August 15, 2019
The 25 Most Important Characters of the Past 25 Years
You'll look sweet / upon the seat
Now THAT'S what I call penetration testing.
When most people think of the Internet of Things (IoT), they think about light switches, voice controllers, and doorbell cameras. But over the past several years, another class of devices has also gained connectivity—those used for sexual pleasure. One such device, the Lovense Hush, advertised as the “world’s first teledildonic buttplug,” became the subject of a Sunday morning DEF CON talk this year after a hacker named “smea” managed to exploit not only the device and its associated computer dongle, but software used with it for social interaction (read: people remotely playing with each other’s buttplugs).
"Corn dog" is an unnecessarily restrictive term
Korean youtuber Foodie Boy provides a 19 minute documentary on the wares of Hotdog Chopchop, a restaurant in Seoul that deep-fries things like hot dogs on sticks. [more inside]
"Proof of concept of how to wage a post-truth information war"
"On August 15, 2014, an angry 20-something ex-boyfriend published a 9,425-word screed and set in motion a series of vile events that changed the way we fight online." How an Online Mob Created a Playbook for a Culture War: the New York Times opinion section looks at five years of Gamergate. [more inside]
Friday’s reputation is unearned. Do not let Friday swindle you.
nothing is neat, I promise you that's not how/things become other things
"A Sestina for January 20, 2017." by Lanna Michaels: "... things change and not always for the better, show / me something that stays constant, low / tide becomes high tide, the equal row is an optical illusion, and isn't real. So / .... I'm the fourth son, you must begin for me now ..."
Welcome! To LibraryLand. You can do anything in LibraryLand.
Adam Zand and Greg Peverill-Conti base their office-less PR company out of whatever public library they happen to be near; they've been to over 200 so far. So, they welcome you to their side-project, LibraryLand! Their ongoing mission: to visit all 483 libraries in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (and some in other states) and rate them on eleven criteria, sometimes providing reviews, while also collecting stories and learning lessons about exploring and working from libraries. [via who else but jessamyn]
Observe the changing tides of politics and beliefs in the lens of cinema
Born in 1952, Abou Joudé grew up at a time when Lebanon overflowed with cinemas. He says there were over 50 cinemas in Beirut alone. Joudé would attend the movies three to four times a week, watching everything from Aladdin to Kubrick. He loved the splashy, thrilling posters, depicting electrifying romps and grandiose fantasies, but over time he noticed that certain images would repeat again and again. “I discovered that those films, or the posters of those films about Arabs, continued the imagined picture of what was thought about Arabs in the 18th and 19th centuries,” he says. “The desert, the tent, the belly-dancing, the haram, the sultan, the king. Stereotyped images continued through the posters.” The Middle East as Old Hollywood Saw It (Atlas Obscura) [more inside]
Remembering Agnes Heller
Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller, who has died 19 July 2019 at the age of 90, was a Holocaust survivor, a dissident under Hungary’s communist regime, and one of the great modern political thinkers. Citation for Prof. Heller written and read by Judith Friedlander. Remembering Agnes Heller on the Philosopher's Zone.
NYT obit.
FT obit. [more inside]
Indigenous Knowledge and the Future of Science
Research on First Nation land often exploits the people who live there. What discoveries could come out of true collaboration? [more inside]
life is a good thing when you share it
Utsvulten is a "warm and intimate" desktop browser game about holding hands and feeding a friend. [more inside]
Where would you eat if you didn't have long to live?
What is says, and a bit more go read it.
Insert your own Spinal Tap joke here...
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