Weekend Linkages: Pyramids, Strange Houses and F-ing Gourds

...Orange free peaches, painted by Elsie E. Lower, 1910. Via @pomological. A stepped pyramid in the desert Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from? People are still taking that horse medication That time someone tried to set up a Vietnam war theme park (a podcast) Strangest Zillow listing ever The Diapers.com Guy Wants to Build a Utopian Megalopolis F-ing gourd season Can We Live Without Twitter?...

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Of Love and Compressed Air

...of Low Tech Magazine creator Kris De Decker (a guest on episode 83 of our podcast). He just published two long articles on the history of compressed air, “History and Future of the Compressed Air Economy” and “Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage.” This is one of those topics that’s so boring as to be exciting and once you start thinking of the possibilities of compressed air you’ll find yourself, inappropriately, peppering...

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Murder Hornets: It’s What’s for Dinner

...ia click bait trap. Even the allegedly reliable New York Times did a whole podcast on the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) that consisted of an interview with a single beekeeper and a lot of scary music. Did any of these journalists, including the New York Times bother to call up an entomologist who specialized in hornets? Not so much. Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of...

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Quarantine Meals From Jennie Cook

Jennie Cook, our dear neighbor (and podcast guest), is a caterer. Covid erased all of the events and weddings that she depended on for income. So she pivoted back to what she used to do: cook home meals for pickup and delivery. Her food is delicious and the portions are generous. If you live in the Los Angeles area consider ordering some food from her. It will support Jennie and her employees and you’ll get a break from cooking. On Saturday Jenni...

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Saturday Linkages: Advent 3/4

...o watch the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter Make a Christmas shadowbox A podcast about Arthur Machen’s weird vision of art Watch Peter Follansbee carve a shallow relief pattern From Instagram to Insistent Goats: Another Life After Social Media Case Study Slavoj Žižek on the “screen new deal” My wife just confessed that for her entire childhood she thought Colonel Sanders’ bow tie was his whole body and now I can’t stop seeing a tiny stick body e...

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