August 23, 2014
So which is it? Are we stupid? Or too full of ourselves?
Yet for some reason we'd escaped, had prospered, even.
The Caterpillars of Eastern Massachusetts
How does ('' == [] && this); make programmers feel?
Programming language subreddits and their choice of words presents an interactive chord graph showing how often particular languages are mentioned in other languages' communities. Another chart shows how proportional others' mentions are to the TIOBE Index. And some very elementary sentiment analysis suggests how often each language inspires pure theory, happiness and fun, or cursing. A tongue-in-cheek aside reveals that counting infrequently-mentioned languages yields another happiness/coolness chart that puts Elm at the top, just above other surprises.
The Hedge Fund and the Despot
Email, the "cockroach of the internet" (that's a compliment)
Email is still the best thing on the internet
Getting an email address was once a nerdy right of passage for Gen-Xers arriving on college campuses. Now, the kids are waging a war of indifference on poor old email, culling the weak and infirm old-people technology. One American professor maintained that, to his students, "e-mail was as antiquated as the spellings 'chuse' and 'musick' in the works by Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards." The vice-chancellor of Exeter University claimed, "There is no point in emailing students any more." The youth appear to think there are better, faster, more exciting ways to communicate than stupid email.
Yet, despite all the prognosticators predicting it will—choose the violence level of your metaphor—go out of style, be put out to pasture, or taken out back and shot, email grinds on.
"Cubs 1908. White Sox 2005. Jackie Robinson West 2014."
Chicago's Jackie Robinson West Little League team just clinched the U.S. Championship in the Little League World Series, becoming the first all-African-American team to do so. They face the South Korean squad tomorrow.
The team has attracted many prominent supporters, from Chicago and elsewhere.
A few peaks into Disney's Animation Research Library, the new morgue
Since at least the late 1950s, Walt Disney Studios had a morgue on site (auto-playing music, with option to pause), but rather than a place to temporarily keep dead bodies, the name is a reference to "morgue files" kept by newspaper reporters, where old materials were kept for reference. In 1989, the archives moved to larger, more modern facilities, renamed the Animation Research Library (ARL), a 12,000 square foot housed in a nondescript structure, which guests are required to not describe or identify by location or even neighborhood, as noted in this Telegraph article, The Jungle Book: the making of Disney's most troubled film. Given the limited access and strict controls over what can be recorded in ARL, Ultimate Disney's 2006 tour write-ups with photos and D23's Armchair Archivist interview with select Disney staff may be the closest you can get to getting inside. [more inside]
Consequences
Would you like furballs with that
A (fake) Pizza Hut in Japan is staffed entirely by cats.
Exposure is a job hazard, not a benefit
Stevie Nicks wants a shawl, and Stephen Fry wants a poster.
The catch: Both of them want you to do it for free. Or, rather, "for the exposure." [more inside]
"...and Sampras was a different cat entirely."
But can it core a apple?
On Thursday, NASA released the names and designs of three vehicles that could replace the space shuttle as means of sending our astronauts into space. [more inside]
Market Basket close to reaching a deal
And the winners are shoppers, workers, and Team Artie T. Previously. Boston-area grocery shoppers and Market Basket employees rejoice as the Demoulas families have agreed upon a settlement.
An "only in Boston" story, Market Basket's history of family feuding has been resolved with the assistance of MA Governor Deval Patrick and NH Governor Maggie Hassan. [more inside]
Love the one you're with.
Don't do what you love. "We rarely hear the advice of the person who did what they loved and stayed poor or was horribly injured for it. Professional gamblers, stuntmen, washed up cartoonists like myself: we don’t give speeches at corporate events. We aren’t paid to go to the World Domination Summit and make people feel bad. We don’t land book deals or speak on Good Morning America." [more inside]
Though I suspect that title is incorrect in this context
Damien Walter presents 21 of the best British sci-fi (sic) writers of 2014 you probably haven't heard of.
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