February 14, 2018
This goes to sixteen
Misplaced Childhood
Hey, they released it this way intentionally, and here's what Marillion told us about each side of their 1985 prog-ish concept album Misplaced Childhood: Side One [20m40s]: Pseudo Silk Kimono, Kayleigh, Lavender, Bitter Suite: a. Brief Encounter, b. Lost Weekend, c. Blue Angel, d. Misplaced Rendevous, e. Windswept Thumb, Heart Of Lothian: a. Wide Boy, b. Curtain Call [more inside]
Bob McDill, Country Music Star You've Never Heard Of
He explored the complicated South by reflecting it with detail, heart, and a work ethic that kept him aiming to write a song a week for 30 years. Over three decades, he wrote 31 country songs that went to No. 1. He worked songwriting like a 9-to-5 job and saved every legal pad he ever wrote on. Now, those 217 legal pads are in the collection of the Country Music Hall of Fame, teaching young writers how he made those hits. He wrote a song a week, at least.
And then he stopped.
48. Porkins Chronicles (2064)
One Man Rush
“It's all about the characters and their trials and tribulations...”
The Thrill of the Game: Why I Love Sports Anime [Kinja] “One thing to quickly endear me to sports anime was the fact that characters, even villains/rivals don't die(usually, though I've yet to see a character die in a sports anime that I've watched). This means I get to see something that rarely occurs in shonen battle series, the much anticipated rematch. This is something that carries over from my love of real life sports. When one of my teams loses to a rival or a team I just don't like and I'm left all salty, I greatly look forward to a chance at a rematch later on down the road. [...] It feels odd saying one of the reasons I love sports anime is that they are more about the characters than the sport, but it is true. I am a massive fan of shows that are character-focused, and that is largely what sports anime are.” [more inside]
A VPN Designed to Spy On You
Facebook has begun promoting a new "Protect" feature in its mobile app, which will send you to the App Store to download a VPN service called Onavo. Gizmodo: "Millions of people use VPNs to enhance their privacy online. But that is not Onavo’s function....The company is actually collecting and analyzing the data of Onavo users. Doing so allows Facebook to monitor the online habits of people outside their use of the Facebook app itself. " [more inside]
Hurtigruten is the best Gruten
All aboard! Hurtigruten (advert with pronounciation) is a Norwegian cruise, ferry and cargo operator. Their most famous route, the Norwegian Coastal Express, is the 1,200 mile service (in 5 minutes) between Bergen and Kirkenes, stopping at 34 ports including Ålesund, Brønnøysund, Svolvær, Harstad, Tromsø, Hammerfest and Vardo - and then back again. The round trip takes 12 days. Passengers can watch the passing scenery, northern lights, deckhands, or (soon) underwater drone footage. Using 11 cameras, the 134 hour trip was shown in 2011 as a continuous live nationally popular "slow television" broadcast (in 37 minutes, part 1 of 30). Though bridges and tunnels and (soon) tunnels for boats have made coastal Norway more accessible, the route is still popular with locals and tourists.
The brother and sister dog reunion is only a leash tug away
Last week, two almost-identical dogs crossed each other's paths at Pike Place Market in Seattle and were overjoyed. The dog's owners soon discovered, to their amazement, that the dogs were littermates and had come over to Seattle together ... from Russia! (original Facebook video of reunion)
Gâteau Gato Zeotrope
Wait, there's a permanent society for ephemera?
Your daily fall down the rabbit hole: The Ephemera Society of America. As it's been a while since its last mention, let's get caught up on new entries. Mid-century library posters! Victorian fashion alphabet! Medical ephemera! [more inside]
The Chickensh*t Club
In an alarming and comprehensive book published last summer, reporter Jesse Eisinger (previously) asks and attempts to answer Why Executives Don't Go To Prison Anymore?
Why Why federal prosecutors often wimp out in going after financial malfeasance? and why let corrupt bankers avoid jail? So why this book?
Why Why federal prosecutors often wimp out in going after financial malfeasance? and why let corrupt bankers avoid jail? So why this book?
“I’ve been pretty obsessed with the financial crisis and its aftermath and why there were no prosecutions of top corporate officers from any of the financial institutions in the wake of the crisis,” Eisinger said. “It strains credulity that there wasn’t criminal fraud during the crisis and at the height of the crisis. And its strains the credulity of lawyers and prosecutors who I have talked with. This has become a commonplace observation.” “I don’t think fraud was necessarily at the heart of the financial crisis. But that doesn’t mean the crisis didn’t involve an enormous amount of fraud. I think it did.”[more inside]
People's Socialist Atlas
A History of the United American Socialist Republics is a full, 200-page alt-historical atlas. Also see the author's r/worldbuilding post.
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The overall winner of the 2018 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council science photography competition is 'Single Atom In An Ion Trap'. More winners.
In case you need some adorable, funny, sometimes sad stories right now
Over on Twitter, one Christina asks a simple question: What's a childhood anecdote that says a lot about you?
I am watching it burn
The Times Demonstrates Why Vetting Is Fundamental
On Tuesday afternoon, the New York Times announced that they had made a new hire for their opinion pages: Quinn Norton, a tech journalist who had written for several notable publications such as The Atlantic and Wired. However, it did not take long for critics to point out a lot of aspects of Norton that made her hiring questionable - her ties to major figures in white supremacy, her casual use of bigoted slurs in her tweets, and overall a number of very questionable positions that had many asking the Times a simple question: how did she pass vetting?
By 10 pm that same day, the Times had announced that Norton had been fired. [more inside]
By 10 pm that same day, the Times had announced that Norton had been fired. [more inside]
"Eight Loving Arms and All Those Suckers."
How Angels in America put Roy Cohn into the definitive story of AIDS: This oral history is lightly adapted from The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America. (SL Vulture).
Move over, reality television.
Video shoots? Old news. In 2018, there are dedicated GIF shoots.
Officially recognized as one of the toughest types of dirt in the nation
"Scientists had speculated such a soil should exist but it had never been seen—until this discovery four years ago." The Wauneta duripan in northern Arizona is now "officially recognized as one of the toughest types of dirt in the nation." But how does the competition stack up? [more inside]
Why New England’s amphipods are turning into the scuttling undead
The drama playing out in a New England estuary has all the makings of a Hollywood thriller: unwitting characters carrying out pleasant lives against a bucolic backdrop of branched waterways and rustling grasses when—suddenly!—they’re overtaken by a potent parasite. They turn pumpkin orange and wander away from shelter in zombie-like confusion. Eventually, they’re gobbled whole by winged monsters. [more inside]
'You b----y f-----g flaming p--s country w----s go and f--k your c--t'
'Merely a Warning that a Noun is Coming:' a review by Bee Wilson at the LRB about Christopher Hilliard's book The Littlehampton Libels ('A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England') about a poison-pen case in an English seaside town in the years following the First World War, and more generally about attitudes toward 'foul language' when used by women (via reddit).
Towards an Empathic Civilization
The Third Industrial Revolution: A Radical New Sharing Economy - "Where do we go from here? In this feature-length documentary, social and economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin lays out a road map to usher in a new economic system." (previously) [more inside]
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