FlowingData wrote about the Pentagon Pizza Orders Theory, a concept that suggests that an increase in pizza orders at restaurants near the Pentagon can predict conflicts and crisis in the US government.
Cultrface
A blog dedicated to culture
and how it enriches our lives
Paul Biggar on Ireland “failing Palestine”
I read a thought-provoking article by Paul Biggar, an Irish software engineer and founder of Tech For Palestine. In it, he suggested that Ireland is failing Palestine despite their well-known support. Here are the opening paragraphs:
Ireland gets a lot of support and a lot of love from the international and Palestinian communities for our support for a Free Palestine. Unlike most countries, in Ireland the need for a liberated Palestine is a given, the default, and we are deeply pro-liberation and anti-genocide, having endured hundreds of years of occupation ourselves. We have turned out for protests in large numbers, and we have had numerous politicians take active and early stances.
That said, I truly believe that Ireland is failing Palestine.
Our convictions are high, but our actions are absent. We hold the right beliefs, and we are doing absolutely nothing with them.
It’s well worth a read as Biggar touches on government policies, Big tech operating in Ireland without reproach, and what direct action would look like to counteract the government’s “complicity”.
Harris Alterman is a comedian and he made a hilarious TikTok about “woke architecture” that is absurd but also not completely far from what we see from the right these days. This has to be one of my favourite pieces of satire all year. (h/t Sam Thielman on Bluesky)
14 minutes of Tim Allen grunting in Home Improvement
Every Grunt from Home Improvement
One of the most ubiquitous sounds from the 90s was Tim Allen’s grunt in Home Improvement. But he didn’t just do the one from the theme song and the above video shows the wide gamut of his vocabulary.
Related: Tim’s Laugh Factory standup where he explained how the grunt came about.
Thibault Drutel's “syMMetric subWay” photo series
Thibault Drutel is a French photographer and his “syMMetric subWay” photo series captures the architecture of a variety of underground train stations in Europe, including Germany (Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich), Belgium (Brussels), and Sweden (Stockholm).
As the name suggests, the shots are all symmetrical but also catch moving trains which add a lot of energy to the images. Check out the rest of the series on his website.
Anatoly Zenkov – Resizabill
Resizabill lets you resize a $100 bill into something vertical via the browser window.
That’s how regular money goes digital! A dollar bill that resizes with your screen, warping familiar proportions. An adaptive design, digital currency, and inflation—all in one package.
I will say resizing your window horizontally (up and down) doesn’t work properly.
Lifta: a free Arabic typeface in black and stencil
A free Arabic typeface called Lifta, named after the Palestinian village destroyed in the 1948 occupation:
Lifta is a bold protest typeface available in black and stencil versions […] it is a typeface that protests the erasure of Palestinian identity and the subjugation of their rights as they live under occupation. It is designed by Omaima Dajani who is from East Jerusalem and living under occupation today. The design above is dedicated to Palestinian refugees around the world […]
If you’re looking to make any protest posters in Arabic, this could be a cost-effective typeface to use.
Atlas Obscura covered a strange example of collective behaviour—thousands of people left dirty shoe prints in Vegas parking lots: Theories regarding the shoe mark tradition abound; some believe it brings good luck to casino-goers, while others attribute it to intoxicated patrons en route to their cars.
When Ivana Trump wanted a tower of her own
KFC Tower Burger commercial with Ivana Trump, 1997
In 2017, I wrote about the Pizza Hut commercial starring Donald Trump and his ex-wife Ivana eating the new stuffed crust from the crust inwards. Today, I watched a UK advert for KFC (above) starring Ivana with a new husband (Ryan Stiles) who offered her a tower (no, not that kind of tower!)
I don’t have any other comments other than it’s wild that KFC and Pizza Hut used the couple to advertise their food.
I found this Are.na collection of plants that look like people by XX YY. Everything reminds me of her etc.
Just got an email from Pluto Books about a new book all about the weird and disturbing history of the cult of yoga: In Fascist Yoga, Stewart Home sweeps away the half-truths to tell a new origin story of the world’s first modern yogi – a Californian escapologist who added some Hindu fairy dust to gym and circus exercises.
For JSTOR Daily, H.M.A. Leow wrote about Cold War B-movies and how they often used “geographical misdirection” to trick audiences into thinking that they were filmed on location: Whether low-budget films or all-star productions, some American producers didn’t particularly care where their ostensibly Southeast Asian movies were set, as [Adam] Knee notices. But why the carelessness in their treatment of locales?
A scene from Batman (1989) re-enacted with LEGO
The Pen Is Truly Mightier than the Sword (Batman 1989)
This scene came up in a Bluesky conversation last week and while looking for it on YouTube, I stumbled upon this LEGO re-enactment by Lego Movie Scenes.
I thought the Joker figure might have been from the Batman set from the 2019 DC Comics Super Heroes set but the torso doesn’t seem to match. If anyone can clarify, I’d appreciate it. Either way, enjoy!
A skatepark modelled after bacon and eggs cooking in a frying pan
Meet The Seattle Artist Who Designed A Bacon 'N Eggs Inspired Skatepark
John Hillding is the artist behind this skatepark 50 miles outside of Seattle, made to look like bacon and eggs in a frying pan, and Jenkem went to visit. According to Daily Hive, it’s part of a park that Grindline Skateparks built in 2015 and it took about four years to complete. There was an idea to have a ramp shaped like a spatula that lowered into the bacon but that was taken out before the final design.
The Pudding on Asian American representation in Hollywood
Another fine data interactive from The Pudding looking at Asian American representation in Hollywood and how accurate it is1:
This project was prompted by the disheartening experiences we’ve had watching miscast characters in popular media, so we came into this project expecting more miscastings than not.
[…]
But we know how fragile this progress can be. In 2024, racial and gender diversity in Hollywood decreased for the first time in six years, part of a larger social regression. In a recent interview, Constance Wu said that she’s noticed that representation is becoming less important in casting. She said this could be a sign of people in Hollywood “reverting to limited imaginations of what story and characters could be.”
We’re worried about what we might be losing.
Dorothy Lu, who wrote the script and analysed the data for this interactive
- Quote slightly truncated as not to reveal the outcome of the analysis ↩︎