The Coiffure ProjectJUN 11

Glenford Nunez takes photos of women who keep their hair natural.

Unusual photos of 19th century baseball playersJUN 11

From the NYPL's digital collection, a selection of odd photos of baseball players from the 19th century.

Baseball gloves used to used to be a lot smaller:

BTW, the site I got this from is fascinating...on the front page right now are posts about patent drawings of mazes and puzzles, slave bells, and a shoe-leather map of a cow's hide.

Star Wars in the style of Dr. SeussJUN 11

A series of drawings by Adam Watson that imagine Star Wars characters drawn in the style of Dr. Seuss.

I sense a presence
which I know to be
the old Jedi,
Obi-Wan Kenobi

I sense his presence
I know he's near
but I can't find him
there or here!

(via @followSol)

NFL concussion lawsuitJUN 09

On Thursday, 80 lawsuits against the NFL related to brain injuries and concussions were combined into one complaint and filed in Philadelphia. The suit also names helmet maker Ridell, and if I'm reading the article correctly, 2100 former players are involved in the case.

Former running back Kevin Turner, now suffering from Lou Gehrig's Disease, said:

The NFL must open its eyes to the consequences of its actions. The NFL has the power not only to give former players the care they deserve, but also to ensure that future generations of football players do not suffer the way that many in my generation have. For the longest time, about the first 10 years after I retired in January 2000, I thought I had just turned into a loser overnight. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. It was a very scary proposition -- until I found out there were a lot more guys just like me. I find they had been through some of the same struggles. I realized this is no longer a coincidence.

Back in February, we linked to a Grantland piece by economists Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier about head injuries leading to the end of the NFL. In their version, injuries to high school and college students result in lawsuits making the sport prohibitively expensive to offer to their students (along with a perception that it's too dangerous for kids to play).

Is this case the beginning of that timeline? Depending on what comes out in the lawsuit, one (unjust) popular opinion will be that the players should have known they were playing a dangerous game and they were handsomely rewarded to boot. It's not really a fair opinion, but people love their football. (You can see evidence of this in the comments to the ESPN article linked at the top.) A best case scenario, I would think, would be for the NFL to settle with some sort of acknowledgement of the issue. Not lip-service, but actual changes to current policies and future support for former players.

In happier NFL news, Trick Shot Quarterback, Alex Tanney was signed yesterday by the KC Chiefs. Regardless of setting the NCAA Division III record for passing with 14,249 yards, the NCAA record for touchdowns with 157, and only throwing 30 interceptions in college, Tanney had gone undrafted.

Updates on previous entries for Jun 8, 2012*JUN 09

How crayons are made orig. from Sep 17, 2008

* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.

Pixar's story rules: how to create compelling storiesJUN 08

Over a month and a half, Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted out a series of lessons she learned on the job about how to create appealing stories. Here are a couple of my favorites:

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th - get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

(via @daveg)

Mushroom processing machineJUN 08

You're not going to believe me, but this mushroom processing machine is pretty fascinating. There's lots of deceptively simple engineering to mechanically manipulate the mushrooms...the auto-alignment and size-sorting bits are especially interesting.

Plus there's a trance soundtrack. See also how crayons are made, the robotic pancake sorter, and the salami sorting robot. (via @kdern)

Mister Rogers remixed and autotunedJUN 08

PBS teamed up with Symphony of Science's John Boswell for this remix, "the first in a series of PBS icons remixed." I've listened to this 5 times.

You can grow ideas in the garden of your mind. (via sly oyster)

Fake war treesJUN 08

During World War I, specific trees on the battlefield were measured in detail and then replaced by replica trees that were actually hunting blinds.

To develop the O.P. Tree, Royal Engineers representatives selected, measured, and photographed the original tree, in situ, extensively. The ideal tree was dead; often it was bomb blasted. The photographs and sketches were brought back to the workshop, where artists constructed an artificial tree of hollow steel cylinders, but containing an internal scaffolding for reinforcement, to allow a sniper or observer to ascend within the structure. Then, under the cover of night, the team cut down the authentic tree and dug a hole in the place of its roots, in which they placed the O.P. Tree. When the sun rose over the field, what looked like a tree was a tree no longer; rather, it was an exquisitely crafted hunting blind, maximizing personal concealment and observational capacity simultaneously.

