September 21
"You get your heart broken often enough, you learn your lesson"
The Galileo Affair
It had been hiding in plain sight. The original letter — long thought lost — in which Galileo Galilei first set down his arguments against the church’s doctrine that the Sun orbits the Earth has been discovered in a misdated library catalogue in London. Its unearthing and analysis expose critical new details about the saga that led to the astronomer’s condemnation for heresy in 1633.
THIS PLACE BLOWS I QUIT
In a similar vein to their listing of the saddest desperation cocktails made by readers, the folks at Deadspin asked for the readership's best quitting stories.
And they delivered. [more inside]
And they delivered. [more inside]
Bad apple spoils eating behaior research
Cornell University's “world-renowned eating behavior expert," Brian Wansink, has resigned (WaPo link) following the news, per Vox, that 13 of Wansink’s studies "have now been retracted, including the six pulled from [the Journal of the American Medical Association] Wednesday. Among them: studies suggesting people who grocery shop hungry buy more calories; that preordering lunch can help you choose healthier food; and that serving people out of large bowls encourage[s] them to serve themselves larger portions." [more inside]
15 dollars per ounce
Arguably one of the greatest dogs in film history
Oh my love for the first time in my life my eyes are wide open
Released from the vaults: How Do You Sleep? (footage of Takes 5 & 6, Raw Studio Mix Out-take) - John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band with their "diss track" (Beatles Bible entry) in response to Paul McCartney's apparent jabs at John in his tracks Too Many People (YT; BBe) and Back Seat of My Car (YT; BBe). The video was released as a teaser for the forthcoming Imagine: The Ultimate Collection (BBe), which the official johnlennon YouTube account has been promoting with a series of videos and clips, including some annotated videos (turn on the captions), for Crippled Inside (evolution mix), Jealous Guy (raw studio mix, film excerpt), and Jealous Guy (Elements Mix) featuring Nicky Hopkins.
Yeah, I’m Dead to Marvel. Trust Me.
She stresses how many “lovely” colleagues at Marvel, including her editor Wil Moss, expressed shock and compassion after both Mockingbird and Vision’s cancellations. “I don’t think that it was part of some kind of like, sexist conspiracy,” she says. “I think it was some really smart, funny, friendly boys in a room making a decision and it never occurred to them that this was important, or that these kinds of comics needed a place.”Chelsea Cain talks about Marvel, the comics freelancer life and the lack of support she received after being targeted by rightwing assholes. Note that Marvel's editor in chief used to pretend to be Japanese in order to get jobs reserved for actual freelancers rather than editorial staff.
Don't worry, Dabchick, this one's on me.
Barnaby Dixon is a puppeteer and animator who makes YouTube videos featuring his amazing finger puppets. [more inside]
as a mother, I learned the phrase "as a mother" is divisive & indulgent
Visiting a Syrian refugee camp with Save the Children, [Samantha Cameron] describes how “as a mother, it is horrifying to hear the harrowing stories of the children I meet today”...Is Cameron suggesting that mothers have a special sensitivity that non-mothers lack? That the latter would be less horrified?...If I’m honest, becoming a mother has made me more likely to be upset by images of children in pain. However, this says less about the virtues of motherhood and more about my own moral failings, such as an inability to empathise with others unless their experiences are closely aligned with my own. As a mother, I've learned the phrase "as a mother" is divisive and indulgent (Glosswitch, The New Statesman)
I never actually picked this place. It just ended up that way.
Meet Sjors Horstman. He has spent the last 31 years of his life at the bottom of the Grand Canyon as a volunteer for the National Park Service. [more inside]
That's today!
“A lot of our conclusions about the sixties are going to be upended.”
“The FBI issues a memo instructing their informants (of which there were hundreds) going into that convention to vote with the national office because it is far preferable for the national office — Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn, the people who would go on to form Weather Underground — to assume power of SDS. Because they’re going to go off. They’re going to commit acts of violence. They’re going to be on the other side of the law and they can be marginalized much more quickly, alienated from US society. Progressive Labor Party, on the other hand, is a disciplined, democratic-centralist organization and if they have power, that’s not going to be good.” Infiltrating the Left - an interview with Aaron J. Leonard, co-author of A Threat of the First Magnitude: FBI Counterintelligence and Infiltration from the Communist Party to the Revolutionary Union — 1962-1974 about how the FBI secured informants and actions against the American Left (Jacobin)
I vow to tread lightly, act kindly, and explore mindfully.
Palau is an nation made up of a chain of islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has just 21,000 citizens, and hosts more than 150,000 tourists each year. But how can a nation with such a heavy reliance on tourism protect itself to maintain the beauty that those tourists are looking for? Perhaps by making each visitor sign a pledge in their passport upon arrival. [more inside]
Judging by the Cover
How the magazine industry’s identity crisis is playing out on its front page: Print may be dying, but the magazine cover still plays an essential role in defining—and sustaining—a media brand. Can the cover outlive the magazine?
Traditions of Life
Human culture is now a Google search Our retention of information and our ability to pass it down changes traditions. Now we rely on Google to tell us about our people’s and how we react and act towards events and what we traditionally do.
