Philip Glass on Sesame Street
Loved this when I was a kid; all those shapes right there in those circles.
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Entries for October 2009
The top 200 albums of the 2000s
Pitchfork continues their look back at the 2000s with the top 200 albums of the decade. Here are the top 20.
A fourth Bourne film
This will be old news for some, but I totally missed that Universal is making a fourth Bourne movie with Matt Damon.
Though the series is based on the Robert Ludlum novels, the new film won’t be based on a Ludlum title, but rather an original story.
The most difficult photographs in nature
Outside magazine recently asked a handful of nature photographers to discuss the most difficult shots they ever captured. Philipp Engelhorn selected a photograph taken on the frozen tundra of China:
Winters in northern Xinjiang, China, rival those in Siberia: Forty below zero is normal. We’d gone in the fall to find an eagle hunter and make a handshake deal to follow him. But when we actually showed up two months later, he told us he never expected us to return and had no time for us. So we did the worst thing ever and set out by horse-drawn sleigh across the frozen countryside to find an eagle hunter.
The images that accompany the article are incredible and make most day jobs look like an all-day pancake buffet.
Forecast by Shya Scanlon
Forecast is a novel by Shya Scanlon being serialized semiweekly across 42 web sites. For a full list of participants and links to live chapters, please visit www.shyascanlon.com/forecast. Chapter 23 can be found at SoMaLit.
24.
The city looked even more spectacular from below. Open markets, store-lined streets, apartment complexes looking out over six story canyons carved into the earth; there was even a full scale amusement park-something long since banned above ground due to a series of weather-related accidents (the spontaneous freezing of gears, toddler-sized cyclones)-there were, in short, several areas obviously above-ground grade and legitimate, simple extensions of the city and catering to the well-intentioned classes. It was quite a surprise, Helen wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Darker streets, perhaps. And filth. But it all looked very similar to what was happening topside, only without the weather.
Busy seemed to read her mind. “There’s actually a major shift takin’ place,” he said thoughtfully. “We’ve been watching it for about a year now, but of course no one’s talking about it.”
Helen staggered around beneath the mirage in the wavy patterns people make while walking looking up. “You mean about how underground there’s no…” She tried, stupidly, to think of something delicate. “There’s no…”
“Bad guys?” Busy grinned. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but yeah, something like that.” He shuffled around, made his own wavy lines. “Yep. The city is actually flipping itself over.” The city churned above them like a maggoty carcass; they spun slowly beneath it like flies.
“Let me guess: the weather.”
“You got it, Miss H. Or at least that’s what everybody around here thinks.”
“Right. Well you’d assume.”
“Yeah.”
But it didn’t take too long to discover that the reversal, if one was indeed underway, was incomplete. Her eyes just hadn’t adjusted. It was like a first glance at the patch of picnic grass, when all you see is green, before you see the ants and the insects and all the little movements that together conspire to create an illusion of stasis, to lull you into sitting, laying out your food. Helen looked closer and longer and finally she found what, without having fully articulated it to herself, she’d been looking for: a bum bumming change on a street full of trash; a man being beaten outside a bar, broken glass from the window he’d been thrown through alive like sparks on the ground around him. Flashing lights, in several parts of the burrowing city, indicating alarms. Indicating crime. Busy came up beside her and they watched, together, as a woman’s purse was pulled from her arm with such force that she crumpled onto the sidewalk, banging down first on her knees and then full forward, arms splayed out to either side having been too weak to break her fall.
“Ouch,” Busy said.
As the purse snatcher ran Helen followed along with a middle finger posed to flick, and when he paused at a corner a high-gloss, manicured fingernail the size of a two story building plowed through him.
“Atta girl,” Busy said. The thief chose a direction and kept running. “Wanna see where we’re going?”
“Oh, right.” She’d almost forgotten. “Of course.”
“Well then!” Busy the dandy tour guide. “Well if I could, ah, direct madam’s attention to the far side of the room.” He did a little awkward jig and offered his arm with faux-gentlemanly suggestion.
