July 5, 2019

Quebec City kids sing and dance their experience as newcomers

My feet are here, My mind is back there, My heart gets bigger, Here I am An utterly charming video.
posted by chapps at 11:39 PM PST - 4 comments

Bob Dylan's Fifth Album

Bob Dylan released two albums in 1965. The first was recorded Jan 13-15, released on Mar 22. The cultural flint-and-steel that this album was is probably difficult to assess from our current age. Bringing It All Back Home (WikiPedia link with links to individual songs for background and reception): Side One: Subterranean Homesick Blues [video] (This is the one with the cue cards), She Belongs To Me (Just who is "she" anyway?), Maggie's Farm (A clear cry for independence that extends across multitudes), Love Minus Zero/No Limit (A song for Sara Lownds, Dylan's soon-to-be wife), Outlaw Blues *missing in action*, On The Road Again, Bob Dylan's 115th Dream [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:19 PM PST - 46 comments

Death to Livability (Scores)!

The problem with "most livable" city rankings is they all look pretty similar, from Monocle's top 25 and Mercer Mobility Exchange's top 10 for 2019, or Economist Intelligence Unit top 50 for 2018 (via Business Insider) -- they're very white, and very western. City rankings are a window onto the projected tastes of a highly specific elite... it’s hard not to wonder why these rankings tend to tap wealthy, smaller cities when larger, less wealthy ones may be making more radical, transformative improvements in life quality. (Citylab) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:48 PM PST - 31 comments

The great Atlantic Sargassum belt

Sargassum is a rust-colored seaweed that floats. In the Atlantic Ocean, the two dominant species have now expanded so much, likely due to agricultural runoff from the Amazon or Mississippi, that blooms practically stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to West Africa. The seaweed provides a habitat for hundreds of species of fish and hatchling sea turtles, seahorses, crabs, shrimps, snails, and nudibranchs. But excessive amounts of it are washing ashore and blanketing beaches, with significant environmental and economic consequences. [more inside]
posted by sylvanshine at 4:20 PM PST - 11 comments

“It became a sump for the most racist and misogynist of users...”

Destroyer of worlds [Tortoise Media] How a childhood of anger led the founder of 8chan to create one of the darkest corners of the internet.
“The anger and hate that spews from 8chan is not a conscious extension of the anger and hate of its creator – though he had plenty – but an inevitable byproduct of the dark structure he built. The story of 8chan’s founder, Fredrick Brennan, is a perfect expression of this: born with a profound disability and shuttled in and out of foster care, his creation of the site was born not out of cold calculation or political ambition, but from a need to find community in loneliness. 8chan is a monster, but its creator had no idea what it would become. He was just a kid.”
[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 3:46 PM PST - 53 comments

I need your ball, your bag, and your shoes.

Here's the first episode of a YouTube series about a nice robot bowler called E.A.R.L. On the other hand, BowlBot 5000 is not so nice. (BowlBot via BoingBoing)
posted by zaixfeep at 2:29 PM PST - 10 comments

The Same Myths That Thwarted Busing Are Keeping School Segregation Alive

Brown v. Board of Education was sabotaged from the start. That busing has long been presented as an independent evil worthy of bipartisan resistance in both white and black communities represents the triumph of a false narrative packaged to excuse one of the ugliest and most destabilizing realities of American society: the extent to which raw racial prejudice and the protection of white supremacy have divided the nation since its founding through today.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:26 PM PST - 32 comments

The Black Psychiatrists of America

The Forgotten Tale of How Black Psychiatrists Helped Make 'Sesame Street' - "The children's television show entranced preschoolers—and helped teach impressionable black kids."
posted by kliuless at 1:01 PM PST - 7 comments

After 45-70 minutes of listening, people are bursting to talk

An Indigenous feminist approach to facilitating academic Q & A.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:19 PM PST - 20 comments

4.669201609...

Mitchell Feigenbaum, physicist who pioneered chaos theory, died in New York City on June 30 at the age of 74. Among his many accomplishments, he was the first to discover that many different physical systems follow a common “periodic doubling” path to chaos, paving the way for the emergence of the discipline known today as chaos theory. [more inside]
posted by mondo dentro at 12:18 PM PST - 12 comments

On the Culturally Appropriate Game

"When we, as DMs, present a part of our world to the players, it’s all too easy to go, 'You know, like the [insert culture here]' and trust our players’ (perceived) knowledge and (probably biased) perceptions of that thing inform their understanding of that thing in the context of our game." The author of the Crossing the Verse tabletop roleplaying blog writes about representation and cultural appropriation when running TTRPGs. The essay discusses ideas from a video by MeFi favorite Lindsay Ellis and one by Innuendo Studios (previously).
posted by Caduceus at 11:57 AM PST - 15 comments

“His family often had to choose between food and his medication”

“Coccidioidomycosis or cocci (pronounced “coxy”) thrives in dry, undisturbed soil; it becomes airborne when that soil is disturbed—whether it’s by dirt bikes, construction crews, or farmers putting in new fruit or nut orchards. It can travel on the wind as far as 75 miles away. Years of climate change-fueled drought and a 240 percent increase in dust storms appear have led to a swift rise in the number of people diagnosed with the illness across the Southwest. According to the California Department of Public health, new cases in the state rose 10 percent between 2017 and 2018.” Climate Change-Fueled Valley Fever is Hitting Farmworkers Hard (Civil Eats)
posted by The Whelk at 9:49 AM PST - 8 comments

"please support our trip around the world"

People In Asia Are Sick Of Western ‘Begpackers’ Asking Locals To Fund Their Travels For Them [more inside]
posted by cendawanita at 8:26 AM PST - 104 comments

King of fruit

100 People Try Durian
posted by peeedro at 6:34 AM PST - 93 comments

We don't need no stinkin' edumacation

So let's defund the University of Alaska A 41% budget cut is likely to happen unless 3/4 of the legislature votes to override his veto. “It’s the dismantling of public education as we know it,” Starr Marsett, the president of the Anchorage School Board, said Wednesday. [more inside]
posted by kathrynm at 6:05 AM PST - 40 comments

She’s there to ask one thing: is this game being ignorant?

Kate Edwards helps game developers think about the geography and symbolism in their games in an interview with RPS and a talk from GDC 2016. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 5:56 AM PST - 6 comments

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