this is not your ____.

You all liked the half a cat, right? Here’s half a...

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:15:13 +0100

You all liked the half a cat, right? Here’s half a donkey.

The io9 post also has an amazing sad otter.

"It was actually about patriarchy…"

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:00:23 +0100

“It was actually about patriarchy…”

- Olof Dreijer, in Alex MacPherson’s excellent interview with The Knife about their recent divisive live show. I didn’t see the live show, but having listened to Shaking The Habitual and read the liner notes, this is not a particularly shocking revelation!

I swear I didn’t know I had a Danish experimental pop...

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:00:32 +0100

I swear I didn’t know I had a Danish experimental pop cover of Take on Me—with the famous melody played by a treble recorder, and “an inexplicable drone solo”, as mr. fooishbar predicted just before it happened—until it came on on shuffle.

It’s actually pretty soothing. I bought the EP for this Paranoid Android cover, which … is what it is.

"As a term, “math rock” came from post-punk and hardcore bands playing around with asymmetric or..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:21 +0100

“As a term, “math rock” came from post-punk and hardcore bands playing around with asymmetric or changing time signatures. Its original usage was somewhat derogatory and reductive, with the playful ambiguity of the word “math” yielding both endearing and annoying responses. Does “math” mean math-themed, as in “This song goes out to Riemann’s Zeta Function” […]?”

- Nick Greer in Genre Report: Norcal Math Rock. It’s funny he should say that because ζ by Garuda really is about the Riemann zeta function! (Specifically, this story.)

"As someone who has worked in brand management at P&G, i do not see any major consumer brand..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:58:58 +0100

“As someone who has worked in brand management at P&G, i do not see any major consumer brand who’s [sic] personality fits with lol cats and porn.”

- “nashequilibrium”, in a comment on Hacker News about the potential profitability—or lack thereof—of Tumblr’s userbase to potential buyers. A quick look at Wikipedia’s List of Procter & Gamble brands confirms that they have absolutely no major brands which could be associated with pictures of cats.

I should know better than to follow links to HN discussions.

The Hawkeye Initiative: Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:00:12 +0100

The Hawkeye Initiative: Special Guest Edition: The Hawkeye Initiative IRL!:

This is an amazing prank, and Brosie The Riveter is so well executed. Plus, the write-up has some great turns of phrase:

thehawkeyeinitiative:

This little lady’s undermeats have been the open- and close- parens to my work world for the last six months.

There Brosie stood, proud, nipples testing the air like young gophers in springtime, the post-apocalyptic breeze gently swaying his banana hammock.

Dawnwatch from Whales Alive, which Wikipedia describes as “a...

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:00:12 +0100

Dawnwatch from Whales Alive, which Wikipedia describes as “a 1987 album of improvisational duets and sometimes trios between Paul Winter, Paul Halley, and recordings of singing humpback whales”, with prose read by Leonard Nimoy.

I found this while researching the latest episode of The Science of Fiction, which covers the maths of Star Trek: The Original Series and features some other Nimoy- and Shatner-based sounds, plus some animal facts. Have a listen!

Cat Imagery in the Suffrage Movement: Suddenly, the cat...

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:00:23 +0100

Cat Imagery in the Suffrage Movement:

Suddenly, the cat takes on a decidedly more masculine, “tom cat” persona. The cat now represented the violent realities of women’s struggle for political rights in the male public sphere.

Cat pictures aside, it took me a while to understand what the fourth and fifth pictures were trying to show. I think the fifth is saying “if women can vote, men might have to make a pot of tea unaided and men are too stupid and they’ll boil the cat by mistake” which is … not a particularly good argument that the heavy burden of the democratic process should be born by men alone.

(Via MetaFilter. What have I become‽)

JAR OF MOLES SPECIMEN OF THE WEEK From the Specimen of...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:00:25 +0100

JAR OF MOLES

SPECIMEN OF THE WEEK

From the Specimen of the Week post about this:

“Why did you put so many moles in a jar?” is something I get asked a LOT.

