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Rendezvous

1 minute read Published:

“Rendezvous” was the name used for the annual meeting of mountain men and fur buyers during the Western fur trade era, where trappers would exchange beaver skins for supplies and goods they wanted. These events occurred between the early 1820s and the 1840s, coming to an end when the price of beaver skins fell due to changes in fashion. It is now used for any gathering in the buckskinning historical re-enactment hobby

Walt Disney: Tinkering

1 minute read Published:

Announcing that he was going to launch an animated feature, he told the story of Snow White, not just telling it but acting it out, assuming the characters’ mannerisms, putting on their voices, letting his audience visualise exactly what they would be seeing on the screen. He became Snow White and the wicked queen and the prince and each of the dwarfs . . . The performance took over three hours .

Tim Knowles - Postal Works - Spy Box

1 minute read Published:

A digital camera inside a parcel looks out through a small hole and captures images of its journey through the postal system.

Ridley Scott Has Finally Created the Blade Runner He Always Imagined

1 minute read Published:

The director's cut removed the voice-over and that silly ending and put in the unicorn daydream, but the disc didn't look that great. And it should look great, because Blade Runner at the time was pretty formidable — it's pretty formidable even now, actually. A lot of people don't notice whether they're watching something beautifully technical or not, but it's important to me. So that always got in the way of the director's cut being the final version.

Personal unit tests

1 minute read Published:

The way I see it, there are certain things I ought to be doing to be productive and effective no matter what my goals are. These are things that are relatively easy to set up, but take discipline and awareness to maintain. I really think that if I focus on maintaining these habits or processes, then the goals will take care of themselves. Basically, I’ve made a list of personal unit tests: assertions about myself that I’d like to be true.

Olafur Eliasson: Thinking Glacially, Acting Artfully

1 minute read Published:

Mr. Eliasson, a former Scandinavian break-dancing champion, is no stranger to situations involving physical challenge or public spectacle. But the performances behind his photography trips are of a more intimate, meditative nature. Arranged in a grid, the photographs recall the repetitive images of the German photographers Berndt and Hilla Becher, or even Donald Judd’s stacked boxes. Mr. Eliasson said he was less interested in eliminating individuality than in suggesting a wall with windows.

Play Hnefatafl Online: The Viking Board Game

1 minute read Published:

Play hnefatafl online (ancient viking board game)

Hot-Mapping the UK, or: Spy Planes Over Haringey

1 minute read Published:

Earlier this year it was reported that the London borough of Haringey had used a spy plane to record residents’ energy use patterns: Thermal images of homes have been taken by a light aircraft fitted with military spy technology to record the heat escaping from people’s houses.

CrunchFood

1 minute read Published:

CrunchFood, a TechCrunch food parody

The Father of Molecular Gastronomy Whips Up a New Formula

1 minute read Published:

In 2001, [Hervé] This came up with a formal system of classification for what happens when foods are mixed, baked, whipped, fried, sautéed in lime juice, and so forth. It shows, for example, how the 451 classical French sauces break down into 23 distinct types. More important, the system allows the creation and pairing of billions of novel, potentially tasty dishes.

The Sheep Market

1 minute read Published:

Aaron Koblin: The Sheep Market is a collection of 10,000 sheep created by workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Each worker was paid $.02 (US) to “draw a sheep facing left.”