Feast Your Eyes on This Beautiful Linguistic Family Tree | Mental Floss
►http://mentalfloss.com/article/59665/feast-your-eyes-beautiful-linguistic-family-tree
When linguists talk about the historical relationship between languages, they use a tree metaphor. An ancient source (say, Indo-European) has various branches (e.g., Romance, Germanic), which themselves have branches (West Germanic, North Germanic), which feed into specific languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian). Lessons on language families are often illustrated with a simple tree diagram that has all the information but lacks imagination. There’s no reason linguistics has to be so visually uninspiring. Minna Sundberg, creator of the webcomic Stand Still. Stay Silent, a story set in a lushly imagined post-apocalyptic Nordic world, has drawn the antidote to the boring linguistic tree diagram.
Also worth checking out is the page before the tree, where she gives a comparison chart of words in the Nordic languages, and illustrates what an outlier Finnish is with the concept of “meow.”
Read Stand Still. Stay Silent here. Also see Sundberg’s previous work, A Redtail’s Dream, here.
Hendo Hoverboards - World’s first REAL hoverboard by Hendo Hover — Kickstarter
▻https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464853/hendo-hoverboards-worlds-first-real-hoverboard
▻https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/1415522/video-456349-h264_high.mp4
Leanne Brown - Good and Cheap : Eat Well on $4/day
▻http://www.leannebrown.com/cookbooks
Good and Cheap is a collection of recipes for people with limited incomes, particularly those on a $4/day food stamps budget.
Solar energy that doesn’t block the view | MSUToday | Michigan State University
▻http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2014/solar-energy-that-doesnt-block-the-view
A team of researchers at Michigan State University has developed a new type of solar concentrator that when placed over a window creates solar energy while allowing people to actually see through the window.
It is called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator and can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a clear surface.
1870 Lolcats
▻http://www.photohistory-sussex.co.uk/BTNPointerCats.htm
During the 1870s, the Brighton photographer Harry Pointer (1822-1889) became well known for a series of carte-de-visite photographs which featured his pet cats. Pointer began by taking conventional photographs of cats resting, drinking milk or sleeping in a basket, but from around 1870 he specialised in photographing cats in a variety of poses, placing his cats in settings that would create a humorous or appealing picture. Pointer often arranged his cats in unusual poses that mimicked human activities - a cat riding a tricycle, cats roller-skating and even a cat taking a photograph with a camera. Harry Pointer soon realised that even a relatively straight-forward cat photograph could be turned into an amusing or appealing image by adding a written caption. Pointer increased the commercial potential of his cat pictures by adding a written greeting such as “A Happy New Year” or “Very many happy returns of the day”. Purchasers sent the small cartes-de-visite as tiny greetings cards, thereby publicizing Pointer’s distinctive cat photographs. By 1872, Harry Pointer had created over one hundred different captioned images of cats. Harry Pointer’s series of cat photographs were collectively known as “The Brighton Cats”. The Photographic News reported that, by 1884, Pointer had published about two hundred pictures in “The Brighton Cats” series.
W R I T E W O R L D
▻http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/93005957172/how-does-one-get-better-at-fighting-with-a-sword-i
Anonymous asked: “How does one get better at fighting with a sword? I have a female character who was formally trained in swordfighting (being a noble heir) though she has a lot of room for improvement. I want a timeskip in which she trains and afterwards (is 6 months reasonable?) she is challenged by a pirate captain who has years of experience and talent in combat. She is going to lose and he isn’t aiming to kill her. How would the fight play out realistically?”
howtofightwrite:
Realistically? She won’t kill him, her guards will. (She won’t even get close to him and his challenge is meaningless.)
This is the most important thing to remember: a female noble heir is the social and economic future of their household, if your pirate captain takes her then he gets to claim her which is the equivalent of stealing Alabama, Alaska, or California. Now do you think for a second her guards or her family will allow that to happen? (The answer is no.)
Let’s Recap:
Do Not Steal California: Heirs are valuable and important people, stealing them is a lot like stealing the ownership of a state. Lots of people are bound to try it and there are reasons their families take steps to ensure they won’t succeed.