UCL Museums Top Ten Objects answers that question reasonably concisely.

(Thanks to @emxz for telling me about this at Electromagnetic Wave, and for the photographic proof.)

Bicycle Taxidermy | The loving and lasting solution for your mechanical bereavement

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:00:11 +0100

Bicycle Taxidermy | The loving and lasting solution for your mechanical bereavement:

A somewhat sentimental take on a mass produced object becoming defunct, the handlebars are given the care and craft of a preserved family pet(!). The taxidermy service mounts a client’s steed on a scorched or bleached European oak plaque. Chrome mounting brackets fix the stem above a stainless steel epitaph etched in Argyll, Scotland.

As featured in The Guardian.

scarlet letter of personal shame

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:01:45 +0100

rstevens: I love you, Nipples the Bear. Yes yes. If anything,...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:33:27 +0100

rstevens:

I love you, Nipples the Bear.

Yes yes. If anything, this makes me want to try Glass more.

Getting stuffed: a tale of love and taxidermy (David Sedaris)

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:00:11 +0100

Getting stuffed: a tale of love and taxidermy (David Sedaris):

[…] He might more accurately have said “the head of this teenage girl”, for she’d been no older than 14 at the time of her death. This sounds super grisly but is, I propose, just medium grisly.

This is a strange article.

When taxidermy goes wrong: TAXIDERMY IS THE ART OF PREPARING...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:06:17 +0100

When taxidermy goes wrong:

TAXIDERMY IS THE ART OF PREPARING DEAD ANIMALS FOR DISPLAY. SOMETIMES THE END RESULT, FOR WANT OF A BETTER WORD, IS STUFFED.

I don’t think anything went wrong here though.

when you look closely

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:31:18 +0100

gifandcircumstance:

Source

‘Doubtful’ by Gregory and the HawkI love these guitar parts:...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:22:48 +0100

‘Doubtful’ by Gregory and the Hawk
I love these guitar parts: nothing showy, but so effective.

Sovereign Military Order of Malta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:00:13 +0100

Sovereign Military Order of Malta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Today, in “weird Rome-based pseudo-state” news:

Although this state came to an end with the ejection of the Order from Malta by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Order as such survived. It retains its claims of sovereignty under international law and has been granted permanent observer status at the United Nations. The order is notable for issuing its own international passports for travel, postal stamps, along with its formal insignia, often portrayed as a white or gold Maltese cross.

Complete with World War II peace treaty evasion:

In 1947, after the post-World War II peace treaty forbade Italy to own or operate bomber aircraft[…], the Italian Air Force opted to transfer some of its SM.82 aircraft to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, pending the definition of their exact status […]. These aircraft were operated by Italian Air Force personnel temporarily flying for the Order, carried the Order’s roundels on the fuselage and Italian ones on the wings, and were used mainly for standard Italian Air Force training and transport missions.

Custard Facts: Banana

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:41:07 +0100

Custard Facts: Banana:

custardfacts has prepared point-by-point confirmations of, and corrections to, the assertions in my “recent post marvelling at the humble banana”.

"I won’t be able to spend my days pretending to be a horse pretending to be a girl on the internet..."

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:31:03 +0100

“I won’t be able to spend my days pretending to be a horse pretending to be a girl on the internet for the next few weeks.”

- okcebooks

True facts about the banana

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:21:48 +0100

News to me:

When on the tree, bananas do not hang from their stalks: they grow upwards from them.
I knew that monkeys open bananas from the non-stalk end, and it really is easier to eat them that way. But: allegedly, monkeys don’t pull them off the tree before they eat them. They just peel them in situ, and leave the peel hanging from the tree. So this is another reason why they don’t peel from the stalk end.
In some countries, everyone peels bananas from the non-stalk end.
The banana tree is not actually a tree.
Banana peels can be used to extract dangerous heavy metals from contaminated water.

Also, pineapples and papayas both contain enzymes which break down animal proteins, which is one reason why a slice of fresh pineapple on a piece of gammon is so delicious.

Lunchtime was very informative today!