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CrimethInc.
News from the Front: The Reflections of a Russian Anarchist in Rojava : On the Collapse of Assad,... The toppling of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria was many years overdue. Yet the tragedies in...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
The toppling of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria was many years overdue. Yet the tragedies in Syria are not over. Israel has bombed hundreds of locations around the country and seized a considerable amount of land in the southwest, while Turkish proxy forces are threatening...
Open Culture
Richard Feynman Enthusiastically Explains How to Think Like a Physicist in His Series Fun to Imagine... “It’s interesting that some people find science so easy, and others find it kind of dull and...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
“It’s interesting that some people find science so easy, and others find it kind of dull and difficult,” says Richard Feynman at the beginning of his 1983 BBC series Fun to Imagine. “One of the things that makes it very difficult is that it takes a lot of imagination. It’s very...
Flashbak
42 Various Apocalyptic Scenes from Raphael’s Prophetic Messenger of Astrology (1827–61) The future is portrayed as dramatic, dangerous and dynamic in these visions published in the...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
The future is portrayed as dramatic, dangerous and dynamic in these visions published in the astrological magazine The Prophetic Messenger (1827 to 1861). More commonly known as Raphael’s Almanac in a nod to the Jewish archangel Raphael, the name was used a nom de plume by a...
Open Culture
John Coltrane Draws a Picture Illustrating the Mathematics of Music Physicist and saxophonist Stephon Alexander has argued in his many public lectures and his book The...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Physicist and saxophonist Stephon Alexander has argued in his many public lectures and his book The Jazz of Physics that Albert Einstein and John Coltrane had quite a lot in common. Alexander in particular draws our attention to the so-called “Coltrane circle,” which resembles...
The Universe of...
Baseball on the Moon We want to adapt baseball to be played on the moon. Is there any way to make it work? My first...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
We want to adapt baseball to be played on the moon. Is there any way to make it work? My first impression is: no, for several reasons. The pitched ball will go a little faster (no air resistance) but breaking balls are impossible (ditto). So the batter will find it easier to...
Trying to Understand...
The Year of Failing To Understand. Not your usual end-of-year review.
8 months ago
Open Culture
Hear Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast from 1938: The Original Tale of Mysterious... A month ago, drones were spotted near Morris County, New Jersey. Since then, reports of further...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
A month ago, drones were spotted near Morris County, New Jersey. Since then, reports of further sightings in various locations in the region have been lodged on a daily basis, and anxieties about the origin and purpose of these unidentified flying objects have grown apace. “We...
Classical Wisdom
Calm in the Face of Crisis Putting the Greek Back into Stoicism
8 months ago
Hidden History
The Great Horse Flu Epidemic of 1872 An epidemic of “Horse Flu” in 1872 virtually shut down the US economy and paralyzed the entire...
8 months ago
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An epidemic of “Horse Flu” in 1872 virtually shut down the US economy and paralyzed the entire country. By the 1870s, the once-rural agrarian United States was beginning to emerge as an industrial power. The Civil War had spurred the rapid development of industry such as iron...
Open Culture
The Ingenious Engineering of Leonardo da Vinci’s Self-Supporting Bridge, Explained The video above from Sabins Civil Engineering promises to reveal “the MAGIC behind Da Vinci’s Self...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
The video above from Sabins Civil Engineering promises to reveal “the MAGIC behind Da Vinci’s Self Supporting Bridge.” That sounds like a typical example of YouTube hyperbole, though on first glance, it isn’t at all obvious how the fragile-looking structure can stay up, much less...
Flashbak
Hunter S Thompson Sets Fire To His Christmas Tree (1990) “’NO, HUNTER, NO! PLEASE, HUNTER, DON’T DO IT!'” – Hunter S. Thompson’s secretary Deborah Fuller...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
“’NO, HUNTER, NO! PLEASE, HUNTER, DON’T DO IT!'” – Hunter S. Thompson’s secretary Deborah Fuller before the writer torched his Christmas Tree     In January 1990, Sam Allis was on assignment for TIME magazine at writer Hunter S. Thompson’s (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) home...