A Rapier or Epee versus a Cutlass: both weapons have a reach advantage over a cutlass and are much, much faster. The pirate captain’s brain will not be used to fighting at it’s speeds and in a single unarmored bout, it will be over in one or two hits. In fact, historically the epee is so fast that it resulted in multiple double suicides during duels which is part of the reason we switched to fencing with blunted blades.
Nobles Are Not Decorative: Unless we’re discussing nobles in the 19th (excluding Russia), 20th, and 21st centuries then an aristocrat’s position was fraught with danger. Even in the 18th century when they were heading toward being obsolete, nobles were very dangerous individuals who faced a great deal of danger in their everyday lives both from the peasantry and members of their own class.
Depending on Context All Combat Experience Is Not Created Equal: while there were pirates who were very skilled duelists this was usually a skill they cultivated during the time before they became pirates (as members of the gentry). Pirate Captains needed to be skilled in naval combat, interpersonal skills, leadership, and other skills relating to raiding, theft, and seafaring leaving little time to focus on skills unnecessary to their general lifestyle.
Where the Heir Goes, The Guards Follow or Lead: A noble’s guards are never far away, they travel in packs and it’s their job to defend their master from harm. Getting through them to the protectee isn’t easy and the protectee is unlikely to thank you if you do.
Swords are made for killing: intentions are great, but swords are made for killing. The better the opponent, the less likely the option of not killing. With faster weapons, it becomes very easy to kill accidentally or a wound may become infected leading to death.
Think Leia, Not Gossip Girl: I didn’t actually throw this one out there in the above, but personality wise, you’re better off looking at Princess Leia (especially Leia from A New Hope) as opposed to modern day rich girls like Blaire Waldorf and Serena Vanderwoodsen. Think about Leia’s response to Han and Luke’s rescue attempt on the Death Star, particularly the part where she takes charge and shoots the Stormtroopers. Feisty yes, but also intelligent and capable of taking care of herself. They provide her with the opportunity to escape, but she’s more than able to act for herself when the moment comes and patient enough withstand the indignities and torture inflicted on her by Vader and Tarkin to wait it for it. She’s also all business once she gets out and is much better at providing direction than the boys are at finding it.
In short, he’s dead.
Solar Roads: The Future of the Highway & the Next Energy Revolution
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/solar-roads-the-future-of-the-highway-and-the-next-energy-revolution
What if roads and parking lots were solar, fueling enough energy from the sun to power nearby communities as well as electric vehicles? Scott and Julie Brusaw, the inventors/creators have the answer.
Get #Comic_Neue
▻http://comicneue.com
perso je trouve ça presque aussi laid
#Comic_Sans wasn’t designed to be the world’s most ubiquitous casual typeface. Comic Neue aspires to be the casual script choice for everyone including the typographically savvy.
The squashed, wonky, and weird glyphs of Comic Sans have been beaten into shape while maintaining the honesty that made Comic Sans so popular.
It’s perfect as a display face, for marking up comments, and writing passive aggressive office memos.
#typo
Marvel One-Shot Agent Carter - Video Dailymotion
▻http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1b8lwz_%E0%B8%8B-%E0%B8%9A%E0%B9%84%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%A2-marvel-one-shot-
“Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter”
Frustrated at being marginalized at work, Peggy Carter goes on an unauthorized solo field mission.
#Marvel #films #super-héros @elsa
The gloves that will “change the way we make music”, with Imogen Heap on Vimeo
▻http://vimeo.com/90252137
In this exclusive video interview, musician Imogen Heap demonstrates the electronic gloves that allow people to interact with their computer remotely via hand gestures.
The interview was filmed at Heap’s home studio outside London, shortly before she launched her Kickstarter campaign to produce a limited production run of the open-source Mi.Mu gloves.
“These beautiful gloves help me gesturally interact with my computer,” says Heap, explaining how the wearable technology allows her to perform without having to interact with keyboards or control panels.
Pushing buttons and twiddling dials “is not very exciting for me or the audience,” she says. “[Now] I can make music on the move, in the flow and more humanly, [and] more naturally engage with my computer software and technology.”
