James Burke - Connections, ep.1 (clip)

See what your answers would be to these questions. I didn't like the answers I had.

The Places We Live

This year, for the first time in history, more people will live in cities than in rural areas. One-third of these urban dwellers - more than 1 billion people - live in slums. It is predicted that this number will double in the next 25 years.

Magnum Photos presents the work of Jonas Bendiksen in this interactive slideshow of The Places We Live, where you can visit selected households from around the world. The panoramic photos are amazing.

via Nag on the Lake

The Standard Living Package

10 Gonzo Machines From Rogue Inventor Buckminster Fuller:

Bucky's interest in efficient design encompassed more than just external structure. Instead of assembling the comforts of home piece by piece, Fuller proposed a packaged set of everything necessary for comfortable human life, from toilets to tables, in one easy crate. Fuller envisioned such a Standard Living Package as being a family's simple starter pack.

via Great Map

The fires under Centralia, PA

In 1962, attempts to clean up a landfill by burning it set fire to the coal mine underneath Centralia, Pennsylvania. The fire has been going strong ever since. Most of Centralia is in ruins and its population has dropped from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to less than 10 in 2007. As the area is loaded with rich deposits of coal, the spreading underground fire is expected to threaten the neighboring town of Ashland in the near future. There are no immediate plans to extinguish the fire, which is consuming an eight-mile seam containing enough coal to fuel it for upwards of 250 years.

So you want to visit Centralia PA ...

Centralia Pennsylvania (many photos)
Centralia, Pennsylvania wiki

hat tip to wtf_nature

Global Outlook: The Legacy of R. Buckminster Fuller

R. Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion House Model, Third Version, 1929, mixed media. Photo: Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

Bucky Fuller is profiled in the November 2008 issue of Artforum.

via BFI

The map of "blue gold"

Atlas of hidden water may avert future conflict:

They are one of the world's greatest and most precious natural resources, yet are entirely hidden. Now, for the first time, a high-resolution map shows where underground aquifers store vast amounts of water.

via KurzweilAI.net

The Terrible Beauty of the Salt Mine

A worker arrives for the morning shift Photograph by Andrew McConnell

The Terrible Beauty of the Salt Mine

stray bullets

Mayfair, and the Deaths of Harry Nilsson, Mama Cass and Keith Moon
How to Embalm a Body (via)
Middle Eastern Contemporary Artists Booming
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Systems (via)
The Felt Toothbrush
Recommended piano books
Iain Banks talks to Writing Magazine

viddy:
This American Life - Judgement to the Wife (funny)
Zumba Cinco - Moça do Biquini Azul
São Paulo in 1943
Aldous Huxley's Deathbed (as related by his wife) (via)

Pablum

image from The American Package Museum

Pablum is a processed cereal for infants originally marketed by the Mead Johnson Company in 1931. The trademarked name is a contracted form of the Latin word pabulum, meaning "foodstuff". The name is also used metaphorically, especially in literary criticism, to refer to something bland, unappetizing, or with little content value.

stray bullets

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees But as she drove around the country, Hecht noticed plenty of trees. Some were remnants of old forests, but she also saw hedgerows, backyard orchards, coffee groves, trees growing along rivers and streams, cashew and palm plantations, saplings sprouting in abandoned fields, and heavily wooded grassland. Almost every village abounded with trees—“like a big jungle forest,” she said. Rather than no trees, she saw them everywhere. Nature was far from extinguished; it was thriving. Re-evaluating the 'myth of the pristine forest', it seems that humans have been shaping them for quite some time. (via)

As SLow aS Possible Fair warning for long-term music lovers: the world’s slowest concert, a 639-year organ piece by American avant-garde composer John Cage (01912-01992), will next change notes in just over a month’s time, on 5 November 02008. (with video of the last change, this past July)

Indigenous Media Because I do Internet and Indigenous/Grassroot identity I am occasionally asked “what do you know about Indigenous people on the Internet or on other media?” The answer is: I don’t usually mix these two. However in the name of developing some competence here are a few links...

also:
Thomas Pynchon’s next book (can't wait)
Ancient Peru Pyramid Spotted by Satellite
Man reads entire Oxford English Dictionary
100 Skills Every Man Should Know (girls, too)
10 High Paying Dirty Jobs

viddy:
High-speed (super slow motion) Video Clips (loads)
Sam and Dave interview - 1967
1977 CBC Interview with Marshal McLuhan

Windmills in Eastern Germany

Wulferstedt 2 (Bördekreis), Sachsen-Anhalt, 25.02.1995

Windmills in Eastern Germany: Photos by Reinhard Krause

via Conscientious

chilies

Chinese farmers dried chilies under the sun on the outskirts of Kurla, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Tuesday (Reuters)

Photo Journal: Pictures of the Day

Fortunes to be Made in Frogs

A Fortune in Frogs AND a Frog Ranch Map...

A sheen of oil is seen...

Photograph: Reuters

24 hours in pictures:

High Island, US: A sheen of oil is seen around a pump jack surrounded by floodwater after the passing of hurricane Ike.

stray bullets

Scientists receive death threats over 'end-of-world' experiment The scientists behind the world's biggest ever scientific experiment have received death threats from critics who claim it could cause the end of the world. What? "If you destroy the world, I'll kill you." seems like a pointless threat.

