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The Model Ship
Link is episode 1. As of 4 February 2024, he's up to episode 1887.
Ron Calverley is a retired bus worker in Winnipeg who, after the death of his wife, decided to build a model ship like he had in his younger days. Actual model-making? Discussions of model-making infrastructure? LONG digressions about videography and computing? Classic old-man musings on life? ALL PROVIDED IN ABUNDANCE!
A Gorey/Bellairs Discovery
"Sometimes treasures are hidden in plain sight and it only takes the curiosity of an astute observer to properly identify them. Such was the case with a piece of original artwork by Edward Gorey that is on display at the F. Brooke Whiting Museum in Cumberland, Maryland."
Righteous Victims
1948 and the roots of Israeli-Palestinian conflict
"In the time of the British mandate, Jews and Palestinians, and Western and Arab powers, made fundamental choices that set the groundwork for the suffering and irresolution of today. Along the way, there were many opportunities for events to play out differently. We asked a panel of historians — three Palestinians, two Israelis and a Canadian American — to talk about the decisive moments leading up to the founding of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians and whether a different outcome could have been possible."
“Maybe the kid in the hole was always a bad idea.”
WHY DON'T WE JUST KILL THE KID IN THE OMELAS HOLE, by Isabel J. Kim. An excellent Omelas riff that's just what it sounds like.
"I had reached the age of 650 miles" – Christopher Priest, 1943-2024
British sf writer Christopher Priest has died at 80.
Born in 1943, Christopher Priest came to prominence in the early 1970s with works such as Inverted World, the opening line of which form the quote for this post. Over a career spanning several decades (his last novel, Airside, was published in 2023) Priest received the British Science Fiction Association Award four times between 1974 and 2011, as well as several Hugo Award nominations. His best-known work may well be The Prestige , filmed in 2006.
90,000-year-old footprints found
Scientists race against tides to discover why 90,000-year-old footprints were made.
Scientists believe footprints that were accidentally found on a Moroccan beach were made by five modern humans 90,000 years ago. The team studied the 85 footprints using optically stimulated luminescence.
It's a dating method that establishes the last time specific minerals were exposed to heat or sunlight.
The technique dated these footprints to the Late Pleistocene period.
This era, between 11,700 and 129,000 years ago, is commonly known as the Ice Age, when glaciers covered large parts of the Earth.
‘Lake Mungo’ (2008): The Oral History
Lake Mungo made a modest impact when it was first released in 2008. It premiered at the Sydney Film Festival, screened at South by Southwest in 2009, and premiered in the United States as part of the After Dark 4 horror anthology in 2010. Yet residencies on Tubi, Shudder, and Amazon Prime exposed new audiences to this sad, frightening, and fascinating film more than a decade after its release, and its explorations of grief fit more comfortably with a horror landscape influenced by The Babadook (2014) and Hereditary (2018) than the 2000s post-Blair Witch Project (1999) found footage explosion.
Joe Sacco: The War on Gaza
The War on Gaza.
The cartoonist Joe Sacco uses his medium to illuminate the plight of people in trouble spots and war zones throughout the world. His acclaimed books, researched during Sacco's long visits to these places and his many interviews with those affected, include Palestine, Footnotes in Gaza and Safe Area Gorazde. Today he begins a new series of short online strips titled The War on Gaza.
Rock of Ages
A Strange Plastic Rock Has Ominously Invaded 5 Continents
That probably shouldn't have happened.
The Brave Little Flying Toaster
The Ingenuity helicopter will fly no more. After three years and more than 2 hours of cumulative flying time, the first human craft to fly on Mars is grounded.
How we made an animated movie in 8kB
In November 2022, we set ourselves a challenge:
make a real-time animation that looks like a standard short animated movie, with the constraint that it should fit in 8 kilobytes. The goal was to have decent graphics, animations, direction and camera work, and the matching music… Yes, 8 kilobytes, less than half of this post, for everything.
