Link Banana

Attached to a story on the topic, the New York Times has an illustrated and annotated map of the boldest new buildings in Beijing. I’d seen or heard nothing of the interesting new egg-like National Theater.

(via CP)

Coober Pedy, South Australia is a cool place. (SWIDT?)

(via Coudal)

I feel like I’ve come across this more than a few times before. In any case, it’s a good way to satiate your inner voyeur.

(via Coudal)

Because I always wondered and never found out for myself: this is what the Chipmunk’s Christmas song sounds like slowed down.

(via Coudal)

Joseph Bottum’s neologism for words with a ” kind of poetic, extralogical accuracy.” Some exploration:

In a logical sense, of course, some words are literally true or false when applied to themselves. Words about words, typically: Noun is a noun, though verb is not a verb. Polysyllabic is self-true, and monosyllabic is not. And this logical notion of autology can be extended. If short seems a short word, true of itself, then the shorter long must be false of itself.

But what about jab or fluffy or sneer, each of them true in a way that goes beyond logic? Verbose has always struck me as a strangely verbose word. Peppy has that perky, energetic, spry sound it needs. And was there ever a more supercilious word than supercilious? Or one more lethargic than lethargic?

(via Coudal)

Calling to mind another recent example of surrealism: The Day with No News.

(via Coudal)

From the large stack of old reading I’ve been meaning to do, I found this:

Offices in the 1970s and 1980s seemed to their critics burdensome remnants of an older age, symbolic shackles of bureaucracy—a system as inhuman as it was ineffective. Cubicles, by contrast, seemed to lack the fixity, and the constraints of bureaucracy of the old office. Moreover, cubicles eliminated the hierarchical distinctions between managers and workers; every cubicle had an open door, everyone was equally a worker. Empowering and humane, cubicles seemed to create a workplace with a soul.

(via Coudal)

I may be a lot of thing, but “able to restrain himself from posting interesting but pointless charts” is not one of them. This one, from GOOD Magazine, compares the weight and height of different trophies given for many different reasons.

(via Coudal)

See the results of what Jay did:

I tied a disposable camera to a bench with a sign that read:

Good afternoon,
I attached this camera to the bench so you could take pictures. Seriously. So have fun. I’ll be back later this evening to pick it up.

(via Coudal)