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Trump Verdict Thread
The jury has reached a verdict and is currently filling out paperwork until about 5:15 Eastern. Trump was looking cheerful and relaxed, sharing smiles and laughs with his lawyers, as they prepared to leave for the day. As soon as the judge announced that instead we had a verdict, his demeanor changes dramatically. He crossed his arms and knitted his brows. He continued to whisper with attorney Todd Blanche, but no longer cheerfully. [more inside]
Together!
In 1994 the Pet Shop Boys were invited to perform 'Go West' at the Brit Awards. They agreed and brought with them 3 separate choirs of miners. Some of those miners had marched with the gay and lesbian members of LGSM in the 1980s. It is one of the great, near-lost music moments [Vimeo, via John Bull, via MetaFilter's own JScalzi]
The Secret Code of Melody
The 24 Universal Melodic Figures [of Western music] "Have you ever found yourself humming along to a song that you’d never heard before? How is this even possible? Could it be that you possess some musical superpower?
You may indeed be an extraordinary person, but this particular skill is unexceptional. Every melody you know—plus every melody you don’t yet know—draws from just 24 melodic patterns or “figures.” You see, there are just so many ways to arrange the notes in a major or minor key into patterns that “make sense”—that “sound like music.”"
Monotropism: single attention and associated cognition in autism
“Me and monotropism : a unified theory of autism,” suggests that attentional differences explain not only the diagnostic criteria for autism, but better yet, they explain the internal phenomenology: inertia, sensory and social overload and insensitivity, stimming, and particularly hyperfocus and intense interest.
Test yourself here.
Test yourself here.
Free tax filing, now and forever. (Actual taxes still not free)
The IRS announces that "Direct File will be a permanent, free tax filing option." Despite years of lobbying from the likes of Intuit and H&R Block, the IRS ran a successful pilot program of its Direct File program with 12 states. Today, they announced that the program will be permanent and invited all states to participate.
“clientelism is the main organizing force within Hobbit politics”
The Moral Economy of the Shire is an analysis by Nathan Goldwag of how hobbit society is structured in Middle Earth, explaining what models Tolkien drew on, and how its shown in the books. This is one of a series of posts about Tolkien’s works, which range from an alternate history of a victorious Sauron to a consideration of whether dwarves are analogous to Jews and the metafictional nature of Lord of the Rings.
disquieting images that just feel 'off'
If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.So stated an anonymous 2019 thread on 4chan's /x/ imageboard -- a potent encapsulation of liminal-space horror that gave rise to a complex mythos, exploratory video games, and an acclaimed web series (previously; soon to become a major motion picture from A24!). In the five years since, the evolving "Backrooms" fandom has canonized a number of other dreamlike settings, from CGI creations like The Poolrooms and a darkened suburb with wrong stars to real places like the interior atrium of Heathrow's Terminal 4 Holliday Inn and a shuttered Borders bookstore. But the image that inspired the founding text -- an anonymous photo of a vaguely unnerving yellow room -- remained a mystery... until now. [more inside]
The number of women murdered by partners also went down
States that passed unilateral divorce laws saw total female suicide decline by around 20 percent in the long run. Study.
The Cassandra of American intelligence
Intelligence analysis is a notoriously difficult craft. Practitioners have to make predictions and assessments with limited information, under huge time pressure, on issues where the stakes involve millions of lives and the fates of nations. If this small bureau tucked in the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters has figured out some tricks for doing it better, those insights may not just matter for intelligence, but for any job that requires making hard decisions under uncertainty. from The obscure federal intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right [Vox]
"I Spent Three Years Talking to Boys. Here’s What I Found"
"I Spent Three Years Talking to Boys. Here’s What I Found" This is not to say that people who aren't male aren't struggling. It just says, people who are male are, and in these specific ways. [more inside]
Wait for it ...
Before you go "Aw, this is programmer b***s***!" and huck (maybe "huque" if you're Canadian) (or French) your laptop out the window, just hang on.
TLDR: Python Notebooks for Fundamentals of Music Processing [more inside]
Not an accurate depiction of the fur trade
Hundreds of Beavers is an indie film made in six weeks for $150,000. It's like a modern combination of 20s and 30s slapstick films and live-action Looney Tunes. It's currently available on Apple and Amazon streaming platforms. A 19th century trapper battles nature and wildlife (depicted by people wearing mascot costumes) to win the hand of a furrier's daughter. It's filled with hundreds of gags. Here's the trailer, the opening, and a clip showing the costumes.
Dictatorships depend on the willing
The Stasi files offer an astonishingly granular picture of life in a dictatorship—how ordinary people act under suspicious eyes. Nearly three hundred thousand East Germans were working for the Stasi by the time the Wall fell, in 1989, including some two hundred thousand inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, or unofficial collaborators, like Genin. In a population of sixteen million, that was one spy for every fifty to sixty people. In the years since the files were made public, their revelations have derailed political campaigns, tarnished artistic legacies, and exonerated countless citizens who were wrongly accused or imprisoned. Yet some of the files that the Stasi most wanted to hide were never released. In the weeks before the Wall fell, agents destroyed as many documents as they could. Many were pulped, shredded, or burned, and lost forever. But between forty and fifty-five million pages were just torn up, and later stuffed in paper sacks. from Piecing Together the Secrets of the Stasi [The New Yorker; ungated]
Justice League
Major League Baseball has incorporated the statistics of former Negro Leagues players into its historical records on its website, meaning legendary leaders in some categories like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb have now been replaced in the record books by players who were not allowed to play on the same fields as them during segregation. Josh Gibson, one of the greatest sluggers in the history of the Negro Leagues, is now listed as MLB’s new all-time career leader in batting average at .372, moving ahead of Ty Cobb at .367. The MLB website shows Gibson also overtaking Babe Ruth in career slugging percentage. [more inside]
20 Places to Donate Used Books
"Books are an important part of our lives but many of us still struggle with what to do with old books. When we decide it’s time to part with them, we want to know they are going to a nice home where they can continue to enrich and improve other people’s lives." [more inside]
The Literature of Change
New Scientist writers pick their favourite science fiction books of all time - some classics, some obvious modern picks, and some genuine surprises.
Native American restaurants across the U.S.
A blueprint for how Google organizes everything on the web
Leaked Documents Reveal How Google Search Gatekeeps the Internet This week, a 2,500-page leak, first reported by search engine optimization (SEO) veteran Rand Fishkin, gave the world an insight into the 26-year-old mystery of Google Search.
Yes, they wood build a satellite out of that material
Magnolia wood is great for building, as it resists splitting and glues well. It's so good that Japan built the LignoSat probe out of the wood, which will be better for Earth when the satellite inevitably reenters the atmosphere.
What one man learned living alone in the wilderness for 40 years
In his memoir, “The Way of the Hermit,” Ken Smith dispels myths about the solitary life off the grid. Review by Laurie Hertzel The first half of this book is a rip-roaring read, filled with death-defying adventures — fighting off grizzly bears; avoiding a charging bull moose; nearly freezing in an ice-encrusted tent. Smith falls into a raging river, loses his supply pack and nearly drowns. Still, he loved it all: “It was intoxicating, invigorating, and utterly liberating.”