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I don’t know how I came across the “Chinese traditional life” genre of videos but I watch every time. Nothing like just a hint of hard physical labor in a beautiful setting and a lot of time lapse to make you want to live like that!

This one covers harvesting and fermenting indigo to make a huge vat and then using wax resist to indigo dye fabric for a lovely cape.

 

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I wrote yesterday’s post having just learned the news and as the day went on and it really sank in, my feelings of dread and doom intensified. I don’t think we’re going to unionize our way out of this one.

But I made myself get off the internet and go on a little hike and you know what? Mountains don’t have any idea what a government is. Neither do orange kitties you can hug in the night if you can’t sleep. “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

We mixed things up Sunday and went over to the Indigenous Art Market at the Natural History Museum. No pictures, because it felt weird to treat people like entertainment, but we saw some dancing and lots of lovely jewelry.

Speaking of feeling weird about how we treat indigenous people:

I switched up the blog’s template yesterday after thinking about it for literal years and putting it off as too hard.

It took me about half an hour. (I will learn nothing from this.)

But it was past time to get something that filled the screen more and looked better on a phone. I’m still playing with some stuff–fonts, header image, getting an RSS feed to work–but it’s nice and fresh.

I found an archive post from Kottke talking about how loud the Krakatoa volcano was–apparently loud enough to burst the eardrums of people 40 miles away. From the article linked in that post:

The human threshold for pain is near 130 decibels, and if you had the misfortune of standing next to a jet engine, you’d experience a 150 decibel sound. (A 10 decibel increase is perceived by people as sounding roughly twice as loud.) The Krakatoa explosion registered 172 decibels at 100 miles from the source. This is so astonishingly loud, that it’s inching up against the limits of what we mean by “sound.”

The Kottke post also talks about how loud a Saturn V rocket is–“At very close range, the sound from the Saturn V measures an incredible 220 db, loud enough to melt concrete just from the sound“–and then finishes with an incredible fact that sperm whale calls reach 174 decibels?!

I follow Stephen Ellcock, an author and “renowned image collector” (according to his publisher), on Instagram. He’ll drop a slideshow of art and images, loosely related by theme, which is how I found out about The Great Lost Labyrinth of Egypt (!).

I went right to Wikipedia, as one does, and read about it (emphasis mine for the cool parts!):

There are also double sets of chambers, three thousand altogether, fifteen hundred above and the same number under ground. … We learned through conversation about [the labyrinth’s] underground chambers; the Egyptian caretakers would by no means show them, as they were, they said, the burial vaults of the kings who first built this labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. …

But I really wanted more artists’ recreations! I want more info! I also want either a current expedition to discover more of the ruins or a movie about such a thing, I’m not picky.

I did a brief wider search and found “Virtual Harawa,” plans for a research expedition, and, uh, a TikTok from a cosplayer claiming there were LIDAR scans? But not much more! Get moving, scientists, I want my National Geograhpic special/summer movie.

I’ve see two tech-y things with medieval themes in two weeks, so they get their own blog post: an upcoming manuscript game and a MEDIEVAL BEAT MACHINE.

The game isn’t released yet and it’s for Windows, but it looks like a hoot:

My reaction:

And the BEAT MACHINE has a truly fabulous landing page experience but also just looks like so much fun. Be sure to scroll down to play the samples.

They really leaned into it with the copy, too.

It may be another Monday under capitalism, but at least we’re not naming daylily hybrids at Jung Seed. Because that person really seems to be going through it:

Here is a list of “101 Additional Advices” from Kevin Kelly, the 74 year old co-founder of Wired magazine. It’s a good mix of practical and psychological:

Three situations where you’ll never regret ordering too much: when you are pouring concrete, when you are choosing a battery, and when you are getting ice for a party.

Don’t work for a company you would not invest money in, because when you are working you are investing the most valuable thing you have: your time.

Avoid making any kind of important decision when you are either hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT). Just halt when you are HALT.

 To tell a good story, you must reveal a surprise; otherwise it is just a report.

Get good at being corrected without being offended.

(Do we think the plural on “advice” is a typo or an homage to Arnold in Pumping Iron? Let’s hope it’s a typo and Kevin isn’t giving us … “the wrong advices.”)

We’re at the point in the season where I realize it probably isn’t going to snow again, and a “cold” day means it’s in the 50s. Hooray! Here are some shots from Red Butte yesterday; it was so warm that I think the bulbs will be done after this week.