June 18, 2014
No, that's not a video of a bee rescuing its friend from a spider
"the seductions of news websites constantly updating"
Reading: The Struggle
What I’m talking about is the state of constant distraction we live in and how that affects the very special energies required for tackling a substantial work of fiction—for immersing oneself in it and then coming back and back to it on numerous occasions over what could be days, weeks, or months, each time picking up the threads of the story or stories, the patterning of internal reference, the positioning of the work within the context of other novels and indeed the larger world. Every reader will have his or her own sense of how reading conditions have changed, but here is my own experience.[more inside]
Me real, me fake, anxiety drowning, safe never
Every year students at Madonna University's Sign Language Studies program create ASL music videos of popular songs, incorporating elements of ASL poetry and storytelling. Each video comes with a comprehensive guide explaining the translations and artistic choices behind each line of the video. Some examples: Pompeii by Bastille, Four Women by Nina Simone, and of course Bohemian Rhapsody.
1215095 will lead you to the truth
Michael Lewis's expose of high frequency trading, Flash Boys, has already been mentioned on the blue, but, unusually for a work of non-fiction it ends with a cliffhanger. At the end of the book, Lewis stares up at a microwave tower in central Pennsylvania that had created a new, faster link between financial markets in Chicago and the East Coast: "I noticed, before we left, a metal plate attached to the fence around the tower. On it was a Federal Communications Commission license number: 1215095. The number, along with an Internet connection, was enough to lead an inquisitive person to the story behind the tower. The application to use the tower to send a microwave signal had been filed in July 2012, and it had been filed by . . . well, it isn’t possible to keep any of this secret anymore. A day’s journey in cyberspace would lead anyone who wished to know it into another incredible but true Wall Street story, of hypocrisy and secrecy and the endless quest by human beings to gain a certain edge in an uncertain world. All that one needed to discover the truth about the tower was the desire to know it.” Now we know that truth. [more inside]
School chaplaincy program deemed unconstitutional
Today the High Court of Australia ruled (Williams v Commonwealth of Australia [2014] HCA 23) for the second time that Commonwealth funding of school chaplains was unconstitutional. This is in direct contradiction of the Abbott government's recent budget moves to totally defund secular counsellors in favour of a $244M school chaplaincy program[me]. [more inside]
Gilbert Stuart it ain't.
President Obama is now the first president to be 3D scanned and printed. The...creation will be housed at the National Portrait Gallery.
HERE COMES THE BIG BEAT
Dear Marc Andreessen
"Hi, Marc... You seem to think everyone's worried about robots. But what everyone's worried about is you, Marc. Not just you, but people like you. Robots aren't at the levers of financial and political influence today, but folks like you sure are. People are scared of so much wealth and control being in so few hands... Unless we collectively choose to pay for a safety net, technology alone isn't going to make it happen." [more inside]
Pepsi Red
First Moon Party A new ad from Hello Flo, a tampon subscription service.
The jester's last laugh
What do you do after working for Bank of America, betting against the lives of AIDS patients, becoming the financial adviser and official court jester to the King of Tonga, getting sued for embezzling and accused of massive passport fraud? You turn to creating smooth jazz, of course. The life of Jesse Bogdonoff. Previously.
The Abstinence Method: Dutch farmers just say no to antibiotics
Adios, Señor Blues
HTTP status dogs? HTTP status dogs.
Perhaps you have always wondered what the HTTP status codes would look like if they were dogs. (SLWebsite, inspired by HTTP status cats)
The Writing's On the Wall
Time for a new OK Go video!
Not another goddamn death dedication.
With the passing of Casey Kasem, noise artists Negativland have released the the original un-mixed studio multi-track tape "stems" for their 1991 single "U2" and are welcoming remixes on their facebook page. Previously.
Doctor.
On Monday, journalist Conor Dougherty tweeted a picture of a transcript from a 1984 deposition where, upon being asked if his mother preferred to be addressed as "Miss" or "Mrs.", she responded, "Doctor." It was retweeted more than 2000 times. Here's the backstory.
Wavepot dot com
Wavepot is an online waveform editor and basic DAW programmable in javascript. Choose a project on the right hand side to get started tweaking. Simple Sine is the most basic example, and projects like "ice cream" and "late morning" have complex patterns and bassline examples.
Grantland Tackles Boardgames
Competitive board gamers are a serious lot. Perhaps none are more serious than the players of the most ruthless and harrowing board game of all: Diplomacy.
Its prison, dude. There’s nothing to cheer about.
The one thing that drives me nuts about this show is all the snappy banter. I understand that they have to make the show interesting, but if a guard came in and saw that you had smeared food on the wall, they would have thrown a bucket and scrubber in and not fed you again until you cleaned that shit up. They certainly wouldn’t have allowed you to talk about the food on the wall, or wait for you to give this quirky explanation. This is like a scene from Blossom or something, where the guard is playing the exasperated Dad character. It’s like, “Oh, Piper! What wacky antics have you gotten into now?”One ex-con reviews Orange is the New Black. Part II, III.
That’s the best thing. Do what you feel.
Mavis Staples speaks about "The Weight" in "The Last Waltz." Elon Green asks Mavis Staples about her memories of the Staple Singers' unforgettable collaboration with The Band, captured on film in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz." [more inside]
The Count and his fucking LF
Coder's High. Metafilter's own David Auerbach, who says he's now a former programmer, describes a satori-like absorption that comes only from things like debugging.
PPD
"Postpartum depression isn’t always postpartum. It isn’t even always depression. A fast-growing body of research is changing the very definition of maternal mental illness, showing that it is more common and varied than previously thought." ‘Thinking of Ways to Harm Her’ and "After Baby, an Unraveling". [more inside]
Washington Football Team
U.S. Patent Office Cancels Trademark For Redskins Football Team. How will the ruling impact the name? [more inside]
"Dead-Eyed Nightmare Bear"
With Michael Bond's beloved children's classic coming to life on your screens in Christmas 2014, the horrifying CGI rendering of Paddington has spawned a new meme called "Creepy Paddington." [more inside]
"Do you think I want people to know I greenlit 'Transendence'?"
Who really controls Hollywood? Now it can be told! (SLFOD)
Smart glasses developed to help the blind
rising to the occasion
For fans of Team Fortress 2, Valve inside jokes, wacky skits about corpses, animated shorts and bread-based warfare, presenting: TF2 - Expiration Date.
Paninimania: Sticker Rarity and Cost-Effective Strategy
The Great Old Ones, Petrarch and Diderot
Ruthanna Emrys' post-Lovecraftian novelette The Litany of Earth serves as a starting point for Ada Palmer's polyhistoric thoughts about repurposed fiction, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Marvels:
Discontinuity and Empathy: a non-review of “The Litany of Earth” by Ruthanna Emrys..
A case study in internet celebrity
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