Matters relating to life on Earth.
A wonderful illustration by Lili Chin who has a whole series of posters for sale for dog and cat lovers.
See also: Urbano Monte’s remarkable 430-year-old map of the world
A wonderful infographic illustration by Lili Chin.
Pixel intensities show regions where each feeling was associated with statistically significant bodily sensations.
British Psychological Society: “How do you feel?” is a simple and commonly asked question that belies the complex nature of our conscious experiences. The feelings and emotions we experience daily consist of bodily sensations, often accompanied by some kind of thought process, yet we still know very little about exactly how these different aspects relate to one another, or about how such experiences are organised in the brain.
Now, reporting their results in PNAS, a team of researchers in Finland, led by neuroscientist Lauri Nummenmaa of the University of Turku, has produced detailed maps of what they call the “human feeling space”, showing how each of dozens of these subjective feelings is associated with a unique set of bodily sensations. [⋮]
The new results provide yet more evidence for the emerging idea that the body plays a crucial role in cognitive and emotional processes – something which has, until very recently, been overlooked. “In other words,” says study co-author Riita Hari, “the human mind is strongly embodied.”
See also: 216 positive emotions that have no direct English translation
“Subjective feelings are a central feature of human life, yet their relative organization has remained elusive.”
What are the rhetorical strategies the alt-right uses to legitimise itself and gain power? How do these strategies work? Why do they work? How do we keep from falling for them? And how do we catch ourselves when we start using them, too?
Ian Danskin (aka Innuendo Studios) creates video essays about games, art, politics, and culture. This is the first video in an ongoing series about how the Alt-Right operates.
Ian goes on to talk about how the Alt-Right controls the conversation, why they never play defence, the ‘mainstreaming’ of fringe groups, ‘The Ship of Theseus’ and most recently the death of a euphemism.
If you want to win, you have to understand why you’ve been losing.
National Geographic: If birds left tracks in the sky, what would they look like? For years Barcelona-based photographer Xavi Bou has been fascinated by this question.
Ultimately he chose to work with a video camera, from which he extracts high-resolution photographs. After he films the birds in motion, Bou selects a section of the footage and layers the individual frames into one image.
This current work, he says, combines his passion and his profession. “It’s technical, challenging, artistic, and natural. It’s the connection between photography and nature that I was looking for.”
Photographer Xavi Bou captures the paths that birds make across the sky.
Mashable: Hitler asked his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann to take photos of him rehearsing speeches. Hitler would try out various gestures and expressions, then review the pictures to see if his postures looked stunning or stupid.
Though Hitler ordered Hoffmann to destroy the pictures for being “beneath one’s dignity,” the photographer kept them in his studio. He later published the photos in his memoir, Hitler Was My Friend.
“One of Hitler’s best talents was oration. He first developed his acumen for public speaking in beer halls, where his rants would start out cool and precise, then escalate into hypnotic histrionics as his audience became more engaged (and drunk).”
Vice News: There are many things considered to be common knowledge about Hitler. He was vegetarian, partial to the toothbrush mustache, a failed fine artist and a Nazi despot responsible for the reprehensible, systematic murder of six million Jews. What has only recently surfaced is the assertion that Hitler was also high off his face for the entirety of World War II. As was most of the third reich. That’s according to Blitzed by Norman Ohler, the international bestseller that’s been translated into 26 languages.
Vox: Why so many languages invented words for colors in the same order.
A guide to what different colours symbolize in different countries; a useful consideration for designers. [PDF]
For example, the color red has many different meanings in other countries. In the United States red signifies danger and is often interpreted as a signal to stop, yet it also symbolizes love and passion. However, in China red speaks of good fortune, celebration and happiness. On the financial front, red denotes a rise in stock prices in East Asian stock markets while it reflects a drop in stock prices in North American stock markets. In many ways these attitudes toward color are completely opposite in these different cultures.
Purple is another example. There are vast differences in how some countries perceive this color. Japan looks at purple as wealth. France sees it as freedom or peace. The U.K., China and the United States understand purple as royalty. India, however, identifies this color with sorrow and unhappiness.
Six Degrees: An International Guide to the Use of Color in Marketing and Advertising (via Rands in Repose)
See also: Mummy Brown and other historical colours
“Though this chart may not reflect the totality of color representations, it serves as an introduction to expand your knowledge of color meanings.” — Six Degrees
BBC: For an obscure temple no one’s heard of, Cholula holds an impressive array of records: it’s the largest pyramid on the planet, with a base four times larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza and nearly twice the volume.
Never mind the largest pyramid – it’s the largest monument ever constructed anywhere, by any civilisation, to this day. To locals it’s aptly known as Tlachihualtepetl (“man-made mountain”). Thanks to the church on top, it’s also the oldest continuously occupied building on the continent.
In fact it’s not one pyramid at all, but a great Russian doll of a construction, consisting of no less than six, one on top of the other. It grew in stages, as successive civilisations improved on what had already been built.
“They made a conscious effort to maintain and in some cases display previous construction episodes. This is pretty novel, and shows deliberate efforts to link to the past.”