What travel guide books say about the USJUN 07

Max Fisher has a piece at The Atlantic about what travel guidebooks tell foreign visitors to the US.

Politics get heavy treatment in the books, as do the subtleties of discussing them, maybe more so than in any other guidebook I've read (what can I say, it's an addiction). Lonely Planet urges caution when discussing immigration. "This is the issue that makes Americans edgy, especially when it gets politicized," they write, subtly suggesting that some Americans might approach the issue differently than others. "Age has a lot to do with Americans' multicultural tolerance."

Rough Guide doesn't shy away from the fact that many non-Americans are less-than-crazy about U.S. politics and foreign policy, and encouragingly notes that many Americans are just as "infuriated" about it as visitors might be. Still, it warns that the political culture saturates everything, and that "The combination of shoot-from-the-hip mentality with laissez-faire capitalism and religious fervor can make the U.S. maddening at times, even to its own residents."

Munchausen by InternetJUN 07

Munchausen by Internet is the act of inventing a malady or serious disease to generate online attention. The disorder, originally called 'virtual factitious disorder,' was first described in 1998 by psychiatrist Marc Feldman.

This Gawker piece documents a perfect example of Munchausen by Internet, an 11 year saga involving a young child with cancer and spanning across many early social platforms. The scam, which seems to have been started by an 11 year old girl, does not appear motivated by money (all donation requests were directed to a legitimate non-profit). Basically, this girl was playing real-life Sim City.

Huge swaths of the Dirrs social circle began disappearing, too. Gone were the Facebook profiles of J.S.'s hard-partying best friend, Mitchy Aaron, who would sometimes tag J.S. in party pics. Mitchy's wife, who had only recently thanked the Dirrs on Facebook for taking care of their kids after Mitchy was in a motorcycle accident, disappeared, too. Dozens of J.S.'s ex-girlfriends, who sometimes sent Facebook friend requests to the real people J.S. knew online, much to J.S.'s annoyance, locked their profiles down. A small town's worth of people--at least 71, according to Wright--had apparently been invented to support the Dirr fantasy, using hundreds of stolen pictures to create the appearance of a vibrant social life.

This 1998 NY Times article describes some early cases of Munchausen by Internet, including the case of an early-Internet version of Marla Singer.

Chased out of the eating-disorder chat room, the woman turned up in others, including one for sexual-abuse survivors. She was found out and banished from that one, too, then joined another group. When last heard from, she was dying of AIDS.

Lastly, here's a Details story on Munchausen in the workplace, a behavior first identified by a Georgia Tech business school professor in 2007. Incidentally, that's my friend Ben in the picture accompanying the article.

Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell go long on sportsJUN 07

Grantland's Bill Simmons and the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell had one of their epic email conversations the other day and posted it to Grantland. Topics included the NBA playoffs, sports journalism, LeBron, fame in the internet era, sports philosophers, and football concussions.

Do we really need 25 people crammed in baseball locker rooms fighting for the same mundane quotes? What's our game plan for the fact that -- thanks to the Internet and 24-hour sports stations -- a city like Boston suddenly has four times as many sports media members as it once had? Why are we covering teams the same way we covered them in 1981, just with more people and better equipment? If I could watch any Celtics game and press conference from my house (already possible), and there was a handpicked pool of reporters (maybe three per game, with the people changing every game) responsible for pooling pregame/postgame quotes and mailing them out immediately, could I write the same story (or pretty close)? If we reduced the locker room clutter, would players relax a little more? Would their quotes improve? Would they trust the media more? Why haven't we experimented at all? Any "improvements" in our access have been forgettable. Seriously, what pearls of wisdom are we expecting from NBA coaches during those ridiculous in-game interviews, or from athletes sitting on a podium with dozens of media members firing monotone questions at them? It's like an all-you-can-eat buffet of forgettable quotes, like the $7.99 prime rib extravaganzas at a Vegas casino or something. There's Russell Westbrook at the podium for $7.99! Feast away! We laugh every time Gregg Popovich curmudgeonly swats Craig Sager away with four-word answers, but really, he's performing a public service. He's one of the few people in sports who has the balls to say, "This couldn't be a dumber relationship right now."

