November 28, 2018
Din dinner.
How Restaurants Got So Loud. "Constructing interiors out of hard surfaces makes them easier (and thus cheaper) to clean. Eschewing ornate decor, linens, table settings, and dishware makes for fewer items to wash or replace. Reducing table service means fewer employees and thus lower overhead. And as many writers have noted, loud restaurants also encourage profitable dining behavior. Noise encourages increased alcohol consumption and produces faster diner turnover. More people drinking more booze produces more revenue. Knowing this, some restaurateurs even make their establishments louder than necessary in an attempt to maximize profits."
Mycobacterium? I hardly knew him!
As water passes through pipes in general and showerheads in particular, a thick biofilm builds up. Biofilm is a fancy word that scientists use to avoid saying “gunk.” It is made by individuals of one or more species of bacteria working together to protect themselves from hostile conditions—including the flow of water, which constantly threatens to wash them away—via their own excretions. In essence, the bacteria poop a little indestructible condominium in your pipes, built of hard-to-break-down complex carbohydrates. But when the pressure is high enough, these species are let loose into the fine aerosol spray of water droplets pelting our hair and bodies and splashing up and into our noses and mouths. And in some regions, but not others, they increasingly seem to be making people sick.
“He’s taking out his anger on us”
For The New York Times, director Rishi Chandna brings us a documentary about a man, his rooster, and his family: “Meet Tungrus and His Pet Chicken From Hell” [n.b. chicken violence]
Princess Diaries + Parent Trap + Great British Bake Off
Every Single Video Prince Ever Made
Now, the truth is, most of Prince's videos just aren't that great. Especially when considered in comparison to the sheer mind-boggling breadth of Prince's genius, or the groundbreaking video innovation of his pop contemporaries like Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Madonna, the fact that Prince has fewer truly extraordinary music videos is a stark contrast. But as with all things Prince, when he was doing his best, there was absolutely nobody better. Here, then, is a look at all of Prince's music videos, in chronological order.
compiled by Anil Dash, via boingboing
#metoophd coming forward
Firing Michigan State. Harassment - both sexual and otherwise - is par for the for course for female academics.
Today historian of science Joy Rankin came forward with her proclamation of quitting her assistant professor position at Michigan State after she was the target of a public harassment campaign which an administrator latched onto after Rankin filed a sexual harassment complaint about a different administrator.
porridge with butter, soup with butter, a flapjack with butter
How to Fuel for a Solo, Unassisted Antarctic Crossing: Colin O’Brady thinks it’s possible—but just barely—to haul enough calories to traverse the continent. [more inside]
Beefiest of beefy boys. 13/10 Absolute Moo-nit!
Knickers the cow. [The Guardian] “Technically he is not a cow, but a steer (a neutered male). But he is giant, standing at 1.94 metres (6ft 4in ) to his withers (the shoulder). This is just shy of the world record-holding steer, Bellino, who lives in Italy and stands at 2.02 metres. Knickers, a Holstein Friesian, weighs in at 1,400kg (220 stone) and is believed to be the biggest steer in Australia.” [more inside]
"Hang up your parka, bust out the quaq"
Coffee & Quaq is a podcast by Alice Qannik Glenn about exploring the lives and experiences of Alaska Natives, focusing especially on people in their 20s and 30s. So far there have been four episode: 1) Modern Interpretations of Traditional Iñuit Tattoos with Holly Nordlum and Charlene Apok. 2) All About Native Foods with Tikaan Galbreath and Leila Smith. 3) LGBTQ in the Native Community with Jenny Miller and Will Bean. 4) Eskimo vs. Iñuit with Jacqui Igluġuq Lambert, Mellisa Maktuayaq Heflin, and Inuujaq Leslie Fredlund.
Ghosts on the shore
"In Japan, ghost stories are not to be scoffed at, but provide deep insights into the fuzzy boundary between life and death": essay by Christopher Harding in Aeon. [more inside]
"If I had my way, I’d stomp people like you into the earth"
The Year the Clock Broke—How the world we live in already happened in 1992 [John Ganz, The Baffler]
Hitting the shows the day after his announcement, Buchanan...told NBC’s Today, “David Duke, I think, has been reading a lot of my past columns and if he keeps it up and keeps stealing my themes I think we’re going to go down to Louisiana and sue him for intellectual property theft.” [...] And if Duke was pretty good at TV, Buchanan was an absolute master. He knew how to dominate panels, to deal with interviewers, he gave reporters total access, and he went to every campaign stop mic’ed up so they’d get everything. [...] At a mall in Manchester, Buchanan sat down next to a man in fatigues who was unemployed and apparently homeless. Buchanan said if the cameras intimidated him, he could send them away. He said they did; Buchanan didn’t send them away. He asked if the man was on welfare, which the man claimed not to be. Buchanan wished him good luck and a merry Christmas and moved on, cameras in tow. A few weeks later he called for the chronically homeless to be jailed.
