July 27, 2014
The Lasting Impact of World War I
"The Wall Street Journal has selected 100 legacies from World War I that continue to shape our lives today." You can sort according to your interest via the tabs at the top of the page. [Previously]
The future is Barbie in a blender
Is Race Plastic? My Trip Into the "Ethnic Plastic Surgery" Minefield The writing is delightful, the subject is unsettling and the advice not to google any of the proceedure images should be heeded.
Editing photos as if they were audio files
"Masuma Ahuja and Denise Lu for the Washington Post applied a technique called databending to a bunch of photos. The idea is that computer files — even though they represent different things like documents, images, and audio — encode data in one form or another. It's just that sound files encode beats, notes, and rhythms, whereas image files encode hue, saturation, and brightness. So when you treat image files as if they were audio, you get some interesting results. Jamie Boulton has a detailed description on how to do this yourself with Audacity Effects." [via]
The Chee-Chee Girl
Born in 1913, Rose Murphy was an imaginative and percussive jazz pianist and singer nicknamed "the Chee-Chee Girl" for obvious reasons. Although she didn't make many recordings, she continued to perform up until her death in 1989. [more inside]
"Pizza with a Bisquick crust? Sounds like ’60s home ec to me."
King Arthur Flour's Flourish blog investigates America's Love Affair With Pizza from the home cook's perspective. In The Beginning asks "When did Americans start making their own pizza at home, from scratch, rather than piling into the Studebaker to drive down to the pizza parlor for takeout?", and answers by reproducing pizza recipes from 1945, 1954, and 1961. [more inside]
"the how of politics is as important as the what of politics"
Evgeny Morozov, for The Guardian: The rise of data and the death of politics
This "smartification" of everyday life follows a familiar pattern: there's primary data – a list of what's in your smart fridge and your bin – and metadata – a log of how often you open either of these things or when they communicate with one another. Both produce interesting insights: cue smart mattresses – one recent model promises to track respiration and heart rates and how much you move during the night – and smart utensils that provide nutritional advice. In addition to making our lives more efficient, this smart world also presents us with an exciting political choice. If so much of our everyday behaviour is already captured, analysed and nudged, why stick with unempirical approaches to regulation? Why rely on laws when one has sensors and feedback mechanisms? If policy interventions are to be – to use the buzzwords of the day – "evidence-based" and "results-oriented," technology is here to help.[more inside]
It began with an itch I just had to scratch.
Doesn’t every adventure begin that way? I was lying in bed reading on a Saturday evening, and without even looking I idly scratched a spot on the right side of my chest –- at that point I had a chest, not breasts. As I did, my fingers rode over a small something, a little like a speed bump about an inch below and two inches to the left of my right nipple. “That’s a lump!” I thought, and suddenly I had a right breast. With a lump in it.
Marilize Leguana
The New York Times came out today endorsing marijuana legalization. The New York Times’ editorial board on Saturday called on the federal government to legalize marijuana. Citing alcohol prohibition, social costs and states’ movements, the board argued “after a great deal of discussion” that “the balance falls squarely on the side of national legalization.”
Taking Back the Wheel
A riposte to the bros: duo Maggie & Tae take on bro country in "Girl in a Country Song" - “Like all we’re good for is looking good for / You and your friends on the weekend, nothin’ more / We used to get a little respect / Now we’re lucky if we even get / to climb up in your truck, keep our mouths shut, and ride along.” [more inside]
Art as armor
Linda Stein's wearable sculptural avatars
Linda Stein wants people to armor themselves in her art. She creates full-length wearable sculptures embedded with all manner of found objects, including driftwood, engraving plates, steel wire, zippers, pebbles and comic book imagery of superheroes.[more inside]
A hundred years ago Europe was in the midst of the July Crisis.
The BBC will be covering World War One in great detail over the next four years. They've already started, with podcasts, interactive guides, online courses, programs new and old plus much, much more. Perhaps it's best to start at the beginning, with Professor Margaret MacMillan's Countdown to World War One (podcast link) or the account of her fellow historian Christopher Clark, Month of Madness. Of course, how the war started is still contested by historians, as recounted in The Great War of Words. The latter two are also part of the main WWI podcast. Or you can dive into the Music and Culture section, go through an A-Z guide or look at comics drawn by modern cartoonists.
Fantastic 4-Song Concert - Neil Finn at KEXP
Fantastic 4-Song Concert - Neil Finn at KEXP
A few months old, but still worth a listen. Neil visits the KEXP studio in Seattle and plays 4 songs from his latest album, Dizzy Heights.
