July 18
Imagining positive post-fossil futures
Climaginaries is a three-year research project exploring innovative and creative ways of envisioning what a post-fossil world might look like, and the means through which it can transpire. Through different techniques of imagination, from modeling and scenario techniques to experimentations, visions of societal transformation and cultural representations (e.g. literature, film, art), Climaginaries explores (1) the transformative capacity of imaginaries; (2) how compelling narratives are told; and (3) how they can shape and enable efforts to confront climate change. [more inside]
'Ultra racing - when I first heard about it, I thought, "That's stupid"'
GBDuro 2019 was the first of an annual self-supported ride across the United Kingdom, using a route that includes roads, gravel trails, singletrack and everything in between. Organised by The Racing Collective, it was won by a pro rider Lachlan Morton who had his first steps into ultra racing documented in a beautiful and inspiring short film. [more inside]
If they persist, they cannot lose
Ai Weiwei: Can Hong Kong’s Resistance Win? (NYT) “The youth of Hong Kong, who have grown up well informed by the internet, are keenly aware of the stark alternatives before them. They are accustomed to freedom, personal rights and access to information. They know what they want, what they are defending and the nature of the opposition they face. They have watched the freedoms of Hong Kong — in the media, education, housing, commerce and elsewhere — slowly slip away, and they know that the Communist Party stops at nothing in pursuing its interests.” [more inside]
One Photographer's war in Ukraine
Andriy Dubchak is one of the only photojournalists to have covered the conflict in eastern Ukraine from its beginning. In this article, he shares deeply personal memories from the front lines
July 17
The Long Road to Pride
Perhaps a little late, maybe many of you already saw it, but this Dublin Bus Pride video sweetly bridges the gap between the queers that came before us and the younger queers coming up. [more inside]
Streaming Things
Netflix actually lost subscribers (Vulture) in the US this quarter; this hasn't happened since the DVD days of 2011. Maybe it's due to 2019's higher prices (Variety). Global subscriptions continue to grow, however, and most watchers are already outside the US: the next 100 million subscribers might come from India (hindustan times), and today the company announced a cheaper mobile plan there (NYT). [more inside]
Ricky, Renuncia!
This was the fifth day of protests in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where thousands have gathered to call for the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Last week, corruption charges were filed against Rosselló and 900 pages of private messages were leaked - peppered with a number of sexist and homophobic remarks and making light of the death toll from Hurricane Maria. Rosselló has so far refused calls to resign. The police chief, Henry Escalera, made a statement on Monday claiming that the PRPD will defend democracy in Puerto Rico (meaning, in this case, the governor) "with the last drop of blood" (Spanish language source). [more inside]
A woman’s responsibility for everyone else’s spills
"I still am struck at that assertion of power, the arrogant nonchalance of someone who travels to work with nothing on his person but his phone, his wallet, and his keys. Since the spill, I notice them all the time — in particular, on my way home one night, a tall, dark-haired Italian model–type man in a super-slim suit and long, narrow shoes who seemed not to have room on his person for an extra credit card, let alone a stack of paper towels cadged from the bathroom at work, just in case. He looked like he believed he was Important, and maybe he was. The message encoded in empty spaces where a briefcase or a backpack might have been was this: I have people to carry things for me. Golf caddies. Bell hops. Assistants. Women."
‘We feel useless, alone, bored, guilty, horny’
Amazon promotion error: we have cameras.
During this year's Amazon's Prime Day promotion, camera equipment with street prices ranging from $500 to $13,000 were briefly sold for $94.48, leading to a feeding frenzy, some users having their accounts suspended for the suspicious activity of buying too much. [more inside]
This Is Why America Is Falling Behind In Space
Kids in America want to be YouTubers. Kids in China want to go to space. With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing just days away, a post on the NasaWatch blog gave details on a new Harris Poll survey. The survey found that children in the US and the United Kingdom were 3x as likely to want to be YouTubers or vloggers as astronauts when they grow up. 56% of kids in China said they wanted to be an astronaut. [more inside]
Richard Massingham's LSD Trip
Breakfast (Cyriak, YT) The newest from Cyriak, this remix of British PSA actor Richard Massingham's short Pedestrian Crossing goes in all the directions you would expect of Cyriak.
