Linkdump #66

The process of applying makeup and costume pieces for the Beijing Opera: https://tinyurl.com/y5yt76s4

Top Value Television began in 1972 when a group of mediamakers, artists, and activists used newly available portable videotape equipment to document the 1972 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. This collective of “braless, blue-jeaned video freaks” set out to revolutionize not only how to capture the news, but also to transform the relationship between image producers and image consumers: https://tinyurl.com/yyuf8f65

‘Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids’ is a 2004 Indian-American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata’s red light district. The widely acclaimed film, written and directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005: https://tinyurl.com/y3fyjs2c

Lovely and vibrant tattoos from Russian artist Natasha Lisova: https://tinyurl.com/y6l2k9h5

Listen to the natural sounds of Borneo (pick a timestamp, then click the little “play” arrow): https://tinyurl.com/y3cdvcsd

A Dog’s Guide to its Human: https://tinyurl.com/y2sn76ug

You may have heard about that hilariously awful “Pizza festival” that flopped and outraged attendees in 2017, but you may not have known that this isn’t the first time the organizer has proven to be terrible at festivals: https://tinyurl.com/y2qpzcja

A wonderful nonprofit that custom-makes special dolls for special kids: https://tinyurl.com/yyvynchr

A beautiful photo series that cast powerful Black models as the Greek Gods and Goddesses: https://tinyurl.com/y2b7oybo

The delightful woodcarvings of Bill Prickett (I really love that octopus in the third row down): https://tinyurl.com/y37qsoz6

How our love of satellites impacts astronomy: https://tinyurl.com/y3vzfwgt

For fabric lovers, CLOTH#20 is 2020’s online offering of an annual textile makers and designers exhibit and sale. Just barely international, but mostly Scottish, the exibition showcases 50 craftspeople and designers. You can ogle the goods and some demo videos from the main page, or click through to individual maker websites: https://tinyurl.com/yy8jkm28

Take a 7 minute kayak journey down Chile’s El Rio Claro: https://tinyurl.com/y3r64zj3

A browser game that lets you try to defuse a mysterious bomb, based on a 1980 story about a mysterious bomb: https://tinyurl.com/y5u6qhn5

Photographer Ken Hermann traveled to Hohhot in the summer of 2017 to do a portrait series of the shamans whom he had been very intrigued by since he met them on his first trip to inner Mongolia. Ken was fascinated by the very distinct and colorful robes of the shaman and the stark contrast between the age-old shaman tradition and the fast pacing industrial China: https://tinyurl.com/y6dcs5yf

Adorable Tardigrades by artist Banvivirie: https://tinyurl.com/y6byyfkq

LOOK AT ITS WIDDLE FEETS: https://tinyurl.com/y2wuy6y8

Speculative biology, or speculative evolution, is a term that refers to a very hypothetical field of science that makes predictions and hypotheses on the evolution of life in a wide variety of scenarios and is also a form of fiction to an extent. It uses scientific principles and laws and applies them to a “what if” question (for instance: “What if Homo sapiens never evolved?”): https://tinyurl.com/y5fckngl

If you’ve been thinking that it’s about time you bought yourself a set of articulated monster fingers: https://tinyurl.com/y5lcmkze

Believe it or not, this mantis is a sculpture: https://tinyurl.com/y5sxvqnv

Otto Aviation aims to disrupt the aviation landscape with a design that flies at jet speeds, but uses a fraction of the gas, and has more range: https://tinyurl.com/y3dlxuyc

There’s a giant gorilla sculpture in Hudson Yards: https://tinyurl.com/y67al3wy

 

Linkdump #65

So what would have happened if Neo had chosen the blue pill?: https://tinyurl.com/y3my7blf

A Twitter thread about what we’ve learned from an Ice Age puppy: https://tinyurl.com/yxf4u7yn

A brief but stunning drone’s-eye view of the world’s largest cemetery: https://tinyurl.com/y2h6opgm

Some of the offerings to be found in 19th century soda fountains: https://tinyurl.com/y3zulmjv

A beautifully grungy automata with a lovely theme song: https://tinyurl.com/y4onvmdr

An interesting video about how editors cut video to match the beat of music: https://tinyurl.com/yyoe5c7h

Qian Haifeng has spent years documenting the decline of China’s “green trains” — the Mao-era rail network that remains a vital lifeline for millions of blue-collar workers: https://tinyurl.com/y28q3r95

The Castles of Wales web site, launched in November of 1995, provides visitors with information on over 400 different Welsh castles, accompanied by high quality photographs, as well as a wide range of topics related to Welsh castles and Welsh medieval history: https://tinyurl.com/nbd3fc

“Wikitongues is a global volunteer movement expanding access to language revitalization. We help speakers document and promote their languages online, safeguarding them for the next generation”: https://tinyurl.com/yyfvp27v

A Youtube channel dedicated to street foods (and drinks) of Pakistan: https://tinyurl.com/y4e9q2g9

Maria Dahvana Headley is an American novelist, memoirist, editor, and playwright. Here she introduces her new translation of Beowulf: https://tinyurl.com/y2madgqn

Long before asbestos was recognized as a health hazard, it was a near-mythical wonder material, a gift fit for kings and emperors: https://tinyurl.com/y24ha6mj

Artist Katrina Herrndorf explains that “what started out as a simple study in ceramic sculpture class of the form of my bra drying on a doorknob has evolved….” For her exploration of the bra, she made examples from unusual materials, such as baseball gloves, and inspired by usually non-mammary themes, such as Canada Day: https://tinyurl.com/yxhq7zdv

You can now check the progress of NASA’s new Mars Rover, Perseverance as it travels to Mars. NASA has launched a free online tool that lets anyone monitor Perseverance’s journey in real time. You can also see the nearest celestial body to the spacecraft at any given moment! The Mars 2020 rover will arrive in February 2021, so people can monitor its journey for a few more months: https://tinyurl.com/yxnc45nd

Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? Apparently it involves naked Greeks and Jesus and Vikings?: https://tinyurl.com/yytlbrym

