January 27, 2015
The Dream of the '90s? Jon Chait on P.C. 2.0
Today’s political correctness flourishes most consequentially on social media, where it enjoys a frisson of cool and vast new cultural reach. And since social media is also now the milieu that hosts most political debate, the new p.c. has attained an influence over mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old.
"If ASMR has a godfather, it is television painter Bob Ross."
I open up my wallet and it's full of blood
Spider-Man in Love
"I knew, from a very early age, that there was love in my house, imperfect love, love that was built, decided upon, as opposed to magicked into existence. That was how Peter loved Mary Jane." In The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects on love and marriage as portrayed between Peter "Spider-Man" Parker and Mary Jane Watson. [more inside]
Diary Of A B Grade Hooker
Kinja user "Curious Squid" is an Australian woman who moonlights as a prostitute. She keeps a diary of her life as a sex worker, writing about the banal (arranging jobs) to the very interesting (sexual violence against sex workers).
'We Are Koch'
Kochs Plan to Spend $900 Million on 2016 Campaign - "an unparalleled effort by coordinated outside groups to shape a presidential election that is already on track to be the most expensive in history... These donors represent the largest concentration of political money outside the party establishment, one that has achieved enormous power in Republican circles in recent years. Now the Kochs' network will embark on its largest drive ever to influence legislation and campaigns across the country, leveraging Republican control of Congress and the party's dominance of state capitols to push for deregulation, tax cuts and smaller government."
♪ ♫ ♬ ♩
The Thurston Moore Apartment Tour (1988) [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] An interview with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore recorded in his apartment in September 1988.
I ain't afraid of no ghost
Last October, director Paul Feig announced he was working on Ghostbusters 3 along with the writer of The Heat, Katie Dippold, and said it "will star hilarious women". Today, the all-female cast of the Ghostbusters reboot was announced: SNL alum (and star of Bridesmaids) Kristen Wiig, two current SNL performers Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, and star of The Heat & Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy. The movie starts shooting this Summer.
California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity.
In 1967, Ronald Reagan began a revolution in education by altering the scope and purpose of California's public universities: A higher education should prepare students for jobs. Full stop.
Burlesque
"All The Glamour That Was Never There!" Brief essays by, and material from, the collection of Jim Linderman
“I’m sorry, I’m just so happy to see another brown person at Fest!”
En garde!
Sword Fights Movie Montage (SLYT)
you can't name him that.
Don’t Even Try to Pick the Perfect Baby Name: "I was left with the same old words I’d had before, the same short list of names worn thin by the lives of other men ... For every boy name there is a man in the world who has ruined it."
This plan isn’t for the next two weeks or three months.
EFF’s Game Plan for Ending Global Mass Surveillance
For years, we’ve been working on a strategy to end mass surveillance of digital communications of innocent people worldwide. Today we’re laying out the plan, so you can understand how all the pieces fit together—that is, how U.S. advocacy and policy efforts connect to the international fight and vice versa. Decide for yourself where you can get involved to make the biggest difference.
For years, we’ve been working on a strategy to end mass surveillance of digital communications of innocent people worldwide. Today we’re laying out the plan, so you can understand how all the pieces fit together—that is, how U.S. advocacy and policy efforts connect to the international fight and vice versa. Decide for yourself where you can get involved to make the biggest difference.
Live-Action Dwarf Fortress
The Rat Tribe of Beijing. A photo-essay about diverse folks who live in former bomb shelters turned into private apartments underneath the streets of Beijing. By Al-Jazeera America.
It's been too long, Manny
Grim Fandango, the brainchild of Tim Schafer (also known for such greats as Full Throttle and Psychonauts), has been on Best Game Ever lists since its release in 1998. Like other games that stand the test of time in terms of gameplay, it has not always been updated for newer technology, and as such, has left fans yearning for a pure game experience. There have been work-arounds over the years, albeit not always easily implemented. Today, however, like other "lost"games that eventually found the light, Grim Fandango has been released remastered on platforms like Steam, GOG.com, and PS4 to be reappreciated by fans, old and new alike. Please consider this product from Double Fine Games as you anticipate your gaming library for 2015. [more inside]
Totally Unrelated
Reasons You Were Not Promoted That are Totally Unrelated to Gender. You don’t smile enough. People don’t like you.You smile too much. People don’t take you seriously. (Single link McSweeney's).
"Basketball would be bad enough. But hoops?"
The Mystery Of Faith
"In creating a work that portrays real internal struggle and transformation, Caravaggio converted painting. [more inside]
"...a woman who becomes a mother cannot have the same career as a man."
Can the U.S. Ever Fix Its Messed-Up Maternity Leave System?
