Saturday, September 27, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
A Web Site: "Old & Interesting"
I don't know if it's still alive, bit it is interesting:
This site is about . . .
. . . how people furnished and equipped their homes in previous centuries, and how they handled household tasks. Plans are to keep adding more articles, with the homepage updated every Wednesday - at least. Please email if you want to suggest a topic connected with the history of everyday home life, housekeeping, domestic objects, or any related bits of social history.
- Lel -
Patent # 150281
Tools for Dressing Soldering-Irons.
Patent number: 150281
Filing date: Mar 26, 1874
Issue date: Apr 28, 1874
Friday, August 15, 2008
"From an African bestiary to universal science?"
Text heavy, but fascinating.
Totemism, in which animal species feature overwhelmingly, thus appears as a particular form of a mode of thought that in the past has been called ‘irrational’, ‘pre-logical’, ‘peripheral’, ‘primitive’, and which Levi-Strauss’s work (especially in La pensee sauvage, 1964)[9] made us appreciate as obsessed with logic, rational, standard and common in all human societies past and present including everyday life and untutored thought and expression in the contemporary North Atlantic society — even though in the latter the influence of the institutionally and politically dominant forms of scientific thought filters through in the untamed everyday and ritual expressions, masking their wildness and creating embarrassment.
Homepage: "Ancient Models of Thought."
Internet Unknown, IV
I Google "Joogle." I get Cabdi Shire Joogle, from the Somali community in Switzerland:
Monday, July 21, 2008
Eleven Shrimp Links
Chinese shrimp painter.
Chinese shrimp paintings:
The free and stark brush strokes - a thin single line for the antenna of the shrimp, blobs of ink in grades of grey and black - suggest Oriental sensuality.
"I took up painting shrimps because it's one of the hardest things to draw," he said.
Mantis shrimp mechanics. (With videos.)
Biology of shrimps. (Shrimp or prawn?)
Shrimp photography.
Partnerships for a Shrimp.
Shrimp cartoons.
Shrimp-1st.com.
The Southern Shrimp Alliance:
The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) is a non-profit alliance of members of the shrimp industry in eight states committed to preventing the continued deterioration of America's domestic shrimp industry and to ensuring the industry's future viability. SSA serves as the national voice for the shrimp fishermen and processors in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.
God Hates Shrimp.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Gulchekhra Sartbayeva and Her Sewing Shop
FINCA: Small Loans - Big Changes:
FINCA Kyrgyzstan started in 1995 with a $6.2mm grant from USAID, which expired in September 2002. FINCA aims to serve 40,000 clients with a total of $36 million in loans by 2010. In Kyrgyzstan, women are very active in the economy, especially trade. As 70% of the unemployed in Kyrgyzstan are women, FINCA has targeted female bazaar workers as its primary clients.
Client Profile:
Gulchekhra and her brother leased a boutique in the commercial center in Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, where they sold shoes in 2004. Unfortunately, their business was not very successful and they were forced to close the shop when the center shut down.
As an alternative source of income, Gulchekhra started to sew traditional dresses and suits for a children's dance troupe. Her friend introduced her to a FINCA Solidarity-Credit Group.
With money she and her brother had saved from their shoe business and the proceeds of her FINCA loan, Gulchekhra established a sewing shop, which is now very successful.
Gulchekhra is very creative and is designing costumes for the dance troupe. Her business is continuing to grow and she has now received her sixth loan from FINCA. The group members all enjoy her participation and the responsible way she conducts her business. She says the loans from FINCA have made her life better and she looks forward to a long relationship with FINCA.
Photo from FINCA
Forgotten Author: Harold L. Myers
Go here and click on the link to the RTF file; it seems friendly enough. It brings you a free download of a collection of stories by science-fiction writer Harold L. Myers, with this introduction:
Howard L. Myers is almost completely forgotten today, although some people can still be found who remember the name "Verge Foray," under which he published many of his stories. But in the brief time his writing career lasted, from 1967 to 1971, he was a prominent figure in science fiction.
It's a sad tale. Myers was born in 1930, and published his first science fiction story at the age of twenty-two. That was "The Reluctant Weapon," published in the December 1952 issue of Galaxy . (The story is included in this volume.)
And . . . that was it, for another fifteen years. Why? We don't know. For whatever reasons, it wasn't until Myers was in his late thirties that he began writing again. And once he did, the stories practically came pouring out—and almost every one of them excellent. His stories appeared in most of the premier science fiction and fantasy magazines of the day—Analog, Galaxy, If, Amazing, The Magazine of F&SF—and he seemed on the verge of becoming one of science fiction's top authors.
We'll never know. In the summer of 1971, against the advice of his mother, Howard Myers took a vacation to Florida. The combination of the heat and his medical condition combined to give him a massive heart attack which killed him. He was forty-one years old.
You can also find it at Google books (though they don't always have every page).
He Hates Jack Sterling
This blog has a mission:
It pays to read the pages on this site before thinking about buying a $2,500 dog from Jack Sterling and taking it back to the states. (ps Jack, they said your house was filthy!)
There are other breeders in Chiang Mai, other locations in Thailand, let alone in the rest of the world, who are far more open and honest, clean and healthy, let alone good to do business with.
