imagine a man of my stature being given away as a prize

Though semi-retired from the programme since 2014 and leaving a legacy that goes beyond the some two-thousand answering-machine and voicemail greetings recorded (I wonder what kind of exclusive club those lucky recipients have formed, the format only recently changed to expand to give winners the choice of any of the panelists’ or hosts’ voices), the passing of veteran National Public Radio reporter, anchor and score-keeper emeritus Carl Kasell is hard to reconcile, as he’s been a familiar voice that’s accompanied us for a long time.
Beginning as a news announcer for the weekend edition of All Thing’s Considered in 1975, Kasell hosted Morning Edition since its inception in 1979 until 2009. For nearly a decade, there was overlap for the radio personality as news presenter and his role as judge and arbiter on the weekly news quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!—a move which some might question given Kasell’s newscaster’s bearing and the comedic playfulness of the show but his deadpan humour not only worked but was sustaining for the long-running show, entering its third decade this year. Thanks for delivering developments of events great and small and thanks for all the laughs. Rest in peace, Mr Kasell.

still-life with roquefort

6x6

the long way home: in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbour, an American seaplane in New Zealand had to find an alternative route across the Pacific

a map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth even glancing at: a trailer for the documentary trailer for the Minnesota Experimental City (previously) and its founder Athelstan Spilhaus

transiting exoplanet survey satellite: a nice primer on NASA’s TESS mission that’s expected to sweep the skies for potentially planets

il fuori salone: highlights from Milan Design Week

funkloch: in contravention of the Rural Call Completion Task Force, a telecom provider is being punished for phantom ring tones

if you don’t love me at my worst: this 1921 comic strip foreshadows those expectation versus reality memes pretty spot-on

ordinance survey

Our thanks to the Londonist for introducing us to an rather stunning and absorbing project called Britain from Above that drew on the extensive archives of the Aerofilms Collection to present to the public and elicit feedback (2010-2014) nearly one hundred thousand aerial photographs and films from between 1919 to 1953.
The varied collection includes urban, industrial and rural scenery and was begun when two veteran flying aces from World War I were granted a charter to launch the first comprehensive land survey by air. Aerofilms also pioneered the discipline known as photogrammetry—the term for producing maps from aerial photography. These vintage images are not only visually captivating but also provide important insights for understanding growth and development and management, conservation of both built and natural environments.

pet project or message in a bottle

Via Slashdot, we learn that building on the 2016 discovery of a strain of bacteria in a dump in Japan that ate plastic, a group of researchers at the University of Portsmouth accidentally prodded the catalyst that allows the bacteria to breakdown and metabolise PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic into overdrive.
Curious to understand the evolutionary mechanism that selected for such appetites in the first place, scientists altered the enzyme inadvertently whilst taking it apart. Though further trials are needed, researchers are confident that the process is scalable and could be a tool (this is a big problem whose solutions take a concerted effort and shifts in behaviours, as well) in combating the problem of plastic waste in the oceans.

view of the world from ninth avenue

The always inspiring Nag on the Lake, through the lens of a special textile exhibit hosted at the visitor’s centre of a historic mill located between Glasgow and Edinburgh helps us to place a name and personality to a diverse portfolio of work by an artist arguably best known for his political cartoons, Saul Steinberg. Though commercial work was not his favourite engagement, Steinberg looked as if he took no mean measure of joy in creating textiles and pattern-work, his ornate design The Wedding pictured, and in the 1950s, being able to cotton onto any medium was definitely to the artist’s advantage.
As a young man in Romania, his caricatures documented and lampooned the rise of fascism under conditions made it intolerable and he fled across the Atlantic and was granted asylum by the Dominican Republic in 1941. While he waited for his immigration application to the United States to be approved, Steinberg carried on a lively correspondence in cartoons with The New Yorker (previously), and this epistolary relationship informed a career that lasted for nearly six decades.