Fearless little bird on the back of a dog.
Grandson checking out playground, turtle deciding not to cross the road after all, Suzanne’s Mom taking pictures in Concord and around Boston Harbor.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Photo Roundup
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Boston Harbor, dog and chickadee, gillette, louise peterson, photo, photography, postaday, sculptor, turtle picture on June 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »
New Bird Found in Cambodia
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Ashish John, birder, birding, birds, cambodia, ecology, environment, forktail, nature, new species, oriental bird club, postaday, simon mahood, tailorbird, Thomas fuller, Wildlife Conservation Society on June 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »
If you can’t photograph the ivory-billed woodpecker in Louisiana or Cuba or wherever it is rumored to have survived, the next best thing is to find a brand new species. That’s what Simon Mahood did in Cambodia.
Thomas Fuller writes about it in the NY Times. “The discovery of new fauna conjures up images of Livingstone-like explorers trekking through malaria-infested jungles. But scientists working in Cambodia have reported a new species of bird in a decidedly less remote environment: the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
“Simon Mahood, the lead author of an article released Wednesday in the Oriental Bird Club’s journal Forktail, says the bird’s primary habitat is about a 30 minutes’ drive from his home in Phnom Penh, ‘allowing for traffic.’
“ ‘I’ve always wanted to discover a bird species, but I never expected it would happen like this,’ Mr. Mahood, who works for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Cambodia, said by telephone from Phnom Penh. ‘I certainly didn’t expect to be standing in flip-flops and shorts a half an hour from home.’
“Roughly the same size as a wren, with white cheeks and a cinnamon cap, the bird was named the Cambodian tailorbird by the team that documented the discovery. Tailorbirds get their name from the way they build their nests, by threading spider silk or other fibers through a leaf, creating a sort of cradle.” More.
Photo: Ashish John/Wildlife Conservation Society
The Cambodian tailorbird was found near Phnom Penh.
The Entrepreneurial Sock
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Andrew Trader, Claire Cain Miller, fashion, Luna & Stella, matt graves, Nick Bilton, Peter DaSilva, postaday, silicon valley, socks, start-up, tech entrepreneur, Travis Kalanick on June 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Erik sent along this lead, and John sent it to him. Both are guys who started tech companies, and I’m learning that requires a certain kind of attire.
To signal you are a laid-back but savvy entrepreneur, wear cool socks.
Claire Cain Miller and Nick Bilton write at the NY Times, “For barristers in 18th-century London, it was shoulder-grazing wigs. For the Mad men of 1950s New York, it was briefcases and fedoras. For the glass-ceiling-shattering women of the 1980s, it was shoulder pads.
“And for today’s tech entrepreneurs in high-flying Silicon Valley, it is flamboyantly colored, audaciously patterned socks.
“In a land where the uniform — jeans, hoodies and flip-flops — is purposefully nonchalant, and where no one would be caught dead in a tie, wearing flashy socks is more than an expression of your personality. It signals that you are part of the in crowd. It’s like a secret handshake for those who have arrived, and for those who want to. …
“Some say the craze took hold because socks are an acceptable shot of flair in a dressed-down, male-dominated culture — and peek out when entrepreneurs present their latest apps onstage at the tech world’s frequent conferences. Others offer a perhaps more universal explanation. ‘Girls notice,’ said Matt Graves, 37 …
“Travis Kalanick, 35, co-founder and chief executive of Uber, the on-demand taxi service, began wearing statement socks at his previous company, which sold software to businesses.
“ ‘I started having to suit up for meetings with Fortune 500 companies,’ said Mr. Kalanick (his favorite: hot pink). ‘I wanted to keep a little of my geeky computer engineering flair without people thinking I was nuts.’ …
“Sometimes I will even browse the women’s section and get the XXL, because they have all the fun colors,” said Andrew Trader, 42, an investor at Maveron who helped found Zynga. (He is partial to wool socks with bright stripes as well as a pair with an American flag pattern.)”
Read more at the NY Times, here, and check out their slide show.
