August 1
it's the sound of the summer
A few days ago, Drew Daniel posted on Twitter: had a dream I was at a rave talking to a girl and she told me about a genre called “hit em” that is in 5/4 time at 212 bpm with super crunched out sounds thank you dream girl
In the days since, people have kept sharing their own.
“Today ... was a very good day.”
Journalist Evan Gershkovich has come home. Gershkovich and two other Americans who had been wrongfully imprisoned in Russia came home today - along with citizens of Germany, Britain, and Belarus. Seven Russians - political prisoners, some of them associates of Alexei Navalny - were also released. This is the largest prisoner swap since the collapse of the Soviet Union. [more inside]
Cute Story in Aisle Five
A social media post about 90s game show contestants brought the internet some warm fuzzy feelings this week. Dan Kois interviews the Supermarket Sweep set building "business partners" for Slate and reveals a bonus twist.
Differences between USA and AUS broadcasts of the Opening Ceremonies
On Friday, July 26, 2024, during the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, an artistic performance intended to be a part of the planned program was not broadcast in the United States. At approximately two hours into the broadcast, shortly after the introduction of France's athletes (the last group to be introduced), the program moved to a series of music and dance performances, including a floating disco and a Dionysian feast. During this, the US broadcast cut away to advertising breaks and exclusive interviews with US-based athletes while audiences outside the US remained with the main program. • See the differences in this segment, each broadcast side-by-side, via this fifteen-minute video hosted by the Internet Archive. [more inside]
Puts the Nom into Phenomenology
Evolution of the Italian pasta ripiena: the first steps toward a scientific classification - Pievani et al h/t RadicalAnthro [more inside]
we'll oppose it until we don't
Kill Bill x Rav x Hatsune Miku - THINGS WILL GET MUCH WORSE FROM HERE. Single link music video (3:18). [ CW: fast flashing images, body horror, AI discourse, depressing earworm bop with some absolutely devastating lines. ] [more inside]
Greater Stick Nest Rats Surviving On Island
How this tiny native rat on the brink of extinction is thriving on an island infested with snakes. A rat which became extinct on mainland Australia by the 1930s is staying safe from predators on an island off South Australia by living in one of Australia's worst invasive weeds.
Queer Quest
Queer Quest- All In A Gay's Work is what happens when a gay Monkey Island meets a feminist Liesure Suit Larry. [more inside]
Faster, Better, Lighter
Samsung has announced its pilot solid-state EV battery production line is now fully operational. The solid state batteries can power electric vehicles with a 600-mile range [YMMV but the range is projected to double in the same volume with less mass], charge in 9 minutes [10%-80%], and have a lifespan of 20 years.
Geology and Chicanery
The Swindling Geologist, as he came to be called, first appeared in the news in 1884, following his arrest on February 9, in Philadelphia (Part 1). Pretending to be W. R. Taggart of the Ohio Geological Survey, he had befriended Ferdinand V. Hayden, of the United States Geological Survey, and stolen one of his rare books and made off with $20. Of course he was innocent, he said. Someone acting as an imposter and smearing his good name was responsible for the charges of swindling attributed to him. (Part 2) . By David B. Williams (substack)
tiny houses
a miniature renaissance is upon us. “There’s an explosion of popularity around miniatures these days; it has emerged as this pop culture phenomenon" [AD]
Why the world's oceans are changing colour
A vexed and interesting enterprise
A finished novel stands as a kind of monument to the author’s pristine intentions, plans, themes. The actual making of the text (at least in my case) is actually vagrant and random. I can’t quite remember how I stumbled into writing a book with quite a bit of football in it, but part of the decision must have been that I had to make use of the countless hours, probably adding up to years, that I’d spent playing, watching, and having feelings about this sport, most of them devoted to Manchester United, the team I’ve followed since I was seven years old. I wasn’t proceeding like a complete zombie, however. I had a basic drama in mind—the search for an African soccer prospect who tantalizingly appears in a video—and of course I was aware that in recent years football has become a global industry of incalculable financial value, not to mention an industry of travels, transactions, human adventures—the fun stuff. from Joseph O’Neill on Writing a Socially Relevant Soccer Novel [LitHub] [more inside]
July 31
Black cockatoo with rare condition taken into care after rejection
"Never seen anything like this": Black cockatoo with rare condition taken into care after rejection by flock.
Tweety the yellow-tailed black cockatoo is mostly yellow due to a rare condition. While that has resulted in it being shunned by its kin in the wild, collectors see Tweety as a prize — and that is a problem.
Beyond The 'C'
Louie Zong adjusted Bobby Darin singing Beyond the Sea (original), so that every note is a C. Unjoy! (both links 3 minutes long)
"I didn't know she was Black."
Donald Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists (PBS, C-SPAN, The Hill, Axios, USA Today, NYT, Chicago Sun-Times, Politifact)
In the meantime, they've become women
Our starlet narrators position their fans against the media, with media imagined as vicious and venal, while fans are pure-hearted and devoted. What these characterizations elide in their attempts to appeal to their audiences is the fact that we're guilty too, always grasping at shards of these girls and in this process tearing them apart. Like Eve, these are girls denied depth by the people in charge, understood as fallen women when they seek life experiences we didn't think they were ready for. Which brings me back to the bimbo summit, and the dumb blonde image all these girls inhabited far into adulthood. from American Bimbo, a collection of essays edited by Emmeline Clein [Post45] [more inside]
Kamala Harris Campaign: Week 2
We'll find out who won the veepstakes next week:
Kamala Harris to appear with running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Aug. 6 (Guardian link).