Playing God
John Lewis are introducing a pick 'n' mix style display to allow you to select your own personalised tin of Quality Street. Meanwhile the 'controversial' Honeycomb Crunch is being dropped from ordinary tins after only being introduced a couple of years ago.
*gulp*
An ROV from the Exploration Vessel Nautilus has a remarkable encounter in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Windex, flea collar, hot dusty VCR, the color brown
Rooms and what they smell like. I don’t know what else to tell you. (SLInstagram)
September 20
Black Cowboy Photography (2017) & Documentary (9/22)
An exhibition of photographs held in Harlem in 2017, and a documentary film about LA cowboys (upcoming). A quick internet search of “American cowboy” yields a predictable crop of images. Husky men with weathered expressions can be seen galloping on horseback. They’re often dressed in denim or plaid, with a bandana tied ‘round their neck and a cowboy hat perched atop their head. Lassos are likely being swung overhead. And yes, they’re all white.
Contrary to what the homogenous imagery depicted by Hollywood and history books would lead you to believe, cowboys of color have had a substantial presence on the Western frontier since the 1500s. In fact, the word “cowboy” is believed by some to have emerged as a derogatory term used to describe Black cowhands. [more inside]
We have Liftoff
One Small Step is a new animated short about a young girl inspired to follow her dreams by Taiko Studios. It's directed by former Disney animators Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas.
The Billboard Boys
On the Nature of Daylight
Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" has now been turned into a short film. Originally released on the 2004 album The Blue Notebooks, contemporary composer Max Richter's stirring "On the Nature of Daylight" has been featured in a number of films and television shows, including Arrival (spoilers!) and Castle Rock. This summer, on the eve of its fifteenth anniversary, the piece was made into a short video starring Elisabeth Moss.
The dirt is shouting out for us to come back here and rescue our town.
On Sept. 22, 1500 US Museums Open Their Doors for Free
This coming Saturday, September 22, 2018, more than 1,500 museums will open their doors for free as part of Museum Day. Organized by Smithsonian magazine, the annual event includes free admission to museums and cultural institutions in all 50 states. Participating museums range from large, popular institutions like the Zoo Miami to quirky and fascinating specialty museums, like the National Barber Museum in Canal Winchester, Ohio. Visitors are allowed to download one ticket per email address, and each ticket provides free general admission for two people. [more inside]
Cthulhu Rolling
Scientists Gave MDMA to Octopuses—and What Happened Was Profound - "The results of their experiment, in which seven octopuses took MDMA, were 'unbelievable.'" (NPR, NYT, HuffPo, LS, NG, Graun, Vice, WaPo)
An Oral History of 'Rounders'
Going All In: An Oral History of 'Rounders'. How two first-time screenwriters, a guy from Montana, and a pair of up-and-coming movie stars made the greatest poker movie ever.
The Voice and its Village
An alum looks back at the storied alt weekly [The Baffler]: "When I think about my two stints at the now-shuttered Village Voice—for which I freelanced regularly from the late seventies to the late eighties, returning as a staff writer from 1994-1999—one unexpected but apt word that keeps popping to mind is 'fecund.'" THE VILLAGE VOICE (1955–2018) [Art Forum]: "The destruction of the Village Voice—in the spirit of the paper itself, let’s not mince words about the nature of its ending—may not have been a surprise, but it was still a shock to the system." The demise of the Village Voice, previously: "Today is kind of a sucky day."
Liars.
After a nice dinner, selling the Chequers plan is not going terribly well for Theresa May, prefering her own plan to Michel Barnier's (which Jeremy Corbyn isn't fond of either). Donald Tusk says it "will not work". Nicola Sturgeon wants Brexit delayed. Jacob Rees-Mogg wants to 'Chuck Chequers'. Leanne Wood is otherwise occupied, Keir Starmer is pretty negative and Vince Cable will oppose it. Michael Gove thinks it is temporary, Boris Johnson refers to 1066, Lynton Crosby is busy plotting, while Mike Penning refers to the dodo. And Emmanuel Macron exclaims that "those who explain that we can easily live without Europe, that everything is going to be alright, and that it's going to bring a lot of money home, are liars". The clock ticketh.