The Blazing World
Margaret Cavendish's multiverse science fiction from 1666 predates Mary Shelly, Jules Verne and Marvel by more than a century. She also published books of poetry under her own name, discussed her science research at the Royal Society, and designed gender neutral clothing that she wore at Queen Mary's court. Samuel Pepy's mentioned her a few times, although he was not a fan.
That time David Hume tried to attack Quebec but invaded France instead.
"Sail with the first fair wind, approach the unknown coast, march through the unknown country, and attack the unknown cities of the most potent nation of the universe”.
You may remember David Hume from your Philosophy 101 class, (or perhaps Bruce's Philosopher Song)
but did you know about his military career?
Laser-sensor technology reveals ancient cities in Amazon rainforest
Laser-sensor technology reveals ancient cities in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. The settlements were occupied around 500 BC and 300 to 600 AD — a period roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire in Europe.
A River Runs To It
These entrancing maps capture where the world’s rivers go.
When Hungarian cartographer Robert Szucs looked online for a map of the world’s rivers based on their ocean destination, he found nothing on a global scale with high resolution. “It’s like, how does this thing not exist? So, I just instantly put it on my to-do list."
The pixels will be with you, always.
Star Wars in one 123-meter long infographic
by Swiss graphic designer, author and illustrator Martin Panchaud.
Predator Fan Film WTF?
Predator: Dark Ages
Regarding the mystic power of a ludicrous sci fi one off featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger on generations of wannabe monster movie auteurs. Excluding of course any reference to the execrable corporate mashups of all things Alien vs. Predator and their occasionally molecular acidic ilk for all the obvious they suck reasons.
Regarding the mystic power of a ludicrous sci fi one off featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger on generations of wannabe monster movie auteurs. Excluding of course any reference to the execrable corporate mashups of all things Alien vs. Predator and their occasionally molecular acidic ilk for all the obvious they suck reasons.
Terry Bisson 1942-2024
Terry Bisson, award winning SFF author of short stories such as Bears Discover Fire and They're Made Out of Meat (video) has passed away.
I Found David Lynch’s Lost Dune II Script
"David Lynch’s 1984 sci-fi epic Dune is—in many ways—a misbegotten botch job. Still, as with more than a few ineffectively ambitious films before it, the artistic flourishes Lynch grafted onto Frank Herbert’s sprawling Machiavellian narrative of warring space dynasties have earned it true cult classic status. Today, fans of the film, which earned a paltry $30 million at the box office and truly bruising reviews upon its release, still wonder what Lynch would have done if given the opportunity to adapt the next two novels in Herbert’s cycle: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune."
Drink of its water and be healed
The ‘Chicago Rat Hole’ Is the Hottest Tourist Destination of 2024
The cement imprint has existed for at least a decade, although no one seems sure how it got there.
Finding Copernicus's grave
Copernicus's grave was lost for centuries. An unlikely discovery finally solved the mystery. A team of archaeologists discovered the remains of the 16th-century father of modern astronomy, who was the first to demonstrate that the Earth orbits the Sun.
Mouse secretly filmed tidying man’s shed every night.
No lie.
This Guardian story has a link to his footage.
The dream, however, quickly turned nightmarish
“The real toll your behavior is going to take is priceless,” she continued. “How dare you pretend to care about justice involved people? How dare you pretend to care about Black businesses? How dare you sit at the Black leadership table with people who have cried, fought, and hustled to build real businesses and brands with nothing and from nothing…. You frequently talked about letting Black women lead. And even though that was clearly [a] fraudulent narrative you used to gain entry, you weren’t wrong. It’s Black women who will ensure you never do this again.” from Meet the Con Artist Who Deceived the Front Range Tech Community
India's Aditya-L1 spacecraft reaches Sun orbit
India's Aditya-L1 spacecraft reaches Sun orbit. The spacecraft has reached its home for the next five years, an orbit from where it will study the Sun and its influence on space weather.