Most new mothers are in their 20s or 30s, which means they grew up in a world of female Supreme Court justices, politicians, and astronauts. They have more college degrees than men, they entered the workforce in near-equal numbers, and they chose their careers assuming that having children wouldn’t mean losing money. Almost two-thirds of women with children under 6 work, about twice the rate of the previous generation. "I went to college and found something I loved. I got a job. I married and had babies and just assumed maternity leave was something that existed," says Annalisa Spencer, 31, an electrical engineer in Salt Lake City who has three children, and got no leave for the third. "Nobody told me it would be like this."[more inside]
idiopathic hypersomnia
what if you could sleep 50 hours straight and still never feel truly awake?
welcome to the bizarre, distressing, and totally exhausting world of the hypersomniac. (wiki) [more inside]
welcome to the bizarre, distressing, and totally exhausting world of the hypersomniac. (wiki) [more inside]
In the living room the voice-clock sang
Deathhacks: Tech tips for people who are going to die (someday) Jessamyn West (Mefi's own) describes the challenges that came with being executrix of her father's estate, and his house.
"I sometimes think I am working in a madhouse."
Maybe the real state secret is that spies aren't very good at their jobs and don't know very much about the world. Adam Curtis entertainingly discusses the competence (or lack thereof) of MI5 and other spy agencies in this rather aged but still relevant article for the BBC.
Note that you'll probably need a proxy of some sort to see the videos outside the UK.
"Where is the door?"
Profile: Breaking down the problem of bound gaps [New Yorker]: After graduating with a Ph.D. in algebraic geometry from Purdue in 1991, Yiting Zhang kept the books for a friend's Subway franchise and found other odd jobs before taking up a part-time calculus teaching position at the University of New Hampshire in 1999.
“For years, I didn’t really keep up my dream in mathematics,” he said.He published one paper in 2001. Then, in 2013, he submitted "Bounded Gaps Between Primes" to Annals of Mathematics, one of the most prestigious journals in the field, which contained a proof for a finite bound within which there exist an infinite number of pairs of primes. It was a stunning mathematical breakthrough. [more inside]
“You must have been unhappy.”
He shrugged. “My life is not always easy,” he said.
"Hands on your neck. Squeeze it tighter." (SLMINDFUCK)
Tom Brady Cannot Stop
Ahead of Super Bowl Sunday, the New York Times Magazine's Mark Leibovich dives deep into Tom Brady, one of the "most famous [people] in the world nobody knows," and finds a man "bent on nothing less than subverting the standard expectations of how long a superstar quarterback can play like one." Meanwhile, questions continue to swirl about whether the Patriots deflated balls in their playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts -- and if so, how and why, with Coach Bill Belichick appearing to point the finger at Brady, the superstar quarterback himself. Others question the Deflategate/Ballghazi hype. [more inside]
Sea smoke in Maine
Sea smoke or steam fog, fog caused by cold air flowing over a body of comparatively warm water, the vapor condensing in small convective columns near the water surface and giving the appearance of smoke or steam. It is common in the Arctic and Antarctic, but if it is cold enough, it sometimes it happens in Maine; youtube links follow (some with music of varying quality): one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
This summer is starting to look Fantastic.
Fantastic Four, that is. The first teaser for Marvel's 3rd kick at the can of rebooting the Fantastic Four dropped this morning.
A new face
Violet Pietrok was born with a Tessier Cleft, a skull defect. Surgeons at Boston Children's Hospital used 3-D prints of her skull to practice before cutting into Violet's own skull to repair the damage.
I hear you people like cats.
The Rescued Film Project
The Rescued Film Project found 31 rolls of undeveloped film shot by a soldier during WWII.
The WWII photos
Early culinary self-sufficiency
The History Kitchen takes a quick look at the food of the California Gold Rush, and has a recipe for Hangtown Fry.
Each time I feel I am on the cusp of nirvana, I hit a wall
Ashwin Rodriguez visits a strip mall sensory deprivation clinic
"This place has not done proper soundproofing, and it is unnerving to head the occasional footstep or shutting door. I know it’s not going to happen, but part of me thinks maybe someone will open the door to this tank and steal my kidney. I begin to think, does anyone know I came here? Why didn’t they take down any of my information?"
A ring around the sun
"The details that we see in the light curve are incredible. The eclipse lasted for several weeks, but you see rapid changes on time scales of tens of minutes as a result of fine structures in the rings," says Kenworthy. "The star is much too far away to observe the rings directly, but we could make a detailed model based on the rapid brightness variations in the star light passing through the ring system. If we could replace Saturn's rings with the rings around J1407b, they would be easily visible at night and be many times larger than the full moon."The first extrasolar ring system found turns out to be some 200 times larger than that of Saturn, easily eclipsing its parent star for days.
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