Friday, March 29, 2019

Happy Friday! Watch as the Elite Trait gets whittled down to the Final Roar in March Mammal Madness. (Also, we do a brief homage to early '90s game shows.)


Thursday, March 28, 2019

Happy Opening Day! My city takes this rather seriously. 

There are several other March Madness-type tournaments going on, but is there one more bonkers than the Name of the Year contest? I think not!

Is this the thumbprint of Leonardo da Vinci? Maybe! Amazing.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

MC Marmot explains March Mammal Madness's Sweet 16!


    

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Monday, March 25, 2019

Friday, March 22, 2019

Happy Friday! Here is our latest Rodent Recap.

 (This video may disappear and hopefully reappear later today, once we re-upload it with the typo corrected. I'm going to wait until school is mostly out for the day!)


 


 Have a safe and spiffy weekend, everyone. See you next week.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Good morning! We are deep in March Mammal Madness, obviously, which may be why today’s links seem rather number-heavy.

Bill Lucey analyzes the numbers in the new Congress. 

Here’s an amazing chart which tracks the most populous cities from 1500 AD to modern times. (I LOVE stuff like this.)

Something else I love is the Guardian’s ongoing “Unbuilt Cities” series. In its latest installment, it looks at bridges designed but never built. (Look at that Washington DC bridge!)

And finally, here’s how to make practically anything out of paper or cardboard. Wow.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Happy Spring, everyone! Here is a new March Mammal Madness Recap.

 (When this is over, we are going to sleep for about a month.)



 

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Monday, March 18, 2019

Hello and welcome to a special Monday edition of Links from Others!

From Julie: Scientists have actually gone back in time! We can fix everything, people! (I mean, once they can go back more than a millisecond in time. It may take a while.)

From Cassandra: You whippersnappers don’t understand what it took to get into college!


Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Seiichi Miyake, creator of tactile pavement.

Merriam-Webster has a new quiz on colors, and it’s really hard.

Coming later this year: Muppet stamps!

The Bauhaus art school turns 100 this year, and CityLab is doing a special on it that is full of great, great stuff. I saved up a bunch of different links before I realized it was all part of the same special, which should tell you something about my love for the Bauhaus ideology, I guess.

Friday, March 15, 2019

Happy Friday, everyone! We'll be featuring Links From Others on Monday.

 For now, here is a Friday MMM recap:


 



 Have a safe and spiffy weekend, everyone. See you next week.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Happy Pi Day, everyone! 


Also, here is a Rodent Recap of the first full night of the March Mammal Madness battles. Enjoy!



Wednesday, March 13, 2019

For the spooky among us: Behold, March Vladness! Vote for your favorite goth song!

Google Earth is featuring a Carmen Sandiego game. Just as I was about to apprehend the criminal, my computer crashed. I’m not sure if this was Google Earth or Carmen Sandiego’s doing, but fair warning.

Timo Aho and Pekka Niittyvirta have created a light installation in Scotland that shows how high the sea levels will rise if we don’t act on climate change. They should do this everywhere, really.

Yunil Nam has imagined an amazing, Jules Verne-inspired underwater city which would create a coral reef with the remains of dead humans. How soon can we start on this?

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Monday, March 11, 2019

Happy Monday! It’s time for the madness to begin, so if you don’t see much of us in the next few weeks, you know why. 

However, many other March contests are happening, including the 2019 Tournament of Books at the Morning News! 

Did you know that the Library of Congress has an Innovator in Residence? Jer Thorp is making beauty out of data.

Friday, March 08, 2019

Happy Friday! Today’s Google Doodle is a lovely combination of words and art.

From Cassandra: What do dreams mean? 

Also from Cassandra: The enduring message of Wonder Woman. 

Do you want to see the weirdest logo for each MLB team? Sure you do! (I really like the robot elephant for the A’s. They should consider that for future uniforms!)

You can vote for the Readers’ Choice Winner in the annual Smithsonian Photo Contest. Hover over each photo for more details. (All of them are amazing, frankly.)

Have a safe and spiffy weekend, everyone! See you next week.

Thursday, March 07, 2019

It begins! Starting next week, March Mammal Madness consumes our lives for a brief time. We did an explanatory video of what MMM is:


 


 Videos will be plentiful in the days to come, but we'll also post some non-MMM links. Honest! (Then we return to normal life in April.)

Wednesday, March 06, 2019

Finally, XKCD has provided the definitive “soda or pop? map. (Medicine broth!)

Speaking of maps, here’s a list of the richest and poorest counties in each state. It makes for interesting comparisons.

Have you heard of anthropometry? How about Bertillonage? It was an exploratory method of identification, which might have been useful if it had been in the days of stringent computer limits and not human error. (Well, okay, probably not even then.)

A new book on Thomas Merton explores the paradoxes of the hermit/traveler/bon vivant/contemplative.

Tuesday, March 05, 2019

Happy Mardi Gras! Celebrate with New Orleans tonight, before it’s time for Lent. Bill Lucey has some thoughts about what to give up, and why. 

Somehow I missed the sad news that Royal de Luxe’s giant puppets have retired. 

Look, a whole website dedicated to old track railways and monorails and the like! 

You’ve probably seen Thamesmead, even if you don’t know the name – it’s been the background to A Clockwork Orange and that terrifying Aphex Twin video, among others. (I think I found a birthday present for Bunny in the 50 Years of Thamesmead book.)

Have you heard of Letitia Elizabeth Landon? Probably not, which is a shame, because she was called the female Byron” of her day. She died very young and is only now getting some recognition.

Monday, March 04, 2019

It’s Monday! It’s also National Grammar Day! Did you know that “won’t” was once considered as ill-mannered as “ain’t”?

Here’s some more on that bizarre DAU project. Every time I read something new, it sounds weirder and weirder.

A new theory on space-time, using the amplituhedron, leads to a physicist saying that we’re looking for the question, not the answer, to the universe. Well, of course. Douglas Adams told us the answer a long time ago.

What is it like to be the world’s greatest art thief? It’s…kind of strange, honestly, going by this profile.

Friday, March 01, 2019

Happy Friday! Happy March! Happy St. David’s Day! And, most importantly, happy March Mammal Madness Bracket Drop Day! Go and print out your bracket, and get ready for the mayhem to follow! 

From both Erin and Julie, who know my brand: A German rat is rescued from a manhole. None of this is a euphemism, honest.

The BBC also seems to know my brand, as they’ve just put out something on hauntology! 

And finally, in equally important news: Careful researchers have determined that it would take 693 years to surface Lake Superior with a Zamboni. Now you can rest easy and enjoy the weekend. See you next week!