April 26, 2016
Tweeteorology
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology BirdCast: Bird Migration Forecasts in Real-Time. When, where, and how far will birds migrate? Our migration forecasts will answer these questions for the first time.
More history on the box that changed the world on its 60th birthday
On April 26th 1956, a converted World War II tanker, the Ideal-X left the Port of Newark, New Jersey. Five days later, it arrived in Port Houston, Texas, with 58 35-feet (8 feet wide by 8 feet high) containers, along with a regular load of 15,000 tons of bulk petroleum. Malcom McLean had started something big, changing the long tradition of shipping goods on ships. Before that, cargo handling was almost as labor-intensive after World War II as it had been in the mid-1800s. After McLean's innovation, shipping was transformed by this, one of the most important innovations in the global markets of production and trade (Google books preview), though that's not without its complications. [more inside]
The man in the steel cylinder
Fast forward to July 1945. In the interval the cylinder became a minor part of the neighborhood. It was sometimes used by the locals as an impromptu bench and children climbed over it and rolled it around for a playground amusement. One end of the tube was closed and one had been crimped off by the bulldozer that uncovered it, and that end had re-opened enough for a boy to discover something in it: a skeletal foot.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife ... nor his ox. (Exodus 20:17)
Cattle rustling in Texas has risen five-fold in the past decade. Driving it? Drought and desperation: "Cattle rustling has returned, but it has also changed; if the essential act has not, its context has. Today’s rustler has no hope of parlaying a few stolen cattle into a business. Rustling is no longer an aspirational crime, but a stopgap, a stay against desperation. A single head of cattle is not the seed of an empire; it’s a payday loan, a child support payment, or cash for pills. Rustling is not, in this sense, an archaic crime at all, but a crime very much of its time and place, adapted to today’s America, in which social classes are established and the frontier, whatever it was once, has collapsed." [more inside]
The myth of the "Irish slave"
Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend
Hobbes and Me: an obviously unauthorized, yet surprisingly true-to-the-original, live-action Calvin and Hobbes by Rafael Casal and featuring Daveed Diggs.
Sin Empezar: Daymé Arocena
"Meet Daymé Arocena, the Afro-Latina singer taking cues from Selena and jazz greats alike" -- "Sin Empezar" ... "Madres" ... "Don't Unplug My Body". [more inside]
I have to read all of them, right?
Sarah Spain is just a scrub muffin. Watch men sit down with ESPN anchor Sarah Spain and Chicago sports radio host Julie DiCaro and read off harrasing twitter comments about journalists to their face. As part of a campaign #MoreThanMean, to learn more about the project check out the discussion on how the video came about on More Than Sports podcast.
Puppies All the Way Down
The 2016 Hugo Award finalists have been announced. As is probably to be expected given the problems of the last two years slates have yet again had an outsized influence on the nominations. Though various fixes have been proposed the future of the award may be in doubt.
The bear doesn't panic or climb a tree to flee. It stands its ground.
What does a bear in yellowstone do all day? For the first time, trek into the wild backcountry of America's first national park and see what it looks like from a bear's point of view.
Special cameras were attached to the tracking collars of two grizzlies and two black bears in Yellowstone...Tag along as National Geographic gives you an unprecedented window into some of the most fearsome predators on Earth. Watch as these bears act as tour guides through their secret world, with little human intervention.
"A cautionary tale of mangled crisis management on an epic scale."
"Most of them hit ninth grade thinking, 'It's not for me.'"
"Students who are new to America or lack college-educated parents often don't know how important college is. They don't know their options. They don't know that the sticker price isn't necessarily their price. They don't know how to choose schools and apply for college and financial aid. They also lack the support structure that can keep them on track." Guiding a First Generation to College [NYT] [more inside]
PSA: Dogs Hate Hugs
Dogs are technically cursorial animals, which is a term that indicates that they are designed for swift running. That implies that in times of stress or threat the first line of defense that a dog uses is not his teeth, but rather his ability to run away. Behaviorists believe that depriving a dog of that course of action by immobilizing him with a hug can increase his stress level and, if the dog's anxiety becomes significantly intense, he may bite.
