This is a "horse walk door"

"The horse walk door is the brown one to the left at this house at 7 Leroy Street, a Federal-style beauty built in 1831.

Behind this door is the horse walk, a narrow passageway through which a homeowner’s horse was led from the street to a separate carriage house or stable behind the main house."

Photo and text from Ephemeral New York, where it is noted that the carriage house accessible through door 7 1/2 is available for $16,000.  Per month.

Via a Neatorama post listing "Relics From The Horse-Powered City That Are Still Around."

"Bladerunner 2049" - updated

YouTube link. 

"Stunning visual environments" is an understatement.  I suggest clicking the fullscreen icon for this one.  This is a "making of" video, not a trailer.

Reposted to add the new official trailer for the movie:

YouTube link.

Hans Rosling clarifies world demographics

YouTube link.

I have featured Hans Rosling on a number of previous posts at TYWKIWDBI because I truly admire his style of presentation.  The best hours of my academic life were spent behind or beside the podium in front of an classroom full of students, so I'm supersensitive to the nuances of lecturing.  This guy has all the skills.  He is recognized as a wizard at portraying otherwise-dry statistics in comprehensible visual forms (see his superb TED talk on the developing world).  In addition his stage presence is captivating, and his use of English (as a second language) is excellent.

I'm not blogging today, but I wanted to put this up for you.  I know everyone's life these days is one continuous TL;DR, but take my word for it, if you are interested in the world beyond your doorstep, this video is worth 15 minutes of your time.  Or at least the first five, and then see if you can stop.

Reposted from 2015 to cleanse my mind.  A lifelong (60+ year) best friend emailed me a link to a Mark Steyn video, identifying it as "the biggest story of the year."  The video began by deploring the childlessness of European leaders (and Europeans in general), then devolved into frank Islamophobia and a broader xenophobia.  This was done by presenting demographic data and concluding from those data that the Europeans who "built the modern world" will "be extinguished" by an overwhelming tide of brown-skinned invaders.

I needed the intellectual equivalent of the "eye bleach" recommended for "unseeing" internet images, and then I remembered this old post featuring one of Hans Rosling's presentations.  He presents data that is probably equivalent to that which Mark Steyn employs, but does so with the perspective of a man of the Enlightenment, not a fearmonger.

Totally worth viewing if you've not seen it.  And worth reviewing every now and then.

Anagrammatic poetry

A hard, howling, tossing water scene.

Strong tide was washing hero clean.
"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger.
O Silent night shows war ace danger!

The cold waters swashing on in rage.
Redcoats warn slow his hint engage.
When star general's action wish'd "Go!"
He saw his ragged continentals row.

Ah, he stands - sailor crew went going.
And so this general watches rowing.
He hastens - winter again grows cold.
A wet crew gain Hessian stronghold.

George can't lose war with's hands in;
He's astern - so go alight, crew, and win!

Washington Crossing the Delaware is a sonnet that was written in 1936 by David Shulman. The title and subject of the poem refer to the scene in the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. The poem is noted for being an anagrammatic poem – in this case, a 14-line rhyming sonnet in which every line is an anagram of the title.

David Shulman was a lexicographe and cryptographer.  Please note that these lines are not only anagrams, but also arranged as rhyming couplets.

Via Neatorama, where there are nine other "Ridiculous feats of literature."

Incomprehensively callous

"Jamel Dunn, 32, drowned on July 9 in Cocoa, Fla., a coastal city east of Orlando. The teenagers, aged 14 to 16, filmed the incident as they laughed and mocked Dunn, then posted the video to social media...

“He started to struggle and scream for help and they just laughed. They didn’t call the police. They just laughed the whole time. He was just screaming … for someone to help him...

The teens were identified and questioned by detectives investigating the case, but they are unlikely to face charges. They were not directly involved in Dunn’s drowning, and good Samaritan laws — which typically involve protections for bystanders helping on the scene of an emergency — don’t apply to the case, police said."

