October 28
Too poor for a bedroom community? Yikes!
Average earners getting squeezed out of Sacramento region’s tight housing market Average wage earners in Sacramento, who can afford a roughly $250,000 house, are being excluded from the real estate market because of low resale inventory and a lack of new construction. Sacramento may be following the lead of the Bay Area, where only higher-earning families can own a home.
And, just when that sounds bad, a more recent article, Study: Rents Rising, Incomes Declining offers more possible evidence of a worsening situation for real-estate consumers in the Sacramento area.
Casting our vote is the ultimate way we go high when they go low
Eleven days to go. Since last time, Donald announced his first 100 days of actions, but still dislikes Jeb and John, while Hillary considers Texas and (post-birthday) speaks with Michelle (post title from speech) in North Carolina, early voting is happening, and Barack has nice approval ratings (though not everywhere). In the polls, 538 reckons Donald needs a sweep of swing states, GOP "insiders" think there are secret Trump voters, another release shows ties in Georgia and Iowa, and in perhaps less reliable data, Donald has a huge lead. While social media rages and schools have concerns about being polling stations, Wikileaks continues to drip-feed mundane emails, the FBI writes a vague letter about other emails (rebuttal), Colin Powell declares for Hillary, a 'Victory Bus' tours (gallery), Evan and Mindy continue to draw support across Utah, and therapists and patients describe election stress. [more inside]
scary monsters (and super creeps)
Nightmare Machine uses a deep-learning algorithm to create Artificial Intelligence-powered "nightmares" from ordinary photographs, and it needs your votes to hone its edge: Scary or Not? [more inside]
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
Bikepedia contains detailed bicycle specifications dating back to 1993, for all your bicycle building and selecting purposes. The site also has a broader catalog of related gear, and a stolen bike registry. But if you want a ton of information about bikes, which parts to pick and how to maintain them, Sheldon Brown's (memorial*) website is still a key resource, and it's being updated all the time. [more inside]
Terror from Beyond the Stars
Classic Monster Horrorscopes by MeFi's The Whelk, who's previous spookiness spookiness includes Adult Beverages to Pair with Your Halloween Candy [via mefi projects]
We Are Always Defined From a Distance
Emma Bracy's eloquent essay about her grandfather's legacy | "Imagine the minds who gave us the ability to fly, all vision and measurements and math. Flight comes from the minds of people who aren’t afraid to plummet. The kind of people who can dream what they cannot see and then, almost miraculously, conjure it into existence. We are taught that those are people like the Wright brothers. But they are also people like my grandfather... I wonder if my grandfather knew the helicopters he helped to perfect would one day be used to surveil and oppress Black and Brown bodies."
I got a rock.
"Why would someone intentionally want to mar the goodness that is chocolate with the tiny atrocities known as raisins?" It's a good question. As is the question of why anyone would hand out Mike and Ike to innocent children. Your favorite Halloween candies, ranked. (SLVox)
Looks bad Todd
The dance floor is a quarter inch by quarter inch
aeon digital magazine posted the video Beautiful Chemical Reactions. The video is from a site Beautiful Chemistry, which is "a collaboration between University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and Tsinghua University Press (TUP)." [more inside]
I am an old and cannot properly communicate in emojis in this space
We are thrilled to announce the addition of NTT DOCOMO’s original set of 176 emoji to the MoMA collection. Developed under the supervision of Shigetaka Kurita and released for cell phones in 1999, these 12 x 12 pixel humble masterpieces of design planted the seeds for the explosive growth of a new visual language.
They Live and the secret history of the Mozilla logo
jwz tells the story of the Mozilla logo:
I'm going to draw a line through 1930s agitprop, Ronald Reagan, methane-breathing zombie space aliens, the Mozilla logo, Barack Obama and the International Commiunist Conspiracy. It's a long walk, so please stick with me.
Tap. Tap. Tappity-tap.
The other day, Marcin Wichary went to visit a museum near Figueres, Spain. He didn't get there; instead, he found a sign pointing to a different museum, where he found magic [Twitter thread]. [more inside]
This is a real app and these are real users
October 27
The Backstory Of A Modern Standard - Bonnie Raitt's
"I could feel her soul when she sang it. It was just one of those moments where the studio disappears, and the whole world disappears, and all that’s there is the emotion of that thing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what great music and great art is. It just pulls you into the moment and the feeling and emotion of it. I felt like I could feel her heart." - “I Can’t Make You Love Me”: A 25th Anniversary Oral History
The Weird Familiarity of 100-Year-Old Feminism Memes
Today’s political dialogue—which often merely consists of opposing sides shouting over one another—echoes another contentious era in American politics, when women fought for the right to vote. Then and now, a mix of political tension and new-fangled publishing technology produced an environment ripe for creating and distributing political imagery. The meme-ification of women’s roles in society—in civic life and at home—has been central to an advocacy tradition that far precedes slogans like, “Life’s a bitch, don’t elect one,” or “A woman’s place is in the White House.”