Holdfast is a Napoleonic-era roleplaying shooter game with “enjoyably useless” weapons and a “wonderfully silly but vivid class system” that rewards players for standing in line, listening to nearby musicians, and generally following orders from officers. Thanks to a viral video by an excited Scottish lad, it’s exploded in popularity (NSFW for enthusiastic Scottish cussing): https://tinyurl.com/yy39agds

Well this is insteresting: “I’ve discovered that almost every single article on the Scots version of Wikipedia is written by the same person – an American teenager who can’t speak Scots”: https://tinyurl.com/y2g3hedf

A short video featuring the aerial smoke curtains used to hide ships in WWII: https://tinyurl.com/y335hkkc

This is adorable (sound on): https://tinyurl.com/yymp4xvt

If such things interest you, here’s a Wiki list of Gilded Age mansions in the U.S.: https://tinyurl.com/wkqqtjm

Fun with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 glitches: https://tinyurl.com/y5qsq4sr

Zone out on a realtime global lightning strike map: https://tinyurl.com/y57ab2mn

Linkdump #64

A brief photo album of objects excavated from the bottom of Amsterdam’s Amstel River: https://tinyurl.com/y2cpest2

Takeoff and flight sequences of insects spanning 8 different taxonomic orders captured at 3,200 fps: https://tinyurl.com/yyuq5oce

A New York trash beach becomes radioactive: https://tinyurl.com/y6rjq8m4

If you enjoy window shopping for old houses, here’s a fun place to start: https://tinyurl.com/y6ppm4s2

Some fascinating sculptures by artist Wand Ruilin: https://tinyurl.com/y3ff66le

Locals call it The Hole. But few agree on where The Hole is located. Some say The Hole is in Howard Beach, others say it is in Spring Creek or Ozone Park, or maybe East New York or Lindenwood. Residents do agree on one thing – The Hole is famous. Mostly because of the bodies. Or maybe the horses: https://tinyurl.com/y4zmk3xd

“Beirut’s historic landmarks had already survived 15 years of civil war, and many of them had their iconic stained glass restored by one artist. Maya Husseini saw two decades of her work disappear in the aftermath of the massive blast at the port of Beirut which ravaged entire neighborhoods of the city. Now she is determined to restore it all over again“: https://tinyurl.com/yyevkw77

A little fable about Alexander the Great: https://tinyurl.com/yyt3gyn7

This is the first time I’ve seen an elephant with bangs (That’s a fringe, for you non-Americans), and I am SO loving it: https://tinyurl.com/y5mukoqh

If you’ve never seen the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, it’s pretty awesome, and part of the reason why is the Missoula floods that plowed through the area between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago, carving out massive amounts of basalt as they went: https://tinyurl.com/yyjtap2q

Originally drawn as a double page spread illustration to open an article about the amount of different indigenous languages in Australia, this map shows more than 380 tribes and dialects: https://tinyurl.com/y5jcu7mh

For no particular reason, here’s a big post about mathematicians who died under “unfortunate or unfitting circumstances”: https://tinyurl.com/pst7yaz

Most of us have seen columnar basalt, at least in photos if not in person, but it’s less often that we get to see a top view: https://tinyurl.com/y3bsnapc

A cool Instagram account where a family collects signs that are not a regular part of the American Sign Language vocabulary: https://tinyurl.com/y6hwc9s8

Kill some time with City Guesser, where you watch videos of various locations and try to guess where you are: https://tinyurl.com/y222lpsw

A rather enchanting bubble house for sale. I like the library and media room: https://tinyurl.com/yymeamlm

A 1000 oscillator mega drone. Oh yep it sounds just as horrifying as I thought it would: https://tinyurl.com/y5q7cmx8

Models off modelmakers making models: https://tinyurl.com/yxfxwxyw

Chrome Music Lab is a really fun way to spend some time: https://tinyurl.com/zkul8vd

Linkdump #63

The International Garden Photographer of the Year competition has announced its winners for the 2020 Macro Art photography contest. Partnering with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, IGPOTY offers multiple themed contests throughout the year. For the Macro Art contest, photographers captured minuscule moments of beauty in gardens around the world: https://tinyurl.com/y59e6ebl

And now for some Yiddisha Vaudeville: https://tinyurl.com/y2ujlf4l

Yesterday, Marvel announced ‘Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices #1’ written and drawn by Jeffrey Veregge and a number of Indigenous North American comic book creators: https://tinyurl.com/y5588l3u

Science answers the truly important questions in life: https://tinyurl.com/y4tf86zw

Me at 4am: “I can’t sleep”
Also me at 4am: “hehe crab bubble”: https://tinyurl.com/yy82jmyr

Can movement tell a story? Sure, if you’re as gifted as Akira Kurosawa. More than any other filmmaker, he had an innate understanding of movement and how to capture it onscreen: https://tinyurl.com/y2e9jugm

A lovely article (with pics) about Senegalese fashion designer Oumou Sy: https://tinyurl.com/y3hvk8cl

An invitation to explore an 800 (or so) year old church: https://tinyurl.com/y52at77k

The haunting glasswork of artist Christina Bothwell: https://tinyurl.com/y3yt3bzf

Strata Miniatures has created miniature Dungeons & Diversity heroes in wheelchairs. The goal is to create more inclusive miniatures for those playing their tabletop games: https://tinyurl.com/y3c7kdru

‘Stone Cut’ is a profile of the Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo, who, for 40 years, has made finishing Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia his life’s work: https://tinyurl.com/y4xze83y

I’m a bit miffed that I’m nearly 50 years old and somehow this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the “preen gland”: https://tinyurl.com/y2nfloha

Please enjoy baby orangutans in wheelbarrows: https://tinyurl.com/yyuamruo

The Black Music History Library is a living collection of books, articles, documentaries, series, podcasts and more about the Black origins of traditional and popular music dating from the 18th century to present day: https://tinyurl.com/y6smbspo

A database that keeps track of all the current COVID-19 outbreaks in U.S. K-12 schools: https://tinyurl.com/y6s2deyg

If you’ve seen that “Australian woman dive-bombed by magpie while riding her bike” video, someone’s improved on it (sound on): https://tinyurl.com/yxvoxgy8

