"No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." -William Blake
Whirling Dervishes
'We Were Wanderers On A Prehistoric Earth' gives Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' new life
Phil Kaye performs 'Repetition'
Grey Filastine takes us on a sonic journey through his 'Cathedral Of Junk'
The Dalai Lama Answers A Question (the comic)
Geoffrey Brock reads 'The Nights'
'We Were Wanderers On A Prehistoric Earth' gives Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' new life
Phil Kaye performs 'Repetition'
Grey Filastine takes us on a sonic journey through his 'Cathedral Of Junk'
The Dalai Lama Answers A Question (the comic)
Geoffrey Brock reads 'The Nights'
Albert Einstein and Indian philosopher and poet Rabindranath Tagore have the most fascinating conversation I've ever had the pleasure of reading
Time-lapse videos of flying over the Earth at night and an astronauts view from space
High School students send rubber chicken to the edge of space
Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains that the human race can survive a killer asteroid, otherwise the aliens will laugh at us
'Afronauts' creates a fictional documentation of a one man space program
Bill Moyers' interview with Isaac Asimov is as wonderful as Asimov's taste in facial hair (Part 2, Part 3)
Minute Physics delves into the origins of the word 'Ye'
Frank Black of The Pixies creates a soundtrack for the German Expressionist film 'The Golem'
Zefrank discusses imagination and how we never really stop pretending, even in adulthood
John Green asks how "dark" the Dark Ages really were
TED-Ed asks how small is an atom? (Among many other fascinating questions)
Plant Money asks whether Iceland should get rid of its currency
Study finds that monkeys who are bullied by other monkeys have weaker immune systems
A new system for mass producing chicken meat takes inspiration from the Matrix
The University of Southern California received a $40k grant endowment to develop a video game based on the works of Henry David Thoreau
Playing a Fallout character with no intelligence stats may make a zero dialogue experience but at least you can still punch a two-headed cow
The art of creating ominous architecture
"For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands."
'Freed After 25 Years' tells a tale not just of murder and injustice but of incompetence and ignorance among police and the justice system #FilmThePolice
'The Mystery of Picasso' is a 1956 French film which shows Pablo Picasso creating various pieces which he destroys afterwards so the pieces would only ever exist on film
Magnetic tape never looked so cool
Radiolab brings you to the 'Crossroads' and delves into the mythos surrounding Robert Johnson
Parasitic fungi completely annihilates insects, hopefully there isn't a human version of this
In his new book, 'The Science of Yoga,' William J. Broad searches to find what is myth and what is actually true about the practice of yoga
'Storytime' by Terry Gilliam never disappoints
Now For Something Completely 'Planetary Resources'
'Planetary Resources' is a company which seeks to mine asteroids for valuable metals, thus making the film 'Moon' a proof-of-concept piece. Since their recent announcement a lot of interesting articles have been posted and questions asked.
One of the more important questions is whether asteroid mining violates space law?
Mike Wall of Space.com explores the economics of space mining and finds quite a few advantages as well as covering the high-profile investors of the project
Then there's the obvious question of how someone mines an asteroid in the first place. There's also an interactive video which is just as vague but still fascinating
Finally, Hank Green summarizes most of the above in an episode of SciShow
Something of Inspiration (x2)
Charlie Chaplin's final speech in his film 'The Dictator' resonates as much today as it would in the forties.
Charlie Chaplin's final speech in his film 'The Dictator' resonates as much today as it would in the forties.
James Ragan recites "If For Each Of Us," a poem about reliving your life just to appreciate the simple things
Reserved Vernacular
Spaghetti Westerns with my father
With a man whose life probably didn’t pan out the way he had hoped
My father shares the film’s sentiment of justice served,
But once the sheriff says what little he needed to and begins his journey home
I couldn’t help to wonder what he was returning to.
If, at every sunset he rode into, every lone cactus and tumbleweed he passed,
He would see the faces of men he justly served.
If, after leaving his wife to perform his duty,
She would consider him a dead man;
Not so much to make his absence more bearable, but more a wish
To spare his soul from the trade that chose him.
Before the final shot faded into credits,
I turned to my father and asked, “Who really won?”
And with a stern look and a blank stare he replied, “The man with a clear conscience.”
Enjoy the newsletter? Cool! Send it to a friend (or twenty). All previous issues can be found here.
