Sci-fi archaeology: ‘Artist (Rä di Martino) Captures the Ruins of Star Wars’ left by George Lucas in Tunisian desert. Via @curiousoctopus and Architizer. Full story with more photos here.

Sci-fi archaeology: ‘Artist (Rä di Martino) Captures the Ruins of Star Wars’ left by George Lucas in Tunisian desert. Via @curiousoctopus and Architizer. Full story with more photos here.

Lumen Martin Winter’s Fra Mauro

Just noticed that my ArtifactGR essay from a while back popped up on their website a few weeks ago. Good timing, just as I’ve finally reached the end of a wonderful, twenty-year voyage among the stars, striking out into the unknown on a new, thrilling adventure.

Linear plan of a Kirkbride building. Once state-of-the-art mental healthcare facilities, Kirkbride buildings have long been relics of an obsolete therapeutic method known as Moral Treatment. In the latter half of the 19th century, these massive structures were conceived as ideal sanctuaries for the mentally ill and as an active participent in their recovery. Careful attention was given to every detail of their design to promote a healthy environment and convey a sense of respectable decorum. Placed in secluded areas within expansive grounds, many of these insane asylums seemed almost palace-like from the outside. But growing populations and insufficient funding led to unfortunate conditions, spoiling their idealistic promise. 1 Dr. Kirkbride envisioned an asylum with a central administration building flanked by two wings comprised of tiered wards. This “linear plan” facilitated a hierarchical segregation of residents according to sex and symptoms of illness. Male patients were housed in one wing, female patients in the other. Each wing was sub-divided by ward with the more “excited” patients placed on the lower floors, farthest from the central administrative structure, and the better-behaved, more rational patients situated in the upper floors and closer to the administrative center. Ideally, this arrangement would make patients’ asylum experience more comfortable and productive by isolating them from other patients with illnesses antagonistic to their own while still allowing fresh air, natural light, and views of the asylum grounds from all sides of each ward. 2 I’m looking forward to this upcoming, Kirkbride-heavy book: Abandoned Asylums of New England: A Photographic Journey by John Gray, Historical Insight by the Museum of disABILITY History. 3 Kirkbride buildings ↩ Kirkbride buildings history ↩ Abandoned Asylums Of New England Photographed In New Book, The Huffington Post, 2012-09-07 ↩

Linear plan of a Kirkbride building.

Once state-of-the-art mental healthcare facilities, Kirkbride buildings have long been relics of an obsolete therapeutic method known as Moral Treatment. In the latter half of the 19th century, these massive structures were conceived as ideal sanctuaries for the mentally ill and as an active participent in their recovery. Careful attention was given to every detail of their design to promote a healthy environment and convey a sense of respectable decorum. Placed in secluded areas within expansive grounds, many of these insane asylums seemed almost palace-like from the outside. But growing populations and insufficient funding led to unfortunate conditions, spoiling their idealistic promise. 1

Dr. Kirkbride envisioned an asylum with a central administration building flanked by two wings comprised of tiered wards. This “linear plan” facilitated a hierarchical segregation of residents according to sex and symptoms of illness. Male patients were housed in one wing, female patients in the other. Each wing was sub-divided by ward with the more “excited” patients placed on the lower floors, farthest from the central administrative structure, and the better-behaved, more rational patients situated in the upper floors and closer to the administrative center. Ideally, this arrangement would make patients’ asylum experience more comfortable and productive by isolating them from other patients with illnesses antagonistic to their own while still allowing fresh air, natural light, and views of the asylum grounds from all sides of each ward. 2

I’m looking forward to this upcoming, Kirkbride-heavy book: Abandoned Asylums of New England: A Photographic Journey by John Gray, Historical Insight by the Museum of disABILITY History. 3

  1. Kirkbride buildings ↩

  2. Kirkbride buildings history ↩

  3. Abandoned Asylums Of New England Photographed In New Book, The Huffington Post, 2012-09-07 ↩

As they keep telling you in Basic, doing something constructive at once is better than figuring out the best thing to do hours later.

—Juan “Johnny” Rico in Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein (1959)

Wise words for a make-believe spaceman who fights alien spiders with laser guns.
[Br]eaking [Br]ain

[Br]eaking [Br]ain

If not for that diver, I would have guessed “nuclear reactor core.” Way cool. porcupineschool: (via The Deepest Indoor Swimming Pool in the World)

If not for that diver, I would have guessed “nuclear reactor core.” Way cool.

porcupineschool:

(via The Deepest Indoor Swimming Pool in the World)

xplanes: sunday fantasy #382: “Bon Voyage”, by (I think) Orson Lowell, from Life Magazine #1419, Jan 6th 1910 (via, thanks to Neil Howlett for the link)

xplanes:

sunday fantasy #382: “Bon Voyage”, by (I think) Orson Lowell, from Life Magazine #1419, Jan 6th 1910
(via, thanks to Neil Howlett for the link)

Hi. This is a man who might be a great time. Bye. P with this thing. Yeah, I think that they can we call them. Animal click yeah yeah, and making alright. So if you guys need a for boy time is something before she come and I’m not paid.
Sexy proposition, or confirmation for an upcoming vet appointment? Never change, Google voice recognition.
E.L. Doctorow said once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.
Anne Lamott