That is that blog's mission.
When Kangaroos Attack
Mudgree, New South Wales:
An Australian woman has been saved by a pet dog which leapt to her aid after she was attacked by a large kangaroo, her son has said.[...]
"The kangaroo just jumped up and launched straight at her," he said.
"My dog heard her screaming and bolted down and chased him off. If it wasn't for the dog, she'd probably be dead.
Now most people would probably scoff at the thought of a kangaroo attacking a human. But large kangaroos can be very large - up to 180 lbs, and more than 7 feet tall when up in fighting position. But the most dangerous things about them are the second from outer claws on their very strong hind legs. They're huge, way larger than the three others on each foot. When fighting they can put their weight on their tails, lift both legs, and use those monster thighs to deliver powerful kicks - and with that claw take your guts out. Take a look at the size of that claw:
Photo from Ozanimals
Here's a look at how they stand back on their tails and kick, from the video I made in Canberra in 2006 that inspired this blog.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Proven: We're Extraterrestrial
Martins and her colleagues said they discovered uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA and are known as nucleobases in rock fragments of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969. She explained that “early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoritic fragments for use in genetic coding which enabled them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations."
Image of xanthine molecule structure from Wikimedia Commons
The Scuba Channel
It's a YouTube section, but for scuba divers and snorklers.
This is a nice 7 minute selection.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
"Baby Carriers: a Cultural History"
Cool article about baby carriers around the world and through time, and how they may have affected human development:
The invention of simple baby carrying devices may have played a decisive role in the development of the human species. Blaffer-Hrdy (2000) suggests that 50,000 years ago, this “technological revolution” (p.197) allowed mothers to carry food as well as their babies, leading to a new division of labour between men and women. She indicates that this led to better fed mothers, who gave birth after shorter intervals, and an expanding human population moving out of Africa.
Image of Nez Perce papoose from here.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Telly Savalas on Birmingham, England
I have never heard of "Quota Quickies."
And I did not know that Kojak used to be on BBC telly:
In the late 1970s, several of the UK's major cities were the stars of B-movies the so-called 'Quota Quickies'.
Laurie Taylor tells the bizarre story of how the cities tried to make themselves appear exciting to a captive cinema audience through the medium of a travelogue.
One such classic is called Telly Savalas Looks At Birmingham. It has the American actor extolling the virtues and history of Birmingham. His narration is unintentionally funny and wonderfully kitsch.
The director of these quota quickies, the late Harold Baim, seemed to have an obsession with multi-storey car parks, concrete shopping centres and motorways in his attempt to catapult the city into the 21st century. Others in the Harold Baim series include Telly Savalas Looks At Aberdeen and Telly Savalas Looks At Portsmouth.
BBC audio of the show.
Stills from the film.
Boxing Kangaroos Art
Image used by permission of Lesley, of Lesley Smitheringale Fine Art, Queensland, Australia. Thank you kindly, LS.
Lesley graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1982 after gaining a Degree with Honours in Design, specialising in Printed Textiles.
After teaching art in a High School for ten years in Scotland , Lesley immigrated to Australia where she has taught adults drawing and silk painting at TAFE Colleges. Lesley is currently teaching art in a private College in the Gold Coast, Queensland.
She has a really cool blog, too.
Internet Unknown III
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Goon Show: Free Audio
Via Metafilter, The Goon Show:
Spike Milligan's revolutionary radio show ran on the BBC from 1951 to 1960: a unique combination of memorable characters and daft plots, surreality and twisted logic, establishment bashing, satire and parody, music hall gags, catchphrases and random silliness. It broke new ground in its use / abuse of sound effects - both as pure audio gags and in helping to make physically impossible situations instantly believable. Milligan wrote most of the scripts, helped at various times by Larry Stevens, Eric Sykes, Maurice Wiltshire and John Antrobus.
Each show centres around a core of characters, although the exact details of each character vary according to the episode's plot. Most of the characters were played by Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe...
Listen here.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Lawsuit to Stop Destruction of Universe
They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.
Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure.
"Your honor, as evidence I'd like to present this drawing I did... with very, very black crayons. And red ones (for the bluhhhhd)."
CERN Web site. Lots of cool features. (Especially the "destroying the universe" animation.)
Monday, March 24, 2008
Photos: Snake Eating Kangaroo
Oh. My. God.
My Tin Tin received an email from a friend in her native Australia. It had these photos in it. They were taken on February 3 of this year [?? finding them on the Web dated 2005] on "the 22 kilometre Lake Lindsay overland conveyor route near German Creek Mine," which is in central Queensland.
Hold on to your stomach.
My God, I love Australia.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Sut Lovingood. Yarns Spun by a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool
Most famous character of mid-18th century humorist and sketch artist, and Mark Twain influence, George Washington Harris:
Hit am an orful thing, George, tu be a nat'ral born durn'd fool. Yu'se never 'sperienced hit pussonally, hev yu? Hits made pow'fully agin our famerly, an all owin tu dad. I orter bust my head open agin a bluff ove rocks, an' jis' wud du hit, ef I warnt a cussed coward.
Lots of great illustrations.
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