January 23, 2015
Dealing with the transition to the information age
BIG and BOT Policy Proposals (transcript) - "Many of our current economic policies originated during times of scarcity. But now, says investor Albert Wenger, we live in an era of 'digital abundance', when creating new products costs virtually nothing. To adapt to the resulting economic upheavals, we won't need just more tech, says Wenger, but some strong policies. Here he explores two: basic income guarantee and the right to be represented by a bot." [more inside]
Very Borgesian
A reflective view of the main core of The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale.
The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and completed in 1963. When visitors first enter the building they are faced by two large marble staircases that ascend up to the mezzanine level and a large glass tower that is the central core of the building. The mezzanine level allows for people to rotate around the glass tower which holds 180,000 volumes. [more inside]
The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and completed in 1963. When visitors first enter the building they are faced by two large marble staircases that ascend up to the mezzanine level and a large glass tower that is the central core of the building. The mezzanine level allows for people to rotate around the glass tower which holds 180,000 volumes. [more inside]
what is a 'robot,' anyway?
The Random Darknet Shopper is an art piece by !MEDIENGRUPPE BITNIK for the exhibtion From Memes to Onionland. So the bot bought 10 pills of Ecstasy (among other things in the name of art and got 'arrested' by the Swiss police. So what happens when a bot gets 'arrested?' It seems robots are starting to break the law and nobody knows what to do about it. [more inside]
Let's play two for Mr. Cub.
Catherine the Great's Erotic Cabinet
Catherine the Great had a room decorated with penises and vaginas. The furniture has vanished, but some pictures (NSFW) remain
River's Edge
Chilling Effects
We Should All Step Back from Security Journalism. I’ll Go First. Quinn Norton (previously) responds to the sentencing of Barrett Brown (previously.) [Via]
All Sports Illustrated Staff Photographers Fired
Sports Illustrated director of photography Brad Smith confirmed the move this morning to News Photographer magazine.
"It's true," Smith said. "There was a decision made through the company to restructure various departments, including at Sports Illustrated. Unfortunately economic circumstances are such that it has cut the six staff photographers."
Enchilada knife!
The TSA Blog has posted their 2014 year in review, including 2,212 confiscated firearms and a variety of other prohibited and suspicious items. FiveThirtyEight has a breakdown by airport of the confiscated firearms. [more inside]
reeeee~wind!!
"A good rewind is that rare thing in life: a product of the moment. If the timing is right, a rewind will bring excitement to the dancefloor, a celebration of the music being played, an energy charge for the place and the people."
Laurent Fintoni goes deep on the history of pulling the record back across a variety of genres, from reggae and dub, to dubstep and hip-hop.
WHAT ON EARTH WAS THOMAS FRIEDMAN TALKING ABOUT?
The Arab Spring is failing not for lack of bandwidth, but for lack of human understanding that can only be forged when someone is late for breakfast, and you say, "Thank you for being late."
...a lot of people have asked me whether it’s real, and, if so, what on earth Tom Friedman was saying. The answer to the first question is that yes, it is absolutely real. Tom Friedman really did say this, and it really did elicit a hearty round of applause from the assembled plutocrats. The answer to the second question is that I don’t honestly know what Tom Friedman was talking about. But at least I can give you a bit of context. ...
Bread for Him, Bread for Her
You may have assumed that some products were immune from blatantly gendered advertising. Bread, say. But you'd be wrong. Stonemill Bakehouse has introduced Men's Wellbeing Barley & Rye Bread and Women's Wellbeing Hemp & Quinoa Bread. The label for the women's bread is, helpfully, pink.
I'd like to see the CarFax.
BikeFax? (SLYT)
The friend who brought this to my attention tagged it thusly:
"This guy is amazing! (I wouldn't want to buy a bike from him though!)"
Another one bites the dust
“If anything, Alabama’s prohibition of same-sex marriage detracts from its goal of promoting optimal environments for children,” U.S. District Court Judge Callie V. S. Granade wrote in a brief 10-page opinion, concluding, “[T]he court finds that Alabama’s marriage laws violate the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Netrunner
You probably know Richard Garfield as the creator of Magic: The Gathering. But his favorite creation is actually Netrunner, intended to be a "richer game" with bluffing and skill "more like Poker." Android: Netrunner is an asymmetrical Living Card Game based on the original Netrunner (which still has its fans).
Set in a cyberpunk future, you play a megacorp using "ICE"
to protect servers hiding company agendas (like The Future Perfect and Hostile Takeover)
or the hacker "runner" trying to steal them.
Chose from five megacorps and three runner factions and get started with a few data packs, important jargon, and deck-building.
For the initiated, prepare for this year's regional championships and read up on quantitative analyses of cards, runner economies, corporation economies, ICE and icebreakers, opening moves, studies in variance, and the ever-changing metagame.
Still not sure? Watch the Worlds 2014 Final (or read the champ's recap) and practice online using OCTGN or newcomer Jinteki.net, a browser-based version in development by World Champion finalist Minh Tran. And as always, beware Scorched Earth.
