Seahorses, I Love 'Em (& other Links of Interest)

[Risla]

Haha, the iPod death clock gave me over two years left.

[Risla]

The monkeysphere.

[LinguistCat]

The monkeysphere.

Wow, everything makes sense now. I must conserve brain power by not even seeing the 150 people as people. Maybe 40 or so would be ok.

[frumpwallow]

just a little news article, but funny
Flaming squirrel ignites car in Bayonne

[bi]

frumpwallow: ...

* * *

What the hell, floating libertarian utopias? Oliver's Republic of Minerva is hilarious. And the Freedom Ship project sounds like just a good ol' scam.

And in older non-news: Something Awful has A Guide to Understanding TV Metrics.

[-]

More than a savant, Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic artist known as "the human camera." He can produced astonishingly detailed and accurate panoramic drawings from only brief overhead views of a city; the example linked here is Rome.

Famous ghost photographs.

Oh, and if you haven't seen him already, have a look at this beautiful m**********in' dog.

[-]

Tintin mania! Herge's precursor to Tintin, a character named "Totor," is discovered in a mural on the walls of an old school corridor. A Tintin movie is in the works. Publishers are rushing to capitalize on the coming frenzy by publishing Tintin books in English, including an unfortunate early apologia for Belgian colonialism (which book Herge later disavowed): Tintin in the Congo.

[zompist]

A Tintin movie is in the works. Publishers are rushing to capitalize on the coming frenzy by publishing Tintin books in English, including an unfortunate early apologia for Belgian colonialism (which book Herge later disavowed): Tintin in the Congo.

I'm dismayed to read (from the first link) that the writers are adding characters, including an editor and a rival reporter. Sounds ghastly. (There's an idea for the next Narnia movies though-- add a rival lion!) And motion capture CGI sounds even more horrible.

Technically Tintin in the Congo was published in English in B&W in 1991 and in color in 2005.

[Nuntar]

Publishers are rushing to capitalize on the coming frenzy by publishing Tintin books in English, including an unfortunate early apologia for Belgian colonialism (which book Herge later disavowed): Tintin in the Congo.

I can see why they'd want to -- it's a mildly fun story if you approach it from a child's perspective and pretend that the black people are a funny creation who have nothing to do with Africa or any real people. (Several of the Asterix books have a token character from the same cartoon black race. As a child, I didn't know what that was meant to be, it was just another character who looked funny. I'd have been equally accepting of a character with bright blue skin. It's a cartoon.)

But as an adult now I can also see why other people don't want it to be published. You can't please everyone.

[-]

I'm dismayed to read (from the first link) that the writers are adding characters, including an editor and a rival reporter.

Just as long as they remember to cast Gwyneth Paltrow as Tintin's new, spunky love interest.

Technically Tintin in the Congo was published in English in B&W in 1991 and in color in 2005.

Right you are; new edition will get (I have the impression) a bigger push.

it's a mildly fun story if you approach it from a child's perspective and pretend that the black people are a funny creation who have nothing to do with Africa or any real people.

Which would be the sticking point, yeah, since of course they had plenty to do with Africa and common portrayals of real people.

[Nuntar]

Obviously. I'm just saying that you can, in principle, separate the story elements from that fact. (Not that I'm saying it's a great story; it has all the faults of the other early Tintins. But I did moderately enjoy picking it up once, whiling away a dull hour with it and putting it back on the shelf.)

[gsandi]

Has anyone thought of translating a Tintin album into their conlang?

[zompist]

Has anyone thought of translating a Tintin album into their conlang?

Thought about, yes. It'd be a fairly large project. I've done a comic in Verdurian though:

http://www.almeopedia.com/index.php/Gali

[finlay]

That was like the first thing I ever tried to translate into a conlang. I didn't get very far, and as soon I decided that a certain conlang, or revision of it, was a bit shit, I'd have to go back to the start again

[finlay]

A Tintin movie is in the works. Publishers are rushing to capitalize on the coming frenzy by publishing Tintin books in English, including an unfortunate early apologia for Belgian colonialism (which book Herge later disavowed): Tintin in the Congo.

I'm dismayed to read (from the first link) that the writers are adding characters, including an editor and a rival reporter. Sounds ghastly. (There's an idea for the next Narnia movies though-- add a rival lion!) And motion capture CGI sounds even more horrible.

Technically Tintin in the Congo was published in English in B&W in 1991 and in color in 2005.

Oh god... I hope not, that sounds terrible. I mean you don't actually go through the books thinking that he's a reporter, he's just sort of ... having these random adventures. Only like the first two were influenced by his occupation.

