Sunday 15 January 2012

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

How chicken wire is made via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Here’s a mesmerizing Gabion machine [Well, it is in the blog post but I could not find a static picture anywhere], a massive loom that weaves chicken wire fencing out of wire.
Machine grace ahoy.
Chicken Wire Fabrication – Video (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Neanderthal neuroscience. What are humans made of? Find 40,000-year-old hominid pinky bone, extract the DNA, compare and contrast... more

The debate over Kaliningrad's architectural heritage: An insider’s perspective
an article by Anna Karpenko published in Eurozine
What is the threat implied in the handover of the symbolically significant heritage of the Kaliningrad region to the Orthodox Church of Russia? An examination of the social and cultural aspects of the conflict.
Full story (HTML) here also available as PDF (4pp) here

Transformice: An Addictive, Casual Game For Your Browser Or Desktop via MakeUseOf by Craig Snyder
transformice
It took nearly two months for a friend to convince me to give Transformice a shot. The game looked too childish, uninteresting, and casual. After finally giving the game a fair chance, I've been disappointed that I didn’t listen two months sooner. This is one of the most unique browser games that you're going to find.
It’ hard to put Transformice into a genre. It’s a strategy game, but it’s something more than that. Transformice is the most individual team-based game I’ve played. That’s weird, I know. It’s also the only game that I can think of where trolling is almost integrated within the gameplay.
On any given school night, Transformice touches over 10,000 players online. I say school night because this game is targeted more towards a younger audience. The objective of Transformice is to proceed through each map and collect the cheese. After collecting the cheese, you must bring it back to the mouse hole. By collecting cheese, you gather points towards becoming the next Shaman. The Shaman is the designated mouse who builds and casts objects so that their fellow mice can more easily get to the cheese. Shamans are rewarded for the number of mice they are able to save and help bring back the cheese.
Check out the Gameplay here (where you will also get the adverts that help to keep MakeUseOf free at the point of use) which includes tips and tricks, a video to help you along etc
Or you could go straight into the game here (don’t be put off if the screen opens in French – you get to choose your language after about three screens).

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Once the epitome of glamour, fur has fallen on hard times. The mink coat has come to signify hussies on the make or the kept woman... more

6 Classic Disney Animated Wartime Propaganda Cartoons [Stuff to Watch] via MakeUseOf by Tim Brookes
During the Second World War film-makers on both sides of the Atlantic were put to work on morale-boosting and influential propaganda films – Walt Disney included. The master of animation was determined to put his characters to use in the war effort, especially Donald Duck.
Here are a selection of 6 Disney cartoons that were produced during the war, each with its own message and each designed to bolster public opinion behind allied war efforts.
  • Education For Death: The Making of a Nazi (1943)
    Considerably different to the average Disney short, Education for Death is based on a book by Gregor Ziemer and features none of Disney’s usual characters. Instead the production focuses on the issue of youth and how the Nazi machine corrupted minds from a very early age.
    At just over 10 minutes long this film was shown to US audiences in movie theaters in 1943 and probably had quite an impact. This isn’t the usual jovial Disney outing – far from it. The imagery contained in this short film is as serious as it gets and it’s easy to see why Walt believed his usual love-able characters would confuse the message.
  • Der Fuehrer’s Face (1942)
    Starring Disney favorite Donald Duck, Der Fuehrer’s Face is a simple anti-Nazi propaganda film that went on to win the Academy Award for best animated short. The message behind this one is straightforward: Hitler and the Nazis are your enemy, support our troops and back the war effort!
    There are lashings of comedy thrown in, after all this is a Donald Duck film! The obsessive extremes painted of Nazi Germany are almost comical – everything from clouds to trees are swastika shaped.
  • The Spirit of ’43 (1943)
    Propaganda wasn’t just used to influence public opinion against the enemy, far from it. In this example Donald Duck expounds the virtues of saving money in order to pay tax – and pay it on time.
    At a time when the payment of tax was more important than it ever had been before the film was viewed by around 26 million US citizens. According to a poll, 37% of those who saw the film admitted that it had indeed affected their willingness to pay higher tax rates in order to fund the ongoing conflict.
  • Donald Gets Drafted (1942)
    This short treads a fine line between brazen propaganda and typical Disney antics as Donald Duck receives his draft notice and prepares for the army. The film opens with Donald walking past seemingly endless recruitment advertisements, many of which look way too good to be true.
    Walt managed to squeeze in a few more clever jokes about conscription and the army’s willingness to take new troops, though this film seems to have a less defined message than many of the other Disney wartime shorts.
  • Fall Out Fall In (1943)
    In this cartoon we see Donald Duck marching for miles through storms, ice and baking hot desert sands before struggling with his tent and regiment’s particularly loud sleeping habits.
    Donald was a busy duck during the war, and many of the cartoons produced simply follow his military career and inevitable mistakes that lead to hilarious consequences. Whilst this one is naturally not much different, it does at least tackle a few of the hardships faced by soldiers in the war.
  • Commando Duck (1944)
    With a not-so-subtle reminder of who America was fighting and lines like “Japanese custom always say shooting a man in the back please” (yes, I know) this is one Disney cartoon that reflects the desperation of the war effort by 1944.
    Rather than ending up peeling potatoes or troubled by fatigue this is one cartoon in which Donald seemingly succeeds – though not without the usual hysterical cartoon antics that made Disney so popular in the first place. Politically incorrect but historically important!
Link to the original post here

In a good light via Prospero by J.M. | NEW YORK
Cecil Beaton, an English photographer, found happy hunting in New York City for more than 40 years, both behind the camera and in the world of the theatre. When he arrived in America after the second world war, Beaton wrote that it was “time to settle down and relish to the full the infinite delights that New York has to offer”. A new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York aims to chronicle his engagement with those delights, from his early Vogue photos of the mid-1930s – their figures highly stylised in poses and shadows reminiscent of German Expressionism – to a 1970 portrait of Mick Jagger, as casual and unaffected as a snapshot.
Cecil Beaton: The New York Years is at the Museum of the City of New York until February 20th – just in case you’re going there anyway!!
Full article

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Everything is suddenly a distraction to William Ian Miller. His brain is "balsa wood floating in a helium sea." In truth, his brain is shrinking. And so is yours... more

Startling photo of volcanic lightning via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
 Your-Shot Weekly-Wrapper 2011 Img 1011Wallpaper-Week-3-1 1600

No, this is not a still from the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene when the ark is opened, but an absolutely magnificent image of southern Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano spewing lightning-topped ash. Wow. Ricardo Mohr’s photo was selected as one of National Geographic’s “Pictures We Love: Best of October”.

“We didn't have [x] when I was a kid and I turned out okay” via Big Think by Scott McLeod
Here’s a statement that I'm getting really tired of hearing: “We didn’t have computers when I was in school and I turned out okay. There’s no reason why kids today need ’em.” I’m sure that this argument was offered in the past as well: “Buses? We walked to school barefoot, in the snow uphill both ways!”
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