Nigel Richards’ command of the language of Molière, as the French like to call it, stretches to “bonjour” and being able to count. However, the New Zealander who has been called “the Tiger Woods of Scrabble” certainly has a way with words – even French ones. Despite his linguistic handicap, Richards has just won the francophone world Scrabble championships after reportedly memorising the entire French Scrabble dictionary in just nine weeks.

“He doesn’t speak French at all – he just learned the words,” his close friend Liz Fagerlund told the New Zealand Herald. “He won’t know what they mean, wouldn’t be able to carry out a conversation in French, I wouldn’t think.”

Read the rest of the article at The Guardian.


Mexoryl SunblockIn 2006, the FDA approved Mexoryl. No need to smuggle it from France where it was aprooved by the French authorities in 1993.

What's so great about Anthelios with Mexoryl?

Dr. Vincent DeLeo, Chairman, Department of Dermatology, Founding Director, Skin of Color Center, St. Luke's-Roosevelt and Beth Israel: "It produces a product which gives us almost perfect protection against sunshine."

Dr. Darrell Rigel, clinical professor of dermatology at New York University: Mexoryl "is the No. 1 individual ingredient in terms of protection from Ultraviolet A radiation."

You want the science? Here: "The UVB range of sunlight is 280 to 320 nanometers, and the UVA range is 320 to 400. Mexoryl sunscreens protect against UV wavelengths in the 290-400 nanometer range. Since Mexoryl doesn't cover the entire UV spectrum, it is usually combined with other active sunscreen agents such as titanium dioxide, avobenzone (stabilized with octocrylene) to ensure broad-spectrum UV protection."

And Mexoryl is convenient: It doesn't degrade in sunlight. One application, and you may be good for 24 hours --- even if you swim or exercise.

Yes, this stuff costs more than creams that protect against sunburn. The thing is, those creams don't offer long-lasting protection against Ultraviolet-A rays (UV-A). And UV-A doesn't cause sunburn --- it causes cancer.


The opening scenes from dozens of movies, including 2001, There Will Be Blood, Lost in Translation, Seven Samurai, and Star Wars. https://youtu.be/y1lMnbvf5eM


Offbeat
UserpicNew Study on Aging
Posted by Moxietype

According to a new study Published by the BBC,  the aging rates vary widely.

A study of people born within a year of each other has uncovered a huge gulf in the speed at which their bodies age. The report, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tracked traits such as weight, kidney function and gum health.

Some of the 38-year-olds were ageing so badly that their "biological age" was on the cusp of retirement. The analysis showed that at the age of 38, the people's biological ages ranged from the late-20s to those who were nearly 60.


Venus de Milo with reconstructed arms, holding distaff and spindle, spinning thread in the ancient technique. For more info see this Slate story, "What Was the Venus de Milo Doing With Her Arms?" slate.me/1EIFLfm

Venus de Milo Spinning Thread by CosmoWenman on Sketchfab


Offbeat, Photography
UserpicGuide to Disguise from Stasi Archive
Posted by Sasha

Hitchhiker with a beer bottle

Hitchhiker with a beer bottle...

Old lady at a drop box

Old Lady at a Drop Box

Suspicious Looking Humster

Suspicious looking humster also appeared in Stasi Archive.


Photographer Jimmy Nelson travelled the world documenting some of the world's last remaining indigenous cultures. The result is Before They Pass Away

The prints are chromogenic prints mounted on aluminium and framed in nut wood behind museum art glass or diasec, depending on size.

Rauwhiri Winitana Paki

Rauwhiri Winitana Paki
Taupo Village, North Islands
New Zealand, 2011

Lufar Childeren

Rauwhiri Winitana Paki
Taupo Village, North Islands
New Zealand, 2011


Milo Moiré 

Milo Moire.
Photo: Twitter.

Milo Moiré brought her naked performance art to the people in Basel Wednesday.

In a public square a few minutes from the Art Basel fair during the second day of VIP previews, posing in just sneakers with smiling locals, Moiré performed her latest piece, Naked Selfie. The performance artist was previously known for a piece in which she dropped paint-filled eggs from her vagina.


Awesome. See more here

Spices by Color

Foods by Color

Blueberries by Color


A new website gives New Yorkers a chance to see what their apartment building, neighborhood bar or favorite coffee shop looked like more than a century ago.


UserpicBerlin in 1945 in Color
Posted by Moxietype

Berlin in 1945 after the war. 7 minutes, in color.


Firefox
UserpicFirefox Download Session Bug
Posted by Sasha

If you cancel the download in Firefox, it is likely that the downoad will still continue in the background. The observed bug was in Firefox 30 (Mac 10.8.5). To manually remove the download session, folloe the instructions below.

Mac OS X 10.7 and above: By default, Mac OS X Lion hides the ~/Library folder (which contains the profile folder, Crash Reports and other user data for Mozilla applications). You can open your user Library folder by holding down the Option key while opening the Go menu in Finder, then selecting Library. Once it's open, you can drag the small icon of a folder in the header of the Library's window into the Favorites section of the Sidebar, where it will be conveniently accessible whenever you want.

In this case the problem was caused by sessionstore.js in the Profile_Folder.