Syriza stretches poll lead as Greek election campaign ends
Greece’s anti-austerity party of the left, Syriza, has stretched its election lead to six points, putting it on course for a historic victory in Sunday’s crucial elections. Barely four weeks after the failure of parliament to elect a president, triggering the ballot, Greece’s fate now lies in the hands of 9.8 million voters. All the polls show, with growing conviction, that victory will go to Syriza. A poll released by GPO for Mega TV late on Thursday gave the far leftists a six-percentage-point lead over Samaras’s centre-right New Democracy, the dominant force in a coalition government that has held power since June 2012. A week earlier, GPO had the lead at four percentage points. [more inside]
I didn't know squirrels could vote!
Cold Cream, or Galen's Cerate
Cold cream is mostly known from the beauty routines of old ladies or as a makeup remover for stage actors. However, its lengthy history goes back a ways further, to a medical treatment from the Renaissance, perhaps even to the ancient Greeks.
Fish Live Beneath Antarctica
And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily
In the Middle Ages, the nation that was to give the world the full English widely skipped breakfast. Yet, by 1600, a culinary non-entity had become a key part of our daily routine. Why the change?Ian Mortimer investigates "How the Tudors (re)Invented Breakfast" for History Extra. See also: Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them? (BBC, 2012); and Meals of the Day in the early and classical Roman empire, which counters the statement about Romans eating only one meal a day. Extra credit: Merienda - South American-style Afternoon Tea.
...insist, instead, that the absence of “yes” always indicates assault.
Rape on the Campus by Zoë Heller [New York Review of Books]
"Few would disagree that the systems for preventing and prosecuting sexual assault on US campuses are in need of change. But the efficacy and fairness of recent reforms that focus on making college grievance procedures more favorable to complainants and on codifying strict new definitions of sexual consent remain highly questionable."
"The Bible is true, and some of it actually happened."
Marcus Borg has died at age 72. The liberal Christian theologian was one of the leading figures in the modern-day "quest for the historical Jesus," participating in the Jesus Seminar and writing prolifically about how best to interpret the Bible. [more inside]
I shot an arrow into the air It fell to earth I know not where...
Will you fulfill your destiny and become a tangerine octodecillionaire?
"Tangerine Tycoon is a realistic tangerine economy simulator. Get your hands on quadrillions of tangerines by harvesting, gambling or trading them on the stock market. Most likely a combination of all 3. They say money is the root of all evil but surely tangerines can't do any harm." [more inside]
Edgar Froese, 1944-2015
Word has arrived that Edgar Froese, founding member of the massively influential electronic group Tangerine Dream, has passed away. Froese was a pioneering figure in the German Krautrock and Kosmische styles, and contributed an unfathomable amount to the world of ambient/psychedelic electronic music. [more inside]
I had this muzzle on with all these wounds and I couldn’t tell anybody
Behind the Mask - Revealing the Trauma of War "Brain injuries caused by blast events change soldiers in ways many can’t articulate. Some use art therapy, creating painted masks to express how they feel."
Maura is a “she.” It’s one of the central points of the show.
Restoring a Punched Monet Painting
Three years ago, a man punched a hole in a Monet painting as it hung in Ireland's National Gallery. Conservationists have restored it. This is their story. [more inside]
Foot push at 50 seconds... 🐈
Pixel Dungeon: a gentle introduction to roguelikes
Pixel Dungeon is a coffee break roguelike, one which distinguishes itself with pixel-art graphics and distilled roguelike gameplay. [more inside]
Gone to the great mall in the sky
America's favorite in-flight purveyor of ridiculousness, SkyMall, has filed for bankruptcy, blaming the increased use of electronic devices on planes for the drop in sales. [more inside]
Thar she blows!
The whale approached them, stopped, pointed straight downward, and then, in the words of underwater photographer Keri Will, “the storm began.” Keri and his fellow divers were caught in the thick of a massive whale poop. As he described to CBC Radio, "If you held your hand in front of your face you wouldn't be able to see your hand any more because the water was so thick with the faecal matter." [more inside]
no such thing as a cinema audience... It is a television audience
Ten o’clock on a grey, wintry morning and Mr David Niven marched up a deserted Champs-Elysées, some of the insolence of his erect Sandhurst carriage slightly curbed by a blinding hangover. 23 January 1965: David Niven on the golden days of Hollywood
The Aging of Abercrombie & Fitch
"Mike indelibly linked his entire persona, his soul, to this brand’s image. He even tried to make himself look like his customers. He used to run around in ripped jeans and a T-shirt. He had plastic surgery,” says Lewis. “For him to change the brand would have taken the greatest psychologist in the world."Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries steps down.
How to Be a Futurist
Jamais Cascio's "Futures Thinking"
Asking The Question
Scanning the World
Mapping Possibilities (Part 1, Part 2)
Writing Scenarios [more inside]
Asking The Question
Scanning the World
Mapping Possibilities (Part 1, Part 2)
Writing Scenarios [more inside]
What is machine language?
A gigabyte and a half was a lot of data, once. It’s thought that the last person to have read every available published text was the fifteenth-century Italian philosopher and original Renaissance man, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. To do the same thing today would be impossible.
And as it turns out, the greatest collaborative literary project in human history isn’t really human at all.
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