deconstructing American Evangelical Christianity
The Struggle For A New American Gospel
This past May, I found myself in the packed auditorium of the First United Methodist church in downtown Austin, listening to Bible stories. The creak of the wooden pews and the smell of hymnals summoned a rush of memory. Yet the hundreds of mostly young, tattooed people surrounding me suggested I’d ventured far from the old religion. The tales about Elijah, Mary, and the Roman centurion that evening were part of a live recording of The Liturgists, one of the country’s most popular podcasts on spirituality, with over four million listeners per month. Its creators, Michael Gungor and Mike McHargue, both based in Los Angeles, are former evangelical Christians who had abandoned their faith only to return via the teachings of mystics, and by embracing science, philosophy, and social justice. While they insist their show isn’t explicitly Christian, McHargue told me, “Helping Christians deal with feelings of marginalization, oppression, and alienation is part of our work.” It explains how I came to find them, and why I still felt itchy in the pew. For me, to sit in a church is to be vulnerable, and no passage of time could stop that.[more inside]
Magecart, skimming credit card information online since 2015
Since March 2016, hundreds of thousands, if not more, credit cards and other details have been stolen during payment from dozens of online shops worldwide (ClearSky Cyber Security), due to JavaScript code injections that RiskIQ dubbed Magecart. In June 2018, Ticketmaster UK's credit card processing partner, Inbenta, was compromised and Magecart code injected (Security Week). But this was just a small part of a larger effort. As of July 2018, at least 800 e-commerce sites are said to be affected, after they included code developed by third-party companies and later altered by hackers (ZDnet). [more inside]
Farewell, Racked
After 11 years of intelligent writing about fashion, beauty, shopping and other topics traditionally coded as "female," Racked ceased publication on September 14th. [more inside]
Training Module
“— just a more humane way of killing lobsters.”
Is there a humane way to boil lobsters alive? One woman thinks it’s by getting them high. [Vox] “Charlotte Gill, the owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, Maine, is getting lobsters high before boiling them alive, according to a report by the Mount Desert Islander. “I feel bad that when lobsters come here there is no exit strategy,” Gill, who has a state-issued medical marijuana license, told the publication. “It’s a unique place and you get to do such unique things but at the expense of this little creature. I’ve really been trying to figure out how to make it feel better.”” [more inside]
What if the doctors had listened to her?
We just passed the four-month anniversary of her death. It was a loss we all saw coming, but grief exploded through us anyway. It is a powerful, relentless thing. It is wrong to wake up in a world where she no longer exists. It is wrong to watch our mother bend over her grave, our father talk about her in the past tense. It is wrong that we were four sisters, and now we are three. Her death is a hole in our bodies because a piece of us is gone. We are sad, heartbroken, and angry that she is gone — yes, angry too, because there was more that could have been done, and because we are not alone. [tw: cancer, death]
The summer wind came blowin' in from across the sea
My Way is the sixty-eighth studio album by Willie Nelson. It was released on September 14, 2018, by Legacy Recordings. The album is a tribute to Frank Sinatra, who was a close friend of Nelson's
A chilly response to a Hotlanta Super Bowl halftime show
Adam Levine and the boys from Maroon 5 have reportedly been named as the headline act for the Super Bowl LIII halftime show. Music fans aren't thrilled, with many pointing out that a Super Bowl in Atlanta would be the perfect opportunity to highlight local talent. All of which provides a great reason to revisit Sports Illustrated's Mark Bechtel epic recasting of every Super Bowl halftime show, featuring an era-appropriate roster of superstars.
Kings of Karachi
The horses of Imam Hussain. As Muslims commemorate the martyrdom of Hussain, the Prophet's grandson, the white horses that form part of the Ashura procession in many Shiite commuities in South Asia take their rightful place.
How Maya Rudolph Became the Master of Impressions
Nvidia release new GPUs
In the industry of graphics accelerators, Nvidia enjoys market dominance. Today, their latest GPU microarchitecture, Turing, is available to the public in their RTX series of implementations of the new chip. Benchmarks show modest improvements over their predecessors, while new features supporting ray-tracing and deep learning offer innovation in the way real-time computer graphics are created.
"I’m not going to be put out, I’m not going anywhere.”
Manitoba Indigenous Doula Initiative Empowers Women, Helps Keep Kids Out of Welfare System. [more inside]
A roving, free-range freak
The U.S. Agriculture Department scientists who gave us the Bradford pear thought they were improving our world. Instead, they left an environmental time bomb that has now exploded. [more inside]
little apples
Somewhere in the Yarra Valley, a secretive orchardist has developed a little apple-but now needs to find a way to pass this on. [more inside]
Love in a time of Roe v. Wade
Jeanne Safer and Richard Brookhiser have been deeply in love for almost 40 years while being passionately committed to opposite sides of the abortion debate. [SLSlate]
"And then I said to Werner, 'See?! Someone wants a close-up!'"
We bought a zoo
When the Tweedys bought a zoo in Borth, west Wales, it was a dream come true. But it soon turned into a nightmare of escaped animals, deaths and family feuding
Typewriters, Cash Registers, and Calculators
Picture the keypad of a telephone and calculator side by side. Can you see the subtle difference between the two without resorting to your smartphone? Don’t worry if you can’t recall the design. Most of us are so used to accepting the common interfaces that we tend to overlook the calculator’s inverted key sequence.
September 19
The Most Perfect Album
We invited some of the best musicians in the world to create songs inspired by each of the 27 amendments; a kind of “Schoolhouse Rock!” for the 21st Century. [more inside]
Even Holofernes’ headless corpse is like mehhhhhhhhhhhh
Toronto racoons are at it again
Toronto resident Jenny Serwylo had enjoyed a quiet evening at home Tuesday and had gone to bed when she was startled awake by noises coming from her kitchen. [more inside]