Chris' shared items
Most people view this as a set of door panels. It may take quite a while to convince oneself that there are actually 16 circles in the image...
She says, "I used two Billy bookcases, a piano hinge, two hinges for the sewing machine fold out shelf and 8 wheels also from Ikea. The piano hinge holds the two Billy bookcases together, and the sewing machine shelf has two 5.5cm hinges to hold the fold out shelf. I also screwed the sewing machine shelf on the sides to the bookcase for extra support. Not quite sure about the weight you can put on it but it's been holding on pretty strong and my sewing machine is pretty heavy."
See more of Liz's craft pod.
If America comes to a catastrophic end, what will the causes be? Josh Levin of Slate wants to know. He's created a "Choose Your Own Apocalypse" web-based application that lets you select five causes from a collection of "144 potential causes of America's future death." Based on your choices, Slate will tell you what kind of a doomsayer you are. People who take the poll are also asked to supply age, gender, zip code. On Friday, Slate will publish the results.
I picked Peak Oil, China Unloads U.S. Treasuries, Deficit Spending, Peak Water, and Megadrought, which makes me a "humanitarian internationalist." Compared to the average Slate reader, I believe more people will survive and that the disaster is more man's fault than nature's.
If and when America expires, we probably won't agree on the cause of death. For proof that autopsies of empires are inconclusive, consider the case of Alexander Demandt, the German historian who set out in the 1980s to collect every theory ever given for why Rome fell. The final tally: 210, including attacks by nomads on horseback, blood poisoning, decline of Nordic character, homosexuality, outflow of gold, and vaingloriousness.Choose Your Own ApocalypseIn tribute to Demandt, I've gone looking for every possible reason why America could fall. I've paged through the work of scholars who have studied the characteristics of declining and failed societies. I also collected theories from futurists, doomsayers, separatists, economists, political scientists, national security experts, climatologists, geologists, astronomers, and a few miscellaneous crazy people. The result: a collection of 144 potential causes of America's future death.
Marilyn sez, "Bobby McFerrin uses the pentatonic scale and an audience's expectations to demonstrate neural programming at the World Science Festival 2009"
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale
(Thanks, Marilyn!)
Dante's circles of Hell, clarified for your edification in Lapham's Quarterly. You never know when this information will come in handy.
Via Suddenly.
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This NPR story basically confirms what I've always suspected: crows are very smart, and I never should have said those terrible things to that crow a few years back.
I really like crows, and occasionally I'll get a, well, murder of them in my backyard, where they all sit around and caw and cackle to each other, making a huge cacophony that sounds like some large family gatherings I've tried unsuccessfully to avoid. Maybe it's some sort of crow senate. Regardless, they're smart, and they know what you look like.
We haven't had the opportunity to see any of these kitchen layouts or tools in person, but here are a few things we particularly noticed as we browsed the catalog:
- Lower prices - Even IKEA seems to be responding to the economy. They didn't have a really new line of pots and pans, but they cut prices on some of their standard sets.
- The holidays are coming; there are new items in the whimsical line of baking accessories and serving plates that we noticed earlier this year.
- New knives are in this catalog including a block of 4 knives for $3.99. (What?!) But we know that many of you are big fans of IKEA knives, so perhaps these will be good additions to their lineup.
- New plastic food keepers are alluring; even though we've sworn time and time again to never buy IKEA's terrible food keepers with lids that pop off if you look at them, the lure of cheap, almost-disposable plasticware for potlucks and giving meals away may be too strong.
- We like the bold, rich colors of some of the new featured dinnerware.
- Overall, though, IKEA is really pushing its full kitchen packages. Look! A brand new kitchen could be all yours for less than $800! Well, we're not sure if we believe that entirely, but as always, IKEA makes it look good and easy.
Take a look at the full IKEA 2010 catalog here: • IKEA Catalog 2010 More IKEA for the Kitchen: • Roundup: Best of IKEA For the Kitchen • New IKEA Favorite: SLOM Bottle with Stopper • Enjoying: Animal Cookie Cutters from IKEA • New IKEA for the Kitchen: 15 Maybe-Good Things (Images: IKEA USA)
Today’s awesome geekery: It’s a Secret to Everybody, an amazingly extensive article on the origins of various video game character names. Ever wondered where the name Zelda (from The Legend of Zelda) came from? How about Link? How about Mario, Luigi, Bowser (aka Koopa), Toad, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Sonic the Hedgehog, and many, many more? Read this article to find out. Some choice snippets:
The [Legend of Zelda] series hero, Link, deserves a bit of onomastic speculation too. His name isn’t unheard of outside of video games; there’s actually a character with that name and with that spelling in To Kill a Mockingbird, though, more often, you see the name as Linc, an abbreviation for Lincoln. Nintendo itself has had some fun with Link’s name. The title of the third Zelda game, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past makes a pun on his name. And in any game, Link, as the game’s stand-in for the player, also serves as a link between the video game and the human world on the other side.
Finally, links is German for “left,” which would mean nothing if the guy wasn’t traditionally depicted as holding his sword in his left hand. (If you’ve only played the “dyslexic,” Wii version of Twilight Princess, this fact would likely be lost on you, as Nintendo flipped the game so that characters would be holding their Wiimotes in the same hand as Link holds his sword.) That last part probably amounts to nothing, but it’s nonetheless merits a mention for the only major video game hero that I can think of who is a southpaw.
(Ed. note — never heard the term ‘onomastic’? It’s the study of proper names.)
Given the [Super Mario] series’ propensity for naming characters after food — a trend throughout Japanese pop culture, really — it doesn’t seem remarkable that the games’ iconic female character would be named after something sweet. Princess Peach’s name, however, can be literally translated from its Japanese representation into English as Pichi, or “Peachy,” which makes for an accurate description of her unflappably positive personality. Yes, she has alternate name in the U.S., where she was introduced as Princess Toadstool and went by the that name until 1996. It’s all but forgotten now, and perhaps for the better: Toadstool is an ugly name for any universe’s epitome of femininity.
Nintendo has saddled the prolific cake-baker with some unfortunate feminine stereotypes over the years, including one that pertains especially to this discussion of games and words: Her Super Mario RPG attack Psych Bomb is known in the original Japanese as Hisuterikku Bomu, or “Hysteric Bomb,” which, on the etymological level, expresses a certain degree of misogyny.
Truly amazing work. For more great writing from this guy, check out Drew Mackie’s Back of the Cereal Box blog. It’s full of crunchy goodness. (Via Waxy.org.)
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