Meanwhile in her Atlanta rally Harris tells Trump to 'Say it to my face' (Guardian link). [more inside]
Stunning Olympic surfing photo
Roots of Pacha, a cozy communitarian game
Roots of Pacha is a cozy game in the vein of Stardew Valley. What sets it apart is a strong communitarian vibe where you are one member of a community working together to improve their village. [more inside]
Lawyers Against Transphobia
To combat the rising anti-trans hate in Canada, a group of lawyers wrote a handbook on how to help schools and libraries fight back. (slarchiveph) (originalTorontoStarlink)
Exodus
Snow Belt to Sun Belt Migration: End of an Era [pdf] - "Given climate change projections for coming decades of increasing extreme heat in the hottest U.S. counties and decreasing extreme cold in the coldest counties, our findings suggest the 'pivoting' in the U.S. climate-migration correlation over the past 50 years is likely to continue, leading to a reversal of the 20th century Snow Belt to Sun Belt migration pattern." (via) [more inside]
Unsupervised clustering can be conducted in a variety of ways
"What are the best methods of capturing thematic similarity between literary texts? Knowing the answer to this question would be useful for automatic clustering of book genres, or any other thematic grouping." [more inside]
Can women make art?
We learn in Parade that the female condition is “unlasting yet eternal,” that behind its “volcanic cycles of change” there lies something “darkly continuous” yet “unknown.” The female artist, we are told, must reckon with “the mystery and tragedy of her own sex.” What Cusk really means is that women must make art about being mothers. If they refuse to do this, they are effectively neutering themselves, disavowing their “female biological destiny” in the doomed pursuit of “male freedom.” The latter appears to be identical with regular freedom in every way except that, when exposed in a woman, it is proof of a grotesque and self-defeating identification with men. One cannot, I think, have a high opinion of women if one is to believe this. It is like defining the air as male and bravely refusing to breathe. from Against ‘Women’s Writing’ by Andrea Long Chu [Vulture; ungated] [more inside]
July 30
From none to 50,000. Why flying foxes are moving west across Australia
From none to 50,000. Why flying foxes are moving west across Australia. Flying foxes are being driven further west in search of food and shelter. Camps have been found west of Adelaide for the first time.
This is good news, right?
Project 2025 director ends work on plan for Donald Trump presidency after continued attack from Democrats The director of the "Project 2025" plan for a Donald Trump presidency has stepped down after Democrats made attacking it central to their election campaign and Trump repeatedly distanced himself from it. [more inside]
TIL Francine Pascal was not a committee
Francine Pascal, Creator of ‘Sweet Valley High’ Book Series, Dies at 92. The series and its many spinoffs have sold more than 200 million copies and revolutionized the world of young adult publishing. [more inside]
She is 27 years old and hasn't lost in 14 years
“This is paradise, but our paradise is poisoned.”
In 1974, a radioactive cloud from a French nuclear test drifted over Teahupo’o, Tahiti, now the surfing venue for the Paris Games. Villagers still feel the effects.
Strike Strike Revolution
As of Friday, SAG-AFTRA performers involved in the video game industry are on strike as they seek a replacement for the Interactive Media Agreement that expired in November 2022. [more inside]
The writing doesn’t get easier, but the work becomes play
“I think the argument is not liberals-conservatives, Democrats-Republicans or left-right,” he told The Christian Science Monitor. “The argument is between past and future. That’s where a line forms: what is regressive and what weighs you down, the too-old or stultified or barbarous notions, and what takes you forward and gives you a hope of discovering a change, the freedom of the imagination.” from Lewis H. Lapham, Longtime Editor of Harper’s, Dies at 89 [NYT; ungated] [more inside]
I'm literally speechless
Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, which made the headlines earlier this year for banning people who “do not identify as ladies” from viewing its “Ladies Lounge” installation, is in the news again. This time it’s because several artworks in the show, which the museum claimed were by Pablo Picasso, are actually fakes. It turns out they were painted by artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele, the wife of Mona’s wealthy owner, David Walsh. [more inside]
True Psychic Tales #33
During the making of Psychonauts 2, Double Fine recorded the entire production as a part of their regular "making of" series, and released it as PsychOdyssey (previously) — a rare glimpse at what it takes to make not only a AAA video game, but also a sequel to one of the most beloved games of all time. Now they're back with a final epilogue that wrestles with the release of the game, but also the studio's attempts to learn from and reckon with the experience of reliving the troubled development process via documentary footage.
