Every few weeks, I check in with Tina’s site, Swiss Miss, and feel an urge to repost everything. Some recent highlights.

Same Song in 15 Places is beautiful. I’d watch a dozen more:

the Wikisinger from Touché Videoproduktion on Vimeo.

A tea bag that’s also a marionette.

Wowwowowow. Abandoned Soviet Space Center with two unfinished shuttles inside.

Getting Past Status Anxiety got me thinking.

I remember when the whole web was mostly stuff like this. I love you, Internet.

Thanks, Paul.

I love this video of a man trying out heels. What he had to say beforehand:

“Every wedding or fancy event I’ve ever been to has involved at least one girl complaining about how much pain they’re in because of their footwear. Blah blah blah. I get it, your feet hurt… let’s get back to some grinding.”

What he said after:

“People love to talk about how girls are kind of, like, pissy sometimes, and like in bitchy moods. And I completely get it right now. Like, I want to kill everybody.”

Truth.

via boing boing

Have you read this piece in the New York Times about the Russian Troll Factory where hundreds of highly paid employees are paid to spread disinformation and leave pro-Kremlin comments in regular news outlets?

They’re believed to be behind a chemical explosion hoax in Louisiana that partially played out on Twitter:

Hundreds of Twitter accounts were documenting a disaster right down the road. “A powerful explosion heard from miles away happened at a chemical plant in Centerville, Louisiana #ColumbianChemicals,” a man named Jon Merritt tweeted. The #ColumbianChemicals hashtag was full of eyewitness accounts of the horror in Centerville. @AnnRussela shared an image of flames engulfing the plant. @Ksarah12 posted a video of surveillance footage from a local gas station, capturing the flash of the explosion. Others shared a video in which thick black smoke rose in the distance.

Terrifying, and pretty genius.

Whoa. Did you hear the Radio Lab podcast about the Japanese paper balloon bombs? The government used the jet stream winds to successfully propel unpiloted Fu-Go balloon bombs to the U.S. during WWII. When the bombs started detonating, thousands of them, the U.S. government requested that the press keep quiet for national security purposes. And they did.

This sexy legs contest addresses a very specific kind of fetish.

I feel like my grandma would have loved to wear this around the house with her little heeled maribou slippers.

Do you know about right-eye miniatures?

Vintage Dries Van Noten sweater. I have a thing for giant bows lately.

I like to shop for shoes and then not purchase them. Exhibits A-E:
Simple Mules, $130
Lace-Up Full Foot Sandal, $59
Triple Strap Oxford, $135
Wave Slide Sandal, $300
Dries Van Noten canvas wedge on eBay, $200

The Sphaerocoris Annulus is a really good bug.

I’m hoping to give birth this weekend. What are you up to?

Paper carvings by Maude White.

FUN

Baby dancin’! Leave it to the web to take “playing with your baby” viral.

Perfect party hats for your next baton-twirling party.

Snow graffiti. File under people you want to be friends with, but it will probably be hard to get them to come out, because they’re busy making stuff. Like tea. (via BB-Blog)

STUFF

Bunch O Balloons lets you fill and tie 100 water balloons in less than a minute. The future is now.

They don’t have these in my size anymore, but maybe you’ll luck out.

Pendleton’s collaboration with Urban Outfitters is neat.

I’m slowly adding to my collection of not-stupid clothes that make it easy to nurse/breastfeed.

LEARNING

My Own Life, Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer “Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.”

Kanye West vs. White Mediocrity “It’s far from an original observation that primarily black venues are more demanding of technical excellence than primarily white ones. The Apollo Theatre still has an executioner who will shoo you offstage in the middle of your act if it’s found wanting. There’s no other record label that ever matched the exacting standards and relentless discipline of Berry Gordy’s Motown machine. For all the bragging about technical virtuosity among, say, metal guitarists, metal lacks a tradition of direct public challenge equivalent to MCs in a rap battle. Joe Jackson saw the Osmonds’ show, created a similar show with his own sons only with much more grueling standards of performance and choreography, and the rest is history.”

A free guided meditation that didn’t irritate me. These are harder to come by than I expected, perhaps because I need to meditate more.

I liked this Brain Pickings Piece on Wanda Gág, who was an artist and entrepreneur.

Happy Valentine’s Day! This is our heart window (Forgive the dust, we live up high and I’m not into riding my 90-year-old landlady on how often the outside windows are cleaned.) I cut the hearts out of semi-transparent Folia origami paper. Cheaper than vellum, saner than melting crayons between sheets of wax paper; recommended for all your glowy window project needs.

Fascinating Smithsonian Mag story of a family cut off from human contact for 40 years.

This vintage dress cracks me up.

This makes me all teary about kids.

A big board of amazing Sailor Valentines. I want to make one someday, but I don’t really want to own it afterward? Conundrums.

How the creators of Cards Against Humanity bought a private island, parceled it off to fans, and hid 250,000 one-of-a-kind sloth cards and a bottle of good scotch onshore.

My friend Sarah admired my scissors the other day, this is where I got them.

And speaking of Sarah, who is an interior decorator, she recently landed the most delightful gig on record.

This personalized baby rattle is such a cool idea.

This news about the Easter Island heads came out years ago, but I keep being surprised by how may of my friends don’t know. Cocktail party conversation fodder.

Some clean ($40), basic ($66) dresses ($93) on sale at ASOS.

Little bit of lux in the morning.

Solid Etsy fan art makes me happy.

Did you know you can buy balloons with LED lights in them? They light up when you pull a little tab out and blow them up.

I started learning to meditate this week, and the book suggested picturing yourself somewhere where you feel calmest. I like to think of this image by Wayne Levin.

Jo Goddard has a great guide to outsourcing your life if you live in a city. I use a handful of these services pretty regularly.

I bought one of these as a new go-to dress for airplane travel.

Did not buy this, but if I saw someone wearing it I’d assume they were my people.

This would be cute for Valentine’s Day in pink, and it’s on sale too.

Simple genius idea for freezing bacon portions.

Whoa! Did you know this happened in 1961? I had no idea. More from this article in The Week.

These are charming.

I’m looking at baby stuff and love this clever wooden magnetized toy.

Necklaces that pay homage to your true loves.

Grapefruit is my favorite booze flavor, and I just read about this grapefruit liquor, have you tried it?

On perfectionism: Artist Pierre Bonnard once convinced his friend Edouard Vuillard to distract a museum guard while he touched up one of his paintings hanging there. Been there, Pierre.

• I read an article that mentions anhedonia. It means living in the absence of pleasure or desire, an affliction sometimes related to depression.

• Have you seen these One Clique mix-and-match heels? You can pair a shoe upper with several shoe bases in their collection. They’re currently sold out.

• November’s O Magazine had a section on what to do when you have ailing or dying parents. I’ve been mulling two parts of Martha Beck’s “You’re Doing Fine:

Consider traditional Tibetan culture, in which children are encouraged to ponder their own demise, where the word for body can be translated as “something you leave behind,” and where revered teachers like Gyalse Rinpoche advise, “If you have got to think about something, make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death.” Does that upset you? Then you’re at war with one of the few certainties in life.

and also

When a friend of mine was dying, she said something I’ll never forget. “Guilt is useless,” she began. “If you did something wrong, let it go. If there’s something you’re doing wrong now, do better. If you can’t do better, forgive yourself.”