Encasement was certainly not something we were expecting
Reddit user _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 is leaving long comments on various seemingly unrelated threads that link together into a very horrifying secret history of LSD, WWII, and the end of the world. [more inside]
The Old New World
Meticulously built using 3D camera projections of historical photos, Alexey Zakharov's The Old New World is perhaps the best chance of seeing American cities as they were at the dawn of the 20th century.
The Grouch: Origins
OSCAR is a prototype (the size of a human hand) consisting of clickable organ modules grown from human cells. (skippable auto-playing video warning) [more inside]
“This was the day, of course, when we learned we were wrong.”
30 years ago today, a fire started near Pripyat. "The time was 1:23 a.m. The world had changed. But those sleeping just downwind had no idea."
The Chernobyl disaster began on April 26th, 1986. [more inside]
Crossing the Delaware: five primaries in the US election
With less than 200 days before deciding who will be POTUS #45, five states hold primaries today: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Following the problems with voting in New York, hopefully there won't be so many this week, although location limitations do not bode well. Since the New York primaries, Ted has cut a deal with John but thinks the convention will be contested, people are eyeing Bernie's email address book, Donald buys a ticket to Seattle but gets his historical election facts wrong while encouraging an academic discipline, John corners the astronaut demographic, Hillary rejects a non-endorsement, Joe is focusing on the Senate, and the new first rule of Abe Club is that there is no more Abe Club. [more inside]
Sir David Attenborough
Sir David Attenborough is decidely NOT dead. Yet. But he is turning 90 in a few days, and the BBC is very wisely choosing to celebrate him while he's still around to enjoy it. Their tribute page features quite a lot of material, which isn't all that hard when you consider that he's been on the air for 60 years, but does feature some rare treasures like color footage of his very first Zoo Quest program (sorry, programme), along with color still photos from the same. A BBC archivist stumbled upon a total of six color Zoo Quest episodes, all of which will air in Britain as part of the tribute. [more inside]
Microsculpture
Photographer Levon Biss has perfected an approach to macro photography which involves compositing roughly eight to ten thousand images into a final image of unsurpassed clarity and detail. He has collaborated with an entomologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History to photograph unique insect specimens. Prints of his photographs in large format (up to three meters across) will be exhibited at the museum from 27 May through 30 October, but if you can't make it in person you can view the zoomable images on his site or watch a video which explains the history of the project and provides details of his process. (previously)
Hillsborough disaster: deadly mistakes and lies that lasted decades
In 1989, ninety-six Liverpool fans died as a result of the crush in the Hillsborough Disaster at the 1989 FA Cup Semi-final (previously). Today, after 27 years of campaigns calling for justice, an inquest has finally ruled that their deaths were unlawful. The result of deadly, and tragically avoidable, mistakes and failures by the Police and Ambulance services. [more inside]
Reinvent Yourself
We’re approaching a point where technological progress will become so fast that everyday human intelligence will be unable to follow it. The Playboy Interview with Ray Kurzweil.
Two Good Men
"Where are we going, judge?" Serna asked.
"We're going to turn ourselves in," Olivera said.
"He said he was going to stay with me," Serna said. "I couldn't process a judge being my cellmate.
"They take me to the cell, and I'm sitting on my bunk. And, then, in walks the judge.
Taking a handsoff approach
Giles Coren has decided to stop masturbating forever (NSFW). The jokes write themselves.
John Smith
The great John Smith, filmmaker and artist. The Girl Chewing Gum (1976), one of the finest avant garde films of the 20th century, Om (1986), The Black Tower (1985-87) (discussion)(MLYT/Vimeo) [more inside]
I would say more, but I signed an NDA.
Uncanny Valley. "Morale is down.. We are making plenty of money, but the office is teeming with salespeople: well-groomed social animals with good posture and dress shoes, men who chuckle and smooth their hair back when they can’t connect to our VPN. Their corner of the office is loud; their desks are scattered with freebies from other start-ups, stickers and koozies and flash drives. We escape for drinks and fret about our company culture. “Our culture is dying,” we say gravely, apocalyptic prophets all. “What should we do about the culture?”"
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