- Boys for Winter, Girls for Summer: The Open and Fluid Sexualities of the Mughal and Ottoman Emperors – Easy History
The Mughal and Ottoman Emperors were – by modern definitions and standards – very, very bisexual. It was expected of them, really. The Sea of Virtues was a 12th Century Islamic text intended as a guidebook for future Muslim rulers. In it, sex with women for any reason other than reproduction was preached to be sinful and, for carnal pleasures, it is advised that ‘beautiful, beardless boys’ be pursued. In another similar 12th Century text, the author recommends ‘boys for the winter and girls for summer’. - North Korean Market Prices Suggest Serious Food Shortages – 38 North: Informed Analysis of North Korea
Market prices in North Korea suggest serious food shortages, risking widespread famine. China may provide aid, but political tensions remain. - The Sounds Of Invisible Worlds – NOEMA
Like the microscope and the telescope did centuries ago, new technologies to capture and analyze sound are leading to startling discoveries about what the eyes cannot see. - Learn to build unique charts with React and D3.js
Stop using pre-made dataviz components → imagination will become the only boundary to your creativity. - The Almost Romance Languages – Danny L. Bate
Meanwhile, the Pagan gods of Rome endure in the Welsh days of the week! - Remains of an extinct world of organisms discovered
Newly discovered biomarker signatures point to a whole range of previously unknown organisms that dominated complex life on Earth about a billion years ago. They differed from complex eukaryotic life as we know it, such as animals, plants and algae in their cell structure and likely metabolism, which was adapted to a world that had far less oxygen in the atmosphere than today. - Video to video with Stable Diffusion (step-by-step) – Stable Diffusion Art
Stable Diffusion Art enables users to convert video files from one format to another online. - TodePond/DreamBerd: perfect programming language
Some languages start arrays at 0, which can be unintuitive for beginners. Some languages start arrays at 1, which isn’t representative of how the code actually works. DreamBerd does the best of both worlds: Arrays start at -1. - How to cook onions: Why recipe writers lie and lie about how long they take to caramelize.
Recipe writers often lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions. Tips for caramelizing onions properly and quickly. Don’t add sugar! - Watch Tarkovsky’s Best Films Online for Free
Mosfilm, one of the largest film studios in the USSR during the Soviet era, has put full-length versions of many of its most acclaimed and influential films on YouTube for free, including six of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films: Stalker, Solaris, Ivan’s Childhood, The Mirror, Andrei Rublev, and The Passion According to Andrei. Also available is Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein. - All the Household Types in the U.S. | FlowingData
When you think of household types in the United States, the most common ones probably come to mind: single, married couple, married couple with a kid, or married couple with two kids. And that makes sense, since that covers about two-thirds of all households.
But I’ve been wondering about the remaining third of households. That’s when you start to see a lot of variation. - epicyclorama comments on Are there any earlier examples or origins of “lovecraftian” style of horrors in fiction or myths, earlier than Lovecraft himself?
Fascinerend. - Weird, Rare, and Everywhere | Hakai Magazine
In the bogs of Hecate Island, British Columbia, a writer and novice naturalist joins researchers for a glimpse of a multiyear biodiversity mission—and gets acquainted with some odd organisms.
Tales of Drudgery & Boredom.