It's 26 inches long. It has a 5 inch girth. It has a ribbed body, and weighs in at 3 lbs. It's the World's Largest Gummy Worm, and I feel dirty watching this guy try to eat it. More »
If you can ignore the apparent violent tug of war going on between these two lamps, this prototype design by design firm mischer'traxler is quite pretty. Just don't knock it over—that bulb looks difficult to replace. [Core77] More »
We've seen some leaked documents showing off potential Windows 8 features and we expect to see the operating system in 2012, but now we know that it is going to be Microsoft's "riskiest product bet." More »
I have just been alerted by a number of friends and friends-of-the-blog about a really fascinating looking upcoming exhibition taking place later this year at an intriguing looking venue in Maastricht, The Netherlands.
The exhibition, entitled "Hygiene, the Story of a Museum,"explores, as the press release describes, "the both fascinating and dramatic background of the notion hygiene" via an investigation into the history of a particular storied institution, the Deutsche Hygiene-Museum of Dresden, founded in 1911 by a mouthwash magnate. The exhibition uses this particular and important history as a launching-off point to explore questions about how the notion of hygiene changed "from a scientific concept into a global movement" and how it was "subsequently used by the National Socialism in Nazi-Germany and the socialism of the former DDR as an essential part of both ideologies."
This exhibition will be on view from October 24th until January 30 at the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and was created in cooperation with the wonderful Dresden Hygiene Museum.
Following is the press release with the full details:
Hygiene, the story of a museum
24 October 2010 – 30 January 2011Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture
Capucijnenstraat 98
6211 RT Maastricht
The Netherlands
Open: Wednesday-Sunday 12-5 pm.Marres, centre for contemporary culture presents its fifth exhibition in the context of the long-term program on the notion of the Avant-garde: Hygiene, the story of a museum.
The coming exhibition investigates the both fascinating and dramatic background of the notion hygiene. How did this word transform from a scientific concept into a global movement? How was it subsequently used by the National Socialism in Nazi-Germany and the socialism of the former DDR as an essential part of both ideologies?
Hygiene, the story of a museum approaches these questions through the history of the Hygiene Museum in Dresden. Founded in 1911 by the inventor of Odol mouthwash, this museum still represents a unique position. The museum does not necessarily collect art or design, but has actively contributed to the awareness of diseases such as TB and cancer. Primarily, this museum has a social function—from information to prevention and education—and it presents the physical results of that function in the form of casts of skin conditions, promotional films and educational material, which have been produced and presented by this museum until 'Die Wende'. The museum had the ambition to 'reveal that which had hitherto been invisible'. Developing new exhibition models to reach broader audiences has been a primary point of interest, and the use of new technologies such as film has been of big importance in that ambition.
The unique, social role of this a-historical museum and the specific attention for the exhibition as medium to make the invisible still visible makes the Hygiene Museum a fascinating subject. Especially for Marres, which has been investigating the role of the museum, the collection, the exhibition and the artist, and has attempted to address these questions through the development of new exhibition models for several years as well.
The project arose in cooperation with the Hygiene Museum, which made several unique loans available for the exhibition. An example is the so-called Glass Man (see above): admired as the symbol of the desire for a transparent body and reviled as the perverse outcome of rationalism gone too far. The exhibition consists of three so-called thoughtscapes, which through the use of several objects, films, printing material and texts approach the Hygiene Museum on three different levels:
Museum as Discourse focuses on 'making the invisible visible,' on striving towards transparency, which can be seen as a dominant ambition of the twentieth century. In Museum as Practice, the pedagogical strive for education on hygiene and the diffusion of scientific knowledge takes central place. Museum as Ideology offers insights into the meaning and the practical mission of hygiene in connection to the political and social-economical systems that characterize the Germany of the twentieth century.
Research and production: Claudia Banz, Guus Beumer, EventArchitectuur, Sandra Kassenaar and Maureen Mooren
For press information, please contact: Floor Krooi.
For more, visit the venue website by clicking here.
Image: "Glass Man in the Buffalo Museum of Science:" In 1935 the Buffalo Museum of Science purchased a “glass man” from the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum. In the late 1980s, officials at the Buffalo Museum returned it to Germany, regarding the object as tainted by its Nazi associations. German Historical Museum, Berlin; Via DMHD.
