February 21, 2020
A very French scandal
Bumblebees Solve a 17th-Century Psychological Puzzle
“None of these tasks—and the performance of the bees—is a formal indicator of consciousness. In fact, nothing is,” Chittka said at his presentation at the recent annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Austin, Tex. “But all of these taken together, I think, nudge the probabilities in the right direction.”
“She’d watch & watch & watch, but could never figure out when to join”
The best $500 I ever spent: My autism diagnosis: “While many of the nonautistic people I talked to in those years seemed to assume that autism was at risk of being over-diagnosed, I was more worried about who was still being left behind. I wasn’t seeing rich people buying autism labels for their kids or people pretending to be autistic for fun. I was seeing the same lack of awareness that failed me decades ago still failing other autistic people — especially autistic people of color.” [cw: suicidal ideation] [more inside]
The Horrifically Dystopian World of Software Engineering Interviews
Jared Nelsen describes what it's like interviewing for software engineering jobs in 2020 as an experienced hire.
After the article hit number 1 on Hacker News, he wrote a follow-up.
Seashells glued to Jesus
Based on worldwide reader submissions, the Tumblr blog Shifty Thrifting has been collecting ridiculous secondhand items since May 2013. The admins have their fave categories of thrift store finds. But maybe you prefer housewares and home decor, like this pair of unusual lamps? Or tshirt designs? How about a rainbow-pooping panda? Or slogans, whether mysterious or over-the-top?
Taking Over the Democratic Party, with Friends
This post was inspired by several comments by Your Childhood Pet Rock, in Marketing His Way to Monopoly, on Michael Bloomberg’s run for the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination. [more inside]
Jackie Robinson vs. Malcolm X
"In terms of antibiotic discovery, this is absolutely a first"
Artificial intelligence yields new antibiotic (MIT): Using a machine-learning algorithm, MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. In laboratory tests, the drug killed many of the world's most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in two different mouse models. [more inside]
Nothing more British than fish and chips, brought in by immigrants
"Fish and chips are the undisputed National dish of Great Britain," declare the National Federation of Fish Friers (The NFFF), who briefly mention the Jewish immigrants who brought fried white fish to England. Atlas Obsucra's Gastro Obscura documents that history of Jews fleeing persecution in Spain, with a brief retelling of the longer podcast from Simon Majumdar. Curious Rambler credits Belgian housewives with the invention of chips, while Wikipedia has a global array of styles and possible sources for chips (previously). Happy Fish Fry Friday!
“...the meritocracy argument rears its head.”
The Gray Area of Casting For Characters of Color in Games [The Verge] “People of color are more visible in games today than ever before. We’re even seeing many taking center stage, such as Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins, Alex Hunter in FIFA 17’s single-player campaign “The Journey,” and Kait Diaz in Gears 5, not to mention the rosters of Overwatch and Apex Legends. Yet even if that appears to be progress for people of color, it’s not always the case behind the scenes. Making a woman the face of the macho Gears series may be a bold move, but if you go by her last name, Kait is also a Hispanic woman being played by a white actor, Laura Bailey. [...] Whitewashing is prevalent in all other kinds of media, too, but it’s more ambiguous in games. Rather than facing censure, many of the above performances have even been rewarded with nods from BAFTA and The Game Awards. That gray area precedes games to the animation industry, where actors frequently voice other genders and races, some even done by the same person. In these circumstances, the vocal performance ultimately matters far more than the person’s background.” [more inside]
Celebrating the short stuff
Le Cinéma Club is a uniquely curated streaming platform screening one film every week, for free. [more inside]
Beauty of snow and winter
Appalachian Mardi Gras
On the Saturday before Lent, the tiny Swiss village of Helvetia, West Virginia celebrates Fasnacht. [more inside]
My 72 Hours in a Viral Tweet Vortex: A Diary
Alexis Pereira is not an English teacher. That is important to know up front. But he did pretend to be one on Twitter, for a single joke tweet, which blew up. Pereira reflects back on the brief time between his posting the joke and the Twitterverse moving on to its next war.
America's Unofficial Rest Stops
An essay about living in the "drive through country" of Montgomery County, Maryland.
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