February 19, 2018
from psy-op pamphlet to stateside souvenier
Afghan War Rugs And The Lossy Compression Of Cultural Coding [Twitter][Spooler (req. login) ] [more inside]
Shattered convictions I thought were reflecting you
CCM artist Leslie Phillips had been marketed as "the Christian Cyndi Lauper", and it didn't sit well with her. The producer for her 4th album, T Bone Burnett, helped her morph her sound and put enough, um, ambiguity in the album that Leslie was able to start a new, secular music career as Sam Phillips. But here is that brilliant, acoustic textured, questioning, and yearning [and receommended for non CCM audiences too] Leslie Phillips album from 1987: The Turning [YT playlist, ~40m]. Side A: River Of Love, Love Is Not Lost, The Turning, Libera Me, Carry You [more inside]
Your Cortex Contains 17 Billion Computers
It's a neural networks of neural networks up in your noggin. (Dr. Mark Humphries for Medium) [more inside]
devoid of verse numbers and footnotes, so it reads less like a textbook.
'Manuscripts' Encourages Readers To Approach The Bible Like A Novel [NPR] “But there's also been a surge of interest in engaging with the Bible in the same way you would a novel, free of footnotes and asides. That's the approach taken by the small team behind Manuscripts, a new version of the Bible in the form of individual pocket-sized volumes – the first of which are coming out this month after a successful crowdfunding campaign. "Our research showed us that people were often intimidated by how it's traditionally been presented; as one big book," says Manuscripts creative director Jacob Scowden. "We wanted to give an ease to it, and reemphasize the effectiveness of reading the Bible as individual books."” [more inside]
No chicken for you! (and no wages for you)
While in the USA they sell scratch and sniff cards, and in Australia serve tanks and discuss naked wrestling, in the UK KFC aren't doing well. Following several days of closures and "everything but chicken" menus, most branches of KFC stay shut. This began when, though warned, KFC switched to a cheaper deliverer - "optimised delivery scheduling" - who promptly could not deliver ("It's pretty complex!"). Speculation on why continues, while KFC staff are being accused of chicken smuggling and "encouraged" to take holidays by KFC. Politicians have been contacted by constituents (some resorting to vegetables), while closures also affect Taco Bell. As ever, Twitter (and dead royalty) is unhappy, though in the not-distant future, a tasty new flavour of chicken may be sold in Britain. Mmm!
Fair go, sport!
“The irony of athletes from Great Britain, which spent £275m on preparations for the Rio games, raising fundamental questions about fairness in a race against an athlete from a country that spent less than £1.9m has somehow been lost” wrote the South African author and commentator Sisonke Msimang. Grauniad link.
Ancient Hill Rice Rediscovered
A staple of African cooking that was thought lost was found in a small field in Trinidad. The fat, nutty grain, with its West African lineage and tender red hull, was a favored staple for Southern home cooks during much of the 19th century. Unlike Carolina Gold, the versatile rice that until the Civil War was America’s primary rice crop, the hill rice hadn’t made Low Country plantation owners rich off the backs of slaves. The search for the missing grain led to Trinidad and Thomas Jefferson, and now excitement among African-American chefs. [more inside]
"This is really scorched earth"
IBM Sues Microsoft's New Chief Diversity Officer To Protect Diversity Trade Secrets: IBM has filed suit against one of its longtime executives, Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, alleging that her new position as Microsoft’s chief diversity officer violates a year-long non-compete agreement, allowing the Redmond company to use IBM’s internal secrets to boost its own diversity efforts. [more inside]
Cooking with Ursula K. Le Guin
May it be a refuge and a mirror.
A Silent Place launches. The new project by Jonathan Harris consists of slightly animated, slightly interactive images, displayed slowly and with a meditative soundtrack. The images are drawings of and inspired by Utah-area pictographs. [more inside]
The Mess at Meetup
Meetup was supposed to be different. While much of the tech industry struggled to create inclusive work environments and free itself from the kinds of workplace harassment allegations that have spewed out of major companies like Google and Uber, Meetup was mission-driven, diverse, profitable, and user-focused. But last year, facing increasing competition, Meetup started negotiating an acquisition with WeWork—and everything changed. [slGizmodo]
Ike Did 9/11
Back in 1973, there was a girl from Tennessee
'Dolly Said No To Elvis' by Mark Nevin (ex Fairground Attraction), animated by Heather Colbert ... being the true story of the time a certain singer songwriter turned down The Colonel. It proved to be the right decision.
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