— by Red Wolf
Plumbata are substantial war darts that have their origins in Ancient Greece and were favoured by late Empire Romans. They have rather nasty barbed head, a lead weight for inertia and were thrown as fighting lines started to close. Their nickname amongst the Romans was Little barbs of Mars
. Nasty as they look, how do you throw them and what do they do when they get there? — via Youtube
— by Red Wolf
The Charles Glore House in Lake Forest, Illinois was built in 1954. The Usonian style home features Frank Lloyd Wright trademarks like clerestory windows, built-in bookshelves, mahogany panels, four fireplaces (three of which are cantilevered), and an abundance of brick. The home also incorporates some updates, including an expanded dining room after enclosing a deck, new windows, and grey concrete floors in place of the badly patched-up original red radiant-heat floors — via Curbed
Journalists from around the world are reporting on the 2020 Presidential race — and offering perspectives not found in American media coverage — via Youtube
It’s really five mini machines. One puts down bread, the next puts on peanut butter, then a machine for jelly and so on. The last machine feeds it to me bite by bite! Spent almost four months on this machine — via Youtube
Sir Sean Connery has died at the age of 90, his family has said.
The Scottish actor was best known for his portrayal of James Bond, being the first to bring the role to the big screen and appearing in seven of the spy thrillers.
Sir Sean died peacefully in his sleep in the Bahamas, having been unwell for some time
, his son said.
His acting career spanned five decades and he won an Oscar in 1988 for his role in The Untouchables.
Sir Sean’s other films included The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Rock — via BBC News
Songwriter Tom Lehrer became a star in the 1950s and ’60s writing and performing satirical songs that skewered just about everything. Since then, his work has appeared on stages in London and New York, been translated into Spanish and Swedish and even sampled on a rap track.
Lehrer, 92, announced Tuesday via his website that he’s effectively putting everything he ever wrote into the public domain. That means his lyrics and sheet music are available for anyone to use or perform, without having to pay royalties or deal with lawyers.
Lehrer’s songs took on nuclear weapons, racial injustice, pollution — and the Nazi engineer-turned-NASA scientist Wernher von Braun — via Marketplace
Is there a right
way to pronounce it? And why is it so complicated? Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen McCulloch — via Youtube
Insider’s Claudia Romeo travelled to Brittany, France to meet with Jean-Yves Bordier, a butter artisan who brought back to France the 19th-century technique of malaxage, using a big wooden wheel to knead the butter. To Jean-Yves, the malaxage is a more romantic way to make butter. At his workshop, everything is churned, kneaded, and shaped by hand — via Youtube
The Salt Cat or Geoffroy’s Cat is one of the most successful cats that you’ve likely never heard of — via Youtube
— by Red Wolf
After about four months of daily use, and a pile of trial and error trying to add the electronics, Ian Davis has come to the conclusion that it’s going to be a better/faster journey starting from ground zero. Again — via Youtube
Eddie Van Halen, considered one of rock music’s greatest guitar players and a founding member of the hugely successful rock band named after him and his drummer brother, has died of cancer at the age of 65.
Born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1955, Van Halen’s family emigrated to the United States in 1962.
His father was a big band clarinettist who rarely found work after coming to the US, and his mother was a maid who had dreams of her sons being classical pianists.
Eddie Van Halen and his brother Alex joined with vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony to form Van Halen in 1974, in Pasadena, California.
He was a relentless experimenter who would solder different parts from different guitar-makers, including Gibson and Fender.
He created his own graphic design for his guitars by adding tape to the instruments and then spray-painting them. He said his influences were Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.
Eddie Van Halen was something of a musical contradiction. He taught himself to play almost any instrument, but he could not read music.
He was a classically trained pianist who also created some of the most distinctive guitar riffs in rock history.
Eddie Van Halen also played guitar on one of the biggest singles of the 1980s — Michael Jackson’s Beat It — via ABC News
Anyone who has ever had a run-in with a crow knows that they are quite intelligent. But a new study released in Science proves that they may be even smarter than we think. According to researchers, crows and other corvids possess primary consciousness—something that, until now, only humans and some primates were thought to have.
Crows have already proven themselves to be great problem solvers and can get quite creative, but this new discovery could change the way we think about the evolution of animals. So what exactly is primary consciousness? Also known as sensory consciousness, it’s a term that refers to the ability to put together memories and observed events to cultivate an awareness of the present and immediate past. For instance, as a child, we may have put our hand near a flame and gotten burned. Remembering this painful feeling taught us not to repeat the same action the next time the opportunity presented itself.
