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POPSRubin: My Friend, the "Neo-Nazi" I could say, I know him, he has been a guest in my home in New York and in my rented house in Provence, he bears absolutely no resemblance to the image these despicable people are trying to project of him, and lot's more. I could point out that I am Jewish and have VISIBLE JEWISH ARTIFACTS IN MY HOME, which did not appear to alarm Rashid, if he even noticed them, but it is all just so ridiculous I don't know what to say.
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POPSInternet Archive, browsing through web history Open and free access to literature and other writings has long been considered essential to education and to the maintenance of an open society. Public and philanthropic enterprises have supported it through the ages. The Internet Archive is opening its collections to researchers, historians, and scholars. The Archive has no vested interest in the discoveries of the users of its collections, nor is it a grant-making organization. It is an important initiative. reminds me of Asimov book, the foundation...
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POPSThe rotating grid illusion A surprising optical illusion which is related to temporal aliasing, a visual phenomenon also known as the stroboscopic effect, which accounts for the fact that in video or motion pictures, wheels sometimes appear to be turning backwards.
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POPSUnsolved Mysteries of Egypt Mummies The word 'mummy' is not of Egyptian origin, but is derived from the Arabic 'mumiyah,' which means 'body preserved by wax or bitumen'; This term was used because of an Arab misconception of the methods used by the Egyptians in preserving their dead.
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POPSUnderwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures A UN convention advises that submerged artifacts should remain on the seabed as a way to respect their historical context--a view endorsed by the planners of the proposed underwater museum in Alexandria, Egypt.
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POPSIt's Time for Spime An ultra interesting concept of merging the physical and virtual aspects of our future existence. A Spime is a location-aware, environment-aware, self-logging, self-documenting, uniquely identified object that flings off data about itself and its environment in great quantities. A universe of Spimes is an informational universe, and it is the use of this information that informs the most exciting part of Sterling's argument.
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POPSAnthropology Museum database to go online
article continues: Nearly 50 artifacts connected to the Cherokee culture including baskets, ceremonial pipes, jewelry, ceramics and a range of other objects can be found in the database. Thousands of American Indian projectile points, most of them found in North Carolina, have also been cataloged. The oldest artifact in the collection dates to 10,000 B.C. Archaeology and anthropology enthusiasts can search by country to find objects from a particular geographic area or by culture, such as the Hopi, to find all objects in the collection associated with that culture. People can also search for a type of artifact. For example, by entering “basket” as a search term, someone could find records for more than 150 baskets in the collection. Anyone can use the database, but the database will be particularly valuable for North Carolina teachers, said Stephen Whittington, director of the museum. Teachers can use images and the descriptions from the database to plan lessons
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POPS"Women Ran the Burnt City 5000 years ago" the place was spotless, the Camel trains ran on time but, mysteriously, all the men-folk ran to the mountains to hide once a month for about a week . . http://www.astigan.com/2008/09/08/women-ran-the-burnt-city-5000-years-ago/
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POPSBeijing's breath-taking new library (Pictures by yours truly) So "Phase II" of the National Library of China just opened down the block from my apartment, and it is absolutely amazing. Filled with open space and natural light, it is gigantic yet personal, with the feeling of a pavilion. Long lines of sight that stretch uninterrupted out into the city blur the division between indoor and outdoor. Their website is also pretty cool - in English, and with lots of digitized collections, making it worthwhile for anyone wanting to learn more about China.
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POPS12 Tools That Will Soon Go The Way Of Fax and CDs Out of my research on this has come a list of tools, technologies and other artifacts of my generation that will probably disappear within the next generation, just as Fax essentially disappeared less than 20 years after it first became popular, and just as CDs, which my generation thought were the last word in music storage, are disappearing even faster.
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POPSflooded London 2090 - art imaginary scenario "The installations are optimistic and reveal that far from being a tragedy, the floods have brought about a much-improved way of life to the capital city." one of the comments on this story says: "Can’t wait for global warming to improve the London weather." :-)