March 25, 2019
Rapa Nui (Easter Island) monument locations explained by freshwater
Carl Lipo, Terry Hunt and their colleagues continue to identify possible descriptions to the mysteries of Easter Island’s culture and statues (Ars Technica): Rapa Nui islanders survived by building strong communities around limited resources, contrary to Jared Diamond's proclamations (An annotated version of Jared Diamond’s 1995 article “Easter’s End” – Part I, Part II and Part III). Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo: The Statues That Walked | Nat Geo Live (32:28, YouTube) [more inside]
One Two Three! One Two Three! One Two Three! It's Up To You!
The soundtrack and aesthetics of rhythm game series Rhythm Heaven lends itself to a lot of mashups, parodies, remixes, and reanimations (often called custom remixes, possibly to avoid confusion with the in-game Remix rounds). Some examples: Super Smash Bros (with a side-by-side comparison), switching out the minigames associated with a remix round, Touhou, STEINS:GATE, My Little Pony, Katamari Damacy, Splatoon, Pokemon, and a mashup of remixes. [more inside]
You should be working rather than reading this article.
Procrastination has nothing to do with self control. “Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Considering he's basically Captain America in a sweater, it makes sense
Mr Rogers meets Thor: comic by Twistwood, story by Matthew Wisner, slTwitter.
Federal Prosecutors Are Cracking Down on Domestic Abusers With Guns
As U.S. attorneys prosecute more gun crimes, they are catching domestic abusers in their net. A woman is shot to death by a current or former romantic partner every 16 hours, according to FBI and state crime data analyzed by the Associated Press. Domestic violence claims the lives of children, innocent bystanders, and police officers called to help; it sometimes escalates to mass shootings. Abused women are five times more likely to die if their abuser has access to a gun.
Erin Nealy Cox a Texan US Attorney is leading the charge to punish abusers who illegally posses firearms, in an attempt to save women's lives.
The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center
said at what temperature they usually drank it
Drinking very hot tea linked with risk of 1 type of oesophageal cancer [NHS Behind the Headlines] "A study of more than 50,000 people in Iran showed that those who drank 700ml (about 2 to 3 mugs) of black tea a day at temperatures of 60C or above were almost twice as likely to go on to get oesophageal cancer during 10 years of follow-up in the study, compared with people who drank tea at lower temperatures." A prospective cohort study, "it cannot prove that one directly causes the other, as other factors may be involved."
American Exceptionalism
“When I studied in the US for a master’s program I got a cold and a sore throat and I didn’t get well for about more than two weeks. I went to the hospital, but at that time I had student insurance, so I only paid about $40—that was around 35 years ago. At the time I thought it was so expensive...”. 5 Women on What It's Actually Like to Have Universal Health Care (Elle)
Music to Soothe the Savage Snake Plant
Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson. [more inside]
What I Wish My Children Could Learn From My Rural Upbringing
The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore: musician Scott Walker passes
Scott Walker, one of the most innovative and enduring songwriters of the 20th century, has died aged 76. The news was announced by his label, 4AD. “For half a century, the genius of the man born Noel Scott Engel has enriched the lives of thousands,” a statement read. The cause of death has not been announced.
0/10 Would Not Recommend
The secrets of 'review-bombing': why do people write zero-star reviews? [The Guardian] “...a bane of developers, directors and record companies everywhere: the user reviews section. It’s a public forum where anyone who registers an account can jump into the discussion, leave their own score and heap praise on a release – or, perhaps more often, pour scorn on one. At the extreme, this latter practice is known as “review-bombing”: efforts, often co-ordinated, to tank the aggregate scores of a Call of Duty game, say, or an all-female Ghostbusters film by leaving furious, zero-star reviews. The latest target of this tactic was Captain Marvel, forcing Rotten Tomatoes to remove thousands of user reviews before the film had been released. It’s like a sedentary protest march, and the result can be a PR nightmare.” [more inside]
The PewDiePipeline: how edgy humor leads to violence
This video examines the Alt Right Pipeline and the Pyramid of Violence that leads from implicit bias to edgy humor to violence.
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