Friday Ephemera

Government clamps down firmly on a growing problem. (H/T, Mick Hartley.) // The Supreme Instruments Corporation. Imposing gadgets of a bygone age. (H/T, The Cartoonist.) // The thrill of electromechanical relays. (H/T, Coudal.) // French vision of the future. (1910) Automated ablutions, flying policemen, the warm glow of radium. // Stephen Petranek ponders the end of the world (and how to avoid it). Boredom, solar flares, scientific mishaps. // Filaments of space-time. Large scale density simulations. Very large scale. (H/T, Pruned.) // The Mystery of Time. (1957) // Great big holes. // Devil’s Kitchen on the wisdom of Harriet Harman. // Camille Paglia on scholarship, dogma and semen. // “If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems.” // Ten years of Encounter magazine. (H/T, Dr Dawg.) // “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon.” No homosexuality, no Holocaust, no plans for nuclear weapons. Related. // The two faces of Al Qaeda. // Dalrymple on Islam as modern day Marxism. From Baader-Meinhof to Caliphate fantasies. // Death and probability. Lightning, earthquakes, bee stings. (H/T, Grow-a-brain.) // Biography of a Bee. (1965) // Via Coudal, the sci-fi paper model gallery. Parts and blueprints. Colour printer required. // Make your very own David Hasselhoff. Comes with microphone, choice of heads and removable chest hair carpet. // Tim Rudder’s photos of Tokyo. More. // 1966 Hulk cartoon. Toad men, tremors, theme tune from hell. // Missile base for sale. 57 acres, own silos. $1.5 million. // Tree houses. // Hey kids, it’s the magic wheel. “New cool urban product!” // Or, try Oryx. “It’s from the future.” // Johnny has his own psychobilly mo-chine.