It’s another edition of monthly links! Here are some interesting things for you to check out in August:
Tracy Durnell has some interesting takes – and interesting ways of presenting existing ideas. In this tortured reflection on why Tracy won’t buy the lamp that she wants, she highlights how “home decor” is another way of putting you onto the consumerist treadmill.
How will I be useless to Capitalism today?
And commenter Chris Glass links to his List of Things I Do Not Need – a brilliant idea. He also links to a piece on Korean Dopamine Sites: fake e-commerce sites that are meant to scratch the itch of shopping without the exenditure. Related: food-delivery experience simulator.
EP 1320 from Teenage Engineering
This is… a medieval groovebox. It’s got horse hooves, hurdy gurdies, 2 witches, the illuminated medieval website is unbelievable, the device itself has medieval LED numbers, the promotional video is bizarre. I love this. I wish I was musically talented so I could play this.
Wiki Spy
Neal.Fun’s wiki-spy lets you go into a wikipedia rabbit hole – visually! Enter something like Iznik Tiles and start exploring.
Neal’s Wonders of Streetview is guaranteed to surprise you.
Something I discovered on Wiki Spy is the “Semantron“, a wooden plank that Orthodox monks play as a musical instrument.
It gets a little psychedelic:
“Has not been viewed much”
The Art Institute of Chicago’s API has a flag called “has not been viewed much” and this site lets you view these less-popular artworks. A good way to find new art and dive into historical topics.
Aniconic Buddhist art
Something that came up in conversation. Early Buddhism did not have depictions of the Buddha, but would show an empty seat, footprints and (I believe) and outline of a person.
Here’s an introduction to some of the fun in studying the bible (authorship, context) in-depth: https://andreafontana.it/en/birth-god-israel-yahweh-el.html
In Hebrew, it is very clear that Elohim is plural, while YHWH is singular. To the extent that in the story of Babel, God is concerned about the height of the humans’ tower and goes to alert the other Gods (!)
As a Torontonian, this is the bee’s knees:
This little guy was unwanted, so now he lives here:
Enjoy!