A Redditor used the latest technology to enhance, stabilize, and color vintage footage of the earliest-born human to be caught on film: https://tinyurl.com/yxqskww6

How to make your own hologram chocolates at home: https://tinyurl.com/y3p3mr8o

Germany has found ways to display problematic monuments without elevating them: https://tinyurl.com/yyw3ng5x

Take a two month trip on an Antarctic icebreaker: https://tinyurl.com/y63pvbhj

Linkdump #62

In 1892, a young Black woman named Ida B. Wells armed herself with a pistol and toured the South to investigate and report on the extreme violence committed against Black people in Jim Crow’s America. She visited sites of extreme depravity, where Black citizens were lynched for little reason other than that they were Black. She recorded every lynching she came across and published it in a tome called “A Red Record”: https://tinyurl.com/y6y7je6r

Swedish artist and craftsman Love Hulten has created a beautiful tribute to musician Martin Molin and Wintergatan with ‘MMXS’, a miniature version of Molin’s incredible Marble Machine X: https://tinyurl.com/y2efspbh

So much glorious, sparkly, trippy goodness (check out the rest of their feed, too): https://tinyurl.com/y6qvodqz

For fans of brains, here’s a fairly long and detailed article about the human brain: https://tinyurl.com/y65aafx2

You know that one movie trailer where it’s like: https://tinyurl.com/y2gaar87

Tim Curry discusses the role of Frank N Furter during the making of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ in 1974 alongside some fascinating behind the scenes footage: https://tinyurl.com/y4sp7hxv

Oooooh, now you can make your own safety signs. So many glorious possibilities: https://tinyurl.com/y327fobz

In this podcast episode, Experimental Archaeologist Angelo Robledo talks about the atlatl, as well as early axes, Indigenous traditions of Central and South America, ancient graffiti, tales of field work, archeology heroes, what to do if you find artifacts on a hike, and the physics of how far you can lob ancient weaponry: https://tinyurl.com/y5p49q65

“When we think of China today, we think of a technological superpower. From Huawei and 5G to TikTok and viral social media, China is stride for stride with the United States in the world of computing. However, China’s technological renaissance almost didn’t happen. And for one very basic reason: The Chinese language, with its 70,000 plus characters, couldn’t fit on a keyboard. Today, we tell the story of Professor Wang Yongmin, a hard headed computer programmer who solved this puzzle and laid the foundation for the China we know today“: https://tinyurl.com/y2h9d9ak

An enterprising fellow was curious about how sea level changes would affect the coasts of England, and ended up creating several animations showing sea level changes on cities and coastlines around the world: https://tinyurl.com/y2wp77cr

Emperor penguins display rigorously geometric spacing and mathematical efficiency when they huddle together for warmth, which may reveal secrets to their overall health: https://tinyurl.com/yxujrvdo

The diaphanous light sculptures of Qui Minye: https://tinyurl.com/y3r32vmo

Some people say I’m creepy because I make art from animal skulls, but I’m pretty sure this guy has me beat (Warning – includes human body parts): https://tinyurl.com/y3jjh2c8

These kids are definitely going places (sound on): https://tinyurl.com/y62438af

So last night I dived into a rabbit hole of peacocks and related species, and discovered this delightfully enchanting creature. Like it’s just so weirdly charming and I’m not sure why: https://tinyurl.com/yxhnz895

Not gonna lie, they had me at “Horse eyeballs”: https://tinyurl.com/y3gpmcx2

Oakland’s original boogaloos speak out, in hopes of reclaiming their culture: https://tinyurl.com/y595p6ak

Psychedelic fishes from the world’s first natural history encyclopedia of marine creatures illustrated in color: https://tinyurl.com/y4tygt8p

Linkdump #61

A drone’s-eye view of the damage in Beirut: https://tinyurl.com/yxpvqvwv

A fun online kaleidoscope for those times when you’re super bored but too high to actually get up and find something to do: https://tinyurl.com/y3azfsmg

What the planets would look like from their closest moon: https://tinyurl.com/yyj92usn

Now this is the kind of quality content I expect from the internet (sound on): https://tinyurl.com/y5saerl7

This May marks 500 years since the Toxcatl massacre, in which Indigenous people were killed during a festival that took place in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City). Two competing histories of this event exist. In the Spanish telling, the conquistadors acted in self-defense, yet a very different narrative emerges in the Indigenous version: https://tinyurl.com/yy7ytmnt

New insights into where syphilis (and related diseases) may have originated: https://tinyurl.com/y4ca632b

The art of recycling — re-using waste materials to reduce consumption of fresh raw materials — may seem alien in a medieval context. Yet when it comes to writing, past peoples were often much more sparing than many of us today: https://tinyurl.com/yxw7nlsy

A wonderful gallery of high-definition NASA videos: https://tinyurl.com/z2rq677

Progress photos of an amazing weaving by Haida artist Evelyn Vanderhoop: https://tinyurl.com/yy2u9lqn

A gallery of album covers by the late, great illustrator Milton Glaser: https://tinyurl.com/y4qhawbc

The cheeky knitting of Cassie Arnold (Mildly NSFW): https://tinyurl.com/y6qpydw9

Apparently foam furniture makes me irrationally angry: https://tinyurl.com/y2de7xeu

So fierce! So deadly! (Sound on): https://tinyurl.com/y4wkuju9

How rockets work, circa 1958: https://tinyurl.com/y6lutbkr

Shark brain vs. dolphin brain: https://tinyurl.com/y4fh8pml

This enigmatic short film presents fifty Egyptian funerary portraits from the region of Fayum. Painted during Roman rule between 100 and 300 A.D., these striking, psychological works were executed in encaustic while their subjects were alive and later used to cover their faces after mummification: https://tinyurl.com/y6zxqb6d

A Twitter thread that lets you take a tour of cities of the past: https://tinyurl.com/y69xnfk7

‘Absence of Evidence’ is a collaborative photographic project between artists Henry/Bragg and a group of former street sex workers in Hull honoring 14 of their fellow workers who have died: https://tinyurl.com/yxc9egtw

“There was a girl who met up with a wolf, back in Distant Time, when wolves were human. The wolf wanted her for his wife, even though he had two wives already. When he took her home, his two wives smelled her and knew she was human. After a while she had a child – a boy – and the wolf decided to kill his other two wives”: https://tinyurl.com/yxke7mb6

