Friday 18 November 2011

10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting

Play Addictive Free Downloadable Games At FreeGamePick via MakeUseOf by Ryan Dube
I do not intend to tell you about all the games that Ryan describes and I have not tested any of them. However, MakeUseOf is normally reliable and can be trusted not to take you into “bad” places.
Just watch out for the addiction!
Read it here

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Behold the patchwriter, who recycles, steals, appropriates other people's words to construct something new. Welcome to the age of unoriginal genius... more

More Mystery Paper Art Book Sculptures in Edinburgh via Reading Copy Book Blog by elizabethc
You may remember a few months back that we wrote about the mysterious and beautiful book and paper sculptures that were showing up around Edinburgh, in locations that can be tied back to Ian Rankin's Rebus novels someone has been leaving random acts of paper art.
There are more now.
That was supposed to be a link to the older post but it wasn't so I found some info from The Guardian here. And the older post [from June] is the picture that shows on this one from September!
The teacup is my favourite. A good mystery, beautiful art, and people coming together to support libraries and literacy in a unique and creative way – what could be better?
Correct links maybe?
Be that as it may the best link of all is the one to the Edinburgh City of Literature site which has loads of pictures going back to March this year. They are STUNNING – says me using that overused word yet again.

A Gut Feeling via 3quarksdaily by Meghan Rosen
Thick and thin

Are you in the market for a healthy, stable, long-term relationship? Turns out you may not have to look further than your gut. Or, more specifically, the trillions of microbes that inhabit your gut. Yes, you and a few trillion life-partners are currently involved in a devoted, mutually beneficial relationship that has endured the test of time. Don’t worry though, they’ve already met your mother.
We’re exposed first to our mother's microbial flora during birth; these are the pioneering settlers of our gastro-intestinal (GI) tract. In the following weeks our gut becomes fully colonized with a diverse array of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Although our gut microbes are generally about an order of magnitude smaller in size than human cells, when counted by the trillions, they add up.

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Natural selection is hell on dysfunctional traits. So how did humans survive adolescence? New research on the brain offers an adaptive accounting...more

Salvador Dali’s Vogue Covers via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris
Reprints of December 1938, April 1944, December 1946 issues together with the special Christmas edition of the French Vogue 1971 which Dali edited and illustrated.
See all four here.

I’m not a great Dali fan but I did enjoy the cover shown above, from 1938.

The long and winding road via Prospero by More Intelligent Life
How hard can it be to buy a car in Sierra Leone? Simon Akam learns a few things about doing business in a poor, war-torn country …
Read all about it

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The morality of refusal. Catch-22’s explosively cynical, disillusioned take on military valor remains relevant. Morris Dickstein explains… more

A “gadget camp” for girls only via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin


[photo courtesy GADgET]
The New York Times profiles GADgET (Girls Adventuring in Design Engineering & Technology), a summer camp workshop for girls held near Chicago that aims to bring more women into manufacturing careers in the United States.
Read the full article here.
Here's an earlier article that appeared at triblocal.com.

Should we be Better Prepared for Asteroids? via Big Think by Big Think Editors
NASA has begun locating and tracking smaller asteroids, but there are thousands still at large. If one of these were on course to strike Earth, sky surveys would give us no more than a month of warning. In that case, deflection is probably not an option. Instead, “you …
Read More

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