The Weird Familiarity of 100-Year-Old Feminism Memes, by Adrienne LaFrance.
PS There are early-1900s cat pics too
Dating app fatigue sets in
“I think the whole selling point with dating apps is ‘Oh, it’s so easy to find someone,’ and now that I’ve tried it, I’ve realized that’s actually not the case at all"--The Rise of Dating App Fatigue
"I have no memory of what happened then"
Vlogger Casey Neistat talks about the difference between risk and recklessness and The Day I Almost Died
Horsemen of the Lesotho high plains
Photographer Thom Pierce photographed horsemen and herders in Semonkong, Lesotho The gorgeous vistas of the mountain kingdom make for a spectacular backdrop.
Pierce was originally in the area documenting the suffering of workers in Gold mines.
In real life, all power exchange must be negotiated
[Most links NSFW] My Twin Brother Made Me Crossdress As Him And Now I Have To Deal With A Geeky Stalker And A Domme Beauty Who Want Me In A Bind!! or, Ladykiller in a Bind (trailer) is the funny, sexy, and very explicit new visual novel from Analogue: A Hate Story developer Christine Love (previously 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). It's about sex, BDSM, consent, social manipulation and girls kissing other girls on a boat. The full game (supporting PC/OS X/Linux) is not free, but a demo (PC/OS X and NSFW with a minor spoiler) is available here. [more inside]
DALEKS CONQUER AND DESTROY.
50 years ago and a week and a half or so from now, Patrick Troughton took the now iconic British sci-fi show Dr. Who into the first regeneration story and it was a doozy. Aired once and lost in a fire (I think), The Power of the Daleks has been reconstructed as a animation based on still photos and a full audio recording. See it on Nov. 19th or at a theater near you.
“So why not press the button on the off chance that this one will work?”
Pushing That Crosswalk Button May Make You Feel Better, but … [The New York Times] “It is a reflex born of years of habit: You see a button, press it and then something happens. The world is filled with them, such as doorbells, vending machines, calculators and telephones. But some buttons we regularly rely on to get results are mere artifices — placebos that promote an illusion of control but that in reality do not work. No matter how long or how hard you press, it will not change the outcome. Be prepared to be surprised — and disappointed — by some of these examples.”
Very prophetic but it is a watermelon
Bundys Acquitted
Running While Female
"43 percent of women at least sometimes experience harassment on the run, according to a recent Runner's World survey, compared with just 4 percent of men. In the vast majority of cases, it’s not life-threatening. But it is pervasive, and it’s upsetting, and it’s most likely happening to you or someone you know."
Merry Christmas, Will Byers
A Stranger Things Christmas (SLYT).
Monochromatic Nightmare
Mattis Dovier is a visual artist and director who makes black and white animations (think early 80s Mac GUI). Content Warning: flashing lights, horrific imagery, and NSFW themes throughout. [more inside]
Major Tom, Terraformer
The Road to Tama Re
An Enigmatic Ex-con, His Improvised Religion, and the Georgia Town That Watched It Fall (SL Oxford American/Warning: descriptions of abuse) [more inside]
Just because you saw a rat (okay, two rats) you want your money back?
My Beloved Little Weird Murder Husband Show
A sizable video essay on Hannibal, the embrace of The Other, and the fascination with death, courtesy of Shannon Strucci of So You Wanna Be A Film Nerd. [more inside]
The one on your missing back wheel's not pedalling!
