October 3, 2016
Capitalism's Crisis of Care
Sarah Leonard: "What is social reproduction, and why does it lie at the core of your feminist analysis?"
Nancy Fraser: "Social reproduction is about the creation and maintenance of social bonds...." [more inside]
Nancy Fraser: "Social reproduction is about the creation and maintenance of social bonds...." [more inside]
A Sporting Rivalry Ends
Bass Pro Shops struck a deal to acquire Cabela’s Inc. for about $4.5 billion in cash, uniting two of the biggest sellers of outdoor-sports gear and rivals that have spent decades building over-the-top megastores. [more inside]
Looking for frisson? Listen to this.
"Chanticleer and Cantus, America's best-in-class male vocal ensembles, have never shared a stage together. They have shared a beer together, and, famously, video of that event last winter went wildly viral. [Ed.: YouTube link.] That inspired these two groups to think of what collaboration might look like. Voila!" Tonight's concert was streamed live from Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
The lawn/is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return/gently at twilight
RIP Gloria Naylor
“Cranking out more and more boxes was all they cared about.”
The Box: The Not-So-Wholesome Reality Behind The Making of Your Meal Kit [Buzzfeed] “Blue Apron wants to revolutionize the food system by selling would-be home cooks all the ingredients they need to make a meal without setting foot in the grocery store. But a BuzzFeed News investigation has found that in the rush to scale its supply chain at the speed of startup, the company has had health and safety violations, violent incidents, and unhappy workers at one of its packing facilities.”
The terrorist inside my husband's brain
"This is a personal story, sadly tragic and heartbreaking, but by sharing this information with you I know that you can help make a difference in the lives of others. As you may know, my husband Robin Williams had the little-known but deadly Lewy body disease (LBD). He died from suicide in 2014 at the end of an intense, confusing, and relatively swift persecution at the hand of this disease's symptoms and pathology. He was not alone in his traumatic experience with this neurologic disease." (cw: discussion of suicide)
I received this post at a discount in return for an unbiased review
Amazon has banned 'incentivized reviews' which were provided in exchange for receiving products for free or at a discount. An update to the customer review policy was posted which says that the banned reviews "make up only a tiny fraction of the tens of millions of reviews on Amazon" while independent analysis has shown that incentivized reviewers are much more likely to write positive reviews.
This policy change does not apply to Amazon Vine which is a similar review program run by Amazon itself.
(Don't let go of your phone)
Putting a record on the needles
Over the previous weeks, cyber espionage group Fancy Bears has been releasing confidential WADA documents allegedly exposing a "legal" side to performance-enhancing drugs. [more inside]
Rosa Parks' former home kidnapped/saved (SLGuardian)
The Detroit home of civil rights activist Rosa Parks has been dismantled and moved across the Atlantic by a Berlin-based artist after it faced demolition in its original location. [more inside]
"Software lies in the antechamber of patentable invention."
(1) patents constricting the essential channels of online communication run afoul of the First Amendment; and (2) claims directed to software implemented on a generic computer are categorically not eligible for patent.[more inside]
Notes from the Lambda Complex
At the end of the process I ended up with a stack of 3.5” floppies, so I bought an external floppy drive to see if there was anything on them worth saving. Mostly they held back-ups of old manuscripts and story fragments from before I joined Valve, but on one disk I found several documents from the summer of 1998, late in Half-Life 1’s development, when I’d been working on the game for a year. - Novelist Marc Laidlaw unearths his notes from his time at the Lambda Complex, including an extensive piece on writing Half Life and afterthoughts on having shipped it.
It's balloon fiesta time!
It's that time of the year, when the high desert starts to cool down and the conditions are just right for ballooning. It's the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta! Nine days of hot air balloon-related events, from dawn patrol's lift-off to test conditions to Mass Ascension when hundreds of hot air balloons take flight, to the evening special shape Glowdeo and fireworks for good measure. And if conditions are right, there's America's Challenge, the long distance gas balloon race, and if you need to cool down from all this excitement, enjoy a little splash and dash. [more inside]
Find The Child
Slovenian Photographer Matic Zorman was awarded first prize (category: People) at this year's World Press Photo contest (previously), for a picture of a young refugee girl, Waiting to Register, taken one year ago in a small border town in Serbia.
Winning changed his life - now he wants to help change hers. [more inside]
When Mr. Willie Sings a Song You Wrote
Buddy Cannon's 92 year old mom, Lyndel Rhodes, wrote a song, House on a Hill, that Willie Nelson recently recorded and plans to put on his next album. This is her listening to it for the first time. [more inside]
Mr Plinkett's back
Mr Plickett wakes up, and reviews The Force Awakens and the current Star Wars ecosystem [more inside]
Smartphones replaced with butter
What it says on the crock. (SLimgur)
football droughts broken
For many people, 2016 has been a rough year (probably an understatement.) However, for two football teams in rival codes, 2016 has turned into a very good year indeed. [more inside]
his unblinking stare
Portrait of a would-be world-changer Who is Sam Altman, the new head of Y Combinator? What does he want to do/for all of us? New Yorker portrait by Tad Friend. [more inside]
The story of a new name
Italian author Elena Ferrante has written under a closely guarded pseudonym for decades. Now, after a 'months long investigation', an Italian journalist uncovers the true identity of the author of the Neapolitan Quartet. Her readers, however, are less than grateful. [more inside]
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