Servant performs the role of a chair for the Queen
According to legend, Queen Nzinga (or Zinga, or Njinga) 1583-1663 was given her name because she was born with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. To the Ndongo, this was an indication she would become a wise and proud woman. Indeed she was, a strong, charismatic, and shrewd leader who would not acquiesce to the European colonists. She ruled during a period of rapid growth in the African slave trade and at a time when the Portuguese were concentrating their efforts towards South West Africa, in attempts to circumvent the British and French holdings. The presence of the Portuguese clearly threatened the independent kingdoms of the territory (which is present-day Angola). Queen Nzinga came to power in 1626 after the death of her brother. During her reign of 37 years, she remained relentless and ruthless in maintaining independence from the Portuguese. Nzinga fearlessly and cleverly fought for the freedom of her kingdom against the Portuguese using armed combat when necessary and striking up an alliance with the Dutch when it was advantageous. She also converted to Christianity, though some believe she did so only for diplomatic leverage. She also made an unusual decree, establishing her kingdom as a safe haven for runaway slaves seeking refuge from the European colonists. It was a strategy that gained her admiration and loyal subjects to fend off the Portuguese. Her status in African history is significant, not only as an iconic female ruler during a turbulent time in Africa, but as an inspiration to the Angolans in their quest for independence in the 20th century.
Many fascinating stories and legends are attributed to Queen Nzinga. In an often repeated tale, the Portuguese governor, Correia de Sousa, did not offer a chair for Nzinga to sit on during their negotiations, and instead, had a floor mat laid out for her to sit. The use of banal floor mat was appropriate only for subordinates and Nzinga took exception to this slight by the governor. Unwilling to accept this humiliation, she ordered one of her servants to get down on the ground on all fours so she could sit upon his back during negotiations. Through this overt act, she asserted her status as an equal to the governor, not an inferior. The scene was depicted by an eyewitness account, the Italian preist Giovanni Cavazzi, during one of his missions to Africa. Cavazzi’s drawings are considered to be amongst the first sketches of African life by a European. Some of these drawings were made into prints and published in an extensive account of Cavazzi’s travels. In another peculiar legend, Nzinga was a woman noted for executing her lovers. With a large, all male harem at her disposal, she had the men fight one another to the death in order to spend the night with her and, after a single night of lovemaking, were, in turn, put to death.
Queen Nzinga with a crucifix and a scene depicting her holding a typical meal
The Queen’s baptism and a smoking ceremony for her dead brother
Queen Nzinga’s funeral procession
Description:
Cavazzi, Giovanni Antonio. Relation historique de l’Ethiopie occidentale :contenant la description des royaumes de Congo, Angelle, & Matamba. A Paris : Chez C.J.B. Delespine le fils, 1732.
This is an illustration of the truth vs. classification results for identifying sex scenes using a classifier in scikit-learn. The top row represents "truth" as labelled by Mechanical Turkers (and post-analyzed by me). The bottom row represents how the classifier did. Rollover a chunk to see the partly tokenized text and judge for yourself (beware, X-rated!).
This synthetic biology project by designer Ai Hasegawa imagines that a woman could gestate and give birth to a baby from another species, in this case a dolphin, before eating it (+ movie).
I Wanna Deliver a Dolphin... was developed by Ai Hasegawa to tackle food shortages and satisfy maternal instincts as the human population burgeons by giving women the option to become surrogates for endangered animals hunted for food.
Hasegawa proposes synthesising a placenta that could support an animal in a human womb.
"This project approaches the problem of human reproduction in an age of overcrowding, overdevelopment and environmental crisis," Hasegawa said. "With potential food shortages and a population of nearly seven billion people, would a woman consider incubating and giving birth to an endangered species such as a shark, tuna or dolphin?"
The designer also questions whether someone would feel differently about eating a delicacy having personally carried and nurtured it.
"Would raising this animal as a child change its value so drastically that we would be unable to consume it because it would be imbued with the love of motherhood?" asked Hasegawa.
As a case study for the concept Hasegawa chose the Maui's dolphin, one of the world's smallest and most rare species of dolphin that has been critically endangered as a consequence of human fishing.
A Maui's dolphin is roughly the same size as a human baby and is regarded as highly intelligent.
For a woman to gestate a dolphin, Hasegawa proposes biologically modifying a placenta to prevent the passage of antibodies from mother to baby that attack non-human cells.