Open Culture
Watch The Insects’ Christmas from 1913: A Stop Motion Film Starring a Cast of Dead Bugs Kind Reader, Will you do us the honor of accepting our holiday invitation? Carve five minutes from...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Kind Reader, Will you do us the honor of accepting our holiday invitation? Carve five minutes from your holiday schedule to spend time celebrating The Insects’ Christmas, above. In addition to offering brief respite from the chaos of consumerism and modern expectations, this...
Classical Wisdom
Beyond Stoicism New Event: January 7th, 2025
8 months ago
Flashbak
Have A Weird Christmas With Our Album Of Vintage Photo Oddities There’s a weird vibe running through this album of Christmas images. Harvested from Robert E....
8 months ago
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8 months ago
There’s a weird vibe running through this album of Christmas images. Harvested from Robert E. Jackson’s phenomenal collection of snapshots we see all kinds of unusual goings on. One Christmas card features a photo of the sender covered in rats; on another a man canoodles a...
Wrong Side of...
Welcoming the stranger Caldwell's 'Reflections on the Revolution in Europe', Part Two
8 months ago
Open Culture
How Keith Jarrett Played on a Broken Piano & Turned a Potentially Disastrous Concert Into the... Nearly fifty years ago, the celebrated young pianist Keith Jarrett arrived in the West German city...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Nearly fifty years ago, the celebrated young pianist Keith Jarrett arrived in the West German city of Köln (better known in English as Cologne). Having just come off a 500-mile-long road trip from Switzerland, where he’d played a concert the previous day, he was left with barely...
The Universe of...
Hangeul sign-engraving machine Last summer I was privileged to visit the glorious Letterpress Museum in Paju Book City, where I...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Last summer I was privileged to visit the glorious Letterpress Museum in Paju Book City, where I spent several hours and took a collection of photos that are probably not of interest to anyone but letterpress geeks, and perhaps not even to them. Looking back at the photos it's...
CrimethInc.
Announcing The Beautiful Idea : A New Podcast Participants in CrimethInc. projects are collaborating with veterans of other anarchist media...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
Participants in CrimethInc. projects are collaborating with veterans of other anarchist media platforms on a new podcast, The Beautiful Idea, which will offer reporting and analysis of current events. The first episode of The Beautiful Idea has just been released! In their own...
African History...
The intellectual history of Ethiopia and Eritrea: Ge'ez manuscripts and scholars (ca. 200-1900CE) The unique manuscript collections of Ethiopia and Eritrea written in the Ge'ez script are arguably...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
The unique manuscript collections of Ethiopia and Eritrea written in the Ge'ez script are arguably the best-known works of literature produced in pre-colonial Africa.
Classical Wisdom
Weekend Roundup Free Will: A Fairy Tale?
9 months ago
Flashbak
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein And His Wife Marie: A Love Story Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910–1983) was an American self-taught artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin....
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Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910–1983) was an American self-taught artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He left a vast archive of poetry, apocalyptic paintings, paintbrushes made with his wife’s hair, drawings, notebooks, audio tapes and hundreds of sculptures made from chicken bones,...
Dreams of Space -...
Distant Worlds (1932) An early children's science fiction book about spaceflight.  Borrowing from a book-seller...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
An early children's science fiction book about spaceflight.  Borrowing from a book-seller description: Friedrick Mader, "the German Jules Verne" according to Sam Moskowitz, was a popular author of fantastic romances in post-World War One Germany. DISTANT WORLDS is his only novel...
A Collection of...
Collections: Nitpicking Gladiator II, Part II Last week, we started our nitpicking of Gladiator II (2024) by looking at the problems with the...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Last week, we started our nitpicking of Gladiator II (2024) by looking at the problems with the films chronology and its portrayal of the Roman army of the early third century, both in its equipment and in its battle tactics. This week, we’re going to move forward to the main...
Classical Wisdom
Sappho Fragments of Poetry
9 months ago
Open Culture
How Medieval Islamic Engineering Brought Water to the Alhambra Between 711 and 1492, much of the Iberian Peninsula, including modern-day Spain, was under Muslim...