Over 10 years ago, Klaus and Roland Bartl, from Munich rode 70 km (43 miles) along the Danube river from Passau, Germany to Linz, Austria. This was a Guinness World Record. This previous Sunday, they got round to posting the video of them riding their tandem unicycle. [more inside]
He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
8000 Match Chain Reaction — what better and more-satisfying way to encapsulate 2016 than with a red flower of FIRE? Imagine your least-favorite person or organization consumed by the flames of their own wrath... h/t Atlas Obscura
what will we reblog on tumblr now
Twitter is discontinuing Vine and shuttering its mobile app. They say users' content will remain accessible, but just in case, maybe start collecting some of the best vines now. [more inside]
A little bit on the long tradition of historical interest in the ghostly
"Many historians, I fear, still think of ghosts as the province of a small number of specialist ‘historians of the ghostly’, such as Peter Marshall, Sasha Handley and Shane McCorristine. They are prepared to acknowledge that belief in ghosts, like other supernatural beliefs, can be illuminating of the culture of a particular time and place." Yet "Every half decent historian has had this experience: for a moment, the past seems more real than the present, and the absence of the dead an absurdity." Why Historians Need Ghosts, an article by Dr. Francis Young. [more inside]
Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before
In theory, any of the major characters could have been the star of this episode. But it is not at all a coincidence that it is Beverly — a woman, a healer, a mother, and Picard’s occasional love interest — who lives out this story. Star Trek’s Feminist Statement: Believe Women
"It suddenly looks like it's made for cooking"
In Food Hacking, a documentary series of shorts from Vice's Munchies, host Simon Klose explores the people and science mapping out new boundaries of Japanese cuisine, as well as their social and environmental implications. [more inside]
Teaching (and Collecting) with Calvin and Hobbes
In 1993, Bill Watterson did something he almost never did: he approved a piece of Calvin & Hobbes merchandise. No, not a T-shirt or a window sticker of his hero peeing on a Ford logo. The merch was Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, a middle-grade reading textbook. It has become the Holy Grail of C&H collectors, with a Blogspot column that "archives information from all sources about the rare and collectible textbook". Copies are valued as high as $34,000. Eight are known to exist in libraries, half in North Dakota (where the book was published) and one in Singapore.
The Weaponisation of the Working Class
The moment we get too uppity and start demanding anything other than commitments to the further brutalisation of foreign people at the hands of the state, they will turn on us just as quickly as they do on our non-native neighbours. We will be shifted from the frame where we are honest hard working salt of the earth noble peasants, to the frame where we are obese thick scroungers suitable only to be mocked on a Channel 5 docusoap.McDuff on how the fetishisation of the very real concerns of the (white) working class in British politics doesn't extend outside of providing cover for racists.
October 26
The Failure of Adolesence
"Progressive societies cared for their children by emphasising play and schooling; parents were expected to shelter and protect their children’s innocence by keeping them from paid work and the wrong kinds of knowledge ... adolescence soon became a vision of normal development that was applicable to all youth – its bridging character (connecting childhood and adulthood) giving young Americans a structured way to prepare for mating and work. In the 21st century, the bridge is sagging at both ends as the innocence of childhood has become more difficult to protect, and adulthood is long delayed." [more inside]
Kesha, Interrupted
A profile of the artist by Taffy Brodesser-Akner [content warning: sexual assault]
GifCities!
To celebrate "20 years of preserving the web", the Internet Archive has unveiled GifCities – The Geocities Animated GIF Search Engine. [more inside]
Arrrr
Iceland's Pirate Party looks likely to take the country's election next weekend - "If you're worn out and depressed with the US election campaign, ponder what's going on in Iceland for a moment. The country's Pirate Party, founded less than four years ago by a group of activists, anarchists, and hackers, is poised to upend Icelandic politics with an Oct. 29 general-election victory."
What kittens look like mid-pounce
But you map one sheep...
ANY QUESTIONS?
A non-fiction comic book about making journalistic sausage
Oh, doctor, I don't speak Jive.
“The Library exists ab aeterno.”
An Attempt to 3D Model Jorge Luis Borges’s Library of Babel [Hyperallergic] Programmer Jamie Zawinski has created a digital rendering of the infinite, hexagonal library that is the subject and setting of Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Library of Babel.”
how do you solve a problem like Peter?
Peter Thiel[readme] (Paypal inventor, venture capitalist, libertarian, vampire, techno-optimist, futurist, tranhumanist, lawsuit-machine finanicier and inflation-predicting billionaire) is supporting Donald Trump for President of the United States, and thinks America made a (one of many) wrong turn granting women the vote. Why?
This has made some of his compatriots in Silicon Valley (and New York, but not Chicago) anxious. [more inside]
This has made some of his compatriots in Silicon Valley (and New York, but not Chicago) anxious. [more inside]
"Hello, I'm a Social Justice Warrior, and I'm here to take your guns."
There are a couple of other things you should know. When you’re reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, you are now required by law to say “one nation, under a groove.” Also, after careful deliberation, we’ve decided to change the National Anthem to something a little less militaristic: Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” Standing while the anthem is playing will be optional, but bobbing your head during the acoustic guitar breaks will be strictly enforced.
By the way, America is now gluten-free.