The winner is this sleepy polar bear who clawed a bed from a small iceberg and settled in for a nap.
Photo credit: Nima Sarikhani
The Mandalorian & Grogu Journeys to the Big Screen
Lucasfilm is bringing Mando and Grogu to the big screen. Filming begins this year and Jon Favreau is directing.
This is the way.
“Barbie girl,” in the style of 6 classical composers
Really wonderful. I will never be this good at anything.
Boy Becomes First Human Player to ‘Beat’ NES Tetris
Willis Gibson, 13, reached the kill screen, becoming the first person to beat the original Nintendo version of Tetris.
Claes Oldenburg is Dead at 93
Claes Oldenburg died yesterday at his home/studio in New York.
On his work:
As he focused more and more on sculpture, he began increasing the scale of his work, taking as his starting point ordinary objects like hamburgers, ice cream cones and household appliances and then enlarging them to unfamiliar, often imposing dimensions.
One of his most famous installations, erected in 1976 — the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence — is “Clothespin,” a 45-foot-high, 10-ton black steel sculpture of precisely what the title indicates, complete with a metal spring that appropriately evokes the number 76. The work stands in stark contrast to conventional public sculpture, which Mr. Oldenburg, impersonating a municipal official, said was supposed to involve “bulls and Greeks and lots of nekkid broads.”
I was just in DC and snapped this image of his Typewriter Eraser at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. I like tracking down his public sculpture when visiting new cities, like a nerdy little treasure hunt. RIP.
Obi-Wan Kenobi Trailer
The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat—the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.
The series stars Ewan McGregor, reprising his role as the iconic Jedi Master, and also marks the return of Hayden Christensen in the role of Darth Vader.
Flying Through Giga Berlin
Amazing drone footage of the new Tesla factory in Berlin. The pilot steers the drone through the plant as cars are assembled, sometimes right through the vehicles themselves, with sparks flying and robots toiling away. It’s a wonderful illustrated timeline of the Tesla manufacturing process.
The high-five at the end is a nice touch.
Wreck of Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s ship, found in the Antarctic
The Endurance, famously shipwrecked in 1915, has been found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.
Mensun Bound, the expedition’s exploration director and a marine archaeologist who has discovered many shipwrecks, said Endurance was the finest he had ever seen. It is upright, clear of the seabed and “in a brilliant state of preservation,” he said.
The ship was found about four miles south of the last location recorded by Shackleton’s captain and navigator, Frank Worsley. The search had been conducted over a wide area to account for errors in Worsley’s navigation equipment.
Endurance’s relatively pristine appearance was not unexpected, given the cold water and the lack of wood-eating marine organisms in the Weddell Sea that have ravaged shipwrecks elsewhere.
Benjamin Franklin
From Ken Burns, a new four-hour documentary about Ben Franklin. Premieres April 4 on PBS.
Ken Burns’s two-part, four-hour documentary, Benjamin Franklin, explores the revolutionary life of one of the 18th century’s most consequential and compelling personalities, whose work and words unlocked the mystery of electricity and helped create the United States. Franklin’s 84 years (1706-1790) spanned an epoch of momentous change in science, technology, literature, politics, and government — fields he himself advanced through a lifelong commitment to societal and self-improvement.
The 2020 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
A gallery of the finalists for the 2020 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.
27: The Most Perfect Album
From Radiolab, an album of new songs dealing with each of the 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
I’d venture a guess that most Americans (like us, before we started this project) can’t name more than one or two amendments to the Constitution, let alone remember that there are 27 of them. But these 27 “insertions” to our founding document outline our basic rights as Americans. Not only that, they show a country changing and evolving and re-imagining itself; striving (and not always succeeding) to be better.
With that in mind, the team at More Perfect challenged ourselves to come up with a way to give these words the swagger they deserve. So we invited some of the best musicians in the world to create songs inspired by each of the 27 amendments; a kind of “Schoolhouse Rock!” for the 21st Century.
Cleveland Indians Removing Chief Wahoo Logo From Uniforms
At long last, the Cleveland Indians will be removing the Chief Wahoo logo from their uniforms in 2019.
After lengthy discussions between team owner Paul Dolan and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, the Indians are shelving the big-toothed, smiling, red-faced caricature, which has been used in used in various expressions by the team since 1947.
And:
“Major League Baseball is committed to building a culture of diversity and inclusion throughout the game,” Manfred said in a statement. “Over the past year, we encouraged dialogue with the Indians organization about the club’s use of the Chief Wahoo logo. During our constructive conversations, Paul Dolan made clear that there are fans who have a longstanding attachment to the logo and its place in the history of the team.
“Nonetheless, the club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. Dolan’s acknowledgement that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.”
Abandoned Theme Parks
From a gallery of abandoned theme parks by Seph Lawless. I spent a lot of time at Geauga Lake (the photo at the top) when I was younger. It was smaller than Cedar Point, but also closer. Lots of good memories. And, hard to believe now, there was once a Sea World park right across the lake.
New Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge
Design renderings of the proposed replacement for the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC.
How to Homer
Could a 45-year-old writer with no baseball experience beyond seventh grade, armed with only desire and an obsessive work ethic, go deep in a major league park? It would take a helluva lot of swings to find out.
I love this. Michael McKnight endeavors to find out just how hard it is for an average person to hit a home run in a professional ballpark. In McKnight’s words:
It’s for those among us who yell at our TV screens—You can’t take that pitch! You gotta crush that!—forgetting how impossible it is to swing a round bat and strike a round ball snaking by at 90 mph.