Now, the dream cars of tomorrow!
Created in 1956, Design for Dreaming [10m video] is an industrial short film performed entirely in song, in which a dreaming woman is whisked away by a masked man to the General Motors Motorama, then a Kitchen of the Future, then off to romance on the highway. It makes about as much sense as that sounds like. [more inside]
Self-Compassion: Simply Part of Being Alive
"Loving ourselves points us to capacities of resilience, compassion, and understanding within that are simply part of being alive." A curated collection of links with inclusive materials so that many groups of folks can access a space of self-compassion. Be well, care for yourselves in troubled times. [more inside]
“Un cafè non s'arrefuta mai.”
Il grande scrittore siciliano, autore della fortunata serie di romanzi sul commissario di Vigata, è morto oggi a 93 anni. Dai romanzi al teatro fino alle prese di posizione sulla politica, l'Italia piange uno dei suoi più grandi autori contemporanei. Nessun funerale pubblico, ma da giovedì 18 luglio dalle ore 15 chi vorrà potrà dare l'ultimo saluto al cimitero Acattolico a Testaccio a Roma dove sarà sepolto Andrea Camilleri, writer of the wildly popular Inspector Montalbano books, has died at the age of 93. [more inside]
C'mon, we gotta get out of here
Viaje virtual a la Montaña de Siete Colores, Cusco, Peru
Vinicunca or Winikunka (Wikpedia), also called Montaña de Siete Colores (Trip Advisor), Montaña de Colores or Rainbow Mountain (Atlas Obscura), is a naturally colorful mountain. The rise in average temperatures in the Andean region has caused the snow on mountain to melt away, exposing these sedimentary layers. Studies done on samples taken from the site indicate that the colors exhibited are due to diverse mineral composition (Rainbow Mountain Peru blog), leading to numerous Instagram visitors (Insta x2). Tourists have also shared their views via Google Streetview panoramas, allowing you to virtually hike along to the final vista, in (hypersaturated) sun or snow
"'Titanic' made me realize that I was controlled by the regime"
Smuggling 20,000 USB sticks loaded with the latest Hollywood films might seem like an unlikely way to try to overthrow the North Korean regime—but that’s exactly what Flashdrives for Freedom has in mind.
How the chicken crossed the Red Sea
Asst. Professor of Anthropology Dr. Helina Woldekiros studies ancient chicken bones. Her research spans the discovery of the earliest known instances of domesticated chickens arriving in Africa via ancient trade routes from Asia, as well as the development of a long legged meatier thighed African chicken preferred for courtship rituals.
Roma, nuovo regolamento di polizia urbana
New Urban Regulations for the City of Rome
"Exasperated by the sometimes louche behaviour of tourists, city authorities are cracking down on eating snacks in public places and even bouncing pushchairs and wheeled suitcases down the staircases of historic monuments such as the Spanish Steps." [more inside]
"Exasperated by the sometimes louche behaviour of tourists, city authorities are cracking down on eating snacks in public places and even bouncing pushchairs and wheeled suitcases down the staircases of historic monuments such as the Spanish Steps." [more inside]
you ever take it off any sweet jumps?
Jumping a bicycle over the Tour de France peloton, like you do.
