August 29, 2015
No disassemble!
Escaping from Children’s Abuse of Social Robots. "the robot is programmed to run away from people who are below a certain height"
on the history of electronic music
Createdigitalmusic collects together 11+ documentaries on the history of electronic music. Ranging from 2 on Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (1 previously), to EMS (previously), to detroit, acid house, rave (previously), tresor, and more. Plus one news report an the early days of Chicago house that's a documentary in and of itself.
45 murders in 31 days
"July saw 45 homicides across Baltimore, a toll that matched the deadliest month in the city’s modern history and came amid a violent crime surge that has stretched the entire summer. The killings occurred across the city, overwhelmingly in historically impoverished neighborhoods. The victims included a 5-month-old boy and a 53-year-old grandmother, a teen stabbed to death in a dispute over a cell phone and a carryout deliveryman killed in a robbery. The Baltimore Sun sought to profile each victim, through interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors and police, as well as information on social media — and to chronicle the impact on those left behind."
‘‘Let’s all remember this moment!’’
‘Moment’ Is Having a Moment [New York Times]
“What, exactly, is a cultural moment? How long does it last? Who participates in it? Who on earth gets to decide? Can you marshal literally anything that has happened in the last 10 years, or 10 months? What are the parameters? Is there a minimum Q rating? Who has to experience a thing, be aware of it, find satisfaction (or prestige) in discussing it? And how do we distinguish kairos from chronos — a moment from an ordinary shred of time? How do we distinguish a meaningful, fateful, crucial moment from all the other moments that fall all over the place like bread crumbs out of an overturned toaster?”
"Do you think Harper has ever touched a dildo?"
Larry Chung here...
More than 600 secret societies in the US, documented in 1899
If you take Adam Parfrey's definition of a secret society as a social group that demands an oath of allegiance to join, and then consider that such societies include labor unions, business groups, rural/agrarian organizations, religious and occult organizations, sobriety groups, drinking groups, immigrants, anti-immigrant organizations, philosophy and science (including optometry) (previously), and groups for "persons of quality" who wanted to engage in "immoral acts." With that introduction, here is The Cyclopædia of Fraternities; a compilation of existing authentic information and the results of original investigation as to more than six hundred secret societies in the United States, written by Albert Clark Stevens and published in 1899, in full on Archive.org.
He was drawn to her like a yellow cat to navy blue pants
Dr. Joel Phillips, of West Trenton, NJ, is the 33rd grand-prize winner of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which challenges writers to concoct the worst opening sentence of a hypothetical novel. (Or, to look at it another way, the best sentence in the genre of "bad opening sentences.") The full list of winners, runners-up, and dishonorable mentions. [more inside]
It appears quite black.
Recovering the Mindset. Three interpretations of a single scene from Manhunter, Red Dragon and Hannibal, in a single edit. Creepy, bloody. Bon appétit.
Let's play spot the former plantation
Something you seldom think about: A fascinating imgur set of The Governor's Mansions of the United States, sorted alphabetically. [more inside]
Design flight
100 Days of Pleasantries
Social media personality extraordinaire Jacq The Stripper chronicles 100 moments from her life on the job, complete with droll, colorful pen & paper doodles. It's like Humans of New York, but with a strip club.
A Critical Library
What books should a critic own? "Each week, the National Book Critics Circle will post a list of five books a critic believes reviewers should have in their libraries." Here are all the lists, from 2007-2011. [more inside]
Palestinian journalist, Said K. Aburish, died on August 29
Three years ago today saw the end of Palestinian writer Saïd Aburish. Parkinson's disease, he was 77. Aburish chose America for education and early life experience that included Princeton, the US Army and Madison Avenue. Aburish went to ground after writing this book. Of all the obituaries, Marian Houk's of The Independent is by far the most knowing, and his keenest publisher had kind things to say. The Guardian said Aburish "did much to illuminate the relationship between the Middle East and the west," and "Aburish’s writing was notably blunt" said the New York Times. At Twitter, and Google. R.I.P.
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