Erik adds, “And here is a Swedish retail start-up (featured in article) that apparently designs and sells them.”
I can’t tell you how happy I am to know about socks. Father’s Day gifts for the men in the family are settled for the foreseeable future.
Now, can I give Suzanne, the Luna & Stella entrepreneur, socks as gifts, too?
Photo: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Roman Concrete Is Better for the Planet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged archaeology, berkeley lab, carbon emissions, concrete, doe, energy, manufacturing, Marie Jackson, Paulo Monteiro, postaday, roman, science on June 27, 2013| 3 Comments »
The concrete that the ancient Romans created is so durable that it may hold lessons for those who want to reduce carbon emissions.
Paul Preuss, from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, explains.
“The chemical secrets of a concrete Roman breakwater that has spent the last 2,000 years submerged in the Mediterranean Sea have been uncovered by an international team of researchers led by Paulo Monteiro of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
“Analysis of samples provided by team member Marie Jackson pinpointed why the best Roman concrete was superior to most modern concrete in durability, why its manufacture was less environmentally damaging – and how these improvements could be adopted in the modern world.
“ ‘It’s not that modern concrete isn’t good – it’s so good we use 19 billion tons of it a year,’ says Monteiro. ‘The problem is that manufacturing Portland cement accounts for seven percent of the carbon dioxide that industry puts into the air.’ …
“The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated – incorporating water molecules into its structure – and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.”
Apparently the key ingredients are found all over the world, enough to make a big difference in construction — and carbon emissions.
There’s more at the Berkeley Lab site for readers who can follow a technical explanation.
Photo: Berkeley Lab
Toy Lovers Join Forces
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged child, children, dolls, Frederick August Otto Schwarz, George Lucas, imagination, Milton Bradley, National Toy Hall of Fame, play, postaday, rochester, strong museum, Toy Industry Hall of Fame, toys, Walt Disney on June 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »
I moved from Rochester, New York, more than 30 years ago, so it was only when I went back for a visit that I got to see the storied collections of Margaret Woodbury Strong in a museum built to house them.
When one recovers from the enormity of her obsession, one feels deeply grateful for all the toys and dolls of one’s childhood so beautifully preserved.
The offerings and outreach of the museum have grown like topsy in 30 years. And today another new partnership was announced.
“The great minds of the toy industry will be honored alongside their famous creations when the Toy Industry Hall of Fame combines with the National Toy Hall of Fame under a partnership announced Tuesday.
“The 5,000-square-foot National Toy Hall of Fame gallery at the Strong museum in Rochester will undergo $4 million in renovations, with the goal of opening the combined hall in the fall of 2015.
“The Toy Industry Hall of Fame, whose inductees have included Milton Bradley, Frederick August Otto Schwarz, Walt Disney and George Lucas, has been without a physical presence for about eight years following the closure of the International Toy Center in New York City.
“Leaders of both halls have been talking for some time about combining the two as a way to raise their visibility and exposure and to promote their educational missions. …
” ‘The Strong is an ideal home for this homage to both the toys that have influenced generations of children and the innovative minds that brought them to life,’ Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association, said at a news conference at the Strong museum, where items like alphabet blocks, roller skates, the Frisbee, Lincoln Logs and the stick occupy places of honor.”
Read more at Yahoo, here. Click “like” if you believe in toys.
Photo: The Strong Museum
“The Strong’s founder, Margaret Woodbury Strong, had a particular interest in dolls and amassed one of the largest collections in the world. The National Museum of Play® at The Strong continues to refine and develop her collection, making it increasingly comprehensive and inclusive. It now includes more than 12,000 dolls and 2,800 paper dolls.”
Social Media Corrals Escaped Panda
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged animals, Ashley Foughty, national zoo, postaday, red panda, social media, trip gabriel, washington, zoo on June 25, 2013| 2 Comments »
Photo: Ashley Foughty, via Associated Press. Foughty spotted the renegade Rusty in Washington’s Adams Morgan neighborhood, and twitter did the rest.
