Russian Sledges

Historical Map: Société des Tramways de Constantinople Tram Ticket, c. 1920s

A very interesting early topological transit diagram from Istanbul. It’s tricky to date precisely: the best I can do is the range 1923–1939, based on the lines shown and the fact that the STM was dissolved at the latter date when transit in Istanbul was nationalised.

It’s probably roughly contemporaneous with other early topological maps like George Dow’s work for the LNER in 1929, although I actually see this map being born out of necessity, rather than being any great pioneering design work. That’s because the map is printed on a small ticket, and was used by the ticket seller/conductor to mark the destination that the ticket is valid to. Note the blue marks on “Aller" and “Bechiktache" — this was sold as a one-way ticket to that destination. Obviously, a geographical map couldn’t fit into this tiny space, hence the necessity for this simplified topological representation.

The other interesting thing about this map is that Istanbul is flipped along the axis of the Golden Horn. Destinations that should be on the left of that waterway (looking at it on a standard map, with north to the top) are shown on the right and vice versa. The tram bridge across the Golden Horn is clearly shown on the map (as “Pont", bridge in French). I know that Arabic reads from right to left: is this flipping of locations a concession to that?

Finally, I adore the little squiggly arrows that show how the lines connect between each stop.

Our rating: Amazing transit ephemera from the early 20th century. Five stars!

(Source: Ottoman History Podcast/Flickr)

Retired gym teacher Dale Irby posed for his first yearbook photo back in 1973 at Prestonwood Elementary school. The next year, completely by accident, Irby wore the exact same outfit. At first he was horrified to discover the faux pas, but then his wife made a dare: do it again the next year. Before you knew it a 40-year tradition was born; from 1973 to 2012 the teacher, now 63, wore an identical sweater vest and collared shirt for every single yearbook portrait. You can see a slideshow of the photos over at the Dallas Morning News. (via peta pixel)

When countries earned their independence, and celebrate it

AMERICANS celebrate their independence from Britain on July 4th with fireworks, hot dogs and a sea of Star-Spangled Banners. Freedom in 1776 came around 170 years after the first English settlers landed. The United States was the first of more than 50 countries that eventually became independent from Britain. Far-flung colonies peopled with pioneers or prisoners were hard to administer and tended to break away earlier than closer territories. Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1810 and other Spanish colonies swiftly followed. Brazil earned its freedom from Portugal in 1822. Canada became independent in 1867 (on better terms than neighbouring America), though it wasn't until 1982 that the country divested itself fully of Britain's role in constitutional matters. Like America, Canada also celebrates its independence in July. It is the most popular month for countries to fete their freedom. The biggest wave of independence started in the late 1950s, when most of Africa was freed of British, French, Portuguese and Belgian rule. The next bloc to earn its freedom was in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union fell and satellite states had their sovereignty restored. 

bunnyfood:

(via reddit)

This year is all about the book adaptation. Game of Thrones, Warm Bodies, Beautiful Creatures and World War Z (sort of) were all books first! So here is our extensive guide to just about every movie and TV series turning your favorite book into a live-action wonder. Get out your reading lists so you too can say "the book was better."

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Holy smokes, Father’s Day is this Sunday! What a great excuse to share a new pattern with you all: a classic gentleman’s necktie brought to you by the lovely Kristina Angelozzi of Fischer clothing. We will hand the blog over to Kristina as she shows you the step-by-step process for sewing up a super special gift.

Hello Colette readers, I’m Kristina of Fischer clothing from Brooklyn and I’m thrilled Colette Patterns is giving me the opportunity to share a little tutorial with you!

Neckties seem like a pretty cliché Father’s Day gift, but they can definitely take on a whole new sentiment when you make them yourself. It’s so much more personal to hand pick a fabric you know he’ll love, isn’t it? I chose a multicolor madras pattern for my dad since he’s a pretty classic and casual dude.

When I first set out to add ties to my mens collections about two years ago, I searched high and low for a thorough tutorial on how to make them. I was unsuccessful and finally wound up buying a few ties at a thrift store and tearing them apart to see how they were constructed. I altered a few details to suit my style and have been hand-making them here in Brooklyn ever since.

I’ve replicated my patten in a downloadable version for you all to try at home. This tie is a standard 55″ length and 3 3/4″ Wide. It’s slim, and I find it looks good on a variety of body types.

Supplies Needed:

• Our free downloadable necktie pattern
• outer fabric: 3/4 yd of 45″ or 60″ wide fabric
• contrast lining fabric: 1/4 yd
• interlining (I use muslin): 1 1/4 yd
• thread to match the outer fabric
• iron & ironing board
• sewing machine
• scissors

Instructions:

Before starting, assemble the tiles of your necktie pattern pieces and cut out the pattern. Then follow the instructions below.