9 months ago
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Between 711 and 1492, much of the Iberian Peninsula, including modern-day Spain, was under Muslim rule. Not that it was easy to hold on to the place for that length of time: after the fall of Toledo in 1085, Al-Andalus, as the territory was called, continued to lose cities over...
Wrong Side of...
Keeping it in the Family Britain’s Cousin Marriage Conundrum
9 months ago
Open Culture
The Sinking of the Britannic: An Animated Introduction to the Titanic’s Forgotten Sister Ship We all know about the Titanic. Less often do we hear about the Britannic—the sister passenger liner...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
We all know about the Titanic. Less often do we hear about the Britannic—the sister passenger liner that the British turned into a hospital ship during World War I. Launched in 1914, two years after the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Britannic featured a number of...
Flashbak
Charles Green Shaw Cocktail Book of Rhymed Recipes (1930s) This great little book created by Charles Green Shaw in the 1930s features black and white...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
This great little book created by Charles Green Shaw in the 1930s features black and white illustrations and poetic recipes for various cocktails.   A leading figure in early American abstraction, Charles Green Shaw (May 1, 1892 – April 2, 1974) was an American painter, poet,...
Dr Alun Withey
News Just In: Dr W Joins TikTok – @dralun7 Yes, it’s true – I’ve finally joined the 21st century and decided to try something new. I am still...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Yes, it’s true – I’ve finally joined the 21st century and decided to try something new. I am still only setting things up, so please be patient with the extremely cheesy and clunky vids as I try to work out what I’m doing! I’ve only got a couple of videos up at the moment too, …...
Open Culture
Binge-Watch Classic Television Programs Free: The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, That... Earlier this week, we featured the 99-year-old Dick Van Dyke’s performance in Coldplay’s new music...
9 months ago
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Earlier this week, we featured the 99-year-old Dick Van Dyke’s performance in Coldplay’s new music video, full of visual references to the sitcom that made him a household name in the early nineteen-sixties. And a household name he remains these six decades later, though one does...
Trying to Understand...
In the Shallows Of The Deep State. But is there anything there?
9 months ago
Open Culture
The Engineering of the Strandbeest: How the Magnificent Mechanical Creatures Have Technologically... Life evolves, but machines are invented: this dichotomy hardly conflicts with what most of us have...
9 months ago
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Life evolves, but machines are invented: this dichotomy hardly conflicts with what most of us have learned about biology and technology. But certain specimens roaming around in the world can blur that line — and in the curious case of the Strandbeesten, they really are roaming...
Wrong Side of...
The case for a Global Sanctuary City What if the Syrians can’t return home?
9 months ago
Flashbak
48 Hours In The Life of Andy Warhol, 1981 In spring of 1981, Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was setting up Myths, a...
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In spring of 1981, Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was setting up Myths, a portfolio of ten screenprints featuring fictional characters: The Star (Greta Garbo in her titular role in the 1931 film Mata Hari), Uncle Sam, The Witch (Margaret Hamilton, star of the...
Open Culture
When Christmas Was Legally Banned for 22 Years by the Puritans in Colonial Massachusetts Complaints about the commercial-age corruption of Christmas miss one critical fact: as a mass public...
9 months ago
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Complaints about the commercial-age corruption of Christmas miss one critical fact: as a mass public celebration, the holiday is a rather recent invention. Whether we credit Charles Dickens, Bing Crosby, or Frank Capra—men not opposed to marketing—we must reckon with Christmas as...
CrimethInc.
Resisting Local Authoritarianism and Multipolar Imperialisms in Georgia : A Deeper Look into the... On the one-hundred-year anniversary of the uprising in Georgia against Soviet annexation, the...
9 months ago
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On the one-hundred-year anniversary of the uprising in Georgia against Soviet annexation, the struggle for independence from Russian rule remains the chief force driving the popular mobilization that has been growing over the past several months. Yet today’s movement points to a...