Ashley Foughty uses social media. And a good thing, too. If she hadn’t responded to the zoo’s call for help finding an escaped red panda, who knows what might have happened.
Trip Gabriel writes at the NY Times, “Rusty the red panda, who disappeared from the National Zoo, hijacked the news cycle on Monday.
“To help find Rusty, a raccoon-size mammal with a striped tail and moon-shaped face, the zoo turned to social media, and suddenly half of official Washington broke from Serious Events to tune in to the saga of the runaway panda.
“On Twitter and Facebook, the hunt for 11-month-old Rusty … exploded in a mix of concern, humor. …
“ ‘Rusty the Red Panda eats shoots and leaves,’ Jake Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, filed to Twitter. …
“The zoo announced Rusty’s disappearance to its thousands of Twitter followers in a message at 11:51 a.m, which was retweeted nearly 3,000 times in an hour. …
“At midday, mentions of ‘Rusty’ on Twitter nearly equaled those of ‘Obama.’ ….
“ ‘Edward Snowden and Rusty the red panda relaxing on a Havana beach,’ wrote J. D. Ross, a communications director at Syracuse University, referring to the American security contractor wanted on spying charges. …
“Once again, social media proved to be a powerful dragnet. Around 1:15 p.m., a Washingtonian posted a picture on Twitter of Rusty in a patch of weeds in the Adams Morgan district, not far from the 163-acre zoo.”
Read what happened next. Note to all escaped zoo animals: Twitter will find you.
Midsommer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged culture, dalarna, midsommer, midsummer, postaday, solstice, sweden, tradition on June 24, 2013| 4 Comments »
Maria writes, “Some memories from our very traditional midsummer in Dalarna.” That’s in Sweden. Erik or Margareta, care to explain what we see here?
I learned this much on the web:
“Ask a Swede what the most important holiday of the year is and Midsummer will come up as often as Christmas. Get older Swedes talking and their eyes will well up as they reminisce about community spirit, songs, barn dancing and the mystical atmosphere surrounding the Midsummer gatherings of their youth. Sure, there was a lot of drinking, fistfights and frolicking, but everyone shook hands in the end. For younger generations, Midsummer is mainly about heading out to the summer cottage and celebrating with a group of friends or family.” There’s more at the site Sweden.se, here.
You Gotta Have the Latin for the Judgin’
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beyond the fringe, catholic, compassion, judgin, Latin, peter cook, poor, Pope Francis, suffering on June 23, 2013| 4 Comments »
Do you remember the British comedy group “Beyond the Fringe”? We love the LP record in our house.
I was thinking about a Peter Cook “Beyond the Fringe” sketch today because I have been reading tweets in Latin and my husband and I always joke about the English miner in Cook’s “Sitting on the Bench” routine who was wistful about not becoming a judge.
“I could have been a judge, but I never had the Latin, never had the Latin for the judgin’.”
The Latin tweets I’ve been following are from Pope Francis, who is said to have gathered a large following who just like Latin. I am not a Catholic, but a lot of what the new Pope has said impresses me, especially his cautions against materialism and his concern for those who suffer. I also like exercising the rusty hinges in my brain where fuzzy memories of Latin are stored. And if I don’t quite get the whole tweet, Google Translate is available — and turns out to be much better at Latin than, say, Swedish or Arabic.
I retweeted this missive:
Papa Franciscus @Pontifex_ln 22 Jun
Si sensum vitae in Iesu invenimus, eos negligere non possumus qui patiuntur quique sunt tristes.
Google Translate: If we find the meaning of life in Jesus, we can not ignore those who suffer and those who are sad.
Photo: AFP/Getty Images
Turning Old Books into Sculpture
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Cambridge University Press, england, galleon, justin rowe, kraken, Norwich School of Art, paper sculpture on June 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »
I got this lead from Andrew Sullivan. He wrote a post about a paper sculptor who made the commissioned work below, a kraken destroying a galleon. (I know, the kraken in The Island of the Aunts is a holy, nonthreatening creature, but elsewhere it’s more like a giant squid.)
