January 26, 2019
The Hunt for the Nazi Loot Still Sitting on Library Shelves
Given the scope of the looting, the task ahead remains mountainous. In Berlin, for example, at the Central and Regional Library, almost a third of the 3.5 million books are suspected to have been looted by the Nazis, according to Sebastian Finsterwalder, a provenance researcher there.
West of Arkham the hills rise wild
Nicolas Cage Reuniting With ‘Mandy’ Producers for H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation ‘Color Out of Space’ -- Nic Cage Is Getting Downright Lovecraftian for Color Out of Space. [more inside]
“Hoo-ray.”
Is it Possible to Beat New Super Mario Bros. U Without Pressing Right? [YouTube] “Meet the fan who can beat Mario games without moving right. Stefan has a whole YouTube channel [Ceave Gaming] filled with videos of him beating various Mario games in different and difficult ways. He’s beaten Super Mario 3D Word while always crouching, discovered the Minimum Amount of Joystick Inputs Needed to Beat Super Mario Odyssey, figured out a way to upload an impossible level in Mario Maker, beaten Super Marios Bros U using the minimum number of right button presses and avoided every coin in Super Mario 3D Land. [via: Kotaku]”
"The African folktale is not your refuge from skepticism."
Why Marlon James Decided to Write an African “Game of Thrones” (SL New Yorker)
A dramatic, multi-level, and increasingly dark scandal
The Dramatic Scandal Swallowing the Bolsonaro Presidency Just Drove an LGBT Congressman to Flee Brazil
tl;dr: President linked to militia suspected of killing Marielle Franco, a LGBT Rio de Janeiro councillor. Beacause of this, and of increasing violence, Jean Wyllys, a LGBT federal congressman, has resigned and fled the country.
tl;dr: President linked to militia suspected of killing Marielle Franco, a LGBT Rio de Janeiro councillor. Beacause of this, and of increasing violence, Jean Wyllys, a LGBT federal congressman, has resigned and fled the country.
“How often do you feel left out?”
How well can we sense each other’s loneliness? [study abstract] "As the correlation scores show, the participants’ partners tended to be better at judging their loneliness than did their friends and parents. In fact, there was no significant difference in statistical terms between participants’ ratings of their own loneliness and the ratings given to them by their partners. In contrast, parents and friends tended to underestimate the participants’ loneliness."
Countries of the World, courtesy of Yakko, Rob Paulsen, and Yung Wind Boi
Yakko's World is a fine song to identify and locate the countries of the world in under two minutes, but as noted in the Genius page for the song, it's from 1993, so it's a bit dated, but also there are some errors. Rob Paulsen, the voice of Yakko himself, updated The Countries of the World song for 2017, tacking on additions and corrections at the end, where monotoning YouTuber Yung Wind Boi merged "fixes" into a 2018 edition, and cites his sources.
Thoughts and Prayers: A short story
A new short story looks at how much worse trolling could get. Each month, Future Tense Fiction—a series of short stories from Future Tense and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives—publishes a story on a theme. The theme for January–March 2019: Identity. [more inside]
FYI: Macaque testicles smell the worst!!
Spent months grinding up spiders into powder, filling teeny tiny tin foil cups with the powder, and then rolling it all up into a perfectly smooth sphere. If the ball wasn’t perfect or the spider powder leaked we’d do the whole thing all over again.
Jason Rasgon asks Twitter "What's the weirdest thing you've done for science?"
Jason Rasgon asks Twitter "What's the weirdest thing you've done for science?"
I C What You Did There
Now in its 35th year, the International Obfuscated C Code Contest celebrates decades of gloriously weird C programs. C gives quite a bit of room for personal style, so why not have a Stereogram generator whose code is itself a Stereogram (code, hint)? Or a game shaped like Flappy Bird (code, hint), or a text adventure game written entirely within the compiler's error messages (code, hint)?
Previously: [1], [2] [more inside]
Do not snuggle up it is not on bed
Do not snuggle your hedgehog. Do not snuggle your wombat. Do not snuggle a tiger. Do not snuggle your backyard chickens. Do not snuggle your rashy cat. Do not snuggle a naked and blind baby squirrel. Do not snuggle your consulting detective. Do not snuggle your cell phone. Do not snuggle your hormonal cockatiel. Do not snuggle... um?
Decisions, Decisions
An interesting delve into the process of making decisions.
Presidential 69, cleared to land
Shaun & Jon are pilots who fly a Gulfstream IV for corporate customers. Join them in the cockpit for a complete flight from Las Vegas to LAX, or a shorter hop from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach. [more inside]
A core sample drilled through the digital crust of platform capitalism
If you've ever returned something to Amazon, it might have ended up as part of someone's Pallet of Assorted Appliances and Home items. The "reverse supply chain", as one liquidation company calls it, is growing in popularity as people hope to get rich quick by buying pallets of returns and re-selling the items for closer to their market price. But if you'd rather not risk getting stuck with five dog hoodies, you can get [some] of the [thrill] of [unboxing] from Youtube.
"I saw some crazy things...Elizabeth took it to a new level."
Theranos (previously, previously, previously), the now-defunct health technology corporation that defrauded investors, doctors and patients, has been back in the news recently after the release of new ABC investigative podcast The Dropout and film festival release of new HBO documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. Both focus primarily on Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who is awaiting trial with a possible 20-year sentence.
Dead Trees Society
When paper outperforms digital. From car tax discs to whiteboards to police notebooks, sometimes it's more efficient to keep things analogue. (Note: just continue scrolling down after passing the registration box to view the rest of the article.)
A Day at the Abandoned American Dream
"When I got a text last week from a local friend asking if I’d seen the American Dream, I initially thought she was making a jab at the quickly collapsing state of my home country. Turns out, American Dream Park is a real amusement park — or at least, it was. The park opened in 1996 and closed abruptly in 2001. The whole project seemed doomed from the start: it was too far from families and would-be guests, too expensive, and apparently just poorly managed in general." [more inside]
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