March 13, 2013
An award-winning composer and her middle school student
Hilary Hahn performs Jennifer Higdon's remarkable Violin Concerto, for which Higdon won the Pulitzer Prize: 1726, the first movement, is challenging and prickly; Chacconi, the second, is calmer, slow and colorful; Fly Forward, the brief and exciting finale, is worth listening to even if you're not a fan of contemporary classical music. Here, Hahn talks about having Higdon as a teacher at the age of thirteen, and Higdon talks about writing for Hahn's individual style; after the concerto's world premiere, they recorded themselves talking to each other on what looks like a computer cam, which is both fun as heck and a fascinating look at the relationship between composer and performer.
Yo La Tengo Live on WFMU -- 2013 All-Request Marathon Thurs 3/14 at 9am
Yo La Tengo are once again playing requests for pledges on WFMU, beginning at 9am(!) US EDT on Thursday morning March 14. 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, even though this year's broadcast will be aired live from Berlin, Germany, where the band is currently on tour. This year's set will begin at about 9am US EDT on Thursday morning March 14. Yo La Tengo will play listener requests for several hours.
You can't get there from here
It's nearly impossible to make consumer navigation technology work well in India. Western-style routing based on directions ("Turn left onto Woodrow Street") is impossible when streets often don't have names, not to mention the problems of using the local language. The solution? Landmark based navigation.
Richard the Wurm
Hahaha, that worm looks like a penis! Oh, wait, that's the headline.
Well, for the most part: 'Missing link' connects two weird, wormy sea creatures [more inside]
For The Love Of Wisdom
The History of Philosophy podcast has the ambitious goal of covering the entire history of (Western) philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to the modern day, without skipping any major philosophers or schools. At 110 episodes, it's just reached the end of the Roman Empire and Boethius and has very far still to go.
Saving "You Bet Your Life"
It's a one-atom thick layer of graphite with remarkable properties.
"Berkeley creates the first graphene earphones, and (unsurprisingly) they’re awesome." Since it was isolated by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov at the University of Manchester in 2003, graphene has become something of a scientific darling. So, what to do with the "wonder stuff"? Why not make headphones? Turns out, graphene is great for the job: "Graphene has extremely low mass density and high mechanical strength, key qualities for efficient wide-frequency-response electrostatic audio speaker design."
She Who Tells a Story
I feel creatively emboldened to personally say something on the subjects that I am documenting. In terms of how it is produced, intellectually I am more excited than I have been in years. I am envisioning so many more possibilities for the work ... I feel for first time empowered on my own terms. We are calling our own shots and have created somewhat of our own institution.An interview with the six-woman Middle Eastern documentary photography collective Rawiya, whose name means "female narrator" in Arabic. [more inside]
The roads I drive are haunted by memories
Google Illiterate
So what is it smart guy?
The facebook question that has everyone stirred up... I got 9. I am a fifty-one year old white guy. Did new math f-ck me up? [more inside]
Ghost Signs
Ghost signs are old hand painted signs that have been faded by time. Dr Stefan Schutt at Victoria University studies ghost signs in Melbourne, and he's been interviewed by ABC Local Radio and written up in the Sydney Morning Herald (photo gallery). You can see more ghost signs at the Ghost Sign Project or the the ghost sign Flickr group, which has more than 21,000 photos. Previously.
"Conspiracy theorists and technocrat pundits"
The New Inquiry: Just The Facts
With its emphasis on the empirical, conspiracism is uncomfortably similar to the technocratic mindset of mainstream political discourse. Technocratic pundits — typified by the likes of Ezra Klein, a journalist and blogger who runs the Washington Post's Wonkblog — are likewise driven almost exclusively by data sets and empirical studies. As Bhaskar Sunkara suggested in this piece for In These Times, such pundits operate under the assumption that the facts are so powerful that they might lead people of all ideologies to embrace a particular array of ideology-free policies.[more inside]
Godwin on Godwin
"Relatives don’t really show me any examples, but there was a point where my daughter, who is about to turn 20, when she was in her early teens, she thought it was a hoot when she was mad at me to compare me to Hitler. She’d look at me with a very mischievous look and say, 'You know, you’re acting just like Hilter.'"
Turnament!
Conquer this very small dungeon. It's harder than it looks.
Using pies to calculate pi
Ahead of Pi Day (March 14), Matt Parker tries to accurately calculate pi using pies. [SLYT] An extended version of the video will be uploaded on Pi Day, but here's your chance to go out and buy pies before that.
