Flotsam is a circus group that has been performing on the river between Salem and Portland.
Here’s one of their live performances they did at the waterfront in Portland this year.
Read more about them here: http://www.rivercircus.com/
I went to a recent UX Book Club Meetup (Calagator) given by Amber Case. She spent two years as a fellow at MIT’s Center for Civic Media and Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society studying the interaction between humans and computers.
First off, the talk was given in a really cool spot I’d not been before. A converted 1900’s fireboat house turned into the Boathouse Microcinema. It’s located under a waterfront overpass heavily cross-crossed with active rail lines and inside a non-descript red door in a sketchy industrial neighborhood surrounded by homeless camps.
Inside were the artist spaces for a number of film, music, and art productions.
This talk, however, was focused on her recent co-published book on the use of sound in modern appliances and technology.
She covered a lot of interesting topics.
Links:
Every Halloween the Friends of the Lone Fir cemetery put on a ‘Tour of Untimely Departures’ where volunteers would dress in period garb and guide you through the cemetery to hear stories about some of the deceased buried there.
It appears that this tradition may be at an end, but hopefully it comes back. Until then, maybe check out some videos of older trips.
Dustin Skye is a bubble blower and artist from the central Oregon coast. Check out his latest amazing creation.
I’ve climbed up the shoulder of Mt Rainier to Camp Muir (10,188 ft) and glissaded down; but I should have brought my old snowboard instead like these guys!
This clip brings back some memories for sure. I need to do that hike again.
Do you like haunted house displays? Ever wish there was a map of the all the different Halloween displays? Now there is, and much more.
NW Haunter’s website has maps of many Pacific Northwest haunted houses and other Halloween displays. Not only that, but they have links to various resources for those that want to make such displays. They have links to various tours and local classes you can take to make scary tombstones, paper machete statues, animatronic displays, and even things called monster mud.
Check it out at the link below:
http://www.nwhaunters.com/
Here’s a little video clip from the afternoon that turned really windy. View was very obstructed due to all the smoke from wildfires. Air quality was actually listed as hazardous – so I didn’t get out much this day.
Yes, this really did happen. George Hamilton, playing the part of the Crispy Colonel, delivered Friday’s commencement address at The Art Institute of Portland.
“Life you will take you places you have never imagined,” he told graduates. “Maybe one day you’ll be an actor, or a chicken salesman, or an actor who’s pretending to be a chicken salesman.”
Read more here:
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/06/colonel_sanders_aka_george_ham.html
Putting a link to this research paper by Canadian scientists studying fish runs after a few folks asked about it. This is one study, there are others you can also find that show how all the synthetic and estrogenic substances in our personal care products, birth control pills, anti-depressants, etc are affecting fish development.
Municipal wastewaters are a complex mixture containing estrogens
and estrogen mimics that are known to affect the reproductive
health of wild fishes. Male fishes downstream of some wastewater
outfalls produce vitellogenin (VTG) (a protein normally
synthesized by females during oocyte maturation) and early-stage
eggs in their testes, and this feminization has been attributed to
the presence of estrogenic substances such as natural estrogens
[estrone or 17-estradiol (E2)], the synthetic estrogen used in
birth-control pills [17-ethynylestradiol (EE2)], or weaker estrogen
mimics such as nonylphenol in the water.
Read more here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/104/21/8897.full.pdf
Terry Davis is a programmer that has had a very difficult life. After a series of manic episodes, at 44 Terry is now homeless and most believe he has schizophrenia or suffering some other seriously debilitating mental disorder. He was most recently spotted on the streets here in Portland.
What’s unusual about Terry is that he wrote his own operating system: TempleOS. It’s free to download, and is written in HolyC. He even has his own youtube channel. There is even video of him debugging it while living homeless in his car in the middle of parking lots.
His life currently demonstrates the terrible state of mental health care in the United States, and the difficult reality of many homeless. They are often very intelligent, but have disorders that make them non-functional in society.
Read more about TempleOS and Terry on wikipedia.
Warning: his more recent videos have racist and inappropriate sexual language.