March 25, 2018
Music for Freelance: No sponsors, no commercials and no guarantees, kids
"Check, check, this is Radio Free Mars ... where I do my usual thing - do what I want, say what I want and play the music that I want, so f**k the frequency laws!" [YouTube playlist] Tune in for 45 minutes of downtempo, breakbeat, trip-hop and related remixes of The Seatbelts' soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop, with radio banter interludes written by Shinichiro Watanabe and Dai Sato, so it's "cannon" - if that means anything to you.
Scenarios for Bigger Brother, & other, nicer possible future societies
But the ultimate goal is artificial general intelligence, a self-teaching system that can outperform humans across a wide range of disciplines. Some scientists believe it’s 30 years away; others talk about centuries. This AI “takeoff,” also known as the singularity, will likely see AI pull even with human intelligence and then blow past it in a matter of days. Or hours.
What Will Our Society Look Like When Artificial Intelligence Is Everywhere?
[Insert Language Here]
In 1995, Karl Jenkins developed a language-free, yet sung, project called Adiemus that feels classical and also very modern. Adiemus is worth a listen. Cassette Side A:Adiemus, Tintnnnabulum, Cantus Inaequais, Cantus Insolitus, In Caelum Fero [more inside]
Pacific Rim: Amara
Pacific Rim: Amara, a collaboration between LINE Webtoon and Legendary Comics, (free to read here) is an official prequel to Pacific Rim Uprising that tells the origin story of Amara (played in Uprising by Cailee Spaeny).
"As the Kaiju Wars rage on, Pacific Rim: Amara follows the young heroine whose life shattered when she is orphaned during a devastating monster attack. Fighting to survive as her city is destroyed, she finds shelter with a grumpy mech-inventor named Kai and his closest companion, Hannah. The trio forms an unlikely family in the aftermath of the invasion, looking out for one another and scavenging old mech parts to build their very own Jaeger, a pilotable giant robot with the power to protect Amara from the monsters that took everything from her." [more inside]
The film critic steps up to the podium...
“Good evening. Thank you all for coming. I'll read a brief statement, and then I'll be happy to take your questions“ - a review of Pacific Rim - Uprising, a movie in which giant robots fight other giant robots and also monsters.
Podcasting from the Horrored Halls
Faculty of Horror is a podcast by Canadian journalists and academics Andrea Subissati (Sociology) and Alexandra West (Film Studies) that takes on horror films from a feminist angle. [more inside]
Re-Blog
Remember personal blogs? So does Dan Cohen: "There has been a recent movement to “re-decentralize” the web, returning our activities to sites like this one... However, I’m also a pragmatist, and I feel the re-decentralizers have underestimated what they are up against, which is partially about technology but mostly about human nature." He reflects on inertia, ambient humanity, and the challenges to a resurgence in personal blogging in this post, Back to the Blog. Via kottke.org.
Suspect leads < Rhinestone beads
Rodney Barnette was under government surveillance for over 10 years. Now his daughter, Sadie, has turned his 500-page FBI file into art. [more inside]
"a wonderful summer with a very special bee"
Fiona Presly and bee behavior expert Lars Chittka wrote about Presly's pet wingless bumblebee [pdf] that she found last spring in her garden in Inverness. The Scotsman has an interview with them and The Dodo has a short account with many pictures.
Ex-Slave Turned Whistle-Blower
The Former Khmer Rouge Slave Who Blew the Whistle on Wells Fargo: A Wells Fargo call-center worker knew the bank was wrong. So he spoke up. (SLNYT by Emily Flitter)
Mr. Records
Imaginary cities down to the square inch
A Japanese graphic designer has made it his life’s work to design an improbably realistic and detailed map of a city that doesn’t exist. [more inside]
'Our moms weren't happy'
Anatomy of a music video: Daniels - Turn Down for What (by DJ Snake & Lil Jon) (nsfw-ish) [more inside]
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