David Carballo, archaeologist
Three theories of how liberals and conservatives think, compiled by Nicky Case.
I’m posting this in large part because I like the format. It’s more interesting than just a text screenshot or tweetstorm when posted on social media, and it looks good in a blog post. I also appreciate that it’s explicitly public domain to encourage sharing.
It’s not a proper infographic, it’s not an essay and it’s certainly not a comic, but it is a little of all of these things.
See also: other posts tagged ‘politics’.
“Studies of identical twins have confirmed what we know deep down — it’s not Nurture vs Nature, it’s nurture AND nature.”
Veritasium: If you repeat something enough times, it comes to feel good and true.
A map by Yanko Tsvetkov from the Atlas of Prejudice: The Complete Stereotype Map Collection.
The Atlas of Prejudice is “the official stereotype lab of Yanko Tsvetkov, a bestselling author, prolific cartographer, and leading international bigotry professional with a taste for salacious political incorrectness and unconventional historical studies.”
When i enter the red zone, i can feel a burning sensation in my eyes and thick chemical smell in the air. before i went there the authority told me that i need a special permit to visit this town and it take 3-4 weeks to get the approval from the local council,, well too much bureaucracy bullshit for me..so i just sneak in the forest to avoid cops on the road …AND IT WAS AMAZING !!!!!
The radiation level is still very high in the red zone. not many people seen this town for the last 5 years…is like it vanished … i can find food,money,gold,laptop and other valuable in the red zone….I’m amaze that nobody looted this town clean.
(via reddit)
“Gas mask and sandals. Seems legit. What is he, level one character that didn’t find gear yet?” — commenter ‘ondaheightsofdespair’ on imgur.
Bloomberg: How U.K. and Europe Might Relate After Breakup
The U.K. and Europe can’t exactly go their own ways once their divorce is finalized. On trade, customs, defense and the global flow of capital, the European Union and its cross-channel neighbor will continue doing business after Brexit. The question is, how?
See also: Genetic map of the UK shows which invasions created Britain’s DNA
“The Norway model (also employed by Iceland and Liechtenstein) is getting a lot of attention as a potential path for the U.K. But while that would preserve most economic ties, it would also retain many features of EU membership that the British people rejected, such as free movement of labor and paying into the European budget. That’s the dilemma for policy makers.” — Bloomberg
Adam Westbrook: We live in times of seemingly unending progress – and yet somehow things still always go wrong: trains are late, broadband speeds suck and the promotion always goes to the wrong person. Well, it turns out there’s an explanation for all this – and progress itself is the problem. Meet The Peter Principle.
The Peter Principle
See also: The Long Game: The struggle for art in a world obsessed with popularity — A series of video essays by Adam Westbrook: All of history’s greatest figures achieved success in almost exactly the same way. But rather than celebrating this part of the creative process we ignore it.
Despite a complete absence of light and a poisonous atmosphere, the cave is crawling with life. There are unique spiders, scorpions, woodlice and centipedes, many never before seen by humans, and all of them owe their lives to a strange floating mat of bacteria.
Strangely, the worse the air gets the more animals there are. It’s not at all obvious why that should be, or how the animals survive at all.
Without any signs of water reaching the deep cave from the surface, it is unclear how the animals in the cave survives. Tests have shown that the water flowing in does not contain any food particles. Instead, the food comes from the strange frothy foam sitting on top of the water. This floating film, which looks like wet tissue paper and can even be torn like paper, contains millions upon millions of bacteria known as “autotrophs”.
In 1996, researchers categorised the animals in the cave. They included 3 species of spider, a centipede, 4 species of isopod (the group that includes woodlice), a leech never seen anywhere else in the world, and an unusual-looking insect called a waterscorpion.
“Almost 30 years after its discovery, Movile Cave remains perhaps the most isolated ecosystem on the planet. It surely has many more secrets to give up. There are plenty more organisms buried in the cave’s sediments, waiting to be identified, and they could help us understand some of our deepest questions about the nature of life.” — BBC Earth
Wisecrack: We explore South Park’s themes of politically correct (PC) culture, gentrification, advertising, social justice, safe spaces and narcissism.
A photograph is shaped more by the person behind the camera than by what’s in front of it. To prove this we invited six photographers to a portrait session with a twist. ‘Decoy’ is one of six experiments from The Lab, designed to shift creative thinking behind the lens.
Each photographer was told a different story about the life of their subject. Can you tell which image is of the millionaire, the recovering alcoholic, the lifesaver, the ex-con, the fisherman or the psychic?
(via kottke)
This 1970 board game, Blacks & Whites: The Role Identity & Neighborhood Action Game, created by the magazine Psychology Today used gameplay to teach adult players about racial privilege and housing.
Slate: The game, a sideways adaptation of Monopoly, allows players to choose white or black identities.”Black” players start the game with $10,000; “white” players with $1,000,000. Rules for each of the game’s four housing zones—in “Estate Zone,” players playing as black could buy “only when they have one million dollars in assets”—are calibrated to make it hard for the “black” players to climb out of their initial cash deficits. “The goal of the game is to achieve economic equality,” writes Swann Auction Galleries’ Wyatt H. Day, “yet the game is strategically designed to make a black win impossible.”