(Video runs 3 minutes, 14 seconds.)
But I Can't Reach the Ballot Box
"Ours are aging, consumption-based societies, focused on today. We need to find a way to build for the future. Maybe enfranchising our children is the answer."
Israel’s Bold New Queen
Albania's unwanted bunkers
Paranoid Dictator’s Communist-Era Bunkers Now a National Nuisance "In Albania, 750,000 Communist-era bunkers populate the landscape, relics of the paranoia and skewed priorities of former dictator Enver Hoxha. Now they exist as quirky homes, animal shelters, ad hoc storage and make-out spots. "
When NASCAR takes over the Olympics
Tire jumping in japan The olympic sport where the auto enthusiast can comment endlessly about the tire he used to have, that would have won.
Vlambeer: Bringing back arcade since 1741
GUN GODZ is a fast-paced, lo-fi FPS that serves as a reminder of the difference between modern duck-and-cover and DOOM-era FPSs. Its quality is unexpected for a game that was created as an extra treat for supporters of a Kickstarter, and a testament to its iterative design. It is the brainchild of Vlambeer, a 2-person studio that releases games with old-school sensibilities. [more inside]
Not imminent, but likely
When the DFL retook the Senate and House in MN last November, amidst the defeat of a referendum to enshrine marriage as one man/one woman in the Minnesota Constitution, there was a lot of speculation what would happen next.
Last night bills passed out of committees on both the MN House and Senate (party line votes of 10-7 and 5-3) that would ensure marriage equality for same sex couples. It is now expected to reach the floor after budget bills and votes are presented and voted on.
Final passage, while probable, is not guaranteed as some rural DFLers (in the Senate especially) are likely to oppose the bill. There is conversely, at least on Republican Senator, Branden Petersen, co-sponsoring the marriage equality measures). The DFL Gov (Mark Dayton) has indicated he would sign the measure if it reached his desk. Marriage equality could well come to Minnesota by August of 2013
Watching the watchmen
Weibo, China's most popular microblogging website, is manually censored for "impropriety" and political content. By observing the time taken for censored posts to disappear, researchers have exposed some of the the working patterns and methods of the censors. [more inside]
The Dark Side of the Miss USA Pageant
Donald Trump trumpets the integrity of the Miss USA pageant. The truth is a bit different.
The Minecraft Hue Project
The Minecraft Hue Project;
It’s hard to find a compelling use case for the Philips Hue. But Jim Rutherford and his son hacked the wireless LED lightbulbs to be in sync with the day/night cycle in Minecraft. It creates an immersive setup and is actually useful as creepers start appearing at nighttime. (Via TechCrunch)
Your home is your castle.
The Castle Doctrine is the new "home invasion MMO" from cult game designer Jason Rohrer (previously: Sleep is Death, Passage, Chain World). It portrays a rather bleak world in which you must place traps to defend your home, family and life savings from an onslaught of burglars. At the same time, you must invade other players' homes to steal their life savings, in order to buy more expensive traps and tools. The more money you gain, the more attractive target your home is, so you better be clever in rigging up those traps. It's fiendish, brilliant, and currently open for public alpha at 50% of the full price. Rock Paper Shotgun has some early impressions: Part 1, Part 2.
Suburbia was our manufactured manifest destiny
iTunes in my Butt
cloud-to-butt is an open-source extension for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari that replaces all instances of "the cloud" with "my butt." Hilarity ensues. (via stellar.io) [more inside]
Come Over Here And Say That
Cinema Verite
How Americans live today. A video report describing the living conditions of modern Americans.
Hell of a handcart
"For being such a seemingly ordinary vehicle, the wheelbarrow has a surprisingly exciting history." Low-tech magazine gives an illustrated overview of the history of the Chinese wheelbarrow. [Via]
The Work Magazine Reprint Project
Brooklyn-based Tools for Working Wood are in the process of weekly reprinting every single issue of Work: An Illustrated Magazine of Practice and Theory on their blog, having just finished the first year. The original magazine's first issue was published March 23rd, 1889, and the blog is republishing 123 years after the original. [more inside]
You can make a leopard chase its spots
Almost three years after the question was asked do big cats like catnip, science is finally ready to answer the followup question do big cats like chasing laser pointers? The answer may surprise you. Bonus question: can you fit a leopard in a cardboard box?
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