"The placenta originates from the baby's side, which in this case is a dolphin, and not from the human side," said Hasegawa. "This avoids the ethical and legal difficulties associated with reproductive research involving human eggs."
The "dolp-human" placenta would be altered to distinguish between mammal and non-mammal cells, rather than human and other cells, so the foetus would escape attack from the antibodies.
After birth, the mother would have to administer fat-rich synthesised milk to the baby to build it's immune system, which a dolphin would naturally get from its mother's milk rather than via the placenta.
Humans are genetically predisposed to raise children as a way of passing on their genes to the next generation. For some, the struggle to raise a child in decent conditions is becoming harder due to gross overpopulation and an increasingly strained global environment.
This project approaches the problem of human reproduction in an age of overcrowding, overdevelopment and environmental crisis. With potential food shortages and a population of nearly seven billion people, would a woman consider incubating and giving birth to an endangered species such as a shark, tuna or dolphin? This project introduces the argument for giving birth to our food to satisfy our demands for nutrition and childbirth, and discusses some of the technical details of how this might be possible.
Would raising this animal as a child change its value so drastically that we would be unable to consume it because it would be imbued with the love of motherhood? The Maui's dolphin has been chosen as the ideal "baby" for this piece. It is one of the world's rarest and smallest dolphins, classified critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation's Red List of Threatened Species (version 2.3) because of the side effects of fishing activity by humans, its size (which closely matches the size of a human baby), and its high intelligence level and communication abilities.
I Wanna Deliver a Dolphin... imagines a point in the future, where humans will help this species by the advanced technology of synthetic biology. A "dolp-human placenta" that allows a human female to deliver a dolphin is created, and thus humans can become a surrogate mother to endangered species. Furthermore, gourmets would be able to enjoy the luxury of eating a rare animal: an animal made by their own body, raising questions of the ownership of rare animal life, and life itself.
To make it possible for a human mother to deliver a dolphin from her womb, there is a need to synthesise "The Dolp-human Placenta". The usual human placenta interacts to pass from mother to baby oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, hormones, antibodies (Immunoglobulin Gamma, IgG) and so on. The Dolp-human placenta blocks the delivery of IgG to the baby.
The placenta originates from the baby's side, which in this case is a dolphin, and not from the human side. This avoids the ethical and legal difficulties associated with reproductive research involving human eggs.
The decidua is formed by implantation of the egg. Usually, foreign cells in the body (for example from other individuals) are attacked by the immune system, but inside the decidua they are tolerated. However, even though the decidua accepts cells from other individuals, non-human cells would still be attacked. In the dolp-human placenta case, it has been modified to distinguish mammal from non-mammal cells, making it even more tolerant.
A bizarre instrument combining a piano and cello has finally been played to an audience more than 500 years after it was dreamt up Leonardo da Vinci.
Da Vinci, the Italian Renaissance genius who painted the Mona Lisa, invented the ‘‘viola organista’’ - which looks like a baby grand piano – but never built it, experts say.
After 15 years of construction, the Church of Scientology has dedicated a massive new headquarters building in St. Petersburg, Florida. The upper floors of the building will be devoted to unleashing the dozens of superpowers that we all apparently possess.
“Super Power,” first unveiled by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is one's ability to hone in on 57 senses called "perceptics." The original five senses — sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch — were found not enough. The Flag Building, nicknamed the "Super Power" building, will specifically feature exclusive programs on expanding one’s “perceptics.” Among its generally secretive program's features is an antigravity simulator, various exercise machines, and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins blindfolded riders around, a scientologist previously told the Tampa Bay Times after attending similar courses in Los Angeles. The spinning contraption is said to improve perception of compass direction, one of the 57 "perceptics." Some of the other "perceptics" the programs aim to help members master are personal size, blood circulation, fields/magnetic, sound direction, emotional state of groups, and perception of conclusions (past and present).
