Posts with Recent Comments
We’re the men, and here’s the map.
Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones, an English comedian with an interest in geography and a former geography teacher who's also very funny, are the Map Men ("...Map Men, Map Map Map Men Men" 🎵 ), whose highly entertaining YouTube channel is chock full of educational cartographic goodness. Try any of their (27) videos at random, or all of them—even the ads are worth watching. Their recent episodes on undersea internet cables and country codes wouldn't be a bad place to start for the extremely online. [more inside]
Katju
“spaghettification is just 12.8 seconds away”
360 Video: NASA Simulation Plunges into a Black Hole answers the question of what it would look like to fall into a black hole. If you’d rather not, NASA also released 360 Video: NASA Simulation Shows a Flight Around a Black Hole. They also released videos explaining what is going on in the visualizations for the dive into the black hole as well as the flight around it. The press release has more information.
“...we are headed for major societal disruption within the next 5 years”
Guardian: World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target. “Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed. Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.” [Daily sea surface temperature]
No Tech for Apartheid organizers fired
In an internal memo Wednesday, Google announced the firing of 28 employees in connection to a protest of Project Nimbus. The previous day inside Google offices in New York and California, a couple dozen employees staged a sit-in to bring awareness to the $1.2 billion Israeli government contract. It began in 2021 and provides cloud computing services to Israel—specifically, we’ve recently learned, to the Israeli Ministry of Defense—and though it has faced internal criticism since its inception, efforts against it have naturally intensified since October 7th.
The memo from Google’s global head of security Chris Rackow was ominous. “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies,” he wrote to the company’s thousands of employees, “think again.” From Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket. [more inside]
Steve Albini, musician and producer has died
Steve Albini, lengendary producer (engineer) and musician has died of a heart attack at age 61. He worked with everyone from Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to Nirvana, Pixies and The Breeders.
David Bowie Serious Moonlight Tour Full Show
David Bowie Live | 1983 | Sydney | Serious Moonlight Tour | Pro shot | Complete Concert [1h50m] "On the 20th November 1983, David Bowie performed his final Australian concert of the Serious Moonlight tour. This Betamax recording was taken from a sight screen feed made at that time. The first couple of numbers, plus the end have some artefacts but, as it hasn't been viewed in nearly 40 years, the quality overall has held up well. The audio was in mono and has been remastered to bring it out more." [more inside]
Floral Notes
Haidee Chu writes about Manhattan's Flower District for The City - its history, its shop cats, and its remaining vendors' opinions on which is the better holiday for florists, Mothers Day or Valentines Day.
With photos by Ben Fractenberg. [more inside]
Do the jitterbug at a muskrat land
The Waning Reign of the Wetland Architect We Barely Know (Hint: Not a Beaver) Little-appreciated, semiaquatic, and cute-as-hell, muskrats can survive almost anywhere. So where are they? (Brandon Keim for Hakai Magazine) [more inside]
Troubling the Water (Conceptualizing science, academic freedom & China)
Yangyang Cheng explores the historical evolution of how we think about science, its capitalization, politicization, and securitization, & how the US' competition with China is restricting the future of scientific research:
"To understand the present woes in scientific collaboration between the United States and China and to conceive of a better future, one must go back in time to trace the evolution of this transpacific relationship."
Tim Hortons: Canadian icon but also a bellwether for politics
"Tims is always going to be able to lean on the ordinary Canadians thing in their advertising. It is a habit.” [more inside]
Say there is a young writer
In the dreamworld of the arts, every inanimate thing is animate, every object contains the entire world, millions of years of history and future and feeling. As she writes her story, which is ultimately her life, it can look like anything she wants. The more she thinks about it, the greater the possibilities. The more she’s cast out, the more she must innovate. The more she will be unique, the more her voice will be untamed. Whatever she is, whoever. She has lived for literature from the beginning and so literature will be her; her indomitable will shall make it so. Our young writer, still unpublished, is the essence of the word itself. Any of her books that may, that will come, be published, read—a footnote. from Every Ship Is a Passenger Too: On Publishing Today by Chris Molnar [LARB]
Is Cooking Classist? New video from Hoots
A solution that is only a solution for the people who can afford to be a part of the solution is not a solution A hour long video about cooking, food, race, gender, class and capitalism.
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Zoom in on God's Hand
Tom Driveimpossiblyquicklyer
Tom Walker tries desperately, with halting success, to complete some very basic missions in Grand Theft Auto 4 while all the cars on the map lose their fucking minds. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Come for the comedy car deaths, stay for the slow evolution of a "this is a horror stealth game" playstyle that makes it at all possible to make progress.
Hey voter voter voter voter... SWING!
See how demographic swings could impact the 2024 election: 538's new Swing-O-Matic shows which states could flip under different scenarios. [ABC News]. 538's Swing-O-Matic page gets interactive under the bold headline Create your own scenario with a bunch of sliders you can push back and forth to see how minor demographic shifts might have major implications for the 2024 US Presidential election.
Where's the Beef? The Greatest Diss Tracks in Hip Hop
The Ringer- Greatest Diss Tracks of All Time, Ranked As the Kendrick Lamar/ Drake feud continues (apparently won by Kendrick at this point), the Ringer looks over their listing of great diss tracks in hip-hop. At the Root, Noah McGee provides a different list. Alex Petridis also weighs in on the subject at the Grauniad.
Rare handfish population returned to wild
Rare handfish population returned to wild after riding out marine heatwave in tank.
They've been gently coaxed out of the plastic bag and into the big, bad underwater world where they are exposed to the elements. Now, researchers have big hopes this small group of red handfish will not only survive, but thrive — the species is depending on it.