Follow the Money with $upreme Connections
ProPublica has created a database of Supreme Court financial filings searchable by various categories.
After the groundbreaking reporting from ProPublica on Clarence Thomas' gifts and loans from billionaires which led to the new toothless "ethics code" in 2023 for the Supreme Court.
There is nothing good about the plant.
Meet the spotted water hemlock, the most poisonous plant in North America.
"Those who eat it will die in two hours. It must be a painful death. It twists the arms and ankles and turns the head back. Finally they die in a last wretching convulsion. They say it turns the eyes back."
All The Jimmy Carr Standup Specials
How much do you like Jimmy Carr? He's that weird-laughing UK standup comedian who still does sort of an old-fashioned joke-joke-joke act. He also hosts panel shows here and there. Well, anyway, here is Every Single Jimmy Carr Stand-Up Comedy Special - PART 1 [5h30m] and Every Single Jimmy Carr Stand-Up Comedy Special - PART 2 [6h30m]. "In total that's well over 10 hours of one-liners, heckles, roasts, dark jokes and put-downs." Put online by Jimmy Carr himself.
It’s the Face in the Floor
I started reading and it soon became the case that so long as Infinite Jest was in my hands, it was possible, okay even, for me to stick around. The core themes of the book that would soothe and sustain me over the coming weeks can be conveyed, I think, by its two dominant and contrasting venues – a halfway house for addicts in recovery on the one hand, and an elite and high-pressure tennis academy on the other – in conjunction with an underlying and unifying thesis: all of us, whether we’re chasing substances, achievements or whatever else we hope will satisfy us and make it bearable to exist, are afflicted. We are all, for lack of a better word, fucked in the head in the very same ways. from Saved by Infinite Jest by Mala Chatterjee [CW: depression, suicidal ideation, David Foster Wallace]
Bloop blooped
Source of mysterious underwater BLOOP found.
The loudest sound ever recorded underwater, a mystery until now.
Previously.
The biggest COVID wave since Omicron
"By wastewater levels, JN.1 is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day. In several countries in Europe, wastewater levels reached unprecedented levels, exceeding Omicron. ... There is, however, some good news about this big wave of infections. It has not resulted in the surge of hospital admissions seen with Omicron." The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe? (Eric Topol, LA Times, 4 Jan 2024)
Vineyard Wind is live
Electricity from the country’s first large-scale offshore wind project is officially flowing into Massachusetts and helping to power the New England grid.
The Vineyard Wind project achieved “first power” late Tuesday when one operating turbine near Martha’s Vineyard delivered approximately five megawatts of electricity to the grid. The company said it expects to have five turbines operating at full capacity in early 2024.
Firm develops jet fuel made entirely from human poo
A new aviation company has developed a type of jet fuel made entirely from human sewage.
Chemists at a lab in Gloucestershire have turned the waste into kerosene.
James Hygate, Firefly Green Fuels CEO, said: "We wanted to find a really low-value feedstock that was highly abundant. And of course poo is abundant."
Independent tests by international aviation regulators found it was nearly identical to standard fossil jet fuel.
Firefly's team worked with Cranfield University to examine the fuel's life cycle carbon impact. It concluded that Firefly's fuel has a 90% lower carbon footprint than standard jet fuel.
2024 Resolutions. #1 Do a pull-up. #2 Improve local composting options
New Years Resolutions for the climate.
Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe famously adopts two new climate-friendly habits each year—“not because I think they’re going to change the course of climate change as I know it... but because it enables me to be consistent with my values and it gives me joy.” A NPR reporter suggests getting into energy policy as a stretch resolution. Yale Climate Connections recommends finding your lever (do you have a school-age kid? perhaps push the school district to switch to renewable energy?). The Climate Council asks us to move our money out of fossil fuel investments. And the Guardian reminds us to eat our leftovers and to eat less beef.
