A little late with the post, this evening. I had a lot going this weekend and hadn’t had time to write it up early, and free time seems to be scarce in these parts… Anyway here’s this week’s odd collection of miscellanea from around the web.
The Atlas Obscura is a new website that has set out to catalog all the weird and bizarre places in the world that just aren’t mentioned in normal travel books. This link is a short overview with more links talking about giant burning holes scattered about the globe. I knew about the one in Centralia, PA, but didn’t know about the others, including one in Germany that has been burning continually since 1688! Giant Burning Holes via Boing Boing.
I do some occasional cooking, my fiance loves it, so I keep my eye out for good cooking blogs and recipes that cross my path. Annie’s Eats is a pretty good blog that always has a new recipe every day, just about?! Most of them are baking or sweets, so I don’t pay too much attention. I’m trying to maintain a decent weight not balloon into gross obesity. This recipe though for tinroof ice cream had to be looked over. Chocolate, peanuts, fudge?! Decadent and delicious sounding. Summer is the perfect time to make ice cream and my next batch is sure to be this.
The index card is kind of ubiquitous. It has uses from the office to the kitchen, pretty much anywhere you look you’ll find them. Their just so convenient and obvious, it’s hard to think that they had to be invented. But they did and by the father of taxonomy to boot, Carl Linnaeus! Mr. Linnaeus devised the card to help organize and manage a great deal of information. Check out the entire story at Science Daily.
I don’t know what to call a link to a series of link? Is there a word for that yet? Anyway this short article is a quick summary by Phil Plait, of Bad Astronomy, of all the recent news stories that’ve been critical of alternative medicine and medical quackery claims and those who support them. From Oprah to British Chiropractors, alt-medicine is taking a hit and hopefully losing credibility.
Michael Moorcock isn’t the most widely known science fiction author, but his creation, Elric has had a lasting effect on the fantasy and science-fiction genre, the music scene, and gaming. With a new collection of his writings coming out Mr. Moorcock was interviewed by some of his lucky fans to help promote the book. This is a lucky chance to get inside the head of a real artist and arguably the most important British fantasy writer since J.R.R. Tolkien – The Readers of Boing Boing interview Michael Moorcock
I sometimes question of America has a culture at all, or if it’s been replaced by a marketable facsimile thereof. The blind pursuit of profit purely for the sake of having more profit, is a poor goal for a person, organization, nation, or culture, but it seems that is what the United States has been reduced to at times, with considerations of family, community, meaning, a greater purpose to life having been discarded as unprofitable. J.F.K spoke out against this most eloquently as has our current president Barack Obama, but this isn’t a partisan issue, or a Democrat one, every great teacher we know of from Moses, to Jesus, from the Buddha to Laozi has tried to humanity that life is not just the accumulation of items, but is instead a quest to understand ourselves and the community that sustains us.
The world’s rarest insect, Lord Howe Island stick insect, was thought extinct for the last 70 years until in 2001 30 individuals were found on Ball’s Pyramid. The insect is now in a breeding program and scientists hope to one day re-introduce it to Lord Howe Island if the rats can be exterminated from the island. Via Boing Boing, more info at the Australian Dept. of Environment.
The president of the Liberty University Democrats club is leaving the college behind… Liberty University, a fundamentalist christian liberal arts college, has had a history of controversy. The most recent being the banning of the democrat club from campus. I hope other students will be inspired and find other avenues of education and centers of higher education that respect a diversity of opinions and viewpoints.
Another link from Debunking Christianity, this time on the genealogies of Jesus, plenty to read over there so I’m not going to add to it.
That’s it for this week. Expect an original post tomorrow or Thursday as well as some additional old stuff (Necrons, etc.) The next part of my Camus saga will be this weekend or the beginning of next week.