A weekly collection of links to interesting things curated by Colin Wright.
Negative Capability
“‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ gives us a sense of the poet’s mode: he asks question after question about the urn, not to uncover facts or ‘answers’, but rather to sustain his experience of wonder and curiosity. There is something else, too. Keats is not only speculating, inventing and describing, he’s also seeking out the effects of his imaginative engagement with the urn itself. What exactly are these effects? And is there something about this particular mode of engaging with images and objects – with art – that could prove valuable in other contexts?”
Second Chance Suite
“Games moved swiftly in stuffy, cheerless rooms filled with irritable pensioners paying in hours. If conversation was kept to a minimum, players could run forty or fifty hands an hour. Coffee was the only available beverage. Some sipped soup from thermoses to prevent the need to leave for meals. “Gardena,” remarked one professional, “was not a place to play poker for fun.””
39 Colors You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
“Not just another word for anything ginger-colored, gingerline is often said to be a reddish-violet or reddish-brown color. However, by other accounts it describes a rich orange-yellow. According to one description, it refers very precisely to the color of ripe kumquats.”
The Vice of Spice: Confronting Lead-Tainted Turmeric
“For most of his turmeric trading career, Sheikh engaged in an open secret: While processing raw turmeric to powder, he added a chemical called lead chromate to get the tubers to glow yellow. Sheikh and the locals refer to the compound as peuri — and nearly all the farmers and traders at the market are familiar with it. Lead chromate is a chemical used in paints to, for instance, make school buses yellow, and it can enhance the radiance of turmeric roots, making them more attractive to buyers.”
The IBM Mainframe: How It Runs and Why It Survives
“Mainframe computers are often seen as ancient machines—practically dinosaurs. But mainframes, which are purpose-built to process enormous amounts of data, are still extremely relevant today. If they’re dinosaurs, they’re T-Rexes, and desktops and server computers are puny mammals to be trodden underfoot. It’s estimated that there are 10,000 mainframes in use today. They’re used almost exclusively by the largest companies in the world, including two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, 45 of the world’s top 50 banks, eight of the top 10 insurers, seven of the top 10 global retailers, and eight of the top 10 telecommunications companies. And most of those mainframes come from IBM.”
The Greatest Scam Ever Written
““The wisest man I ever knew,” one particularly memorable ad read, “told me something I never forgot: ‘Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money.’” The ad, which began appearing in newspapers across North America in 1973, was written by self-help author Joe Karbo, who vowed to share his secret—no education, capital, luck, talent, youth, or experience required—to fabulous wealth. All he asked was for people to mail in $10 and they’d receive his book and his secret. “What does it require? Belief.” The ad was titled “The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches,” and it helped sell nearly 3 million copies of Karbo’s book.”
Sweden Solar System
“The Sweden Solar System is the world's largest permanent scale model of the Solar System. The Sun is represented by the Avicii Arena in Stockholm, the second-largest hemispherical building in the world. The inner planets can also be found in Stockholm but the outer planets are situated northward in other cities along the Baltic Sea. The system was started by Nils Brenning, professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and Gösta Gahm, professor at the Stockholm University. The model represents the Solar System on the scale of 1:20 million.”