One of those 57 superpowers has got to be creating an illusion of heterosexuality.
one more reason to get to carl's neighborhood next time I visit
From the folks at Range restaurant comes Third Rail, located in the Dogpatch area of San Francisco. The bar is scheduled to open in early December. "The thriving and revitalized Dogpatch area of San Francisco welcomes Range restaurant’s newest family member — Third Rail this December. The principals consist of Jeff Lyon, former bar manager at Range, and Phil West, Range’s owner and chef. Third Rail will focus on category-driven craft cocktails, local beers both on draught and in the bottle, and regional wines on tap. The design/build team from Paxton Gate has remodeled the former Retox Lounge space into a classic, comfortable urban neighborhood bar with mid-century touches and art deco motifs inspired by “old” and “new world” train stations." I got hold of the cocktail menu. I see: sherry, armagnac, and vermouth. SEASONAL Cold Snap Rittenhouse rye, Snap, calamondin, lemon, Peychaud’s bitters (rocks) Cheshire Cat Tito’s vodka, white guava, Genepy, falernum, lime (rocks) Harvest Moon Siete Leguas blanco tequila, asian pear, lime, absinthe (rocks) Cloven Hoof Gosling’s rum, Cerbois arnagnac, madiera, 7 spices (big rock) APERITIF Off the Cuff Perucchi dry vermouth, Gran Classico bitter, seltzer, orange (big rock) 601 Sutton Cellars vermouth, ginger, honey, lemon, prosecco (rocks)...
Last month we gathered shagbark hickory nuts in abundance, and now that the leaves have fallen, the trees stand as silent wooden sentinels in a silvery grey forest.
I squirreled away the leftover shells and uncracked nuts, and now is the time to gather some hickory bark. I peel off the sections that hang off the sides of the tree like brittle old wooden house shingles.
The bark of a tree is its skin, protecting the tree layers from insects, disease, and the elements. Barks have their own unique eccentricities—some are smooth, grey, bumpy, brown-black, streaked, scaly, or furrowed, depending on the type of tree.
Just under the bark is a layer of living wood, containing phloem, a soft tissue that transports sugars from the leaves to the roots and other parts of the tree. If the bark is damaged or cut it can affect the phloem, injuring the tree. The great thing about the shagbark hickory bark is that it naturally exfoliates, so it's easily harvested without cutting into the tree.
American Indians boiled shagbark hickory bark and chips to make sugar, and also used the bark as a tonic for "general debility" and arthritis. The Cherokee used the hickory wood ashes to cure pork.
Infusing milk with shagbark hickory bark to make ice cream
Today, hickory is a common flavoring used to smoke or cure meats like ham. In smoking, the meat absorbs the hickory flavors from wet hickory chips or logs that are added to a fire in a chamber or smoker. You can also add hickory chips to barbecue grills, or even use a liquid processed hickory smoke flavoring. Here's a tasty recipe for smoked lamb using hickory chunks.
It's hard to imagine this incredible hickory smoke flavor as I sniff at the bark I just peeled. The bark just smells...woody, not much else. I admit I feel a bit doubtful. It's not until the bark and shells warm in the oven that I start to get a sense of the toasty, smoky flavor of real hickory.
Shagbark hickory bark ice cream
And then, when I boil the toasted bark with milk and leave it to infuse for hours, an amazing transformation takes place. I can't believe that this hunk of wood can exude a such buttery, nutty, smoky flavor, filling my kitchen like a holiday hearth. This infusion makes a remarkable base for desserts like panna cotta, or the unique ice cream detailed here, which wouldn't be out of place on your Thanksgiving table.
About the Author: Tama Matsuoka Wong is corporate lawyer turned professional forager who supplies wild plants to chefs in the New York City area and leads events across the country about the deliciousness of wild ingredients.
Arlington, Mass. —
Police in Arlington are investigating four deaths that are considered to be suspicious at a Newland Road home, according to offiicials.
Police confirmed that there were two adults and two children that were found.
Kanye Stops By Harvard To Give A Speech About Design | Via
"So after walking through here I decided that I wanted to make sure for anyone that didn’t have tickets tonight that you all could have tickets to the show. So anybody who wants to come tonight, you can have tickets for the entire office!
But I just wanted to tell you guys: I really do believe that the world can be saved through design, and everything needs to actually be “architected.” And this is the reason why even some of the first DONDA employees were architects that started designing t-shirts instead of buildings. But just to see the work actually be actualized.
I believe that utopia is actually possible—but we’re led by the least noble, the least dignified, the least tasteful, the dumbest, and the most political. So in no way am I a politician—I’m usually at my best politically incorrect and very direct. I really appreciate you guys’ willingness to learn and hone your craft, and not be lazy about creation.”