It is a well known fact that acids in the mouth cause tooth decay. One of the best dentifrices is plain old baking soda (pHour
Salts) and sea salt (pHlavor liquid sea salt).
But, acids in the mouth are a continuing insult throughout the day from the foods that we eat. That is why the saliva glands, stomach, pylorus glands, gall bladder and pancreas release plain old baking soda to buffer and alkalize the food and liquids that we are eat. The release of baking soda on the food and liquids that we put into our mouth is in preparation of that food becoming the foundational stem cells that become our blood and then our body cells.
Most folks think that the mouth and stomach are releasing enzymes or acids to digest the food or liquids we eat. This is medical myth. The enzymes or acids in the mouth come directly from the foods and liquids that we eat and the salivary glands, in response to these acids, release alkaline buffers to neutralize those enzymes or acids. This is the reason I DO NOT recommend taking vinegar, HCL supplements and acidic digestive enzymes. They destroy the alkalinity of the alimentary canal and set the stage for dis-ease! Read more...
Pixcelldata’s Director of Sales and Strategic Partnerships Brian Fogarty said, “Pixcelldata is committed to bringing quality affordable software to digital pathology organisations of all sizes. Our Collibio solution is an innovative web application for managing digital pathology data. Collibio allows immediate collaboration using images on proprietary digital scanner systems.
Our partnership with VMscope will allow Austrian, German and Swiss organisations access to next generation digital pathology software, hosted in Berlin, and supported by a trusted German supplier.
We are delighted to announce this partnership agreement with VMscope, as having previously worked with Kai and his team, we know their excellent skill sets, and the high regard with which they are held by their colleagues.”
VMscope’s Chief Executive Officer, Kai Saeger says, “VMscope has many years experience in virtual microscopy and we supply a range of managed services including digitizing and hosting glass slides using our Hamamatsu and Mirax scanners, with online viewing of images using our VMscope Image Server.
Collibio can harness the power of our Image Server technology to provide anytime anywhere access to images while providing high throughput data management. VMscope will provide a truly internationalized collaborative solution, as Collibio allows participants to use their local time zones, languages and character sets.
I particularly like Collibio’s flexible pricing model which will provide VMscope’s clients with the ability to buy what they need, when they need it. We look forward to a long and successful business relationship with Pixcelldata and the new business opportunities it will present to VMscope.” said Kai Saeger.
Pixcelldata and VMscope – together enabling digital pathology.
For further information please contact us.
Pixcelldata Ltd
Brian Fogarty
VMscope contact information
Kai Saeger
VMscope GmbH
Campus Charité Mitte, Charitéplatz 1
10117 Berlin, Germany
Tel: +49 30 450 536188
Email: kai.saeger@vmscope.de
Web site: http://www.vmscope.com
| Contact information: Pixcelldata Ltd 51/52 Fitzwilliam Square Contact Person: Web: http://www.pixcelldata.com Author: |
This just in from the New York Times: The Brothers Quay--creators of so many memorable films including "The Phantom Museum," their homage to the Wellcome Collection--are in the process of producing a "as-yet-untitled documentary on the [Mütter] museum and its adjoining 340,000-volume library!" Better yet, when it is completed, the final film will be screened as part of a symposia to be hosted in turn by the Mütter Museum, New York's Museum of Modern Art, and the incomparable Museum of Jurassic Technology.
Click here to read the entire story, entitled "Animators Amok in a Curiosity Cabinet" in today's New York Times.
Thanks, Alison, for sending this my way!
Image: Evi Numen/College of Physicians of Philadelphia, via the New York Times.
For any DOD/VA and civilian pathologists - in the seemingly impossible way that any of this was lost in my recent post about the AFIP closing -- AFIP is closed for CIVILIAN contributors ONLY.
The staff they do not have because they are at Inova Hospital is open for civilian contributors if there is a particular consultant you sent to when he or she was at AFIP.
Fortunately for those of us who received the e-mail I gather Inova Pathology Institute is not marketing to MILITARY pathologists.
So, AFIP IS STILL OPEN IF AND ONLY IF YOU ARE NOT A NON-FEDERAL CIVILIAN CONTRIBUTOR AND YOU ARE SUBMITTING FROM ANY AND ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES (I think this is what was meant by DOD, VA, etc...)