1. Cut the Necktie Front (A) and Necktie Tail (B) from the main fabric, cutting these pieces on the bias. Cut the Necktie Front Lining (E) and Necktie Tail Lining (D) from the contrast lining fabric. Cut the Necktie Interlining piece from the interlining fabric. Pay attention to the grainline, as all these pieces should be cut on the bias.

This is what the pieces look after they’ve been cut out:

2. With the right sides together, match up the flat, short ends of the Necktie Front (A) and Nectie Tail (B), as shown. Stitch together with 3/8 seam allowance.

3. Press seam open.

4. Fold the tie in half lengthwise, with the right sides together, as shown below.

Take a look at the ends of your tie and you will see a small flat tip. Stitch across the tip with a 3/8″ seam allowance, stopping 3/8″ from the diagonal edge. In other words, stitch this tip for a few stitches, but do not stitch into the seam allowance. Backstitch to secure.

This small stitched edge will allow you to turn the tip under later.

5. Unfold, then match right sides of the main fabric to right sides of the liner pieces.

6. Sew along the notched edge and one side of point, stopping at the tip before sewing over the small tuck.

7. Starting on the opposite side of the tuck, sew opposite side of point.

8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 on the other end of the tie. Trim away excess seam allowance.

9. Turn ends inside out and press. You can use a fancy point turner for this, but a simple knitting needle or chopstick will work just fine. Now you’ll see that the small tuck helped to miter the corner.

10. With your tie right side down, lay interlining along the center and tuck ends into the little pockets you created with the outer fabric and the lining. Try and weasel the points together on the inside as closely as possible.

Here, I’m showing the interlining above the lining, so you can see how it should be aligned. But you will want to tuck it inside of the lining piece.

11. Fold over one unfinished edge so the interlining is tucked against the crease.

12. Fold up the opposite unfinished edge.

13. Turn the exposed edge under about 1/2″, making sure to keep the folded as close to the center of the tie’s length as possible. This is your finished center back seam.

14. About 3″ from the bottom of the inside lining, slipstitch the center back seam to the other side of the tie. It does help here to have a few pins to keep it in place.

Also, if you fold the tie in half lengthwise as you sew, you get a better vantage point to catch both pieces of fabric.

15. Once you’ve completed your slipstitching, you’ll need to put a loop of some sort to hold the tail in place while being worn. I use my labels, but you could easily use a a piece of bias tape, grosgrain or just make a little strip out of fabric. My standard placement is 10″ from the tip.

Et viola!! That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Download the necktie pattern!

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Faux Fur Peter Pan Collar Tutorial (with free pattern!)

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Free Pattern to Download: The Madeleine Mini Bloomers

America was the first country to join the European Union. Great Britain was the second.

It's not your imagination or faulty memory -large public fireworks displays used to have bigger bursts that went higher in the sky. Over the past few decades, professional pyrotechs have been compelled to make the shells smaller, which correlates with lower altitude. Doug Taylor, the president of Zambelli Fireworks, explains.

“What’s happened is, the size shell that you can shoot in a particular location has decreased,” Taylor explains. Just as shell width correlates to height, so too does height correlate with regulation. Old regulations dictated that you needed 70 feet of area cleared for every inch of shell fired around a launch area. The new industry standard is 100 feet. So when you play that out, practically, a large 12-inch shell needs 1,200 feet (or nearly a quarter of a mile) cleared in every direction to be considered safe.

Taylor tells me that fireworks sites nationwide have been shrinking with both urbanization and suburban sprawl.  

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The shows make up for the decreased height with a more dense display.

“Rather than one 8-inch shell, I could probably put 12 3-inch shells up for the same price,” Taylor says. “We like that for several reasons. Larger shells are more dangerous because they have more explosive power in them. But the truth is, people in this country especially like density in their fireworks show.”

The drawback is that instead of watching them from your home, you are more likely to have to drive to the fireworks site. Read more about modern fireworks displays at FastCo Design. Link

(Image credit: Flickr use Jeff Golden)

scalesofperception:

Amazon Unpacked by Ben Roberts

Workers at Rugeley spend their days wandering the massive warehouse, either squirreling away incoming products, pulling orders down from shelves, or packing them up for shipment. In each of these activities, the workers’ motions are not driven by the engine of human judgment or expertise but rather by the massive engine of Amazon’s exquisitely complex fulfillment mechanism: a computer that both tracks and commands every worker’s movements throughout the day.