Flashbak
The Yule Goat: Photographs of Finland’s Nuuttipukki (1928) “Good Thomas brought Christmas and bad Nuutti took it away” – Finnish saying     On January 13, it’s...
9 months ago
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“Good Thomas brought Christmas and bad Nuutti took it away” – Finnish saying     On January 13, it’s Saint Knut’s day in Finland, which usually marks the end of the Christmas season. And the Nuuttipukki is at your door. The strange, goat-like creature is a thirsty man dressed in...
Overcoming Bias
Conquest and Liberation of Academia During my graduate studies (’93-97), I looked at the history of prizes in science.
9 months ago
Hidden History
The Albuquerque “Broken Arrow” Nuclear Accident In 1957, a B-36 nuclear bomber accidentally dropped a Mark 17 hydrogen bomb while landing at...
9 months ago
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In 1957, a B-36 nuclear bomber accidentally dropped a Mark 17 hydrogen bomb while landing at Kirtland Air Force Base just outside of Albuquerque NM. In January 1950, President Harry Truman announced that the United States would begin a crash program to develop and deploy a weapon...
Open Culture
Hear the Evolution of Electronic Music: A Sonic Journey from 1929 to 2019 It’s easy to get the impression that enthusiasts of electronic music listen to nothing else. (Not...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
It’s easy to get the impression that enthusiasts of electronic music listen to nothing else. (Not that it isn’t true for some of them, who tend to relegate themselves to smaller subgenres: consult Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music for a map of the sonic territory.) And it’s...
Wrong Side of...
Europe's absent-minded revolution Christopher Caldwell's 'Reflections on the Revolution in Europe', 15 years on
9 months ago
Classical Wisdom
Does FREE WILL Exist? And if not, what are the consequences?
9 months ago
Trying to Understand...
L'Étrange défaite: Réalité et réalisme Another of my essays in French.
9 months ago
Flashbak
John Martin’s Thrilling Illustrations for Paradise Lost (1827) “Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death...
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“Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe” – The opening lines to Paradise Lost by John Milton, illustrated by John Martin     John Milton’s (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) epic poem...
Open Culture
Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Rise of Artificial Intelligence & Questions What Will Happen to... We now live in the midst of an artificial-intelligence boom, but it’s hardly the first of its kind....
9 months ago
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We now live in the midst of an artificial-intelligence boom, but it’s hardly the first of its kind. In fact, the field has been subject to a boom-and-bust cycle since at least the early nineteen-fifties. Eventually, those busts — which occurred when realizable AI technology...
Flashbak
Take Your Best Shot: Vintage Fairground Shooting Gallery Photos During their first participation in Paris-Photo in 2006, Lumiere des Roses shared a series of...
9 months ago
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During their first participation in Paris-Photo in 2006, Lumiere des Roses shared a series of fairground photos of men with guns at the shooting gallery. These snapshots were taken mostly in the 1920s and 1930s. Many looks remarkably fresh.   When I was just a baby my mama told...
African History...
Taming and domesticating the wild: the War-Elephants of ancient Aksum and Kush In his 1668 description of the West African kingdom of Benin, the Dutch writer Olfert Dapper...
9 months ago
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In his 1668 description of the West African kingdom of Benin, the Dutch writer Olfert Dapper reported that “The king shows himself only once a year to his people, going out of his court on horseback, accompanied by three or four hundred noblemen on horseback.”
The Universe of...
Claude and Merle Miller let me down Claude My relationship with Claude has its ups and downs, and I'm still trying to figure out what to...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Claude My relationship with Claude has its ups and downs, and I'm still trying to figure out what to use it for and what not. It's great at rewriting my job application cover letters to sound less like an awkward nerd. Last week I was in the supermarket and decided to try asking...
Classical Wisdom
Weekend Roundup Homer, Heracles, and Virgil
9 months ago
The Universe of...
Reflector grids Around here, these metal things are commonly found on streetside utility poles, attached maybe a...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
Around here, these metal things are commonly found on streetside utility poles, attached maybe a meter off the ground. .image-group { display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-self: center; justify-content: center; gap: 4em; } .image-group .image { ...