May 20, 2019
September 16, 1977, ABC
The Making Of Star Wars [49m]
The Art of Making in Antiquity
"The Art of Making in Antiquity is an innovative digital project designed for the study of Roman stoneworking. Centred on the photographic archive of Peter Rockwell, this website aims to enhance current understanding of the carving process and to investigate the relationship between the surviving objects, the method and sequence of their production and the people who made them."
How to ride a mechanical bull
Mechanical bulls start off easy enough, then the'll buck you, but Anthony "PRB" Smith makes it look easy, like really easy, hopping back and forth. Here's an interview he did for German TV ahead of his appearance on Germany's Got Talent.
18xx games, now in musical form
Maybe you've heard of the 18xx family of railroad stock-market boardgames? It all started with the game 1829, and today comprises a huge range of games, lasting from 2 to 10+ hours, mostly set in the nineteenth century, in locations all around the world. The market for these games has always been tiny, so there's a thriving niche community of amateur design/printing. Well now, 18xx meets Les Miserables, in a ten song musical version by podcaster Ambie Valdés. [more inside]
"Two ears, one mouth, don't talk too much."
Political geographer Anja Kanngieser discusses the movements for climate and environmental justice in the Pacific and building atmosphere through sound recordings. "Many of the [Pacific Islands] activists I spoke with said, "We are doing this not only for us, but for you, because after we go, you go too"." [more inside]
Even Wizard Colleges Have Sports Scholarships
Quidditch is so 20th Century. The new hot shit is the wizard sport of Fireball, brought to you by the homebrew adventure tabletop gaming blog A Blasted Cratered Land, with game mechanics written for the GLOG rules-lite homebrew system family. (A Blasted Cratered Land also has a quick rundown of what the GLOG is.) [more inside]
Teachers in crisis
New Zealand's public education system, as in other countries, is under intense pressure. On 29 May it faces what's being described as a once-in-a-generation mega-strike.
Journalist Toby Morris has produced a short comic that explains the crisis from both an individual and a larger perspective. [more inside]
Knitting Is Coding
unsuck Unsuck DC Metro
She disappears for exactly 22 minutes at a time
Five hours of life inside Janet's Void. Hey The Good Place fans, ever wonder what not-a-person not-a-woman humanoid-appearing sentient database Janet does when she pops back to her void? Wonder no more. Fun fact: When she leaves the void, she returns after exactly 22 minutes. A (SLYT) bit of existential whimsy for your Monday.
Your lifespan is related to that of your inlaws
Using 400 million records from Ancestry.com, researchers have determined that assortative mating (previously; not previously) has an influence on longevity. Their work has lowered the estimate of the impact of genetics on longevity from 15-30% to 7%. Paper. [more inside]
Everything's going fine. No trouble. Just get set and get going, amen.
The vocal group* 180 Gs released 180 D'Gs to the Future - an entire album of a cappella covers of Negativland songs, in a variety of styles from gospel to work song to just weird. And! They also covered all of The Residents' 1980 Commercial Album. And Cardiac's album Sing to God [previously, previously]! [more inside]
We’re all “mutants”.
The Lazy Design Aesthetic of Misrepresenting Genetic Conditions [Plenty of Minds]
“In books, films and video games, “mutant” is often used interchangeably with various terms that essentially mean “other”: “freak,” “monster,” “beast,” et cetera. However, it isn’t completely interchangeable because everyone understands that “mutant” has something to do with genetics and biological development. Therefore, the choice to use the term “mutant” implies that there is some biological, likely genetic, basis for why these “monsters” are the way they are. [...] It appears to me that the designers were just cribbing dysmorphic features that occur in real life and applying them to the game’s monsters, then naming them “mutants” and going on their way. Why do they look the way they are? Because they’re “mutants.” No additional thought went into that.”Michael California draws upon his background as a geneticist to compliment a discussion of Rage 2‘s industry-standard ableism with an explanation of why the “mutant” tropes of disfigurement and disability widely perpetuated in popular media make no scientific sense whatsoever. [YouTube][Rage 2 Launch Trailer] [more inside]
whatever happened to the space between the notes?
Speed Up Your Podcasts for More Efficient Listening
Speeding Up Your Podcasts Won’t Solve Your Problems
Meet The People Who Listen to Podcasts Crazy-Fast
Stop listening to podcasts at 1.5x
[more inside]
Speeding Up Your Podcasts Won’t Solve Your Problems
Meet The People Who Listen to Podcasts Crazy-Fast
Stop listening to podcasts at 1.5x
[more inside]
Authenticity is for tourists.
"“My grandmother made tacos with peas and with potatoes,” Lopez said, and added it was because she couldn’t always afford ground beef. For some Mexican Americans, this gets at the essence of the way we eat. Pretending otherwise means suppressing our lived realities and histories. I can’t think of a better example of the fraud of authenticity, which is more interested in the aesthetics of poverty than in poverty itself, more invested in the feeling of realness than in any kind of truth." John Paul Brammer for the Washington Post: I’m Mexican American. Stop expecting me to eat ‘authentic’ food.
Danny Macaskill: Danny Daycare (feat. Daisy)
Expert trials cyclist Danny Macaskill is looking after his friends' daughter and can't resist taking her for a wee bike ride around Scotland. (No children were involved in these stunts!) [more inside]
that Butterfly song will never die
DanceRush Stardom is a rhythm/dancing game from Konami. The machines have a built-in camera that can record movements (and blur out background figures). Unlike Dance Dance Revolution, DanceRush operates on a large, touch-sensitive pad divided into long columns. This allows for a certain freedom of choreography. [more inside]
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