Larry’s Pretty Good Journal

A few links things I found interesting:

How the Muppets were filmed outside before CGI. (via)

There’s growing evidence that wheels were invented by miners (to help haul out ore) in the Carpathian Mountains around 3900 BCE. (via)

“Nothing is untranslatable. Anything left untranslated is what you’ve decided doesn’t matter anyway.” (via janni)

---L.

Subject quote from happier, Olivia Rodrigo.

So here’s a couple more links from the stores in the back:

The first surviving recipe for ice cream in English dates to 1733.

The oldest known wild bird, a 74 year old Laysan albatross, has a new egg. (via)

The Guardian reviews Grand Theft Hamlet, a movie of Hamlet performed in Grand Theft Auto Online—all while the actor avatars get randomly shot up by other players. Sounds delightfully bonkers. Trailer in the review. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from bad guy, Billie Eilish.

In honor of the bat found lying on the gravel of our driveway and taken to our local wildlife rehab center (quote Eaglet: “We did a thing!”), a couple unrelated links. Well, one’s about a rescue:

Two words: Duck Amuck (via)

Two more: Bugs version. (via YT sidebar from previous)

Continuing followup: Voyager 1 probe is fully online again yays! (via)

500,000 books removed from the Internet Archive’s lending library after publisher lawsuit. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from What I’ve Done, Linkin Park.

Link, vaguely united in theme with the post subject:

Star Wars Episode IV: the infographic adaptation. (via)

You’re not imagining it: Google search results really are getting worse, researchers find. Original paper. (via)

A new study suggests it’s not blue light that keeps you awake, but ANY light. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from In Memoriam A.H.H., section 106, Alfred the Tennyson.

Links? Yes, links:

Princess Iron Fan (1941), the first Asian-made feature-length animated film, is an adaptation of, no surprise here, an episode from Journey to the West. It was a Chinese production, made in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation, and inspired Tezuka to create comics, thus launching the Japanese anime industry. Wikipedia has more.

Rock paintings dated to 9000-9500 BCE provide evidence that kites were flown in Indonesia thousands of years before they were in China. In case you’re wordering, yes, the classic diamond shape, made from thin woven strips of bamboo fibers. (via Janni)

The Wageningen University & Research houses a collection of 1180 drawings of the root systems of trees, grasses, crops, shrubs, weeds, flowers, and other plants. Beautiful. (via)

In other irrelevant news, I’ve become obsessed with the music of CHVRCHES.

---L.

Subject quote from Forever, CHVRCHES.

It’s been a while since I shared some links, hasn’t it. In my defence, I’ve been camping in mountainous places and getting up close and personal with wild turkeys, though that’s only some of the time. Not really an excuse. Still, here’s some good ones I’ve collected:

Alternate Realities: 2400 CG artists were challenged to render a base animation of a walking person, and here’s the top 100 entries, one after the other. One of them is Ghibli inspired. All 2400 entries. (via)

John Oliver Loves Octopuses, especially the wonderfully named Wunderpus photogenicus. CW: octopus crawling out of a man’s mouth. (via)

r/MaliciousCompliance, stories about people conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. (via, which has more links to r/AmITheAsshole-adjacent places)

---L.

Subject quote from Schism, Tool.

A three point Eaglet update:

The cycle of homeschooling is settling down (we get online learning from their school some time next week) though stir-crazy from lack of recess with friends is still … a challenge. In assistance towards this, Grandma sent an early birthday present: a trampoline. I need to assemble it Real Soon Now.

I don't know what catnip the makers of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl put in the mix, but it is totally Eaglet's kind of catnip. Last week, they watched it every single day (sometimes the Good Parts version, which is by fast-forwarding 18 minutes in, to when the title characters show up in Max's classroom). This week, they've watched it only twice, as they have discovered by association the Spy Kids franchise.

Eaglet is something of a reluctant reader, but we've found their reading catnip: they've been borrowing as often as possible mom's tablet for playing a visual novel with a high school setting -- I don't think it's officially a dating sim but a genre very close to one. (We haven't figured out how to load it onto their own tablet.)

---L.

Subject quote from Itylus, Algernon Swinburne.

I’m convinced that the Aladdin reboot totally ships Abu/Flying Carpet.

There's something of a thematic throughline in these links:

A three-part essay series on costume design for heroic female characters: The Extrapolated Costume Design of Wonder Woman, The Referential Star Wars Costumes of Rey, and The Warrior Women of Black Panther and the Symbolic Approach to Costume Design. Would that more SFF writers put more of this kind of thinking into their worldbuilding. (via)

Natural selection in action: Post-hurricane lizards had, on average, feet better at holding on in high winds because the ones with smaller feet got blown away. (via)

Epic surf ride: 1 wave, ridden 1.5 kilometer for 2 minutes, through 8 barrels. Also available in POV cam. (via)

Or maybe that's just the wishful thinking of colons.

---L.

Subject quote from In the Wood of Finvara, Arthur Symons.

Some relevant links for the times:

Monsoon III, a timelapse of local thunderstorms (I recognize many locations near here, along with some shots of Phoenix and the Ditch). View fullscreen for best effect. The prevalence of dust storms is, um, overstated, but yes, that's what the our summer (second half) is like. (via)

Machines making tiny springs. Just as hypnotic as the above. (via)

The Yale Record does not endorse Hillary Clinton. (via Janni)

---L.

Subject quote from "Everything You Want," Vertical Horizon.