March 25
"In the context of this wider lie."
Here’s What Retirement With Less Than $1 Million Looks Like in America
The stock market downturn wiped away 20% of her nest egg, which is now worth about $240,000. To save on gas, she and Mr. Le Blanc drive to the grocery store only on days when they pick up their mail nearby. “There’s no frivolous driving around,” she said.
Utah gets new flag... kind of... for now
YEAH
A 3D Road Trip
Everything Everywhere All of the Same
The age of average by Alex Murrell
How an endless voyage round the world stole my childhood
Suzanne Heywood tells of how her parents took her and her brother on and endless round the world yacht trip starting in 1976. CW: child abduction.
More Saturday video shorts
Videos showing how all the different fields fit together in the map of mathematics and in the map of physics. Larnell Lewis demonstrates 13 levels of drumming. [Open Culture] Art History Shorts explaining famous works of art, artists, and art movements. [YouTube] [more inside]
MS Chief Techonology officer Kevin Scott Behind The Tech blog
Bill Gates and Kevin Scott give us an hour on AI and the rapidly evolving future of computing. Explain it to me like I'm five years old? OK, not five years old maybe, not totally tech blind but I know little of AI. This podcast seemed aimed at people with my level of understanding; it was a good use of my time to spend an hour with these [more inside]
March 24
The Dumbest Way A Huge Turning Point in History Began
What is the dumbest way a huge turning point in history began? Not a direct Twitter link, just a roundup of things said on Twitter about extremely dumb moments that twisted history. I presume y'all might be able to add your own as well?
Extreme polygamy may be driving southern elephant seals to early death
Pressures of extreme polygamy may be driving southern elephant seals to early death. Study finds males, who can command a harem of up to 100 females, driven to gain weight as quickly as possible by foraging in areas full of predators.
Intel co-founder Gordon Moore dead at 94
Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced today that company co-founder Gordon Moore has passed away at the age of 94. An era-defining inventor and engineer, his work laid the groundwork for our modern world of computing (and helped create Silicon Valley along the way). [more inside]
Talib Kweli talks to Jon Stewart for an hour
Talib Kweli's podcast People's Party welcomes Jon Stewart for one of those wide-ranging conversations that is full of Stewart insight that we long for more of in our current world. I'm not sure I felt better about the world after this, but I felt like I had some new perspectives.
A Survey Of Transgender Life In America
While the New York Times serves to platform transphobia, the Washington Post alongside health non-profit KFF have compiled an in depth survey of transgender people in the US. (Ungated version.) [more inside]
"The road outside is near."
Can't stop, don't want to.
Terry Barentsen films bike races, but not for the pro tour.
Sometimes he’ll follow a single rider on a ride through their home neighborhoods or follow a chill group ride through NYC or the surrounding countryside - those last two in the company of BikeSnobNYC - but often he shoots alleycat races like Mexico City’s Track Or Die, NYC's Three Blind Mice, SF’s Mission Critical and sprints like Bedford Burning. [more inside]
Try again
SpaceX has gotten good at landing its boosters, but it did take a while to get it right.
"You, my friends, are not boring or lame."
Brandon Sanderson (Reddit, 03/23/2023), "On the Wired Article": "Honestly, I'm a guy who enjoys his job, loves his family, and is a little obsessive about his stories ... I can see how it is difficult to write an article about me." Additional context by Janet Manley (LitHub, 03/24/2023), "Read the meanest literary profile of the year (so far) ... and the subject's response": "Does Kehe insult Sanderson’s writing, or Sanderson, or Sanderson's Mormonism? Yes. All of those things." The Wired article by Jason Kehe (03/23/2023), "Brandon Sanderson Is Your God": "I realize, in a panic, that I now have a problem. Sanderson is excited to talk about his reputation. He's excited, really, to talk about anything. But none of his self-analysis is, for my purposes, exciting" (Wayback Machine).
Much is Lost Through this Narrow Focus
Unfortunately, students interested in film usually acquire their critical frameworks and vocabularies first from popular film reviews, which rely heavily on ideas about artistic achievement and make value judgments without clear criteria. It can be very difficult to break students of the habit of evaluating in these terms and to get them to describe and analyze what they see and hear. It can also be challenging to reconcile aesthetic or technical criteria of judgment with the different registers of social significance that connect films to students’ personal and social lives. These introduce other sets of values and selection criteria into teaching. from What Films Should We Teach?: A Conversation About the Canon [more inside]
Hold my Hair and Tell the Future How I Died
What killed Ludwig van Beethoven? Was it Celiac disease? IBD? A neurological issue that also caused deafness? Liver disease? Cirrhosis? [more inside]
misleading language choice, inadequate context, and biased sourcing
Alec Karakatsanis' meticulous research on copaganda.