Did he think, I found myself wondering at the time, that he had a chance with Helen? There were times when it seemed like he was distinctly trying to win Helen’s affection, to flirt. I bristled. There was no way in hell that Helen would stoop to that level, was there? She may have been below ground, but she was above its symbolic import. This man was just a means to an end. I comforted myself with small thoughts.
The unlikely pair walked the length of the city to Georgetown-once the industrial district and now the most fashionable part of town, teeming with glamorous tight-skinned items. The swirling mass swelled and swirled above them like an enormous upset stomach, and Rocket, still on their heels, nipped and yapped at its ironic bowels-those basements of the basements of the basements whose placement might normally indicate extreme old age, but which were instead the most recent additions to this backwards, unplanned project. They stopped in front of an above ground building no more than 10 stories. It was a classic post-modern job, with all the utilities on the outside: plumbing, ventilation, electric, all coursing down the unpolished metal structure like strangling vines. It was atrocious, really, but obviously expensive. The first floor of the building was home to a club called The Gamble, and a long line of people waiting to get in crowded the sidewalk out front.
“I thought we were going to visit the Muslim first,” said Helen, half-hoping that another decision had been made, that a decision had been made for her.
“Yep,” said Busy. He was absently staring at the people in front of the club. They were too small to see faces, but as Helen’s attention was drawn back to the crowd she realized that it wasn’t a typical club scene. Everyone was in sweatpants and sweaters, casual bags that turned their lithe bodies into lumps. A limo pulled up to the curb and a couple emerged from the vehicle in what looked like bathrobes, bumped through the crowd, and disappeared inside The Gamble.
“What is this,” Helen asked, “some kind of slumber party?”
“REMO,” said Busy dully.
Helen stared. “REMO,” she repeated.
“Yeah, these fuckin’ people,” he said, “these rich people just sit around and do REMO all night and, well, put it this way: ain’t no point in looking good if nobody’s looking, right? Plus, if you’re squirming around on the floor, or whatever you decide to do when you get remotional, you don’t wanna be wearing your Sunday best.”
“So this is a club where people just come to-”
“Yep.”
“But I thought REMO was-”
“It is.”
“But so how do they-”
“Helen, dollface, you really gotta ask that?”
Helen felt dumb. In a city where cops visit a car-jacking operation just so they’ll be able to deny it for a high personal Buzz yield, what’s a little harmless REMO abuse among the rich?
“Right.”
“Right.”
They stared longer at the line. The people didn’t seem to be interacting at all, just standing there patiently. No one was let in.
“So why ‘The Gamble’?”
Busy shrugged.
“And you’re sure this is where the Muslim lives.”
“I double checked. I really don’t know the deal, Miss H. We’ll just hafta go take a look.”
Rocket brushed up against Helen’s leg, and whined.
“Besides,” Busy continued, “it looks like your friend here’s either hungry or needs to be let out, or both.” He bent down and gave Rocket a rough but loving rub. “That right, Rocket? You ready to go?” The dog’s tail went to work. “Yes you are. Yes you are.” He stood back up. “First thing we gotta do,” he said as he started back for the lift that had brought them to the room’s lower level, “is go meet Blain.” Helen followed close behind. “He’s been looking into that warrant of yours so we know what we’re up against.”
“I’m really grateful,” began Helen, but Busy raised his hand without looking back.
“Helen, there ain’t no use being grateful. Like I said, if there weren’t something in it for me, I wouldn’t be doing it.”
“Right,” she said.