Baseball, baseball, he-man hit the baseball By the power of greyskull
The Lonely Island Presents: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience is a Netflix special by comedy rap group The Lonely Island. Billed as a "visual poem",[1] the special is directed by Mike Diva and Akiva Schaffer and stars Andy Samberg and Schaffer as Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, respectively. It is presented as a rap album written and performed by Canseco and McGwire in the 1980s, when the pair was known as the Bash Brothers while playing for the Oakland Athletics [more inside]
It took nearly 30 minutes before they realized their mistake
John Paul Stevens, 1920-2019
Stevens served 35 years on the Supreme Court and became a leading liberal voice. He died Monday, aged 99, after a stroke. Stevens was nominated by Gerald Ford in 1970 and came to the Court as a moderate midwestern Republican. He was a staunch defender of the separation of church and state and later would be a voice against the death penalty*, in favor of affirmative action, and in favor of abortion rights. Recently, he spoke against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, called for the repeal of the second amendment, and threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game, which he described as the highlight of his career. [more inside]
Human races are not like dog breeds: refuting a racist analogy
In 1956, evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane posed a question to anthropologists: “Are the biological differences between human groups comparable with those between groups of domestic animals such as greyhounds and bulldogs…?” It reads as if it were posted on social media today. The analogy comparing human races to dog breeds is not only widespread in history and pop culture, but also sounds like scientific justification for eschewing the social construction of race, or for holding racist beliefs about human nature. Here we answer Haldane’s question in an effort to improve the public understanding of human biological variation and “race”—two phenomena that are not synonymous. [more inside]
“has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away starving“
“Before all else, we must pursue a vision of the common good (by whatever charitable means we can) that presumes that the basis of law and justice is not the inviolable right to private property, but rather the more original truth taught by men such as Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose of Milan, and John Chrysostom: that the goods of creation belong equally to all, and that immense private wealth is theft – bread stolen from the hungry, clothing stolen from the naked, money stolen from the destitute.” What Lies Beyond Capitalism? A Christian Exploration (Plough)
There was no time for reminiscing. She had a date with a firing squad.
She Caught Bullets with Her Bare Hands — and Made Magic’s Glass Ceiling Disappear: When her husband died and left her penniless, audacious Adelaide Hermann transformed from lowly assistant to "the Queen of Magic."
#typicalinstagramhashtagoveruse
treasure, but also guillotines
60 carats of meteorite-made glass. Guillotine signet rings. Bejeweled fox heads. Victorian crystal pendants with "a Westie who apparently was just caught pooping in a shoe." All these and more in Dearest, a newsletter by Monica McLaughlin on unusual antique and estate jewelry. [more inside]
A Visit with the Glacier Squad
For 35 years, a scientist and his team have been taking the pulse of 10 coastal glaciers. The diagnosis is in. [more inside]
Brain hardware support for Bayesian processing spotted
Brain hardware support for Bayesian processing spotted.
“We have never seen such a concrete example of how the brain uses prior experience to modify the neural dynamics by which it generates sequences of neural activities, to correct for its own imprecision. This is the unique strength of this paper: bringing together perception, neural dynamics, and Bayesian computation into a coherent framework, supported by both theory and measurements of behavior and neural activities,” says Mate Lengyel, a professor of computational neuroscience at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study.
More capable than your smartphone
Your toaster probably has more processing power, but can it get you to the moon? An appreciation of the Apollo Guidance Computer. [more inside]
It’s the Twine that Binds
99 Percent Invisible goes on a delightful road trip across the US to investigate the true mystery of our time: who has the world’s greatest ball of twine, how were they made, and who really made them? [more inside]
It's okay to be good and not great
What if striving to be great is what's holding you back? “Good is the enemy of great” is one of the most popular self-improvement expressions there is... It sounds appealing and rolls off the tongue nicely, but there’s a good chance it’s downright wrong."
Piano composition
Nahre Sol explains really clearly how you can go from simple to complex when composing music for the piano. [more inside]
July 16
How to, home and car edition
How to: change your car's oil,
change a flat tire,
flush your radiator and cooling system,
jump-start a car,
fix a running toilet,
replace a kitchen faucet,
diagnose and fix clogged drains,
fix a blown fuse and reset a circuit breaker,
install a light fixture,
patch and repair drywall, and
find wall studs
Debunking the Bystander Effect
"It's called a green screen Morty"
Relive last year's brief, dizzying green screen tattoo fad with work by tat2worthy: glasses; joshhermantattoo: TV; leerowlett_tattooer: Rick and Morty (alternate animation), dragon eye, Game of Thrones; Heathur Sawyer: Betty Boop; danowartattoos666: Rick and Morty (alternate animation), TV (alternate animation); inky_blinders: Ghostbusters, TV; madame.liesl: Gameboy. (All links to artist Instagram posts. SFW.)
