Wayward Ephemera

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MTV, the channel that revolutionized the music industry, has today said its final Goodbye by moving to a digital-only model. Its 24-hour music channel has ceased to be officially its transmissions.

The end came with a nod to its beginnings, the last broadcast was the iconic videoclip of “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles, the same one that inaugurated the history of MTV on August 1, 1981. In this way, the channel closed after 44 years, with the same song that defined its birth

RIP 1st Aug 1981 - 31st Dec 2025

The classic "old bicycle" we're all thinking of, which looked like this:

Is actually a technological compromise developed in the early 1870s. The very first bicycle was invented in 1817 and it looked like this:

It had no pedals and the rider would push it along with their feet, the same way toddlers learn to ride bikes today.

In about 1864, a mechanic in france came up with the idea of adding pedals to the front wheel, making the first self-propelled bicycle.

This was a great improvement because it's a lot easier to move and a lot more fun than the Fisher Price version above. It was a big thing for about five years, but there were some drawbacks.

First, because the pedals were directly attached to the front wheel, you couldn't go very fast without moving your legs incredibly quickly, which takes a lot of effort. It also is kind of awkward to steer because your legs are in the way of the wheel.

The other issue was bumps. Roads were not very smooth in the 1870s, most of them were unpaved and full of ruts, potholes, and rocks. And at first there were no rubber tires, just wooden wheels with metal rims. Altogether this made for a very bumpy ride.

The big front wheel, which was made possible by the invention of wire spokes and solid rubber tires, solved all of these problems. A big wheel runs over bumps more easily: think of how rough it is to ride roller skates over bumps in a sidewalk that you would hardly notice on a bike. And the bigger the wheel, the faster you can move with one push of the pedals. Having the seat on top of the wheel, instead of behind, also makes steering less cumbersome.

There are of course drawbacks to this design, in particular being so high up makes it very easy to go over the handlebars if you crash, and more likely to hit your head or break your arm.

Two more inventions helped drive this comical beast into extinction and bring back a more balanced, and safer, bicycle.

The first was the pneumatic tire, which contains a cushion of air, and makes for a much softer ride compared to a solid tire or a metal one. The cushion effect eliminates the need for a big wheel to smooth out the bumps in the road.

The second invention was the sprocket and chain drive. This lets you put the pedals anywhere you want on the bike, and with a big gear at the pedals and a small one at the wheel, you can get more speed out of a small wheel.

The first modern bicycle to combine a sprocket and pneumatic tires was built in 1879. It was an instant hit, not just because it was much less dangerous, but because the low drag profile and the smooth pneumatic tires made for a faster ride, and the trendsetters in cycling, then as now, were the racing community. There have been plenty of innovations and modifications in the years since, from ten-speed gears to carbon fiber frames, but these are all variations on a theme. The basic form of the bicycle has not changed.

Where to begin? One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad puts into words what so many of us have been going through: the break with the liberalism we believed in, the jarring loss of faith in the most basic of Western promises. In under 200 pages, he expertly unpacks the various hypocrises of the United States; what’s wrong with the current state of journalism; of how colonialism necessarily demands that history begins with the colony’s formation, making every future work of violence an act of self-defense; of how language and fear are leveraged only in one direction in the conflict.

He also gives guidance on why and how to keep resisting. First, “every derailment of normalcy matters when what’s becoming normal is a genocide.” Second, “every small act of resistance trains the muscle used to do it.” And the most effective protest, he argues, is a walking away. “Negative resistance” is the most frightening thing to those in power in our capitalist system that survives on participation and consumerism. A boycott or refusal to vote, to countenance, to allow order to continue, and the choice to put solidarity with a people that we do not “stand to gain” by standing beside over our own “self-interest”, fundamentally disrupts a culture that is willing to sacrifice others in order to get a never-ending more.

