The end of war as we know it

Via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

The world’s largest signature

In the late 1990s, a Texas farmer named Jimmy Luecke cleared out some grazing land, but decided to leave enough trees standing to spell out his name in giant letters.  His signature is three miles across.  Today astronauts about the Space Shuttle use the signature as a means of checking the resolution of satellite imagery.

LINK

How the World’s Largest Signature Is Used by NASA to Analyze Satellite Imagery by Spooky for Oddity Central.

XKCD’s COVID-19 risks in perspective

Source: XKCD

Rapping Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks

Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks Rapped Over Dr. Dre’s Beats on kottke.org

The arrogance of power

An Icelandic knitter’s creative face masks

An artistic Icelandic knitter who calls herself Yrúrari shows her creativity in creating face masks.

Love in the time of the sniffles

Ogden Nash

THE SNIFFLE

by Ogden Nash

In spite of her sniffle

Isabel’s chiffle.

Some girls with a sniffle

would be weepy and riffle.

They would look awful,

like a rained-on waffle,

But Isabel’s chiffle

in spite of her sniffle.

Her nose is more red

with a cold in her head.

But then, to be sure,

her eyes are bluer.

Some girls with a snuffle,

their tempers are uffle.

But when Isabel’s snivelly

she’s snivelly civilly,

and when she’s snuffly

she’s perfectly luffly.

Source: All Poetry

Bee Gees parody on the coronavirus

Degrees of ambiguity in academia

Source: XKCD.

The friend who sent me this is a retired professor of English literature.

Birdie Sanders

From Gallery of Birds That Look Like Bernie Sanders.

Baroque chamber music for train horns

Sources: The Kid Should See This and kottke.org.

Johann Pachelbel composed his Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo sometime between 1680 and 1706,  I don’t recall ever hearing Pachelbel’s Canon under that name, but the music is strangely familiar.

A Czech named Pavel Jirásek edited short bits from ACETrainsUK’s horn compilation of trains in the United Kingdom with other clips of train horns to recreate the melody of the famous chamber music composition.

The price of anything and the value of everything

Another piece of on-line fiction that I like.

The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairy Tale of Economics by Daniel Abraham for Lightspeed magazine

Abraham is co-holder of the pen name James S.A. Corey and co-author of The Expanse science fiction series,

What if the Greek gods were alive and among us?

A Modern Myth by Scott Alexander for Slate Star Codex.

A last laugh from beyond the grave

Hat tip to Rod Dreher.

Shay Bradley was an Irishman who loved jokes and pranks.  He died Oct. 8, but arranged for one last prank at his burial.

I’m sure you have a good reason to look at this

An ABC of gerrymandered congressional districts

Click to enlarge

LINK

The Gerrymandered Font posted by Jason Kottke.

Abstract art at a glance (or two)

 Source: Street Art Magic.

Sign of the times

A sign on a tree in Elizabethtown, Pa.  Hat tip to Lambert Strether.

Two wolves and a sheep vote on dinner

There’s an old saying that democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.  For some amusing ideas of what that may mean in practice click on Two Wolves and a Sheep on Scott Alexander’s Slate Star Codex blog.

A curious reading of Curious George

You might find this funny, even if you don’t know who Werner Herzog is. And, by the way, in case you’re wondering, the reading is by a Werner Herzog imitator, not the real Werner Herzog.

What if … conspiracy theories … made sense!!!???

The following graphics are lifted from a brilliantly funny post by Scott Alexander on Slate Star Codex.

Merle Hazard, country musician economist

Time for a change of pace.  Merle Hazard (not to be confused with the great Merle Haggard) claims to be the world’s leading country musician-economist.  Click on his name for more about him and more selections.  Hat tip to kottke.org.

Why I’ve given up watching network TV news

I recommend you view this in the enlarged version, if you can’t see the dates of the various short clips in the upper right corner of the screen.

 I’m not a supporter of President Trump, but this is ridiculous..

A choice of superpowers

I enjoyed the following on-line story, and maybe you will, too.

And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes by Scott Alexander on Slate Star Codex.

Another experiment in educational reform

Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Hat tip to Physicist at Large.