(via)
This satirical Monopoly-esque board game was made to underscore the socioeconomic disparities between Blacks & Whites. It was “designed for educational use… to give middle-class whites a taste of the helplessness that comes from living against implacable odds.” The game begins when 3 to 9 players select whether to play as white or black. White players are then instructed to begin with $1,000,000; black players begin with just $10,000. The goal of the highly controversial game is to achieve economic equality, yet the game is strategically designed to make a black win impossible. — Swann Auction Galleries
Anthony Cerniello: I attempted to create a person in order to emulate the aging process. The idea was that something is happening but you can’t see it but you can feel it, like aging itself.
Anthony Cerniello took photos of similar-looking family members at a reunion, from the youngest to the oldest, and edited them together in a video to create a nearly seamless portrait of a person aging in only a few minutes.
(via kottke.org)
A really striking political ad created by The Human Story for the Bernie Sanders campaign.
By Bill Wurtz.
Casey Neistat doing what Casey Neistat does.
Traditions like Thanksgiving aren’t natural, by any means. They’re invented, and at the time of their invention they called to a past that’s not really there. An imagined past; a constructed authenticity that serves the purposes of the present.
“It’s like we’re being punished for something, only I can’t figure out what.”
A sad and terrifying portrait of some American lives by Stephanie McCrummen for the Washington Post: He showed them his gun. He spoke of doing ‘something crazy.’ Why do the friends Dylann Roof stayed with before the Charleston church shooting shrug about their inaction?
“Who’s here?” Jacob says, jumping up and peeking through the blinds, but the view is the same as ever — no people, an abandoned trailer next door, a skinny pine tree and some empty vodka minis in a patch of weedy grass. Beyond is the whoosh of highway traffic and the rest of Lexington County, a place that is roughly 80 percent white, the result of decades of white flight from neighboring counties and Ku Klux Klan activity, including a drive-by shooting of three black teenagers in 1996 — not that any sense of history filters into the trailer. “The KKK, that’s one thing I don’t understand,” as Joey says. “Was the KKK an actual violent thing?”
‘There are no books here, no magazines, and the wood-paneled walls are bare. A stained blue towel hangs over the window in the door. The only furniture in the living room is the couch, two side tables and a metal stool positioned in front of the TV, which is wired to two large speakers and the Xbox that one of the Meek brothers is always playing.’ — The Washington Post
TED: Most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we’re wrong about that? “Wrongologist” Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility.
Jef Rouner: Before you crouch behind your Shield of Opinion you need to ask yourself two questions.
1. Is this actually an opinion?
2. If it is an opinion, how informed is it and why do I hold it?
I’ll help you with the first part. An opinion is a preference for or judgment of something. My favorite color is black. I think mint tastes awful. Doctor Who is the best television show. These are all opinions. They may be unique to me alone or massively shared across the general population but they all have one thing in common; they cannot be verified outside the fact that I believe them.
There’s nothing wrong with an opinion on those things. The problem comes from people whose opinions are actually misconceptions. If you think vaccines cause autism you are expressing something factually wrong, not an opinion. The fact that you may still believe that vaccines cause autism does not move your misconception into the realm of valid opinion. Nor does the fact that many other share this opinion give it any more validity.
Houston Press: No, It’s Not Your Opinion. You’re Just Wrong
I find the numbers incredible. South Carolina and Mississippi had more slaves than free citizens!
In September of 1861, the U.S. Coast Survey published a large map, approximately two feet by three feet, titled a “Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the southern states of the United States.” Based on the population statistics gathered in the 1860 Census, and certified by the superintendent of the Census Office, the map depicted the percentage of the population enslaved in each county. At a glance, the viewer could see the large-scale patterns of the economic system that kept nearly 4 million people in bondage: slavery was concentrated along the Chesapeake Bay and in eastern Virginia; along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts; in a crescent of lands in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi; and most of all, in the Mississippi River Valley. With each county labeled with the exact percentage of people enslaved, the map demanded some closer examination.
Smithsonian: These Maps Reveal How Slavery Expanded Across the United States
(via reddit)
In 1861, in an attempt to raise money for sick and wounded soldiers, the Census Office produced and sold a map that showed the population distribution of slaves in the southern United States. Based on data from the 1860 census, this map was the Census Office’s first attempt to map population density. — census.gov
The myth of racial difference that was created to sustain American slavery persists today. Slavery did not end in 1865, it evolved.
Narrated by Bryan Stevenson. Art by Molly Crabapple.
Vox: Sure, there are bad things about these birds (like the way they deface statues of our own species’ great leaders). But over the centuries, their unique abilities to be trained and to find their way home have been used in interesting and surprising ways (that almost make up for their constant cooing).
“An ongoing project attempting to explain our highly intangible, deeply disruptive, data-driven, venture-backed, gluten-free economic meritocracy to the uninitiated.”
Sockrotation 