A "Shortage" of Punishment Bureaucrats: When the New York Times Is Like a PR Firm for Police Unions.
Public Relations Spending by Police Part 1 and Part 2: In 2014, Chicago cops had 6 full-time public relations employees. During the coverup of Laquan McDonald's murder, the city increased its police budget to 25 full-time positions. As of 2023, Chicago cops have 48 full-time PR positions.
How the Media Enables Violent Bureaucracy Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 [more inside]
A "Shortage" of Punishment Bureaucrats: When the New York Times Is Like a PR Firm for Police Unions.
Public Relations Spending by Police Part 1 and Part 2: In 2014, Chicago cops had 6 full-time public relations employees. During the coverup of Laquan McDonald's murder, the city increased its police budget to 25 full-time positions. As of 2023, Chicago cops have 48 full-time PR positions.
How the Media Enables Violent Bureaucracy Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 [more inside]
The Magical "Add Multiplayer" Button
Gomps, short for "Generic Online MultiPlayer System", is an in-development tool that will add rudimentary multiplayer functionality to any of the thousands of games made in Unity. Here's a short video of the tool working in Firewatch, Return of the Obra Dinn, and Ynglet.
cruise ships
Take a typical Alaska cruise and see the damage in its wake. The evidence is clear: the industry needs an overhaul. Article addresses sewage, pollutants, trash, impact on wildlife, impact on port towns and cities. [more inside]
DANCEMUSIC WTF-300
March 23
Craft
That time Mark Twain and the The President raised a son together
From Matt Baume comes the story of The First Gay TV Movie: The Battle Over "That Certain Summer" [27m], a 1972 made-for-television movie starring Martin Sheen and Hal Holbrook as a gay couple struggling with the ramifications of trying to bring Holbrook's son from his marriage into their lives. Developed by the team who had created the recently successful Columbo, it made it onto television just a few years after the Stonewall Revolution.
The world's smolest monkey
The pygmy marmoset is the smallest monkey in the world and arguably the cutest. These gummivore rainforest-dwellers are also called pocket monkey, little lion, dwarf monkey, and finger monkey. [more inside]
Five (SFF) Authors We Wish Had Written More
In the wake of Cameron Reed's announcement that she is working on a new book and that Locus-nominated The Fortunate Fall is being republished next year, James Davis Nicoll points us at five other science fiction and fantasy authors whose careers ended too soon, for various reasons. [more inside]
Hot Take Swan Song
In 2022, the podcast Hot Take—a "holistic, irreverent, honest look at the climate crisis and all the ways media and society are talking—and not talking—about it"— was acquired by Crooked Media, the network founded by the men behind Pod Save America. A year later, the hosts of Hot Take have written separate takes about why the podcast is ending, highlighting mismanagement and malfeasance from the company that acquired them.
“We kept hoping the statue would be restored, but it never was”
In the 1950s, the Met began acquiring pieces from Robert E. Hecht, an American-born antiquities dealer who spent decades running afoul of authorities and was ultimately tried on charges of antiquities smuggling in Italy. In 1959 and 1961, Italian prosecutors charged Hecht with antiquities smuggling, and in 1973, they issued an arrest warrant for him that was later revoked. But the Met kept buying from him.–In search of stolen gods at the Met, the latest in a series on looted statues by the Nepali Times, focuses on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which owns “at least 1,109 pieces previously owned by people who had been either indicted or convicted of antiquities crimes”.
Finding Britain’s Lost Gods
I. Gods of Prehistoric Britain; II. Paganism in Roman Britain; III. Anglo-Saxon Pagan Gods; IV. Viking Pagan Gods in Britain: the first four of an on-going series of hour-long lectures at Gresham College by cravat-wearing historian Ronald Hutton. (Previously).
Berber Music / ⵜⴰⵏⵎⵎⵉⵔⵜ
In pursuit of music to study/work/live to, may I present this 1.5 hr spotify playlist of north African music featuring bands such as Bombino, Imarhan, and Ali Farka Toure.
Sociocracy: Democracy as It Might Be
Peace activist and educator Kees Boeke (previously) wrote Sociocracy: Democracy as It Might Be, a Quaker-inspired view of what democracy could look like. [more inside]
Heaven criteria
mollusc of the year
Self-testing and toys to help you learn about your music listening
The Music Lab has tests for you to learn how good you are at discerning melodic discrimination and recall, mistuning perception, and beat alignment and more (previously). "This Is What It Sounds Like" offers compare-and-contrast samples to help you reflect on your taste in melody, novelty, realism, timbre, and other elements. Its links lead to further online tests and demonstrations.