“Justin Rowe is an artist and paper sculptor from Cambridge [England]. After graduating from Norwich School of Art in 1998, he began working for Cambridge University Press as an academic bookseller.”
The BBC says, “Justin Rowe started carving up the pages of old books as a hobby in 2010, using a small rotating-bladed scalpel. …
“Mr Rowe ‘lifts’ illustrations from ‘junk books’ to create scenes and illuminated installations.
“His intricate hobby began when he wanted to create a Christmas window display for the Cambridge University Press bookshop where he works as a senior bookseller.” More.
I wonder if Justin Rowe had anything to do with the stealth art project in U.K. libraries that we blogged about here. Also quite gorgeous.
Photo: Justin Rowe
Giant Whirligigs
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, martha waggoner, vollis simpson, whirligig on June 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Summer makes me think of Fire Island, where I spent much of my childhood, and Stone Harbor, where my husband spent much of his.
Stone Harbor was also where my husband’s parents and many relatives retired. Uncle Al lived next door to my in-laws and made wooden whirligigs for family and friends: a seagull, for example, or a Mr. Sawyer who appeared to saw wood when the wind blew.
Recently I read the obit of a man who was widely known for his whirligigs, Vollis Simpson of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Martha Waggoner wrote about him for the Associated Press and the Globe.
“Where others saw trash, Vollis Simpson saw whimsical, wind-powered whirligigs, creations with hundreds of moving parts that turned and twirled.
“The whirligigs were made from recycled heating and air conditioning systems and reflector material Mr. Simpson patiently cut into thousands of tiny pieces that made the works shine when lights hit them in the dark. His work was featured in museums, backyards, dentist offices, and the 1996 Olympics.
‘‘ ‘I got caught with a lot of material, and I worked it out,’ he said in a 2010 interview. …
“Some of Mr. Simpson’s whirligigs stand as high as 50 feet … They can weigh as much 3 tons.
“He built the contraptions near his machine shop in Lucama. More than 30 of them were on display there until last year, when an effort to restore them began. That process is about halfway complete, with a few of the larger whirligigs still in the pasture, waiting to be moved.
“The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park is scheduled to open in November in Wilson, about 10 miles from his home.” Read more about him here.
Photo: Ellen Albanse for The Boston Globe
Mr. Simpson’s “Giant Whirligig” is shown near the entrance to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.
How Two-Year-Olds Talk
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged humor, learning language, two-year-old, video, youtube on June 20, 2013| 4 Comments »
John sent around a funny YouTube series. Have you seen “Convos with My Two-Year-Old”? The conversations are quite professionally produced by a dad, Matthew Clarke, who has written down actual conversations with his daughter so that a fully grown man in the role of the two-year-old can help him reenact them.
The acting is good. I love the costume touches, like the little heart necklace on the actor who plays the two-year-old girl, and in later video, the barrette and fairy wings.
Check out more, here. I’m impressed. I wrote down lots of funny conversations when John was learning language and then when Suzanne was. But carrying it to this level did not occur to me. Of course, everyone wasn’t making videos then, but I could have done Super 8. Or Betamax.
Yarn Bombing a Former Factory Town
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged andrea green, arts, ashland, Ashland Creative, culture, downtown, graffiti, knitting, olek, stealth, taryn plumb, Ulie Nardone, urban revitalization, wall street bull, yarn bombing on June 19, 2013| 2 Comments »
I do love creative stealth projects. This one is not quite stealth because, although the perpetrators act under cover of darkness, they are known — and willing to be interviewed.
Taryn Plumb writes for the Boston Globe about graffiti artists with knitting needles in Ashland, Mass. “Armed with clews of yarn, they transformed a series of utilitarian light posts into colorful, whimsical, eye-luring structures.
