Sunday 9 November 2014

Trivia (should have been 30th August)

Grand Entrance: 1939
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
Grand Entrance: 1939
“Watts-Parkman-Gillman House, 713 Mabry Street, Selma, Dallas County, Alabama. Two-story masonry construction dates to 1852. Greek Revival stone columns across front. Fine ironwork on second-story balcony.&rdquo
8x10 inch acetate negative by Frances Benjamin Johnston
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The secret lives of lost shipping containers – and the lives they support
via Boing Boing Every year, thousands of shipping containers are lost to the briny deep.
Maggie Koerth-Baker on the strange new homes they create for marine creatures.
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One of the most interesting articles I have read in a very long time.

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The doyen of Darwinists, E.O. Wilson, has an explanation for consciousness, for art, for religion. It’s remarkable. But is it convincing?… more
This might not look like much but I promise you, it is fascinating.

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The Famous Artworks That Inspired 15 Films
via Flavorwire by Alison Nastasi
There is a fascinating interplay between the visual cultures of film and art. Directors have frequently used imagery from painting and other art forms to shape the look and meaning of their works.
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Fun With Searches: Internet Movie Databases
via Research Buzz
It’s funny how we all focus on different things. You see a movie and you might focus on the settings or the plot. Someone else might focus on the technology used. I might focus on how the dialogue makes my ears bleed. We all take our own context out of everything we review.
Because of that I’m not surprised that there are so many subsets of the famous Internet Movie Database. Sure, it’s a great site, but why stop there? There are many, many more ways that movies can be delineated.
I did a little poking around, therefore, and present for your amusement a list of Internet Movie databases. Please note: these are all real. I am not The Onion.
Check them out for yourself

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Look at the odd relationship between Nabokov and his novels, and several questions are raised. Not least: Is Humbert Humbert Jewish?… more

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A British 30s and 40s film archive has been completed
via BBC News (entertainment and arts)
An online archive of films showing snapshots of typical life in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s has been completed. The final 25 movies in the collection have been digitised and loaded onto the British Council’s website. Scenes include the pubs of England, Sheffield’s steel industry, London’s preparations for war and a mystery for Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad.

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Plants that “eat” metal
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
A cool graphic by Maki Naro explains the science of hyperaccumulators, plants that are capable of absorbing toxic levels of potentially dangerous minerals without harming themselves.
Part 2 of a short series in Popular Science

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Much of the best intellectual work is being done by journalists, not scholars, says Jill Lepore. Why? Journalists write for money… more

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Mathematics: The Beauty of Abstraction
via Big Think by Big Think editors
“What is it that distinguishes us from cavemen?” asks the mathematician Edward Frenkel. “I would say it’s the level of abstraction that we can reach.”
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