May 4, 2015
If you ever go to Japan, ride the trains and weep
Why can't America have Great Trains?
...Amtrak, which runs a deficit and therefore depends on money from Washington, remains on a seemingly permanent path to mediocrity.
What gives, exactly? Why can't Amtrak create any momentum for itself in the political world? Why is the United States apparently condemned to have second-rate trains?
Part of the answer, of course, is geography: Density lends itself to trains, and America is far less dense than, say, Spain or France. But this explanation isn't wholly satisfying because, even in the densest parts of the United States, intercity rail is slow or inefficient.
All about the rhythm
The Met's China Exhibit: Cultural Celebration or Appropriation?
The Met's soon-to-open exhibit, titled "China: Through the Looking Glass," tackles the impact of Chinese aesthetics on Western fashion, and how Chinese culture has inspired fashionable imagination for hundreds of years. Juxtaposing high fashion with Chinese art, film, clothing, and artifacts, the exhibit looks to explore why Western culture is as enraptured with the East as it is. [more inside]
This wasn't exactly a clean operation.
It's been a long time coming, but the Porn Trolling copyright lawyers of Prenda Law finally had (another) day in court, this time before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It went poorly.
To market, to market to sell a fat pig: A brief history of hog-driving
"Think of it: Pig drives, like cattle drives, only stranger. Who knew a pig could walk that far or would travel in the desired direction?" From Atlas Obscura: The Great Appalachian Hog Drives.
"The knives of jealousy are honed on details."
Ruth Rendell, crime writer, dies aged 85. [The Guardian]
Ruth Rendell, one of Britain’s best-loved authors, who delighted fans for decades with her dark, intricately plotted crime novels, has died at the age of 85, her publisher has announced.[more inside]
"The hell of Francisco Goya has no parallel in art."
The Courtauld Gallery is currently displaying the surviving pieces from Goya's "Witches and Old Women Album." [more inside]
Polymorphic sentient rocks! They're here to hollow out the Earth!
Is your love for jewels hampered by their inability to take on humanoid forms? Do you wish Adventure Time had been (a little) more grounded in the real world? Or are you simply one of those people who constantly have boring songs stuck in your head, and you'd like a little more colorful variety in your mental music videos? Perhaps you should watch STEVEN UNIVERSE! [more inside]
An assertion of creative agency
"What does it mean to be British? Read five outspoken collectives' views on identity in UK culture in this roundtable." - text by Zing Tsjeng for Dazed magazine (part of a series of articles on the state of the nation as the May 7 election approaches in the UK).
How to find deserving Hugo candidates?
I seriously need some helpful soul, or maybe some kind of crowd-sourced thing that can tell me what I should be reading as things come out so I’m not floundering under drifts of pages on book mountain when the Hugo nomination period opens. Preferably some recommendation engine where my fellow writers, bless you guys I love you all but damn I know how we are, are not allowed to nominate or push their own books. I don’t want reviews, I don’t even want opinions, I just want a simple but large list of titles and authorsRachael Acks about the plight of next year's Hugo nominators looking for worthy candidates in a field in which at least 4201 new novels in English were published in 2014. [more inside]
Bad Biology: How Adaptationist Thinking Corrupts Science
Biologist/blogger PZ Myers provides a nice introduction to evolutionary theory, and explains how classical Darwinism is distorted by proponents of scientific racism and other pseudoscientific movements.
You the one who is moving
RESPOND! [slyt]
Himself
AV Club staff writer Joshua Alston attended the last stop on Bill Cosby's "Far From Finished" comedy tour this past Saturday night in Atlanta and shared his observations of what may be Cosby's last comedy show.
Meet the World's Toughest Cyclist
On December 22, 2012, Buhring arrived back in Naples. Guinness World Records certified her time of 152 days total, 144 of them on the bike. She had wanted to be the fastest woman to cycle around the world; instead she was the first, or as Guinness defines it, the first to do it alone, traveling continuously and in the same direction . [more inside]
BBC 4 TV Goes Slow - fancy watching a 2 hour uninterrupted canal trip?
Inspired by a Norwegian channel that featured an uninterrupted 8-hour knitting session and a six day commentary free ferry journey through the fjords, the BBC has started a new season of 'deliberately unhurried programmes'. Enjoy a two hour, single shot drift down a canal without voiceover or interruption (which you won't have anyway, since the BBC doesn't have ads.)
It's garnering rave reviews.
.
Rated R but for the bleeps
Last December, we (The Dissolve) ran an excellent essay from familiar face Chris Klimek on the regrettable history of the PG-13 rating. He explained how the huge gulf in content between PG and R films necessitated the creation of a middle ground. The PG-13 rating was created expressly to attend to that problem, but that created a handful of problems all its own… Animator Mack Williams cooked up the video below, which reshapes Chris’ essay into a snappy, informative, and visually slick cartoon.
Movement in the Sky
What to send when you don't know what to say
The Game Done Changed
Reconsidering 'The Wire' Amidst the Baltimore Uprising (Dave Zirin for The Nation)
On biological ensembles
Welcome to this evolving collection.
Transgender Lives: Your Stories (NYT). As part of a series of editorials about transgender experiences, we are featuring personal stories that reflect the strength, diversity and challenges of the community.
Anti-Muslim or pro-freedom?
A Draw Muhammad event was attacked by two gunmen who injured a security guard before being killed by police. The event was organized by SPLC identified hate group the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which is run by Pamela Geller. Geller you may recall as the woman who fought against the Park 51 mosque, putting up posters describing Muslims as barbarians in the NYC subway, and claiming that Obama is the secret illegitimate son of Malcom X. The Daily Beast has a good summary of Geller and the event.
Sorry Pill!
What is May the 4th? Poet-laureate Tim Russ explains the origin of everyone's favorite holiday (and religious observance) May the 4th, and how it relates to the little known movie called "The Star War" [more inside]
One Year of Emptiness at the Krach Leadership Center
Fredrik deBoer reflects on disparities among university buildings and what they say about different approaches to higher education: [more inside]
That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.
The Flow Hive, the 12 million dollar Indiegogo campaign is a brand new way of keeping bees. But did we need a brand new way? And if we did, is this the right one? Erik Knutzen, co-author with his wife Kelly Coyne of the Urban Homestead and Making It calls the Flow Hive, “A solution in search of a problem.” Bees are in trouble, but the FlowHive only solves problems for the beekeeper, not the bees. [more inside]
So Open-Minded Your Brain Falls Out
When they returned home, the Laidlers took David off his restrictive diet, and he continued to improve—rapidly. Louise stopped Ben’s supplement regimen—without telling Jim—and Ben’s behavior remained the same. Then, after months of soul-searching, Jim Laider took to the internet to announce his “de-conversion” from alternative medicine—a kind of penance, but also a warning to others. “I had this guilt to expunge,” Jim says. “I helped to promote this nonsense, and I didn’t want other people to fall for it like I did.”--An Alternative-Medicine Believer’s Journey Back to Science
Why some men pretend to work 80-hour weeks
While work-life balance is generally seen as an issue mostly affecting women, many men also struggle with balancing work obligations with family. In companies which expect an "ideal" worker to produce 60-80 hour work weeks, men use a number of strategies to conserve time and shorten work weeks--with vastly different consequences depending on transparency.
It's Me or the Dog
On the pros and cons of letting your dog sleep in your bed (NYT).
« Previous day | Next day »