This film clip shows US Army disposing of drums of metallic sodium into Lake Lenore, an alkaline lake in the Grand Coulee area of eastern Washington State, in 1947. The barrels were rolled off a cliff onto the frozen surface of the lake where they were machine-gunned to expose the sodium: https://tinyurl.com/yasn3vtf

Tech nerds finally invent the robot chameleon tongue that absolutely no one asked for: https://tinyurl.com/y34y5wfk

Behold the rusty magnificence: https://tinyurl.com/yyryv6ex

Winner of the Jury Prize in the 1981 Cannes Film Festival’s Short Films competition, Zea is an impressive and exhilarating piece of macro filmmaking. In a montage, close-ups capture a mysterious yellow subject as it heats and bubbles. But what is it?: https://tinyurl.com/yxet6q7u

(Image source: https://tinyurl.com/y3eln4b5)

Linkdump #60

The beautifully charred sculptures of Aron Demetz: https://tinyurl.com/y4ac57hp

Resurrecting the art of China’s dragon scale bookbinding: https://tinyurl.com/yyppgas7

Meet New Zealand’s official wizard: https://tinyurl.com/yxnc9jop

A video essay on the importance of exploding heads in film (Definitely NSFW for gory exploding heads): https://tinyurl.com/y3wszcmt

How about some authentic Byzantine meat meringue for dinner? Mmmmmmm: https://tinyurl.com/y4jokjec

Carnage, but make it dainty: https://tinyurl.com/yxfkvfhe

Last year, the Shropshire-based creator released “Bloomers,” a short film that chronicles the history of the Manchester-based lingerie company Ella and Me, which began production in the United Kingdom before moving abroad and back again: https://tinyurl.com/y6dz48vx

“Manner in Church” is a short and amusing instructional film by Radharc, an Irish production company that put out more than 400 shorts between 1961 and 1996: https://tinyurl.com/y6pxzhew

American problems require American solutions!: https://tinyurl.com/y2k8m4ea

How to choose the right pet bug for you. I used to have a pet praying mantis and honestly she was the coolest little friend ever: https://tinyurl.com/y3a6hlf8

If you’re a Hamlet fan, here’s a ranking of 40 Hamlets for your enjoyment (or annoyance): https://tinyurl.com/y2s7yowz

A mesmerizing solo start performance by Kayhan Kalhor: https://tinyurl.com/y4tv95t5

Welcome to the action-packed world of competitive lock picking: https://tinyurl.com/yxroaflf

And here’s a short video of the lock pickers in action: https://tinyurl.com/y34x26hg

Got a lot of free time on your hands? Paperdiorama has loads of cool paper models that you can download, print, and build: https://tinyurl.com/y5o5k6lv

I’ve been thinking about building my own sauna for years, but if someone wants to buy me one of these, that would be cool, too: https://tinyurl.com/wzpqlkx

“Flora, Fauna, Fire” is a scrollytelling account of the devastation caused by the Australian bushfires, an account which also draws attention to the 119 species which scientists say now face the possibility of extinction without urgent human intervention: https://tinyurl.com/y69uhuf5

A look back at all the wonderful “In Western Art History” posts from The Toast: https://tinyurl.com/y4db2nfc

That time when Salvador Dali met Alice Cooper: https://tinyurl.com/y4db2nfc

The Oakland Museum of California has made its digital archive of Dorothea Lange’s photography available to all: https://tinyurl.com/y6eo975f

Azam Ali and Niyaz perform a beautiful cover of Hildegard von Bingen’s “O Euchari”. I actually first heard of Niyaz and Hildegard von Bingen way back in the 90s when I was working at Borders Books & Music and we’d get free sample CDs that record companies would send to stores to promote upcoming albums: https://tinyurl.com/yys8gjv9

Linkdump #59

Ever seen a 30 foot tall sunflower?: https://tinyurl.com/y3ew8ddt

“Victoria’s Way was designed as a contemplative space to be used by individuals between about 28 to 60 years of age who feel the need to assess the quality and direction of their lives. It’s a sort of mid-life self-reassessment and self-reorientation pilgrimage”: https://tinyurl.com/y4v22ryd

If you’ve never heard the story of Johnny Highwaycone: https://tinyurl.com/y3pynd69

New York-based artist Hugh Hayden visualizes the ways African traditions are embedded into multiple facets of American culture through a series of cast-iron skillets: https://tinyurl.com/y2rgo9ao

Pages from ‘Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy’, printed in 1849: https://tinyurl.com/y4new76q

Apparently humans sniff much like bloodhounds do. Do with this information what you will: https://tinyurl.com/y2mh87k4

Some delightfully warped taxidermy: https://tinyurl.com/y67mr9lk

European nations have inflicted multiple genocides on the peoples of Africa. The Herero Genocide was just one of them: https://tinyurl.com/y3toej4j

A nice visual about how long it takes each planet to make one revolution around the sun: https://tinyurl.com/yxhnc7lx

Watch baby clownfish hatching: https://tinyurl.com/y5l2jsne

Explore the ancient Mongolian tradition of bloodletting: https://tinyurl.com/yyxhxezu

Between 1939 and 1941, the Works Progress Administration collaborated with the New York City Tax Department to collect photographs of every building in the five boroughs of New York City. In 2018, the NYC Municipal Archives completed the digitization and tagging of these photos: https://tinyurl.com/y29moqaj

Honey bear in zero gravity: https://tinyurl.com/y59txcwp

About three months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the first rumor clinic was created in Boston on March 1, 1942, under the leadership of Harvard Professors Gordon Allport and Robert Knapp and the Eastern Psychological Association: https://tinyurl.com/y472obn9

Teaching indigenous star stories: https://tinyurl.com/y5ofsowg

Nina Notman tells the overlooked story of historic African-American chemist Alice Ball who developed the first partially-effective treatment for leprosy: https://tinyurl.com/y3j2hmxh

Indigenous peoples have been practicing archaeology for generations: https://tinyurl.com/yy36mcu6