Helen couldn’t help but wonder if this, like the fake-not-fake fear of heights, wasn’t another instance of Busy trying to please his wife with extra Buzz production on the side, but she didn’t question it too far. Helpful or selfish, some friendly fate was obviously shining favorably on her small adventure, and she didn’t want to tempt or tease it. She’d come here on the strength of forces outside herself, and she’d come peacefully, releasing herself into the situation’s momentum with either trust, resignation, or both. To begin struggling now would upset the rhythm of her journey, would jinx it. She followed Busy back into and down the hallway, not wondering whether he’d led her that way before, just watching his interaction with Rocket, the muted movements of the two seeming almost abstract without sound. Their playful shapes had little rhythm, tumbled together and apart unpredictably, their collisions alternately slowing them down and speeding them up. She thought of the broiling image of Seattle she’d seen, and of the transition Busy claimed was taking place. Would people truly sacrifice the sky for safety, she wondered? Would they give up sunsets for their fear of storms? She had to admit that she didn’t find it altogether unpleasant underground. The stillness was profound. Words that when spoken above ground would scatter like they’d been waiting to be released were down here content to hang about one’s own head, or fall softly to the floor. Everything seemed more personal, intentional. If above ground was a handshake, being underground was a hug. Helen thought of her house, the metal shutters on the windows. She realized that she could barely picture it from the outside. She’d memorized the roof from above, satellite imagery having replaced her own ground-level view some time ago, but what it looked like from, say, the side, or the backyard, was a mystery. She seemed to recall a red front door. But it could just as well have been brown. It was a fucking door.
They’d been walking for perhaps five minutes when Busy stopped at a spot midway down a completely bare hallway, and pushed his fingers into the wall. Helen watched the tendons on the top of his hand dance under visible veins, and he glanced up at her, smiled, and stood back, brushing his arm well into the wall until it disappeared to just above his elbow.
“After you,” he mouthed.
Not quite used to this, Helen bent down, locked a finger around Rocket’s collar, then closed her eyes as she stepped through the wall. When she opened them she was standing in a large, open room with a hardwood floor filled with people sitting behind big wooden desks. It was nothing like any of the other rooms she’d seen in the shop, and in fact unlike any room she’d seen for years. It reminded her of high school, a little, the large columns throughout the room holding up a ceiling much higher than she could see reason for. The desks had each their own area, complete with a rolling chair on one side, a stationary chair on the other, a floor lamp, and a coat rack. There were green metal machines in the middle of each desk that looked like typewriters, but smaller, each one with a long thin arm that ran front to back. The people at the desks were rapidly typing into the machines, and at odd intervals pulling the handle toward them and letting it spring back to its rest position. Helen took her earplugs out, letting the racket of keys enter, and gazed across the open space, trying to take it in, until her eyes found what was undoubtedly the strangest thing about the room. The wall opposite her was home to a series of floor to ceiling windows so big she hadn’t noticed them at first. She could see that out beyond them was another wall of windows she couldn’t see beyond. Helen bent down to take out Rocket’s earplugs and turned up to Busy with a look of huh?
Busy gave the room an important look. “This is where we do the math,” he said heavily.
“Oh,” said Helen, “the math. I was wondering where that was done.”
Everywhere people sat and stood, walked across the room, descended a staircase to one side and brushed past others coming up. The people behind the desks-mostly men-accepted paperwork from people they barely glanced at, and handed them back small tabs-receipts?-which were taken, pocketed, and packed back down the stairs. The stream of people was constant, the number high, and the process seemingly quite efficient. No one sat for long. No one waited. Business was good.
“It’s also the legitimate side of the business,” Busy added.
“So these people are…”
“Just normal folks that need a good, old-fashioned accountant.”
They began walking down the side of the room and Helen saw that Blain was walking toward them. He appeared more relaxed than he’d been the last time she’d seen him, but he still wore a stern look that made Helen hope he wasn’t bearing any more bad news.
Blain started speaking just on the inside of earshot, his low but loud voice crawling under the high-pitched jitter of the adding machines. “We’re all set,” he began. He didn’t look at Helen. “You wanna…”
“Yeah,” said Busy.
“Then let’s go to the, ah,” Blain turned to Helen, “you got your mask?”
“Yes,” she said. She felt her bag for the object. “Yes,” she repeated.
Blain looked at her a moment, then turned and led them farther along the wall.
“So what can you tell us about Helen’s little legal problem?” Busy asked as they walked.
Helen stared out the enormous windows and tried to remind herself that she was still underground. It was light outside, though it was obviously not sunlight. It had a bluish tint which, though bright, had no warmth.
“Well, not much,” Blain said.
“Meaning…”
“Meaning, I guess, that there was either some sloppy paperwork behind the order, or someone doesn’t want people to know who’s behind it.”
