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If you’ve not come across her before: Elena Filatova is a Ukranian woman who periodically motorcycles through the Chernobyl exclusion zone, recording her progress and filming/photographing what she sees on her adventures. I bought her photobook the other year and I’ve particularly enjoyed her videos ever since. Worth a look.
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The time capsule was buried in a secluded square in Murmansk in 1967 on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Inside was a message dedicated to the citizens of the Communist future. At short notice, the authorities brought forward the capsule’s exhumation by ten days, to coincide with the city’s 101st birthday. With the stroke of an official’s pen, a mid-century Soviet relic was enlisted to honour one of the last acts of Tsar (now Saint) Nicholas II, who founded my hometown in October 1916. From socialism to monarchism in ten days. Some of the city’s pensioners accused the local government of trying to suppress the sacred memory of the revolution. ‘Our forefathers would be turning in their graves,’ one woman wrote in a letter to the local paper. The time capsule ‘is not some kind of birthday present to the city; it’s a reminder of the centenary of the great October Revolution and its human cost.’
My father had watched the time capsule being buried. He came to Murmansk aged 17. From his remote village, he had dreamed of the sea but he failed the navy’s eye test. In October 1967, he was a second-year student at the Higher Marine Engineering Academy, an elite training school for the Soviet Union’s massive fishing fleet. As a year-round warm water port, Murmansk – the largest human settlement above the Arctic Circle – is a major fishing and shipping hub, home to the world’s only fleet of nuclear-powered ice-breakers…
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This is going to be a really short post, but for someone it could save an hour of life.
So, you’ve nothing to do and you’ve decided to play around with IPv6 or maybe you’re happened to be an administrator of a web service that needs to support IPv6 connectivity and you need to make your nginx server work nicely with this protocol.
First thing you need to do is to enable IPv6 in nginx by recompiling it with
--with-ipv6configure option and reinstalling it. If you use some pre-built package, check if your nginx already has this key enabled by runningnginx -V.…
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As Tesla expands its Supercharger network, the automaker intends to up its game, building higher-end, retail-rich locations that CEO Elon Musk has called “Mega Superchargers” but that we’ll call just Megachargers.
CEO Elon Musk has speculatively described them as “like really big supercharging locations with a bunch of amenities,” complete with “great restrooms, great food, amenities” and an awesome place to “hang out for half an hour and then be on your way.”
The move makes sense. Superchargers are currently located through the US and other countries, providing the fastest rate of recharging available to Tesla owners. The station can have varying numbers of charging stalls, however, and they aren’t always located in the best areas for passing the time while a Tesla inhales new electrons, although Tesla typically tries to construct them near retail and dining options…
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Of life’s great mysteries, surely among the most impenetrable is how Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf’s adolescent wet dream of an album that was released forty years ago today [October 21, 1977], came to be one of the best-selling albums in the history of the record industry, cracking the top five in some rankings, and out-selling nearly all the pillars of the rock canon.
I pose the question not out of cultural disdain from atop a critic’s ivory tower. On the contrary (and in the spirit of full disclosure), I adore Bat Out of Hell. It is like a treasured family heirloom I have carried with me through every life stage. My love of Bat Out of Hell borders on the unnatural. I own Bat Out of Hell in four different formats. I have watched documentaries on the making of Bat Out of Hell. I have even read Meat’s autobiography, To Hell and Back. And I am left wanting more helpings of Meat Loaf.
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Have you ever dated a man who ‘can’t cook’?
Do you know a guy who’s rubbish at cleaning or any other kind of domestic chore?
Of course, you do.
It might not be their fault; many men are raised in traditional families where women do all the household tasks, ironing their little prince’s pants and serving up regular, large dishes which his future girlfriend then has to try to replicate.
Male incompetence is tolerated far more than female ineptitude…
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Two weeks ago I asked Twitter if anyone had favourite obscure and/or delightful library or archival words. Here are some of the best replies:
Tête-bêche: From philately, meaning printed upside down or sideways relative to another. (Tara Robertson)
Respect des fonds: A principle in archival theory that proposes to group collections of archival records according to their fonds — that is to say, according to the administration, organization, individual, or entity by which they were created or from which they were received. (Ed Summers)
Realia: Objects and material from everyday life. (Deb Chachra)
…
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Netflix’s BoJack Horseman was quickly put on many people’s radars when the newest season released in September addressed asexuality. During the new season, Todd Chavez explicitly comes out to BoJack saying that he is asexual. As someone who is asexual, this representation means a lot to me. Not only am I actually being represented, but he specifically said the word asexual multiple times. Even though it had seemed the series was building to this scene, I still did not expect it to deliver. It was first indicated during the season three episode “Love And/Or Marriage,” when Todd rejected having sex with his friend, Emily. Initially watching this scene I did not have asexuality on my mind. I just came to terms with the fact that asexuality was something that would never be represented in media. Naturally, I explained it away as Todd likely being interested in another person and feeling like he would be “cheating” on said person if he were to sleep with Emily. But this arc gets a more definitive continuation in the season three finale, “That Went Well,” when Todd tells Emily, “I’m not gay. At least I don’t think I am, but I don’t think I’m straight either. I don’t know what I am. I think I might be nothing.” This scene and everything it stands for took BoJack Horseman from a show I enjoyed to one of my favorite shows of all time. Throughout the yearlong wait for season four, I constantly watched this scene. I rewatched it at least once a week, and more often than not, I cried while watching…
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London’s Deputy Mayor for Transport avoids early morning meetings because she relies on Southern Rail to get into the office.
Val Shawcross’ office was trying to set up a meeting and in an email wrote: “Val actually is a morning person but has to use Southern trains to get in to the office so we try not to have too many early starts.”
…
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My dinner-party party piece for many years was to say, “Well, actually, I invented Baileys. You know, Baileys Irish Cream. I did that back in 1973.”
If one of the unfortunate listening group is a woman – and this is based on actual past experience – she is likely to respond something like this: “Oh-my-God. Baileys. My mother absolutely adores it. Did you hear that, Jocasta? This man invented Baileys. It’s unreal. I don’t believe it. He must be terribly rich. Baileys Cream. Wow!”
And it’s not as if these rather posh people really adore Baileys. Or even hold it in the same esteem as, say, an obscure Islay single malt or a fine white burgundy from Meursault. Not a bit of it. They might have respected it years ago but most people of legal drinking age regard Baileys as a bit naff. To my mind, they’d be very wrong…
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In January 2016, I spent $3,000 to buy 7.4 bitcoins. At the time, it seemed an entirely worthwhile thing to do. I had recently started working as a research director at the Institute for the Future’s Blockchain Futures Lab, and I wanted firsthand experience with bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that uses a blockchain to record transactions on its network. I had no way of knowing that this transaction would lead to a white-knuckle scramble to avoid losing a small fortune…