An art installation that demonstrates how dark matter bends light with gravity: https://tinyurl.com/y5tucmxe

While needles made from various substances have long been used around the world to embed images into skin, one lesser-known tattooing method is threading (also known as Skin Stitching), typically used by indigenous peoples of the Arctic: https://tinyurl.com/yygktxqk

Here’s a video of the threading/skin stitching process if you’re interested (It’s not gory): https://tinyurl.com/y3huvjko

The delightful work of Studio Drift: https://tinyurl.com/yy7xstwf

For some reason I find these old toy restoration videos really soothing: https://tinyurl.com/yxb8nt27

Learn about some of the wonderful plants to be found in Namibia’s Sperrgebiet National Park: https://tinyurl.com/y695tmfq

Linkdump #58

Scientists are now thinking that Crinoids may have rafted across the prehistoric oceans: https://tinyurl.com/y2gx9lkc

How old would you be if you lived on another planet?: https://tinyurl.com/hnn2ptk

An early version of 3D printing, courtesy of British Pathe: https://tinyurl.com/y5fnlyfx

The man who made San Francisco’s house numbers stand out: https://tinyurl.com/y3t4sffz

British operatic baritone Peter Brathwaite has created (so far) 76 tributes to historical depictions of Black people, inspired by the #gettychallenge: https://tinyurl.com/y2npnao5

A shot-for-shot remake of the final sequence of Kubrick’s opus magnum, within the confines of a Brooklyn apartment, starring and directed and etc by artist Lydia Cambron: https://tinyurl.com/y3pd2haa

“For over fifteen years, I’ve been snapping pictures of every cat I meet during my travels around the world. In December 2013, I realized I had more travel pictures of cats than ‘normal’ ones, and I figured it could be neat to put them all on a blog”: https://tinyurl.com/y6pl3foz

Photographer 5hens decided to make a photo remake of Stand By Me using American Girl dolls, and it actually kinda works: https://tinyurl.com/y6ezutey

A thousand years ago, huge pyramids and earthen mounds stood where East St. Louis sprawls today in Southern Illinois. This majestic urban architecture towered over the swampy Mississippi River floodplains, blotting out the region’s tiny villages. Beginning in the late 900s, word about the city spread throughout the Southeast. Thousands of people visited for feasts and rituals, lured by the promise of a new kind of civilization: https://tinyurl.com/y5kbjsl8

The story of the Eiffel Tower’s competitors: https://tinyurl.com/y3tbynkp

2,242 illustrations from James Sowerby’s compendium of knowledge about mineralogy in Great Britain and beyond, drawn between 1802–1817 and arranged by color: https://tinyurl.com/y5gl552q

Comparing the roman and Mongolian empires: https://tinyurl.com/y3ksldl6

If you need something for your brain to do, I found this website to be a lovely rabbit hole to dive into: https://tinyurl.com/6n3omw

Vintage Krampus claws: https://tinyurl.com/y4ufgncc

These were part of a huge lot of 1940s era photo booth photos that has since been dispersed into many different collections. No one knows who this woman is or why she’s tickling these soldiers under their chins while taking pictures: https://tinyurl.com/y44vp2th

How the Soviets managed to grow citrus in inhospitable places: https://tinyurl.com/y8drfsx2

Interned during WWI, circus entertainer Joseph Pilates used found materials and his fellow prisoners as his test lab, and imagined an exercise system that would captivate millions: https://tinyurl.com/s8zy8wv

Please enjoy this Trautnium performance by Oskar Sala: https://tinyurl.com/z3owqxe

Linkdump #57

The pouring of a cast iron fence looks like some kind of opening animation for a new LotR movie: https://tinyurl.com/yxwqpk9x

This guy does a wonderful cover of Billie Eilish’s “I Like it When You Get Mad” and I am totally here for it: https://tinyurl.com/yxb5285h

A nearly 5000 year old parching tray: https://tinyurl.com/yy2jeof5

I present to you: The Swedish Bog Cake: https://tinyurl.com/yydvb9fx

Meet the artist embroidering Belarus’ protests: https://tinyurl.com/y2ytpkcn

The embodiment of smooth: https://tinyurl.com/yx8kvgfm

The world’s last surviving Blockbuster is an Airbnb now: https://tinyurl.com/y3xv8ngv

in 2017 Dior copied the design of a traditional Romanian coat from the county of Bihor and sold it for 30,000 euro, giving no credit to the local artisans. In response, Romanian fashion magazine Beau Monde helped the community create their own brand, Bihor Couture, which sells the original coat, handmade to order, for 500 euro a piece: https://tinyurl.com/y5cgwh8m

If you haven’t heard yet, Portland, Oregon has its own official Protest Llama: https://tinyurl.com/yxmhrwyd

How to make your own world globe out of cardboard and popsicle sticks. A perfect activity for people stuck inside because of COVID, or because of teargas, or who are just avoiding other people in general: https://tinyurl.com/yxjn42q6

Since the song WAP, by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, is generating so much controversy these days, here’s a take from an actual gynecologist: https://tinyurl.com/y27x7yvw

“Livin’ the Dream” is a photography project that asks incarcerated people to visually express a dream they have about what they want to do with their lives when they get released: https://tinyurl.com/y6jqbtto

If you’re an Umbrella Academy fan, you’ll love this toe-tapping music video all about Klaus (Season 2 spoilers ahead): https://tinyurl.com/yxbjlmmh

The internet power of a dead leaf: https://tinyurl.com/yxqxe5r8

My dad used to have that Panasonic Rx 5500 Stereo. I’m betting he bought it used, though: https://tinyurl.com/y62x347q

“Irony” is a term that everyone uses and seems to understand. It is also a concept that is notoriously difficult to define: https://tinyurl.com/y2maqgkg

The Pittsburgh horn-based trio Big Blitz quite seamlessly incorporated the sound of a car alarm into a badass instrumental piece. This song was their humorous response to the “Car Alarm” challenge by Too Many Zooz: https://tinyurl.com/y65vo6nh

Linkdump #56

Seven months pregnant and apprehensive of the effect motherhood would have on her career as a professional freediver, Kimi Werner took a trip to the island of Jeju in South Korea to meet her heroes, the haenyeo – a group of freediving and fishing women often regarded as Korea’s first working mother’s whose culture dates back centuries: https://tinyurl.com/y7dw5ozt

