December 13, 2017
Platform Democracy and Governance
Estonia, the Digital Republic - "Its government is virtual, borderless, blockchained, and secure. Has this tiny post-Soviet nation found the way of the future?" [more inside]
Yacob and Amo: Africa's Precursors to Locke, Hume and Kant
The African Enlightenment: The highest ideals of Locke, Hume and Kant were first proposed more than a century earlier by an Ethiopian in a cave [more inside]
... self-deprecating comedic humility balances the gravity of life...
“Heavyweight,” the Podcast That Contends with Our Regrets "When the writer, radio producer, and humorist Jonathan Goldstein set out to create his Gimlet podcast, “Heavyweight,” whose second season concluded on Thursday, he considered introducing each episode with a subway P.A. system that would talk to him like the voice of God. On the podcast, Goldstein—a longtime producer at “This American Life” whose radio show “Wiretap” aired on the CBC for more than a decade—acts as a kind of social instigator and meddling therapist. With gumption, empathy, and comic awkwardness, he ventures into people’s lives and tries to help them resolve things from the past: an unsolved human mystery, lingering guilt, a falling-out, hurt that’s turned to grievance." (slNewYorker)
the cake is a lie.
The All-Consuming Emotions of Food in Video Games [US Gamer] “Food is often seen in games as a means of survival, mostly as health. A piece of bread stolen off a vendor's table in Skyrim will grant you two health; the cabbage stew at the tavern will grant you 10. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the spicy pepper steak will take the edge off of cold weather. A game like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has a huge inventory of food items, many of which are dropped after knocking out enemies. While the enormous variety adds an element of immersiveness into Castlevania, it's often nothing health or a novelty. Though none of these games' food systems could be considered simplistic, they have a narrow view of eating; food is health, and eating is the mechanic in which it's used. It's easy to see food only as a function of survival, but there’s a whole breadth of games—” [more inside]
In a crisis, play "Don't Stop Believin'"
What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
Coconuts in mediaeval England weren't as rare as you'd think, no matter what Monty Python would have you believe. They were a common item in wills, fashioned into elaborate drinking cups.
The digital arms race in DDoS is inexorably linked to Minecraft
How a Dorm Room Minecraft Scam Brought Down the Internet (Wired) “They just got greedy—they thought, ‘If we can knock off our competitors, we can corner the market on both servers and mitigation,’” Walton says.
In fact, according to court documents, the primary driver behind the original creation of Mirai was creating "a weapon capable of initiating powerful denial-of-service attacks against business competitors and others against whom White and his coconspirators held grudges.” [more inside]
PEOPLE OF EARTH
"Rock-comet" 3200 Phaethon is approaching the Earth and it's closest point of approach will be a mere 6,407,618 miles away. That means it's time for the best meteor shower of the year, the Geminid meteor shower, expected to peak at maximum tonight under a very slim and late-rising Moon [more inside]
"I think you overestimate their chances."
In case of nuclear war, check under left arm
Inspired by this comment, I thought I would learn a little more about blood type tattoos. [more inside]
the matter of false confessions
"As soon as they start pushing an interrogation into a predetermined answer, as opposed to the truth, the outcome is inevitable." Amanda Knox on Life After Wrongful Conviction. Of further interest, False Confessions.
The Best Days of Our Lives
Are you having a bad day? Would you like to see some videos of people having a GREAT day and share in their excitement? How about some kids getting into college?
Warning: there is screaming. Lots of it.
Big article with many examples of the genre.
More below the fold, if your eardrums can handle it. [more inside]
Doftana Red: the Disappeared Prison Newspaper
A prison in Romania, Doftana, spawned an intellectual newspaper for prisoners only. And then it was gone. It had been written in code on cigarette paper or foil, and pages from library books. When the prison closed, the ephemeral paper was lost. But it nurtured political activists who took its ideas to the outer world.
A Navajo Night Chant in Photographs
The most sacred of all the Navajo ceremonies, the Yébîchai cheremony, aka the Night Chant , is a healing ritual that takes place over many days. Masked figures chant and perform ritual dances around the ill person in a sweat lodge, to restore "order, harmonize and re-establish and situate social relations." Sandpaintings (2) and Ye’b’tsai-tsa’pas, circle kethawns, are also employed to help heal the sick. [more inside]
2017 in music: more light to fight the darkness
Music and politics have a long history and in 2017, a new chapter in their fraught and complicated relationship burst open (related, previously) .... It was a strong year for guitar rock, the best of it coming from relatively younger bands dominated by women (related).... 2017 was also a year when much beloved artists abandoned the sounds their fans first fell in love with to try something new.... There was so much more that happened in 2017 .... but let's try to wrap our heads around some of it, or at least take some time to read year-end lists, or skip the words and listen to the music. [more inside]
United State of Pop 2017 (How We Do It)
im a soviet refugee singing for salam
Orgonite are a Middle Eastern Rave group from Tel Aviv with lyrics in Hebrew, Russian, English and Arabic: Habibi Yaeni, HAMSA, Adibass, Kayfuyem (feat. Arsen Petrosov) [more inside]
Basically, anything that can be fancied, we attempt to fancy.
"Nichole Perkins was parched. 'The thirstiest,' she offers. And who could blame her? The writer had been scrolling through Twitter when she came across it—a photo of Luke Cage actor Mike Colter, seated, smoldering. She paused. And then she wrote 'I bet he mashes his cornbread in his greens, eats it with his fingers, then looks at you like 'you next.' Elsewhere, Bim Adewunmi read Perkins' tweet and gasped for air. She was scandalized, appalled, horrified! She was in love: 'I was like, 'It's so disgusting! It's disgusting. Oh my god, it's amazing.' She had known Perkins for years, but the tweet was a revelation. Perkins wasn't just a likeminded woman on the internet. She was the rarer breed: a friend in filth." And thus - Thirst Aid Kit, a buzzfeed podcast, tumblr, and twitter, was born. [more inside]
Cake Breakers, Marrow Spoons, and Ice Cream Sporks
No jokes, just a new politics thread
People in high profile government jobs share commonly held view of multiply bankrupt toupee model [more inside]
By case 3, Dr Brown Bear displays signs of "burnout"
The BMJ asks "Does Peppa Pig encourage unnecessary use of primary health care resources? [more inside]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
Trailer for The Star Wars based on the concept art of Ralph McQuarrie (SLVimeo)
In the room when it happens
Andrés Forero, drummer for the musical Hamilton, demonstrates his drum parts from two songs in the show.
Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash
How the Index Card Cataloged the World
Yet it never occurred to me, as I rehearsed my talking points more than a decade ago, that my index cards belonged to the very European history I was studying. The index card was a product of the Enlightenment, conceived by one of its towering figures: Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, physician, and the father of modern taxonomy. But like all information systems, the index card had unexpected political implications, too: It helped set the stage for categorizing people, and for the prejudice and violence that comes along with such classification.
“We warned him we weren’t very good with hits.”
Origin of Species with bonus pictures
Darwin's young children sometimes painted pictures and wrote stories on the back of draft manuscripts for Darwin's books & notes. They are very sweet.
#BURNTHEFUTURE
Shell Climate Solutions Roadshow: UK-based artist and political cartoonist Darren Cullen responds to Shell's Make the Future campaign. [more inside]
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