Recall, if you will, the first time you read Book 2 of Homer’s Iliad. The section likely to have given you the most trouble — unless, of course, you’re blessed with an obsessive interest in ancient naval warfare — is the much-remarked-upon Catalogue of Ships, a rundown of not
I’d Be Lead Harpooner on the Pequod If It Wasn’t for These DEI Hires . “I’m just telling you that it’s getting hard out there for us blue-collar Nantucket lads when all the ships’ owners are catching the Abolitionist Mind Virus.”
25 things that explain America , including personal injury lawyer advertisements, Crest Whitestrips, Costco rotisserie chicken, and the Pizza Hut lamp. “The T-shirt cannon merges three American obsessions: guns, sports and freebie giveaways.”
“The gift of being alive is developing a garden in oneself,” the Armenian-Egyptian artist told Hyperallergic, “and to move towards heaven.”
This is a completely fantastic look at how the Enigma Machine works . Jared Owen constructed a 3D model of the German cipher device and clearly walks the viewer through how the electricity flows through the machine to scramble and unscramble secret messages. When electricity
How Wildfire Smoke Is Reshaping Childhood . “Repeated smoke events are changing children’s daily routines, limiting opportunities for outdoor play and social interaction and reshaping how many families experience summer.”
Breton coastal residents grew up collecting parts of a 1984 Garfield-themed plastic telephone on the beach—and still do. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The
This guy hooked his hamster’s wheel up to Strava — Mollie is logging 5-6 miles per day.
"Olo can be described as the 'greenest green,' though it can never be captured by a camera. But its development tells us a lot about our color vision."
A striking meditation on inequality via the bold sculptures that sit amongst skyscrapers in Paris’s business district - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon
"For decades, workers at a nuclear facility in Kentucky were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Management assured them nothing was wrong. Then four friends risked everything to reveal the truth."
Plus: devastating drawings by children held in ICE detention facilities.
C P Snow’s ‘Two Cultures’ lecture provoked a savage response from fellow critic F R Leavis. What was at the heart of it all? - by Sam Dresser Read on Aeon
Is this where books go to die? There are about 7500 public libraries in the US, and until recently, more than a third of their transactions were for DVDs. What’s a library for? The media has changed, our needs have changed, but the dynamics of funding, architecture and
Most people know that Mark Twain wrote about Jim and Huckleberry Finn navigating down the Mississippi. Less well known is that he occasionally dabbled in the burgeoning genre of science fiction. His 1898 short story “The Great Dark” is about a ship that sails across a drop of
Astronomers have measured the size of the largest galaxy : it’s 1.7 million light years across (17x the diameter of the Milky Way) and contains ~3.4 trillion solar masses in stars.
The graduate art therapy professor was placed on leave last semester after she assigned her class a case study that mentioned violence against Palestinians.
The now-defunct museum’s building and archives span over five decades of Scottish cultural and art history.
An exhibition makes a case for the sensuality of these marble sculptures, recreating the perfumes and balms that once adorned them.
A recent biography spends too much time speculating about the Dutch artist’s religious beliefs and not enough exploring other mysteries, including his possible use of a camera obscura.
This week, we honor a Czech Fluxus artist, a pioneering choreographer, and a promising gallery director.
“ In this video , I’ll take you from farm to factory to show you how chocolate is made, and at the end, we’ll use all the chocolate you’ll see in this video to attempt the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest chocolate bar.”
The heartbreaking messages, seized by ICE from young children in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, were acquired by podcaster Allison Gill.
The Computer That Helped Win World War II . “…it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the fascination of a Colossus at work: its sheer bulk and apparent complexity; the fantastic speed of thin paper tape round the glittering pulleys…”
Whitestone Gallery in Seoul presents the artist's solo exhibition, 'Spiral of Energy.' Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Monumental Painted Wood
Do you remember the video I posted last summer of YouTuber Benn Jordan where he “uploaded a picture of a bird to a bird and then downloaded the bird picture from the bird” ? So cool. Jordan is back with more data encoding tricks in his latest video, There Are Files Stored in