May 10, 2023
There are infinite planets, infinite stories, and infinite possibilities
Nobel prize-winning astrophysicist Didier Queloz explores the astronomy behind Hovoyerse (developer of Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd et al)'s new interstellar turn-based RPG Honkai Star Rail.
Durham NC, USA: Did not expect to find a tuba museum.
V & E Simonetti Historic Tuba Collection Pictures from the 2016 grand opening. "We are actively acquiring instruments for the collection...contact Vince directly." [more inside]
Islam’s forgotten bohemians
"I am love’s infidel; the Muslims’ creed is no use to me.
My veins are taut like wire; I’ve no need of the Hindus’ holy belt.
So go away from my sick bed you foolish physician:
For the lovesick, the only cure is a glimpse of the beloved.
"That is why fundamentalists, whether the Pakistani Taliban, the Saudi government or ISIS, have destroyed so many Sufi shrines and places of pilgrimage. The poetry sung at those places celebrates and advances an Islam that rejects political power, an Islam incompatible with the ambitions of religious fundamentalism." [more inside]
My veins are taut like wire; I’ve no need of the Hindus’ holy belt.
So go away from my sick bed you foolish physician:
For the lovesick, the only cure is a glimpse of the beloved.
"That is why fundamentalists, whether the Pakistani Taliban, the Saudi government or ISIS, have destroyed so many Sufi shrines and places of pilgrimage. The poetry sung at those places celebrates and advances an Islam that rejects political power, an Islam incompatible with the ambitions of religious fundamentalism." [more inside]
Son House -- Full Live Performance (November 15, 1969)
"Allah is not imprisoned by the binary"
When I first spoke with wadud over Zoom, she told me she started diversifying Allah’s pronouns after teaching an undergraduate religious studies course at Virginia Commonwealth University in the late 1990s. wadud asked her students to explore the lyrics of Joan Osborne’s song, “What if God Was One of Us.” While discussing pronouns for God, the men in the class told her that they could relate to God when God was referred to as “He,” but not when God was referred to as “She.” In that moment, wadud decided to start using female pronouns for Allah, who, according to traditional Muslim teachings, transcends gender, yet has historically been described with male pronouns.Hafsa Lodi: The Muslim Women Using Feminine Pronouns for Allah.
"I tried to title this post for 20 minutes and failed"
Trigun Fan Account's Tweet Turns Queer Sci-Fi Novel Into An Amazon Bestseller. An enthusiastic tweet on Sunday from the account of one bigolas dickolas woIfwood now has the 2019 scifi novella This Is How You Lose The Time War sitting at #7 on Amazon's bestseller list. Co-author Amal El-Mohtar reacts and is interviewed. Co-author Max Gladstone says it feels like coming full circle. Bookriot: "There is something so delightful about this whole experience."
Crushed
Crushed - Imagine Dragons released a music video filmed on the front lines of Ukraine. It follows Sasha, a young boy who endured months of shelling in his town.
Heather "dooce" Hamilton has died
According to her Instagram. Heather Brooke Hamilton aka Heather B. Armstrong aka dooce aka love of my life. July 19, 1975 - May 9, 2023. "It takes an ocean not to break." Hold your loved ones close and love everyone else.
secretly portuguese
Why Portuguese Food is Hiding Everywhere "Cultures and cuisines inspire each other all around the world, especially in the last few decades. But Portugal seems to be a special case. It's a not a cuisine that's in the spotlight a lot, yet a lot of very different countries around the world have a dish that has some sort of Portuguese influence. Today, I skim through some of the biggest examples of Portuguese food hiding in other cuisines and briefly look into the different historical reasons to how it happened."
To be more specific, he’s a surgeon.
“I AM A SURGEON!!” [Twitter] If you’ve been on social media over the past few days, you’ve probably seen an incandescent doctor (played by Freddie Highmore) yelling that he is a surgeon while an impassive Dr. Jackson Han (played by Daniel Dae Hyun Kim) watches from his desk. It’s a fascinating few seconds of television, especially when it’s been divorced of all context, then remixed, amplified, and snipped into smaller memes. Where did this even come from? The Good Doctor is a show originally adapted from the South Korean drama Good Doctor, and it aired in the United States on ABC for six seasons. [...] The clip of this scene, which has now circulated across numerous social media platforms, seems to have first been interpreted ironically on TikTok. Users initially posted it in full in late April; then it proliferated in a series of increasingly absurd edits, before making its way onto Twitter. People aren’t sharing this clip because they’re amazed by Highmore’s intense performance or the quality of the script.” [via: Polygon]
Hundreds of endangered seahorses released into the wild off NSW coast
Hundreds of endangered seahorses released into the wild off New South Wales coast. White's seahorse used to be a common sight in the waters off Sydney and Newcastle, but numbers have declined dramatically over the past 20 years. Scientists hope that might be starting to change.
MTV News to shut down as Paramount Media Networks slashes US workforce
A major Paramount division announced Tuesday it will shutter MTV News and slash its US workforce by 25%, bringing to an end the iconic music video network’s news division that once covered a range of issues from pop culture to politics and became a household name for Generation X and Millennial adolescents. [more inside]
what's red and invisible? no tomatoes
Nothing survives transcription, nothing doesn’t survive transcription: a talk (or the text thereof, and, yes yes, you're very clever, now shut up and read it) about the fundamental inability of transcription to capture that which it is transcribing, by Mefi's Own Allison Parrish.
George Santos Charged with Fraud, Money Laundering
Congressman George Santos (R-NY), who repeatedly lied about his qualifications during the election, has been charged in Federal court in a 13-count indictment: seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. Santos was arrested Wednesday morning and will be arraigned Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York.
The charges stem from a grand jury investigation, and allege that Santos embezzled political contributions, fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits, and lied in his disclosures to the House of Representatives. [more inside]
Don’t Look Too Closely at the Charts
If there is one thing that I want you to take away from this article, it’s that venture capital firms and other heavily invested players in the crypto space should not be trusted to give us the facts on the industry they desperately need to promote. They will produce superficially objective-looking reports full of numbers and charts, but a critical reading shows just how blatantly they are manipulating numbers to arrive at the conclusions that fit their narratives. from Andreessen Horowitz's State of Crypto report: Narrative over numbers by Molly White
Here Comes the Streams
"Here Comes the Sun" is now the first song by the Fab Four to hit a billion streams on Spotify. It has been the most popular song by the band since their streaming debut on their platform since 2015.
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