Imperial Graveyard London Review of Books

Before you speak, THINK.
T - is it TRUE,
H - is it HELPFUL,
I - is it INSPIRING
N - is it NECESSARY
K - is it KIND

...wise words

'is it necessary' alone would blow 90% of my parler (talk) out of the cold water ... (Mr Jones Agees )

You Think We’re Self-Obsessed Now? The 19th Century Would Like A Word FiveThirtyEight

Keeping Aging Muscles Fit Is Key To Heart Health Later.

Imperial Graveyard London Review of Books

HELL AND HIGH WATER IN AUSTRALIA Who What why

Wildfires are ruinous – so how to stop them happening in the first place?Guardian

A Dean Koontz book from 1981 predicted coronavirus in bizarre coincidence

A virus called Wuhan-400 makes people terribly ill … in a Dean Koontz thriller from 1981. How is it that some books appear to prophesy events? SCMP

Conspiracy theories

Chemical in veggies help heal fatty liver

Chernobyl shocker as fungi that eats radiation found inside nuclear reactor.
 

Parking lot turned into a multifaceted public square

Great reinvention of a former parking lot in south-east Melbourne, Australia. Reclaiming the space from cars, including Saturday night “burnouts,” Prahran Square was designed to recall surrounding landmarks, draw in citizens, and become a true public square, deliberately linking itself to existing spaces.  

[T]he square is part of a greater public realm strategy that includes surrounding street, public forecourts and pocket parks to create a new integrated precinct. “All the streets started to become shared, and with Prahran Square, we started to create a civic village, which is a combination of squares, parks, streets,” says Bauer. “That was always the bigger idea, defining little projects that all slowly start to weave together.” 

The new installations were divided in various zones, all overlooking the central event space and providing varied uses.

A zig-zag ‘forest’ walk and playgrounds, sloped lawn, art and flowering garden-beds all triggered familiar activities for local residents to enjoy. Each corner of the square too has a different materiality, a different character and different things to see and do.

The whole project is now better integrated in the surrounding neighbourhood and welcomes a number of different needs and communities.

It’s very eclectic, it has something for old and new communities, passing populations of young people, different national backgrounds, night spots, market-going families, the fashion people, elderly and infirm people, people watching, meeting up, just hanging out.

Eight Things You May Not Know About the Guillotine:

Related: 

During the Reign of Terror of the mid-1790s, thousands of “enemies of the French revolution” met their end by the guillotine’s blade. Some members of the public initially complained that the machine was too quick and clinical, but before long the process had evolved into high entertainment. People came to the place de la Revolution in droves to watch the guillotine do its grisly work, and the machine was honored in countless songs, jokes and poems.

* * * * * * * *

The guillotine is most famously associated with revolutionary France, but it may have claimed just as many lives in Germany during the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler made the guillotine a state method of execution in the 1930s, and ordered that 20 of the machines be placed in cities across Germany. According to Nazi records, the guillotine was eventually used to execute some 16,500 people between 1933 and 1945, many of them resistance fighters and political dissidents. 

Odd one:

For $25, you can name a rat after your dreaded ex. This rat, who now bears that terrible person’s name, will then be fed to a snake on February 14.

And yes there is price discrimination too:

FYI, you can also pay $5 to the San Antonio Zoo to have a cockroach named after your ex if you’d like to go a cheaper route.

Here is more, via Ellen F.  Should this be understood as a reductio ad absurdum of “takedown culture”?  Somehow I don’t think so.  I am in fact surprised that our gentle age would permit such an emotionally hostile practice.  For what is this a “gateway drug?”  What if you believed in a strange kind of voodoo and thought such feedings in fact placed causal pressure on the so-called real world?  I would be surprised if this market still were up and running in three years’ time.

How America’s 1% came to dominate equity ownership FT

“You wouldn’t think you’d go to jail over medical bills”: County in rural Kansas is jailing people over unpaid medical debt CBS

Corrective Services NSW not the right leader to stop reoffending, report says

WHO WILL BE RESPECTED? The number of people in prison across Australia has increased by 40% over the past five years.

Siri will now answer your election questions - TechCrunch: “Apple’s built-in voice assistant won’t help you figure out who to vote for, but it will be able to update you on different races around the U.S. during election season, as well as deliver live results as votes are counted. The new feature, announced today, is part of Apple News’ 2020 election coverage, which also includes a series of curated news, resources and data from a variety of sources, with the goal of serving users on both sides of the political spectrum. With the added Siri integration, you’ll be able to ask the assistant both informational queries, plus those requiring real-time information. For example, you may ask Siri something like “When are the California primaries?,” which is a more straightforward question, or “Who’s winning the New Hampshire primaries?,” which requires updated information. Siri will speak the answers to the question in addition to presenting the information visually, which makes the feature useful from an accessibility standpoint, too. The live results are being delivered via the Associated Press, Apple says. The company is also leveraging the AP’s real-time results in its Apple News app in order to give county-by-county results and a national map tracking candidate wins by each state primary, among other things…”