“So everyone’s just following orders, in other words.”
Blain paused and looked back at Busy. “Guess so.”
“Shit.”
“Good news is,” Blain continued, “it’s just a normal warrant, looks like. Nothing weird.”
“So the cops’ll-”
“Yeah, they won’t give a shit.”
They started to make for the middle of the room where the stairs were.
“Helen,” Busy said. He was walking behind her and to the side. She turned her head in acknowledgement. “I’m wondering if you want to bring Rocket along with you or not.” He let the statement sit for a second. “He’d be perfectly safe here with us if you wanna leave him.”
“Huh,” she said. Helen hadn’t even thought about the option of leaving Rocket. She’d assumed he’d come along. She thought about it as Blain guided them toward the stairs, and down. The lower level was a fraction of the size of the floor they’d been on, and looked more like a waiting room. There were couches along either wall, empty, and directly before them two large revolving doors that spun with people coming and going, fake palms to either side. She followed him to the foot of the stairs, Rocket at her feet and Busy close behind. She watched as the dog trotted around the room, sniffing things and glancing back to her after visiting each corner like a bomb-dog saying all clear. She didn’t want to leave Rocket anywhere.
“Rocket’s with me,” she said, turning to Busy and looking him in the eye.
Busy nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “It’s just that-”
“You’re gonna halfta keep him on a leash,” Blain said.
Helen looked at Rocket, who wasn’t paying any attention.
“I don’t have one,” she said.
“Well then-”
“Well then we’ll have to lend you one,” Busy bent in, warm.
It was clear which was the good cop. She wasn’t sure what Blain had against her, and frankly I don’t think it had anything to do with Helen. I think it was just a matter of inconvenience. Blain went along with this with a tired acceptance; he knew it would cause more trouble to fight it but he wasn’t therefore going to expend any more energy than necessary on the project, and was rather on the hunt for a good, sound reason to abandon it.
“You gonna let her use yours?” Blain asked.
“Yes,” Busy said, flatly.
“What about-”
“What about him?
“Well he’ll-”
“He’ll be okay is what he’ll be.” Busy turned to Helen. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a coiled line with a leather handle. He handed it to her. “Helen, what’s going to happen here is that Blain’s going to-”
“Blain?” Helen said, despite herself. She knew immediately that she shouldn’t have said it, that she sounded startled and upset.
“Helen, it’s okay,” Busy said. “Blain knows where you’re going, and he’ll take you there. He’s knows this city better than anyone I know.”
“Of course,” Helen avoided eye contact with Blain, but nodded in what she hoped was a humble way.
“I’ve got to take care of some things, but I’ll be meeting you out front of The Gamble in an hour or so and we’ll see if this Asseem’s the guy you’re looking for.”
Helen forced herself to look at Blain, who was looking at her dully. “Okay,” she said.
Though I had of course no way to know for certain, I liked hearing that Busy would meet back up with them. Blain’s apparent distaste for the whole errand made me itch. I’d never tracked anyone underground before, and if Blain short-cut them through any unpleasantness I was in for a long shift. Besides, the paperwork involved after even the most routine intervention is unbelievable.
Sometimes I wish I could drop the “job” part of watchjob, and just watch. No connection, no responsibility, nothing but me and Helen.
They took one step closer to the revolving doors, and Busy leaned down to give Rocket another rub. It was good to see Busy and Rocket get along. Helen considered it the most reliable sign that he was, in fact, on their side. How could he let anything happen to Rocket?
“You’re gonna want to put that mask on now, Helen,” Blain said.
She looked over at him and straight into the blank almond eyes of an AS-Mask, the forehead just beginning to disappear above his hairline. She nodded, and reached into her bag, pulling hers out too. She looked at Rocket.
“Rocket doesn’t like them,” she said, not expecting anything to change because of it.
Busy was still crouching beside the animal, and gave him a small squeeze. “He’ll get used to it, won’t you boy. Won’t you.” He nodded for her to put it on. “Yes you will. Yes you will.” Rocket’s tail wagged and he let out a brief, encouraging bark.
