bookofjoe

The Modern Invention of White Marble

From Aeon: 

For most people today, ancient Greek sculpture brings to mind images of pearly white human figures.

Yet, ever since the first excavations of Pompeii in the 17th century, archaeologists have known that these sculptures were painted in vivid colors.

This short film from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York discusses why the visual code of white antique marble persists.

If you happen to be in Gotham you could do worse than play hooky and go to see the Met's current show, "Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color," up through March 26, 2023.

Tell them I sent you and they'll laugh in your face.

How to use RayBan Stories glasses without getting arrested

[Yours truly demonstrating what people see when you wear these glasses in their native form and record video.]

Long story short: be like me and put a small piece of matte black tape over the bright white LED at the upper right hand corner of the frame that flashes when you take a photo or stays on while you record a video.

[I demonstrate how to go dark while recording video using RayBan Stories glasses.]

As best I can tell, not a single person I've encountered while out and about wearing RayBan Stories glasses and using them to make videos has realized they aren't regular frames.

Financial Review columnist John Davidson's advice on this topic appeared in his July 25, 2022 column, from which excerpts appear below.

Ray-Ban Stories are electronic glasses with a microphone, speakers, and two cameras built-in that you connect to your phone via Bluetooth to help you break your addiction to your phone's screen and stay engaged with the world.

We'd been hoping Meta's recent upgrade would add simple commands such as "Hey Facebook, what's the weather?" or "Hey Facebook, what's the time?," to help deliver on the promise of a screen-free life.

Alas, no.

Stories are much less helpful than they might be, meaning you're still going to need to look at your phone incessantly.

The Facebook voice assistant supports only commands such as "How much battery is left?" and "Take a photo" or "Take a Video."

People might become suspicious and pay attention to the itsy-bitsy LED that comes on at the front of the Ray-Bans whenever you're using the cameras.

[The tiny white dot that comes on when photograph or video people should be easy to paint in.]

I'd suggest you put a tiny dab of paint on that itsy-bitsy LED.

Why would anyone in their right mind use paint when removable tape does the job just as well, as any fool who watches my Academy Award-Nominated videos up top can plainly see.

It seems obvious now in retrospect but I recall spending well over an hour at Sunglass Hut looking at all the styles and lens colors of these glasses before deciding to go with clear lenses as opposed to tinted because it struck me wearing sunglasses indoors would automatically bring unwanted attention.

One more thing: while I was making my demonstration videos I had numerous flubs, a couple of which I posted on my YouTube channel as outtakes.

Taking the art of cutting paper to the next level

Bee Bricks

The council in Brighton, U.K. has introduced bee bricks to support habitats for bees in all new buildings over five meters high.

More here.

Available in a variety of colors and styles here.

GIANT BINDER CLIP

ALL CAPS IN BOLD BECAUSE IT'S really BIG!

The business end is 2.25" wide and it's 7.75" long and weighs over a quarter of a pound (4.7 oz) and yes it can serve as a weapon in extremis.

It opens up — with a serious amount of effort, that spring is STRONG — to 1.75" wide and holds up to 250 sheets of paper.

Made in Japan.

I bought two and use them for any number of things around the house.

You can too!

$18.53 yes that's not a typo it hurts to go big.