kottke.org: Portraits made using found DNA
Heather Dewey-Hagborg collects hair, chewed gum, and smoked cigarettes, pulls the DNA out of them, and uses the genetic information to produce models of what the people who used those items might have looked like.
From this sequence, Dewey-Hagborg gathers information about the person’s…
Lettuce from outer space at Rogowski Farm @unsqgreenmarket
The inside of a heart - where all the magic happens. 6 quarts of blood through 60 000 miles of vessels/day. Tireless and strong like us!
(from Nat Geo)
unknown, view from Dolores Park of San Francisco, after April 18, 1906 earthquake and fires
Thatcher’s funeral seen from above.
via @richwilliamssky
Hummingbird, a new music notation system
I don’t read music so it’s difficult for me to say how useful this is, but the folks behind Hummingbird claim their new system of music notation is “easier to learn, faster to read, and simpler for even the trickiest music”.
Roll over, Beethoven. (via @veen)
Priceonomics Blog: The Tyranny of the Taxi Medallions
The life of a taxi driver is hard. When cabbies start a shift, they owe about $100 to their company as payment just for the opportunity drive a taxi. They might not break even until halfway through their shift, or maybe not at all that day. In most American cities, they have to work very…
Handmade home in Topanga, CA.
Contributed by Mason St. Peter.
Priceonomics Blog: Diamonds Are Bullshit
“Yeah, they say three years’ salary.”
Michael Scott, The Office
American males enter adulthood through a peculiar rite of passage - they spend most of their savings on a shiny piece of rock. They could invest the money in assets that will compound over time and someday provide a…
I love posts like this, that just eviscerate some heteronormative romantic ideal and reveal it as a marketing scam.
“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”
~William Faulkner from Light in August
Photo by Christina Ann VanMeter / Flickr, cc by-nc 2.0
[TW: rape culture]
And when we frame all women as being someone’s wife, mother or daughter, what are we teaching young girls?
We are teaching them that in order to have the law on their side, they need to be loved by men. That they need to make themselves attractive and appealing to men in order to be worthy of protection. That their lives and their bodily integrity are valueless except for how they relate to the men they know.
The truth is that I am someone’s wife. I am also someone’s mother. I am someone’s daughter, and someone’s sister. But those are not the things that define me, or make me valuable in this world. Those are not the reasons that I should be able to live a life free from rape, sexual assault or any kind of violent crime.
I have value because I am a person. Full stop. End of argument. This isn’t even a discussion that we should be having.
So please, let’s start teaching that fact to the young women in our lives. Teach them that you love, honour and value them because of who they are. Teach them that they should expect to be treated with integrity because it’s a basic human right. Teach them that they do not deserve to be raped because no one ever, ever, ever deserves to be raped.
Above all, teach them that they are people, too.
"I Am Not Your Wife, Sister, or Daughter. I Am a Person
This post is soooo good at articulating why it’s so harmful to have to relate women to men through their relationships with men
(via wretchedoftheearth)
Epitaph
When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.
I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.
Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on your eyes
And not on your mind.
You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting
Bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.
Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.
- Merritt Malloy
"Noticing this morning’s reblog from Humans of New York, our producer Phyllis Myers was reminded of this poem, which is a favorite of hers, and it’s so lovely I wanted to pass it along to the rest of you.
(via nprfreshair)
