5x5

it’s the blue meanies: Beatles’ LEGO Yellow Submarine with minifigs

net-zero: a fleet of hydrogen-fuelled passenger trains enter into service in Germany

you have died of dysentery: blistering look at voter suppression as told with an Oregon Trail style exposition

oooga chaka: music video director Jonas Åckerlund looks back at some of the catchiest and most influential Swedish songs from the past four decades

story-boarding: tiny film sets as movie posters

wear and tear

Amazingly, material scientists working in the laboratories of University of California’s San Diego campus are developing fabrics and casings (and even circuit-boards) that can repair themselves using an ink like compound infused with magnetic particles that can be directed to a rip or crack and instantly cauterise the wound at first signs of disintegration. This self-healing function is a lot like our own pliable, living skin and may make some significant inroads into our culture of over-packaging (if our stuff was more resilient, maybe handling wouldn’t be of such importance) and disposable outlook on things. What if you had socks that darned themselves? I think that would in itself be a motivation to mend and rehabilitate things not yet imbued with the ability to patch themselves up.

sweater weather

The fabulous Messy Nessy Chic invites us to peruse the pages of a gem of car-boot sale find in the big book of British knitting patterns called “Wit Knits,” published in 1986. These ugly sweater connoisseurs, including Joanne Lumley (aka, Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous), haven’t even a touch of irony in their enthusiastic modelling.  Be sure to check out the entire rogues gallery (which might even inspire a crafty project) at the link up top.

rendition

When the German government failed to respond to the extradition demands of Turkey to turn over some four thousand suspected dissenters and dissidents who were party to the failed coup attempt thought to reside in Germany, the Turkish government accused Germany of harbouring terrorist elements, which will boomerang back and destroy Germany. The tense exchange comes right after a series of purges and censorship of the press. It is unclear which persons of interest Turkey is hoping to be offered up or whether radicals are of the established variety (Berlin said to antagonise Ankara over its tolerance for the Kurdish minority) or if they recently fled the country. There was not a rush of political asylum-seekers but many lawyers who suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the coup did seek sanctuary in Germany.