Capricious Musings — Zero Suit Samus’ Heels: Why it’s a Big Deal and Why You Should Care
▻http://capriceandwhimsy.tumblr.com/post/82459338493/zero-suit-samus-heels-why-its-a-big-deal-and-why-you
So the thing I keep hearing is that Samus’s new Zero Suit design from SSB4 is okay because “they’re not actually high heels, they’re jet boots.”
Bullshit.
But before we get into that: why is it a big deal that Samus is wearing heels in the first place?
The sexual politics of genius — Moon Duchin / Dec 2004
▻http://mduchin.math.tufts.edu/genius.pdf
@isskein me fait découvrir la mathématicienne Moon Duchin, qui vient conférencer à l’IHP à Paris vendredi sur la géométrie algébrique ; ce qu’elle écrivait il y a dix ans sur la manière dont la statue du "génie" est édifiée par les biographes, et souvent les mathématiciens et physiciens eux-mêmes, est très fort [ elle indique quand même sur son site : “note : juvenilia ! Not that I hate it.” ].
Son site : ▻http://mduchin.math.tufts.edu
Et donc cet article, qui traite de l’éviction des femmes de l’histoire des génies : en fait, les femmes peuvent être géniales à condition qu’elles ne soient pas féminines, autant dire des hommes, et qu’elles soient validées par des hommes...
Du coup quand on fait des listes de "grands mathématiciens" il y a rarement une mathématicienne dans le lot, ou alors une hommasse dont le caractère asexué ou les traits masculins sont bien mis en évidence (elle jure, elle a plusieurs amants, etc) ; ou alors, si elle est jolie et comme il faut, c’est en fait une élève d’un Grand Maître. De son côté, le physicien libidineux, lui, il en a, c’est pas pareil. Quand un physicien-génie est loué pour s’être rendu au chevet de sa femme physicienne malade une fois tous les 15 jours, on évoque à peine la physicienne qui a sacrifié sa carrière pour s’occuper de son mari-génie malade et de leurs enfants.
L’article va au-delà de la question femmes&sciences, et offre une vraie analyse de la construction de la notion de "génie".
Notamment :
le génie est congénital, il ne s’acquière pas (pas besoin d’avoir des profs !) — on passera donc sous silence par exemple, le fait que Hermite et Galois aient eu le même prof, ou plutôt, c’est une anecdote sans intérêt.
Le génie est évident, et donc le génie finira quoi qu’il arrive par être reconnu (pas besoin de faire l’effort d’aller vers des gens qui ne sont pas riches, blancs, occidentaux et hommes : la preuve, on a trouvé Ramanujan au fin fond de son trou paumé en Inde)
Le génie se vit dans la solitude créative (pas besoin de collaborations, l’histoire des sciences est une succession d’"Eureka", la preuve Andrew Wiles a démontré tout seul le théorème de Fermat)
Le génie est "géniteur", "séminal", masculin, donc...
Le génie est hors-sol : tu peux être un gros connard qui s’essuie les pieds sur tout le monde (y compris et surtout ta famille), tant que tu as ton nom sur l’équation c’est tout bon.
Le génie est jeune, surtout les Médailles Fields ; qu’un vieux de plus de 30 ans veuille s’intéresser aux maths, tu peux le dégoûter d’entrée de jeu… c’est prouvé qu’il ne trouvera jamais rien (en tout cas rien de "génial").
Ce que montre l’article c’est comment ces raisonnements circulaires s’appliquent et se valident eux-mêmes au fil du temps. Avec comme conséquences le rejet de toutes les personnes non conformes à l’idéal-type, et la promotion à l’inverse des personnes conformes.
In the old debates on evolutionary theory, the appeal to complex design was a favorite argument of creationists. Consider the eye, they entreated—an unimaginably complicated organ whose intricate design is appropriate for a seemingly irreducible purpose: vision. How could the eye possibly have evolved bit by bit, gradually improving towards its ultimate function? This implausibility becomes a persuasive argument for the role of divine creation of living organisms.
Similarly, some works are of such profound originality and power that they emerge like an eyeball fully formed; an explanation no less holy seems to be demanded. How could the theory of gravitation be developed piecemeal, or the notion that infinities come in different rigorously definable sizes, or the idea that time runs slow from the perspective of a speeding body? The simplest explanation is that it is the insight, the ‘Eureka!’, of one agent with a direct tie to God.