It is a seemingly simple system.
I was PrOtOtYpE, A tranquil web residency for casual investigations into how we (from people to plants) interface with our planetary computer. [more inside]
"Actually, I like the way I look."
"What is new is that I have decided, at the age of 60, that I am a goddamn knockout. Like Dorothy at the end of the film version of The Wizard of Oz, I had the power I sought all along. I rub my thighs together — sorry, couldn’t resist — and tell myself over and over that I am beautiful and, what do you know, suddenly I am." Crime novelist Laura Lippman reflects on aging, eating, wanting, and leaping in her Longreads essay, "Whole 60." [more inside]
Sex Offender Registries Don’t Keep Kids Safe
At least 12 states require sex offender registration for public urination; five apply it to people charged with offenses related to sex work; 29 require it for consensual sex between teenagers. According to Human Rights Watch, people have been forced to spend decades on the registry for crimes they committed as young as 10 years old.
An article by Michael Hobbes
About My Daughter
I almost blurt out that my daughter fills her heavy bags with books and printouts filled with bizarre words, setting off across the country like an itinerant salesman. That she's a pitiful girl who eats a meal in her tiny car after class, takes a cramped nap, and comes back home to immerse herself in books and writing again until she falls asleep. These unspoken words pound me in the chest like an assault. And now here she was, paying me a rent that was more of a bribe, having barged in with some strange girl and shaming her parents. The words are about to leak out of my mouth. [more inside]
Richard E. Byrd's Antarctic Adventure, with stowaway Billy Gawronski
The Roaring Twenties in the United States was a time of numerous publicity stunts. One such example was Richard E. Byrd’s 1928-1930 Antarctica Expedition, which was sponsored by mass media (JStor Daily article) and the companies who provided typewriters to candy, paper to Byrd’s desk. His first exploration was recorded and presented in With Byrd at the South Pole and documented by Byrd in Little America : aerial exploration in the Antarctic, the flight to the South pole (documentary and book on Archive.org). But he was not the only self-promoter on that journey: meet the teen who snuck aboard a polar expedition (Nat Geo), a scrappy Polish American kid from New York’s Lower East Side named Billy Gawronski (New Yorker).
The Most Boring Tourist Trap in Every U.S. State
We've scoured the U.S. to find the least interesting and most skip-worthy destination in each state and Washington, D.C. We’re prepared for the fact that we’ll anger many locals, and we mean no offense with these choices. It’s likely we included many folks’ favorite detours. But just because you have a fond memory of a place doesn’t mean it’s worth anyone else’s time.
And you can be sure that if it claims to be the world’s “largest” or “best” of anything, it made the list.
"It’s a lot of history"
A look at some of the gems hidden away in the photo archive of Ebony and Jet magazines, set to be auctioned tomorrow. With more than four million prints and negatives in boxes and old file cabinets, the archive is considered the most significant collection of photographs depicting African-American life in the 20th century. Much of it has barely been seen by the public in decades, and few photos have been digitized. Now art historians fear a private collector could buy the archive and stash it away. [more inside]
Spareness
“They fascinated the public, not because of all of the possessions they accumulated but because of all the things they seemed to shun: ostentation, flamboyance, narcissism. Even as they lived in plain sight on the streets of New York City, they were a glimmering, beguiling mystery presumably to all but their inner circle.”
An appreciation of the style of JFK, Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy on the 20th anniversary of their deaths by the Washington Post‘s Pulitzer-Prize-winning fashion critic, Robin Givhan.
standard level, short and sweet
dazzling, deep purple fins and a yellow head
Purple fairy wrasse named Wakanda discovered on reef in twilight zone "Scuba divers have discovered a new fish – a vibrant purple fairy wrasse. They have named it Cirrhilabrus wakanda" [New Scientist] [more inside]
I'm a shark cat shark cat shark cat shark cat
The battle to separate Safa and Marwa
The BBC tells the story of separating a pair of conjoined infant twins, from funding and visa issues to surgeries to aftermath.