“You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice,” El-Akkad writes. “You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience.... Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.” This book is part analysis, part call-to-action, enlightening and one of those books that everyone who knows me will have to hear about for the rest of the year in every other conversation.

later that week when i spend the night at my sister’s she tells me the exchange student she brought home for thanksgiving a few years ago was in an accident. i want to apologize because ever since i was a child i’ve felt like death follows me around somehow. his instagram says he was doing what he loved and he’s with God now. i hug my sister while she cries and i think WHEN I DIE I HOPE NOBODY TALKS ABOUT GOD. in a few days i will text her at midnight because i had a dream that i don’t necessarily remember but i do remember wishing she was still alive. and i won’t tell her that but i’ll ask her what she’s wearing to the bridal shower and she’ll say the same thing she wore to the funeral because she doesn’t have anything else, and i’ll do that too since we were asked not to wear black and the blue i wore is much more suited to a happy occasion anyway. the brides will make a toast to loved ones lost while i’m wearing the same dress i wore to celebrate the life of a dead boy and my grandmother will pray to bless the union and i’ll arrange flowers and play little games with the women in my family and all i can think is WHEN I DIE I HOPE NOBODY TALKS ABOUT GOD.

whenever i tell people my cousin drowned they always ask if he’s okay and that always surprises me because i feel like the word drowned has a finality to it; it’s an end result, and if he was okay i would have said almost drowned but i didn’t. and sometimes when i talk about someone in the past tense people will say what do you mean was? is he not your uncle anymore? as if the concept of death is so far-fetched and archaic that it only happens to the elderly and the extremely unlucky and people on tv. these are the same people who keep talking about Heaven and eternal life and how death is just the beginning and nobody’s really gone and i smile politely but i want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and say fuck you. MY EX’S BROTHER KILLED HIMSELF THREE WEEKS AGO and i am drawing pictures and watching a trashy reality show when one of the contestants announces his early departure because his sister has died.

why do you write so much about death? what is everyone else writing about if not death? a few years ago i found out people think i’m obsessed with the idea of dying. i am not. i didn’t know there were people out there who have not experienced tragedy at all. i say tragedy and people think it just means loss. i am not talking about old men passing peacefully in their sleep. i am talking about a drowned fourteen year old and a fiancé whose heart suddenly gave out and a new grandfather t-boned by a drunk driver. these are too unrealistic for fiction. you write too much about death. i am not afraid of death and i’m not sure if that’s leftover from teenage suicidal tendencies or the result of years of exposure but i am afraid that i will die unexpectedly and nobody will know who to tell and so none of the right people will find out. and then the only people at my funeral will be family members who keep talking about God and Heaven and eternal life and give out packets of wildflower seeds, and i will watch from inside my casket even though i wanted to be cremated and i’ll scream EVERYONE SHUT UP ABOUT GOD until i can almost feel my throat but nobody will hear me because i am dead and no longer have a throat. my friends will keep texting me and wonder if i’m angry with them.

I do want to specifically shout out Dr Thomas Latta, who is the person who gave us IV hydration, and pretty much magically cured cholera with it in his first attempt. From his diary:

I attempted to restore the blood to its natural state, by injecting copiously into the larger intestines warm water.. trusting that the power of absorption might not be altogether lost, but by these means I produced, in no case, any permanent benefit.. I at length resolved to throw the fluid immediately into the circulation. In this, having no precedent to direct me, I proceeded with much caution. The first subject of experiment was an aged female. She had apparently reached the last moments of her earthly existence, and now nothing could injure her – indeed, so entirely was she reduced, that I feared I should be unable to get my apparatus ready ere she expired. Having inserted a tube into the basilic vein, cautiously – anxiously, I watched the effects; ounce after ounce was injected, but no visible change was produced. Still persevering, I though she began to breathe less laboriously, soon the sharpened features, and sunken eye, and fallen jaw, pale and cold, bearing the manifest impress of death's signet, began to glow with returning animation; the pulse, which had long ceased, returned to the wrist; at first small and quick, by degrees it became more and more distinct ... and in the short space of half and hour, when six pints had been injected, she expressed in a firm voice that she was free from all uneasiness, actually became jocular, and fancied all she needed was a little sleep.

Diarrhea can very easily be death by dehydration, especially when you can't consume oral fluids (Cholera causes extreme vomiting as well). Not only did we solve part of the problem with clean water, the other half was learning how to put clean water into our bodies (with salt).

A 'no questions asked' food pantry means no questions asked.

When we're stocking our pantry, we are not looking at a person's clothes or their accessories or what kind of car they drove there in. We are HAPPY to see it BEING USED AT ALL.

I don't know anyone's situation. Maybe they got that designer bag at a thrift shop. Maybe its a knockoff. Maybe it was a gift. Maybe they got it when they had money and now they don't have money. Maybe they're getting stuff for a friend.