[Nuntarin]

Has anyone thought of translating a Tintin album into their conlang?

You probably don't remember civman2000, but he was working on a translation of The Black Island -- I don't know exactly how far that got because he never showed me the whole thing, only one page at a time as exercises when I was trying to learn his conlang.

I mean you don't actually go through the books thinking that he's a reporter, he's just sort of ... having these random adventures. Only like the first two were influenced by his occupation.

Nitpick: and the very beginning of The Broken Ear.

[finlay]

Why wouldn't we remember him?

[Ketumak]

I like the squirrel article. Squirrel terrorism is a serious, much overlooked issue, according to the Guardian newspaper's diary column which regularly features squirrel attacks from around the world.

I also like Tintin and agree it doesn't influence young minds towards imperialism, etc. Children know it's just a story. I think I posted this before, but here's the link to "Tintin the Anarchist". It reuse actual Tintin pictures with new dialogue and commentary. It's a clever exercise in mash-up, and moderately amusing.

http://tintinrevolution.free.fr/pages/image001.html

And finally ... Women's rugby - Iranian-style, courtesy of Al-Jazeera:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ ... 8A49D3.htm

[-]

I also like Tintin and agree it doesn't influence young minds towards imperialism, etc. Children know it's just a story.

So, children are just sort of magically immune to propaganda? What? Why, exactly, do you suppose Herge later renounced the Congo book, or "Tintin in the Land of Soviets"? Why do you suppose he went on to modify his themes as the years passed? Because he thought none of it mattered and it was all "just a story" to the kids?

(I politely demurred from Nuntarin's earlier suggestion that the black people could be construed as having nothing to do with Africa; really in practice that's a very thin rationalization. The story was set in the Congo for a reason.)

Anyway.

WebUrbanist's "Wonders of the World" series continues with Seven Island Wonders. Check out Dubai's entry on the list, now the largest earth-moving project on Earth. (And I do wish those guys would get a copy-editor, but oh well.)

Meet Khan Noonian Singh in his first life... as a mouse.

Check out the very cool animated maps at Maps of War. I particularly recommend the religion and middle east maps.

Is your llama pushing you around? Bleating at you for no reason? Coming back to the pasture drunk? You're not alone; others have suffered through the heartbreak of mad llama syndrome.

That was fast... but not fast enough. Mountain Dew brings a great parody of the venerable "training in Tibet" montage.

An interesting and informative reflection on the mega-bunker era of American embassies; the new embassy nearing completion in Baghdad will be the size of Vatican City.

[gsandi]

I also like Tintin and agree it doesn't influence young minds towards imperialism, etc. Children know it's just a story.

So, children are just sort of magically immune to propaganda? What? Why, exactly, do you suppose Herge later renounced the Congo book, or "Tintin in the Land of Soviets"? Why do you suppose he went on to modify his themes as the years passed? Because he thought none of it mattered and it was all "just a story" to the kids?

Maybe he was senile, you never know.

Why exactly did he renounce Tintin in the Land of the Soviets? If anything, it was too soft on conditions in the Land of the Soviets at the time.

[-]

Maybe he was senile, you never know.

Denouncing one's youthful racism isn't usually a clinical marker of senility.

Why exactly did he renounce Tintin in the Land of the Soviets?

Actually, with that one I think the deciding factor was shoddiness rather than offensiveness per se.

[Tarasoriku]

WebUrbanist's "Wonders of the World" series continues with Seven Island Wonders. Check out Dubai's entry on the list, now the largest earth-moving project on Earth. (And I do wish those guys would get a copy-editor, but oh well.)

That will look so fricking cool when it's done. The land reclamation is apparently already completed, but the buildings and foresting will be a tad longer. 50% of it is sold already, kinda thought that would be higher.

Btw, wouldn't it be highly ironic if in their attempt to secure a post-oil economy through such projects, fossil fuel consumption viz global warming sinks all 300 islands of Plan B?

[-]

Btw, wouldn't it be highly ironic if in their attempt to secure a post-oil economy through such projects, fossil fuel consumption viz global warming sinks all 300 islands of Plan B?

That really would be ironic. Brutally so!

[Tarasoriku]

Pseudoscience at its FINEST. I especially love the matter-of-fact delivery of the narrator.

The man who built his own island. And a vid. It is especially clear from his last lines in the vid that this is a man who's been building an island out of bottles for 7 years.

(not shown in either article or vid: his island was destroyed by a hurricane 2 years ago, but he's rebuilding it at another location)

Also I find his self-composting toilet...dubious o.0

[Hokulani]

Explanation here