A few months old, but still worth a listen. Neil visits the KEXP studio in Seattle and plays 4 songs from his latest album, Dizzy Heights.
Apparently Miller couldn't just walk away.
After over a decade in development hell, George Miller's return to the Mad Max franchise, Mad Max: Fury Road, has emerged at San Diego Comic-Con with a teaser trailer. [more inside]
Comatose Potato Salad
"Since first opening in 1934 in a converted sheepfold off 67th Street, on the western edge of Central Park, the storied franchise (which is still licensed by the Parks Department) has been a reliable hit. Joe Baum put the restaurant on the national culinary map during the 1960s, and when Warner LeRoy doubled the capacity several years later and added the famous Crystal Room, it became one of the great circus-dining destinations in the world.
LeRoy’s heirs ran the profitable old production for years (in 2006, it was still the second-highest-grossing restaurant in the USA, behind Tao Las Vegas), until the great crash of 2008 brought their company to its knees. Now, after years of drama and delay, Tavern on the Green has opened its doors once again, this time under the direction of a hospitality operation originally from Philadelphia called the Emerald Green Group. " So begins Adam Platt's zero star review of the re-opened Tavern On The Green. Others have not been glowing. Even the Post got a few kicks in. Peter Wells' scathing takedown in the New York Times might be better experienced with some happy sheep.
"Life is breaking up the team"
-STILL- RITUALLY MUTILATED
A macabre-sounding headstone leads investigators to uncover a fascinating slice of American history. From the endlessly fascinating, and surprisingly long-running, Straight Dope message board.
No Hints, No Spoilers, and No Mames
NESMania is one man's quest to conquer every NES title, or at least all 709 officially seal-of-quality-licensed ones released in the West. [more inside]
Multiple Lovers, Without Jealousy
Polyamorous people still face plenty of stigmas, but some studies suggest they handle certain relationship challenges better than monogamous people do. The Atlantic Monthly takes on the subject of polyamory, and seems to mostly be respectful and get it right.
Does what it says on the rectilinear box.
It's Sunday, and maybe you've got nothing better to do than lie in bed and play A Game About Squares.
Buzzfeed Benny's downfall
Weird Twitter users @BLIPPOBLAPPO and @CRUSHINGBORT posted a blog entry on July 24th titled "3 REASONS BENNY JOHNSON SHOULDN’T CALL OUT PLAGIARISM: HE’S A PLAGIARIST, HE’S A PLAGIARIST, AND HE’S A PLAGIARIST" Ben Smith, the editor in chief at Buzzfeed responded to these allegations in an email to a Gawker employee calling Buzzfeed Benny "one of the web’s deeply original writers". @Crushingbort and @Blippoblappo responded with a blog post the next day with even more instances of Buzzfeed Benny's plagiarism. Buzzfeed editors started looking at all of Benny's posts and after finding 41 instances of plaigarism decided to fire him.
To her, an editor’s life was one of constantly renewed fulfillment.
More than any other editor except Harold Ross himself, Katharine White gave The New Yorker its shape, and set it on its course. -- William Shawn.
Almost 20 years ago - and almost 20 years after her death - the New Yorker profiled its legendary editor in Lady with a Pencil. [more inside]
Lyft now allowed in NYC but as a fully-regulated livery service
Regulators 1, Lyft 0 (or perhaps 0.5). After trying to launch its unlicensed "ride sharing" model in New York City, Lyft has capitulated to the regulators' demands and will instead launch as an ordinary livery car service -- using only TLC-licensed cars with TLC-certified drivers. [more inside]
"We're inspired and inspiring teachers. Schools don't let us teach!"
Originally published in 1962 as a short story in the Saturday Review, under the title "From a Teacher’s Wastebasket", Up the Down Staircase stands as the seminal novel of the American public school system. Its author, Bel Kaufman, died this week at age 103. Turned into a movie in 1967, the book and its author have an impact on teachers decades on.
Sweden’s School Choice Disaster
It’s the darker side of competition that Milton Friedman and his free-market disciples tend to downplay: If parents value high test scores, you can compete for voucher dollars by hiring better teachers and providing a better education—or by going easy in grading national tests. Competition was also meant to discipline government schools by forcing them to up their game to maintain their enrollments, but it may have instead led to a race to the bottom as they too started grading generously to keep their students.So it turns out that the good results of the Swedish school voucher system of "free" school choice, long the benchmark for those wanting to disrupt public schooling were created by, well, cheating.
What Is Public?
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