As part of a series exploring the elasticity of the human brain, not just reserved for growing-minds, the Big Think revisits a discovery from last year concerning not just cat-people but also the larger possibility that as host to a toxoplasm taking up residence in the brain (accidentally since here it is shielded from the bluntest affronts of the immune system) that is bred exclusively in feline guts.
Monday 6 May 2013
madcap or photos of kittehs
t-6
Though the Silver Lady will be able to conquer the upcoming Alpine terrain smoothly and I don’t imagine that this configuration would really reduce our footprint at campsites (though probably no one would ever tell us there’s no more space—not that we’ve ever really been turned away since there’s always room for a little Bully), this delightful Lego construction by Craig Callum, which really walks, is a pretty cool idea, nonetheless. I love all the little details, the classic pop-top and the Imperial logo on the grill. I’m not sure, however, how I’d feel about having to repel down every time I had to use the restroom.
catagories: ๐️, Star Wars, transportation, travel
Sunday 5 May 2013
apfelsinn or yes, we have no bananas
Several weeks ago, the excellent retro-repository and all-around Wunderkammer, Collectors’ Weekly featured an engrossing article on the seemingly accidentally romancing of the mango, elevating the exotic fruit for the people of 1968 China to a cult-like reverence.
The rather bizarre adoration of a piece of fruit reminded me of the relation, sometimes contrived and sometimes meant in a derogatory way, of the banana and East Germany.
The symbolism is not parallel but the banana was likewise an ideological hot-potato, representing by turns the excess of the West, the closed markets of the East and the ungood of such aspirations and appetites.
I did not experience all the subtleties of the days of scarcity and plenty myself and don’t know what politics and shrewd trades were going on behind the scenes of real and stereotypical jonesing for not fresh-produce, but rather bananas in particular (going on for decades, untold, though starting around the same time, and not just a passing fad), creators black-markets, et also by party elite and an enduring symbol of divides still being bridged.
catagories: ๐จ๐ณ, ๐ฉ๐ช, 1968, food and drink, foreign policy
Thursday 2 May 2013
hamster dance
Maybe this curation, including the earliest software and hardware and a retrospective study on the nature of legacy itself, will help the intent, of open dialogue and no claims of ownership on the medium (not something jealously guarded by an antiquated studio system and stubborn mandates) and aspirations to change society in positive ways not yet realised but maybe already anticipated, also to avoid lapsing and being taken for granted.
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐, networking and blogging, revolution
Wednesday 1 May 2013
paperback writer or a book by its cover
axis mundi or you got to pick up every stitch
I won’t say that May Day (der Tag der Arbeit) is a subdued affair beyond the land of the Franks by any means (there are quite a lot of protest rallies and demonstrations happening—which I was curious to see but I don’t think I should go looking for trouble today), but I did not appreciate the clear demarcations of customs and traditions and the holiday rather snuck up on me, without the Maypoles (Maibรคume) being set up.
It makes some sense, however, jenseits (this side) of the Limes—the limits of the Roman Empire and thus the civilised world, that conquests would have tamped out some heathen celebrations. The follow-on missions of Christianity did not attempt to totally quash but rather integrate and co-opt such behaviour. No one really knows the origin of the beams, temporary totem-poles, regaled and danced around, but some theorise that the tree represents the axis on which the world turns or the cosmological Yggdrasil that connects the nine worlds of Norse mythology. The bit about the ruckus of the night before, Walpurgis, might be a religious conceit, saying that witches gather to dance with their gods or commune with the devil—although it must have always been observed in some manner and with meaning (though now lost) as a cross-quarter day, exactly half a year on towards the harvest festival of Samhain (Halloween). Superstition holds that one will meet a witch on May Day, which old witch and probably why it is a good idea not to go looking for trouble since it knows where to find you.