The People's Plan for Nature
Can citizens' assemblies save the planet? The People’s Plan for Nature, launched on Thursday, sets out the UK public’s recommendations for reversing massive declines in Britain’s nature. A hundred people were invited to come together, in a citizens’ assembly, to agree on a plan for how to renew and protect nature. More information at peoplesplanfornature.org [more inside]
a hand sitting still on a handrail and the bodies blurring past together
Alexey Titarenko is a Russian photographer with a particular focus on long exposure and city photography, a combination that leads to stunning civic ghostliness as in, among other collections, City of Shadows (1991-1994), or the somewhat more restrained New York (2004-present). See also his photocollage of perestroika-era signs and symbols, Nomenclature of Signs. [more inside]
The lesbian spy network that never existed
In 1918, there was a lesbian spy network working to "exterminate the manhood of Britain" called The Cult of The Clitoris... Except actually, there wasn't. It was a fake news scandal that somehow won a libel trial. This is the story of the sapphic cult that wasn't.
For many, Link is gay or trans or both, and that’s a powerful thing
Link is a gay icon, and Zelda fans know it [Polygon] “The Legend of Zelda’s beloved and iconic protagonist, Link, is tagged in more than 17,000 pieces of fanfiction on Archive of Our Own. Among those stories, more than 300 are tagged with “Trans Link,” and nearly 2,000 feature Link in a romantic relationship with Prince Sidon (or Ganondorf, for the enemies-to-lovers fans). AO3 may not be the only metric for how many Zelda fans interpret Link as gay and/or transgender, but it’s one of the biggest. This is no surprise, as fans have been speculating on Link’s gender and sexuality since at least 2009, though realistically he’s been on the minds of queer players since The Legend of Zelda was first released in Japan in 1986.” [more inside]
Get your Club Z points ready
Zellers returns to Canada. (sort of.) Is nostalgia to blame? asks The Walrus, where anyone who follows Brittlestar knows the answer is definitely yes (and be careful, this tune is catchy). (link to YouTube) [more inside]
Kiss My… Machine
“Among the top complaints was its lack of tongue.” Chinese startup develops kissing machine that “makes sounds and warms up slightly when kissed.” [more inside]
Neon - A Short Skate Film
Neon is five minutes of mindblowing freestyle skateboarding from Andy Anderson, Isamu Yamamoto, and Kilian Martin. [more inside]
Like a Bit of a Distraction, Even an Anachronism
His is a temperamentally conservative vision, in which youth culture—hippies and beatniks, “kids gone feral,” kids who never fought in a war and lack respect for their elders—is an absurd and pathetic sort of menace. Where this could easily become curmudgeonly or censorious in a less imaginative writer, however, Portis always seems bemused; the disappointment is too vast to be taken all that seriously, it is foregone and always cut with an instinctual swerve toward the comic. from Signs and Wonders [Harper's; ungated] [more inside]
March 22
From One To "40" -- We Have To Talk About The New U2 Album
It started out as Edge's pandemic project. [Rolling Stone] Why not remake some old songs in a new flavor? Larry's on light duty, at best, after back surgery, and it's lockdown anyway so let's just fuck around with a sort of front porch vibe. Two years later, and we have the totally unexpected (even by their label) new U2 project Songs Of Surrender [Wikipedia]. Forty songs spanning their career, organized into four albums. Tracks with major lyric changes marked with •. We begin with The Edge: One, studio version [from Achtung Baby], video, best live recording, most famous cover version [more inside]
The Post-Socialist Mortality Crisis
"Even in 1950–53, during the last years of Stalin’s regime, with the high death rates in the labour camps and the [delayed] consequences of wartime malnutrition and injuries, the mortality rate was only nine to ten per 1,000, compared with 14–16 in 1994." Sopo Japaridze's thread on recent research about the 7 million excess deaths in Eastern Europe since the 1990s. [more inside]
[META] Last call for Steering Committee nominations
PSA: This week is the last call for user nominations to the second Steering Committee to help set policy and oversee the site budget for the year ahead. Do you want to help chart a course for this community (or know someone who would make a great pick)? Send in your nominations today! More details from the full MetaTalk post inside. [more inside]
The longest GOOOOOOAL ever
Cocaine Cat
You've heard about Cocaine Bear, now get ready for Cocaine Cat. Found after it escaped from a car during a traffic stop in Cincinnati, the serval (which is illegal to own in Ohio), named Amiry, was tested and found to have cocaine in its system. [more inside]
the “tide of history,” the courant de l’histoire
Russia’s war against Ukraine through the prism of the Algerian War and France’s decolonization. Metropolitan France lost [approximately] 75,000 soldiers in Vietnam and 25,000 soldiers in Algeria. The embrace of decolonization was an effort to turn something that was, in quite stark terms, a defeat for the French (and the Dutch, the British, the Belgians) into a good thing, something reassuring.