Police said there appeared to be little regret from the teens involved during and after the incident

“There was no remorse, only a smirk.”

Video embedded at the Washington Post does not depict the drowning, but does include an audio of the teens' taunting.

Remembering Sean Spicer (2017-2017)

YouTube link.

For librarians (and ex-librarians)

When I was in college I earned my spending money working as a librarian (and had a room quite
literally above the library).  So I was delighted to see a review in the Washington Post discussing a new book about... card catalogs.

This book about card catalogues, written and published in cooperation with the Library of Congress, is beautifully produced, intelligently written and lavishly illustrated. It also sent me into a week-long depression. If you are a book lover of a certain age, it might do the same to you.

“The Card Catalog” is many things: a lucid overview of the history of bibliographic practices, a paean to the Library of Congress, a memento of the cherished card catalogues of yore and an illustrated collection of bookish trivia. The text provides a concise history of literary compendiums from the Pinakes of the fabled Library of Alexandria to the advent of computerized book inventory databases, which began to appear as early as 1976. The illustrations are amazing: luscious reproductions of dozens of cards, lists, covers, title pages and other images guaranteed to bring a wistful gleam to the book nerd’s eye.

For someone who grew up in and around libraries, it is also a poignant reminder of a vanished world.

Now, waxing nostalgic about card catalogues or being an advocate for the importance of libraries is a mug’s game. You can practically feel people glancing up from their iPhones to smile tolerantly at your eccentricity. My response to this, after an initial burst of profanity, is to explain (again) why libraries are essential to narrowing the inequality gap, and why the Internet is not an adequate substitute for books or libraries.

“The Card Catalog” is a heady antidote to the technophilia threatening our culture. The book is especially illuminating on the powerful, if overlooked, properties of the humble catalogue card, some 79 million of which were printed annually at the system’s peak in 1969. Each one is a perfect melding of design and utility, a marvel of informational compression and precision.

After college, while I was in graduate school, I started my own "card catalogue," visiting a university library weekly to transcribe references in professional journals onto literally tens of thousands of 3"x5" lined cards, which I filed in cabinets in my office - a handy source for information in the preparation of lectures.  Then the internet arrived...

I'll close this post with a quote from Annie Proulx:

I mourn the loss of the old card catalogs, not because I’m a Luddite, but because the oaken trays of yesteryear offered the researcher an element of random utility and felicitous surprise through encounters with adjacent cards, information by chance that is different in kind from the computer’s ramified but rigid order.

I've requested this new book from our local library (only 4 people ahead of me on the wait list).

Photo (of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Library card catalog) via Librarianista.

If you dig a hole through the earth...

...you'll end up in China. I remember hearing that as a child. Ignoring for a moment the problem of the magma and the gravitational conundrums one would encounter at the center, it's still untrue. I remember fiddling with a globe and discovering that I would end up somewhere in the middle of the south Indian Ocean.

As an adult I revisited this question and discovered that for most of the people on earth, the antipodes were in an ocean. It's a curious aspect of world geography - most of the large land masses are in the northern hemisphere, with more oceans in the south. And much of the land masses in the south are opposite northern oceans - Africa corresponds to the northern Pacific, and the Aussies would be in the middle of the Atlantic. It must be pure coincidence, though a nagging thought makes one wonder whether there could be a plate tectonic explanation for this.

Now you can explore this on your own. There's a website called Antipodes Map - draggable and zoomable in true Google Map fashion. Click on your location and it shows you what is on the opposite side of the earth.

The Wikipedia entry on the antipodes provides (as expected) an excellent discussion and some relevant composite maps.

Reposted from 2008 (!) to update the links and add this composite map, via Digg.

Surfing from a floating dock

YouTube link.

I've seen docks like these lakeside, but hadn't conceived of them as an accessory for ocean sports.  Wow.

