Video: Pokemon GO Real Life Update

For Pokemon GO players: Youtube user Shuttle Authority:

Futuristic hologram technology in the next Update of Pokemon Go? How cool would that be!

They also did a previous version:

Warning signs and labels

I saw a book of these at someone's house recently and it sent me looking for more. There are approximately a billion of them available, and, yeah, I know a bunch of them are photoshopped but I liked them anyway. Here are a few that caught my eye:

This one's in the WTF category:

There's a whole set of baby instructions:

Friday links

Here's What Happens When You Crash-Test a Shopping Cart at 73 MPH.

Italian teenagers to get €500 'culture bonus' on their 18th birthday.

It's his birthday this weekend: LBJ: The President Who Marked His Territory.

Harry Potter and the Hopefully Benign Colon Polyp, and more middle-aged Harry Potter books.

Panama Canal Timelapse from a Ship’s POV.

The History Of Mac And Cheese.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include a set of humongous tunnel boring machines, a supercut of improbable weapons, the U.S. Senate monorail under Washington D.C., and the anniversary of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79.

Here's What Happens When You Crash-Test a Shopping Cart at 73 MPH

How well does a shopping cart protect your groceries at highway speeds?​

Popular Mechanics:

Sweden's Dynamic Test Center is known for running unusual crash simulations. Simply put, these technicians like to have fun. There's a purpose to this test beyond just watching stuff get smashed—in this case, DTC shows how much damage a runaway shopping cart can do to the side of your car.

But what you really want to see is how a shopping cart holds up after crashing into a wall at 117.8 km/h (73 mph). Yes, that's a new shopping cart speed world record.

The test center also crash-tested a golf cart:

Ever wondered what would happen if a fully loaded tractor plowed through stopped traffic? They’ve tested that. Or just how much damage is caused when two skiiers collide? They’ve tested that too.

Wanna dress like a crash test dummy for Halloween, or just because? Amazon has a selection:

More at Popular Mechanics and Sploid.

Leonard Bernstein's birthday

Any great work of art ... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world ... the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. 

~ Leonard Bernstein (wiki) ("What Makes Opera Grand?", Vogue, December 1958) 

Einstein said that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery? 

~ Bernstein (The Unanswered Question) 

Bernstein has been disclosing musical secrets that have been well known for 400 years. 

~ Oscar Levant (1906-1972)* (Memories of an Amnesic) 

Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer, that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts , however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence. 

~ Bernstein (Bowen, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Conducting) 

Today is the anniversary of the birth of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (wiki) (1918-1990) in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Ukrainian-Jewish parents. Bernstein showed extraordinary musical talent at the piano at an early age and after attending the Boston Latin School, majored in music at Harvard. After graduation, he went to Philadelphia's Curtis Institute, where he studied piano, conducting (under Fritz Reiner), and composition. Afterwards, in New York, Bernstein worked for several music publishers and became associated with the comedy troupe of Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Judy Holliday. 

Beginning in 1940, he began studying conducting at Tanglewood under the Boston Symphony's Serge Koussevitzky and got his famous "big break" in November 1943, when as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, he substituted for the ailing Bruno Walter to major acclaim. Bernstein later became the music director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra, and his growing international reputation led to guest-conducting gigs all over the world. Meanwhile, he divided his compositional activities between musical comedy and symphonic music and eventually produced three symphonies, a variety of other orchestral works, and Broadway musicals such as On the Town (1943), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956 - actually an operetta), and his exquisite West Side Story (1957). 

Between 1958 and 1969 he served as musical director of the New York Philharmonic, conducted many world premieres of both old and new music, and almost single-handedly revived interest in the music of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). He became even more famous as a music lecturer on television, which led to his best-selling books, The Joy of Music (1959) and The Infinite Variety of Music (1966). Later in his career Bernstein turned increasingly to conducting opera, in both the United States and Europe. As one of classical music's most popular superstars, he remained active as a guest conductor until the time of his death to a heart attack in 1990. 

* N.B. Oscar Levant was an American pianist, composer, comedian, and author, particularly remembered for his sardonic wit. 

ClassicFM.com:

The great Leonard Bernstein was such a showman of a conductor that he didn’t even need to use his baton to coax a great performance from the Vienna Philharmonic in this concert. 

Watch Bernstein use only his eyebrows (and the odd bit of smiling and grimacing) to give the orchestra all the information they need about tempo and dynamics for Haydn’s Symphony No. 88. Amazing stuff:

August 24: the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79.

They Drew Fire is a collection of paintings selected from the works of the World War II combat artists.

Humongous Tunnel Boring Machines.

Supercut of Improbable Weapons.

U.S. Senate Monorail - A Private Subway System for Senators Under Washington D.C. Since 1909

NASA Just Made All Its Research Free Online.

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include which bathroom stall you should choose if you want the cleanest one, how people call cats in different countries, making bread in the Middle Ages, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and how sunflowers track the sun across the sky.

Tuesday links

St. Bartholomew's Day - some history (including the massacre), a brief documentary, and Monty Python.

We finally know how sunflowers track the sun across the sky.

Which bathroom stall you should choose if you want the cleanest one?

How to Undress in 20 Seconds or Less, and the tactical order of re-dressing.

How People Call Cats In Different Countries.

Bread in the Middle Ages.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include Dorothy Parker's birthday and the long, weird journey of her ashes, the United States' first trip to the Olympics, the world's only surviving tattoo shop for medieval pilgrims, and a supercut of technology breaking down, then being beaten until it works again.

Grandbaby pictures

Update August 22:

Addie

and Charlotte:

For those of you who requested it, here are some recent photos of the new girl cousins (Addie, born 2/4/16 is sitting up, and Charlotte, born 4/14/16, is reclining) in their semi-matching pink camo outfits:

And just hanging out:

Their "Best Friends" shirts, which their parents purchased when they found out both were pregnant:

Earlier, Addie, age 11 weeks, and Charlotte, age 10 days:

 Charlotte:

 And Addie:

And here's a group shot of all of our local grandkids (seven of them, out of a total of fourteen scattered about):