How did the researchers measure the cognitive abilities of crows? They worked with two carrion crows and trained them to signal whether or not they saw a coloured marker on a screen by moving their heads. Unequivocally throughout the tests, the crows showed that they could reliably signal whether or not the colored markers appeared. At some moments during the test, the markers were so faint that they were barely perceptible. In these cases, sometimes the crows still signalled the marker and in others, they did not. That’s where their subjective perception came into play — via My Modern Met
This is by no means an exhaustive Instructable to making ink, but I think what it has value in, is the angle for kids. I’ve selected plants which are edible, and this takes out a lot of the inherent risk of dye making with chemicals and compounds you absolutely wouldn’t want in your household saucepan! Purple is also one of the best colours to start with, as it can be easily derived from safe
things like grape skins (dark) to onion skins (dull), to sloe berries (pinky-puple), or more vibrant beetroot or red cabbage colours – which will change with pH — via Instructables)
— by Red Wolf
— via Youtube
— by Red Wolf
The Roadmachines Mono-Rail may have been the only truly useful, fit-for-purpose monorail in the world. Of the hundreds that were built, most were never meant for passengers. But they did carry a couple of famous people in their time, including a certain secret agent…
Thank you to the staff and volunteers at the Amberley Museum — Harry and Gerry in particular — for running the monorail specially, and letting me film! The Amberley Museum is a massive industrial heritage museum in the South Downs, and you can find out more about them here — via Youtube
— by Red Wolf
A secret cabal is taking over the world. They kidnap children, slaughter, and eat them to gain power from their blood. They control high positions in government, banks, international finance, the news media, and the church. They want to disarm the police. They promote homosexuality and pedophilia. They plan to mongrelize the white race so it will lose its essential power.
Does this conspiracy theory sound familiar? It is. The same narrative has been repackaged by QAnon.
I have studied and worked to prevent genocide for forty years. Genocide Watch and the Alliance Against Genocide, the first international anti-genocide coalition, see such hate-filled conspiracy theories as early warning signs of deadly genocidal violence.
The plot, described above, was the conspiracy revealed
in the most influential anti-Jewish pamphlet of all time. It was called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was written by Russian anti-Jewish propagandists around 1902. It collected myths about a Jewish plot to take over the world that had existed for hundreds of years — via Just Security
The New Guinea singing dog is one of the oldest and rarest dog breeds in the world. It’s believed only 200 to 300 specimens are alive today, all of which are found in conservation centers. None have been seen in the wild since the 1970s. But a new genetic study found that another rare dog breed, the Highland Wild Dog, is essentially the same breed as the New Guinea singing dog, showing that this population isn’t actually extinct in the wild — via ZME Science
British actress Diana Rigg, who came to fame in the cult 1960s TV show The Avengers and enjoyed a distinguished and varied acting career from James Bond to Game of Thrones, has died aged 82.
Rigg won numerous Emmy, Tony and Bafta awards during her long and prestigious career, often switching between traditional theatre roles and ones for popular television.
She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1994 for services to drama.
But it was her role as the karate-kicking, leather-clad secret agent Emma Peel in The Avengers that brought her to wide attention and made her a style icon of the 1960s.
She went on to star in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in which her character marries the British spy.
Rigg’s character in the film was the only woman to marry James Bond.
In the 21st century, she was best known for playing scheming matriarch Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones — via ABC News
— by Red Wolf
— by Red Wolf
Husky sleep whooping — via Youtube
— by Red Wolf
— by Red Wolf
— by Red Wolf
— by Red Wolf
Italian composer Ennio Morricone, whose haunting scores to spaghetti westerns like A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly helped define a cinematic era, has died at the age of 91.
Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone wrote scores for some 400 films, but his name was most closely linked with the director Sergio Leone, who he worked with on classic spaghetti westerns as well as Once Upon a Time in America.
Morricone worked in almost all film genres, from horror to comedy, and some of his melodies are perhaps more famous than the films he wrote them for — via ABC News
— by Red Wolf
In a famous ongoing experiment started in 1960, scientists turned foxes into tame, doglike canines by breeding only the least aggressive ones generation after generation. The creatures developed stubby snouts, floppy ears, and even began to bark. Now, it appears that some rural red foxes in the United Kingdom are doing this on their own. When the animals moved from the forest to city habitats, they began to evolve doglike traits, new research reveals, potentially setting themselves on the path to domestication — via Science
— by Red Wolf
— by Red Wolf