Researchers Use Facebook App to Create Zombie Army Computer researchers built a tool that demonstrates how hackers could silently turn Facebook users into a powerful zombie army that can attack other websites or scout for vulnerable sites on the net. Some might maintain that Facebook already has a powerful zombie army.

also:
Brazil oil boom 'to end poverty'
Hand Weapons of Trench Raiders, WWI
How To Spot A Heart Attack Soon After It Occurs
Murder map of London, 1888 (via)

viddy:
Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos
『Gypsy Rhythm Machine Crazy Beatbox(動画)』
Zen Wind - Yoga and the Art of Farting (via)

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Has anyone noticed that oil has dropped below $106 a barrel? Crude oil and gold led a decline in commodities in London as Hurricane Gustav spared the U.S. Gulf states the destruction caused by Katrina and Rita in 2005.

How books changed Mafia man's life For the first time in his life he started reading books, looking deeper into himself and searching for some answers. He set himself the challenge to read the entire prison library. "Prison was the greatest thing that happened to me, because it gave me time to look inside myself, the solitude that I needed to take a closer look at everything around me; to analyse myself."

Danish artists create life-size walking house With oil prices rocketing and mortgages plummeting, visionary Danish artist collective N55 has solved the joint problems of transport and housing by building a home that can walk. A new twist on the mobile home, although I have a feeling it wouldn't fly in this country unless it could do around 75mph. (via)

Dennis Hopper's life: a hell of a ride Hopper’s description sums up his career. He’s part of Hollywood history as the man who in 1969 made independent movie-making a serious business by directing and starring in Easy Rider alongside Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda. The result was a winning hand that’s kept him in the game ever since, even though he’s run low on chips. But somehow he’s never quite managed to establish himself as a big winner. For a good chunk of his 50-year acting career he has been sidelined by film studios, nervous about his reputation for drink, drugs and wild behaviour and for speaking his mind. I think he's done just fine, all in all.

Seven Eight Things To Do When You Don’t Feel Like Writing 8. Write.

also:
Six Ways to Fix the CIA
People Who Lose Jobs Become Hermits
US army has laser guns in its sights
20 Things You Didn't Know About... Telescopes
Art games and not-games (really good ones, too)
EnglishScholar.com - A compendium of electronic resources

viddy:
Welcome to My Study 4 (prev)
The Prisoner: Video Exclusive - Building The Village
The World of Anathem (via)
The 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube
Kurt Vonnegut documentary
UbuWeb - Christian Marclay

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World's largest machine--the electric grid--is old and outdated The U.S. electric grid is so old and outdated it can't handle the influx of wind power and other intermittent renewable resources.

Space Station Dodges Orbital Junk The International Space Station fired its rocket engines to dodge space junk for the first time in five years on Wednesday.

Is It Possible To Teach Experience? Business veterans claim you cannot teach ‘experience’, but European researchers say you can. (via)

The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn Storytelling is one of the few human traits that are truly universal across culture and through all of known history. Anthropologists find evidence of folktales everywhere in ancient cultures, written in Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Chinese, Egyptian and Sumerian. People in societies of all types weave narratives, from oral storytellers in hunter-gatherer tribes to the millions of writers churning out books, television shows and movies. And when a characteristic behavior shows up in so many different societies, researchers pay attention: its roots may tell us something about our evolutionary past.

also:
Top 10 Amazing Prison Escapes
10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You
Now Hear This: Don't Remove Earwax (I always suspected that those Chinese candles weren't so good for you.)
6 Funny Things About Asimov's Foundation Series
The Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive (via)

viddy:
Cockfighting and dominoes: Haiti's poor at play (via)
Hackers prepare supermarket sweep
Groucho Marx on the Dick Cavett Show

stray bullets

From the Art World to the Underworld The FBI's Robert Wittman has spent his career chasing missing masterpieces. Now thieves are growing bolder -- and more violent. This guy's career is worthy of a feature film, which I'd wager will be in the works once he retires later this year. An epic novel would be more appropriate. Cooler than the X-Files-- don't skip this one.

N Korea 'develops special noodle' North Korean scientists have developed a new kind of noodle that delays feelings of hunger, a Japan-based pro-Pyongyang newspaper has reported.

Some solar flares may be caused by dark matter Some solar flares may be caused by dark matter particles called axions spewing out from the centre of the Sun, new calculations suggest.

They Never Said It "Elementary, my dear Watson."

Richard Nixon's Piano Concerto #1 (for surreal, watch the video for a taste) (via)

The Colors Of Salt Evaporation Ponds

Color + Design Blog:

While nature tends to trump humans when it comes to color inspiration, at least in my opinion, when humans put their hands into engineering nature, like in the case of salt evaporation ponds, together, unimaginable colors can be created.

via Robot Wisdom auxiliary

A Street Cart Named Survivor

Ing-Tse Chen's entry was one of 5 ex equo winners of designboom's Shelter in a Cart, a competition to create convenient and portable shelter, storage and in some cases, conveyance for the homeless. The frugal traveler and urban adventurer may also take note. Many would be great for junk collectors and street musicians, as well.

There are an abundance of workable designs mentioned, some more inviting than others. Browsing through, I felt as if I was house hunting.

via cut 'n' paste
hat tip: NOTCOT