April 24, 2019
Hi Simon, I'm Theo. You're my best friend.
Simon would wait all day for the cat in the window. Then one day, Simon asked the cat his name, and a beautiful love story began. Now, Simon and Theo will have their first date on Thursday, April 25th.
Very Thin Ice
To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Autotune the News, Schmoyoho a.k.a Andrew Gregory has traveled back in time to finish his duet with Katie Couric about Climate Change. [more inside]
The Mercury 13, the First Lady Astronaut Trainees
Before Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (Space.com) became the first woman in space (previously), 25 women were privately tested with the same rigorous criteria as the original Mercury Seven (Wikipedia), and thirteen candidates were identified for further evaluation (The Ninety-Nines), before NASA forbid the testing from continuing. They didn't stop fighting for the right to be considered beside the male candidates, but it wouldn't be until 1983 that Astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. Last year, Netflix released a Mercury 13 documentary (YT, trailer), and they received mroe attention recently with the passing of Jerrie Cobb, an aviation pioneer and advocate for women in space (Ars Technica). [more inside]
Less moon, more scapes
The Sudbury Effect: Lessons from a regreened city (CBC Ideas) discusses ongoing attempts to undo the damage from over a century of mining and smelting activity in and around Sudbury, Ontario. A combination of extensive scientific study, government regulation, citizen activism, and some eventual, begrudging industry cooperation would result in long-term remediation efforts that have transformed Sudbury's once-notorious "moonscape" and recognized as a success story around the world. Watch 32 years of Sudbury re-greening from space with Google Timelapse. [more inside]
What Has Irony Done for us Lately?
I believe—like religion—that the glimmer, the metaphor, if you will, knows a great deal more than I do. And if I stay out of its way, it will reveal itself to me. (A 2019 Pushcart Prize winner) [more inside]
Why bother with nearly three months of effort to collect this data?
I found two identical packs of Skittles, among 468 packs with a total of 27,740 Skittles [more inside]
"then surely the song would be your best friend"
Why Do People With Depression Like Listening To Sad Music? (British Psychological Society): A new study in the journal Emotion (abstract) reports people diagnosed with major depressive disorder don't listen to sad music to maintain their negative feelings, but rather that they find sad music relaxing, calming or soothing. The research replicated a 2015 study that found people with depression had a far greater preference than controls for sad, low-energy music. However, when they heard these clips again, they reported that they made them feel more happiness and less sadness. [more inside]
A Internet Argument Ender about local tax rates
"Look at yourself and a hand and a shelf in the wind…"
The country soon-to-be-classic "You Can't Take My Door" is part of the upcoming album The Songularity, by Botnik Studios (previously). To write the lyrics, we are remixing all the best text we can find: Scottish folk ballads, Amazon reviews, Carrie Underwood, The Elements Of Style and more. Our predictive text computer program suggests lyrics in the style of these influences. We set the results to original music. [more inside]
Enjoy your spot in antiquity! Say hi to westerns for me!
Romantic comedy is the only genre committed to letting relatively ordinary people — no capes, no spaceships, no infinite sequels — figure out how to deal meaningfully with another human being.
Rom-Coms Were Corny and Retrograde. Why Do I Miss Them so Much? [SLNYT]
Moon mode is not what it seems
Have Huawei developed an AI that cleverly enhances your pictures of the moon? Or is it just adding artefactual moon-things to your shaky blurry snap cos it wants you to be happy? A user, Wang Yue, puts it to the test at Zhihu (Chinese language article), and Huawei respond to questions at Android Authority. [more inside]
Treatment was noninferior to "it's just a phase"
Medical visits for suicide-related issues among adolescents has doubled from 2007 to 2015, and is now over a million annual visits in the US. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among American youths age 10 to 18 years and attempted suicide is the strongest predictor of subsequent death by suicide (journal article). What can be done? [more inside]
Myopia - ugh.
The Impact of Myopia and High Myopia. (PDF) A WHO report.
"The prevalence of myopia and high myopia are increasing globally at an alarming rate, with
significant increases in the risks for vision impairment from pathologic conditions associated
with high myopia, including retinal damage, cataract and glaucoma. The impact of myopia is
difficult to determine, because there are no standard definitions of myopia and high myopia,
and recognition that myopia can lead to vision impairment is limited by the absence of a
defined category of myopic retinal disease that causes permanent vision impairment. A further
impediment to progress in this area is insufficient evidence of the efficacy of various methods
for controlling myopia."
“But perhaps it is we who need to defrag.”
LonelyStreams Shows You What Happens In Twitch Streams With Zero Viewers “But Twitch isn’t just star gamers; it’s pirate streams, bizarre Tim and Eric-style broadcasts, and average Joes just streaming their Overwatch matches. [...] All that anyone really needs to stream on Twitch is a computer and one of the various capture programs, like OBS or Fraps. If there are really thousands of unviewed streams hiding in the tall grass, it stands to reason that for the dozens of Fortnite players streaming, there’s plenty of weird shit in there too. And LonelyStreams gives me the perfect sieve to find them.” [via: Kotaku]
At any given point in time there are about 3000 livestreams on twitch alone with 0 viewers. Most of the creators are making great efforts of setting everything up and making sure their stream runs properly. It's a shame that nobody is watching. So feel free to browse around and appreciate their hard work.[more inside]
Soviet Mosaics and More
Monumental Almaty is a project to document, research, and preserve works of monumental art in Almaty, Kazakhstan. [more inside]
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