November 24, 2017
Garageband: Don't Let the Haters Get You Down.
The democracy of sound: is Garageband good for music? Along with open-source recording software like Audacity, which was originally released in 1999, GarageBand has allowed women to freely explore audio recording without being discriminated against. "As a woman, I was used to being undermined and having my creative abilities doubted and my physical allure pitted against me," says Pringle. "I knew I could make something interesting in GarageBand, so I stuck with it and didn't let the haters get me down." [more inside]
Furiosity
Titus Andromedon [from Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt] feels he's being cheated on and he goes full-on Lemonade. Hold Up/Sorry/All Night [more inside]
Da Vinci, Decoy Trucks, and Dodging Taxes
"So You Just Bought a $450 Million Leonardo da Vinci Painting. Now What? From decoy trucks (yes, really) to tax wizardry, here's what happens after you win the most expensive painting in auction history." [more inside]
“Yes, you’re armed with a yo-yo...”
The Quirky Voyage of StarTropics [Kotaku] “StarTropics released towards the end of the life of the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990, it was developed by Nintendo R&D3, a team that focused on Nintendo’s hardware and peripherals, but also developed Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. You play as young ace pitcher, Mike Jones. Mike’s uncle has been abducted under mysterious circumstances so he has to search the islands to find him. He does this using a submarine controlled by the NAV-COM, a robot with an uncanny resemblance to the Nintendo peripheral, ROB. There are many visual similarities the game has to the Zelda series. Mike has heart containers representing his life bar, needs to make his way through multiple caves, and eventually has to find three mystical items (cubes instead of triangular triforces). But the grid based battle system quickly diverges from Zelda with tricky boss battles, interesting characters, and jumping puzzles that take him to the stars.” [YouTube][1991 Original NES Star Tropics Commercial] [more inside]
Best Books of The Year Lists. All of them.
Want to spend a lot of money before Christmas? No need to thank me!
That was quick
Genetic analysis of Big Bird - no, not that one, the one discovered by legendary researchers Peter and Rosemary Grant (previously) - has been completed by Leif Andersson at Uppsala University and published in Science. What's special about the Big Bird lineage is that it was observed developing into a new species in only three (or two, according to the press release) generations. "Charles Darwin," said Andersson, "would have been excited to read this paper."
It's a Turkey Day miracle
Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson has announced that Netflix is renewing the show for a Season 12. Stories on Satellite News, Tor, AV Club.
Carbon Copies
The Exciting History of Carbon Paper dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. Today, we still refer to the technology, even though we have not used it in a long time. [more inside]
There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine...
Science Fiction Makes You Stupid Addressing the effects of genre first, in comparison to Narrative Realism readers, Science Fiction readers reported lower transportation, experience taking, and empathy. Science Fiction readers also reported exerting greater effort to understand the world of the story, but less effort to understand the minds of the characters. Science Fiction readers scored lower in comprehension, generally and in the subcategories of theory of mind, world, and plot.
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
"Almost everything that Brexiters say now, in the circumstance of having chosen to leave, makes much more sense as a response to being forced to leave.... Instead of the generosity, confidence, patience and optimism that might be expected to accompany victory what we see amongst Brexiters is an oscillation between sour, crabby, resentful anger and bellicose, belligerent, defiant anger. That anger seems, if anything, to grow with each passing week." [more inside]
Paper jam
'Obsession' by OK Go (SLYT)
"I want to see the seashells in the bathrooms people"
How the sandwich consumed Britain
The invention of the chilled packaged sandwich, an accessory of modern British life which is so influential, so multifarious and so close to hand that you are probably eating one right now, took place exactly 37 years ago. Like many things to do with the sandwich, this might seem, at first glance, to be improbable. But it is true. In the spring of 1980, Marks & Spencer, the nation’s most powerful department store, began selling packaged sandwiches out on the shop floor. Nothing terribly fancy. Salmon and cucumber. Egg and cress. Triangles of white bread in plastic cartons, in the food aisles, along with everything else. Prices started at 43p.
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