HONK IF YOU WANT YOUR WEED
He's on smoko. Leave him alone.
Stumbling around YouTube, at 4 in the morning while drunk on coffee, as one does, I came across the inexplicably entrancing video for Smoko by Australian...punk? Garage? No... band The Chats. So I did some digging and I mean, it's certainly not Australian pub rock. Down the rabbit hole I went, where I found out that "smoko" is an unofficial smoke break. Mostly I learned that "yobbo punk", while certainly not the official term, is real, often Gold Coastian, GLORIOUS, and will make your day. [more inside]
"The article of a lifetime!" - Etrigan
Stop Me If This Sounds Familar
“The use of oil revenues to fund social programs and redistribute Venezuelan wealth did not play a principal role in the country’s economic crisis–if anything, the Venezuelan government’s failure to redistribute enough wealth to disempower the politically powerful entities it spent its dollars buying off that caused the tailspin.” Reactionary Misinterpretations of the Venezuela Crisis (Fellow Travellers) “Bearing in mind the revolution-counterrevolution dialectic, it is imperative to look at the role of the elite, whose power extends throughout much of the agrifood system, and who have exploited the current “crisis” to further consolidate their power while simultaneously seeking to dismantle redistributive agrifood policies.” The Politics of Food in Venezuela (Venezuela Analysis) “It’s not a proving ground for Capitalism vs. Socialism. It’s a story of corruption.” What Happened In Venezuela Isn’t So Simple (The Nib)
Satanist entryism into the UK folk scene
Usually photographed in unassuming knitwear and spectacles, Moult is an accomplished, well-regarded musician; he was a regular member of Irish avant-folk band United Bible Studies and his own music has appeared on labels including A Year in The Country and Fort Evil Fruit. For at least two decades, however, Moult, under pseudonyms including Christos Beest, Beesty Boy and Audun, was a core member of The Order of Nine Angles...[CW: rape, sexual assault, racism, fascism, Nazi imagery, human sacrifice, grave desecration (graphic images). Everything really.] [more inside]
Macabre dolls
Former Aardman animator Jim McKenzie is an artist, model maker, sculpturor, and "whatever" (his definition). Here's his Youtube Channel. [more inside]
The librarian who fought racial bias in the Dewey Decimal System
As some librarians today contemplate ways to decolonize libraries—for example, to make them less reflective of Eurocentric ways of organizing knowledge—it is instructive to look to (Dorothy) Porter as a progenitor of the movement. Starting with little, she used her tenacious curiosity to build one of the world’s leading repositories for black history and culture: Howard’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. But she also brought critical acumen to bear on the way the center’s materials were cataloged, rejecting commonly taught methods as too reflective of the way whites thought of the world. [more inside]
The Anti-Defamation League's reading list for children
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has compiled a list of books more than 750 books, filterable by topic, that address a wide range of social justice issues, including ableism, bullying, LGBTQ issues, anti-semitism, race and religion. On its website, the organization says: "Books have the potential to create lasting impressions. They have the power to instill empathy, affirm children’s sense of self, teach about others, transport to new places and inspire actions on behalf of social justice." Here are few highlights picked by Lifehacker's Offspring sub-site.
“Sega Dreamcast at 20: the futuristic games console that came too soon”
The Guardian: “The Dreamcast, in its first two years, saw a burst of creativity and gameplay innovation that has perhaps never been surpassed. Sega’s talented internal development teams were utterly inspired. Games such as the urban skating adventure Jet Set Radio, the fast-paced puzzler Chu-Chu Rocket, the massively multiplayer role-playing adventure Phantasy Star Online and the open-world masterpiece Shenmue introduced whole new forms and conventions of interactive entertainment. There were astonishing arcade conversions in the shape of Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur; there were oddities including the subaquatic life sim, Seaman, and the zombie-infested keyboard tutorial, Typing of the Dead.”
In Communist China, censorship routes around the net
How China Walled Off the Internet - "The web was supposed to set the world free. China's is censored, but booming anyway." (previously) [more inside]
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