Investment disclosuresJUN 07

Here at kottke.org, we've invested in a couple of "start up" companies and thought it was time to disclose that information. We're happy to announce that we've participated in a friends-and-family angel series-α round for Vooza, a "mobile web app that's realtime, cloud-based, social, and local." Joining us are several other great investors like Tim Conway, Paul Grayjoy, Mark Anderrssonn, Freddy Dubs, Denim Roberts, Katrina Faux, and Petrus T. Heel.

We also invested in a follow-on crowdfunded round for Ponzify several months ago.

Forget Facebook. Forget Groupon. Forget everything you know about Silicon Valley. Because Ponzify isn't like other tech companies. We don't promise results. We show them to you, on a piece of paper, that has your name and a monetary figure that increases every month.

Our business model is simple: Attract users, advertisers, positive press and a corporate buyer; then, pull the chord on that golden parachute and have cable news book you as an expert on startups from time to time. There may be a book deal in there, too. We haven't decided.

Users love our product because it's something free. Venture Capitalists love it because they can imagine themselves talking about it at T.E.D. or on Charlie Rose. Trust us: Once you invest in Ponzify, you'll have a difficult time investing your money anywhere else ever again.

Such is the pace of technology and business at the intersection of technology and business that we've forgetten who else invested in Ponzify but rest assured that it didn't include any women. Both these companies are going somewhere, you should check them out or you might miss them.

First trailer for Tarantino's Django UnchainedJUN 06

It's a Western film about bounty hunting starring Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Christoph Waltz.

Lessons from the deadJUN 06

A wonderful comment over at Ask Metafilter by rumposinc about how valuable her nursing school cadaver was.

You have to take really exceptional care of your cadaver, so that it stays workable, free of pathogens, and easy to learn from. Towards the end, this care became very ritualistic for my lab team, and nearly reverent. She had been a very small lady, and so we had to be so careful. In the end, there is a very simple ceremony students can attend honoring the life, contribution, and cremation of our subjects. It was overwhelmingly emotional and I remember my lab partner reached over and held my hand, and though I almost hesitate to say so, there is a way that we felt like her family. She had shared so much of herself. It wasn't something we talked about, but it was a palpable feeling.

(via ★choire)

Keep on truckin'JUN 06

The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported on the 69 year-old man in the photo above. Constant sun exposure to one side of his face resulted in premature aging, though, the other side doesn't look too bad for 69. The condition is called unilateral dermatoheliosis, which I think is Greek for make sure to wear sunblock.

The patient reported that he had driven a delivery truck for 28 years. Ultraviolet A (UVA) rays transmit through window glass, penetrating the epidermis and upper layers of dermis. Chronic UVA exposure can result in thickening of the epidermis and stratum corneum, as well as destruction of elastic fibers. This photoaging effect of UVA is contrasted with photocarcinogenesis.

(via gizmodo)

More views of the Tiananmen Tank ManJUN 06

I've seen several versions of the iconic Tank Man photo but here's a little-known wider view that shows just how many tanks the guy was holding up.

Larger version here. There is also, amazingly, video of the incident:

You'll note at the end that the man is hustled off by a group of people. See also the Tank Man of Tiananmen (via @polarben)

Time lapse video of the transit of VenusJUN 06

Venus passed in front of the Sun yesterday for the last time until 2117. The transit took almost seven hours but this NASA video shows it in under a minute.

Updates on previous entries for Jun 5, 2012*JUN 06

The world's worst password requirements list orig. from Jun 04, 2012

* Q: Wha? A: These previously published entries have been updated with new information in the last 24 hours. You can find past updates here.

Do humans have the right stuff to fight aliens?JUN 05

While we're being entertained by blockbusters that feature fictional battles with imagined aliens, Foreign Policy takes a look at some very real efforts to develop weapons that could make it a fair fight. From a laser beam designed to "harness the speed and power of light to counter multiple threats," to high-tech jets that can fly at speeds up to Mach-20, the preparations for the future of war are well underway. We just need to stun the aliens long enough for our bath-salted zombie cannibals to get their hands on them.

Note: This post is syndicated from Dave Pell's NextDraft email newsletter.