Danbusha

As Ben mentioned in our previous post, our top priority right now is improving the stability of The Old Reader.  To start, we’re going to get The Old Reader a much needed hardware upgrade.  This week, we’ll be relocating the application to a top tier host located in the United States, tripling database capacity and adding over 10 times the network capacity.

The move is going to entail exporting all of the posts from about 6 million subscriptions, moving that data approximately 5000 miles and then importing it into the new database servers. This is a big move, and unfortunately it’s going to require about 48 hours of downtime.   

The new environment will be ready to roll on Tuesday at which point we will begin the transfer and maintenance window.  We’re shooting to begin that maintenance window at approximately 12AM GMT Wednesday.  During this time, we’ll be frequently updating Twitter, Facebook and Status page to make sure you know as soon as it is back up and running.

die Bibliothek

sexpigeon: You and your reckless opinions about peaches.

It took the mighty minds and resources of WIRED, YouTube, Stan Winston Studios, Legacy Effects, and Conde Nast Entertainment to create an insanely detailed, one-of-a-kind, 9 foot 9 inch Mech with four arms to usher in the 2013 San Diego Comic Con. And who better to announce it than Adam Savage, of Tested and Mythbusters. It is ready to blow your mind

My newest body of paintings depicts events with a more local, historically tragic significance, depicting scenes of the darkest hours in Chicago’s history, where the cityscape became the backdrop for tragedy and calamity. These events that irrevocably altered so many lives are important to remember, not only for the people lost and how it affected our culture, but also to remind us that disaster can occur at any time, anywhere.

This is what happens when you mix Mercury(II) thiocyanate (Hg(SCN)2) and Ammonium chromate (NH4)2CrO4 and then set it on fire. I was honestly expecting the fiery volcano part, but at about 30 seconds in something… horrifying happens. The kids witnessing the experiment really make the video. “The kraken!!!!” (via The Awesomer)

Feel my weight, Abelardo Morell

Nadezhda Popova 1921–2013

Obituary: The ‘night witch’ who bombed the Nazis

“For three years during World War II, Nadezhda Popova terrorized German troops fighting on the Eastern Front. The Soviet pilot was one of the most celebrated members of an elite all-female regiment that flew bombers that had been converted from plywood-and-canvas crop dusters. Flying only in the dark, the pilots would surprise the enemy by shutting down their engines in the final stages of their bombing runs. The Germans heard only a whoosh in the air above them and, likening the sound to a broomstick, called the women “night witches.” Their skill prompted the Germans to spread rumors that Russian women were given special injections that endowed them with cat-like night vision. “This was nonsense, of course,” said Popova, who flew 852 missions in the war, including 18 in a single night, and was named a Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation’s highest honor. “What we did have were clever, educated, very talented girls.” …

The casualty rate was high among the pilots. Popova saw dozens of her female comrades die, and thought that she might have survived the war simply because she was born lucky. “I sometimes stare into the blackness and close my eyes,” Popova said in 2010. ‘I can still imagine myself as a young girl, up there in my little bomber. And I ask myself, ‘Nadia, how did you do it?’"

Take the stairs

Quantum Zoo, Richard Wilkinson

Hannah Grant, a chef who used to work for highly influential Noma (among other places), is now the chef for the Saxo-Tinkoff cycling team currently competing in the Tour de France. She cooks for the entire team out of a food truck.

First of all, I set the menu. I mean, they can request stuff, the riders, if they want. I'll note it and I'll do it if it's possible. But, obviously, then there's rules to how to assemble the menu. Today's a rest day, so we do a low-carb lunch for them. They're not going so far, they just want to keep their legs going, so we don't want to fill them up too much. And we don't want to go too hard on the carbs so they don't gain weight.

Then we have a philosophy of using lots of vegetables, proteins, and cold-pressed fats, and then we use a lot of gluten-free alternatives. So we try to encourage the riders to try other things than just pasta and bread. I do gluten-free breads as well.

It's all to minimize all the little things that can stop you from performing 100 percent, that promote injuries, stomach problems, all those things. So that's a big difference (from cooking in a restaurant), because I have to follow all those rules. I can't just cook whatever I think is amazing. It has to be within those guidelines.

Then I take it as my personal job to take these guidelines and then make an incredible product from it, so they don't feel like they're missing out on things. It shouldn't be a punishment to travel with a kitchen truck and a chef who cooks you food that's good for you.

Grant's cooking seems to be paying off for the team...Saxo-Tinkoff currently has two riders in the top five and is in second place overall in the team classification. (via @sampotts)

ericmortensen:

imageoscillite:

The Flying Man: What if Superheroes Were Psychotic?

Aren’t they all?

Please stop making stupid comic book movies and make this instead. 

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Every year, Americans bury enough metal in the ground to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge, says Vashon Island coffin maker Marcus Daly. His simple, handcrafted wooden coffins are an economical and environmentally friendly burial alternative. But Daly believes a coffin’s most important feature is that it can be carried. Here’s why.

Stefaan duPont over at SDPNT is making some wonderful one-of-a-kind cuffs from old camera lenses. Every bracelet is completely unique and can’t be duplicated. The store opened for the first time about two hours ago, so check it out. (via notcot)

Korean artist U-Ram Choe lives and works in Seoul where he creates highly ornate kinetic sculptures that mimic forms and motions found in nature. Choe uses various metals, motors, gears, and custom CPU boards to control the precise motions of each sculpture that are at times perfectly synchronized and other times completely random. With names like “Unicus – cavum ad initium” and “Arbor Deus Pennatus” it’s clear the artist treats each new work like a brand new species.