“It’s okay, Rocket,” she said in her most dog-optimistic tone. She grabbed the AS-Mask with both hands, and put it up to her face.
International space cuisine
Borsch, sticky rice with sweet bean paste, duck cassoulet, and tvorog (Russian cottage cheese and nuts) are just a smattering of the culinary variety served up in space. On board the Discovery Space Shuttle, the various offerings reflect the amalgamation of nations that make up the ships temporary inhabitants. Recent Discovery visitor Danny Olivas brought a little American fare to the deck, perfecting the zero-g breakfast burrito. If you’re looking to spice up your food between the stars, be warned: salt and pepper are only available in liquid form.
Update: Nuts aren’t an essential ingredient of tvorog, and it’s actually not cottage cheese at all. The thickened dairy treat is a relative of German quark, and is consumed throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Its add-ins vary depending on location, but vanilla and fruit are popular additives in both the Netherlands and Germany.
(thx tomek)
A tray for tea and tomes
Yu Hun Kim’s reading tray prevents coffee stains and crumb-filled spines. Part of a series called “Aids for Multi-Tasking,” the transparent, acrylic tray covers your magazine or book and features an indentation for your coffee mug. Imagine covering the surface in food and gradually eating your way through an article. But how do you turn a page?
The flight patterns of geese
Flying in the shape of a “v” allows geese to have an equal field of vision while conserving energy, using wingtip vortices to decrease any drag in flight. The bird in the front is working the hardest, but when the leader grows weary it rotates to a position farther back and allows another feathered pilot to take its place. This formation is so successful in conserving energy that birds who fly in “v” formations have been recorded to have lower heart rates than those who do not. If one of the birds flies out of formation, they will feel the increase in drag nudging them back into position. Perhaps most impressive, if a bird in the formation falls ill or is shot, two other birds will accompany it on the descent, aiding and protecting the injured bird until it either recovers or dies. The two helpful geese will then rejoin the formation.
Updates on previous entries for Oct 2, 2009*
The original IBM ThinkPad orig. from Oct 02, 2009
Legos becoming just another single-use plastic toy orig. from Sep 08, 2009
The most beautiful suicide orig. from Jul 16, 2008
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
The giant pool of money, an update
This American Life recently aired a follow-up to their well-received program about the recent financial crisis called Return To The Giant Pool of Money.
We catch back up with the people we met in 2008, to see how they’ve fared over the last 18 months. We talk to Clarence Nathan, who in 2008 received a half million dollar loan that he said he wouldn’t have given himself; Jim Finkel, a Wall Street finance guy, who put together and managed complicated mortgage-based financial securities; Richard Campbell, the Marine who was facing foreclosure; and Glen Pizzolorusso, the mortgage company sales manager who led the life of a b-list celebrity.
Bad words in the dictionary
Over the centuries, vulgar words like fuck and cunt have been included dictionaries, then cast out, then in again, then out, in, out, and so on.
One major problem dictionary editors face in defining sexual terms is deciding how explicit to be. Defining coitus as “an act of sexual intercourse” but leaving sexual intercourse undefined, for example (on the grounds that a reader could figure it out from the definitions of sexual and intercourse), would be a problem, not only because it makes the reader do too much page-flipping but also because the definitions probably still won’t be sufficiently clear.
The rest of the article, by Jesse Sheidlower, the editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary, is deliciously vulgar and informative so be wary if you’re easily offended and don’t like information.
The original IBM ThinkPad
A promotional notepad given away by IBM was the inspiration for the computer giant’s popular ThinkPad.
Update: And inspired directly by the brown leather cover of the notepad, the ThinkPad Reserve collection. (thx, saket)
8-bit trip
8-Bit Trip is the result of two brothers spending 1,500 hours moving LEGO bricks and taking pictures. An homage to 1980s video-games, it’s considered by many to be the greatest among the micro-genre of LEGO music videos, sometimes known as brickfilms. Originally made famous by director Michel Gondry for his work with the White Stripes, these block-by-block masterpieces are now being put to more use than just trippy visuals for killer beats, recently there was a LEGO PSA for bicyclists, warning against the dangers of running red lights.
