.” I was thinking along the lines of a location anywhere within the state of Texas, say. Or the Greek mainland.
It was kind of strange that the fourth image displayed was of a stretch of road I have actually driven from the Mexican town of Chetumal to that of Escárcega.
The Hole
AKA New York City’s Ninth Ward:
30 Feet below sea level, mafia dumping ground, and home of The Black Cowboy Federation. The Hole is one of the most mysterious and uncharted locations in New York City. “The Hole”—a film by Courtney Sell and Billy Feldman. Coming soon.
My First Ten
1. Vomiting on the wood floor in the dark room
2. A pink pebble in the driveway
3. Slipping on the play structure made of railroad ties, my chin cut open
4. My friend’s house smells different
5. Cows are enormous and terrifying
6. I don’t want to get in that boat
7. Toothbrushes are pretty
8. Where did this statuette come from?
9. The imp carved out of wood is leering
10. That is a whole BOX of CANDY
The True Size of Africa
(via marginal revolution)
“Only old ladies answer the phone”
Political polls may become increasingly suspect and unhelpful in the future:
The immediate problem is the rapid growth in the number of people who have only a mobile phone, and are thus excluded from surveys conducted by landline. About a quarter of Americans are now “cellphone-onlys” (CPOs) in the industry jargon, and this poses both practical and statistical difficulties. They are less likely to answer their phones, and less likely to participate in a survey when they do, says Frank Newport of Gallup, another polling firm. They often retain their telephone numbers, including the area code, when they move from state to state, so it is hard to know where they are. And it costs more to call a mobile phone in the first place.
I can’t ever think of a time I participated in a poll.
Europe According to the USA
Other maps of stereotypes include Europe According to France and Europe According to Gay Men.
Theatre of Great Discomfort
There’s only one way.
I just found this in my Google Voice inbox. It’s a call from my mother, which she didn’t seem to be aware she was making, while she was in Canada on vacation. I don’t know who the man is, but he sounds awesome.
I started to transcribe the actual conversation, but it’s a bit fuzzy in places, so I’ll just give you what Google translated.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Hello 8 okay, so your brother. Ohh, Bob. Yeah, I think you know I will. That horse pistol Henry, alright, thanks a lot of Karen glad you’re lucky with prices rich people because it before. Do. We’ll take a look at it and. After 2 hop all the traffic. It’s probably best way dot com well. Because, you see, or 6 o’clock in the morning so if you would have to do, all the traffic going this way to Royal, and I have to do people to call me back. This way because of all about working. Hello cursor this birthdays bridge. There’s only one way. This is being repaired. Which is the hospital What You Need usual. Little all the pieces A little while. All that so I will not pay freight. But we’re putting a couple of Yeah, so I was. Hello, my name. S. 4. Bud are you i’m from here okay this is not yet problem okay. This place is called the way so close to Ontario. Yeah. So those. There is some of that was. Perhaps I don’t know, just took off. Hi evening. Now, I never, never. Kevin Hi. Here, sorry it’s Pontiac coming back I can hear me. We may here. But now that you got that time. We have an okay wondering if there So if it’s Bruce. I have a chance to see if you’re gonna carry Parkview yes.
The Cartographic Me (Plate I: Legs)
They looked like maps — the wan portions the Amazon or the Orinoco or the Congo and all the rest the Vast Uncharted Interior.
from the comments
I was a San Francisco Bay Area Boy Scout, in case you couldn’t tell.
Phoenix, Wisconsin
Peggy West is a Milwaukee County supervisor. In a public meeting regarding Arizona’s immigration law, she displays remarkable ignorance of basic U.S. geography.
From: Cory M