Makes me wonder what other federal agencies employ pathologists; Homeland security? TSA? Department of Education? I suppose NTSB? IRS?
Glad that was clarified.
Do not worry, the JPC will offer its services beginning April 2011 to civilians again, right?
Did I mention lack of leadership and direction in my prior post?
TO ALL FEDERAL AGENCY PATHOLOGISTS INCLUDING ALL VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION AND MILITARY PATHOLOGISTS:
As The Director of The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), I am obligated to point out that a recent email communication from the Medical Director of the Inova Pathology Institute on October 4, 2011 and the follow-up email on October 11, 2011, contain a number of serious factual errors about the AFIP. I was made aware that these factual errors are already causing confusion among Federal pathologists and this confusion is having an impact on patient care.
Therefore, I must immediately provide corrective information and assure you that the AFIP IS STILL OPEN and the AFIP IS PROVIDING CONSULTATION SERVICES for ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES (DoD, VA, etc).
As part of the AFIP's phased BRAC process which will occur over the next year, the AFIP discontinued all Non-Federal civilian consultation services on September 30, 2010. This discontinuance has no effect on the AFIP's consultation services for Federal agencies including the VA, DoD and other Federal agencies.
The attached AFIP Summer 2010 Newsletter as well as the attached July 2010 AFIP message from my office should provide you with correct information about the AFIP. [Provided here]
The AFIP will continue to provide ALL Federal civilian and military consultation services through April 2011 at which time the AFIP will officially begin the transition of its Federal pathology consultation services to its statutorily designated Department of Defense (DoD) successor organization, the Joint Pathology Center (JPC) (National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-181), Section 722), which will be located in the Fort Detrick Forest Glen Annex in Silver Spring, MD (formerly known as the Walter Reed Annex in Silver Spring, MD). The AFIP's pathologists and its consultation, education, research and tissue repository functions will transition to the JPC.
As the AFIP's transition process with its successor organization JPC draws closer, pertinent information will be made available to you so you will be able to transition your consultation request over to the JPC.
Between now and April 2011, the AFIP will be providing its full support and expertise to assist in the establishment of the JPC. In April 2011 the majority of AFIP pathologists and consultation staff will transition over to the JPC. The remaining AFIP pathologists and staff designated to transition to the JPC will continue the transition process to the JPC throughout the Summer of 2011.
On September 15, 2011, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology will disestablish pursuant to BRAC law and complete the process of transitioning the nearly 150-year-old AFIP legacy of excellence in consultation, education, research and its AFIP National Tissue Repository to the new DoD Joint Pathology Center.
Please forward this email and the attachment to your pathologist and laboratory colleagues. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate contact my office for clarification.
Sincerely,
Florabel G. Mullick, M.D., Sc.D, FCAP
Senior Executive Service
The Director, AFIP
14th. Street & Alaska Ave., N.W.
Bldg. 54, Room N-1612
Washington, DC 20306-6000
Tel. 202-782-2503
Fax 202-782-7166
Before they made a TV show about Hoarders, steadfast collectors were once held in great esteem. During the Renaissance, the "cabinet of curiosities," or wunderkammer, was a style of curation in the spirit of the sublime junk drawer, a display of weird stuff that didn't go anywhere else. A few hundred years out of fashion, they're starting to pop up again, and we've put together ten examples of our favorites, both full-fledged cabinets of curiosities and the sorts of specialized collections they might draw from. --Travis Korte, "Ten 'Cabinets of Curiosities' and Unique Collections from around the World," The Huffington Post
You can view the full story--with slideshow and special mentions for the Morbid Anatomy Library and our sister spaces Observatory, the Reanimation Library and Proteus Gowanus (pictured above)--on The Huffington Post by clicking here.
TSI is pleased to welcome its new Director of Engineering, George Petrie. George's ongoing presence will enable TSI to increase its engineering output, making this partnership a critical milestone toward realizing the seasteading vision.
The Seasteading Institute is still seeking an Oceanography Researcher who can identify specific regions best suited for the progression of seasteading. Here's our Executive Director with some thoughts on how we could scale down the project to make recruiting easier while still getting useful information:
On the floating-festival mailing-list - now turned mostly to a marine hackerspace / bay area seasteading community list - Matt Bell asks some basic questions. Really, all these questions should be answered in a book, or a "How To Seastead" guide, but our versions of those are about 8 years old and badly in need of update.