Food phobia
Dave Nunley is a food phobic in the UK who has primarily subsisted on grated cheddar cheese since birth. Although he’s eating up to three times the amount of fat recommended for the average diet, he seems to be in fairly good health, save for a vitamin B deficiency.
This isn’t as uncommon as you might think. Unlike fad diets that eschew one corner of the food pyramid for another, food phobia is an actual fear-based aversion to a particular kind of vittle, either due to taste, association, or texture. The disorder, which psychologists believe has links to obsessive compulsive disorder, can lead to nutritional deficits, a compromised immune system, and a lot of awkwardness at dinner parties. Orthorexia, a similar condition, is an obsession with healthful eating that can at times become so severe that it leads to anorexia, but food phobics find their meals dominated by their fear. Ironically, legendary egg-shaped director Alfred Hitchcock was an admitted ovophobe, and was “revolted” by eggs.
Update: It seems the Brits have cornered the market on uncovering food phobias. The show Freaky Eaters on BBC Three documents individuals with such severely restricted eating that they avoid certain food groups altogether. The show aims to help each person overcome their aversions and adopt a healthy diet.
(thx jodi)
Update: Another British export is the website Adult Picky Eaters, which aims to provide a forum and self-help information for those struggling with food issues. The author also documents her struggle with picky eating, and the comments on the site are pretty revealing.
(thx rob)
Beep baseball
Beep baseball is the classic American pastime adapted for the blind and visually impaired. In order to appreciate the athleticism of the game, and the fun that most sighted folks are missing, here’s a video of beep baseball in action.
The ball used contains a beeping device that is loud enough to aid in sightless location. The six players on the field are helped by a sighted pitcher, who announces “pitch” or “ball” as they toss to a sighted catcher. Batters are allowed four strikes and one pass, but the fourth swing must be a clear, defined miss. The game has six innings, the standard three outs per inning, and two bases, not three. Baseball’s traditional tile-like bases are replaced with padded cylinders that stand four feet tall and give off a distinct buzz once activated. The batter doesn’t know which base will be activated, but must run to whichever sounds, tackling the base before defense has a chance to field the ball. If the runner makes it in time, a run is scored. Two sighted “spotters” also play the field and call out which direction the ball has headed using a system based on numbers assigned to each outfielder. Spotters can only announce one number, and the outfielders must communicate with each other to locate the ball. Cheering is discouraged because it interferes with play.
Update: A recent article from the Wall Street Journal documented the West Coast Dogs and their quest to win the World Series of beep baseball.
(thx jesse)
Amazing avalanche rescue video
A skier with a video camera on his helmet gets caught in an avalanche and then, four and a half minutes later, gets rescued. The good stuff starts around one minute in.
This was a decent sized avalanche. 1,500 feet the dude fell in a little over 20 seconds. The crown was about 1 - 1.5m. The chute that he got sucked through to the skier’s right was flanked on either side by cliff bands that were about 30m tall. He luckily didn’t break any bones and obviously didn’t hit anything on the run out.
I had always assumed — and this is likely based almost entirely on an episode of The Simpsons — that you had options when buried by an avalanche…like digging yourself out or at least being able to move. Not so says the Utah Avalanche Center FAQ:
It doesn’t matter which way is up. You can’t dig yourself out of avalanche debris. It’s like you are buried in concrete. Your friends must dig you out.
The FAQ contains a story by the director of the UAC about surviving an avalanche of his own; he confirms the concrete-like hardness of post-avalanche snow.
But after a long while, after I was about to pass out from lack of air, the avalanche began to slow down and the tumbling finally stopped. I was on the surface and I could breathe again. But as I bobbed along on the soft, moving blanket of snow, which had slowed from about 50 miles per hour to around 30, I discovered that my body was quite a bit denser than avalanche debris and it tended to sink if it wasn’t swimming hard. […] Eventually, the swimming worked, and when the avalanche finally came to a stop I found myself buried only to my waist, breathing hard, very wet and very cold.