Bitcoin has long been accused of , but today it's been implicated in a more grisly business: assassination. In Forbes, Andy Greenberg details a site called Assassination Market, which offers up crowdfunded bounties for the murder of public figures. As previously reported in The Daily Dot, the site is primarily motivated by hostility to overreaching government, offering bounties ranging from 40 bitcoin for President Obama to a whopping 124 bitcoin for outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke. At current bitcoin rates, that would add up to over $70,000.
The site takes advantage of a feature that lets users encode information in a Bitcoin transaction. By predicting the date of the assassination in advance and encoding that information in a one-dollar donation, a user could verify she was responsible and thus claim the money. As Greenberg points out, it's similar to the assassination market model posited by cypherpunks in the 90s, but new site has put the idea into practice using modern anonymizing tools and is currently collecting real money, potentially attracting the attention of federal law enforcement.
It's doubtful that anyone will actually follow through on the hits, but the site serves as a reminder of how potentially destabilizing anonymous marketplaces can be. It's particularly poorly timed for Bitcoin, as the currency faces increased regulation in many states, as well as a hearing in the House of Representatives later today. It's also unclear whether the site can stay out of reach of law enforcement, after similar projects like Silk Road have fallen prey to minor slips in operational security. Forbes contacted the FBI and Secret Service for the piece, but both declined to comment, and its unclear how
When Sandy hit last October, the Northeast shoreline seemed to freeze. But the paralysis wasn't total—the area began buzzing immediately with invisible workers.
Published by Yale University Press and compiled by Rafael Schacter the book is organized geographically by country and city and showcases more than 100 of today’s most important street artists. It also provides the essential historical context of the works and offers contributions by the foremost authorities on street art and graffiti.
Image and Photo by Honet. La vrai croix. Prague, Czech Republic
Image and photo by Ekta. Vanity. Gdańsk, Poland.
Image and Photo by Radya. Red Square. Ekaterinburg, Russia.
and here is Book Patrol’s favorite — The Reader, “the most active coast to coast writer in the United States…taking his enactment and imperative toward literacy across the length and breadth of the fifty states”
The Reader, “Untitled”, New Orleans, USA, 2011
If you are in the New York area the launch party for the book is this Wednesday, November 20 at The Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn.
Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet is not the freshest work to sully our ears in recent times, comprising self-evidently a well-worn chestnut, but one assumes it was fresh when it was written. Such, if any, seemed to be the contention of the (ADJECTIVE) musicians who performed with (QUANTITY, PLURAL) of verve last evening at the (MUPPETS CHARACTER) (SCOTTISH SURNAME) Performing Arts Center. Whether this verve was (MILDLY DISPARAGING ADJECTIVE), this critic is not yet prepared to offer judgement.
The announcement that Rob Ford is entering rehab seems long overdue, and in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, the Toronto mayor confirmed that he is "seeking professional help" – it's just not the kind of treatment you'd expect for a guy who's dabbled in crack and most other vices. "I’m training every day, I’m in the gym two hours every day, I’m seeking professional help," he said, adding, "I don’t call it substance abuse because I’m not an addict. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not a drug addict. Maybe some people are, I’m not."
Though the City Council is expected to make Ford the mayor in name only on Monday, he reiterated that he has every intention of staying in office, and running for reelection in October. "I can assure you if the Council wants to continue what it’s doing – stripping me of all my powers, taking away my staff – they can’t stop me from showing up to Council, debating every issue," he said, according to a transcript obtained by the Toronto Star. "No one can stop me from returning phone calls, no one can stop me campaigning."
Ford even upped the ante, adding, "Yes, one day I do want to run for prime minister." Making inebriated murder threats and the (presumably?) sober comments about eating your wife's vagina are good ways to ensure everybody in the country knows your name.
As a follow-up to my Language Log post on Li Yang's fēngkuáng liánxiǎng 疯狂联想 ("crazy association"), Chris Fraser sent me three images of an old Cantonese book that purports to teach English by means of what it calls "Táng zì zhù yīn" 唐字註音 ("phonetic annotation with Tang [i.e., Chinese] characters").
A few examples are transcribed and translated below.
Given the ca. 1902 date of the book, It's interesting how many of the Chinese translations are in Cantonese, not Mandarin (Guānhuà 官話 [lit., "officials' talk"]). The third one below is a good example. Clearly the book was aimed at the Hong Kong / Guangzhou regional audience.
p. 22, line 1:
"Don't bother me."
勿攪我 ("Don't disturb me.")
dung1 dei6 po3 daa1 mei5
東地破打尾
p. 22, line 2:
"Be still."