An Instagram account dedicated to Soviet murals in Ukraine: https://tinyurl.com/y4ucnw92

Discover Historic Books is an interactive digital resource project put together during UK lockdown this year by the team behind the Unlocking The Archive, a collaboration between the University of East Anglia (UEA), the National Trust’s Blickling Estate property, and Norfolk Library and Information Service: https://tinyurl.com/y5vbstog

The Hijab Series, by photographer Boushra Almutawakel: https://tinyurl.com/y6hx8uxj

One man’s junk pile is another man’s super cool personal transport: https://tinyurl.com/y4oeedwb

Another lovely piece by coin carver Roman Booteen: https://tinyurl.com/y6rzl3kh

Carlos Museum Conservators Renée Stein and Kathryn Etre introduce the field of Art Conservation. Using examples from projects in the Parsons Conservation Laboratory, they describe the work of professional conservators, who are responsible for the documentation, research, preventive care, and treatment of cultural property: https://tinyurl.com/y6m6qfmf

A quick look at languages in the U.S.: https://tinyurl.com/y4lrm4ld

The 3D murals of artist 1010: https://tinyurl.com/y5juar3z

Another delightful beastie from Zhon Creations: https://tinyurl.com/y5ovzag8

A time-lapse of every nuclear explosion since 1945. I know this video has been out for several years, but there are still some folks out there who haven’t seen it yet: https://tinyurl.com/y6g5scol

For the past few years, tiny shops and restaurants have been appearing in the streets of various cities in Europe. First sighted in the Swedish city of Malmö, these installations have only one target audience: mice: https://tinyurl.com/y2mv5kxx

A periodic table of spectra: https://tinyurl.com/y5fq5ckt

Compiling more than 500 cards, a new book sequences an incredibly diverse array of metaphysical decks from medieval to modern times: https://tinyurl.com/y3n2mnfo

Undulation is the secret to flying while snake: https://tinyurl.com/yy28ue7z

The beautifully complex cakes of Malaysia: https://tinyurl.com/y594h7hl

Linkdump #55

Until the mid-twentieth century, it was common to see men in north and northeastern Thailand with their upper legs covered in dense tattoos. Today, however, the tradition has fallen by the wayside, and these tattoos remain only on an aging population of men between 80 and 110 years old: https://tinyurl.com/y25veelp

I would be terrified to do that job: https://tinyurl.com/y3h8t4mt

Falling Into The Sky: Disappearance, Aviation, and ‘The Twilight Zone’: https://tinyurl.com/y5t7laua

Colouring London is an open data project from University College London which is being used to collect statistical data on individual buildings in London. Using the Colouring London interactive map anyone can add information about individual buildings in London, including data on building age, the building’s original type (residential, commercial etc) and its current use: https://tinyurl.com/yxwv2xql

What the Martian surface looked like to Oppy – humanity’s most resilient rover: https://tinyurl.com/yxrj7csj

Hyperbolic Floors maps hundreds of floors across the world to tessellations in Hyperbolic space. The result is a novel way to look at floor tilings and their infinite nature: https://tinyurl.com/y6pgd695

The history of Baker-Miller Pink: https://tinyurl.com/yy9ymjtv

Miles Davis, who was born on May 26, 1926, was one of the most important and influential musicians of the 20th century, and changed the course of jazz music more times in his life than some people change their sheets. He was also pretty handy in the kitchen: https://tinyurl.com/yycux8ja

A Twitter thread about bedroom monsters in need of a home: https://tinyurl.com/yywps5ky

Restoration of London’s Crystal Palace Subway gets under way: https://tinyurl.com/y2eyf8au

How a sacred object from the Pueblo of Acoma turned up at a Paris auction house, and how the tribe fought for its return: https://tinyurl.com/y3nscw3b

A cool time-lapse of worms breaking down organics in a compost bin: https://tinyurl.com/yyyw8zlv

“In 1996, Knowledge Adventure and Dreamworks published Steven Spielberg’s Director’s Chair, an ambitious game simulating the process of moviemaking. The centerpiece of the title was a short film with an all star cast directed by Steven Spielberg himself. Since the player could take some crucial decisions in the pre-production phase, the film was shot with different plot points and tonal variants. We salvaged the game’s raw footage and reorganized it as a real time interactive movie experience. Be prepared to choose your own path through this obscure bit of film and video game history“: https://tinyurl.com/y5saqzoy

I first heard this song when I was at summer camp, sometime in the early 80s: https://tinyurl.com/y5f3meab

Take a little tour through the online CIA Museum collection: https://tinyurl.com/9xm8rda

The wonderful mashup art and fashion of Yinka Shonibare: https://tinyurl.com/yyjcwcfl

Enjoy Funkytown in 15 different styles (I kinda like the Klezmer version): https://tinyurl.com/y3j6hwy2

Constructing 3D scenes from multiple still photos: https://tinyurl.com/y3cl5d6k

Linkdump #54

An artist who specializes in delightfully ugly portraits: https://tinyurl.com/y6q6b4m5

Dingoes have gotten bigger over the last 80 years, and pesticides might be to blame: https://tinyurl.com/y2e58h9p

The frog is like a sculpture of my true soul: https://tinyurl.com/y44doeot

Some badass 15th -17th Century Mongolian boots: https://tinyurl.com/y53bmrcx

An interesting animated look at the security features on a U.S. $100 bill: https://tinyurl.com/y4u526t4

The wonderful and bizarre paintings of Jack Yerka: https://tinyurl.com/y4hvy49e

It’s wise to do a bit of research before using a foreign word as your business/product name: https://tinyurl.com/y65hdfny

They can pry my microwaved tea from my cold, dead, barbarian hands: https://tinyurl.com/y2lhf7d5

The heliosphere is a sort of bubble of solar wind that protects our solar system from interstellar radiation. Until recently, it was thought that the heliosphere was probably shaped like the outline of a comet: https://tinyurl.com/y3q6ygee

That time when a Pepsi marketing stunt led to disaster in the Philippines: https://tinyurl.com/y66g7tc4

