Lydia Schoch

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comic strips, videos and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

What the Childfree Have in Common with Introverts. Good stuff.

Shadow Puppets. How many shadow puppets can you make?

Genetic Portraits. Retouched pictures of family members – one half of the “face” you’ll see is one person, the other half is another.

From The Science Behind the Kiss:

Our lips are packed with sensitive nerve endings so that even the slightest brush sends a flurry of information to our brains that often feels very good. Although we often don’t think of them in this way, our lips are the body’s most exposed erogenous zone.

The Shitty Competition. In my experience people who act like this around others don’t like themselves very much either. Knowing this doesn’t make them easier to get along with but it can help you cultivate compassion for them.   Not a work-safe link.

Marcel Theroux’s Far North frustrated and piqued my imagination this week. The idea of anyone attempting to survive alone in an Arctic, post-apocalyptic environment is chilling. Makepeace’s descriptions of living in this world – especially when it comes to all of the details left unshared until the last possible second- were in turn intriguing, shocking, terrifying, and at times even a little irritating.

The story itself was full of surprising turns and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in this genre…I just wish a few key scenes had been described in more (or in some cases, any) detail.

What have you been reading?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, message board threads, videos and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Ode to Bella Santorum. I avoid politics – especially U.S. politics –  as much as humanly possible but this bears repeating.

Sheep Herding Swedish Bunny Hops to Fame. This is one of the cutest, funniest things I’ve ever seen.

From a discussion on Letter From Former Slave to Former Master:

Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you…At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars.

Hobo Life in America. There’s a story in every wrinkle, every scar.

From MacArthur’s Address at Los Angeles Banquet, 1955:

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair — these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Once again I haven’t read anything worth recommending this week. What have you been reading?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, photographs and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

The Love Story that Changed History. Amazing photographs of Mildred and Richard Perry Loving, an interracial couple who challenged the Racial Integrity Act of 1964 (which banned interracial marriages in Virginia). The case eventually went to the Supreme Court and the verdict changed history.

From Time in a Capsule at Maple Leaf Gardens:

Every time capsule needs a mystery item—something whose inclusion puzzles the people who find it decades later. In the MLG time capsule that mystery is provided by a pendant-sized ivory elephant, whose significance has officially stumped Ryerson officials.

Daydreamers. Have you ever wondered what strangers are thinking? This is not a work-safe link.

Upside Down. And have you ever wondered what seals are thinking? This is a work-safe link. 😉

I haven’t read anything spectacular this week. What have you been reading?

You were born in the sea.

You didn’t call it that, of course. Everyone knew the waves have no beginning or end.

Occasionally someone would swim in from somewhere far away with fantastical stories about warm, sweet water in the south, icy saltwater to the north.

One of you even claimed that she’d seen water so salty you couldn’t swim inside of it.

No one really believed her, though. She must have eaten too much algae before bed.

A storm rumbled across the sky. You were floating next to her when the first flash of lightening scratched through the clouds. You reached out to hold her hand (as was the custom).

When it ended you both were in unfamiliar waters…some of which was curiously un water-like.

“See?” she said, standing up with a wobble. “It’s too salty to swim in. Only my toes are covered now.”

“Strange,” you replied.

“It gets saltier the further you swim,” she said. “A little farther in and even my feet float.”

“What happens then?”

“I don’t know.”

You decide to find out. She stands over the salty water, waving as you swim on to saltier waters. Some are as hard as bone, others as sharp as fins.

Perplexing.

When you return the others are waiting. No one believes you about the bone-water. They wouldn’t believe her stories, either, except that a few brave souls have tested the saltier waters for themselves.

She leaves with them. You stay. There must be a reason why this water behaves so strangely.

(to be continued…)

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, pictures and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

This picture was snapped in 1928 on a field trip taken by Waterdown Public School students and teachers. Old photographs always make me wonder what happened to the subjects in the years that followed.

The Male Explorer Who Was Actually Female. I wonder how many other stories like this have been long-since forgotten?

100 Most Powerless New Yorkers. We need more lists like this one.

What Slippery Slope? Good stuff.

From Helping the Homeless at the S.F. Public Library:

What started as a tough situation – staff members worried about people washing up in the bathrooms, or acting badly – turned into an opportunity. The library, which has always thought of itself as a resource, found it had nothing to offer people who came in asking for help finding housing or places to sleep.

Thomas Grant Wynn’s How to Think Like a Neandertal condenses all of our current knowledge about neanderthal* physiology, culture, diet and religion into a book that’s accessible even for people who know little about the subject.

Several times while reading it, though, I’ve wondered how accurate even our most educated guesses actually are – if only we could interact with living, breathing members of this species!

*Apparently either spelling is acceptable. 🙂

What have you been reading?