February 2011
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“The 87th floor of the tallest building in the world was international territory,...”
– Reading New York Empire State of Mind: The Colonization of ‘Up’ (by Ryan Sayre at 3quarksdaily), this part - on the possibility of national borders in the sky, as a consequence of using skyscrapers as docks for airships - struck me.
Nowadays the idea that a building could contain a...
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“On my keyring, everywhere I go, I carry a piece of London.”
– Tom Armitage: Totems and City Avatars.
Even thought my bike hire key is just useless dead weight here, I do the same.
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Baidu Maps and the Edges of the World
Baidu’s cute isometric 3d city renderings are doing the rounds again, but they’re not the only thing interesting about the Chinese website’s maps.
When you first go to the home page, the map defaults to China. This isn’t that odd: so does Google China’s Maps, and most of the Google country domains do the same thing. What is odd is that barely anything outside China...
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“That generation of 16-to-24-year-olds—the guys who felt the rush of Top Gun...”
– Mark Harris in the multiply-quotable The Day the Movies Died: Movies + TV at GQ.
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“Mr Cameron said: “Britain has a range of strong defence relationships with...”
– David Cameron in Kuwait to promote reform message, from BBC News. Sentences reordered for maximum irony.
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Bobby Fischer by Harry Benson
Bobby Fischer became world champion only to retreat from chess entirely, and the last years of his life were spent fleeing the US government and spouting anti-semitic nonsense.
Here he’s photographed by Harry Benson at a hot spring in Reykjavik, in 1972. Garry Kasparov reviews a biography of him.
Let’s hope the chess prodigy of the moment, Magnus Carlsen, who became the #1 ranked player at...
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“Ragers tend to have a strong sense of how other people should behave. Their...”
– Researchers Study ‘Sidewalk Rage’ by Shirley S. Wang at WSJ.com. By that definition, I am a rager. (via)
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WatchFrom the British Council’s Vimeo account, comes this vintage gem. Lovely work on the transitions:
History of the English Language acts as an excellent layman’s introduction to the origins of one of the most common languages on the planet, demonstrating how dialect changes over time, and presenting England as being multicultural right down to its roots.
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“Working for: High Pay Commission
Details: The High Pay Commission is an...”
– Job ad posted on behalf of the Government Department for Sardonic Hypocrisy.
w4mp | job details
(via fuckyeahfreeinterns)
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“The more open and multifarious the city becomes, the more it attracts people who...”
– Londonism and its adherents: The capital’s creed from The Economist (via Russell)
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“Norway has more entrepreneurs per capita than the United States, according to...”
– Max Chafkin in an article in Inc Magazine: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism. The entire thing is well worth a read.
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“While 2% of U.S. visitors may not seem like a lot, keep in mind that over 300...”
– Nicholas C. Zakas on the YDN Blog, asking how many users have JavaScript disabled?
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