One of the less-famous bog mummies was a young boy found in Lower Saxony: https://tinyurl.com/y2rm7vtq

One of the many wonders of life in the north: Mosquito tornadoes: https://tinyurl.com/y5lselh6

Fluorescence is typically associated with gases or liquids, but a team of chemists has conjured a new formula that gives solid materials that characteristic fluorescent glow: https://tinyurl.com/y3pskuoe

Possibly the creepiest robot dog yet invented: https://tinyurl.com/y5yuk3xl

Please, uh, enjoy this rousing performance of “I Ain’t Gonna Pee Pee My Bed Tonight”. No I am not kidding: https://tinyurl.com/ltqjhxm

Which demographic tends to suffer the highest number of fireworks injuries? The answer will (totally not) shock you!: https://tinyurl.com/yxpbzklh

For those who are into gross medical stuff: Actinomycosis is a potentially devastating bacterial infection that can cause severe tissue and bone damage, as you can see in this boar skull from the Hunterian Museum collection: https://tinyurl.com/yyqvylbl

Nicolas Bras loves creating new homemade musical instruments, and some of them are pretty darned cool: https://tinyurl.com/yx9ps3hu

Using an ensemble of neural networks, YouTuber Denis Shiryaev upscaled the oldest recorded video: Louis Le Prince’s “Roundhay Garden Scene”, which was shot in October of 1888: https://tinyurl.com/yxfq7vmb

Linkdump #53

A healing potion in The Iliad & The Odyssey, and a drink to commune with the gods in secret Greek Mysteries, Kykeon has a fascinating history: https://tinyurl.com/y33mamtn

Pretty much what it looks like when I try to walk in heels: https://tinyurl.com/y29rc5eb

Since today is the 75th anniversary of America’s bombing of Hiroshima, here’s study of the impact glass formed by the detonation: https://tinyurl.com/y2unasro

It’s something of an open secret in archaeological circles that artifacts dug up today from the bogs of northern Europe aren’t as well preserved as those recovered decades ago, and researchers have suspected that objects buried underground are deteriorating faster than in the past. But until now no one has documented this in a systematic, quantitative way: https://tinyurl.com/y26k8psn

A delightful recipe for lovers of bread and eggs: https://tinyurl.com/y56yccln

If you’ve never watched Persepolis, it’s available for free online. Persepolis is the poignant story of a young girl as she comes of age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It was written and directed by Satrapi in collaboration with Vincent Paronnaud: https://tinyurl.com/y2w7z3sm

The Voice of Hagia Sophia is a documentary by Duygu Eruçman that explores the reverberant soundscape of 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia: https://tinyurl.com/y6hfoqf9

Explore the ruins of Timgad, an ancient Roman city in Algeria: https://tinyurl.com/y5smtv8l

A brilliant hip replacement surgery performed entirely with Play-Doh: https://tinyurl.com/y3dm45yx

An article about how simply paying attention to different cultures’ understanding of color proves linguistic relativity wrong: https://tinyurl.com/p2bfll2

An Inuit man records beluga song in realtime: https://tinyurl.com/yy6rtswl

Eye-boggling digital manipulations by photographer Cassio Vasconcellos: https://tinyurl.com/y4olvngp

Wholesome trail cam pic: https://tinyurl.com/y43p9ob4

An illustrated police equipment catalog from 1891: https://tinyurl.com/y3k6ey7t

Born out of his passion for history, Drew recreates portraits of some of the world’s most famous historical figures featuring their direct descendants. After in-depth research tracing the direct descendants and verifying their lineage, the famous portraits are recreated with painstaking attention to the smallest of details: https://tinyurl.com/y2rmmdpy

Pluto’s dark side spills its secrets – including hints of a hidden ocean: https://tinyurl.com/y6lseana

This is how you get to Þrídrangaviti lighthouse: https://tinyurl.com/yxq5opxw

A shoe belonging to the Dinton Hermit: https://tinyurl.com/y4uywaap

A lovely automata from artist: Maurice Montero: https://tinyurl.com/y2gfr8nl

Behold the delightful creepiness of the Lobster Moth caterpillar: https://tinyurl.com/nz48rqx

Linkdump #52

A gallery of the submissions for the new Mississippi flag design: https://tinyurl.com/y6xbrfab

The latest details on the upcoming Studio Ghibli theme park: https://tinyurl.com/y6znye8a

Soooooo apparently there’s a beetle species that can get eaten by a frog and then march through the frog’s digestive tract and escape out of its butt: https://tinyurl.com/y4qnlszo

Now THAT’S a bagpipe!: https://tinyurl.com/y5fq7men

This is pretty big deal: The New Horizons spacecraft just helped create the first stereoscopic image of a star’s location in space: https://tinyurl.com/yy2yjbug

An absolutely lovely hand-stitched leather facehugger mask: https://tinyurl.com/yxemjvbf

How to poo like the shrew do: https://tinyurl.com/yxwc5hvf

Kharkovchanka are Antarctic cruisers which have been continuously operating in some of the most extreme environments on Earth for over 50 years. The Manufacture 404S model was made circa 1957–1958 and had a small kitchen, toilet, oven and eight beds for the crew: https://tinyurl.com/y4lhf7wg

I’ve seen several double deckers at various festivals and events, but this is by far the cleanest and shiniest: https://tinyurl.com/y2bx7chv

If you’re one of those weirdos who actually like those circus peanut candy things, boy do I have a treat for you: https://tinyurl.com/y2ta42cl

If weird animal anatomy is your thing, please enjoy these penguin tongues: https://tinyurl.com/y2vbak7v

It turns out that cancer is at least as old as the dinosaurs: https://tinyurl.com/y4oswgv9

On July 23, 1926, one of the most famous actors in the world stood nervously by a river in rural Oregon, ready to shoot a scene that could change the course of his career: https://tinyurl.com/y6shsp62

This mural is gorgeous (Wait a few seconds for the main part to be revealed): https://tinyurl.com/y5lm6l5w

Is your current pizza cutter just not “Wandering medieval barbarian” enough? Well Harlan has just what you need: https://tinyurl.com/yxw7olza