Comparing presidential administrations

I ultimately relied on Wikipedia’s list of federal political scandals in the U.S., but limited it to only the executive branch scandals that actually resulted in a criminal indictment. I also decided to only go back as far as Richard Nixon, whose participation in Watergate ultimately resulted in him being the only sitting president to ever resign. This lets many other scandal-ridden administrations off the hook—notably that of Warren Harding and the Teapot Dome scandal, and of Ulysses S. Grant and the Whiskey Ring and Black Friday scandals—but so be it.

The chart only includes people who served in the administration, and excludes others (like members of Congress and private individuals) who may have also been swept up and indicted for the same scandal. The “Convictions” list includes both those who went to trial and were found guilty as well as those who plea bargained and pleaded guilty. The “Prison Sentences” should be considered a minimum figure, as Wikipedia's list wasn’t always clear on penalties and I wasn’t able to look all of the unclear ones up. 

Full details at The Daily Kos (where you can leave your comments).

"Personal flamethrowers" marketed to the general public

A flame-thrower that can hurl a stream of fire half a metre long is being marketed in China to help women fend off unwanted advances.

The device is being billed on shopping websites as a must-have "anti-pervert weapon" that can be discreetly carried in a ladies’ handbag.

Some are shaped like a cigarette lighter and emit small flames, while others hurl fire for 50cm with temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Celsius (3,300 Fahrenheit).

Further details at The Telegraph.  I should start a "WCGW" category on TYWKIWDBI (as examples for this device, see the comment thread at Boing Boing).

Cyclists' legs

This "You're so vein" photo is one of eight in an album at The Telegraph (trigger warning for gruesome injuries).

Jazz dance competition

YouTube link.

Don't have 8 minutes to spare for a video?  Try this gif featuring Ksenia Parkhatskaya, then decide how to apportion your time.

I could dance like this.  I think I must just have the wrong kind of shoes...

Divertimento #131

The fourth "gifdump."  Lets start with a funny one:

LoCH NeSs MoNSter drOWNS iNNocENt WoMan

Just a little girl watching TV.  With her 12-foot pet snake.

You do the interview while I get out of this lifejacket.

You can lead a horse to water, but...

Husband wakes wife from nap, instantly regrets it.

Bread slicer.

Flying fish successfully evades underwater predator.

Did she treat him to lunch?  Or not...?

Impressive domino spiral.

Desert camouflage (Eritrea).

How patellas ("kneecaps") work.

Dog startles puppies, instantly regrets it.

Basketball dunk, through the legs - twice.

Alleged to be the world's largest single firework.  And a synchronized firework.

Labeled "feeding time," but may have some other explanation.

Using a drone to replace a lightbulb - a technique recommended by lightbulb manufacturers.

Home-made falafel. (from the GIF recipe subreddit, btw)

Secret drawer.

Handfeeding a nautilus.

Good thing this bicyclist didn't back up.

Impressive scarecrow.

Monitor lizard attacks a "snake."

Remoras on a whale shark.

Milling a sprocket.

Portugal national team heading a soccer ball.

Snake easily climbs a smooth-barked tree.

Extreme scooter sport.  Why am I not surprised to see a spectator in a wheelchair?

Heckler of street performer gets what he deserves.

Bicycle accident.  And preparing for the beach cyclocross.  And awesome balance on a bicycle.

How not to cope with burning alcohol. x3.

Riding a motorbike on a railroad track.  (note there is now a WCGW subreddit)

Do Not STRADDLE the pullback-rope of a rope swing.

Unusual soccer trick.

Just too weird to explain.

Lighting methane on a frozen lake.

How a long dog gets off a narrow ledge.

Base jumping at Kjerag Cliff (Norway).

The start of a homing pigeon race.

HMB while I jump over this massive rolling hay bale.

Reversible sequins.

Surprise present.  Have a hankie or tissue ready...

The embedded images today come from A Selection of the Getty's Open Content Program, in The Public Domain Review.  Details and provenance of the images at the link.

Sample case for a neon salesman (1935)

Found at the Pics subreddit, where there is some informed commentary, but the best comment was this one:

"Marsellus Wallace was a neon salesman?"