I've been working for over a year on a new version of the Seasteading book, incorporating all we've learned since starting TSI. Book progress has been very slow given my many duties at TSI, like raising the funds to keep the organization alive. However it has become increasingly clear from discussions how vital and urgent it is to have a detailed, up-to-date motivation and strategy compiled into one polished piece. We may do a good job of communicating our core vision - startup countries in international waters - but the full detail behind that vision basically lives in just one place right now - my head. This results in frequent misinterpretations of our strategy and me answering the same questions again and again, which is not effective.
The Seasteading Institute September 2010 Newsletter
Table of Contents
In the World
What’s New at The Seasteading Institute
Sponsor Profile: Kresten Buch, Sink or Swim Sponsor
Call to Action
TSI has officially doubled all of the Sink or Swim Business Contest prizes. The grand prize is now $5,000 up from $2,500, and the other prizes have gone up proportionately. The total prize pool is now $10,000! Word about this increase is still getting out, so we've also gone and extended the draft deadline by two full weeks! The total number of registered contestants is still low, so high quality entries will be very competitive.
One of the main criteria in our location study is the worst-case wave height. Oceanography student Martin emailed us the KNMI Wave Atlas, which is a global heatmap of wave & wind data, trends, and variability, based on data from 1957 - 2006, at 1.5x1.5 degree resolution.
The Seasteading Institute Fall 2010 Newsletter
In the World
What’s New at The Seasteading Institute
On September 3rd, Apple released its 10th iteration of the incredibly popular iTunes application in the last nine years. While some interesting additional functionality was added (behold the “Ping” feature, which integrates social media and music), savvy iTunes users noticed some things were missing, including the Ringtone Creator.
The ringtone creator was first introduced in iTunes version 7.4, released in September of 2007. The feature allowed users to take mp3s located in their iTunes libraries and, for a nominal fee of $0.99, transform a snippet of the mp3 into a ringtone usable with their iPhone.
The ringtone feature, though appreciated at least in the cosmetic sense by Apple enthusiasts, overall seemed like a head scratcher to the average Apple user. After all, why would you buy a song for $0.99 and then pay another $0.99 to have the privilege of it alerting you to an incoming call? $2 for a ringtone is a bit steep; while Apple defended their pricing as a result of the stingy licensing of the music industry, they eventually got the hint (3 years later) that no one in their right mind would pay that much for a customized ringtone.
In fact, today no one in their right mind would pay a dime for a customized ringtone. There are so many free online applications that will let you customize a ringtone from an mp3 on your computer in under three minutes that charging for a ringtone is clearly a stunt catering only to the lazy or severely technologically challenged.
Mobile17, a dotcom start-up by a college kid, has gone from campy dorm-room experiment to an honest to goodness business. After creating a free account, the user has the ability to upload any mp3 onto the Mobile17 server and select the exact start and end point of their desired ringtone. You can select clips up to a minute in length, and after you fill in specific information about your phone and carrier (for proper processing purposes), the clip will be processed and emailed or texted to your phone. You simple download onto your phone and select the ringtone from your library. Voila – your free, customized ringtone has been created and delivered in no time!
While Mobile17 was among the first to offer such a service, there are now dozens of site online that perform similar processes. When choosing a site to make your free ringtone, just remember to be smart of who you share your information with and what information you share. Unless you buy some kind of a ringtone package from a reputable site (look for that Better Business Bureau seal and official credit card logos!), do not share your address, credit card, or social security number with anyone. Lots of sites try to lure in naïve internet users with free services like “make your own ringtones” as a way to gain access to their personal information. When in doubt about a site’s credibility, do a Google search on site name along with the term “review” to see what comes up – the nice thing about the internet is that if someone has a bad experience or gets scammed, they are not shy talking about it!
It’s a free ringtone world, and while the idea of the iTunes ringtone creator will be missed, chances are the actual service won’t be missed at all – in fact, from the internet chatter around the issue, few people noticed (or cared). But thanks for trying iTunes/Apple; the mark of a great company isn’t the number of failed ideas it has, but the number of good ones.
—
About the Author: Vernon Marker is both a music and Apple product fanatic. He is always ahead of the curve when it comes to new releases and prides herself on having the coolest cell ringtones before anyone else! In his free time he loves to travel and attend as many concerts as possible.
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