They toyed with the idea of a donkey, but they went with four sheep instead, and now four ewes are mowing the grounds of Paris’ Municipal Archives. It’s all part of a pilot program where, if successful, sheep will trim the grass of Parisian public spaces and burn no fossil fuels along the way.

Unlike the typewriter, the lowly fax machine never pulled itself out of the hive-like existence of utilitarian office machines and into literary celebrity. With their bland, functional styling, fax machines will not have their impending obsolescence capped with museum exhibitions.

From the annals of Why Smart People Do Dumb Things: The New York Times has a long piece on Paul Frampton, a theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, who meets a Czech model online, then, rather gullibly, travels to South America to get to know her in person.

If you’re applying to Stanford, this is what you’re up against. Undergrads like Ravi Fernando (Class of 2014) who can solve a Rubik’s Cube … while juggling. You might want to have a safety school! 

via @palafo

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Robot Sets Rubik’s Cube World Record: 5.

French post-structuralist philosopher/sociologist Jean Baudrillard—usually identified with his postmodern theories of simulacra—is a little bit of a fringe figure in pop culture. Known to hip academic types and avant-garde-ists, he’s maybe the kind of thinker who gets name-dropped more than read (and he’s no easy read).

Look at what Neels Castillon unexpectedly captured on film while doing some shooting at a Marseille airport. Birds doing a pretty incredible ballet in the sky. If you enjoy watching murmurations, you’ll want to watch this other footage shot in Rome and especially this breathtaking (no hyperbole here) clip from Ireland.

Close your eyes and picture a philanthropist.
Likely you envisioned a fat cat with a designer checkbook. It’s the accepted image, but not every benefactor fits the mold.
Take Mark Landis, a gentle soul who’s spent three decades surprising the staffs of small American museums with artwork presented out of the blue.

The quick backstory: “Dean Potter walks a highline at Cathedral Peak as the sun sets and the moon rises. Shot from over 1 mile away with a Canon 800mm and 2X by Mikey Schaefer. This shot was part of a bigger project for National Geographic called The Man Who Can Fly.

Andy Warhol did for art what the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) did for wrestling. He made it a spectacle. He made it something the “everyman” could enjoy. He infused it with celebrity. And, some would say, he cheapened it too.

It has been said that the dominant influences on F. Scott Fitzgerald were literature, Zelda, alcohol, and Princeton.