Con·stul·ta·tion

words wholly related

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:44:09 -0400

testicle & testify

both are from the latin word testis meaning witness or evidence. to testify is to give evidence and a testicle is evidence of one’s virility.

ragbag: space opera… in the year 2000 what do you imagine going...

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:40:56 -0400

ragbag:

space opera… in the year 2000

what do you imagine going to the opera will be like in the year 2000? what about people in the 1800s, what did they imagine what going to the opera would be like in the year 2000? furthermore, what do you imagine that people in the 1800s imagined what you would imagine that they would imagine what going to the opera 9 years ago would be like? before we sink into an infinite abyss, let us observe this 1882 illustration from the hyper-cool paleo future blog (which has several more pictures of this series) where lithographer albert robida conceptualises his 2nd millennium operatic vision. consider:

your elegant monocle and tender moustache and the bevy of fly honeys in paisley petticoats that you assist in boarding your flying yellow dolphin while kaiser wilhem patrols the perimeter in a solo spaceship (sword at the ready), and 100 feet below you, some dandy ushers boobsy mcgee out of her wooly overcoat. it’s almost as if it happened last year.

and to think only a few years before this lithograph was published, nietzsche (in die geburt der tragödie) went on a 54 paragraph tirade about how much opera blows chunks. look who’s eating a corvine delmonico now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(answer: friedrich wilhelm nietzsche!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The Technium: Recursive Generation

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:28:36 -0400

The Technium: Recursive Generation

The Technium: Was Moore’s Law Inevitable?

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:32:22 -0400

The Technium: Was Moore’s Law Inevitable?

"Gordon Moore jokes that if the technology of air travel experienced the same kind of progress as..."

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:31:26 -0400

“Gordon Moore jokes that if the technology of air travel experienced the same kind of progress as Intel chips, a modern day commercial aircraft would cost $500, circle the earth in 20 minutes, and only use five gallons of fuel for the trip. However, the plane would only be the size of a shoebox!”

- The Technium: Was Moore’s Law Inevitable?

"It’s all about everything altogether—performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me,..."

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:02:12 -0400

“It’s all about everything altogether—performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it’s everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us.”

- Lady Gaga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The point of the Clock is to revive and restore the whole idea of the Future, to get us thinking..."

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:24:23 -0400

“The point of the Clock is to revive and restore the whole idea of the Future, to get us thinking about the Future again, to the degree if not in quite the way same way that we used to do, and to reintroduce the notion that we don’t just bequeath the future—though we do, whether we think about it or not. We also, in the very broadest sense of the first person plural pronoun, inherit it.”

- (via Michael Chabon)

“When you start thinking about building something that...

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:08:18 -0400

“When you start thinking about building something that lasts that long, the real problem is not decay and corrosion, or even the power source. The real problem is people. If something becomes unimportant to people, it gets scrapped for parts; if it becomes important, it turns into a symbol and must eventually be destroyed. The only way to survive over the long run is to be made of materials large and worthless, like Stonehenge and the Pyramids, or to become lost.” (via Long Now: Projects: Clock)

FORA.tv - Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:03:38 -0400

FORA.tv - Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application

Company Denies its Robots Feed on the Dead | Danger Room | Wired.com

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:25:05 -0400

Company Denies its Robots Feed on the Dead | Danger Room | Wired.com:

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. “We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.”

Sweet-ass American Trends « OkTrends

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:52:39 -0400

Sweet-ass American Trends « OkTrends:

Which would you rather lose?

Alternative Reading: 6. Lecherous Limericks (1975) by Isaac...

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:09:00 -0400

Alternative Reading: 6. Lecherous Limericks (1975) by Isaac Asimov

“Annabelle turned beet-red in the face
At having been raped. Such disgrace!
Yet although it was terrible
It was not quite unbearable
She had taken her pill just in case.”

Scott Moore: Bailout Art

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:08:38 -0400

Scott Moore: Bailout Art

"On Broadway, it would be difficult to find a production without homosexuals playing important parts,..."