“It’s called ‘yarn bombing,’ ‘guerrilla knitting,’ or ‘graffiti knitting’ — wrapping and otherwise decorating everyday structures with yarn under the cover of night. …
“It is a worldwide movement — the first international ‘yarn bombing day’ was observed on June 11, 2011 — that has emerged in the last decade, with elaborate designs hitting bicycles, statues, trees, steps, parking meters, phone booths, and subway interiors, filling potholes, and even draping entire buses and military tanks in various countries.
“In its local application, though, Ashland Creative wasn’t completely rogue. Organizer Andrea Green sought approval from selectmen.”
Plumb explains that the group’s main motive is to help reenergize the downtown as other local community-building initiatives are doing.
“And the response? Curiosity from both adults and kids, the latter of which have named their favorites and been more than happy to explore their texture.
“ ‘People have just been delighted to see the way ordinary functional objects have been transformed into fun, interesting works of art,’ said Green …
“ ‘People often have the perception that art has to be seen in museums,’ Green said, ‘but amateur artists can create it, and it can still entertain.’ ”
More.
Update 2/10/14: Got to add another great yarn-bombing story here, courtesy of Mary Ann.
Photo: Ashland Creative
Ulie Nardone participated in Ashland’s recent Wrap-It Up Art Project.
Update: Beagling sends along this version of yarn bombing.
Photo at the NY Times: Olek
“Charging Bull,” near Wall Street, was covered in crochet by artist Olek in December 2010.
“Charging Bull,” near Wall Street, was covered in crochet by artist Olek in December 2010.
Landmine-Sniffing Bees
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged andrew sullivan, balkans, bees, bombs, bosnia, croatia, de-mining, detection, landmines, Nikola Kezic, olivia solon, postaday, tnt, yugoslavia, Zagreb University on June 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »
You never know what curiosity is going to turn up on AndrewSullivan.com, which is why I am a paying member of that blog (the posts are mostly free, except for a few jumps). Here Andrew links to a story about bees that are sniffing out deadly landmines.
As Olivia Solon writes at Wired, “A team of Croatian researchers are training honeybees to sniff out unexploded mines that still pepper the Balkans.
“Nikola Kezic, a professor in the Department of Agriculture at Zagreb University, has been exploring using bees to find landmines since 2007. Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and other countries from former Yugoslavia still have around 250,000 buried mines which were left there during the wars of the early 90s. Since the end of the war more than 300 people have been killed in Croatia alone by the explosives, including 66 de-miners.
“Tracking down the mines can be extremely costly and dangerous. However, by training bees — which are able to detect odours from 4.5 kilometres away — to associate the smell of TNT with sugar can create an affective way of identifying the locations of mines.
“Kezic leads a multimillion-pound programme sponsored by the EU, called Tiramisu, to detect landmines across the continent. … The movements of the bees are tracked from afar using thermal cameras. Bees have the advantage of being extremely small and so don’t run the risk of setting off the explosives in the same way that trained mammals such as dogs or rats do.” More at Wired.
Andrew also links to posts on a mysterious illness affecting bee populations, an international concern. The cause, still under investigation, may relate to a pesticide.
Photo:: United States Department of Agriculture
More Rambles in Spring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged farmstand, graveyard, photo, photograph, postaday on June 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Here are a few photos from recent rambles. You will note that I am drawn to flowers. You can identify these or your own flowers, shrubs, weeds, and houseplants by uploading pictures to MisterSmartyPlants.
Free for Fathers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, garden, gardening, nature, photo, photograph, plants, postaday, tower hill, Worcester County Horticultural Society on June 16, 2013| 2 Comments »
My husband suggested we go to Worcester County Horticultural Society’s Tower Hill Botanic Garden today. When we got there, we learned that this weekend, the admission is free for fathers.
All the flowers and trees have labels, so it’s another way to get your plants identified (besides MisterSmartyPlants). There were lots of plants. Lots of families, too. A curious thing: In spite of the crowds and the absence of trash cans, I did not see one single piece of litter.
My husband chose to pose by a large aloe. Borrowing a line from A Raisin in the Sun, he said the aloe “expresses me”: prickly and healing. 🙂
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