Le génie est un lien direct avec l’inspiration divine et oui : Eureka = "épiphanie", le mot qu’emploie tout startupeur qui a eu une idée en se rasant (non mesdames, s’épiler ne compte pas)
(...)
The subjects [of Genius stories] are often treated like the hero-architects in #Ayn_Rand novels—visionaries whose superiority is written on their entire lives, so that any who stand in their way are bitterly disappointed and self-loathing rivals or the committed enemies of truth and beauty.
(...)
“The mathematical life of a mathematician is short. Work rarely improves after the age of 25 or 30. If little has been accomplished by then, little will ever be accomplished. If greatness has been attained, good work may continue to appear, but the level of accomplishment will fall with each decade.”
This youth fetish is concretely inscribed in mathematics by the means of its greatest prestige, the Fields Medal (...) The elite Bourbaki, too, had a formal enactment of the narrative preference for youth: one was compelled to leave the society on the occasion of turning fifty
(...)
the extremely broadly accepted idea that genius is not teachable (...) in combination with the premise that genius is unmistakable, its unteachability becomes a powerful justification for the insularity of intellectual society, since outreach and training become irrelevant
(prochainement dans @vacarme me dit @isskein ; on attend ça avec impatience)
(ce n’est incidemment pas sans lien avec la « liste des 100 développeurs français marquants » ►http://seenthis.net/messages/240563 )
La Bulle
« La Bulle », une ville murée où les enfants sont produits par une machine. Vladimir, un puissant dictateur. Irène, son assistante manipulatrice. Adrian, un rebelle recherché. Alia, une habitante tout juste en âge d’être utilisée comme pion du gouvernement, le dernier maillon de la chaîne.
Tourné cet été et maintenant disponible sur vimeo ! Bon film !
cool il y a même une point (de couteau) de cannibalisme.
Irène a vraiment la classe !
Merci @Elsa
One Weird Old Trick to Undermine the Patriarchy : The Last Word On Nothing
▻http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/12/18/one-weird-old-trick
My five-year-old insists that Bilbo Baggins is a girl.
The first time she made this claim, I protested. Part of the fun of reading to your kids, after all, is in sharing the stories you loved as a child. And in the story I knew, Bilbo was a boy. A boy hobbit. (Whatever that entails.)
But my daughter was determined. She liked the story pretty well so far, but Bilbo was definitely a girl. So would I please start reading the book the right way?
Kevin Van Aelst - Cellular Mitosis (krispy kreme)
▻http://www.kevinvanaelst.com/photo10.html
Dr. Martens X Bosch Pascal
▻http://www.solestruck.com/dr.-martens-x-bosch-pascal-hell/index.html
Le Jardin des Délices version #chaussures
color : “Hell”, avec tout un site de #publicité que le pauvre Hieronymus n’a sans doute pas sollicité
www.solestruck.com/mens-dr.-martens-x-bosch/
VVNNG - A cultivated garden
▻http://viivus.tumblr.com/post/78906166322/heres-a-4-page-preview-of-my-first-ever
A minicomic by Vivian Ng
#art #bande_dessinée #lu
Black to the Future | Bitch Media
▻http://bitchmagazine.org/article/black-to-the-future-afrofuturism-feminism-music-janelle-monae-kelis-e
How women in pop are carrying the mantle of Afrofuturism
Maps & Legends
illustration by Pam Wishbow
When my brother and I were young, our parents would build us igloo forts out of blue sheets in the living room before putting us to bed. They would turn off all the lights except for a string of white Christmas lights that looped through our plants, and turn on the jazz-fusion, African-rhythm synthpop of Afro-Parisian Wally Badarou, creating an icy new world for us. What I now recognize as a way to calm two small children before bedtime felt like magic to me then. Our living room was transformed into a timeless space that felt simultaneously prehistoric and futuristic.Grace Jones’s “Slave to the Rhythm” was in heavy rotation in our household. I remember poring over the cover art—her fierce eyes; her avant-garde high-top fade; her open, extended mouth like a chomping cyborg or an insect mandible; and her glossy brown skin. All this, paired with her booming and distorted voice over African percussion and synth, made her a mesmerizing figure to my 7-year-old ears and eyes. I had never heard music or a voice like hers, and although I didn’t completely understand her or the world she was creating with her music, she would go on to influence my ideas of womanhood, blackness, and the performative nature of identity.