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:59:03 -0400

“On Broadway, it would be difficult to find a production without homosexuals playing important parts, either onstage or off. And in Hollywood, says Broadway Producer David Merrick, “you have to scrape them off the ceiling.” The notion that the arts are dominated by a kind of homosexual mafia—or “Homintern,” as it has been called—is sometimes exaggerated, particularly by spiteful failures looking for scapegoats. But in the theater, dance and music world, deviates are so widespread that they sometimes seem to be running a kind of closed shop. Art Critic Harold Rosenberg reports a “banding together of homosexual painters and their nonpainting auxiliaries.””

- THE HOMOSEXUAL IN AMERICA — Printout — TIME

(1966)

baconbaconbacon: Homemade Macaroni and Cheese with Bacon and...

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:04:24 -0400

baconbaconbacon:

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese with Bacon and Bacon Salt

hawlendrion:

Have you ever had homemade mac and cheese with Bacon Salt?

We HAVE! Just last week! Oh, so good…

"There is indeed about Newsom something of that quintessential California type, the overgrown and..."

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:29:47 -0400

“There is indeed about Newsom something of that quintessential California type, the overgrown and hyperactive child. Immensely gifted but flawed, he is a jumble of self-regard, self-confidence and self-immolation — potential greatness and a potential train wreck in the same metrosexual package.”

- Who Can Possibly Govern California? - NYTimes.com

"Sophisticated people deride Disneyesque entertainments as pat and saccharine, but, hey, if the..."

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:38:09 -0400

“Sophisticated people deride Disneyesque entertainments as pat and saccharine, but, hey, if the result of that is to instill basically warm and sympathetic reflexes, at a preverbal level, into hundreds of millions of unlettered media-steepers, then how bad can it be?”

- In the Beginning was the Command Line

"The word, in the end, is the only system of encoding thoughts—the only medium—that is..."

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:28:44 -0400

“The word, in the end, is the only system of encoding thoughts—the only medium—that is not fungible, that refuses to dissolve in the devouring torrent of electronic media (the richer tourists at Disney World wear t-shirts printed with the names of famous designers, because designs themselves can be bootlegged easily and with impunity. The only way to make clothing that cannot be legally bootlegged is to print copyrighted and trademarked words on it; once you have taken that step, the clothing itself doesn’t really matter, and so a t-shirt is as good as anything else. T-shirts with expensive words on them are now the insignia of the upper class. T-shirts with cheap words, or no words at all, are for the commoners).”

- In the Beginning was the Command Line

ragbag: all this for a dameinternet wunderkind (and brassy...

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:51:05 -0400

ragbag:

all this for a dame

internet wunderkind (and brassy aviatrix), kyle bingman knows the perfect recipe for a ragbag post (1 part literature, 1 part chart, and 30 parts of head-smashing battle gore!). she says:

Attached a[re]… two charts, one showing the battle wounds/fatalities as described in the Iliad and another the wound lethality in the Iliad by area of body… In the text the authors cite the Iliad as one of the earliest detailed literary accounts of ancient warfare and the wounds suffered by the armies involved.

One item of particular interest is the high fatality rate from head wounds, a curious fact when one considers that the helmets worn by the Greeks were effective at reducing shock from blows and providing coverage from cutting actions. The authors posit that many of the lethal head wounds were caused by stones being dropped from the 40 foot walls of Troy. Another option includes soldiers being struck in the face by arrows, as while standing at the base of the wall the open area of the face would present an easy target to those above. Finally, it is also likely that many Greek soldiers either wore their helmets improperly or took the face plates off of them to reduce heat.
public service announcement: when you are laying seige to an enemy’s city and standing at the base of his wall, MAKE SURE that your helmet is on properly or you will get an ARROW through your face (statistics from bingman don’t lie). the more you know.

both charts can be found in, from sumer to rome: the military capabilities of ancient armies by richard a. gabriel and karen s. metz (greenwood: london, 1991).

Aid Realism for the Idealist

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:49:28 -0400

Aid Realism for the Idealist:

The fact that the businesses have been for-profit has been critical. In selling bed nets for example the Tanzanian firm learned that talking about malaria doesn’t sell. What sells, in the words of one of their top salespersons is, “The color is beautiful, and you can hang the nets in your windows so that your neighbors know how much you care about your family.” As Novogratz puts it:
Beauty, vanity, status and comfort….The rich hold no monopoly on any of it. But we’re a long way from integrating the way people actually make decisions into public policy instead of how we think they should make them.