Exhibit Preparation at the Museum of Natural History
Wide awake, bright and early and a little cloudy. Doesn’t look like I’m going to sleep more than the four hours I’ve clocked in this night yet, an aberration from previous summer nights indeed. At least I’ll have this curious photo collection about exhibit preparation at the Museum of Natural History (1930’s-70’s) to ponder while my friends sleep on.
Via Make, which lead me to Dinosaurs and Robots.
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Ice-Free North Pole—This Summer?
Via Treehugger, reporting on this CNN article.
Over the past few years, scientists have been predicting that a total melting of the geographic north pole will occur around 2050. But with each day, it seems, predictions get dramatically more dire.
Yeah yeah, you’re thinking. I know.
But get this.
Based on information gathered by The National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO, the center’s senior research scientist says: “We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is ‘does the North Pole melt out this summer?’ and it may well.”
Granted, it’s expected that should the ice melt away completely from that spot, it will re-form shortly after. But still. The bet is 50/50. For THIS summer.
Shite.
Fish Tanks
We’ve blogged about neat fish tanks before, and maybe about some of these individually as well (I’m thinking that first one). Nonetheless, here’s a really great compilation of awesome fish tanks. Give them a look.
I’m especially fond of that bird-in-fish-tank one, though as Daisy (literally blogging alongside me) says, “those birds are probably pretty unhappy.”
The World’s Ugliest Dog Show
Our friend Maia sent me this unusual link today: a brief gallery of pictures from a dog show featuring remarkably unattractive specimens, competing for the title of World’s Ugliest Dog. Though the mutts are pretty homely, they’re actually cuter, in my opinion, than most of those purebred, pedigreed types. Anyway, take a look.
Cassette Tape Lamps
These are really neat and, I’m sure, possible to make on one’s own–with enough tapes and patience for trial and error.
Via Boing Boing Gadgets.
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Counter Terror with Justice
Bryan Finoki of Subtopia has posted some interesting ruminations on Amnesty International’s campaign Counter Terror with Justice.
The campaign, meant to raise awareness about the terror that is illegal U.S. detention (and Guantanamo more specifically), is comprised of a truck hauling a full-scale replica of a Guantanamo Bay maximum security cell. Actual detainees kept in these cells are regularly isolated inside of them for up to 23 hours a day.
From the outside, the cell carried by the truck looks to be nothing but a large orange box, with the words “Counter Terror with Justice” printed on its side. It’s not until the truck is parked and the box unloaded in visible, open places that the general public is invited to isolate themselves inside the cell and leave messages about their experience via touchscreen computer device on the wall.
Says Finoki: The exhibit, perhaps inadvertently, I see as a revelation of this hazardous notion that American justice is a deployable prison cell that can be made cheaply on time and at any time, shipped anywhere in the world day and night, and dropped off on doorsteps here and abroad when and wherever the global arbiters of detention see fit…
Has the public square, the shopping mall, the tourist area, the protest zone, just been converted into an informal detention facility itself?
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Widespread Whale Depression
Actual headline: “Whales Suffer From Loneliness Due to Over-Hunting, Might Lose Will to Live.”
Well, that’s certainly the most heartbreaking news I’ve heard today. From the article:
. . .According to Yves Paccalet, a French naturalist, over-hunting is causing loneliness in the surviving whales and can even make them “lose the will to live”. The highly intelligent and sociable mammals could be “so exhausted from their combat with humankind that they have simply have given up the fight,” according to him.
Paccalet, who worked with world famous marine pioneer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, explains: “To reproduce, whales need a large number of individuals to ensure that they meet, frolic and excite each other. Otherwise, the species may give in to a kind of sexual melancholy and simply stop breeding.”
There is absolutely no excuse for this.
Photo from gwooford’s Flickr photostream.
Monday YouTube Blogging
Three completely different videos of people playing songs; the primary commonality is that all three songs have been stuck in my head today, though it’s just past noon.
Here is Diane Cluck playing “Easy To Be Around,” a song on Oh Vanille / Ova Nil. I like this version a lot better than the studio cut, actually, thought both are great. I have a thing for unedited recordings.
A crazy song called “Rasputin,” by Boney M, which my friend Brenden got me into. Something about that combination of klezmer and… Disco? Whatever it is, it’s great.
Jeff Mangum playing “Oh Sister”:
How Glass Eyes are Made
This wonderful photo essay by Marc Steinmetz documents the process of making glass eyes. Fascinating stuff! Take a look.
Via Make.
