June 19, 2017
our system favors the films with truly abysmal critical receptions
Something with lactate crystals. Manchego?
Convert your transit card to a wearable; step 1: dissolve in acetone
Tired of carrying around your transit agency's contactless smart card? (for instance, in the San Francisco Bay Area, several transit agencies use Clipper Cards) Stephen Cognetta figured out how to convert it into a wearable by dissolving it in acetone, and has provided step-by step instructions and suggestions of different ways to wear the extracted chip.
"You never forget where you came from."
In Béisbol Experience: The 50 Man Interview, ESPN has collected some intimate details of the lived experiences of Latino Major League Baseball players, focusing on family, learning English, food, money, ballpark culture, and identity. [more inside]
Free legal advice *(some restrictions apply)
Free Legal Answers "is a virtual legal advice clinic. Qualifying users [in some US states who meet income guidelines] post their civil [i.e. not criminal] legal question to their state's website [up to three times per year]. Attorney volunteers, who must be authorized to provide pro bono assistance in their state, log in to the website, select questions to answer, and provide legal information and advice."
"The smell is potent for a quarter mile, and lasts for weeks."
Every year, thousands of drowned wildebeest feed this African ecosystem. These mass drownings occur when an estimated 1.2 million wildebeest migrate from the Serengeti in Tanzania. Their ecologically important migration is under increasing threat. Ecologist Amanda Subalusky describes the aftermath and importance of a recent mass wildebeest drowning in the Mara River, where she conducts ecosystem research with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. According to her co-author, Emma Rosi, "To put this in perspective, it's the equivalent of adding ten blue whale carcasses to the moderately-sized Mara River each year."
Is that… is that from Harry Potter?
Well, I was killed in 1963 one Sunday morning in Birmingham
John Fea, Professor of American History and Chair of the History Department at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, documents his experience with the Returning to the Roots of the Civil Rights Tour on his blog, The Way of Improvement Leads Home. [more inside]
Flying cars: coming to the skies near you ... perhaps soon-ish
The Paris Air Show starts today, and features a list of known names showing off their newest aircraft, but there will also be some serious attempts to present flying cars. UK-based Neva Aerospace is promoting its AirQuadOne concept (PDF, press release), while the better-known Airbus has their Vahana concept, which is being pitched as on-demand aviation, in line with Uber's near-future goal of low-cost air taxis in Dubai and Dallas, TX by 2020. Not to be left out, Larry Page is backing the Kitty Hawk Flyer, less flying car, and more more human-sized drone that can only land on water. Looping back to the Paris Air Show and flying cars, AeroMobil, the sleek car-with-wings from Slovakia is back to the Air Show, after a serious crash in 2015.
“it’s like you’re a sedimentary rock that’s gathering all these layers”
‘Fiction takes its time’: Arundhati Roy on why it took 20 years to write her second novel [The Guardian] [more inside]
When the corner of your shower floor isn't easily accessible
The best places to cry in New York, mapped. Most of them are even free.
Moving from peaking to booming
Less than a decade ago, peak oil was a constant source of anxiety on MeFi (and around the world), but now the world faces an oil price anchored around $55/barrel. The reason is the swarm - US shale producers that can clamber into the market profitably at that price, and which are getting ever more competitive post recent fracking-bust as they drive down costs (and eliminate jobs, which are increasingly in renewables). Though the future is never certain, almost every major OPEC nation needs prices above $55 to balance their budget. While increased fossil fuel use can be very bad for climate change, the fracking boom is leading to the rapid replacement of coal with natural gas, which is generally a good thing for CO2 emissions, though leaking methane mitigates the benefit to an unceratin extent.
Gaudi's First House
Gaudy? No, it's just Gaudi and his first house, now open to the public. His works always make me smile. I'm not so sure I'd want to actually live in them, but maybe I would.
Did you collect them all?
Hope you managed to cash out of your Pokemon Go gyms this morning, because they've been disabled in preparation for a major overhaul of the game. [more inside]
Supreme Court rules government can't refuse disparaging trademarks
The Underground is heating up
Over the years, the heat from the trains soaked into the clay to the point where it can no longer absorb any more heat. Tunnels that were a mere 14 degrees Celsius in the 1900s can now have air temperatures as high as 30 degrees Celsius on parts of the tube network.As it's a nice, balmy 31 degrees in London at the moment, have a refreshing article about cooling off the Underground.
It could break down any hour
Algiers - "The Underside of Power" (video). "On June 23, Matador Records will release [Algiers'] second album, The Underside of Power, a work of political critique that draws on and repurposes aggressive '80s punk, Italian horror soundtracks, modern-day hip-hop and R&B, film, literature, current events and continuing tragedies, all conceived as national politics on both sides of the Atlantic were boiling over. If there's anything in their history that the members do agree on, it's that the group — named for The Battle of Algiers, the 1960s film about an anti-colonial uprising — has always prized a collective instinct, where no one vision is definitive." Ned Raggett for NPR, on the band Algiers and their stunning new album.
“Girls like grossing ourselves out too.”
Some makeup bloggers are a little more... intense than others. Jezebel takes a look at "The Rising Gore Girls of Instagram". (Content Warning: fake but convincing blood and guts)
From Garching to Innsbruck in 7 days
From Garching to Innsbruck in 7 days [via mefi projects]
"Hello, dear reader! I’m Michael, a 25-year-old recent graduate of computer science at TUM. This is the public diary of my hiking trip which will take me from the FMI building in Garching, Germany, where I studied for my master’s degree, to Innsbruck, Austria, where I spent the first 23 years of my life." [more inside]
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