The artworks are so complex each “organism” is shipped with a manual to show collectors and galleries how to maintain and fix various components. Choe tells the Creator’s Project in one of the videos above how some of the works in his studio live a complete lifecycle where they are at first born and put on display, but after time begin to degrade as certain parts stop working. Eventually he raids old artworks for parts and uses them to build new ones.

Watch the videos above to see a good sampling of his work both old and new, and he has a huge archive of videos for nearly 50 artworks over on Vimeo.

In Kuwait, people sell all sorts of stuff on Instagram, using the service as a visually oriented mobile storefront instead of using a web site or something like eBay. From an interview with artist/musician Fatima Al Qadiri:

BR: Kuwait is a crazy mix: a super-affluent country, yet basically a welfare state, though with a super neo-liberal consumer economy.

FQ: We consume vast amounts of everything. Instagram businesses are a big thing in Kuwait.

BR: What's an Instagram business?

FQ: If you have an Instagram account, you can slap a price tag on anything, take a picture of it, and sell it. For instance, you could take this can of San Pellegrino, paint it pink, put a heart on it, call it yours, and declare it for sale. Even my grandmother has an Instagram business! She sells dried fruit. A friend's cousin is selling weird potted plants that use Astroturf. People are creating, you know, hacked products.

I dug up a few examples: Manga Box is an Instagram storefront selling manga (contact via WhatsApp to buy), Sondos Makeup advertises makeup services (WhatsApp for appts.), sheeps_sell sells sheep, and store & more is an account selling women's fashion items. There was even an Insta-Business Expo held in April about Instagram businesses.

The Entrepreneurship and Business Club of the American University of Kuwait is holding an "INSTA BUSINESS EXPO" which will consist of all your favorite and newest popular entrepreneurs that grew their businesses through Instagram. Not only that, there will be guest speakers by Entrepreneurs that made it through Instagram as well!

(via @cmchap)

On one of the world's most dangerous roads, Pakistani drivers deliver supplies 150 miles into northwestern Pakistan. In 2011, Al Jazeera English made this 25-minute documentary that followed one of the trucks across the Lowari Pass. I didn't think I was going to watch the whole thing, but it turned out to be worth the time.

le Tour

The folks at Cuppow just released a smart new product called BNTO. It separates a canning jar into two compartments, making it into a cute lunchbox that can be reconfigured for each kind of meal/snack by using different sizes of wide mouth canning jars. Two swissmiss thumbs up!

Chinese artist Xu Bing has several works currently on view as part of an exhibition at Mass MoCA in Massachusetts. Among the works are two 12-ton birds titled Phoenix that fill the museum’s football field-sized Building 5. Two years in the making, the birds were constructed from materials collected at various Chinese construction sites including demolition debris, steel beams, tools, and assorted remnants of migrant laborers. The male Phoenix titled Feng measures 90 feet long, and the female, Huang, is nearly 100 feet in length from beak to its steel tail feathers. Both birds are illuminated from within through a network of lights.

Somewhat similar to artists Yao Lu and Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing seems to be commenting on China’s rapid commercial development that is drastically altering the physical and cultural landscape within the country. Phoenix will be on view October 27th. (via junk culture, hyperallergic, my modern met)

MiniB was my imagination and now I am able to make it visible through playful, humorous photograph work. With fantasy it simulates some observations of human life. Each work brings ideas of feelings, facts, or attitudes. It introduces multiple meanings with the universality of landscapes, sometimes surreal environments and always a good relationship between human and other animals or the needy relation between humans and material things. MiniB invites us to dialogue about our existence and also can claim to some absurdities of the human conditions. Sometimes it simulates a lost mind, sometimes the challenges or obligations or a very peaceful moment.

Gentlemen, this is how clothes should fit.

A suit jacket's length -- like a good lawyer -- should cover your ass.

(via ★interesting)

Protect it

Little Edie’s Flag Dance

Looking up

Real Life Tron on an Apple IIgs – Stay on Target via Waxy.

One of my favorite movies as a kid was Tron, the early 1980′s film about a computer programmer who gets “digitized” and sucked into a computer world inhabited by personified computer programs.  In the film, the protagonist joins a group of resistant programs in an effort to take down the oppressive Master Control Program (MCP), a rogue piece of software which had evolved, acquired a thirst for power, and was attempting to take over the Pentagon’s computer systems.

In one of the most exciting scenes in the film, the hero programs race in light cycles, which were two-wheeled motorcycle-like vehicles that left walls in their wake.  One of the protagonists forced an enemy cycle to crash into the arena’s wall, leaving a gaping hole.  The heroes dispatched their opponents and escaped through the hole to freedom – the first step on their way to take down the MCP.

When I watched that movie, I had no idea that I would unwittingly recreate the Tron world years later, rogue programs and all, with an Apple IIgs computer.
Here’s how it happened: When I first learned to program, I decided to create a version of the Tron light cycles game.  My friend Marco Busse and I programmed it on an Apple IIgs using ORCA/Pascal and 65816 assembly language.  During play, the screen background was solid black with a white border, with one color line representing each player.  We displayed the game score in a horizontal strip at the bottom of the screen.  It wasn’t the most graphically advanced program, but it was simple and fun. 

My little surf shack