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bouquet: floral masterpieces recreated with living flowers

plenary session: climate activist Greta Thunberg delivers a powerful message to those gathered at Katowice

coming attractions: a mashup of all the biggest movie trailers of 2018

the notorious rbg: supreme court justice is amazingly resilient

rebel scum: gorgeous, retro Star Wars style propaganda posters

hot neptune: researchers locate an exoplanet that’s slowly being evaporated by its host star—via Slashdot

patchwork pojagi: the beautiful kimonos and accessories of South Korean textile artist and educator Chunghie Lee

please enjoy responsibly: funny suggestion for a Christmas time drinking game

smart compose

Whilst most of the deserved animosity towards technology comes in the flavour of resent towards the busy work it’s created at the margins and the sine cure, meaningless jobs it’s responsible for, the opposing category of directed vitriol is even more fraught, I suppose: that technology is too uncannily clever and works too well, as Atlantic contributor Derek Thompson expounds on predictive powers pervading more and more of our routines. What do you think? Though a lot of automation is meant to spare us from the tedium that’s in part technology’s own creation, so much hinges on anticipation and serving us back our own patterns and preferences.

suomen kuningaskunta

Declaring and securing its independence on 6 December 1917 as it succeeded from the Russia Empire embroiled in revolution and civil war, Finland had originally proclaimed itself republic but the intervention of monarchists elements and Germany—despite being occupied with World War I itself—who thought the newly minted nation should be a protectorate, a client state, as it did with other territories formerly part of Russian Empire by plying them with surplus royalty, Finland was for a short time a constitutional monarchy.
On 9 October of 1918, Prince Friedrich Karl von Hessen (*1868 - †1940) Landgrave and brother-in-law to the soon to abdicate Wilhelm II was voted by Finnish parliament to the throne. In light of the dissolution of other royal houses with the cessation of fighting, the king-elect judged the situation untenable and Friedrich declined his commission on this day just over two months later—having never set foot in his kingdom much less establishing his court. This decision led to democratic reforms and the re-establishment of a republic by the following summer.

piciformes

While it’s always advisable to fact-check and confirm for yourself, I think it’s rather delightful that when one solicits for weird trivia, the internet rarely fails to deliver.
Our absolute favourite new fact that we can vouch for—perfect for small talk at the office for as an icebreaker or ellipsis during lulls in conversation at holiday family gatherings—is regarding the anatomy of woodpeckers. The birds have quite long, sticky tongues not only for probing and slurping up insects and sap from bored holes but are wound around the skull through a specially evolved cavity to act as a cushion to protect the bird’s brain from the repeated, traumatic impact of pecking wood.