MAJORITE OPPRIMEE, un film d’Eléonore Pourriat (2010) - YouTube
►http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpfaza-Mw4I
12-year-old invents Braille printer using Lego set | MNN - Mother Nature Network
▻http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/12-year-old-invents-braille-printer-using-lego-set
Shubham Banerjee, a seventh-grade student from Santa Clara, Calif., developed the Braille printer using toy construction Lego pieces. The low-cost invention could be an accessible solution for blind and disadvantaged people across the globe, Banerjee said.
The printer, dubbed Braigo (short for Braille with Lego), was created from the Lego Mindstorms EV3 set, which retails for $349. Banerjee also added $5-worth of additional materials, which means the finished product costs about $350. This makes Braigo much more affordable than other Braille printers, which can retail for more than $2,000, according to Banerjee.
What would the Earth be like if it was the shape of a donut?
▻http://io9.com/what-would-the-earth-be-like-if-it-was-the-shape-of-a-d-1515700296
According to the laws of physics, a planet the shape of a donut, or toroid, could actually exist — but it’s extremely unlikely to ever form naturally. But what if an advanced alien civilization decided to build one? What properties would a toroid-Earth exhibit? And what would life be like?
Mia’s Story | Vanity Fair
▻http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1992/11/farrow199211
Whatever you already know about this tangled and painful situation, you’ve only heard half: the case against Mia Farrow. This is the other half and it isn’t any prettier. It concerns Woody Allen’s behavior and what it has done to Mia Farrow and the 11 children involved. The author breaks new ground on one of the year’s most shocking stories.
by Maureen Orth (1992)
There was an unwritten rule in Mia Farrow’s house that Woody Allen was never supposed to be left alone with their seven-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan. Over the last two years, sources close to Farrow say, he has been discussing alleged “inappropriate” fatherly behavior toward Dylan in sessions with Dr. Susan Coates, a child psychologist. In more than two dozen interviews conducted for this article, most of them with individuals who are on intimate terms with the Mia Farrow household, Allen was described over and over as being completely obsessed with the bright little blonde girl. He could not seem to keep his hands off her. He would monopolize her totally, to the exclusion of her brothers and sisters, and spend hours whispering to her. She was fond of her daddy, but if she tried to go off and play, he would follow her from room to room, or he would sit and stare at her. During the school year, Allen would arrive early at Mia Farrow’s West Side Manhattan apartment, sit on Dylan’s bed and watch her wake up, and take her to school. At her birthday party last July, at Farrow’s country house in Bridgewater, Connecticut, he promised that he would keep away from the children’s table so that Dylan could enjoy her birthday party with her friends, but he seemed unable to do that. Allen, who was a fearful figure to many in the household, was so needy where Dylan was concerned that he hovered over her through the whole party, and when the cake arrived, he was right behind her, helping to blow out the candles.
Calling attention to someone’s birthday-party behavior may seem trivial at best. However, Dr. Coates, who just happened to be in Mia’s apartment to work with one of her other children, had only to witness a brief greeting between Woody and Dylan before she began a discussion with Mia that resulted in Woody’s agreeing to address the issue through counseling. At that point Coates didn’t know that, according to several sources, Woody, wearing just underwear, would take Dylan to bed with him and entwine his body around hers; or that he would have her suck his thumb; or that often when Dylan went over to his apartment he would head straight for the bedroom with her so that they could get into bed and play. He called Mia a “spoilsport” when she objected to what she referred to as “wooing.” Mia has told people that he said that her concerns were her own sickness, and that he was just being warm. For a long time, Mia backed down. Her love for Woody had always been mixed with fear. He could reduce her to a pulp when he gave vent to his temper, but she was also in awe of him, because he always presented himself as “a morally superior person.”