The Ring
it's a lot
"Where did Hegel's idea of the relation between lordship and bondage originate?" ask the Hegel experts, repeatedly, referring to the famous metaphor of the "struggle to death" between the master and slave, which for Hegel provided the key to the unfolding of freedom in world history and which he first elaborated in The Phenomenology of Mind, written in Jena in 1805-6 (the first year of the Haitian nation's existence) and published in 1807 (the year of the British abolition of the slave trade). Where, indeed? [Hegel & Haiti, Susan Buck-Morss]
The demagogue usually knows full well what he is doing
Here, a factor enters the equation that is consistently underestimated by those who view only error, blindness, or illusion at work in demagoguery — and, accordingly, seek to oppose it by means of reasonable objections. Counter to what such enlightened optimists believe, the demagogue — along with those in his train — usually knows full well what he is doing. He does not advance his claims in spite of the fact that they will offend reasonable people but because he can be sure to provoke them by doing so. The reflexive outrage he triggers does not unsettle him; rather, it affords him a kind of contemptuous exhilaration. In “Mein Kampf,” Hitler openly declares that propaganda is a means to an end. It is supposed to make “everyone … convinced that the fact is real”; therefore, it excludes debate of the matter’s merit — or lack thereof. ... Even though his rhetoric does not discount the truth as a category of appeal, in the broader context of everything else he writes, it represents a secondary consideration deriving from the power of speech itself — that is, something constituted in circular fashion by the efficacy and force of pure assertion. from ‘Mein Kampf’ as a Propaganda Playbook [MIT Reader] [more inside]
July 29
New places added to UNESCO's World Heritage List
Chinese desert and ancient Indian burial grounds in Assam state added to UNESCO's World Heritage List. A possibly unparalleled desert, an archipelago with oceans virtually free from human exploitation and resting places for royals of old are among sites given world heritage status.
Sometimes with a doctored image of Trump superimposed in the foreground
Racked by pain and enraptured by a right-wing miracle cure (NYT) (ungated). With Patriot Party News, Michael Chesebro found a sense of community, and a place where conspiracy theories could become real in the form of the “medbed.”
"wah-wuh-wah-wah-wah"
"Peanuts creator Charles Schulz had a rule: never depict any adults and keep it a world of children. This helped make Peanuts a sensation not only in the comic strips, but also as a multimedia franchise. However, a loophole existed for one surprise character."
But if one Adult voice stood out, Ms. Othmar, played by Dean Hubbard could be it.
"Where are the parents?"
'The mystery of the Peanuts’ parents'
William Calley, of My Lai, dead
How One Man Lost $740,000 to Scammers Targeting His Retirement Savings
Mr. Heitin was one of many people interviewed by The New York Times who were ensnared in scams that could be so elaborate it’s as if they were created in a writer’s room testing different plot devices. Scammers can impersonate government officials, tech support staff or love interests. Tara Siegel Bernard for the New York Times.
White Dudes for Harris
White Dudes for Harris "...is the latest in a series of Zoom gatherings backing the vice president." [source]
Kirkland uber alles
"I was hesitant to join the crowds of U.S. Americans descending on the Caribbean, but Ramona maintained that Paradisus was the best option for my needs: parents who never vacation, mostly shop at Costco, and harbor a fundamental dislike of restaurants and an extremely low tolerance for what they determine is not worth their money." (Simon Wu for The Paris Review)
This may be the new travel article for the ages. [more inside]
Pesticides as bad as smoking for some cancers
An ecological/epidemiological assessment of pesticide use patterns and cancer risks suggests that pesticides exposure ranks as dangerous as smoking for some cancer types (via, healthline, forbes). As a bonus, pesticides increasingly contain PFAS aka forever chemicals., and so does drinking water. [more inside]
give your head a wobble
After 14 years AppleVis is shutting down. A major online forum and news blog for the disabled community AppleVis featured a massive app directory that primarily provided reviews on how accessible or functional an app was for VoiceOver users. AppleVis was a critical resource, as approximately 70% of the disabled community primarily use iOS and Voiceover for their mobile assistive tech. [more inside]
Our information is their currency
Back when I was at Pokémon, some kid figured out how to extract the images from the card game. He found an icon from the developer and said ‘Holy s----, I found a new Pokémon.’ This kid included his email, and because of the way Pokémon did account creation, when we got the child’s account, we got the parent information, which included a phone number. So I called his mom. from Former Bungie, Pokémon Lawyer Explains How They Caught Leakers [Bloomberg; ungated]
To protect mangroves, some Kenyans combat logging with hidden beehives
Flipping slackers
Did you know that slackliners/highliners have races and trick contests? Nor did I, until I happened upon the Laax Highline World Championship which ran in mid-July with some incredible feats of balance and agility! Click through for embedded videos of highlights, full contest videos, and lots of rules, stats and results.
"sky of Paris as a memory of past love"
The rest are additional details added to please the ever-changing fashion. [fragrantica] [more inside]
You know what’s grinding? A crisis.
However it’s happening—and per Grose’s larger argument, Niazi’s complaint, and my own human eyes—many Millennials are in crisis, one way or another. And whether our stressors are “existential” or “material… economic, familial and political,” they are evidently ripe for drama. But do things get too slippery when we let the world in? Is it still a “midlife crisis” if it’s happening outside your head? from What is the Millennial Midlife Crisis Novel? by Brittany K. Allen [LitHub]