An Amazon fulfillment associate might have to walk as far as 15 miles in a single shift, endlessly looping back and forth between shelves in a warehouse the size of nine soccer fields. They do this in complete silence, except for the sound of their feet. The atmosphere is so quiet that workers can be fired for even talking to one another. And all the while, cardboard cutouts of happy Amazon workers look on, cartoon speech bubbles frozen above their heads: “This is the best job I ever had!"

SoP

Author Octavia Butler was a national treasure — but she lived in Seattle for the final years of her life. And now, the Seattle Parks Department is seeking input on what to name a new park, and her name is one of the leading contenders. You can vote in the Parks Department Survey here.

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IKEA and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) have collaborated on a new “flat-pack shelter” design for use during conflict and natural disasters. The flat-pack shelter is solar-powered and can be snapped into place in little time. It is a concept that takes the collective brain power of IKEA engineering and puts it to incredibly important use.

IKEA Solar-Powered Flat-Pack Shelters is a post by Jeff Carvalho on Selectism.

Collectors Weekly has an article about the rise of Angela Davis posters.

On August 18, 1970, Angela Yvonne Davis’s name was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List for kidnapping, murder, and interstate flight. Davis was already a darling of the left for her membership in the Communist Party and outspoken support for the Black Panthers, which caused then-California governor Ronald Reagan to personally orchestrate the 26-year-old’s dismissal from a teaching post at UCLA. Being hunted by J. Edgar Hoover for a crime she clearly did not commit took Davis’s celebrity to a whole new level, instantly making her as famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, as revolutionaries such as Che and Mao.

Trailing Angela Davis, from FBI Flyers to 'Radical Chic' Art

Honestly, I have no idea what the hell a Farberware Coffee Robot is, or how much it actually resembles a traditional, anthropomorphic robot (my guess: not much as the thing on this ad). I do know this: When the robos turn on their fleshy masters and the revolution begins, we are going to be extra-screwed if the robot take our coffee.

Read more...

Hashima, the desolate island off the Nagasaki Peninsula coast of Japan that appeared in Skyfall, recently made new waves when Google’s program manager Okura Wakaba announced on the Google Japan blog that the island was on Google Street View. It only took him about two hours to shoot the images of the island using a photographic equipment trekker backpack.

The post Skyfall’s battleship island is now on Google Street View appeared first on Lost At E Minor: For creative people.

Union Square breakfast and lunch spot Sherman Cafe and its sibling around the corner, Sherman Market, are undergoing renovations to integrate the two into a connected space with more seating and a bigger kitchen. There are a couple of other storefronts between them, but it appears that the two Shermans can connect somewhere in the innards of the building without disrupting the existing businesses.

In addition to the improved kitchen and seating, customers will be able to enter from both sides, according to a post on Sherman Cafe's Facebook page. For the time being, the market is closed off for renovations, and products from the market are available in the cafe space.

Sherman Cafe has been open for nine years, serving pastries, salads, and soups made almost entirely from scratch and from locally sourced ingredients. Likewise, the tiny market (which opened four years ago) stocks a variety of New England produce, meat, and other local products.
· Sherman Cafe [FB]
· All coverage of Sherman Cafe on Eater [~EBOS~]
[Photo: Facebook]

Battle Royale uniforms for Animal Crossing: New Leaf

I can’t wait until someone posts a dream code for a New Leaf town modeled after this film. Here’s where you can grab the QR codes:

• Depthakote’s uniforms posted above
• Less bloody versions
• Non-bloody dress

I’m still waiting for someone to post QR codes for my gray-hoodie-and-plaid-shirt uniform.

BUY Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Battle Royale, upcoming games

[Video Link] Filmmaker Kevin Gordon says:

The wrestler Blue Demon Jr. carries the mantle of the legendary luchador Blue Demon (who he says is his adoptive father). He sees his role as part of a larger mission to speak up for Mexican immigrants. Blue Demon Jr.’s feud with Oliver John [who plays the anti-immigrant leader of the Border Patrol tag team] is an allegory for the political battles being fought right now across this country. After years of feeling under attack by oppressive laws, heightened deportations and xenophobic language in the media, the audience watching these shows get to participate in a genuine act of cultural resistance and emotional release.

Border Patrol Body Slam

[Photo: Jamie Bissonnette at Stella/Jamie Rogers]

It's unclear whether the Vegan Sellout List website is actually backed by militant vegans, or if it's a satirical project aimed at making vegans look crazy, but Boston's own Jamie Bissonnette (Toro, Coppa) is one of a number of chefs called out as someone who has "regressed from moral consistency to moral depravity." The point of the website is apparently to name and shame former vegans who have returned to the dark side of the "haughty, nose-turning carnists."

Bissonnette's description, as submitted by an anonymous user:

"Former straight edge kid and MMA fighter and Krishna. Went to culinary school and developed a 'love affair' with foie gras."