Gamedev Willie
By the time works resumed passing into the public domain in the US in 2019, countless people had grown up believing nothing would ever do so again. Techdirt invented a unique solution: an annual game jam in which all entries must include material from at least on newly public-domain work. The sixth has just begun - Gaming Like It's 1928! (Itch page. Pages for previous jams including submissions: 1927, 1926, 1925, 1924, 1923. Previously on Techdirt (including winner announcements and spotlights), Metafilter. Recent MeFi post on newly PD works.)
January 1, 2024 Public Domain Day
Sound recordings from 1923
and works for 1928 are free to use and share under US copyright law.
Twenty Interesting charts for 2023
Kevin Drum is still blogging.
Kevin Drum began blogging in the 2002–2003 era when the practice really took off.
Kevin has a knack for finding, presenting, and trusting the numbers for issues, regardless of his partisan political leanings.
Here are 20 charts from the last year that may surprise you.
Death is but a door, time is but a window
Vigo the Carpathian is back in a slime-drenched art piece from artist Fabrizio Fioretti.
Fioretti, who worked as part of the production company DNEG Vancouver, crafting visual effects for 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, announced earlier this year an expanded fan art series entitled, ‘Artworks inspired by the Ghostbusters Universe,’ drawing inspiration not only from the core films but also exploring aspects of the franchise’s non-canon adventures.
The newest entry, released aptly in time for the New Year, resurrects Ghostbusters II‘s 17th-century tyrant Vigo the Carpathian, sitting atop a throne of blood, positioned in front of a stained glass window that cleverly recreates the psychomagnotheric river of pink slime.
A Blind Crusader Can be King
After around a year and a half of work, this mod for Crusader Kings 3 has hit version 1.0. It converts the game's very graphical UI into plain text, and is thus screen reader accessible, thanks to OCR software.
The King and the Kickboxer
"Five years ago, an unusual image appeared on Instagram. It showed Mohammed VI, the 54-year-old king of Morocco, sitting on a sofa next to a muscular man in sportswear. The two men were pressed up next to each other with matching grins like a pair of kids at summer camp. Moroccans were more accustomed to seeing their king alone on a gilded throne. The story behind the picture was even stranger. Abu Azaitar, the 32-year-old man sitting next to the king, is a veteran of the German prison system as well as a mixed-martial-arts (mma) champion." From April of this year, The Economist's 1843 Magazine, "The mystery of Morocco’s missing king."
The Atlantic's "81 Things That Blew Our Minds in 2023"
Where The Atlantic’s Science, Technology, and Health reporters found wonder this year. (The archive for article and all of its links in The Atlantic)
Weird Trumps
This belief in tarot as a revealer of hidden truths is not the survival of some ancient tradition. It’s a modern idea grafted on to something that was originally intended as a bit of fun. Tarot was a card game played in a fairly recognisable way, with the players laying down a card to compete for the highest value in a series of tricks – but with 20 or so ornate picture cards, depending on the set, to complicate the scoring. These were so beautifully crafted, so visually splendid, that their designs now obsess and befuddle people centuries after it was first played by Renaissance courtiers. But tarot is no more mysterious in its origins than Happy Families. from Dr Terror deals the Death card: how tarot was turned into an occult obsession [Grauniad; ungated]
Private equity. Hospitals.
Paper: "Private equity acquisition of hospitals, on average, was associated with increased hospital-acquired adverse events despite a likely lower-risk pool of admitted Medicare beneficiaries, suggesting poorer quality of inpatient care." Press release. CNN article. Rebecca Watson video with transcript. Private equity response.
Maine's Secretary of State has barred Trump from the primary ballot
Maine has now joined Colorado in finding Trump ineligible for primary ballot. (NY Times article, Internet Archive link.) Maine's Secretary of State Shenna Bellows speaks to CBS News about her decision. Maine becomes the second state to bar Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.