November 19, 2017
The sea is full of saints
This past April a massive 80-foot steel kraken was purposefully sunk into the Caribbean Sea on top of a decorated WW2 ship. The former Navy fuel barge and its monstrous passenger were placed underwater in order to jumpstart a new coral ecosystem, while also serving as a cutting-edge education center for marine researchers and local students from the surrounding British Virgin Islands. The project is titled the BVI Art Reef, and aims to use sculptures like the porous kraken as a base to grow transplanted coral.[more inside]
Charles Manson is dead at 83
Charles Manson, the mass murderer and cultural icon, has died. (NYT link) He was convicted of the murders of 9 people, most famously Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski, the movie director). However, Manson was not physically present for any of the killings, which were carried out by his followers, known as the "Manson family." [more inside]
“the technical, artistic merit, while leaving all the garbage behind.”
Cuphead and the Racist Spectre of Fleischer Animation [Unwinable] “When asked in a Rolling Stone interview about the unfortunate associations of Cuphead‘s 1930s aesthetic, lead inking artist for the game, Maja Moldenhauer replies: “It’s just visuals and that’s about it. Anything else happening in that era we’re not versed in it.” But these visuals are weighed down by the history that brought them into being, despite the developers best efforts at stripping them of the more overt caricatures that are rife in cartoons for most of the first half of the 20th century. By sanitizing its source material and presenting only the ostensibly inoffensive bits, Studio MDHR ignores the context and history of the aesthetic it so faithfully replicates. Playing as a black person, ever aware of the way we have historically been, and continue to be, depicted in all kinds of media, I don’t quite have that luxury. Instead, I see a game that’s haunted by ghosts; not those confined to its macabre boss fights, but the specter of black culture, appropriated first by the minstrel set then by the Fleischers, Disney and others -twisted into the caricatures that have helped define American cartoons for the better part of a century.” [more inside]
The Simpsons Spoken Dialogue Comedic Songbook
Acai, one of many Guitar Hero experts on YouTube, flawlessly plays an arrangement of “Steamed Hams”, A.K.A. the “Skinner and The Superintent” portion of “22 Short Films About Springfield”. (A piano arrangement.)
The Rise and Fall of the English Sentence
We utter the first syllables of a sentence while taking a leap of faith that we’ll be able to choose the right words en route and formulate phrases adequately as the words tumble out of our mouths and bring us to an intersection in our thoughts that demands our next move. This puts an upper bound on complexity. But written text, which can be more deliberately planned out and revised, is able to transcend this.Linguist Julie Sedivy on the rise (and eventual fall?) of sentence complexity in written and oral languages.
Don't stay late, come home safe
Planet P Project is a science-fiction-inspired one-man band and an album by Tony Carey. Their debut album [46m] featured known single, Why Me. Planet P Project previously.
Subway time machine
Around this time of the year, the New York subway system offers rides on its "Holiday Nostalgia" train, which consists of eight restored cars from the 1930s, complete with vintage subway advertising and riders who show up in appropriate costumes. Lots of pictures. Transit Museum info page. More pictures! Video! Pix and video at the late Gothamist.
I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.
Fernando Pessoa was a Portuguese wrter with nearly 80 different literary alter egos or "heteronyms". Each of which had a biography, psychology, politics, religion, physical description; the main characters being interconnected and with their own horoscopes
"I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays," he once wrote and “a drama divided into people instead of into acts”.
“I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist,” he writes in one poem. “I’m the gap between what I’d like to be and what others have made of me. . . . That’s me. Period.
His occult interests led him to a correspondence and friendship with Aleister Crowley who enlisted him in faking his suicide.
(Previously).
"I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays," he once wrote and “a drama divided into people instead of into acts”.
“I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist,” he writes in one poem. “I’m the gap between what I’d like to be and what others have made of me. . . . That’s me. Period.
His occult interests led him to a correspondence and friendship with Aleister Crowley who enlisted him in faking his suicide.
(Previously).
Slaughterbots
UC Berkeley professor Stuart Russell and the Future of Life Institute have created an eerie viral video titled "Slaughterbots" that depicts a future in which humans develop small, hand-sized drones that are programmed to identify and eliminate designated targets. In the video above, the technology is initially developed with the intention of combating crime and terrorism, but the drones are taken over by an unknown forces who use the powerful weapons to murder a group of senators and college students. UC Berkeley professor's eerie lethal drone video goes viral [Warning: graphic violence]
The ting goes skrrrahh, pap, pap, ka-ka-ka
UK comedian Michael Dapaah, better known under his pseudonym Big Shaq, has become an unlikely grime music icon with his simple ode to men who never take off their coats: Man's Not Hot. Recently Dappah sat down with Genius to explain the song. See also the Genius page for annotated lyrics. And here's the original viral freestyle.
If God gave us Devora, the judge, Ruchie Freier should be a judge
This is Ruchie Freier, a 52-year-old Hasidic Jewish grandmother who has blazed a trail in her insular religious community with so much determination that the male authorities have simply had to make room. Eleven years ago, she became one of the first Hasidic female lawyers in Brooklyn,and last November, she was elected as a judge to civil court. She has done so not by breaking the strict religious rules that govern ultra-Orthodox women's lives, but by obeying them so scrupulously that there are limited grounds for objection.
Thanks for nothing
Day 303: it's turkey time, and Republicans are putting tax and spending cuts on the table, which many are finding an unpalatable centrepiece. CBO estimates suggest that poor Americans' gooses in particular will be cooked if the bill passes, with households earning under $50,000 increasingly worse off. Republican senators have stated, on the record, that major donors will not be inviting them back for a second helping of support if the tax cut bill fails. The House bill has been served but the Senate bill is still in the oven, and preparing it will involve two opposed groups coming together with a shared purpose, and also some way of massaging the figures so they won't increase the deficit. [This is a catch-all US politics thread; Roy Moore talk goes here] [more inside]
Chemistry
J'Dess and Chris Rio do battle on The Voice Nigeria. [SLYT]
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