March 12, 2016
Off he strode with a thrumpety trump, trump, trump, trump
From Tana River, Morgan trudged 20 kilometres on the first night and then hid in thick forest the following day, before continuing his march under cover of darkness. He maintained this pattern for the next 18 days.
Morgan is a 30-year-old bull elephant, the first elephant to return to Somalia in 20 years, using an old migration route. [more inside]
New York Times Tells Us the Future of Music
Had Bernie been Bernadette
The heartbreaking truth about American patriarchy: I never spoke about the Democratic candidates because it was so hard for me to reconcile not that I preferred Bernie but that my heart was broken for this woman I do not yearn to vote for. My heart was broken because even if we play by all the rules the boys set up, the boys demonize us for playing by the rules. Even if we fight for decades to have a spot, ultimately everybody decides, “Nah, thanks anyway, we’re going with the old white guy again.”
Silky Man-management: Hilary Mantel, on the art of surviving Henry VIII
"If Tudor is measured on a scale, and scored by size of beard, love of jousting and trouble with wives, Charles Brandon would come near the top, second only to the king he served. ... [His] power as a court favourite endured till death removed him in 1545. A long run, on ground slippery with blood: how did Charles do it?" Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, reviews Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend for the London Review of Books.
“When Diesel says he loves you, he seems like he means it.”
A Powerful Collective Rooting for You: On Vin Diesel’s Facebook by Muna Mire [The New York Times] Vin Diesel’s hugely popular Facebook page is a community for inspiration and fellowship. [more inside]
Everyone becomes a Wizard
Why do lesbians and bi women always die?
Ylva’s Steffi Achilles posted a piece asking that television stop killing our queer heriones and Autostraddle took the opportunity to enumerate All 90 Dead Lesbian and Bisexual Characters On TV, And How They Died. [more inside]
Dorothy on Adolf
In 1931, journalist Dorothy Thompson interviewed Adolph Hitler, asking "Will Adolf Hitler come to power? And if he does--will it make any difference?" [PDF] and concluding that " If Hitler comes into power, he will smite only the weakest of his enemies. But perhaps the drummer boy has let loose forces stronger then he knows."
Ten years later, after she became the first American journalist expelled from Nazi Germany and her prediction had proved rather spectacularly wrong, she asked "Who Goes Nazi?" [more inside]
Another one bites the dust
“It’s not a human move. I’ve never seen a human play this move,” he says. “So beautiful.” Go—a 2,500-year-old game that’s exponentially more complex than chess. As recently as 2014, many believed another decade would pass before a machine could beat the top humans.
Now, Alphago, Google’s artificially intelligent Go-playing computer system has beaten Lee Sedol, one of the world’s top players thrice to win their 5 match series.
When AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol in the first game, the result was shocking to many, but doubts still remained about its strengths and weaknesses.In the second game, Lee’s play was much better. His game plan was clearly to play solid and patient moves, and wait for an opportunity to strike.Even though Lee never found that opportunity, it was a high quality game and it gave hope to everyone supporting ‘team human’. Game three crushed that hope. [more inside]
Speaking Machines: the history of synthesizing speech
Replicating the sound of human voices with any sort of control goes back to Vox Humana, one of the oldest organ stops, dating back at least as far as the late 1500's. Then there's a dip into the uncanny valley with Joseph Faber's Euphonia, before we got to Perfect Paul and beyond, to building custom voices. BBC's Radio 4 had a half-hour special on this topic, titled Klatt's Last Tapes - History of Speech Synthesis, and you can read more, plus a transcript, here. [more inside]
RIP Moonie, a.k.a. Bruiser Woods
The 2016 celebrity death toll continues, as Moonie the chihuahua, star of the first two Legally Blonde movies, has passed away at the age of 18. Reese Witherspoon -- a supporting actress in the LB movies whose role was mostly to carry Bruiser around -- broke the news on her Instagram feed. [more inside]
What Ever Happened To Richard Simmons?
Yo La Tengo WFMU All-Request Marathon TODAY
https://wfmu.org/ Yo La Tengo are once again playing requests for pledges beginning at 3pm US EST TODAY on WFMU. Every year, Yo La Tengo perform requests live on-air in exchange for pledges, to help keep freeform noncommercial radio station WFMU (91.1 FM in Jersey City, NJ) on the air. This year is no exception. They will begin playing at 3pm US EST today, and will be playing listener requests for several more hours.
A very specific mixtape
Enter your name and birthday here, and you will get a personal Spotify playlist. (This is from a fathering site, so it prompts you to use your children's names/birthdays, but beware - the songs are not screened for child safety).
Plastic-Eating Bacteria
Newly discovered plastic-eating bacterium can break down PET - "A team of Japanese researchers, led by Dr Shosuke Yoshida from the Kyoto Institute of Technology, have discovered a new species of bacteria that produces a never-before-seen plastic-eating enzyme... Human-manufactured PET has only been around for around 70 years, suggesting that this trait has evolved only relatively recently." [more inside]
"Safeguard our right to privacy"
"Law enforcement must be legally able to collect information ..." – Barack Obama, at sxsw. (Full video of talk.) Contrary to the official change.gov agenda item of "Safeguard our right to Privacy," President Obama has come out in favor of law enforcement. This comes at the heels of an article stating that NSA intercepts will be shared with other intelligence agencies, bypassing parallel construction.
Conway's Game of Pi
John Horton Conway, known for his Game of Life among numerous other mathematical contributions, is partnering with Pizza Hut to release three original math problems at 8 AM EDT this coming Pi Day (March 14th), "varying in level of difficulty from high school to Ph.D. level". The first person to respond to each question with the correct answer will win 3.14 years of free pizza.
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