I remembered from the avalanche books that debris instantly sets up like concrete as soon as it comes to a stop but its one of those facts that you don’t entirely believe. But sure enough, everything below the snow surface was like a body cast. Barehanded, (the first thing an avalanche does is rip off your hat and mittens) I chipped away at the rock-hard snow with my shovel for a good 5 minutes before I could finally work my legs free.
Hammer vs. feather on the Moon
Nothing like a little science on the Moon, I always say.
Astronaut David Scott in 1971, from the Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Journal. Scott was part of the Apollo 15 crew, and applied Galileo’s findings about gravity and mass by testing a falcon feather and a hammer. The film, shown in countless high school physics classes, is the nerdy, oft-neglected cousin of Neil Armstrong’s space paces.
Bringing the oyster back to New York
Michael Osinski grows oysters out on Long Island, now an unusual pursuit in an area that used to support dozens of oyster companies…New York used to be the place for oysters (see also).
If you’d like to try them out, Widow’s Hole sells their oysters to several NYC restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Cafe, and Bouley. Osinski achieved a bit of notoriety earlier this year when he wrote an article about his experience writing software for Wall Street firms called My Manhattan Project: How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street. (via serious eats)
Hide and go fetch
A new study concludes that babies and dogs do not have an advanced ability to read social cues, but that wolves do. Using a hiding-and-finding game, scientists at University of Iowa and Indiana University have concluded that babies and dogs are distracted by social cues such as adults’ facial expressions and vocal interactions, and that they don’t have a unique or enhanced ability to recall where an object is hidden simply based on social cues alone. Wolves, and older babies, performed better in the study, and were more capable of remembering where the object was hidden. Professor John Spencer, who was at the helm of the research, understands that this could be a difficult fact for parents and pet owners to accept.
“In our view, this is something to celebrate — that we can bring social cognition together with basic cognitive processes. The downside, of course, is that infants, and by analogy dogs, don’t have a special mind-reading ability. For some people, that’s an unpleasant pill to swallow.”
The study was in direct response to one from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences last year, which had found that babies were quite apt at object recall based when the experimenters interacted with them. The oppositional findings raise an interesting question when it comes to our newest arrivals’ cleverness. It remains to be seen how good wolves are at Memory.
Ardi, oldest known skeleton of a human ancestor
Internet, meet Ardi, the newest member of the human branch of the primate family tree.
Or rather, the oldest. Discovered in Ethiopia in 1994, Ardi is a 4.4 million-year-old partial skeleton of a female Ardipithecus ramidus.
The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin’s time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link — resembling something between humans and today’s apes — would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior — long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors — is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.
Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas. As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.
This is a major discovery; Science is devoting a special issue to the find with 11 detailed peer-review papers and general summaries. I expect we’ll be hearing more about this in the coming weeks as all that science filters through the lay media. (thx, jeff)
A unified theory of Superman’s powers
Here’s the abstract of a new paper seeking to explain Superman’s powers.
Since Time immemorial, man has sought to explain the powers of Kal-El, a.k.a. Superman. Siegel et al. Supposed that His mighty strength stems from His origin on another planet whose density and as a result, gravity, was much higher than our own. Natural selection on the planet of krypton would therefore endow Kal El with more efficient muscles and higher bone density; explaining, to first order, Superman’s extraordinary powers. Though concise, this theory has proved inaccurate. It is now clear that Superman is actually flying rather than just jumping really high; and His freeze-breath, x-ray vision, and heat vision also have no account in Seigel’s theory.
In this paper we propose a new unfied theory for the source of Superman’s powers; that is to say, all of Superman’s extraordinary powers are manifestation of one supernatural ability, rather than a host. It is our opinion that all of Superman’s recognized powers can be unified if His power is the ability to manipulate, from atomic to kilometer length scales, the inertia of His own and any matter with which He is in contact.
Livermush
Livermush is a combination of pig scraps and cornmeal, and inhabits some culinary purgatory between meatloaf and corndog. Brought to the South in the 1700s by resourceful German immigrants who migrated from the Northern colonies, true livermush contains at least 30% pig parts and uses cornmeal as the binding ingredient. It is often fried like a patty and served in sandwich form, with mayo, lettuce, and tomato. Many people confuse livermush with liver pudding, and although the distinction between the two is somewhat vague, it’s generally accepted that liver mush is the meal to the west of the Yadkin River, while liver pudding is the staple snack of the east.