An in-depth analysis of LEGO interface panels: https://tinyurl.com/y59ehfkw

Europe’s most fortified border is actually in Africa. I’m a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t heard of this place before: https://tinyurl.com/y25mzwll

From 2018, a bit of info about an impact crater discovered under the Greenland ice sheet: https://tinyurl.com/y3b9r8j3

-sad trombone-: https://tinyurl.com/y2n9d95j

A lovely animated short about the natural world and a single moth being born into it: https://tinyurl.com/yyyxp9pj

An expert on mapping ancient landscapes explains why Big Oil is his biggest customer, among other things: https://tinyurl.com/y4ltn5s2

Linkdump #51

Starting in early 2019, 20 towns across Italy began selling homes for €1, or about $1.10. Local governments hope the plan will attract fresh faces and new businesses to towns that have been suffering from rapid depopulation and a growing number of abandoned homes for decades: https://tinyurl.com/y5m2wvlv

The York Museum Trust presents an online display of all the objects that have killed Sean Bean in movies: https://tinyurl.com/yxt7c5ed

Performance art (Slightly NSFW): https://tinyurl.com/y4w8m554

Each month, Islington Folk Club here in North London eases the boredom of lockdown by holding a competition called Trad2Mad, inviting its members and friends to post YouTube performances of themselves singing, unaccompanied, a traditional folk song, a modern pop song you might never have expected to hear in that style, or any other damn thing they feel like contributing. A shortlist is then produced, votes gathered, and a winner selected: https://tinyurl.com/y3p5uk3q

Simon Menner writes a brief post about the castles and forts that dot the Syrian landscape: https://tinyurl.com/yxmlogtw

An owl enjoys some pampering: https://tinyurl.com/y336xasu

Take a 360 degree tour inside the Great Pyramid of Giza: https://tinyurl.com/y527quqg

So about that “Humans only use 10% of their brain” thing: https://tinyurl.com/yyedo4ow

New insights into the human cerebellum: https://tinyurl.com/yxh4jqmo

One man decides to document every weird, wonderful, and hideous hotel carpet he sees on his travels: https://tinyurl.com/y63mt23f

A Tunisian man has pieced together bits of a local secret linked to ancient emperors: how to make a prized purple dye using the guts of a sea snail: https://tinyurl.com/y4z4n8z5

New highway construction threatens Cairo’s historic City of the Dead: https://tinyurl.com/y4t967ru

Daniel Voshart uses neural net tool Artbreeder to reconstruct the faces of Roman emperors: https://tinyurl.com/y5p7pom4

Pulque, tepache and other drinks of pre-Hispanic origin that are still taken in Mexico: https://tinyurl.com/y5xqd8cg

Dimensions.com is an ongoing reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world: https://tinyurl.com/y67ewvbb

How to make a paper bat: https://tinyurl.com/y3xyx84w

Enjoy the trailer for the upcoming film about the creation of Ren & Stimpy: https://tinyurl.com/y4canv9n

So, uh, mustard beer is a thing: https://tinyurl.com/y6o3h62m

An e-bike design that’s meant to blend into urban landscapes. Ehhhhhhhh: https://tinyurl.com/y3932p6w

If you’ve ever wondered why the docking adapters on the Space Station look weird (I don’t even know what “normal” docking adapters are supposed look like, TBH): https://tinyurl.com/y4f2jx62

Linkdump #50

Certain salamanders can regrow lost body parts. How do they do it? And could people someday do the same?: https://tinyurl.com/y2oppdqt

Flowers in ice are strangely beautiful: https://tinyurl.com/y3fbs6vz

I was today years old when I learned that Emojipedia exists: https://tinyurl.com/y5unx2r2

You’ll be happy to know that stinky fish ice cream is finally here: https://tinyurl.com/y4ffne9x

The Holy Cross frog is both gorgeous and endangered: https://tinyurl.com/y3s3oxmw

In the Over the Shoulder series, London-based, French-Lebanese artist Joumana Medlej gives us glimpses into the exquisitely detailed process for “The Book of the Moon” and “Reverence for the Land” which “used pigments extracted from stones I picked up in Epping Forest and in Mount Lebanon so that it brings together the two lands I call home.”: https://tinyurl.com/y6awqh2j

How to build a Pop Pop Boat: https://tinyurl.com/dhllt

A video comparing the sizes of the world’s tallest statues: https://tinyurl.com/y2yyczdy

Dan Schaub’s intricate layered lasercut sculptures: https://tinyurl.com/yxgt6xja

Three decades ago, the punk rockers, hardcore kids and metalheads of New York City relied on the operators of one answering machine to find out where bands were playing. This is the story of 212-OPEC-SID: https://tinyurl.com/y5fhq9rd

Explore the worlds that live on the bodies of loggerhead turtles: https://tinyurl.com/y2y4u8u5

The story of a celebrated graphic designer who wasn’t what he appeared to be: https://tinyurl.com/y5camu8p

Beneath the frozen wastes of the Arctic, a three-way geopolitical tug-of-war is taking place over which country owns a ridge of undersea mountains. The winner will change maps forever: https://tinyurl.com/yxh2c8oh

This website lets you write a letter to your future self: https://tinyurl.com/p2f5fr8

Reconstructing journalistic scenes in 3D (Probably best viewed on a desktop, laptop, or pad): https://tinyurl.com/yy7x3whk

Pick a year from your past (1951-2015) and The Nostalgia Machine will warp you back musically and link you to videos of the top Billboard Hits of that time: https://tinyurl.com/y59gs6tj

The happiest hedgehog you will ever see: https://tinyurl.com/yxp3knlk

American Civil War-era vaccine kits help modern scientists in the battle against disease: https://tinyurl.com/y4ke9dxk

Apparently there’s a Lost Boys prequel in the works. I’m not sure how I feel about that: https://tinyurl.com/ycfr9vtl

Gorgeous handcrafted door handles (They’re sold out right now but apparently they’ll have more on August 10th): https://tinyurl.com/yyr6u42a

The nature-inspired sculptures of artist Alice Ballard (check out the other series under the “My Work” tab): https://tinyurl.com/y6dhqelf