This scene makes events in the British parliament seem somewhat sedate in comparison, with Ukrainian deputies scuffling in the Kiev chamber. What were they fighting about? The basics of language policy, reportedly Photograph: Reuters
Posts tagged news.
Once again the awesome power of nature goes and produces something that looks like it couldn’t possibly be real. Last time it was the Jewel Caterpillar. Now we have the prettiest ear of corn we’ve ever seen.
This is the aptly named Glass Gem Corn. The photos are from Seeds Trust (“a 25 year-old family seed company dedicated to teaching you to save your own seeds, grow a delicious home garden and create stunning native landscapes”) who shared the following background story about this stunning vegetable:
“Seedsman Greg Schoen got the seed from Carl Barnes, a part-Cherokee man, now in his 80’s, in Oklahoma. He was Greg’s “corn-teacher”. Greg was in the process of moving last year and wanted someone else to store and protect some of his seeds. He left samples of several corn varieties, including glass gem. I grew out a small handful this past summer just to see.The rest, as they say is history. I got so excited, I posted a picture on Facebook. We have never seen anything like this. Unfortunately, we did not grow out enough to sell. Look for a small amount for sale starting in August 2011.”Of course now we can’t help but wonder if it tastes as good as it looks.
[via TYWKIWDBI and Farming and Agriculture]
“Seems like IKEA are really shaking things up this year. In addition to the previously announced TV set, they’re also going to release a digital camera made of cardboard called Knäppa (“Snap”). It’ll hold 40 photographs at a time and plugs directly into your USB port. While it’s not the prettiest camera the world has ever seen, I do love the idea of a screen-less digital camera that brings people back to the wait-and-see days of film.” - ckck
Do want.
(via nocontxt)
3D Printed Chairs Made From Recycled E-Waste
Interesting project that combines ecology, design, and robotics. Electronic waste gets grounded into a paste which is used as the material to construct a chair by a robotic arm. From Inhabitat:
Dirk Vander Kooij is set to unveil a new line of “Endless” furniture made from recycled e-waste at “The Future in the Making”, an exhibition organised by Domus that will take place during Milan Design Week 2012 …
… The Endless robot uses ground-up plastic from old refrigerators and squeezes it in a continuous thread, layer by layer, to form pieces of furniture. This kind of low-resolution 3D printing can produce a chair in just 3 hours. The technology also enables the designer to modify a model after a piece of furniture is produced – a bonus that the traditional injection moulding process doesn’t offer. The machine can be programmed to build furniture of any shape and size.
Here is a video of the whole process in action - highly recommended
More information can be found at Inhabitat here
MOVIES IN REVIEW: JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI
At the beginning of this little documentary, Jiro, the ancient sushi maker who is its subject says something that when I thought back upon it, just stopped me dead in my tracks thinking about how many millions of miles away modern culture has come from this concept. He says, I’m paraphrasing from my memory, that life is about loving what you do for work and getting better and better at it, and becoming truly skilled at what you do and always improving is the key to living an honorable life.
There pretty much is not a single word of the above statement that guides any part of American culture today. The idea that work is about doing something you love and improving yourself at it, rather than extracting the maximum possible lucre from society. The idea that being skilled at what you do and improving yourself has any value other than its commercial value…that we can be judged by how skilled we are at our craft rather than how high up the ladder we’ve climbed…that we all have room to constantly improve and are not just born special and gifted and entitled to have Michelin stars or fancy bylines rained down on us…the idea that “honor” is a thing…Not to get even more maudlin about it, but this is a blog about the end of civilization. Nothing in his statement above would have been remotely controversial even 25 years ago. Now not one word in his statement above is remotely an operating principle of our society.
Anyway, besides that, Jiro is a really beautiful little documentary about a man who has spent his life running a little sushi counter in a train station in Tokyo doing the same very small number of limited tasks and becoming the best in the world at each of them. I don’t know if there’s any craft in the world as precise and ephemeral as sushi making and if this portrait of Jiro and the many people who give their lives to it doesn’t make you feel completely inadequate, then I don’t want to eat at your restaurant. Or to read your blog.
I’m generally against most big screen documentaries because they mostly belong on the small screen. I’ve spent too many nights in theaters seeing talking heads interspersed with sped-up photography and mock-Phillip Glass music signifying dire warnings that the entire planet is likely to be unsustainable for human life before we leave the theater. Perhaps fine sentiments. Perhaps. But they belong on TV if anywhere. Jiro captures the beauty of the sushi business and the strange isolation it brings in a way that demands to be seen in a theater. So go do that. A beautiful film.
Eight stars.
Nine.
An I Will If You Will poster for Earth Hour 2012 from the Philippines.
(via mothernaturenetwork)
Lost & Found: Salvaging Snapshots in Japan
Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of last year’s disasters in Japan, and last week on Photo Booth we posted a slide show of images of the aftermath. One of the most powerful visual representations of this recovery, though, came not from professional photographers but from ordinary citizens. The Lost & Found Project is an exhibition that grew out of the Salvage Memory Project, a volunteer effort from across the country which has recovered some three quarters of a million photographs that had been lost in the town of Yamamoto during the earthquake and tsunami. According to the artist Munemasa Takahashi, who leads the project, they’re “mostly snapshots of special family occasions and holidays that anyone would take.” Each photograph was washed, digitized, and numbered according to where it was found, and twenty thousand have been returned to their original owners.
- For more selection of photographs from the project: http://nyr.kr/GDwYyf
An aerial view shows cross-country skiers climbing a hill during the Engadin Ski Marathon near the Swiss mountain resort of St. Moritz. More than 11,000 skiers participated in the 42.2 km (26.2 miles) race between Maloja and S-chanf near the Swiss mountain resort of St. Moritz. (Photo: REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann)
(via nationalpost)
North Korea has announced it will stop testing nukes. The U.S. will provide the country with 240,000 metric tons of food. Good job, Kim Jong Eun.
Quantum computing could be extraordinarily powerful: in theory, a 300-qubit computer could perform more concurrent operations than there are atoms in the visible universe. But quantum effects can be a damnable nuisance.
Hiroshima by Christer Strömholm. 1963/1981
A somewhat different take on the thing we reblogged earlier, but it shows two very interesting things: First, Tumblr and Pinterest are timesucks in equal measure, and second, nobody’s actually hanging around Google+ once they sign up. The latter is the subject of this super-interesting Wall Street Journal piece. (EDIT: A good point: Don’t take that Twitter number at face value, as this graphic skips two key elements of the Twitter experience — mobile and third-party apps.)
(via shortformblog)
Backstage at Prada Fall 2012
(via vogueweekend)
This is a great photo. I always though Ali was a jerk, though.
Muhammad Ali beating Cleveland Williams, by Neil Leifer, shot from 80 ft above the ring.
Ali turns 70 today.
(via newsweek)
When Hillary met the Lady. Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Aung Sann Suu Kyi in Yangon, Myanmar, was unthinkable only six months ago. The old defiant house in which Ms Suu Kyi endured many years of arrest may never witness a sweeter moment.
(via mosesruthdavid)
