That's Interesting
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The Mathematics Behind Origami, the Ancient Japanese Art of Paper Folding
25th March, 2021The two characters at the core of origami (折り紙), one of the best-known Japanese words around the world, mean “folding” and “paper.” Given the variety and elaborateness of the constructions produced by origami masters over the past few centuries, the simplicity of the practice’s basic nature bears repeating. Those masters must develop no slight degree of manual dexterity, it goes without saying, but also a formidable mathematical understanding of their medium.
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The heavens underground: the Soviet Union’s opulent metro stations, from Belarus to Uzbekistan
04th March, 2021Decorated with chandeliers, mosaics, and Lenin busts, the Soviet Union produced the most photographed transport system in the world. In this excerpt from Fuel’s latest book, Soviet Metro Stations, writer Owen Hatherley and photographer Christopher Herwig celebrate the metro’s expansive architectural legacy, travelling as far as Tashkent and Baku.
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The Complete Works of Hilma af Klint Will Get Published for the First Time in a Beautiful, Seven-Volume Collection
24th February, 2021The seven-volume series, published by Bokförlaget Stolpe, “is organized both chronologically and by theme, beginning with the spiritual sketches af Klint made in conjunction with The Five, a group of women who attended séances in hopes of obtaining messages from the dead.”
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The unique world of North Korea’s kids TV
13th November, 2020North Korean children get 30 minutes of dedicated programming every day, but it’s all carefully crafted to suit the country’s defiant, military-first philosophy. BBC Monitoring’s North Korea expert Alistair Coleman takes a look.
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How one man spent 600 days walking the Silk Road to see the Caucasus and Central Asia by foot
23rd October, 2020In August 2018, anthropology graduate Daniele Ventola left Italy to embark on the biggest adventure of his life — a journey to China along the Silk Road — on foot.
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10,000 Vintage Recipe Books Are Now Digitized in The Internet Archive’s Cookbook & Home Economics Collection
14th October, 2020Cookbooks are windows into history—markers of class and caste, documents of daily life, and snapshots of regional and cultural identity at particular moments in time.
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High-Resolution Walking Tours of Italy’s Most Historic Places: The Colosseum, Pompeii, St. Peter’s Basilica & More
24th September, 2020Whether the Colosseum and Palatine Hill in Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and the towns of Pompeii (in two parts) and Herculaneum both ruined and preserved by Mt. Vesuvius, ProWalk’s videos show you all you’d see on an in-person waking tour. But they also include features like maps, marks in the timeline denoting each important site, and onscreen facts and explanations of the features of these historic places.
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A Short Introduction to Caravaggio, the Master Of Light
03rd September, 2020Like many a great artist, the fortunes of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio rose and fell dramatically. After his death, his influence spread across the continent as followers called Caravaggisti took his extreme use of chiaroscuro abroad. He influenced Rubens, Rembrandt, and Velázquez—indeed, the entire Baroque period in European art history probably would never have happened without him. “With the exception of Michelangelo,” art historian Bernard Berenson wrote, “no other Italian painter exercised so great an influence.”
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