Maybe they have plenty of money, don't need to be taking stuff from the pantry, but they are anyway because we said-

NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Do you know what happens when someone takes from our pantry when they don't need it? We're down one item. But maybe they tell someone that the pantry is there. Or maybe they come back to it when they need it. Or maybe they throw a dollar in the donation box. Or maybe they put an item on the shelf. Or maybe they come to our food drive.

WE DONT CARE.

We don't care who used it.

We care that it was used.

financial abuse is an incredibly discreet and pervasive form of ‘no-marks’ abuse among otherwise “respectable and well-to-do” couples, ESPECIALLY single-income families or ones where only one spouse controls all the finances.

Remember how women couldn’t have their own bank accounts once? Even when they were finally allowed to have jobs? Who do you think handled their money, do you think?

There are STILL people living off “allowances” from their partner, and frankly it doesn’t always make ends meet.

However, some of them are run by nonprofits, who do use the expenses from their pantry as proof of impact when applying for grants, and then in turn supply it with more food.

It did not yet exist when many people first started reading fanfic.

Embroidered Sculptures Recreate Lifelike Mushrooms, Lichen, and Fungi in Thread

by Grace Ebert - Colossal, February 25, 2022

Amanda Cobbett suspends a singular moment in the fleeting lives of fungi by stitching their likeness in thread. The textile artist photographs and gathers specimens that she brings back to her Surrey Hills-based studio, where she finds fibers to match pale green lichens and golden chanterelles. Using a free-motion embroidery technique on a sewing machine, she then stitches multiple layers onto a piece of dissolvable fabric that, once the organism is complete, is washed away to leave just the mushroom or mossy bark intact. As a scroll through her Instagram reveals, the resulting sculptures are so realistic in color, shape, and size that it’s difficult to distinguish the artist’s iterations from their counterparts.

Currently, Cobbett is preparing a collection that will head to the Artful Craft exhibition at Make Southwest, which opens on April 2.

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

err a ceremonial boomerang with art of the seven sisters tjukurpa (dreaming) on it, and a recipe for Bully Beef stew so aliens know what to cook when they come visit.

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

I think there is a lot to be proud about in regards to Aboriginal peoples. Whether it's our astronomy, season mapping, farming practices that bent with the land rather than against it, Inventive tools, traditional stories, ceremonies, dances. etc

Recently, I've been really proud of the fact that we have a communal culture that ensures responsibility for each other. With the rise of social media, I feel like sometimes individualism is really forced down your throat. But like, no matter where you go in the world, you share the stars with every other person on earth. There's not a single part of the sky you see alone.

When you look up at it, no matter what you see, you're sharing that view with millions of other people. Thinking like that keeps me grounded. It's easy to get lost in your own thoughts, but when I realise other people are looking at the same sky as me, I feel better. It's because I come from a communal culture that I know a shared goal is possible and attainable. Anyway. I've just been grateful for that kind of mentality.

What doesn't make me proud is definitely Jacinta Price that dog. (for those who don't know she's an anti-black politician that has voted against her own people on every occasion. Her mother Bess Price, was a very loud political spokesperson for the NT Intervention so I have a personal grudge against her family based on that.)

27. favourite national celebrity?

oooooh it's too difficult to pick one.

Baarka - the artist (music) has spoken out against racism, misogyny and police brutality in her songs. It's not often that an Aboriginal woman is given a platform to be political, but she got very popular with mainstream audiences which gives her voice a lot of weight.

Patty Mills - a NBA Basketball Player who has used his platform to speak out against racism and deaths in custody, he also supplied a community with clean drinking water.

Cathy Freeman - She became a gold medalist for sprinting at 16 years old and was noted for running with the Aboriginal flag (Which a lot of people was mad about) She was one of the very first Aboriginal people I saw on television.

given how Americanised this site is, it’s important to celebrate all our countries and nationalities - with all their quirks and vices and ridiculousness, and all that might seem strange to outsiders.

1. favourite place in your country?

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad?

3. does your country have access to sea?

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

5. favourite song in your native language?

6. most hated song in your native language?

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language?

11. favourite native writer/poet?

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with?

17. are you interested in your country’s history?

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem?

20. which sport is The Sport in your country?

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country?

24. what other nation is joked about most often in your country?

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country?

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal?

27. favourite national celebrity?

28. does your country have a lot of lakes, mountains, rivers? do you have favourites?

29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?