Once a cornerstone of North Carolinian cuisine, there are signs that this “working man’s staple” is dropping off menus. It appears that only five commercial producers are still churning out the meat mixture all of them family-owned and operated, all of them in North Carolina. Jerry Hunter, a livermush manufacturer in the town of Marion, laments the recent downturn.
“We’re still running a fairly good volume, but a whole lot of us wish we could see better times. It’s not just livermush. All of us is struggling to stay in existence.”
Not everyone is forgetting about livermush. Areas like Marion have begun hosting livermush festivals, hoping to create a resurgence. Perhaps it just needs a few high-profile sponsors to bolster its gustatory delights. To start, the wife of former Cleveland Indians first baseman Jim Thome was asked what he was going to miss most after being acquired by Philadelphia, and she answered, “Livermush.”
Update: Liver lovers rejoice, various forms similar to the ‘mush are alive and well. Goetta is a German ground meat and oat loaf that is also referred to as “Cincinnati caviar,” due to its popularity in the area.
(thx alex)
Update: And Mr. Thorme hopefully discovered the Philadelphia equivalent of livermush, known as scrapple. A mixture of pork bits and cornmeal, this combination is enhanced with flour, buckwheat, and spices.
(thx tim)
Update: In Northwest Ohio they have a livermush-like mixture that’s sold in brick form. It’s called grits, though it’s different from the corn-based breakfast porridge that’s also known as southern, or hominy, grits.
(thx jeff)
How to rob a bank
A quick how-to summary of the daring and thus-far successful robbery of a Stockholm cash depot by helicopter last week. Sounds like something out of a movie. From the CNN report, this is the best part:
Swedish police couldn’t pursue the thieves because a bag marked “bomb” had been placed outside the police heliport, and officers had to deal with the bag before they could enter the heliport. It is unclear whether the bag contained a bomb.
Unclear? Really? I’m surprised the bag didn’t say ACME on the side of it.
Junk mail portrait artist
The art of Sandhi Schimmel Gold is junk. The artist uses junk mail to create semi-mosaic’ed handmade portraits. Using advertising ephemera and all kinds of textures and colors, she’s constructed representations of Frank Sinatra, Kurt Vonnegut, Jackie O, and Audrey Hepburn, among others. She combines painting with collage to render faces that are unbelievably detailed and realistic. If you want to see what Schimmel would do with your visage you can commission a piece. I’d like to see my neighbor’s mug constructed from of all of his Cabela’s catalogs that find themselves in my mailbox.
Sweater tree
A tree in Baltimore recently was bestowed with its sweater for the colder months. Local knitters constructed a garment specifically for the tree, with the only restriction being that they had to use white, green, and purple yarn. The latest sweater replaces last year’s style, which was removed for the dog days.
“We actually made a little bikini for it for the summer, but it fell apart.”
The sweater tree is an example of a growing urban phenomenon called yarn bombing, aka yarnstorming or graffiti knitting. Yarn bombing is believed to have its roots in Texas, where it was invented as a way for knitters to creatively utilize their unfinished knitting projects. Common targets are telephone poles, trees, and banisters, but in Mexico City, yarn bombers aimed their knitting needles at a more ambitious endeavor: a yarn-covered bus.
Update: It appears that yarnbombing has reached the streets of Dunsborough, a fairly rural area of Western Australia. Wrapped, a collective of knitters between the ages of 8 and 87, has taken over the streets with their purled pieces. In September, the group got together and crafted wraps, pom-poms, and finger knittings that are being placed on signs, trees, and poles by a group of “knitting taggers” during the month of October. Their goal is to promote knitting events in the area, and to make a difference in the community by spreading woolly good will. The sweater swaths have tags affixed that direct the viewer to their website where they outline the project.
(thx dave)
Updates on previous entries for Sep 30, 2009*
Missed connections, illustrated orig. from Sep 25, 2009
Compubeaver orig. from Sep 30, 2009
* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.
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