莫出聲 ("Don't emit a sound.")
bei1 si6 dei6 lou6
卑士地路
p. 22, line 8:
"Don't mind what he says."
吾[=唔]好理佢話 ("Don't attend to his speech.")
dung1 dei6 maai5 jin4 wat1 hei1 se1 si6
東地買然屈希些士
p. 23, line 3:
"What is that to you?"
關你乜事 ("What business is it of yours?")
wat1 ji1 si6 taat3 dou1 jiu1
屈衣士撻都夭
p. 23, line 10:
"I have not seen you for a long time."
好久未見你 ("For a long time I haven't seen you.")
aai1 haa1 fu1 leot6 sin1 jiu1 fo1 ai3 long4 taai3
埃蝦乎律先夭科縊郎太
The last one is a good early example of Cantonese "n" and "l" merger, as the writer must have pronounced 律 "leot6" as "neot."
[Thanks to Chris Fraser for calling this book to my attention and for help with the transcriptions]
“Being a well-known writer and longtime resident of Cambridge, Katherine A. Powers can be excused for expecting to find her latest book on the shelves of the local library. After all, the book about her father, the late writer J.F. Powers, has been widely reviewed, with words of praise appearing in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. (Powers wrote a column for the Globe for 20 years.) But after a recent visit to the Cambridge Public Library revealed that the book, “Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J.F. Powers, 1942-1963,” is not, in fact, part of the library’s collection, Powers offered to donate a copy. The library’s answer? Thanks, but no thanks. Citing a policy intended to discourage the public from dumping their unwanted volumes on the library’s doorstep, three employees of the library declined Powers’s offer.” (via Boston.com)
St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark), who spent most of last year and this year on her David Byrne collaboration, is finally looking like she's set to release the followup to 2011's excellent Strange Mercy. She just announced a European tour, and in the video for the announcement, there's a 30-second clip of new music. Check out the video and list of tour dates below.
Annie also teamed up with Pearl Jam and Sleater-Kinney/Wild Flag/Portlandia's Carrie Brownstein in Dallas over the weekend (11/15) to cover Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." Check out a video of that (via Stereogum) below.
Library funding in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, may be diverted to a new jail thanks to a legislator who doesn't approve of the library's programs. Jail proponent and chair of the Lafourche Parish Council Lindel Toups supports a ballot measure that would take funding away from libraries.
“They’re teaching Mexicans how to speak English,” Toups told the local Tri-Parish Times, referencing Biblioteca Hispana, a Spanish-language section of one of the nine branch libraries. “Let that son of a bitch go back to Mexico. There’s just so many things they’re doing that I don’t agree with. ... Them junkies and hippies and food stamps [recipients] and all, they use the library to look at drugs and food stamps [on the Internet]. I see them do it.”
The Treeangle Table’s artificial stone base extends through its walnut top, stabilizing the surface and creating a unique visual quality that mimics the form of a forest canopy. Accentuating the organic shape, the top section is hollow, making it the perfect place for a small plant. It’s a clean, modern interpretation of the stump base coffee table!
It’s true what he says though - there is no subject position from which it’s ok to talk about inequality - if you’re poor you are doing it out of jealously, if you’re not poor you’re doing it out of guilt/saviour complex, if you are young it’s just a phase, if you’re old you are hankering for times long gone and trying to recapture your youth, if you’re not well educated you just don’t understand the complexity of the situation, if you are well educated you’re in an academic bubble divorced from reality, if your politically apathetic you’re not allowed to complain, if you’re politically active you’re just trying to push your own sectarian agenda…
For every possible type of person there’s an established reason why your opinions on inequality are invalid. That’s not an accident.
Abortive building projects are the ‘fruits’ of two to three decades of fruitless chase after a future, an opportunity, desires and dreams in a liberated society, at a time of seemingly limitless economic expansion. Buildings can be aborted, so can projects. Plans may be aborted. so may hopes. Ties between people could be aborted, so could relationships. Life, i guess should not be aborted.
The space shuttle Challenger (STS-51L) lifted off from Pad 39B Jan. 28, 1986 at 11:38 a.m. (EST) with a crew of seven astronauts and the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS).
After 15 years of construction, the Church of Scientology has dedicated a massive new headquarters building in St. Petersburg, Florida. The upper floors of the building will be devoted to unleashing the dozens of superpowers that we all apparently possess. 
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