Removal of sessionstore.js fixed the issue for this session.


That is how Perestroika was captured by the photographer Gavrilov in mid-80s-early 90s in the former Soviet Union.

Alcoholics during Perestroika

Empty shelves during Perestroika

People digging in trash during Perestroika


UserpicCompany Culture
Posted by Sasha

I would agree with the article Why “Company Culture” Is a Misleading Term  published in Harvard Business Review, that "Corporate Culture" is a defence mechanism to preserve a status quo:

Corporations and other organizations do not have cultures; they have philosophies and ideologies that form a process in which there is a constant discourse about the nature and expression of values, beliefs, practices, ideas, and goals. This discourse happens in sales meetings, interactions with customers, board meetings, and in conversations around the water cooler. It’s a constantly moving target.

The problem with the term “culture” is that it tends to essentialize groups: it simplistically represents a particular group of people as a unified whole that share simple common values, ideas, practices, and beliefs. But the fact is, such groups really don’t exist. Within any group characterized as having a culture, there are numerous contested opinions, beliefs, and behaviors. People may align themselves to behave in a way that seems as though they buy into expressed corporate values and “culture,” but this is just as likely to be a product of self-preservation as it is of actually believing in those values or identifying with some sloganized organizational culture.


Offbeat, Photography
UserpicWhere Our Computers Go To Die
Posted by Sasha

Ever wonder where our computers go to die? Check out the photo gallery on Wired:

Where our computers go to die


 The offline computer is housed in a glass room and in theory can only be accessed by two people at the same time. It is also constantly monitored by a video camera.

It is alleged Mr Tipton used his position as security director to change the video camera settings and record only one second in every minute. This would have given him enough time to enter the room and plug a thumb drive into the computer.

On that drive, according to the prosecution, was a rootkit: a stealthy computer program designed to do a specific task and, in this case, then erase itself.

That task was to predetermine the winning lottery numbers for the draw that Mr Tipton was to later buy the winning ticket for.   

Mike McLaughlin, senior analyst at computer security company First Base, said the allegation might sound farfetched but was plausible.

He told the BBC: "It is entirely possible to code a rootkit on a USB drive which could interfere with software on a computer then delete itself. 

Read more on BBC


Al Celler da Can Roca

Photo: El Celler De Can Roca

Elite Traveller has a list of  top 100 Restaurants in the World. Below are top 5:

Alinea

 
1723 N Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60614
(312) 867-0110
 
Chef: Grant Achatz
 

El Celler de Can Roca

 
Chef: Joan Roca
 

Azurmendi

 
Larrabetzu, Spain
 
Chef: Eneko Atxa
 

Eleven Madison Park

 
New York, USA
 
Chef: Daniel Humm
 

The Fat Duck

 
Bray, UK
 
Chef: Heston Blumenthal

Privacy
UserpicFacebook and You
Posted by Sasha

The only way to escape tracking at this point is not to use Internet. It doesn't come as a surprise that Facebook tracks all visitors to a third party websites

If you do not want to appear on CCTV camera, do not get out of the house.

The researchers now claim that Facebook tracks computers of users without their consent, whether they are logged in to Facebook or not, and even if they are not registered users of the site or explicitly opt out in Europe. Facebook tracks users in order to target advertising.

The issue revolves around Facebook’s use of its social plugins such as the “Like” button, which has been placed on more than 13m sites including health and government sites.

Facebook places tracking cookies on users’ computers if they visit any page on the facebook.com domain, including fan pages or other pages that do not require a Facebook account to visit.

When a user visits a third-party site that carries one of Facebook’s social plug-ins, it detects and sends the tracking cookies back to Facebook - even if the user does not interact with the Like button, Facebook Login or other extension of the social media site.

EU privacy law states that prior consent must be given before issuing a cookie or performing tracking, unless it is necessary for either the networking required to connect to the service (“criterion A”) or to deliver a service specifically requested by the user (“criterion B”).


Advertising
UserpicJust Do It
Posted by Sasha

Nike's "Just Do It" slogan was based on the last words of a convict before he was executed by firing squad:

The murderer was Gary Gilmore, who had grown up in Portland, Oregan – the city that is home to both Nike and Wieden+Kennedy. In 1976 Gilmore robbed and murdered two men in Utah and was executed by firing squad the following year (by some accounts Gilmore actually said "Let's do this" just before he was shot).


Offbeat
UserpicOne More Drink
Posted by Sasha

Read One More Drink at esquire.

Drinking a fourth drink dictates that a certain kind of evening is about to unfold: namely, one in which you will be drunk. Because nobody stops at four drinks. Four is to inebriation what the St. Louis arch is to the West: It's the gateway drink, the point of no return. A fourth empty glass or bottle or mason jar set on the bar or table or broken in the hobo fire in front of you is your announcement to the rest of the world that, at some point in the next twelve to twenty-four hours, you will be left trying very hard to remember or even harder to forget.

But a brave new world has opened up for you, a great blinding universe of magic and possibility. You're a man who might start confusing nouns with verbs. You're a man who might fall off of his barstool. You're a man who might sleep on the floor in his clothes.